Canada. Dept. of Pensions and National Health : Until 1915 the Department of Militia and Defence took responsibility for matters relating to Canadian veterans. An autonomous Military Hospitals Commission, formed 30 June 1915 (P.C. 1540), was "to deal with the provision of hospital accommodation and convalescent homes in Canada." Renamed the Invalid Soldiers Commission on 21 February 1918, it was absorbed into the new Department of Soldiers' Civil Re-Establishment proclaimed on 24 May 1918 (8-9 Geo. V, ch. 42).
Also, a publicly-subscribed Canadian Patriotic Fund was organized in August 1914, with responsibilities towards soldiers' families. Another publicly-subscribed Disabilities Fund was begun in 1915, as was a Pensions and Claims Board. This was superseded by the Board of Pension Commissioners, established by order-in-council (P.C. 1334) on 3 June 1916. Although the Board remained independent of the Department of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment, by the summer of 1921 the Board's field staff and head office were merged with those of the Department.
Two inquiries into the Department of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment in 1927, one by Lieutenant-Colonel A.T. Hunter and the other by Gordon Scott, found evidence of political manipulation by staff and concluded that the Department was over-sized, over-officered, over-organized and rent by rivalries. 100,000 could be saved by merging it with the Department of Health [Desmond Morton and Glenn Wright, Winning the Second Battle: Canadian Veterans and the Return to Civilian Life, 1915-1930, p. 203].
Regulation of public health matters by the central government was almost completely non-existent in the years preceding Confederation, and the new nation divided health responsibilities between the federal and provincial governments. The federal Department of Agriculture was charged with immigration, quarantine and public health (31 Vict., ch. 53, 22 May 1868). A Quarantine and Health Act was passed on 22 May 1868 (31 Vict., ch. 63) and an Immigration Act on 22 June1869 (32-33 Vict., ch. 10.). Their provisions were enforced at quarantine stations at major ports of entry, the most famous being Grosse Ilse, Quebec, and Albert Head, Victoria, B.C. The Spanish flu epidemic of 1918-1919 led directly to the creation of the Department of Health on 6 June 1919 (9-10 Geo. V, ch. 24).
The government combined the Department of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment and the Department of Health into the Department of Pensions and National Health in June 1928 (18-19 Geo. V, ch. 39). Until 1933 the re-vamping of pension legislation occupied much of the energies of the Department. At the same time, the Depression caused a crisis in Canada's health system. Canadian governments were faced with an impoverished population which needed more health care but could not pay for it. By 1939 the government was forced to increase its activities in the health field, and the Rowell-Sirois Royal Commission recommended greater public health benefits and a national health insurance plan. [Janice Dickin, "Public Health," The Canadian Encyclopedia, year 2000 ed., p. 1932.]
By 1944 the Department was organized into a Pensions Branch, National Health Branch, and Civil Defence and, as well, the Canadian Pension Commission and War Veterans Allowance Board were located with it and reported to Parliament through a common Minister. In addition to the head office, the Pensions Branch had offices across the country and the Public Health Branch maintained a number of laboratories. There was also an office in London, England. The Department numbered 5,251 staff (up from 1,969 in 1928) to care for the 134,508 persons who had been discharged from the Canadian armed forces to that point in the war. In addition to its work with health and the re-establishment in civilian life of returned soldiers, the Department's public health responsibilities included investigation of medicines and drugs, pollution of inland waters, the quarantine and immigration medical services, operation of lepersoria, venereal disease control and child welfare.
The Department of Pensions and National Health was replaced by the Department of Veterans Affairs (8 Geo. VI, ch. 19) on 30 June 1944 and the Department of National Health and Welfare on 24 July 1944 (8 Geo. VI, ch. 22).
The Ministers of Pensions and National Health were Hon. James Horace King (formerly Minister of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment and Minister of Health), June 1928 - June 1930; Hon. James Layton Ralston (Acting), June-August 1930; Hon. Murray MacLaren, August 1930 - November 1934; Hon. Donald Matheson Sutherland, November 1934 - October 1935; Hon. Charles Gavan Power, October 1935 - September 1939; Rt. Hon. Ian Alistair Mackenzie (subsequently Minister of Veterans Affairs), September 1939 - October 1944.
