Legislative Assembly of Ontario

The House met today at 2 o’clock, p.m.

Prayers.

Mr. M. C. Germa (Sudbury): May I take this opportunity of introducing to the House 150 students from Wembley Senior Public School in the city of Sudbury, accompanied by 10 adults. The party is under the direction of Mr. Wayne Bailey.

This large group of students and parents have journeyed from the city of Sudbury to be with us this afternoon.

Mr. Speaker: Statements by the ministry?

LAW REFORM COMMISSION REPORT ON FAMILY LAW

Hon. R. Welch (Provincial Secretary for Justice and Attorney General): I would like to clarify for the hon. members of this House some comments that were made yesterday during the question period. Following a short briefing with members of my staff, I was under the impression that all representatives of the media who received advance copies of the three reports of the Law Reform Commission tabled yesterday had first approached us to request those reports.

In subsequent discussions I have now learned that this was not the case with one media representative. I wish to correct at this time any wrong impression that my comments of yesterday may have left with members of the House.

Mr. V. M. Singer (Downsview): The minister created several.

Mr. Speaker: Oral questions. The hon. Leader of the Opposition.

ROOMING HOUSE SAFETY STANDARDS

Mr. R. F. Nixon (Leader of the Opposition): In the absence of the Premier (Mr. Davis) and the Minister of Education (Mr. Wells), I will ask a question of the Minister of Housing, to inquire whether he has taken any decision himself, or consulted with his colleagues, about the obvious need for some imposition of province-wide standards for rooming house safety. Does he believe this can be left entirely to the municipalities concerned or is there, in fact, some thought that a provincial intrusion in this matter might be warranted under the circumstances that saw the death of, I believe seven people in Toronto last week?

Hon. S. B. Handleman (Minister of Housing): Mr. Speaker, this matter has not been discussed in the ministry during my tenure. I certainly would be pleased to raise it with the staff, to ascertain first of all what our powers are and how the matter is handled. I would be glad to receive suggestions from the hon. Leader of the Opposition as to how he thinks this matter might be handled. I am prepared to accept reasonable suggestions from any source.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Supplementary: Would the minister not agree that, while this would not form a part of a provincial building code directly, it could very well take the form of something that could be a provincial safety code which could establish the minimum requirements for the municipalities to live up to, and if necessary provide an inspection service, at least on demand, for citizens who might be concerned that it appears the matter is not being adequately looked after at the municipal level?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, my limited understanding of the problem is that there are very few competent housing inspectors available to the municipalities, and perhaps the province can assist in that respect. I would like to discuss it with my colleague the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr. Clement) in regard to the establishment of a building code, because it is quite possible that a strengthened building code might be part of the solution.

SEVERANCE PAYMENT TO AGENT GENERAL

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I would like to ask the Chairman of the Management Board if he recalls approving the decision that resulted in a full year’s pay being granted to the person formerly in charge of Ontario House in London, England; which action has been recently criticized by the Provincial Auditor. Was that payment a severance payment the Provincial Auditor said was made in contravention of provincial regulations, was it in fact made simply to create a vacancy so that Mr. Ward Cornell could be appointed Agent General -- Ward Cornell, who was the chairman of the campaign committee for the Treasurer (Mr. White).

Hon. E. A. Winkler (Chairman, Management Board of Cabinet): I doubt very much if that assumption is correct, but I’ll have to investigate the records to determine at what time the decision was made.

Mr. Singer: By way of supplementary, could the Chairman of Management Board tell us why Mr. Rowan-Legg, who was packed and on his way back to London, England, was hauled off the plane and told he was being replaced; and whether that sudden decision had anything to do with the inordinate expenditures mentioned by the accountant?

Hon. Mr. Winkler: I really don’t think that’s correct at all, but I’m not sure.

Mr. Singer: It is correct,

Mr. M. Cassidy (Ottawa Centre): The government pays patronage every day of the week; sure it does.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: I’m not sure of that. If that detail is correct I’ll have to have a look at it; but I refuse to accept it.

Mr. J. A. Renwick (Riverdale): He was replaced by Ward Cornell.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Will the minister undertake to report to the House the circumstances which led Management Board to approve this specific payment? Would he also report to the House on the position taken by the auditor, that it was beyond the scope of the regulations to permit severance payments of that size, so that in fact we can have some guidelines to go by, since the government seems to be severing a good many of its high-priced employees and replacing them with some of its closer friends?

Hon. Mr. Winkler: I’ll accept the question as notice.

Mr. J. E. Bullbrook (Sarnia): The minister doesn’t dare sever the member for Lambton (Mr. Henderson).

Mr. Cassidy: What about the patronage appointment of the member for Carleton East (Mr. Lawrence) which just came about?

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Scarborough West.

APPOINTMENT OF CSAO ARBITRATION MEDIATOR

Mr. S. Lewis (Scarborough West): A question, Mr. Speaker, of the Chairman of Management Board: Can the Chairman of the Management Board explain why, when he was informed on Feb. 4 by Mr. Rose, the counsel and registrar of the Ontario Labour Management Arbitration Commission dealing in the present governmental negotiations with the Civil Service Association of Ontario, that Howard Brown would not be able to be a mediator in the current items under dispute, that to this day, March 12, there has been no response, either from government or from the arbitration commission, to the request for the appointment of another mediator?

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Mr. Speaker, I am not aware of that subject matter. It probably should be directed to the Minister of Labour (Mr. Guindon), but I’ll take the question.

Mrs. M. Campbell (St. George): If he were ever here.

Mr. A. J. Roy (Ottawa East): The minister of who?

Mr. Lewis: I presume the negotiations with the Civil Service Association have something to do with the Chairman of Management Board and that another five to six weeks have elapsed in a progressively deteriorating relationship around a number of important items; I’d like to know why the minister is allowing that to continue.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: I have made this statement before in the House, Mr. Speaker. We are prepared to go to the bargaining table at any time. The items which are under dispute are not the fault of the people who are acting on behalf of the Civil Service Commission.

Mr. Lewis: How is it that five weeks elapse without even a reply to a letter requesting further mediation? Can the minister explain that?

Hon. Mr. Winkler: No. I am not aware of that letter.

Mr. Lewis: Fine.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: I’ll check the records in that regard.

Mr. I. Deans (Wentworth): How does he know?

Hon. Mr. Winkler: I will repeat that we have made our offers on quite a number of occasions and we are prepared to return to the table on any day that the other side is prepared to do so.

LEMOINE POINT

Mr. Lewis: A question, Mr. Speaker, of the Minister of Natural Resources: Is the government yet in a position to make a concrete offer for Lemoine Point to be used as a provincial park? Has that point arrived?

Hon. L. Bernier (Minister of Natural Resources): No, Mr. Speaker, we are not in that position yet.

Mr. Lewis: By way of supplementary, do I take it that after the appraisal is completed -- I believe the appraisal is, in fact, completed -- it is the minister’s intention to collaborate with the conservation authority in the acquisition of the land?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, I have not heard from the conservation authorities or even my own ministry with regard to the appraisals; when that information is received, I’ll take the appropriate steps.

WITHDRAWAL OF TEACHERS’ SERVICES

Mr. Lewis: May I ask the Premier if he wishes to report on any aspect of the state of affairs in York county and the negotiations that may or may not be taking place? I don’t know.

Hon. W. G. Davis (Premier): No, Mr. Speaker, there is nothing new to report. I anticipate the minister may have something to suggest to the House a little later on this afternoon.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: A supplementary: Is the Premier indicating that the Minister of Education will make a statement or simply introduce legislation, or a combination of the two?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, the minister will be here fairly soon, and I’m sure if the member for Brant wishes to ask a question he would be quite prepared to answer it.

Mr. Roy: It can’t be very good or the Premier would be making it himself.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Unlike the member we don’t operate that way.

Mr. Roy: No? Oh no!

Mr. Speaker: Has the hon. member for Scarborough West no further questions?

All right, the hon. member for Downsview.

ADMINISTRATION OF COURTS

Mr. Singer: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Attorney General. Could the Attorney General tell me if he is persisting in the view held by his predecessor that the system for administration of the courts should be a part of his department rather than an independent group, bearing in mind the very strong objections to this approach made by the treasurer of the Law Society of Upper Canada and the very strong feelings expressed by several members of the judiciary.

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member will recall that at the time of the tabling of the report dealing with that subject matter, a fairly lengthy statement was made by my predecessor, which represents government policy at this moment.

Mr. Singer: Mr. Speaker, by way of supplementary, is that government policy under review or does it remain as irrevocable as the laws of the Medes and the Persians?

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, as part of that statement, the hon. member will recall there was to be a fair emphasis with respect to consultation with all those affected. Indeed, the Speech from the Throne made some reference to that. Following a review with those who are in fact interested in that subject, and we hope that interest would be quite widespread, we would then make some further announcement insofar as implementation is concerned.

Mr. Singer: Oh, so what the minister’s predecessor said is not necessarily effective.

Hon. Mr. Welch: No, I don’t think that’s a fair assumption. I think the statement of my predecessor has to be taken in its totality and the question of consultation is part of that.

Mr. Singer: Oh yes, subject to consultation.

Mr. Roy: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Supplementary.

Mr. Roy: If I might, I would ask the minister when we can expect to see legislation implementing this policy that he talked about with his predecessor. Can we expect it this session?

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member will recall, there was reference made to that in the Speech from the Throne, particularly the regionalization insofar as the court system is concerned. Legislation will be coming forward. But I want to underline what the Speech from the Throne said and what I have said in response to the hon. member for Downsview’s question, that there has to be some opportunity for people vitally interested in this subject in fact to make their views known as well.

Mr. Singer: Like the treasurer of the Law Society.

Hon. Mr. Welch: So the actual timing of this, of course, will depend to some extent on the degree and the scale or scope of that type of discussion.

Mr. Singer: Yes, doesn’t that mean a change in policy?

Mr. J. E. Stokes (Thunder Bay): Supplementary: Has the new Attorney General had an opportunity to read a letter he got from eminent members of the legal profession in Thunder Bay asking him to review the previous stand taken by his predecessor and to assure the public generally that there will be no obvious or less-than-obvious conflict of interest between the various factions within the Attorney General’s ministry?

Mr. R. F. Nixon: And all their conflicts of interest in office.

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, certainly the correspondence to which the hon. member makes reference is part of the review. I can assure the hon. member that this will be taken into account.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Port Arthur is next.

ROUTE OF PETROLEUM PIPELINE

Mr. J. F. Foulds (Port Arthur): A question, Mr. Speaker, of the Minister of Energy: Did the provincial cabinet take into account, when it decided to accede to the federal government’s decision to go ahead with the Sarnia-Montreal oil pipeline, the fact that the Sault Ste. Marie-Montreal link ultimately would cost less because it would be an integral part of the all-Canadian route?

Hon. W. D. McKeough (Minister of Energy): With respect, I am not quite sure what the member is driving at. Presumably if one is talking about miles of pipeline, additional pipeline is going to cost more, not less. I think what one has to consider is that the pipelines presently through the United States, either to St. Ignace and down or around the south shore of Lake Michigan, have to be filled to pay for them. I think it’s a real possibility that if you build more pipelines, then someone is going to have to pay for the unfilled pipelines. So I am not sure that the assumption on which the member’s question is made is entirely correct. It may well prove to be, but I am not sure that at this moment that’s clear.

Mr. Foulds: In view of the minister’s answer, in view of the fact that in Ontario we will ultimately have two pipelines, one coming through southern Ontario and one going through the north, does not the government’s assumption of the unfilled pipeline cost factor, in fact indicate that the doubling that it is now going through would lead to those results?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: The hon. member is making an assumption -- and I hope he’s completely right -- that there will in fact be oil to fill both pipelines. That is not entirely clear at this moment.

Mr. Foulds: A supplementary then, Mr. Speaker: Would not the northern route have lent itself to the possibility of the use of oil from the arctic islands and the Hudson Bay lowlands, and thus save costs there if those finds prove to be commercial?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: But not to the use of oil which may be found on the east coast, which at this moment I think is a better probability than the discoveries which the hon. member has mentioned. I hope we’re both right.

Mr. Foulds: Yes, but surely --

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Rainy River.

Mr. Foulds: Supplementary?

Mr. Bullbrook: I don’t think the member is going to get that pipeline up there.

Mr. Foulds: That’s because the member for Sarnia’s federal guys and those provincial guys chickened out!

EXTENSION OF NORONTAIR SERVICE

Mr. T. P. Reid (Rainy River): Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Transportation and Communications in regard to the Throne Speech announcing norOntair in northwestern Ontario. Is the minister in a position to tell us today those four communities that will be served by this system and when the minister expects this system will come into being?

Hon. J. R. Rhodes (Minister of Transportation and Communications): Mr. Speaker, the four communities that were referred to are the communities of Fort Frances, Dryden, Thunder Bay and Red Lake. Those are the four communities. I can’t give the member a definite time when this particular service will start. It is being looked at very seriously in the ministry at the present time.

Mr. Reid: Spring? Summer? Fall?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: I can’t give the member a definite time. I would hate to do that because I know he’ll come back at me very quickly.

Mr. Reid: This year?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: If I may steal a phrase from my colleague, the Minister of Health (Mr. Miller), “in the fullness of time.”

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Sudbury East.

Mr. P. D. Lawlor (Lakeshore): That was not very original.

Hon. Mr. Davis: It goes back before that time.

ASSISTANCE TO EMERGING SERVICES

Mr. E. W. Martel (Sudbury East): A question of the Minister of Community and Social Services: Based on the six recommendations made by David Cole of the ministry, and apparently concurred in by the Attorney General when he held the social policy ministry, has the government now decided how it intends to fund the emerging services which are in such financial straits, not only here in Toronto but in other parts of the province?

Hon. R. Brunelle (Minister of Community and Social Services): Mr. Speaker, is the member referring to information centres? I missed part of his question. Which services is he --

Mr. Cassidy: Boy! Is the minister ever in touch!

Mr. Martel: I’m referring to the six recommendations made by David Cole of this ministry to assist the emerging services, primarily the LIP groups, which have developed into emergency services. Mr. Cole of the ministry has made six recommendations. Is the government now in a position to indicate how it intends to financially assist these groups, which include the information services, but also co-ops and so on?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Mr. Speaker, we are funding many organizations which meet our criteria, and as the hon. member probably knows there will be a meeting with the various Metro groups with reference to various requested assets. This meeting will be held soon. We are presently funding several of these organizations.

Mr. Renwick: Why doesn’t the minister take it as notice and find out?

Mr. Martel: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker: In view of the fact that the minister is subsidizing to the tune of only $85,000, and that all of the agencies involved are Metro agencies, and in view of the fact he is meeting on Friday afternoon, doesn’t he think the government should be in a position at this time to indicate to the House how it intends to assist these groups?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Mr. Speaker, again, as the hon. member mentioned, we are meeting this group soon and we will be indicating to them what assistance will be provided.

Mr. Martel: Doesn’t the minister think the House should know?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Yes.

Mr. Deans: Doesn’t he think we should know?

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Waterloo North.

REPORT ON CONESTOGA COLLEGE

Mr. E. R. Good (Waterloo North): Thank you, Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Colleges and Universities. Could the minister inform the House what action is being taken regarding the recommendations in Dr. Porter’s report on the administrative problems at Conestoga College?

Hon. J. A. C. Auld (Minister of Colleges and Universities): I will attempt to do so in a day or two. I haven’t read the report yet, but I will find out what is going on.

Mr. Roy: Not yet? He has been minister for two weeks now.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Sudbury.

COST OF ADVERTISING DENTURE PROGRAMME

Mr. Germa: Mr. Speaker, a question of the Minister of Health: With reference to all this fancy advertising I see in the newspapers regarding the low-cost denture programme, could he tell the House the total cost of this programme? And secondly, how does he justify spending public funds to promote private business?

Mr. R. F. Nixon: The hon. member for Ottawa East asked that earlier this week.

Mr. Roy: I asked him that last week, but he didn’t have a very good answer for me.

Hon. F. S. Miller (Minister of Health): He didn’t ask me that last week, I’m quite sure of that.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Let the minister see if he can improve on the answer.

Hon. Mr. Miller: Yes; the total cost of the programme, I am told, was $30,000. The justification for the programme would be that of almost any governmental programme of information. A programme of providing low-cost dentures was made available and it was necessary to let the people know about that programme and its availability in their immediate area.

Mr. Martel: It is called back scratching.

Mr. Roy: I am glad he didn’t say, “in the fullness of time.”

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Minister of Housing has the answer to a question --

Mr. Germa: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. L. A. Braithwaite (Etobicoke): Supplementary.

Mr. Speaker: Well, I think the member who asked the question is entitled to one supplementary.

Mr. Germa: Mr. Speaker, I wonder how the minister would justify including the names and addresses of dentists as being public information or governmental information?

Hon. G. A. Kerr (Solicitor General): Dentists serve the public, don’t they?

Hon. Mr. Miller: Interestingly enough, a number of municipalities, and particularly the welfare groups in them and people in the communities, had clamoured for a listing of the names of the dentists who were available to provide the service and who had volunteered to do so.

Mr. Roy: Why didn’t the dentists do it?

An hon. member: There were only two.

Hon. Mr. Miller: I think the average is a little better than that. I think probably one out of five licensed dentists in the Province of Ontario are participating. There were about 600 names.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: There was a supplementary; the hon. member for Etobicoke.

Mr. Braithwaite: Will the minister state whether his department condones the placing of advertisements by private dentists, advertising the fact they have these technicians?

And in the light of the same advertisements placed by these dentists, does the $30,000 to which the minister referred include the cost of these advertisements or have the dentists paid for these themselves?

Hon. Mr. Miller: I’m not specifically aware of the privately-placed advertisements. I understand that advertising by dentists as such is governed by the regulations written by the Royal College of Dental Surgeons of Ontario and that they would have to operate under the constraints of those regulations.

Mr. Braithwaite: A further supplementary: in view of the fact that this matter has already been brought to the attention of the minister’s predecessor in the House, and since there have been individual dentists who have been putting these sort of advertisements in local papers, would the minister look into this matter and report back to this House as to what steps his ministry is taking?

Secondly, I don’t think I got an answer as to whether or not these ads have been paid for by the government out of the $30,000 to which the minister referred.

Hon. Mr. Miller: I think the hon. member and I would need to look at specific advertisements to decide what he was talking about. Certainly we paid for no advertisements other than the ones the member for Sudbury has just shown us.

Mr. Roy: A full-page ad.

Hon. Mr. Miller: As I understand, there were some advertisements placed by the Ontario Dental Association, which did not name specific dentists but, in the main, gave the fact that low-cost denture service was available, and I believe a number to which a person could call for information. It is also my understanding that these advertisements were paid for by the association rather than by individual dentists in that group.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Minister of Housing.

OHC BUDGET

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The hon. member for Scarborough West asked yesterday: In the light of the vigorous housing efforts planned, why have the budget estimates of OHC dropped by $20 million, according to the most recent issue -- Jan. 31, 1974, table 5 -- of Ontario finances? They are down from $69 million to $49 million.

I’m now in a position to advise the hon. member that the ministry informed the Treasurer, for his quarterly report, that in the last quarter of the year we were going to underspend our mortgage requirements by $20 million.

Mr. Deans: Why?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: The reason for this is that in the previous fiscal year OHC stopped lending money on high-rise condominiums since there were adequate private funds flowing into that area of the housing market and the supply of such housing at that time was sufficient. This decision resulted in lower commitments of funds and hence lower cash flows for 1973-1974. It has no bearing on our budget for 1974-1975.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Lewis: A supplementary: Is the minister telling the House then that there wasn’t sufficient imagination within the Ontario Housing Corp., or within the Ministry of Housing, to find an alternative use for the $20 million, given the housing crisis in Ontario? Are they that bankrupt as a department?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: No, Mr. Speaker, I was not suggesting that at all. I am suggesting that there was a change in the cash flow and the mortgaging requirements of OHC.

Mr. Singer: Oh nonsense.

Mr. Lewis: The money was dormant; like everything else in housing.

Mr. Deans: I think to say there were not sufficient people looking for mortgages --

Mr. Speaker: Is this a supplementary?

Mr. Deans: I did say that. I’m sorry.

Mr. Speaker: Well there was so much noise I didn’t hear the hon. member. If that was a supplementary I’ll permit it.

Mr. Deans: Is the minister saying that there were not sufficient numbers of people looking for mortgages that that $20 million couldn’t have been utilized?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, it is not a function of OHC to supplement the mortgage market in this province.

Mr. Lewis: Of course it is. That is what the money was there for.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: The hon. members would have been the first to complain if we had diverted mortgage money from one area to another without the authority.

Mr. Lewis: No we would not.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Of course they would.

Mr. Lewis: On a point of order: We would not have complained had the minister diverted that mortgage money from condominiums into low- or middle-income housing, not at all.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Lewis: Why didn’t he?

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Kent.

Mr. Singer: Terrible bankruptcy of imagination.

U.S.-CANADA FREIGHT SURCHARGE

Mr. J. P. Spence (Kent): Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Transportation and Communications. Is the minister aware that two weeks ago the United States interstate commerce commission imposed a six per cent surcharge tax on freight, which is being applied the entire distance from the American port of origin to the Canadian destination, whereas a surcharge should only apply as far as a Canadian point of entry?

Mr. Roy: Good question.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: It is an excellent question. Mr. Speaker, no, I was not aware that this was so and I would appreciate if the hon. member can make the information available to me. I will certainly look into that situation.

Mr. Speaker: The Minister of Natural Resources has the answer to a question asked previously.

COMMUNICATIONS-6 INC.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Downsview asked me a question last week. He wanted me to explain: “the basis on which payments in the amount of $59,578 were made to a firm of consultants and writers on public relations to manage the information and public relations programme for the historical parks in that year.” He also wanted to know who they were, who found them and on whose authority this expenditure was made.

He asked further, by way of supplementary: “Could the minister shed a little light on who Communications-6 Inc. really is?”

My reply is that in the formation of the new government ministries on April 1, 1972, the direction of the Huronia historical parks of the former Department of Tourism and Information was assigned to the new Ministry of Natural Resources. Prior to this transfer, the Department of Tourism and Information had established in 1968 a committee of senior officials, including the deputy minister of that department, to select a firm to develop a public relations and publications programme for Huronia historical parks. This committee requested several public relations firms to submit formal presentations, and following an analysis of these presentations the firm of Communications-6 Inc. was selected.

On the basis of satisfactory past performance, the details of the annual public relations programme were established each year by the director of the historical sites branch and transmitted to the consultants.

A similar arrangement was negotiated and confirmed in May, 1973, for the 1973-1974 fiscal year, with the same firm based on their performance in 1972. On the basis of this arrangement my ministry approved the accounts for payment. Subsequently, in accordance with normal ministry policy, the director of our historical sites branch, whose duties include the management of the Huronia historical parks, was informed that in future proposals must be invited from several public relations firms and Management Board approval obtained for the award of that contract.

In this connection I might add, and also inform the members, that some two weeks ago we invited proposals from 16 firms for the forthcoming season.

The firm of Communications-6 Inc. has its head office in Montreal with a major office in Toronto and affiliations in Ottawa, New York, London, Paris and Brussels. The president is Mr. C. R. Haworth and we were advised by Mr. Haworth that the firm was incorporated in December, 1963.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Minister of Colleges and Universities has the answer to a previous question.

Mr. Foulds: Has he been here before?

REPORT ON CONESTAGA COLLEGE

Hon. Mr. Auld: Mr. Speaker, I have checked my files and I have the answer to a question which the hon. member asked a moment ago.

I understand that in November the board of governors approached my predecessor to ask him to institute a study of all aspects of the operation of the college. My predecessor appointed Dr. Arthur Porter of the University of Toronto. He submitted his report on Feb. 10 and the college board is dealing with it.

Mr. Good: A supplementary then, Mr. Speaker: Since the minister authorized the investigation into the administration of the college, is the ministry not inserting itself into the matter any further in view of the difference of opinion, in the published report, between the faculty and the administrative staff at the college?

Hon. Mr. Auld: Mr. Speaker, my understanding is that the minister simply appointed a person to look into the situation at the request of the college board and the college board, as part of its responsibility, has taken the report and is going to deal with it.

Mr. Speaker: I believe the hon. Minister of Housing has the answer to another question.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, I have the answer to a question asked by the member for Wentworth yesterday. However, the hon. member has kindly informed me that he has additional information which I suggested he supply, so perhaps I could defer the answer to his question until I’ve received that information.

Mr. Roy: Good idea; sit down.

Mr. Speaker: I believe it is the New Democratic Party’s turn. The hon. member for Sandwich-Riverside.

PENSIONS FOR PERMANENTLY DISABLED WORKMEN

Mr. F. A. Burr (Sandwich-Riverside): Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Premier --

Mr. Martel: If the member can get his attention.

Mr. Burr: -- regarding pensions for permanently disabled workmen. Is there any other pension, federal or provincial, that has not been escalated, within let us say the last 10 years?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I will have to get that information for the hon. member. I don’t know, but I shall endeavour to find out.

Mr. Burr: Supplementary question, Mr. Speaker: Is there anything about injured workmen that makes them impervious to the effects of inflation, and did the remarks in the Throne Speech indicate that some help was on its way to these people?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, to answer the first part of the question, there is nothing that I know of that makes injured workmen or any other group in this society impervious to the effects of inflation.

As far as the second part of the question is concerned, quite obviously matters of government policy will be announced here in the House at the appropriate time.

Mr. Martel: Oh, the Premier just wags his finger at Ottawa all the time and says what they are not doing.

Hon. Mr. Davis: We wouldn’t do that.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Peel South.

VETERANS’ LAND ACT

Mr. R. D. Kennedy (Peel South): Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Housing.

Mr. R. F. Ruston (Essex-Kent): A member of cabinet.

Mr. Deans: Why doesn’t the member ask him when he is in cabinet meetings?

Mr. Roy: Is the member dissatisfied with him too?

Mr. Kennedy: In view of the housing needs here and the impending closedown of the Veterans’ Land Act on March 31, I was wondering if the minister would communicate with the federal Minister of Veterans’ Affairs to determine if this is under reconsideration and if indeed a continuation is warranted?

Mr. Lewis: It depends on the federal Tories.

Mr. Bullbrook: Very good question.

Mr. Singer: Twenty million dollars the government didn’t use would have financed a lot of houses.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, the provisions of the Veterans’ Land Act have in fact --

Mr. J. R. Breithaupt (Kitchener): That Act is as old as this government.

Hon. J. W. Snow (Minister of Government Services): Not quite.

Mr. Kennedy: It’s been a very successful Act.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: It has been a very successful Act.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, there has been a very successful programme under the Veterans’ Land Act.

Mr. Bullbrook: Why doesn’t the minister take this question as notice? Take it as notice.

Mr. Lewis: He can’t reply to this kind of question without advance information. He’d best take it as notice.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: I don’t need it. I will be meeting with the hon. Mr. Basford in a couple of weeks. I understand it is due to expire within that period; however, I will be discussing it with him. I think it is a sound suggestion, if that interest rate can be maintained under present-day conditions.

Mr. Singer: He isn’t the Minister of Veterans’ Affairs.

Mr. Bullbrook: Is the member satisfied with that answer?

Mr. Speaker: There were about five members of the Liberal Party, and I am certain I don’t know who was first.

Mr. Bullbrook: The fellow he is meeting has nothing to do with veterans’ affairs. Is the member satisfied with that?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. There are at least four members before the hon. member for York Centre (Mr. Deacon). The hon. member for Windsor-Walkerville, I think.

SALES TAX ON SPORTS EQUIPMENT

Mr. B. Newman (Windsor-Walkerville): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a question of the Minister of Revenue, if I can get his attention. As he is walking back to his seat, I would like to go on with the question --

Hon. A. K. Meen (Minister of Revenue): Me?

Mr. Roy: Yes.

Mr. B. Newman: He is the minister.

Mr. Roy: Yes, he is the fellow.

Mr. Good: He’s not quite sure yet.

Mr. Martel: It was so long in coming.

Mr. B. Newman: In the interest of promoting fitness and encouraging greater participation in amateur sport, is the minister considering eliminating the sales tax on sports equipment that is purchased by organized amateur sports organizations, especially those recognized by the Ministry of Community and Social Services?

Hon. Mr. Meen: Mr. Speaker, my Ministry of Revenue administers the laws as established by this Legislature, and particularly as recommended by the Treasurer and Minister of Economics and Intergovernmental Affairs. I don’t think it would be fair to say that I was considering that.

I suppose it is fair to say that since the Retail Sales Tax Act does come under my ministry we have occasion to review matters such as this, but the final decision is not one that is in my hands alone.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: That’s right.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Windsor West.

Mr. B. Newman: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: A supplementary? Yes.

Mr. B. Newman: May I ask the minister if he is considering issuing exemption certificates to amateur sports organizations in the same way that exemption certificates are issued to school boards so they may purchase athletic equipment and not pay the sales tax?

Hon. Mr. Meen: Mr. Speaker, that is a matter I have been looking at, but it offers a considerable number of problems and I am not at this time prepared to say I would issue such a certificate.

Mr. Singer: It is under review, as the front bench says. Everything is under review.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Windsor West.

RECONSTRUCTION OF HIGHWAY 401 NEAR WINDSOR

Mr. E. J. Bounsall (Windsor West): A question of the Minister of Transportation and Communications.

Mr. Martel: That is the minister.

Mr. Bounsall: Mr. Speaker, where is the schedule for reconstruction of the right-hand lane of Highway 401 proceeding westward to Windsor, from about 10 to 15 miles out, which for the last five to seven years has been reminiscent of the old corduroy roads in northern Ontario? It was supposed to be started and completed this spring and summer --

Mr. Foulds: There are new corduroy roads in northern Ontario.

Mr. Martel: He forgot all about those roads. Some of his best speeches in the House have been about roads.

Mr. Stokes: What about the new corduroy roads in northern Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, I would like very much to answer the hon. member’s question if I could have heard him behind the noise made by his colleagues. I think he referred to Highway 401, but if they would quieten down for him I would be pleased to hear it again.

Mr. Martel: No one said a word.

Mr. Bounsall: It is about a portion of 10 to 15 miles out of Windsor, heading west, the right hand lane, which has been reminiscent of the northern corduroy roads for the last five to seven years.

Mr. Ruston: All the rates are up.

Mr. Bounsall: When will the construction start, and will it be commenced and finished this summer?

Mr. Ruston: The contract’s been let.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: I can’t give the member a direct answer at this time. I will be pleased to provide the information as to when it can be done.

Mr. Roy: Try an indirect answer.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: I appreciate that the member recognizes that there is a need for highways in the north, though.

Mr. Ruston: The roads will be completed by September.

Mr. Martel: The minister should have told the northwestern Ontario Chamber of Commerce that.

Mr. Speaker: I thought the hon. member for St. George had a question?

ASSESSMENT NOTICES

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Revenue.

Would he clarify for this House the policy which appears to have been arrived at whereby no assessment notices are to be extended this year to the people of Ontario, save and except for new construction and special circumstances, thus denying a large proportion of people the right of appeal?

Hon. Mr. Mean: Mr. Speaker, I have no information on that at the moment. I will get it for the hon. member.

Mrs. Campbell: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker: I wonder if the minister would also look into the situation in the matter of a condominium project in the riding of St. George, namely 40 Homewood, where there has been an appeal successfully made by those who did take title in the fall of 1972, but no further appeal has been heard, although it has been launched by the commissioner as of June, 1973; meanwhile those who were not included in that appeal are faced with an old assessment and no right to appeal at this time?

Hon. Mr. Meen: I will look into that matter, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for High Park.

HICKLING-JOHNSTON REPORT ON MINISTRY OF HEALTH

Mr. M. Shulman (High Park): A question of the Minister of Health, Mr. Speaker: Is the minister willing to make public the report prepared for and about his department by the firm of Hickling-Johnston?

Hon. Mr. Miller: I must say that question from the member came as something of a surprise.

Mr. Ruston: One a day!

Mr. Germa: Just answer.

Mr. Ruston: An apple a day keeps the doctor away; the minister should try it.

Hon. Mr. Miller: If it would cut my OHIP premiums, I would do that. I really would have to learn more about that report because quite honestly at this point I don’t know much about the contents of it.

Mr. Shulman: A supplementary, if I may, Mr. Speaker: Will the minister familiarize himself with what is occurring in the ministry and report back to us on whether he is willing to make that report public or table it?

Hon. Mr. Miller: I may have misinterpreted the member’s question. Does he mean would I familiarize myself with what is happening in the ministry or with what the report says is happening within the ministry?

Mr. Stokes: Why not both?

Hon. Mr. Miller: I would be pleased to do so. I am doing my best to do the former and I will be pleased to do the latter.

Mr. Speaker: I think the hon. member for Kitchener is next.

EXPENDITURE BY CHAIRMAN OF ONTARIO COUNCIL OF REGENTS

Mr. Breithaupt: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Colleges and Universities. Has the minister ordered a review of the apparent expenditure by the chairman of the Ontario Council of Regents for the colleges of applied arts and technology, and his expenditures for a hospitality suite during the meetings of the regents as referred to in the auditor’s report? Will the minister provide us with the details of the expenses of that operation and the persons who received the hospitality?

Hon. Mr. Auld: Mr. Speaker, I have made inquiries about this. I am informed that the chairman of the Council of Regents lives in Markham. When the council has its bi-monthly meetings they last for about two days. He has premises in the hotel where the meeting takes place, not primarily for his own convenience but for meetings with members of the board -- individual meetings and that sort of thing rather than the general meeting. I am informed that, in fact, it is probably less costly to have him staying in the hotel than it is to have him going back and forth to Markham by taxi. I can get the detailed rundown if the hon. member would like it.

Mr. Martel: Let him try using a car like the rest of us.

Hon. Mr. Auld: I haven’t read the detailed part in the auditor’s report myself but I assume that the details are there. If they aren’t, I’ll get further information for him.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Lakeshore.

AGE OF CONSENT FOR ABORTIONS

Mr. Lawlor: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I have a question of the Minister of Health.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Lawlor: What are the minister’s reasons, metaphysical, biological or otherwise, for reducing the age at which abortions may be obtained without parental consent to 16?

Hon. Mr. Miller: Mr. Speaker, the member has misinterpreted the regulation in the same way as the press has.

Mr. Roy: Straighten us out.

Hon. Mr. Miller: The Province of Ontario by itself does not set the conditions under which an abortion may be performed. This is done by federal statute. The change in regulations which was made by the Province of Ontario, and given some press publicity last week, dealt with the age at which consent could be given for any surgical operation performed within a hospital, and of course abortion is a surgical operation.

It was not aimed at abortions per se. It was to cover a group of people who, for one reason or other, either had not official guardians or parents who could sign for them or who, unfortunately in this mobile modern society, did not relate to their parents and so were not in contact with them. A number of these people were coming into hospitals in need of all kinds of surgical procedures and legally there was no way of providing them. Some of them were falsifying names and ages and leaving the hospitals in very delicate legal conditions if they served them.

Mr. Lawlor: Supplementary: Would the hon. minister consider excluding this particular category of surgical operation from the regulations?

Hon. Mr. Miller: I certainly will listen to any suggestions that are given at this point in time. I wouldn’t want to say that we could necessarily start making exclusions of one type or another, because I think --

Mr. Reid: Abortion is not one type or another.

Hon. Mr. Miller: -- exclusions can be very dangerous.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Ottawa East.

Mr. Roy: I defer to my friend, Mr. Speaker, thank you.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Essex South.

POINT PELEE NATIONAL PARK

Mr. D. A. Paterson (Essex South): Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Natural Resources. Has he or his policy group made a decision as yet as to whether the 1974 licences for sand-sucking operations off Pt. Pelee National Park are going to be issued or not?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to report to the hon. member that that decision has been reached.

Mr. Paterson: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: The minister says the decision has been reached?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: It has been reached.

Mr. Paterson: And what is that decision?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: That decision? The decision was that the two licences would not be reissued.

USE OF RESOURCES IN ARMSTRONG AREA

Mr. Stokes: I have a question of the Minister of Natural Resources. In view of the social and economic problems experienced by the people of Armstrong, and in light of the fact there are several hundred thousand cords of good merchantable timber in the area, will the minister undertake to insist that the prime licence-holder utilize that timber for a saw-log operation for the benefit of the people in the community of Armstrong, or turn those timber stands over to somebody else who is prepared to use them to look after the social and economic needs of that town?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: I can relate to the hon. member for Thunder Bay that this government is very concerned with the future and the people of the Armstrong area because of certain actions of the federal government.

With regard to the resources in that particular area, I would point out to him that they have been allocated to the St. Lawrence Corp. for processing in the Red Rock area. I have been in verbal discussion with the company. They are to present to me a proposal which will fully utilize all those resources. But they did point out to me in their discussion that if there were going to be a continuous operation at Red Rock and if the viability of that particular mill were to be maintained, it may well be that the resources in the Armstrong area would have to be directed to the Red Rock mill. That was only in a verbal discussion and we are waiting for something from them in a more formal way at the present time.

Of course, we have in our hand a proposal from a gentleman by the name of Buchanan, I believe, who is most interested in establishing an operation in the Armstrong area; and we are certainly considering that aspect too.

Mr. Stokes: Supplementary.

Mr. Speaker: We have already exceeded the question period by about three minutes.

Petitions.

Presenting reports.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present to the members of the Legislature a copy of a report of the advisory committee on the revision of the Mining Act.

The members will recall that this committee was established approximately two years ago under the chairmanship of the present Minister of Transportation and Communications, my former parliamentary assistant, the hon. member for Sault Ste. Marie (Mr. Rhodes).

In the course of carrying out its responsibilities, the committee examined comparable legislation and situations in several other jurisdictions. Their aim was to ensure that Ontario continued to be the leader in respect to mining legislation.

I am indeed grateful to the members of the committee for the very thorough study that they have carried out. I have had a brief opportunity to peruse the report and more particularly the recommendations. In my own opinion, there is a great deal of merit in many of the recommendations. I feel sure there will be revisions to our legislation which will result from the discussions that will flow from the study of this report.

At the same time, I want to make clear that the government has rejected recommendation No. 51 which proposes mining in provincial parks.

Consistent with tabling this report in the Legislature, it is my intention to make copies available to the executive of such organizations as the prospectors and developers, the Ontario Mining Association and the Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy. The views of these organizations, along with the recommendations of individuals, other organizations, as well as the views and comments of the individual members of this House, will be of great benefit to me and my staff.

It is proposed that all such views and recommendations be submitted prior to the end of June. This will allow the summer and the early fall to distill the recommendations in the report and the reactions to the recommendations through the course of the summer, in the interest of developing the appropriate revisions to the legislation for the fall sitting of this Legislature.

Once more, I would like to express my appreciation to my colleague who chaired the committee -- he did an excellent job -- and to the individual members of the committee, and to all those who have or will have or will be assisting us in any way in the development of this legislation.

Mr. Carruthers from the select committee appointed to prepare the lists of members to compose the standing committees of the House, presented the committee’s report which was read as follows:

“Your Committee recommends that the lists of standing committees ordered by the House be composed of the following members:

“1. PROCEDURAL AFFAIRS: Messrs. Bales, Bounsall, Burr, Carton, Dymond, Edighoffer, Ewen, Henderson, Hodgson (Victoria-Haliburton), Johnston, McNie, Morrow, Smith (Hamilton Mountain), Smith (Nipissing), Spence, Timbrell, Turner -- 17.

“2. ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE: Messrs. Bullbrook, Carruthers, Davison, Downer, Drea, Givens, Havrot, Lane, Lawlor, Lawrence, MacBeth, Nixon (Dovercourt), Renwick, Ruston, Singer, Taylor, Walker, Wardle, Yaremko -- 19.

“3. SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT: Messrs. Apps, Belanger, Campbell (Mrs.), Deacon, Dukszta, Eaton, Foulds, Hamilton, Irvine, Jessiman, Leluk, Martel, Morningstar, Newman (Windsor-Walkerville), Parrott, Reilly, Roy, Scrivener (Mrs.), Villeneuve -- 19.

“4. RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT: Messrs. Allan, Beckett, Evans, Gaunt, Gilbertson, Good, Laughren, MacDonald, Maeck, McIlveen, McNeil, Nuttall, Paterson, Rollins, Root, Sargent, Stokes, Wiseman, Yakabuski -- 19.

“5. MISCELLANEOUS ESTIMATES: Messrs. Cassidy, Drea, Evans, Gisborn, Haggerty, Hamilton, Jessiman, Leluk, Nixon (Dovercourt), Nuttall, Parrott, Riddell, Root, Scrivener (Mrs.), Stokes, Villeneuve, Wardle, Worton -- 18.

“6. PUBLIC ACCOUNTS: Messrs. Allan, Dymond, Ferrier, Germa, Lane, MacBeth, McIlveen, Reid, Ruston, Taylor, Wiseman, Yakabuski -- 12.

“7. REGULATIONS: Messrs. Belanger, Braithwaite, Deans, Havrot, Johnston, Maeck, Morningstar, Morrow, Paterson, Reilly, Turner, Young -- 12.

“The quorum of committees 1 to 5 and of the private bills committee to be seven in each case. The quorum of committees 6 and 7 to be five in each case.”

Mr. B. Newman: Mr. Speaker, I would like to request of the government that they consider permitting substitution of individuals to all committees prior to the sitting of the committee. The estimates committee now makes provision so that before the estimates are being discussed --

Mr. Speaker: Order please. I must point out to the hon. member that the matter of substitutions was dealt with previously. The motion today does not deal with substitutions on these particular committees. That motion has been before the House previously.

Mr. Lawlor: But the opposition was ignored.

Mr. Deans: Mr. Speaker, if I may, sir, the matter of substitutions was a matter of discussion within the committee this morning, and a decision was reached in the committee that the chairman would make representation to the House leader of the government party to allow limited substitution on all committees. I think that’s probably what the hon. member for Windsor-Walkerville was talking about. If not contained in the report of the committee, it was certainly a decision of the committee that the chairman would speak with the House leader of the government and ask on behalf of the committee that some limited substitution be permitted.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Mr. Speaker, following the discussion in the House the other day, I think I intimated to the hon. members that I certainly had an open mind on the matter. When the chairman approaches me we will discuss the matter and I will report back to the House.

Mr. Renwick: Is it just a matter for discussion?

Report adopted.

Mr. Speaker: Motions.

Introduction of bills.

YORK COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION TEACHERS’ DISPUTE ACT

Hon. Mr. Wells moves first reading of bill intituled, An Act respecting a Certain Dispute between the York County Board of Education and Certain of its Teachers.

Some hon. members: No!

Some hon. members: Explain!

Mr. Lewis: No. Surely we can have an explanation.

Mr. Speaker: We will defer the --

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. The minister was not in for the order of business entitled government ministerial statements. Certainly it would be quite in order to revert, surely, if the minister would have a statement to make before we are asked to vote on the bill.

Mr. Speaker: If the House is agreeable I see no reason we should not revert and that the minister should make a statement at this point.

Hon. T. L. Wells (Minister of Education): Mr. Speaker, I wish to introduce legislation today to bring to an end the long dispute and disruption of educational programmes in the secondary schools of the York county Board of Education.

Negotiations relating to the 1973-1974 contract began with York county board and its secondary school teachers in April, 1973, which is more than 10 months ago. Free collective bargaining has proceeded through this extended period, assisted in the latter stages by the services of a mediator from the Ministry of Labour. The past 5½ weeks have been marked by a withdrawal of services by a majority of York county secondary school teachers. Unfortunately, because of this situation, the secondary school students of York county have been severely disadvantaged due to their lack of access to a full educational programme.

Mr. Speaker, members will recall that about 667 York county secondary school teachers took part in a mass resignation last November. These resignations were to have taken effect on Dec. 31 but as part of an arrangement that affected teachers in several areas of the province, it was agreed to defer them until Jan. 31, 1974, in order to allow further bargaining to continue.

Bargaining, supported by mediation, did indeed continue, but as the Jan. 31 deadline approached it became apparent that a settlement was not going to be achieved at that time. Mr. Terry Mancini, the Ministry of Labour mediator who had been working with the York county board and its teachers since early January, wrote a report and recommendation on the situation on Jan. 30. In it he said, and I quote:

“The writer feels that a settlement could have been achieved if the matter of pupil-teacher ratio issue could be resolved. However, both parties remain adamant and refuse to settle this issue. It is my opinion that a closing of the schools by either party is not in the best interests of all concerned and strongly recommend that the parties submit this dispute to voluntary arbitration.”

As Minister of Education I put the proposal for voluntary arbitration to both parties at that time and strongly recommended that this course be followed in order to keep York county secondary schools open and operating normally. Unfortunately, the parties could not agree on the terms of arbitration and the result was that the 667 teachers withdrew their services.

Mr. Speaker, with settlements having been achieved in all other parts of the province where mass resignations had been submitted, it seemed clear to me that the best solution to the York county situation was to encourage both parties to negotiate their way out of the dispute and to reach an agreement between themselves with the participation of Mr. Mancini, who continued to provide skilled assistance in keeping negotiations moving forward.

Mr. Speaker, I personally spent many hours dealing with both parties in a concerted effort to achieve a negotiated settlement. However, five more weeks passed without significant progress, with the schools in the meantime able to provide only minimal progress at best to their students.

Last Friday, negotiations between the board and the teachers clearly reached a state of impasse, with neither party willing to adjust its position in a way that would lead to further meaningful discussions. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, late Friday evening I again presented privately to the negotiating teams of both the teachers and the board a proposal that they proceed voluntarily to refer the items remaining in dispute to a board of arbitration.

Later that evening the chief negotiator of the board, Mr. Honsberger, indicated the board’s willingness to accept my proposal and he signed a document to affirm this. The teachers’ negotiating team advised me on Saturday that it was unwilling to accept the proposal for voluntary arbitration.

At this 11th hour, Mr. Speaker, with voluntary arbitration obviously the most favourable option open to both parties, I called a further meeting of teacher and board representatives on Sunday morning. At this time I formally presented my proposal for voluntary arbitration, the proposal which I tabled in this House yesterday. Once again, Mr. Speaker, the chief negotiator for the board signed to affirm his acceptance and the teachers’ negotiating team refused. I asked the teachers to take another day to consider the proposal further, but last night they remained unchanged in their position.

Mr. Speaker, in all good conscience this government cannot allow this situation to continue, primarily because of the fact that students are caught in the middle of a situation over which they have no control and it is they who are suffering the consequences most severely. We have absolutely no alternative but to bring this stalemate to a conclusion.

This we are doing today with the introduction of legislation designed to settle all matters remaining in dispute between the board and its secondary school teachers. In considering this legislation and the solution it proposes, responsible persons would do well to remember very clearly the effects of these past 5½ weeks on the secondary students of York county. They have been deprived of about 10 per cent of their school year. Some York county students may miss out on scholarships because of the dispute, and others may find their post-secondary education plans changed also because of it. Some students are reported to have dropped out of school.

Mr. Speaker, the objective of the legislation is simply to return York county secondary schools to normal operation again. Being realistic, I imagine that it will be variously interpreted as being anti-teacher or anti-board. It is neither. It is pro-student. Students and their parents have the right to an education, and they have been deprived of that right for too long.

The legislation which we hope will correct the situation has two main features. It calls for teachers to return to school immediately and for the board of education to resume their employment. It requires that all items remaining in dispute be referred to a three-person board of arbitration for settlement. Each party will select one member of the board of arbitration, and these two persons will jointly select a third person to act as chairman. If they cannot agree, I, as Minister of Education, will appoint an independent and objective person as chairman.

Procedures laid down for the board of arbitration will ensure fairness in judging the merits of the arguments put forward by both the teachers and the board of education.

Both parties will be called upon to write up their own lists of items they consider to be in dispute, and the board of arbitration will be required to look at all items on both lists and give each party ample opportunity to state its case on each item.

These aspects of the terms of reference of the board of arbitration deserve special mention. First, the board must consider pupil-teacher ratio as an arbitrable item. Second, the board of education’s latest salary offer must be considered as a floor by the board of arbitration; and in fact it is implemented by this legislation, effective September, 1973.

As I have said, Mr. Speaker, I am convinced that this legislation is on balance equally fair to both the York county Board of Education and its secondary school teachers. We are proceeding today because we feel that such legislation is in the public interest, and particularly the interests of the students of York county.

Further, Mr. Speaker, it is my sincere hope that both parties in York county will make one final effort to reach an agreement through further negotiations. I stand ready to withdraw this bill at a moment’s notice if an agreement were reached and ratified by both parties, and communicated to me while we are debating this bill in this Legislature. But I would say, Mr. Speaker, we cannot in good faith wait any longer.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Mr. Speaker, will you permit a question of clarification? Is the minister in his statement making it clear to the arbitrator that the pupil-teacher ratio is itself arbitrable, and not whether or not it should be an arbitrable item; if the minister gets the significance of that?

Mr. Lewis: Yes, he is saying that.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: In other words, government policy is being imposed in that regard and it reverses the trustees’ position.

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, that is the intention of the government in this bill. The section says pupil-teacher ratio is arbitrable and shall be deemed to be included as a matter in dispute; and the notice is referred to in section 1.

Mr. Lewis: May I also ask a point of clarification? Are there any penalty provisions in the bill, as the minister has laid it out, if teachers do not return; or is there a reference to the acceptance of resignations if they do not return?

Hon. Mr. Wells: The section says where, on the application of the board or a teacher, a judge of the Supreme Court is satisfied that the board or any teachers failed to comply with section 2, he may make an order requiring, as the case may be, the board to employ the teacher who has attempted to comply with section 2 or the teacher who has failed to comply with section 2 to resume his employment with the board, in accordance with this contract of employment in effect on Jan. 30, 1974.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: With your permission, Mr. Speaker, will the minister make it clear whether or not his ceilings apply to the arbitrators in this particular piece of legislation?

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, there is nothing in this legislation that refers to ceilings.

Mr. Lewis: Ceilings are not the problem anyway.

Hon. Mr. Wells: It is exactly as the suggestion made for voluntary arbitration that we talked about here last December. The arbitrator will consider the issues in dispute on their merits and bring down an award.

Mr. Speaker: Shall the motion for first reading of this bill carry?

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Those in favour of first reading of the bill will please say “aye”.

Those opposed will please say “nay”.

In my opinion the “ayes” have it.

Motion agreed to; first reading of the bill.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Any further bills?

Orders of the day.

Clerk of the House: The first order, resuming the adjourned debate on the amendment to the amendment to the motion for an address in reply to the speech of the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor at the opening of this session.

Mr. Speaker: Order please, the hon. member for Beaches-Woodbine has the floor.

THRONE SPEECH DEBATE

Mr. T. A. Wardle (Beaches-Woodbine): Mr. Speaker, my first remarks in this debate on the Speech from the Throne are a tribute to you as the Speaker of this Legislature. The office of the Speaker is one of honour, dignity, tradition and of the greatest importance in the conduct of our parliamentary system of government. You have carried with distinction, good humour and fairness this heavy responsibility, and you are held in high regard, I am sure, by all members of this House.

Mr. Speaker, there are a number of important matters raised in the Speech from the Throne and hopefully each will be dealt with during the present session. However, before speaking on some of these matters I should like to make a few comments on previous suggestions I have made in the Throne Speech debate during the last session and also in the budget debate at that time.

One of the suggestions that I made in the Throne Speech debate a year ago was the necessity of stopping immediately the sale of recreational land in Ontario to people who are not Canadian citizens. We know that already large amounts of recreational land in Ontario have been bought up by Americans and people from overseas. This has had the effect of forcing up prices and, I am sure, putting out of reach of the average Canadian the purchase of land in these recreational areas. This would mean of course that the title to recreational lands now held by Americans and others would still be valid but future sales of new land or lands already held would be permitted only to Canadian citizens.

Mr. Speaker, in the budget debate in the last session I spoke of the need for assistance to small business. It seems to me that more and more the business of this province is going into the hands of big business enterprises. This trend is alarming indeed for the small merchant and the small businessman of this province. These people are faced with increased taxes, increased rent on their premises, increased wages, increased costs of raw materials and general increases in the cost of doing business. They often lack the cash resources required today.

Income and corporation taxes take a large slice of any profits they may realize, which certainly does not leave enough money for expansion. It seems many of them are merely holding their own and many are fighting a losing battle against the large shopping plazas which surround suburban areas of many of the cities and towns in Ontario.

There are several ways that the government could help these people: first, by relieving them of some of the tax burden; second, by providing low-cost loans for rehabilitation of stores and business premises; third, by granting them remuneration for the cost of collecting provincial sales taxes, and fourth, by offering expert advice when required.

I suggested before, and I suggest again, that the government should set up what I would call an advisory council of independent businessmen who would act as a liaison between government and small business.

Mr. Speaker, and fellow members, I intend in this debate to present the record of the government and to state the advantages and benefits which are contained in the number of challenging proposals, programmes and policies of the Throne Speech.

Mr. M. Cassidy (Ottawa Centre): That would try even the member’s imagination.

Mr. E. W. Martel (Sudbury East): He shouldn’t embarrass himself.

Mr. Wardle: I want to speak at some length about the imaginative and innovative proposals contained in the Throne Speech related to housing, consumer protection, correctional services --

Mr. Cassidy: Oh, come on, we don’t believe it.

Mr. Wardle: -- programmes for small businesses, and new developments for daycare centres.

Mr. Cassidy: I must have been in some other chamber the day of the speech.

Mr. Wardle: But before I proceed to launch into specifics of these public policy issues, there is an urgent need to consider, on a broader perspective and a wider scale, the purposes and goals of these programmes and policies contained in the Throne Speech.

What underlies the proposals and policies of the Throne Speech? It is a philosophy of concern for the individual citizen in Ontario. The government believes that policies must always be designed to assist and encourage the individual to function effectively and creatively in a free society; to develop the skills necessary for him or her to reach his or her full potential; to encourage a climate of individual initiative and independence free of increasing regulation and regimentation from a variety of social and economic institutions, and yet provide a sufficient number of buffer zones and mechanisms for people to act freely from discrimination and suppression.

Mr. Cassidy: The member is reading it very effectively. It must have been written by a Harvard speech writer.

Mr. Wardle: It is the underlying philosophy of the government to continue to emphasize these principles and to see to it that these principles constitute the thrust of implementation in the programmes and policies of this Throne Speech.

It is also important to remind hon. members that the government is consciously aware of the principles of balance which needs to be continually maintained between the affairs and activities of the private sector and the public sector. Unhealthy, dangerous and unwise would be the most descriptive terms to define the state of man’s affairs when government tends to encroach continuously on the private actions of citizens and groups.

As Progressive Conservatives, our philosophy is suitably attuned to understand and appreciate the sensitivities of all Ontario citizens --

Mr. P. D. Lawlor (Lakeshore): The government intervenes much too much these days.

Mr. Wardle: -- in not wanting to realize a trend of growing government involvement and participation in our economy and society that lacks coherent direction, meets specific objectives and responds to well-defined needs of our citizenry.

What we, as Progressive Conservatives, attach considerable importance to is the role of the individual --

Mr. Lawlor: The member is one of the last true Progressive Conservatives.

Mr. Wardle: -- in a complex urban and industrial world, in helping and assisting him or her not just to cope with massive change, but to function freely, effectively and creatively.

I Mr. Speaker, now to the government’s programmes and policies. First, housing.

As I have mentioned previously, the government’s concern for the role of the individual in Ontario’s society is based on assisting and encouraging him or her to make a significant contribution to the individual’s development and to society.

With this basic objective in mind, the government has undertaken several new initiatives to meet the housing problem. One of these major initiatives announced recently by the government was the Ontario Home Renewal Programme. The major purpose of this new programme is to assist residents in municipalities in retaining and updating existing housing stock where the federal Neighbourhood Improvement Programme and the Residential Rehabilitation Assistance Programme do not apply as defined by Central Mortgage and Housing Corp.

The form of this provincial assistance will be in the form of municipal grants; low-interest loans amounting to approximately $10 million. The funds will be divided on a per capita basis of $4 for municipalities of 5,000 population or less; $3 per capita for cities between 5,000 and 100,000; and $2 per capita to cities of more than 100,000.

The other significant feature of this programme is that there is no maximum or minimum on the grants and loans, thus permitting the municipalities to have as much flexibility built into the programme as is possible.

Administration is to be central at the regional and local levels. It is but one more example of the government’s strong and sincere effort to decentralize the operation of a provincial programme and attests to our endeavours to make municipal government vital and decisive -- despite rather unfounded claims of current critics.

I know what the Ontario task force on housing recommended. I also know that the government has a number of policy options in the housing field under consideration and review. I would trust that among these options to minimize the housing problems are the possibilities of providing loan assistance to families for purchasing land on which mobile homes could be placed -- that is in certain sections of Ontario. I realize that high land costs and very restrictive zoning regulations presently prohibit mobile homes from being considered as a viable housing alternative.

Another innovative measure that could be considered at least in parts of Ontario would be to study the possibility of using shell housing as an answer to the critical housing shortage. Recent reports indicate that the shell housing concept has met with some reasonable success in Atlantic Canada. I realize that some substantial modification of the concept would be required to be useful in large urban markets, particularly in light of the fact that low land costs and a high handyman’s tradition have combined to assist in making this type of housing useful in Atlantic Canada.

I would like also to congratulate the government for implementing the proposal for the new Ministry of Housing. In its very short existence, the housing ministry has already proved its real worth in the new and exciting programmes which it has undertaken.

Certainly, we on this side of the House understand the very vital role of the private sector in implementing new housing programmes, in its expertise in providing a wide range of choices for consumers.

We should not dictate to the private sector in order to meet the housing problem, but instead use a co-operative approach and partnership basis to meet housing needs. Confrontation and dictation to the housing industry are not the most satisfactory method of resolving the problem, whether it is getting the private sector to build more condominiums or involvement in the rent supplement programme.

I am interested, Mr. Speaker, in the new initiatives and the rejuvenating of urban areas in this province. I note that in Ontario last year 100,000 housing units were started. However, I note that many older units were destroyed in older neighbourhoods to provide this new housing.

I welcome the suggestion that the provincial government enter into full consultation with municipal authorities in providing a new programme to be called the Ontario Home Renewal Programme. As already mentioned, the present federal RRAP programme provides low-interest, partly forgivable loans to homeowners, landlords and non-profit housing corporations under certain conditions; but only within areas designated for funding under the Neighbourhood Improvement Programme. Non-profit housing, however, can get this aid despite its location.

This has had the effect of barring some homeowners and landlords from receiving needed help because their homes are not located in a designated area. They feel that they are being discriminated against and, after all, they are. Through their taxes they are helping to pay the cost of this type of programme. When they are paying the cost, they should have, if they qualify, the benefits that come through this or any other type of programme.

I believe this programme would be beneficial to many people owning homes in my riding. Beaches-Woodbine riding has many homes that were constructed 50 to 75 years ago. Although many are well kept, others are in need of rehabilitation in order to bring them up to acceptable housing standards.

The city of Toronto has had for many years a home inspection programme. When matters affecting health and safety are found, the homeowner is required to make the necessary repairs. The city provides low-cost loans when this is necessary. However, some people, especially older people, find it very difficult to pay for such improvements. It seems to me that a programme of grants would be helpful to them.

There is another matter that also affects homeowners that has concerned me over many years. That is the matter of how a homeowner goes about getting necessary repairs done to the satisfaction of city officials, especially, Mr. Speaker, in these days of high costs of materials and labour.

I developed my interest in this matter when I was a member of Toronto city council. The city does assist homeowners on request in commenting on tenders submitted for necessary repairs. I know that some owners, when they are faced with a long list of repairs to be made, are not able to cope with the situation and put the house up for sale, which just puts the problem on to the new owner. If they cannot do the work themselves, what do they do to comply?

We all know of home repairmen who take large sums of money from elderly homeowners for repairs which may or may not be done in the proper manner. These so-called businessmen approach persons at the door, telling them they have facilities to repair a roof or a chimney or to do other outside repair work, telling them of the consequences that would ensue if the work is not done. If the owner agrees to have the work done, which is, say, the repairing of a roof or a chimney, how can an elderly person climb a ladder to see if indeed the roof has been done properly?

Home repairmen who actually do renovations and buildings and repairs are required, when operating in Metropolitan Toronto, to have licences issued by the Metropolitan Licensing Commission. Those who do painting and non-building types of work do not require a licence. Mr. Speaker, I have a number of people in my area who have been placed in a very difficult financial position by the operations of certain home renovating business people. I have had cases where people have been taken for hundreds of dollars by such home repairmen who are operating without a licence.

I continually tell homeowners that before agreeing to such work, they should obtain the Metro licence number of these people and check with the Better Business Bureau before signing any contract or agreeing to have any work done. When the homeowners have paid out money for this work, which later turns out to be unsatisfactory, or they have been charged for work which has not been properly done, the only recourse they have is to sue in a civil court for the return of their money.

How could an 80-year-old woman living alone institute a court action to recover money taken from her in this way and even pursue it through legal aid?

Another thing done especially to elderly people is to offer to clean out the basement and to throw out all the junk. I have had cases where repairmen have done this sort of work and the basement is probably cleared, and the owner does not realize that this so-called junk does not go to the garbage dump, but indeed goes to second-hand merchants who are often able to obtain quite high prices for the sale of this type of article now being called an antique.

What should be done in the circumstances that I have described? Mr. Speaker, I would make four suggestions. First, give the municipalities the power to license throughout Ontario people engaged in home rehabilitation, whether they are doing renovating, repairs or painting.

Two, when home repairs are required by municipal authorities, the authority should contact the homeowners and assist in setting out tenders and approving prices on work to be done. It should follow up the progress of the work and approve the quality of the work before the final bills are paid.

Three, draw up and approve grants and/or low-interest loans, depending on the circumstances of the homeowner.

Four, institute legal action on behalf of the homeowner to recover funds obtained by fraudulent means and provide stiff penalties for home renovators, persons or firms who do not live up to standards set.

I bring this up at this particular time when spring will soon be on the way, when this type of operator is knocking on doors, especially in large metropolitan areas. I should add, however, Mr. Speaker, that most firms or persons in this field are honest and hard working.

We should remember, as we move here in this province toward the recognition that, while we need and require more new housing, it is important also to maintain and improve our present housing stock. This programme will provide much needed work for the building industry; but let us do all we can to ensure that the homeowner will not be jeopardized as he takes steps to improve his own property.

Mr. Speaker, another matter of serious concern to homeowners in my riding and in adjacent ridings, and indeed in other communities throughout the province, is the damage being done to houses and buildings by the insect known as the termite. No one seems to know when this insect was first brought to Ontario, but it did appear about 30 years or so ago in the eastern part of the city of Toronto.

This is an insect that has its nest in the ground and exists by living on wood fibres. The nest is on the outside of a building, but by the building of ingenious tunnels they work their way through the foundation of the house, eating away at the foundations and woodwork until, in some houses at least, the building is in danger of collapse. Some of the smaller houses in my riding were built many years ago on cedar posts and have suffered considerable damage from this insect. This insect is able to penetrate through cement blocks, if they are not properly laid and treated and have openings that the insect can get through.

Examination of these houses shows the tunnels leading from the nest into the woodwork of the home, and solid number is over a period of time hollowed out as the insect does its work. There is a way, however, to combat this infestation. The insect must return to the nest daily in order to live. By digging a trench around the house and by treating the walls, this prevents the re-entry of the termite.

Through my efforts several years ago, Toronto city council recognized this as a serious problem to homeowners and passed a bylaw in co-operation with the provincial government in order to help these homeowners so affected. A grant is now made to a homeowner who applies for assistance. The bill for an average home to do the necessary treatment runs between $500 and $600. This is shared 50 per cent by the homeowner, 25 per cent by the municipality and 25 per cent by the province.

I suggested several years ago, and I suggest now to the minister in charge of the Ontario Housing Corp., who is responsible for this programme, that this formula should be changed. In addition to his share of the grant, the homeowner has the cost of repairing the damage already done to his home, which often amounts to a considerable amount of money. My suggestion -- and this would be a real help in the rehabilitation of older houses, especially in certain areas -- is that the homeowner’s share should be reduced to 25 per cent. The municipality should pay 25 per cent and the provincial government should bear 50 per cent of the total cost. This would be a definite and immediate step to help the homeowner improve and maintain his property.

Mr. Speaker, I should like also to mention consumer protection. As all members of this Legislature realize, there has been a tremendous upsurge of the consumer movement in recent years. Consumers are increasingly aware of the growing sophistication of the marketplace and the diverse range of products which have come on to the market in the last few years. It is, therefore, most important for the consumer and the businessman of any size of enterprise to realize that a viable, fair and efficient market relationship develop between the buyer and the seller.

Ontario has been notably in the forefront of effective consumer protection legislation in North America. The government has pioneered in such diverse fields as the fair regulation of the real estate industry through the Real Estate and Business Brokers Act; amendments to the Insurance Act; and introduction of the Consumer Reporting Act as well as the usefulness of the Consumer Protection Bureau.

Legislation in the areas of warranties and guarantees will be introduced during this session.

What the public wants to know about this legislation is its purpose, the principles on which it will operate and the scope and authority of the legislation. Certainly, the basic objective of the legislation is to protect the interests of both the consumer and the businessman in the many business transactions which characterize the sophisticated and complicated marketplace.

Underlying the warranties and guarantees legislation are these basic principles:

1. Encouragement of consumers and producers to resolve as many as possible warranty-related problems on a mutually satisfying basis;

2. The efficient use of resources to resolve problems rather than adding costs to industry and the taxpayer;

3. The costs of operations should not exceed the benefits;

4. Enhancement of responsibility for products between manufacturer and retailer;

5. Fairness of treatment between producer and consumer.

What the government wants to achieve is a system which removes the constant necessity of government to intervene in the marketplace, and thereby to develop a fair and more realistic consumer marketplace for all Ontario citizens.

Mr. Speaker, I have spoken in the past in some detail about the plight of the small businessman, so often ignored in the past by government and other sectors of the economic community.

Mr. F. Laughren (Nickel Belt): Always ignored. Always.

Mr. Wardle: I’m most gratified to see that the government will be introducing significant legislation with respect to unfair trade and business practices. Ideally, the approach to be taken in these matters is not to establish regulations and standards which tend to hurt the small businessman and to consume his valuable time in report-writing activities, but to promote effective ongoing and co-operative relationships between government and business.

What I am advocating is positive regulation of business associations instead of restrictive and narrow measures designed to frustrate the individual businessman. What we need in Ontario is greater managerial and trading assistance programmes for the individual businessman to foster his skills and improve his productivity, positive measures which I know the government will consider.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak for a few moments on the matter of correctional services, which I know is a matter of great interest to all members of this House. I want to commend the government for its far-sighted and progressive measures to assist the adult and juvenile offender. These measures include improved integration of group homes, probation and institutional services, thus ensuring better co-operation with all agencies of the community. By placing juveniles in training schools closer to their homes --

Mr. Martel: Banish them.

Mr. Wardle: -- we remove some of the pressures and strains placed on the juvenile in an alien environment.

Mr. Martel: Outlaw them.

Mr. Wardle: In this way, greater interaction between the training school and the home will assist the rehabilitation chances of the young offender. Through this process greater community resources can be marshalled in the rehabilitation of the young offender.

Hon. members should be aware of the exciting, very personal and meaningful prospects of personal development for adult offenders in the rehabilitation process. The government intends to promote the further development of small community-based adult residences for rehabilitation linked with the temporary absence programme and improved employment prospects for adult offenders in the northern areas of the province.

Another innovative feature of the correctional services responsibility is a proposal to involve inmates serving short terms in an effective employment programme with private enterprise.

The terms of the proposal in effect mean a simulation of working conditions related to what actually happens in society. Inmates chosen for this programme would receive competitive wages compared to those in the real work force. These types of programmes offer continuing and improved prospects to inmates to return to society able and willing to contribute fully to it.

I believe it is worth detailing some of the other developments which are under way in our correctional services system.

One of the more interesting and intriguing experiments which went into operation last year was the Camp Bison programme. The essential ingredients were a well-prepared course of action for correctional officers, who are involved in learning about the social pressures and situations that create the type of conformity displayed by most inmates. The experimental programme is designed to break down the subculture and help the inmates to think for themselves and to communicate positively with the correctional officers trained to help them.

The temporary absence programme remains the basic vehicle for rehabilitating inmates. Depending upon the type of offence which the inmate committed, his educational level and other important factors, temporary leaves can be devised to meet an inmate’s particular need for educational and personal improvement.

Through these innovative and experimental programmes, correctional services have assumed a new social dimension. Keeping inmates confined is more costly to our society in the long run than assisting inmates and helping them to lead useful lives upon their return to society.

The government is to be commended for its forward-looking and progressive corrections philosophy.

Mr. Speaker, on the matter of daycare centres the government is intimately concerned with the proper social and personal development of the children of Ontario. Today’s youngsters will be tomorrow’s leaders. We must constantly strive to provide the support facilities and programmes to realize that kind of promise.

It was only last year that the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Brunelle) presented legislation for our consideration that would extend grants and subsidies to individual corporations or classes of corporations, and widen the base of financial support to working mothers whose children require safe and proper care during her work day to prevent her from worrying about their situation. We are told that regulations will be announced in a few days and a programme will be under way. Mr. Speaker, I am merely stating positive programmes of this government that I am sure even the Liberals and the NDP can fully support.

Mr. R. F. Nixon (Leader of the Opposition): There is not a single member of the government here.

Mr. M. Gaunt (Huron-Bruce): Nobody believes it but the member.

Mr. Wardle: This government believes in positive programmes.

Mr. Martel: Now if the member had said “banned, outlawed.”

Mr. Wardle: Mr. Speaker, I listened all yesterday --

Mr. D. C. MacDonald (York South): And he learned a lot, too.

Mr. Wardle: -- to the Leader of the Opposition and the leader of the NDP (Mr. Lewis), and I didn’t hear any positive programme of what their parties stand for. I’m still at a loss to know what they stand for.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: How can he say that?

Mr. Wardle: At least the government does have a positive programme that the members of this government support.

Mr. Martel: What is it?

Mr. R. F. Nixon: We have a solution to the housing problems but evidently the government is not very interested in the member’s alternatives. There is nobody here.

Mr. Wardle: In the Throne Speech the government is proposing a series of measures to supply high-priority resources for those groups whose needs are still to be met; including the establishment of new programmes of assistance for community co-operative daycare centres for low-income areas, for handicapped children and native children. It speaks of our deep and abiding interest in reaching out to assist those seriously disadvantaged and to permit them to share in the resources of our productive economy.

Mr. Martel: One hundred and fifty-one dollars a month.

Mr. Wardle: Mr. Speaker, often critics accuse us of an absence of social commitment and social action for the disadvantaged sector of Ontario society. These same critics proclaim that the government does not possess a socially coherent philosophy for the individual. Naturally these claims are unfounded. The Throne Speech offers a significant packet of economic and social measures designed to meet the needs of the disadvantaged. This Progressive Conservative government seeks to resolve problems and citizens’ concerns positively and responsibly.

Mr. Martel: Why doesn’t the member see what is in the bloody book before he gets up and gives off such prattle?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Wardle: Mr. Speaker, I listened yesterday afternoon to the leader of the NDP, and I have never heard such a negative approach to the problems of this province.

Mr. MacDonald: It was not negative at all. The member wasn’t listening.

Mr. Wardle: Most of his speech had to do with food prices. And surely the farmers of Ontario are not taken in by the policy of the NDP.

Mr. Martel: Guaranteed income in BC for them.

Mr. Wardle: The farmers of this province have a very, very low price for their products. This is the policy of the NDP --

Mr. Martel: The chain stores have a very low price for farm produce.

Mr. Wardle: -- to keep the wages of farmers down. I don’t think, Mr. Speaker, that many farmers in Ontario are making very much money today. I don’t think the public of Ontario worry too much if the price of food rises a little, if they know the farmer himself is getting a better income than he has had in the past; and the only way we are going to keep farmers on the land, in my opinion, is to make certain that they get a decent return for their work.

Speaking further about the remarks of the leader of the NDP on food prices and inflation, and what inflation is doing, his party in Ottawa has the power to bring down the present government in Ottawa which is responsible for many aspects of inflation.

Mr. Martel: Except on the Food Prices Review Board, the hon. member’s colleague voted with the Liberals.

Mr. Wardle: If they were sincere --

Mr. Martel: They voted with the Liberals on the Food Prices Review Board. The hon. member should learn that before he gets up and beats his gums off.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Wardle: If they were sincere in their wish to help Canadians, it would not include co-operating with the Liberal federal government in maintaining the present Liberal policies.

Mr. Martel: The Conservatives voted against the Food Prices Review Board with the power to roll back prices.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Other members will have an opportunity to enter the debate later.

Mr. Martel: Well, tell him to tell the truth.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Wardle: Mr. Speaker, I prepared my remarks not wishing to say anything against the opposition, whether it be the Liberals or the NDP. But I’m moved at this time to say a few things. It seems to me that as far as the NDP in Ottawa are concerned, they can bring down this Liberal government any time they wish to do so.

Mr. MacDonald: They had three chances in the Tory party and they muffed them.

Mr. Wardle: And if they are worried about inflation, as was the leader of the NDP yesterday, they should bring down the present government and put in a government led by Mr. Stanfield, who would do something about inflation.

Mr. Martel: That would be a disaster!

An hon. member: How is the hon. member doing with his federal riding these days?

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. J. F. Foulds (Port Arthur): The federal Tory party is the only albatross I know with an ancient mariner around his neck.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The member for Beaches-Woodbine has the floor.

Mr. Wardle: Mr. Speaker, before I conclude my remarks, I would like to say this: I was in this House for a good part of the speech of the Leader of the Opposition. I was in this House yesterday and listening, without any interruption at all, to the leader of the NDP. Surely, when a government member gets up to speak, the members of the NDP could at least offer the same courtesy as government members offer the opposition.

Mr. MacDonald: Oh, having provoked interruptions now he is crying about them.

Mr. Foulds: The hon. member should be flattered that we consider him important enough to heckle.

Mr. Wardle: Mr. Speaker, I am sure that my final remarks will meet with the attention that I think they deserve, and I’m sure that all the members of the House will agree with them.

Mr. Foulds: Why are all the Tories leaving?

Mr. R. G. Hodgson (Victoria-Haliburton): The hon. member opposite has just come back.

An hon. member: He just came in.

Mr. Wardle: Mr. Speaker, in my final remarks I should like to express my words of gratitude for the fine way in which the Lieutenant Governor of this province, the Honourable W. Ross Macdonald, has served as the representative in Ontario of our gracious sovereign, Queen Elizabeth.

Mr. Foulds: Well said.

Mr. Wardle: He has conducted himself with dignity, great ability and with a dedication to his duties. His term of office has enhanced the honourable office that he holds. I know that the people of Ontario will look forward to welcoming His Honour’s successor, Dr. Pauline A. McGibbon.

Whilst speaking of the office of Lieutenant Governor, I would like to express my hope that serious consideration will be given by the government to provide a home in Toronto for our lieutenant governors. This was formerly the practice, and I see no reason why this policy should not be resumed.

Nearly every province in this Dominion has a government house. Many of my constituents have expressed their agreement with this proposal. I feel certain that good use would be made of such a facility, especially as Ontario is increasingly serving as host to visiting organizations and dignitaries from other parts of Canada, the British Commonwealth and foreign countries. Such a home would also allow members of our royal family to stay there and to entertain and welcome our citizens in a dignified setting.

Every resident of Ontario will be looking forward with great anticipation to the visit this June to Ontario and Quebec of Her Gracious Majesty Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother.

Mr. Martel: Don’t include me in that.

Mr. Wardle: Her Majesty is held in high regard by our citizens, especially by those who remember the fine example she and her husband, our late sovereign, King George VI, set during the perilous days of World War II. When the light of freedom had nearly been extinguished in Europe and our western civilization was in danger, our King and Queen were able to rally our people and those who love freedom everywhere to fight against those who would have buried the great heritage of freedom which has sustained us through the centuries.

I know that the people of Ontario and Quebec will offer Her Majesty a warm reception. We know the personal sacrifice that such a position requires and the complete dedication of Her Majesty to her duties. I hope that the school boards will, in advance of the Queen Mother’s visit, bring to the attention of students the importance of the constitutional monarchy in our system of government and will declare at least part of the day a holiday when Her Majesty visits their communities.

Mr. Foulds: We can’t close the schools.

Mr. Wardle: I am most impressed, Mr. Speaker, by the large numbers of our young people who want to learn more about our constitutional monarchy and its present and future role in our parliamentary system. This interest has been especially sparked by the overwhelmingly successful visit last June of our sovereign Queen Elizabeth. Her Majesty was greeted with great enthusiasm by Canadians of all ethnic backgrounds.

We must not forget that constitutional monarchy is respected not only by those of British and French descent but by people who have come here from all parts of the world. Many of the critics of the monarchy tend to forget that the system of monarchy is also a respected institution in many countries from which Canada’s immigration has come.

When our newest citizens swear allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors, they come to realize that the monarchy is the oldest of Canada’s political institutions having come down to Canadians through 1,146 years of political development. These new Canadians also realize and appreciate the fact that our constitutional monarchy provides Canadians with the greatest constitutional safeguard against communism or any other form of totalitarian government or dictatorship.

The most essential and distinctive institutions of the Canadian government and the ultimate defences of the constitution are based on the position and powers of the Crown. These include the whole of the executive power of the government of the day, the cabinet system, the principle of responsibility, and the ultimate assurance that the genuine popular will shall prevail. To a democratic people, the monarchical form of government testifies to the ability of that people to develop a responsive political system from an authoritarian feudal structure without passing through the violence of revolution. The constitutional monarchy has a proud record in the development of the Canadian nation.

Mr. Foulds: Hasn’t the member ever heard of Cromwell?

Mr. Wardle: How fortunate we are to have as our sovereign a most gracious lady who, by her example, has endorsed high standards --

Mr. Foulds: So Cromwell was a Commie?

Mr. Wardle: -- and has encouraged the worthwhile traditions --

Hon. E. A. Winkler (Chairman, Management Board of Cabinet): The member shouldn’t show his ignorance.

Mr. Foulds: He doesn’t even know who Cromwell was.

Mr. Wardle: -- so many of which vitally reflect the better aspects of civilized behaviour and living.

Her Majesty has carried out her royal duties with dignity and zeal and has truly carried out her promise to her people in 1953 that, to their service, she would give her heart and soul every day of her life.

Mr. G. Nixon (Dovercourt): How true.

Mr. Wardle: Mr. Speaker, how proud we are to be Canadians and to live in Ontario, this great province of opportunity.

Mr. P. G. Givens (York-Forest Hill): Mr. Speaker, I rise to participate in this annual ritual of reply to the Throne Speech which ushers in the rites of spring. As I rise to speak, I don’t know whether to cry or to laugh because in my entire public career over the past 25 or 30 years I think I have spoken in cities all over Canada, some in the United States, some in other parts of the world, but never before have I risen to speak under circumstances such as these, when the complete vista in front of me is totally blank.

Mr. D. M. Deacon (York Centre): Even though there are people sitting over there.

Mr. Givens: Even when there are people sitting there, it’s usually blank. The House leader just sat down, called over the hon. member for Riverdale (Mr. Renwick) -- and now another member has just walked in -- so I won’t have to look at a totally blank wall.

I don’t think I’m ever going to get used to this sort of a situation, Mr. Speaker. I have no speech to read. That’s probably where I made the mistake. I should have a speech writer write me a speech which I can read off.

Mr. J. R. Breithaupt (Kitchener): The Minister of Education (Mr. Wells) might have one.

Mr. Givens: Probably they have a better system in the United States where they just hand in their speeches and get them printed in the Congressional Record.

The members have just received a raise. I would have thought that when members in the House get up to speak during a Throne Speech debate that there would be more people sitting here to listen to them -- because making a speech is a product of the heart and the soul and the mind. You use your mouth to articulate it, but you would like to feel that you are communicating with people.

I don’t care whether people agree with me or whether they disagree with me, or if they want to boo or if they want to jeer at me or if they want to scorn me.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: We want to hear the hon. member.

Mr. Givens: But at least a member of this Legislature should have an opportunity to speak to human beings -- and not just to be read in Hansard. Not that I am that immodest that I feel that I have anything to say that is of such great importance, or that the manner in which I will say it will be so entertaining that it should enrapture those who sit here -- but good heavens, Mr. Speaker, what is the purpose of making a speech? God has given us mouths and tongues with which to articulate for the purpose of communicating with one another. How do we communicate when we sit in a chamber like this where there is hardly a quorum?

I think maybe a quorum has just appeared right now of 20 members. But as Sam Rayburn said, “In order to get along you must go along,” and my leader and the House leader have said that I have to participate in this annual ritual of replying to the Speech from the Throne. So here I am. I shall do that.

Mr. J. E. Stokes (Thunder Bay): The member shouldn’t trouble himself.

Mr. Givens: I shall use my ability to reply to the Speech from the Throne.

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. Givens: Well, Mr. Speaker, the hon. member says I shouldn’t trouble myself. I hope that I am not being interpreted in that light; but really, what is the purpose of talking if you are not communicating with somebody? Let me tell the hon. member that in council we had people who sat there and they listened -- and you turned them on or you turned them off and you could persuade them about something. Now we know very well that nobody is going to persuade anybody around here of anything. The Juggernaut will roll on and we just participate. It’s sort of a hypocritical ritual really when it comes down to it.

An hon. member: Storm the barricades!

Mr. Givens: Anyway, having said that, I want to deal with some of the issues -- well, there’s no point in storming the barricades.

Hon. A. Grossman (Provincial Secretary for Resources Development): We are listening to the member.

Mr. Givens: Well, it’s really frustrating anyway. I thank those members who are here.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Givens: I know that there is nothing the members are going to learn from me, but at least it’s comforting to know that some of them are friendly enough to sit here even though some of them are busy reading the newspapers, or their mail --

Mr. MacDonald: It’s a challenge to the member for York-Forest Hill.

Mr. Givens: -- or indulging in other things, such as consulting with one another. However --

Mr. R. D. Kennedy (Peel South): Could I leave for a couple of minutes?

Mr. Givens: My leader --

An hon. member: Sit down!

Mr. Givens: My leader and the hon. leader of the NDP made much of the fact, and rightly so, that there is nothing in this Throne Speech that says anything in particular about the subject of inflation, which is supposed to be so important to everybody living in this province and, indeed, in this whole country.

I sometimes think that the reason why governments -- both federal and provincial -- are not doing anything about inflation is because they don’t want to do anything about inflation. I feel that there is almost sort of an unconscious or a subconscious deliberate conspiracy not to deal with inflation. And I’ll tell the members why. Because I think a large sector of our population benefits from inflation.

I think there are professional people, there are business people, there are strongly organized union members in the big unions, in the strong unions -- not the underprivileged people who aren’t organized -- who benefit from a little bit of inflation, because it is like a little bit of intoxication. It’s euphoric. It’s buoyant.

I know many people in business who are benefiting by virtue of the fact that they have acquired debt. They have bought machinery or equipment and they are paying it off in half-dollar bills, so to speak, because their debt has shrunk in relation to the inflation that has taken place at the rate of from 8 to 10 per cent a year -- and probably in 1974 it will be greater.

It isn’t only a matter of the big corporations or the big companies. A lot of small people benefit from inflation, and they are happy to have this situation continue. And the governments are copping out and they are opting out.

The provincial governments blame the federal government. The federal government blames the UN, international affairs -- all kinds of things. Everything is being attributed to the oil shortage today, from the price of gasoline for cars to sexual impotency.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Who is dealing with that?

Mr. Givens: They are copping out. The people they are not dealing with are the little people, the kind of people the hon. member thinks he represents, who are involved in a bit of a ripoff here and there. A member of the NDP got up yesterday and read into the record a long list of properties in areas which I used to consider my turf when I was a kid -- Markham St., Clinton St., Niagara St. and all those streets where working people live. As for these values that members have heard of, of people who had these houses on these various streets, these are people from factories. These are people that I worked with in the steel mills and in the packing houses of this city and these are the people who benefited.

Mr. Foulds: Markham St.?

Mr. Givens: Yes, sir.

Mr. Foulds: Honest Ed has a place there.

Mr. Givens: One of the reasons why these properties are going up in value is that many of these properties are income producing. Many of these people have boarders. They are not supposed to have them in many cases but they have boarders or they rent out accommodation. They get a certain amount of income, which they don’t declare on their income taxes, and this helps them ward off inflation.

It would be interesting if the member sent his research workers on the job of looking up the assessment roles of these respective properties. I will wager that he will find that the assessed values of these houses haven’t changed in 20 or 25 years. They are probably paying realty taxes on values that were established by the assessment people about 20 or 25 years ago. If one were to reassess them -- and I wish the Minister of Revenue (Mr. Meen) were here -- it would probably take about 10 years to reassess them, and by the time he got all the reassessments finished, they would probably be out of date as well.

It’s interesting that the leader of the NDP pours scorn on these developers and these companies and that he talks about their lacking a moral obligation. Many of the developers, or these companies that he talked about yesterday, were people who were born and grew up on these streets and in these houses that he talked about yesterday.

Mr. Foulds: That still doesn’t excuse it.

Mr. Givens: They had social obligations. Many of them were socialists or many of them were members of the CCF. As a matter of fact, I know a couple of them who ran as provincial candidates for the NDP and some of them were even further left than that.

I remember coming into the gallery here when I was a student at the school across the street and Joe Salsberg was sitting here and A. A. MacLeod, representing the Labour Progressive Party. They were the people who represented these poor struggling developers who have become these ogres that the member accuses today of lacking social obligations. They think that they are fulfilling their social obligations. They sit on hospital boards, on charitable institutions, philanthropic institutions, and cultural organizations. These are the member’s people, and some still picture themselves as NDPers.

I don’t justify it, but in all fairness, many of them have fathers who were socialists in the old country and had to escape the countries that they came from in order to live in these places that the member talks about.

Mr. Foulds: Mr. Speaker, we have no corner on virtue. We never have claimed it. We have the member for High Park (Mr. Shulman) after all.

Mr. Givens: It is the same thing with the price of food.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Don’t say that when he is in the House.

Mr. Givens: It is not enough to talk about inflation in housing and food. The same thing applies to recreation and entertainment. You go out to buy a hockey stick for a kid or a pair of skates or a jersey or, if you want to move into the aristocracy of the boaters, you buy a canoe or a rowboat or a sailboat, and it is just preposterous what has been happening.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: One of those little items that sleeps six.

Mr. Givens: It is absolutely ridiculous. As far as housing is concerned, the leader of the NDP says, “We will buy the land from the developers at the price that they pay for it and we will pay them that value and we will pay them holding costs.” Well, that’s very generous of them, certainly a great deal more generous than what the Tories are doing.

This government went ahead on a parkway belt and just zoned down property and they’ve confiscated the property and given the people nothing for it. So thanks for small blessings, if this is what the leader of the NDP is going to do.

Then he’s going to provide cheap mortgage money at six per cent from the provincial savings accounts of the people who have their pension funds in the provincial savings account. They’re going to give out mortgages at six per cent. Are we going to subsidize that six per cent? Why should a person who has money in a provincial savings account only be able to benefit to the extent of six per cent when somebody else is paying 9½ per cent? Surely that wouldn’t be fair?

Mr. Foulds: They’re only getting 4½ per cent now.

Mr. Givens: And when he says that this Tory government won’t do it, I think he’d be very surprised. The Tory government probably will do it, because they’re confiscating right now, and I’ll come to that in a moment.

The leader of the NDP went along and he talked about how they’re going to tax natural resources. They’re going to put a tax on the mines, and they’re going to put a tax on the oil wells and on uranium and on everything else. And as he was talking about this great tax that he was going to put on, and how three of the provinces that have NDP governments have done this and the mines haven’t moved out and the corporations haven’t moved out and jobs haven’t moved out of the provinces, my eye caught a clipping, an article on the financial page of the Star yesterday, and I want to read it to the members. It’s all right for him to speak so confidently and so stridently about the great success that British Columbia has achieved --

Mr. Foulds: Never stridently, only eloquently.

Mr. Givens: -- but here’s an article from the Star, dateline Victoria, that says that:

“The mining association of British Columbia has told Mines Minister Leo Nimsick that the proposed Mineral Royalties Act must be revised or the government will destroy mining in BC.”

Mr. Foulds: Did they say they were going to move out?

Mr. Stokes: Does the member for York-Forest Hill have an interest there?

Interjections by hon. members.

An hon. member: How do they move a mine?

Mr. Givens: To continue:

“The association represents 80 companies. W. J. Tough, association president, said that the proposed royalties would make the BC mining industry unable to compete with mining in other parts of the world.

“Earlier, the BC and Yukon Chamber of Mines said that if the Act were imposed, there would be a loss of $587 million in revenue for various sectors of the economy. At the same time, the chamber said, the provincial government would gain revenues of $179 million.”

Now, my purpose in reading this clipping is not because I agree with him.

Mr. Martel: Sounds like Powis of the Ontario Mining Association.

Mr. Givens: I have no way of knowing whether I can agree with him or not, because we don’t know what the facts really are on the basis of what the leader of the NDP has said and what this clipping says. But I’m trying to indicate that there is a cacophonic disagreement on the part of the people who talk about these things because they don’t use the same language.

Mr. Stokes: Well, where does the member stand? Does he think we should be getting more money for our resources?

An hon. member: Just listen and you’ll find out.

Mr. Givens: Yes, I think we should be getting more revenue. The fact is, the member knows, as a speculator and an investor, himself, that these --

Mr. Stokes: I sold mine. The member still has his.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Givens: -- profits the NDP talks about are not reflected in the stock prices on the stock markets.

Mr. Stokes: Nobody said they were.

Mr. Givens: The thing gets very complicated. There are all kinds of reasons why the stock market reacts the way it does.

Mr. H. Worton (Wellington South): Tell us.

Mr. Givens: But one must agree that the stock market in every country in the world is a very sensitive barometer of the economic, the psychological and emotional health of that particularly country -- economically, because it is a reflection and a barometer of what is going on. So it isn’t enough simply to get up and say that these profits have been enormous and they forget about depletion allowances, they forget about depreciation and they forget about a number of other things. So they can’t be that accurate when on the one hand they say how wonderful things are, and on the other hand the president of the association says that mining will be destroyed in British Columbia.

Mr. Martel: They don’t want to pay a cent in taxes. That’s the reason!

Mr. Givens: The member will agree that there’s a difference of opinion, would he not?

Mr. Stokes: No.

Mr. MacDonald: Since the member asked him.

Mr. Givens: And continuing on the subject of inflation, as far as the people who have fixed incomes, as far as our government here is concerned, when Christmas comes around there’ll be another $50 Christmas present, but since we’re heading into an election year there’ll be --

Mr. R. F. Nixon: We might have an Easter present, too.

Mr. Givens: Well, they can increase it by 100 per cent and make it another $50, and then they’re going to have an income support programme, maybe, and then there’s going to be a proposal made for a prescription drug plan for our senior citizens. This is the way we expect to help the people who are living on a fixed income.

As far as the parkway belt is concerned I’m surprised that in the Throne Speech there was nothing further said about that because the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs (Mr. White) has been promising for a long time, together with the former deputy minister of that department, that there would be open planning. There were supposed to be hearings. The legislation is just about a year old. It was passed last June. There hasn’t been a public hearing that I know of with respect to either the parkway belt or the Niagara Escarpment. Land has been frozen.

I feel very strongly about this. I’m opposed to the whole concept. I believe that if a government wants something for public purposes, whether it is a municipal government or a provincial government, it should have to prove that it requires it and it has to go in and buy it and not confiscate it and not steal it. I think this is wrong. I think it is wrong to zone land for agriculture when we know very well that it isn’t agricultural. Any lands in these areas that are being farmed are being farmed as holding operations. They’re not being farmed on an economic basis. They’re being farmed because people are getting concessions with respect to municipal taxes and so forth.

I have here an evaluation. What is happening is that in the parkway belt, for instance, land has gone down by about 90 per cent. I have here an evaluation by the firm of Constam, Heine Associates Ltd., which is a real estate appraiser. I think the firm has done a lot of work for the government on previous occasions. It has evaluated a piece of land -- I’m just using this as an example -- of 100 acres and shown that the value has gone down. On June 3, 1973, it was worth $600,000 for the 100 acres and on Dec. 31, 1973, it was worth 100,000 acres.

Mr. Deacon: One hundred thousand dollars.

Mr. Givens: What did I say?

Mr. Deacon: Acres.

Mr. Givens: I’m sorry; $100,000 an acre. This is happening all over the place.

Mr. Deacon: One hundred thousand dollars for the 100 acres?

Mr. Givens: One hundred thousand dollars for the 100 acres which means it’s been downgraded from $6,000 an acre to $1,000 an acre. This is only one example. There are other examples of values which have dropped and one would think this would be a good thing -- that the price of land for housing and other purposes was going down -- but it isn’t because outside the parkway belt the values have tripled and quadrupled. What has the government gained? What has it accomplished? None of this land will be used for housing. I think it’s confiscatory.

People have died and the estates pay succession duties on the basis of the land not being for agricultural purposes. People have given some of the property to their children and the Department of National Revenue has revalued the properties on the basis of not being agricultural land. I don’t know how one government can base an evaluation for succession duties or for gift tax on it being non-agricultural when the provincial government comes along and says, “Your land shall be agricultural for ever and a day.” There isn’t even a house or a farmyard or a barnyard or anything on the property which would enable anyone to use the land for farming purposes.

This open planning hasn’t taken place yet and I wish the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs was around to indicate when these public hearings and this participation is going to take place since he talked about it in the legislation. How long is he going to wait?

In some cases it’s a matter of life and death when the government is going to determine what the future of these properties is going to be. It is unconscionable. It is politically amoral and this is what the government is doing. I wouldn’t expect this to come from a government which is supposed to be a free enterprise party and believes in free enterprise and believes in people’s rights because I believe we’re living in a democracy.

What constitutes freedom? The government takes away a man’s property. It takes away what he’s worked for and I’m not talking about the speculators. If the government worries about the speculator, tax him with a windfall tax. Put it up to 75 per cent; in this case I agree with the leader of the NDP. But there are people to whom these lands represent a lifetime of savings; indeed the property goes back two or three generations and the government gives them a once-in-a-lifetime gift of $50,000 and what will that be evaluated on? Agricultural land or land which was worth a certain amount of money because development had come up right to one side of the street and they happened to be on the other side of the street?

Mr. Speaker, I think this is horribly unfair. This business of playing Robin Hood, of stealing from those the government thinks are the rich to satisfy the poor, creates a very terrible precedent and in no other free country in the world is this permitted. In the United States, in Britain, one can’t get away with it.

Mr. Lawlor: Even Robin Hood went to jail.

Mr. Givens: Under the law of eminent domain in the United States, if the government wants the property, it takes it; it proves it needs it but pays for it based on what other criteria it wants to set up. There are a lot of definitions of market value. They are in the federal expropriation Act and in the provincial Expropriations Act. There are definitions that realtors can give you, experts in this particular field. Pick any one that you want. But don’t steal property from people. I don’t think it is fair. I don’t think it is conscionable. If the government wants to tax them for the big profits that they make, fine. It should take certain things into consideration: how long they have held it, how long they have worked it and how long it has been in the family name.

The government knows it can do it because it is doing so with respect to taxation. It is doing it with respect to its once-in-a-lifetime gift. I say this is very unfair, Mr. Speaker, and I am very surprised that the government is going ahead with it.

Mr. R. Gisborn (Hamilton East): We will take it under consideration.

Mr. Givens: They will take it under consideration. Even in British Columbia where they passed similar legislation. Premier Barrett has indicated that value will be paid to people from whom lands are taken or people from whom lands are taken just to sit there sterile. If the government really thinks that they are agricultural, let it go in and expropriate them for agricultural purposes and let people farm them. But don’t leave it there and steal it. Then the government says it can’t afford to pay these people for the land. What kind of an excuse is that?

At least when Robin Hood came driving down the pike, one could see him coming. He had his bow and arrow. But when the provincial government moves in one can’t even see it coming. And Robin Hood confined his activities to stealing --

Mr. Breithaupt: One gets shafted just the same.

Mr. Givens: -- whatever one had on his body. This is stealing what people have saved up for 30, 40, maybe 50 years. He confined his activities to Sherwood Forest. This Robin Hood government’s jurisdiction stretches all over the province. The parkway belt and the Niagara Escarpment are only two places. If the government gets away with this now, it can put in a parkway belt anywhere in the province that it wants. I don’t think it will get away with it because I think there will be litigation in the courts that will go on for many, many years.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: They are going to be defeated too.

Mr. Deacon: The airport loading zone, isn’t it?

Mr. Lawlor: They haven’t even got a Maid Marion.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Maid Margaret?

Mr. Givens: It is the same thing with the airport. On the question of regional government, we have here a report, “The Municipal Dynamic”. This was prepared for the Ontario Economic Council, which I suppose is ordered by the government. This particular tract was written by a man by the name of Lionel D. Feldman. The report isn’t very complimentary to the government.

The report doesn’t say too much of who Mr. Feldman is. At one time he was a member of the staff of the Department of Municipal Affairs in Ontario. He has been a research associate with the bureau of municipal research in Toronto. He has worked on the staff of a number of royal commissions. Recently, as a principal author of research monograph No. 6, entitled, “A Survey of Alternative Urban Policies for Urban Canada: Problems and Prospects,” he combined or collaborated with Harvey Lithwick in this report in 1970. This was the report incidentally that convinced the Prime Minister, with whom I had many arguments, about the constitutionality of the urban question as far as federal government involvement is concerned. The Prime Minister of Canada said there would never be a Ministry of Urban Affairs for Canada and there would never be a Minister or a Ministry of Housing for Canada, because, within section 92 of the British North America Act, this was completely under the jurisdiction of the provinces. It was this Lithwick report, together with the collaboration of Feldman, which brought this about. Mr. Feldman was also active as a special adviser on urban affairs to the government of Manitoba, which should commend him to the party on the left.

Mr. MacDonald: When?

Mr. Givens: As part of a study team responsible for the reorganization of Winnipeg in 1972; that was when. So he is okay. All right? This is what he has to say.

Mr. MacDonald: I just wanted to be certain.

Mr. Givens: He completely scoffs at what the members opposite are doing and what the government is doing. He takes a dim view of what the government has done in the regional government field. I read a report of his, and he is worth quoting. He says:

“The goal of the government of the Province of Ontario stated in the 1973 budget was to enhance the autonomy of municipalities and broaden the scope for decision-making at the local level. [But what have they accomplished? He goes on to say:] If this is the aim, then what is occurring creates an autonomy which is virtually meaningless. Few meaningful functions are being left to the local governments to perform unilaterally, and therefore less remains in substantive terms to be decided by local councils. If this prognosis is valid, then the future is dim for effective local government.”

And so it is. The government keeps talking about local autonomy all the time. But all it has left for the local governments to do are the menial tasks. They are hewers of wood, drawers of water and collectors of taxes and garbage. The government has left them no powers at all hardly worth a darn.

Mr. R. Haggerty (Welland South): Even taken the garbage collection away.

Mr. Givens: He goes on to make a very valid point, which I think is important to bear in mind. He says on page 40: “Efficiency was never intended to be the sole objective of local government” -- if indeed the government thinks they are achieving efficiency, but I don’t think that they are, because the costs of local government are going up tremendously.

He goes on to say that efficiency isn’t enough. He says:

“The underlying assumption of equal importance was that ordinary people should associate with the provision of local schools, roads, sewerage, water, social services and so on, to the extent that they not only plan these services, but vote funds to provide services, pass the contracts, supervise construction, so the citizens may feel that they are really dealing with their own services and not merely receiving services and programmes being provided for them by a senior government”

And this government is emasculating them and tearing them down; it is making it useless for anybody to run for public office.

He goes on to say -- and he was quoted by my leader the other day, but I will quote this again -- “if this continues the future of reorganized municipalities is bleak” -- and I’m looking for the quotation that was quoted the other day to the effect that the tasks they have to perform are so unimportant that hardly any people are going to be willing to run for public office in the local municipalities any more. That is a fact. That is what people are saying. And this government should concern itself with what people are saying in the regional governments because this government is going to suffer from it.

As far as the two-tier system is concerned, the government is leaving nothing for the lower tier to do. They have no jurisdiction at all. It’s all determined here, and we can’t take in that kind of centralization. Quite frequently the minister yells across, “What would you do?” Well, I’ll tell him what we would do. I’ll tell him what I would do as Minister of Urban Affairs: I would restore their manhood and their power to do what they want in the local municipalities. And I wouldn’t fund all kinds of programmes which this government funds for their benefit, but which aren’t for their benefit. The only reason they participate -- and this government only tells them about these programmes after the event; it doesn’t consult with them in advance -- the only reason they participate is because this government is handing out the dough, so they figure they might as well get a piece of the action whether indeed they need that programme or not.

Mr. R. F. Ruston (Essex-Kent): Right on.

Mr. Givens: And another thing that we would do: You know, Mr. Speaker, this government makes a big deal about mergers and greater efficiency; it is taking all these municipalities, welding them into one and calling them names that they don’t want to be called, wiping out names that have become traditional over many years.

What the government is also doing in many cases is decreasing representation. The government talks about participatory democracy, about consultation, and about local autonomy having a part in the daily lives of local people, yet it is ripping away all kinds of representation from them. There are areas in this province today that used to be represented by councils of six, eight, nine or 12, even existing in Metropolitan Toronto, and these people are no longer represented by a council and have nobody to turn to with respect to their local affairs. This isn’t right.

So while this government is striving for this efficiency and while we are having these mergers and consolidations, it is cutting down on the number of representatives. It is taking away the democratic rights of these people all over Ontario and giving them no representation at all. This is wrong.

It is wrong to take away a council of about a dozen from a municipality and replace it by one solitary alderman who in many cases is not even elected by them, as in the city of Toronto, where the members of Metropolitan Toronto council are not elected by the people of Toronto. Then, over and above it all, the government imposes a chairman, which is such an undemocratic principle that I can’t understand why the government keeps on using it over and over and time and time again.

While democracy works for the members of this government -- the Premier (Mr. Davis) has to get elected, the cabinet ministers have to get elected by some convoluted logic, which I’ve never been able to understand, they feel that the man who is chairman of Metropolitan Toronto should be chosen by a small group of people on that council and not by the people he represents, although he has all this influence and has a budget that is larger than the budgets of eight of the provinces of this country. The government is doing this in other areas, and it’s a wrong principle.

The people who have this power and this control should have to be elected. That’s what we would do: we would make them be elected. We wouldn’t impose decisions on the people with respect to things that they don’t want and don’t need.

On the question of transportation --

Mr. Cassidy: On which the hon. member is an expert.

Mr. Givens: -- this Throne Speech is remarkably devoid of any half-decent recommendations with respect to transportation.

Incidentally, it was such an interesting speech that even though the Lieutenant Governor left out three pages, because they weren’t included in the speech, it didn’t seem to make any difference; nobody even noticed it. That’s how good a Throne Speech it was. So when I heard the Throne Speech being read I said, “isn’t that marvellous for northern Ontario?” For some reason I have a sympathetic feeling for the people up north because I think they have been getting --

Mr. Stokes: Sympathetic -- right.

Mr. Givens: Sympatico -- sympathetic feeling for the people up north; because I feel that the people up north have been getting a raw deal for a long time. So when I heard the speech I said: “A whole new era is dawning for northern Ontario.” But it wasn’t until I read the speech a second or a third time that I realized what it really said.

It didn’t say that a road was going to be built. It said a feasibility and engineering study will be undertaken for a road from James Bay to Moosonee. So it ain’t no road yet; don’t hold your breath.

Then it went on to say that priority consideration will be given to the supply of electric power to northern communities; a power line to Moosonee will be the first project in this undertaking. So don’t throw away your coal oil lamps or your flashlights yet.

Then it went on to say that the northern communities will have the opportunity to establish local community councils and went on to say they will have water and roads and other such services -- and implementation of this plan will follow full consultation with residents of communities who wish to participate. I suppose the full consultation will be the same kind of full consultation that the Premier of this government had with Metropolitan Toronto just before he abandoned the Spadina Expressway after blowing $100 million. That is the kind of consultation they are going to get.

Then the speech goes on to say high priority has been given to rebuilding or widening Highway 17 between Sault Ste. Marie and Sudbury -- that is high priority. And also it says that the Ontario government is negotiating an agreement to participate through an appropriate agency about the Polar Gas project. The government is not going to have an agreement. It hasn’t got an agreement; there is no sign of an agreement -- but it is going to be negotiating an agreement.

Then last but not least, it says studies will be made regarding the establishment of a port facility in the James Bay area. Now, when I first heard this I figured: “Boy, they are going to get a port; how wonderful. I will be able to sail my boat up there.” But the government is going to have studies regarding the establishment of a port in the James Bay area. Well, so much for the north. I begrudge the north nothing. If the money that was saved on the Spadina Expressway can be used to put in Highway 17, or the Moosonee road, more power to them. But I don’t think they are going to get it.

Mr. Deacon: No, there will be more studies.

Mr. Givens: Only more studies. So, so much for the north.

Mr. Breithaupt: Nothing is too good for the north -- and nothing is what they are going to get.

Mr. Givens: Now, we have been told over and over again --

Mr. Stokes: Does the member think the north should subsidize the TTC down here?

Mr. Givens: No. And it won’t, because the TTC isn’t doing a hell of a lot -- or the province isn’t permitting it to. Dr. Richard Soberman has just brought in a report in which he indicates that the Scarborough Expressway in his opinion -- I am paraphrasing; I haven’t had an opportunity to read the report, so I judge from what I read in the newspapers -- but Dr. Soberman is recommending that the Scarborough Expressway be abandoned. And I tell the members that I am not surprised. If there was reason for abandoning the Spadina Expressway -- which was much less painful to the people in the area from a disruptive and inconvenient standpoint than it would be for the people if the Scarborough Expressway should be built -- if there was reason for abandoning the Spadina Expressway then, a fortiori, the Scarborough Expressway -- a fortiori means I am leading with greater strength for greater reason -- the Scarborough Expressway should be abandoned.

When asked whether the Scarborough Expressway should be replaced by this Krauss-Maffei scheme -- the government is putting all its eggs in one basket on that one -- Dr. Soberman said no, that he wants something that will work now and not in the future. When he talks about Krauss-Maffei -- which I will come to in just a second -- he says it is a research project, really, and not something that is viable to go into because it hasn’t been in operation anywhere. He talks about the project as a matter for the future and probably it won’t be operational for about 20 years.

Mr. Deacon: That is a basket of eggs that is beginning to turn rotten.

Mr. Givens: And then he indicates that it should be LRT. LRT is like rapid transit. Some people call it light rail transportation, which is a streetcar system which is being developed in the United States and which is being used in Europe and in many American cities. They are planning it right now and they are putting it in operation. It is a tried and tested system.

I would have thought that under the circumstances, since this is having so much success in other jurisdictions, that at least there would be something in the Throne Speech that would indicate that the provincial government is interested enough in studying this particular issue. But it is not. There is not a word in it about light rapid transit.

Dr. Soberman has indicated that the very right of way which was designated for the Krauss-Maffei thing some time off in the future should be used for an LRT system, which means that as far as he is concerned, as an expert -- and he must be an expert or else he wouldn’t have been brought in to make this study and make this report -- as far as he is concerned, he is completely ridding himself of any idea that that’s where the Krauss-Maffei system should work and he doesn’t think it’s going to work. And he suggested that right of way now be used for this light rapid transit system.

The Krauss-Maffei thing is being called into question all along the line. People are asking questions; they can’t get answers. It’s a research project, it’s not a proven system. It is nowhere in existence, not even in the country where it’s manufactured.

Magnetic levitation is being used for many kinds of engines but not for transportation anywhere in the world. The stations are going to be huge. They are going to be up in the air. There are going to be staggering questions as to how it is going to be interlined with the subway system and with the bus system.

They talk about 20-passenger cars. It has been figured out from an engineering standpoint that these 20-passenger cars aren’t going to be able to handle the loads with enough of a time headway between them to let it operate as a safe system, so there are the same serious loading limitations and there are going to be no attendants on the cars. It’s going to have high capital and operating costs. It’s a new and completely unproved technology at the present time, and I would have thought that the Throne Speech would have taken into consideration this new manifestation -- this LRT system.

There is a citizens transit committee which has been dealing with this at various public hearings and the government has chosen to disregard this completely. I think that is absolutely wrong. I think that Krauss-Maffei may be okay. Maybe it will be in operation in about 15 or 20 years, but there is known technology which has to be utilized for the purpose of moving people now, because the Spadina Expressway, for instance, was abandoned three years ago. It will be three years on June 3 of this year.

What has taken its place? The Spadina subway is going to be built. I think tenders have just been approved for the building of the sewers in the ravine there and that will take about six months. And they indicate that the subway will be finished by 1977. I think there will be grass growing down Yonge St. before that subway is finished in 1977, because it has taken 10 years to move the Yonge St. subway from Eglinton up to Finch and that hasn’t been opened yet.

That thing started when I was still at city hall in Toronto. True, there was tunnelling and there may not be tunnelling in the ravine, but by the time that they deck the system in the ravine and do what is sort of tunnelling in reverse, it will probably take 10 years and you ain’t going to get that subway finished for at least 10 years, Mr. Speaker.

So, what have they done? What have they done to replace the transportation system which they abandoned three years ago? A dial-a-bus system is only an intermediate system which takes people from their homes and brings them to bus stops or subway stations. But if you don’t have subway stations or if the subway stations are overloaded, the dial-a-bus system is just a tertiary kind of support system. So what has the government done to replace that transportation system? Absolutely nothing. And there isn’t even a word in the Throne Speech about what the government is going to do.

Concerning the teachers situation which the Throne Speech alludes to, it looks like we are going to get compulsory arbitration whether we like it or not. As far as we in this party are concerned, the criterion of what should determine compulsory arbitration is not whether a calling or a service or a kind of work is essential or not. I don’t think that really is a relevant point. As far as I am concerned, I think that the criterion for compulsory arbitration should be the kind of work or service which has to do with public safety, which has to do with health, which has to do with the matter of life and death, vital services.

It is not a question of essentiality. Garbage collection is essential. Transportation is essential. There are some of these things that are essential for which I wouldn’t consider compulsory arbitration to be the necessary option, the necessary outcome, the necessary remedy.

But what bothers me is this, and I will tell you quite frankly, Mr. Speaker, here we have a class of people, the high school teachers in this particular area -- and this is a cause célèbre, it isn’t only the teachers in the York county system, but it’s the teachers everywhere; the whole world is watching as to what’s going to happen here -- what bothers me is this, that here we have several hundred teachers who obviously have the support of most other teachers throughout the country for that matter who are highly intelligent, highly educated.

This isn’t riff-raff. These aren’t people being led by Communist radicals where you think that they are trying to score political points. These are people who have been exposed to our kids. They realize the importance of their jobs. Some of them have very high degrees. If this government hasn’t been able to empathize with these people, if this government hasn’t been able to establish a rapport with this class of people in our society, then something is very, very seriously wrong.

The only way that we can settle this problem is by the shotgun of compulsory arbitration, because that is what it is. This class of people are not miners and they are not uneducated people who haven’t had an opportunity to have an education; these are our most highly qualified people in the community, people who have always been looked up to as the people to whom we would entrust the minds and the souls of our children. These are the people that the government is gunning under with compulsory arbitration and I say that it is very, very, very sad. Something is wrong when we have to invoke this solution, which we will probably do within the next day or two. This party is against it. We cannot support compulsory arbitration, because we think that there’s another remedy and we will come to that at the proper time when the debate takes place.

Lastly, I want to deal with the question of solid waste management. The Throne Speech says:

“A permanent advisory committee on solid waste management will be established in order to achieve closer consultation with municipal governments, environmental groups and industry, whose co-operation is essential to the solution of problems created by increasing waste of energy and material resources and the difficulties of waste disposal.”

This means another study. I don’t know what we need another study for in this field, really. You know, there’s a lot of very muddled thinking going on on this subject. Toronto has a garbage problem. It goes into another area and wants to dump it. “Don’t dump your garbage here. No way. Don’t dump it here.” Well, what shall we do with it? “Burn it, incinerate it.” If we want to build an incinerator in town, the people in the area don’t want it where we want to locate it. “Don’t build a sewage disposal plant.”

These people have no objection -- and this is universal, it involves everybody -- they have no objection to making garbage. They have no objection to flushing a toilet and creating waste. It’s a very unpleasant subject but we have got to face up to it and talk about it. They are all waste makers and all litterers and they are all garbage makers, but nobody comes up with a solution as to how we are going to dispose of this stuff.

So we are the victims of progress, because years ago when garbage was collected on the streets of Toronto, we had a packer truck that came down the street and we took the cartons out and flattened them out and shored up the sides of the truck. Then when they took the stuff to the dump, they could separate the paper from the garbage and so on. The flush toilet was supposed to be great progress. It is one of the worst things that has ever happened to civilized society to date and that’s a fact. This is the problem today, and of course the cigarette smoker is the greatest polluter of all.

I am the vice-president of a company called Atlantic Packaging Co. We recycle paper, kraft paper. In our mill in Scarborough, at 111 Progress, we manufacture 220 tons of paper a day for corrugated cases and boxes. We manufacture other things as well but this is our prime concern. The only way we can manufacture this product is by collecting waste corrugated for the purpose of making the kind of paper that is required for corrugated products. That’s 220 tons a day. That’s a lot of paper.

We have tapped just about every source of paper practically, in this country within transportation distance of our plant. We get the stuff from as far as 1,500 miles away from here to the south. So we’ve tapped the chain stores, the department stores and all people who generate this kind of waste paper.

I have gone to the municipalities in this area. I won’t designate them; I won’t name them. Nobody wants to move. Nobody wants to do anything about segregating the paper from the garbage. Paper represents and constitutes 40 per cent of garbage collection today. We have gone to these people, the commissioners of street cleaning, and we’ve said to them, “Segregate this.”

The prices vary from $20 to $35 a ton and we’ve been prepared to pay that for paper delivered at our plant, which is a fair market price. This is not speculating in waste paper because we require this amount of paper on a day-to-day basis, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Members should hear the excuses they’ve given us: The garbage gets dumped in the packer truck and that hydraulic press comes in and just congeals it all; the members of the union wouldn’t be prepared to go out on the dump and separate and segregate this stuff.

They’d rather burn it and all the stuff is wasted. Nobody lets us dump it and nobody lets us burn it.

We said to them, “All right, pass bylaws which will require your people to segregate this stuff at the source, so they come up with their newspapers in one bundle and their corrugated in another bundle and so on.” We’ve got to come to that because nobody’s letting us dump it and nobody’s letting us burn it. And they have 51 excuses as to why that can’t be done, such as, “We can’t subject people to onerous bylaws.” There are some municipalities which have these bylaws now but refuse to enforce them because they feel that they will antagonize the people who vote for the politicians.

What is the use of indicating another study on this subject when there are plants today which are doing this kind of work, like our plant, with respect to paper? There are others with respect to metals and glass and so on. They are just looking for this stuff and nobody wants to take the time or trouble to make it available to them.

We can take all this paper off anybody’s hands. We’re in production now; we’ve been in production for several years. What would be wrong with indicating to these municipalities that the people have to segregate this stuff, this garbage, right at the source so that we can make use of it? And for this people will pay. We’re only one company of many.

We hailed with great hullabaloo the other day when a minister on behalf of Anglo announced a sawmill and a pulp and paper plant being erected somewhere where they’re going to cut down trees and make pulp and paper. Do members know that for every ton of paper we use on a recycling basis, we avoid cutting down 17 trees somewhere in a forest in northern Ontario, where aforestation and reforestation have to take place? This is a great conservation measure.

What does the government have to study in order to decide that this is a good thing and to implement it and enforce it? We’re in operation now and, as I say, we’re only one plant of many which recycle materials and are recycling them today. This isn’t a plan for the future or a programme for 20 years from now. This is in existence now.

The provincial government seems to refuse to come to grips with this. It would rather deal with hostile people who don’t want garbage dumped in their localities; with hostile people who refuse to have incinerators and sewage disposal plants erected in their various municipalities. This is an anti-growth psychosis; I’m all right, Jack, but don’t come in here. We don’t want any changes and don’t pollute and don’t do this and don’t do that. Yet these are the very people who are doing the polluting and don’t come up with any solution as to how these things should be handled.

So here’s another study. I say that this Throne Speech could have gone a lot further in indicating to the people of Ontario what should be done and what has to be done with respect to recycling and with respect to handling the problem of waste management.

About the only thing in the Throne Speech I do agree with and which, apparently, some members of the Conservative government don’t agree with, is the enforcement of the use of seatbelts. I think enforcement of the use of seatbelts is a good idea. I don’t think the problem of enforcement will be that great. There will be a lot of people who won’t obey the law, but since when is this a reason for not passing a law? People who commit murder, of course, don’t obey the criminal law. There are a lot of people who don’t obey the laws in the Criminal Code, but yet we have the Criminal Code because society has to be protected.

The real sanction which will enforce the law of having to clip on your seatbelt, Mr. Speaker, is the civil action sanction. If you find that you’re, heaven forbid, in an accident, and you haven’t had your seat belt on, and you’re going to be involved in contributory negligence because you didn’t have your seatbelt on, and that your award will go down by 50 per cent or 80 per cent or, in turn, that the award to the plaintiff who sues you is going to go up tremendously because you didn’t have your seatbelt on, I think you’ll find a lot of people are going to abide by the law.

Because once you put it in as a law, Mr. Speaker, the custom in our community and our society is that people will obey the law. If they don’t obey the law they run the risk of this very serious civil sanction and a civil case if they get into an accident, and that’s rough. If you don’t get into an accident then it doesn’t matter whether or not you buckle on your seatbelt, but at a critical time, when this becomes a factor in a serious matter such as an accident, it will be very, very important as a question of fact in any given trial, or in the settlement of a case, as to whether you had your seatbelt on or not. I think that consequently this will cause people to obey the seatbelt law.

That, Mr. Speaker, is about the size of it. I hope we will all be here next year when we will again indulge in this ritual and I’m glad to see how the chamber filled up from the time that I started.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Nickel Belt.

Mr. F. Laughren (Nickel Belt): Mr. Speaker, it’s good to see you back, looking well, sitting on the Throne and ruling in your customarily fair way. As I listened to the Throne Speech as read by His Honour I couldn’t help but think that we were listening to a typical mid-term Throne Speech which, in a rather somewhat uniquely vague way, indicates the social and economic direction that the government intends to take in the next year and, perhaps, the next two years.

There was nothing in the speech that was terribly unpalatable to any groups in our society. There were no announcements of new regional governments in the province that would upset people in their community. I was just projecting ahead to next year and I thought, “My goodness, can you hear the trumpets blaring as the announcements are made from the Throne in an election year?”

But I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, that next year the people across this province are going to say: “No, not this time. An election year of a platter full of promises will not make up for the by then 30-plus years of Conservative government neglect in Ontario.” This is particularly true in northern Ontario. I can imagine that the polls in the province will reflect that next year and then we’ll witness the Conservatives pulling the plug on the advertising campaigns and we’ll have another American style propaganda campaign across the province.

But I should get back to this speech. I should mention too, Mr. Speaker, that those who know me well know I’ve never been a very strong royalist, but I must say that given the office of Lieutenant Governor, that His Honour, Mr. Macdonald, filled the bill admirably and I could only hope that in the years to come the government in Ottawa, perchance in 15 or 20 years, will appoint a Conservative as Lieutenant Governor for Ontario.

I suppose we all think of people that would fill the bill among those people we know. The first member that came to mind to me when I was thinking of a Conservative Lieutenant Governor for the Province of Ontario -- I’m thinking now 15 years ahead -- would be, of course, none other than the member for Timiskaming (Mr. Havrot).

Can’t you just picture it now? When the call to serve came he would shut down his hotdog stand on the top of Maple Mountain. He’d fight through the blizzards at the top and the black flies at the bottom. He’d jump on the monorail express to Toronto and he would come down here to serve out his term.

I think most of us would support the member for Timiskaming if he was to fulfil that role. I am sure the members of his constituency would anyway.

Mr. Lawlor: He would probably bring the black flies with him.

Mr. Laughren: Mr. Speaker, there was nothing in the Throne Speech that would make the people of Ontario excited about what they were going to witness for the next year. There were no really new exciting programmes. As the member for York-Forest Hill (Mr. Givens) indicated, it mentioned all sorts of studies and all sorts of indications of priority ratings; but it certainly didn’t go beyond that, unless, of course, you consider mandatory seatbelts as being exciting. I understand that the Parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Transportation and Communications doesn’t even consider that such an exciting addition to our legislation.

Let it never be said Mr. Speaker, that the New Democrats just criticize without offering alternatives, because I certainly intend this afternoon to offer some alternatives to the government as to what should have been in that Throne Speech. For example, there should certainly have been in that Throne Speech a commitment to establish public auto insurance in the Province of Ontario. It is inevitable in this jurisdiction, as it is going to be in other jurisdictions, that we will have public automobile insurance. Either the Conservatives will implement it or we will implement it.

Mr. Cassidy: They never will.

Mr. Laughren: Mr. Speaker, you would think that the Conservatives, having a fairly good instinct for survival, would see that and would implement it.

Also the entire question of the ownership of our resources is becoming a very debatable subject among a growing number of people, not just in this province, but all across the country. A more comprehensive form of social insurance that would entirely replace the Workmen’s Compensation Board is something that those people who understand social insurance are saying has no equal. Those people who are familiar with the Wodehouse report in New Zealand and have read its contents will tell you that it’s much superior to that of the private sector.

The Throne Speech should have offered some alternatives in the supply of land for residential purposes. I suppose that the government is in a spot and that it is clearly locked into commitments to the resource corporations, to the insurance industry and to the land speculators and developers across this province. So nothing is going to be done about the rapidly rising price of raw land or serviced land.

We have in this province, Mr. Speaker, a milieu in which the government moves within ever-narrowing parameters because its commitments are being made to fewer and fewer people in this province, and they are not for the benefit of the majority of people in the province. While there are all sorts of reasons for that, one need only examine some of the individual members of the Conservative Party to know that.

Those of us who represent northern ridings listened to the Throne Speech, read it over after the speech and then read it over again. Then the next day we were dumbfounded to read in the media all that was being done for northern Ontario -- major concessions for northern Ontario. The member for York-Forest Hill said it as well as it could be said: What are those concessions for northern Ontario? Another study? Is that a major concession? Another priority rating for a project in northern Ontario? That surely is not a major concession. I must say that conspicuous by its absence was any concession to the member for Timiskaming and his pet project, the Maple Mountain project.

I really think, Mr. Speaker, that there could be a major split developing in the Conservative Party in this province. I can see the split now between Ontario’s junior achiever, the Ministry of Industry and Tourism (Mr. Bennett), and the north’s underachiever, the member for Timiskaming, over Maple Mountain. There are more and more people coming down and saying that the development of Maple Mountain is not the best kind of development for northern Ontario.

I know when I make a statement like that there are people going to say that there is somebody who is against tourism. That’s not true. I wish the tourist industry well. But there are many unanswered questions about Maple Mountain, including the environmental concerns and the claims by the native peoples for Maple Mountain. I feel that if public money is going to be channelled into enterprises in northern Ontario it shouldn’t be channelled into an enterprise such as Maple Mountain. It should go into enterprises which will provide good employment for the area, which will employ local people and employ them at good wages. I don’t believe that Maple Mountain is the kind of project which is going to add to the industrial development of northern Ontario,

I wouldn’t do to the tourist industry what I have witnessed this government do to the tourist industry. What I have seen this government do, through its Ministry of Transportation and Communications, to the little town of Gogama about 80 or 100 miles from Sudbury, I wouldn’t do and nobody in this party would do. That government over there, with its so-called interest in tourism, isolated the town by building a road two miles from the town, by-passing it completely, and issued a lease to Imperial Oil -- who else? -- for a service centre at the corner. Now there is no need for anyone travelling on Highway 144 between Sudbury and Timmins to go into the town of Gogama, none whatsoever. That’s some commitment to tourism in northern Ontario and I hope the NOTO rooters will take note of that.

Mr. Martel: Good luck to them.

Mr. Laughren: The announcement in the Throne Speech that Highway 17 was going to be widened and improved between Sudbury and Sault Ste. Marie is an interesting statement. I don’t know, maybe the member for Algoma (Mr. Gilbertson) would know more about this, but why did it not say four lanes? Does that not leave the member wondering just what the government is up to when it says there are going to be improvements to and widening of the highway between Sudbury and Sault Ste. Marie? We’ve known that for 10 years. It has already started from each end so what kind of an announcement is that to excite people in northern Ontario?

Mr. J. A. Taylor (Prince Edward-Lennox): Did the member want the specifications in the Throne Speech?

Mr. Martel: Sure.

Mr. Laughren: As far as concerns the commitment to improve telecommunications in the remote communities in northern Ontario that is not something this government should be bragging about because it is an embarrassment the way it is now. Bringing in some kind of communications into remote communities surely should have been done years and years ago. I can name communities now where there are no telephones; where the hydro supply costs three times the rate that Ontario Hydro charges people in other communities. That’s some commitment the government just made.

Mr. B. Gilbertson (Algoma): The member will agree it needs improvement, won’t he?

Mr. Laughren: At the same time, the people in these remote communities pay the same seven per cent sales tax. What do they get in return? Certainly not roads. They pay the same Medicare premiums as the rest of us. They have no medical services whatsoever -- not even a nurse-practitioner, not even an emergency vehicle -- but they pay the same premiums. They pay the same income tax and it takes some gall to stand up, as a government, and brag about improving services in those communities.

Mr. Stokes: They have to go 100 miles to get them.

Mr. Laughren: I remember, Mr. Speaker, that the present Minister of Energy (Mr. McKeough) stood up two years ago and indicated that he understood the problems in the unorganized communities in northern Ontario; he was then the Minister of Treasury and Economics, But to this day nothing has been done for the unorganized communities in northern Ontario except for one statement in the Throne Speech that the government was going to recognize community organizations or councils to funnel grants through. There was no mention of the grants or the funding of those actual organizations or community councils to help them get off the ground.

There are community councils all across northern Ontario in these unorganized communities. The response by the Minister of Health to demands from small communities to send in some kind of medical service has been anything but enthusiastic. We have besieged the minister with letters to put, for heaven’s sake, a nurse practitioner or an emergency vehicle in these communities because it is not right to have communities isolated perhaps by 100 miles or 200 miles, with no access to any kind of medical service whatsoever. The response has been negligible from the ministry.

People who live in these small unorganized communities in the north do so for a variety of social and economic reasons. I think that one could generalize and say they tend to be very self-reliant, very patient people, not overly demanding of the government. In other words these people don’t really expect to see a return on their tax dollars from the Science Centre in Toronto, from the art galleries, from the museum, from the expressways down here, from international trade missions. Those people don’t expect to get a return on their tax dollars to build those things.

But on the other hand, they are not stupid either. And as more and more New Democrats get elected in northern Ontario, they are coming to realize that they have a right to demand a return for those things they are not getting -- the basic amenities of life.

As taxpayers they can see that their taxes are going to service others. They can see as well that while communities in southern Ontario debate the merits of a billion-dollar transit system, they go without drinking water, they go without any recreational facilities at all, they go without inadequate roads, they have inadequate communication systems, and they know that is not right.

Surely, Mr. Speaker, there is no place in this province for a double set of standards like that -- one set for the unorganized communities in the north, and another set of standards for the more populated centres; some of those populated centres are in northern Ontario, as well.

There really must be some members of the government who seethe with anger inside when they alternate between Toronto and their ridings and see these two standards; see this double standard in effect. I don’t know how they can accept this, but I suppose if they really wanted to change things they wouldn’t be members of the government; they would be in opposition trying to change them, rather than keeping them as they are.

If the government continues with its present level of non-intervention in these unorganized communities, a couple of things are going to result. They are going to continue to have an inadequate level in supply of and standards for housing. We are going to continue to have money from the Social Development policy field being poured into these communities with no measurable results whatsoever because the government is not changing the environment in those communities at all. It is supporting people who are living on social assistance but it is not changing the conditions under which they live; and that’s not changing anything. The government is, perpetuating the cycle of poverty that exists in those communities.

I am glad the Provincial Secretary for Social Development (Mrs. Birch) is in the Legislature this afternoon, because I believe there is about $39 million or $40 million available to the Province of Ontario under the federal capital projects fund. I believe that money is available only from April 1, 1974 until May 31, 1975. I think it is in the neighbourhood of between about $35 million to $40 million that is available from the federal government to the province to use for provincial projects. I am not talking about municipal projects now; these are provincial projects. That money is available to the Province of Ontario and that is what should be used.

Any money put into those communities should be done so in a very calculated way. What is required is something that is very similar to the New Democratic Party’s municipal foundation plan, where one establishes a minimum level of services to all communities and then provides it. That is where that $30 million or so that is available from the federal government could be used.

Mr. Martel: Put it in Cornwall.

Mr. Laughren: These are some of the things that should be a requirement for every community if one regards a community as being a viable community in which people can continue to live; these are the things that should be there. There should be some form of community complex that would allow people to have some form of recreation facility. In some cases, maybe a community steam bath --

Mr. Stokes: Water or sewers.

Mr. Laughren: There must be a supply of energy in every community. Now, if you can’t bring in Ontario Hydro, then provide a Delco unit, but for heaven’s sakes not a Delco unit at three times the rate of Ontario Hydro for energy supply. That is what is happening today.

There should be some form of emergency transportation. There are communities with absolutely no form of emergency transportation at all. There should be some even if it is a Natural Resources station wagon that can be arranged as an ambulance to take somebody 100 miles to the nearest doctor or the nearest hospital; or an arrangement with the charter air service to fly into a community and take out somebody who is sick. These arrangements have to be made. It is ridiculous that in 1974 these communities are without these services.

Clean water. There are communities in northern Ontario surrounded throughout a vast acreage with clear, unpolluted water, yet in those tiny communities the water table is polluted primarily because of the nature of their septic systems. That’s got to be changed.

Mr. Stokes: Two hundred and fifty thousand lakes and not a drop to drink!

Mr. Laughren: They have got to have a good supply of drinking water and that can be done through a community water supply, with either a lagoon system to get rid of the sewage or perhaps a holding tank.

There has got to be fire protection and that would include making sure that there is a fire extinguisher in homes and so forth. But there is no fire protection in a lot of these communities and to this day there is not a single penny of provincial money available for fire protection in unorganized communities. I could take members to community after community where they have been writing letters to the fire marshal’s office and saying, “How about some money to help us buy an old fire truck?”

Mr. Martel: No way.

Mr. Laughren: And if they do get a fire truck, such as one community I know of, they got a fire truck by running a lot of raffles, they got an old fire truck and they had no place to put it. So they fill it up with water and it freezes. Now what could be more ridiculous in 1974? The government must supply these basics.

Another thing is suitable garbage disposal. Members should see some of the dumps outside these towns where the people have dumped their garbage. It’s a disgrace.

If they can’t supply a doctor in these communities and that’s understandable in a community of 200 people, 500, 800, then they should at least supply a nurse practitioner. The efforts of the Health Ministry in this regard have been minimal. They just have not treated the matter seriously. I can show the House letters -- I should have brought them in and read them into the record -- from the Minister of Health offering the platitudes and agreeing that there certainly should be something done and that he has authorized the local health unit to try and find somebody, but nothing ever happens. Because they are not serious about it.

That list I’ve just given may seem like a long list. One might think of the expense of bringing all those services into those communities, because most of the communities are lacking all of those services.

Mr. Stokes: There is a greater expense in social terms if they don’t do anything.

Mr. Laughren: Can members imagine people in southern Ontario or in other urban centres settling for anything less than that? They wouldn’t do it.

It doesn’t make sense to suggest to these people in these remote communities that they move into the larger urban centres, either in the north or in southern Ontario. Those centres are having trouble, in an employment sense, supporting their existing populations. And besides, very often the jobs that are available in the larger urban centres require a degree of expertise or education, specialization, that those people in the unorganized remote communities simply do not have. So it doesn’t make sense to say move them out of there. That’s not going to solve any problem. We just create another problem in the urban centre.

So the alternative is to do something with the community. And for heaven’s sake, the government should make up its mind soon whether or not it is going to regard those communities as viable entities or not and tell the people that instead of misleading them now into thinking that there is a winter works project here and there is an OFY project here. That’s not solving the problem.

Mr. Martel: Maybe a youth programme.

Mr. Laughren: The Provincial Secretary for Social Development is very hard on the OFY projects. I could show her a provincial winter works project up north, near the town of Foleyet, where in the winter time they cut off all the brush at snow level along the road. Do members know how deep the snow is in the winter time in Foleyet?

Mr. Givens: How deep is it?

Mr. Laughren: Five or six feet. And then in the summer time, of course, they had to have another government project to cut the brush off at ground level. Well, they are doing a lot for the development of that community, aren’t they? They are not breaking any cycles when they do things like that. People still have the same pattern. Cyclical poverty continues and it is not doing anything for the community.

But more than that, more than the problem of employment, many of the people in those towns have financial ties there. They have family ties there and they may have some form of employment there. So I’m not talking simply about creating employment for the unemployed in those communities. I am talking about making those communities a different place in which to live. It’s a very hard thing to say, but if we look at the houses in a lot of those unorganized communities, they would be unacceptable in Toronto. If we look at the problems with the lot sizes, we find out that no ministry will give them approval for a septic tank; so in 1974 they are condemned to outdoor privies, and that’s one reason we have polluted water tables.

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. Laughren: There is absolutely no grant from any ministry of government to help them build holding tanks, to help them pay for a truck to empty those holding tanks or to have a sewage lagoon -- nothing whatsoever -- and yet other communities get up to 75 per cent in subsidies for their sewage systems. But not the unorganized communities -- they don’t get a single penny.

This is something the government should be embarrassed about. If they are not, it’s only because there are few people up there and nobody pays any attention to them. But the standard of living in those unorganized communities is something about which this government should be ashamed.

I would like to document a few towns and tell what the inadequacies are in those towns. I tend not to be very parochial in my speeches in this House, Mr. Speaker -- probably not enough -- but when we talk about unorganized communities, I think that the riding of Nickel Belt is probably a good example of a northern riding with unorganized communities. I will now document six communities; there are many more in Nickel Belt, but I will document six of them.

Cartier: It has inadequate recreational facilities, medical services, fire protection, access by road and sewage disposal. I mention access by road, because can you imagine, Mr. Speaker, a town with 700 or 800 people -- it is only 40 miles north of Sudbury, but it is unorganized -- cut off from a highway, in this case, Highway 144, from any kind of entrance or exit, by a shunting yard of the CPR? If people want to get out and go to work, sometimes they have to wait 40 or 45 minutes while the trains shunt back and forth. There are no lights or traffic signals there, and there is no requirement by the railway that they have to move out of the way within, say, 10 or 15 minutes, because it’s classified as a shunting yard.

Here are people, 40 miles north of Sudbury, who live in fear that at some point there is going to be a serious illness or an accident on one side of the tracks -- but try to move a freight train. There are two or three of them going back and forth at the same time, if one wants to get out in a hurry.

Gogama, a little farther north, which I mentioned earlier as having been cut off by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, has inadequate recreational facilities, inadequate medical services, inadequate fire protection, inadequate sewage disposal, inadequate drinking water and inadequate garbage disposal.

Mr. Martel: Except for the Tories.

Mr. Laughren: That’s the town, Mr. Speaker, where 10 years ago there was a chemical spill that polluted part of the water table. Mind you, the Ministry of Natural Resources and the OPP are well off. They have a community water supply and sewage disposal. But not the rest of the town. They have nothing. And that’s where over 50 per cent of the wells now are polluted with nitrate, which is dangerous to the health of infants. Over 50 per cent of the wells are polluted and yet to this day there are no grants available from this government to rectify that situation. Can you imagine, Mr. Speaker, a community in southern Ontario having 50 per cent of its wells polluted with a substance that’s dangerous to the health of infants, without a public outcry?

Mr. Gaunt: No way.

Mr. Breithaupt: Shocking.

Mr. Martel: Shame.

Mr. Foulds: It is never mentioned --

Mr. Martel: That is how the vote goes too. The Tories all vote and they have the sewer and water -- and the Ministry of Natural Resources and the OPP. They are all Tories.

Mr. Laughren: My colleague from Sudbury East is quite right that when you drive into the town, it’s the classic example of the other side of the tracks. You drive into town and there are the nice big white houses where the government employees live. It’s not the fault of those individuals working for the government there now; it’s the fault of a government that doesn’t see that they have created -- and I don’t know whether it is deliberate or not -- such an incredible class structure within that community that there has to be hard feelings, as the people in the town see the government employees really well off while they themselves live in inadequate housing, their water table is polluted and there is no sewage disposal. They live with outdoor privies and unpaved roads, but nothing is ever done. This has been documented to different ministries of government time after time, year after year, and still it is neglected. It is truly a disgrace.

Shining Tree, another community, is probably worse off than either Cartier or Gogama. It has inadequate recreational facilities, inadequate garbage disposal, inadequate sewage disposal, inadequate drinking water, inadequate access roads, inadequate medical services, and inadequate telephone service.

As a matter of fact, Mr. Speaker, it has no telephone service, and Northern Telephone will not put in lines, despite the fact that Ontario Hydro offered them the use of their poles. They won’t put it in. There’s no ministry in this government that will say, “This is fundamentally wrong, let’s put it in there.” Nobody says that. Those people just wish that they were under the Department of Indian Affairs, where much much smaller communities than those have been provided with services that put this government to shame.

Shining Tree also has inadequate housing and inadequate fire protection. Foleyet has inadequate medical services, inadequate garbage disposal, inadequate housing, inadequate drinking water and inadequate sewage disposal. Ramsey has inadequate medical services, inadequate recreational facilities, inadequate garbage disposal, inadequate sewage disposal, inadequate drinking water, and inadequate access roads. As a matter of fact, Ramsey is on a private road, and you have to get a pass to get into it.

I’d like to tell you about going into that place one time, Mr. Speaker. When I went in, I had a fellow with me.

The fellow at the gate said, “Where are you going?”

I said, “Into Ramsey.”

He said, “Who are you going to see?”

I said, “Well, everybody I can.”

He was an employee of Eddy Forest Products, and he said, “What have you got with you?”

This was in the wintertime. We said, “We have a few guns and a few grenades and a few Molotov cocktails. It’s the start of the winter campaign.”

He said, “You haven’t got any chain saws, have you?”

We said, “No, just guns and bombs and that.”

He said, “I don’t want you to cut any trees when you’re out there.”

So he gave us a key and we went through.

An hon. member: What was the key for?

Mr. Laughren: The key is to get through the gate.

Mr. Cassidy: Did the member shoot any trees?

Mr. Laughren: It’s locked. There’s a gate at each end and this community is in between the two gates. It’s Crown land and all Eddy Forest have is cutting rights on it, but they’ve put gates up at each end to stop the public from going through. They do open the gates up on the weekend to let people go in and hunt, but you should see the form you have to sign, Mr. Speaker. I’m sure it’s more complicated than an international adoption.

An hon. member: It’s feudal.

Mr. Laughren: You remember the problems they had in the Province of Ontario with this.

Those are the kind of antique laws and rules that govern the unorganized communities in northern Ontario. It just doesn’t make sense.

Mr. Stokes: Like the sheriff of Nottingham.

Mr. Laughren: Besides having those inadequacies, Ramsey has inadequate housing, inadequate fire protection, and only a Delco unit for the supply of energy, and once again, at much in excess of the rate that Ontario Hydro charges its users.

The last community I wish to talk about is Sultan. Sultan is just outside one of these famous gates that Eddy Forest Products has set up. They have inadequate housing, inadequate medical services, inadequate recreational facilities and inadequate access roads. You can only get up from the north because from the south you have to go through that private road. They have inadequate fire protection and inadequate hydro. They too have Delco units, but at three times the rate of Ontario Hydro. They have inadequate telephone service, inadequate garbage disposal, inadequate sewage disposal and inadequate drinking water.

I should be careful when I’m quoting this as three times the rate as Ontario Hydro. Maybe now it’s only double!

Mr. Martel: It’s only double after the last bills that came out.

Mr. Laughren: Particularly with the rural rates.

Mr. Gaunt: After the last raise, yes.

Mr. Laughren: There are other communities in northern Ontario for which I could document the inadequacy of services, but I think that should point out to you, Mr. Speaker, that it’s a serious matter. It’s not something that this government is not aware of and that it can plead innocent on. They’ve known about it for a number of years and yet they continue to ignore them. Until a platform is put in under those communities and on that platform is a level of services to bring --

Mr. Stokes: Did they ever hear about these problems from the former member? Did he ever speak about them in the Legislature?

Mr. Laughren: I haven’t seen any correspondence on it.

Mr. Martel: He spoke about how great these rebates were and how much they were doing for us.

Mr. Laughren: I really want to make the point, Mr. Speaker, that utilizing the resources of the Social Development policy field is not the answer, because that will only perpetuate the problem. It won’t change it at all. It won’t change the cyclical aspect of the problem there.

Mr. A. J. Roy (Ottawa East): Will it help the new minister?

Mr. Laughren: No.

Mr. Roy: No?

Mr. Laughren: No; it would take a major commitment on the part of Management Board to allocate those $30-plus million. Now I hope the provincial secretary is listening and will take a look at those millions that are available.

Mr. Stokes: The Provincial Secretary for Social Development; she is making notes.

Mr. Laughren: There is no excuse for not using them.

Lest the provincial secretary think I may be exaggerating somewhat, although it’s hard to think she would accuse me of that, she should check with her own people in her own social development policy field. They will tell her. They know. They know what the inadequacies are there, and they are embarrassed by it.

Mr. Stokes: I think she should drive up there with the hon. member and see first hand.

Mr. Laughren: And, Mr. Speaker, those of us who see discrepancies in the delivery of services in those communities, we see a striking parallel in the similarity between Canada and the United States and southern Ontario and northern Ontario. We, as a country, as a province, are a resource frontier for that great American empire to the south of us; and in turn northern Ontario is a resource frontier for southern Ontario.

Mr. Martel: Remember Dr. Thoman’s plan?

Mr. Laughren: That’s why we don’t have the kind of development we should have there.

And in neither case is the answer in massive infusion of paternalistic pronouncements or grant money. That won’t solve the problem. It’s ridiculous that in northern Ontario this government is still using the announcement of a new highway project or a grant for construction of a government building to do what they think will convince people to vote Conservative.

We’ve gone way beyond that in northern Ontario. We’ve passed them way by. It doesn’t matter what they offer in 1975, they’re going to suffer electoral losses in northern Ontario. It’s inevitable.

If they don’t believe me, check with the member for Timiskaming. Because we know, and the people in northern Ontario know, that the ad hoc measures the government has come up with to date are not the answer. There’s been too many years of it.

There’s a new mood in northern Ontario. The government can write off that whole campaign for a separate province in northern Ontario -- heaven knows I’m not supporting it. They can write that off if they want; to them it’s just an aberration on the social scene, or. the political scene. But it’s more than that. It indicates a very serious feeling of neglect by the people in northern Ontario.

Mr. Martel: That’s why it’s Tory-run.

Mr. Laughren: Yes, it is run by a Tory. Right.

Mr. Stokes: Is Diebel a Tory?

Mr. Martel: Yes, sure.

Mr. Stokes: Oh.

Mr. Laughren: If I could, Mr. Speaker, through you ask the various ministers of the government --

Mr. Foulds: Who are all sitting there, of course!

Mr. Laughren: Does it not bother them that the federal Minister of Regional Economic Expansion has admitted that the growth rate in northern Ontario is slower than the growth rate in the Maritimes? Does it not bother them that the population of northern Ontario, in a relative sense, is declining according to the Ontario Economic Review dated September-October, 1973?

“Northern Ontario’s proportion of the total provincial population is declining, having fallen from 11.6 per cent in 1961 to 10.1 per cent in 1971.”

Why is the relative population of northern Ontario falling? I think it should be clear to the government that it’s because the job offers are not there, the industrial development is not there.

Does it not bother you, Mr. Speaker, through you to the ministers, that at International Nickel Co. in Sudbury alone, there are now 5,000 less hourly-rated employees than there were just a couple of years ago? Does it not bother them as well, that the Economic Council of Canada, in its recent report, its 10th annual report, indicates that employment in our resource industries is growing at a very slow rate indeed. I’d like to quote some of those figures to members:

For the period 1948 to 1970, employment in mines, quarries and oil wells grew at an annual rate of only 1.4 per cent. In forestry, employment declined at a 1.1 per cent rate per year.

That’s a 22-year period.

This compares with annual increases of 3.3 per cent in utilities; two per cent in manufacturing; 6.2 per cent in community business and personal services; 2.9 per cent in wholesale and retail trade; 2.5 per cent in construction; and 4.6 per cent in finance, insurance and real estate -- to name just a few sectors.

And for the economy as a whole, employment grew at an annual rate of 2.4 per cent. It should be noted that while employment increased by 1.4 per cent in the mines, quarries and oil well sector, output was up by 6.5 per cent per year for those 22 years. For the forestry sector which had, members will recall, a decline in employment of 1.1 per cent a year, output increased by 4.2 per cent a year. For both forestry and mining, employment is stagnating and production is going up at above normal rates. That is what this government means for the future of northern Ontario if it continues on its present path.

There is a great deal that should bother this government about northern Ontario besides those unorganized communities I was talking about. Not least should be the future of our young, better educated people of both sexes in northern Ontario. We now have community colleges in all the major centres in northern Ontario. We have two universities in northern Ontario. But isn’t it ironic that the better paying, more stimulating jobs are not there for those same graduates? What does the government propose to do about that? I would suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that it stop trying to bribe northern Ontario with these one-shot construction jobs. It won’t work any more. Tell us, rather, that it intends to intervene in an aggressive way in our resource industries. Tell us it intends to use our resources to create jobs. Tell us it intends to do these things through Crown corporations.

Mr. Martel: Show us the way. It has given its shirt away.

Mr. Laughren: Show us, Mr. Speaker, that it really does comprehend what economic development is all about. It is not grants.

Mr. Martel: The government has given everything away but the kitchen sink.

Mr. Laughren: In other words, Mr. Speaker, we don’t want roads to resources. We want resources. I suspect that the mining industry is beginning to feel the pressure as public opinion changes across Canada and in this province as well. Public opinion is becoming very concerned about the role the mining industry has played in our economy and it is interesting to note how the mining industry reacts when the pressure is on.

I would like to quote very briefly from the Mining Association of BC which the member from Forest Hill quoted. This is Mr. W. J. Tough, who is president of the Mining Association of BC.

“Two things are expected to happen from the royalty increase in B.C. With the additional costs those who have the option will have to raise the grade of ore mined, thereby reducing reserves and shortening the life of the mines, not to mention leaving much needed valuable minerals in the ground.”

I want to tell you, Mr. Speaker, if that isn’t a clarion call to arms I don’t know what is. There you have the Mining Association of BC saying if the taxes are raised they are going to high-grade the ore and leave the rest in the ground. If that is the kind of intimidation we’ll subject ourselves to in this country, I suggest it is time we did something about those resources.

Mr. Martel: The minister bends over backwards to the industry.

Mr. Laughren: I don’t know what you call that but I can only think of the words intimidation and bluffing. It is really a bluff because they are not going to move anywhere else because the ores aren’t anywhere else.

Mr. Martel: He needs a bar of soap.

Mr. Laughren: The Mining Association of BC is just one. Let me quote from the Northern Miner, March 7, 1974. This is the Mining Association of Canada, Mr. Charles Elliott. He noted that there are deterrents to increasing processing and manufacturing in mineral products in Canada imposed by the tariff structure of other industrialized nations which allow duty-free entry or very little duty on ores and concentrates which they require. They impose progressively higher duties on minerals in proportion to the degree of further processing which has occurred. Mr. Elliott cited other non-tariff barriers including the structure of freight rates which make it generally cheaper to transport minerals in concentrate rather than in metallic form. A competitive advantage is thus gained by processing plants located close to metal markets, he explained. “Let us not delude ourselves that we can, by the wave of a wand, create further processing of our mineral products beyond what good economics will support,” he said.

If I could just paraphrase what Mr. Elliott is saying, he is saying that it is really difficult for us to increase processing in this country because other countries have low import rates on unfinished ores and high tariffs on finished products. Does he not see the insanity of going along with that? Of course other countries will say, “Look, you ship us your ores. We’ll process them here. We’ll give you a good deal on the tariff because we want to process them here.”

That is where the employment is, in the processing and in the refining, not in the extraction from the ground. We saw that in the employment figures. It is declining. So the job opportunities are in the processing and refining, and here we have the president of the Mining Association of Canada saying it would be very difficult to process and refine our ore here because there is a real break on tariffs when we ship it out in unprocessed form.

What kind of convoluted logic is that, that we are subjecting ourselves to?

Mr. Martel: They need to do it themselves.

Mr. Laughren: It is too ridiculous. I suspect that the mining associations are overreacting to the kind of public pressure that is building in this country and in this province. While it may not be a ground swell yet, I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, that the public ownership of our resources is going to be one and the day will come when all governments will realize the benefits of it.

As other jurisdictions, such as BC, move stronger and stronger into the resource industry and take more in taxation from those corporations, people in other jurisdictions, such as Ontario, will say, “Why are we in Ontario allowed so little return back?” That is going to happen. It is happening now.

It is significant as well that this feeling from the public is being expressed by different people from all walks of life. We had Eric Kierans with his report saying that you couldn’t really nationalize what you already owned anyway, so let’s get on with the business. We had Kates Peat Marwick with its report last spring to the select committee on economic and cultural nationalism. Then there is the Science Council of Canada’s report, which frankly and unequivocably says that there are certain benefits to public ownership of our natural resources, and more recently we had another report from Kates Peat Marwick entitled “Foreign Ownership, Corporate Behaviour and Public Attitudes.” This report was the overview report, also for the select committee on economic and cultural nationalism.

Now those who know Kates Peat Marwick as a consulting firm will know that it doesn’t have a bias towards socialism, that on the other hand it is a corporation that fits very well in the corporate milieu in Ontario. I’d like to quote from that report in talking about national resources as a bargaining lever. I quote:

“One obvious area in which Canada has significant comparative advantages relative to most industrial countries is that of natural resources. [And they go on further:] It has been easier to sell our natural resources and import technology and manufactured products from other countries than to build a domestically controlled industrial complex which matches in size, range and self-reliance the scope of our domestic market and resource base. [And then, going further:] Canada’s resource base, coupled with the growing shortages of energy and mineral resources being experienced by most industrialized countries, provides us with a significant bargaining lever which can be used in a number of ways.”

I’d like to quote a couple of those ways that we can use our resources as a bargaining lever, according to Kates Peat Marwick:

“To influence the behaviour of firms developing and purchasing our resources such that both forward and backward integration is carried out in this country, leading to greater value added in Canada, more use of Canadian suppliers in a more broadly based, innovative, responsive, remunerated industrial system in Canada, and to generate in those carefully selected cases where resources are exported in unprocessed or semi-processed form, revenues which will be used both to finance the development of a broader resource and industrial base and to purchase control on a selective basis of a number of large, key corporations which are now foreign controlled.”

Mr. Martel: Here comes the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Bernier). He is going to refute all that. He is going to use Dr. Andrews’ report.

Mr. Laughren: Now Kates Peat Marwick doesn’t come right out and say that we should bring all our national resources under public ownership, but when it does talk they use rather cautious language. There is a very interesting paragraph right near the end of that report and I quote it in full:

“It should also be emphasized that purchasing of Canadian control, while possibly requiring government initiative for immediate results, does not necessarily imply public ownership of the selected key firms. Shares acquired by government agencies such as the Canada Development Corp. could in turn be sold to Canadian citizens and corporations, although in some cases, particularly those of firms involved in non-renewable natural resources, continuing public ownership might be more appropriate.”

Mr. Speaker, when you have Kates Peat Marwick and Co. recommending that the continuing public ownership of our natural resources “might be more appropriate,” one can be sure that they feel underneath, they have a gut feeling, that it has go to be that way -- not just “might be more appropriate.”

Mr. Martel: It is now a case of giving them to some American firm. Repeat that for the minister.

An hon. member: I don’t think the minister heard it.

Mr. Martel: Repeat that for the minister; he didn’t hear it.

Mr. Laughren: Would the Minister of Natural Resources like me to repeat that? I said:

” -- the Canada Development Corp. could in turn be sold to Canadian citizens and corporations, although in some cases, particularly those of firms involved in non-renewable natural resources, continuing public ownership might be more appropriate.”

Well, translate “might be more appropriate” to “would be more appropriate.”

Mr. Foulds: It would be a damn good idea.

Mr. Laughren: So here we have a consulting report that recommends basically more Canadian control in the industry. That is really what they are talking about -- Canadian control. Now, I suppose they would see it as returning the resources to control by Canadian corporations to those same corporate interests that sold them out in the first place. Well, that is not my bag; we certainly reject that.

It is becoming clearer and clearer to us on this side -- well, this particular segment of this side of the House -- as it is to a growing number of people in Ontario and elsewhere, that only through public ownership of our resources will the people of this province receive a maximum benefit from their exploitation.

There are three major reasons. People sometimes ask me, “Why? How would we all benefit so much?” There are three major reasons, I believe, why our resources should be publicly owned:

1. To create employment and to ensure employment in that industry.

2. To provide revenues so that the quality of life can be improved for all people, but in particular those people in those resource-rich communities. Take a look at those resource-rich communities in northern Ontario. Some of them are the very communities that I outlined earlier this afternoon as not even having the basic amenities.

Mr. Foulds: Right on.

Mr. Laughren: The same communities.

3. Because I believe that only through public ownership can we maintain our economic independence; and that is really what the select committee was talking about and that is what Kates Peat Marwick is talking about.

It is not enough, Mr. Speaker, that we talk about increasing the taxation of these resources. Mr. Speaker, for 20 years I have listened to the mining industry tell us that if we increase the taxes on our resources we would restrict growth, we would restrict exploration, we would restrict development. Well, I am not for restricting those things, Mr. Speaker --

Mr. Martel: The former Minister of Mines said we would bankrupt them.

Mr. Laughren: -- and that’s why I say that taxing them more in a short-term may accomplish something, but not in the long term.

The private sector has had three-quarters of a century in this province to create some kind of industrial development based on those resources as a lever. They have failed miserably, and in doing so they haven’t even created the kind of communities in the north that should just have been automatic in their development -- but they haven’t done it.

Our economy has not developed in a healthy way.

Mr. I. Deans (Wentworth): But they have been helped by the Tory government.

Mr. Laughren: Well, they have been pushed by the Tory government to develop that way and by the present Minister of Natural Resources.

Mr. Martel: He is the worst one of them all.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Laughren: Mr. Speaker, it is --

Mr. Cassidy: That is not spoken in jest.

Hon. S. B. Handleman (Minister of Housing): Tongue in cheek?

Mr. Laughren: Mr. Speaker, it is not even fair to ask or to expect that the multinational corporations will develop secondary industry in Ontario, because that is not the way in which they can maximize their profits. That’s the name of the game. We shouldn’t expect otherwise of them, because to do so is naive. So let’s not think or be mad at the multinationals; it is not their fault. They are there to maximize their profits for the shareholders. Those are the rules of the game, and we should accept them. I would like to quote from the Science Council report that was put out a year or so ago:

“In longer term perspective we must bear in mind that these resources are non-renewable and that they are finite. Projecting past growth rates into the future will exhaust presently known reserves of several of our major minerals by 1990. With a vigorous exploration programme we could probably find most of these exploitable deposits and thus sustain the exponential rate of growth for a few more decades.

“But is this wise? Do we wish to be remembered as the generation that launched Canada on a programme of rapid exploitation for the export, in raw or semi-processed form, of the resources which will be in such short supply for our children and our grandchildren? Anything beyond the year 2000 looks very far away from 1972, but the year 2000 is only as far in the future as 1944 is in the past.”

Mr. Speaker, that’s what the Science Council of Canada says about our non-renewable resources. Our Minister of Natural Resources has had someone within his ministry commissioned, I believe, to do a report on the Kierans report.

Mr. Martel: What a dummy! Another flunky!

Mr. Laughren: That critique of the Kierans report isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. I would suggest that maybe the minister should spend more time reading the Science Council of Canada’s reports on our natural resources.

Hon. L. Bernier (Minister of Natural Resources): What’s the member’s philosophy?

Mr. Martel: What philosophy? All the mining officials employed over there haven’t any philosophy.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: It’s a lot of fresh air and the member knows it.

Mr. Martel: There is not a person over there that is not hooked by him.

Mr. Laughren: Mr. Speaker, there is no question but that the mining industry is one of the basic underpinnings of our economy. I don’t question that. As such, it should be treated as an integral part of the development of this province. Call it an industrial plan or an industrial strategy, if you want, but natural resources should be part of that strategy.

Mr. Cassidy: They haven’t got one.

Mr. Laughren: There is a way to ensure that the exploitation of those resources occurs for the benefit of the entire province and the people in it. I’ll be most specific here. This government should develop a policy by which they will work toward a world-market-oriented metal fabricating secondary processing and manufacturing industry located in northern Ontario.

The mining companies have a miserable record. They all tend to export earnings to other resource frontiers rather than to spend them in this province to develop a more mature, balanced and integrated economy.

One need only look, Mr. Speaker, at the antics of Falconbridge Nickel Mines elsewhere to know that the mining companies presently operating in this province do so only because it is to their advantage. When reserves are developed elsewhere that are cheaper to extract and to develop, then you can be sure that that’s where the action will be. It will not be here.

I, for one, Mr. Speaker, am not proud of the way corporations such as Falconbridge, Rio Algom through its parent company Rio Tinto, aid and abet in the exploitation of people and resources elsewhere. I refer specifically to South Africa.

I don’t expect that a province such as Ontario with a Conservative government like we have which had every intention of sending a trade mission to South Africa, really to understand or care about the exploitation of blacks in South Africa. But it’s happening and it’s happening at least partially as a result of the profits those resource corporations have obtained in Canada and in this province. I would much rather see any surplus that’s generated from the development of our resources here in Ontario go toward making this province, as well as other societies, a better place in which to live, rather than contributing to racist regimes and exploitation of labour in South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, it is most unlikely that the role of Falconbridge Nickel will change, since no one should have any illusions whatsoever about the prime role of multinational corporations. Their sole purpose is to maximize profits for the benefit of their shareholders. By locating and expanding refining and smelting operations in countries such as Canada and Norway, it’s merely utilizing cheap labour elsewhere to acquire raw material from the underdeveloped countries to feed those refineries and smelters.

The president of Falconbridge Nickel Mines, when commenting on the problems of pollution control and other relatively high production costs in this country, has been quoted as saying:

“These and other adverse factors will in future make Canada’s nickel sulphide reserves less profitable relative to the lateritic ores. Gradually some of today’s nickel reserves in Canada will be written off as unprofitable and the production rates of individual mines will then decline.”

So let us have no illusions about the corporations that are now operating in our resource industries. When it suits the purpose of Falconbridge Nickel Mines to concentrate its activities elsewhere, it will do just that, and we in Ontario will be left with environmental scars, depleted resources and unemployment.

The Development Education Centre, located here in Toronto, has done some excellent research into the behaviour of corporations in underdeveloped countries. Their comments about the working conditions of Falconbridge miners in Namibia in South-West Africa are worth putting on the record, Mr. Speaker. I quote from the Development Education Centre report:

“Workers are housed in cement block houses, 15 to a dormitory.

“The method of hiring used by Falconbridge, until a general strike in December, 1971, was the South-West Africa Native Labour Association. This organization was composed of the employers, including Falconbridge, who traded in humans in a manner described by the International Commission of Jurists as ‘akin to slavery.’

Africans labelled as A, B or C class physical specimens were given 12- to 18- month contracts, with wages of about $40 per month.”

That is about one-third of the poverty datum line requirement.

Here is the form that was made out for them when they went to work:

“The said master agrees to hire the service of the said servant and the said servant agrees to render the said master his or their service at all fair and reasonable times in the capacity of [a blank space for the job] for [a blank space for the period of time], commencing on [such and such a date].

“It is further agreed that the said master shall pay the said servant wages at the rate shown against the name of the said servant and that such wages shall be paid monthly.

“Identity permits are mandatory, and labels were tied around the necks of the workers, bearing his name, his prospective boss and the latter’s address.”

Mr. Martel: Good old Falconbridge.

Mr. Laughren: The report continues:

“Workers were often forbidden to leave the compound, and families were strictly barred from the mine area.

“Although the South-West Africa Native Labour Association was broken by the general strike in 1971, most of its characteristics still remain. Wages for an African worker range from $24 to $63 per month, and Falconbridge displays no intention of cutting into its profits in order to pay $110 a month, the poverty datum line minimum considered necessary to maintain health.”

The behaviour of multinational corporations resident in this province is something that we, as elected people, should be concerned about, Mr. Speaker, because we are guilty of complicity if we know this is going on and continue to do nothing about it and to regard corporations such as Falconbridge as good corporate citizens when they are nothing of the kind.

It is not enough, Mr. Speaker, to say that we must not interfere in the affairs of another country. The State of Namibia was supposed to be an independent state since 1966 when the United Nations terminated South Africa’s mandate over that territory. This was confirmed again in 1971 by the International Court of Justice, which declared South Africa’s presence in Namibia to be illegal. South Africa has ignored this declaration and has continued to occupy Namibia. The role of corporations such as Falconbridge should not be under-rated in the exploitation of these people.

Resources are being exploited, and corporations such as Falconbridge, Noranda Mines, Hudson’s Bay Co., Rio Tinto, are playing a major role in the exploitation of both the people and the resources of Namibia.

Mr. Speaker, the government of Ontario has neither the will nor the power to do anything about what Falconbridge is doing in Namibia or in the Dominican Republic, so it would be folly to suggest that this government should say to Falconbridge, “Stop what you are doing in Namibia.” What this government does have the power to do, though -- and it should be obvious -- is to exploit those resources ourselves, rather than to allow Falconbridge Nickel Mines to do so. And rather than to allow the carnivorous multinationals to do it, we should do it ourselves. It is more than an economic obligation. It’s an obligation that goes beyond the borders of this province and beyond the borders of this continent.

I wonder, Mr. Speaker, how many untold stories there are about the multinational corporations involved in the resource industry. I have told only one. I suspect that others are no better, no worse. A Crown corporation that was developing and processing our resources would not dare to exploit workers in South Africa the way Falconbridge has done. Our resources, Mr. Speaker, must be developed by Crown corporations and not by the multinationals.

Mr. J. A. Taylor (Prince Edward-Lennox): Mr. Speaker, may I say a few words, first in connection with the section in the Throne Speech dealing with seatbelts. And then, if I may, I would like to carry on with other aspects of the speech.

I may say that I have some misgivings in connection with this particular item. I know that there was a private member’s bill and I know that there was considerable support by members on all sides of the House.

It has been mentioned here this afternoon, by the hon. member for York-Forest Hill, that there may be some legal ramifications or implications in connection with the subject matter of seatbelts and, in particular, if seatbelts are not worn. That is, the operator of the motor vehicle or the person who fails to wear a seatbelt may be considered as contributing to his own injury, or being the author of his own misfortune, if he fails to wear a seatbelt and is injured as the result of an accident.

What concerns me, Mr. Speaker, in connection with this whole area is the role of government insofar as it affects the personal lives of the individuals. If government climbs into the automobile, of course, then we expect the government to be climbing into the bedroom, and who knows where that may lead? There may be some argument to say that if we can protect a person from himself and from his own misjudgement then, of course, we can keep premiums down and rates down. Of course, our NDP friends would like to see government-sponsored plans, government insurance. Thereby, I suppose, if we could reduce the accident rate or the personal injury rate in any way at all that would reflect on the premiums.

So one can see the insidious workings of government control in this field and in many other fields, if we let the whole matter run to its logical conclusion. If we say to a person, “You must wear a seatbelt because we want to protect you from yourself. We have a government medical plan. If you don’t wear a seatbelt then there may be more claims against the plan,” that leads, of course, to other claims against the plan that may be made for a patient, for example, not following 100 per cent the dictates of his doctor.

Who knows, the doctor may prescribe six weeks vacation for someone and the person then may fail to take that six weeks vacation, following a slight coronary, because the person who has suffered the illness and who is considering very much his own family life as well as his own personal welfare may not be able economically to pursue the dictates of his doctor. If he didn’t do that, following the logic in this, his coverage might be curtailed for some reason or other because he hasn’t followed the prescriptions of the plan.

So we’re getting into an area here that is a very personal matter, and I don’t see how a government can legislate common sense. I don’t see how a government can supervise the behaviour or an individual within his own domicile or in his own automobile.

An area that particularly concerns me is public transportation, which hasn’t been mentioned. The Throne Speech refers to mandatory use of automobile seatbelts. It refers to automobiles. But what about the buses? What happens to the hundreds of thousands of school children who take school buses? If one goes into the countryside one will find that they have a difficult time finding a seat, let alone a seatbelt to strap themselves in.

Mr. J. Riddell (Huron): There was a pretty good private member’s bill introduced on that last year and it is coming again this year.

Mr. Taylor: Sure. It was a very interesting private member’s bill, and as I mentioned initially when I started out, it received support from members on all sides of the House but, at the same time, I think we have to be very careful in introducing government in an area where a person’s freedom is restrained.

The area also, in addition to buses, might include streetcars, subways or any method of transportation in which a person could be subjected to injury if there was an accident between that vehicle and some other vehicle or for some other cause.

Surely the legislation doesn’t propose to cover the areas of subways, streetcars and buses?

Mr. Stokes: How would the member like to be strapped to a snowmobile?

Mr. Taylor: I don’t know how that would function if the government did attempt to legislate in that direction.

Mr. Cassidy: There is real dissent in the Tory back-benchers about this bill. I am amazed. I thought the Tories voted like sheep on everything.

Mr. E. J. Bounsall (Windsor West): There are lots of sheep in his riding.

Mr. Taylor: Well, that goes to show the member for Ottawa Centre doesn’t think.

Mr. Cassidy: I know the Tory backbenchers certainly don’t. There’s conclusive evidence about that. Look at the legislation they’ve supported.

Mr. Taylor: The member is all wet again.

Mr. Cassidy: He should know about sheep, coming from his riding.

Mr. Taylor: I won’t digress from the subject of seatbelts in order to get into sheep or in order to get into other forms of animal life with which the member is so familiar.

Mr. Cassidy: He hasn’t got enough imagination, that’s why.

Mr. Laughren: What’s that supposed to mean?

Mr. Taylor: The member can take whatever meaning he would like from that.

Mr. Cassidy: This is literally repartee the member is giving us.

Mr. Taylor: The other side of the coin --

Mr. Cassidy: I think he has lost his train of thought.

Mr. Taylor: -- also is, what is the role of the state in compensating an individual for damage or injury which he may suffer as a result of having his seatbelt off when it is established that he suffered that damage for that reason?

Mr. Bounsall: Good point.

Mr. Cassidy: Good point, yes.

Mr. Taylor: Would there be something in the legislation to compensate the victim of a seatbelt? I understand that on some occasions there are some people who are injured as a result of wearing belts.

Mr. Cassidy: The member has just scrapped the Elevators and Lifts Act, the Construction Safety Act and every other measure that tries to protect people because people might get hurt in the process.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Ruston: Let’s hear the words of wisdom.

Mr. Taylor: That’s very kind of the member.

Mr. Cassidy: If I were he I would close my ears.

Mr. E. M. Havrot (Timiskaming): The House had quite a time when I was out.

An hon. member: I close my ears when the member for Ottawa Centre is speaking.

Mr. Taylor: I thought I should comment on that initially because there’s so much in the Throne Speech that signals great things to come.

Mr. Laughren: Name one.

Mr. Taylor: I will, and the member will hear from me more on that if he will just bear with me for a moment. As a matter of fact, he might want to bring his confrères into the House to hear the rest of what I may have to say.

Mr. Stokes: Is the member for or against seatbelts?

Mr. Taylor: I’ve just indicated, Mr. Speaker, that I’m dealing with the point of seatbelts initially because that is one area of disagreement that I may have with the contents of the Throne Speech.

Mr. Cassidy: He admits it.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Taylor: No, I wouldn’t. I would like to say that the smallest speck is seen on snow. When we come to the rest of the speech, members will see the wisdom and the many items that will herald greater things too.

Mr. Cassidy: The seatbelts are the 1974 equivalent of the wolf bounty. That’s right. There will be a great Tory revolt over seatbelts.

Mr. Laughren: A Maple Mountain.

Mr. Stokes: Is the member for or against seatbelts?

Mr. Taylor: Mr. Speaker, it has been asked of me whether or not I am for or in favour of seatbelts. Now that is a profound question indeed. And as a matter of fact coming from the member for Thunder Bay it is most remarkable that he should ask such a penetrating question.

Mr. Cassidy: Give us an answer.

Mr. Taylor: It is the most lucid thing that I have heard him say all day.

Mr. Laughren: It was better than this speech.

Mr. Taylor: Simply, my answer is I am in favour of seatbelts, but I think that the wearing of those seatbelts should be at the option of the operator or the passenger of the motor vehicle.

Mr. Cassidy: The member favours seatbelts so long as they are not used.

Mr. Taylor: Well, that is the member’s usual --

Mr. Cassidy: That is precisely what the member said.

Mr. Taylor: That’s right. Mr. Speaker, the member from Toronto Island has made a convoluted observation. If he can’t torture and twist the truth and make it scream, then of course he is not happy.

Mr. Havrot: He has a warped mind.

Mr. Taylor: And I must say that if there was to be an award for that type of talk then he would be an Oscar winner.

Mr. Cassidy: The member will never urge his children to wear seatbelts because it is a matter for their individual choice.

Mr. Taylor: Mr. Speaker, I won’t pursue the question of seatbelts any further. I may say, to satisfy and put at ease the mind of my hon. friend from Ottawa Centre --

Mr. Ruston: “Toronto and the Islands.” Don’t forget that.

Mr. Taylor: -- and the Toronto Islands -- that personally I do wear a seatbelt; but that is my choice. I think in our system it is essential one have the choice --

Mr. Deacon: What about motorcyclists with their helmets?

Mr. Taylor: -- either to wear a seatbelt or not. And I won’t get into that area of the hardhats. If you wipe your brow and take your hat off, you will be breaching the law and probably incarcerated.

Mr. Deacon: What about the motorcyclists with their helmets?

Mr. Taylor: Now, Mr. Speaker, it is approaching 6 o’clock and I would adjourn the debate and with your permission I would like to carry on with the rest of my speech tomorrow.

Mr. Taylor moves the adjournment of the debate.

Motion agreed to.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Mr. Speaker, before I move the adjournment of the House I would like to say the first order of business tomorrow will be item 1 on the order paper. Subsequently, I anticipate calling Bill 12, which is the bill that was introduced today. It will be printed and distributed the first thing tomorrow morning.

Hon. Mr. Winkler moves the adjournment of the House.

Motion agreed to.

The House adjourned at 6 o’clock, p.m.