Hon. J. L. ILSLEY (Acting Prime Minister):

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister, who will not be present this afternoon, has asked me to table copy of order in council which I shall read:

His Excellency the Governor General in Council, on the recommendation of the Right Honourable W. L. Mackenzie King, Prime Minister, is pleased to appoint and doth hereby appoint George James Mellraith, Esq., M.P., parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Reconstruction, to assist the said minister within and without parliament in such manner and to such extent as the said minister may determine.

Hon. HUMPHREY MITCHELL (Minister of Labour):

Mr. Speaker, I table copies of

order in council P.C. 6103 providing for the participation of Canada in the Twenty-seventh session of the international labour organization conference opening in Paris on October 15, 1945; also copies of P.C. 6162 appointing the Canadian delegation.

I think perhaps the house would be interested to know those who are going to Paris, and with your permission, Mr. Speaker, I shall read the names.

The government delegates are: Mr. Gray Turgeon, Vancouver, B.C. and Mr. Alfred Rive, Department of External Affairs; alternate, Mr. V. C. Phelan, Department of Labour. Secretary to the government delegates is Mr. T. L. Carter, Department of External Affairs.

The provincial government representatives accompanying the government delegation at the expense, of course, of the provincial governments concerned-are: Hon. Antonio Barrette, Minister of Labour, Quebec; Mr. Jean-Pierre Despres, Department of Labour, Quebec; Hon. Charles Daley, Minister of Labour, Toronto; Hon. C. C. Williams, Minister of Labour, Regina.

The employers' delegate is Mr. Harry Taylor, personnel manager of Canadian National Carbon Company and member of the industrial relations committee of the Canadian Manufacturers' Association, Toronto. The technical adviser to the employers' delegate is Mr. Allan Ross, of Ross-Meagher, Ltd., Ottawa.

The workers' delegate is Mr. J. Arthur D'Aoust, vice-president, Trades and Labour Congress of Canada, and vice-president of the International Brotherhood of Paper Makers, Montreal. Technical advisers to the workers' delegate are Mr. Birt Showier, vice-president, Trades and Labour Congress of Canada, and president of Vancouver, New Westminster and district trades and labour council, Vancouver; Mr. Norman H. Dowd, executive secretary of Canadian Congress of Labour, Ottawa; and Mr. Alfred Charpentier, president, of the Canadian and Catholic Confederation of Labour, Montreal.

House of Commons

Mr. JOHN BRACKEN (Leader of the Opposition):

I had two or three questions to direct to the Prime Minister, but perhaps the Acting Prime Minister will answer them. Will he tell the house who will be Acting Prime Minister during the Prime Minister's absence overseas? Who will be the Acting Secretary of State for External Affairs, and who will lead the House of Commons? Will the Acting Prime Minister also tell the house whether it is the intention of the Prime Minister to appoint additional parliamentary assistants prior to his departure overseas?

Hon. IAN A. MACKENZIE (Minister of Veterans Affairs): On behalf of the Acting Prime Minister I should like to reply to the hon. member. The Minister of Finance (Mr. Usley) will be Acting Prime Minister during the absence of the Prime Minister overseas. The hon. the Minister of Justice (Mr. St. Laurent) will be Acting Secretary of State for External Affairs. The Minister of Veterans Affairs will be acting President of the Council, and the last mentioned gentleman will endeavour to assist and cooperate with his hon. friends the leaders of the various parties, in the direction of the activities of this house.

Hon. J. L. ILSLEY (Acting Prime Minister) :

The hon. member for Eglinton (Mr. Fleming) yesterday or the day before asked whether the government would give consideration to amending the rules of the house to provide for the establishment of a standing committee on social security, health, housing md public welfare. The answer is this. The government will have to give careful consideration to the question as to whether it is advisable to increase the number of standing committees, at least for the present session. As the hon. member indicates in his question, an amendment to the rules of the house would be necessary for this purpose. The subjects which the proposed committee would deal with are all subjects which could probably be considered appropriately by the standing committee on industrial relations.

The hon. member for Eglinton also asked me the other day when the report of the national housing administration would be made to parliament. I am informed by the officials of that administration that they expect to have the report completed and in a position to be tabled by the end of next week.

Mr. ADAMSON:

As a supplementary question, is it not the intention of the government to reestablish the two special committees that sat in the last house, the reconstruction committee and the social security committee?

Mr. ILSLEY:

It is my understanding that those special committees are not to be reestablished.

Mr. STANLEY KNOWLES (Winnipeg North Centre):

Mr. Speaker, I rise to a

question of privilege. Citation 68 of Beau-chesne's Parliamentary Rules and Forms, second edition, reads as follows:

If a member who has heard the question put does not vote, and the attention of the Speaker is directed to the fact, the latter will call upon him to declare on which side he votes; and his name will be recorded accordingly.

I understand that this citation can be invoked only at the time a vote is being taken, so I cannot now ask that anything be done about hon. members who refrained from voting last night. That is not my question of privilege. However, I do feel that if we as members of this house are to cooperate with Your Honour in insisting upon the observance of the rule that all hon. members in their places when the question is put should vote, I should call attention to the fact that a practice is developing which should be corrected.

The situation last evening was this. We realized that some pairing arrangements between government supporters and members of the official opposition had been made, but as far as those of us in this group were concerned we did not know what those arrangements were. When we noted certain hon. members to our right refraining from voting on the amendment to the amendment, we could only assume that they were paired. Later we discovered that this was not the case.

They were paired.

Mr. KNOWLES:

Oh, no; the pairs are not listed in Hansard. I refer to the hon. member for Souris (Mr. Ross) and the hon. mem-

House of Commons

ber for Muskoka-Ontario (Mr. Macdonnell), who did not vote on the amendment to the amendment and who, as far as the record shows, were not paired. Had I known at the time that they were not paired, I would have called Your Honour's attention to this citation and asked you to have them declare on which side they were voting. As I have said already, it seems to me that if we are to cooperate with Your Honour in insisting upon the observance of what I believe to be a very good rule, namely, that every member present should vote, you might direct the attention of the chief whips to the matter and suggest that either one of two things be done; that when pairing arrangements are made, all the whips be advised of those arrangements, or that any member who is sitting in the house and is paired should indicate that fact after the vote has been taken.

Mr. MACKENZIE:

On the point raised by my hon. friend, in the first place there is no such rule in this house. We discussed this matter very thoroughly in the committee that was appointed a year ago to look into certain amendments and changes to the rules of this house. This rule applies in some other parliaments, but it does not apply in this house. There was a far more flagrant breach of the rules of this house last evening, in that some hon. gentlemen came in and took their seats while the vote was being taken. In regard to pairs, parliament knows no pairs.