ROYAL CANADIAN AIR FORCE


Hon. T. A. CRERAR (Minister of Mines and Resources):: Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) has been unable to come to the house to-day. In his absence I believe hon. members would wish me to read the text of the message which the Prime Minister sent this morning to the Air Officer in Chief, Royal Canadian Air Force overseas: Air Officer in Chief,
R.C.A.F. Overseas,
London.
The growing strength of the Royal Canadian Air Force overseas and the reports of its increasing share in actual combat with the enemy have filled Canada with pride. The hearts of the Canadian people have been particularly stirred by the news of the important and considerable part which Canadian airmen had in the raid on Cologne with its far-reaching effects.
On behalf of the government, I would ask you kindly to convey to the officers and airmen of the Royal Canadian Air Force under your command, and, through the appropriate channels, to the Canadian officers and airmen serving with the Royal Air Force, an expression of the pride of all Canada in their great and growing achievements. Please extend as well our best of wishes for every success in future aerial combat. The Canadian people will ever gratefully remember what the gallant young airmen of Canada are doing to defend the security of 
their homeland and to preserve freedom by engaging and occupying the enemy in the skies over Europe, and in other parts of the world.
W. L. Mackenzie King,
Prime Minister.



REPORTS AND PAPERS


Hon. J. L. ILSLEY (Minister of Finance):: I desire to lay on the table copy of the treasury board ruling regarding the National Film Board Act, of November 15, 1940, which is tabled at the request of the leader of the opposition (Mr. Hanson). This will mean that when the motion standing in the name of the hon. member for Hastings South (Mr. Stokes) is reached, it will be dropped.


Hon. R. B. HANSON (Leader of the Opposition):: The document now tabled covers the motion?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Yes. I wish to do it in this way, rather than to create a precedent by having the house pass resolutions or motions for the production of treasury board rulings, which are privileged documents.


Hon. J. T. THORSON (Minister of National War Services):: I desire to lay on the table the opinion of the Department of Justice referred to in sessional paper 211 A, so that when the motion now standing in the name of the hon. member for Saskatoon City (Mr. Bence) is reached it may be dealt with in the same way as the motion in the name of the hon. member for Hastings South. The opinion of the Department of Justice is tabled without prejudice to the usual rule with regard to opinions of the Department of Justice.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I should like to make this observation, that we accept the information contained in these documents now tabled, but without prejudice to our right to apply for them in the regular way. I do not feel bound by the statement of policy made by the two ministers.



PRIVATE BILLS


[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 82, for the relief of Annie Miriam Scott.-Mr. Bercovitch.
Bill No. 83, for the relief of Marguerite Elsie Ramsay Murdoch.-Mr. Claxton.
Bill No. 84, for the relief of Elizabeth Molnar Schneider.-Mr. Mcllraith.
Bill No. 85, for the relief of Max Kabaek.- Mr. Bercovitch.

Questions
Bill No. 86, for the relief of George McDonald Joseph Carew.-Mr. Bercovitch.
Bill No. 87, for the relief of Wandless Joseph Henry Verdon.-Mr. Abbott.
Bill No. 88, for the relief of Mary Eileen Scott Warrington.-Mr. Mcllraith.
Bill No. 89, for the relief of Joseph Bergman. -Mr. Whitman.
Bill No. 90, for the relief of Marie Martha Hermine Browne Peters.-Mr. Bercovitch.
Bill No. 91, for the relief of Ethel Gerson Kalmanovitch.-Mr. Abbott.
Bill No. 92, for the relief of Freda Sweet Simon.-Mr. Gray.
Bill No. 93, for the relief of Phyllis Mary Alice Verrinder Horrell.-Mr. Mcllraith.
Bill No. 94, for the relief of James McKinna Wood.-Mr. Bercovitch.
Motion for first readings en bloc agreed to on division.

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

Mr. BRUCE:: 1.	Has the government discontinued the milk subsidy to the Canadian dairy farmers?
2.	If so, for what reason?


Mr. ILSLEY :: 1.	Yes.
2.	Beginning December 22nd, 1941, and ending April 30th, 1942, a milk subsidy was paid to certain dairy farmers for the purpose of maintaining production of essential supplies during the winter. The subsidy was discontinued on May 1st, because effective on that date the board established a new scale of maximum milk prices and made provision for other adjustments in milk distribution practices, so that adequate prices may be paid to producers to enable them to continue production.


JOHN INGLIS COMPANY
Mr. NICHOLSON:: 1.	What amounts have been paid to the John Inglis Company since October 31, 1940, on, (a) capital expenditure contract, (b) production contract?
2.	What is the total amount which has been paid to Major Hahn of the John Inglis Company, since October 31, 1940 as (a) salary, (b) other allowances?


Mr. HOWE:: 1.	(a) 817,035,061.51 from November 1, 1940 to April 30, 1942; (b) $18,695,000 from November 1, 1940 to April 30, 1942.
2.	(a) None. The terms of the contract dated October 31, 1940, state that the salaries of the president, vice-president, general manager, secretary and treasurer and any amounts paid to any director shall not be allowed as a cost against the contract. The John Inglis Company Limited is a privately owned company to which capital assistance has been granted and which is operating on a management-fee basis. Salaries paid to the officials mentioned above, are paid by the company from that management fee.
(b) $423.46-Expenses to Washington, New York and Ottawa on government business during the period November 1, 1940 to April 30, 1942.
king's COUNTY, N.S., AIR FIELD


Mr. BLACK (Cumberland):: 1.	Were lands purchased at or near Kingston and Greenwood, King's county, Nova Scotia, for an airfield?
2.	If so, (a) from whom were such lands purchased, (b) acreage of each purchase, (c) amount asked by each owner and the amount paid?


Mr. HOWE:: 1.	Yes.
2.	Greenwood.
Vendor	Area Consideration acres	
M. C. Spinney	80-23	$4,412 65L. Woodbury 	39-76	2,681 80J. C. Griffin 	125-42	6,750 00H. E. Armstrong ..	100-62	6,765 00Est. H. Keddy ...	39-8	3,030 00Est. E. J. McKenna	26-8	1,340 00A. S. Marshall ...	39-47	1,973 50Est. F. M. Munro..	30-5	1.720 00Est. F. Woodbury..	15-5	2,830 00W. Baker 	45-64	3,672 50G, G. Power 	32-02	3,635 00H. Keddy 	5-0	350 00S. H. Griffin 	55-85	4,061 00Mrs. L. Neiley 	36-3	2,000 00
We have no information as to the amount asked by each owner.


PROFITS OF CHARTERED BANKS
Mr. QUELCH:: 1.	What were the profits of each of the chartered banks for the year 1941 in Canada?
2.	What percentage of paid-up capital are such profits in each case?


James Lorimer Ilsley: 


NET PROFITS OF EACH OF THE CHARTERED BANKS OF CANADA FOR FISCAL YEARS ENDED IN 1941
[Stage Direction]
(Cents omitted)
I	II	III	IY	V	VI	VIIName of bank	Net profits after published provision for dominion taxes shown in column II but before appropriations for bank premises, pension funds, etc., shown in column III	Published provision for dominion taxes	Appropriations for bank premises, pension funds or other published allocations	Per cent of net profits (column ij to capital paid up	Per cent of net profits (column I) after allowance for appropriations, etc., (column III) to capital paid up	Per cent of net profits (column I) to total shareholders' money, viz., capital paid up, reserve and undivided profits	Per cent of net profits (column I) after allowance for appropriations, etc. (column III) to total shareholders' money, viz., capital paid up, reserve and undivided profitsMontreal (Oct. 31)	. $ 3,437,026	$2,242,905	$ 500,000	9-55	8-16	4-52	3-86Nova Scotia (Dec. 31)	1,935,602	1,061,949	455,000	16-13	12-34	5-20	3-98Toronto (Nov. 30)	1,521,556	902,944	400,000	25-36	18-69	8-47	6-24Provincial (Nov. 30)	291,434	149,209	50,000	7-29	6-04	5-59	4-63Commerce (Oct. 31)	3,013,152	1,665,987	603,994	10-04	8-03	5-93	4-74Royal (Nov. 30)	3,535,928	1,892,224	725,000	10-10	8-03	6-08	4-83Dominion (Oct. 31)	939,322	449,004	235,000	13-42	10-06	6-32	4-74Canadienne Nationale (Nov. 30)..	746,351	376,628	185,000	10-66	8-02	6-09	4-58Imperial (Oct. 31)	978,102	504,532	255,911	13-97	10-32	6-24	4-61Barclays (Sept. 30)	4,296	....	....	[DOT]29	....	[DOT]19	....$16,402,769	$9,245,382	$3,409,905	11-27	8-93	5-65	4-47
* Net profits shown in this case are after provision for provincial as well as dominion taxes and also after deduction of $125,000 statutory annual payment to the Province of Quebec-provincial statute 14, Geo. Y, Ch. 3.
Date following each bank's name denotes end of its fiscal year.
2910	COMMONS
Questions

Questions
If the purpose of question No. 1 is to ascertain the profits of each of the chartered banks earned in Canada the answer is that the banks are not required by the Bank Act or otherwise to publish or report separately the results of their Canadian business as distinguished from their external or over-all operations. The net profits of' each of the chartered banks for the fiscal years ended in 1941 are shown in the attached statement.
While the figures submitted are compiled from the regular annual profit and loss statements of the banks, it should be pointed out that all banks do not publish such statements in precisely the same form, not being required to do so by the general terms of section 53 (8) of the Bank Act. Moreover, to arrive at true net profits on a uniform basis the figures shown in column I should properly be reduced by the respective amounts shown in column III, since appropriations to write down the cost of premises, as well as contributions to pension funds, etc., are definitely provided out of earnings, and consequently decrease the amount finally available to shareholders.
Although the percentages of profits to paid up capital only are asked for, additional calculations have been made as indicated by the statement, particular attention being drawn to the percentage realtionship of net profits (column VII) to the total of shareholders' money invested, namely, capital paid up, reserve and undivided profits. It is the percentages shown in this column which reflect for all practical purposes the real relationship of final net profits to total shareholders' investment. The percentage of profits to capital paid up alone is necessarily a nominal or arbitrary one only (although sometimes incorrectly used as a measure of earnings) as other shareholders' funds also go to constitute the entire capital owned and at risk by shareholders.
female workers in war factories
Mr. LaCROIX (Quebec-Montmorency):
1.	Will the government eliminate the practice of two shifts a day for female workers in war factories of Quebec, and substitute therefor three shifts of eight hours each as is generally the case in Ontario?
2.	If so, when is it proposed to make this change?
Mr. HOWE:: I believe I may answer this
question verbally. It is the policy of the government to institute three eight-hour shifts wherever production can be improved by so doing. There are cases however where it is not possible to do so, on account of lack of management or lack of personnel, or the time required to adjust machinery.


PLEBISCITE-ADJUTOR SAVARD
Mr. FRASER (Peterborough West):: 1.	Did Adjutor Savard do any work in connection with the plebiscite?
2.	If so, what work?
3.	How much money did he receive for this work as (a) salary, (b) living allowance, (c) travelling expenses?


Mr. McLARTY:: 1.	No.
2 and 3, answered by No. 1.


NEW BRUNSWICK NATIONAL SALVAGE CAMPAIGN ORGANIZER
Mr. STOKES:: 1.	Has Lemuel F. Sewell been appointed director of salvage for the province of New Brunswick?
2.	If so, on what date?
3.	What salary and/or allowances does he receive?
4.	What are the duties of this position?
5.	What are his qualifications for this work?
6.	By whom was he appointed to this position?
7.	By whom was he recommended?
8.	Was this position publicly advertised and were others of equal or superior qualifications given an opportunity to apply?


Mr. THORSON:: 1.	Yes; Lemuel F. Sewell is organizer, national salvage campaign, for the province of New Brunswick.
2.	April 30, 1942.
3.	Salary, $2,100 per annum; out-of-pocket travelling expenses incurred while on departmental business.
4.	To promote the organization and direction of voluntary salvage committees in the area under his supervision. To promote salvage of materials and direct the flow of salvage to the market. Generally to encourage salvage of materials needed in war industry. .
5.	Knowledge of the immediate area in which he works and ability to carry out the policies laid down by the national salvage office.
6.	By order in council.
7.	Minister of National War Services.
8.	(a) No; (b) See answer to 8 (a).


HOUSING
Mr. LOCKHART:: 1.	What has been (a) the total expenditure made, (b) the total administrative cost, in connection with the Dominion Housing Act and the National Housing Act, from inception to date?
2.	What is the total number of houses which have been erected or are now in process of erection, pursuant to these acts?
3.	What is the total amount of the loans made under the said acts?
Questions

4.	What is the total loss incurred by the dominion treasury by reason of default of borrowers under these acts?


Mr. ILSLEY:: 1. (a) To May 28,	1942-$18,831,320 (Includes loans disbursed to date, administrative and other expenses.) (b) to May 28, 1942-$373,719. (Includes expenditures under the Dominion Housing Act and parts I, II, and III of the National Housing Act, less an estimated $30,000 allocated to home improvement loans expenses.)
2.	23,156.
3.	$76,884,292.
4.	$721.87.


HOME IMPROVEMENT PLAN
Mr. LOCKHART:: 1.	What was the total administrative cost of the Home Improvement Loans Guarantee Act?
2.	What was the total value of the improvements made pursuant to the above named act?
3.	What was the total loss incurred by the dominion treasury by reason of default under
this act?


Mr. ILSLEY:: 1.	Estimated at $30,000.
2.	$49,959,055.31.
3.	Total loss claims paid	$285,159.33
Less amounts recovered by
government	 11,947.46
Net loss claims paid	$273,211.87


ARMY WEEK
Mrs. NIELSEN:: 1.	Has the national executive committee for army week been appointed yet?
2.	If so, who are the members of such committee?
3.	When are further plans for [DOT] army week likely to be made known to the public?


Mr. MACDONALD (Kingston City):: 1.	Yes; a small group whose duties are to coordinate public effort in this regard and to disseminate information to local committees.
2.	Joseph W. G. Clark, Director of Public Relations, Army and Air Force, Chairman; Major-General H. F. Letson, Adjutant-General; Lt-Col. James Mess, Captain R. H. Dayton, Captain W. A. Robinson, Captain William Mills, R. S. White, Adjutant-General's Branch; Captain R. A. Diespecker, Public Relations, Army; W. B. Herbert, Department of Public Information; R. S. Jones, General Foods Limited, Toronto; W. C. Stannard, J. Walter Thomson Co. Ltd., Montreal; Claude Melancon, Department of Public Information; Albert Cloutier, Department of Public

Information; Peter Aylen, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation; Ross McLean, National Film Board.
3.	In the near future by a broadside newspaper "Army Week", published by the Association of Canadian Advertisers at no expense to .the public, and by statements made by the national executive committee and local army week committees all across Canada.


PRISONERS OF WAR-JAPAN
Mr. CHURCH:: 1.	Is the government yet in a position to make a further statement regarding the treatment of military prisoners and civilians by the Japanese army at Hong Kong, after the capitulation?
2.	Has Japan been notified that the Japanese government and the military commander in charge there will be held directly responsible and to account for the inhuman and brutal treatment of Canadians?
3.	Who is now Canada's protecting power in place of Argentine, and what has been done to protect the interests of Canadian prisoners of war?
4.	Has the government or any private organization been able to deliver any food, medical supplies, clothing or other aid to our soldiers there ?


Mr. CRERAR:: 1.	The government is not in a position to make a further statement regarding the treatment of military prisoners and civilians by the Japanese army at Hong Kong, beyond stating that it has been learned from reliable but unofficial sources that there has been some improvement in rations and living conditions.
2.	Any action along the lines suggested would not be taken independently by the Canadian government. The Canadian government is in close contact with the other governments concerned as to the appropriate action to be taken in this connection, and the time at which it should be taken.
3.	Switzerland is the protecting power for Canadian interests in Japan and Japanese occupied territories. All possible action is being taken to protect Canadian prisoners of war in enemy hands.
4.	Some relief has been afforded to prisoners of war and civilian internees from supplies which were within the Hong Kong area, but it has not yet been possible to send in any assistance.


NATIONAL SALVAGE CAMPAIGN
Mr. FLEMING:: 1.	Does the national salvage campaign cover the industrial salvage field?
2.	Have there been any special workers appointed by the department to stimulate industrial salvage?

Questions
3.	If so, who are they?
4.	What are their qualifications?
5.	What are their salaries?
6.	Who recommended them?
7.	What area or areas does each appointee represent?
8.	Have these men any special instructions or suggestions for industrial salvage?
9.	Does the Minister think the field is being adequately covered?


Mr. THORSON:: 1.	Yes.
2.	Yes; one.
3.	F. C. B. Henstridge.
4.	Many years' experience in industry and ability to carry out the policies as laid down by the national salvage office.
5.	S3,300 per annum.
6.	The Minister of National War Services.
7.	No specific area, but generally all areas of concentration of industrial activity.
8.	Yes. On January 8, 1942, a conference was convened at Ottawa of the various industrial associations in Canada for the purpose of discussing development of industrial salvage. It was agreed thereat that each association would create a salvage organization within iffielf, and through such organization arrange for active salvage operations in the various individual industries affiliated with the respective industrial organizations. The industrial salvage organizer has been instructed to keep in contact with these industrial associations to see that the work undertaken by them is done and he is also charged with the general responsibility of promoting salvage in individual industries.
9.	The matter is under survey by the new director.
women's VOLUNTARY SERVICES-DIRECTOR AND ASSISTANT DIRECTOR


Mr. FLEMING:: 1.	When was Mrs. W. E. West appointed director of the women's voluntary services?
2.	What position did she hold before her appointment ?
3.	Who recommended her?
4.	What salary is she receiving now?
5.	When was Mrs. West's assistant, Miss Frieda Held, appointed?
6.	What' position did she hold before her appointment?
7.	Who recommended her?
8.	What salary is she receiving now?
9.	Has the minister been informed as to the activities of these two appointees?


Mr. THORSON:: 1.	March 1, 1942.
2.	Education:	School of Social Service
Administration, University of Chicago, Ph.B.;
London School of Economics. 1924-26: Teacher and Social Welfare Worker, Winnipeg. 1926-30: Superintendent, Social Service Work, Windsor. 1931-33: Director of Emergency Relief, St. Catharines. 1934: Chief Supervisor, Hamilton Public Welfare Department. 193437: Asistant Deputy Minister, Public Welfare Department, Province of Ontario. 1937-40: Superintendent, Ontario Training School for Girls, Galt. 1940 to date of appointment: Housewife.
3.	The Minister of National War Services.
4.	$4,800 per annum.
5.	March 1, 1942.
6.	Education: School of Social Work, University of Toronto. 1920-35: On the staff of the Neighbourhood Workers' Association of Toronto. 1935-40: Supervisor of Field Services under Hon. David Croll, Minister of Public Welfare, Province of Ontario. Subsequently, assistant to the Deputy Minister of Public Welfare. February, 1940: Appointed Director of Welfare Council of Toronto, which position resigned in April 1940 on account of ill health. Since August, 1940, to date of appointment: Temporarily Supervisor of the War Guest Department of the Children's Aid Society of Toronto.
7.	The Minister of National War Services.
8.	$3,000 per annum.
9.	Yes.


ARMY SERVICE RATIONS
Mr. STIRLING:: 1.	Are the following fruit juices included in the service rations, (a) grapefruit juice, (b) tomato juice?
2.	Has the wartime prices and trade board, or any instrument thereof been instructed to purchase, (a) grapefruit juice, (b) tomato juice, for that purpose?
3.	If so, in what quantities and at what prices ?


Mr. HOWE:: 1.	(a) Yes.
(b) No.
2.	(a) No. The Department of Munitions and Supply have received requisitions from the Department of National Defence to purchase grapefruit juice.
(b) No.
3.	Contracts for grapefruit juice are being let for the month of June at competitive prices, but governed by the wartime prices and trade board ceilings. Estimated quantity required-approximately 30,000 cases per month.

Questions


PRICE CEILING SUBSIDIES-CANNED CITRUS FRUITS
Mr. CRUICKSHANK:: 1.	What amount has been paid to date as subsidy for canned citrus fruits?
2.	What amount has been paid to date as subsidy for citrus fruit juices?


Mr. ILSLEY:: 1.	Nil.
2.	$107,897.25 to May 29, 1942. The entire sum was paid on grapefruit juice which has now been declared ineligible for subsidy as of May 11, 1942.


WARDEN, QUE., WAR INDUSTRIES
Mr. LECLERC:: 1.	Has the government any interests in the International Flare & Signal Company, and MacDonald Chemicals Limited, of Warden, Quebec ?
2.	Is the government familiar with the scale of wages and salaries paid by these war industries?
3.	Will a scale of wages and salaries be paid there equal to that paid in other war industries in the province of Quebec?


Mr. HOWE:: 1.	The International Flare and Signal Company, Waterloo, Quebec, is a privately-owned company to which war contracts have been awarded.
The MacDonald Chemicals Limited, Waterloo, Quebec, is a government-owned plant operated by the MacDonald Chemicals Limited, Waterloo, Quebec, on a management fee basis.
2.	The government has knowledge of the schedules of wages being paid to workers in plants where war orders are being executed. These schedules are often established by agreement between employers and employees. Where no such agreements exist, the following labour condition with respect to wages is attached to each government contract:-
"All workmen, labourers or other persons who perform labour in or upon the work to be performed by the contractor shall be paid such wages as are generally accepted as current from time to time during the continuance of the contract for competent workmen in the district in which the work is being performed for the character or class of work in which they are respectively engaged, and if there be no current rate in such district, then a fair and reasonable rate."
Where workers receive salaries, the amounts in each case are fixed by mutual agreement between employer and employee.
3.	Answered by 2.


AID TO COASTAL MUNICIPALITIES FOR PROTECTION AGAINST ENEMY ATTACKS
Mr. ROY:: 1.	Has the government, through the medium of any of its branches, granted or does it propose to grant, aid to municipal bodies on the Atlantic coast to protect their municipalities from enemy attacks ?
2.	If so, what is the nature of such assistance, and upon what conditions has it been granted?
3.	What municipalities to date, have profited by the arrangement and what further aid has been promised?


Mr. MACKENZIE (Vancouver Centre):: 1.	No; aid is extended to provinces for distribution to municipalities.
2.	Equipment and instructional material, to be used in air raid precautions.
3.	Answered by No. 1.
gasoline RATIONING-MARITIME PROVINCES


Mr. HATFIELD:: 1.	If the gasoline coupons were cut from five gallons to four in Ontario and Quebec, would this release tank cars which might then be available to bring the coupon in the maritime provinces up to four gallons?
2.	Could our railways handle extra tank cars if they were given to them for shipment to the maritime provinces?
3.	Is the government giving consideration to any further plan that would bring the supply of gasoline in the maritime provinces up to par with the provinces of Ontario and Quebec?


Clarence Decatur Howe: I have already answered these questions in the house. The answer to No. 1 is no. The answer to No. 2 is yes, if extra tank cars are available-which they are not. As to question No. 3, for the past several months the government has given continuous consideration to increasing supplies of petroleum for the maritime provinces.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Is any crude oil reaching the refineries of the maritime provinces?


Clarence Decatur Howe: Yes.


CANADIAN FORCES-WOMEN'S SECTIONS  INCOME TAX
Mrs. NIELSEN:: 1.	Are the officers of the women's sections of the fighting forces subject to income tax?
2.	If so, will the government consider allowing exemption from income tax to such officers?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: To the extent the women's
sections of the fighting forces are recognized as being part of the Canadian active service forces by the Department of National Defence the provisions of the Income War Tax Act for exempting the service pay and allow-

Questions as Orders for Returns
ances of officers and men of the Canadian active service forces will apply to the women's sections.
It is understood that the Canadian Women's Army Corps and R.C.A.F. women's division are already recognized as part of the Canadian active service forces.
Accordingly sections 4 (t) and 91 (4) of the Income War Tax Act will operate to exempt the service pay and allowances of these taxpayers from income and national defence taxes as therein provided. The exempting sections read as follows:
sec. 4 (t) "The following incomes shall not be liable to taxation hereunder:
(t) The service pay and allowances of-
(i)	warrant officers, non-commissioned officers and men of the Canadian naval, military and air forces while in the Canadian active service forces, and
(ii)	commissioned officers of the said forces while on active service beyond Canada, or on active service in Canada, whose duties are of such a character as are required normally to be performed afloat or in aircraft."



QUESTIONS PASSED AS ORDERS FOR RETURNS


Mr. BENCE:: 1.	With respect to how many articles has the wartime prices and trade board permitted the retail price ceiling to be broken?
2.	Give a list of such articles, the basic retail selling price and the amount by which the board has permitted such basic retail selling prices to be increased?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Return tabled.


OIL PROSPECTING IN QUEBEC PROVINCE
Mr. ROY:: 1.	Has the government given or offered concessions to any companies to encourage prospecting for oil in the province of Quebec?
2.	If so, (a) what is the nature and value of these concessions; (b) who are the interested companies ?
3.	Has the government taken any steps to promote oil prospecting in Quebec?
4.	If so, what has been done?



OIL TANK CARS

[Stage Direction]
Mr. O'BRIEN:
1. How many tank cars, that is, railway cars suitable for the transportation of petroleum products, are, (a)- owned by the Canadian National Railways; (b) owned by the other Canadian railway companies; (c) owned by Canadian oil companies; (d) owned by Canadian chemical companies; (e) owned by other Canadian companies or persons; (f) leased by any of the aforementioned companies or persons; (g) owned or leased by United States companies but used in Canada?
44561-184J
2.	What is the total gallonage of all such tank cars which are presently in use for the transportation of petroleum products?
3.	What products other than petroleum products are transported in tank cars?
4.	What is the total gallonage of all tank cars presently in use for the transportation of products other than petroleum products?
5.	What is the total gallonage of all tank cars which are not presently in use for the transportation of petroleum products but which could be diverted to such use?
6.	For the periods April 22 to May 22, 1941, and 1942, or the nearest monthly period for which statistics are available, how many tank cars and with what total gallonage were engaged in transporting petroleum products for use in, (a) Prince Edward Island, (b) Nova Scotia, (c) New Brunswick, (d) Quebec, (e) Ontario, (f) Manitoba, (g) Saskatchewan, (h) Alberta, (i) British Columbia?
7.	During these periods, how many tank cars, and with what total gallonage, were engaged within each such province transporting petroleum products from base points within the province to other points within the province?

Mr. BLACK (Cumberland):: 1.	How many minesweepers or other naval boats have been built at Meteghan river or at other points in Digby county, Nova Scotia?
2.	Were these boats let by lump sum contract and to whom, and by whom were such boats built?
3.	What were the contract prices for each such boat?
4.	How many of these boats have been launched, stating dates of launching?
5.	Have deliveries been made to and accepted by buyers?
6.	If not, what were reasons for refusal or failure to accept deliveries?
7.	What sums have been paid on account of each such boat?
8.	What further sums are payable on each such boat?



TAXATION-INCOME, CORPORATION AND NATIONAL DEFENCE

[Stage Direction]
Mr. O'BRIEN:
1.	What are the boundaries of each of the income tax districts?
2.	What was the total amount of, (a) personal income tax, (b) corporation income tax collected in each of the income tax districts for the fiscal years ending March 31, 1939, 1940, 1941 and 1942?
3.	What was the total amount of national defence tax collected in each of the income tax districts for the fiscal years ending March 31, 1941 and 1942?

[Stage Direction]
Mr. O'BRIEN:
1.	What is the total revenue, tabulated by provinces, which has been received from the federal gasoline tax since its imposition?
2.	What is the total revenue, tabulated by provinces or income tax districts, which has been received under the Dominion Succession Duties Act since its coming into force?
[Stage Direction]
Questions as Orders jor Returns
3.	What is the total revenue, tabulated byprovinces, which has been received from the tax on entertainment since its imposition?
4.	What was the total revenue, tabulated by provinces, which has been received from the excise tax on railway, steamship, motor-bus and aeroplane fares since its imposition?

Mr. WHITE:: 1.	What was the total acreage purchased for the erection of the trade school at Hamilton?
2.	From whom was the land purchased?
3.	What was the purchase price of the land?
4.	Was any agent employed in connection with the purchase of this land?
5.	If so, what was the name of such agent?
6.	What was the total amount of commission paid to him?
7.	What is the name of the lawyer who acted for the government in the completion of this purchase?
8.	What is the total amount of legal fees paid in connection therewith?
9.	Did this property require to be filled?
10.	If so, how many cubic yards of filling were required?
11.	To whom w'as the contract for filling this property awarded?
12.	Were tenders called, and if so, was the lowest tender accepted?
13.	What was the total amount paid to the contractor for filling this property?
14.	What is the grand total of the cost of this site?
15.	To whom was the contract for the erection of the buildings awarded?
16.	Were tenders called, and, if so, what were the names of the tenderers and the amount of each tender?
17.	Was contract awarded to lowest tenderer?
18.	What is the total cost of the buildings erected to date?



RESERVE ARMY-GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES AT TRAINING CAMPS

Mr. HAZEN:: 1.	Do government employees in the reserve army, who go to summer camp for two weeks training, have to forfeit their civil pay during that period?
2.	Do government employees, who attend these summer camps, forfeit part or all of their annual holidays?
3.	What pay do government employees, who are privates in the reserve army, receive while attending camp with their reserve unit?
4.	Is the pay sufficient for married men to support their wives and children?
5.	Is any provision made to enable temporary government employees, known as prevailing rates men, who receive no holidays, to attend camp with reserve army units?



NATIONAL SALVAGE CAMPAIGN

Mr. FLEMING:: 1.	How many provincial field men or organizers are there in connection with the national salvage campaign?
2.	Who appointed them?

3.	Upon whose recommendation?
4.	What are their present salaries?
5.	What do they do?
6.	What did they do immediately prior to their present appointment?
7.	What are their qualifications for salvage
work ?
8.	Are the present appointees the only incumbents of these offices, or were there other appointees?
9.	If so, wrhy were their services dispensed with?



MILITARY SERVICE-LEAVE TO FISHERMEN DURING FISHING SEASON

Mr. HOY:: 1.	Has British Department of Food requested the shipment of fresh cod fillets or other fresh fish from Atlantic coast fishers for the current year?
2.	If so, what quantity of each variety of fish?
3.	Are there enough fishermen or labourers available to make this supply?
4.	If not, what action is the government taking in order to release fishermen from military service during the fishing season?
5.	Will the government grant leave for the duration of the fishing season to the fishermen of Gaspe and the Magdalen islands, who are now on military service?
6.	If not, what other steps will the government take to permit fishing syndicates and other firms engaged in commercial fishing to fill their orders for fillets of fresh cod and other fish received from the British Ministry of Food?



HOUSING

Mr. CHURCH:: 1.	Will the present Housing Act be continued?
2.	What representations have been made in favour of this policy?
3.	What amount has been spent to date, (a) under the Housing Act; (b) by Wartime Housing Limited?



USE OF ALCOHOL IN PRODUCTION OF SYNTHETIC RUBBER

Mr. FULFORD:: 1.	What, in tons, was the production of spirituous liquors in Canada last year?
2.	How many tons of commercial ethyl alcohol could have been recovered from this?
3.	By present methods, how many tons of Buna-S synthetic rubber could thereby be produced?
4.	Should the government adopt the policy of converting the distilling industry from liquor to alcohol, approximately how many bushels of wheat could be utilized by this one industry in the production of Buna-S rubber?



MOTIONS FOR PAPERS


Mr. STOKES:: For a copy of all rulings made by treasury board since November 1. 1940, on the question whether the National Film Board Act gives authority for employment of staff without prior

Motions jor Papers
approval of the establishment by treasury board and also on the question whether the National Film Board Act should be interpreted as applying to persons employed casually for the duration of individual projects and not to any person continuously employed.


Mr. SPEAKER:: Motion dropped.


Mr. BENCE:: For a copy of the opinion of the Department of Justice, referred to in sessional paper 211A, with respect to the application of order in council P.C. 4759, to persons employed under the provisions of the National Film Act.


Georges Parent: Motion dropped.



AIRCRAFT INDUSTRY-MORALE BUILDING CAMPAIGN

Mr. DIEFENBAKER:: For a copy of all letters, telegrams, reports, memoranda or other documents in the possession of the Minister of Munitions and Supply, the Minister of Finance, the director-general of aircraft production, the comptroller of the treasury, or of any official of said departments in any way referring to the morale-building campaign by E. G. Hirst, or with regard to any alteration in the terms of his appointment or the method of remuneration or reimbursement, and in particular granting to or refusing the aircraft companies concerned the right to charge any contribution made by them for the use of the said Hirst to overhead.



HAMILTON TRADE SCHOOL

Mr. WHITE:: For a copy of all letters, telegrams, reports, memoranda, contracts and other documents in possession of any department of the government with reference to the purchase of the property for the trade school at Hamilton and also with reference to the erection of the buildings on these premises.



CARGO VESSELS-VICTORIA MACHINERY DEPOT COMPANY LIMITED

Mr. WRIGHT:: For a copy of all contracts by and between the Department of Munitions and Supply and the Victoria Machinery Depot Company Limited, covering construction of cargo vessels by the said company.


Clarence Decatur Howe: Return tabled.



LEASE OF TORONTO EXHIBITION PARK AND BUILDINGS

Mr. CHURCH:: For a copy of the agreement between the government and the city of Toronto and the Canadian national exhibition with reference to the lease of exhibition park and buildings thereon by the government for the duration of the war.



MILITARY SERVICE-ALAN C. WRIGHT

Mr. MacINNIS:: For a copy of all letters, telegrams, reports, memoranda and other documents in the possession of any department of the government with reference to the transfer of the registration card of Alan C. Wright, 61 Albany street, Toronto, to Vancouver, on or about April 27, 1942, and the order made on the said Alan C. Wright to report for military service under the National Resources Mobilization Act, 1940, and the return of the registration card of the said Alan C. Wright to Toronto and the cancellation of his service call.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: The passing of this
motion should be made subject to all proper reservations with respect to privileged and confidential communciations.



HOUSING


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Richard Burpee Hanson: I wish to direct the attention oi the Minister of Finance to the fact that on April 30, in reply to a question from the hon. member for Broadview (Mr. Church) the minister stated he expected within a week to be in a position to make a statement with regard to the housing situation. In view of the representations made by the conference of the Canadian association of mayors of municipalities last week, will the minister expedite the promise he made, and at the same time deal with other aspects of the policy to be adopted in respect of the housing problem?


James Lorimer Ilsley: I really expected a question of this kind, because there has been a long delay since I promised to make a statement, if possible, within a week. A subcommittee of the war expenditures committee is taking some evidence in the matter, but my statement does not necessarily have to wait for the report of that subcommittee. I have been working on the matter whenever I had a minute to spare, and I certainly will comply with the request of the leader of the opposition to expedite the matter as much as possible.



MAGNETITE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. M. E. McGARRY (Inverness-Rieh-mond):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask a question of the Minister of Munitions and Supply (Mr. Howe). Has he received a report following the investigation he authorized with respect to magnetic iron deposits at Glencoe, Inverness County?


Clarence Decatur Howe: The report has not reached me
291S
Military Service

and I doubt if my officers have had the time to make the necessary investigation. I shall be glad to make inquiries about it.



MILITARY SERVICE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Richard Burpee Hanson: Speaking in the house on Thursday, May 28, as reported on page 2872 of Hansard, the Minister of National War Services indicated that he would not be surprised if the age limit for men to be called up should be moved forward to thirty-five years within a very short time. The announcement that the age limit for compulsory service would be raised from twenty-four to thirty years was made by the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) on- March 24, as reported on page 1566 of Hansard. At that time the Prime Minister stated:
It has also been decided to select the men to be called up for service by drawing lots over the whole field of those who are subject to the proclamation. As soon as the necessary administrative arrangements have been worked out for this plan of selection by lot, a detailed announcement will be made by the Minister of National War Services.
I now ask the minister, first, have the available single men between twenty-four and thirty years been practically exhausted? Second, has the minister abandoned the plan of selecting men by drawing lots, or is it intended to advance the age limit and to select the men within the given ages by lot? Third, if it is still intended to use the lottery method, when will the minister make the detailed statement announced by the Prime Minister?


Mr. POULIOT:: Before the minister answers that question, I have a question to ask along the same line. Would the minister be kind enough to tell the house if the callable age will be advanced to eighty-five years for married men in order to include the leader of the opposition (Mr. Hanson)?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: Mr. Speaker, with regard to the first question put by the leader of the opposition, the age groups from twenty-four to thirty years are not yet exhausted-


Richard Burpee Hanson: Practically exhausted.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: -in their entirety, but the limit of exhaustion is quite close at hand in at least one division, and will be close at hand in perhaps two other divisions in about a month. With regard to the second question, I would say that the proposed plan of selecting

men by lot from all the age groups that are subject to the proclamation has not been abandoned.


Richard Burpee Hanson: It has not been announced.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: The administrative details, which are fairly intricate, have not been worked out.


Richard Burpee Hanson: May I ask one additional question? In what military districts have the groups between the ages first mentioned been exhausted?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: In division C, the Kingston division.



AGREEMENT WITH WHEAT BOARD FOR FURTHER PURCHASES BY GREAT BRITAIN

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. E. E. PERLEY (Qu'Appelle):: I should like to ask the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. MacKinnon) two questions based upon the announcement which he made in this house on Friday last to the effect that a sale of 120,000,000 bushels of wheat to the British Ministry of Food had been consummated. The minister stated that this sale is on the basis of futures, October and December. He stated also that he had requested the British Ministry of Food to authorize him to make available the selling price. First, how could a sale have been made on the basis of October and December futures when they have not been opened yet on the Winnipeg exchange? Second, will the minister read to the house the cables which have passed between his department or the Canadian wheat board and the British Ministry of Food with respect to the request that he be authorized to announce the price, even if the price is not mentioned?


Hon. J. A. MacKINNON (Minister of Trade and Commerce):: I could not quite follow the second part of the question asked by the hon. member for Qu'Appelle. I shall take note of it and answer it again.


Ernest Edward Perley: What about the first one?


James Angus MacKinnon: I shall answer them together.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I might say-


Richard Burpee Hanson: Now we are going to get the real low-down.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I am not surprised that the leader of the opposition (Mr. Hanson) slumps down in his seat.

Wheat Purchases


Richard Burpee Hanson: I am not afraid of the minister, any time, anywhere.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I resent the imputation in the remarks of the leader of the opposition, and if he does what I expect him to do, he will withdraw them.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I have nothing to withdraw.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: When the leader of the opposition makes the comment, "Now we are going to get the real low-down," all I can say to him is that he does not increase his stature in this house by making a remark of that kind.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Now I assume we will get the truth.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: That remark is just as objectionable, but I am not going to get into an altercation with the leader of the opposition. The hon. member for Qu'Appelle asked how it was possible for the wheat board to make a sale for future delivery in the months of October and December when those months have not yet been quoted on the exchange. If my hon. friend will reflect, he will realize that that has nothing whatever to do with it. There is nothing to prevent the wheat board from making a sale of wheat for delivery in October, November, December, next May, or a year from now. That is all that is involved in the transaction.


Ernest Edward Perley: Did they use futures, and was the trade cleared through Winnipeg?


Mr. ROSS (Moose Jaw):: The hon. gentleman has never got it straight in his mind.


Ernest Edward Perley: I should like to ask the Minister of Mines and Resources if any brokers were used in this transaction of futures?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I am quite sure that there were no brokers. This transaction was made direct by the wheat board with the cereals import committee.


Ernest Edward Perley: It was never cleared through the clearing house? There is no record there.


Georges Parent: Order.



CIVIL SERVICE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. ROBERT FAIR (Battle River):: May I ask the government or the appropriate minister whether any order has been issued freezing civil servants in their present positions until the end of the war? If such an order has not
been passed, does the government contemplate taking this action?


Georges Parent: That question should be placed upon the order paper.


Hon. HUMPHREY MITCHELL (Minister of Labour):: The answer is no.



ORDERS IN COUNCIL


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. GROTE STIRLING (Yale):: May I ask the government if it would not be possible to hasten the publication of the orders in council relating to the war? The last volume I have is No. 5, which brings us only to December 31. Surely in five months' time we ought to have additional volumes.
Hon. IAN A. MACKENZIE (Minister of Pensions and National Health): Volume No. 6 is now in course of preparation and will be available within the next few days. It is intended to have these issued more frequently in the future than they have been in the past.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. G. A. CRUICKSHANK (Fraser Valley) :: In connection with the two billion dollar war appropriation resolution, will the Minister of Agriculture come before the committee?


James Lorimer Ilsley: If the house desires it, yes.


George Alexander Cruickshank: British Columbia certainly desires it, but I do not know whether that would be considered part of the house;


Mr. ROSS (Souris):: So does Manitoba.



CANADIAN FORCES


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Jean-François Pouliot: I should like to ask the Minister of National Defence for Naval Services (Mr. Macdonald) for some information with regard to the telephone directory of the naval and army departments.
On May 27, at page 2S06 of Hansard, the minister for naval services was kind enough to give the information requested in regard ^
Canadian Forces

about one-third of those having their names in the telephone book, and he stated how many of them had resided in Canada for the past five years, how many had not, and hoiw many were bilingual. Referring to my original question at page 2292 of Hansard I would) ask the minister when I shall be given the information with respect to all the other officers listed in the telephone directory.
Hon. ANGUS L. MACDONALD (Minister of National Defence for Naval Services): Mr. Speaker, I think my hon. friend will have to direct that question to the ministers of the other two war departments, because I could not undertake to answer a question relating exclusively to the army or the air force. I would not have the information.


Jean-François Pouliot: I thank the minister, but would he be kind enough to tell me when his colleague the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Ralston) will be here?


Mr. MACDONALD (Kingston City):: The Minister of National Defence is on an inspection tour in western Canada and expects to be back in the city to-morrow afternoon or evening. I am sure that he will be in the house on Wednesday.


Jean-François Pouliot: What time? Then we can go to the station.



WAR APPROPRIATION BILL


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Friday, May 29, consideration in committee of a resolution to
provide sums not exceeding $2,000,000,000 for the year ending March 31, 1943, for granting to his majesty aid for national defence and security-Mr. Ilsley-Mr. Bradette in the chair.

Jean-François Pouliot: Mr. Chairman, I would
first ask the Minister of National War Services to be kind enough to table a list of the personnel of the information bureau, with their occupations.


James Lorimer Ilsley: If the hon. gentleman will
permit me, it is proposed to-day to take up finance. The request was made that I place on Hansard a break-down of the amounts required for the various departments of government other than the defence departments and the Department of Munitions and Supply. On March 17 I placed on Hansard a statement of the amounts required for those departments, $146,000,000, in round figures. I shall now with the consent of the house hand a break-down of that amount to Hansard for insertion in the record.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Is it
very long?


James Lorimer Ilsley: Fairly long.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Then I
shall not ask the minister to read it.


James Lorimer Ilsley: The hon. member for
Lethbridge (Mr. Blackmore) requested that finance be taken up at an early day, and it was thought this would perhaps be an appropriate day. I will hand the statement to Hansard:
WAR APPROPRIATION, 1942-43 Amounts Submitted by Departments
Agriculture-
Agricultural Supplies Board-
Board Administration	
Flax Fibre Administrator	
Fertilizer and Pesticides Administrator	
Seeds Administrator	
Flour and Feeds Administrator	
Programmes to encourage the Production of Essential
W ar Supplies	
Purchase, Storage and Distribution of Agricultural
Supplies	
Assistance in the Disposal of Agricultural Products rendered surplus by the War	
Bacon Board-Administration	
Dairy Products Board	
Special Products Board	
Freight Assistance on Western Feed Grain	
Fertilizer Assistance	
Auditor General's Office

Auditing and Checking War Accounts	
34,502 22,780 20.397 9,498 55,000	
230,000	
1,405,583	
3,700,000	$ 5,477,760 71.300 1,514,950 978.271 2,000,000 1,000,000

Civil Service Commission-
Supply of Personnel for War Services 
301,625

War Appropriation-Finance
External Affairs-
Administration and Passport Office	 $	265,000
Representation Abroad	 100,000
Consular Services	 5,500
Evacuation of Staff from Abroad	 5,000
Evacuation of Offices Abroad	  22,500
Canada-United States Permanent Joint Board on
Defence	    5,000
Canadian Section of the Joint Economic Committees. .	53,000
Finance-[DOT]
Comptroller of the Treasury, Dependents' Allowance
Office and Outside Establishments	 $ 4,979,617
Royal Canadian Mint	 116,289
Premium for the Purchase of Dominion of Canada
Registered Stock	 725,000
Wartime Prices and Trade Board-
Administration	 $ 3,380,000
Subsidies under the Price Ceiling Order	 50,000,000


	53,380,000
Fisheries-	

Wartime Fisheries Advisory Committee
456,000
59,200,906
3,000
Justice

Expenses in connection with Prize Court	
Expenses in connection with Administration of the
Defence of Canada Regulations	
Salaries of staff appointed under War Measures Aot..
Labour-*
To provide for unpaid accounts 1941-42-
Assistance to Necessitous Dependents of persons detained under the Defence of Canada Regulations.. Payments in connection with the training of individuals for skilled or semi-skilled occupations
connected with war work	
Payments in connection with the training of men for R.C.A.F. ground crews and for other aircraft
trades	
Occupational History for each member of Canada's
Armed Forces	
Vocational Training for members discharged from Canada's Armed Forces	
Assistance to necessitous dependents of persons detained under Defence of Canada Regulations	
Assistance to the Province of Ontario in recruiting, transporting and placing labourers upon farms in
the Province	
Administration Expenses connected with War Emergency Programme	
Interdepartmental Committee on Labour Coordination..
National Labour Supply Council	
National War Labour Board	
Occupational History for each Member of Canada's
Armed Forces	
Payments in connection with training of individuals for skilled or semi-skilled occupations connected with
war work	
Programme to train young men for aircraft manufacturing and as ground mechanics for the R.C.A.F., including pre-enlistment education for aircrew personnel
Specialized Training for Aircraft Manufacturing	
Vocational Training for discharged members of Canada's
Armed Forces	
Wartime Bureau of Technical Personnel	
Mines and Resources-
Mines and Geology Branch-
Explosives Division-Administration of the Regulations governing the possession, use and sale of explosives, established under the War Measures Act $ Bureau of Mines-Metallic Minerals Division-Services to War Departments	
Services re War Requirements of Minerals	
Strategic Minerals-Exploration and Development Work	
$	50,000
50.000 4,668



$ 8,150 303.500 180.500 2,500 1,300    $ 495,950 77.000 60,000 38,300 22,340 21,240 351,310 4,500 4,850,000 3,850.000 100,000 300,000 128,450 17,120 75.000 25.000 250,000 104,668 $10,299,090 REVISED EDITION

[Stage Direction]
$	367,120
War Appropriation-Finance
[Stage Direction]
WAR APPROPRIATION, 1942-43-Con. Amounts Submitted by Departments-Con.
Mines and Resources-Concluded Lands, Parks and Forests Branch-
Dominion Forest Service-
Internment Operations	 $	40,390
Forest Products Laboratories	 34,895
National Parks Bureau-
Alternative Service Work Camps	 762,000
Surveys and Engineering Branch-
Engineering and Construction Service-
Alternative Service Work Camps	 $	351,300
Employment of Japanese Nationals	 3,600,000
Prince Rupert-Terrace-Cedarvale Highway_______	5,500,000
Immigration Branch-
Expenses in connection with British Evacuee Children $	2,300
Grants to National Advisory Committee for Children
from Overseas	 125,000
Expenses in connection with looking after Canadian Interests in Enemy and Enemy Controlled Territories	 150,000
Expenses in connection with looking after Canadian Interests Abroad apart from Enemy and Enemy
Controlled Territories	 25,000
Detention of Alien Seamen who refuse to perform
their regular duties	   17,450
General Expenditures in the British Isles and Canada
arising from the War	 25,700
National Harbours Board-
Maintenance and Operation of Fire-Tug, Halifax Harbour	
National Revenue-
Customs and Excise Division-
Censorship of newspapers and other publications....
National War Services-
Departmental Administration	
National Registration Division	
Mobilization Division-
General	
Corps of (Civilian) Canadian Fire Fighters	
Public Information Division	
Salvage Division	
War Charities Division-
General	
Auxiliary Services	
Women's Voluntary Services Division	
Radio Broadcasting Censorship	
Civilian Technical Corps	
Special War Film Library	
Pensions and National Health-*
Pensions Branch-[DOT]
Treatment and Pension Examinations, Members and
Ex-Members, Defence Forces (present war)		$ 3,500,000
Treatment-R.C.M.P	 100,000
Treatment of Canadian Fishermen and Seamen		5,000
Pensions-Defence Forces, etc	 1,500,000
Investigations-Dependents' Allowance Board	 40,000
Committee on Demobilization	 20,000
Committee on Reconstruction	 20,000
Post-Discharge Re-establishment	 500,000
Edmonton Hospital-Veterans' Pavilion	 26,000
Ste. Anne's Hospital, Ste. Anne de Bellevue,
Quebec-Buildings	 54,000
837,285
9,451,300
345,450
[Stage Direction]
 11,001,155
$	49,230
4,100
$	90,520
231,635
834,190
800,000
1,345,500
235,750
31,260
6,000,000
29,360
25.000
20.000
40,000
[Stage Direction]
	9,683,215
[Stage Direction]
War Appropriation-Finance
Pensions and National Health-Concluded Health Branch-
Air Raid Precautions	
Inspection of Industrial Plants	
Laboratory of Hygiene-Services for National Defence Department	
Public Health Engineeringinspection of camps, barracks, airports	
Food and Drugs-Examination of supplies for
National Defence Department	
Quarantine Service	
Hire of Boats-Halifax Harbour	
Processing, etc., of Blood	
Immigration Medical Inspection, Overseas Division-
Evacuation from EnglSnd	
Maintenance, medical and other care of incapacitated
non-resident seamen pending deportation	
Detention Allowances-
Canadian Seamen	
Post Office
[Stage Direction]
Postal Censorship	
Canadian Postal Corps	
Prime Minister's Office-
Additional Expenditure due to the war	
Privy Council- *
Office of the Registrar of Orders in Council
[Stage Direction]
Public Works-
Chief Architect's Branch-
Ottawa-Extension to Jackson Building	 $200,000
Furniture, etc., for new employees	 600,000
Repairs, alterations, operation and maintenance of
buildings	 600,000
Rentals	 620,000
Ottawa-Annex to Daly Building	 40,000
.
[Stage Direction]
Chief Engineer's Branch-
Saint John (Courtenay Bay), N.B.-Dredging	 $450,000
Esquimalt, B.C., Dry Dock-Additional cost of operation	 46,000
Telegraph Branch-
To provide 24-hour service on Pacific Coast	
Contingencies (Telephone Service and Unforeseen).. .
Royal Canadian Mounted Police-
Increased activities of the Force due to the War	
75,000
200,000
[Stage Direction]
Secretary of State-
Internment Operations	,	 $123,388
Refugee Camps	 45,938
Press Censorship	 110,765
Department Generally	 11,300
Commission re Naturalization Certificates	 10.000
[Stage Direction]
 301,391
Trade and Commerce-
Canadian Shipping Board-
$	562,720
98,640 15,740 1,786,495
[Stage Direction]
 2,463,595
Administration	 $	62,720
Revolving Chartering Fund	 500,000
Export Permit Branch	
Shipping Priorities Committee National Research Council....
2924
War Appropriation-Finance
[Stage Direction]
WAR APPROPRIATION, 1942-43- Cone.
Amounts Submitted by Departments-Cone.
Transport
[Stage Direction]
Departmental Administration	 $	8,000
Transport Controller's Office	
Director of Merchant Seamen-including administration, manning pools, nautical schools and welfare
facilities	
Air Service

Special Radio interception and monitoring services, weather observation and teletype services, extra airport control systems and operation and maintenance of airports-
Radio Service	 $
Meteorological Service	
Civil Aviation-Air Traffic Control	 *
Civil Aviation-Operation and Maintenance of Airports	
Canals Service-
Welland Canals (Revote)	 $	35,000
Canals Generally	 8,250
[Stage Direction]
 43,250
Marine Service-
Marine Service Steamers	 $ 150,000
Aids to Navigation	  50,000
Nautical Services	  36,620
Compensation to masters and crews of Canadian
vessels for loss of personal	effects	
50,000Degaussing equipment	for	Canadian	Merchant Ships..	500,000
786,620
Railway Service-[DOT]
Purchase of Railway Equipment (Advances)		$17,250,000
Additional harbour and terminal facilities at Halifax 1,000,000
[Stage Direction]
	18,250,000
Government Employees' Compensation Act, Administration	:	 38,100
864,340
523,430
201,520

700,000
678,245

22,230,505
Mr. REID:: I want to lodge a protest with the Minister of Finance against the present method of handling the agricultural affairs of this country, if the wartime prices and trade board is under the minister's control, which I believe it is. I think it is time that the attention of the house and the country was drawn to the fact that the wartime prices and trade board is dealing with agriculture, fisheries, and many other matters, and I am going to protest as loudly as I can against the present drift. The farmers are suffering from the low prices established on agricultural products. When you go to the Department of Agriculture they say: "We have nothing to do with it; you had better go to the Department of Finance." I protest strongly on behalf of the people of this country, and particularly the farmers, who are working like slaves below the cost of production. Things are getting so involved that you do not know what department to go to. When you want to deal with fisheries matters, you are told: "Under the wartime prices and trade board." When you want to deal with agricultural prices, you are told: "Under the wartime prices and trade board." When you want to deal w'ith any matter almost, you are told: "Under the wartime prices and trade board."

I have an advertisement here-I do not know who is advising the wartime prices and trade board-telling how much sugar children should have, and it says: "Children need sugar because it helps to build energy for active little bodies." Have they a doctor in the wartime prices and trade board who is advising them on matters of this kind? I warn this house and the country that there is a dangerous drift right now, and it is time to protest and to ask the minister where we are going.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I think the protest by the hon. member for New Westminster is well founded. We have refrained from raising this question of controls because it is said to be unpatriotic to do so. That is the whole reason why this question has not been aired in parliament before now. The minister will have to say something in defence of this body that he has set up. I wish I had my files here. I could read what the minister said in this house on November 21, 1940, about price ceilings. I do not want to delay the committee, and I am not going to make a speech, but I suggest that hon. members read what the minister said in the debate on the address on November 21, 1940. I should like to quote what he said on that occasion. He

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condemned price control out of hand. Then, after a long time, after somebody had sold him this idea; we had a complete reversal of attitude by the minister. The people of this country are bewildered.
I am in favour of control in war time to prevent inflation, if it can be done by any kind of decent method. I think the objective is good. I am not going to condemn it. But the whole difficulty is that they froze prices in this country on an uneven structure. There is the whole story. And they did it in an effort to do two things, to prevent the cost-of-living index from rising, and to prevent wages from rising. And who is the sufferer? The primary producer is the sufferer-absolutely. The wartime prices and trade board had thought for only certain factors in this body politic. They have had thought for the consumer; and of course he is entitled to con- * sideration. But there are other people in this country besides the consumer. There is the wage earner, and above all there is the impoverished producer.
I am looking at the hon. member for Yarmouth. Go down into his community and see how the fishermen have been suffering because of the low prices of their commodities. Go into my community and see how the potato grower has been suffering, until this very year. Three years out of four he has operated at a loss, and in the fourth year, when he has a chance to recoup himself for the losses which he sustained in the three preceding years, a ceiling is placed on his product and he is told, "No; now that the opportunity is come for you to recoup yourself for the last three years you just cannot do it; you must shoulder your losses and pay them out of your capital."
This sort of thing has gone a long way, and I think it would be highly desirable to have a good wide-open discussion on it. I use a classic illustration, the question of hay. Hay is a prosaic commodity, but in the days gone by, in the Saint John valley and all across the river valleys of eastern Canada, it was a fine commodity and it sustained many a farmer. In the days of the automobile down to a comparatively recent period hay was a drug on the market. Last year it began to look up. Last year we had a good crop. What happened? When the farmers had just about completed the baling of their hay, at the period when hay is at its very lowest level of the whole year, between the 15th of September and the 11th of October, the price of baled hay was frozen. The trend of the market has always been upwards from October 1, to near the time when the new crop is in. Farmers in the Saint John river valley
had the price of one of their principal commodities frozen, and it is unjust and unfair to these producers. I raise a protest on behalf of the hay farmers of the Saint John river and of the eastern townships and every other part of Canada.


Mr. CASTLEDEN:: Right across Canada.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Yes, you
can see the same thing right across Canada. Here is something right under my nose, something which comes directly to my attention. It is something which many farmers are demanding to know. They are willing to make sacrifices for the war effort, but they see the huge prices which are being paid in the industrial areas; they see that 85 per cent of the increased national revenue is going to the wage earners, the consumers-and how much do these producers get? Nothing.
I think the hon. member for New Westminster deserves thanks for having raised this question. I am not going to carry it on now because I know that the minister is anxious to meet the wishes of the hon. member for Lethbridge, but this pot has been boiling a long time and somebody has to have the courage to deal with it. The whole subject has been dealt with without any plan at all; it is hit or miss, hit and run, trial and error, and the primary producer is the sufferer.


Jean-François Pouliot: I wish to say just a word following the remarks of the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. Reid) and the leader of the opposition (Mr. Hanson). It is to ask the minister to postpone this discussion until each member has had an opportunity of reading what the minister has produced. He is the only one who knows what is contained in the few sheets of paper he has handed to Hansard; therefore I think it would be unfair to all of us to insist that we continue the discussion now. The least that can be asked is that every hon. member should have the opportunity to read it in Hansard, and then the discussion should be much smoother; moreover, it will be orderly. At the present time, since we do not know what is before us, it is very hard for anyone to speak to the point. I hope the minister will be kind enough to appreciate this circumstance, and take up something else.


Mr. COLDWELL:: I should like to support the leader of the opposition in some of his remarks.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Hear,,
hear. A new convert 1


Major James William Coldwell: No, not a new convert at all, because as a matter of fact I suppose
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the only group in this chamber which over a period of years has urged an intelligently planned economic structure is the group with which I am associated.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Well, well, well.


Major James William Coldwell: That is absolutely correct. But, you cannot have economic planning simply by imposing something in an arbitrary manner, and that is precisely the defect in connection with the control of prices. I am not complaining that the government did attempt to control prices. I think it was the proper thing to do under the existing circumstances. But the unfortunate feature of the whole thing was that they adopted arbitrarily the price level of a certain period, with the result that prices and wages which were out of line were frozen at those levels.
Those of us who come from the prairies remember that within the last few months we have had a long debate regarding a price level for wheat, and the price level for wheat was raised, I believe largely because of the pressure which was brought to bear by the western farm delegations and by various discussions in this house. But although the price of wheat was raised to a degree, it still was not brought up to a parity level. While we welcome the increases which were made, nevertheless we know perfectly well that there are other producers-the fishermen were mentioned a few moments ago; the producers of hay, the producers of other commodities, and then of course you have in some instances wages entirely out of line with those which are paid in other fields of endeavour. There are still people in this country who are getting less than 35 cents an hour and whose wages are more or less frozen at that level.
I believe it would be well if parliament would consider the matter of price control in a much wider and broader manner than it has been considered hitherto. When people look around and see some of the great manufacturing concerns engaged in war work increasing their net profits by very large amounts they naturally wonder just how that can be reconciled with the fact that producers of essential commodities are compelled to accept figures which are below the cost of production. We cannot solve this problem piecemeal; we cannot solve it by arbitrarily selecting a period and imposing an arbitrary price which is thereafter to prevail. What we should do is. to endeavour to arrive at a fair basis of parity prices for at least primary and essential commodities, and then
IMr. Coldwell.]
relate to that the wage levels and so on, so that there may be a measure of justice in the imposition of a price ceiling.
I do not propose to say more at this time, but when the budget is before the house I hope the minister will make a complete statement on the price ceiling and the policy in regard to it, and that at that time we may discuss the matter with more information at our disposal, so that we may be able to arrive at a better understanding of just what is being done. I am going to state, in fairness to the minister and those who advise him, that this is an attempt at least to prevent the price level from running away with itself, thereby bringing about a chaotic inflationary situation in this country.


James Arthur Ross: Following the remarks already made on this subject and the request of the hon. member for Fraser Valley (Mr. Cruickshank), I think the Minister of Agriculture should take some part in the discussion of this resolution. I know I have some questions I should like to ask with regard to the marketing of eggs, poultry and other agricultural products. There are some rather embarrassing matters connected with the marketing of these products which I think should be dealt with by the Minister of Agriculture under this measure.
I should like to say a word about the matter of controllers. I am satisfied that some of these controllers are given too much authority, and that they do not extend the proper cooperation to others in authority. A week or so ago I received some telegrams from my own community asking if permission could be obtained for the use of trucks to take people to certain school field days, which are held under the authority of the provincial department of education. In one of these telegrams it was pointed out that it would take ten or twelve automobiles and drivers to transport these children, while one truck and driver might be able to take them just as easily. You will realize the wastage of man-power and gasoline which could be avoided in that way. A government member from my province received a wire stating that some twenty automobiles and drivers would be required for this purpose, whereas the same number of people could be transported in one large truck. I spent most of the day with the officials concerned with this matter; I telephoned the controller in Toronto, but he refused to grant permission. The minister will realize that in the provinces we have public utility boards which have detailed information as to the operation of trucks, automobiles, buses, and so on. I suggest that the minister ask the controllers who have to do with

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these matters to call a meeting of representatives of these utility boards in order to get the benefit of their experience, which extends over the last ten or fifteen years. In one day they would be able to obtain a great deal of useful advice, which might be of guidance to them when they consider issuing these drastic orders. If this is not done in the very near future the minister may not receive the cooperation on the part of the public which he and the government have been receiving up to this point.
I had the privilege of returning home last week and I was amazed at the number of agricultural producers who, irrespective of politics, are thoroughly disgusted with the manner in which these orders are being issued by the various controllers. These people are willing to sacrifice everything they have to buy bonds and war savings stamps; they will do everything possible to help win the war, but they do not like the way these orders are issued. Why, farmers who do not even attempt to operate cars but who own trucks are told that they cannot use those trucks to take their families to town to do the marketing. They are told they may not use their trucks to take their families to church on Sunday, which to me seems absurd. Then recently they were told that they may write to some divisional registrar and get a permit to use their trucks in this way if their application is approved. This system of controls and controllers needs looking into. It is creating an impossible situation in this country, which may develop into a very great hindrance to the war effort. I trust the minister will take this matter into consideration and see that some check is made.


Mr. BLACKMORE:: Well, Mr. Chairman, I am a little at a loss to know where we are at to-day. I understood that the Minister of Finance was going to make a statement.


James Lorimer Ilsley: No.


John Horne Blackmore: Perhaps I was misinformed; but the reason I asked that the Minister of Finance should come on and make a statement was that I realized that in addition to the problems which hon. members have brought forward thus far there are many other problems affecting the whole economy of Canada which have to do directly or indirectly with the Department of Finance. The hon. member for New Westminster put his finger upon a very sore spot, the cause of which simply must be removed; and in my opinion that matter should be discussed under this two billion dollar war appropriation. To the extent to which the Minister of Finance has in any way neglected to manage the
economic affairs of Canada as they should be managed in the best interests of Canada, to that extent he is answerable to this house for the way in which he has administered his department. Therefore he should be brought to attention, shall I say, or called to account under this war appropriation.
I am particularly surprised to find that the leader of the opposition, who was so supinely willing to give up the discussion of this whole matter, apparently having concluded that it had been discussed sufficiently, should be so full of things to say even before he was in order. Now, however, all I want to do is find out whether or not the Minister of Finance is going to make a statement before we have any general discussion. I had concluded that he would, and I think it is the right way to proceed. Let the minister make, his statement, as the other ministers have done already. Then let hon. members discuss, in an orderly fashion, the various aspects of that statement.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I agree that at the moment the discussion is adrift. A request has been made that time be given hon. members to examine the statement which I placed on Hansard this afternoon. That is a reasonable request, and one which of course I cannot deny. It means that there will be days of discussion, but I have long since ceased to hope that this can be avoided, so that I think we will just have to reconcile ourselves to the inevitable. What I propose is that instead of going on with the finance part of these estimates this afternoon, we revert to national war services, which was opened up the other day, and that I come back on a later day, after hon. members have had an opportunity of examining the statement which I placed on record.
With regard to the proposal that I make a statement such as the defence ministers made, I want to avoid that if possible. I think it would be just a waste of time. I could make a review of the activities of the Department of Finance since I last presented a review of those activities to the House of Commons, but I seriously question whether that would be advisable, just on the eve of the budget. One of these days I am coming on with a budget speech; and -we must have some little regard to the passage of time, otherwise we will be here until next September or October. I have placed a statement on record, including a break-down of the proposed expenditures covering the Department of Finance and the other departments. Hon. members want to look at that statement. As I have said, it seems to me a reasonable request; hon. members do not want to go on until they

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have had a look at the figures. In connection with the Department of National War Services that is not necessary. That department has been before the committee for some time, so that perhaps we can go on and see if that department cannot be completed. That is the best I can do in connection with the problem of steering this discussion. With regard to what has been said this afternoon, I shall make no reply at the moment. I shall have to be in readiness to make a reply later with regard to the price ceiling policy, and so on.


John Horne Blackmore: Do I understand that the minister has already placed a statement on Hansards
Mr. ILSLEY r Yes, this afternoon-merely a break-down of the proposed expenditures.



NATIONAL WAR SERVICES

Jean-François Pouliot: I thank the Minister of Finance for acceding to the request for the postponement of any discussion on financial matters. Now here we are on national war services. In the first place I would ask the minister-


Major James William Coldwell: I am sure the hon. member will not misunderstand me if I raise a point of order. On Friday afternoon the hon. member for Cape Breton South (Mr. Gillis) had almost completed his argument at six o'clock, and he would like to conclude his statement now, if the hon. member for Temiscouata does not mind.


Jean-François Pouliot: I shall gladly agree to the suggestion of the hon. member. According to the rules I have the right to speak now, but just to show my spirit of fraternity I am delighted to give the hon. member for Cape Breton South an opportunity to conclude his remarks.


Mr. GILLIS:: I want to thank the hon. member for Temiscouata for his cooperation; it is good to get a little from that side occasionally.
At the time of adjournment on Friday afternoon, I was endeavouring to point out that the boards now functioning for the purpose of calling men for military service would have to be reorganized if they are to do the job that has to be done. I think we gave the minister concrete evidence of that in the situation which arose in Toronto, where an important aeroplane plant was disrupted by having some four hundred of its trained men called for military service, some of whom had been declared medically unfit only a short time before. I was endeavouring, not for the purpose of criticizing but with the desire to help,

to point out that I have considerable confidence in the people who are handling the national selective service, and I suggested that if the industries which are all-important to the war effort are to be protected in future, national selective service will have to have some considerable say on the boards that are calling up men for military service.
My conception of the whole situation now is that most of the men who will be called for military service in the different age groups in the future will come from industry, perhaps from industries that are essential. In view of the definite regulations laid down to be administered by the national selective service authorities, they will have to be given some representation on these boards, and some say, because the emphasis now is not on whether a man is eligible for service but rather on how essential he may be in industry. In that connection I am wondering whether national selective service has any latitude with respect to men who may be taken from industry. When we adjourned on Friday I was pointing out that there is considerable apprehension on the part of employees in the steel industry. For example, I had a letter from the secretary of lodge No. 1064, of the steel workers' union, at Sydney, Nova Scotia, where in one plant there are some 4,000 or 5,000 employees who are members of this union. In this letter it was pointed out that at that time, May 0, it was rumoured that instructions recently had been issued to all employers to prepare to release all men between the ages of twenty-one and thirty, and in this letter the fear was expressed that if the matter were left solely to the employers it could be done in a discriminatory manner, that a company policy of favoritism could be imposed. There is every justification for that expression of fear on the part of the members of the union. It is pleasant to be charitable, to think along charitable lines and to presuppose that the other fellow is as honest and patriotic as you are. Unfortunately the experience of these unions in the past does not give them much confidence in what the companies may do. The employer now has the right to go before the board-[DOT]


Humphrey Mitchell: It is the employee who
has the right to make the application.


Clarence Gillis: But the employer has the
right to appear before the board, and he makes the decision as to whether or not the employee is essential. In an organized plant you have men who are active in the union and who consistently work toward the raising of the standard of living of the employees. As a rule men of that calibre are not very well liked by the employers; so that

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if one of them should be called for military service, regardless of how essential he may be to the industry it would be an easy matter for the employer to decide that he was not so essential, and to shift him out. I do not think it is asking too much on behalf of the working people to ask that labour be given representation on these boards. It must be done if they are to function properly, particularly when you have as chairman a judge who is impartial but who in most cases has not had much experience with the problems of the common people or the essentiality of men in industry.
In the west the farmers are represented on the boards. That is all to the good, since agriculture is the industiy directly affected there. In the industrial sections, where the employer has an opportunity to be called in, labour should be represented. After all we must remember that it is the employee who is being regimented. His are the liberties that are being taken away. He is not making any great protest against that; all he asks is that the government give him equal representation on the board which decides whether or not he is most essential to industry or to the armed forces. I do not think that is asking too much. The miners, the farmers, the steel workers and all other organized workers already have demonstrated in many ways that they are deeply concerned in winning the war. I do not think any group in Canada is more cognizant of the necessity of winning the war than the organized workers of this country; for they know something of nazism and what it stands for and what they may expect in the future if we lose. I submit therefore that arrangements should be made to have the officials of the unions sit in with the board. These call-ups will not be made so very often. A board does not have to sit continuously. If it is necessary to take 400 or a 1,000 men from a given industry, I do not think it is too much to ask that the organized workers sit in with that board and decide whether a man is more essential here, turning out aeroplanes, tanks or other equipment vital to the war effort, or whether he is more essential to the army. That is all they are asking. I leave that thought with the minister for his consideration.
Before this discussion is concluded I should be glad if the minister would give us some information as to the -latitude allowed in connection with national selective service. We have set up a national organization. From what I have gathered, that organization is in the hands of a very capable man. Has he sufficient latitude in administering the regulations, in connection with the particular
angle of calling men for military service? Has he the latitude to administer that organization as he sees fit, under the regulations, or is he subject to direction and control by national war services, agriculture, pensions and national health, and labour? The ramifications of these regulations reach into all these departments.
In addition I should like to ask the minister whether any consideration has been given to this aspect of the matter: Canada has not unlimited man-power. To a large extent she will be the arsenal of the British empire. Upon his recent visit to Canada General McNaughton stated that so far as Canada was concerned emphasis would have to be placed on war production. What proportion of the man-power of Canada is to be placed in the armed forces? After consultation with representatives of other allied nations has the government reached any understanding as to what is necessary for Canada by way of man-power, recognizing of course that at the same time, for the duration of the war, we shall have to maintain industrial production in Canada to an extent undreamed of in the past?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Cape Breton South has raised questions of prime importance, which will require careful consideration not only by hon. members but by the people of Canada generally.
Before dealing specifically with the points raised by the hon. member toward the conclusion of his address, I should like to attempt to -clear up some misunderstanding which may be in his mind. If he will read the statement made by the Prime Minister on March 24 he will see that in the main the national selective service system is placed under the jurisdiction of the Department of Labour, but he will also see that the administration of the compulsory features of the national selective service system, in so far as it relates to the calling of men for military training, and subsequently for service in the army for the duration of the war, is in the Department of National War Services.
On a number of occasions I have pointed out the composition of the divisional boards, of which there are thirteen. Each board consists of three members, headed by a judge of a superior court or some other court of the province in which the major portion of the division is located. Then there are four persons who have the right to appear before and make representations to the board. They

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are not members of the board, but have the right to appear before it and make whatever representations they deem fit.


Clarence Gillis: Who are these people?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: One of them is a representative of the Department of National Defence. He is usually a serving officer of that department, and is assigned by it to that particular duty. The second representative is from the national war labour board, and is appointed by and representative of that body. The third representative is from agriculture. Then there is also the representative of the director of national selective service, who has the right to appear before and make representations to the board.
The idea behind the scheme is that the representatives of the Department of National Defence, the national war labour board and agriculture are present to see that the interests, if I may use that expression, of those chree groups, and the war objectives I mentioned some time ago, are safeguarded. I pointed out earlier that there were three war objectives, namely the raising of armed forces, the production of munitions of war and other war materials, and the supplying of food for shipment overseas. Let us look upon these as our three war objectives. These representatives when appearing before the board are, in a sense, guardians of those three objectives.


Clarence Gillis: My point is that at present there is no one in authority to safeguard the production end of the matter.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: Oh, yes; I do not think the hon. member and I are very far apart, in reality. For example, the purpose of having a representative from the national war labour board is to see that the needs of essential industry are safeguarded. It would be his duty to indicate to the board his opinion as to whether a man should be called for military training, or whether his call should be postponed on the ground of his being essential to war industry or being attached to some other necessary activities.


Clarence Gillis: What is the function of the national selective service representative?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: We recently added to the list of representatives the representative of the director of national selective service. He is there to see that so far as possible the best disposition of individual cases is made. So that in reality those persons with whom my hon. friend is chiefly concerned have two guardians, namely, the representative of the national war labour board and that of the director of national selective service.
Mr. MaeINNIS: That depends on who the representative of the national war labour board would be.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: In all these matters the personal factor must enter; but the purpose of having these representatives appear before the board and make their representations to it is that of effecting a safeguard with respect to the various aspects and objectives of the war effort.


George Hugh Castleden: Do the boards consider these cases before the men are called, or do they function in the manner indicated after applications for postponements have been made?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: The general practice is that the divisional registrar will send out a notice to report for medical examination. He will not know the position of any particular individual. If a man is rated category A-l, and does not make any application for postponement, the notice to report for military training at a certain training centre goes out to him in due course.


George Hugh Castleden: What opportunity
would he have of knowing in what category he was placed, if his own family physician did not tell him? Then, what opportunity would he have to ask for postponement?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: When he gets the notice to report for medical examination, at the same time, through a memorandum of instructions he receives, he is advised as to his right to apply for postponement.


Mr. FLEMING:: How would he know in what category he was?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: I should like to reply to the hon. member for Cape Breton South, if I may. In a sense the board is really operating in respect of persons who have received notices to report for medical examination and have applied for the postponement of their military training-the board is operating a selective service system based upon the consideration of each individual case.
A man makes application for postponement, let us say on the ground that he is essential to war industry. The facts with regard to that man are on his card, but there may be other facts available. The representative of the Department of National Defence has a chance to make his representations. The representative of the national war labour board has the right to make his representations. There is also present a representative of the director of national selective service. Furthermore, the employer has a right to give evidence before the board as to the nature

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of the man's work, whether or not he can support the employee's application for postponement upon the ground that he is essential to war industry. The board attempts to ascertain whether the cpnsiderations are such that the man should go to military training, or whether his military training should be postponed. They consider each individual case from the point of view of all the facts. They hear whatever evidence is forthcoming with regard to the man's case. The various representatives make their representations. I think it may fairly be said that the board is operating a national selective service system when considering all the facts in a particular individual's case. After hearing the evidence in support of a man's application for postponement and the representations made on his behalf, the board makes its decision in the matter, which is final. In making this decision it is really operating a national selective service system on an individual basis.


Mr. NOSEWORTHY:: Is it not true that the onus for the selective service rests upon the indivdual? Suppose a tool-maker were called up; whether he remains in industry or goes into the army will depend upon whether he asks for exemption.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: Asks for postponement,
yes.


Joseph William Noseworthy: Whether a man stays in industry or goes into the army depends upon whether he asks for postponement. That is what governs, not that Mr. Little or anyone else makes the decision. The final decision rests with the man who is called.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: In respect of the man who is quite willing to go into military training when he is called. The system does not entirely end there, because there is an arrangement with national defence under which a man may be brought out of the army under certain circumstances if he is considered a key man in war industry. Under the present system he cannot be brought out against his own will. We have not yet reached the point where a man can be pulled out of the army and put back into industry against his own will.


Mr. NOSE WORTHY:: Can he be taken from one industry and placed in another against his own will?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: We have not reached that stage either. I do not want to be guilty of the charge laid against me by the hon. member for Cape Breton South that I am answering for other departments. However, I think I have stuck to my own department to a
far greater extent than the hon. member for Cape Breton South has indicated. The boards try to arrive at a disposition of these cases according to certain principles, which are set out in the main in section 14 of the regulations. The board must consider certain classes of application from the point of view of the national interest and of all the surrounding circumstances. A study of the figures that have been given will indicate that the boards across Canada have looked with great care at these applications for postponement, and that the representatives of the various interests that I have mentioned have in the main done their duty and have safeguarded these various purposes in relation to the war effort.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Is there any uniformity in the decisions across the country? Is it not a fact that in some places they construe them quite narrowly while in others wide latitude is given?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: The figures which I placed on Hansard some time ago indicate that there is a certain spread.


Richard Burpee Hanson: In Quebec it is very wide and in Saskatchewan it is quite low.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: No, that is absolutely not right.


Richard Burpee Hanson: That is the deduction I make from the figures.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: I am sure my hon. friend does not want to be unfair to any portion of Canada in connection with the granting of applications for postponement. The figures and percentages were placed on Hansard on May 11 and May 18.


Mr. COLD WELL:: I am trying to get this straight in my own mind because I am receiving a number of letters from people in western Canada. The minister said that the initiative in the application for postponement must come from the individual.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: That is right.


Major James William Coldwell: Look at the Prime Minister's speech of March 24, at page 1566 of Hansard, where he said:
The liability to compulsory military service will continue to be general for the age categories affected. The burden of demonstrating the case for postponements is unchanged, except in the case of persons wholly or mainly employed in agriculture on March 23, 1942, as defined in the amended national war services regulations.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: Will the hon. gentleman read the next sentence?

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Major James William Coldwell: He goes on:
One of the man-power problems with which the country is faced is the growing shortage of agricultural labour. Means, accordingly, have had to be devised to ensure that the supply of farm labour it not depleted. To that end, regulations have been enacted to stabilize employment in agriculture.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: Keep on reading, please. The next sentence is the one.


Major James William Coldwell: He goes on:
With three exceptions, the regulations provide that no male person wholly or mainly employed in agriculture on March 23, 1942, as defined by the regulations shall enter into any employment outside agriculture unless he has obtained written permission from the national selective service officer to enter such employment. They also provide that no person shall take into employment outside agriculture, any male person wholly or mainly employed in agriculture unless such male person has obtained such permission.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: Then a statement follows to the effect that persons wholly or mainly employed in agriculture will not normally be called up for military training.


Major James William Coldwell: I will read the next sentence:
The three exceptions provided for are active service in the armed forces by voluntary enlistment, seasonal employment in a primary industry, and compulsory military training if it is established that the person concerned is not an essential worker in agriculture.
But it has to be established that the man is not an essential worker in agriculture. That is the whole point. It is the interpretation of this speech and of the regulations in different parts of Canada that is causing all the difficulty.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: My hon. friend has made a great deal out of that point of view. We have already covered in detail the application of the regulations relating to persons wholly or mainly employed in agriculture, on May 11 and again on May 18, and several times since then. I think it is perfectly clear, both from the Prime Minister's speech in the house and from my official press release of April 17, what the government's policy is. It was also fully dealt with by the conference of chairmen and registrars of the administrative divisions and I do not think I can usefully add anything to what has been already said.
With regard to the point of view put forward by the leader of the opposition, there is, I agree, a certain amount of apparent lack of uniformity in dealing with applications for postponement. Before one can conclude whether that apparent lack of uniformity is real or only apparent he must have possession of

all the facts and of the differences of situations in the various provinces. But that there is some variation is unquestioned; I do not see how you can get away from some variation when you have the personal factor and, what is more important than anything else, when you have each decision made upon the facts of that particular situation.
Let me now come to some of the specific points raised by the hon. member for Cape Breton South. He spoke of organized workers and their willingness to cooperate to the fullest extent in the war effort. I should like to pay my tribute to the manner in which workers in every part of Canada have answered the call when it was made to them.
The board must find the facts as to whether it is in the national interest that a man should receive postponement from military training if, for example, he is in a war industry. They must find that as a question of fact. They hear representations and take evidence. Furthermore all the boards, I think in all parts of Canada, where there are large centres or where there is a considerable concentration of war industry in their divisions, have visited those industries and know pretty well their whole set-up. In a number of the divisions at any rate the whole situation relating to war industry has been worked out. The board knows pretty well who are the essential indispensable key men, who are the highly skilled men and who are the semi-skilled men; they know who are the beginners and learners. This system of working out plans for dealing with war industry in the large centres has been highly satisfactory.
When my hon. friend says that the boards need not sit continuously, I may say to him that to deal with individuals in the way that I have indicated becomes increasingly difficult and takes an increasing amount of time as the number of persons who come before the boards for review grows.
The director of national service has not the deciding say in the matter of compulsory calling of men for military training and subsequent service in the Canadian army for the duration of the war. That is not a function of the director of national selective service. The director has a great many other functions, but this function is not one of them. It is a function that is performed by the Department of National War Services through the thirteen administrative boards I have mentioned and operating in the way I have indicated.
I agree with my hon. friend that Canada has not unlimited man-power, and it therefore becomes a matter of the utmost importance to utilize such man-power as exists in the best possible way and in such a manner as will

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make for the greatest effectiveness in the war effort of our country. It may be difficult at any one stage to say which of the three objectives I have mentioned is the most important at any one time. The Minister of National Defence has indicated what our objective in the matter of the armed forces is so far as man-power requirements are concerned. Roughly it is that we should have by the end of March, 1943, something over
600.000	enlisted men in our armed forces-that
is, in the army, in the air force and in the navy-he has given a breakdown of that. He indicated also what the strength of the armed forces was at the time he made that statement. Similarly, the Minister of Munitions and Supply indicated the man-power requirements for his programme:	that we have
600.000	persons engaged in war industry production, and that it was expected that another
100.000	would be employed therein by the end of March, 1943, and that a large part of the additional personnel would be women.
That is the programme which has been set, and it is believed that there is sufficient manpower to carry it out. That is the programme relating to the armed forces which was laid down by the Minister of National Defence, and the programme with regard to munitions production which was laid down by the Minister of Munitions and Supply, at the same time holding for agriculture the persons who are allocated to agriculture as a result of recent regulations relating to it. When we reach the objective of that particular programme we shall have to consider, of course, where we go from there. At this particular stage I do not see how it would be possible to indicate too far in advance what the respective objectives in the matter of man-power requirements should be. At the present time we are trying to attain all the objectives which I have mentioned as we have set them. In other words we are marching abreast towards the fulfilment of the programme which I have outlined. So far as the call-up for military training is concerned, in some divisions of Canada we are almost at the stage of exhaustion of the men in the age groups that we have called up thus far, and in other parts of Canada we are getting very close to that stage. As I indicated earlier, the reserves of man-power available for call for military training and subsequent service in the army vary in different parts of the country, as a result of many different causes.


John George Diefenbaker: Would the minister allow a question at this point? Apparently a survey has been made to ascertain how many men within the various age limits are still available for service. Is the minister in a
position to say that the point of exhaustion is being approached in certain military districts? Will he give the committee the figures showing the numbers in the different districts between ages 21 and 24 and 24 to 30 who are still available for war service?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: That may not be so easy to do. I indicated at one stage that when we had the figures showing, for example, the impact of recent agricultural regulations on the man-power situation we would be in a better position to readjust the break-down of the requisitions that come from the Department of National Defence to the Department of National War Services.


Richard Burpee Hanson: They only ask you for so many men.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: We will then be very close to the information which the hon. member for Lake Centre has in mind.


John George Diefenbaker: The information
must be available, on the basis of national registration, which will show exactly the number of young men in the various age classes and the records of the numbers who have been called up.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: Oh, yes.


John George Diefenbaker: Then we would
necessarily have, by a simple subtraction, the numbers that are available, both medically fit and unfit.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: I think I put on Hansard last November figures showing the numbers of men in each age group straight across Canada, by administrative divisions, and I think by provinces as well.


John George Diefenbaker: Then it is necessary to get enlistments, too, and calls.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: If you deduct from that
the number of enlistments and the number of calls you would have still a great many deductions to make. You have the large deduction of persons who are below category A-l at the present time. I think I could name quite a number of deductions which would have to be made, in respect of persons who are engaged in essential occupations-war industry, agriculture and other occupations which are in the national interest.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Chairman,
there is only one way in which the minister can possibly say that the point of exhaustion is being arrived at, and that this committee may know just whether selective service is needed to-day, and that is to have the statistics of the pool of men who, if they would

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enlist, would be available for service. I cannot understand the answer of the minister this afternoon when he stated that, after the expiration of two months, the government is still not in a position to advise this committee and the country when the system of calling men by lot is to be brought into effect, and what the nature of the system will be.


Jean-François Pouliot: Just before the minister
answers, I do not think the hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker) is fair to the minister. There is not a minister who has been more extensive in his remarks and in his answers-


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: That is another way of
putting it!


Jean-François Pouliot: -than the Minister of National War Services. The hon. member for Lake Centre is asking for a tabulation. I wonder if he himself could recite a page of logarithms and give all sorts of figures of the kind. I know he understands my point, because he is a bright lawyer and an experienced debater, and he cannot expect the minister to give him off the bat such a number of figures. I am sure the minister will give him the information as soon as he has had time to tabulate it. Ministers may come here with their officials, but no one comes here with an adding machine and a typewriter to give information in this cafeteria for statistics. My hon. friend knows better than that.
If I am permitted I will tell the minister what my understanding is of the working of the department in getting men. It seems to me that the three defence departments, army, navy and air, are using the Department of National War Services for gathering men just the same as they apply to the Department of Munitions and Supply for munitions and supplies. The Department of National War Services, in that respect, is acting pretty much the same as the Department of Munitions and Supply and is helping the Department of National Defence. The requisitions for men come naturally through the Department of National Defence-from the three defence departments.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: From one.


Jean-François Pouliot: They come to the Department of National War Services. According to a news item that appeared not long ago, on May 16, in the press, draftees can now switch to the navy or the air force, but they must enlist either in the air force or in the navy before they are called by the Department of National War Services for training. It is a

new step towards disguised conscription, and I do not appreciate that method of dealing with trainees, because sometimes some of them have been waiting for a considerable period to get an answer from the board and they have to enlist at once either in the navy or in the air force, if they have inclinations towards those branches of the service, if they want to be accepted; otherwise they have not that choice any longer.
The change mentioned by the Prime Minister in his statement of March 24 indicated that the onus probandi, the weight of evidence, had been altered. First, it was the draftee, the trainee or the conscript who had to prove that his training should be delayed for one reason or another, and then it was up to the board to decide whether the evidence was enough to justify such a delay. Now when a trainee states that he is indispensable to the farm and asks for a delay it is the duty of the board or of someone else connected with the board to show that such is not the case, that the man is not indispensable to the farm.


Richard Burpee Hanson: The law is the other way. The young man who applies must prove his case.


Jean-François Pouliot: I am coming to that. All that was required according to the regulations was that the draftee when he was called had to undergo his medical examination, something he always had to do, and then write to the registrar informing him of the reasons why it was impossible for him to go. That was the former practice. But now, although it is said that the statement of the draftee that he is indispensable to farming is prima facie evidence, and although that has been broadcast in the press, the practice is altogether different from that indicated in the statements that have been given to the press. The young man has to give a sworn statement to the effect that he is a bona fide farmer, that his presence on the farm is indispensable, and then the board does not require contrary evidence to refuse his request. But the board takes upon itself to accept or reject such evidence, which seems contrary to the statement made by the Prime Minister, and contrary to what the Minister of National War Services has just said.
If we take the request of the young men in the army who have to get leave to help their parents on the farm, the procedure is much more complicated. There must be a sworn request giving all data and sworn to by the draftee himself; and in the second place there must be two other sworn statements of persons who are not related to him. How can it be said afterwards that the weight of

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evidence has been transferred from the private individual to the state when the private individual is required to bring forth so much, and especially when the board many times pays no attention to that evidence and decides just the same as if there were weightier contrary evidence when there is none? Take the case of a particular farmer. Let us call him A. He is a young man whose father and mother are dead and he is the only support of his younger brothers and sisters. The condition of his health is not very good and he earns enough money in civil life to provide support for the whole family. That young man is in the position of a married man with a family, and if he brings his case, supported by the mayor and by the parish priest and proves that it is a cruel hardship, the board can come to this decision: No; we will pay no attention to that evidence; go to your training. And then if a young man who is already in the army submits his request to his commanding officer, the commanding officer is supposed to transmit that request to the board. But it is optional with him. He can refuse. He may grant certain leave, but on the other hand he may say, "No, I will simply keep that request on my desk".
I have here the case of a young man, E-615935, a soldier at Valcartier, who on April 27 submitted his request for leave to his commanding officer and up to May 27 had heard nothing about it. It is very embarrassing to leave people under a false impression. Of course I believe that everything that has been said about it has been said in good faith; but when boys who were on the farms saw in the press that on March 23 all those who were then on the farm were frozen on the farm, they said: "What is the use of reporting? We are already exempt; at last we have that exemption that we had during the last war." Moreover, the newspapers gave a good deal of publicity to the matter and those boys who were in good faith found to their surprise afterwards that they were deserters because they stayed on the farm and worked there on the very day when all those who were doing so were supposed to be exempt. I want hon. members to understand the situation.


An hon. MEMBER:: Nobody can understand it.


Jean-François Pouliot: I am trying to explain what happened, and I admit it is a cobweb. But what I want hon. members to understand is that these young men are acting in good faith and they have been deceived by statements made in good faith. But not only
that. The situation looks complicated, but it is really much worse. There is a distinction between those who had one month of training and those who had four months. It is a subtle distinction that must have originated in the mind of that eminent counsel who before the war was lobbyist de luxe for John de Iiuyper's concoction.


An hon. MEMBER:: You don't like John de Kuyper?


Jean-François Pouliot: It is not that, but I do not see how anyone can describe as eminent counsel one who was a lobbyist de luxe for John de Kuyper's concoction.


An hon. MEMBER:: Who was he?


Jean-François Pouliot: That will come out in due course. Here is the case of E-615608. I have a sworn statement which I will summarize. It is the case of a young farmer. He said that on December 22 he was on temporary leave and visited his family and did not return to the camp and they told him he was a deserter. He stayed with his father to help him with his work on the farm. The father needed him. He said his father's farm consisted of 200 acres, of which 135 were cultivated, and that on the farm there were five horses, twelve cows, four calves, twelve hogs; sheep, hens and chickens. He was the only son who could help his father in the work. That was why he could not return to the camp. This letter is dated May 2, but this young man was on the farm on March 23 and notwithstanding that, he is supposed to be a deserter.
Here is the case of F-13800, another farmer's son, whose father is very ill. There is a certificate from the hospital stating that the father has been in hospital and that he cannot work on the farm. The farm is a large one. There is a certificate from the mayor who is also warden of the county, and it is impossible for that young man to get an answer from the board.
Here is another case, that of a son of a baker who was sick and could not work. This is the case of F-67322. The father could not work and was replaced by his eldest son who did the work in the bakery. The boy went to his training and was replaced by his younger brother. The younger brother is needed at home because he is the support of the family during his father's illness. The case has been submitted to the board but there has been no answer yet.
I have received very many letters. I will only read two that have come to me, one from the county of Bona venture and the other

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from St. Valerien, Rimouski county. I will send a copy to the minister. He is a linguist and knows both languages very well. I quote:
(Translation.)
St-Charles Caplan, May 28, 1942.
Sir,
Although I am not a resident of your constituency, I beg leave to submit my case to you. I am a farmer and the only son I have who might be of assistance to me is undergoing military training. I have tried in vain to have him released for the summer in order that I might have the help I need on my farms, and the steps I have taken are as follows.
I wrote to Mr. Henri Paul Drouin (reg.), and to Capt. Laniel, of Rimouski. I was referred to Colonel Chaloult, of Quebec. My son was sent to Three Rivers; I wrote to Colonel Forbes, forwarding under the same cover a letter from the parish priest, signed by the mayor, asking that an investigation be made on the spot, if necessary, following which I mailed two other communications. You may appreciate success of my endeavours when I tell you that all I have received, since March 31 last, was a reply stating that my request had been referred to the Department of National Defence.
I own three farms, three hundred chickens, one hundred hens, twenty-three head of cattle, four horses, one tractor and twelve hogs. I have a family of seventeen children to look after, the eldest of whom are girls. My only helpers are a cripple who spent five years in a hospital and is unable to work hard, and a grandson of thirteen who still attends Sunday school. You will easily see that I cannot get along without additional assistance. Although I do my best, I must 'perforce neglect a great many things. _ The authorities encourage agricultural production and at the same time deprive me of the only valuable assistance I had. Is this fair? I am already exhausted, and the -work is far from done. I hope, Mr. Member, that you will not remain indifferent to my appeal, for otherwise I do not know to whom I should turn in order to obtain a modicum of justice.
You may be sure that I shall be very grateful for anything you do on my behalf.
Yours faithfully,
That is one. The other one is from Rimouski, and is as follows:
St-Valerien, May 27, 1942.
Dear Sir,
You may find it strange to receive a letter from a resident of another constituency, especially on this subject, but a friend in Rimouski advised me to write to you.
Here is my problem: I have a son who entered the army on Dec. 4; he is a farmer's son and we absolutely need him on the land. I requested that he be allowed to return home during seed-time and to help me build a barn. However, no leave was granted to him. I have lost the only helper I could really count on, and I have six acres of land by forty in length. . . .
He says his farm is one of 240 acres. It continues:
... I have a youngster with me, but he is not accustomed to handling farm machinery.
My son underwent two months' training in Three Rivers and Rimouski, was then sent to
fMr. Pouliot.]
Sherbrooke and from there to Sussex, N.B. He again applied for leave in Sussex, and they seem to be taking this under consideration. If you were able to assist us in the matter, I think we could succeed. We did not object to his undergoing four months' training, but we would like to have had him on the farm at seed-time and until after the harvest. It is too bad to see him penned in down there when he loves the land so much. During his three days' leave, he took time out to plough a field.
In conclusion, I trust that you will be able to help us. I shall need his services badly when I start to build my barn in June.
(Text) This is another case with respect to a young man, a farmer, who took advantage of his three days of leave to do some ploughing.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Did he overstay ?


Jean-François Pouliot: No; he went back to his regiment. We complain of the shortness of the delay in making the call; the young men have no time to present their cases to the board. I have in mind the case of F-21457. This was a young man who had been sick at home, and who was notified that if he did not go at once for his medical examination the mounted police would be sent after him. This happened during the winter when there were enormous snowbanks on the ground, and it was very cold. This young man had to leave his bed to go for medical examination.
This sort of thing has happened not only in Quebec; the same has happened at Cornwall. A returned man, who is working in the House of Commons, came to me to complain about the way in which his son had been treated at Cornwall. The boy had been home, and while home had developed pleurisy. However, the military authorities wanted him at once in Cornwall, and they brought him back in a truck.


Harry Raymond Fleming: Who did?


Jean-François Pouliot: The army military police. Then I have in mind another case with respect to a young man who was placed in category A.


Mr. POTTIER:: How many cases has the hon. member?


Jean-François Pouliot: If my hon. friend has some cases in his constituency, he will be free to bring them to the attention of the committee. If he is not interested, he may go back behind the curtain and smoke a cigarette. I am working for my electors, and no power will prevent me from defending them. Besides that, I am not affected by jeers or ridicule; they leave me entirely indifferent. If my hon. friend wants to know how many cases I have, he has only to listen to me and count on his fingers, to save time. I do not wish to be offensive; I

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like the hon. member for Shelburne-Yarmouth-Clare; he is a friend of mine, but I will not stand for any interruptions when I am defending the case of a farmer in this country.


Harry Raymond Fleming: And the hon. member is making a good job of it.


Jean-François Pouliot: I do not know whether it is good or bad, but I do my duty to the best of my ability. I am sorry I have not the eloquence of some hon. members. This is not funny work; my files are open to all, and it will be seen that I look after my people. Moreover, I have an office at Riviere du Loup just to look after farmers' sons; that is the only work my secretary is doing there. There is also the tremendous amount of correspondence I have here. I attend to that seriously; it is not a joke. Anyone can call me this or that; I do not care. But when it comes to the defence of my electors, I am behind them, because I know they stand by me when I need them.
Not only have I cases from my constituency; I have some from Ottawa. For instance, here is the case of Mr. James O'Meara, of 67 Red-path street, Ottawa, who speaks for his son. This is a general complaint about the way in which things are being done. I do not blame the minister, but I wish him to understand what is happening. I am willing to cooperate with him, and I am also ready to help him redress the wrong. Wrongs must be redressed.
If we must have conscription, then let us see that we have conscription, and we shall know where we stand. But when we are hearing about a voluntary system, and people having no opportunity to defend themselves, I find it unjust and unfair. That is why I fight for my people. I believe we have a voluntary system, and I believe in the law; this is a matter of law. But if we are to have conscription, then let us say, "there is conscription for overseas. We do not want to bother about the defence of this country. We are thinking about the defence of other lands." If we hear that, then we shall know where we stand' and what to say. But as long as we have the so-called voluntary system, and as long as the voluntary system is not working well, it is the duty of each member of parliament to defend his electors. He should explain the cases having to do with farmers. We are not yet eating soya beans, but I hear that experiments have been made. If soya beans are used, the farmers will be even more useful. We need the farmers; they are essential and vital to our war effort. They are just as vital as the soldiers, because if there were no farmers the soldiers would not be fed.
I hold in my hand a certificate dated August 16, 1941, from the record office of the Ottawa General hospital, which states:
This is to certify that Harold O'Meara was a patient in the Ottawa General hospital from April 17, to August 6, 1933. He was treated for a traumatic cataract.
Then, I have a letter from C. E. Ruddy, addressed to Mr. James O'Meara as follows:
Your letter in reference to your son, Pte.
. Harold O'Meara, has been received.
Your representations regarding your son's disability, are not consistent with the findings of the medical examiners. On enlistment his eyes were given the usual rigid test and he was rated category A. He was re-examined a few days ago as to both physical condition and eyesight and his category confirmed. Therefore he is definitely fit for active service.
The following letter dated September 12, 1941, is from Miss 0. J. Waters, private secretary to the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Ralston):
Mr. Ralston has asked me to acknowledge receipt of your letter of 11th September, in which you advise that your son Harold O'Meara, who is serving with the Ordnance Corps at Camp Borden, has an eye disability.
I am at once bringing your letter to the attention of the appropriate officers of the department in order that they may know of this condition.
I now quote the following letter between the same parties:
I have for acknowledgment your letter of October 9th, in which you make further enquiries regarding your son, C.38005, Private Harold O'Meara.
Your previous letter was referred to the appropriate officers of the department in order that your son's eye condition might be investigated. I shall be glad to refer your further enquiry to the officers concerned, with the request that they forward you the latest information regarding your son's physical condition.
Yours very truly,
0. J. Waters,
Private Secretary.
Then on November 11 there is a letter from the acting deputy minister to Mr. James O'Meara, which reads:
With further reference to your letters of 11th September and 9th October, addressed to the Minister of National Defence, I wish to advise you that your complaint regarding your son's eyesight was referred to the appropriate military authorities and advice has been received that Pte. O'Meara was medically examined and found to be in category A by a medical board, immediately prior to his departure overseas.
However. a letter has now been written to Canadian military headquarters overseas advising of the eye operation performed on your son in 1933, and requesting that his eyesight be examined and report forwarded to national defence headquarters.
When this information has been received you will be further advised.

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There is another letter to Mr. O'Meara from the acting deputy minister dated February 4, that reads:
I acknowledge receipt of your letter of the 29th January, 1942, which was forwarded to me by the Department of National War Services. A cable has been sent to Canadian military headquarters, England, asking for a statement as to your son's condition, and you will be further informed as soon as a reply has been received.
The next letter on the file is from Captain R. Fraser, for Colonel L. P. Sherwood, Ottawa area command, and it reads:
Your letter of March 14, 1942, addressed to Captain Williams, R.C.O.C., Lansdowne park, has been passed to this H.Q. for attention.
Upon investigating this case it has been found that a Harold O'Meara, giving his address of 67 Redpath street, presented himself for enlistment in the first Canadian ordnance field park, Ii.C.O.C., and was medically categorized E for high blood pressure. He was declared unfit for military service at the time, July 3. 1941.
Joseph O'Meara came in for medical examination from the recruiting office, 93 Sparks street, and was medically categorized B2, defective vision of right eye.
Would you supply this H.Q. with more specific information regarding your son Harold as record here indicates that he was turned down on account of failing to meet physical standard required.
Your son Joseph was taken on strength No. 3 district depot in March 14 order. His present age would appear to be over eighteen years and is eligible for general service. He cannot be sent overseas until he is nineteen years of age.
For your information, please.
It is quite extraordinary to read in this letter that the Department of National Defence must ask a father to give evidence as to whether his son is sick. The next letter has reference to the information received from England. In England they came to an entirely different conclusion. This man was first placed in category E; then a month later he was placed in category A and later in England he was placed in another category. The letter reads:
Cable advice has been received to the effect that your son, Pte. H. W. O'Meara, C38005, has been medically boarded in England and placed in category Cl.
Ordinarily category Cl means that a soldier is fit for service in Canada only. However, permission has been granted to retain category Cl men in England if their services are required there.
I am unable, therefore, to advise you as to whether or not your son will be returned to Canada because he has been lowered in category.
That is just one case. There is no excuse for such things happening. We should try to
have a reform. There are some fellow members who are medical practitioners, such as
[Mr. Pouliot.l
the hon. member for Humboldt (Mr. Fleming) and the hon. member for Parkdale (Mr. Bruce) who is the dean of his profession, and I think they will agree with me that these medical examinations should be carried out with greater care. When the older Mr. O'Meara wrote to the Department of National Defence he was sent from pillar to post, and his son had to cross the Atlantic in order to get a grading more in conformity with the facts. Is this not absurd? I ask my colleagues to help me in getting this reform. It will be for the good of all. It is a bad thing when a man who is not medically fit is taken into the army just to satisfy the pride of the officer in charge of enlistments.
I realize that the minister is busy; I know he has one of the most ungrateful tasks in the whole government. He can rely upon me to help him, but we should not try to help him by agreeing with everything that is done. It is up to us to point out the bad spots so that he can use all the means at his disposal to bring about reform for the improvement of his department and the improvement of the army. I have many other cases to which I could refer. We cannot discuss these matters theoretically; we must bring up concrete cases.
The O'Meara case is a scandal, and I have other similar cases which occurred in my constituency. However, there has been an improvement in my district simply because I have fought hard over certain cases. I do not want to have to take charge of Kingston district, but when a man comes in and shows me correspondence like that it is my duty to place it on Hansard. I do not wish to have much to do with the Minister of National Defence because he is like Fabius, who used to temporize. It takes just as long to get an answer from the minister as it does to get results from squeezing a stone. If the Minister of National Defence cannot understand the arguments put forward by members of parliament, his colleagues may. It is with that hope that I make this argument. I expect to have some support, even inside the cabinet, in the reform of the wrongdoings in the Department of National Defence.
We see what is going on, and we want to improve the welfare of the soldier. We want to see that his sons and daughters are kept healthy. We want our soldiers to be well looked after and receive the proper treatment, not only when they are undergoing medical examination but when they are on sick parade. I know my hon. friends who are medical practitioners will be scandalized when I tell them that at the citadel at Quebec a soldier appeared on sick parade. The captain, the so-called doctor, asked him, "What is the matter with

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you?" He said, "I have a rupture." Do hon. members know what the answer of that doctor was? He said, "Get a good rub for the rupture." The man who was to give the rub was a lumberjack, with hands just as long as poles and as rough as sandpaper. He was to give a rubbing for a rupture. My medical Colleague, the hon. member for Humboldt smiles, but it is true. I have the actual file. Sometimes men who have been declared physically fit and classed in category A have come to my office and I have started my medical examination. AVithout pursuing it too far, I discovered that one man was suffering from a rupture-he was rejected and put in category E-another man had chronic appendicitis, and there was also a case of goitre.
I just asked them questions, and I found that the fault was just as much the local doctor's as the army doctor's. All of the doctors seem to want to send men, whether fit or not, into the army. The more the better seems to be their policy, without taking into consideration the actual state of health of the man. All these practices must stop.
Now that I have had my turn I will give way so that other hon. members may bring before the committee all their complaints.


Mr. GREEN:: There are three suggestions I should like to bring before the minister, each one of them having to do with the mobilization division of his Department of National AVar Services. That division, by the way, is a very important division and becoming more important every month as more and more men are called up for service.
My first suggestion has to do with the groups of young Canadians who are to be called up for military training and the order in which they are to be called. Last Thursday the minister made an announcement which was of the greatest importance, even though the announcement came out in the wash, so to speak, in the midst of questioning. It will be found at page 2872 of Hansard, where the minister is reported to have said:
But when we move the age group up-
Mr. Cruickshank: If.
Mr. Thorson: Not if, when. AVe will probably move up the age group very soon. AVe are now calling the age group of from twenty-one to thirty years, and I would not be at all surprised if we moved that forward to thirty-five years within a very short time.
I repeat, that was a very important announcement. For me it signified that there is uncertainty in the ministry as to the order in which these young Canadians are to be called up. There is also great uncertainty in this house; not one of us here can tell his constituents what men are to be called up next.
There is also uncertainty in the press. The result of the minister's announcement on Thursday night was that the press published such headlines as this, in the Montreal Star of Friday, May 30:
Pool of single men for draft running low. Extension of plans to 1907 class leads to married men.
From the Ottawa Journal of the same date I read this heading:
Married men may be called to the army. Start with those who were twenty-one in July, 1940.
The first paragraph of the article, which I think appeared in most of the large Canadian dailies, reads thus:
AVith mobilization authorities apparently scraping near the bottom of the pool of available single men of prime military age, the time draws nearer when married men may be called up for compulsory military service.
The result will be that there will be even greater uncertainty in the minds of the Canadian people. Let the minister picture the position of the men who may be called up to serve: for example, single men and widowers without children in the age group from thirty-one to thirty-five, the same classes of men in the age group from thirty-six to forty-five, the single men of nineteen and twenty, and the younger married men. All of these Canadians are wondering when they are to be called or whether they are to be called or not, and there is the greatest confusion.
It seems to me that the lack of a clear-cut policy is neither sound nor fair. Oui people are entitled to know, and to know well in advance, what groups are to be called up next. Indeed they are entitled to know in what order the groups are to be called, so that men can adjust their lives accordingly; and not only that the men can adjust their lives, but that their families and the firms foi which they work and other people with whom they are connected can also make the necessary arrangements. There is at present too much mystery about the whole matter. The ministry should decide without delay upon a policy as to the groups to be called next, the order in which they are to be called, and approximately when these groups will be called for service. Not only should they decide upon such a policy, but they should most carefully explain it to the Canadian people. It affects the lives of hundreds of thousands of Canadians, and there will be no success in the working out of the policy unless it is most carefully explained to our people. That is my first suggestion.

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The second is that the selection of men by lot from the groups called should be started now, without further delay. The switchover to this lottery system seems to be bound up tightly in red tape. Some of us advocated selection by lot many, many months ago. That system has been used in the United States from the start, where even before the war they called up men in the age group from twenty-one to thirty-five-I think those were the ages-by lot. This selection by lot is admittedly the fairer way. The minister himself said so. I quote his remarks at page 2312 of Hansard:
. . . we intend to change that method of calling men, and to make the call applicable to all the men in all the age groups covered by the proclamation. That is to be done by a system of drawing by lot. Back of that is the view-
Here are the important words:
Back of that is the view that that would be a more equitable manner of making the call. At present all men up to thirty years of age are covered by the proclamation, and are liable to call. It is now proposed to call these men by lot, and all the men in all the age groups subject to the proclamation will take their chances in the draw.
That was promised over two months ago by the Prime Minister, when he spoke in this house on March 24, and said, as reported at page 1566 of Hansard:
It has also been decided to select the men to be called up for service by drawing lots over the whole field of those who are subject to the proclamation.
When the minister himself spoke on May 11 he said that as soon as they could work out the administrative difficulties the call-up would be by lot, but as yet the government is selecting these men by juniority, as the minister said the other night. I think he was inventing a word, but it described the process very well, which is that the system so far has been to take the youngest age group and to go through that group before going into the next one.
The picture, as I understand it, is this. First of all, practically all of our men from twenty-two to twenty-six inclusive have already been taken in previous calls.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: Not in all parts of
Canada.


Howard Charles Green: The great majority of men of these ages have been taken, have they not?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: It varies in different parts of Canada.


Howard Charles Green: The call on March 24 was for those who would be twenty-one this year and for men who would be twenty-seven,

twenty-eight, twenty-nine and thirty during the present year. The minister on November 12 last placed on Hansard, page 4303, the figures of the single men in Canada as found by the national registration. I will not give the figures of each of these age groups that are now subject to call, but they total 291,838. Of that number, almost one-half, it is to be assumed, are unfit, so that approximately
150.000	men would be available. There have, however, been thousands upon thousands of enlistments from these groups, and if I am informed correctly the government has no accurate record of how many from these or any other groups have enlisted since national registration.


Richard Burpee Hanson: They must have.


Howard Charles Green: No; they have no accurate record of the number who have enlisted. For example, we find in this morning's Ottawa Citizen a dispatch from Brockville district:
District man overseas receives his call-up.
Although he has been overseas for almost a year, Mrs. Maurice Grigsby, Hubbell street, received a registered letter from national defence headquarters, for her husband, Lieutenant M. G. Grigsby, notifying him of his call-up for a medical examination previous to entering a basic training centre for compulsory military training. Lieutenant Grigsby, who enlisted here more than a year ago, and who was the first Brockville boy to graduate from the officers' training centre, is with the R.C.A.S.C. He was recently made adjutant of his unit overseas.
Another case, which came to my attention two weeks ago, was that of a lad from Vancouver who received a call for service while home on his embarkation leave-having been in the army for nearly two years and won his commission.


An hon. MEMBER:: Some of them are dead.


Howard Charles Green: So I repeat that the government has no accurate record of how many young men have enlisted; to that extent it is working in the dark. Then, the figure of
150.000	would be further reduced by the numbers of farmers, farm labourers, and others who are exempted-for example, men in war industry. We have this picture, that the groups which were called on March 24 are now used up in some of the districts and nearly used up in others, so that there is little chance of many of these men being selected by lot. For them a call-up by lot is a farce; it is, I repeat, a farce as far as these men are concerned. In the group to which the minister referred the other night, single men and widowers from thirty-one to thirty-five inclusive, without children, there will be probably

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much the same situation. They, according to the national registration, numbered 140,944, and from that one would have to deduct about half as unfit.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: More than that.


Howard Charles Green: They are older men, and the percentage of unfit will accordingly be larger. Many of them, too, have enlisted. So that there is not a great number of men in that group. "


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: No.


Howard Charles Green: I repeat that there should be no delay in beginning this selection by lot. Let the administrative staff shear through the red tape and get this new system started.
The third suggestion is that there should be no further delay in extending the liability for military service to all residents of Canada, whether citizens or not. The Prime Minister said on March 24, as reported in Hansard at page 1566:
Liability for compulsory military service is, at present, confined to citizens of Canada. It has been decided to extend this liability to all residents of Canada, whether citizens or not, as far as may be expedient in the light of all the circumstances.
Yet none of these non-citizens have been called up. When will they be called? This house and the Canadian people are entitled to know. I would remind the Minister of National War Services of his speech the other evening on equality of sacrifice, a speech which I thought was excellent. Yet here we have this situation: thousands and thousands of Canadian citizens have been called up, and in thousands of these cases their jobs have been taken over by young men of the same age who are not Canadian citizens and, in some instances, are enemy aliens but not interned. The Canadian people cannot be convinced that there is equality of sacrifice as long as that condition continues. It is unfair and dangerous that there should be such a long delay in calling up these non-citizens. I suggest that young men who are citizens of countries which are allies or are neutral should be called just as though they were Canadian citizens and should be put into the forces, and that enemy aliens who are not interned should be called for labour work; let them be put in a civilian construction corps. The government announced some months ago that that was to be done with some of the men of Japanese origin, but as far as I know the plan has never been worked out. I warn the government that this condition must be remedied.
We must not leave these non-citizens free to take the jobs of young Canadians who are being called up.
Those are the suggestions which I have for the minister. May I add something which, to a degree, is in his defence. I think one reason for the lack of a clear-cut policy on the calling up of men, for the delay in calling up by lot and for the delay in calling non-citizens is that, while the responsibility for getting men remains with the Department of National War Services, the power has been shifted to the Department of Labour.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: No, no.


Howard Charles Green: On March 24, selective service plans were announced. The orders in council then filed included one which transferred national registration, the records thereof and everything having to do with that registration to the Department of Labour. Therefore, when the Department of National War Services wants to call men, it must go to the Department of Labour, if you please, to get information.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: Not at all. We have all the cards for the single men up to forty-five in the divisions.


Howard Charles Green: Well, if the minister's department wants to get further information on any men, it must go to the Department of Labour.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: No; we have all the cards relating to all men up to forty-five in the divisions.


Howard Charles Green: I am trying to help the minister out, and he would be wise to keep still and let me fight his case for him. Another handicap is that under the same orders in council the director of national selective service has been put under the Deparment of Labour, not under the Department of National War Services. In other words, the emphasis has been placed on men for war industries rather than on men for the armed forces, and the result has been and will be confusion, and fewer men for the services. The Department of National War Services should have the last word on all those men in the age groups that have been called or are eventually to be called. This department is of vital importance, and, as I said in the beginning, is becoming more and more important all the time as more men are called. It can do more than any other department to bring about equality of sacrifice in the war effort and to keep high the morale of the Canadian people. But neither of these great

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objectives will be reached if there are indecision and delay-which exist at the present time unfortunately-in connection with phases of the work of the department such as the three that I have mentioned: what groups are to be called and in what order; selection by lot; and the calling up of non-citizens.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: The hon. member for
Vancouver South (Mr. Green) has raised a number of questions which are really related to certain questions which the hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker) put a little earlier. I have been waiting for the first opportunity to deal with some of the questions put by the hon. member for Lake Centre. The question of how many men are available for military training and subsequent service in the army for the duration of the war is not an easy one to determine, for this reason. We know how many persons have received notices to report for medical examination. Those go out in the ordinary course. Then we know the number of men who have been rejected as being below category Al; and as we go into the higher age groups and deal with persons whose physical condition is not as good as the condition of those of earlier years, we run into an increasingly high percentage of persons who are found not medically fit for service in the armed forces. Then we have postponements on various grounds that have been mentioned. These postponements, in the opinion of the boards, at any rate, are made on the ground of national interest. If they are made on that basis and there are no more persons in the divisions to whom to send notices, except of course that there is always the continuing number of persons who become twenty-one, we can say-it is only relative, I will admit-that we have reached the point of exhaustion of our man-power reserve if we continue the men postponed in occupations which thus far have been deemed to be essential. That man-power pool or reserve for the purposes of the armed forces can be enlarged in these cases-


John George Diefenbaker: In the future.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: but only if we strip
war industry or agriculture or other essential occupations of their man-power requirements. Whether it would be wise to do that depends upon the state of affairs at any one time; it depends upon the importance of any particular aspect or objective of the war effort at any one time. That, I think, was stressed by the hon. member for Cape Breton South (Mr. Gillis), who expressed great concern for the steel workers in connection with the war effort. At one stage of the war it may be

absolutely essential to the successful prosecution of our effort that men should not be +aken out of war industry; yet who can tell what situation may develop, depending upon emergencies? It is hard to say, therefore, just what is the absolute limit of our man-power reserve, and I do not think we can make a purely statistical approach to the question of man-power reserve by reason of the many deductions that have to be made from statistical figures.


Richard Burpee Hanson: But does
that not depend upon the objective-the number of men that the government proposes to have in the army, and the number of reinforcements that are necessary to keep them going (a) in war time and (b), which is much more important, during the time when casualties begin to roll in?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: Quite so.


Howard Charles Green: And does it not depend upon how hard it is to beat the Germans and the Japs?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: Of course, that is the
important thing, and it may be that manpower for purposes of the armed forces may be the most imperative need above all other needs. All I suggest is that we cannot be arbitrary in stating the priorities at any one time. I think the programme of our armed forces is based on an increase in the capital strength of the armed forces, and it is also based, as I understood the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Ralston), on two reserves of reinforcements. The one is the usual wastage reserve, which is fairly well known, month by month, and the other is the battle casualty reserve, which of course is a matter of estimate. There were a number of other points raised by the hon. member for Vancouver South, but it is now six o'clock.
At six o'clock the committee took recess.
After Recess
The committee resumed at eight o'clock.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: I was about to deal with some of the matters raised by the hon. member for Vancouver South. I appreciate what he said about the uncertainty in the minds of many men in this country as to the time when they will be called for military training and service for the duration of the war. But while I appreciate that uncertainty, I should also say that if we are to make the utmost use of our man-power reserve, and if we are to march toward the attainment of

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our various war objectives concurrently, we cannot avoid the feeling of uncertainty to which my hon. friend made reference; for war itself is a matter of uncertainty.


Howard Charles Green: But why could the government not say which groups are to be called next; in other words, give the order of the groups?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: Thus far we have been calling men by age groups, dealing with the lowest age group first, then marching into the next age group above that, and so on. I think it well when we reach, or come close to, the exhaustion of a set of age groups subject to proclamation, that we should indicate that fact in plenty of time, so that young men may be able to put their affairs in order. I think it is fairer to young men to make the announcement some time in advance of the time when they will be subject to call.
I agree with the hon. member for Vancouver South in his expression of hope that the system of selecting men by lot may be put into effect as soon as possible. I think it is a fairer system than that in force at present, of exhausting a complete age group before going into a subsequent group. I think the system of selection by lot is very much fairer. Then everybody takes his chance by the lot. I can assure my hon. friend that the administrative matters which must be attended to before that system can be put into effect take some time to complete.


Howard Charles Green: When will the lot system be put into effect?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: I would not like to say. I should like to see the system in operation for the July call; but whether or not the administrative details can be worked out in order to make the system applicable to the July call, I cannot say at the moment. I can only assure my hon. friend that the matter is being worked on intensively.
My hon. friend made reference to one other matter, namely that notices to report for medical examination are sometimes sent out to persons who have already enlisted. In some instances that is absolutely inevitable, because the man who has enlisted does not notify anyone of his enlistment. He may enlist in one part of Canada while the address on his registration card is in another part of Canada, and it takes some time for those facts to reach the various registration divisions.


Howard Charles Green: Does the Department of National Defence not notify the Department of National War Services?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: The Department of
National Defence does its best to keep the Department of National War Services continuously informed as to enlistments.


Howard Charles Green: How long have they been doing that?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: Oh, for some time. The situation is better now than it was previously.


Howard Charles Green: They did not originally, did they?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: Well, they were not too good about it. But that situation is improving, though of course that notification is not instantaneous. It cannot be, by its very nature.


Howard Charles Green: It seems to take a couple of years in some instances.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: Well, I would not go so far as to say that, and I am sure my hon. friend does not mean it either. Then, too, there may be a number of other reasons why notices may be sent to persons who are no longer available. They may have moved; perhaps in some instances they have died. Sometimes that likewise is quite inevitable; but we are endeavouring as far as possible to eliminate all those persons to whom notices to report for medical examination should not be sent. That takes a little time. Then the cards have to be dealt with, and there are many thousands of them. My hon. friend quoted from a return the number of single men in the age groups from twenty-one to forty-five. They extend into the hundreds of thousands. I assure my hon. friend that it is not an easy matter to work into this system, which I think is fairer than the present one; but we are making as much headway as possible with the administrative arrangements, and just as soon as the administrative details have been worked out I shall make the announcement to which the Prime Minister referred.
The third suggestion which my hon. friend made is that all residents of Canada, whatever their citizenship may be, should as far as possible be made subject to the national war services regulations.


Howard Charles Green: I did not advocate that enemy aliens should be called for military service.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: Of course there would be some qualification in the matter of enemy aliens.


Howard Charles Green: I recommended that they be put on labouring work.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: Yes; but even enemy aliens, while not made subject to the national war service regulations, from the point of view

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of their being included in the armed forces, might become subject to the regulations for some kind of alternative service, just as we make the Mennonites, Doukhobors and conscientious objectors, whose cases. are postponed as far as their military training is concerned, subject to alternative service.
The Prime Minister made the announcement that it was the policy of the government to make all residents of Canada subject to the regulations. The matter of policy is settled, but there are arrangements to be made in connection with the various classes and categories of aliens. There are a number of categories of aliens which would have to be considered in the matter. There are those who are citizens of allied countries. They can be dealt with by an interchange of regulations. We have gone a very great distance in that respect, as far as our relations with the United States are concerned. Then there are the aliens who are citizens of neutral countries. They are in a somewhat different category, but arrangements can be and are being worked out with regard to them.


Howard Charles Green: When will they be subject to call?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: The amendments relating to aliens will be announced in the near future.
I do not believe I can go any further than that.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Have they been drafted?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: There have been several drafts.


Grote Stirling: They are amendments to what?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: Amendments to the
national war services regulations, making the regulations applicable to persons resident in Canada, regardless of their nationality.


Howard Charles Green: Does the minister mean that the aliens have been drafted, or the regulations?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: The regulations are being drafted. Then, there are the citizens of enemy alien countries. Further, there are various aliens who are stateless persons. In addition, there are British subjects who are nationals of the various British dominions, and who are not ordinarily resident in Canada, but are here for the time being.


Howard Charles Green: Are they subject to call?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: Not as yet, under the regulations as they stand to-day. The present regulations are applicable only to every male 
British subject who is or who has been at any time subsequent to September 1, 1939, ordinarily resident in Canada.
The dominion has given authority to certain of our allies to recruit their nationals in Canada. That authority has been given with respect to Netherlanders, Belgians, Norwegians, Poles and Czechs; but we have not yet given any of our allies the power to conscript their own nationals.


Howard Charles Green: It is all on a voluntary basis?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: Yes. We have worked out certain draft conventions with the United States relating to draft evaders and deserters.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I notice we are opening recruiting offices in the United States. Can the minister tell us anything about that?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: No; I know no more about that than the leader of the opposition has seen in the press. The matter of working out the necessary amendments to the regulations is intricate, but in some instances reciprocal arrangements are being worked out. In others it is desirable to communicate with representatives of the countries involved, so that they will deal with our nationals in the same way as we deal with theirs, and not otherwise.
The number of aliens in Canada is surprisingly small. Last fall I placed on Hansard a table showing the number of aliens in Canada, and I was very much surprised by the smallness of the number.


Howard Charles Green: That ought to make it all the easier to get action in the matter.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: Yes, it makes it easier. I do not anticipate any real difficulty at all, when we have worked out the necessary amendments. When those amendments have been decided upon they will be enacted, and then residents of Canada who are not now subject to the regulations will become subject to them, and called up in due course.


Howard Charles Green: Will they cover young enemy aliens also?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: I think we could work out regulations dealing with enemy aliens, just as we are working on a number of other amendments to the regulations for the purpose of using certain persons who are below category A-l, and therefore not fit for those services in the armed forces which require men of a high category, for other purposes. We may be able to use such men for some other activity that may be in the national interest. The regulations are capable of expansion in a variety

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of ways. I have no doubt that we can work out regulations that will deal satisfactorily with enemy aliens.


Howard Charles Green: After single men and
widowers without children between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-five years have been called, what age groups will then be called?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: I do not think I can make any statement at this stage with regard to that. As I pointed out a moment ago, the regulations are applicable to "every male British subject who is or who has been at any time subsequent to the first day of September, 1939, ordinarily resident in Canada, while he is of the ages of twenty-one years to forty-five years inclusive and who was on the fifteenth day of July, 1940, unmarried or a widower without child or children." The regulations apply to such persons, but the only persons who are subject to call are those in the age groups specified in the proclamation issued pursuant to these regulations.


James Arthur Ross: Where a man enlists in the air force for air crew, and becomes washed up and is discharged, will he be liable to call for training in the army?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: Technically he is subject to call. Under section 13, I think it is, we can recall such men. I am not sure that we have not done so in some instances. A person may be rejected for certain reasons by the air force and still be perfectly fit according to army standards. He may fail in some quality essential to air force standards but have all the qualities required by army standards.


James Arthur Ross: I have been told that in some districts this is rather prevalent. It is quite easy to become washed up and discharged, but I understand that in some places they are not then being called up for the army.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: They may get notice to report for medical examination under our regulations.


George Hugh Castleden: Are there many cases where the physician making the preliminary examination passes a man, and then later on he is reexamined and put in category E as permanently unfit? A man is permitted to visit his family physician for examination, but he is not told in what category he is placed. He receives his call, send perhaps after a week or so of training he is examined by the medical authorities and found to be in category E.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: There have been cases where not only the original physician but the medical revision board have marked a man as category Al, and then after he has
reported to the training centre and has submitted himself for examination by an army medical board, he is rejected. The full extent of these rejections can be seen from the tables I placed on Hansard. One table shows the number of persons requisitioned by the Department of National Defence. Another table shows the number of men who have been ordered to report to training centres. All these men would be graded category A. Then a third table shows the number of persons actually accepted at the training centres as being fit. A comparison of the third and second tables will show the percentage of rejections by army medical boards of men who have been passed category A either by the doctor of their choice in the first instance or by our revision boards.


George Hugh Castleden: What time elapses between a man going to his own physician for a preliminary examination and the time he is told to report? There was brought to my attention last week the case of a man who received a notice to report. On Friday this man had his examination, but not knowing in what category he was placed he did not make an application for postponement on the ground of being engaged in an essential war industry, that is, an aircraft plant. On a week from the following Monday he received a notice to report at the Connaught ranges in Ottawa. The notice was received on Monday evening at 6.30 o'clock, and he was to report on Thursday morning. He had no opportunity to place his case before a board because the time between the receipt of his first notice to report to a doctor and the time he was supposed to report for training was only eight days. Is that the usual length of time granted these people?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: As I pointed out this
afternoon, a man receives two documents, one entitled, "notice-medical examination", and the other, "instructions". The document of instructions notifies him of his right to apply for postponement.


George Hugh Castleden: Within what length of time?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: Under the regulations he is required to apply for postponement within eight clear days of the date of the notice.


George Hugh Castleden: He received notice to report within six days.


Thomas Langton Church: The minister has given us an explanation about the various classes which have been called up. The other night we heard about conscientious objectors, and to-night we have been hearing about enemy aliens. A great deal of money has been spent by this



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department in connection with mobilization since the start of the war. The army under the control of the minister has a different system. I do not wish to be unfair. I have described this department as an omnibus department, and I do not think it can be described in any other way. However, in connection with mobilizing men for the army the department has been a flat failure right from the start.
We have had recruiting on again, off again and on again. Aliens and conscientious objectors who are called up seem to be received into the army with kid gloves. The treatment they receive is different from that given to those trainees who were called up two weeks ago. I saw some of them in the union station at Toronto and other places on their way to camps. In one camp in the Toronto district, before the trainees had been in camp twenty-four hours, they were told by coercion that unless they enlisted for active service overseas they would be moved out very shortly to another place. Is there to be one law for the British-born in this country and another for the alien from continental Europe? If these people come to this country and accept the freedom, liberty, rights and privileges of Canada, then when the enemy is at the front door, the side door, the baok door and all the other doors of this country, these people should be compelled to do their duty to the land of their adoption. That is the first duty of any citizen since any country has been a country.
I may not be very good at arithmetic. I may be something like the editor of the Ottawa Citizen who was referred to the other night by an hon. member. The hon. member for Qu'Appelle got into an argument with the minister on the call-ups in Quebec and Ontario, and on arithmetical and geometrical progression and harmonical progressive mathematics over the way in which these particular people were called up. There were 38,000 called up, and 37,000 asked to be excused in one province. It seems to me that the more that are called, the fewer get into the army. There are so many varieties of calls that about the only call I have not heard of being sent out to these men to enlist is a call to the bar. Many are called but few are chosen under the minister's department. The system is an impossible one. How can we win this war and Canada do its duty under the present system, or secure a total war effort? We are now in the sixth month of this year, and not a thing has yet been done to get men into the army. Men are willing voluntarily to go into the air force or the navy, both of which have a 
large waiting list, but there are so many riders, restrictions, exceptions and provisos that the army has been hampered from the start in getting men.
The mother country is wondering what is the matter with Canada. Canada was represented at the imperial conference in 1937 and knew the great danger for our empire there was on both the Atlantic and the Pacific and to the province of Quebec and the maritimes. All the cards were on the table, and Canada knew what was going to happen. Yet we cut down our expenditures until we had no fleet and no air force at all. What did Canada say at that 1937 conference? She held aloof, refused to cooperate with Britain, and said: "We have no commitments. Parliament must decide". The Minister of National War Services himself was one of the main supporters of this policy of neutrality.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: That is not true.


Thomas Langton Church: A bill standing in his
name was on the order paper six months before the war, declaring that if war came, Canada was bound to be neutral. The bill declaring for isolation came up for second reading on March 31, 1939, and I talked it out. I will read the preamble:
Whereas it is expedient that the status of Canada in time of war should be made clear and declared by the parliament of Canada: Therefore His Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate and House of Commons of Canada, enacts as follows:
(1) Canada shall not assume the status of a belligerent.
This bill was discussed in the House of Commons, and it was or seemed to be the policy of the government of the day; there is no doubt about that. Why, the Prime Minister himself visited Hitler in 1937 and had a conference with him. I asked what the conference was about, but he was not prepared to say in detail.
The minister the other night said that the North American continent, Canada and the United States, was isolationist. He was and always was. Are we, the British-born, going to sit here in this house and listen to such remarks as were made here last Friday, at a time like this when Great Britain is grappling with the foe and was left to bear the whole brunt of the war for two years and four months alone? After Dunkirk we thought Britain would be invaded and the British empire would be gone; but as Mr. Churchill said, speaking in this house, Britain then had "some neck". We have been sending emissaries and wasting money in publicity all over the United States for the past ten or

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fifteen years; we have established an embassy at Washington, all tending to separatism and isolationism. Then we sent deputies to Hollywood, by aeroplane, spending from $40,000 to $60,000 on pictures according to Hollywood to convert the United States to war. Last session congress	carried the
president's army bill by only one vote; the neutrality law was repealed by only fourteen votes in the senate, and that country was until Pearl Harbour isolationist. Canada is not and never was isolationist or for separation. The government was before the war.
If we do not wake up we shall have a Pearl Harbour in the St. Lawrence, while we sit here talking about raising a few men for the army. If it took as long to get twelve men for a jury as it takes under this cumbersome system to get twelve soldiers, there would be veiy few cases tried by jury in this country.
I can tell you that Canada is not going to be talked out of the British empire. Canada will have to be fought out of the British empire. I tell the government of the day: You cannot ride two horses regarding the army any longer. You must line up with the mother country and help Canadargel her~anraTmy now before it is too late next summer. Every sixty seconds to the minute, every sixty minutes to the hour, every twenty-four hours in the day we are approaching the midsummer climax which will decide the fate of the British empire, of the world and of this country and of civilization forever and the fate of religion, freedom and liberty. Yet here we sit day after day since January devising riders, restrictions, provisos and exemptions for this class and that, which make it almost impossible for the minister himself to do his duty of getting men for the army. I think he would like to do it if he could. He was wrong before the war. Handicapped as he is I believe he has done the best he can. But he is hedged about with doubts, provisos and all that kind of thing.
Like the editor of the Ottawa Citizen on the 38,000 called up and 37,000 wanting a stay, I may not understand arithmetic; that is what was said of him here, or of one of the staff of that paper. My hon. friend the member for Qu'Appelle does arithmetic every day, as I see when I go to his office, and he said the other night that he knew something about arithmetic when he had a debate on arithmetic with the minister. I have said before that the House of Commons never wants to be told that two and two make four but would rather be told that two and two do not make five. What is the position with respect to these figures? Thirty-eight thousand in Quebec were called up, received notice to report to the registrar, and 37,000 of
these gentlemen wanted to be postponed and 23,000 of these were allowed a stay. For two years and eight months the war has gone on, and all these gentlemen ask for a postponement. If the war lasted for fifty years there would still be a majority of them wanting postponement. We will never get an army to defend Canada or overseas. If all the arithmetic in the figures tabled is wrong and the headlines in the newspapers are wrong, the information and publicity bureau should be abolished altogether. The information bureau was established before the minister took over his office, I know, but I say that the publicity that has been turned out from the information bureau marks it as the most mischievous institution in this country. That publicity published in Hansard of Friday last leads Britain to believe that the whole north American continent, Canada and the United States before the war, was against her when Britain was bearing the whole brunt of the war for over two years alone. Canada was not for isolation. Last year Britain bore the brunt of the war, and in 1942 Russia is bearing the brunt. Russia, with 2,000,000 men, and -what aid she is getting-JromRhe-allies, a comparatively small amount of equipment, with some help from the Royal Air Force, is attacked by Germany, and Germany now has 3,000,000 German soldiers and 14,000 German tanks. What aid are we giving? Britain is doing well in aiding her with production and an air force.
Are we doing our duty at this fateful hour in the empire's history? What have we done? We had a proposal of mine four years before the war for a national selective registry, but nothing came of it. Then in 1940 we had the registry taken by the minister's department, although he was not in office then. It was a registry taken all over Canada at huge cost. Information was collected showing the number of men of military age. Very little was done about that and the tabulation took too long. Then we had a census, again at a huge cost to this country. Then we had a plebiscite with a lot of information and six weeks of talk, and a stay, and now we have some more registers of the ministry of labour which no doubt will also be committed to the archives with the new selective register- earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, in the sure and certain hope that they will never be resurrected again as far as this government is concerned. Mr. Churchill said the other month in the British House of Commons that humbug plays a large part in our democratic bodies. Well, I think he must have been in this chamber and had a look round; he would have found considerable evidence to prove the correctness of his aphorism.

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Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: He might have found
an example in the person who is speaking.


Thomas Langton Church: Never were there so many who knew so little about so much, especially as it applies to the army and to the minister and his isolation policy of 1939. This proposal to establish a publicity bureau in the United States reminds me that the government had a great advocate of publicity sent in an expeditionary force to the United States, in Mr. L. W. Brockington; that gentleman went up and down the United States, Washington-minded telling them, "King George did not declare war for us; we declared war for him." That is the kind of separatist and isolationist talk for which we are invited to pay under this minister with the Atlantic situation as it is to-day, and radio talk and propaganda. The people voted for a total war to beat Hitler.
The Minister of Finance said the other night that there is something wrong with the House of Commons. What is wrong with the house is that the government of the day want us to be nothing more than a lot of yes-men and nodders. They have removed control by the high court of parliament over expenditures and any control by the auditor general. Yet we are responsible for how all this money is being spent, much of it on publicity and information bureaux, on the plebiscite, and so forth. Not one dollar of the estimates has been passed yet this year on the seventy-sixth day of our sittings.
The government is not taking the right way to get an army. The manner in which the quotas are established and enforced is very unfair to Ontario. I had a return tabled, and it shows that Ontario is contributing a larger part of the army, navy and air force than is any other province.


Vincent-Joseph Pottier: That is not so.


Thomas Langton Church: The people of this country want the government to get on with the war and a total war effort. The yes vote showed the unanimous desire of the great majority of the people to cooperate to the last man and the last dollar with the mother country. When all is said and done, everything we in this country have to-day of freedom, civilization and liberty we owe to the mother country, and the United States is in the same position. Were it not for the heroic stand of the British people after Dunkirk the war was lost and the United States, on this continent, would long ago have had to make peace with the axis powers, who by then might have been in Washington. But we can take one leaf out of the book of the United States, by learning how she enforces the draft against all, and deals with aliens and those who disobey the draft laws. There is not one law 
there for the rich and another for the poor. All must obey it. Moreover, in the United States everybody is expected to salute the flag, and there is only one flag and one anthem. There is only one flag in this country, the union jack; there is only one anthem, the national anthem. Our United States friends require every citizen, young and old, to salute the stars and stripes and their anthem, and to give prompt obedience to their draft laws, while we in this country sit here putting in provisos, exceptions, exemptions, and all that kind of thing.
I do not know that I can say anything further. I am sorry to have detained the committee so long; it was not my intention to have spoken, but I feel I should state that in my belief what was said last Friday in this chamber disheartens the people of the motherland at the darkest hour of the w*ar. That Canada, the senior dominion, takes the position expressed by her official spokesmen of the cabinet in the House of Commons causes us to be compared with countries which were isolationist and separatist before the war. I doubt whether we would have had war if this dominion had done its duty at the last imperial conference, instead of urging disarmament.
In my opinion this department has outlived its usefulness. What has this information and publicity branch accomplished for all the money that has been spent? After all, the worst informed people are the people of Canada. Quite a number of Canadian newspapers do not report the proceedings of this house. We cannot blame them. Some of them think the proceedings are not worth reporting; that is a matter for them to decide; but I will say that if the mint of money which has gone to the publicity branch and the information bureau had been spent on the press in getting proper information to the public through the press, the results would have been quite different. Our newspapers are interesting and entertaining; they have fulfilled a fine function in this war mostly at their own expense, and without cost to the government. The work which one Toronto newspaper did for British victims, in educating the people of Ontario and all Canada, was one of the most cheering things which has greeted the mother country since the war began, and shows that the heart of Canada, at least, is sound and is with Britain to the end. If we had publicity of that kind in this country and in the United States I would not object to it, because in America they owe a great debt of gratitude to Britain for the fleet which has protected their shores, and but for which they would have been subjected to blockade and blackouts, and have suffered the ravages of Hitlerism two years ago.

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Mr. NICHOLSON:: The Prime Minister,
speaking in the house on July 12, 1940, in moving the second reading of the bill setting up the Department of National War Services, outlined the general scope of this department. He said, as reported at page 1571 of Hansard of that year:
The department will also undertake the initiation and promotion of voluntary effort in new directions, in immediate furtherance of our war effort and to enable Canada to make in the most effective and efficient manner the necessary economic and social adjustments to meet domestic problems arising out of the war.
I know that the minister in charge of this department has to do with things of the mind which might not appear to be as spectacular as the building of ships, aerodromes, tanks and the other commodities necessary in connection with the prosecution of the war. Nevertheless a very important role must be filled by the minister if the Canadian people are to understand clearly the issues which are at stake and are to be persuaded to do whatever is necessary to carry this war through to a successful conclusion.
To-night I should like to discuss one field of activity where, to date, I feel that the government has been lax. In connection with the consumption of liquor in Canada the government has failed to do the necessary work in informing our people of the tremendous losses in production which go hand in hand with the increasing manufacture and consumption of liquor.
Mr. E. P. Taylor, one of the dollar-a-year men associated with the government, and president of Canadian Breweries Limited, was interviewed by the Toronto Globe arid Mail after he returned from the old country about a year ago, and he is reported as saying:
A lot of the non-essential industrial activities (in Canada) of different kinds will gradually have to be curtailed as fast as we can obtain machinery to produce war materials.
He thought that Canadians were not taking the war seriously enough and urged that they must forgo luxuries for guns and tanks and aeroplanes.
That was in February, 1941. In February, 1942, Toronto Saturday Night devoted a full page to telling just exactly what Mr. Taylor's firm is doing to carry out the objective that he outlined while speaking to the Globe ajid Mail. The annual report, which is signed by E. P. Taylor as president, boasts of this fact:
Your company has for several months been carrying on an extensive export business to the British forces in the theatres of war.
Another paragraph:
After providing for depreciation and other charges, including income and excess profits taxes, the net profit for the year amounts to $570,570.11, in comparison with $525,032.78, in
the previous year. Dividends were paid on the preference shares at the full rate of $3 per share. . . .
Further extensive improvements were made to several of the company's plants.
Another paragraph mentions:
Your directors are now putting forward a proposal for the elimination of the arrears of dividends on the preference shares, which is embodied in a by-law to be submitted to the holders of preference shares and the shareholders as a whole at separate meetings as indicated in the accompanying notice.
I wonder if anyone ever heard of men in industry who were unemployed for several years being able to take advantage of present situation to secure the arrears of wages which they did not receive. Yet Mr. Taylor indicates that his company plans to pay now the dividends that were not paid during the depression.
In the Brewers Magazine of May, 1941, there appears this amazing statement:
One of the finest things that could have happened to the brewing industry was the insistence of high ranking officers to make beer available at army camps. . . . The opportunity presented to the brewing industry by this measure is so obvious that it is superfluous to go into it in detail. Here is a chance for brewers to cultivate a taste for beer in millions of young men who will eventually constitute the largest beer consuming section of our population.
Apparently, with companies like Canadian Breweries Limited and their subsidiaries and the Brewers Magazine carrying on such vicious propaganda, it can scarcely be left to the good intentions of private individuals to see that the necessary restrictions are carried into effect.
In July, 1940, representatives of nearly all the churches in Canada and the temperance organizations waited on the government and made four concrete proposals:
1.	That the sale of alcoholic beverages in taverns, beer rooms, wine shops, etc., be discontinued and that sale of such beverages be confined entirely to government-owned liquor stores.
2.	That sale from government liquor stores be permitted only between the hours of 3 o'clock in the afternoon and 8 o'clock in the evening and on week days only.
3.	That all advertising of liquor in Canada be forbidden except in the place of sale.
4.	That when the request in item 1 is implemented, an order issue from the Department of Defence closing all wet canteens in military establishments.
Seven months after this delegation waited on the government and made their proposals I asked in the House of Commons on February 19, 1941, as reported at page 826 of Hansard of that year:
Has the government adopted any change in policy in connection with the manufacture and sale of liquor under the War Measures Act?
2950	COMMONS
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The minister who was in charge at that time replied no. Then I find that the present minister, on January 31 of this year, stated in a letter to the Canadian Temperance Federation :
It is now settled beyond dispute by a long series of judicial decisions that the regulation and sale of intoxicating liquors is within the exclusive jurisdiction of the provinces.
I understand that the minister was a professor of law, and I am certain that if we were in peace time very few would have taken exception to the contention that the federal government should not interfere with problems that might fall within the jurisdiction of the provinces or municipalities; but now we have entered into every phase of the life of the people, and it is nonsense for the minister to say that entry into this field is something that should not be undertaken by the federal government. The Canadian temperance delegation pointed out in reply to the minister that
it had been recognized in the recent judgment of the Supreme Court of Ontario that the Canada Temperance Act was valid-and it is a dominion statute. The Canada Temperance Act is more restrictive than the present liquor control law of Ontario.
The minister further stated:
Such examination of the facts as the government has been able to make after careful consideration does not indicate that there is actually any case of national necessity.
I am surprised to find the minister making such a statement in a situation such as this. I have just received the latest information from the bureau of statistics giving the amount of gross sales by various liquor control boards in the different provinces and the net profits made by these different governments, with the increase in the sales last year compared with the previous year. The table is as follows:
Sales,	Sales,	Per cent	Total net revenue1940	1941	increase	in 1941Nova Scotia	$11,449,300	35	$ 3,358,235New Brunswick	6,627,025	27	2,220,308Quebec	19,583,890	8-9	7,270,810Ontario	
Plus sales of beer	
28,435,819	26,847,956) 34,599,089)	18	12,294,175Manitoba	
6.653,342	7,886,905	19	1,874,954Saskatchewan	8,509,226	17	1,941,185Alberta	10,753,378	15	3.207,627British Columbia	17,590,253	18	4,841,482
I am ashamed to observe that the gross liquor sales in my province of Saskatchewan were more than the total amount which the Minister of Finance asked the people of the province to raise in connection with the recent victory loan.
As the leader of the opposition rightly said the other day, it is a serious reflection on the Canadian people when such a large proportion of the revenue of the various provinces is derived from this traffic. It has been estimated that our liquor bill last year would have fully equipped 800,000 soldiers or would maintain 100,000 soldiers in Canada for eight months, or in Great Britain for six months, or would have paid for 250,000 Bren guns or 26,000 Bren gun carriers, or 100,000 anti-aircraft guns or 2,700 fighter planes, or 850 Bolingbroke bombers, or 1,700 "ram" tanks or 222 corvettes or 34 destroyers.
In ant article in Liberty of March 21 there was a statement to the effect that within the past three months more than 400,000 cases of beer had been shipped to the various battle fronts by one company alone. I am informed

that the amount of beer which has been shipped to the troops overseas since the beginning of the war would fill fifty miles of boxcars, 90 per cent of which would be water, and it seems unfortunate that at this particular time we should be finding space to move fifty miles of boxcars loaded with beer. When it was necessary to send materials to Hong Kong, the best that could be found were boats travelling at eight knots an hour, boats that did not reach Hong Kong with those essential materials in time for them to be used by the brave defenders of that strategic point. Hon. members may be interested to learn that the president of a company that has done a large export liquor business, Mr. E. P. Taylor, is one of our dollar-a-year men. In the most recent issue of the New World his picture appears in connection with an interesting article on the "Head Office of the United Nations." Here we have a picture of the British supply council; we see Sir Arthur Salter, Mr. Morris Wilson, Lord Beaverbrook, Mr. E. P. Taylor and Mr. Jean Monnet. The article states that in some respects the

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British supply council acts as a coordinating body for the allies as well as for the British empire. Listen to this:
Whether it is an apple or a flying fortress, the British supply organizations endeavour to get these goods to the places most in need of assistance.
I understand that is Mr. Taylor's job, to see that whether it is an apple or a flying fortress-[DOT]


Angus MacInnis: Or a barrel of beer.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: -or a barrel of beer, these commodities will be sent as quickly as possible to the places most in need of assistance. But apparently Mr. Taylor was not successful in getting the needed equipment to Hong Kong in time to be of any use to our defenders there. He was able, according to this article, to see that 400,000 cases of Canadian beer were shipped to the various battle fronts. I might say something about the jot the minister should be undertaking, as I see it
I see the minister smiling over there. I wish to tell him that this is no laughing matter.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: I was not smiling at the hon. member.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: Then I think the minister might pay attention when this subject is being discussed in the house for the first time, in view of the fact that religious and temperance organizations all over Canada have been appealed to again and again to dig down and subscribe to victory loans, to buy war savings certificates, to engage in salvage campaigns and so on. I think the minister might show some courtesy when this matter is being brought to his attention in the house.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: The hon. member might read the other parts of the letter, too.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: Which letter?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: The one I wrote.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: I shall be glad to have the minister read that letter, and I am sure hon. members will listen to him with interest. I am saying that the minister has failed to take the action necessary to deal with this question, and has failed to give the necessary leadership.
Take the question of advertising. I hold in my hand the latest issue of the New World, which is published by Mr. E. P. Taylor. According to the laws of Ontario a magazine of this sort could not be published in this province, because of its liquor advertisements. I do not know whether hon. members are familiar with this magazine, but it presents a subtle type of propaganda. It is an extremely attractive magazine. Mr. Taylor
has secured - a capable editor, who has obtained from contributors articles of interest, and many interesting pictures are displayed. On the last page of the magazine we find an attractive advertisement telling what Sir John Carling's Red Cap ale will do for you. Turning to the next page we find a large advertisement in connection with Booth's gin. On another page there is an advertisement for Dewar's Scotch whisky, and on the next page an advertisement for Four Roses, a Canadian whisky. Then we see, "Have a Guinness To-Day!" Apparently they are able to find space to bring this choice beverage across from the other side, and it is apparently one of the popular drinks in Canada. On the next page there is an advertisement for Vat 69; I do not know what that is. The next advertisement is for Seagram's V.O., which is called the perfect whisky. Turning the page we find an attractive half-page advertisement for Three Castles whisky and London Club gin, and on the very next page another attractive half-page advertisement for Sir Robert Burnett's London dry gin. Hon. members will see from the attractive colouring of this advertisement that it has been prepared by one of our best artists. So we see that large sums of money are spent in order to encourage our people to consume these liquors. Another advertisement is for Gilbey's gin; and then covering two pages, is an advertisement for White Label ale. Again the minister smiles, but I submit that with Canada at war it is unfair to allow advertisements of this type to appear in a hundred thousand copies of this magazine which are on the news stands every month, in order to encourage our young people to consume liquor.
I understand the procedure is that the editorial offices and circulation department are in Toronto, in the Concourse building, 100 Adelaide street west; all correspondence regarding advertising is directed to be sent to this address. I understand that most of the printing is done in Toronto by two well-known publishers; then the material is shipped to Montreal, and the complete magazine is mailed from Montreal back to the news stands. In this way it is possible to see that advertisements of this kind go into the homes of our Canadian people, so that the increase in the consumption of these liquors may continue.
I have heard criticism as a result of churches in Canada being asked to cooperate with various government departments, and then when they desired paid advertisements for their papers they have not been very successful. But I find the government has been quite generous to the New World. There are several advertisements inserted in this issue

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by the government. I have here a few of the newspapers published by some of the churches of Canada:	The Presbyterian Record; The
Canadian Churchman, published by the Church of England; The Canadian Baptist, published by the Baptist church; The Canada Lutheran, published by the Lutheran church; The War Cry, published by the Salvation Army, The United Church Observer, and The Catholic Record. In all these papers I could find only two advertisements inserted by the government, though it can find profitable advertisements to be inserted in a magazine whose apparent purpose is to increase the sale of liquor.
I mentioned that Mr. Taylor was concerned about conserving shipping space. In last week's Wadena News, I notice an advertisement inserted by the wartime prices and trade board which reads:
To bring tea from Ceylon and India, to bring coffee from South America, ships must cross oceans infested with submarines. To-day those ships and their naval escorts are required for more essential services. Every ship, every foot of cargo space, Is needed to carry war materials, and to bring essential goods to Canada.
Then there is another advertisement in connection with sugar:
Since sugar rationing was first introduced, the shipping situation has become more serious. The danger to ships and lives has increased. Consequently it has now become necessary to reduce the sugar ration from f lb. to i lb. per week per person.
The Canadian people are not objecting to cutting down their sugar, tea and coffee. They realize that one of the most valuable services being performed is that of the men who go out to the sea to risk their lives in order to keep open the channels of commerce. But I think it disgraceful that we should be able to find shipping space for unlimited quantities of liquor while we have to restrict our consumption of coffee, tea and sugar, and that so far no attempt has been made to get the Canadian people to restrict their consumption of liquor.
In view of the situation I have outlined; in view of the alarming increase in the consumption of liquor in every province of Canada, I wonder if the minister would not give further consideration to this matter. I wonder if he will not admit that this now has become a national problem and that, regardless of what he may have said or what may have been done in the past, some steps should be taken, in the first place to see that advertisements of this type will be discontinued for the duration of the war and, in the second place, that our people will be encouraged to reduce their consumption of liquor.


Jean-François Pouliot: I am exceedingly sorry that the Minister of National Defence is not in his seat to-night. He spoke in Winnipeg with the Minister of Pensions and National Health, and that minister has been back in the house this week. However, we have not seen the Minister of National Defence. His place is here, when we are discussing these estimates-because I am sure the Minister of National War Services is very often labouring because of requisitions made upon him by the Minister of National Defence.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: Not at all.


Jean-François Pouliot: I am glad he is not; he has plenty of fortitude. But whether he is or is not-and I accept what he says-I say that while the committee of the whole is sitting and the estimates of the Minister of National Defence are under discussion, that minister should be here. There is no excuse for his going away.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Jean-François Pouliot: I will ask the hon. member for Fraser Valley to keep quiet; otherwise I will say something more unpleasant to him. And I will ask you, Mr. Chairman, to keep order. At times the hon. member for Fraser Valley speaks seriously; but I do not know what happens to him, because at other times he does not speak so well. His thoughts seem to be in limbo. I wonder why the hon. member for Fraser Valley laughs when I complain that the Minister of National Defence is not here, because I say his place is here, now, when this discussion is in progress. He should be here.


Mrs. CASSELMAN:: According to a press dispatch I have before me the Minister of National Defence is in the city of Edmonton, conferring with military officials there.


Jean-François Pouliot: I should like to answer my hon. friend the member for Edmonton East with flowers. But whether he is in her constituency or in any other constituency, he has plenty of time to go, outside of the time when we are discussing the expenditures of his department. The expenditures we are now discussing are as much those of the Department of National Defence as of the Department of National War Services. In fact, the Department of National War Services is just the anteroom of the Department of National Defence. I want the picture complete-not because I am afraid to say anything when the Minister of National Defence is here. Hon. members will recall that last year I told him to stop using his

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pencil on a piece of paper, and to look me in the eye when I was saying something to him.
I have something more to say. I complained about this disguised conscription. Who is responsible for it? It is not the Minister of National War Services; it is precisely the Minister of National Defence. We saw in the newspapers as early as February that the reserve army was closed to men between nineteen and thirty-five years of age, and that position was repeated by the Minister of National War Services not long ago. In the meantime the Minister of National Defence has worked out his little scheme to close one more door to men who desire to enlist in the reserve army.
The Montreal Gazette of April 17 contains the following Charlottetown dispatch:
Ralston warns defence alone is not enough.
No vote surest way to bring -war to Canada, court defeat asks record verdict.
Defence Minister, State Secretary McLarty appeal for plebiscite approval.
That was what was said at Charlottetown. But when the Minister of National Defence spoke in Montreal, according to a French newspaper of that city he praised the voluntary system. I shall reserve to another occasion anything further I have to say with respect to the development of national defence.	_
I should like to follow what was said by the hon. member who has just spoken, and refer particularly to two branches under the Department of National War Services. May I tell the minister that I have always had a deep respect for him. I believe he is in earnest, takes care of his department and in some branches has able assistants. I pay special tribute to Mr. Justice Davis and to General LaFleche. My colleagues in the house know the feelings I have for General LaFleche; I have great admiration for him. Then, in my humble view Major Benoit is also an able man.
Whatever anyone else may think of the importance of the Department of National War Services, in my opinion that department is equal in importance to any of the war departments. This is my reason for making that statement: The government has at its disposal some wonderful agencies under the supervision of that department. I have in mind particularly the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, which is under the control of the minister to as great an extent as any semiindependent corporation could be. It lives upon the taxes paid by owners of radio sets.
I wonder if the best use is made of that agency, both within and without the country.
Inside our boundaries the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation could do excellent work not only for what is called national unity, but also for the union of all Canadians of goodwill, especially in times like these. Of course good men are required to operate the corporation.
Then there is a further branch of the department which at times has to operate with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and also with the bureau of information. I refer to the censors branch, which has been centralized under the minister. In addition to the minister's function of calling men under the National Resources Mobilization Act, he has a duty so important and so great as to consume the whole of his time.
Is the information bureau operating properly? The minister is not responsible for its organization, because it was in operation when he became head of the department. He had to take it as it was. I ask the minister now to place on Hansard an up-to-date list of the staff of the information bureau, showing the occupation and salary of each member of the personnel. That is the first step. I complain that the cooperation between the information bureau and the censors is not close enough. Of course in times past the censors were not all under the minister. A reorganization was made not long ago, and now the two agencies are under the same minister. But that is not enough. They must work together. The information bureau must give a lead, and the check must be by the censors.
I have heard a good deal about the present head of the censors. It is said that he is an able man, and I give him the benefit of the doubt. I have no reason to complain about him, but his functions are of the utmost importance. He should proceed, not only with scissors in hand but by way of giving a lead to the newspapers and to Canadians who speak inside and outside the country. An effort should be made to make the bureau of the greatest possible help.
What should be done by the bureau? It is a Canadian bureau, and charity begins at home. It should serve the Canadian people first by giving us some idea of what orders in council of a legislative nature are passed by the government by virtue of the War Measures Act. Where is the member of parliament who can read, analyse, check and note all the orders in council of a legislative nature passed daily by the government? It is impossible. This information bureau should show its usefulness by keeping members informed on this legislation of a special nature which we cannot analyse from a study of the



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Canada Gazette. This afternoon an hon. member asked about the publication of these orders in council in book form. Already we have had five of these books, but some orders in council are amended and others are repealed. Part of the work of this information bureau should be done by jurists, and these orders in council should be issued in loose-leaf form.
The bureau of information should not be a clearing house for just the publicity of one department, the Department of Munitions and Supply. It should be a clearing house for all departments. It should give information to the people so that they may know what they have to do in order to live up to these governmental regulations. That would be easy to do provided the minister selects competent men to head the branch. The branch will justify its existence if the work is properly done, and I think hon. members will be grateful to the minister if such a change is made. A number of orders in council were published as an appendix to the Votes and Proceedings of March 24. No one knew the tenor of those orders until after eleven o'clock in the morning, and yet they had been in effect from the previous Monday. No one outside the members of the government knew what they were, and yet they affected the lives of the population of Canada. One will answer that that is the practice; but whether it is or not, I think it is an abuse.
Years ago the Department of National Revenue used to publish a monthly account of exports and imports as between the United Kingdom and Canada and as between Canada and foreign countries. This has been stopped under the pretext of economy, but we now receive certain information from the information bureau. The information put out in French is simply silly. It means nothing at all; it is just childishness and is of no use to us. All that we in the province of Quebec ask is that we be served in the same way as our fellow citizens who speak the English language. Why should- we be given this sort of information that is of no use?
The information bureau could give advice over the radio about health, diet and so on. This could be given by experts, other than those who belong to the medical profession.
I am sure that this will satisfy my hon. friend who made some apt remarks about what has been done. The information bureau should not give false ideas to other departments. Here is an example of the silly things that are put out. This is entitled "A Call to Arms," and is put out on the most expensive paper and signed by the Minister of National Defence. I say this is silly because of what 
happened when it was published. Several men in my county wanted to enlist, and I went with them to the armoury where the man in charge of enlistments was supposed to be. The very room in which this poster was displayed was locked. These boys with me wanted: to enlist, but the door was well locked and nobody could get in.


Thomas Reid: No shortage of paper there.


Jean-François Pouliot: This was asking boys to enlist, but the door was closed. Then there was something else. I refer to the totem pole that was carried across Canada, that thing called a victory torch which was sent to England with the first money that was obtained in the victory loan campaign last year. The money was used for the expenses of a trip in a bomber to carry that totem pole. Mr. Churchill looked astounded when he received it at No. 10 Downing street. Things like that are no good. We have a call to arms, a call to enlist, and when boys go to enlist they find no one there and the door looked against them. The first money obtained from the savings of the Canadian people is used to transport that totem pole from British Columbia to Halifax and then across the Atlantic by bomber. I do not blame the minister, I blame the man who had that silly idea. I am sure it came from the information bureau. It appeared to me like a bit of idolatry.


Richard Burpee Hanson: The idea originated in British Columbia.


Mr. MACKENZIE (Vancouver Centre):: No; it did not. It came from the victory loan committee.


Jean-François Pouliot: I do not want to hurt my hon. friend because I am in full sympathy with him. I shed tears when I thought of that.
There is something else, and here is where there should be intervention by the censorship bureau. It should tell important military men who are in charge of the districts of Quebec and Montreal to shut up and not enter into any competition in eloquence as they do, only, as we say in French, to "Mettre les pieds dans les plats"-"put their feet in dishes."
Another thing should be done by the censor. Here is another kind of foolish propaganda that came from the national plebiscite committee. It is signed by Florian Fortin. I have already complained about it. It was printed and widely distributed during the plebiscite campaign:
What shall we think of persons who vote "no" under the pretext that they do not love England.
It is silly. Why put such ideas in the heads of Canadian people?

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Another thing that the censors should do is to forbid government agencies from sending out copies of articles from a stinky paper in Montreal called Le Jour.


Mr. MacNICOL:: I did not hear what the hon. gentleman called the paper.


Jean-François Pouliot: Stinky-malodorous. All that sort of thing works not only on the mind of my good friend the leader of the opposition but on the minds of some journalists. For instance, I received not long ago an article published in a Woodstock paper, the editor of which is at present on leave, working for the wartime prices and trade board. Underneath the article is this note:
Suggest you get all your "no" voters out in rowboats to locate the U-boats.
Very witty! It also works on the editorial staff of our dear local paper, the Ottawa Citizen, which says:
Since Jean-Frangois Pouliot and other members from the Lower St. Lawrence don't faney going abroad to defend their country, wasn't it accommodating of the sub to come all the way over and make faces at them on their own door-step!
Is it not very clever? That is the consequence of such propaganda.
But it works on somebody else. It works on one who cannot sing, "Yes, we have no bananas," because he is the Orange leader of Ontario, the Ontario Grand Master, Mr. J. W. Carson. The headline says:
Quebec stand deplored by Orange leader- "Unbelievable" Ontario Grand Master tells gathering.
The article goes on to say:
The grand master repeated "our long-standing protest" against the "persistent and insistent" attempts to elevate the French language to a parity with English "and more particularly against the practice of the federal government in circulating, indiscriminately throughout the dominion, publications and forms printed in both languages."
I never knew that, but I am indulgent to the head of the Orangemen just on account of the silliness of the propaganda that was put out by the information bureau, because I understand he was deceived by it.
There is one of our colleagues who said once that those who did not agree with him were inspired by Hitler or something like that. I want to be indulgent to him for the same reason.
Another of our lady colleagues spoke of Quebec Quislings. I understand that she also was led into error by the same sort of propaganda.
I do not care what is said about me. For instance, an Ottawa paper called me a noxious
pest. I am quite indifferent to that. Another paper, this one from western Ontario, said:
By far the worst offence was that of Mr. Jean-Frangois Pouliot, who since 1924 has been creating scenes of disturbance in the house, mainly by launching virulent attacks against men who, not being members, have no means of defending themselves. He followed his old tactics again in his latest outburst.
I do not care about that.
Another Toronto paper dedicated an editorial to myself, headed "Buffoonery in parliament." I do not care at all about that. Another weekly Ontario paper said something else, just to frighten me, referring to something I had said regarding the Minister of National Defence. He said he would stop what I was doing. I do not know whether these articles were inspired or not. This one is from a weekly, printed on shiny paper. It says:
Mr. Pouliot is at the same time too much of an egoist and too much of a comedian to be a reliable colleague in any ministry.
I am indifferent to all that, and I know the censor should not intervene in such cases because it is simply the expression of one individual's opinion.
But this sort of propaganda has a bad effect. It turns the minds of some people. I will give one example. It dates back to a year ago. It is a very bad letter that I received. I made a speech here on February 21, 1941. Mr. Lapointe spoke on February 24, and then on February 26 a letter was sent to me from Toronto. Mr. Lapointe told me in front of one of my colleagues that this letter should be read. I have already given a copy of it to the Prime Minister, also to Mr. Godbout, Premier of Quebec, and to Mr. Duplessis. The letter shows the turn of mind of some people, and I am sure that there is not a member of the house who will not be scandalized by what is said in it. We hear about national unity. Of course, that must work on both sides. I have already said that in any country where there is a minority the minority has always to suffer from the greed of the majority to govern, and that characteristic goes back to the far-away ages. As we say in French, "Diviser un petit peuple"-"Divide to rule." That was said about twenty centuries ago, and it is still true. This is deplorable. The following letter was addressed to J. F. Pouliot, M.P., Ottawa, Parliament buildings, and mailed at Toronto, February 27, 1941, 9.30 p.m. Here it is, and I will lay the original on the table:
715 Palmerston Avenue,
Toronto, February 26, 1941.
Dear Half-Breed:
You were right when you told Mr. Ralston the other day that you have been here for a

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long time. It is a long time since the priest chased and raped the squaw and you were the result, also Lapointe, Duplessis, Godbout, how you half-breeds like to blow.
You should hang your head in shame and never tell anybody that you belong to the French cattle.
Look at those dirty French traitors in France; it is a laugh to hear you dogs talking about culture. They sold out to the Germans thinking they were going to save their own dirty necks, but you see what traitors get. But they cannot help being traitors. It is born in them just like you dogs in Quebec. What we need in Canada is a nice little war to clean out all you cattle along with the arch louse and traitor, Mackenzie King. The war is not over yet but I would sooner fight you half-breeds than I would the Germans.
Yours,
Joe Smith.
I find by the 1940 Toronto city directory that the two persons who are indicated as residing at the above address, 715 Palmerston Avenue, are Jack Woulter and Frank Schicht. That is not helpful.
At a time when our publicity was not going well in the United States, we have here the sort of uncensored publicity which was published in the Montreal Gazette:
We must have victory. You must vote "Yes!"
This publicity is sponsored by plebiscite committees of the province of Quebec.
I wonder if that was paid for by the government. It is not the way to have national unity in this country. Here is another advertisement which was published on April 25, and was not censored:
How would Hitler vote?
Pause for a moment and ask yourself this question: If Hitler had a vote on the plebiscite, how would he mark his ballot? Your good sense tells you he would say "no". If you vote "no" or if you don't vote at all, you are helping Hitler.
We hear that we have a bad name in the United States. That is not surprising when one reflects upon what is said about those who do not agree with the government on this question. I have one other exhibit; it is from Time, a Luce publication, of May 11, 1942, and on page 30 it reproduces a photograph of a sign:
Hitler voterait non sur le plebiscite.
Comment voterez-vous?
"Hitler would vote no on the plebiscite. How will you vote?" It is headed, "Quebec Posters. The little one says, 'If you would avoid conscription, vote no.' " This is the kind of publicity we have in the United States. It is just a continuation of the publicity we have had in this country. I have never understood why the censor did not stop it. It is important to preserve national unity in this country. We hear fine speeches about 
national unity. Speeches do not count; it is acts that count, and the necessary act should be to stop such publications, especially of an official nature.
As an example of the kind of publicity which we should have in the United States, I will refer to a publication which I hold in my hand, and which is widely circulated on this continent and even, at least formerly, in Europe. There was a French edition of Vogue published in Paris and an English edition published in London. It is a ladies' magazine, and it is read throughout the world. I do not know whether even now they have not a Spanish edition for south America. Here is what is written in the May issue by a distinguished and brilliant member of our own press gallery, who has international fame, and who, especially since the publication of his last book on this country, is nearly as well and favourably known in the United States as in Canada. I refer to Mr. Bruce Hutchison of Vancouver, who has written a story, "While I was in Quebec." It is a story of a young man who becomes a member of parliament.


The CHAIRMAN:: OrdeT, please. I should like to draw to the attention of the hon. member that when he refers to a publication relating to the expenditure of SI,500,000,000 by the government there may be some relevancy in his remarks, but I cannot see the connection of the matter before the committee now with an article written by a gentleman in the magazine Vogue which has nothing to do with the expenditure by the government of the amount of money which is now sought to be obtained.


Jean-François Pouliot: Well, sir, we were just speaking of the information bureau.


Thomas Vien: Yes, but exactly on that point, anything which is published by the department and is directly or indirectly connected with the expenditure of the moneys voted by parliament would be in order. But we cannot enter, on a discussion of a resolution of this kind, into an analysis or a criticism of an article published by somebody else in Vogue.


Jean-François Pouliot: Well, sir, I will explain what my purpose is in mentioning that. I was complaining that the information bureau was not doing useful work in this country and outside. I was complaining of propaganda which was going on outside which was not checked by the censor, and I was showing how the Americans could be favourably impressed with Canada by able and worthy propaganda. I am well aware that Vogue is a woman's magazine, but it has incorporated Vanity Fair, which was a magazine for both

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men and women, and contained serious articles, and this article contains a few remarks which are an antidote to the poison that was published in Lije. That is why I want to show that a censoring and an information bureau should take advantage of what is published by Mr. Hutchison in Vogue to follow that example. My quotation is not long, just a few lines.


Thomas Vien: Very well.


Jean-François Pouliot: It reads:
This, though no one here realized it, was the symbol of a strange fact in the life of America and a basic fact in Canada. This was the French race, a third of the Canadian nation, making its will felt with the majority by skill, by persistence, by a hard common sense hidden under a smile and the shrug of a shoulder. This was the emergence, out of the rich Quebec soil, of another leader, whence so many had come since Champlain's time. And in Lucien's marriage to this blond girl, who spoke no French, one could see the hope that some day the two great races would unite, creating a race still greater.
This is the kind of thing which should go from Canada to the United States, and Mr. Hutchison rendered a valuable service to all Canada by writing in that way in a United States magazine with such a wide circulation.
Of course, no French Canadian will contend that we have all perfection and all virtue. We do not pretend that we are any better than our English-speaking fellow citizens, but it is merely a legitimate pride to contend that we are just as good, and what we want is to have the opportunity to show to the majority of the Canadian people that the province of Quebec is not behind any province in the *war effort. I claim that for the people of my province; I insist upon that for them. I hope, according to the news I have received, that in the near future I shall be able to give that information to the English-speaking population of this country. I am sure that my fellow-citizens of a different origin are open-minded enough to take it objectively, without prejudice, and to judge as they deserve those who are responsible for the kind of propaganda which has given them such a false impression of good citizens who are just as anxious as they are to see this country prosper and to win the war.'


Major James William Coldwell: I should like to say a
few words in connection with the information department under the minister. I believe that the situation which we now face in Canada and the grave domestic condition with which we are confronted are in no small measure due to the failure of the government's information service. Since the war broke out there has been, I believe, an opportunity for
the information service to place the issues of this war in a manner which would have won a larger measure of support from all the people of Canada, had those issues been properly presented. I do not propose to go into details; but I sometimes think, after having read the translations of some of the talks, for example, that have been put over the French network in this country, that a great deal better could have been done. I have wondered why the ordinary common masses of the people could not have talked to the ordinary common masses of the people overseas, and vice versa. I believe that probably one of the ways in which the people of English-speaking Canada have been brought to an understanding of the issues of this war is through the talks we have had from fishermen, miners, farm labourers, and ordinary housewives in Great Britain, over the radio, in newsreels and by means of other broadcasts of that description which we have had from overseas.
I believe that we have suffered a great loss in Canada because we ourselves have not had the means of exchanging with the people across the seas our ideas for theirs. I have regretted ever since the war broke out, yes, before the war broke out, that we have not had a short-wave transmitter which would have enabled us and our compatriots of all national origins to speak directly to similar peoples across the seas. We have in this country Germans who are as much opposed to Hitler as we are, and with more reason. We have Czechs happily settled in this country free to follow their own ways of life. We have a Canadian population speaking the French language who still maintain many of the attributes of old France, and I am of opinion that the French-Canadian farmer speaking directly to the peasant of France would be better understood than almost any other medium we have. Broadcasts that are coming from Vichy and from Paris at the present time under German control, directed to our Canadian compatriots who speak the French language, say of course that the condition in France is far better than we know it to be, and misrepresent the intentions of the majority of the people of this country, the English-speaking majority, to our Canadian friends who speak the French language. If you follow, as I have followed, some of the broadcasts-not in French, for I do not understand the language sufficiently well; but I have read the English translations-you will realize the degree of difficulty that we encounter because our people cannot speak directly to the people across the seas and tell them of the actual conditions of democratic freedom that exist in Canada. The same

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applies to the people who speak Polish and other languages-Norwegian, Dutch, Danish and so on, the languages of the peoples of oppressed Europe.
I believe that one of the finest things we could have done in the prosecution of the war from the point of view of the Canadian citizen, the unity of our people and the interpretation of Canadian, north American and British ideals, would have been done through properly organized short-wave programmes. Though we have a radio committee sitting and I am a member of that committee, I realize at the moment that we are discussing the appropriation of funds for this department; but by the time the radio committee rises, the budget debate will in all probability have been concluded and there will have been no opportunity to press for the establishment of a powerful short-wave transmitter for this dominion. If Great Britain were invaded -and of course it is not improbable that some attempt may still be made by para^-chutists to invade and seek to control a part of Great Britain-if any part of Britain were taken even temporarily by the enemy, if the British Broadcasting Corporation's transmitter at Daventry were put out of operation, there would be no powerful station within the British commonwealth that could speak to the rest of the world.
The parliamentary committee in 1938 recommended something of the sort. It said:
Your committee was impressed with the importance of the establishment at an early date of a high-power short-wave broadcasting station. Such a station your committee believes would be a great utility in interpreting and advertising Canada abroad and in facilitating an exchange of programmes between Canada and other broadcasting systems. Canada, your committee has been informed, is the only major training nation without such facilities, and it is submitted that this should be financed as a national project operated and controlled by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. It should be a public utility and free from partisan control.
So that in 1938 the committee which sat at that time was strongly of opinion that we should have a short-wave broadcasting station for this dominion.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Was that ever concurred in by the House of Commons?


Major James William Coldwell: The report was presented but, as usual with our reports, I do not think it was formally adopted.


Richard Burpee Hanson: If it were, it would be a command.


Major James William Coldwell: I do not think it was ever formally adopted.


Richard Burpee Hanson: The government allowed it to die.


Major James William Coldwell: Nothing was done about it, and in 1939 this was a recommendation of another committee:
The committee of last year emphasized the importance of establishing, at as early a date as possible, a high-power short-wave broadcasting station, financed as a national undertaking but operated and controlled by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation as an integral part of its system.
There you have a reaffirmation of the belief that this should be done.


Richard Burpee Hanson: But that
was only a committee of parliament. Why was parliament not asked to pass upon it?


Major James William Coldwell: I think the leader of
the opposition knows quite well that reports are presented here and then more or less forgotten. Unless the government brings forward the necessary appropriation, nothing is done about the matter. To-day when we send a minister of the crown, as we sent the Minister of Trade and Commerce and members of his department, to South America on a good-will tour to promote trade and good feeling between ourselves and the South American countries, all that effort is lost if we are unable to follow up what he has done. A short-wave broadcasting station in Canada could convey to our South American friends the atmosphere of this country. It could tell them what this country was doing, both in peace and in war. I venture to suggest that to some extent the British have been a little suspect in South America, because they were looked upon as being imperialistic, financially, in their aims. The American, the Yankee trader if you will, has been suspect in South America because he has been looked upon as an even sharper trader and perhaps a greater potential imperialist than even the Britisher. But we in Canada have had no such reputation. We are a small nation, with no designs on anyone. We do not seek to dominate any part of the globe, either the isles of the sea or in South America. I believe we could have done much to bring the countries of South America a little nearer to us in this time of stress and difficulty if we had been able to speak directly from Canada to the peoples of South America.
To put it on a more prosaic ground, we have the matter of trade and commerce. With the way in which the world is disorganized to-day, even after the war is over Canada may find it difficult to obtain the raw materials she needs and to dispose of many of the commodities which she produces. The good-will of consuming nations in South America may be of very great value to us. Let us not

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forget also that ever since the war broke out South America has been under a barrage of propaganda from the axis nations. I have a fairly powerful short-wave set myself, and often when I get home at night I tune in on the short-wave stations. I am amazed at the number of wave-lengths carrying programmes in Portuguese to Brazil and in Spanish to the other countries of South America, from Berlin, Rome and recently from Paris. We have had nothing to counteract that propaganda except the British stations, which sometimes have difficulty in being heard across the seas, and United States stations. As I said before, unforunately from time to time United States interests in South America have not been regarded in altogether the friendly way in which our own interests have been regarded there.
So I am suggesting that even at this late date the government should consider making the necessary appropriation, or authorizing the broadcasting corporation to make the necessary appropriation out of any surplus it may have, to construct a short-wave station at the earliest possible date. I have learned that it is not impossible, even now, to set up a short-wave radio transmitting station. I understand that there is still at least one transmitter available. Incidentally I have also been told-and the minister may correct me if my information is wrong-that as recently as last autumn the government or the corporation was negotiating with regard to such a transmitter. I believe that one of the great companies has offered to assemble and have in operation within a year a short-wave transmitter, at a cost of some 1500,000. That seems a great deal of money, but when we consider that we are appropriating $2,000,000,000 for various war expenditures $500,000 is not a relatively large amount. Indeed, we can easily spend $500,000 on pamphlets, leaflets and literature of other kinds, and lose the advantage from it in a very short space of time, whereas a powerful short-wave transmitter would be a permanent asset to this country both in time of war and in time of peace. Even if it cost, as I understand it would, in the neighbourhood of $150,000 a year to operate-


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: About $500,000 a year.


Thomas Miller Bell: I understand $150,000 would be much nearer the figure. I have heard the other figure mentioned also, but my information is that it would cost much less than $500,000. But supposing it did cost the government of this country $500,000 a year to convey to the rest of the world information with regard to Canada; to convey Canada, as it were, to the rest of the world.
That wowld not be a very large sum of money. The value of the good-will resulting would be immeasurably greater than the amount that would be spent. So I am urging upon the government to-night that this matter be considered this year, and that Canada be given a voice across the world. Australia has a short-wave transmitter. It is not very powerful, but Australia is fortunate in having even a 25,00(Lwatt transmitter at this time, for we are privileged occasionally to hear the voices of her statesmen speaking to the United States and the rest of the world. Britain, as I said before, has two transmitters, one of 100,000 watts and the other of 50,000 watts. If anything should happen to those transmitters, Britain would have no voice sufficiently powerful to talk to the rest of the world on behalf of the British commonwealth. It is true that Canadians have been able to broadcast good-will and other messages from time to time through station WRUL at Boston, the world radio university station, but that happens only infrequently. If we had a transmitter, not only could our own people speak to our allies across the sea but some of the outstanding figures from other countries who are now exiles in Canada could speak to their people as well. For example, teaching in the university of Montreal to-day is a great scientist from France, a man who was at one time a member of one of the French governments, serving as under-secretary of state. He was a radical socialist in politics. Lest anyone might misunderstand, may I explain that a radical socialist, before the fall of France-although the name may sound rather forbidding-was a very moderate sort of Liberal. He was just a little to the left of the Republican party.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Not like these Liberals?


Thomas Miller Bell: Oh, no, not a bit like these Liberals-


John Ritchie MacNicol: Possibly these are radical socialists.


Major James William Coldwell: -because they are not very much less Conservative than the Conservative party.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: Do not spoil an otherwise good speech by being trapped into anything like that.


Major James William Coldwell: Well, the temptation was almost irresistible.
We could use men of this description; and I am therefore urging upon the government that this should be done.

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There is one other point I should like to mention before taking my seat, and that is one I raised in the house a short time ago. I do not believe in the suppression of free discussion. I do not believe the press should be interfered with, even in war time, except, of course, that it should not be allowed to publish information which would be of value to the enemy. In Canada I think we may all be proud of the fact that, without a great deal of censorship our own press has voluntarily looked after that angle of its news and of the war effort.
The other afternoon, however, I had occasion to refer to a publication being published in this country by an alien of enemy nationality. It will be noticed that I have not said he is an enemy alien-because I do not believe he is. I describe him as an alien of enemy nationality. I am referring, of course, to the publication of what is known as the "Voice of Austria". A day or two after I made the reference in the house, a bitter attack was lodged by Doctor Franz Klein, editor of the "Voice of Austria" in this country. I went to some trouble in trying to find out if there was any basis for the attack on Doctor Redler, and I have something I should like to place on record, just to keep the record straight, from the Austrian national committee. May I say that the Austrian national committee in New York consists of exiled Austrians of all shades of opinion, right from the monarchists through to the social democrats and the socialists of old Austria.
The Austrian national committee comprises forty of these outstanding Austrians, among whom are two former federal ministers, one former under-secretary of state for foreign affairs, a number of university professors now teaching in the United States and world-famous Austrians like Franz Werfel and Bruno Walter, the great conductor. I have before me a resolution passed by a special meeting of this organization and adopted unanimously on May 16 at their plenary meeting in New York. I should like to quote it:
The plenary assembly entrusts the executive board to take all the necessary steps in order to make it perfectly clear that:
1.	The Austrian natibnal committee has nothing whatsoever to do with. the attacks published in the "Voice of Austria" against statesmen of allied nations;
2.	The Austrian national committee most energetically rejects the attacks published by the editor of this magazine against one of the members of the Austrian national committee.
That is Doctor Redler.
Furthermore, it was agreed that the executive board should bring the resolution concerning

the "Voice of Austria" to the attention of all the interested foreign authorities, in particular, the British and Czechoslovak.
I place that on record because of the injury which might have been done to Doctor Redler who is, I believe, in every way a man with a very line record in the Austrian democratic movement, and who is living in exile in this country. I would suggest this, that when we are carefully supervising papers issued even by our own citizens, as we are in some instances, most careful supervision ought to be given to a publication published by one who is not only not a citizen of this country, but who is of origin the same as that of our enemies. The publication to which I have referred is published in New York, and for some reason Doctor Klein transfers himself to Canada with the result that just lately the paper has been published here. I wanted to place that matter on record because of other things which have been said recently.
It was my wish to bring these several points to the attention of the committee while the minister was before us, and I should like to hear him say to-night if consideration can be given to the establishment of a powerful shortwave station in this country. If consideration is given, I should hope that we may obtain the remaining transmitter which, I am told, is available, and use it for the present and future benefit of Canada and for the immediate war effort of the united nations.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: I should like to express my appreciation of the able manner in which the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar has urged the erection of a short-wave broadcasting station.


John Ritchie MacNicol: You will never get
through your department this way.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: The subject has been and still is under consideration by the government. There is not complete agreement on the subject of a short-wave station, but I may say personally to the hon. member that I was very glad indeed to hear his advocacy of something which I think would be of great value to this country, not only at this time but in the post-war period, when Canada should be one of the great nations of the world.
Censorship is another matter which comes under my charge. It operates in a variety of ways, and in respect of various things. It has never been the policy in Canada, in Great Britain or in the United States to discuss the manner in which censorship operates. Generally speaking, the purpose of censorship is twofold. First, its purpose is to prevent information which might be useful to the enemy

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reaching the enemy and, second, its purpose is to acquire information from the enemy or other sources that might be useful to our own cause. It is no part of censorship to suppress free speech or free criticism of persons or of the government; in no sense is that a function of censorship. I should not want to see any steps taken under the guise of censorship for the purpose of suppressing free criticism. Even during times of war there is real value in criticism.
I should like to advert to one unpleasant incident this evening, the quotation by the hon. member for Temiscouata (Mr. Pouliot) of a letter which he had received from someone and which had been written in another part of the country. I think it is much to be regretted that letters of that sort should be even referred to in the House of Commons. That sort of discussion cannot possibly do any good to anyone here in Canada, particularly at this time when there is the utmost need for the people in one part of the country to be as moderate as they possibly can in their references to the people in another part of the country.
I should like to advert also to a statement made by the hon. member for Broadview (Mr. Church). Sometimes I feel that I am not as free as a minister of the crown as I was when I was a private member. As a private member I could state that I would pay no attention to the hon. member for Broadview, but as a minister I cannot take that attitude. I must pay some attention to him because of the fact that he represents a constituency. But time and time again he has sought to make a differentiation between Canadians of British origin and Canadians who are not of British origin. That differentiation ought not to be made by anyone at this time. We are all Canadians regardless of our origin, regardless of whether it is British, or French or neither British nor French. We are all in this war. We have earned rights in this country which carry with them corresponding duties. This is a conflict which touches every individual in this country, and it is not the time for differentiation between Canadians of various racial origins. We are all united in our devotion to Canada and in our devotion to the cause for which all Canadians fight. That cause can best be described as the cause of humanity.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Are we not devoted to the
empire?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: We are deeply attached to our association with Great Britain and our sister dominions. The fact that we entered this war of our own accord does not lessen our attachment to Great Britain from which we
inherit the traditions and institutions that are so dear to every Canadian regardless of his origin. I take second place to no man in this country in my devotion to British institutions and British traditions. I plead with everyone in Canada that at this time there should be the utmost moderation in thought and speech and the greatest respect paid by one part of the country to all other parts of the country.


John Ritchie MacNicol: During the recent plebiscite the returning officers were appointed under authority of the minister, and I am sure that some of them must have notified the department of what happened in connection with the registration cards. Mr. Frank Saxon of Toronto writes me that perhaps twenty or thirty per cent of those presenting themselves to vote presented cards bearing addresses which were different from those at which the persons lived, they having moved since they first registered. Earlier in the afternoon the minister referred to the fact that in many instances it was found that men called up had moved from the addresses under which they had first registered. Mr. Saxon suggests that this difficulty would be overcome if these people could obtain new registration cards at local post offices. The new card could be of a different colour, and the original card would be returned to the department. The department would then have a complete and up-to-date record of the addresses of those who were registered. Has the minister had any report from his returning officers as to the effect of these people moving from their former addresses?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: I think there have been a million and a half address changes. I have not had brought to my attention the facts that the hon. member for Davenport now brings to the attention of the committee, and I shall be glad to bring his observations to the attention of the appropriate officers who are in charge of the national registration records.


Mr. BOUCHER:: This afternoon the
minister stated that the age limit for call had been raised from thirty to thirty-five years.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: No.


George Russell Boucher: That it was intended to raise it shortly in some places.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: I indicated that I would not be surprised if that step were taken in the near future.


George Russell Boucher: At the same time the minister indicated that one reason for doing that was that in certain military districts the

War Appropriation-War Services
number of men within the age limits had been practically exhausted, and he referred particularly to military district No. 3 which is located at Kingston, Ontario. This strikes me as being a peculiar situation. The Department of National War Services is calling men within certain age limits, and I cannot understand why one particular military district should have its man-power within those age limits exhaust- ' ed so that the government may have to raise the classification in order to get the necessary quota of men from that district. I wonder if it is a case of all available men within that age class who can be taken from industry having been taken. If that is so, how does it come that in military district No. 3-


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: Administrative division C.


George Russell Boucher: In administrative division "C", which is military district No. 3, the age has been raised from twenty-eight to thirty, which would indicate, at first sight at all events, that a heavier drain has been made on the available man-power in that area than in other areas in Canada.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: Not necessarily.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Per se.


George Russell Boucher: Not necessarily, the minister says, but I would ask how he can set aside that conclusion. In a particular area more men might possibly be drawn from nonessential war industries into essential war industries or into military service than in another area, but in that particular area we have the classification raised, or contemplated to be raised in order to get more men to fill the army quota-and that before even the lottery system has been embarked upon. Certainly it has every appearance of discrimination, if not in reality. It might very well be pointed out that enlistments in that particular area had so depleted the available man-power that a sufficient number of men were not available and that the government, in order to get more men, increased the age limit. I should like to hear an explanation from the minister.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: It would not be possible, for a multiplicity of causes, for the reserves of man-power to be the same in all administrative divisions across Canada. I have not any doubt that part of the situation that exists in administrative division "C" is due to a very heavy volume of enlistments of a voluntary nature in that division. That was its record in the last war, and I think it is its record in this war. But that is only one cause.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Is that not the major cause?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: Similarly the man-power reserve available for call in another area may be reduced by reason of the concentration of essential war industries in that area and the fact that a large number of postponements of military training have been granted to men essential to war industry. When I made the statement about administrative division "C", I indicated that we were coming close to exhaustion in that administrative division. I also indicated that we would within a very short time be coming close to exhaustion in a number of other divisions. I also indicated that we would be in a better position to know what the reserves of man-power were in other administrative divisions after we had seen the full impact of, let us say, the agricultural regulations and the man-power reserve in the various administrative divisions. As we move up into the higher age groups, the number of men who can be brought into the armed forces becomes smaller and smaller. I do not think I can go further at the moment.
One of the reasons for the situation in administrative division "C" has been enlistments. Another reason has been postponements of military training for one reason or another. There may be other reasons that do not occur to me at the moment.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I want to call the minister's attention to the fact that a serious attack was made here this evening by one of his own supporters on a division of his department, the bureau of public information.
I hold no brief for the director of that division. I recognize in him one of the ablest publicity men in Canada.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: I did not understand that an attack was made on the director.


Richard Burpee Hanson: No, but on the department, and it has not brought any response or any defence from the minister. That, of course, is his business.
I wonder if the members of the house understand exactly what the position is. I have received from time to time, as I have no doubt every member of the house has, letters protesting against the character of some of the press releases and information that is being given out, particularly with respect to the length of time that has elapsed between the times of preparation and distribution of the material. I took this question up with Mr. Lash, and we had some interesting correspondence. I was surprised to learn that this was the position: There are about fifteen or sixteen or seventeen publicity men attached to various departments of government all more or less related to war work, not to speak of peace-time propagandists attached to

War Appropriation-War Services
various departments; this material prepared by this large number of press men, I learned, is sent in to the division of public information merely for, shall I say, distribution purposes, and the director has no authority to edit or alter one word of these releases. In other words, he is merely a conduit through which this information is distributed to the public. That is my understanding, and if that be so,
I think the position ought to be reviewed.
A man of the experience of Mr. Lash as a publicist, with a flair for news, I suppose, equal if not superior to that of any of the young pressmen attached to the various government departments, should have some authority to put the "can" on some of the material that is going out or to alter or refer it back. That is a constructive suggestion I * make to the minister. If my understanding of the position is correct-and I speak, of course, subject to correction-the present position ought to be reviewed. The bureau is working very hard, and I do not think at enormous expense. I had the figures once; I think they have been given to the house once or twice, and it is not an enormous expenditure. But through a misunderstanding I believe that the bureau of information is called upon to take some of the odium that properly belongs to the departments from whose officials the information emanates. I understand that the director of public information has no authority to refer back or even to edit the articles that are sent in to him. He must of necessity be just a distribution centre. I note that Mr. Lash has made some excellent radio broadcasts himself; I listen to them whenever the opportunity offers, which is not as often as I should like. He is an experienced man; that is why he is there. I have no doubt he was loaned to the government by the national railways because of his capability, and I do not think it is fair that the attack made on the bureau to-night should go unanswered. I do not like to see that type of incident happen, and I think the minister ought to do something with regard to it.
I rose merely because I had that thought, not to make a speech but to call attention to what developed here this evening, to give the committee my understanding of what the true position is, and to ask the minister to review the functions of this bureau with respect to the flow of material which must come to it from all these different sources. There are, I think, too many pressmen in the employ of the government. I have the idea that the newspapers of this country, if given a free hand, could do a much better job with respect to public information than all these
liaison officers in the departments. That is something which is worthy of consideration.
I know that there are newspaper men in Canada who hold that view. The government thinks it necessary to have all these men putting out miles and miles of propaganda, but the public know it is propaganda, and they discount a lot of it. It is not objective enough. It savours of propaganda, and the people do not believe all they read.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: The leader of the opposition has suggested that I should reply to the attack made on the bureau of public information by the hon. member for Temiscouata. I do not know whether I should reply to everything the hon. member said.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Oh, I did not say that.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: I had sent in to me just a little while ago a memorandum reading as follows: "Long distance competition in patience: first place, Thorson; honourable mention, Job".


Richard Burpee Hanson: What
about the members of this committee who have had to listen to it?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: I have been waiting for someone to ask me for information with regard to the division of public information, which is one of the divisions under my charge. Most of the time that I have been before the committee the discussion has been on the division of mobilization, and has dealt with only one aspect of the mobilization division.


Mr. FRASER (Peterborough West):: You have too many divisions.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: I do not think so.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: I do think so. The minister should have mobilization only.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: Everyone is, of course,
entitled to his own opinion.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: Well, that is enough for him.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: I am delighted with the opportunity of indicating what the functions of the bureau of public information are, what its objectives are, and the manner in which it functions, but it would take some time. It cannot be done in just a few moments.


John Ritchie MacNicol: We want to get through this summer some time.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: There is a great misunderstanding as to the particular function of the bureau of public information to which the
2964	COMMONS
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leader of the opposition has made reference. The bureau is not in competition with the daily press of Canada. It is not a function of that bureau to prepare official news announcements for the use of the daily press; not at all. All the daily newspapers of Canada have their news-gathering organizations; they have their representatives in the press gallery; they have their parliamentary correspondents in Ottawa; they are members of either the Canadian Press or the British United Press, and these news-gathering organizations send news to their member newspapers. The various news-gathering organizations get the news direct from the government departments. The spot news, as it is called, goes direct from the departments to the press gallery, to the Canadian Press, and to the British United Press. The bureau of public information, in so far as spot news is concerned, has very little to do with the daily newspapers. There are, however, a great many other functions which it has to perform and may quite properly perform. While the association between the bureau of public information and the daily newspapers is of comparatively small importance, the association between the bureau and the weekly newspapers is, on the other hand, much closer. The service which the bureau of public information can render to the weekly newspapers at their request is very much greater than it attempts to render to the daily newspapers, who have their own individual news-gathering organizations and set-ups.
The leader of the opposition referred to the fact that a great many men are engaged in publicity work of one kind or another, or public relations work of various kinds, in the departments. One of the purposes of the Department of National War Services was said to be, in the order in council which assigned that function to it, the coordination of existing sources of public information. There were in existence already publicity set-ups in the three departments of national defence; there were also publicity and public relations branches in the Department of Munitions and Supply and in a number of other departments of government. It has never been considered either possible or desirable that all agencies of either publicity, public relations or public information should come together exclusively in one department under one administration.
It was thought that greater success could be achieved in coordinating public relations and public information by a policy of cooperation than by an attempt to have everything go through one funnel. The manner in which the division of the bureau of public information has operated almost since the commencement, and certainly after I came into the 
department, was to follow that policy of coordination by cooperation rather than by regimentation. We established in a formal way last July an interdepartmental committee, which had operated in a more or less informal way previously. That interdepartmental committee is presided over by the Hon. T. C. Davis, one of my associate deputy ministers. It meets weekly with the representatives of publicity and of the various press organizations of the war departments and various other organizations. The following departments and organizations of government have representatives on this interdepartmental committee: the three departments of national defence; Department of Munitions and Supply; Department of Labour; wartime prices and trade board; national war finance committee; foreign exchange control board; Department of External Affairs; Canadian Broadcasting Corporation; national film board, and bureau of public information. I know exactly what will be said if I start to give a description of the bureau of public information; but I am handicapped again, as I have been previously, in that I have a request to explain the operations of a division of the department and then am told that I should do so in one or two words.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I did not invite the minister to cover the whole field. All I was bringing to his attention was a situation which I think at present exists and which needs correction. That is all I want him to talk about.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: This interdepartmental
committee has served a useful purpose in coordinating public information.


Vincent-Joseph Pottier: I rise to refute a statement made by the hon. member for Broadview (Mr. Church). While speaking in a general way he indicated that Ontario was No. 1 in enlistment in the army, navy and air force.
I have here the best figures I have been able to obtain. They first appeared in a Toronto paper, and I am sure they would have been at least fair with Ontario. In these figures Ontario appears to be the sixth province down the line. I will give the number by provinces up to that point. These are per 10.000 of population. Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, taken together, give 495 persons as having joined the army, air force and navy- and I am talking about the active service. Manitoba is next with 490 persons; British Columbia third with 483; New Brunswick fourth with 428; Alberta fifth with 444; and Ontario not first, but sixth, with 426 persons

War Production
for every 10,000 of population. I wish to correct the hon. member for Broadview in that
regard.


John Ritchie MacNicol: The hon. member meant
in numbers.


Grote Stirling: What are the figures for the rest of the provinces?


Vincent-Joseph Pottier: Saskatchewan, 326; and Quebec, 204.


Clarence Gillis: I have no desire to prolong the discussion, because I realize that the minister has been patient and long-suffering. Members of the committee could walk out at any time, but the minister could not. He has my sympathy. In the course of my remarks this afternoon I referred to representation on the boards. I still contend there is a necessity for a rearrangement of the personnel of the boards. My contention is that in the past they served a purpose. The board in Nova Scotia, with which we have had no quarrel in the past, consists at present of the Hon. Mr. Justice Doull of the supreme court, His Honour N. R. McArthur and His Honour K. L. Crowell, three judges. As I visualize the functions of these boards in the future it will require considerable moving around, because in my opinion most of the men who will be called for service in the future will come from the industries, and while the employer has the right to sit in and protect his interests-


Thomas Vien: It is eleven o'clock.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: May we not allow the hon. member to finish?


Clarence Gillis: I shall be only a minute; I want the minister to answer a simple question. In the United States, in connection with the national selective service there, as outlined recently by the man in charge, there are community boards.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: There are about 6,500.


Clarence Gillis: Yes; and in the community there is no difficulty in making decisions. There is a large call-up from the industrial section now, and it is necessary for the board to sit. I visualize considerable difficulty in that connection, and I am wondering if the minister would not consider allowing on the boards representation from the labour unions. In the New Brunswick set-up the secretary of the federation of labour for New Brunswick sits on the board. Could that not be done in the other provinces? I think labour is entitled to a representative on the board. The employer has the right to go there; all the
others sit in judgment on whether or not a man is essential, except the man who is going to be taken. I do not say that each and every union should be represented, but I believe the provincial organizations, the federations and so on, should be entitled to representation on that board, as is the case in New Brunswick. I think before we go much further with this business of taking men from industries we are going to have to adopt the United States set-up if we want to have the system function properly. They are serving without remuneration; there is no cost; in my opinion the procedure is much quicker and the decisions much more practical, because the decisions are made by men who live right in the community and who know the conditions that exist. I think we shall have to consider adopting that system. Will the minister give consideration to the possibility of giving the working men representation on these boards?


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: That may well be given consideration, particularly in those districts or divisions in which there are large concentrations of war industries. I shall be very glad indeed to give further consideration to the suggestion of my hon. friend.
Progress reported.
It being five minutes after eleven o'clock, the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.
Tuesday, June 2, 1942