CANADA’S EXPERIMENT

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 76, 27 October 1941, Page 2

CANADA’S EXPERIMENT

PRICE CONTROL AND COST-OF-LIVING BONUS Ottawa, Oct. 25 The organisation is rapidly getting under way to give effect to the Government’s plan to block inflation and control the cost of living. The plan, which was described by the Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. W. L. Mackenzie King, as “an experiment hitherto untried on this continent, and perhaj * having regard to its breadth and variety, hitherto untried by the will and consent of free people anywhere,” involves the creation of new agencies. Under the plan a ceiling will be placed on all prices and basic wages with compulsory extension of the cost-of-living bonus to all wage-earners. Acting under extended powers the Wartime Prices Board will administer tne Price Control Plan. Wage control will be administered by the National War Labour Board which, with Regional Labour Boards working under it. has still to be created. Each of these, Labour Boards will be equally repre-j sentative of employers and employed. They will supervise a co-operative inspection enforcement service by joint! staffs of Dominion and Provincial De-. partments of Labour. One of the prim-\ 1 ary functions of these boards will be to 1 I observe how the policy works in prac- * tice and to recommend its revision or I modification in the light of experience, j The cost-of-living bonus which em- i ployers are required to pay from 15tli I November is adjustable every three j months. The bonus is based on a pay- I n (*it of 25 cents a week for each rise 1 of one point in the Dominion Bureau of I Statistics cost of living index. Juvc- , t ile or female workers earning less i than 50 cents an hour will receive one | per cent, of the basic wage rate.