Mr. SPEAKER:: I have the honour to inform the house that I have received the following letter:
Ottawa, April 4, 1936.
Sir,-I have the honour to inform you that the Right Honourable Sir Lyman P. Huff, Chief Justice of Canada, acting as deputy or His Excellency the Governor General, will proceed to the Senate chamber on Wednesday next, the 8th of April, at 5.30 p.m., for the purpose of giving the royal assent to certain bills.
I have the honour to be, Sir,
Your obedient servant,
P. L. C. Pereira, Assistant Secretary to the Governor General



RAILWAYS AND SHIPPING


Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, the motion I desire to make is one which requires notice, and if the house insists upon notice I shall allow it to stand as a notice of motion. It relates, however, to the appointment of a standing committee which it has been customary to set up at each session of parliament, and I understand the names I have suggested for the committee have been agreed upon by the whips of all parties.
I move:
That standing order 63 of the House of Commons, relating to the appointment of standing committees of the house, be amended by adding to the standing committees of the house for the present session a standing committee on railways and shipping owned, operated and controlled by the government to which will be referred the accounts and estimates of the Canadian National Railways and the Canadian Government Merchant Marine for the present session, for consideration and report to the house; provided, however, that nothing in the resolution shall be construed to curtail in any way the full right of discussion in committee of supply, and that said committee consist of Messrs. Barber, Beaubien, Beaubier, Bothwell, Elliott (Kindersley), Ferland, Fiset, Fraser, Gray, Hanson, Heaps, Howard, Howe, Kinley, McLarty, Maybank, Moore, Parent (Quebec West and South), Stewart, Veniot, Vien, Walsh, and Young.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 43, to incorporate The Equitable Life Insurance Company of Canada.-Mr. Gray.

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

Mr. GAUTHIER:: 1.	How many persons have been naturalized in Canada from March, 1930, to March, 1934?
2.	What was their nationality?
3.	Of what race?


Mr. RINFRET:: 1.	99,467.
2.
Nationality	Number
Afghanistan	 1
Albania	 14
Argentine Republic	 19
Austria	 5,939
Austria Hungary	 28
Belgium	 1,791
Brazil	 3
Bulgaria	 208
Chile	 5
China	 61
Cuba	 4
Czechoslovakia	 5,117
Danzig	 17
Denmark	 1,589
Egypt	 3
Estonia	 90
Finland	 1,970
France	 741
Germany	 3,086
Greece	 659
Guatemala	 2
Holland	 1,227
Hungary	 5,651
Iceland	 115
Italy	 7,405
Japan	 53
Latvia	 158
Liechtenstein	 1
Lithuania	 993
Luxembourg	 26
Macedonia	 2
Mexico	 5
Montenegro	 13
Mount Lebanon	 7
Norway	 2,610
Palestine	 24
Persia	 16
Poland	 19,332
Portugal	 6
Roumania	 4,128
Russia	 18,223
Serb-Croat-Slovene State	 4,325
South Africa	 1
Spain	 45
Sweden	 2,179

Nationality	Number
Switzerland	 226
Syria	 298
Turkey	 9f4
Turkey (Armenia)	 172
Turkey (Greece)	 2
Turkey (Syria)	 138
United States of America	 9,483
Venezuela	 1
Yugoslavia	 1,076
Doubtful	 95
Total	 99,467
3.	The only statistics kept are those of previous nationality.


LAFONTAINE, ONT., POSTMASTERSHIP
Mr. GOULET:: 1.	Who is postmaster at Lafontaine, Ontario?
2.	When was he appointed?
3.	Who was the previous postmaster?
4.	When and why was he discharged?
5.	Was an inquiry made?
6.	If not, why?


Mr. ELLIOTT (Middlesex):: 1.	O. Joly.
2.	26th December, 1933.
3.	Godfroi Fortier.
4.	26th December, 1933, on account of active political partisanship.
5.	No.
6.	Decision of Postmaster General based on sworn affidavits.


MAJOR GENERAL MACBRIEN
Miss MACPHAIL:: 1.	What salary is paid to Major General Sir James H. MacBrien as Commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police?
2.	What wras the salary paid his predecessor in office?
3.	What additional allowances are given?
4.	Is he furnished with government car and chauffeur?
5.	What pension is received by Major General Sir James MacBrien?
6.	On his present pension what would be the amount of hospital pay and allowances granted him in case of illness?
7.	Was the expense of the recent speaking trip of Major General Sir James MacBrien to the United States borne by the dominion government?
8.	If so, what was the object of the trip?


Mr. CARDIN:: 1.	812,000 per annum, less five per cent under the special Income War Tax Act.
2.	$6,450 per annum, and allowances as shown in paragraph 3.
3.	Free quarters, rations, fuel, light, medical attendance, etc., which are valued for pension purposes at $2,000 per annum.
4.	Yes. He is furnished with a government car and chauffeur as has been the custom. Both are available as required for general use.

Questions
5.	None. His militia pension is suspended whilst he is Commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
6.	As already stated, he is in receipt of no pension, but as an officer of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, he is entitled to free medical attendance and hospitalization, if necessary.
7.	Major General Sir James MacBrien recently went to Washington with other Canadian representatives to attend the North American Wild Life Conference and his expenses were paid from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police vote. While there, he conferred with the chief of the federal investigation bureau of the Department of Justice and also officials of the American coastguard service on police matters. He made no speeches in the United States except one on behalf of the Canadian delegation at the banquet held upon the conclusion of the conference previously referred to.
8.	Answered by No. 7.



ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE


Miss MACPHAIL:: 1.	Does the son of Major General Sir James MacBrien receive his pay as constable in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in addition to financial assistance given by the government to students from the force taking a law course at government expense?
2.	What is the basis of selection of students to take the law course at government expense?
3.	Who chooses them?


Mr. CARDIN:: 1.	Yes. Constable MacBrien is in receipt of his pay and allowances in the same manner as other members of the force taking the course. These members pay all expenses, such as college fees, the purchase of text books, et cetera, in connection with their courses at the different law schools, and in addition perform part time police duties. When the law schools are closed, these members perform full police duties.
2.	The basis is that they must be qualified by education for entrance into the law school, and have had several years' police experience.
3.	The commissioner.



QUEBEC WHARF

Mr. LACROIX (Quebec-Montmorency):: 1.	Has the Marine department received a request that the only wharf available in the port of Quebec be leased by auction for the handling of coal?
2.	If so, on what terms is it suggested that such wharf be leased by auction, and why has such action not yet been taken?


Mr. HOWE:: (1)	The hon. member for Quebec-Montmorency suggested that a wharf, situated
about 1,200 feet above Wolfe's Cove terminals, be leased by auction for this purpose.
(2)	(a) The conditions suggested by the hon. member were as follows:
"(1) This quay should be let for the importation of coal in order to help the Quebec consumer;
(2)	This quay shall not be rented directly or indirectly to the Canadian Import or to the interests of Senator Webster who presently controls all importation of coal in the Quebec harbour, because the Department of Marine previously rented all quays and there is only one available;
(3)	If after having consented to the renting of this space, it is discovered, after an enquiry by officials of the Department of Transport, that the renting company is connected directly or indirectly with the group Canadian Import Webster, the lease will automatically be cancelled,"
(b) Due to its proximity to the passenger terminals at Wolfe's Cove, the battlefields park and the residence of the lieutenant-governor of Quebec, the Quebec harbour commissioners do not consider this a suitable site for location of a coal business.



RELIEF PAYMENTS

Mr. BOULANGER:: How much was paid by the dominion government yearly from 1930 to date to each of the provinces of the dominion for: (a) direct relief; (b) indirect relief?


Mr. ROGERS:: The statutory report containing details of expenditures under the 1935 and previous relief legislation is now being printed and will be tabled in a few days.



REPATRIATION OF CHINESE

Mr. REID:: 1.	Was any financial assistance provided by the dominion government during the years 1933, 1934, 1935, and 1936, for the return of Chinese from Canada to China?
2.	If so, what sums of money were advanced or provided and what numbers of Chinese were returned to China during the said years?
3.	Were any arrangements in connection with the return of Chinese during the said years, entered into with either the province of British Columbia or with China itself?
4.	If so, what were such arrangements?


Mr. CRERAR:: No.



CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS- REFRIGERATOR CARS

Mr. MAYBANK:: 1.	Were any refrigerator cars fabricated for the Canadian National Railways in 1935 other than the 125 which were fabricated, or are now under course of fabrication at the Canadian National Railway shops in Transcona, Manitoba?
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2.	If so, how many others, where and by
whom?	.
3.	What was the cost per unit of all such cars in all places where fabricated, including Transcona railway shops?


Mr. HOWE:: 1.	Yes.
2.	125 at London, Ontario (C.N.R. shops); 200 at New Glasgow, N.S. (Eastern Car Company).
3.	Net contract price, New Glasgow, $5,311.28 per car. Canadian National construction costs not available until after all work has been completed.



W. A. RUSH

Mr. RAYMOND:: 1.	How long has Mr. W. A. Rush held the position of superintendent in the radio branch?
2.	What are his duties?
3.	What is his salary?
4.	Was he appointed by the civil service commission?
5.	Is he bilingual?
6.	Is he required to possess knowledge of French?


Mr. HOWE:: 1.	Appointed chief inspector 15th April, 1912, reclassified as superintendent 1st April, 1920.
2.	Chief executive officer under the Director of Radio responsible for the administration of the work and activities of the radio branch of the Department of Marine.
3.	$3,960 per annum less 5 per cent.
4.	Yes.
5.	No.
6.	No.



WATSON SELLAR

Mr. POULIOT:: 1.	Did the successor in office of the late Honourable James Robb as Minister of Finance keep Mr. Watson Sellar as his private secretary?
2.	If so, how long?


Mr. DUNNING:: 1.	No.
2.	Answered by 1.


Mr. POULIOT:: 1.	Does Mr. Watson Sellar, Comptroller of the Treasury, belong to the B.E.S.L.?
2.	If so, when did he enlist and in what capacity ?
3.	Was he one of the scrutineers who counted the soldiers' votes in France during the war time election?


Mr. DUNNING:: 1.	Yes.
2.	May 29, 1916, C.F.A. gunner.
3.	No.
[Mr. Maybank.l


Mr. POULIOT:: 1.	On what date did Mr. Watson Sellar enter the civil service and in what capacity?
2.	What various positions did he hold in the civil service and how long each time?
3.	Did he ever pass a civil service examination?	. .
4.	Was he ever recommended by the civil service commission for a promotion and, if so, what was it and on what grounds?
5.	As comptroller of the treasury, how long can he hold the adjustment or the payment of the salary of any civil employee?


Mr. DUNNING:: 1.	December 1st, 1924; private secretary to the Minister of Finance.
2.	Private secretary to Minister of Finance, December 1st, 1924, to June 27th, 1926.
Non-classified position in Department of Finance, June 28th, 1926, to July 31st, 1926.
Private secretary to Minister of Finance, September 25th, 1926, to March 31st, 1929.
Tariff relations executive, April 1st, 1929, to February 16th, 1930. In this period also private secretary to Minister of Finance from April 1st to November 11th, and acting Assistant Deputy Minister of Finance from December 14th, 1929, to February 15th, 1930.
Assistant Deputy Minister of Finance February 16th, 1930, to January 31st, 1932.
Comptroller of the treasury since February 1st, 1932.
3.	No.
4.	No.
5.	Until the application is as required by any act, regulation or rule applicable.



REDUCTIONS IN RELIEF CONTRIBUTIONS


Mr. CHURCH:: 1.	Will 15 per cent reduction on relief apply to and affect the larger municipalities over 100.000 population who have prepared their budgets for 1936 based on receiving 75 per cent from the dominion?
2.	Will the 15 per cent be deducted from this 75 per cent on municipality accounts?
3.	Will any direct contributions for 1936 be
given the larger municipalities for relief other than the above?	.
4.	Have any terms, conditions, or regulations been placed on these grants to the provinces to protect the municipalities from unfair deductions made for grawing expenses of the provinces which they deduct therefrom, thus reducing municipal grants received?
5.	Will the government lay on the table of the house the correspondence with the provinces in connection with the 15 per cent cut?


Norman McLeod Rogers: 1, 2, 3, and 4. Under the Relief Act, 1935, grants-in-aid were made to the provinces to assist them and the municipalities in discharging their responsibilities for the relief of necessitous persons within their borders, conditional upon the grants being used solely for the purpose of relief without any dis-

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crimination as to race, religious views, or political affiliation of the recipients of said relief; the apportionment of the grant-in-aid amongst the municipalities being a matter under provincial control.
The relief legislation having expired on March 31st, 1936, the provinces have been advised of the intention of the government to continue the grants on a reduced basis for the month of April, contingent upon parliament's action in regard to the authorizing legislation and the necessary appropriations.
5. Tabled herewith.
Ottawa, April 1, 1936. Honourable T. D. Pattullo,
Premier of British Columbia,
Victoria, B.C.
It will be recalled that the increased grant in aid authorized following the dominion provincial conference was for the four winter months December nineteen thirty five March nineteen thirty six inclusive. Having regard to the decrease in relief costs during the summer months the government has decided that its contribution should be decreased as from this date and I am authorized to advise you that the provisional grant to your province for the current month will be two twenty three thousand one twenty five dollars contingent of course upon parliament's action . in regard to- the authorizing legislation and the necessary appropriations.
Norman McL. Rogers,
Minister of Labour.
Ottawa, April 1, 1936. Honourable Wm. Aberhart,
Premier of Alberta,
Edmonton, Alberta.
It will be recalled that the increased grant in aid authorized following the dominion provincial conference was for the four winter months December nineteen thirty five March nineteen thirty six inclusive. Having regard to the decrease in relief costs during the summer months the government has decided that its contribution should be decreased as from this date and I am authorized to advise you that the provisional grant to your province for the current month will be one forty eight thousand seven fifty dollars contingent of course upon parliament's action ip regard to the authorizing legislation and the necessary appropriations.
Norman McL. Rogers,
Minister of Labour.
Ottawa, April 1, 1936. Honourable W. J. Patterson,
Premier of Saskatchewan,
Regina, Sask. .
It will be recalled that the increased grant in aid authorized following the dominion provincial conference was for the four winter months December nineteen thirty five March nineteen thirty six inclusive. Having regard to the decrease in relief costs during the
summer months the government has decided that its contribution should be decreased as from this date and I am authorized to advise you that the provisional grant to your province for the current month will be two ninety seven thousand five hundred dollars contingent of course upon parliament's action in regard to the authorizing legislation and the necessary appropriations.
Norman McL. Rogers,
Minister of Labour.
Ottawa, April 1, 1936. Honourable John Bracken,
Premier of Manitoba,
Winnipeg, Man.
It will be recalled that the increased grant in aid authorized following the dominion provincial conference was for the four winter months December nineteen thirty five March nineteen thirty six inclusive. Having regard to the decrease in relief costs during the summer months the government has decided that its contribution should be decreased as from this date and I am authorized to advise you that the provisional grant to your province for the current month will be two hundred thousand eight twelve dollars fifty cents contingent of course upon parliament's action in regard to the authorizing legislation and the necessary appropriations.
Norman McL. Rogers,
Minister of Labour.
Ottawa, April 1, 1936. Hon. Mitchell Hepburn,
Premier of Ontario,
Toronto, Ontario.
It will be recalled that the increased grant in aid authorized following the dominion provincial conference was for the four winter months December nineteen thirty five March nineteen thirty six inclusive. Having regard to the decrease in relief costs during the summer months the government has decided that its contribution should be decreased as from this date and I am authorized to advise you - that the provisional grant to your province for the current month will be eight hundred ninety two thousand five hundred dollars contingent of course upon parliament's action in regard to the authorizing legislation and the necessary appropriations.
Norman McL. Rogers,
Minister of Labour.
Ottawa, April 1, 1936.
Hon. L. A. Taschereau,
Premier of Quebec,
Quebec . City, P.Q.
It will be recalled that the increased grant in aid authorized following the dominion provincial conference was for the four winter months December nineteen thirty five March, nineteen thirty six inclusive. Having regard to the decrease in relief costs during the summer months the government lias decided that its contribution should be decreased as from this date and I am authorized to advise y6U that the provisional grant to your prov-
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ince for the current month will be seven hundred forty three thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars contingent of course upon parliament's action in regard to the authorizing legislation and the necessary appropriations.
Norman McL. Rogers,
Minister of Labour.
Ottawa, April 1, 1936.
Hon. A. A. Dysart,
Premier of New Brunswick,
Fredericton, N.B.
It will be recalled that the increased grant in aid authorized following the dominion provincial conference was for the four winter months December nineteen thirty five March nineteen thirty six inclusive. Having regard to the decrease in relief costs during the summer months the government has decided that its contribution should be decreased as from this date and I am authorized to advise you that the provisional grant to your province for the current month will be thirty seven thousand one hundred and eighty seven dollars fifty cents contingent of course upon parliament's action in regard to the authorizing legislation and the necessary appropriations.
Norman McL. Rogers,
Minister of Labour.
Ottawa, April 1, 1936. Hon. Angus L. Macdonald,
Premier of Nova Scotia,
Halifax, N.S.
It will be recalled that the increased grant in aid authorized following the dominion provincial conference was for the four winter months December nineteen thirty five March nineteen thirty six inclusive. Having regard to the decrease in relief costs during the summer months the government has decided that its contribution should be decreased as from this date and I am authorized to advise you that the provisional grant to your province for the current month will be fifty nine thousand five hundred dollars contingent of course upon parliament's action in regard to the authorizing legislation and the necessary appropriations.
Norman McL. Rogers,
Minister of Labour.
Ottawa, April 1, 1936. Honourable Thane A. Campbell,
Premier of Prince Edward Island, Charlottetown, P.E.I.
It will be recalled that the increased grant in aid authorized following the dominion provincial conference was for the four winter months December nineteen thirty five March nineteen thirty six inclusive. Having regard to the decrease in relief costs during the summer months the government has decided that its contribution should be decreased as from this date and I am authorized to advise you that the provisional grant to your province for the current month will be three (Mr. Rogers.]
thousand one sixty dollars ninety four cents contingent of course upon parliament's action in regard to the authorizing legislation and the necessary appropriations.
Norman McL. Rogers,
Minister of Labour.
Toronto Ontario,
April, 2, 1936.
Hon. Norman McL. Rogers,
Minister of Labour,
House of Commons,
Ottawa, Ontario.
Re your wire. We must protest emphatically against reduction in relief grants to province of Ontario since unbearable burden must be passed on to municipalities and thence to defenseless unemployed. Provincial government took up slack in 1934 when dominion grants cut assuming contribution treble that of dominion and municipalities and amounting to nearly 21 million out of total 28 in 1935. We accepted principle humanity outweighs financial expediency in such a national emergency. Most earnestly beg you on behalf of distressed municipalities and of unemployed themselves to withhold action until new unemployment commission establishes actual needs of Ontario's people. When increased dominion grant effective we notified all municipalities governmental assistance increased from two thirds to three fourths basis contingent on maintenance of federal rate and they budgetted on that understanding. Now must inform them that unless we hear to contrary we must pass on cut to them and their people and that they should exert all possible influence to have not overgenerous annual contribution of thirteen million restored so that further hardship avoided in meeting national problem.
M. F. Hepburn.
Winnipeg, Manitoba,
April 2, 1936.
Hon. Norman McL. Rogers,
Minister of Labour,
Ottawa, Ontario.
Telegram first instant re decrease in grant received and before I announce to municipalities that it will be necessary to make a reduction in percentage paid on behalf of dominion government I respectfully ask that decision be reconsidered and reduction deferred until relief load shows some indication of decreasing. Please consider first there has occurred no decrease in either numbers on relief nor in costs. Second, Manitoba has had a very severe winter and in fact cold weather still prevails and fuel and clothing costs are very high. Temperature fifteen below Wednesday morning. Third, February costs exceeded January this year by seventeen thousand dollars and exceeded February last year by eighty three thousand. March figures not available but will be higher still. Fourth, the numbers at commencement of April month are increasing rather than decreasing. Unless you can see your way to reconsider the reduction we will be compelled to require municipalities

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to bear a greater percentage of cost because we see no indication of immediate decrease in the relief load and as you are aware province is not in position to assume a larger share. Kindly advise.
John Bracken.
Winnipeg, Manitoba,
April 3, 1936.
Honourable Norman McL. Rogers,
Minister of Labour,
Ottawa, Ontario.
Further to my wire of yesterday regarding relief costs and dominion grant you will be interested to know the total costs for Manitoba for four months December to March inclusive will total two million four hundred thousand including close estimate of March. Am writing you this information so that you will know what proportion you are contributing.
John Bracken.
Ottawa, April, 3, 1936.
The Honourable Mitchell F. Hepburn,
Premier of Ontario,
Toronto, Ontario.
Your telegram 2nd. Would again point out that the large increase of 75 per cent in the grant in aid as from December 1st last was made distinctly for the four winter months December, January, February and March only. The present reduction of 15 per cent in that increased grant for the present month was reached only after the most careful consideration of the whole relief problem and as a matter of fact after a considerable larger reduction had been contemplated and discussed. In view of the very material reduction in relief rolls as indicated by Honourable David Croll in his speech on the budget and in view also of the lower costs which have always prevailed during spring and summer months, we do not feel that tbe 15 per cent reduction can be regarded as unreasonable, especially when present contribution is compared with that which prevailed in April of last year. As requested by you the announced reduction was reconsidered by cabinet to-day but was confirmed for the reasons above stated.
Norman McL. Rogers,
Minister of Labour.
Ottawa, April 3, 1936. Honourable John Bracken,
Premier of Manitoba,
Winnipeg, Man.
Your telegram of April second and third received. Would again point out that the large increase of 75 per cent in the grant in aid as from December first last was made distinctly for the four winter months December, January, February and March only. The present reduction of 15 per cent in that increased grant for the present month was reached only after the most careful consideration of the whole relief problem and as a matter of fact after a considerably large reduction had been contemplated and discussed. In view of the lower costs which have always prevailed in spring and summer months
we do not feel that the 15 per cent reduction can be regarded as unreasonable especially when the present contribution is compared with that which prevailed in April of last year. As requested by you the announced reduction was reconsidered by cabinet to-day but was confirmed for the reasons above stated.
Norman McL. Rogers,
Minister of Labour.



FARM LOAN ACT INSPECTORS

Mr. LACOMBE:: 1.	Pursuant to the Farm Loan Act, will the government appoint additional appraising inspectors in connection with the valuation of farms?
2.	If so, how many such inspectors will be appointed in the province of Quebec?
3.	How many by constituency?
4.	When will they be officially appointed?
5.	When will they start inspecting farms?
6.	Will the larger agricultural centres have a greater number of such inspectors?
7.	Will such appraising inspectors be obliged to make their reports to the board with as short a delay as possible?
8.	Will they receive instructions to that effect?


Mr. DUNNING:: 1.	The government does not appoint appraisers under the Canadian Farm Loan Act. In accordance with the provisions of that act the Canadian Farm Loan Board appoints all appraisers employed thereunder. Information supplied by the Canadian Farm Loan Board. .
2,	3, 4, 5 and 6. The number of appraisers employed in the province will depend on the number of loan applications in respect of which appraisals are required, and appointments will be made as the work requires. Appraisal operations will be initiated when conditions are considered suitable for proper appraisal work.
7.	Yes.
8.	Yes.



SASKATCHEWAN GRAIN PURCHASES

Mr. PERLEY (Qu'Appelle):: 1.	Has the federal government any knowledge of the transactions with respect to the purchase of oat futures and cash oats, by the provincial government of Saskatchewan during the period from September, 1934, to January 1, 1936, and at what stage are the negotiations between the two governments at the present time, with respect to losses on account of said transactions?
2.	Will the Minister of Finance table all letters, telegrams and other documents between the federal and provincial government of Saskatchewan since October 15, to date, dealing with said transactions?
3.	Has the dominion government any liability, or do they intend to assume any liability for losses occasioned by option purchases and cash
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grain purchases made by the Department of Agriculture of the province of Saskatchewan, in connection with relief and seed distributions during the period extending from September 1, 1934, to present date?


Mr. DUNNING:: 1.	The dominion government has no knowledge in detail of the transactions referred to. At the request of the province of Saskatchewan, the dominion government consented to Canadian Co-operative Wheat Producers, Limited, acting as agents of the province in connection with the purchase of a certain quantity of wheat and oats, and contracts for the purchase and future delivery thereof, for account of the province in connection with its agricultural relief operations. Order in council P.C. 975 of 12th April, 1935, passed pursuant to the Relief Act, 1935, guaranteed payment of bank advances which Canadian Co-operative Wheat Producers, Limited, had obtained or would obtain in order to finance the transactions. The advances have not yet been liquidated in full and it is understood that negotiations are proceeding between the company and the province. Verbal discussions have taken place from time to time between representatives of the dominion and the province with reference to the outstanding balance.
2.	The matter has not been the subject of any communications between the Minister of Finance and the province.
3.	A contingent liability exists so long as any bank advances made under P.C. 975 of 12th April, 1935, are outstanding.



*BANK OP CANADA

Mr. POULIOT:: What powers does the Bank of Canada presently exercise and which, (a) the Minister of Finance could exercise, and (b) which he could not exercise, prior to the establishment of such bank?


Mr. DUNNING:: With reference to this question, it seems to me to be a matter of examining two statutes, the Finance Act and the Bank of Canada Act. The hon. member who asks the question is a distinguished member of the legal profession, and the statutes speak for themselves.


Walter Edward Foster: Answered.
.classification of unemployed


Mr. POULIOT:: 1.	On June 19, 1935, did his honour the Honourable J. L. Bowman, then Speaker of the House of Commons and in that capacity, return to the undersigned a petition and an attached report on the classification of the unemployed according to their trades or previous occupations?

2.	Did the said Honourable J. L. Bowman receive the said petition and report which were returned to him on the same day by the undersigned?
3.	Did the said Honourable J. L. Bowman again return the said petition and report to the undersigned on June 20, 1935?


Mr. RINFRET:: In this question the hon. member for Temiscouata asks whether correspondence has been exchanged between the former Speaker of the house and himself. Surely he has the information and should not expect us to ask him whether he received such correspondence. I think that question should be dropped.


Walter Edward Foster: Dropped.
acting prime minister ,


Jean-François Pouliot: During what periods was the right honourable member for Argenteuil acting prime minister each year from August, 1930, to October 23, 1935?	.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I do not think the hon. member should expect an answer to that question unless the hon. member for Argenteuil (Sir George Perley) wishes to reply to it. I suggest it be dropped.


Walter Edward Foster: Dropped.



* OLYMPIC GAMES

Mr. CHURCH:: 1.	Has the government any information as to whether Canada will continue any further this year at the Olympic Games?
2.	Has the government made any suggestions that they be discontinued?


Louis Édouard Fernand Rinfret: The answer to the first question is no, and to the second question, no.



QUESTIONS PASSED AS ORDERS FOR RETURNS


Mr. STEVENS:: 1.	Has the government received a request for cooperation for the reopening of the coal mines at Corbin, British Columbia? If so, from whom ?
2.	Has the government received representations from the Coal Miners' Union of Corbin, British Columbia, asking for a judicial inquiry into the origin, conduct and handling of the Corbin strike?
3.	If the two preceding questions are answered in the affirmative, what answer has the government given in each instance?
4.	Has the government received complaints regarding the treatment of certain coal miners arrested during the Corbin strike and sentenced to imprisonment in the jail at Nelson, British Columbia?
5.	Would the government consider referring such complaint to the royal commission appointed to investigate penal institutions?


Louis Édouard Fernand Rinfret: Return tabled herewith.

Questions as Orders for Returns



HARBOUR COMMISSION WAGE RATES

Mr. PARENT (Quebec West and South):: What are the wage rates in force in the various harbour commissions of Canada, that is (a) Halifax, (b) Saint John, (c) Quebec, (d) Montreal, (e) Toronto, (f) Vancouver, for the following employments:	(l) labourers,
(2) grain elevator operators, (3) electricians, (4) policemen, (5) plumbers, (6) painters, (7) watchmen, (8) cold storage employees?



MR. FARNHAM

Mr. BOULANGER:: 1.	Was Mr. Farnham appointed metallurgist in the Department of Mines within the last four months?
2.	Was this appointment made by the Civil Service Commission?
3.	Other than Mr. Farnham, who were candidates for this position?
4.	What persons established the rating and the merit of the candidates?
5.	Is Mr. Farnham related to an official of the Department of Mines? If so, what is the name of such official, his occupation, and what is the relationship?



QUEBEC CUSTOMS COLLECTOR

Mr. BOULANGER:: 1.	Was Alexandre LaRue, customs collector at Quebec, superannuated, and if so, on what date?
2.	By whom and on what date was Mr. LaRue replaced?
3.	Was Mr. LaRue's successor appointed by the Civil Service Commission?
4.	What is the name, occupation and salary of the person or persons who determined the rating of candidates for the position?
5.	What are the names, occupations, addresses, salaries and service records of candidates for the said position?
6.	What were the qualifications and service record of the candidate appointed as successor to Mr. LaRue?
7.	What was the nature of the examination set by the person who determined the candidates' rating?
8.	How were the candidates rated following such examination?
9.	Did the person who determined the candidates' rating personally meet all candidates?
10.	Did the person who determined the candidates' rating receive instructions previously in that respect, and, if so, from whom?
11.	Which of such candidates, if any, had specialized only in tax sales matters?
12.	What was the record of the candidate or candidates who specialized in tax sales matters only, especially with respect to audit reports of the business of the Hervey Chemical Co., of St. Basile, Portneuf county, province of Quebec, prior to the bankruptcy of such company in the spring of 1931?



LEGAL FEES

Mr. PELLETIER:: 1.	How much was paid to Honourable Newton W. Rowell, Mr. W. N. Tilley, Mr. Aime Geoffrion and Mr. R. L. Calder each year from 1922 by all governments, for legal fees and travelling expenses?
2.	What were the conditions of employment and tile amount of fees of the solicitors who recently argued the social legislation cases before the supreme court?



F. A. FAULKNER

Mr. BOULANGER:: 1.	Is Mr. F. A. Faulkner in the employ of the Post Office Department at Sherbrooke, Quebec ?
2.	If so, since what date, what are his duties and what salary does he receive?
3.	Was Mr. Faulkner , appointed to the position he now occupies by the Civil Service Commission?
4.	Apart from Mr. Faulkner, were there other candidates for the position he now occupies?
5.	What pei-son determined the rating of candidates and what are the duties and the salary of such person?
6.	Does Mr. Faulkner speak French?
7.	What proportion of the population of Sherbrooke is French-speaking?
8.	Was Mr. Faulkner born in Canada?
9.	How long had Mr. Faulkner been a resident of Canada when he entered the Canadian public service ?
hog's BACK, ONT., DAM CONSTRUCTION


Mr. POULIOT:: 1.	How many former permanent employees of the Department of the Interior are on the eligible list of the civil service commission and might be considered to be engineers not now employed?
2.	How many of them are hydraulic, water power hydrometric and hydrometric engineers, or assistant or junior engineers, who are they and what is their age, superannuation allowance and former salary?
3.	Were they all notified of the vacancy as junior engineer on the construction of the Hog's Back dam?
4.	If not, why and who of them has been notified?
5.	Was any application received from any one of them by the civil service commission?
G. If so, whether it was considered by the Civil Service Commission, and who made the rating.
7.	Who was appointed and at what salary?
8.	Whether the appointee had any governmental experience and what his exeperience was in the construction of dams.
9.	By whom he was recommended.
10.	His age.



ACCOUNTANTS IN PUBLIC SERVICE

Mr. POULIOT:: 1.	What was the total number of (a) accountants, and (b) members of their staff in each department in 1930?
2.	What was the total amount of salaries paid (a) to said accountants, and (b) to members of their staff in that year?
3.	What is the total number of (a)
accountants, and (b) members of their staff working now under the comptroller of the treasury in each department?	.
4.	What is the total amount of salaries paid to each class of employees mentioned in the preceding paragraph?



WELSH AND GERMAN ANTHRACITE COAL

Mr. PLAXTON:: 1.	Have complaints reached the government regarding the inferior quality of Welsh coal imported into Canada?
Questions as Orders for Returns

2.	Does the government make analyses of each cargo of imported anthracite to ascertain the quality and classification and also to detect and prevent fraudulent practices?
3.	Is any department of the government supplied by the importer with a sworn statement showing from what mines each cargo originates?
4.	(1) Is the government aware what disposition there was, or is being, made of 205,000 tons of German anthracite imported into Canada in 1935; (2) will the government investigate and ascertain: (a) if it is advertised and marketed as German coal; (b) if it is mixed with Welsh anthracite, advertised and marketed as a genuine British Empire product; (c) will the government prosecute any fraudulent misrepresentations brought to its attention?
5.	Will the government investigate the recent fire in a pile of coal classified as anthracite piled on the water-front at Toronto to ascertain; (a) was it genuine anthracite; (b) did it contain other coals than all British origin and, if so, what other coals; (c) under what name and classification was this coal marketed to the public?



DEPUTY MINISTERS

Mr. POULIOT:: 1.	What are the names of the members of the public service of Canada who rank as deputy ministers and in what department are they?
2.	What is the date of the appointment of each one, and whom have they replaced?
3.	Is it the custom for the Prime Minister to consult with the leader of the opposition before appointing a deputy minister or appointing a public servant with the rank of a deputy minister?
4.	If so, which among the above mentioned public servants have been appointed following that custom?
5.	Was such custom followed in the appointment of the high officials of the Bank of Canada, of the radio commission, of the Civil Service Commission and of other governmental commissions or boards?
6.	If so, for whom and when?



POSITIONS CREATED WITH SALARIES FROM $5,000 UP

Mr. POULIOT:: 1.	How many positions with salaries ranging from $5,000 to $9,999 have been created and filled from August, 1930, to October, 1935?
2.	How many positions with salaries ranging from $10,000 and up have been created and filled from August, 1930, to October, 1935?
3.	In each case, who decided upon the merit of the appointee?



RADIO BROADCASTING COMMISSION

Mr. POULIOT:: 1.	Are there regular employees of the radio commission in Toronto who have received from such commission more than their salary, under assumed names?
[Mr. Plaxton.l
2.	If so, what are the real names of such persons, their assumed names, their regular salary, together with the amounts they received under assumed names?
3.	Who authorized such payments and on what dates?
4.	Were such payments made in violation of the law and of the regulations of the civil service commission?


Mr. POULIOT:: 1.	Did the radio commission purchase one or several cameras, Rolleiflex, or others?
2.	If so, how many, at what price and upon whose instructions?
3.	Who had such kodak or kodaks in his possession since their purchase?


Mr. POULIOT:: 1.	Did a member of the radio commission suggest to such commission the purchase of an automobile ?
2.	If so, when, who made such suggestion and what was the make and the price of such automobile?
3.	What was the decision of the commission in the matter and when was it given?
4.	Did a member of the radio commission rent an automobile at a fixed monthly rent, paid by the radio commission?
5.	If so, when did such transaction take place, who made it, what monthly amount was disbursed on that account and for how long?
6.	Who authorized such payments?
7.	Following such payments, who became the owner of the automobile?
8.	What was the upkeep of such automobile to date, who drove it and for whom?
9.	If such automobile was driven by a chauffeur, what total salary was paid to him, by whom and who authorized it?
10.	Was such automobile sent outside of the city of Ottawa?
11.	If so, by whom, where, to whom, how, at what cost, and with what authorization?
12.	Where is such automobile at the present time, who is using it and in what capacity?



EXPORT OF POWER

Mr. STEWART:: 1.	What companies or individuals have applied for licences for the export of hydroelectric power for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1937?
2.	What quantity of such power is specified in each such application?
3.	What disposition has been made of such applications ?


Mr. EULER:: Return tabled herewith.



NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL

Mr. POULIOT:: 1.	Who were the members of the committee of the privy council on scientific and industrial research in April, May, and June, 1925, and who are they to-day?
2.	Who were the members of the national research council during the same period of 1935, and who are they to-day?

Motions for Papers
3.	At what time and for what period was each of the present members of the national research council appointed, and what were his qualifications?


Jean-François Pouliot: What were the receipts and expenditures of the national research council during the year 1934-35, and during the last fiscal year?


Jean-François Pouliot: What are the subject matters affecting scientific and industrial research in Canada which have been assigned to the national research council by the committee of the privy council on scientific and industrial research from August, 1930, to October 23, 1935, in virtue of section 6 of the Research Council Act?


Jean-François Pouliot: What is the quorum of the meetings of the national reasearch council held in virtue of section 8 of the Research Council Act?


Mr. POULIOT:: 1.	Were any scientific, technical or other officers nominated by the president of the national research council and appointed by the committee of the privy council on scientific and industrial research since June 1, 1935?
2.	If so, who are they and when were they appointed?
3.	What is the tenure of such appointments?
4.	What are the duties of such officers?
5.	What is their remuneration?


Jean-François Pouliot: What was the number of reports of (a) laboratory divisions, and (b) divisions of physics and engineering of the national research council: (1) in the year 1934-35; (2) in the last fiscal year?



PERSONS SECONDED FROM DEPARTMENT OF NATIONAL DEFENCE

Mr. POULIOT:: 1.	Why was every one of the three officials whose names appear in sessional paper No. 166, reference No. 59, tabled on March 31, 1936, seconded from the Department of National Defence to other departments?
2.	Did any one of them do any work in and for the Department of National Defence since such seconding has taken place?
3.	If so, what is it and when was it done?
4.	Does any one of them still have an office in the buildings occupied by the Department of National Defence?
5.	If so, where is it?



MOTIONS FOR PAPERS


Jean-François Pouliot: For a copy of correspondence exchanged between W. L. Best, secretary, joint legislative committee of railway transportation brotherhoods, Ottawa, and any member of the dominion government with regard to the Economic Council of Canada since December 1, 1934.



PUNTLEDGE RIVER WORKS

Mr. NEILL:: For a copy of all correspondence, memoranda, letters, telegrams and other documents passed between any member or official of the government and any other member or official of the government, or any other person, between the 1st day of January, 1935, to date, relating to a dam or fishway on the Puntledge river.



LEFROY, ONT., POSTMASTERSHIP

Mr. McCUAIG:: For a copy of all correspondence, letters, telegrams and other communications with reference to the appointment and selection of the postmaster at Lefroy, Ontario, from April 1, 1927, to date.



NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL

Jean-François Pouliot: For a copy of by-laws made by the national research council for the conduct of its business in virtue of section 10 of the Research Council Act.



GENERAL MCNAUGHTON

[Stage Direction]
Mr. POULIOT;
For a copy of (1) the recommendation of the committee of the privy council on scientific and industrial research to the governor in council for the appointment of General McNaughton as president of the national research council; (2) the memorandum, if any, submitted to the privy council in that connection; (3) the order in council passed therefor; (4) the contract or agreement between the dominion government and the said General McNaughton.

Joseph Oscar Lefebre Boulanger: For a copy of the complete file, including ratings of candidates, with respect to the superannuation of Alexandre LaRue, customs collector at Quebec, and the appointment of J. Salomon de Billy, as his successor.
For a copy of the complete file, including ratings of candidates, with respect to the appointment of one Farnham, as metallurgist in the Department of Mines.


Louis Édouard Fernand Rinfret: I have no objection to recommending to the house the passing of this order, but I must point to four words in the second line, "including ratings of candidates." That information has been considered confidential in certain cases in the past. The information will be sought, but may be regarded as such by the commission. I recommend that the first motion be passed with that reservation, and the same applies to the second.
Motions as amended agreed to.



SOCIAL LEGISLATION-CORRESPONDENCE

Jean-François Pouliot: For a copy of all correspondence, letters, telegrams, exchanged between any individual and the then right honourable the prime min-
Motions for Papers

ister, and of all reports and memoranda, with regard to social legislation from November 1, 1934, until May 1, 1935.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: If I am not
mistaken the then prime minister to whom reference is made in this motion, took away with him at the time of leaving office the correspondence he was entitled to take, and which I imagine would include what is asked for here.


Mr. BENNETT:: I am not in a position
to say what correspondence was taken, but I was told that whatever was done in that regard was exactly what had been done by my predecessor.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Quite right.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Beyond that I am not
in a position to give any information. I just mentioned that to my colleague sitting beside me. The files are not in my own office; they were put in the store room. Such as were taken I can have looked up to ascertain whether there is anything on social legislation.


Jean-François Pouliot: I	want only what is
left in the east block.



CLASSIFICATION OF UNEMPLOYED

Jean-François Pouliot: For a copy of the correspondence exchanged between his honour the Honourable J. L. Bowman, then Speaker of the House of Commons and in that capacity, and the undersigned on June 19 and 20, 1935, with regard to the petition of the undersigned and the attached report on the classification of the unemployed according to their trades or previous occupations, and also copy of all letters, memoranda, notes exchanged between the then prime minister and the then speaker in that connection, and also copy of memoranda, notes, letters sent to his honour the then speaker in that connection by any officer of the house.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: If this order
is to pass, I think it will have to be passed on the understanding that only such information will be brought down as is in the east block at the present time.


Richard Bedford Bennett: There is another point.
The former Secretary of State (Mr. Cahan) has just directed my attention to the fact that the correspondence between the hon. gentleman who moves this resolution (Mr. Pouliot) and the former speaker would be in his possession. Surely he is not asking that what he has already shall be provided for him. There is another point. The resolution refers to "the undersigned." There is nothing to indicate who the undersigned rhight be. I think it is olit of order.


Jean-François Pouliot: I am always delighted to hear the sound of the voice of the right hon. gentleman who has just spoken.


Louis Édouard Fernand Rinfret: I think this motion is somewhat similar to the question which we just dropped. It is most unusual for an hon. member to mention himself in his own resolution as "the undersigned." I think that should be dropped from the motion.


Jean-François Pouliot: I wonder if I have received all the letters that were addressed to me. .


Louis Édouard Fernand Rinfret: I am not sure that the hon. gentleman even sent all the letters he refers to.
Motion dropped.



NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL

Jean-François Pouliot: For a copy of all advice and memoranda of the honourary advisory council for scientific and industrial research to the committee of the privy council on scientific and industrial research on questions of scientific and technological methods affecting the expansion of Canadian industries or the utilization of the national resources of Canada, in virtue of section 6 of the Research Council Act, from August, 1930, to date.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I think there should be a reservation that this information will be furnished to the extent that it is not privileged.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Jean-François Pouliot: For a copy of the recommendation given by the then prime minister on behalf of Mr. Trebistch Lincoln to the British government.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I am not aware of any such recommendation having been made.


Jean-François Pouliot: It refers to the then prime minister.	.
.	.	[DOT]	.	. 'o'


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I am referring to the then prime minister. I have made inquiries in the Department of External Affairs where these records relating to and correspondence with the British government are kept, and I am informed that there is no such recommendation. I do not think there is any use in pressing for this information,


Jean-François Pouliot: Thank you. So much the better for him.
Motion dropped.

Seed Grain



CANADA-UNITED STATES AGREEMENT

Jean-François Pouliot: For a copy of the last draft of the Canadian American agreement as it was on October 23, 1935.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I am not aware that there is a draft of any Canada-United States agreement dated October 23, 1935. If there is, I think it would be a privileged document and as such could: not properly be brought down.


Richard Bedford Bennett: It has been distinctly stated that there was no such draft.


Jean-François Pouliot: Then nothing was done by the previous administration in that connection.
Motion dropped.



DEPARTMENT OF MINES, RESOURCES AND COLONIZATION

William Lyon Mackenzie King: moved that the house go into committee to-morrow to consider the following proposed resolution:
That it is expedient to provide for a Department of Mines, Resources and Colonization, to comprise the present Departments of Interior, of Mines, of Immigration and Colonization, of Indian Affairs and the administration of the Northwest and Yukon territories, and to provide also for the transfer from time to time to the minister of such existing or subsequently established boards, public bodies or services as may be assigned to him; and to provide further for the employment and transfer of such officers, clerks and employees at present employed in the departments of the government above mentioned as are necessary for the proper conduct of the department.
He said: His Excellency the Governor General, having been informed of the subject matter of this resolution, recommends it to the favourable consideration of the house.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister) moved that the house go into committee to-morrow to consider the following proposed resolution:
That it is expedient to provide for a Department of Transport to comprise the present Department of Railways and Canals and the Department of Marine and the civil aviation branch of the Department of National Defence, for the organization of the department, and the appointment and transfer of the required officers and staff.
He said: His Excellency the Governor General, having been informed of the subject matter of this resolution, recommends it to the favourable consideration of the house.
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. F. E. LENNARD (Wentworth):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the Minister of Labour (Mr. Rogers) if he will reconsider the decision of the federal government and not reduce the relief grants to the province of Ontario because of the hardships that such a reduction will impose upon the various municipalities which had arranged for their financing for 1936 prior to this decision having been given out.
Hon. NORMAN McL. ROGERS (Minister of Labour): Mr. Speaker, the hon. member was kind enough to let me know of his intention to ask this question to-day. I may say that the answer given to the question on the order paper in the name of the hon. member for Broadview (Mr. Church) will give him all the necessary information.



PRINCE ALBERT RELIEF

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. M. J. COLDWELL (Rosetown-Biggar):: Mr. Speaker, I have been asked to inquire of the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) whether he is aware of the serious situation which has developed in Prince Albert in connection with people on relief. If so, what steps if any are being taken to bring pressure to bear to meet the situation?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I have received a telegram from a strike committee which designates itself as a union of unemployed in Prince Albert,' calling attention to what is represented as a serious condition of affairs; the matter has been receiving consideration.



UNITED KINGDOM TRADE AGREEMENT


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. JEAN-FRANCOIS POULIOT (Temis-couata): Mr. Speaker, I respectfully draw your attention to Hansard of March 9, page 920. Would you be kind enough to give your ruling on the point of order raised by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning) on that resolution.


[Stage Direction]
Hon. CHARLES A. DUNNING (Minister of Finance) moved the second reading of and concurrence in amendments made by the Senate to Bill No. 23, to assist the province of Saskatchewan in financing the cost of seed and seeding operations for the year 1936.
Employment Commission
Richard Bedford Bennett: What are the amendments?


Charles Avery Dunning: The amendments are clerical, designed in the opinion of that house to clarify the meaning of the bill. They have no bearing upon either the principle or the operation of the bill.


Richard Bedford Bennett: What are they?


Charles Avery Dunning: The word implement is changed to fulfil wherever it appears, so that the wording in section 4 is that the government of Canada "shall only be liable to fulfil its guarantee" instead of "to implement its guarantee." Then in section 5, as the bill left the house, it provided that "the governor in council shall have full power to make all suck orders." The Senate has changed that to read, "the governor in council may make."
Motion agreed to; amendments read the second time and concurred in.



SOLDIER SETTLEMENT ACT


[Stage Direction]
Hon. T. A. CRERAR (Minister of Immigration and Colonization) moved the second reading of and concurrence in amendments made by the Senate to Bill No. 18, to amend the Soldier Settlement Act.
Some hon. MEMBERS:: Explain.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: A word or two will explain the amendment made in the other chamber. As the bill stood, it provided for extending to the end of March, 1938, a period of two years, the period over which the dollar for dollar bonus would be applicable. The original bill provided also that any soldier settler might anticipate his payments for one year and get the dollar for dollar bonus privilege. That has been amended in the other chamber. The words "or within one year thereafter" have been struck out, leaving the measure in this position. The dollar for dollar bonus privilege applies for two years, but we take away from any settler the opportunity to make prepayment for an additional year. I think the . amendment is one we may concur in.
Motion agreed to; amendments read the second time and concurred in.



TORONTO HARBOUR COMMISSIONERS

[Stage Direction]
Hon. C. D. HOWE (Minister of Marine) moved the second reading of and concurrence in amendment made by the Senate to Bill No. 12, respecting the Toronto Harbour Commissioners.
Richard Bedford Bennett: What is the amendment?


Clarence Decatur Howe: The amendment is purely
one of draftsmanship; the intent is exactly the same but the drafting has been changed about. The solicitors for the city and the harbour board have passed on the revision and they say it will meet the requirements.
Motion agreed to; amendment read the second time and concurred in.



EMPLOYMENT COMMISSION


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Friday, April 3, consideration in committee of Bill No. 14, respecting the establishment of a national employment commission-Mr. Rogers-Mr. Johnston (Lake Centre) in the chair.
The CHAIRMAN (Mr. Johnston, Lake Centre):: Section 6.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Has section 5 passed?


Mr. GRAY:: Section 5 stood on Friday
night.


Richard Bedford Bennett: It was suggested that the section be amended for this reason: One of the preceding sections provides that the commissioners may be paid, but section 5 makes no provision for paying the secretary. Is it not intended that the secretary shall be paid? Is he to be an honorary secretary?


Charles Edward Johnston: An amendment was proposed to
section 5. Perhaps I should read it:
(3) Notwithstanding anything in the Civil Service Act, chapter 22 of the Revised Statutes of Canada, 1927, the Civil Service Superannuation Act, chapter 24 of the Revised Statutes of Canada, 1927, or any other act of the parliament of Canada, a civil servant who, at the time of his appointment or employment under or pursuant the provisions of this act, is a contributor under the provisions of the Civil Service Superannuation Act, shall continue to be a contributor under the said act; his service under this act shall be counted as service in the civil service for the purposes of the Civil Service Superannuation Act, and he, his widow and children or other dependents if any, shall be eligible to receive the respective allowances or gratuities provided by the said act; and in the event of his being retired from his office or position under this act for any reason other than that of misconduct, he shall be eligible for reappointment in the civil service or to receive the same benefits under the Civil Service Superannuation Act as if his office or position had been abolished.


Mr. STEVENS:: I think we should have
a brief explanation of the amendment. I have not the wording of it before me, but I followed

Employment Commission
it as well as I could. First, is this amendment intended to cover persons at present in the civil service who may be transferred to the commission? The second question arises out of a few words which I caught as the chairman was reading the amendment, that where an employee leaves the civil service and is subsequently restored to it, under this clause his emoluments and rights are restored with his reappointment. I should like to ask if that is a correct interpretation of the provision.


Norman McLeod Rogers: In answer to the first question, as my hon. friend has surmised, the intention of this amendment is to permit the seconding, as it were, of permanent employees of the civil service to the national employment commission. So far as the second question is concerned, there was no intention to carry out the purpose which he suggested.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Has the point I raised
been considered? If, as I surmised, though probably wrongly, it is possible to bring in someone who has resigned or otherwise left the service, and to restore him to his rights under the superannuation act and so forth, it is an important matter and should be given careful consideration. I know that in the past civil servants who have left the service and returned to it, upon attempting to have their rights restored have experienced great difficulty; in fact I think it is entirely prevented by law, although I am speaking only from memory. If this amendment should accomplish what I understood it to do, I think the committee ought to be well aware of it and understand its full meaning. I may be entirely wrong, but I just gathered that from the reading of the amendment.


Norman McLeod Rogers: That certainly was not
the intention in having the amendment drafted. I might say that the amendment in its present form is in precisely the same terms as a similar clause which was inserted in the national harbours board bill. Our one object was to make it possible for the national employment commission to utilize, should it so desire, the services of the permanent employees of the civil service. There was no intention through the amendment to make it possible for those who had previously resigned from the civil service to come back to the civil service and resume their former status.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I think it is quite clear
that the amendment does not accomplish that purpose. The words are "in the event of his being retired from his office or position under this act." So that the point is covered; it applies only to those who come in under this
act to work under the commission, and in the event of their retiring they get the same treatment as if they had remained with the civil service; or if it is so desired they may continue and get another position in the civil service equal to that which they gave up.


Mr. CAHAN:: May I suggest to the Prime Minister that during the previous five years the practice, which I think was an excellent one, grew up by which if the government or a minister intended to suggest important amendments to public bills, the proposed amendments were printed in the votes and proceedings of the previous day so that there was an opportunity to consider them in relation to the sections as they then stood. I think it was very useful and very helpful.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I agree entirely with my hon. friend. I would say to him that the amendment which is now before the house was read on Friday evening last, and appears in Hansard. It does not appear in just the place in which my hon. friend has suggested it might have appeared, namely in the votes and proceedings, but the government assumed that appearing in Hansard would meet the purpose my hon. friend has in view.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Is there no provision for salary?


Norman McLeod Rogers: I was going to refer to that. The right hon. leader of the opposition, referring to section 5, asked if provision was to be made for payment of the secretary of the commission. It is the intention that the secretary of the commission and other employees shall be paid, and I would assume that section 10 would cover that, although I am open to correction on that point. If section 10 does not cover it, it would obviously be desirable to make special provision for the purpose.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I would point out that the commissioners may be paid such fees or compensation for their services as the governor in council may from time to time determina as well as actual travelling and living ex penses. With respect to the secretary I was only asking for information why that was not done. "There shall -be a secretary of the commission who shall be appointed by the governor in council and who shall hold office during pleasure." I thought it was necessary to provide that he should be paid in the same way as when anybody else is appointed. The power to appoint, I think, does not involve the power to pay, unless provided for.
Employment Commission


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I would say to my right hon. friend that I think this is drafted on the lines -of a bill which he himself introduced. The bill relating to the appointment of the tariff board sets forth provisions similar to those my right hon. friend has just quoted with respect to the members of the board, there then follows this provision; "There shall be a secretary of the board who shall be appointed by the governor in council." There is no special provision as to the payment of the secretary. That is covered, I assume, by the general authority given in another section of the bill.


Mr. BETTS:: May I ask whether all the employees of the commission other than the secretary will be appointed by the civil service commission?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: No.


Norman McLeod Rogers: It is not the intention that all the employees of the national employment commission shall be taken from the permanent civil service. It is impossible, as the hon. member (Mr. Betts) well understands, to give any definite assurance in this regard. I do think that where it is possible to secure suitable personnel in the civil service it will be desirable to have them attached to the national employment commission, but it is not the intention to bar other appointments.


Sir GEORGE PERLEY:: Has the government considered what pay the commissioners themselves should be given?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Yes, that matter has been considered. The Minister of Labour mentioned the other evening that it is possible special consideration will have to be given in the case of one or two of the commissioners as to the fees to be paid to them; on their part they may be prepared to make special offers to the government as to the basis upon which they would be willing to serve. It has not been thought advisable to determine too far in advance of the appointments themselves what will be paid by way of fees to different members of the commission.


Mr. MacINNIS:: Subsection 2 of section 5 provides that the employees shall be appointed by the governor in council, not by the civil service commission. Will the minister tell the committee the reason for that?


Norman McLeod Rogers: In making this provision we were simply following, I am informed what has been the practice with respect to temporary employees. As my hon. friend is aware, the payment of such employees is covered by appropriations from year to year. We are hoping and indeed trusting that this will be

temporary employment, and in the past it has not been the practice to bring such temporary employees under the provisions of the Civil Service Act. I need only refer to the unemployment relief branch of the Department of Labour, as it has developed during the past five years. All the employees of that branch are temporary and have not been brought under the terms of the Civil Service Act.


Mr. MacNEIL:: Before the committee rose on Friday last the minister gave the assurance that he would indicate the manner in which these appointments would be made and whether or not it would be possible to maintain the preference for ex-service men. I am under the impression that an order in council does provide for that preference in regard to temporary appointments, and I would ask that the minister give this special consideration inasmuch as it may be necessary to make a general appeal to employing interests to employ a reasonable quota of physically handicapped men. In this regard it seems to me the government should set an example and absorb as many physically handicapped exservice men as may be successfully placed and as cam efficiently perform the duties defined.


Norman McLeod Rogers: I have not forgotten the question raised by my hon. friend at the close of the sitting Friday night. I looked into the matter and discovered that it had not been the practice to apply the returned soldier preference to temporary employees of the government. I can assure the hon. member, however, that we shall be very glad indeed to follow what is the established practice in that regard, and I may assure him also that we will give due consideration to the reasonable claims of the ex-service men, as he has put them just now.


Frederick Cronyn Betts: Would this not be a good time to amend the practice in that respect and give returned soldiers the preference in connection with this large number of appointments?


Norman McLeod Rogers: Our hope is that there will not be a large number of appointments. I have already indicated that it is our intention as far as may be possible to utilize the services of those who are now in the permanent government service. So far as other employees are concerned it is very probable that their suitability will be determined by special qualifications. I yield nothing to my hon. friend in his solicitude for the position of ex-servioe men who are now out of employment, but I do not know that it would be wise to do more than give the assurance I just gave the hon. member for Vancouver North in that regard.

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Mr. STIRLING:: I am not quite clear yet with regard to this matter. If I followed the minister correctly he said that because it was anticipated by the government that these employees should be temporary the assistance of the civil service commission would not be required. But surely there are hundreds of temporary employees in the public service now who have been chosen with the assistance of the civil service commission.


Norman McLeod Rogers: That may be true, Mr. Chairman; certainly I would not seek to dispute it without further information, but I think I am correct when I say that the unemployment Telief branch of the Department of Labour has had its staff chosen in the manner I indicated, during the past five years. The appointments have been made by the governor in council upon the recommendation of the Minister of Labour. We are dealing here with what we all trust will be a temporary problem, and it does seem to me that to some extent that does place certain restrictions on the manner in which we shall make the appointments. The desire is to utilize to some extent the services of those who are now in government departments and at the same time to make it possible to employ others as the situation may necessitate from time to time.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The first thing to know
is what establishment is contemplated, in numbers. I can recall the insistence with which the .party opposite, now in office, questioned the former government in connection with these matters, as to how many people it was contemplated would be employed. I should like some evidence on that. Secondly, the minister will have to admit that as this matter now stands it is wholly a patronage proposal. Let us be fair about it. There is nothing in it that involves consultation with the civil service commission about anything, or the appointment of anybody. These appointments rest with the government purely and simply. In the third place the government are doing the very thing that we were so upbraided for doing, namely, appropriating money by order in council for the payment of the public service without any indication as to how much is to be voted. That is, these men are to be paid sums not exceeding so much; there is nothing to indicate how much it is going to be. What a terrible scandal it was a few years ago when anything like this was suggested; what a terrible thing that money could be given by orders in council and salaries fixed for people, without indicating in the statute what they were to be. Surely there must be something wrong here. Surely 12739-116
the minister has overlooked that; he intended to put it in and forgot about it. It cannot be, by any possible chance, that this is done deliberately. On those three points we should like some information, and after the attacks made the other night we intend to get it, too.


Norman McLeod Rogers: As to the first point raised by the right hon. leader of the opposition, I think the answer lies in the fact that these employees of the national employment commission are temporary, and their salaries will be covered by an appropriation which will appear in the special supplementary estimates.
That will accord with what I take it is the normal parliamentary procedure, unless we were in a position now to indicate precisely every employee of this national employment commission and the functions he will perform. My right hon. friend has had some experience with this whole question of unemployment and relief, and I do not think he would seriously suggest that we are in a position now to indicate exactly the classification of the employees that will be required by this commission. Let me go further. I should like to ask him if he is not fully aware that in the development of the unemployment relief branch of the Department of Labour he followed exactly this practice. I am not quoting that as a precedent or justification which necessarily should apply to us, but I do suggest that this practice grew out of the same situation which I urge as a justification for the policy we are following here.


Richard Bedford Bennett: And when it was urged
by me as an answer to the attacks then made it was regarded as wholly inadequate. That is the point.


An hon. MEMBER:: Br-r-r-r.


Richard Bedford Bennett: That does not advance
the matter at all, except to indicate the ill manners of the hon. gentleman who made that sound, and that is nothing new. Just let us consider this. Here we have provision made which the minister justifies on grounds that were the reasons given in times gone by, but which were condemned as wholly inadequate. Hours were taken up; in one case I think a whole day was taken up with a matter of this kind. Now when I point out that the government are adopting the very course which we said it was so absolutely essential to adopt in order to accomplish this end, because of the very conditions under which you operate, the minister says we should know because we did the same thing. He does not put that forward as a justification, but it



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indicates the character of the opposition which we had to encounter. This is the sort of thing the Prime Minister spent a long time in attacking the other evening, and now he is adopting the very means that were then condemned so roundly and at such length, day after day; those are the means now adopted by the minister. But he has not answered the second question. As this bill stands it provides for patronage appointments, purely and simply, and nothing else. Is that so or is it not?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: May I say
just a word to my right hon. friend? There is a very great difference between what is being proposed under this bill and what was proposed and done under my right hon. friend's various relief measures. I have in my hand a copy of the act respecting relief measures as passed by this house on the 21st day of March, 1935; that was the last of the relief measures. Section 5 of that act is as follows:
The governor in council may pay out of the consolidated revenue fund such moneys as may be necessary for all or any of the purposes of this act.
There is blank cheque authority to pay out of the consolidated revenue fund whatever amounts are necessary for the purposes of the act, not amounts that must be appropriated by parliament in the first instance. A blank cheque is handed the government which makes it dip into the treasury for any sum or sums.
What were some of the other provisions of the act for the carrying out of which moneys were required? The first was that:
Notwithstanding the provisions of any statute or law the governor in council may, upon such terms and conditions as may be agreed upon,-enter into agreements with any of the provinces respecting relief measures therein; grant financial assistance to any province and to Canadian Cooperative Wheat Producers Limited, by way of loan, advance, guarantee or otherwise; and in respect of such loans, advances and guarantees, may accept such security, enter into such agreements and generally to do all such acts and things as the governor in council may deem necessary and expedient in the public interest.
Not one word with reference to the submission in the first instance of such agreements to parliament for approval. It is simply a blanket authority to deal without further reference to parliament, with these matters by order in council, and blank cheque power to pay out previous appropriations being made by parliament whatever sums might be. said to be necessary. Let me read the next section of the act:
In addition to the powers conferred under the provisions of any statute or law the

governor in council may, when parliament is not in session, take all such measures as in his discretion may be deemed necessary or advisable to maintain, within the competence of parliament, peace, order and good government throughout Canada; and at all times take all such measures as in his discretion may be deemed necessary or advisable to protect and maintain the credit and financial position of the dominion or any province thereof.
We find in this section blanket authority to legislate by order in council when parliament is not in session. There is no clause in the present measure which gives this government any such right or power; there will not be any such clause in any other bill which will be brought before the House of Commons by this government. I challenge my right hon. friend to point out any clause in the bill under discussion which would have that effect.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I will do it in a minute.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The matter did not stop there, the next section reads:
Without restricting the generality of the terms of the next preceding section thereof and notwithstanding the provisions of any statute or law, the governor in council may

(a)	Provide for special relief, works and undertakings under control and direction of the Department of National Defence and the Department of the Interior;
(b)	Take all such other measures as may be deemed necessary or advisable for carrying out the provisions of this act.
These powers involved the expenditure of millions of dollars, but no obligation was imposed by the section of reference to parliament with respect to its approval in the first instance of the specific projects and the amounts required to carry out the same. The difference between the present and the previous administrations with respect to relief measures is that the present government proposes, in whatever it does, to come to parliament in the first instance, and to receive from parliament the authority required to make expenditures with respect to specific measures. The difference between this bill and legislation introduced by the previous administration is that, without coming to parliament for any appropriation, the previous government could have appointed the commission and all its officials, and incurred thereunder any expenditures they wished to incur without saying a single word in the House of Commons about the whole transaction from beginning to end. That could have been done, if the commission had been appointed at a time parliament was not in session, and carried out its work in the interval between sessions.
Under the present legislation we are now coming to parliament in the first instance for authority to appoint a commission and give

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it certain powers. We are in parliament today and asking the House of Commons to authorize the commission and to vote what may be necessary for the work. At the moment we are asking the House of Commons to pass a bill giving to the commission certain powers, and in a special supply bill to be brought down we propose to name a sum which we estimate will be required to enable the commission to function and to ask parliament to appropriate the amount proposed. I submit that this procedure is entirely different from that adopted by my right hon. friend when he was in office with respect to most relief projects. The power to make necessary regulations and appointments by order in council to carry out a specific measure is quite different from power to enact measures wholesale, by order in council, without in the first instance any reference to parliament.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Mr. Chairman, I do not intend to enter into a discussion with the Prime Minister respecting a blank cheque. I sometimes think it has become an obsession with the right hon. gentleman. The legislation we have had brought down during the present session provides for government and administration by order in council to an extent at least equal to any precedents established in past years.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Not at all.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Section 7 of the bill provides:
The commission shall, under the direction of the minister supervise the expenditure of funds voted by parliament for purposes of relief and providing employment, and perform such administrative duties with respect to relief and unemployment as may be assigned to it from time to time by the governor in council.
Except in respect of a prospective estimate by which we will vote a substantial sum for this purpose, section 7 makes provision for administration by the governor in council and expenditure of funds by virtue of orders in council to be passed from time to time. Then there is another provision contained in section 10, which I should like to read:
The governor in council may from time to time make such orders and regulations as may be necessary to carry out the provisions of this act.
I suggest that those are very wide powers, indeed. They enable the governor in council in effect to legislate with respect to every matter which may form the subject of this measure. The provision is very broad, and I do not think very much difference can be found between orders in council under this measure and those under previous relief acts.
That is true, with the exception of the one provision, namely that a limit on expenditures is to be placed by means of an estimate. Within that limit, however, the government will have full power to deal by order in council not only with organization and administration but also with expenditures.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: May I point out to my hon. friend that under the legislation existing at the time he and his colleagues were in office all that is asked for in the present measure could have been done by governor in council, without reference to parliament at all. There is a great difference between authority which enables the governor in council to go ahead and create a national employment commission, to make all the necessary appointments and expenditures, without reference to parliament at all, and coming to parliament at the outset to obtain authority to appoint a commission. Such a course obligates the ministry to answer all questions with respect to the duties of the commission, its cost and the like which hon. members may wish to ask, and subjecting the commission as respects its powers, to such limitations as parliament itself may wish to impose.
During the days when my right hon. friend held office parliament had no power to place restrictions upon the provisions of legislation of the class I have mentioned. My right hon. friend's own followers were denied that power. All such power was taken to the executive itself, including the right to exercise a free hand with respect to measures of the kind when parliament was not in session. We are seeking to restore to parliament the control parliament ought to have over public expenditures. In order to bring that about, we are submitting before any action is taken concrete measures for the consideration of the house. We are submitting itemized estimates for appropriations, before any expenditures of public moneys are made. I will admit it would be a much easier task for the government to go ahead, as hon. gentlemen opposite did. If however, governments continue to legislate in that way or to deal with relief questions in that manner there will not only be no end to the problem but I venture to say conditions will go from bad to worse. With no control by parliament expenditures will go on increasing and increasing and unemployment as well. The only hope of bringing the whole question of relief to a satisfactory solution, in my view, lies in giving parliament the freest hand to scrutinize its every aspect and to give hon. members every opportunity to know exactly what it is costing the country.
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Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I do not wish to split hairs in this discussion, but the relief acts were voted from time to time by parliament, and parliament gave such authorization as was vested in the governor in council. The bill in respect to each of the relief acts was as broad on the one hand and as limited on the other as in the present case. Under this bill there is no limit to the power of the governor in council in dealing with every incident in relation to this national commission. This bill does little more than give a name to a so-called national employment commission. Once the commission is named all its administrative powers are regulated and controlled by regulations and orders in council; all its expenditures are controlled by orders in council.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: No.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: It is quite clear. Look at section 7.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: When there is a supplementary supply bill introduced the house will be asked to vote a specific sum. It did not have so to do under the government of my hon. friend.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: All the expenditures that were then made were submitted to parliament from time to time, and parliament had ample opportunity from time to time to discuss and criticize the expenditures which were made in strict conformity with the statute. I hear a great deal of discussion now as to those expenditures. I heard the right hon. gentleman's speech on Friday last. Neither the right hon. gentleman nor those associated with him undertook to criticize those expenditures as made from time to time. Further may I say I regretted to hear the criticisms made by the right hon. gentleman of the work of the former Minister of Labour. I can simply say from my experience that I know no member of the government who administered his department with less ostentation and less seeking of publicty, and none who administered his department with greater efficiency than did Mr. Gordon as Minister
of Labour.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: He gave parliament less information.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Parliament could obtain
all the information it asked for. But I will say, without attempting any personal criticism, that I am sure if the Prime Minister to-day were Minister of Labour and had the opportunity, as the Minister of Labour has had for several months, to go through all the work that was done under Mr. Gordon's

administration, he would not have made the sharp criticism which he did on Friday last, because I am convinced that the Minister of Labour or anyone associated with him who will look into the vast volume of administrative work carried on by Mr. Gordon must give him credit for very great efficiency.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I made no
criticism the other evening which I did not make from the other side of the house and to the former Minister of Labour when he was in the house. I -was very careful to restrict what I said about the lack of information to what I had said in Mr. Gordon's presence, and I did not bring in his name either.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: The reference was to the
former minister of labour and could refer only to him.


Jean-François Pouliot: Let the dead bury their
dead.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I should think the hon. member should attend the funeral at once.


Jean-François Pouliot: I will be a pall bearer.
On this side we were all pall bearers at the funeral of the Tory party on October 14.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: My hon. friend does not
expect me to reply to these nonsensical statements. I simply make one more suggestion, and that is that these administrative orders which apply to the administration of these funds, and which as the right hon. gentleman says are in a measure legislative enactments, should be published in the official gazette and have the force of law only when they are so published. These orders in council are of a different kind from many others: they are the permanent law governing administration by the commission exactly the same as orders in council with respect to the administration .of the bureau of public printing, and exactly as orders in council with regard to the administration of copyrights and patents become the permanent law. These are all published in the Canada Gazette before they become law, and they have no force or effect until so published. I think that suggestion might well be considered.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I think that
suggestion ought to have been made by my hon. friend to his colleagues during the five years he sat in the government. That should have been done with respect to the orders in council passed by the then administration, not only in relation to one measure respecting employment and relief such as this, but as respects all the measures. My hon. friend may have made the suggestion, but evidently

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to some extent his appeal fell on deaf ears. There is a provision which perhaps my hon. friend has not noticed, namely that-
All orders in council and regulations made under the provisions of this act shall be laid before the House of Commons forthwith after the making thereof if parliament is then sitting, and if not, then such orders in council and regulations, or an abstract thereof, disclosing their essential provisions, shall be published in the next issue of the Canada Gazette.
If I am not mistaken-the leader of the opposition will correct me if I am-that clause appeared in previous legislation enacted by the late government, and I believe was inserted there at my suggestion in the first instance.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: There is always a possibility of improvement. If the right hon. gentleman will look at the long speech which he made on April 3, 1930, which I well remember, in discussing unemployment, he will see that his mind, his attitude, his policy, have changed very considerably since then. We have all of us had five years' more experience. I recently read some extracts from that speech, which 1 remember well. The right hon. gentleman will find it in volume 2 of Hansard for 1930.


Richard Bedford Bennett: While he was still in office.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Yes, while they were still in office. Hon. gentlemen opposite have changed very much in their policy since that date.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Conditions have changed very much in the meantime. I think the principles remain the same.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Conditions no doubt have changed. For instance, after listening to the speech of the right hon. gentleman on Friday I recalled very clearly a remark he made in the previous session on March 13, 1929, in regard to unemployment, and I looked it up. If I may be permitted I will read it. The question was asked by Mr. T. L. Church, then member for Toronto Northwest:
May I ask the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) whether the government has any plan for providing useful employment to the great number of unemployed in the large cities of Canada?
Right Hon. W. L. Mackenzie King (Prime Minister): Up to the present, Mr. Speaker, the government has not given consideration to the matter to which my hon. friend refers.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: That was true at the time.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Since those days there have been vast changes, and now that we are to seek improvements under an entirely new
scheme, I suggest that we are not bound by the old precedents under which such great evils have arisen as the right hon. gentleman suggested, and that we should seek to reform the process as far as possible. For myself I wish the right hon. gentleman and his government all possible success. If the government can bring about reform and improvement, if they can arrive at the successful solution of these grave problems, they will have my hearty commendation and support. I am not suggesting this by way of irritation, but I do think the hon. gentleman is in error in thinking that he has made a new departure in the text of this bill, in thinking that he is now far removed from government by order in council. I think he still continues the old system except with respect to one particular. He proposes, not under this bill but in the estimates, to place a restriction upon the amount of money which may be expended.


Richard Bedford Bennett: We did that twice.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: As the right hon. leader of the opposition (Mr. Bennett) says, we did it twice. We found that doing so created very serious problems and difficulties. The abandonment of that policy enabled the late government to maintain closer control over expenditures than we could have maintained under the policy adopted during the first two years of the Bennett regime.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Does my hon. friend recommend that we should give up an attempt to place a limitation upon the amount to be spent? Does he recommend that we should not get special authority from parliament for these various measures but rather take general authority as he did before?


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: No, I am not suggesting that at all. If I may say it with great deference, I believe that the Prime Minister is under an obsession if he believes that by getting away from the blank cheque he is overcoming all the difficulties in the way of securing a satisfactory solution of the unemployment and relief problems. The blank cheque is simply an incident and is not material.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Far from overcoming all the difficulties, we are I imagine adding to our own. We realize, however, that there is one right which is greater than the right of those who may be on relief to receive payments from the treasury; it is the right of the taxpayer to have taxes and expenditures controlled by parliament and not to have outlays of public moneys controlled by the caprice of the governor in council with possible unlimited expenditures at all times.
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Henry Herbert Stevens: Mr. Chairman, I am not particularly concerned with the brand of blank cheque that may be involved. The so-called blank cheque of previous years was without limitation, according to those who criticized it, but as a matter of fact I think a survey of the last five years will show that there was perhaps more restriction upon expenditures than would have been the case had there been specific sums named for certain specific purposes. In some instances this was, I was going to say to the detriment of the country, but perhaps I should say this was the cause of the postponement in some degree of certain measures that might have helped still further towards the solution of unemployment. That is precisely what I fear in connection with this measure, as I shall point out in a minute.
Before doing that, let me first indicate to the Prime Minister and the government that there is comparatively little difference between a blanket cheque for 850,000,000 and a blank cheque for some unnamed amount. While there may be room for some criticism of the blank cheque in its entirety, there still remains the fact that there are in this particular bill some of the elements that existed in the other.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Where does my hon. friend get any authority for his reference to a cheque for $50,000,000?


Henry Herbert Stevens: I think my right hon.
friend said that approximately $50,000,000 was going to be provided.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: That is not
what I said at all. I said that the total appropriation, which parliament would be asked to vote in specific amounts for various definitely specified projects, would amount to $50,000,000. I may say to my hon. friend that the total will be considerably beyond that. That is a very different thing to asking parliament for $50,000,000 to be spent as the government pleases on any project or projects.


Henry Herbert Stevens: We have no measures
before us.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I have already told the house that particulars are to be given in a special supply bill to be brought down after this legislation is passed.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I am glad to have that
explanation. I should like to point out a distinction between this bill and the old relief act. I am not particularly defending the old relief act, nor am I condemning it-that is a matter of history. The old relief act was limited to one year, it expired on March 31, and I recall very well the difficulties that we encountered each year in securing a renewal

or extension of the act. It had to be done each year by a special act of parliament. To all intents and purposes this measure will be permanent until repealed. I am not charging the government with intent to do so, but I should like to point out how it would be possible to abuse the powers given by section 10.
Everyone who has been in parliament for any length of time knows that each year dozens of items for $10,000, $30,000, $50,000 or $100,000 appear in the estimates for specific works. The following year the government may come back and ask for another $50,000. When asked the reason they say that a contract has been entered into for $500,000, or for three, four or five times the amount originally voted. The contract having been signed, parliament is bound to revote the additional money, and it is done in hundreds of eases. There is nothing in the world to prevent the government, on the advice of this commission, from entering into proposals for the carrying out of public works and other projects to the extent of hundreds of millions of dollars. It is true that they would have to come to parliament for revotes, but there would be no trouble in obtaining these revotes unless there was a complete break-up in the personnel of parliament or the allegiance of those already represented here. What parlia-nient would deny the government a revote? There is not the remotest possibility or likelihood that it would be refused. I want to point out to the right hon. gentleman that it is inherent in this bill that all the abuses present in the previous legislation should be present in this.
I am willing to trust the government, and I do not think there is anyone who is not willing to do so. We are in committee and I may be out of order, but the Prime Minister and other hon. gentlemen have wandered from section 5, so that perhaps I may be allowed to do likewise. I should like to refer to section 6 in order to illustrate a point which has arisen in the discussion. Certain general powers are given to the commission under this section. Subsection (c) provides for the mobilizing of agencies for relief, both state and voluntary. It reads:
(c)	recommend to the minister effective means of mobilizing the agencies for relief both state and voluntary, and so coordinating their work as to avoid overlapping and abuses, and to secure a proper provision and auditing of expenditures of all moneys;
Subsection (d) reads:
(d)	investigate and report upon proposals for the carrying out of programs of public works and other projects to aid in providing employment;

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These are very general. The Prime Minister a moment ago, in inviting the leader of the opposition to observe the distinction between the two, said, "In this bill we provide for specific purposes." I suggest to the Prime Minister that there is no reference in this bill to specific purposes; they are very general. What are these proposals for public works and other projects? What are these effective means of mobilizing agencies for relief? And further, where is the long range plan of national development? I am not saying this in a critical spirit, but I do believe it would be far better for this parliament to lay down certain definite projects such as I have referred to-for instance, reforestation and an adequate housing program, which I do not regard as sufficient under the present housing act, and a definite program as well with respect to other measures that might be undertaken.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Let me say at once that is exactly what we are going to do. My hon. friend has evidently not noticed, and unfortunately perhaps did not hear, the references to Bill No. 19, which is to follow this present measure.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I have read it.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Bill No. 19 is to assist in the relief of unemployment, the promoting of agricultural settlement and rehabilitation, and in the development, conservation and improvement of certain natural and other resources. When we come to that bill all these projects to which the hon. gentleman has referred, will be set out and no doubt very fully discussed. The bill before us deals simply with a national employment commission which will have supervision over all these projects. It will be an advisory body to assist the government with respect to them and other expenditures for relief and employment so as to ensure that all will be properly supervised and correlated.


Henry Herbert Stevens: With all due deference to the Prime Minister's interpretation of Bill No. 19, I regret to say that I cannot read into that bill any such specific references. I have read Bill No. 19, and in fact I was torn between the wish to discuss this matter under the bill now before us and to postpone until we have reached Bill 19 the remarks I have to make in this regard. What I am getting at is this. There is no denying that under this bill, by section 10, the governor in council is given extremely wide powers, and I am not quarreling with that; I do not criticize the government for taking these powers. I do say however that it would be infinitely better if, in taking these powers, the government intimated in a more specific way than it has
done here the general lines which relief was to take. Let me indicate why I have some apprehensions. A few moments ago the Minister of Labour said, "It is hoped that this will be only a temporary measure." What can you do towards a long range plan of national development or the carrying out of programs of public works and other projects when the very essence of your bill, the very essence of your policy is, as has been said on several occasions during this debate, that this is but a passing or temporary measure?


Norman McLeod Rogers: I think my hon. friend will agree that I used the word temporary in contradistinction to the permanence involved in the civil service. Obviously it is a relative term.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Yes, but I go back to the preamble, in which I find this language:
-until such time as the normal revival of trade and industry will absorb a large percentage of unemployed workers.
Here again we have an indication that the government is resting its hope of a solution of the Canadian economic and social problem of to-day upon the time when there will be a normal revival of trade. Over and over again this session members of the government have pointed out that external trade is to be the solution of our internal problems. As far as I am able to do so, I wish to warn the Prime Minister and his colleagues that, in my opinion at any rate, they are leaning on a broken reed when they depend upon external trade to solve our internal problems, and I will venture to indicate briefly my reason for that statement. There is scarcely a country in the world, in the last six or seven years, and some of them for a period of about twelve years-starting with Italy, France and Germany-which has been a market for Canadian products, that has not put on high tariffs, quotas, inhibitions, prohibitions and other measures of impediment to embarrass the operation of a definite policy or, to use the language that has been used here, a long range policy. The long range policy of these countries has been to build up within their own national boundaries a self-sufficiency in relation to articles which we have been in the habit of exporting to them. Look at the price of wheat to-day, 78, May wheat, in spite of the fact that the world is supposed to be trembling on the brink of an international conflagration. In spite of that fact wheat is 78, dropping steadily. The government has been in office five months. What has been its experience in regard to the enlarging of the markets of the world for the sale of our wheat? I am
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not saying this critically; I am not blaming them, there is no blame attached. But I do say that there is no use ramming our heads against a stone wall and doing so blindly. You will not find within the ambit of increased external trade solution of your internal unemployment problem; you cannot find it there. It is for that reason that I am a bit perturbed about the general policy of this bill, and it discloses itself in these clauses that we are at present considering: it discloses itself in the financial measures provided for; it discloses itself in the preamble and in the language both of the Prime Minister and of the Minister of Labour. While I do not intend and in fact have never intended to oppose the bill at all-I wish the minister well with it-I think we should only be deluded, this would be a sorry house a year from now, if we leaned upon this bill as a solution.
Again, I suggest to the Prime Minister that it would be far better if in this measure or in its companion measure, which does not contain any such provision, we set forth clearly in the first place a certain program of nation wide leadership in housing. Scarcely a day passes that I do not talk with fairly eminent authorities on that subject, and yet there is no leadership anywhere in the country. Take Toronto. Two years or more ago under the leadership of the lieutenant governor of the province an investigation was made and certain findings were reported with regard to housing. But nothing has been done-or little; put it that way. In Montreal a very able body of business men and public spirited citizens made a complete survey of the situation there-that was over two years ago-and a report was made. But nothing practical has been done. Right in Ottawa all you have to do is to walk down Sparks street and Bank street, particularly Bank street, and you will see buildings standing because there is a building on each side that will not let them fall down. There are a dozen of them within a few blocks right on the main business thoroughfare of this city. Then there is no effort being made in the country. The housing bill of last session had some merit, but what has become of it? A return was brought down the other day showing that some $800,000 had been put out since that bill was brought into operation. Eight hundred thousand dollars, when we know that this country is behind in its housing to the extent of hundreds of millions of dollars! I am not talking about the government, but Canada could spend forthwith several hundred million dollars and not catch up to its normal housing requirements, to say nothing about

slum clearance or up to date housing in the modem sense. If we embarked on a modernization of Canadian city life in the way of housing it would take us ten years to catch up, and I think we could absorb most of the unemployed. Yet there is no leadership anywhere on this subject-none. Nothing is being done.
Read what is happening elsewhere. In London the county council undertook a few years ago a scheme of housing. They dealt with several of the worst slums, but I have one particularly in mind: they tore it down and rebuilt it and opened up new streets and new thoroughfares, and the whole thing is paying a handsome return to-day on the cost of the project. You can go to a score of great cities and many smaller ones in Great Britain and there see what has been done. We know the record of Sweden. We know the records of many of the European countries. I saw the other day what has been done in Russia, although I am not saying that we should pattern ourselves after Russia. Look where you will: go to South America, to Uruguay, to Peru, to Ecuador, look at the photographs of the handsome cities that have been built there in recent years, and then turn to a bird's eye view of Toronto or Montreal or Vancouver or Winnipeg or Ottawa, with its unsightly buildings, its old-fashioned poles with their wiring stretched hither and thither all over the place. And yet we say there is nothing we can do for the unemployed of Canada.
I was extremely sorry when I read the preamble of this bill and heard it referred to as a temporary measure, as something that we hope we will get rid of very quickly. I hope the Minister of Labour will not think I am unduly critical, because I greatly admire the spirit in which he has taken hold of his department. But in the first speech he delivered, which I think was in November, he referred to this exact point, his expectation that the increase of external trade would rapidly solve this problem, so that it would be removed from us. I say to him and to the government that you cannot overcome unemployment in Canada or anywhere else through the influence at the present day of external trade conditions. For instance, what effect is external trade going to have upon some hundred and fifty thousand structural workers-carpenters, masons, plumbers, painters-who are out of employment? I suppose if the government were successful in this one year in increasing the export of grain to such an extent as to reduce the carry-over from 200 million to 125 million bushels, they would consider they had achieved something wonder-

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ful, and I would say they had. But what will happen if you have this year a normal crop in Canada? It is almost amusing, although tragic, that in the last year or two we have managed to escape a catastrophe in connection with our wheat because providence did not smile on us in respect to wheat production. But suppose providence does smile on us, and we have a normal crop this year, I venture to say it will take all the ingenuity and skill and diplomacy and negotiating power of the government to sell even the crop that is brought on the market this year, or an equivalent amount. So much as regards wheat, which is one of the easiest products to move.
We have opened a market to the United States, and as I said before, I am quite willing to give the government some credit for that. But is it going to make a very material difference to the export of our cattle? Or take the newsprint business; are you going to increase your exports in that line? Where? Tell me where. What the government did in the agreement with the United States was to save us from having duties put against newsprint; and it was a mighty good thing; but are you going to increase the export of newsprint? You might enlarge it a little. If the United States has a period of boom, wherein advertising will be spread over two pages instead of one, there may be an increased demand for newsprint, but I question very much whether it will be accelerated in any large measure. Timber is another of our great exports. Where are you going to sell more of it? If the government can maintain to the United Kingdom, to Australia, and to China the average volume of export that has been taking place for the last five years, it will do mighty well. There is not much room there. Can you increase the export of canned salmon, another important item? Where are you going to sell it? Can you increase the export of manufactured goods? Look what Japan is doing. In respect of rubber products, for instance, such as boots, tennis shoes, belting, tires, she is already driving us out of our markets. Have you any expectation of recovering those markets? I am almost certain that you cannot do it.
And so one goes down the list. In my opinion, Mr. Chairman, and I suggest it is one that the committee should keep in mind, we shall have to fight to hold the markets we have, and if the government is able to maintain them I think it will have done very well; certainly I shall not be critical of them. But that will not solve the unemployment of four hundred thousand people. That is not going to deal with the
great social and economic problems of Canada. I believe we have in this country the elements which will largely contribute to the solution of this problem, but leadership is required, and that leadership must come from Ottawa and nowhere else. I have looked over the provinces, and I recognize the difficulties their governments have to face, but I do not think the solution of this problem is to be found in leadership that will be given by the provinces. Read down the list. The Ontario legislature, the senior provincial house in Canada, is about to prorogue; according to this morning's paper they hope to get through in a week. Show me what they have done this session. Quebec has only got under way, but as far as I can judge there is not much likelihood of any solution coming out of Quebec. The Alberta legislature, I think, prorogued during the last day or two. Its government has been treated with a good deal of scorn throughout the country, but it may well be that Mr. Aber-hart, in his attempt to attack the debt problem-whether he is right or wrong, whether his action is good or bad-will have shown about the only practical effort to solve these problems. Point to a single province that has any proposal for the purpose of meeting them. I have not seen it.
Let me point out what it will mean if this parliament is prorogued without our having anything more specific than we have in this bill; let me show how it will work. I refer to section 7, and I would ask the committee to follow me, because this must be read in connection with these other sections:
The commission shall, under the direction of the minister, supervise the expenditure of funds voted by parliament for purposes of relief and providing employment, and perform such administrative duties with respect to relief and employment as may be assigned to it from time to time by the governor in council.
What does that mean, translated into common, everyday language, into the practice of government? It simply means this: The commission will proceed to examine, inquire, analyze, study statistics and make a report. That is its first duty, and that is the first cycle. Then the government will receive and study that report and will determine what it is going to do. That is the next cycle, and that will take some time. That will take probably eight or nine months at the least, and it is possible that some time about the middle of next session the government will bring to parliament a supply vote, under the Prime Minister's system, to give effect to some of these recommendations. Then it will
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dawdle along and be debated, discussed and argued here until the prorogation of parliament. Then when parliament prorogues next year the ministers will be tired and will want to take a little rest, and it is never until about September that they get down to work. Am I right or wrong?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Wrong.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Then there has been a
revolution under this government, or shall I say a conversion, a sort of sanctification, if I might use that word, and I congratulate the government. No, the normal process is that after prorogation occurs, in the summer months, very little is done until about September. Then the scheme will be put into operation, and the commission will supervise the expenditures, but at the very best it will be a year before effective measures can be worked out. I quite agree that there may be some smaller things that can be done in the meantime. The Prime Minister says some
550.000.	000 will be voted, or more. I hope it will be more, but the mere voting of
850.000.	000 or of $100,000,000 does not mean that this amount of money has been put into operation and that the effect of the expenditure of that money has been or will be secured.
I am not suggesting that this council is an unwise thing at all. I think it should have been in operation years ago; it would have been better if something of the kind had been provided, but I do not know that it is necessary to appoint a commission from outside. I think the Prime Minister, with his powers as such, could have summoned men right in the service at the present time. I could name a dozen such men he could summon who would make up just as good a commission as he will ever get anywhere. Be that as it may, this commission may be a good thing; I am not criticizing it, but I do say that we must not and cannot look for very much progress unless parliament will give the government a definite mandate, and I should like to see parliament give the government definite instructions that the will of parliament is that certain steps should be taken with regard to reforestation, building and a number of other smaller projects.
In connection with building, so that I may not be misunderstood, let me say that I am told by concerns that usually invest money in mortgages that they are extremely anxious to secure outlets for their money at the present time. So I believe that with the leadership of government-and I think it must be the leadership of this government-steps could be taken that would be of a definite and progressive nature.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: When my hon. friend from Kootenay East began his remarks I hoped that it might be possible for me to follow him and reply consecutively to the different points he raised. However, he improvised quite a little as he went along, and touched on so many subjects that I hope he will forgive me if I do not deal with all the topics to which he has referred.
Coming back to the bill itself, if I recall it ai'ight his first criticism was that since the bill does not contain a clause fixing a definite time limit, for the commission, the commission might run on forever and might incur all kinds of expenditures. In reply to that criticism may I say to my hon. friend that the bill does not provide any money for the commission. That will have to be provided by parliament, and following the method of parliamentary control which we believe to be the proper method we will ask parliament to give a vote for one year and one year only. That is the way in which parliament will have control over the commission and its work. It will ensure that before further moneys are voted this house will be fully informed as to how the moneys voted for the commission the previous year were spent and what amount is absolutely necessary. I want to make it very clear that the government is imposing upon itself a very definite restriction in adopting the method of parliamentary control which we believe to be right and proper. I submit that nothing could better exemplify the need for us to get back to a realization of what relief measures are costing Canada than the speech, which has been made just now, by my hon. friend. That is one reason, I may say quite frankly, why the government proceeded with the appointment of a national commission by means of a bill instead of following the course which had been taken by the previous administration and which might have been taken by this administration under the legislation enacted last session. We might have appointed the commission before parliament met. The blank cheque was there; the authority was there to do anything that was necessary in order to deal with unemployment and relief matters. We felt that to follow such a course would be to deprive parliament of the opportunity of discussing fully this whole question of unemployment, and to deprive the country of the opportunity of getting, through parliament, the information which it ought to have and which it should have had, year by year, with respect to the extent of unemployment and also with respect to the cost to the

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country of the various measures intended to relieve unemployment and provide employment.
That is why we have come here with this measure. The power of the commission, as I say, will expire with the appropriation voted by parliament. The government hopes that this commission will not have to continue for very long. I am afraid, however, that now we are getting a truer perspective of the extent of unemployment and of what have been the consequences of the manner in which the whole question has been dealt with by municipalities, provinces and the dominion, all three together, in the last four or five years, it may be that we shall see that this problem is not going to be solved as soon as a good many had hoped it might. At any rate one thing which will help bring about a solution, sooner than otherwise would be the case is a procedure whereby the country will be fully informed as to all phases of the question, through parliament being permitted the fullest discussion of every measure intended to deal with it.
The next point mentioned by my hon. friend was the danger he saw under this legislation, of projects being started and, of necessity, being continued from year to year. My hon. friend evidently thinks the commission may embark upon projects likely to extend over a considerable period of time so that parliament in future sessions will be committed to large expenditures - which it cannot control. I am sorry to have to inform the house that such is exactly what the present administration has had to face in considering what measures it would be most advisable to submit to parliament at this session in dealing with this question. The other evening I spoke of some $50,000,000 which might be involved in the various projects for relief and employment. I was thinking, at that time, of the program which the present administration had in mind respecting measures the government itself would initiate, measures which would be related to its own policies, some of which would be a continuation of policies of the previous administration. But when I made that statement I did not take into account an expenditure of something like another $25,000,000, to which the country is already committed, through projects started by the previous administration either last year or in previous years. These if not continued and brought to completion will now have to be abandoned altogether with consequent loss of all outlays already made upon them.
I venture to say that if instead of taking a free hand, under orders in council, to enter
upon all kinds of projects, whether they were committing the country to one, two, three or four years of expenditure, the previous government had obliged itseif or been obliged to come to parliament, as we are coming, to explain each project, the country would not have found itself in such a difficult position as it is in at present.
May I give an example: some of the projects partially completed have to do with great buildings for police and military purposes. The expenditures for the erection of barracks, and the like run into hundreds of thousands, yes, into millions of dollars. Those projects are partially under way. The policy of this government is to consider many other matters as being more important than that of increasing the number of military and police buildings in Canada. Either we have now to leave those projects where they are, one-half or one-third completed as the case may be, or ask parliament for additional appropriations in order to bring about their completion. That is the situation, even though we may feel that the equivalent amount of money could be spent more profitably in giving employment along lines which would provide the nation with social assets of much greater importance than those of the class I have mentioned. I hope that one of the effects of restoring to parliament a proper control over expenditures for relief, for providing employment and for other purposes, will be that each particular project may be carefully scrutinized, and if it does not commend itself to the wisdom of the house it may then be withdrawn. At any rate before we are hereafter committed to expenditure in the name of relief which in reality are expenditures for military and police purposes, there will be an opportunity for parliament to have something to say. Parliament at least will have a chance to have its word. I point this out as another aspect of the legislation before us which differentiates it from what we have had in the past.
May I put the matter to the house in another way, so that not only the hon. member who has just spoken but all hon. members who did not hear what was said at an earlier stage with respect to measures which are related may have as complete a picture as possible before them. Perhaps I could not better disclose the purposes behind the introduction of the measure, setting up a national employment commission, than to reverse the order in which the bills are being introduced in the house. Assume that instead of introducing it as the third measure relating to the provision of employment and the relief of unemployment, the special supply bill to which I made reference the other evening and
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which I stated would total $50,000,000-I would possibly have been nearer the mark had I said $75,000,000-had been introduced first. Under those circumstances the house would now have had before it all the various projects upon which the government is asking for appropriatons. Those appropriations on the one hand would serve to provide employment obviating to that extent the necessity for relief, and on the other would provide what may be necessary for relief, notwithstanding all that it may be sought to do to provide employment. Let us assume that the amount were $75,000,000, an appropriation very much larger than the total appropriation for the whole of Canada not many years ago. The several items which go to make up this total will come before the House of Commons. I said the other evening that I hoped the bill might be brought down before Easter, but the government has come to the conclusion it would be preferable to bring these estimates down immediately after Easter and start then with a consideration of the various projects. The measure is virtually completed now, and I can give that much information with regard to it. It will set out what the government proposes to spend for purposes of relief and with respect to the various projects which will involve the provision of work for those now out of employment, as for example, public works, public buildings, highway construction, reforestation, housing and the like. There will be provision for what it is proposed to spend in cooperation with the provinces, in connection with the various projects they are undertaking. It will involve a vast scheme of public work. To a certain extent the various projects are related, but to a very large degree there is no coordinating plan behind them at all, as will be clear with respect at least to the $25,000,000 for the continuation of work already under way and the work of the provinces and municipalities.
The next measure is one which will give the government power to take the necessary action with respect to these appropriations, once they are made. That will come up for discussion under the next measure to be introduced when this one has passed the house, namely the act to assist in the relief of unemployment, the promoting of agricultural settlement and rehabilitation, and in the development, conservation and improvement of certain natural and other resources.
Let us assume, for the moment, that those two measures have already passed. What would we then have before us? The house would have before it a special supplementary

supply bill, equal in its total amount, as I have said, to the total expenditures of Canada only a few years ago. It would have before it the various projects on which these amounts are to be expended. If that amount of money is to be spent most effectively and in a manner which will avoid loss and waste it will require the attention of some body, other than a single department of government, which can supervise the expenditures and see that the projects are properly coordinated not only in relation to each other but in relation as well to what is going on in the provinces, in the municipalities and in private industry.
That is the purpose of the commission. It is not to take responsibility away from any department of government. The work to be done will be carried out under the several government departments, but there will be one body which shall have power to supervise all the work and to see that it is properly correlated in affording the employment anticipated; also to advise the government with respect to what may be desirable courses to pursue. Not only that, the commission will have power to take a similar bird's-eye view with respect to what is being done to provide employment and relief in each and all of the provinces, what is being done in municipalities, and what is and may be done by private industry.
The hon. member for Kootenay East (Mr. Stevens) has just said that if we are going to wait until trade and industry revive we will never solve the problem. May I say to him that if trade and industry do not revive the problem will not be solved, but will become infinitely worse. Surely my hon. friend does not mean to say that for all time to come-


Henry Herbert Stevens: The right hon. gentleman has not correctly stated what I said.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I think I stated the implication which may be taken from the hon. member's words. He read the preamble to the bill which stated that these measures were necessary, pending a revival of trade and industry. I sincerely hope and believe that industry and trade, through one cause and another, will revive. Perhaps it may not revive as quickly as some of us expect and as all of us hope. At any rate unless the industrial problem is solved through a revival of industry and trade the only alternative will be for parliament to go on voting indefinite amounts of money. How is it going to be possible for that process to be kept up indefinitely? Does my hon. friend take exception to that view?

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Henry Herbert Stevens: If I may interrupt, I
think the right hon. gentleman has incorrectly interpreted my views in his last observation, when he says that if trade and industry do not revive the only alternative is to vote moneys for relief. That is the very point of difference between myself and the right hon. gentleman and the government. I claim that there are other methods, and it is these other methods I had hoped the government might have invoked.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: What methods are there, other than trade and industry furnishing employment, and public bodies voting public funds? I stand by that statement. We may have different views as to how industry and trade can best be revived, that is a subject on which we admit there is room for discussion, but I come back to what I said before, that the alternatives are, unemployment being solved through revival of trade and industry, by whatever method that is to be brought about, and public bodies voting public moneys. If we have to look to the latter as the solution, then a further question arises very quickly, how in the absence of the revival of trade and industry are public bodies going to get the amount of money required to sustain a nation that is unemployed? We have to remember in respect to what comes out of the public treasury that it is all money collected from people who it is assumed have earned it somehow.


Mr. MITCHELL:: Or borrow it.


Mr. PELLETIER:: Would that not be a
debt?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I do not think my hon. friends could carry on the business of the country very long by simply borrowing on the basis of increasing debt.


Archibald Hugh Mitchell: That is correct.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: There is no
doubt that up to a certain point governments can more or less mortgage the future. But as all hon. members know, even mortgages will not hold out indefinitely. And it is the same with a country as with individuals. This country is faced at the present time with a very serious question, namely, how much more debt it can go on incurring and hope to keep the nation in a position where its normal activities can be continued in a peaceful and progressive way.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Hear, hear.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: That is why
I say to my hon. friends the government feel that, while all of us-all hon. members
of this house-are anxious to make every contribution we can to this question, unless there is in addition to the departments of government as they exist and are manned to-day, some body which will be specially qualified and specially instructed to supervise the work of relief and employment as is being dealt with by provinces and municipalities as well as the dominion, it is not going to be possible for this House of Commons. or this country, ever to get a true picture of the situation. The first way to get this question solved is to get the picture in its entirety. The hon. member for Kootenay (Mr. Stevens) has cited as an example the matter of housing, he says, let us have some leadership on housing, and he refers to what is being done in Toronto and Montreal. May I ask, is not what my hon. friend says an exemplification of the wisdom of having a national employment commission. Such a body in its reports and recommendations will be able to place not only before this parliament but before every provincial legislature and every municipality a statement of what is being done with respect to housing in different parts of Canada, and what should and can be done. If you are going to have a plan, with respect to housing, which is to be more or less nationwide, this federal government cannot impose it on provinces and municipalities, where their moneys are to be made contributory to that object. But it can through the means suggested bring about a great cooperative effort with respect to housing, with respect to slum clearance, with respect to a forestation, and all the various matters which have been referred to, including great public works, the development of highways and the like. Such a body would give all its time and thought to the one question of employment and relief and present the results of careful investigation and study of the whole situation and the facts of the case to various representative bodies and to the press of the country for their information and guidance.


Mr. WOODSWORTH:: On what ground
does the Prime Minister believe that the provinces will follow the lead of a commission appointed by the dominion any more than they would the lead of a department of the dominion?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Only this, that at the conference which the dominion had with the provinces they all expressed approval of this method of coordinating dominion and provincial work. Not only did they approve but they requested that a body
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such as this should be formed. May I say, that in all these matters we have to rely as to the best course upon, what maybe regarded as reasonable in the minds of reasonable people. I am sure of this, that if provinces and municipalities are unwilling to allow their efforts towards relieving unemployment to be correlated with dominion effort or vice versa, the public of this country will not feel that the dominion government should go on voting public moneys to be spent in any sort of way. We have got now to where it is absolutely necessary that all public bodies should know what other public bodies are spending and how they are spending it, and they seek to get some uniformity of method and standards with respect to relief and the conditions under which public moneys are to be given for purposes of employment. That is simply a reasonable attitude to take towards a problem which has assumed vast proportions and which if it is to be presented to public bodies, as it should be presented, will require something in the nature of the advisory and supervisory powers such as this national commission will, we hope, afford.


Archibald Hugh Mitchell: May I ask the Prime
Minister, if trade and industry do not revive as he has expressed the hope and desire that they will, and taxation and borrowing for relief purposes become increasingly unbearable until they are finally impossible, what then is the solution that the Prime Minister would have to offer?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I hope that situation will never arise. If unfortunately it should arise, of course this House of Commons will have to consider it, and it will be very thankful to my hon. friend for any solution he can offer under those circumstances.


Archibald Hugh Mitchell: May I suggest that that situation is just about here now.


Charles Avery Dunning: On the point mentioned by the hon. member for Kootenay East (Mr. Stevens) I should like to say a word, because a wrong impression, one which I am sure he did not intend, might be caused by his words, particularly with respect to two matters. One is that of leadership, and the other that of housing. With regard to leadership, possibly my view would differ from his as to the extent of leadership which it is practicable and sound for a legislative body such as this to give in connection with the ordinary business and industrial activities of our people. I can link that up with the housing experience of Great Britain, which has been referred to many times during this session. The

British parliament endeavoured through five sessions and by five different methods to give leadership in housing through various forms of state aid. Housing has proceeded in Great Britain at a greater rate and is recognized as being more progressive than in any other country in the world. Only a very small proportion of the housing is being carried on under the various state schemes now in operation in Great Britain. The great bulk of it has been carried forward by the degree of confidence and leadership inherent in the people themselves, by the abolition of fear and the creation of confidence in the minds of men and women who have a little money, who need a home, to spend that little money in cooperation with the money of the state, possibly, in order to acquire that which they need. That is the sort of leadership we need in this country. We need confidence on the part of those who could do things by cooperation if only they did not fear so much.
We hear questions such as those asked of the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) by the last speaker: "If this goes on1'; "if this gets worse"; "if taxes rise," "if debts increase"; "if industry gets worse, what will happen"? WThen questions like that are asked in this House of Commons they have the effect of instilling fear instead of hope in the minds of our people. I believe we can generate in this house leadership of a type to instil confidence in our people who have the ability to cooperate with each other and with governments. I believe we can instil confidence in such measures as this parliament passes, for instance the housing act. I admit that this act is not perfect, but surely it is a little premature for criticism. Little was possible under its provisions prior to the coming into office of this government five months ago, and it was necessary to do a great deal of negotiating and ironing out which is still going on. I am pleased to report that the applications for housing loans are steadily increasing day by day and week by week. I do not expect them to get under way with lightning speed and if they did I would suspect that something was going wrong. They are getting under way and along with that improvement is the evidence of improvement in housing outside the scope of the act, such as is the case in Great Britain.
I agree with the hon. member for Kootenay East (Mr. Stevens) that we need leadership, but if we sow the idea that leadership in the actual executive work of business and industry must all originate in this chamber or with government, I do not believe we will ever get anywhere. Our people are noted for

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their ability to stand on their own feet and to strike out for themselves provided that they have the legislative freedom with which to act. I believe it ought to be our highest duty at this time to provide measures such as the one under discussion, and others such as the housing act and others of that kind, to set our people free in order that they may work out their own salvation and stand on their own feet.


Jean-François Pouliot: Mr. Chairman, I rise to a point of order. We are on section 5 which relates to the appointment of a secretary, and that is far away from housing. I think the discussion should be kept more in order. It would be more relevant to section 6, but section 5 should be passed first.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My hon. friend is an authority on points of order so I do not wish to differ with him. However, I submit that while a great deal of latitude has been allowed speakers thus far, it is all to the good and has been done with the consent of the committee. The subject is necessarily one that can better be discussed by dealing with several phases at a time. In the long run we may shorten the time involved in the discussion if we allow a little latitude at certain stages. Unless my hon. friend is very much aggrieved, I hope he will join with others in permitting that freedom.


Jean-François Pouliot: I will surely agree to that provided that I enjoy the same privileges as others.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Housing in Great Britain has been heavily subsidized and I should like to ask the Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning) if he does not consider that the confidence that has grown up there is not largely the result of the initiative of the government in connection with many of these matters and in connection with the lowering of interest rates? The minister suggests that it is dangerous not to express full confidence, but is not one of the reasons for that the fact that the present government refuses to assume any further commitments, such as to help the blind, saying that it has no money? If the government admits that it has no money, is it any -wonder that some of us ask how long this thing will go on?


Charles Avery Dunning: I shall try to answer that. I think it is true that the stimulus given by the British government schemes has been important, particularly in connection with schemes which could not be handled otherwise than through the agency of government, notably certain schemes for slum clearances, *but the building of a home for an individual citizen is-


Mr. HEAPS:: That was subsidized.


Charles Avery Dunning: Unquestionably the old-fashioned British building society has been the backbone of the building program.


Henry Herbert Stevens: The acceleration of investment by private capital in building in Great Britain followed upon the great refinancing scheme of the British government whereby government bond interest was lowered to two and a half per cent. This freed a huge amount of money which sought investment in more profitable lines, and that gave the main stimulus to the building program. Of course the initial steps were taken by the government in giving subsidies.


Charles Avery Dunning: There may be a difference of view as to detail and degree, but this does not affect the main issue which I was seeking to convey. Apart from what the British government did, the British people, British industry and the British lending institutions took hold. They did not sit back and wait for the government to do this, to subsidize them here and subsidize them there-


Abraham Albert Heaps: They did what the minister says they did not do.


Charles Avery Dunning: They did not sit back; they went ahead and built houses.


Abraham Albert Heaps: When they got subsidies and not before.


James Shaver Woodsworth: The minister did not answer my second question with regard to confidence.


Charles Avery Dunning: I shall be glad to do that. I have said in this house before-and I will say it often again-that there must always be a limit to the extent to which money can be taken from all of us citizens of Canada to be given to some of us citizens of Canada. It is a question as to how close to that limit we have arrived at the present time and as to the wisdom of going on with this or that scheme which will increase the amount taken from all of us to be given to some of us. My hon. friend and I may not agree as to the wisdom of going forward with this or that particular proposal, but I am sure he will agree with me that rve cannot go on indefinitely taking from all of us to give to some of us.
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Angus MacInnis: There is no doubt that the statement made by the Minister of Finance is quite true. There is a limit to our taking from some of us to give to all of us.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


Angus MacInnis: That is what it is because fifteen per cent of the people of Canada have nothing that you can take from them.


Charles Avery Dunning: Nonsense; it is being taken from them every day in the form of taxation.


Angus MacInnis: You cannot tax the
1,500,000 people you are going to deal with by this unemployment measure.


Charles Avery Dunning: They pay taxes every
day.


Angus MacInnis: But they are paying taxes only out of what you first pay them. But there is no limit to the use which the people of Canada can make of the resources of Canada to provide food, clothing and shelter for themselves. That is all we are asking the government to do. What it ought to do is to organize the people in the production of food, clothing and shelter so that we should not be concerned with borrowing money from somebody else for the purpose. The whole trouble lies in the fact that we have left our means of production in the hands of a few, and after we have produced we have to go hat in hand to these few and ask for a little share of what we have produced.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: In order that
we may make some progress towards a solution of the problem, may I ask the hon. gentleman whether he suggests that this parliament-I confine it to this parliament- should begin to take over some of the industries of the country? If so, does he propose that we should take them over arbitrarily or pay for them?


Angus MacInnis: The first question is,
do I suggest that the government of this country should take over the industries?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: This parliament.


Angus MacInnis: I am not concerned particularly with what the government will do; I am not outlining this government's policy; it is the government's policy. But I say that the first thing the government of a country should consider is this:	What should be the
purpose of the industries of a country? Is the purpose of industry to produce the things that the people need? If that be so, then the government should say to the owners of

industry:	It is up to you to operate your
industry to produce these things, and if you don't we will. How you will take the industries over is not of great importance. When you required the people of the country to protect its interests on the battlefields of Flanders you took hundreds of thousands of the people and did not guarantee that they would return, and you have not looked after some of them -well since. When you deal with the industrial problem, with respect to the needs of the people, on the same basis as you dealt with the people in time of war, you will have the Canadian people behind you in whatever action you take.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: So that we
may move along practical lines, what particular group of industries does the bon. gentleman recommend that the government should begin with? What are they to produce? What are we to tell them to produce?


Angus MacInnis: As I said before, I am
not paid for advising this government; that is a matter for the government itself to find out. If I were a member of the government I would have suggestions to make in that regard. But first of all the government should inquire what the people who are in distress to-day need, and how those needs will be met.


Norman McLeod Rogers: The hon. gentleman speaks of inquiring as to what the people need. Does he mean to say that this country within itself must produce all that the people need?


Angus MacInnis: No, certainly not. We
have a surplus of a great many things in this country-


Norman McLeod Rogers: What will you do with
them?


Angus MacInnis: We would exchange them for the surpluses of other countries.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Angus MacInnis: You do not have to accept all this; it is merely my opinion. We could exchange our surplus for the surplus products of other countries, the things they have too much of. But the point is this: There is no reason in the world why people in Canada who want for bread should not have it, because we have enough wheat. There is no reason why they should need houses, because we have enough material to build houses. There is no reason why they should want for many things. A young man of twenty-five came into my office to-day. He had come to Ottawa, having got a job, but he had nothing to keep him until pay-day, so he was obliged to go every

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day at noon, and beg someone for some lunch so that he could go and finish his day's work, and he had to go again and beg for something to keep him until the next morning. Now the Prime Minister speaks about the cost in money; what about the cost in human life?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I have been speaking about both.


Angus MacInnis: The Prime Minister did not, but I assume he thinks of both as much as I do. At any rate, this young man, a very fine young fellow, said to me, "I didn't mind it at first, but I have been forced into the position in which I have to come and ask for help." This is a man who has been demoralized because the industries of the country will not give him an opportunity to make a living.


Mr. KUHL:: May I ask the Prime Minister a question? Is it necessary for the dominion government to go into debt for any public works projects, no matter to what extent?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: If I were to judge by the past, I should say that apparently it has not been thought so, because the public debt is pretty large as a consequence of many projects.


Walter Frederick Kuhl: Is it necessary?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I am inclined to think it is with respect to many projects, yes. Does my hon. friend think otherwise? If so, can he tell us how to escape debt if we go into unlimited expenditure?


Walter Frederick Kuhl: I was asking the Prime Minister the question.


Mr. McGEER:: This discussion is beginning to get into the atmosphere of generalities, out of which very little is likely to come, but I should like to supplement the remarks I made on the second reading of the bill with one or two observations on what now appears to be of paramount importance. That is so, because of the very limited amount of money that is to be supplied to this commission to carry on with. The assumption which justifies the appointement of the commission seems to be that the provinces and municipalities are going to be able to carry on financing unemployment relief in much the same way as they have financed it in the past. I say to the government in all seriousness, that is not so. The governments of the western provinces have been able to carry on during the last three years only because of the generosity of the federal government in lending money to the provincial governments. The cities in western Canada have carried on largely at the expense of deferring maintenance and expansion which 12739-117
is essential to the protection of the health and other securities of the people that live in those cities.
Now it must come with some measure of disturbance to the government to know that Alberta has defaulted on the payment of a loan which fell due, not because that provincial government was negligent in the imposition of taxes, nor because it was negligent in the use of the revenues that were available to that province. Alberta has no desire, on the part of either its government or its people, to repudiate its debts; on the contrary, it has shown that it is quite willing to have the ideas of the existing government with respect to social credit stand aside until that government, with the assistance of competent, orthodox financial and economic authority, exhausts every possible channel through which the means of meeting its obligations and balancing its budgets can be sustained.
I might be permitted perhaps to speak as the mayor of Vancouver. Recently I went to the government of British Columbia and said to that government: We have exhausted the revenue resources of the city; our taxes on real estate are now above the danger point; and notwithstanding reductions in assessment values, the reduction in the mill rate, last year there were 12,000 parcels of land, 4,000 of them improved, that were offered on the delinquent list for taxes, and had we held a tax sale not one of them would have been sold. Under such circumstances we cannot balance the budget as we are requested to do under the city's charter. And I was told that the province was in the same boat. How, then, can the cities and the provinces carry on? It is all very well for the federal government to say: We are not responsible for provincial and municipal debts; we cannot assume, along with the burden we are carrying, the responsibilities of the finances of the junior branches of government. It is all very well to say: If you cannot pay you must submit to terms at our dictation or be allowed to go into default. I am inclined to think the excerpt I read the other day from a speech of Sir Wilfrid Laurier properly envisages the position the federal and provincial governments are in to-day, and I want to put that position clearly before the committee. The seriousness and the danger of the situation is not a matter of idle conjecture. The plea of the council of Montreal to the legislature of Quebec to authorize that city arbitrarily to reduce its interest rate on existing bonds to three per cent was not born in a council chamber dominated by radicals or monetary reformers; it was born of the grim necessity that faces men charged

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with the responsibility of governing the city of Montreal, who, knowing that their sources of revenue have been exhausted, and knowing that there must be an adjustment in some way to reduce the appalling cost of debt service, were driven to the course they are following. Their plight is the same as that of the council of Vancouver and cities in Ontario are just as badly off. I understand that the Minister of Municipalities in Ontario has issued a letter calling upon municipalities or their representatives to appeal to their members in the House of Commons and the members of the senate to induce the government to increase rather than decrease the amount of unemployment relief.
Now, Mr. Chairman, the province of British Columbia is face to face with default. When I went to the government of British Columbia I was informed that on May 15 next we have a maturity coming due of a sum, I think, of some $3,500,000. For that reason, we are not in a position to fulfil the promise made a year ago to the municipalities of British Columbia to make adjustments which would relieve the municipal taxpayer and we can do nothing until we know what measures of financial assistance are coming to us from Ottawa." In Vancouver there is a budget deficit of roughly $2,000,000. How is that deficit going to be made up? Vancouver and Victoria will be forced to repudiate and to default. How, then, can they go on meeting their obligations to the unemployed unless the bond holder is sacrificed? That unhappy fate has come to municipal governments of the city of North Vancouver and the municipality of Burnaby which adjoin Vancouver. They defaulted. Receivers were put in, and what has been the result? Bond interest has not been paid. No provision has been made for the liquidation of maturities coming due, but all the revenues, plus measures of extraordinary assistance from the provincial government, have been necessary to take care of the ordinary needs of those communities and of the unemployed within these limits.
Let me say just a word upon this issue of the national responsibility to maintain a supply of revenue that will permit provincial and municipal governments to carry on. Sir Wilfrid Laurier said that Lower Canada would not have entered confederation unless there were guarantees that, without resort to direct taxation, revenues would be available to carry on provincial and municipal government. Now, if, after direct taxation has been resorted to-and nearly all our provinces have resorted to it in one form or another-the revenue available to provincial and municipal governments from what is left by national

authority is not sufficient in amount to permit provincial and municipal government to be sustained, then upon what ground, that paramount guarantee not having been maintained and fulfilled by parliament, are you going to insist that these provinces continue in confederation?
The men who drew the resolutions and laid down the constitution of this nation were careful to vest in provincial governments the power to demand the fulfilment of that guarantee. Under the sovereign jurisdiction of the provincial authority were placed and still remain the property and civil rights of the people living in the provinces. The power to deny the collection of a debt by one individual from another in the province is a power vested in the provincial authority. That power has already been exercised in one of the western provinces, under the administration of the government that was led by the present Minister of Agriculture. It was exercised through the debt adjustment act of Saskatchewan, under which act no man could collect a debt until he secured the sanction of a tribunal the authority of which came from the provincial government. How far, I ask, as a constitutional issue, does that power go? We know that it goes fully to the power to repudiate provincial and municipal debts. We know that it goes fully to the extent of permitting the provincial government to deny the right to collect an individual debt. How far does it go with reference to a moratorium on the power of a dominion tax collector to collect dominion taxes from a resident within a province? Yes, the Minister of Finance may laugh, but I want to say that when the time comes for issues of this kind-


Charles Avery Dunning: On a point of order, I
had no reference whatever to my hon. friend. Why does he interject, "Why does the Minister of Finance laugh"?


Gerald Grattan McGeer: I thought the hon. gentleman was laughing at me.


Charles Avery Dunning: I was not laughing at
my hon. friend. As my hon. friend puts on Hansard that I laughed at him, I just wish that to be clear.


Gerald Grattan McGeer: I am glad that the hon.
minister was not laughing at me, because I did not think it was a subject that would bring laughter from the face of any one at this particular time. I humbly apologize to the Minister of Finance for having left that inference, but I did see the minister smile.


Charles Avery Dunning: I was just reading a very amusing letter. Would my hon. friend like to read it?

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Gerald Grattan McGeer: I am surprised that the
occasion permits the hon. minister at this time to read amusing letters, although I must confess that that may be the attitude of the government. Representatives of the cities and representatives of the provinces may not be able to get a hearing at the present time. In any event, the point I want to draw-


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I think on
reflection my hon. friend will withdraw that. There has been no case where any municipality or any province has been refused a hearing. My hon. friend knows that.


Gerald Grattan McGeer: Well, I am not so sure
about that. Hearings can be given. But I want to say this with reference to my own city: We have a very unfortunate problem in that large numbers of unemployed people come from all parts of western Canada to the coast of British Columbia, and one of our most tragic occurrences was the strike in Vancouver against the relief camps. Although there is the agreement that the dominion government will take care of transient unemployed in British Columbia, there are in Vancouver to-day some eighty-four men of that class who are denied the right to go into the camps, and for whose assistance I have been requested to use the taxpayers' money. If I ever dared, as mayor of Vancouver, to open the city's treasury to that type of unemployment relief, we would be flooded with that many transients and that sort of relief far beyond the power of the city to care for. That is the kind of hearing we have been getting, and that is not the kind of hearing that is going to solve this problem successfully.
What I want to say to the government is this: We are in a much more serious position than many think, because I believe the provinces and the cities have come to a disastrous exhaustion of the revenues that are available to them. Let me say that in Vancouver the deferred maintenance account on waterworks and sewage systems has reached the point where the health of the community is threatened.


Richard Bedford Bennett: On pavements, too.


Gerald Grattan McGeer: On pavements, of course; I referred to the waterworks and sewage systems because they are the things that protect the community against pestilential disease. Our supply of pure water and our sewage system are the basis of our whole health organization in the city.
In Vancouver there are fifteen thousand people unemployed, or over thirty thousand including dependents, and anyone who thinks the situation is improving as to actual num-12739-1174
bers is overlooking the fact that as time goes on those with reserves of savings, who have been living on those reserves instead of going on relief, are exhausting their savings and falling into the relief category just as rapidly as others are being provided for. The same situation appeared across the line, and while some people say that the enormous expenditures made by the government of the United States to meet the unemployment problem have not been successful, I do not think anyone would dare suggest that if the extraordinary efforts of the Roosevelt administration had not been carried out the unemployment situation would not have been infinitely more severe than it was or is today.
Some measure, I believe, must be undertaken to rehabilitate our municipal and provincial financial structures. I know it is easy to say to me: Men like you have been responsible for the collapse of civic credit. Let me say just one word on that. When I came to the office of mayor I met an extraordinary situation. As a lawyer I felt that we should place the city's financial position before the bondholders; that we should ask the bondholders to examine our situation and should tell them frankly what we thought were our financial powers. We passed a plain resolution calling upon the bondholders to examine our financial structure, to recognize that we could not pay more than fifty per cent of the interest charges on the existing debt, and asking them to agree not to a repudiation but to a suspension of fifty per cent of the interest rates until such time as the civic finances could be adjusted, with provincial and federal assistance. That carried out a promise I made; I said that interest rates must come dowm, and that they would come down by agreement with the bondholders, or if not in that way, then by the power of the provincial legislature to reduce them by law, and if not in that way, then by virtue of the inevitable, bankruptcy. I went to the bondholders, and they refused. I went to the legislature, and it did not refuse. The legislature of British Columbia did not give me power to reduce the interest rate, but it did something more dangerous from the point of view of the bondholders, in that it gave me power to levy for the sinking fund requirements of the city and to use those sinking fund requirements to meet current expenses. That was not repudiation of interest, Mr. Chairman, but it was a definite repudiation of the security of principal. Did the legislature of British
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Columbia give the city council of Vancouver that extraordinary power because of any radicalism or dangerous conception of monetary reform? Not at all; it was the only way in which that city could carry through.
Yes, the city council increased the taxes of Montreal by $8,000,000 last year. Has that seen the city of Montreal through? Has borrowing in Winnipeg, in Toronto, in Montreal, to meet the most dangerous form of current expenditures, those for unemployment relief, solved the problem in those cities? Not at all; in those cities to-day the cost of financing borrowings for unemployment relief is almost as great as the annual cost of that relief. I have every reason to believe that as a result of the trade agreement negotiated between the United States and Canada much improvement will come about in the lumber industry of British Columbia, and that conditions will be very greatly improved in regard to that industry. But I want to go further and say that, splendid and all as that may be, there cannot be a solution of this problem unless a much greater responsibility is assumed by the federal government in the rehabilitation of the whole financial structure of the Dominion of Canada.
Now, let me say one further word. The right hon. Prime Minister asked some member on the other side of the house what industries this government should take over. Well, speaking as a Liberal, I thought we came here to take over from the Bank of Canada the industry of manufacturing Canadian capital. I want to go further and say that until such time as we are prepared to vest in the government of this dominion the power to create, issue and regulate currency and credit in terms of public need, there will be no solution of either the tax, the debt or the unemployment problems in the Dominion of Canada.
At six o'clock the committee took recess.
After Recess
The committee resumed at eight o'clock.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Mr. Chairman, I listened with great interest to the discussion this afternoon which apparently dealt with every phase of the measure before the committee. I find it necessary to correct at least some misapprehensions on the part of the right hon. gentleman. Surely he used to be very strong in his admonitions as to the care which should be taken in expressing views with respect to these matters. I therefore find it less excusable that

the misstatements made this afternoon should have been continued. Apart altogether from the desirability for accuracy characterizing discussions on questions of this kind one would have thought he would have been particularly careful, in view of the way he spoke the other evening about this matter, to be accurate in the observations he made to the committee this afternoon. It would be well to deal with one at once, without delay.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: What did I do the other evening?


Richard Bedford Bennett: In the language of one of my colleagues, I would advise him to read the speech.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My right hon. friend is surely confusing me in his mind with the Minister of Agriculture.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Not at all. They are not yet in the same class. I was about to observe that this afternoon I suggested to the Minister of Labour that he had made no provision for payment of the secretary, whereupon the Prime Minister said that the section had been copied from the statute dealing with the tariff board.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I beg my right hon. friend's pardon; I did not say "copied"; I said that it was a similar draft.


Richard Bedford Bennett: We will put it that way- a similar draft. I stand corrected, and I am glad the right hon. gentleman has corrected me. It was a similar draft, then. Now, that was calculated to leave in the minds of the committee one impression, namely that the statute creating the tariff board did not provide for the salary of the secretary. I turn to that statute, section 8, subsection 3, and read:
The secretary shall be paid an annual salary of $6,000.
That was the provision made by parliament in dealing with the matter. In these days one
has to rely upon one's memory and I am never certain of my memory. I did, however, have a recollection that such a provision was in the Tariff Board Act, and there it is. The provision about the secretary is that he shall be a secretary to the board, "who shall be appointed by the governor in council." Then, his duties are outlined, and there is then the provision that he shall be paid an annual salary of 86,000.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I was quoting the corresponding section to this one.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Yes; but if it had been left at that the impression would have gone out that in the Tariff Board Act no provision

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was made for the secretary, and I desired to point out that as the minister has not made provision for salary he has no power to fix salary, and has merely power of appointment. It would be taken to be an honorary position, under that circumstance.
There is the further statement that the section now before the committee does not provide for the payment of officers. In the Tariff Board Act-and I well recall the circumstances now, when my attention is directed to it-subsection 5 of section 7 provided:
(5) There shall be employed in the service of the board such officers, clerks and other employees as the board with the approval of the governor in council may see fit to appoint, and they shall respectively receive such salaries or remuneration as may be approved by the governor in council upon the recommendation of the board.
That is in the Tariff Board Act, chapter 55 of the statutes for 1931. So much for that phase of the matter.
I merely pointed out the desirability, in my judgment, since provision has been made for salaries for the board, that equally provision should be made for the payment of salaries to the secretary and officers, or others who may be employed.
The second point to which I wish to direct attention is concerning an observation of the Prime Minister as to the paucity of information furnished by the last Minister of Labour in the late administration. Whatever faults may have been found with the Minister of Labour in the former administration there is this to be said, that complete information as to the operation of all relief acts has been furnished not only to the House of Commons but in the printed forms for which I have sent, and which I now hold in my hand. The first is a report in regard to the Unemployment Relief Act of 1930, the second a report in regard to the Unemployment Relief Act of 1931, and then reports in regard to the acts of 1932, 1933, and 1934, all of which reports were made during the days of the late administration. I have forgotten to look for the report regarding the 1935 act. My recollection is that it was laid on the table.


Norman McLeod Rogers: It will be tabled in a few days.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Yes, it will be; I was wrong about that. The report for 1934 was prepared by the director, Mr. Hereford, and the form in which he presented the figures is the form which has been used ever since the beginning of the relief acts. These reports contain all the details, except two, furnished by the minister the other day. Possibly that is a little too strong; perhaps it should
be one and a half. They contain all the figures with respect to relief expenditures. These are classified in the annual reports. And in another sense the report of the Department of National Defence to the minister did contain a statement of the average length of time that single, unemployed men lived in the relief camps. But of course it was not brought down to date, as it was one day last week by the minister himself.
Therefore these reports contain the very information which the house has had placed before it in condensed form by the Minister of Labour. Perhaps it would be proper and right to say that he brought the information up to date, which obviously the report could not have done, because the operations of the act ceased on March 31, and a report could not be laid on the table until a suitable period had elapsed, so as to enable information to be collated, printed and published for the use of the house. I do not think any more complete information as to the operation of any series of statutes has ever been laid before parliament than that contained in these reports of the successive Ministers of Labour. The reports start with the act of 1930, and I am told by the minister that in a few days the report on the operations of the act of 1935 will be laid before the house. They contain not only details as to the number of people receiving relief, but also in detail a statement of the expenditures made from time to time, and an indication of how they were made in each of the several provinces of the confederation. The particulars are set out at length, and it will be recalled that in some circumstances they go into more detail. I will not do more than direct the attention of the committee to that point at this time.
The next point to which I direct the attention of the committee is one arising out of a statement made by the Prime Minister that the administration of the act, and the expenditures under that administration, were little short of a scandal; and he used the word ' scandal." If I turn to the last report, namely, that of the operations of The Relief Act, 1934, at page 7, these words will be found:
By order of the governor in council of September 30, 1932 (P.C. 2163), the auditor general was authorized to conduct such audits of provincial accounts in connection with unemployment relief expenditures as he deemed essential to safeguard the interests of the federal treasury, and to investigate the provincial systems of auditing municipal relief accounts to the end that the dominion government might be satisfied that the municipal accounts put forward by the provinces were in accordance with the agreements entered into between the dominion government and the provinces.
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As a result of the auditor general's investigations of the provincial systems of auditing the municipal accounts, he reported that in his judgment the provincial audits of municipal expenditures did not sufficiently protect the interests of the federal treasury. Consequently, on the recommendation of the Minister of Labour the auditor general was directed by order in council of March 12, 1934 (P.C. 222), to conduct such audit of provincial and municipal accounts in connection with unemployment relief expenditures as he deemed essential to safeguard the interests of the federal treasury. This policy was continued under the Kelief Act, 1934, the auditor general being so authorized by order in council of August 11, 1934 (P.C. 1835).
Then followed a statement with respect to the recovery from the provinces of sums that the audits disclosed had been overpaid, and it will be recalled that the report indicated the sums that had been recovered by reason of the action taken. In the first instance I pointed out the other day, what I desire to say again, that with respect to all these matters there was, first, the municipal certificate; second, that of the province and, third, the pre-audit by the auditor general's office before payments were made, and I was assured by the treasury officials that no cheques were issued, prior to the time the government left office, unless those conditions had been complied with; (a) the certificate of the municipal authorities; (b) the certificate of the province over the signature of one pf its officials, and (c) a pre-audit, usually certified by the initials of two auditors in the auditor general's department. If hon. members are interested and will take the trouble to look through those reports-I do not desire to take time to go into them at length-they will find these matters all dealt with, and the measures taken to ensure the return of the moneys that had been overpaid, not by reason of fraud except in one or two cases, but usually because of misunderstanding and incomplete information on the part of the provinces when giving the certificates under which the payments were made.
The third point to which I desire to direct attention is that which was laboured at some length this afternoon by hon. members of the committee. It dealt with the general principles of the measure now before the committee, that is the setting up of an independent tribunal, entirely lacking in what you might call democratic control, not elected by the people, but selected by the governor in council for the purpose as mentioned in the bill itself. If the committee look at the preamble of the Relief Act of 1935 they will find there a clear statement of the difference between the two ideas that are apparently now before

the committee. The act of 1935, being chapter 13, reads as follows:
Whereas the provinces may require further assistance in carrying out necessary relief measures and in meeting financial conditions as the same may arise; and whereas in such event it is in the national interest that parliament should support and supplement the relief measures of the provinces and grant them financial assistance in such manner and to such extent as the governor in council may deem expedient; and whereas it is necessary to make provision for a further expenditure for relief purposes under the Department of National Defence and the Department of the Interior; and whereas for these and similar purposes the powers necessary to ensure the speedy and unhampered prosecution of such relief measures and the maintenance of the credit of the dominion and the provinces thereof should be vested in the governor in council; now therefore, His Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate and House of Commons of Canada, enacts as follows.
This is a statutory recognition of what we conceived to be the primary obligation as resting with the provinces, and it is a statement of the desire on the part of the dominion to assist the provinces in the discharge of their duties in that regard. It is wholly unnecessary to do more than point out that every government in the past has assumed that those who under our democratic system of administration are charged with responsibility for provincial expenditures are as anxious to safeguard their treasury, and the municipalities are as anxious to safeguard theirs as the dominion is in regard to its own; that, therefore, there would be no waste of provincial or municipal moneys, and that the dominion might rely on that fact in making the arrangements it did with the provinces. I need hardly point out that for that purpose, as indicated in the reports by the minister on the operation of the relief acts, loans were made to the provinces to enable them to function. The loans are set out at length in the reports to which I have just referred. In each report there is an indication of the extent to which loans have been made to the various provinces. There was of course a division of expenditures with respect to public undertakings in the provinces and municipalities. But in no case did the federal power deal directly with the municipal power. It dealt with the municipalities as being creatures of the provincial legislatures, and dealt with the provinces on the basis of their being the proper bodies with which the dominion should deal, or, in other words, the channel of communication between the municipalities on the one hand and the federal government on the other.

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The next point suggested this afternoon was that it would have been possible to introduce this legislation that is now before the committee under the provisions of the Relief Act of 1935. Now, let us analyze that for a moment. First, it could not have been enacted by order in council if the house was in session. The statute was passed in April, 1935; the house rose on July 5, 1935. Between those two dates, the house being in session, the governor in council could not exercise his powers for that purpose. From July to October those powers might have been exercised, but they were subject to one controlling provision, that is section 11 of the Relief Act of 1935, namely:
This act shall expire on the thirty-first day of March, 1936.
Then there were the other provisions with respect to obligations incurred being met. Therefore, when it is suggested that this legislation might have been passed under the powers conferred upon the governor in council by the Relief Act of 1935, I submit that such could not be done in view of the fact that this measure now before the committee does not expire on March 31, 1936, nor does it expire at any date until it is repealed. In that regard it is like every other statute that appears on the statute books of our country without limitation of the period of its life, namely, it is a law that continues to control and govern until such time as parliament in the exercise of its powers repeals it.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: May I ask does my right hon. friend mean to say that the present administration could not after we came into office have appointed a national employment commission under the statute to which he has just referred? And had that commission exercised its powers up to the end of the fiscal year, could we not before the end of that time have secured from parliament authority to extend the commission and its powers for a further period?


Richard Bedford Bennett: I have not said any such thing. I said that the government could not by the exercise of the powers conferred upon the governor in council pass this statute because those powers expired on March 31, 1936, but the government could have provided by order in council in part at least for what is now before the committee, but this would, of course, have been a dead letter on March 31, 1936.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: That is all I was stating. I was not criticizing my right hon. friend. I say this government might have
created a national employment commission by order in council, but preferred to have the whole subject discussed in the first instance by the house.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The point I am endeavouring to make at the moment is that to have done so would have been to create an organization that would have just begun to function when it died, and that it was obvious that the statute did not contemplate the setting up of any such body whose powers would expire on March 31, 1936.
There is another reason which I desire to suggest, and that is that under the very powers which the commissioner, Mr. Hereford, has exercised, he has been doing just what the minister suggests in the bill should be done. The minister gave us the other day a complete answer to that side of the case by indicating that he had been able, with the aid of the provinces and the municipalities and through his department, to secure the classified information that he desires. I think the question of information is complete.
There are certain factors, however, that have to do, not with the question of acquiring information, but with the control and supervision which obviously must be of a continuing character. I do not think any well-advised executive would suggest the setting up by order in council of a commission of that kind unless there was some certainty of a statute being enacted during the period of time that it was operating that would continue it in office. I do not think any executive would contemplate any such action as to let it expire on March 31.
The next point to which attention was directed was in connection with the powers of the governor in council under the respective statutes. The hon. member for St. Lawrence-St. George (Mr. Cahan) pointed out this afternoon that in reality this bill as it now stands might be complete by merely giving its title and then saying, as section 10 does, that all the powers following may be from time to time conferred upon the commission by the governor in council. Section 10 provides:
The governor in council may from time to time make such order's and regulations as may be necessary to carry out the provisions of this act.
He pointed out the other day-and to this neither the Prime Minister nor the Minister of Labour has since referred-that section 7 provides:
The commission shall, under the direction of the minister supervise the expenditure of funds voted by parliament for purposes of
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relief and providing employment, and perform such administrative duties with respect to relief and employment as may be assigned to it from time to time by the governor m council.
That means only one thing, and no specious reasoning can modify, alter or vary this essential conclusion, that in the language of that statute there is no provision made as to the kind of administrative work that the commission will carry on, but that the administrative work, on the contrary, is to be imposed upon the commission by order in council. If it is thus imposed upon the commission by order in council, that is an exercise of the legislative powers of parliament delegated to the governor in council. That is an exercise of delegated powers by the governor in council and parliament pro tanto is deprived of its legislative jurisdiction with respect to every phase of administration that this commission has conferred upon it by order in council. There is no gainsaying that at all; it cannot be suggested by anyone that that is not a correct statement of the situation. He who runs may read; it is too clear to admit of doubt.
I am not finding fault with the government for adopting the very plan which we found it necessary to adopt. Far from it, because I believe as the days go by the minister especially will be more and more seized of the fact that it is necessary to have a measure of elasticity and a lack of rigidity in the administration of this very measure, and that can be secured only through the exercise by the executive of powers conferred upon it by parliament. As was pointed out this afternoon by the Prime Minister, it is true that the right to issue cheques against the consolidated revenue fund under the relief legislation of 1930 to 1936 was restricted except in two instances. In the first bill it was limited to 820,000,000 and in another bill the sum for direct relief was stipulated. But I desire to point out that the measure of the extent to which power ma3r be used is not the exercise of it; it is the determination of whether or not the power is conferred. This statute does confer upon the governor in council power to appropriate out of the moneys of this country, without regard to parliament until after the expenditures are made, money which under the rules as laid down by eminent British authorities should always be antecedently authorized by this house.
For instance, I do not know whether these men are to be paid $20,000 per annum, $15,000 per annum or $50,000 per annum. When the tariff board legislation was before this house it was insisted that we state in the bill what the chairman and each of the commissioners should receive in order that parliament might

know the extent to which the resources of the country were being called upon to pay the salaries of those charged with responsibilities under the statute. This statute makes no provision for the payment of the seven commissioners-in the other case there were only three-or for the payment of the secretary. These are matters that will involve the exercise by the governor in council of the power which is conferred by this statute. In this case it is a blank cheque for salaries; in the other instance it was a blank cheque for relief. The extent of the exercise cannot possibly change the principle and the exercise of the power in one case is just as bad as the exercise of it in the other. The extent to which the exercise can go can never be a determining factor as to the validity of the exercise of the power. This has so often been held to be so as not to require discussion on my part.


Norman McLeod Rogers: I should like to ask my right hon. friend whether the Inquiries Act, which provides for the setting up of royal commissions, places any limitation upon the amounts which may be paid by the governor in council to the members of a royal commission.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Yes, it provides how much they shall receive per day. The amount is inadequate and usually has to be supplemented by further assistance from the treasury. The hon. member for Leeds (Mr. Stewart) is not exactly sure as to the amount, but he thinks it is only $20 per day.


Norman McLeod Rogers: It is quite frequently added to?


Richard Bedford Bennett: Yes. There is no doubt that it is inadequate under present conditions.
I shall not traverse further. The whole theory of constitutional government is based not upon the amount, but upon the principle involved. If the principle is involved in the one case equally as in the other, then there has been a violation of principle. The extent of the violation is another thing entirely. There is nio doubt that the Relief Act of 1935 contemplates expenditures under the so-called blank cheque upon a much vaster scale than is suggested by the bill now before the committee. I will admit that at once.
The next point is one that seems to me to be worthy of consideration. It was suggested this afternoon that vast sums of money were expended on public works and that parliament had not given an antecedent expression of opinion as to the desirability of this

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work being done. May I point out that the whole basis of the legislation was the fact that the provinces were under constitutional obligations which, because of their extent, had become so national as to require assistance from the federal treasury. The agreements were predicated upon the assumption that the assistance was to be given by the dominion to enable the provinces to discharge these obligations. There is one point that has apparently been entirely overlooked in the discussion this afternoon, and that is this: The Public Works Construction Act was authorized by parliament in every detail of the expenditures to be made. When the right hon. gentleman was discussing the construction of barracks, military buildings and police barracks he overlooked the fact that parliament had authorized that by detailed estimate, not under the Relief Act but under the Public Works Construction Act. In every particular there was that compliance with parliamentary practice to which he referred this afternoon. The resolutions antecedent to the introduction of the bill were adopted by the house; then the bill was brought down; the schedule attached to it was discussed in the house item by item; the house gave its assent to the legislation, and the bill of 1935 supplementary to the bill of 1934 was adopted in exactly the same way. So that so far as these items were concerned specific authorization was given by parliament for the expenditures in question. It is true that with respect to the expenditures made under the relief acts, as indicated by the reports of the commissioner of unemployment relief, those reports contained the details, and they were not furnished to the House of Commons until after the expenditures had been made, although there was published in the Canada Gazette from time to time a precis of the expenditures that were contemplated by particular orders in council.
The other matters that engaged the attention of the committee this afternoon were entirely beyond the scope of section 5, and, as was pointed out by the hon. member for East Kootenay, might have been discussed under section 6. I think the Prime Minister properly pointed out, however, that if we are to have a discussion of these matters we may as well conclude it now, instead of saying that it is under this section rather than under that. And the committee proceeded accordingly.
I will not anticipate discussion on the relief bill as such, but I desire to point out again, so that there will be no misunderstanding with respect to this matter, that the government's duty was, I have no doubt, to introduce a bill setting up a commission, because they had
promised to do so and it was their duty to carry out that promise. And I have no doubt they will enact such legislation. But I do wish to point out that what they have done in this bill is the exact negation of the whole principle of democratic government for which they so strenuously contend. This commission of not more than seven men selected by the governor in council, with salaries undefined and unnamed, is to have conferred upon it powers that we know not of, powers of which we are not informed and which may be given it by the government later on, and we shall have nothing to say about the matter until they come back a year hence for the purpose of giving us a report as to what has been done. That cannot be challenged; that is so under sections 7 and 10.
But certain defined powers have been given under the provisions of section 6. One is to carry out the registration, regarding which we need not enter into any further discussion, because it is admitted that that could be done, if desired, by another method, though the government thinks it desirable to do it in the way indicated. But I again direct attention to paragraph (b) of section 6. Contemplate what that means. Here we have a body of men selected at the caprice of the executive, using that word "caprice" in its proper sense -well, I put i't this way, selected at the discretion of the executive; that perhaps is better. That body is to have power to recommend to the minister conditions to be complied with by any province obtaining grants for relief purposes from the government of Canada. I was interested in what was said this afternoon by the hon. member for Vancouver-Burrard (Mr. McGeer) in that regard. Suppose this commission-it might be only five men-decided that one of the conditions should be that you should not give money to Vancouver, or that you should give only a very small sum to Calgary or Edmonton or Regina or Saskatoon, but that you should give a large grant to Toronto or Montreal. Now, there is no controlling restriction or reservation in that paragraph; here we find-I am using the word in its proper parliamentary sense-an irresponsible body set up by the governor in council without, as I say, any indication with respect to them or as to the salaries they are to receive, and they are to make a recommendation as to conditions under which money shall be loaned to Saskatchewan or Alberta. They are to make recommendations as to what conditions should be complied with if the provinces require grants for relief purposes from the government of Canada. However pressing may be the demand, however necessitous may be the condition, they are to make recommendations to
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the government. Suppose the government does not follow the recommendation-and the government is not bound to do so-what then? That phase of the situation means that the government will have to exercise its own discretion as it thinks best.


Norman McLeod Rogers: Is not that the case with
a recommendation from any royal commission? There is no obligation resting upon the government to follow a recommendation made, and I would point out that this particular power was recommended and universally accepted by the provinces. It was adopted on the initiative of one of the provincial delegations.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I quite understood that
from what the minister said the other day, and it would appear from the report of the dominion-provincial gathering. But in view of what has transpired since, there is nothing of that kind binding upon any province. The very first request made for direct relief in this country came from the provinces; they asked that direct relief be given. They were the people who said:	We desire that this
be done. I only point out that if the commission are to recommend this to the minister-and there is no power attaching to the recommendation except the value that attaches to any recommendation made by a body that has been set up by the government itself-you are back to the original position, and in any event the responsibility must be the responsibility of the government. Now, tell me this, sir: How can any commission thus constituted, of not more than seven and possibly three or five, be in a better position than the various officials of government and of the provinces with respect to conditions that should be agreed upon? You cannot make uniform conditions. The government has attempted to do that by increasing that grant by seventy-five per cent, and in doing so it has created a precedent that was very harmful, for the very obvious reason that these grants were not as much required in one place as in another. And I do sympathize with the premier of Alberta when he says that the grants were not the same to all the provinces; for all one has to do is to read the orders in council presented since the house began and he will realize that extraordinary conditions required in one of the provinces grants additional to what had already been made, dealing with another phase of the relief situation.
Therefore, whether we like it or not, we have this situation very clearly before us. We are now asked and are about to confer
IMr. Bennett.]
upon a body selected at the discretion of the executive power to make recommendations which are not binding upon the executive or upon the provinces. Very properly one has been asked this question:	Have the
provinces anything to say about the appointment of the commission? The minister said that they might be consulted, but they have no power with respect to the matter. I point that out only because it is clear that there is, on the one hand, the power of recommendation without binding authority and, on the other, the power of investigation without being bound by the results. That is the story as it appears upon these records.
Now, with respect to the question of a long-range view of the subject, this sounds admirable, but the difficulty is that there is in this bill nothing that indicates a long-range view of this or any other subject. I could not but be impressed by that fact after listening this afternoon to what was said by the hon. member for Yancouver-Burrard. I myself received letters this morning to the effect that men were walking down the streets of Vancouver bearing on their backs the statement that they were denied the right to enter relief camps. And it is true that they were. I put this to the minister and to the committee: In view of the fact that the farming season is about to open, and agriculturists are looking for assistance, why was it necessary for the government to increase the pay to men in relief camps on March 1? I confess that the hon. member for Portage la Prairie, when dealing with this matter the other evening, asked a question that was in my mind when the minister made the statement. The minister said, first, we will increase the compensation to fifty cents a day, and second, we will not take any more men into the relief camps. That means two things. Those who are in the relief camps will not be anxious to get out of them.


Norman McLeod Rogers: But they will have to work.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Yes, they will have to work. But we know the kind of work they are engaged in. We know what it was.


Norman McLeod Rogers: But it is a different kind of work.


Richard Bedford Bennett: If it is in the same relief camps it will be a little difficult to make it different.


Norman McLeod Rogers: I assume that pay is an incentive to work. Surely the increased allowance is decidedly better as an incentive than the twenty cents a day that prevailed before.

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Richard Bedford Bennett: The point is not so much the incentive as the difficulty of getting certain types of these men out of relief camps when agriculturists are anxious for help on the farms and cannot secure it.
These letters about the situation in Vancouver may be grossly exaggerated. I never express opinions about letters because I learned, during the five years we were in office, that there is sometimes a tendency to put a very strong construction upon what in the end may yield to very simple analysis. At any rate there is in Vancouver a considerable number of single homeless men who cannot go to these relief camps and who are now being thrown upon that city. That will be true in other places as well. I should like to make it clear that these relief camps came into being for one purpose only, to take care of single homeless unemployed men who were not properly a charge upon the provinces in which they happened to be, but who were wandering to and fro; they were to be provided with clothing and shelter and food at the expense, not of the province, but of the dominion. That was how the camps came into being, and prior to last summer, the average of the period of time they remained in the camps was very' low. I noticed the other day the hon. minister gave an average that was somewhat higher than it was a year ago, for reasons I can readily understand, for there are certain numbers of these men who have remained in the camps from the time they were opened. The minister gave in detail information as to the ages of the various men and the number of months they had been in the camps. That information in part was contained in the report made by the Department of National Defence last year, but it has been brought up to date, and it would appear that men have remained in these camps a longer time than was contemplated when the camps came into being. But the camps themselves wrere established for a special purpose, and the responsibility was undertaken by the federal government for a special reason, that is the nomadic character of those who were in these camps. They were not men who had a home in a particular province. I visited two camps without any previous intimation that I was going there, and I went all through them to find out where the men came from. I found that very few of them came from the province in which the camp was located. They had come from various parts of the dominion, and while moving through the country had come to these camps and were cared for in the manner I have indicated.
At this stage I am not going to traverse various discussions that have taken place as to the difficulties of the situation, but I desire to make one observation with respect to housing. The Minister of Finance has indicated that the housing act which was placed on the statute books last year is now becoming effective, though there have been some difficulties. When that statute was enacted we took the best advice we could get. We conferred with those who had money to loan in the ordinary course of their business, that is, the insurance and loan companies. While one could not describe them as being particularly favourable to the legislation, nevertheless support was promised with respect to the measure itself, and I was glad to hear the minister say this afternoon that he believes it will become effective in process of time. I think, however, he was mistaken in what he said with respect to what had transpired in Great Britain. Undoubtedly the financial assistance given there to the housing problem is responsible for the construction of many thousands of houses. It will be recalled that just before the general election the government of the day was blamed for not having speeded up its housing program, and special efforts were made and much money was expended to enable that program to be carried forward.
There is another matter I would like to mention. Upon all the hoardings in the big cities there will be found advertisements of building societies, some of them very large organizations, and the rate at which money may be loaned. It may come as a great shock to some members of this house to know that the rate of interest that is being paid to those societies is in excess of five per cent; while some money was borrowed for less than that, having regard to the nature of the risk, in other cases some of the building societies were getting slightly in excess of five per cent. For the deposits that were received by the societies, owing to the demand made upon their resources they paid a substantial rate of interest, higher than the banks were paying, until the time came when they advertised that they were no longer prepared or ready to accept new deposits from the public. But it must be borne in mind that it was the action of the government of the United Kingdom that set in motion the forces which resulted in the great building program there has been in Great Britain during the last few years. I do not think that can be successfully controverted, because the number of houses under construction under the auspices of the government's legislation was recorded in the morning edition of the newspapers,
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sometimes once a week, sometimes only once a month, and the progress has been remarkable. If the act that was placed on our statute books last year is being carried into effect, as the minister says, with some degree of success, more than at one time appeared probable, we shall all be delighted. There may be something that can be done to improve the legislation; if so, we should not hesitate to do it.
I agree with what the Prime Minister said this afternoon; I think there is very little *ealization of the extent to which we have mortgaged our resources, the extent to which we have created obligations, and the importance of considering our ability to meet them successfully and to maintain the integrity of this country. There are two methods by which communities, like men, fall into financial difficulties. One is when they are unwilling to pay; the other is when they are unable to pay. I know of no case in Canada where default has occurred because of unwillingness to pay. In western Canada school districts have defaulted in large numbers during the last five years. The hon. member for Vancouver-Burrard pointed out that some of the communities near his own city of Vancouver have defaulted, not because they wished to do so, but because they were unable to pay. Round about the city of Winnipeg the same situation prevails, and in the last forty years in western Canada there have been quite a large number of defaults on the part of organized districts. Whether they be municipalities or school districts or other forms of municipal organization, it matters not, they have defaulted because of their inability to pay. It has always seemed to me that it would have been quite proper, when that situation arose in a municipality, for the municipality to secure legislation to enable it to open up negotiations with its creditors for the purpose of endeavouring to see what could be done to pay to the utmost of its ability, on the one hand, and not to create a difficult situation for the lender, on the other. But when this is done by compulsion, an entirely different situation must be considered, and the factors need not be dealt with at length this evening.
The second class of default, namely default because of inability to pay, is the class of default that we have to consider now in this country as one that is fairly firmly established. There is no question but that as debts have mounted in the various organizations to which I have referred, districts and municipalities, they have reached the point at which they are unable to secure by taxation the money with which to make the payments they have 
promised to make. That being so, the loan council that I had in mind had not the form it has taken under the Minister of Finance. That is not a matter of great importance, but I did think it of importance that there should have been some central body which, when a municipality or district was unable to pay because of its financial position, would have been empowered by advertisement and other means to get into communication with those who had loaned money to the particular district or municipality and then determine the extent to which over a period of years, until there was a return of prosperity that would enable it to meet its obligations in full, it might be able to make payments on account of what it owed to its debtors.
With respect to the provinces we have an entirely different situation. They are not sovereign powers in the sense in which that word is technically used, but they are almost sovereign powers under a federal system of government, inasmuch as their legislative powers are exclusive dealing with property and civil rights, as was said this afternoon, and almost every matter that touches the everyday life of the country, including the right to sue and to be sued. As a matter of fact it must be within the memory of members of this house that the legislature of our oldest province denied men the right to sue in the courts of the country, not within the last year or two but in days long since passed. It will be recalled also that a statute of Nova Scotia was disallowed by the government of which my right hon. friend was the leader, which disallowance, in the opinion of at least some directly interested, was a complete negation of their rights as determined by the courts. That had to do with the gypsum property down in Cape Breton.
These are illustrations of the situation referred to this afternoon by the hon. member for Vancouver-Burrard. The provinces are in a very, very strong position with respect to what you might call the credit of Canada. After the last five years I sometimes wonder whether hon. gentlemen opposite, now that they have to sit in judgment upon these matters themselves, realize just the extent to which the anxiety of the government of those days was directed to consideration of these problems. Shall we permit default or not? Can the national credit be maintained if we do? Will our position be affected? Will our integrity as a dominion be affected in the money markets of the world, bearing in mind the fact that we have only three sources from which to obtain money? One of those sources was the United States, to which we owe vast sums of money. As I pointed out the other night, we must find $2,000,000 for principal

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and interest for every day other than Sundays during the year 1936. That, at least, is the figure given by Ames and Company, in connection with dominion, provincial and municipal matters. That being the case, one can realize how important it is that our credit position in the United States should not be destroyed.
Then we had Great Britain, where we were successful in making a loan or two, but where, owing to a combination of circumstances, partly provincial and partly municipal, we could no longer make borrowings, so we were driven to make loans from our own people. It is true that what one might call treasury bills have been floated at less than one per cent, because under the legislation of last year we set up a bank in which the chartered banks must keep their reserves without receiving interest on them, and in turn those reserves are being loaned to this country at less than one per cent interest. It is true that the banks complained that this was not very conducive to their making money, but that institution which we set up has been discharging to a very marked degree the functions of a central bank by permitting at least the treasury bills of this country to be sold at a very low rate of interest.
So we had recourse for our borrowings to the great financial interests of the country, the insurance companies and the banks themselves. I have often listened to some of our hon. friends asking why the banks should have such large sums of money which they have not loaned, and why they have to put their money into bonds or treasury bills or short term notes. Well, the answer is because there is nobody to borrow that will repay. It may be that there is a lack of confidence on the one hand or fear on the other, but the cold-blooded fact is that several of the chartered banks of this country have thirty, forty or fifty million dollars which they desire to loan but which they cannot loan. It is not a question of credit entries or cross-entries; these are sums that have come to them from their depositors which they would like to loan to borrowers who would repay, but which in the discharge of their duties they cannot loan to borrowers who will not repay or who will never be in a position to repay. That is the situation that prevails in this country. It prevails also in the United States to a marked degree, and in England to a lesser degree. Never has the accumulation of money in chartered banks been as large as it is to-day in these three countries, Great Britain, the United States and Canada. If hon. members will pick
up the report published every so often in the New York daily papers as to the assets and liabilities of the largest of the banks there, with assets exceeding two billion dollars, they will find that the amount of money on hand available for loans which cannot be loaned in safe loans involving any possibility of a return being made, is larger than it ever has been in the history of the country, and the four great chartered banks in England


Gerald Grattan McGeer: Where does the right hon. gentleman get the returns showing the surplus of money on deposit in the banks that is not loaned? What returns are those?


Richard Bedford Bennett: I only took the report appearing, for instance, in yesterday's New York Times with regard to the great Chase bank. That report shows the deposits and the loans and the necessity of investing the money that has been invested in United States bonds, treasury bills and that sort of thing. That is the return I meant; that is the return which is available.


Gerald Grattan McGeer: I understood the right hon. gentleman to say that it was a return. Now, I understand that it is a report in the New York Times. I should be very much surprised to find that information in the New York Times, but I will look it up.


Richard Bedford Bennett: It is what would be called a bank return; the law requires it to be published every so often. I happened to notice three or four of them yesterday. One was the report of the Manufacturers' Trust; another was the Empire; another -was the Chase National, and another was the National City Bank. I remember seeing the report of the Guarantee Trust not long ago, also. Never has there been such a large accumulation of money that the banks will not loan because there is no likelihood of getting it back from those who desire to borrow it, and those who usually have been borrowers are no longer borrowing money even where confidence has returned to the extent it has in the United States. Much less is that the case in Canada.
The point I am endeavouring to make- and it touches this very matter which we are discussing this evening-is that we have had recourse more and more to the savings of the people in the life insurance companies, for example, to take up our securities. There must come a time, if borrowings continue to an unprecedented extent, when they will have to consider their position. That is the reason everyone is so vitally concerned about
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the legislation which is now before the house, and which has been before it all these years in dealing with matters of this kind. May I point out to the hon. member for Vancouver-Burrard that the reserves of the people have vanished. I am speaking of a certain class of individuals who put away a little money, built homes and were not able to pay their taxes. This is the dangerous feature of the matter. There have always been in Canada a couple of hundred thousand unemployed, or thereabouts. Seasonal unemployment has always been apparent. In days gone by the work these people did in the summer and early fall enabled them to go through until the next spring, when work again commenced. But now, having been placed upon relief by the cities and provinces, they have no incentive to save, when they do work during the summer and fall, to carry them through the next winter. They know they will be taken care of on, shall I say, a more generous scale of apportionment of food and clothing than they have gained by their own efforts, or through savings they have made during the summer and fall. I am assured by social workers that in some of our large cities that is a fact which cannot be controverted.
Under those circumstances the problem becomes much more acute than it ever has been. These two hundred thousand who normally are not employed during part of the year have now become recipients of relief during their seasonal unemployment, and until some drastic action is taken they probably will continue to be in that position. I take it that that is the reason the minister said the other day he is so anxious to get the machinery set in motion-I believe it was one newspaper which used the expression-to purge the relief lists. He said that he wanted to find out those who were properly entitled to relief as opposed to those who are working a racket for the purpose of receiving money from a city or municipality. At least that was said to be the situation in days gone by, and when investigations were made it was found to be so in some instances, but not in very many. It is pointed out that there are not very many, but of course these few are sufficient to cast discredit upon the whole, with the result that we have the condition to which I have referred.
I realize that I have wandered far afield, because of what has been said by my right hon. friend. I wish to make it abundantly clear, however, that so far as this legislation is concerned I cannot but look upon it as being legislation which vests powers in an

irresponsible body and which, had it been introduced and put through parliament by the present opposition while in office, would have been regarded as a usurpation of the powers of parliament.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: May I refer to the concluding words of my right hon. friend and remind him that what he is now saying w'e have done is the very thing which he did, as one of the last acts for which he was responsible in the last session of parliament.
My right hon. friend introduced a bill to establish the economic council of Canada.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Hear, hear.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The bill provided,-
3.	That there shall be an honorary advisory council on social and economic questions which shall be known as the economic council of Canada.
4.	(1) The council shall consist of the minister, who shall be the chairman, and fifteen members who shall be appointed by the governor in council.


Richard Bedford Bennett: And I go further, and describe who they were-certain civil servants.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: 
Richard Bedford Bennett: As an advisory committee?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Yes, and this
is an advisory committee.


Richard Bedford Bennett: No, no.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Yes, absolutely. My right bon. friend cannot get away from that fact. AVhether you wish to debate the question of the desirability of oalling it a committee or a commission, it all comes to the same thing in the end; it is an advisory committee. The government takes the responsibility for asking parliament to appropriate sufficient funds to enable it to appoint an advisory body, composed of those in whom it will have confidence, to act as experts on a great social problem with which the country is faced, and to permit that body to make recommendations, to offer advice and to supervise. With the exception, of the supervision, all the other functions are named as those of the economic council which was to advise the late administration.
My right hon. friend says the present measure constitutes a violation of the doctrine of ministerial responsibility, or a violation of some democratic principle. I say it does nothing of the kind. Ministerial responsibility remains just where it properly belongs, namely, upon the ministry. It is responsible first of all for recommending to parliament the appointment of a body charged with the duties here named. That is the case whether the body be a commission specially appointed to deal with the one problem of relief and unemployment or whether it be an economic council to deal with such problems as may be assigned to it. May I say in passing that in the course of the discussion on the bill having to do with the economic council, one of the problems which it was said would be assigned to that body was the very problem of relief and unemployment, and that would-be a suitable body to deal with the problem.
I say that ministerial responsibility is preserved by the government, first of all, taking the responsibility for recommending legislation. Ministerial responsibility continues with respect to all that the commission does or fails to do. It makes recommendations for which the government must take the responsibility of either accepting or rejecting, and the government will be held accountable by the House of Commons for either accepting or rejecting such recommendations.
I venture to say some recommendations may be made by the commission which the government will not find it possible to accept, but should such be the case the government will have very good reasons to give the House of Commons for not accepting the recommendations made. On the other hand, if the government does accept a recommendation, acting upon it becomes a government responsibility, and the government cannot shift that responsibility on to the commission. I repeat that the commission is advisory, and the government is responsible for all its acts, and for what it does with respect to the recommendations. So that the whole doctrine of ministerial responsibility is preserved, and similarly every democratic principle of government.
May I point out, however, wherein the body proposed by the present administration is infinitely better suited to conduct this particular work than the body which my right hon. friend intended to institute when he was in office. The economic council was, in considerable part, to be composed of permanent members of the civil service. In selecting those members the government was taking officials whose time is already fully occupied, in the positions they are holding. This parliament votes salaries to the head of the research department, to the head of the statistical department and to heads of other departments who undoubtedly would be among the number called to an economic council. These gentlemen are giving, or are supposed to be giving, all their time to their work, in the positions they now hold. On the other hand by appointing a national advisory committee or commission, whichever you wish to call it, along the line indicated in the bill, and giving the government a free hand to select the personnel, it thereby has an opportunity to search through the length and breadth of the dominion in order to secure the services of persons in the best positions to give the kind of study and advice which would be expected in connection with an important matter such as this. An effort will be made to have the members give, if possible, all of their time to this important work. So that my right hon. friend is not only completely beside the mark when he seeks to have the committee believe that we are violating some doctrine of ministerial responsibility, but he is criticizing in essence his own action of the previous session. In so doing he is reflecting not upon the measure of the present administration but upon himself with respect to what evidently was intended under the measure he introduced.


George Halsey Perley: That committee to which the Prime Minister refers is hardly an apt illustration. It was purely an honorary advisory committee, there was no provision
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contemplating it carrying out any administrative duties, which this bill evidently intends.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I am glad that my right hon. friend has drawn my attention to the matter of administration, because hon. gentlemen opposite seem to imagine or fear an extent of administrative powers being conferred that has never been thought of or intended by the government. The purpose is to give this commission advisory and supervisory powers, not administrative powers as a primary function. It may well be that between now and the next session of parliament some matters may evolve or come to light in connection with which it would be distinctly in the interests of the country to give this body administrative powers of a limited character, for specific purposes. My right hon. friend shakes his head.


Richard Bedford Bennett: There is no limit in the bill.


George Halsey Perley: The clause in the bill would enable the government if it saw fit to 'turn the whole administration of relief over to this body.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Perhaps my right hon. friend will permit me to interpret the measure from the government's point of view. The government have no thought in the world of making this commission an administrative body. All that we have had in mind, including clause No. 7, to which my right hon. friend has drawn attention, is the possibility of some situation unforeseen at the moment, arising where to enable the commission to assume administrative powers would be much in the public interest. If I were asked what administrative powers this commission is to exercise I would have to say to the committee that at the present time I cannot anticipate what they may be.


Frederick Cronyn Betts: If I might interrupt; referring to the comparison between the economic council and the present commission I may be wrong but it is clearly in my mind that I heard the Prime Minister state not long ago that he wanted no economic council, that his cabinet was sufficient economic council. Then why is the cabinet insufficient to deal with the present subject?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Perhaps my horn friend will be courteous enough to allow me to finish the answer which I was in the midst of making to hon. gentlemen in the front benches opposite before I reply to him. I was seeking to reply to the question of my right hon. friend the member for Argenteuil, in
LSir George Perley.]
regard to the extent of the administrative powers which this commission will have, and was saying that I could not at the moment name the administrative powers which the government intend to give to this commission because the government hope and expect that all that will be necessary for this commission are advisory and supervisory powers in connection with the subject of relief and unemployment. But it may well be that as hon. gentlemen opposite have stressed very often in the course of their remarks, in dealing with a great problem such as that of unemployment, with conditions as they are at the moment, something unforeseen may arise in regard to which it would be a distinct advantage to have in the statute authority by order in council to confer on this commission limited administrative powers. That is the extent to which the government contemplate their possible use by the commission of administrative powers.
This enables me to reply also to the criticism of the leader of the opposition, that there is no difference in principle between action by order in council provided for in this legislation and provision for action by order in council in the legislation provided by hon. gentlemen opposite. Now I think I am stating it correctly, as correctly as my right hon. friend would be able to state it; the extent to which it is proposed to delegate legislative power to the executive constitutes the essence of the difference between hon. gentlemen opposite and ourselves. If it were intended by this legislation to confer, on this commission, through the governor in council, administrative powers of an extensive character, involving the expenditure of public money and the like, I should say that my right hon. friend was wholly justified in criticizing us for doing the very kind of thing which he and hon. gentlemen around him did when they were in office. But there is nothing of the sort intended. The power of the governor in council confers administrative powers on this body as I have indicated, of the most restricted character possible. As was often said by hon. gentlemen opposite, there are very few enactments of parliament which do not contain a clause giving to the governor in council certain powers with respect to the carrying out of the provisions of the act. Those powers are to enable them to carry out what is essential in the way of routine. But that is vastly different from a power which in practice places the executive in the position of the legislative branch of parliament in dealing with public questions, in other words substitutes the executive for the legislature.

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Now my right hon. friend is always referring to the importance of being strictly accurate. He took my colleague the Minister of Labour (Mr. Rogers) to task when the minister said he did not think there was any provision in the Inquiries Act which stipulated the amount which should be paid to commissioners. I think my colleague the Minister of Labour was right and that the leader of the opposition was wrong in that respect.


Richard Bedford Bennett: There was provision in the statute.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I have a copy of the Inquiries Act in my hand, which I shall be glad to send to my right hon. friend, and I shall be very much surprised if he can find in it any clause that fixes the amount to be paid. There has been one amendment to the act, but there is no such provision in that. What my right hon. friend may have had in mind was some order in council, which may have been passed, limiting the amount which should be paid to commissioners or fixing an amount for the guidance of council, but there is nothing in the statute which names the amount to be paid to commissioners.


Mr. DEACHMAN:: I rise to enter a protest against the air of pessimism which has prevailed in the committee this afternoon. My hon. friend the member for Kootenay East (Mr. Stevens) expressed the idea that there was no further hope for the development of international trade. I desire to point out to him and to the committee that between 1933 and 1936, under a government which has done more to repress trade than any other government we have ever had in Canada, the total exports of the dominion increased a matter of $280,000,000 in three years, or at the rate of approximately $90,000,000 a year. I have sufficient confidence in my hon. friends who are now in charge of affairs to suggest that they wdll better that record at least slightly during the coming two or three years, and if they do we shall then have Canadian export trade established once more on the basis of a billion dollars a year. And barring war years and the immediate post-war years there have been only seven years in Canadian history in which we exceeded that total. If we succeed in bringing exports up to that point imports will naturally follow to approximately the same level. The result will be a marked increase in the revenue from customs duties, an expansion of business on the Canadian National Railways, these clouds which we so much dread to-day will have broken and disappeared, and Canada will be once more on the way to prosperity.
I am not so much surprised at the note of pessimism struck by the hon. member for Vancouver-Burrard (Mr. McGeer), who unfortunately has been believing a number of things which are not precisely true. Believing them he became bluer and bluer as the time went on until when he delivered his speech the other day he reminded me of what I heard a man in the west say of a certain person, that he was so dreary and sad he would make a prairie chicken chicken-hearted. Here is one statement he made the other day. He quoted Sir Robert Borden as follows:
In 1931, according to the figures recently compiled by the national committee in public finance, working under the auspices of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, the total amount of income assessed by the dominion against individuals for purposes of the income tax was $815,714,684, and this was the greatest amount assessed in any year. Exemptions under the act were $3,000 for married persons and $1,500 for single persons. In 1931, the ordinary expenditure of the governments of the country, federal, provincial and municipal, totalled $920,000,000. In other words, if the governments had taken every dollar of income in excess of the moderate exemptions mentioned above, they would still be $100,000,000 short of enough money to pay their bills.
The Right Hon. Sir Robert Borden did not represent that the amounts assessed for income tax represented the total income of the people of the Dominion of Canada. But the hon. member for Vancouver-Burrard (Mr. McGeer) did, for this is his statement:
When taxation rises to the point where income is exhausted, then government is threatened with the disaster which must come from financial impotency.
I should like to give the figures of national income as compiled by the bureau of statistics. I have before me a pamphlet issued by the bureau with the name of the one who authorized it at that time, the hon. member for Kootenay East (Mr. Stevens). On page 2 of this pamphlet I find this statement:
In the year 1930. with which the present study is principally concerned, the total amount of income falling under the observation of the income tax branch and paying income tax within the fiscal year ended March 31, 1932, was $992,000,000, or approximately one-fifth of what would appear to have been the aggregate national income of that year.
In other words, the total income of the Dominion of Canada was approximately $5,000,000,000 and not $815,000,000 as was suggested by this speaker. At the conclusion of twenty-eight pages of study of this important question, I find these words:
Thus these three estimates would indicate that the national income of Canada in 1930, after making provision for net interest and

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dividend payments outside of the country, was approximately $5,000,000,000. It is considered that the maximum error in this estimate is not more than two per cent.
I submit these figures for the cheer and encouragement of the hon. member for Van-couver-Burrard, and I ask hon. members to note how different are his conclusions from mine. He said:
Let me direct the attention of the house to the fact that this condition came about under a system of so-called sound money.
This condition was not one that actually existed, it was one which the hon. member described. He said:
It developed under a system of orthodox finance; it grew into being under the defunct economy that came to us during the nineteenth century, and which will not serve to-day.
I venture to suggest that in each succeeding century the inhabitants of that age condemn those who immediately preceded them. I have no doubt that in the second century they condemned those in the first, but I venture to suggest that if we are going to condemn the people of the nineteenth century we must first demonstrate that we are capable of emulating their example. If we attempt to do that I think we will look with a good deal of care before we describe them as being presided over by a defunct economy and as being incapable of looking after their affairs.
I turn now to another item in the speech of my hon. friend. He called the attention of the house to the fact that in 1930 the savings bank accounts of the country totalled $1,427,000,000 and the current accounts, $622,000,000, a combined total of $2,049,000,-
000.	He then went on to give the figures as of February, 1936, which showed the savings accounts as totalling a little over $1,517,000,000, but unfortunately the current accounts were down to $533,000,000. I calculated these figures and I found that we had in the current and savings accounts of Canada one million dollars more in 1936 than we had in 1930. My hon. friend then went on to say:
These figures, which I hope are somewhat interpretative of the statistics which the minister placed before us indicate that we are far from recovery and confirm succinctly the statement made not only by the leader of the opposition (Mr, Bennett) but also by _ the present Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) that the unemployment situation is a truly national problem.
They give us no such conception. The amount of money on deposit was just as large in 1936 as it was in 1930, but it was

not being used in the same way. My hon. friend gave the figures for current loans in the dominion. In 1930 these loans amounted to $1,386,000,000. In 1934 they had dropped to $987,000,000, and the figure for January 31, 1936, was $856,000,000. I am not defending these figures; I simply present them to the committee. I submit that if the banks could have put their money out in current loans and discounts in 1936 they would have preferred to do that rather than to invest it in dominion government bonds. Like other people, the banks desire to make money. They make money by expansion of loans and not by investing their money in the bonds of the provinces and the dominion. The simple fact is that in 1930 there was a demand by borrowers for money. This demand did not exist in 1936. In times such as we have passed through recently the banks are not in a position to loan money unless there is some possibility of its being repaid. If they could have done so, then the dominion government which got money from the banks through the sale of bonds would have been forced to get this money somewhere else. The banks financed loans to the dominion government which were used for the purpose of providing employment and they thus served a function which was essential and necessary under the circumstances.
It is all right to say that the fault lies with the banks; but return our trade to normal; let us get back to the basis which I think we might possibly reach within the next few years and then we shall have a condition in which it will be no longer impossible to borrow from the banks. It will then be quite possible to develop trade to such a stage that we might begin gradually and steadily to reduce the burden of taxation which we have seen come about during the last few years.
I come now to one other item put forward by my hon. friend. He said:
Let me say that municipal taxation constitutes the most definite repudiation of obligations representing the investment of Canadian wealth in real estate subject to the taxation powers of municipal government. We have wiped out accumulative wealth having an assessed value of $8,500,000,000. Holdings of improved property in the majority of Canadian cities have changed from an asset to a liability.
I am not going to say that he is right or that he is wrong, because I could not prove either, but I have this estimate to give: The wealth of the Dominion of Canada in 1929 totalled $30,840,000,000. The assessed value of urban real property, including exempted

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property, amounts to $8,251,000,000 So that this suggestion means that between 1929 and the present time the decline in the value of property represents a sum equivalent to the entire value of urban property in the dominion.


Charles Avery Dunning: In 1929.


Robert John Deachman: Yes. I want the committee to consider some other estimates which were made by my hon. friend, and I contend that I am in a position, in view of these facts, to question the soundness of the statement he made. I doubt very much whether that statement is really accurate. Let us turn to some of these items in regard to which the hon. gentleman, presenting his summary, told us what ought to be done. These statements are not definite; they are generalized statements which anyone can make. He says that humanity must have a better deal than that which the private money system has provided. Well, the money system is not the only thing that prevents the Canadian people from getting a square deal. I say that if we are to solve the problem we must solve it by taking a comprehensive view of the entire system under which we live. We cannot solve it by simply selecting some goats and sending them into the wilderness to carry away our sins. We must have a deeper and more comprehensive examination made into the whole situation, something deeper and more comprehensive than we can find in mere generalizations. He says that the wages of men must be placed above the wages of money. What are wages? What are the accumulations which we have in the savings banks of the dominion to-day? I suggest that they very largely represent wages; they are the wages of workers who have toiled and accumulated a certain amount of savings. If you have accumulated savings in the past, should not that be respected, and is it not entitled to earn something? It is yours, you have created it; and when you destroy the possibility of the wage-earners of the dominion adding to their savings, when you make it impossible for them to save something from their earning power, then you deprive them of the chance of making their past savings of value to them in the years to come.
I put this proposition to my hon. friend: In the past year we have accumulated a certain amount of wealth, and we have accumulated at least a part of that by savings and earnest effort. Some men as time went on invested this money in undertakings which were more or less speculative, while others put theirs into savings banks or bonds. But I submit to the committee that if we are to 12739-1184
destroy the value of bonds, if we are to lessen the opportunities for accumulating wealth by the process of saving, then we shall reach the time when savings will be abandoned, when thrift will be a forgotten idea, and in future years we shall have on our hands a greater unemployment problem than we have to-day, for we shall have lost that financial basis which permits the people to accumulate money and use it in their advancing years.
My hon. friend said that we ought to do as Sweden has done. He had a reason for taking Sweden as an example and it was an excellent reason. Sweden has accepted nothing which the hon. member for Van-couver-Burrard has accepted. Or let me put this in another way. The course which has been followed by Sweden has been the course of orthodox finance; and the hon. member for Vaneouver-Burrard having seen Sweden go in one direction and prosper thereby, while he was going in the opposite direction, comes before this committee and says; There is Sweden; go and do as Sweden has done. Well, Sweden has not repudiated its bonds; Sweden has refunded them. A great many of Sweden's bonds were callable. One loan which was made in the city of New York about 1924 for the sum $30,000,000, carrying interest at 5i per cent was called in 1934 and Sweden refunded it at 3J per cent. But that was not the repudiation of an obligation. The Swedish people have been prosperous for one or two simple reasons which I will mention. They are prosperous because they have this conception of thrift and economy. They have those characteristics which we generally attribute to the Scotch and which I think the Scotch do in a large measure possess; I heard of a Scotchman having defined thrift as turning out lights in the Canadian National Railways hotels in order to save the people taxes. The Swedish people have these qualities of thrift and patience, energy and aggressiveness, and there were certain adventitious circumstances which favoured them. Great Britain had a difference with Russia on the question of lumber and the British market was opened to Sweden. There has also been a great demand for munitions of war, and Sweden next to Great Britain is the greatest manufacturer of munitions in the world. These markets have helped to develop Sweden. But there was not for a moment any attempt to follow any of these so-called leftist policies, or any attempt to repudiate or do anything else which might not be defined as orthodox finance.
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My hon. friend has another remedy and it is a simple one. He says that we have a great factory in Ottawa and that we can turn that factory to useful purpose. The factory in question is known as the Bank of Canada, and he thinks it should engage in turning out money for us to spend so as to give employment to the unemployed. When you give something to the unemployed you in reality give them a call upon goods; and when you do that by printing money I do not think you will get very far, because your money will not be of much value and you will find it a a great deal more difficult to finance than you did before. When you borrow money what do you do? You take from people who have and give them in return a certain allowance called interest; we pay them for the use of their money with a promise, which I hope we shall make good, of repaying them in due course when the time comes. But when you print money what do you do? You start upon a course of inflation of prices, and instead of taking money from people who have, as you do when you borrow you take it from the worker, the wage-earner, in the form of increased prices of goods so that what you are really doing is cutting the wages of the wage-earner. I submit that if we are going to do that we ought to do it honestly and in a straightforward manner. If we are to tell the wage-earners of the country that their wages are too high-and in some cases they are too high, while in others they are a great deal too low-if we are to tell the wage-earners that we are going to cut their wages, then I say: Let us tell them face to face, instead of starting a money factory to inflate the value of our dollar, giving them less purchasing power and taking that money from them instead of borrowing it from others who have and paying a certain interest for it.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Whose wages would the hon. member like to cut first?


Robert John Deachman: I said, what is quite obvious to anyone, that certain wage levels are too high while certain wage levels are far too low-


Abraham Albert Heaps: Which are too low?


Robert John Deachman: -and I say the same in regard to profits of industry. Certain profits are far too high. My hon. friend says that nobody in Canada is getting too high wages. I leave it to him-he is welcome to it-but I disagree.


Mr. HANSON:: Many members are overpaid.


Robert John Deachman: Quite true. I submit there is no way of solving this problem except

the way we are going. If we are going to make progress it must be by the expansion of trade, the increase of industry, and further than that, by bringing about a lower price of manufactured commodities in relation to farm products than we have to-day. Either the price of farm products must go up or the price of manufactured products must come down. As we have had great technological changes in industry in the last few years, is it not astonishing that it has not been followed by a corresponding reduction in prices? There is one way in which Sweden has succeeded. By means of her cooperative enterprises, by her cooperative stores, she has been able to bring down the price levels of products which are in general demand by the people of that country, and thus has improved the domestic market.
I want to give to the committee one illustration of what has happened in the last few years in Canada. I asked an importer in Montreal to tell me what had happened with regard to cotton textile goods between 1930 and 1935. He replied that during that period the prices of those products in the open markets of the world had declined about twenty-five per cent, but the price at which those products could be laid down in this country had fallen only about six per cent, and because of that fact prices of those articles were relatively higher than they should be, and so diminished the purchasing power of the Canadian people, who had to pay a higher price than they should pay for those products.
I appeal to my hon. friend the Minister of Finance. I have confidence that he and the leader of the Liberal party will see to it that when changes take place in the budget they will tend to reestablish the equilibrium of prices between farm products and manufactured goods. That will be one of the directions in which we should move in establishing the new era which is bound to come and which, I hope and believe, will come within the next two or three years. When trade moves up and revenues expand and manufacturing gets a chance to grow and develop, because the whole market will increase, what will have become of our unemployment problem? There will still be a remnant of the unemployed; there will always be technological changes in industry which will throw men out of work, and those men must be looked after, but unemployment will not be then, as it has been in the last few years, the great, fundamental problem engulfing everything else in the thoughts and minds of the Canadian people. If we approach this problem to-day from the standpoint of solving it, not merely with the idea of taking care of those who happen now to be out of work, we can succeed. We need

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to attack it and we are attacking it. The attack will continue. The great French general who directed our armies during the war had this guiding sentence , "Attack, always attack." That must be the attitude of the Liberal party and the parliament of Canada to this great problem which we face to-night, Much we face, and must solve.


Mrs. BLACK (Yukon):: An hon. member this afternoon, when asked by members on the government benches what he would suggest, said that he was not paid to give advice to the government. May I be allowed to differ from that statement? Why should each member of the house be paid $4,000 a year, less five per cent, if our advice is not to be given when asked for- I do not know that the government will always take that advice, but a very wise man once said, " In the multitude of counsellors there is safety," and it does not hurt even the government to listen to a backbencher, even though that advice is not taken.
With all due respect to the right hon. leader of the government and the hon. Minister of Labour, I suggest that one of the persons appointed to this commission be a woman. The women of Canada have something over fifty per cent of the voting power. We all know that they spend at least three-quarters of the money that is brought into the homes, and I may add that when we have an opportunity we are good spenders, and that is what keeps the shopkeepers and the manufacturers and the farmers occupied. As the women of Canada have that amount of voting power and of spending power, surely the government will realize that one woman on that commission can be of some help. Thousands of women during the last few years of depression felt that they could be of help if only they had the knowledge to use their hands or their brains, and one woman on that commission could show the government how to pass that knowledge on to women in general. We know what the teaching of the crafts in the wonderful province of Quebec has done for women in the homes. It is not always necessary for women to go outside their homes to make money to help their families. By the nature of our being we must be home-makers; we have to bring up our children for service in the world, otherwise where would the world be, where would all the smart men in this house be? Women have to run the homes, and if they can be taught to use their fingers and to use their brains in their homes the government will be much better off, because when the family benefits the government is benefited. May I repeat my request to the right hon. leader of the government and the Minister of
Labour to consider when they appoint this commission, the selection as a commissioner of a woman of sympathetic human understanding and knowledge?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I cannot of course speak with the degree of authority of the hon. member for the Yukon as to the services which a woman could render on this commission. Unfortunately also I cannot speak with the same degree of authority as my hon. friend the Minister of Labour. As far as I am concerned, however, I have never hesitated to say that I was glad to consider the advice of any hon. member of this house, lady or other member, whether it related to accepting the advice of other ladies or not.


Richard Bedford Bennett: May I say to the Prime Minister and to the minister that there is no provision in the Inquiries Act providing for the amount to be received by a commission. The matter must have been dealt with, as the Prime Minister says, by order in council, because my hon. friend to my right also had the same view, that it was not in the statute.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I thought my right hon. friend was rising to say something about the importance of having a lady on the commission. He is as much entitled to speak with authority on that point as I am.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I think the Prime Minister speaks for both of us.


Mr. GARDINER:: I move the following amendment to section 6:
That paragraph (c) of section 6 be amended by striking out the words "a proper provision" in the fourth and fifth lines of said paragraph (c) and substituting therefor the words "when necessary an effective supervision."


Richard Bedford Bennett: It will be remembered that there is provision for supervision in section 7, which reads:
The commission shall, under the direction of the minister, supervise the expenditure of funds voted by parliament for purposes of relief and providing employment ...
This paragraph (c) of section 6, as amended, will read:
(e) recommend to the minister effective means of mobilizing the agencies for relief both state and voluntary, and so coordinating their work as to avoid overlapping and abuses, and to secure when necessary an effective supervision and auditing of expenditures of all moneys.	.	..
I was going to point out to the Prime Minister and the Minister of Labour that under the provisions of the audit act, the auditor general, in the very nature of things, must have the duty cast upon him with respect to auditing, and the supervision, as I
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have said, is covered by section 7. I should think that to add the suggested amendment would not strengthen the section, and I had made a note to speak to the minister about the question of auditing the expenditure of all moneys. Obviously this commission cannot do that. This comes within the provisions of our audit act and is a matter of statute. In view of what has been said as to the method to be pursued on the financial side of the matter, the auditor general must do this, and we cannot possibly vest in this commission any power in that regard. I should like the Prime Minister to look into that; I think it is clearly in contravention of our present statute in relation to auditing.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: What my right hon. friend says might be the case if we were accepting in advance all the recommendations of this commission. It may be that in its supervision of the manner in which auditing is being done, the commission might have some valuable suggestions to make which the provinces and municipalities, as well as the dominion, might wish to take into account. I think that is the point.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I quite agree with what the right hon. gentleman has said, and at first I approached the question from that angle. In reading the section over the second and third time, and many times more than that as a matter of fact, it does appear to me, that as it stands it contemplates the possibility of some suggestion or recommendation being made that is at variance with existing statutory requirements regarding auditing. I think if the Prime Minister will look at it very closely he will see that it can be open only to that construction. Without worrying the committee unduly I desire to point out that the section provides that the commission shall recommend to the minister effective means (a) of mobilizing agencies for relief, both state and voluntary; (b) for coordinating their work so as to avoid overlapping and abuses, and (c) to secure when necessary an effective supervision and auditing of expenditures of all moneys. Supervision clearly is provided for in section 7, and I think that with respect to auditing we have to be extremely careful lest it be said that we are trenching on the general power. The. Prime Minister was good enough to point out again this afternoon that it is contemplated that parliament will, by way of a supplementary estimate, give its approval to the proposed expenditures before they are made. That being so, the provisions of the audit act are extremely drastic, and the auditor general has complete control of the situation. If it is

proposed that the commission shall make recommendations as to how provinces or municipalities should carry on their auditing, I do not see any reason why we could not impose that as a condition, but I say frankly to the right hon. gentleman that a good deal of difficulty will be created if we are going to tell a province that has an auditor appointed by its legislature how he shall do his job. In most of the provinces also-though I must hesitate about this-I believe effective steps have been taken in connection with municipal audits as well. In some of them, it will be recalled, there are special provisions. It is only my duty to point this out, but I feel satisfied that as this section reads it is a contravention of the provisions of our general audit act.


Mr. MacNICOL:: Are we considering all
the paragraphs of section 6?


Charles Edward Johnston: We are considering an amendment moved by the Minister of Agriculture to paragraph (c).


Abraham Albert Heaps: I would suggest that we take up this section clause by clause; there is so much involved in this part of the bill that I think it would be better to consider it in that way.


Charles Edward Johnston: Shall this amendment carry?


Abraham Albert Heaps: No; it is away down in the
section, and I want to discuss paragraph (a) for a moment, if I may.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The amendment is before the committee now. We might meet my hon. friend's wish to return to paragraph (a) later, but let us dispose of paragraph (c), in regard to which there has been some discussion, before doing so.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Would the minister read
the section and explain the amendment?


Norman McLeod Rogers: The amendment is to paragraph (c), and I will read that paragraph as amended:
6. The commission shall,
(c) recommend to the minister effective means of mobilizing the agencies for relief both state and voluntary, and so coordinating their work as to avoid overlapping and abuses, and to secure when necessary an effective supervision and auditing of expenditures of all moneys.
It is pointed out by the right hon. leader of the opposition that the latter part of this paragraph might be in contravention of the terms of the audit act.

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Richard Bedford Bennett: And the first part is
covered by section 7.


Norman McLeod Rogers: Yes. I would hesitate to
take exception to that view. I have before me, however, certain orders in council passed under the terms of the Relief Act, 1935, and I believe under previous relief acts, having to do with the functions to be exercised by the auditor general in relation to relief payments.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I have not all these
documents before me, and it is months since I have seen them, but I think that is done under the provisions of the act dealing with the functions of the auditor general.


Norman McLeod Rogers: Perhaps I might read the
first two clauses of the order in council, and that will recall it to my right hon. friend.


Henry Herbert Stevens: What is the date of that?


Norman McLeod Rogers: The date of the order in
council is June 20, 1935, and it reads:
The committee of the privy council have had before them a report, dated 12th June, 1935, from the Minister of Labour, submitting-
(1) That under the provisions of the Relief Act. 1932. it was directed by order in council dated September 30, 1932, that-
(a)	"the auditor general ... conducts such audit of provincial accounts in connection with unemployment relief expenditures as he deems essential to safeguard the interests of the dominion treasury," and
(b)	"the auditor general ... investigate the provincial systems of auditing municipal relief accounts to the end that the dominion government may be satisfied that the municipal accounts put forward by the provinces are in accordance with the agreements entered into between the dominion government and the provinces."


George Halsey Perley: That is simply asking the auditor general to carry out his functions under the Consolidated Revenue and Audit Act, and the subclause suggested to this clause would give that power to the commission.


Norman McLeod Rogers: If I may say so, it would not. give it to the commission, because it is simply power to recommend.


George Halsey Perley: Yes, power to recommend.


Norman McLeod Rogers: From my rather brief experience with expenditures for relief purposes I have been impressed by the fact that we are having claims for repayment of accounts going back two or three years. That is as a result of investigations which have been conducted by officers of the department of the auditor general.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The expenses were paid out of the relief act; I remember that.


Norman McLeod Rogers: Apparently it is a matter of extreme difficulty to secure a proper audit of these expenditures, due to the fact that in many cases they were on a tripartite basis under earlier relief legislation. Only recently I have had communications from the provinces objecting to the rulings of the auditor general in respect of accounts going back three or four years. It does seem to me that the whole question of the audit of relief expenditures is one deserving of some study. It may be that the terms of the audit act are sufficiently wide, but frankly I am not in a position to say whether or not that is so. All that was in view in connection with this clause was that the matter of auditing the expenditures should receive careful study, and recommendations made accordingly.


George Halsey Perley: Why is the word "supervision" put in here, when there is provision for that in section 7?


Norman McLeod Rogers: It would be a proper supervision of expenditures, an audit of expenditures.


George Halsey Perley: That is specifically provided for in section 7.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Section 7 makes it a function of the commission to supervise expenditures. This is a different function. This is a function of recommending to the government effective means of securing an adequate supervision. It is a different thing.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The statement of the
Prime Minister makes it clear that only a recommendation is made, but I do not think the amendment as it reads makes that provision.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I think it does.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Would the chairman read it again?
The	CHAIRMAN	(Mr.	Johnston,	Lake
Centre): It reads:
That paragraph (c) of section 6 be amended by striking out the words "a proper provision" in the fourth and fifth lines of said paragraph (c)-


Richard Bedford Bennett: And how will it read?
The	CHAIRMAN	(Mr.	Johnston,	Lake
Centre): It continues:
-and substituting therefor the words "when necesary an effective supervision-


Richard Bedford Bennett: And auditing.
The	CHAIRMAN	(Mr.	Johnston,	Lake
Centre): Yes.
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Richard Bedford Bennett: That does not mean what the right hon. gentleman has said, an effective supervision of expenditures. Section 7 states just that, namely "shall, under the direction of the minister supervise the expenditure of funds." Those four words mean just the same.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: No, may I put it this way: in exercising the duties imposed upon the commission by section 7, the commission itself may discover that the means of supervision are not adequate and may therefore come to the conclusion that it is desirable to recommend to the government a more effective means of securing proper supervision.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Under section 7.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Under section 7; W'hen the commission has discharged the duties imposed upon it by section 7, namely of supervising the expenditures, it may find that the means of effecting the supervision are inadequate, and that if some further provision was made either by the municipalities, the provinces or the dominion for the supervision of expenditures it would be more effective, and consequently result in restricting waste, loss and fraud.
Section 6 simply gives the commission that power to recommend-"shall recommend to the minister effective means to secure when necessary an effective supervision and auditing of expenditures of all moneys."


Richard Bedford Bennett: If it is understood in that way I do not see any objection, except one which I shall put to the Prime Minister: Suppose that report is made; how can it be acted upon until parliament enacts legislation? Obviously this could be done only by parliamentary action. There is no power in the governor in council to give effect to that. There is no power intended by that, because we have our audit act. The auditor general could not have any additional power or additional authority put upon him, except by provision of statute.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: That is quite right, so far as federal powers are concerned. May I say to my right hon. friend I think perhaps he and some other members of the committee are wrong in assuming that the provinces and municipalities will resent every suggestion the commission makes. I believe it will be quite the opposite, and that they will welcome any commission which will help them to do those things for which the commission has been appointed.


Mr. CLARK (York-Sunbury):: Has there been a change with respect to unemployables

on direct relief? It has been understood in at least one municipality that unemployables are not included in the direct relief. Are they now, or have they been?


Norman McLeod Rogers: I did have a complete return showing the attitude taken towards unemployables in the various provinces, but I am sorry I have not that information before me just now. Broadly speaking, however, the situation is that in most but not all of the provinces unemployables who formerly were a direct charitable charge upon the municipalities and provinces have been shifted to the relief rolls and are not, except for purposes of classification-and that quite recently-distinguished from employables on relief. I am sorry that I have not the precise information before me respecting each province.


William George Clark: What would be the division between unemployables and ordinary civic poor?


Richard Bedford Bennett: None, I should think.


Norman McLeod Rogers: My impression is that in New Brunswick the poor law regulations are still applied, but in other provinces we have a shifting of unemployables, who would normally be charitable charges in the municipalities, to relief rolls to which the dominion and the provinces now contribute.


Jean-François Pouliot: With due respect to everybody, and particularly to the very able Minister of Labour, may I quote the views of two prominent men. First, Mr. Thomas Bradshaw of Toronto, president of the North American Life Insurance Company, has said that we are overlegislated. That is the view of a sensible business man. The other is the view of Mr. Pitblado, who was president of the Canadian Bar Association, who said that we must simplify the law. In my humble opinion these two gentlemen were right in that regard.


Richard Bedford Bennett: That makes it unanimous


Jean-François Pouliot: I offer a suggestion at this time. I do not desire to suggest an amendment, because I do not know whether I would have anybody to support it. It is troublesome enough to understand the language of the lawr, and it seems to me that when an amendment is made we should proceed with it in the same way as we proceed with notices of motion. I have before me the Votes and Proceedings for Friday, but the amendment of the minister does not appear. We have to look through Hansard; it is printed in different type, and we have all sorts of trouble to get it now. There is paragraph (c) which is amended. It is a rule of courtesy to submit

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the amendment to the leader of the opposition, but we are just as much interested as he is in understanding what is the law. I say that with goodwill and with the best disposition that one could have with respect to the Minister of Public Works and everyone in this chamber, but we must know what is going on. It is not the privilege of the Prime Minister and the leader of the opposition only to be familiar with changes made in the legislation which is submitted to us. I strongly protest. I am not precisely a freshman in the matter, for I have studied law and have made a special study of statute law. It is impossible most of the time to understand anything. Why? Because, as the right hon. gentleman who now leads the opposition has said either in this session or an earlier session, the laws are drafted by the officers of the crown; they are submitted to the house by the government; they are passed by a majority, and the courts are there to interpret them. That is what he has said; I cannot quote the page but I have heard him say it. Where is the intent of the lawmaker in them? Each one of us, when a piece of legislation is passed, is supposed to have an intention. Where is the intention when no one understands anything? It is pretty hard to tell. What I say now does not apply especially to this bill; it applies to legislation in toto. This is a piece of legislation-and I mention it not on account of this particular piece of legislation but in relation to statute language, both federal and provincial and I would apply the same to municipal bylaws-that no layman can understand. This is not surprising because those who passed the enactment did not understand a word of what was going on.
What I regret very much is that when the leader of the opposition makes his most-important pronouncements it is impossible to hear a word of what he says. AVhen he spoke not long ago I thought he was saying his evening prayer. Naturally I gave him the benefit of the doubt. But, sir, here we are, just in the middle of the chamber, in a very favourable position to follow the discussion, but it is impossible to catch what is being said. This does not depend so much upon the acoustics, because the acoustics of the house cannot be so bad, but it means that no hon. member is familiar with what is going on. I tried to catch what was said, and this is what I understood of it: "Fourth and fifth line describe the proper provision, and there is the word 'and' before 'auditing.' It would have read thus, 'to secure and auditing of expenditures of all moneys.' " I did not understand a word of that. And there were other words put ahead of that which give a
different meaning. The whole thing referred naturally to the audit act, which includes some duplication brought into it by the right hon. gentleman when he was Prime Minister; I refer to the comptroller of the treasury, under part 3. The right hon. gentleman has put a duplication there, a duplication of the auditor general, and he complains of other auditing. This makes the whole thing so vague that it is to be regretted by all. It will be regretted by the judges, by the lawyers and by everybody who will have to give an opinion on the matter. I have nothing to say about the character of judges, but what do hon. members think of the poor farmer or labourer who goes to court to have a case heard before a judge; the lawyer argues the case for an hour or so; the judge listens patiently, sometimes closes his eyes but does not sleep, listens and finally says: "Well, learned sir, I do not understand." The lawyer says: "I did not understand at first but I tried to understand and to explain it to you." Well, sir, no one understands; what will the judgment be in such cases?


Richard Bedford Bennett: Action dismissed!


Jean-François Pouliot: Probably the right hon.
gentleman says that because he does not understand any more than does the judge.
But to summarize the whole thing, may I suggest to the government one point which seems to be reasonable: It is that when we have such an important piece of legislation and when it is to be amended, the amendment should be printed in the Votes and Proceedings the day before it is to be discussed. I see the Minister of Labour nodding his head; I hope this time at least everyone agrees with me.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: May I say to my hon. friend that speaking generally I think the committee will agree with him that the course suggested is a desirable one to pursue, but as he knows, when bills are in committee there are frequently minor amendments, and it would certainly delay the procedure very considerably if that rule were invariably followed. In this case the change is one to bring out more clearly the intent of the clause. It is not in the nature of an addition or subtraction from the intent of the measure but simply a clarifying of its meaning.


Jean-François Pouliot: I did not catch the amendment very well.


Frederick Cronyn Betts: I notice, Mr. Chairman, that by this section one of the functions of the commission will be to recommend to the minister conditions to be complied with by any provinces obtaining grants for relief purposes from the government. Now, I take it that
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the seven commissioners, being appointed by the government and by nobody else, will be in sympathy with the general policy of the government in relief matters. The hon. member for Temiscouata just referred to evening prayers; I would like to make a little prayer that the commissioners in dealing with relief matters will not be guided by the policy of the Prime Minister as declared in this chamber not once but twice, to the effect that he would not grant a five cent piece-	[DOT]


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


An hon. MEMBER:: Sit down.


Frederick Cronyn Betts: I repeat, would not grant
a five cent piece to any province in which a Conservative government was in power.


An hon. MEMBER:: He will not have to.


Mr. McLEAN (Melfort):: He never made
that statement.


Frederick Cronyn Betts: Furthermore, Mr. Chairman, we heard a good deal from the Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning) about the danger of creating fear throughout the country by remarks made in this chamber. I venture to suggest that there is no more certain way of creating fear throughout Canada than by introducing legislation which is not in accordance with our constitution. This bill contains certain provisions which are either unconstitutional or meaningless. For example, hon. members will note that power is given to the commission to make recommendations as to an apprenticeship scheme. That clearly is something within the sole jurisdiction of provincial legislatures. While the Prime Minister has told us that he expects complete cooperation from the provinces, and has spoken at some length about the complete harmony that prevails throughout the Liberal party from one end of this country to the other, I have heard some very discordant notes from Queen's Park in Toronto. I suggest that if an apprenticeship scheme is approved by the commission and submitted to Queen's Park, there is perhaps better than an even chance that the Honourable Mr. Hepburn will say, "Well, that is your scheme-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Frederick Cronyn Betts: -"but I do not like it; I do not like your Prime Minister, I do not like your cabinet and I do not like your commission, you can take that scheme and stick it in your pocket." I say that that section is either a complete nullity or unconstitutional.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: In connection with his reference to the five cent speech, my hon. friend seems to forget that since the remark was made, which he has not correctly

quoted, there have been two general elections, the result of the last one being to put him in opposition as one in a group of about thirty-nine, and to put me at the head of a government with the largest majority of any government in the history of Canada.


Frederick Cronyn Betts: Does the Prime Minister
imagine that his five cent speech contributed to his victory?


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I suggest that that clause might be clarified by the suggestion which I sent over to the Prime Minister.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: May I say to my hon. friend that he has been kind enough to clarify it, his immediate neighbour has been kind enough to send me over a suggestion to clarify it, and the leader of the opposition (Mr. Bennett) has made a suggestion to help to clarify it. I think that what the minister has proposed does equally well what the three hon. gentlemen opposite have suggested.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: That ends it, but I do not think so.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I think we
should let it go through at that.


[Stage Direction]
Paragraph agreed to.
On paragraph (a)-Registration and classification.
Abraham Albert Heaps: This paragraph makes it mandatory upon the commission to carry out as soon as possible a national registration and classification of persons on relief. I do not think that is going far enough. This bill is supposed to be a measure for the creation of employment and for this reason an employment council is being appointed. I do not think any scheme of registration undertaken by the commission will be complete unless there is a complete registration of all the unemployed in the Dominion of Canada. I do not see in the bill as it is at present worded anything to cover a registration of that kind. In order that we may know something of the magnitude of the unemployment problem facing the dominion at the present time, I think it is extremely important that we should have some reliable data as to the number of persons out of work. I do not want to move an amendment to this paragraph, but I should like to ask the minister to give his approval of the suggestion I am making so that for the first time we shall have some reliable information as to the number of persons in Canada who are unemployed.


Norman McLeod Rogers: If I remember correctly, the point raised by my hon. friend was brought up during the debate on the second reading. There would be difficulty, perhaps not insur-

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mountable, in securing information from those unemployed who are not on relief. It might be secured by a proclamation, by requiring those who are unemployed but not on relief to register at an employment office on such and such a day, but I think it is quetsionable whether information obtained by compulsion would be absolutely reliable. The difficulty of imposing penalties for non-registration is obvious. I can assure my hon. friend that I appreciate the importance of obtaining this information and I believe the employment offices as now established would provide the medium through which this information couid be obtained. I doubt the wisdom of imposing this duty upon the commission at this time, but see no reason why the commission could not be asked to obtain the information if it was found possible to secure it.


Abraham Albert Heaps: I had no idea of making this obligatory or compulsory or of providing penalties for refusal to register. I think most unemployed persons who are not on relief would be only too pleased to take part in a national registration of those who are out of work. It is true that we had a census in 1931, but conditions have changed so much since then that the figures do not indicate the conditions as they are at the present time. My hon. friend reminds me that there is also a quinquennial census which will be taken in the prairie provinces shortly, but that would not give us any data with regard to the country east of the head of the lakes. I feel that there should be some provision to provide for a registration of the unemployed. It could be left to the unemployed people themselves to see that their names were placed upon a propter list. I do not think there should be any objection on the part of the minister to having something of this kind done. For many years different organizations have asked for a national registration of the unemployed, but no registration has taken place except in the case of an odd municipality here and there. These small registrations show that a surprisingly large number of people who have never been on relief are ready to register. I realize the difficulties in such a registration, but I do feel that some, reliable data should be available as to the total number of unemployed in the Dominion of Canada.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Would this registration cover a case like this: A gentleman came to my home some days ago in connection with obtaining employment. He intimated that he had been out of work for the last four years. I became sympathetic and tried to ascertain whether he could fill a job here or there. I happened to ask him whether there
were any members of his family working and he told me that there were four of them working in very good positions. I asked him whether they were living at home and he told me that they were. This man was between fifty-five and sixty years of age and with four members of his family working he could hardly be termed as being in need of a job.


Norman McLeod Rogers: Was he receiving relief?


John Ritchie MacNicol: No, he was not.


Norman McLeod Rogers: He would not be included in this registration.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I should like to offer a suggestion to the minister. I cannot see that in any of these subsections there is anything to make it a duty upon the commission to inquire into and report on the general causes of unemployment. The commission is empowered to inquire into relief problems and also into the question as to what work is available and what schemes should be proposed. It seems to me that a commission of this kind ought to go further than that. It should seek to get, as we say, the whole picture before inquiring into the real causes that make for local or general unemployment. It would be comparatively easy to insert a section along that line, but there is nothing of that kind in the bill, although this is supposed to be a national employment commission.


Mr. MASSEY:: Has the minister in mind any plan to include in the registration the names of those who are working part time? Perhaps their part time is regular part time, but it may be only a day or a few hours a week, and there are others who have a job here to-day and are somewhere else tomorrow or the day after. Many of these men, heads of families, are unable to obtain relief from the municipality or the county and their position is more desperate than that of the man who is receiving relief either regularly or intermittently. Has the minister such a plan in mind?


Norman McLeod Rogers: It is the intention to secure that information; I think it is desirable that it should be secured. I should, however, make this clear: There are really only two ways of securing the registration and classification of those on relief: either by the dominion undertaking a census which would include as well those unemployed but not on relief, but which would also involve a considerable expenditure of money; or by the dominion adopting the other method of obtaining information, that is to say, by
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working through the provinces and the municipalities. That is the method we have followed in testing the feasibility of securing this type of information. It may be that we shall discover that some information which it is important that we should obtain cannot be secured in that way. I think the commission itself, as we proceed, will be able to judge of the nature of the sources of information which can now be utilized. I fully appreciate the importance of securing information regarding those who are unemployed but not on relief. Perhaps it will satisfy my hon. friend from Winnipeg North Centre if I tell him that I appreciate its importance and will certainly look into ways and means of obtaining that additional information. I know of no reason why that additional duty might not be imposed upon the commission if we so desired.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Would the minister object to the addition of a few words which might give them that right to make a registration of all those unemployed? In subsection (a) of section 6 the matter is not so difficult, because we know the numbers who are on relief to-day. A few days ago the minister was able to give the house and the committee, the number, almost to the last individual, in receipt of relief. Now it is a question of classifying them. We know that everyone on relief is practically unemployed. In some cases, as the minister has pointed out, some are unemployable. For a number of reasons these cases may have been dealt with by the municipalities or by the social welfare people, and to-day they are in the ranks of relief recipients. It would be a comparatively easy task, with the aid of the employment agencies scattered throughout the country, to have some registration of those out of work, take place in a given week, so that we might have an idea of the number, and also of the amount of reserve labour power we have in Canada. If there is no objection I should like the minister to add a few words to section 6, to the effect that a national registration or classification of persons unemployed and not on relief be made.


Norman McLeod Rogers: That is covered now. They are unemployed and on relief; they would not be on relief if they were not unemployed.


Abraham Albert Heaps: But I am asking that the unemployed who are not on relief be registered. Those on relief are unemployed now.


Miss MACPHAIL:: But there are plenty of people unemployed who are not on relief. What about the coupon clippers?
(Mr. Rogers.]


Norman McLeod Rogers: The difficulty is in securing accurate information. So far as the relief rolls are concerned, one can be reasonably certain of accuracy in the figures because the information itself is based upon the registration of those who receive relief. But my hon. friend will acknowledge that what we desire particularly in relation to these unemployment statistics is something that will be accurate. One may assume that most of those who are unemployed will register at some employment bureau, but there is little doubt that because of the extraordinary conditions that have prevailed in the past few years many of the unemployed have not registered at employment offices for the simple reason that they know something of the difficulty of finding employment and feel that it will be futile to register at this time. If that information cannot be secured at the employment bureau and if it does not exist at the relief offices in the various municipalities, the only way in which it can be secured is by compulsory registration, and I should hesitate to impose that duty upon the commission at this time. I assure my hon. friend that I appreciate the importance of securing that information, but I doubt whether we should impose that duty upon the commission.


James Shaver Woodsworth: With regard to the suggestion I made a little while ago about charging the commission with the duty of seeking the causes, either local or general, of unemployment, does it not seem reasonable that that should be done?


Norman McLeod Rogers: With all deference to the hon. gentleman, I remember reading not long ago a statement by Gide, the French economist, in which he stated that no less than 400 separate explanations had been given for cyclical depressions.


An hon. MEMBER:: Five hundred.


Norman McLeod Rogers: Someone suggests five
hundred. At any rate it is obvious that there have been many and various explanations of these periodical disturbances in industrial and commercial activity. I do not think this commission would spend its time usefully in seeking to discover a cause; that is oversimplifying the problem in the first place. I do not think anyone would suggest that there is one cause; there is a complexity of causes.


Richard Bedford Bennett: There was before the election.


Norman McLeod Rogers: Not even before the election.


Abraham Albert Heaps: The cause was removed.

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Norman McLeod Rogers: My right hon. friend will remember that at one time he said that if governments did their duty there would be no unemployment. I venture to suggest he would not say that now. After all, we have learned a great deal during these last few years.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Within the last five months I should say.


Norman McLeod Rogers: I do not think there would be very much value in imposing upon this commission the duty of discovering the causes of unemployment. After all, we are faced with a condition. We are all profoundly interested in finding a solution for that condition.


James Shaver Woodsworth: If you cannot
diagnose the disease what is the use of trying to get a cure?


Norman McLeod Rogers: Does my hon. friend think for one moment that he could get seven men in this or any other country to agree as to the diagnosis of the situation in which we find ourselves to-day?


James Shaver Woodsworth: I submit in all
seriousness that if we cannot get substantial agreement it is useless for us to appoint a commission to go blindly ahead in an endeavour to locate the evil. The minister went to considerable length the other day in trying to convince us that we had to classify these unemployed according to age and occupation and all that sort of thing. What is the use of doing that unless you have some idea as to how you are going to tackle the problem? It is ridiculous for us to set up a commission without charging them with the task of attempting to find what is wrong.


Norman McLeod Rogers: My hon. friend will surely
acknowledge that the situation in which we find ourselves is not one which is confined to this country.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Quite so.


Norman McLeod Rogers: That has been conceded
now for some years.


James Shaver Woodsworth: But we have to
deal with the situation in this country.


Norman McLeod Rogers: Quite so. But is he suggesting, then, that this commission should be given terms of reference similar to the terms of reference which have been given to committees of the League of Nations ' during the past few years, and none of which, so far as I am aware, has led to any certain and generally accepted conclusions as to what are the causes?


James Shaver Woodsworth: I suggest that there are both local causes and general causes. It seems to me that in some parts of our
country there are local causes. The leader of the opposition to-night mentioned seasonal unemployment. We know that to be one cause, but I think we ought by this time to see what we can do to lessen the amount of seasonal unemployment.


Norman McLeod Rogers: I agree.


James Shaver Woodsworth: There is one particular thing that could be done. It is a long time ago since they tried to dovetail one employment into another so that the total employment would be stretched over a longer season. That is one aspect of unemployment.


Norman McLeod Rogers: That is covered, I think.


James Shaver Woodsworth: There is another
thing-technological unemployment. There is not much doubt that a good many people are being thrown out 'of work by new types of machinery constantly coming into use and displacing groups of workers. Something should be done to see that men who are thrown out of work by such technological changes are reabsorbed. Some of them might be absorbed in new vocations. Reeducation might be undertaken. I have mentioned one cause of unemployment today. There are a great many more, as well as the more general causes. Since we must look to the government to solve our great problems, and there are now one and one-third millions of people in the unhappy condition of being on relief, I think it is stupid for the government to go on blindly, year after year, merely classifying the people and giving a little temporary relief in the hope that something some day will turn up. Surely, living in an age when we have some of the elements of science in our being, we ought to apply some of the principles and the technique of science to a problem such as this. I do not think we are asking too much in suggesting that a commission specially set up for this task should undertake to make some inquiries as to the causes and give the results of their investigation. We might learn a good deal from the League of Nations, even though there is no consensus of opinion. We have to deal with the problem here in this country, whether we draw our information from the League of Nations, or from other countries, or make original studies. The least we can do, if we are going to remedy this condition, is to seek the cause. I can hardly understand the minister's hesitation to include that among the duties.


Jean-François Pouliot: The hon. gentleman who has just spoken has mentioned science. I do not believe in science because very often
Employment Commission

science is all wrong. He spoke of the League of Nations. The greatest benefit to mankind would be to set all those greybeards in Geneva on fire. This is free advice to humanity. Let us get rid of all those hair-splitters and the world will be the better for it. Let us go to the orient for wisdom. Let us see what a new premier, full of oriental wisdom, says. A conciliator takes the helm in Japan. Hirota, the new premier, says that he believes in applying common sense to statecraft. This is exactly what the hon. Minister of Labour said some time ago. Let us apply common sense. I know some old people who had not the advantage of learning how to read and write but who are full of wisdom. We call them people who give good advice. The patriarchs and the wise men of old very probably never knew how to read and write. They were full of wisdom; they were not full of learning. Let the hon. gentleman who spoke to us of science and the application of science to politics withdraw that advice, because very often those who mention scientific ways for recovery forget that the foundation of all things is very simple common sense. It is so simple that it is often ignored.
People are under the impression at times that recovery will be quicker if some remedies are applied and that the remedy is the better if you know nothing about it. It has been said before when this party was in opposition that a mistake of some so-called scientists was to try to apply to the country as a whole a new experiment. Hon. members know very well how Pasteur, Claude Bernard, Lister, all the real scientists of the world, have proceeded. They have begun with the infinitely small. They have conducted their first experiments on a very small scale. If those experiments were successful they widened the scope gradually. Then, having scientifically proved in accordance with reason and common sense that their first small experiment was right, they applied it on a larger scale, and people came from other countries to get the benefit of their wisdom.
Some comparison has been made between Canada and England. Is any comparison possible between this country and England? Take the British metropolis, the city of London. There in a few square miles you have an agglomeration of people which is nearly as large as the whole Canadian population, which is spread over thousands of miles. Conditions are not at all the same. Moreover Great Britain is an industrialist country, while Canada is very largely, at least to the extent of one-half, a farming country. Therefore there is a great difference between the two.

May I take advantage of this occasion to tell the committee why at times I am misinterpreted when I speak about individuals who belong to the civil service? I have no grudge against anyone, but there is a principle that cannot be forgotten. It is salus populi, suprema lex. The supreme law is the salvation of the country. When there is an obstacle in the way it shall be removed at any cost. There shall be no consideration of friendship, no consideration of snobbism, no consideration of privilege, no consideration of petting or padding. I remember that at college there were some schoolmates who were always around the regents, the teachers and the professors, telling them how wrong the other pupils were and how right they themselves were. We called them "cats," "des chats." We do not need that kind of people to give advice, technical or otherwise, to the government. There are some very able men in the service, but those who have taken advantage of their position to impose upon the government policies that have brought this country to the verge of ruin and bankruptcy should be chastised, and a man should not escape because he had a salary of 810,000 or 815,000.
I say that, sir, to impress upon the government the importance of considering the value of a man according to his accomplishments and especially according to his degree of common sense. I prefer a man who has common sense, though he may not know how to read and write, to a so-called scientist who is just a crank. The first man may be filled with wisdom. Here, sir, we have a pest of doctors, a doctor for this and a doctor for that. Even in official papers we see some people who call themselves doctors of law who got their degrees from a university which does not give lectures in law. That is one instance, and it is most absurd. We do not need doctors; we need wise men, full of common sense. The Minister of Labour is one, and I am sure there are many others. Not only is the minister a man of common sense; he is a learned man. He knows more than reading and writing, which proves that one can have a great degree of instruction and education and be at the same time a wise man. But, sir, I warn the government against all these so-called scientists who are responsible for the social legislation that was the curse of this country last year and that will continue to be the curse of the country until it is repealed or declared ultra vires by the proper court. Not one of those men who imposed that legislation upon the right hon. leader of the government of the time, and upon his cabinet, should be kept in

Employment Commission
the public service. They should be fired and they should be the first to be fired, because they are dangerous to the welfare of Canada. I denounce them, and when I do so I am true to my electors and to my duties as one of the 245 representatives at large of this dominion. I am not small enough to hold any grievance against a single man. I do not expect praise; I am indifferent to criticism. May I say, Mr. Chairman, that I am greatly indebted to the Minister of Labour because, although he does not belong to my race-


Olof Hanson: He is a Canadian, is he not?


Jean-François Pouliot: Yes, but he is not a
French-Canadian; he has not my language and we worship God in different ways, but he is the first leader of any government who has ever given a word of praise to any private member before his death. I appreciate this the more, sir, because when he spoke so highly of my very humble work I thought I was dead.
To summarize what has been said, I hope the government will see to it that all those dangerous men who were responsible for all the blunders made by the previous administration will be, so to speak, sterilized in order that they may cause no harm in the future. This is one way in which the several doctors we have in this house could prove their usefulness to the country.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I should like to say just one word in reply to the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre, who asked the minister why the government had not imposed upon this commission the additional obligation of investigating the causes of unemployment. Quite frankly I will answer that the reason was that so far as the commission is concerned, the purpose of the government is to have it deal with the immediate, pressing problem which we have before us. That problem is to provide, if possible, work for nearly half a million of the population who are unemployed and at the same time provide relief for between one million and one and a half million of those who need assistance. This to be done in a manner which, we trust and hope, will afford relief and further employment and at the same time protect the public treasury and the public interest as much as may be possible.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Dealing with effects, not with causes.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I may say, too, that had we inserted in the bill a provision placing that obligation on the commission I
fear we would have heard repeated, what has been said even without that clause being there, that we have had enough of statistics and enough of investigation; let us get down to trying to provide work and at the same time do what is necessary in the way of relief.
Progress reported.



ADJOURNMENT-BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Richard Bedford Bennett: Will we take up the same thing to-morrow?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: To-morrow we shall continue with this bill.
Without in any way desiring to restrict discussion on the unemployment question may I mention that when the special supply bill is brought down, containing the various projects for which the house will be asked to make appropriations, there will be ample opportunity further to discuss fully all phases of the unemployment question. With that in view, hon. members may see their way clear to facilitate this measure reaching the senate in time for that body to consider its provisions before parliament adjourns for the Easter recess; if that could be done I believe it would be to the advantage of all concerned. I bring the matter to the attention of the house, not, as I have said, with a view of seeking to restrict the discussion in any way, but simply to place before the house the desirability of having these two measures assented t-o before the Easter vacation. In saying this I wish to assure the house that if there should seem to be any restriction of the debate on unemployment, as a consequence of shortening the discussion on these measures, to which I believe there is no objection in principle, ample opportunity will be given later, under the special supply bill, to supplement what is said at this time.


[Stage Direction]
At eleven o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.
Tuesday, April 7, 1936