Mr. P. MICHAUD (Restigouche and Madawaska):

I wish to ask the hon. Minister of Immigration (Mr. Calder) if he is aware that one of the oldest, ' most distinguished, and most respected of Canadian citizens, His Eminence Cardinal Begin, was grossly insulted at New York recently while waiting to embark for Europe. He was shoved back very roughly by an American detective, who used the following language-

Mr. SPEAKER:

Order. I doubt very much if this is a matter which the hon. member could properly bring up on the Orders of the Day. He will have ample opportunity to put his question on other phases of the Order paper.

Mr. MICHAUD:

Just one more remark, Mr. Speaker. When the detective was told he was shoving the Cardinal he made the remark: "What the Hell difference does that make?"

Mr. SPEAKER:

Order. It is somewhat questionable whether the hon. gentleman would be in order in setting this down under Questions; it is certainly not in order on the Orders of the Day.

Mr. ARCHAMBAULT:

Mr. Speaker, I understand in the city of Ottawa, and also in the cities of Montreal and Toronto, Daylight Saving time will be put in force on the first of May. Therefore I would like to know if it is the intention of the Government to apply this time to the sittings of the House and to the Civil Service?

Sir GEORGE FOSTER:

In answer to my hon. friend, taking the experience of last year into account, and in view of the fact that proclamation has already been issued stating that Daylight-Saving will be applied

to the city, it seems to me that for the convenience both of the departments and of the members it is essential that our time shall synchronize with the city time, and therefore this will be carried out.

The CHAIRMAN:

When this Bill was

last before the committee, clause 22 and the proposed amendment of Mr. Fielding thereto were under discussion. Shall the amendment carry?

Mr. DENIS:

Mr. Chairman, I do not

want to protract unnecessarily the discussion of this clause, but I think that arguments have been advanced which should command the attention of the Government. Returning officers will have the power to nominate between two and. three hundred officials in each constituency-deputy returning officers, registrars, clerks, and so on. Is it fair that the Government should keep this patronage for themselves and their own nominees? We on this side are ready to receive any suggestion that may be made by the Government to make this clause more satisfactory. But if they insit upon the clause as it stands, I am afraid that we shall have to continue the debate as long as we can.

The CHAIRMAN:

Shall the amendment carry?

Lost.

Mr. DENIS:

If the minister thinks he

can make headway by not answering my suggestion, he is mistaken. If I have to stand here alone and object to the Bill, I will do it; I can do it until six o'clock if necessary. I repeat that we are ready to accept any suggestion which will provide for an independent nomination of the returning officer, who will have the nomination of between two and three hundred election officials in his constituency at each election. The hon. member (Mr. Fielding) has brought in an amendment. We do not contend it is the only remedy for the situation, but in my opinion something should he done.

. Mr. GUTHRIE: I thought that this subject was pretty fully discussed yesterday afternoon, and with all due respect to my hon. friend (Mr. Denis) I do not think he

has brought any new light to bear on it. One point that was made yesterday afternoon-or attempted to be made; it did not appeal to me-was that the Government should show some good ground for rejecting the proposal. My idea was that good ground should be shown why the old and tried system should not be retained. We have had a long experience under that system and I have yet to hear of more than one case of wrong-doing on the part of a returning officer. The only case that was brought to the attention of the committee was the case of West Elgin, in which the returning officer, the sheriff, was removed from his office for wrong-doing. It has been stated that wrong has undoubtedly been done in the past; yet only that one case has beerr cited. I think we may fairly take it for granted that the system has worked well in the past and that good ground should be shown for any change.

Mr. DENIS:

What about the patronage in the appointment of two or three hundred election officials in each constituency?

. Mr. GUTHRIE: If you wish to call it

patronage, why do so. But I submit that returning officers who have been appointed 'in the past either by Liberal Governments or by Conservative Governments have fulfilled their duty under the Election. Act, whatever it involved, and ' I assume they will do it again. The Government must assume the responsibility for the conduct of an election. It would be hard for a government to carry that responsibility and yet have nothing to say as to the men who are to carry out the details ot the Act. There is only one way of doing it: the Government must advise His Excellency, who will appoint the returning officers. We ask nothing new; we do not seek to change the law in any way. This system has been tried and proved and has done well. If my hon. friend can show me that generally it has failed-I do not mean in isolated cases -then there may be something to be said in favour of the amendment, but the concensus of opinion yesterday was that the old system had worked well.

Mr. J. H. SINCLAIR:

If my hon. friend wants a reason why the system should be changed, the one that strikes me most forcibly is that patronage has been abolished. This is the biggest plum in the patronage pie-the appointment of over 230 returning officers and of 100 enumerators by each of these, a total of 23,000 enumerators. There was nothing so large as that in the old patronage system. As I have said, patronage has been abolished; I myself heard the

Prime Minister abolish it two years ago, and on that occasion he was loudly cheered by hon. gentlemen on the other side. Now, this is a return to the old patronage system; it is diametrically opposed to the policy that the minister has been supporting. The ideal system would be to allow the general returning officer to select his own officials in each county to conduct the election; that would be placing the business entirely outside of politics. Apparently my hon. friend is not willing to do that. The amendment proposed to restrict the old patronage system to some extent, and I would expect the minister to accept that principle, because it is in line with the policy which he professes to follow. If we allow the Bill to go through as it is, it simply means that the Government are selecting a jury to try themselves. If the Government select as returning officers partisans in each of the counties and these partisans select one hundred more persons in each county to make the lists, that is equivalent, at any rate in cities and in close constituencies, to winning the election. That gives an immense advantage to the party in power, whatever party that may be; and if my hon. friend is desirous of avoiding criticism of that kind and is willing to give us a fair Bill, I can see no reason why he should not accept the proposal of my hon. friend (Mr. Fielding).

Mr. LEGER:

In the past, prior to 1896, I remember well that we had, in the constituency which I have the honour to represent, returning officers who, to my mind, were not men who should have been entrusted with that responsible duty. They did one part of their work satisfactorily, but as regards the duty of paying out salaries to the deputy returning officers and their clerks, they were somewhat slow; and I know that on many occasions the deputy returning officers and their clerks were not paid their salaries, nor did the owners of the polling booths receive the rent to which they were entitled. During the period that I was sheriff, I had the honour of being appointed returning officer on different occasions, and my experience of elections is that I have had this complaint made to me so many times that to-day I ask The Government to appoint in each constituency as returning officer the most responsible man they can find, I do not care whether he be Conservative or Liberal, in order that all the deputy returning officers and their clerks may be sure of receiving their salaries and that the owners of the polling booths may be satisfied that they

will obtain their rent. When I took charge as returning officer, the people in many places where I was not well known throughout the county were not quite satisfied to rent their houses for the day on account of the rents of polling booths not having been paid in the past, and the consequence was that I had difficulty in securing places for polling booths in my county. The Provincial Government subdivides each county into polling divisions, and in each division they state that the. polling booth must be at or near a certain place which they name, and the polling booth cannot be placed in a different part of the polling division. That being the case, we have certain limited sections within which to select these polling booths. Moreover, on account of the way in which the lists are made up according to these divisions and as, the women being allowed to vote, there is a large addition to the electoral lists, the returning officer will have in each division three or four or even five polling booths in order to poll all the votes. Therefore, a man of responsibility should be appointed, so that he will carry on his duties in a satisfactory manner. I know that in many districts in the constituency which I represent, deputy returning officers overdid their duty by initialling the ballots outside, and these ballots were distributed and went from one to another when the voters were in the ante-room to mark their ballots. If the Government want to retain the patronage system and name one of their friends, I have no objection to that because each party has done that in the past; or if they want to do away with patronage as they say they do, although I am doubtful, what I have stated is a reason why, at any rate, they should appoint a responsible man.

Mr. GUTHBIE:

With the general trend of the remarks of my hon. friend, I quite agree, and I think I can assure him that the Government will see that in each case a responsible man in the community will be appointed. As regards the non-payment of fees to the minor election officials, the Bill recognizes that the system which was in force in the past was not a good system, and by clause 76, a new provision is made. Subclause 5 of clause 76 provides that after the fees have been adjusted,

Such fees, allowances and disbursements shall he paid by warrant of the Governor General and shall he distributed by such person or persons as the Governor General in Council may direct to the several officers and persons entitled thereto.

Payment in future will be made directly from Ottawa to the individual. Formerly,

it went to the returning officers, and I have heard of cases where poll clerks, constables and those who had allowed their premises to be used as polling booths had great difficulty in obtaining payment. It is considered that this new clause will remedy that to a large extent.

Mr. COPP:

I support the amendment moved by my hon. friend (Mr. Fielding) because of the experience I have had in my province as regards the contesting of elections. I do not know whether the same rule applies in other provinces, but in practically all cases in New Brunswick the returning officer is the high sheriff of the county. There have been exceptions to this rule, and I am bound to say that in New. Brunswick, so far as my experience goes, we had no trouble, even if somebody outside was selected by either Government which happened to have the responsibility of appointing returning officers. Good men have generally been selected, and I have no fault to find whatever as regards the men who have been selected. But my reason for referring particularly to the high sheriff as being the proper official to appoint as returning officer is the result of my experience of election contests in New Brunswick. I am speaking entirely in regard to my province, because I do not know what occurs in other provinces in that regard. In the election of 1917, the Government who were responsible for conducting that election in New Brunswick appointed the high sheriff in each county as returning officer. I may frankly say that the majority of these returning officers w'ere Liberals; some were Conservatives. In my constituency the returning officer wras a Liberal. He went through the county and after meeting local committees representing both sides he appointed the enumerators on their recommendation, as nearly as possible on a 50-50 basis. Throughout the whole province, where the returning officer was a Conservative he would have for his deputy a Liberal, and vice versa, and so on down the line. Both parties in this way were fairly represented at every poll. I think every representative from the province of New Brunswick in this House, irrespective of the party he supports, will agree with me that on the last election there was not one single case of wrong-doing or even of attempted wrongdoing throughout the province. I quite agree that it would not be well to confine these appointments to one particular class of official, because it might happen that the high sheriff of a particular county was

not the proper man for returning officer, but in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred he would he a very proper person to hold the poll and conduct the election fairly and honestly. In our province the-y have had the experience. They hold the ballot boxes from one -election to another and know the routine and the whole procedure of conducting an election. To my mind they are very proper persons to act as returning officers. The amendment covers a very much wider field, but I would not for a moment suggest that these other officials would not make proper returning officers, for they hold responsible positions in the community and would realize that the people looked to them to conduct the election in a straightforward and honest manner. I think the amendment proposed by my hon. friend (Mr. Fielding) is a reasonable one, and I am sure he would have no objection to including other classes of officials in his amendment if the minister should so desire. The Government have announced that they want to abolish patronage, so I think they should be more than willing to accept any reasonable 'suggestion looking to the conducting of elections in a fair and honest manner, and without any suspicion of wrong-doing. When the Government and the Opposition and the third party go before the country, the people want the conduct of the election to be divorced from any possibility or suspicion of wrong-doing. I am sure my hon friend realizes that. They do not want somebody appointed returning officer or registrar who will do the wrong thing, appoint their own friends, for instance. We must take human nature as we find it. A returning officer who is a strong partisan, when the candidate in whose success he is interested asks him to appoint so-and-so as registrar in a certain polling division, would not be likely to refuse to appoint the man recommended, and if that registrar puts on the lists names that should not be there, or strikes others off that should be there, it is evident that we cannot have a fair test of the public mind.