Mr. HANSON (York-Sunbury):

The hon. member for Cape Breton South (Mr. Gillis) says there is no difference between the two parties at the top. I would hope that in essence, with the possible exception of a few members of the cabinet, we are all thinking alike about this war and the absolute necessity of winning this war if we are to survive. I invite my old friend, the hon. member for Richelieu-Vercheres to come along with us and get on the band-wagon for victory. No one wants to crush him or his compatriots. We want equality of service. That is all. And I think the only way to get it is by the draft method. My fear is that conscription will come in this country, but that it will be too late to be effective.

I had intended to put on the record the position to which he referred in connection with what was done under the Military Service Act of 1917.

Mr. LACROIX (Beauce):

Mr. Speaker-

Mr. HANSON (York-Sunbury):

I hear the hon. member for Beauce (Mr. Lacroix) saying something. I am wondering what he has ever done to help to win this war.

Mr. LACROIX (Beauce):

I have done more than the hon. gentleman has.

Mr. HANSON (York-Sunbury):

I wonder

what he has done to help to win this war. We never hear his voice raised in this house in approval of any measure that would in any degree help to win this war. There are many people in this country who are influenced by him, but I am glad to know that there are very few in this house who pay any attention to what he does or says.

Mr. LACROIX (Beauce):

I know who you are.

At six o'clock the house took recess.

After Recess

The house resumed at eight o'clock.

Mr. HANSON (York-Sunbury):

Mr. MacINNIS:

I think the hon. gentleman will have to withdraw that statement. It is a reflection upon the members of this group, and he has no right to make it.

Mr. HANSON (York-Sunbury):

The hon. member can put his own interpretation upon my remarks, but unless Mr. Speaker says that it is a reflection, I have nothing to withdraw.

Mr. SPEAKER:

I do not think there is any reflection in what the hon. member has said.

Mr. HANSON (York-Sunbury):

By the same token, he reminded us that this was the ninth anniversary of the Regina meeting. Have any hon. members ever read the Regina platform? The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) knows what it was. It was an irrevocable statement that never under any consideration would they or their party participate in any foreign war. There is not any doubt about what attitude those gentlemen took in the days right up to the war. Shades of Mr. Woodsworth! Would he have done anything else? I listened to him speak in this house for years. We -all know what his philosophy was with regard to war. He was sincere in holding those views, but I am doubtful about hon. gentlemen who have eleventh hour conversions when they think it is popular. There is not very much consistency about these hon. gentlemen who are now out for total war. Where were they two years ago, three years ago or nine years ago?

There is an old saying that you cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. I am not going to apply that to the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, but I am going to say that you cannot take an isolationist, you cannot take an anti-conscriptionist, you cannot take a non-participationist, you cannot take a man who says he would rather see his son go to gaol than go to war and make him a good participant in this war overnight. I want to say to my friends of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation that they got off on the wrong foot when they voted against this mobilization bill. If they ever had any hope of becoming a great party in Canada, that hope was buried when they voted against this bill. I know my hon. friend charges me with tailing in behind the government. We did not tail in behind the government because we wanted to help them especially; we did so because we wanted to

Mobilization Act-Mr. Hanson (York-Sunbury)

Then the time came, he said, when, driven on by those who, he claimed, had ulterior motives to serve, driven on by those who wanted to capitalize their positions, this government began to change until to-day, after tortuous steps, one by one, we are now in the position where we have compulsory military service, or have it with the exception of the last one step.

I deny that anybody who has advocated national military service has had any ulterior motive. I appeal to hon. members; I appeal to the hon. members on the Liberal side who spoke in support of conscription, and ask them if they advocated it from any ulterior motive. I appeal to the Minister of National Defence for Naval Services (Mr. Macdonald) whom I see in his seat. Does he advocate compulsory military service from any ulterior motives, or does he advocate it on the broad principle of the national interest? Surely that is the only reason why any of us has ever advocated that position. I was a long time before I brought myself to the position where I advocated it. I thought public opinion had to be educated to it. I thought the urgency of the situation had to be driven home to the minds and hearts of the people of Canada. I did feel that in days gone by there had been maleducation in certain parts of Canada, and if the hon. member for Riehelieu-Vercheres is responsible for that position, then he must take his share of the responsibility. I do not think he is attempting to escape from it. I think he, as a citizen of his province, will take the responsibility for anything he has advocated in the past.

We do not all think alike. I respect the opinions of those who do not think as I do. This is democracy, we cannot all have our own way. I speak to this opposition group, and to the other minority groups in the house, and I ask them: How often have we had our way in this House of Commons? We believe in the principle of majority rule, and I was glad to hear in the final words of the hon. member for Riehelieu-Vercheres a declaration of his adherence to that principle. Let me say to him that he is following in the footsteps of the greatest leader the Liberal party ever had. If Sir Wilfrid Laurier were here to-day he would advocate the principle which he laid down in a speech in the House of Commons in 1917 and which at least on one occasion I have quoted.

Enough on that point. The hon. member paid me, I think, perhaps, too high a compliment when he intimated-although he did not say it in so many words-that this government had been driven step by step to the position they are now in through the efforts of those of us who advocated first one

step, then another, then another, and then another until we have arrived at the present position. I do not believe I have been wholly responsible for those successive steps. But his testimony was to the effect that we have done that, and I accept the compliment. I have not anything to retract for' any part I have ever taken or for what I have urged upon the government of the country in the interests of total war for the salvation of civilization. I shall never retreat from the position I have taken.

If I have advocated by constitutional means one progressive step after another for Canada in this war for civilization, I have done so first of all out of a sincere conviction that I was advocating the right thing. Second, I have done so because I believed the government should be told what the public generally, aside from their own political group, was thinking. I have attempted to voice public opinion for the information of the administration which has the responsibility of carrying on the war.

Was that a duty? I think it was. If I did it, however inadequately, I have no regrets. If I had anything to do with the four months training plan, I have nothing whatever to recall. If the hon. member has any quarrel with or suggests any betrayal in connection with those who were called in under the four months training plan, then I say his quarrel is with his former friends who concealed as fully as possible their real intentions when they started this mobilization legislation.

I said yesterday the Prime Minister had always yielded to public opinion. In that connection I would point out that in the progressive steps which have been taken by this nation under his leadership he has yielded, in each instance, to public opinion. I believe that before this war is over, perhaps before many months, the Prime Minister will go further in yielding to public opinion, and we shall have at last total war by total effort.

Mr. POULIOT:

What do you mean by that?

Mr. HANSON (York-Sunbury):

Just what I say-total war by total effort, and it will not be confined to man-power alone. We may have to go the limit in everything. What brooks it if we lose this war? What brooks any of our positions if we lose this war?

Mr. POULIOT:

Why don't you drive a truck in England?

Mr. HANSON (York-Sunbury):

If it is necessary for me to drive a truck in England, or anywhere else, I am entirely willing to do so. I am entirely willing to do anything

4610 COMMONS

Mobilization Act-Mr. Hanson ( York-Sunbury)

Mr. CARDIN:

On that point I do.

Mr. HANSON (York-Sunbury):

Thank you. I can only, conclude that he was referring to propaganda undertaken and carried on in the province of Quebec in various ways and manners unknown to me, which would have the effect of undermining his position and that of those who think as he does, and of propagating the position, the circuitous position, which this government has taken and which I exposed yesterday in the debate during the committee stage of this bill. I was struck with one statement made by the hon. gentleman, which I regretted to hear him make, when he issued the challenge or made the assertion that no one would crush Quebec. I ask him: Who is trying to crush Quebec?

Mr. LACROIX (Beauce):

You.

Mr. HANSON (York-Sunbury):

I am not trying to crush Quebec. I want to say that Quebec has played a great part in the history of this confederation. Without Quebec, confederation could not have been possible. With Quebec and the other provinces, Canada has arrived at the stage where she now is a great nation. Quebec has shared those responsibilities. Under the terms of the union the people of Quebec have been given privileges which are embalmed in the British North America Act, privileges which no one in this parliament with any sense of responsibility has ever tried to take away. That question has arisen many times. Many times leaders of every political party in this country, I care not what its colour, have assured the people of the province of Quebec that the contract of confederation would be kept; and no one has been more assiduous in attempting to keep the provisions of that contract than has the historic Conservative party in Canada, which made them possible. Therefore I say to the hon. member in all kindness that if he had any references to me or those who are associated with me when he mentioned the attempt to crush Quebec, I deny the allegation and repudiate the suggestion. I say to him that in order to make good that argument he will have to turn his face to his former friends, and I think by very logical reasoning he can do that. A pledge was made to his people by the Prime Minister of this country, from which during the course of the past six or seven or eight months he has been trying, by every circuitous route open to him, to escape. If the hon. gentleman has any complaint with regard to the way in which his people are being treated, he should turn his face to his former leader or his present leader, I do not know which to call him. As for us and our course, I will say this, that since we became convinced that

compulsory national service was necessary in this, the greatest of all wars, we have been absolutely consistent in the course we have sought to pursue. We have not advocated that policy in favour of any class, in favour of any province or in favour of any racial element. We have advocated that course because we believe it is in the national interest; and every part and parcel of this country is part of the body politic and should so consider this situation.

During the course of his vigorous remarks the hon. gentleman indicted the present bill. He said it was the worst law that had ever been placed upon the statute books of a democratic country, and with that statement I am to a very large degree in agreement. Why? It was an emergency measure. It never should have been used as a substantive law. It was only enabling in its scope. It was to give the government power to do certain things, power which a government ought to have in case of an emergency; and that emergency not having arisen but the situation having grown more and more grave from day to day and month to month, the government of this country should have brought down in parliament a detailed measure dealing with the question of compulsory national service in every field of human endeavour. It should have brought that measure into parliament so that we could have passed upon it section by section, stage by stage, power by power, and should not have reserved to itself the power to legislate by order in council. That was the indictment which the hon. member for Richelieu-Vercheres made against this bill-the power to do things in secret that should be done in public-and I have made a similar indictment on ever}' occasion I ever had to refer to the matter. His indictment was with regard to the power to do clandestinely that which should be done openly in parliament by the representatives of the people, in the democratic way.

The hon. member says that if we adopted what I have advocated, national selective service, there would be no one left to conscript. I deny that statement. I have said that if we are going to have a total war effort in this country every man should be allocated to his job-the farmer, the artisan, the fighting man. That could have been done; yes, it could have been done very much easier two years ago. It could have been done much more effectively two years ago than it can be done to-day. But this government would not do it. The reason is absolutely plain

it was endeavouring to protect its political position. No one knows that better than the hon. member for Richelieu-V ercheres.

Mobilization Act-Mr. Hanson (York-Sunbury)

The minority cannot rule; but let me say to the majority of this country, which according to the hon. member for Trinity should rule-and he asked that we should recognize the sovereignty of the majority-I do recognize the sovereignty of the majority in Canada, and the province of Quebec will submit to the legislation that is going to be passed. But if the minority cannot dictate its view to the majority, that majority should hesitate, should pause, before setting its iron heel upon a minority.

We are fighting this war, according to the Right Hon. Mr. Churchill and other leaders, for, among other things, the protection of minorities and for the rights of small nations. Let us not abuse their representatives by laughing at the expression of their opinions and criticize bitterly when they are expressing the views of their compatriots, the people they represent in this House of Commons.

My good friend the hon. member for Trinity in the course of his remarks, which are always interesting, because he is a very sincere man and a very broad-minded man, recalled to us an old saying, that the stone may hurt but not the words. Let me add to his saying, which is true in a sense, that if stones can hurt the physical body of a person, words and actions are often more harmful to the soul, and that the wounds of the soul are much more difficult to heal than the wounds of the physical body.

Exercise your authority, you members of the majority, but with kindness, not in Hitler's or Mussolini's way. Exercise it in such a way that the feelings of those upon whom you exercise it by the force of numbers are not hurt too deeply.

The people of the province of Quebec are law-abiding citizens. They have proved this in the past; they will prove it in this instance. When the law is enacted, although it is the worst law that has ever been passed by a democracy in Canada, we will submit. We will obey the law. There will be no trouble. We might remember the occasion, but just the same we will obey the law. We will in all sincerity try to do the best we can to accommodate ourselves .to the situation which is going to be difficult as a result of what we have been promised not only by our leaders but by the leaders of all parties in Canada.

I know that my position is going to be misunderstood. It is already misunderstood in my own province. There is a veil of silence which is being used to conceal the activities of the representatives of the province of Quebec who disapprove the government. You have only to look at the newspapers and you will see that when one of the members

opposing the government on that issue makes a statement it is hidden on the fourth, fifth, sixth, sometimes the twenty-fourth page of the newspaper, if it is reported at all. But when an argument is made in favour of the government by somebody who is ready to swallow the law there is no letter in the printing room of the newspapers too large to advertise the proclaimed great speech that has fallen from the lips of a supporter of the government. That is propaganda which is not any more commendable than the propaganda of Hitler, Stalin or Mussolini. It is propaganda which in a large part is being paid for with public money. It does not give the true significance of what is happening in this house, but it is intended to discredit those who have the courage of keeping their word and frankly and openly stating what they think.

You say, "Well, the majority has spoken." Yes, the majority has spoken-*

Mr. SPEAKER:

I am sorry to inform the hon. gentleman that his time has expired.