Hon. C. H. CAHAN (Secretaiy of State):

On the orders of the day I wish to reply to an inquiry made yesterday by the hon. member for Southeast Grey (Miss Macphail). I am instructed that in connection with the examination now being held by the civil service commission for clerks, grade 4, with university graduation, there appears to be a certain amount of misunderstanding. This is not a new class but one which has been in existence for several years, and positions in the class in general are not limited to university graduates nor to members of the male sex. The positions for which the current examination is being held, however, are suitable for men only, and on that account this particular examination was limited to male candidates, the commission feeling that it would be unfair to invite applications from female candidates when no positions were at present available for them. For positions in w'hich female appointees will be suitable, however, the examinations will be open to them.

Hon. GROTE STIRLING (Minister of National Defence):

Yesterday, in replying to a question of the hon. member for South Perth (Mr. Sanderson), I stated that the salary which the chief of the general staff was to receive was 87,500. What I should have said was $8,000.

Mr. MACKENZIE KING:

Last night I asked my right hon. friend about the order of the day and he specifically said that we would not take the Dominion Elections Act.

Mr. BENNETT:

This is not the Dominion Elections Act.

Mr. LAPOINTE:

This bill was introduced yesterday and has been distributed to-day. I think we have the right to read the Dominion Franchise Act as it is and consider the purpose and the effect of this amendment. To move the second reading of this bill the day after its introduction would seem to be raither too much urgency.

Mr. CAHAN:

Perhaps after I have explained the bill the hon. gentleman will have clear information regarding it and then, if it is necessary to consider it further, he will have full opportunity in committee of the whole house to discuss it at a later date.

Section 3 of the Dominion Franchise Act, which is the interpretation provision, defines the following terms:

"Commissioner" means the dominion franchise commissioner, who is appointed commissioner by resolution of the House of Commons under section 5 of the act;

"Registrar of Electors" means an officer appointed by the commissioner for each electoral district, pursuant to section 11 of the act:

"Electoral District" means any place or territorial area for which a member or members may be returned to serve in the House ' of Commons of Canada;

"Polling Division" means any division, subdivision, district, subdistrict or other territorial area within which a poll is held.

The commissioner was appointed by a resolution of the House of Commons. The registrars are appointed by the commissioner and the commissioner and registrars are responsible to the House of Commons and are really in effect officers of the House of Commons and entitled to the protection of this house. Section 7 of the act provides that:

7. (1) The commissioner shall-

(a) exercise general direction, supervision and control over the administrative conduct of all registrations and revisions of lists of electors for dominion elections;

(b) issue from time to time to franchise officers appointed under this act such instructions as may be deemed to be necessary to or proper for the securing of effective execution of the purposes of this act, and

(c) hold all such franchise officers to fair and impartial performance of their duties and to faithful compliance with the provisions of this act.

The commissioner has issued his instructions to the registrars throughout Canada. The registrar as a franchise officer is subject to the direction, supervision and control of

the commissioner, except, as provided in section 32, subsection 5, that in cases of appeals to a judge:

5. The judge shall report in writing to the registrar of electors the result of all such appeals as relate to such registrar's electoral district, and the registrar shall be governed in placing, retaining or removing any name on or from the list of electors by the decision of such judge concerning that name.

Sections 20 and 22 provide that, beginning with the year 1935, the revision of the lists shall begin on the 15th day of May and continue to the first day of July in each year.

Section 25 of the act provides that:

25. Any elector whose name appears on the list of electors for the electoral district of any registrar of electors may, at any time during the month of April in any year, by notice of objection in form No. 26, file with such registrar two copies of a notice in writing setting forth, with grounds, an objection to the retention of any name appearing on the then existing list of electors of any polling division. The notice shall state the actual post office address, if known, of the person against the retention of whose name on the list objection is made and, in any event, it shall state his address as appearing on such list. Objection may be made under this section on the grounds of death, removal, or want of qualification, or on any ground that would disqualify the elector from having his name retained or registered as an elector on any list of electors prepared under this act.

Objections are made in duplicate in form No. 26, and filed with the registrar. Form 26 reads as follows:

Form No. 26. (Sec. 25.)

Notice of Objection to Name on List

Electoral district of

Province of

To the registrar of electors of the above-mentioned electoral district:-

Take notice that I, an elector whose name appears on the list of electors of polling

division No of the above-mentioned

electoral district object to the retention of the name of (state name, and, if known, the actual post office address of the elector concerned) on the list of electors of polling division No of that electoral district, on

the ground that (state ground). The address of such person as appearing on such list is (state the address) and his occupation as it appears thereon is that of a (state occupation) .

Date

(Name of Objector.)

This is to be signed by the objecting elector.

Section 26 of the act provides as follows:

26. (1) Upon the receipt of a notice of objection in form No. 26 the registrar of electors shall forward to the person against whose name objection is made a notice in form No. 27 attaching a copy of the notice of objection, and' stating the place and date of the sitting of the court of revision at which the objection will be heard. The notice

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shall be sent by registered mail addressed to the person at the address shown on the list on which his name appears; and where the address set forth in the notice of objection filed with the registrar differs from the address shown on the list, the registrar shall also send a copy of the notice, in form No. 26 by registered mail addressed to the person at the address set forth in the notice of objection.

(2) An objection under this section shall not be heard at any sitting of the court of revision which is held within fourteen days after the date of the mailing by the registrar of the notice in form No. 27 in respect of the objection.

Fourteen days must elapse between the mailing to the elector of the registrar's notice in form No. 27, and the hearing of the objection by the registrar sitting as a court of revision.

Section 28 of the act provides that the registrar of electors, sitting as a court of revision for his electoral district, shall revise the lists of electors, and the time is specified in the section which I have read as between May 15 and July 1 of each year.

Paragraph (b) of section 28 provides with respect to the registrar that:

(b) He shall deal with each objection separately upon the merits to be disclosed by examination on oath of the person making the objection, the person against whom the objection is made, and the witnesses present on their respective behalf.

I wish to call attention here to the fact that there is no provision in this franchise act and there has been no provision in any previous franchise act whereby witnesses can be summoned to appear at the court of revision. Paragraph (b) proceeds:

After each objection is dealt with the registrar shall, in his discretion, either strike off the name of the person from the list in which it appears or allow the name to stand. The onus of substantiating sufficient prima facie ground to strike off any name from the list shall be upon the elector making the objection, and it shall not be necessary for any elector against whom objection is made to adduce proof in the first instance that his name properly appears on the list, or until the registrar "avers that in his opinion prima facie ground to strike off the name has been established. The absence from a non-attendance at the court of revision at the time of the objection is dealt with of any person against whom objection is made shall not relieve the elector making the objection from substantiating a prima facie case by evidence which, in the absence of rebuttal evidence, is considered by the registrar sufficient to establish the fact that the name of the person objected to improperly appears on the list.

It will be noticed that, at t'he hearing of the objection, after the fourteen days' notice provided in section 27, subsection 1, the absence or non-attendance at the court of revision, at the time the objection is dealt with, does not relieve the elector making the

objection from substantiating a prima facie case by evidence, which, in the absence of rebuttal evidence, is considered by the registrar as sufficient to establish the fact that the name of the person objected to improperly appears on the list.

This paragraph (b) also provides that:

After each objection is dealt with the registrar shall, in his discretion, either strike off the name of the person from the list in which it appears or allow the name to stand,

This statutory discretion is the discretion of the registrar, and not the discretion of any other person.

There can be no doubt as to the meaning of the words prima facie. Murray's New English Dictionary, the Oxford edition, defines prima facie as "at first sight"; "on the face of it"; "as appears at first without investigation"; "based or founded on the first impression." Cases, to which I desire to draw the attention of the house for a few minutes, have arisen in the constituency of St. Lawrence-St. George, Montreal, which I have had the honour to represent in this house for the past ten years.

During the past twenty-five years the fraudulent impersonation of persons, whose names are on the voters' list, has prevailed to an alarming extent at both federal and provincial elections in this district. On several occasions, before the standing committee on privileges and elections and before this house, I have discussed these matters very frankly.

During the month of February last a group of young men and women determined to ascertain whether the lists of electors, as recently compiled. represented electors actually resident in the various polling divisions of this electoral district, or whether the lists contained, as had been suggested, the names of persons who were disqualified! from voting as being aliens, dead or absentees. In all, about seventy investigators undertook to visit each residence or the apartments in each residence in the district to ascertain the facts. A card system for the residents of the entire district was also prepared by which the names on the list could be compared with the ascertained facts. It was ascertained by this careful investigation and scrutiny that between four and five thousand of the names on the list did not represent qualified voters resident in the district, and these names were checked by investigators two or three times before notices of objection were filed.

Prior to April 30 last qualified voters of this electoral district, who had, in each case, personally investigated the facts, prepared and filed with the registrar written objections,

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in duplicate, in form No. 26, signed in each case by the objecting voter. The registrar thereupon mailed by registered' post, as prescribed by the act, one copy of the objection together with the registrar's notice in form No. 27 in respect to each objection, addressed' to the name and residence of the alleged elector, as his name appeared on the .ist of voters for one of the polling divisions of the electoral district. These envelopes, so addressed and registered, were returned through the post to the registrar, with the exception of less than four hundred, I aim informed, with the postman's note thereon, 'Removed," "Not known at this address" or the like.

These facts disclosed that there were several thousand names on the lists of voters for these polling divisions in this electoral district, who were not qualified by residence as voters in the district. The retention of these names on the lists would, at the ensuing election, facilitate impersonation and fraudulent voting to an unprecedented extent-and when I say that, it means something, because there are precedents for impersonation in that district that have had no equal in any other constituency in Canada of which I know.

There is no provision in the present act, nor in any previous act, for the issuing of a summons or subpoena to compel tlhe attendance of witnesses. The objector, in each case of the first lot of objections filed, attended before the registrar and on oath proved that he had investigated and made search and found that the person objected to was not resident at the address indicated on the list of voters. In addition, the registrar had the registered mail returned as I have stated, which he had sent out to the elector at his address as shown on the various voters' lists.

To facilitate such investigations upon which the objector had to rely, the present act provides that in urban polling divisions the names shall be entered by streets, roads, avenues, arranged in form No. 13, thus giving the number of the alleged place of residence on each such street, road or avenue in the urban electoral district. When these cases came before the registrar, he had before him the returned envelope sent by registered mail to the alleged voter at his address as it appeared on the list of electors, and he took the evidence on oath of the objecting voter, who previously had personally investigated the facts.

The registrar thereupon in the exercise of his statutory discretion found in a large number of cases that a prima facie case had

been made out for the removal of names from the lists, and he thereupon called upon any person who wished1 to produce rebuttal evidence to do so at a date fixed. In none of these cases was any rebuttal evidence whatever offered. The registrar thereupon proceeded and struck from the list of objections first heard something less than two hundred names. A notice of appeal to the chief justice of the superior court of the Montreal district was thereupon filed by or on behalf of an elector, who in no case was the elector objected to and who admittedly had no personal knowledge of the facts. In one hundred and five of the cases in which such objections were filed and appeals so asserted, which first went on appeal before the chief justice, the objector had failed after exhaustive search in sixteen of the cases to find the new address, if any, of the elector whose name was objected to. But as to what be did, I am going to call attention to a few of the facts.

Mr. Henri Bougearel resided at 1429 Bishop street in the electoral district of St. Lawrence-St. George. His name appears on the list of electors for polling division No. 31. An investigator, who is an elector in this district, made inquiry and by investigation ascertained that this gentleman was not a British subject, and then filed with the registrar an objection in writing, in duplicate, in form 26 against the retention of this name on the list of electors. On April 24 last the registrar, by registered mail, sent a copy of this notice, together with a notice in form 27, signed by himself as Registrar of Electors and' Revision Officer, to Mr. Henri Bougearel at the address show-n on the list. On April 30 this gentleman replied in a letter to the registrar, acknowledging receipt of this notice and stating that, as a French citizen, he was not entitled to have his name inscribed on the Canadian electoral lists, signing himself as Vice-Consul of France, and requesting that his name be removed from the list. When the case was called by the registrar, the investigator gave evidence accordingly. The registrar then decided that a prima facie case had, in his opinion, been made out, and called for any rebuttal evidence. No evidence in rebuttal being forthcoming, the registrar struck Mr. Bougearel's name from the list.

The chief justice 'held, on appeal, that there was no legal evidence on which the registrar could exercise discretion, and ordered this gentleman's name entered on the list of electors as a resident of this electoral district.

Take another case. The late Mrs. J. G. Greaves, a lady quite well known in her vicinity, resided during her lifetime at No.

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3517 St. Famille Street in this same electoral district of St. Lawrence-St. George. An investigator made an investigation and ascertained from her former neighbours that Mrs. Greaves had died, and then filed his objection in duplicate with the registrar in form 26, one copy of which the registrar sent by registered mail, with his own notice in form 27, to the address of the late Mrs. Greaves as shown on the voter's list for polling division No. 17. The registered letter was received by the late Mrs. Greaves' married daughter, Mrs. Shehyn, who opened the letter addressed to her mother, apparently not knowing the purport of a registered letter arriving in that way. Ascertaining that this was a notice with regard to the possible removal of her mother's name from the list, she wrote to the registrar confirming that her mother was dead. The investigator, not knowing of this letter to the registrar, again visited the neighbourhood and ascertained that Mr. Shehyn, who I believe lived in the vicinity, was a son-in-law of the deceased lady. Thereupon he called personally upon Mr. Shehyn and confirmed the fact of Mrs. Greaves' death.

The chief justice has held that these facts did not constitute a prima facie case upon which the registrar, in the exercise of his discretion, could order the removal of the late Mrs. Greaves' name from the list of voters. In open court, as reported by the court stenographer, the chief justice said:

I would not take the word of the son-in-law, Mr. Witness. The wish was father to the thought.

The chief justice thereupon declared to counsel:

You will proceed as you would before the court and prove the death of Mrs. Greaves in the proper manner or not at all.

This chief justice is expert in criminal cases. I suppose if this were a murder case some additional evidence would have to be provided showing the death, such as bringing in the undertaker or something like that.

Mr. POWER:

I rise to a point of order. The hon. gentleman has no right to criticize a judge of the superior court of the province of Quebec.

Mr. CAHAN:

I am restraining myself very much; I have not and will not cast any reflection upon the chief justice.

Mr. POWER:

The hon. gentleman is getting worse and worse.

Mr. SPEAKER:

I did not understand the Secretary of State to criticize the judge. He stated that in a criminal case the chief justice might require a little different evidence or a

higher class of evidence than he might require in a case of this kind, but the Secretary of State did not criticize the chief justice, as I understand it.