Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister):

I promised my hon. friend

from Victoria, B.C., (Mr. Tolmie) to lay on the table a copy of the order in council appointing Mr. Justice Martin commissioner to inquire into the arguments of the government of the province of British Columbia in support of its claim for the reconveyance to the province by the government of Canada of the lands conveyed by the province to the Dominion. I now table a copy of the order.

Explain.

Mr. KENNEDY:

This is the same bill that was introduced last year. It aims to strike out sub-paragraph (a) of section 1140 of the Criminal Code. The sub-paragraph which it is desired to strike out limits to three years the time within which action may be commenced for any offence arising out of the

allocation of land that was paid for, in whole or in part by scrip, and was granted upon certificates issued to half breeds in connection with the extinguishment of Indian title.

Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.

Mr. MACKENZIE KING:

Explain.

Mr. HALL:

The object of this bill is to

give some discretionary powers to the Civil Service Commission in the matter of appointments, instead of confining them in every case to the appointment of the person whose name stands highest on the eligible list. This list is not always prepared by the commission nor approved by it. May I say that the bill does not propose to repeal a single clause or even a word of the present act; it simply seeks to insert a clause expressing the purposes of the measure.

Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.

Hon. H. H. STEVENS (Vancouver Centre):

I desire to bring to the attention of the government a matter that came to me in the mail. I received a letter to-day-at least it came to my box on Saturday

from the Assistant Postmaster General, indicating that examinations will be held for a certain class of postal clerk, and I desire to draw the attention of the government to one or two matters in connection therewith. The letter reads that:

Candidates wishing to take this examination must file an application with the Civil Service Commission on or before the fifteenth instant.

Then a little further down it says:

I would suggest, therefore, that if you know of any candidates who are desirous of entering the postal service you will advise them to file application with the Civil Service Commission at once, signifying their intention of writing at the examination, as this is the only way they can obtain a permanent position.

And then there is a list of the cities where this examination is to be held. First, I bring this fact to the attention of the government: that it would be utterly impossible for a candidate in British Columbia to give notice to the Civil Service Commission by March 15. I received this letter on March 11 and it was

Civil Service

mailed on the same date although it is dated March 7. That is my first point. The second point to which I wish to direct the attention of the government is that the city of Vancouver is the fourth city in Canada, and I suppose that in that city there are approximately a thousand government employees, and yet it is not on this list at all. Now the two things indicate what I have complained of on frequent occasions and that is that as British Columbia is, in mailing distance to and fro, nearly two weeks away from Ottawa, it is almost hopeless for a candidate to get in on this examination. I have asked on previous occasions and would like to reiterate the request to-day that, a notice be sent out sufficiently early to give the candidates in distant parts of Canada-British Columbia, Alberta, the maritime provinces-ample time to file their applications. In the second place, I assert that surely a city of the importance of Vancouver should be on the list of places where examinations are to be held.

Hon. P. J. VENIOT (Postmaster General):

This is not a matter for the Post Office Department at all. It is a subject which is entirely under the control of the Civil Service Commission. They fix the dates, they inform us, and we send out the notices; but I may add that because Vancouver is not on the list does not say that examinations will not be held in that city. A similar notice was issued by the Civil Service Commission last week for the province of Quebec, and my attention was drawn to the fact that neither the city of Quebec nor the city of Montreal was mentioned there. I took the matter up with the commission, and they informed me that the fact that the cities of Montreal and Quebec were not mentioned in the list did not mean that examinations would not be held there; examinations will be held in those cities at another date to be fixed by them, the same thing applies to the city of Vancouver.