Parliament's Week

Meeting in Ottawa. Canada's House of Commons had important work before it last week: final discussion of the Redistribution Bill. Total number of seats is to remain the same, 245, but the representation of almost every province is to be reshuffled. Most noticeable change is that the old Maritime Provinces of the East (Nova Scotia and New Brunswick) will lose three seats which the West will gain. Action on the bill was impeded by some lively interludes.

Titles. In February, Liberal M. P. J. A. Mercier rose to enquire whether the promotion of Canadian Sir George Perley in King George's New Year's honors list was not contrary to Canada's famed Nickle Resolution.* The idea at the back of Member Mercier's head was to discover whether good Canadian Catholics should accept Papal titles if offered. Last week Premier Bennett interrupted discussion of the Redistribution Bill to answer: Canadians, in his opinion, had every right to accept titles from King George; the Nickle Resolution, passed in 1919, represented only the opinion of that Parliament, which was dissolved in 1921.

Sensation spread across the Atlantic. London's Laborite Daily Herald promptly printed the rumor that Premier Bennett was fishing for a title for himself. In Ottawa pro-title Conservatives and anti-title Liberals battled in the benches. Startled. Mr. Mercier mildly remarked: "I put out my line to catch a minnow, and I caught a whale!"

Massacre. During the discussion of the Redistribution Bill, the House inspected a huge map of Saskatchewan, with its Parliamentary ridings redrawn according to its present plan. Up jumped 73-year-old W. R. Motherwell, whose bailiwick was about to be swallowed by two new Conservative districts. Swinging his heavy cane, he slashed the map through & through.

"Don't think you'll get rid of me that way!" he bellowed. "You won't get rid of me unless you put a bullet through me, and I've been threatened with that before I came down here. . . . Last year they wiped out the provincial riding I live in. I don't mind being massacred at the polls, but I will not be massacred on a map. . . .

"I can fight in a fair fight, but you tie my hands behind my back, you hobble my legs, you gag me. . . .

"I haven't noticed the gag," interrupted Chairman the Hon. Hugh Stewart.

In the visitors' gallery a little man with a Bible suddenly sprang up, shouting "Repent, Repent! Remember the day of Judgment is at hand. God wants to Bless You!''

He was removed.

*In May 1919 W. F. Nickle, K. C. pushed a resolution through both Houses of Parliament asking king George to refrain from conferring any titles, knighthoods or peerages on Canadian subjects. Since then none has been accepted.

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