Tuesday, April 25, 1967

closed society for the past hundred years. Another example is, an example in sup- port of this contention, that there is a much more higher incidence of congenital defect here than one would expect, but only in certain defects. There are some congenital defects which are unknown and this is a situation which would be expected to arise in a population which has been living more or less in a closed I society for a hundred years or more.

Honourable Alexander B. Campbell: What would you suggest?

J. Cyril Sinnott: I am not suggesting any answer; I am just going to make a recommendation in a minute. I am not suggesting an answer nor would I try to rectify because if this Island enjoys a reputation for having above average people, a large percentage above average people, I don’t think we should do anything to discourage it. But if you are going to have a percentage of above average people. higher than elsewhere in Canada, you will have to accept the corollary that there is the same number of the low. The point I want to make is that those who are in the higher echelon. so to speak, are the ones who leave here and the others don’t. My point in raising this subject is, are we going to be content to export our higher percentage of above normal young people while we have to look after the same number of sub-normals? The question of course raises the issue of the extent to which the federal government should participate in educational grants. W-hen con- sidered from this point of view, this Island should be receiving much more than the per capita grant already being given us. I recommend these two observations to the consideration of the Minister of Education.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I want to speak for a few minutes on the May 30th elec- tion. I haven’t had a chance to get a crack at this yet. The Minister without Port- folio, and the member from Second Kings mentioned that certain irregularities oc- curred during the election campaign. These have not been proven and .I want to mention what I regard as a more serious one and that is what happened in the Fifth District of Kings during the election campaign. People from outside the dis- trict, who voted there, succeeded in changing the Government. and it is in my opinion a serious matter when a government of Prince Edward Island can be changed by twelve people who had no right to vote in the area in which they voted. Now if any member of the opposition insists that I read their names. I will do so. I merely want to say, and no one can deny it, that these twelve people voted in the Fifth District of Kings who had no right to vote there whatsoever. They escaped because of a loophole in the Election Act. I notice that the loophole has been changed in the amendments which have been proposed in the Election Act at the present time. I must congratulate the Government for doing so. But it is a little bit late in having it changed because the result of that . . . .

Honourable Alexander B. Campbell: We weren’t in much of a position, before the election, to change that.

J. Cyril Sinnott: You could have suggested it in Committee when the Elec- tion Act was considered.

Some Member: Your Act, your Act.

I. Cyril Sinnott: Well, all you are trying to do now is shift the emphasis from what I have said. You are trying to shift the emphasis from what I was saying from the voters who voted there, who should not have voted there, to the form of the Election Act. The two questions are quite separate. This seems to be a characteristic of the Liberals in bringing voters into Districts where they are needed. Now this came as sort of a shock to me. I was asked by Mel McQuaid, in October, 1965, to help him in his election campaign. He had been late being nominated, and he needed some help so I agreed to do so. I was shocked to find the names of '15 voters on the list who didn’t live in Kings County, so I made it a point to be at the Advance P01] in Montague, in November, 1965. The first people to arrive at the poll to vote were a man and his wife from Ellerslie, in Prince County. They had lived in Ellerslie for eight years and had a family of six children all going to school there. They own some old property down in Montague area. They were told by the Lib- erals to hop down to Montague and get their property vote in. Imagine that, a federal election? They arrived there at nine o’clock in the morning after having

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