Mr. G. H. Castleden (Yorkton):

I wish to direct a question to the Acting Minister of Agriculture. Have the payments under P.F.A.A. been made to qualified producers in the prairie provinces?

Hon. Howard C. Green (Acting Minister of Agriculture):

We will take that question as notice.

Mr. Speaker:

I think that question might well have been put on the order paper.

Hon. Donald M. Fleming (Minister of Finance) moved

that the house go into committee of supply.

Mr. M. J. Coldwell (Rosetown-Biggar):

Mr. Speaker, I want to introduce discussion of a matter which I think is of fundamental importance not only to the whole of Canada but to all those countries which are linked together in an attempt to protect our democratic institutions and our way of life, and also to strengthen and develop our resources in view of what is being done in the several countries behind the iron curtain.

Two days ago we adopted the estimates of the Department of National Defence in an amount of approximately one and three-quarter billion dollars. I suppose hon. members felt that amount was essential in view of representations made by the government and in light of the agreements made by the government of Canada with our NATO allies and other countries across the world, but I want to submit that there is something of equal importance which we should reconsider. That is the manner in which we can promote the welfare of our educational institutions and how we can build up within our country a corps of people, not only those who are educated and who understand the implications of our society and of the culture of the country in which we live, but also a people who will understand the necessity of improving our educational facilities in order that we shall

not be left behind on an international basis in the development of our culture and our scientific and technical resources.

Over the past few years various Canadian citizens occupying positions of some importance in many parts of our country have visited iron curtain countries. I am not going to quote them again but I am merely going to refer to people whose words I have quoted recently; Mr. I. Norman Smith of the Ottawa Journal; Mr. James Muir, president of the Royal Bank of Canada; Mr. James S. Duncan; the former president of Massey-Harris of Canada and now chairman of the HydroElectric Power Commission of Ontario, who was also the gentleman who, apart from the Minister of Trade and Commerce, led the recent delegation of Canadian businessmen and others to the United Kingdom.

From time to time I have also had the opportunity of speaking to ladies and gentlemen-of various viewpoint, I might add- who over the last year or two have visited some of these iron curtain countries and have seen what is going on in them. I have mentioned the statements of the gentlemen I have named, but there is also a long list of those whom I have not named, all of whom have outlined the tremendous expansion of educational facilities, scientific research and technical advances made in Russia.

To my mind if we are going to, shall I say compete, though perhaps that is not the right word to use, in the world in which we live, not only for the minds of men but also in order to impress upon all peoples, particularly those in underprivileged areas, that the manner in which we develop our educational institutions and our scientific and technical resources is in the end going to bring a better result than the perhaps more regimented system of Soviet Russia and the iron curtain countries, then I think we have to do a great deal more than we are doing to improve facilities of this nature in Canada.

I do not think we are doing enough. I would like, indeed, to transfer from the military commitments and expenditures that we are making, a substantial number of dollars to be used in Canada for purposes of education; because I believe that in the long run the struggle that is going on in the world will not be settled on the field of battle, will not be settled by missiles, will not be settled by sputniks, will not be settled by planes or any of those things about which people are talking so much today, but will ultimately be settled by the peoples of the world when they understand one another and when they understand the condition in the countries in which they live.

Federal Aid to Education

Because I believe that, Mr. Speaker, I think the taking of this opportunity this afternoon is well worth while. So far this session no opportunities have been afforded for a discussion of this description. Usually we rely on private members' resolutions regarding federal aid to education, but quite obviously we are now so far advanced in the session, with so few private members' days remaining, that if there were resolutions of this description on the order paper it is unlikely that they would be reached.

So I say that the problems of education and research have become of such critical importance as to merit top priority in government planning. We have been giving top priority to military equipment and so on. Now I believe we should be giving top priority to the planning of education and to the planning of research.

As I indicated a few moments ago, visitors to Russia, papers in scientific journals, and other reports coming from the Soviet union indicate the spectacular successes which have been made in recent years; and if this needs to be underlined it has been underlined by the appearance of the sputnik which was launched in October. Maybe it is just a rumour that a rocket has been launched carrying a man; maybe it is not true; none the less the very fact that scientists have stated they would not be surprised if it were true indicates the extent to which scientists throughout the world believe that great progress has been made in this field in that country.

And so I say that our very survival as a nation would seem to require an unprecedented effort in the field of education; unprecedented effort in bringing our educational system up to a level much higher than it is at the present time. I am not belittling what is being done in our schools and colleges. I am not belittling our system which has evolved over the years, but I say we have to vastly increase the educational facilities of this country and vastly increase the funds available for our educational system.

Not only that, but I believe our ability to maintain the prosperity of our country at a high level depends, in the age in which we live, very largely upon the education and training of those who are connected with every field of human endeavour within our country.

We know perfectly well, looking back over the years, that among nations which some years ago had populations which were more or less illiterate, standards of progress were much lower than among those who had more literate populations. We know that with the coming of the great machines in the last half

Federal Aid to Education century particularly there has been an ever-increasing need for persons better qualified educationally than their forefathers were, in order to operate those machines. Consequently, not only in the field of culture, in the field of national defence and in the field of research, as I have indicated, we need, in order to maintain a level of prosperity in our country, an educated and well trained population.

May I add that I believe the better educated people are, the more likely they are to be democratic in their approach to problems, the more likely they are to resist the teaching of totalitarians, whether those total-itarians are fascists or whether they are communists, because we have found over and over again that the more backward the peoples of the world are, the more likely they are to be led into totalitarian forms of rule.

I know it may be said that some of the leaders were highly educated people; that Lenin, Trotsky and some of the others who led the Russian revolution were highly educated people. So they were. But the power which they had through their own personal education over the peoples of the countries in which they lived was due in large measure to the fact that the people they controlled were so largely illiterate, so largely uneducated and so largely untrained. Consequently the more education we have, in my opinion, the more likely people are to be free of totalitarian inclinations.

In recent years we have scarcely managed to maintain the personnel in our schools and colleges and in our scientific endeavours. We have seen many young men and many middle-aged men who should be teaching mathematics, chemistry and physics leaving our universities and schools and going into private business in different fields, joining companies to take up certain lines of research, with the result that they have been largely lost to the training of the younger people who must replace them not only in industry but as university leaders in the days to come.

As a matter of fact I think this country has lagged behind in the field of research. It is true that some of our industrial organizations have set up research laboratories, but these private organizations set up by industry have a definite aim, the aim of improving the output or product of that particular industry; in other words, their research is directed to a given end. Yet the significant research which has been done in the world in the last 25, 30 or 50 years is not of that type. The type of research we need is what is sometimes called pure research, pure science, where the scientists are not engaged

[Mr. Coldwell.l

in looking toward a particular end but are, rather, following a path in order that they may find new paths, new goals, new ends.

In our own country, of course, the one exception is our national research council, yet those who were on the committee dealing with the national research council two years ago will recollect that while we found it was doing a magnificent job, the encouragement given with regard to salaries, with regard to tenure and to some degree, perhaps, with regard to equipment, was not all that might have been expected of Canada under the present circumstances.

Of course we have the defence research board. But the defence research board cannot be compared with the national research board, because no matter how efficient the defence research board may be it is conducting research toward a particular end, namely the equipment and improvement of our means of defence. The national research council on the other hand is directing its attention to pure science, and in my opinion we are not doing enough in that field; we are not giving enough encouragement to the national research organization. To my mind we should be emphasizing to a greater extent than in the past the facilities of the national research council and building up a corps of pure scientists who can be working to achieve the kind of results which pure science investigation will give. After that the other research organizations can take the results of the pure research and use them in the narrower channels of applied research which industry encourages.

Recently I read the Atlantic Monthly of January, 1958. I am not going to quote from it at length. It said that in the United States, for example-and I think about the same proportion applies to Canada-five times as much is spent on chewing gum alone as on the basic, pure or theoretical as distinct from applied research. And yet it is the pure research that leads us into the applied and to the new knowledge upon which further human advances can be made.

Therefore, the first point I want to make is that within our educational system this parliament of Canada, within its own field, -I am not going outside that field at the moment-should be spending far more than it is spending on pure research; in other words, on an organization like the national research council. Or it should be expanding the national research council because of the tremendous contribution it has made to the life and welfare of Canada already.

This is the first point I would make because we have it within our own jurisdiction. It is not a question of interfering with

provincial jurisdiction in that type of facility and that type of education. Under the national research council we might establish scholarships. I think they have some scholarships now. We learned that, as a matter of fact, when we were on that committee. But we should expand those scholarships and bursaries in order that more young men and young women should be encouraged to go into the field of pure science, the science which is the basis of all other scientific research.

I am working down to the university level. When we think of the university facilities in Canada and what was said by the presidents of the universities-and I am very happy to see that we have the former president of the University of Toronto in the house this afternoon as the Secretary of State for External Affairs-we find that they have been warning us that the facilities are inadequate and that we need to make quite a tremendous expansion of university facilities if we are to accommodate the young men and women who will be not only desirous but who will have the ability to benefit from a university education. Therefore we say that not only in the Canada Council, through which we are providing some scholarships, but in a much larger way we should be providing scholarships for our young men and women in our universities and expanding the facilities of those universities in order that they may be available to the young men and women of ability who might wish to enter those universities.

May I say that I think the time has come when we in this country should establish a system for our young people so that every young man and woman, every adolescent every boy and girl, if you like, beginning at the bottom, who shows ability to benefit from a university education should be able to go into science and so on without regard to the level of the parents' purse or the economic circumstances of that young person. He or she should be enabled to go right through without any individual payment from the family or from himself or herself. Of course, if the young man or woman can earn a little on the side that is all to the good, but as a rule they cannot earn enough to put themselves through, although in the last year or so I am free to confess more young men and women have been perhaps able to earn in the summer much more than they could 10 years ago and certainly more than they could 20 years ago in order to assist their university courses. Yet even then they cannot provide for themselves because the cost of university training and of living is so high.

Federal Aid to Education

When I look back over the years when I was a student and realize in those days how difficult it was to find the comparatively small amount that was required I wonder how many parents of the students who are at university today manage to put their young people through university. Therefore, we have to build an educational system, and I think it is the duty of this parliament to consider ways and means, to consider how we can assist the provinces without interfering with their constitutional rights to control their educational system, to bring our university levels up, to promote scholarships and to make it possible for every boy and girl of ability to receive the best education that this country can give them.

When I was overseas in 1956 I was most interested to see how that was being worked out in the country where I was born and where I began school over 60 years ago; how they are endeavouring, and successfully, to promote the idea that boys and girls of ability, from the humblest homes, should get an education that will equip them in every possible way, both culturally and scientifically, to assist in the development of their country. Mr. Speaker, I said deliberately "culturally and scientifically" because I am not one of those who believe that-while this afternoon I have advocated and shall continue to advocate that we should do what we can to encourage pure science-we should turn out merely people who are scientists and neglect the cultural side of their education. I think there is a danger in that, as there are dangers in most things if you overemphasize one side of a problem or the other.

A year ago last September there was a conference on engineering, scientific and technical manpower at St. Andrews by the sea. It was held from September 9 to September 11, 1956. What did that conference say? I am not going to read the entire brief, I am just going to put some extracts on the record. First of all, the brief said, that by 1980 to remain competitive with other industrial nations, on the basis of the projected increases in output per capita and projections of other fundamental factors, Canada will need-these are the rather startling things that those people engaged in those fields put before the conference-to at least triple and probably quadruple her currently employed total of some 40,000 engineers.

When I listened the other afternoon to the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Pearkes) talking about the new equipment, and so on, it was again brought home to me that no longer is manpower the essential thing even in an army, a navy or an air force, though it is very important; the essential thing is that that manpower shall be of a particular

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Federal Aid to Education type; that manpower shall be trained in all kinds of technical and modern fields. This brief says that in industry alone we need to triple and probably quadruple the currently employed total of some 40,000 engineers in our own country and to triple and probably more than quadruple today's scientist force of 20,000. As a matter of fact, our scientific forces are not increasing at the rate that is essential if we are to keep up with what is going on in other countries in the world, and when we think of Canada as a country with vast resources still to be developed we must realize that' scientists, engineers and technicians are going to play an essential part in the development of those resources if thev are to be developed either in the interests of private enterprise or in the interests of public enterprise. Of course, I should like to see our resources developed instead of exploited and therefore developed under public enterprise but I am leaving that out of the question because I am not dealing with that particular phase this afternoon.

The brief goes on to say that we need to have almost ten times as many technicians assisting our scientists and engineers as are employed today. When I was in Europe in 1956 I found

I am not sure that they are altogether wise in doing this-that there was a disposition at a comparatively early age, around the age of 12 in most instances, to try to divide the students in the schools into two groups, those who would go on to technical education and those who would go on to scientific and cultural education. They were not divided according to the types of homes from which they came; they were divided, as far as their teachers could judge them, on the abilities they showed and their aptitudes. Those who showed aptitudes indicating that they had the ability to absorb a higher education in the cultural or scientific fields were led along through the universities where they could take not only the usual degrees but could afterwards continue with postgraduate work.

These young people are sometimes picked off. I am thinking of a young man whom I know very well and who graduated in chemistry in 1956. He ranked very high in his class and shortly afterwards he received a letter from Harwell, where the main United Kingdom atomic energy research plant is located, inviting him to submit an application to Harwell. Evidently the standards of the various students who graduated in 1956 were reported to Harwell by the board of examiners of the university. I may say I was astounded to learn that the young man had been called up for military service. In spite of the fact that Harwell invited him to

submit an application, today he is commissioned in one of the armed forces of the United Kingdom and instead of teaching applied chemistry or pure chemistry he is teaching radar about which, until he was sworn into the armed forces, he had known nothing at all. What a waste of ability!

I rather suspect that if we examined our armed forces, be it the air force, the army or the navy, we should find in the ranks young men who have ability in the fields I am discussing this afternoon but who have been sidetracked into the armed forces because the armed forces have been offering the bright young men of our country educational opportunities and careers and have enticed into the armed forces young men who perhaps might have been better utilized outside the armed forces. However, in order to obtain an education these young men have joined our armed forces. I, of course, compliment the Department of National Defence on giving them this opportunity which we refuse to give in other and more productive parts of our society.

The brief says that we need to provide ten times as many technicians as are employed today. We are told that the existing capacity of our colleges, universities and technical schools is producing one-twentieth of this requirement, and to provide for our requirements for technicians would absorb about 10 per cent of our matriculation graduates who do not go on to or complete university training. We say that the needs cannot be met from either the existing rate of university enrolment or from a continuation of the current rate of increase in enrolment, and if we have the enrolment we have not got the facilities. Over the last year or two we have been seeing our great universities endeavouring to raise money from private corporations and private citizens, and to some extent some of them have done very well. But we cannot rely on that source even if these funds are deductible for income tax purposes in one way or another. As a matter of fact, I often think that their deductibility for income tax purposes is really an indirect way in which the country itself is providing funds. I say we should be providing funds in a direct way through the parliament of Canada and the legislatures of the provinces.

We are falling far short of exploiting the full potential of those capable of assimilating higher education and utilizing it to maximum effectiveness. I might add that undoubtedly we have some young men and women in our universities and high schools who should not be there but because their parents are well enough off to keep them there they are kept there. On the other hand, many young men

and women have the ability but their parents do not have the funds and these young people are not able to take advantage of our educational system.

By 1980 we shall have to increase our university enrolment by as much as three to four times to satisfy our indicated requirements at that time, so the brief says. By 1980 we shall have to increase our enrolment of today by seven or eight times to enroll the same proportion of the age group now enrolled in the United States, which is quite a bit ahead of us. We are in a very poor position compared with Russia and the United States. Russia proportionately has four times as many enrolled in schools of higher learning as we have in Canada and the United States has three times as many.

I could go on and give a good many other figures in support of our contention regarding higher education but I do not think I need to do that. I think I have made my point sufficiently clear in that regard. With our present performance we shall graduate between three million and four million students from high school who will not graduate from university over the period from 1956 to 1980, a period of 24 years. In the United States 53 per cent of those entering grade one graduate from secondary school. In Canada 20 per cent complete junior matriculation and slightly more than half of these complete senior matriculation. So in that way we are falling far behind the United States, and if we can believe the statistics and the reports we have received from the U.S.S.R. we are falling very far behind Russia in the same particular.

We are told that with no increase in the percentage of the age group graduating from our universities, 63 per cent of the graduates should be absorbed in satisfying our indicated requirements for scientists, engineers and post-secondary or university teachers. It is presently absorbing, we are told, 21 per cent.

We should consider carefully, therefore, in this parliament of Canada a program to influence the secondary school graduates now enrolled to continue their education, even if they do so on a part time basis. Again, we should provide facilities to enable them to do so, because there we have a vast reservoir of additional scientific, engineering and technical manpower which could readily be tapped if only the proper incentives were provided. Of course, out of all this stems the need for properly qualified and highly equipped teachers.

I had the great honour and privilege 30 years ago of being the president of the Canadian teachers' federation. For the next six years, from 1928 to 1934, I was the

Federal Aid to Education national secretary treasurer. During those years there was borne in upon me the fact that the teaching body was not a teacher's profession but a teacher's procession. There was a procession of young men and young women entering and remaining for a few years time, then finding more remunerative employment. There has been some improvement over the past several years. The provinces have adopted superannuation plans. The provinces have adopted salary schedules, and have given greater security of tenure to the teachers. Some have organized their areas, of course, into larger units making that security more complete than it was before. However, we still need to encourage more young men and women to enter the teaching profession.

In the primary, secondary and university levels, educational finance is inadequate and unequal. I was looking at a bulletin published by the research committee of the Canadian teachers' federation, whose head office is in this city at the present time. It is dated December, 1954, which is the latest one I could get. This report uses a number of yardsticks with which to measure the provinces' ability to support education. As I said at the beginning, under our constitution education is primarily a provincial function. We believe however that this parliament of Canada not only has a right but an obligation to see that education across Canada is adequate, and therefore we believe the federal government has the right to make grants to our provinces for that purpose. The federal government has no right to interfere with the management of education in a particular province. We recognize that very fully. These yardsticks of the research committee of the Canadian teachers' federation are useful in indicating the differences in the provinces' ability to provide education.

These statistics provide also striking evidence of what we have long advocated in this house. May I say, in order to avoid misunderstanding, that not only have we advocated, but some hon. members on all sides of the house from time to time have advocated in this parliament over the years federal aid to education. I regret that my own good friend who used to introduce his resolution on this subject every year is not here, that is Mr. Roy Knight of Saskatoon, himself a teacher of many years' standing. Others have done the same thing. I am not taking for this party or myself the sole credit for bringing this matter before parliament year by year.

Let us look at the report to which I referred. This report notes that a major reason for educational differences between

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Federal Aid to Education provinces is differences in financial ability. As a yardstick ol financial ability it compared per capita personal income figures of the provinces. It goes on to say:

The best available measure of a province's ability to support the various functions of government is the per capita personal income of the individuals within the province. It quotes per capita personal income figures for 1951. However, comparable figures for as late as 1956 are now available.

I am going to put those comparable figures on the record this afternoon. The per capita personal income in 1956 for the whole of Canada was $1,350; for Newfoundland it was $725; for Prince Edward Island, $788; for Nova Scotia, $1,000; for New Brunswick, $923. Unfortunately those four Atlantic provinces have the lowest per capita incomes and yet, may I say that in days gone by at least many of the leading educationalists across Canada came from the Atlantic provinces and particularly from Nova Scotia. Look over the list of university presidents over the last number of years and one is surprised by the number of them who came from the Atlantic provinces, some from very humble origins. The opportunities which those men had then to get a higher education equipped them to occupy these very important positions in the field of education. Those opportunities are not there in the same way today because it is not as simple for a young man or a young woman to go through school and get a higher education, particularly a university education, as it was in those earlier years of our century.

The per capita personal income of Quebec in 1956 was $1,180; Ontario, $1,595-more than twice as much as Newfoundland and almost twice as much as Prince Edward Island-Manitoba, $1,260; Saskatchewan, $1,291; Alberta, $1,370 and British Columbia, in which they include the Yukon and the Northwest Territories, $1,566. Now, those figures are very revealing because they indicate the financial ability of the various provinces of Canada to carry the educational burden. As I have already indicated, though I have not said it, education is not only of interest to the various provinces or localities in which young people live but it is of interest to the whole of Canada. If you educate a boy or girl in Nova Scotia or Newfoundland, British Columbia or Saskatchewan, you have not guaranteed that your return on that young person's education will be made to the province which educated him. His contribution will be to the whole of Canada. Consequently, from that point of view the whole of Canada has responsibility for our educational facilities.

I was going to refer to numerous other sectors of this report, but I am not going

[Mr. Coldwell.l

to do so because I think I have established my point quite well that education is of direct interest to all Canada.

Therefore federal aid for education should be provided from this parliament of Canada without-again may I say-interfering in any way with the management of education by the several provinces of Canada. Of course the systems of education that have arisen in our provinces have vital differences. To try to control education in any province would cause great difficulty for us all, besides which it would violate the fundamental consideration of the confederation agreement. I do not suppose we would have had confederation at all unless the fathers of confederation had agreed to leave education as one of the principal functions under section 92 of the British North America Act to the provinces of Canada. Because of what I have said-and I shall have very little more to say afterwards-I am going to move this amendment, seconded by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles):

That all the words after the word "That" to the end of the question be deleted and that the following words be substituted therefor:

"this house is of the opinion that the government should give consideration to the advisability of taking steps to relieve the financial crisis in education, without encroaching in any way on the exclusive jurisdiction of the provinces in this field, by granting financial assistance to the various provinces for the expansion and equalization of educational opportunity across Canada."

What I have said this afternoon falls into two categories. First of all, there is what we can do ourselves. I mention particularly the extension of the facilities and the attractiveness of work in the national research council. I believe that to be absolutely fundamental to encouragement of pure science in this country. It is the only organization in Canada equipped and experienced in the field of pure science. Other research is applied science. We need more of the type of pure scientific research in this country than we have had up to the present time. I say that it would pay big dividends to our country.

I was going to refer-and I am just going to mention it because I do not intend to deal with it at any length; I have spoken long enough already-to the report that was made by Dr. LaZerte who was engaged by the Canadian school trustees' association to make an investigation of our educational system several years ago. It is a long report but there is a synopsis of it published. Dr. LaZerte is one of the outstanding educationists in this country. He was professor of education at the University of Alberta for a long time. I knew him years before that when, as a young teacher, I listened to him speak at the Saskatchewan educational association

during the first world war. Dr. LaZerte has made a tremendous contribution in several fields of education. I believe that today, being retired from Alberta, he is lecturing in the University of Manitoba in education.

Mr. Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):

That is right.

Mr. Coldwell:

His report is one that should be read by every member of parliament because he makes an analysis of educational opportunities and facilities from the primary school right through to the secondary school. It is rather technical. That is why it is perhaps out of place to quote it at length in this house this afternoon. However it is well worth reading and I recommend it to hon. members of this house for their study.

We therefore would say to the government: You can provide, $1,750 million, one third of our entire budget, for defence in the military field; yet we are doing nothing substantial in what I believe to be a more effective field of defence, namely the field of education. As a matter of fact, the provinces are inadequately equipped to raise the money necessary to build up and carry on an educational system such as we need if we are to outrival the people who today are threatening us in so many fields, including the field of education, scientific and technical. The complexity of our present economic society is such that only the federal government can tax wealth wherever found in order to pay for educational services where needed. No other authority has that power. This federal parliament of Canada has the right to enter any field of taxation and to tax wealth where it can be found. In other words, we are the only ones who can provide sufficiently for the higher education that is essential to meet the needs of this country in this age of complexity, in this age of scientific and technical progress.

I plead with this house, Mr. Speaker, to support this amendment so that we may indicate to the government that we require a vast expansion of all kinds, of facilities and opportunities of education. This parliament alone can provide the necessary funds to enable us to do that so that Canada may progress as she should. We should provide them.

Mr. D. M. Fisher (Port Arthur):

Mr. Speaker, there has been a certain switch in educational circles in the last few months as a result of scientific developments and education, which a short time ago had a sort of civil war going on within its ranks- rather the traditional versus the progressive-has now become something at which everybody is taking-I was going to say

Federal Aid to Education "optimistic" but that is hardly the word-a very pleasant look. Everyone is very much in favour of it. What I wanted to refer to today was that aspect of the resolution that would deal with universities, the nature of the crisis that we have at the present time and the measures that need to be taken to improve our position in higher education.

As one who has been in the classroom fairly recently I may say that there are two features which stand out about our failure and which have nothing whatever to do with the events in Russia. I think the first one- at least I place it first in importance-is the fact that the young ladies or the girls in our society are not getting the opportunity to go to university in anything like the numbers they should, according to what surveys reveal they have the capacity for. It may seem odd that I should place that matter first but it seems to me that is one of the great reservoirs of talent that we are not using. I suppose it will take almost a social revolution to get us to do something about that matter. I wanted to put it first in order to keep it in people's minds.

The other point which is very apparent and which was brought out by the leader of this party a short time ago was that equality of opportunity in education is something that we all treasure and believe in. I do not think there would be a gentleman in this house who would be against the idea that any students who had revealed by academic attainment and by their record that they were capable of higher education should not have the opportunity. Of course the question we are all asking at the present time and which there have been a number of specific studies to determine is this: Is such a condition existing? I hope later in this speech to cover some of the statistics which indicate that we are losing a great deal of talent.

There are four main reasons for saying that the universities of Canada face a crisis today. Firstly, statistics indicate a heavy increase in enrolment over the next 10 years; secondly, is the fact that Canadian universities for financial and other reasons are not even now fulfilling the manpower needs of our own economy; thirdly is the invidious comparisons drawn between Canadian and Russian production of university graduates, especially in the fields of pure and applied science; and fourthly is the fact that only a small proportion of those persons capable of benefiting from higher education are now receiving it.

Enrolment statistics in regard to universities and their projection into the future are usually those given by the education division

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Federal Aid to Education of the dominion bureau of statistics, a number of which have been prepared by Dr. Sheffield of that division. We can see from the period 1945-1946 through to the projection to 19641965 that there is an estimated enrolment moving up to 122,900 undergraduates. This will be approximately 10 per cent of our 18 to 21 years of age group in 1964-65. The significant proportion of the college age group actually attending is increasing and will presumably continue to do so, but even in 19641965, if we project the figures set out by the bureau of statistics, we are still only going to have 10 per cent of the people in that particular age group attending universities. The reasons for the rise from 1945-1946 of only 4.3 per cent probably has to do with postwar prosperity and the various drives for status which accompanied that prosperity. There has certainly been an increased demand for university graduates but the general increase projected for enrolment will come about mainly from population increases. What is anticipated is not a sudden rise and a sudden drop as happened back in 1946 to 1949 with the influx of veterans at our universities but a permanent enlargement of enrolment as a result of higher population figures.

In terms of manpower and our present failure to fill that manpower requirement from the universities it is very hard to give accurate statistics but some of the reports of the Gordon commission indicate that although 15,000 students were graduated by Canadian universities in 1954 it was 10,000 short of the 1954 manpower requirements.

The committee of the national conference of Canadian universities has estimated that Canada will be 190,000 short of necessary personnel in 1965. When we compare our manpower requirements with that of other countries we have to realize that the U.S.S.R. has overtaken us as well as other western countries in the field of higher education.

In 1918, to serve a population of about 140 million, Russia had 96 institutions of higher learning or one institution for every 1,460,000 Russians. Canada at that time had one institution for 315,000 Canadians. In 1953 the U.S.S.R. had 890 centres of higher education. In 1927 university enrolment in the U.S.S.R. stood at 169,000; today it numbers 1,867,000. In other words, the U.S.S.R. has one university student today for every 107 people while Canada has about one for every 200. We are of course also behind the United States in this respect.

The following table shows the percentage of the 18 to 21 age group enrolment in United States colleges. In 1900 the percentage of enrolment there was 4.0 per cent; in 1950 it was 19.3 per cent. In the previous table to

which I referred Canada in 1965 will have reached only 10 per cent. In other words, United States today is at least 10 per cent ahead of us in this important regard or in other words the percentage of students in the 18 to 21 age group at universities under our present situation is roughly equivalent to that existing in the United States more than 40 years ago. To put it in another way it is estimated that in order for our university population to reach a level proportionate to the United States and the U.S.S.R. the present Canadian enrolment of around 80,000 would have to leap immediately to between 240,000 and 315,000.

One of the questions we have to ask ourselves when considering our crisis in university education is "who goes to university?" It is surprising how very little is known in an analytical way about this question. There is no national survey at either the secondary school or university level and there are only two or three regional surveys which can answer a few questions. In a paper given to the November session of the N.C.C.U. in 1956 the authors say:

It can ... be argued on the basis of the fragments of information at hand that we are utilizing to the full the talents of probably no more than one-third of our academically-gifted young men and women.

This is a vital point if we are wasting that much of the talents of our gifted people. The evidence for this statement of course is very slight. I would like to refer all hon. members of this house to the two recent reports put out by Atkinson study of the utilization of student resources. I have gathered from conversations with the gentlemen behind this study that the new Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Smith), the former president of the University of Toronto, played a fairly large part in initiating this study. This particular book that interprets the initial stages of the study is entitled "Secondary Grade 13 Students-Who are They and What Happens to Them?" I would like to refer to the summary on page 52 of report 2, with relation to the points in connection with who goes to university.

It says that, regardless of sex a student had the best chance if he was somewhat younger than the average prospective grade 13 graduate, if both his parents were living, if he came from a family with not more than three children, if his father enjoyed a relatively high occupational status and especially if he was a college or university teacher, administrator, a lawyer, physician, dentist, an engineer or a manager of a wholesale trade; if his parents were relatively well educated and especially if they had attended

university and if he had not done part-time work during his last year of secondary school. In other words early indications from this report are that if a student's family background is of a high occupational or educational standard he is much more likely to go to the university.

Any of us who have taught in these schools are quite aware that those students are not necessarily those who have the talent or the gifts. A powerful factor however, I am sure, is the position of those students who grew up in homes where university education is something that is prized and discussed and is part of their whole focal point as young people.

One of the other sources of determining who goes to university is the 1951 Canada census, and the main conclusion one can draw from a study of these figures is that if you live in a city you have a much better chance of going to a university than if you live in a rural area, and that if you happen to live in a city which is near a university you have a better chance still. For instance, if you live in Kingston, Toronto or Hamilton you stand a much better chance of going to a university than if you live in a city which has no university in its neighbourhood. This is a point of particular interest to the people of the lakehead where we are at the stage of initiating what we hope will be in a few years a lakehead university and for that reason the question of the price of higher education is particularly interesting to my constituents.

When you get into another phase of who goes to university, and what happens to students when they get there, you come to a discussion of university failure rates. It is known that approximately 33 per cent of university students fail to graduate, but no university has undertaken objectively to discover why. Part of the reason must be the fact that universities are open to those who can afford them rather than to all of those who have the necessary intellectual equipment.

I know of a young lad who has attended four universities. He has never got past the second year. He has put in a total of six years at universities because his father is a well to do man. I interviewed this young man, and was much impressed by his personality and very depressed by his lack of ability. I thought he made the perfect case as to the injustice of federal support for higher education. Even though such young men pay for their education the cost is heavily subsidized by federal grants to the universities and yet they have the jump over other students who never think of going to

Federal Aid to Education university just because their fathers are well to do, which points up again the necessity for a new approach to the question of enrolment rather than retaining a situation where money can override more important considerations.

Quebec requires special treatment because of her special situation. At first sight the province appears to lead Canada in the value attached to higher education, and in many ways this is true. At least 40 per cent of the graduates of the public secondary schools, and 96.5 per cent of the graduates of the classical colleges go on to university. The joker is that very few Quebec students enter either tye of secondary institution. The first problem for French speaking schools is not to bring more secondary school graduates into the university; it is rather to bring more boys and girls into the secondary school itself. The 1951 census showed that Quebec had the lowest percentage of the 15-19 age group still in school, 29.89 per cent; the national average being 40.42 per cent. The average for Newfoundland, the next province up the scale, being 38.4, and the averages for Ontario 44 per cent, Nova Scotia 45 per cent, Alberta 50 per cent and British Columbia, 52 per cent. On the other hand, because of the very high proportion of high school and classical college graduates going to university, Quebec's percentage of the 20-24 age group still at school is roughly the same as the national average, 4.5 as against the Canadian average of 4.84. There are five provinces below Quebec. Leon Lortie of the University of Montreal recommended, in effect, a break with the elitist tradition of Quebec education. If I may quote from his speech made at the Canadian congress of higher education:

The efforts of all are indeed absolutely indispensable, and more especially in Quebec, because we are faced for the first time with the real task of democratizing our system and methods of education.

There has been no visible response to such notions from the Quebec government.

When one comes to the solution of the crisis which the universities face it has been argued that unless there is a limitation on university enrolment the universities are going to be swamped with applicants, and that in consequence there is bound to be limitation.

Apart from the social criticisms which can be made against limiting university enrolment, such a solution is erroneous in that it assumes that the crisis is one involving the universities alone, and of course this is not so. Limitation of enrolment has received a certain amount of consideration from university administrators, most of it unsympathetic. But even those, like Sidney Smith who harp incessantly on the responsibility

Federal Aid to Education of the university to society, set limits to maximum enrolment that are well below the maximum desirable level.

Mr. Speaker, I do not believe it is realistic to think of providing university training in Canada for anything approaching 25 per cent of our college age population. I have doubts even about the 11 per cent visualized in Dr. Sheffield's projection. I do not believe that "realistic" is precisely the word that Mr. Smith had in mind. Norman Mackenzie of the University of British Columbia used the word in a different way in 1948. He said:

If we are convinced that there are more students demanding education than we can adequately look after, then we should do what we can to see that those who are best suited for it do get the opportunity to come. This can in part be taken care of through higher standards of admission, which should be general in character; and by the maintenance of high standards throughout the courses that are given, whether they be general or specialized. Many will continue to want to enter without any particular intellectual qualifications or for other reasons such as social or economic ones, or in order to fill in time before going into marriage or business. I think this is a fact we have to recognize. They will attempt to get in, and in many cases in the kind of society we live in, it will be difficult or impossible to keep them out. The only way we can meet this problem and deal with it in a realistic way is either to provide, as they have in the United States, not altogether satisfactorily, a larger number of junior colleges for undergraduate and superficial vocational training, or put up with larger enrolments in existing institutions. I do not believe it is realistic to think that we can reserve higher education for a privileged elite, privileged by reason of birth or family or economic position or even privileged by reason of the natural gifts of mind and intellect that they may have. We have to remember that we are part of the community which we serve and in which we live.

Cyril James of McGill University accepted Mackenzie's position in his presidential address to the N.C.C.U. in 1949, but rather tepidly-"whether we like it or not"-when he said that the plea for limited numbers cannot be applied successfully by all universities with any great expectation of success. President Somers of St. Francis Xavier was more forthright in 1955 when he said:

We can give a very simple answer-hold to the present registrations. There are some who would solve the problem simply by saying that there are too many students of non-university calibre at present in our universities. We may solve the problem by raising tuition costs to the point at which only those with ample means may enter university. Before we accept either of these solutions we have to ask ourselves what are the requirements of this growing country of ours in regard to higher education. Canada must have educated leaders in all fields, and today these fields are many. Universities cannot restrict their work to a small elite and pay no attention to their country's needs. We cannot be content with the education of the same percentage of our youth as we now have in Canadian universities, even although that may give us a 50 per cent increase in students by 1965. We know that at least 25 per cent are of university calibre. We should educate many more of the college age group of our

population-the group with the talents, who are not in our universities because they cannot afford to pay our fees.

So far only a few universities have announced restrictions in enrolment. Among the larger universities, McGill has done so, limiting the enrolment to 9,500, whereas by 1965 it might have been expected to reach 13,500. Of the middle range of universities, only Queen's plans some restrictions. The rest anticipate at least a doubling of the present enrolment. Of the smaller universities, Acadia and Mount Allison, being almost completely residential, cannot expand unless large grants are made for residences. Bishop's has decided to allow enrolment to expand only slightly above the present level of about 300. Its leaders said:

We cannot expand beyond 400 without changing the character of the institution, and we feel that Canada can afford the luxury of one small college.

No university administrator has faced the problem of what the universities would do if, for example, a system of government bursaries raised the percentage of the 18 to 21 age group attending university above the projected 10 per cent to 11 per cent. Of the students attending university now only about 15 per cent receive financial aid of any kind and this percentage has not increased over the last 20 years. Mr. James has said:

A young Canadian from a family of modest circumstance has less chance of getting a university education today than a youth in any other country with which I am familiar.

That is a very sweeping and powerful statement. In other words, we are in one of the poorest positions of all for youth in modest circumstances. In the crisis we have to consider where the universities are going to get the increased revenue. For some years the national council of Canadian universities has been attempting to gain from the federal government certain changes in tax laws governing deductions for charitable purposes in order to increase grants or gifts from private and corporate sources. The fact is that corporations have not taken advantage of the present tax situation. By law, corporations are permitted to deduct 5 per cent of their taxable income for charitable purposes. In 1946, corporations contributed three-quarters of one per cent of their income for charitable purposes; in 1953, about $26.3 million, or about one per cent of their next taxable income; in this year, five per cent would have amounted to about $130 million. The proportion of the .75 per cent in 1946 going to universities was about 14 per cent; the proportion of the one per cent in 1953 was about 10 per cent. When grants are made by corporations they are tied often to specific research projects in which industries are interested. For example, look at the givings of

corporations such as International Nickel and Imperial Oil. There is no necessity for me to comment upon this, the former president of the University of Toronto has done so already. He said:

We want a great deal of money. Without wishing to sound ungrateful, I have sometimes thought, when a prospective donor makes an offer, that the industrial conscience in some instances can satisfy itself by putting a very small sum on the collection plate. There are shining exceptions . . . but on the whole Canadian corporations have not as yet taken seriously the needs of higher education; they have not even taken advantage of the five per cent deduction from their taxable income permitted under the tax laws of Canada.

Part of the difficulty is that many of our corporations are not Canadian. In our branch plant economy, American-owned or controlled corporations feel little obligation toward the Canadian institutions which often provide them with their administrative and technical personnel.

The fact that corporations are concentrated, or at least their head offices, in central Canada works a hardship on eastern and western universities. In 1952, 84 per cent of corporation taxes were collected in Quebec and Ontario; the two tax districts of Toronto and Montreal accounted for 56 per cent of all corporation tax returns. A president of one of the eastern universities has proposed a kind of united chest and a division of proceeds from corporations on some equitable basis. The complaints you hear from the west and the east on the freight rates, or anything else, can be re-echoed by the universities. The situation is that those provinces in central Canada have quite an advantage and as far as the proposal of this president of an eastern university for a united chest for universities is concerned, I do not know that any of the central Canadian universities have rushed to endorse the suggestion. I have not seen any record of it.

During the last 20 years government financing has been an interesting problem. The university enrolment has more than doubled but the total revenue received by the universities in relation to the number of students has shown virtually no increase in real terms. At the same time real costs have gone up substantially. To carry out university functions, university capacities have been overtaxed, according to one expert; university teachers have suffered a sharp decline in relative real income; and essential university facilities have been skimped. An illustration of the consequences of financial squeezing is the fact that the 10 largest universities in English Canada spend together annually only about $500,000 on stocking their libraries with books and microfilms. It is almost a pitiable figure when one thinks of the tremendous amount of publishing that goes on in the world today.

Federal Aid to Education

When you look at the source of university revenue, which you can find in President Mackenzie's address on "Government Support of Canadian Universities" you find that endowment provides only six per cent; student fees, 28 per cent; provincial funds, 40 per cent; federal funds, 15 per cent; and miscellaneous, 11 per cent. The 40 per cent provided by the provinces amounts to exactly 3 per cent of provincial budgeting. On the average, roads and highways in the provinces got 30 per cent and education got three per cent. University presidents have tended to place their hopes on additional revenues from industry and from the federal government. The figures I quoted above show why. Student fees have increased steadily over the past 20 years and you cannot milk this source much more.

The request for increased federal assistance is always accompanied by some reference to the danger involved. However, it is apparent that university presidents in English Canada regard the prospect of having to do without federal assistance as more alarming than any dangers which might flow from it. They tend to regard-though how sincerely I am not in any position to judge-the diversity of university income sources as the best guarantee of university independence. As an illustration, President Mackenzie claimed that the "modest system of federal per capita grants" introduced in 1951 respected "the constitutional position of the provinces and maintained the independence of the individual institutions". But these grants have proved to be insufficient. Thus, former President Smith of the University of Toronto, after new federal grants, said;

This and other Canadian universities will require for the mobilization of resources, support from government at all levels, municipal and federal as well as provincial, and in addition they will need all the help that industry and individual donors can give them. Their welfare and progress are matters of public concern. The Ottawa government is doubling its assistance to universities, and as in the past that assistance will not involve any interference or attempt at control. But the increased federal grants will not be enough to finance the expansion.

I hope the gentleman who made this very ringing statement will be in a position later on today perhaps to amplify the position of the government on his attitude in this regard. A good example of the notion that diversity of income source is the best guarantee of independence comes from former President Smith. He said:

It is well for universities that they should have a diversity in their sources of income. The chairman of the board of governors, Colonel Phillips, stated in 1947: "Nothing could be more fateful for us than to adopt the view that all our financial problems could be thrown on the shoulders of our government."

Federal Aid to Education

There has been a conscious effort to justify increased federal government assistance by comparing the Canadian situation with that elsewhere, not simply in order to say, "other governments give more" but also to say, "other governments give more without endangering the universities". It can be shown that endowment income, for example, has formed a steadily decreasing part of university revenue in the United Kingdom and in the United States. It would seem that in the United States a large body of university opinion regards government assistance as bringing with it political interference. This is certainly the stand of the private universities, especially in the east. Over all, United States private universities gain 63 per cent of their income from private sources.

There has been a good deal of political interference on both the state and the federal level in the United States with public universities. The McCarthy scare is an example. The case of Illinois occurs to any one who followed the situation there. During the red scare the situation of professors on the staff was a very delicate one and many of them were quizzed in public.

The whole question of whether government assistance, especially federal government assistance, is going to tinker with and ruin the independence of universities is one that those of us who introduced the resolution and those who may support it will feel is something about which we all have to be very careful. There is no doubt about it that the old saw that the person who controls the purse controls things can apply, but the experience in the United Kingdom with the university grants committee is that political interference has really not entered into the operation of the universities there.

So far revenue from government sources in Canada is really too small to have introduced any undue influence. In the United Kingdom government grants form 73.6 per cent of university revenue, in the United States 42.4 per cent. In Canada the government's share in the four western provinces is 57 per cent and in Quebec we have a low of 23.7 per cent. The comparative niggardliness of government aid in Canada means that the minimum cost of a university education is much higher in Canada. In 1954-55, 72.9 per cent of all British students were in receipt of aid of some kind. The Canadian figure is 14 per cent to 15 per cent. President James concluded in this regard:

As a result of these generous government grants every British student can be sure of a university education if he has the ability and determination to attain it. Financial factors are never a barrier.

Similarly, in the United States, as a result of government assistance to public institutions,

fees are markedly lower than those charged at any Canadian university and 56 per cent of United States students are enrolled in state universities where these low fees prevail.

One of the factors that must be considered in any discussion of the crisis is the position of the province of Quebec because the Quebec position is that since the federal government may not legislate directly within any of the fields granted to the provinces and since federal grants do involve legislation, the interposition of a non-government distributing agency is still unconstitutional. In other words, the crux of any drastic change in our federal set-up will be the attitude of the province of Quebec. Marcel Faribault, representing the chamber of commerce of Quebec, has said:

Yearly grants from the federal government to the universities, whether distributed directly or indirectly, are a matter which it is just not possible to class otherwise than as support for education and legislation in respect of education.

He is prepared to admit, however, the possible validity of non-recurring capital grants. He says:

Capital grants are not recurrent, and the intermediary body, the Canada Council, is not primarily educational or para-educational. Moreover, the allotment to the recipients is to be variable, and is not to cover more than half the cost of some buildings for definite projects.

Mr. Faribault goes on in his remarks to indicate that if the capital grants from the federal government are of a non-recurring kind it might be expedient for Quebec to accept them. Arthur Tremblay, secretary of the Laval teachers' association, has declared:

I want to reaffirm the public position we have already taken concerning the Canadian government plan to give grants to the N.C.C.U. We want those grants to be accepted by the province of Quebec universities as well as by other Canadian universities.

In other words, here is an expression of opinion by a French Canadian that the grants that have been offered should be accepted. President James of McGill, who is in a very difficult position as head of an English-speaking university within a French-speaking province, has said:

The governing body of each university has the right to accept or reject any grant that is offered, but speaking personally I can see nothing in the pattern of federal grants which invades the constitutional rights of the provinces or weakens the independence of any Canadian university. There is no legal barrier that I know of which would prevent a university from accepting federal aid.

In order to clarify the position of that part of the Quebec elite which opposes federal grants, I consulted he Devoir from November, 1956, to the end of March, 1957. During those months I could not find any explicit statement of the newspaper's constitutional position, but it seems to me it is

similar to that expressed by Mr. Faribault. Le Devoir feels that federal grants are a menace to the cultural and religious autonomy of Quebec, and advocates resistance to them at all costs. Even though present grants are unconditional, there can be no guarantee that they always will be so. To resist grants now places no great burden on Quebec universities, since the grants are still modest. The universities must resist because they are the first line of defence. If this line is breached, primary and secondary education will come under attack too.

That is the gist of what I have gathered respecting Le Devoir's attitude to higher education grants from the federal government. Yet resistance to federal grants in order to preserve the independence of universities has brought the anomalous situation now existing. Quebec universities are at the mercy of the provincial government, are subject to political interference and are certainly not receiving provincial grants to match federal grants that would be coming to them.

Far from persuading Le Devoir that federal grants might be of some use, the provincial situation allows the editors to take up a favourite position-defenders of the right against tremendous odds, upholders of unsullied principle while damning the consequences. They insist that French Canadians must not sell their rights for a mess of pottage. They refer to Mr. Duplessis as "un phenomene passager". They say, "It is not desirable to destroy the constitution because of a simple public nuisance." They say, "We live in any age in which the people of Quebec prefer to be poorly governed by themselves rather than well governed from Ottawa." As an outsider just looking into the situation, I would not want to go out on a limb to express any opinion.

Mr. Deputy Speaker:

Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member but I must advise him that his time has expired.

Hon. Gordon Churchill (Minister of Trade and Commerce):

Mr. Speaker, we are considering a problem of very great importance at the present moment. We have a motion that the Speaker shall leave the chair for the house to resolve itself into committee, followed by an amendment dealing with the subject of aid for education. The amendment is framed in such a way that an important subject is brought to our attention but the framers of the amendment realize that according to the rules and the custom of the house the debate will be terminated by a vote at 8.15 this evening and that an amendment such as this is and always has been treated as a want of confidence motion 96698-1871

Federal Aid to Education to which, of course, the government naturally reacts and cannot accept. My hon. friends who introduced the amendment have done so apparently for the express purpose of putting the government in the awkward position of voting against aid for education, which is something many of us supported when we were on the other side of the house.

Mr. Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):

You also took a different line towards motions of this kind when you were on the opposition side of the house.

Mr. Churchill:

This is obviously the type of motion calculated to embarrass the government, and since it is linked to a subject of this importance to the people of Canada it is, in my opinion, irresponsible.

Mr. Ellis:

You used to bring in motions of this type.

Mr. Churchill:

According to the notices of motion on the order paper-

Mr. Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):

What a change since June 10.

Mr. Churchill:

-there were plenty of opportunities for this subject to come forward for discussion. Hon. members will find under Notices of Motion, No. 30, a motion standing in the name of the hon. member for Davenport (Mr. Morton) dealing with this subject of aid for education. Then, No. 41 under the name of the hon. member for Cape Breton North and Victoria (Mr. Muir), is another one dealing with aid to education in the maritime provinces.