Mr. PELLETIER:

I would like to call the attention of the House to some statements which were made by the right hon. leader of the Opposition and the hon. member for Rouville (Mr. Lemieux) in my absence on Friday last. The statement of the hon. member for Rouville, which is to be found on page 3,592 of 'Hansard,' is as follows:

I do not wish to offer any objection to the Bill, but I might remind the House and the leader of the Government that the Minister of Justice is more generous than the Postmaster General. Three years ago a mail carrier perished in trying to save the mails during a storm on lake of Two Mountains, between Ottawa and Montreal. He left a widow and five or six children. The case was brought to the notice of the House by the hon member for Two Mountains (Mr. Ethier). He begged the Government to do something for the widow and children, but the minister refused. More than that, the people of Oka petitioned the Postmaster General to transfer the mail contract, formerly held by her husband to the widow of this man. The petition was turned down, the widow has received nothing, and there she is to-day.

On page 3,593 I find -the following:

Sir Wilfrid Laurier: I agree with the minister in everything he has said, but I would strongly recommend to him the case brought to his attention by the hon. member for Eouville. It is not in his department, I know, but the circumstances are very much the same. Here is a man who lost his life in the performance of his duty. The circumstances may not have been heroic, but, after all, the case is deserving of attention from the State, which has benefited by the performance of this man's duty. If the hon. minister could prevail on his neighbour, the Postmaster General, to do the same for this man's widow, he would win the gratitude not only of the widow but of every member in this House.

Mr. Doherty: I shall be very glad to call his attention to what has been said.

Sir Wilfrid Laurier: Calling his attention to it will not accomplish much.

As I said, tho.se statements were made in my absence. A.s a matter of fact, I asked Parliament to vote $1,000 for this

poor woman, and that amount has been voted and paid. Moreover, much against the wishes of many of my political friends, I got this woman appointed as postmistress at that place; and I have received from her letters expressing her most profound gratitude. In one sentence of the letter 1 have in my hand she .says:

. It seems to me that I have suffered enough since that time without having people heap reproaches on my benefactor after what he has done for me.

These are the facts.

Sir WILFRID LAURIER:

As far as I am concerned, I spoke under a misapprehension, and I am very glad to offer my congratulations to the Postmaster General on what he has done.

Mr. LEMIEUX:

I was away during the first session of this Parliament, but I gathered from certain remarks that the hon. Postmaster General had refused the request of the member for Two Mountains. I, also, am glad to congratulate the Postmaster General on what he has done.

Mr. PELLETIER:

If this had been taken up in my presence, it would have been better, perhaps.

Mr. BOIVIN:

I would like to direct your attention, Mr. Chairman, to a small technical error in clause 8. There is no such place in Canada as the town of Granby. The section should read the ' village ' of Granby. The inhabitants of the- village of Granby are very anxious to see this Bill go through, and I am very much in favour of it, but I would like to have that mistake corrected. I was not able to be before the Railway Committee when the Bill came up. I would, therefore, move that the word ' village ' be substituted foT the word ' town.'

Section as amended agreed to.

Bill reported, read the third time, and passed.

Mr. SINCLAIR:

When I intervened on

Friday night to say a word about this Bill, it was not with any desire to prevent its passing but to draw attention to the wording of section 10 which was discussed before the Committee on Banking and Commerce. It was contended 'by certain members of that committee that the language of the clause is not clear; that it might be complied with by showing that one hundred thousand dollars of capital had been subscribed at some time in the past, but that might now be impaired to some extent, and that it was necessary to have the clause so clear that there should be no doubt that one hundred thousand dollars of capital would be to the fore when the company is being incorporated with a federal charter. Apart from any undertaking of the Finance Department which no doubt will be carried out, I would like to know if the minister thinks the language of the clause is sufficiently clear as it stands to enjoin the department to see that there is one hundred thousand dollars to the good now, before the company would be chartered for business.

Mr. W. T. WHITE:

Since this matter

was last under discussion, I have made inquiry as to the Dominion Acts passed during the last three years incorporating companies with the power of taking over provincial companies. I find that in 1911 there were two companies so incorporated: The Merchants and Employers Guarantee Accident Company, and the Continental Fire Insurance Company of Canada; in 1912 there was incorporated the Liverpool-Manitoba Assurance Company, and in 1913 the Canadian Provident Insurance Company, the Underwriters Corporation of Canada, and the Western Canada Accident and Guarantee Insurance Company. The Insurance Department informs me that while these Acts prescribe the amount of capital stock required to be paid up before the new company shall commence the transaction of its several classes of business, there is no provision in any of these Acts regarding the amount of unimpaired capital to be shown. There is a provision

in each of these Acts that there shall be a certain paid-up capital, but there is no specific provision that there shall be an excess of assets over liabilities, or an unimpaired capital. The Department of Insurance further informs me that in practice they have always insisted, before a license is granted, that the amount of paid-up capital mentioned in the Act of incorporation shall be wholly unimpaired. I have here the Acts incorporating the several companies which I have mentioned, but I do not think it necessary to go into them in detail. My hon. friend from Guysborough will observe that a new company is being incorporated under this Bill, H-2 of the Senate, that is to say, it is a new incorporation. This new company is to have the power of taking over an old company, the Prudential Life Insurance Company, incorporated under the statutes of the Province of Manitoba. By section 10 of the Act it is provided that the new company shall not commence business until at least one hundred thousand dollars has been paid upon its capital stock. That section is on all fours with sections in these several Bills which I have mentioned, passed during tli-e last three years. When the matter was under discussion in the committee, I stated that it might be conceivable that a new company might have one hundred thousand dollars of fully paid-up stock and yet there might not be a surplus of one hundred thousand dollars of assets over liabilities, and therefore, if there had been no other circumstances in the matter it would have been entirely agreeable to me that the amount of sixty-five thousand dollar's-which had been fixed in a Bill passed a little while ago by the committee- or eighty thousand dollars, or a hundred thousand dollars, should have been provided as the amount of unimpaired capital, the company should show before being licensed to carry on its business. But by reason of the considerations which were drawn to the attention of the committee, namely, that this Bill had been strongly opposed on the ground of its name; that last year it had been rejected in the Senate; that this year it had passed the Senate and that the change now might involve, by reason of the lateness of the session, the company not obtaining inoorporationj at all, it appeared to me that if the mat* ter could be safe-guarded, as it can be safeguarded, by the Insurance Department, it would not be necessary to insert in this Bill a provision which has not in the past

been usual in connection with similar incorporations. These being the tacts it would appear to me that the matter of the standing of the company and its solvency is safeguarded by the precautions I have taken in instructing the Insurance Department to see that before the license is granted the company shall have an unimpaired fully-paid-up capital of one hundred thousand dollars. I may say that at the last meeting of the Banking and Commerce Committee, I was assured by the manager and by the president of the Prudential Life Insurance Company, that they have no objection whatever to taking that course and would have no difficulty in complying with the requirement of the department.

Mr. SINCLAIR:

Another question. The minister in his letter to the superintendent of insurance says that he should associate with his officers an outside actuary to make an investigation into this company. I would like to know who is to pay for the services of an outside actuary?

Mr. WHITE:

I did not consider that aspect of it, but personally I would see no objection to the Insurance Department paying. That will be done in the ordinary course of business. It is not unusual for the department to engage expert officials from outside in connection with the conduct of public business devolving upon it.

Mr. SINCLAIR:

I think the Prudential Life Company should pay for the outside actuary; of course the actuaries of the department will do the work as part of the business of their office.

Mr. WHITE:

I would suggest to my hon. friend that perhaps it would be better that the Government should pay, for the reason that my idea in suggesting that outside actuarial assistance be obtained was in order to put the matter of the standing of the company beyond any question. If a company whose affairs are to be investigated pay for the actuary, it might be suggested that the actuary, being so paid by the company, might not be as strict as if he were paid by the Government. It would occur to me that the proper way of dealing with the matter would be for the Insurance Department to pay for any actuarial assistance which might be obtained.