As bearing on this point made in my appeal I find the following in Hansard of June 8th, 1921. The matter being dealt with is the amendment to the Calder Act:
Mr. Fielding: But cases have been brought to my attention of men in advanced years—some may think them old, I do not—being notified of their retirement, although they are blessed with good health and strength, both mental and physical, and are well able to discharge their duties. How is such a man dealt with?
Mr. Calder: No man will be notified unless a proper official has advised that his condition of life is such that in the public interest he should be retired....
Mr. Calder: That in the main has been the practice in the past and that is what the law contemplated last year. The question of age alone was not taken into consideration.
But it was hardly to be supposed that Dr. W. A. Roche, now Chairman of the Civil Service Commission, who during the years 1913–17 referred to had failed to utilise my services when he was Superintendent of Indian Affairs would now consider my services as necessary in that Department. So my protest was of no avail; my elimination from the Service had been decreed and I received the following Order in Council:
Ottawa, 14th Feb., 1921.
The Committee have had before them a report, dated Feb. 1st, 1921, from the acting Secretary of State, from the Civil Service Commission:
In accordance with the provisions of Cap. 67, 10-11 George V. “An Act to provide for the Retirement of Certain Members of the Public Service” the Civil Service has to report that Dr. P. H. Bryce of the Department of Health at Ottawa was recommended by the Deputy Minister of Health for retirement; that under Section 2 (3) of the said Act he was given a personal hearing, which has resulted in the Civil Service Commission now recommending that his appeal be not allowed, but that his retirement be made effective from the 1st of March, 1921. Dr. Bryce was born on August 17th, 1853, and is consequently sixty-seven years of age. He was appointed temporarily to the Service on Feb. 1st, 1904, and was made permanent on September 1st, 1908, and therefore will have been in the Service seventeen years and one month on the 1st March, 1921, the date upon which his retirement is proposed to be effective.
So it came about that I was retired in
March, 1921, without any years being added to my term of Federal service, though I had been brought to Ottawa as an expert after 22 years in the Ontario Health Service, as is provided for in the Superannuation Act of 1870. Neither did I get any gratuity on leaving the Ontario Service after twenty-two years, the excuse being then given that I was improving my position.
The irony and injustice of this Order in Council will be seen when it is stated that a similar Order was passed on May 18th, 1921, retiring 231 persons from the Customs Department as being over sixty-five years of age; but which was recalled when the protests of the many friends of men who were faithfully performing their duties were made. These and hundreds of other Civil
Servants of similar age are in different Departments still performing their duties.
In view, therefore, of all the facts herein recited I make my appeal for simple justice; that I be permitted to carry on my work as Chief Medical Officer of Indian Affairs, and I believe that I have the right to demand, after a thorough investigation into all the facts of the case, that the chief obstacle, as set forth in the story, to insuring the health and prosperity of the one hundred thousand Indians, the Wards of the nation, be removed.
Since the time of Edward I. the people have ever exercised their historic right to lay their petitions before the King and Parliament. I now desire herein respectfully to bring my appeal for the Indians of Canada before the King’s representative and the Parliament of Canada, feeling sure that justice will be done both to them and to myself.