Legislative Assembly of Ontario

The House met at 2 o’clock, p.m.

Prayers.

Mr. Speaker: Statements by the ministry.

Oral questions. The hon. Leader of the Opposition.

BANK OF CANADA RATE INCREASE

Mr. R. F. Nixon (Leader of the Opposition): Minister of Housing, who obviously has one of the more important portfolios these days. Has his staff given him any estimation as to the effect of the unprecedented increase of one per cent in the prime lending rate established by the Bank of Canada on the costs of housing in this province?

Is there a possibility that the government of Ontario will undertake some sort of a mitigating programme either through the Province of Ontario Savings Office or perhaps by using new federal legislation allowing provinces to have a direct interest in banking concerns, to offer some sort of assistance to individual home buyers, whereby these lending rates are not going to have the bad effect on housing that they may very well have?

Hon. S. B. Handleman (Minister of Housing): There are a number of questions there, Mr. Speaker. In response to the first part of the question, my staff started to work on it this morning. I expect to have an answer from them within a day or two as to the total impact of the Bank of Canada’s move.

On the whole, I suppose we have to say that the Bank of Canada in acting to restrain the monetary supply is taking one of the classical attacks on inflation. It hasn’t worked in the last couple of years, and there is some doubt in my mind as to whether it will work in the future. As for the province entering directly into mortgage financing and subsidizing mortgages, we will certainly have to take a look at that after we’ve examined the impact of the Bank of Canada move.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Supplementary: Has the minister any contingency plans, based on the work that has been done by himself and his predecessors since the ministry was set up, to provide some sort of provincial programme to meet the needs of the people in this province in the face of the high costs of capital associated with housing, rather than simply fit ourselves in with the programme as it extends across Canada? Does he have such contingency plans now?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: As the hon. member well knows, there is a preferred lending programme in Ontario which has money available at 8 3/4 per cent for certain income groups. That is the only plan that I know of at the present time.

Mr. I. Deans (Wentworth): A supplementary question: Is it the intention of the minister to extend the range of incomes for which this preferred interest rate is available, in order to try to offset not only the increase that is likely to come because of the Bank of Canada move, but the ever-increasing increases that we are seeing every week in any event?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, I have a meeting arranged with the Minister of State for Urban Affairs on April 24 and at the top of our agenda is a discussion on the integration of the assisted home ownership plan of the federal government and the preferred lending programme of the provincial government to make sure that a wide range of in- come earners is covered by these two programmes.

HOUSING PROGRAMMES

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I have a question, Mr. Speaker, of the same minister relating to his statements over the weekend about the lack of co-operation from municipalities around Metropolitan Toronto in fulfilling the housing action programme, leading Mayor Margaret Britnell, for example, to say the Housing Minister has “completely lost his marbles.”

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Can the minister give any specific instances where municipalities have failed to co-operate with the provincial ministry, or would he in fact agree that it has been red tape that has held up the approvals that the municipalities have had before the provincial government these many months?

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Deans: Tell them about Mel Lastman in today’s paper.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, despite a number of bitter experiences during my life, I think I am going to continue to be accessible to and communicative with the media. I have great faith in their integrity in interpreting what people say to them.

Mr. J. F. Foulds (Port Arthur): Unlike the Premier (Mr. Davis).

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Unfortunately, space requirements do not permit them to publish everything that is said and, with my lack of articulation, I suppose I wasn’t able to get across to the reporter from the Star --

Mr. V. M. Singer (Downsview): Does the minister say that he has any marbles to lose.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: -- that I didn’t mention lack of co-operation, nor did I say that there was any obstructionism. As for losing my marbles, I don’t know that I ever had any.

Mr. M. Cassidy (Ottawa Centre): We had some doubts, too.

Mr. A. J. Roy (Ottawa East): He’ll get along well in the cabinet.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: What I did say, Mr. Speaker, was that I was expressing the same type of frustration which is expressed on the opposite side of the House at the lack of progress. Perhaps I am not as diplomatic as I should be.

Mr. D. C. MacDonald (York South): The minister will learn.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Perhaps blunt speaking is not the right thing for this portfolio. But I felt, having made tremendous progress in certain aspects of our housing action programme and very little progress in getting municipal agreement to specific propositions, that I should draw to the attention of the press not that they were being unco-operative but that perhaps they weren’t moving as fast as we would like them to.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Grey-Bruce has a supplementary.

Mr. E. Sargent (Grey-Bruce): Mr. Speaker, in view of the fact that the minister has $11 million in the budget for helping unserviced lots and he plans 110,000 housing starts, has he met with the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Auld) to question him on the fact that this will only provide 2,000 lots and we will be 98,000 lots short? What is the minister going to do about it? Is he going to meet with the Minister of the Environment and resolve this or what?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, the amount has been mentioned before in this House, and of course we are again talking about an amount in the Ministry of Environment’s estimates for assistance in sewers and water services. What we have in our ministry is $20 million in our housing action programme facilitating fund, and this is what we are asking the municipalities to come and get. We have asked them to come and get a piece of that action.

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

Mr. Cassidy: Could the minister tell us, in view of his comments over the weekend, what is the exact number of the several thousand lots he has hoped to get and how many does he now hope to get through the housing action programme, thanks to the difficulties that he is having with municipalities.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: My hopes have not been dashed, Mr. Speaker. I still hope to have the same X thousands of lots that we were talking about, and hopefully I will be in a position to make that announcement to the hon. member when I get a municipal agreement on paper.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Downsview,

Mr. Singer: Mr. Speaker, does the minister not realize that his stupid diatribe against the municipalities is obviously an effort to shift the blame and that the municipalities cannot build houses by themselves unless they have money to provide services?

Mr. J. R. Smith (Hamilton Mountain): Look around you. Look around you.

Mr. Singer: What is the minister going to do about putting the municipalities in the position where they can supply services?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, that is exactly what we propose to do with our housing action facilitating fund.

Mr. Singer: With $11 million? Baloney.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: There is $20 million. It is available not only for hard service infrastructure but for soft service --

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: -- and we are quite prepared to sit down and discuss grant negotiations with the municipalities --

Mr. Singer: He doesn’t blame Ottawa, he blames the municipalities.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: -- and hopefully that will be right away.

Mr. Singer: When is the minister going to accept responsibility himself?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: There was no diatribe against the municipalities. I simply commented on the situation --

Mr. Speaker: Order. The Leader of the Opposition, further questions?

UNION GAS

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I have a question of the Premier, in the absence of the Minister of Labour (Mr. Guindon): Has he been kept informed as to the circumstances attending the continuing strikes involving the employees and the management of Union Gas whereby gas has been shut off in certain communities, there has been an exchange of gunfire in one community and in one recent incident the pressure regulators have been tampered with, resulting in an increase in pressure which could have resulted in some violent explosions if in fact safety equipment had not been functioning properly? Is he satisfied with the role played by the Ministry of Labour in trying to reach a solution to this problem, or is he as concerned as I and other citizens in the areas affected are, that we are going to have to take some remedial steps for the safety of the citizens involved?

Hon. W. G. Davis (Premier): Mr. Speaker, I think we demonstrated the government’s concern some weeks ago when we made it very clear that the personnel of the OPP would be made available to see that there were no dangers. I must confess I haven’t discussed it with the Minister of Labour today. I shall, probably before the day is done. I can only say that the government is concerned about the possibility of danger or other matters occurring with respect to this strike. I would also say, Mr. Speaker, that everybody would like to see it finished and there is no question in my mind that the minister and the ministry, to the extent that it is possible, are devoting their very considerable talents to this objective.

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

POTATO SUPPLIERS

Mr. R. F. Nixon: With your permission, Mr. Speaker, a question of the Minister of Agriculture and Food: Has he made himself aware of the stories printed in the Globe and Mail over the weekend indicating collusion among the main potato suppliers in the Metropolitan Toronto area, which in fact appears to be an established cartel involving not only the ordinary wholesale companies but in association with Mr. Joseph Burnett, whose name was recently mentioned in this House in connection with laundering money? Is he aware that this situation is traceable back to the similar situation in 1968 when the minister’s food council examined the matter and found payments, something called payola, which in fact acted for the restraint of free competition?

Hon. W. A. Stewart (Minister of Agriculture and Food): No, Mr. Speaker, I am not aware of it. I have not seen the story but I will make myself as aware as possible of it and look into it.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Supplementary: Will the minister look into it in conjunction with the Minister for Consumer and Commercial Relations who might have some special regulatory powers in this regard? Since the food council is concerned, will the Minister of Agriculture and Food report to the House on the matter?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Mr. Speaker, I will certainly look into this situation and what I have to report will be based upon what we find.

Mr. M. Shulman (High Park): Supplementary.

Mr. Speaker: The hon member for High Park.

Mr. Shulman: In view of the many threats to these potato growers who are foolish enough to attempt to compete with Mr. Burnett, would the minister also refer that matter to the Solicitor General (Mr. Kerr) to see if charges can be laid?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: As I say, Mr. Speaker, I will look into it. I will make no attempts to offer to do anything until I find out what the facts of the matter are.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Wentworth.

HOUSING PROGRAMMES

Mr. Deans: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Housing. How does the Minister of Housing explain his statement that there is progress being made in Ontario in the housing field against the backdrop of an overall decline in the number of housing starts in Ontario in February and March of this year over last year?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Over February and March of last year? Mr. Speaker, I have examined the housing starts and in February and March they seemed to be up over last year. I would have to examine the figures again and check out the hon. member’s assumption, because I did look at the figures just this morning and they appeared to me to indicate a slight decrease in multiple-dwelling units and a large increase in single-family housing.

Mr. Singer: Whatever happened to the speeding up of the process?

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Wentworth.

Mr. Deans: I will wait for an answer to come back from the minister.

ACTIONS OF REAL ESTATE AGENTS

Mr. Deans: Can I ask the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Affairs whether he intends to take some action to strengthen the Real Estate Act to ensure that persons who are dealing in the purchasing of housing and who are in fact real estate agents inform prospective buyers or sellers that they are acting on behalf of a real estate agency rather than a private buyer?

Hon. J. T. Clement (Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations): I am sorry. I don’t understand the import of the member’s question, Mr. Speaker. Agents invariably act on behalf of the vendor. There are exceptions to that arrangement but --

Mr. Deans: Let me refer the minister to the Toronto Sun article of the weekend, in which it was stated by a speculator in housing that, among a number of the manipulations that are going on, there is a failure on the part of real estate agents to inform prospective sellers that they, the agents, are not acting on behalf of purchasers but rather on behalf of real estate companies; and that, in fact, they are acting as a middleman -- buying, inflating the price, and then selling the property off again. What action does the minister propose to take to try to put a stop to this particular speculation?

Hon. Mr. Clement: An agent acting on behalf of any vendor must by law notify that vendor if he is acting on behalf of any other interested party. If he’s buying on his own behalf or on behalf of another client he must disclose that. If he doesn’t disclose that, he forfeits his commission as well as giving grounds for the lifting of his licence. There are cases pending of a similar nature to that right now, and we prosecute them vigorously.

I think the member’s colleagues who are familiar with the practice of law will assure him that that is a very serious breach of the Act itself, and we won’t tolerate that type of activity by any real estate agent or broker.

Mr. Deans: Is it the intention of the minister to investigate the content of the story to determine the validity of the claim by the real estate agent to ensure that this act will be stopped in Ontario at this time to cut down the cost of housing?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Speaker, I’m not familiar with the particular story to which the hon. member makes reference. But I’m sure my staff will take a look at it. I’ll make a note to have it drawn to their attention.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Wentworth.

WARRANTY ON NEW HOMES

Mr. Deans: I’d like to ask the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations whether it’s his intention to institute a homeowner’s warranty during this year, recognizing that what has been offered by the construction industry is not going to be satisfactory, and that Mr. Basford, frankly, seems to be dragging his heels?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Speaker, I think it’s incumbent upon this government to implement some form of warranty programme. If no federal programme which is acceptable to us is forthcoming -- and that appears to be the trend in which we are moving -- then I think we have no alternative but to implement some type of warranty programme. I should point out to the House, Mr. Speaker, that I will be meeting in about three weeks’ time with all the consumer ministers across Canada, and this is one of the matters that we have on the agenda as to a provincial programme for each and every province.

Mr. J. A. Renwick (Riverdale): We can’t wait that long.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Why doesn’t the minister accept the member for York-Forest Hill’s private bill?

Mr. P. G. Givens (York-Forest Hill): Does the minister accept my bill?

Mr. Deans: I have one final question, Mr. Speaker.

Hon. Mr. Clement: What’s the member’s name?

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Wentworth is asking questions on behalf of the New Democratic Party.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Deans: Would the minister read his bill?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Yes.

SALE OF COLZA OIL

Mr. Deans: I have one final question of the Minister of Health. Has the Minister of Health been made aware of the ban in Italy on the sale of colza oil? It’s a vegetable oil used as a substitute for olive oil. Is the minister aware that similar types of oils are sold in Ontario, and will he order that they be examined to determine whether similar kinds of side effects might not be occurring from the sale and use of colza oil in Ontario?

Interjection by an hon. member.

An hon. member: That’s a good question.

Hon. F. S. Miller (Minister of Health): The member said it for me.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Miller: In all seriousness, Mr. Speaker, I am not aware of that oil, but I will be pleased to look into it in case there is some potential risk to the people of Ontario.

Mr. Shulman: Ask Mackey.

Interjections by hon, members.

Mr. Deans: Supplementary question: May I send the minister a bottle of the oil to have it examined?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: What are the side effects?

Hon. J. R. Rhodes (Minister of Transportation and Communications): Is that guaranteed?

Hon. Mr. Miller: I would not accept it.

Mr. Deans: And let me, by way of a supplementary question, ask the minister whether he’s aware that it also goes under the name of rapeseed oil, and it has been claimed that it causes sterility?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Show us the bottle. That could have come from Morty’s private stock!

An hon. member: That’s of great concern to us.

Hon. Mr. Miller: I was going to suggest, Mr. Speaker, that he should try some.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Miller: I recognize it under its old name much better.

Mr. Speaker: Does the hon. member for Wentworth have further questions?

An hon. member: Make sure it’s in the bottle one is supposed to send to his doctor.

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

PUBLIC SERVICE ACT CONFLICT

Hon. J. A. C. Auld (Minister of Colleges and Universities): Mr. Speaker, I was so wrapped up in that bit about the oil that I hope you won’t think this is a slippery answer.

An hon. member: It would not be the first time either.

Hon. Mr. Auld: Mr. Speaker, I’d like to reply to a question raised by the hon. member for Kitchener (Mr. Breithaupt).

In 1971-1972, Dr. D. T. Wright received $39,863 in remuneration from the Ministry of Colleges and Universities while acting in the capacity of chairman of the Committee on University Affairs. Dr. Wright did not receive any other salary or per diem payments through this ministry or any other ministry. The other figures referred to by the hon. member were not received by Dr. Wright, and this fact was specifically set out in the Provincial Auditor’s report for 1972-1973.

The hon. member asked, at the same time, whether Dr. Wright received benefits for consulting work done on the structural steel contract at Ontario Place. In his university work, prior to becoming chairman of the Committee on University Affairs, which I may say is not a civil service position, Dr. Wright specialized in the theory of structures, gaining an international reputation for the design of space frame structures. The architectural design of the dome theatre and forum at Ontario Place called for such a structure. An Ontario firm won the contract and, in turn, asked Dr. Wright to advise it on some special aspects relating to the strength and security of the building. For his specialist work in this connection he received a professional fee from that firm.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Minister of Transportation and Communications has the answer to a question asked previously.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Laughren) had asked the question. In his absence, I will wait until he returns.

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

PROVINCIAL SECRETARIATS

Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Premier. I wonder if the Premier would comment on an article in the Ottawa newspaper last week referring to statements by the former policy secretary, the member for Carleton East (Mr. A. B. R. Lawrence) and the former policy secretary, the member for St. George.

Mr. Singer: The former member for St. George (Mr. A. F. Lawrence).

Mr. Roy: The member for Carleton East stated that the policy secretariats didn’t work because they were too efficient; they built up too much momentum; and they threatened to overrun the traditional thinking in the party in the Conservative caucus.

Mr. MacDonald: Thinking?

Mr. Roy: The former member for St. George stated that in theory secretariats were good, but they went off the rails because of personality clashes. Now I wonder if the Premier agrees with these comments.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Is this of urgent public importance?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I am certainly delighted to answer that question of urgent public importance, which is typical of the --

Mr. Roy: The government is wasting a million bucks.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- questions from the member for Ottawa East.

Mr. Speaker, really if you assess what has happened since the rather innovative approach here with the development of the policy field secretariats, from a very personal standpoint I think they have worked very well.

Mr. Roy: The Premier is the only one who thinks it.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Well I can too! There is one difference, Mr. Speaker, between myself and the members across the House. I happen to know how they are working; they don’t.

Mr. Cassidy: The Premier is the only one; nobody else does.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I think, Mr. Speaker, now that I have been asked, I will just take a few minutes to outline some of their functions in that --

Mr. Roy: Yes, well, that is not what the Premier’s colleague said.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- obviously it is a matter of urgent public importance. As for the former member for St. George, a very able member of the cabinet, a very excellent constituency person, who moved on to the federal arena where he will, I would think some time in the not too far distant future, become a member of the government in Ottawa --

Mr. J. R. Breithaupt (Kitchener): Is that after the Premier becomes the leader?

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- I think it is fair to state that knowing that individual as well as I do --

Mr. Singer: The Premier can go up there and he can come down here.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Well, I am very flattered that the member for Downsview thinks I might have the capacity to go up there. I really find that I have my hands full here, particularly from the member for Downsview. He keeps me mentally stimulated all the time. I would hate ever to move and miss his contributions.

Mr. Singer: Well, I am glad. I enjoy the Premier’s baiting.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I knew the member would be glad. I could sense the frustrations of the former Provincial Secretary for Justice from time to time. I would say this about the observations made by the former provincial secretary for the resource field who, in my view, is one of the very able people in political and public life in this province, that he made a very --

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: A little late for that kind of patronizing.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- a very excellent contribution --

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, if the member for Ottawa wherever it is and the Islands wants to interject that the hon. member has left the executive council, one of the great things about the party I happen to lead is that we recognize and are prepared to make changes when we feel the time has come.

I fully appreciate that the member for Ottawa and the Islands envisages himself in the vacant seat of the leader of that party but I will be so bold as to make a prediction that it will never happen because he doesn’t have the capacity to do it. He just doesn’t have it.

In fact, I will go a step further --

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I don’t think any of his caucus colleagues do either. I tell members the former Provincial Secretary for Resources Development had so much more talent and ability and commitment to public life in this province that the member for Ottawa and the Islands really has a great deal of nerve to mention his own contribution here in this House and I make no bones about it.

I think it is also fair to state. Mr. Speaker, and I have made this observation before, one of the limiting factors which we think is slowly changing in the role of the provincial secretary is not internally with the decision-making process. The difficulties we have encountered, and I think this would be shared by everybody who has held that particular responsibility, are the political perceptions of their responsibilities not just here in the House, where one doesn’t expect a completely objective viewpoint in any event, but as far as the general public is concerned.

Mr. Roy: It is not working and the Premier knows it.

Hon. Mr. Davis: We think this is in the process of change but as far as the functioning of government is concerned, in their contribution to cabinet and the development of policy, I can only say, Mr. Speaker, it works extremely well.

Mr. Roy: Supplementary.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Sandwich-Riverside.

Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, I have just a short supplementary.

Mr. Speaker: If we can depend on a short supplementary answer perhaps we can permit it.

Mr. Roy: My question was short; it was his answer that was long.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Roy: In light of the fact --

Hon. Mr. Davis: I will tell the member, if he is not satisfied, I am not going to be here at 6 o’clock.

Mr. Roy: See that? He is interrupting me again. Order, Mr. Speaker, please.

Mr. Speaker, to the Premier, in light of the fact that we are going to vote something like $1 million in estimates for these three superministries, the policy secretariats, doesn’t the Premier feel he should level with the people of Ontario, save us $1 million and do away with them? Isn’t it apparent to him that he is the only one who doesn’t realize they are not working?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, not only is it not apparent to me, I would say with respect --

Mr. Roy: He is the only one.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- it is not apparent to those who are involved in the process.

Mr. Roy: What do they say here?

Hon. Mr. Davis: If the hon. member wishes to vote against them and to be critical of them because he doesn’t have the capacity to recognize change in administration, he can be my guest.

Mr. Roy: What do they say?

Mr. MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, would you consider adding two minutes to the question period to compensate for the diversion of the Premier in attacking my colleague here when he was answering a question there?

Hon. E. A. Winkler (Chairman, Management Board of Cabinet): What is the member doing himself?

Mr. Speaker: I usually do consider the length of the statement. I did not in that particular case think it was an exceptionally long reply to the provocative question.

The hon. member for Sandwich-Riverside.

An hon. member: It was only irrelevant.

Mr. Roy: The question was relevant.

EMPLOYMENT OF HANDICAPPED PEOPLE

Mr. F. A. Burr (Sandwich-Riverside): Mr. Speaker, a question of the Minister of Labour regarding his interest in drafting legislation which would require large employers to provide a certain percentage of jobs for handicapped and disabled persons. Could the minister give us a progress report?

Hon. F. Guindon (Minister of Labour): Yes, Mr. Speaker, I know that my hon. friend from Sandwich-Riverside has shown a very keen interest in the last couple of years in handicapped people in this province. We have had a number of discussions. I had promised the hon. member that, if at all possible, I would like to consult the labour department in Great Britain. Unfortunately, because of the political climate and because of the election which took place, I was unable to go to London, England, but I do propose to do so at the first opportunity.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Windsor- Walkerville has a supplementary.

Mr. B. Newman (Windsor-Walkerville): Mr. Speaker, may I ask of the minister if he is recommending to his cabinet colleagues that they adopt the same principle insofar as the civil service is concerned?

Hon. Mr. Guindon: Mr. Speaker, we are giving this matter very serious consideration.

I had hoped, as I said, to visit some of the countries where this is being done. Whenever I have a real study made of the situation here in Ontario, I’ll be glad to make recommendations.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Grey-Bruce.

ATHLETIC SCHOLARSHIPS

Mr. Sargent: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Premier. In view of the trend of many of our top athletes in Ontario of going to the States on sports scholarships, doesn’t the Premier think it’s about time that we in Ontario had an ongoing lottery to provide funds for these scholarships to keep our athletes here?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: They can’t play football here.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I think there are two aspects to this question. One is the question of whether a lottery would be the appropriate means whereby one would finance “athletic scholarships.” I would think that if there were athletic scholarships there are probably other ways to finance them.

The really basic question that has not been resolved -- in Ontario at least -- is the question of whether or not the universities are prepared to offer athletic scholarships leaving apart the source of funds. In my own limited experience in a former ministry, I can recall this being raised from time to time, and I happen to be somewhat interested in athletics. The question was always raised as to whether or not a university in this province should, by way of a recognized programme, have athletic scholarships for students in attendance at the institution.

I can recall the former Minister of Correctional Services having some public views on this, and I must confess, Mr. Speaker, I’m of somewhat mixed feelings myself. I regret seeing a number of Ontario students going to Michigan State, Michigan, Denver, some to play hockey, some football, some basketball -- not many -- quite a few track and field, because I would prefer to see them here at our own post-secondary institutions.

I think it is also fair to point out though, Mr. Speaker, and I don’t say this in any critical sense, that athletic scholarship programmes at some institutions in the United States have been abused. I think this is the part that is the concern of the universities in this province -- the question of abuse being built into the system.

I happen to believe in intercollegiate athletics. I think the programmes, quite frankly, should be expanded. I would like to think that no student, really, is prejudiced or precluded from attending an Ontario university by lack of finance and I don’t think that many are, if any. However, when you have free tuition, perhaps other forms of inducements to go to one of the American colleges, it is sometimes difficult for a student here to say no.

As I say, Mr. Speaker, I question whether the lottery would be the right approach. I think, really, it would be a matter for the universities of this province to resolve amongst themselves as to whether or not they wish to build scholarships for athletic competence into their form of student assistance, or student awards.

As I say, I haven’t really given this subject much thought in the last six or seven months. I would be quite delighted to do so and, perhaps, give a more definitive answer. But the universities do concern themselves with this matter because I say very frankly, from some very personal knowledge, the scholarship system in some institutions south of the border has, without any question, been abused. I think all you have to do, Mr. Speaker, is read some of the material from time to time and you will find that’s factually to be the case.

Mr. Sargent: One supplementary: In view of the fact that a lot of American states are using lotteries very successfully, why is Ontario dragging its feet in creating this new source of capital?

Mr. Roy: There’s a lot of Ontario money going outside the province too.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, that is, as I say, a separate question. Whether or not there should be an Ontario lottery for some purpose, whatever that purpose is, is something the government has not been neglecting.

Mr. Sargent: You buy lottery tickets any place in Ontario, Mr. Speaker.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I just say we’re not neglecting considerations of that, Mr. Speaker, but I just have no policy statement to about it at this moment.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Parkdale.

EMPLOYMENT OF STUDENTS IN PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITALS

Mr. J. Dukszta (Parkdale): I have a question of the Minister without Portfolio in charge of the Youth Secretariat. As yet no money has been allocated for the unclassified staff in the provincial mental hospitals. Summer students fall in this category. Could he tell me how much of the $9 million allocated for the summer students will be given to employ students in the mental hospitals -- the psychiatric hospitals of Ontario?

Hon. D. R. Timbrell (Minister without Portfolio): Not offhand, Mr. Speaker, but I will get an answer for the member.

Mr. Speaker: The hon member for Lanark.

SALES TAX

Mr. D. J. Wiseman (Lanark): Yes, I have a question of the Minister of Revenue. In regard to the tax-free items that were mentioned in last Tuesday’s budget, could the minister tell us when these items will be tax-free so that we might tell some of the merchants in our area?

Mr. Singer: As of May, he said the other day.

Hon. A. K. Meen (Minister of Revenue): Yes, Mr. Speaker, I hope to have it finished later this week with information out to the merchants of Ontario in the course of next week so that they will be able to bring the reductions into effect on Monday, April 29.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: A very inconsistent policy; I would say hypocritical.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for supplementary, yes.

Mr. Wiseman: Could the minister tell me in the case of the $30 limit for a pair of shoes, if a person purchases a $40 pair of shoes, does he pay the tax on the $10 over the $30, or the full $40?

Mr. Cassidy: That is a conflict of interest, because the member sells shoes.

Mr. Shulman: Just buy one shoe at a time.

Hon. Mr. Meen: Mr. Speaker, once the price exceeds the minimum figure of $30, the tax is payable on the full purchase price of any article; just as it is payable on, let’s say, a meal in a restaurant above the minimum figure -- the rate of tax is on the whole of that meal. If it is to be otherwise, then it is a matter of policy for the Treasurer and Minister of Economics (Mr. White) to determine.

Mr. Cassidy: What about one-legged customers?

Mr. E. R. Good (Waterloo North): Can they buy them one shoe at a time?

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Downsview.

INTERMEDIATE CAPACITY TRANSIT SYSTEM

Mr. Singer: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Transportation and Communications. In view of the obvious failure of the computerized operation in the BART system in San Francisco, and in view of the failure of the government of the United States, after having spent $57 million in an experiment of its own to provide computerized transport, does the minister have any real reason to believe that his experiment, or the government’s experiment, is going to succeed -- even at the Exhibition, where he is spending considerably less?

Mr. R. F. Nixon: The “Davis train” doesn’t have wheels -- so it is going to work better.

Mr. Givens: That is right.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Yes, Mr. Speaker, we have reason to believe that it will be successful.

Mr. Singer: Why?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: The situation as it involves the BART project employs a technology developed over some 15 years; they were unable to keep up with today’s changing technology. In the case of the Morgan- town experiment, it was basically the same

-- an old technology.

Mr. Roy: The minister didn’t even know about the wheel before he became minister.

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

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, I didn’t complete the answer. I sat down because I believe the hon. member for York-Forest Hill has some profound statement to make, and I don’t want to interrupt him.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Downsview.

Mr. Singer: Well, he is not finished yet, he said.

Mr. Roy: If the minister is going to stand up, he should answer the question.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, as I said at the outset, we have every reason to believe that our programme will be successful, despite what has happened in the incidents in the United States. We are testing our technology continually. Both projects were referred to in an article in the Globe and Mail this morning. Both of them went ahead and built their projects without doing adequate testing of their systems. That is not happening in this particular case.

Mr. Singer: Mr. Speaker, by way of supplementary, I was not referring to the difference between the magnetic levitation system and the wheel system. I was referring, in particular, to whatever reason the minister might have to believe that a computerized operation would work here when it hasn’t worked in the United States -- with the best technicians available, with the best technical advice and with the expenditure of far, far more money than even this government is putting into it.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, for exactly the same reason that we talked about the various modes of moving the equipment. I’m sure the hon. member will agree that computer technology has improved somewhat over the past 15 years; and if he doesn’t believe so, then he is certainly behind the times.

Mr. Singer: That is why they are going to blow up $57 million in the United States?

Mr. Speaker: All right, supplementary.

Mr. Sargent: In view of the fact that BART is 7 1/2 years down the road now on its programme and they are 1,000 per cent wrong on their carrying load, is the minister still committed to this programme? Is he going to go ahead with it?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Yes, Mr. Speaker.

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

Mr. Cassidy: Just a supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Ottawa Centre on a supplementary.

Mr. Cassidy: The cost of the BART programme having risen by more than double since it was inaugurated, can the minister now give us an estimate of the escalation in the per-mile cost of the GO-Urban system?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: No, Mr. Speaker, I can’t give that estimate at this time; I will attempt to get the figures for the hon. member.

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

Mr. R. F. Nixon: It is escalating.

STRIKE IN GUELPH

Mr. E. J. Bounsall (Windsor West): A question of the Minister of Labour, Mr. Speaker: Would he not agree that Doehler Canada Ltd. in Guelph, on strike since Jan. 29, and wholly owned by National Lead Co. did not bargain in good faith inasmuch as prior to the commencement of that strike it did not offer even one penny per hour increase in wages, and especially since the company’s lawyer is one Ted Stringer, an organizer of the anti-union conference in Hamilton?

Hon. Mr. Guindon: Mr. Speaker, I am not in a position to say whether they have been bargaining in good or bad faith. I’d be glad to look into it and to report to the member.

Mr. Bounsall: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Could the minister at that same time report on the progress that he or his ministry officials have been making of late in trying to solve that strike?

Hon. Mr. Guindon: Can the member repeat the question? I didn’t hear it.

Mr. Bounsall: When the minister reports to us on what degree of bad faith the company has been showing, could he also report on the progress he or his ministry officials have been making of late to solve that strike, now some 13 weeks old?

Hon. Mr. Guindon: Mr. Speaker, I have never said we would report on the company’s bad faith in this negotiation. There is no wav I can say that, as the member can realize. However, we would be glad to report and I’d be glad to find out exactly what has taken place lately; and if need be I would even go so far as to call a meeting between parties.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Perth is next.

AID TO TORNADO VICTIMS

Mr. H. Edighoffer (Perth): A question of the Minister of Agriculture and Food: Is the minister considering making funds available, or recommending to the cabinet that funds be made available, to assist the farmers of Hibbert township and surrounding areas hit by the tornado last Sunday? There was considerable damage to houses and barns.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Mr. Speaker, a disaster policy has been in operation for a number of years. I believe it is administered by the department of the Treasurer and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs --

Mr. R. F. Nixon: A very ineffectual one; it never cost the government very much.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: -- in which the province matches any moneys that are raised locally by subscription or otherwise.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Lakeshore.

LAKESHORE PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL GRANTS

Mr. P. D. Lawlor (Lakeshore): To the Minister of Health, Mr. Speaker, pursuant to our little conversation in the hallway of a few days ago: Has the hon. minister had an opportunity to investigate the conditions, the grants, the pulling back, the confusion as to what moneys are available to the Lakeshore Psychiatric Hospital; particularly with its plans to decentralize?

Hon. Mr. Miller: Mr. Speaker, we had a conversation in the hall the other day, but I don’t recall all those adjectives.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: The question was asked in the House before.

Mr. Foulds: They were nouns.

Mr. Deans: That’s why he doesn’t answer.

Hon. Mr. Miller: I thought they were adjectives, but that explains why the member is a teacher and I am not.

Mr. Lawlor: Mostly adverbs.

Hon. Mr. Miller: One of the statements the member made at that point was that in fact we had cut back budgets at Lakeshore Psychiatric Hospital, and this is not true. On verifying the figures with our staff, I find we increased the budget by about four per cent. At the same time the number of patients being treated was reduced by almost 10 per cent. Now no programmes were eliminated as a result, although a few programmes that were being considered for implementation have not been started; we are continuing with the same slate of programmes as was carried on before.

Did the member want the answer to the earlier part of his question about the land? Is that implicit in this?

Mr. Lawlor: The minister may continue; yes.

Hon. Mr. Miller: Thank you, thank you.

Mr. Lawlor: The minister remembers the nouns now.

Hon. Mr. Miller: Yes, I have trouble with those.

There was a switch of property made between Humber College and Lakeshore Psychiatric Hospital to serve each of the institutions better. A mental retardation facility is planned to be built on property, currently owned by Humber College I understand, some distance from Lakeshore Psychiatric Hospital; and in turn some acreage was given to Humber College for the construction of buildings on property currently owned by Lakeshore Psychiatric Hospital. After studying the needs of both institutions it was felt this exchange of land made good sense and would serve both well.

Mr. Lawlor: Supplementary.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Lakeshore, supplementary.

Mr. Lawlor: On those slated programmes that have been cut back, is it the ministry intention to cut back the programmes for a centre for mentally retarded adults and a forensic centre for the criminally insane at that location?

Hon. Mr. Miller: Mr. Speaker, the member mentioned the forensic programme was to be a new programme, I believe, in talking to me earlier.

Mr. Lawlor: Yes.

Hon. Mr. Miller: This programme is not being implemented at the present time. This is the understanding I was given.

Mr. Lawlor: How about the mentally retarded project -- all right!

Mr. Foulds: Is there a cutback?

Hon. Mr. Miller: There is no cutback that I know of in mentally retarded facilities there.

Mr. Sargent: What does the minister mean?

Hon. Mr. Miller: As the member knows we transferred most of the mental retardation facilities from this ministry to the Ministry of Community and Social Services effective April 1, and therefore I’d have to refer the member to that minister for a specific answer.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Kitchener -- or for Waterloo North I should say.

Mr. Good: Thank you, I accept your apologies.

Mr. Roy: He accepts that as an apology.

SUMMER EMPLOYMENT PROGRAMME

Mr. Good: A question of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations: How much money was allocated under the Experience ‘74 programme for setting up of consumer complaint bureaus in storefront operations this summer to create employment for youth?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Speaker, a request came in from one of the faculty members at Niagara College for this type of a pilot programme. We advised that particular individual that we had no funding available and referred it to the Youth Secretariat. The Youth Secretariat reported back to me that it endorsed the programme -- the total programme was to cost $11,000, $9,000 of which would have to be approved by Management Board of Cabinet -- on condition that $2,000 would have to be raised locally for administrative costs by the Niagara College people involved.

The last I heard of it, a week or 10 days ago, the people at Niagara College -- and I don’t know the number of administrative staff I’m talking about, whether it’s one or five people -- regretfully were unable to raise $2,000. Therefore, as the matter stands right now, we are reviewing it to see if we are going to proceed with that programme or not.

Mr. Good: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker --

Mr. Speaker: The time for questions has expired.

Mr. Good: Just one supplementary?

Mr. Speaker: The time has expired. I will perhaps recognize the hon. member at the next question period if he wants to ask a new question.

Mr. Roy: When is that going to be?

Mr. Speaker: On Thursday next.

Mr. Roy: Thursday, thank you.

Mr. Speaker: Petitions.

Presenting reports.

Motions.

Introduction of bills.

COMMISSIONER OF THE LEGISLATURE ACT, 1974

Mr. Singer moves first reading of bill intituled, An Act to provide for the Appointment of a Commissioner to investigate Administrative Decisions and Acts of Officials of the Government of Ontario and its Agencies and to define the Commissioner’s Powers and Duties.

Motion agreed to; first reading of the bill.

Mr. Singer: Mr. Speaker, this is the ninth consecutive time I’ve introduced this bill. Sometimes I think I’m making a little progress, sometimes I’m not quite sure -- but I’m going to persist in it.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Arthur Wishart almost bought it one year.

Mr. Singer: The protection of citizens and investigations of their complaints in regard to civil servants cannot be overemphasized. The success of this type of office in other jurisdictions, such as the Province of Alberta, has been noteworthy and certainly should be followed now in the Province of Ontario.

BUSINESS CORPORATIONS ACT

Mr. Roy moves first reading of bill intituled, An Act to amend the Business Corporations Act.

Motion agreed to; first reading of the bill.

Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, this is the second consecutive time I have introduced this bill. The reason for this bill is the activities of certain companies that are compelling certain people to give up their fingerprints for the privilege of cashing cheques.

The bill was introduced last year in the hope that it would curtail the activities of these companies in that they could not compel people to give their prints and, secondly, once prints were taken, by controlling what could be done with the prints.

I am told the activities of these companies have extended to the point where they now want to footprint babies, nose-print dogs and even start taking fingerprints from people who are on welfare. We feel, Mr. Speaker, that this activity should be curtailed and controlled.

Mr. Speaker: Orders of the day.

Clerk of the House: The first order, resuming the adjourned debate on the motion that this House approve in general the budgetary policy of the government.

BUDGET DEBATE

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Kitchener.

Mr. J. R. Breithaupt (Kitchener): Mr. Speaker, the true measure of the 1974 Ontario budget is not in the rhetoric of the Treasurer’s statement but in his forecast for Ontario’s economy this year. The Treasurer (Mr. White) speaks of “measures to restrain inflation” yet he forecasts the rate of inflation will accelerate to 10 per cent or more this year. The Treasurer claims he has introduced measures “to increase the supply of housing” yet he predicts there will be fewer hoaxing starts in 1974 than there were in 1973. The Treasurer claims his budget introduces greater equity yet he predicts there will be a 15 per cent increase in unemployment in Ontario this year over last; that is, a rise from 143,000 to 164,000.

I presume, Mr. Speaker, that the Treasurer talks with his friends in Ottawa; that is, his Conservative friends. His national leader spends most of his time trying to throw banana skins under the federal government but the most likely result is that Father Lewis will be tripped; however that is another story. If Mr. Stanfield is correct, inflation is running rampant and it will destroy the middle classes and those pensioners who save for a better future in their retirement.

If the federal Liberals are correct, the inflation rate in Canada is to be compared with that of other nations. We are to be seen as comparatively successful when we see most other nations -- such as Switzerland, Yugoslavia and Vietnam -- suffer through annual rates of 12, 24 and 65 per cent.

Whichever view one may accept, the facts are that Ontario is not controlling its own contribution to inflation. Ontario is not taking the lead that is needed. This government usually claims that its programmes are the best in Canada or in North America or even in the western world. Each minister of the Crown uses the press facilities and those of selected public relations firms to tell our citizens the wonders of Toryism in Ontario. But the failure of our wealthy province to influence inflation pressures is not as well brought before our eight million people.

Quite simply, the solutions offered in this government’s budget will not relieve inflation, will not increase the supply of housing and will not control unemployment. Rather than try to solve the problems of our economy, the Treasurer has chosen to obscure them with insincere and superficial remedies. He has substituted rhetoric for real solutions.

The government’s cynicism is nowhere more apparent than in the claim that this budget will have a neutral economic impact. The Treasurer made the same claim in last year’s budget yet he ended the year with a deficit of $421 million and inflation advanced for our citizens by more than nine per cent in that year. This year, spending will increase by more than $1 billion. The gap between revenues and expenditures will grow by more than 17 per cent and the budgetary deficit will rise by $625 million.

This government will have added more than $2 billion to the public debt in four years, and annual interest payments on the debt have jumped by 177 per cent to $674 million this year.

Mr. R. F. Nixon (Leader of the Opposition): It is a shame. A fiscal nightmare.

Mr. Breithaupt: These uncontrolled spending increases are adding to the inflationary pressures in our economy. In its 1974 economic forecast the Financial Times of Canada says of Ontario, “The most critical problem for the province will probably be to bring public spending into better balance with revenues.” The Chamber of Commerce agrees with the following comment, “What is urgently required is fiscal discipline from governments in Canada. The current rates of growth of government spending are excessive and have contributed in a major way to domestic inflation.” A recent report by the Ontario Economic Council stated bluntly that rising government expenditures were inflationary in their impact on the economy.

Mr. Speaker, in January of this year, Ontario’s Treasurer said the following to a meeting of Canadian finance ministers:

“I acknowledge the contribution of the public sector to inflation. In its ninth and tenth annual reviews, the Economic Council of Canada recommended reduced expenditure growth in the public sector. I agree with this recommendation.”

Well, as quoted, the Treasurer may agree with the recommendation but he has certainly not heeded it. Last year he increased Ontario’s rate of expenditure growth from 7.5 per cent to 12.7 per cent. This year he has increased the rate again, to 14.3 per cent.

Interim statistics for the last fiscal year indicate the lack of control on provincial government spending. Total government expenditures were about $35 million over budget, and the budgetary deficit was $19 million more than the Treasurer predicted. His own ministry overspent its budget by $13 million. The Ministry of Education overspent by $37 million. Community and Social Services overspent by 15 per cent, or $74 million more than was budgeted. Interest payments on the public debt were $26 million over budget.

Expenditures were also out of control in 1972-1973. The Ministry of the Environment overspent its budget by 35 per cent. The Ministry of Agriculture and Food overspent by 18.5 per cent. Indeed, total government spending that year was some $117 million above the budgeted amounts.

Mr. Speaker, the Treasurer is rather sensitive about the size of the provincial debt. Instead of embarking on another wild spending spree this year, the government should be restricting its expenditures until they are needed to stimulate the economy. The budgeted increase of more than 20 per cent on direct capital expenditures is particularly inappropriate and inflationary.

The Ontario economy is now operating very close to capacity. Demand is outstripping supply in many segments, and bottlenecks are developing in the supply process. The provincial government should not be competing with the private sector for scarce resources. Such competition will only aggravate the existing shortages and drive prices even higher. The expansionary policies that were necessary two years ago to relieve high unemployment are not suitable to our present generally almost full-employment situation.

Those areas in the north and east where unemployment remains high should be assisted with regional development programmes. However, the large provincial deficit for which the Treasurer has budgeted can only generally add fuel to the fires of inflation.

Cost cutting could begin in the Premier’s own office, where the staff has now grown to 58, including his newly appointed press secretary who will cost us $30,000 per year. This press secretary is in addition to a $25,000 per year press aide, who maintains contact with the press gallery at Queen’s Park. The government would be well advised to note the comments of Mr. J. L. Kozlowski in a letter to the Welland Tribune last month. Mr. Kozlowski wrote:

“Why should the taxpayers of Ontario pay for the services of the new press secretary, whose duties will actually involve public relations work on behalf of the Premier (Mr. Davis) and the Conservative Party? This kind of misuse of the public’s money to try to improve a badly damaged image brought about solely by consistently inept and bungling performances by members of the Premier’s party and staff is absolutely ludicrous and irresponsible and typical of a government that has lurched from crisis to crisis since the last election.”

Salaries and wages in the Premier’s office and in the cabinet office jumped 335 per cent in the first two years of the Davis government, and travel expenses multiplied by five times.

The policy secretariats or superministries have been a failure; yet they will spend about $1.3 million annually. Their lack of success was indicated recently when three ministers with the resource development policy area were arguing in public over the appropriate routing for the oil pipeline extension to Montreal.

The government should admit that these secretariats were a mistake. The Premier was able to front-bench his rivals in the last leadership campaign so that two of them have since dropped from sight. Now that his position is secure within his party, he could eliminate these useless appendices to power. This is even more apparent when the sometime Attorney General has now taken over the justice policy secretariat -- which appears to have submerged without a bubble, except for the continuing cost.

This government could save another $17 million by cancelling its Krauss-Maffei magnetic levitation experiment at the Canadian National Exhibition grounds. The Krauss-Maffei system has been seriously discredited as a solution to Ontario’s urban transport problems. Even if it does work, it will be inferior to comparable but less expensive systems already in use around the world. Urgently needed transit developments in Ontario’s cities are being delayed while the provincial government wastes time and money with this experiment.

The pork-barrel payments to Conservative back-benchers for their service on boards and commissions should also be stopped. The recent commission on the Legislature, of which Mr. Dalton Camp is the chairman, found no other jurisdiction where this practice is so overworked as in Ontario.

The member for Dufferin-Simcoe (Mr. Downer) receives $7,000 annually as a member of the Liquor Licence Board of Ontario. The member for Fort William (Mr. Jessiman) gets $5,000 as chairman of the Ontario Northland -- apparently together with many other perquisites as the recent reports in the Globe and Mail have shown. The member for Ontario (Mr. Dymond) receives $5,000 as chairman of the Ontario Science Centre. The member for Haldimand-Norfolk (Mr. Allan) gets $5,000 as chairman of the Niagara Parks Commission. The member for Hastings (Mr. Rollins) gets $5,000 as chairman of the St. Lawrence Parks Commission. The member for Wellington-Dufferin (Mr. Root) gets $100 per diem when he sits as a member of the Environmental Hearing Board.

In fact, there are only about a dozen members of the Conservative Party in this Legislature who do not get payments of some sort beyond their basic salaries of $22,500. These payments may help them cope with rising prices, but in fact they aggravate inflation in Ontario by adding, if nothing else, to the provincial debt.

Unfortunately, the recent reappointment of the member for Simcoe Centre (Mr. Evans) as a director of Ontario Hydro with a salary of $7,000 is another indication that this government intends to continue its ill-conceived system of rewarding faithful back-benchers.

Last year, Ontario Place lost some $1.7 million, even though entrance fees were increased by 50 per cent. Now, the same bureaucrats who produced that extravagance are promoting Maple Mountain for northeastern Ontario. The government has already spent $250,000 on feasibility studies and, according to the Conservation Council of Ontario, has made significant expenditures to improve road access to the area.

This government must involve the public in discussions about the entire Maple Mountain project immediately. Surely the citizens of the province have a far greater right to know what is going on than the chosen business confidants of the Ministry of Industry and Tourism, who all stand to profit from their proximity to the seats of power in Ontario.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Don t they know it! Don’t they like it!

Mr. Breithaupt: Certainly the costly errors and expenses that were part of Ontario Place and of the Science Centre in their election year starts must be avoided before Maple Mountain is paraded before us by a Davis government bent on seeking re-election in 1975. The combination of the Krauss-Maffei kiddie cars at the CNE and Maple Mountain for northeastern Ontario will be too blatant, even then, as our citizens are once again bribed with their own money.

Hon. L. Bernier (Minister of Natural Re- sources): The member will regret those words.

Mr. Breithaupt: There are dozens of steps this government should be taking to bring its expenditures under control and reduce its inflationary deficit. I have just referred to a few of them. The greatest savings will result from a realignment of priorities within programmes, rather than the complete elimination of certain expenditure items.

Greater emphasis on preventive health care, for instance, would substantially reduce overall health care expenditures. Another saving would result by cutting sharply into advertising expenses. There was some $2 million spent within Ontario last year. We should eliminate all advertisements that do not either alert our residents to some danger or inform them of the steps they should take to benefit from government programmes.

Mr. Speaker, the soaring expenditures associated with regional governments are all adding to the provincial debt. The programme of this government, whereby regional governments have been imposed throughout Ontario, has aggravated the cost-price squeeze for many goods and services. The attempt to achieve economies of scale by centralizing municipal decisions has backfired, and the dramatic increase in regional government costs are now contributing to inflation.

In Waterloo county, my part of Ontario, the cost of services assumed by the regional government increased by 36 per cent in the first year of regional government.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Economies of scale, they call it.

Mr. Breithaupt: In Kitchener, costs rose by 25 per cent; in Waterloo they were up by 82 per cent.

An hon. member: Not bad.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: In Burlington it’ll be even worse.

Mr. Breithaupt: In the township of North Dumfries they went up by 120 per cent. Start-up costs in the region were $1.8 million, a quarter of which was paid from the provincial Treasury; the balance was added to the property tax burden of the region. The extension of municipal police services to rural areas allowed the Ontario Provincial Police to decrease its detachment by five officers. But the region added 43 more policemen at a cost of some $300,000.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: How about that?

Mr. H. Worton (Wellington South): That’s economy.

Mr. Breithaupt: Here are some quotations from an article that was printed in the Kitchener-Waterloo Record on April 11, last Thursday, and which was based on research done by Robert Mackenzie of that newspaper. And I quote:

“Sixteen months ago, before regional government in Waterloo county, the various levels of municipal government provided about 1,750 full-time jobs, employing slightly more than one in every 100 workers of the county’s estimated labour force of 120,000.

“The population and labour force have each grown about three per cent since Jan. 1, 1973, the official start of regional government. But municipal employment has skyrocketed more than 55 per cent to more than 2,740, up about 990, including slightly more than 1,000 who work directly for the region.”

Mr. R. F. Nixon: And the taxpayers pay.

Mr. Breithaupt: Mr. Mackenzie goes into some detail as to the net gains and losses with the appearance and disappearance of the several municipalities. The one further comment that I think is worthwhile in this area concerns the activities in the new city of Cambridge, a municipality which Mr.

Speaker represents. This will suffice:

“The story in Cambridge still is a mystery. A report on current employment in Cambridge as compared with the former municipalities of Gait, Preston and Hespeler, before amalgamation, was prepared about two months ago. However, city officials refuse to make it public.”

Mr. Speaker, the total is presumed to be about 450. Formerly Gait had about 240 employees, Preston had 100 and Hespeler had 26. That means an increase of 23 per cent in total, even after the regional subtractions of police and parks and recreation are considered.

Mr. Worton: What a way to go!

Mr. Breithaupt: And the rate of increase is to continue at five per cent each year, so we are told.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: It’s a spending machine.

Mr. Breithaupt: The experience in Waterloo region is unfortunately not unique. In Georgian Bay township, one resident’s taxes rose by more than 400 per cent, from $49.50 in 1969, before regional government was introduced in Muskoka, to $254 last year. This year the rates are expected to rise by another 173 per cent to $695. In all, a total change of 14 times the original amount in only five years.

In four years of regional government in Niagara, the annual cost of operating the regional municipality, exclusive of the local municipalities, has jumped by 85 per cent; from $22 million to $41 million. In Ottawa-Carleton, spending by that regional government has increased by 88 per cent in five years.

These soaring expenditures affect all of the taxpayers in Ontario, not only those who are living in the regional areas. The provincial Treasury paid some 46 per cent of all municipal government costs last year. This amounted to $1.9 billion and the excessive costs associated with regional government add unnecessarily to provincial government spending which further aids inflation. However, in the past year, when the consumer price index has advanced by the largest single amount in 22 years, this Conservative government has implemented five more regional governments on our people. The costs for this expensive form of municipal involvement are apparently out of control.

The Premier was quoted in the press as having talked recently about the matter of hypocrisy. As an acknowledged expert on the subject, he might have referred to his own Ministry of Health, which restricts the spending increases of hospitals to about seven per cent this year but which will increase its own departmental expenditures this year by almost 13 per cent.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: There’s hypocrisy for you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Breithaupt: We can also refer to the 1974 Ontario budget, which begins with the following words -- and I am sure you will recall them, Mr. Speaker -- “The most important problem facing us today is inflation.”

The budget ends with a record budgetary deficit of $625 million.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: They’re trying to have it both ways.

Mr. Breithaupt: Without the courage to stop inflation, this government cannot hope to control inflation in the whole of Ontario’s economy. Provincial government spending constitutes more than 15 per cent of Ontario’s gross provincial product. Strict controls on such a major portion of our economy would not only slow price increases.

Ontario’s government cannot slow the inflationary spiral in the provincial economy until it can find the courage to control the inflation of its own expenditures.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: And until the Treasurer can find the courage to come in and listen to the debate.

Mr. Breithaupt: Such an approach would dampen the psychology that accepts continual price and cost increases as inevitable. It would also reduce the high demand pressures that propel the inflationary spiral.

Besides limiting its own expenditures, the government of Ontario should be reducing the extreme inflationary pressures originating in the business sector.

According to statistics compiled by the federal government, Canadian businessmen propose to relieve the supply bottlenecks that have developed in the economy by a 21 per cent increase in capital investment in 1974.

In some areas of the nation, particularly in the Maritimes, massive capital investment may be beneficial. But in Ontario it would result in even greater inflationary pressures generated by shortages in materials and in skilled labour.

The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce noted last fall:

“Labour shortages have become increasingly apparent in various skilled trades and in various regions in Canada ... In addition, the shortages of capacity which are now apparent in a number of industries are also likely to continue for some time.”

Canadian Business magazine agreed in its 1974 forecast for Ontario:

“There is a shortage of materials and specific labour skills and little excess capacity in many industries. That would seem to create difficulties in expanding business activity to the same degree as in 1973.... The preliminary estimate of business spending intentions for 1974 indicates an even larger expansion, particularly in the manufacturing sector. There is a real question whether such a large in- crease can be accommodated, given the shortages of labour and materials.”

Production of steel, which is already in short supply, will only increase by about four per cent this year, and shortages of roofing and insulation materials are expected to continue throughout 1974. Unrestrained business spending can only force prices higher.

The federal government is currently reducing corporate income taxes by one per cent annually to encourage capital investment in those regions of the nation where extra demand can be accommodated. The federal tax has been reduced from 40 per cent in 1972 to 38 per cent this year, and it will be reduced by an additional two per cent by 1976.

This economic stimulus though appropriate in some regions of the country, contributes most importantly to inflation in Ontario.

The provincial government should consider stepping into the area that has been vacated by the federal authorities and increase its own corporate tax by the two per cent that has been given up. Accommodation for developments in northern and eastern Ontario could, of course, be made as deemed necessary.

Such an increase, we expect, would withdraw some $96 million from the business sector in 1974 and would help to reduce the inflationary pressures within Ontario’s economy accordingly.

Although spending reductions will reduce legitimate inflation, the government also must protect consumers from unjustified price increases, and this it has failed to do.

A standing committee of the Legislature should be empowered to function as a provincial prices review board, and it should be provided with the necessary powers and staff. It must not only examine price in- creases that are within provincial jurisdiction, but also recommend action, including rollbacks, to the Legislature.

A provincial prices review board would have been required to approve the recent milk price increase, for instance, after hearing evidence from the Ontario Milk Marketing Board and the other interested parties, including consumer groups. It would also review proposals to increase medical fee schedules or car insurance rates to ensure that such changes were justified by higher costs.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: A page out of the NDP book.

Mr. Breithaupt: The review board would also be able to study pricing practices in specific industries and to recommend a permanent review or control mechanism wherever price-gouging is widespread. Such a review of the apartment situation and rent structures generally should be an urgent priority.

There is already considerable evidence, particularly in the Toronto area, that apartment owners are taking advantage of the extremely low apartment vacancy rate to institute substantial rent increases.

This procedure would give all sectors of our economy a forum for information, for response and ultimately for action.

The 1974 Ontario budget takes a small step towards easing the impact of inflation on the elderly, the blind and the disabled, with the introduction of the guaranteed income system.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Biggest increase in any province in Canada.

Mr. Breithaupt: The new system, of course, Mr. Speaker, is identical to that proposed by the Liberal Party in October, and we welcome the government’s announcement.

It is appalling that Ontario had not acted until now to create this much-needed programme. It is even more difficult to understand why the 311,000 beneficiaries should have to wait another 2 1/2 months for the programme to be implemented.

This new programme will provide only limited protection against inflation unless the benefits are indexed and adjusted at least annually to offset the full amount of the rise in the consumer price index.

The Treasurer’s vague promise that “the guaranteed income levels will be increased periodically” is not sufficient.

The government should also be adjusting other social benefit payments as prices rise, including Workmen’s Compensation Board payments and family assistance payments.

The GAINS programme, as outlined by the Treasurer, is only a beginning. A retired couple can now receive up to $433.33 per month, but a mother with one child must still subsist on a monthly payment of only $252 under the family assistance programme. There is the additional $20 in federal family allowance payments, of course, but the total remains 42 per cent less than the retired couple receives.

A study of 524 poor families in Toronto, which was made in December, 1971, showed they paid an average of $37 more for rent per month than the provincial assistance budget provided. The amount which was left for food, personal care expenses, clothing, household maintenance, school supplies and emergencies was therefore reduced to about $128 a month.

As a result, some families had as little as 50 cents per person per day to spend on food. The budget allowance for a family of four was increased by $30 in January, 1973, but only $5 of this increase was allocated to shelter costs and the total increase has since been wiped out by inflation.

Mr. Speaker, rapidly rising food costs and prices are the most cruel and most alarming aspect of the present inflation and yet the Treasurer did not even mention food costs in his budget address.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: There goes another busy minister.

Mr. Breithaupt: In low-income families --

Hon. Mr. Bernier: This is what we heard last year.

Mr. Breithaupt: -- higher food prices especially caused a shift to food of lower nutritional value. Results can be devastating. A report prepared by the government of Quebec found, “The higher functions of the brain, logic and reasoning, and some other activities, reading and writing, are greatly compromised in the undernourished child.”

The National Council of Welfare has also reported “The poorly nourished child has trouble paying attention, is more likely to fall asleep in class, is more restless, more irritable and less alert.”

I suppose that could refer to --

Mr. A. J. Roy (Ottawa East): They are all undernourished on the other side.

Hon. W. A. Stewart (Minister of Agriculture and Food): I never knew what was wrong when I listened to the member’s speech before. That is what happened.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: That is what happens to the Minister of Agriculture and Food. He didn’t have his Wheaties this morning.

Mr. Roy: Is the minister talking about food for thought?

Mr. Breithaupt: It could happen, Mr. Speaker, that --

Hon. Mr. Stewart: I am undernourished. That is the problem.

Mr. Breithaupt: -- certain members of the House might be afflicted with those problems but I doubt --

Hon. Mr. Stewart: I thought it was the member’s speeches.

Mr. Breithaupt: -- if it is a lack of nourishment for any of the members opposite.

Food prices have risen 16 per cent in the past year in Toronto; 17.8 per cent in Ottawa and 14.8 per cent in Thunder Bay. In just one year, beef prices have increased by 25 per cent; poultry prices are up 35 per cent; the cost of eggs has risen by 26 per cent; the cost of fresh fruit has jumped 27 per cent; and the cost of sugar soared by 72 per cent.

The price of milk increased from 36 to 41 cents per quart just yesterday, an increase of 14 per cent.

Hon. G. A. Kerr (Solicitor General): Why doesn’t the member talk to Beryl Plumptre? How about he and Beryl getting together for the weekend?

Mr. Breithaupt: Some of these increases have no doubt been necessary.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Don’t throw him out. There are few enough of them over there.

Mr. Breithaupt: Yes, I don’t think we would have a quorum if you disposed of the Solicitor General, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Although on other occasions it might be all right.

Mr. Roy: We might get some intelligent comments, though.

Mr. Breithaupt: In any event, of course, we are here to deal with the business of this province and I think we have an obligation to deal with the things that are of provincial concern. Whether other jurisdictions have their problems or handle them in ways that they think best is really not our problem here.

Some of these increases as I have said, Mr. Speaker, have no doubt been necessary to offset higher costs and others, such as the milk price increase, have been necessary to enable some farmers to stay in business. As the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr. Clement) will discover when he studies the activities of the food industry for 1973 it is apparent that some food price increases have not been justified. These are increases that Ontario consumers will bear, if not very gladly.

Some price increases were in fact apparently not justified and they are now appearing as higher profits in the food industry. Profits of the food processing companies in Canada rose by 81,1 per cent in the fourth quarter of 1973; by about 60 per cent for the entire year.

Maple Leaf Mills, one of the larger food processers, had profits of $7.9 million in 1973 compared with $3.1 million in 1972, a 155 per cent increase.

George Weston Ltd., of Toronto, increased its profits by 86 per cent in 1973 from $18.6 million to $34.6 million. J. M. Schneider Foods increased profits by 35 per cent last year, and Burns Foods increased its profits in the first nine months of 1973 by 24 per cent over the same time period in 1972.

Canada Packers’ profit was up 33 per cent for the nine months ended’ Feb. 1, 1974, over the same period last year.

Officials from these companies and many others should immediately be summoned before a standing committee of the Legislature to justify their enormous price increases. If they were found to be unwarranted, the Legislature should be asked to consider measures to roll back prices in the food processing industry, and a mechanism should be established to review future price increases as I have already suggested.

The government’s study into the economics of the food industry for 1973 must be accelerated to aid the standing committee in its work. The government, if it was serious about inflation would also require food retailers to provide detailed information about their internal economic structures in their annual reports so that consumers would have more information to consider on that subject.

At the retail level, unit pricing should be required by law to assist food shoppers in getting the best value for the money spent. Wasteful packaging should be controlled and in particular, non-returnable cans and bottles should be outlawed. If any such convenience packaging is thought necessary in particular exceptions, the premium should be sufficiently high to discourage all but exceptional use.

Soft drink manufacturers faced sharp price increases for cans and bottles on April 1, but only 50 per cent of the soft drink containers sold in Ontario are in returnable bottles. Bottlers maintain that returnable containers would lower their production costs. Surely we must have a standard returnable soft drink container similar to the standard beer bottle used in Ontario. This would reduce costs.

If inflation in the price of food is to be controlled, we must not only look at the effects in the manufacturing and retail levels. We must also look at the effects on the farmers who are the primary producers in the chain.

One of the most important long-term factors in the spiralling price of food is the loss of prime agricultural land. This government must act now to preserve our best land for agricultural use. Ontario has about seven million acres of prime farmland -- this is equal in amount to nearly one-third of all of the best land available in Canada. But lands are now being used for housing, for hydro rights-of-way, for highways and even for airports. Even successful dairy farmers can make a better living by selling their farms and collecting interest on the proceeds, than by working the land and keeping herds and producing much needed foodstuffs.

Data from the 1966 and 1971 federal census indicates that the Province of Ontario loses 26 acres of arable farmland every hour of every day. The acreage of improved land has dropped by some 9.5 per cent in the past five years.

This dangerous trend must be stopped. As the Ontario Federation of Agriculture has reported:

“It is not only farmers’ incomes that depend on preserving farmland. How land is regulated will also determine how much food will be on the supermarket shelves in the future, and at what price.”

As residential and industrial development occur, a directly proportionate demand for food arises. With every acre of farmland that is consumed by urban sprawl, the ability to produce food is altered although the demand for food is increased.

However, because of the actions of this government, farmers on the fringes of urban development are unable to expand their operations because of the artificially high prices for land and because of the inflated property taxes. Some farmers in Peel county recently expressed the view that these pressures will eliminate their activities within the next six months. It may well be that unless this government acts effectively, some food products may not be available locally at any reasonable price.

The main objective of the government of Ontario should be to keep viable farmland in production. A clear policy is needed to assess the provincial impact of projects such as highways and dams. If that was done, the Minister of Agriculture and Food could also make comments on such matters and not have to restrict his remarks to federal government projects alone, such as the Sarnia to Montreal pipeline.

Mr. Speaker, development should be prohibited on class 1 and class 2 farmland unless it is demonstrated that no other suitable land is available for such development. Property taxes on these lands should be levied at agricultural rates. Methods of compensating farmers for lost development rights should be carefully studied and an equitable solution arrived at in this important area. The cost implications of issuing long-term debentures to farmers whose land is so restricted must be considered by this government

As a short-term solution to production needs, the government should consider enacting legislation that would require farmlands bought or now being held by speculators to remain in agricultural production until development proceeds. The activities of speculators in raw land have contributed to an artificial reduction in agricultural production. These persons buy viable farms, and, in many cases, remove them from active agricultural production. They allow the buildings to become dilapidated and the fields to be overgrown with weeds.

Ontario’s Minister of Agriculture and Food has admitted: “There are hundreds, yes, thousands of acres of good farmland held by developers, speculators, hobby farmers, retired or tired farmers that could be put to use.” But his government has not listened to him. The Liberal opposition agrees with the opinion of the committee on farm classification that land which is not used for production should not be eligible for the same benefits as bona fide farmland. We endorse the view expressed by the Sarnia Observer that “if empty land is purchased and not put into production, it should be taxed as industrial land. Disappearing farmland is a very real threat, one that will need firm laws to stop.”

In the longer term, a major thrust of government policy must be to steer growth away from class 1 and class 2 farmland. Some people advocate doing this by stopping all developments, but this is obviously not a realistic solution for Ontario, where our population increases annually by about 125,000 people. A real provincial development plan is needed to decentralize the growth that contributes to the urban sprawl in the “golden horseshoe.”

We must ensure that all parts of the province share in industrial expansion and in the accommodation of our growing population. Surely all members of this House will agree with me that the use of our prime agricultural lands to develop the industrial and housing sites we need is no longer an acceptable solution. Prime agricultural land is a limited resource, and it is one which we must carefully and wisely use.

Mr. Speaker, the failure of this government to provide an adequate supply of serviced building lots has resulted in a critical housing shortage and in rapidly rising prices for accommodation of every sort. The Ontario Economic Council reported a year ago that by concentrating its efforts on house building instead of on land servicing, the province is “treating the symptoms and not the disease.” The OEC also noted that Ontario “lacks a planned programme of ensuring an adequate supply or serviced land in the correct places.”

The Treasurer announced in last week’s budget that the province will allocate $11 million to “increase the supply of serviced lots” in 1974. His proposal, Mr. Speaker, is practically meaningless. In Ontario, it costs from $5,000 to $6,000 to service a single building lot, especially in the Toronto area. In northern Ontario the costs are, of course, much higher. Even at $5,000 per lot, this pathetic programme will service at the most some 2,200 building lots -- hardly a bold new response.

The Ontario Task Force on Housing reported several months ago that there is “a near crisis in housing” in this province, but the Speech from the Throne and the budget for 1974 have both revealed that this old Conservative government lacks the will to control spiralling land and housing costs.

Everywhere in Ontario, house prices are out of control. The average cost of a home in Metropolitan Toronto has increased by 36 per cent in the past year, an escalation of about $1,000 a month.

The situation in the Kitchener-Waterloo area has been well documented by my colleague, the member for Waterloo North (Mr. Good) in his contribution to the Throne debate, and I shall not repeat those details here.

Other cities in Ontario have also been experiencing alarming house price increases. Shelter costs in Ottawa rose by 22 per cent last year, and in Thunder Bay housing costs went up by 25 per cent. In January of this year, the agency members of the Mississauga Real Estate Board sold twice as many houses as they did last year, but the value of the sales tripled. The average price of resale homes in Hamilton was 21 per cent higher in the last half of 1973 than a year earlier, and in Sault Ste. Marie house costs have risen by 25 per cent in the past 18 months. I think we would all benefit from a look at the proposal which this government has now brought forward to deal in some way with this problem.

I refer, of course, to the proposed land speculation tax.

While I can agree with this kind of tax in principle, I fear that the programme may contain too many loopholes to have any significant effect on the price of housing.

Unless the tax is coupled with measures to substantially increase the supply of serviced land, it will only underpin the present inflated price levels. Indeed, without a mechanism to prevent its effects from being passed on the house buyer, the tax may even aggravate the problem.

The speculative profits of all developers to date are to be exempted from the tax; so the biggest land owners, including the 13 foreign-controlled companies, which we are told own half of the land available for housing between Oshawa and Burlington, will not pay any tax on their windfall profits.

The select committee on economic and cultural nationalism reported last fall that “through market linkages, hyper-investment in urban commercial developments is putting undue upward pressure on residential real estate prices and shelter costs.”

However, the terms of the proposed tax would not apparently apply to the speculative profits made from the sales of commercial or industrial properties.

The effectiveness of the proposed land speculation tax is further undermined by the exemption of sales where the vendor has made capital expenditures on the property equal to 20 per cent of the acquisition cost.

The tax will therefore not apply to the type of house speculation that is rampant in inter-city areas like Donvale and Cabbagetown in Toronto. Typically, these houses are purchased from lower-income families, then renovated and resold at a significant profit. The cost of renovations often exceeds 20 per cent of the purchase price and the speculative profits would therefore not be taxable under the Treasurer’s proposal.

One house in Cabbagetown, at 410 Sumach St., was purchased for $31,000 in 1972, then renovated and resold last year for $56,900. That is a price increase of 84 per cent. Another, at 435 Wellesley St. E. was purchased in 1972 for $24,000 and resold within the year for $58,000, a profit of 142 per cent.

This type of speculation is particularly a problem, since the displaced low-income families usually have no alternative accommodation but subsidized housing.

Undoubtedly the number of speculative transactions will decrease once the proposed tax is implemented, but a quick calculation, using 1973 figures, gives some indication of the magnitude of the moneys involved.

The president of the Ontario Real Estate Association, who is not likely to over-estimate in such matters, said last month that at least 30 per cent of real estate sales in Ontario involve speculators. Speculative real estate sales therefore had a value of approximately $2.4 billion last year.

If real estate prices across the province rose by an average of 15 per cent during the year, speculator profits were about $360 million. A tax of 50 per cent on these profits would have yielded $180 million, but the Treasurer’s proposed tax is expected to yield only $25 million or 14 per cent of my last figure.

The Treasurer has argued that “the success of this speculation tax will be inversely related to its revenue yield. The smaller the revenues, the greater the desired impact on curbing speculation.”

In fact, he has provided so many loopholes that the revenue from this tax could drop to zero and speculative activity could continue almost unabated in the guise of land development or of urban renewal.

A study of the effect of the land speculation tax on smaller builders illustrates one method by which the amount of the tax will probably be passed on to the home buyer. The role of the smaller builder in providing housing is particularly important in northern Ontario, where only very few companies can afford to finance the complete development process.

The smaller builder who adds services to a building lot must recover his investment at that stage in the development process, and he will then often sell the lot to another builder who actually puts up the house.

In Sudbury, where there are no large builders, the price of an unserviced lot is about $500. It will cost another $500 for the necessary surveying, engineering and legal fees. If the land is not excessively rocky, services may cost another $7,000, plus about $400 for interest charges on the money used for the construction of services. The builder’s total cost, before he starts to construct a house, is about $8,400.

If the present selling price for a serviced lot is in the $10,500-$11,000 range, there will be a profit of some $2,600 for the work he has done. However, the land speculation tax at this stage will cut his after-tax profit from about $1,000 to $500, unless he adds the difference to the selling price of the serviced lot. With the tax structured as the Treasurer has proposed, he will have little alternative but to do just this.

The proposed change in the land transfer tax should discourage the limited number of short-term foreign speculators and hopefully will slow the alienation of our best recreational properties.

However, this tax will likely not deter many of the Swiss, American, Japanese, German and British investors who are competing with Canadian residents to buy real estate in Ontario as a long-term investment.

An apartment building on Kingston Rd. in Toronto, which sold last year for $300,000, was recently purchased by Japanese interests for $1.3 million. Such buyers will not be discouraged by a 20 per cent surtax.

In addition, any foreign company can buy land, withhold it from the market for four years, develop it and then resell it to Canadians. The profits can then be exported from Canada without the payment of either the land speculation tax or the increased land transfer tax.

The proposed change in the land transfer tax is but a pale reflection of the recommendation made by the select committee on economic and cultural nationalism.

The committee said that the ownership of land by other than Canadian citizens or residents should be prohibited. Indeed, how much more of our heritage must be sold off before this government will take really decisive action?

Even a complete prohibition of foreign land ownership and an effective tax on speculative land profits can only slow the rise in the price of housing. In order to reduce and stabilize housing costs in Ontario, the provincial government must ensure that there is always an adequate supply of serviced land available for residential development.

There has already been too much delay. Housing costs in Toronto have already risen by 50 per cent since the provincial Throne Speech of 1972, which promised bold action on the urgent housing problem.

The provincial government has assembled almost 18,000 acres of land for residential purposes, as my leader has so carefully documented on many occasions. There are some 300 acres in Kitchener and some 3,000 acres in the area north of Cambridge in Waterloo region. There are another 1,300 near Oakville.

These lands are being held undeveloped while the near-crisis that was reported last year by the Ontario Task Force on Housing is becoming more and more serious.

This government has badly mishandled its land-banking programme.

The Waterloo assembly removed about 3,000 acres of developable land from a market which was already suffering from a lack of supply. As a result, all the land prices in adjoining areas have increased and supply is almost non-existent.

This government has delayed too long.

The land now being held must be developed for housing needs immediately. If we are to reduce land costs, this government must also abandon its current policy of selling off its land holdings at the prevailing high market prices.

In Metro Toronto, at the Malvern land assembly, building lots that cost about $8,000 to assemble, service and debenture are being sold by the province for twice that amount and more.

Instead of using its land banks to reduce housing costs, the Davis government has been supporting high land prices and collecting its windfall gains like any other speculator.

Mr. E. R. Good (Waterloo North): Shame on the government,

Mr. Breithaupt: This practice must end, but I doubt if it will end until this government ends.

Mr. D. M. Deacon (York Centre): They are the worst speculators of all.

Mr. Breithaupt: The provincial government should not be profiteering from the current land shortage, but should be selling its assembled land at cost in order to lower prices.

A vigorous programme to provide serviced building lots throughout the province is urgently required. This programme should be undertaken by the Ontario Housing Corp.

OHC should build the necessary trunk services for sewer and water as public utilities, and sell them to municipalities in much the same way as Hydro sells electricity to its consumers.

Mr. Deacon: It certainly can’t be the Ministry of the Environment. They won’t spend money on increasing services.

Mr. Breithaupt: Shelter costs are soaring throughout Ontario and the primary cause, as the Ontario Economic Council noted last year, is the scarcity of developed land.

The government must start treating the cause by developing its own land holdings and by initiating a land servicing programme.

Although steps to control Ontario’s land costs are the most urgent priority, action is also required to reduce residential housing costs in Ontario.

Land costs seldom account for more than half of the price paid by a home buyer. The balance is attributable to labour costs and building material costs. The building materials account for about a third of the total cost of house accommodation in Ontario.

Mr. Speaker, the cost of residential building materials used in Ontario has jumped by some 24 per cent in the last two years. The provincial government has not only profited from these price increases through higher sales tax revenues but last year it added another two per cent to the ultimate cost when the rate of the sales tax was increased from five per cent to seven per cent.

The provincial tax on building materials added about $101 million to housing costs in Ontario last year. A house priced at $43,000, for example, became $1,000 more expensive because the province added seven per cent to the cost of the lumber, nails, plaster, concrete and other materials used in construction.

The sales tax on building materials is an inequitable and unjustified addition to the already high cost of housing in Ontario. Building materials used in hospitals, schools and nursing homes are exempt from the provincial sales tax. Building materials used in houses and apartment accommodation should be also.

The provincial government should also be encouraging wider use of inexpensive housing forms, including mobile and factory-built homes. A pre-fabricated three-bedroom home on a $15,000 lot would sell today in Ontario for between $30,000 and $35,000. These are permanent homes, usually set down on a concrete foundation.

A 500-unit community of factory-built homes just south of Barrie has been built to National Housing Act standards and it is so successful that another 150 units will be added this year. The low costs have made this neighbourhood into a popular retirement community as well. In the Waterloo area, a complex of 108 factory-produced homes was completed last month.

But, Mr. Speaker, the building codes of most cities bar such housing not because of structural specifications but because of house and lot size restrictions. Municipalities demand oversized lots, wide streets and the highest quality of services because of their heavy reliance on property tax as a source of revenue. Low cost housing on smaller lots means lower property tax revenues. I would suggest that more communities follow the example of Kitchener by changing the standards and building good quality housing.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Is that up or down?

Mr. Breithaupt: Satisfactory; I think that is the important word,

The 1974 Ontario budget discussed inflation only in a province-wide context and ignored both the role of regional development as a counter-inflationary force and the related problems of regional disparities in prices and economic growth.

By focusing Ontario’s growth on the Toronto-centred region, the provincial government has bled people and jobs from other parts of the province, particularly the north and east. As a result, unemployment rates in those parts of the province are unnecessarily high and unnatural inflationary demands for accommodation have been created in Toronto and nearby centres. While the area between

Oshawa and Burlington has a 10-year growth rate of 31 per cent, the population of Kingston is dropping by one per cent per decade, and the population of Timmins is declining by seven per cent.

Mr. C. J. S. Apps (Kingston and the Islands): Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, did the member say the population of Kingston was dropping one per cent per decade?

Mr. Breithaupt: That is the information I have.

Mr. Apps: That is absolutely wrong. The member had better check his figures.

Mr. Breithaupt: Perhaps the member for Kingston and the Islands can enter the debate and correct me if the facts are incorrect.

Mr. Apps: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I will correct him now.

Mr. Good: The member for Kingston is no more of an authority than the member for Kitchener.

Mr. Apps: I sure am because I live there. I know what the population is in Kingston.

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. Apps: The population has increased by 10,000 people over the last 10 years. It’s gone up 1,000 each year.

Mr. Breithaupt: Well, that is the information I have, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Apps: That’s a far cry from decreasing one per cent per decade.

Mr. Breithaupt: If it is incorrect or not completely accurate, I appreciate the information given by the member for Kingston and the Islands.

Mr. Apps: I trust the member’s other statements are not as inaccurate as that one.

Mr. Breithaupt: I think the member will find they are quite correct. The Kitchener and Guelph areas have grown by about 35 per cent in a 10-year period.

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. Worton: It is due to the Liberal members, that is.

Mr. Breithaupt: But Peterborough and Thunder Bay grew only six per cent.

Northern Ontario’s population has dropped from 11.6 per cent of the total provincial population in 1961 to 9.9 per cent last year; and the area east of Oshawa is growing only about half as fast as the Toronto region. This concentration of growth in one small part of the province hurts all regions.

The provincial government must decentralize Ontario’s growth and correct the serious regional imbalances that are occurring in our economy.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: All the figures are suspect now.

Mr. Breithaupt: I am quite sure, Mr. Speaker, that even the Solicitor General will realize that his part of the province is growing much more quickly than are some others.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Good members.

Mr. Worton: What can one attribute to them?

Mr. Breithaupt: Part of the solution will be in relocating some provincial government activities to these areas. Moving the Ministry of Natural Resources to the north, for instance, would not only stimulate the northern economy but would also result in more responsible government.

A government-run land servicing programme, like the one I suggested earlier, would permit more orderly growth throughout the province. Specifically, it could decentralize growth pressures by providing inexpensive land for housing in eastern and northern Ontario.

An effective programme to decentralize growth must also include stimuli for industrial development and employment opportunities in the north and east. These will require fundamental changes in the economic policies and development priorities of the provincial government.

The Ontario Development Corp. should be transformed from a grantor of funds to an initiator of businesses. ODC should work with private and public agencies to identify development opportunities and carry new projects to the stage where conventional business organizations are prepared to fund and manage them. This would also confront the problem of foreign domination of Ontario’s economy by adding to the number of Canadian-owned enterprises and by developing Canadian managerial skills.

Regional variation of tax policies is also required as part of any serious programme to overcome regional disparity. As one incentive, the five per cent tax credit for investment in machinery and equipment which expired last year should be renewed, but only for goods that will be used in the regions east of Oshawa and north of the French River.

When it was introduced in the 1971 Ontario budget, the investment tax credit applied to all parts of the province. At that time, the then Treasurer said:

“This tax credit approach to stimulating investment, economic growth and job opportunities in Ontario has major advantages over alternative measures. It will have an immediate impact because it produces immediate tax savings to companies that invest in economic expansion. It does not reduce the value of capital cost allowances. It is simple to understand and administer.”

Such an alternative is still required in the north and east, but this Toronto-centred government has again ignored those parts of the province.

The north, as I have mentioned, has 9.9 per cent of Ontario’s population, but produces only 5.2 per cent of the manufacturing shipments in the province. In the east, where some 16.7 per cent of Ontario’s residents live, the value of manufacturing shipments is only 8.5 per cent of the provincial total. A five per cent investment tax credit for companies in those regions would permit them to reduce their tax payments to the province by $5 for every $100 of investment in machinery and equipment and would contribute to a more even distribution of population and industrial growth throughout the province. The provincial revenue loss would be about $30 million.

Regional price inequities must also be overcome if more people and industries are to be attracted to the north. The cost of living in Thunder Bay rose by 8.7 per cent in 1973, almost one per cent more than the price rise in Toronto, with the result that the gap between prices in northern and southern Ontario is now wider than ever. Local newspapers recently advertised pork for 99 cents a pound in Thunder Bay and 78 cents a pound in Toronto. Twenty-six ounce bottles of Pepsi were four for $1 in Thunder Bay and five for $1 in Toronto.

Similar inequities exist in other parts of the north. A 24 oz loaf of white bread costs 41 cents in White River compared with 30 cents in Toronto. A sofa that costs $580 in Toronto is $70 more in Smooth Rock Falls.

Some companies have formally established two-price systems in Ontario -- higher in the north and lower in the south. The Simpsons-Sears catalogue, for instance, lists dozens of prices for identical tools and parts that are anywhere from 50 cents to $25 higher in the north than in the south. These discrepancies exist partly because transportation costs to the north are higher. These different prices would not be a serious matter if incomes in the north were correspondingly higher than those in the south. But the per capita income in northeastern Ontario is $210 less than in Toronto, and incomes in northwestern Ontario are another $240 lower than that.

The provincial government’s response to these discrepancies has been to equalize beer prices across the province. No comprehensive policies have been formulated. The government has not even stated that price equity across Ontario is its goal. It certainly has not indicated that it has any plans to achieve such a goal.

One effective method of sharing cost differences throughout the province would be to reduce the rate of retail sales tax to five per cent north of the French River. The revenue loss from such a reduction would be approximately $37 million for the fiscal year 1974-1975. The same objective could be achieved by increasing the retail sales tax credit available to residents of northern Ontario.

The government should also take steps to relieve the burden of high transportation costs for people who live in the north. Cars cost about $150 more in Thunder Bay than in Toronto and gasoline costs four cents a gallon more than in southern Ontario. The recent oil price agreement reached by the Canadian first ministers will equalize prices between the area east of the Ottawa Valley line and southern Ontario, but prices will remain higher in northern Ontario because of the cost of transporting products from the refineries.

The importance of transportation to northerners is best measured by the large percentage of gasoline sales in that part of the province. Although only 8.5 per cent of the total passenger car registrations in Ontario are north of the French River, industry sources advise that 14 per cent of Ontario s gasoline sales are in the north. Gasoline costs in northern Ontario could be approximately equalized with those in the south by reducing the gasoline tax from 19 cents per gallon to 15 cents per gallon in the north. The revenue loss from this measure would be about $15 million.

These losses of revenue entailed in these measures to promote regional development and to reduce regional disparity should be offset by further increases in mining taxes. The mining tax changes proposed by the Treasurer fail to secure an adequate return for the province’s mineral resources. While the new progressive rates will mean higher taxes for about six companies, another 37 companies will pay lower mining taxes. The mining tax, therefore, becomes a very unreliable revenue source, as it will now be extremely sensitive to the profits of a few large companies.

However, the Liberal Party rejects the position expressed by the leader of Ontario’s third party that a 15 per cent royalty should be collected on the value of all mineral production in Ontario. Such a tax would fail to discriminate between high-grade ores that can be extracted at little cost and the low-grade ores which are far less economical to produce, with the result that many mines will be forced to close.

The Smith Committee on Taxation reported another problem with royalties. Since 1908, Mr. Speaker, the province has not reserved the mineral rights whenever it made grants of land, and all reservations previously made were relinquished in that year. As the committee noted:

“This sequence of events has had a significant effect on the form of mineral impost available to the province. It is well established that a province is constitutionally unable to impose a royalty on mineral production from privately owned land as such a royalty is construed to be an indirect tax. In 1928 the judicial committee of the Privy Council held that a percentage tax on the gross revenue from the sale of coal by a mine was an indirect tax which is ultra vires the enacting province.”

The committee, of which I happened to be a member, concluded;

“For administrative and constitutional reasons ... the imposition of a royalty or gross income tax on the output of Ontario mines is impracticable. A profits tax is the logical alternative.”

However, Mr. Speaker, the provincial government is not taxing the real profits of mining companies, but an artificial profit figure that is arrived at after special deductions for fast depreciation and depletion. Instead, the mining tax should be applied against the companies’ cash flow, or real operating profit, less a portion of actual expenditures on exploration and development within Ontario.

The difference between operating profit and taxable profit is often substantial. In 1972, for instance, International Nickel’s before-tax profit was $98 million less than its operating profit. Falconbridge had an operating profit of $94 million, but was taxed on a profit of only $18 million. Rio Algom’s before-tax profit was $20 million, or $15 million less than its operating profit McIntyre Porcupine Mines had an operating profit of $2.5 million, but for tax purposes this was reduced to a loss of $8 million.

A mining economist has estimated that the 1973 operating profit of mining companies in Ontario was in the vicinity of $900 million. If these companies could deduct 25 per cent of their exploration and development costs which totalled $110 million in 1970, the latest year for which figures are available, and even if the average tax rate was only 20 per cent, a tax on operating profits would generate about $175 million or about twice as much as the revised tax is expected to produce. The province certainly must restructure its mining tax to capture an appropriate revenue from our mineral resources.

With these comments, Mr. Speaker, I have outlined only some of the comments which the opposition has concerning the budget brought down by the provincial Treasurer last week. Other members of the caucus will be making comments, as they make their own contributions to this debate, which will not only elucidate some of the points which I have raised but will, no doubt, add many others for your consideration.

Mr. Breithaupt moves, seconded by Mr. Deacon, that the motion before the House be amended and that all the words after “that” be struck out and the following added:

“This House regrets the lack of any government policy to effectively deal with the problems of inflation in areas of provincial concern;

“This House regrets the government’s failure to provide for an effective review of price increases by using a standing committee of the Legislature for such a purpose;

“This House regrets the government’s failure to have a satisfactory policy to reduce housing costs and review rents and to stimulate new housing construction through such measures as the removal of provincial sales tax on residential building materials and the servicing of lands in provincial landbanks and other areas;

“This House regrets the government’s failure to control exorbitant increases in the costs of regional governments implemented by this government; and

“This House regrets the government’s failure to have any effective programme to equalize the costs of living throughout the province or to plan for the balanced development of northern and eastern Ontario.”

Mr. MacDonald moves the adjournment of the debate.

Motion agreed to.

Clerk of the House: The 10th order. House in committee of supply.

ESTIMATES, MINISTRY OF CORRECTIONAL SERVICES

Mr. Chairman: The estimates of the Ministry of Correctional Services. The hon. minister.

Hon. R. T. Potter (Minister of Correctional Services): Mr. Chairman, as my predecessor, the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands (Mr. Apps), did last year, I intend to review briefly the major developments of the past year and to broadly indicate the directions in which we are going in the correctional field.

The ministry’s annual report for the year ending March 31, 1973, was tabled on Tuesday, Oct. 30 last, and it is not my intention to be repetitious but rather to trace developments from where that document leaves off. In other words, I am covering almost exactly the fiscal year 1973-1974 in my review and looking forward principally over the period for which supply is sought.

Before I do so, however, I want to pay a sincere tribute to the work of the member for Kingston and the Islands while Minister of Correctional Services. Preoccupied as I was with the Health portfolio, I confess that I had not realized the great deal of work that my colleague was quietly pushing forward without fanfare.

It should be borne in mind that during my predecessor’s term of office such innovative measures as the development of group homes and the inception of co-educational programmes in the training schools in Ontario were initiated.

The concept of volunteer workers in our system and the expansion of temporary absence programmes were also encouraged during this time, while the correctional centres in the adult training centres developed new and imaginative programmes.

I was also surprised to discover just how much patient groundwork had gone into the preparations for the fifth United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of the Offender, which is to be held in Toronto in September, 1975. Canada will be the host nation and Ontario the host province to over 2,000 delegates from around the world. I would like the record to show the sustained effort by the member for Kingston and the Islands to make the congress a success and his close co-operation with the federal government on the various details of such an undertaking.

One of his efforts which did come to fruition during his ministerial term of office was the federal-provincial conference on correction, which was held in Ottawa Dec. 12 to 14, 1973. This meeting was the first of its kind in 15 years and was “an indication,” as he told the participants, “of the lack of communication which has existed in the field of corrections.” But his idea at that time won the day and the conference will henceforth be an annual event.

The hon. member was instrumental in having continuing committees established, with Ontario staff representation, on parole jurisdiction; federal and provincial facilities rationalization; services programmes and funding arrangements for young persons in conflict with the law; criminal information and statistics; native offenders; and community-based resource or residential centres.

In the years to come, it will become apparent to everyone -- as it is apparent now to those who work in this field -- that the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands was the man who led this ministry in the movement from institutional care to community care.

Mr. Chairman, this is the all-star record of a remarkable gentleman, and I would like to take this opportunity to salute him for an impressive term of service to the people of Ontario and for a job well done.

As a result of the federal-provincial conference, the Solicitor-General of Canada has assured us that the Ontario Board of Parole will, within the not-too-distant future, assume complete responsibility for the parole of all inmates in the correctional institutions of this ministry. Ontario has long urged that the continuity of care can be assured by giving to the jurisdiction with the responsibility for the institutional care of an inmate, the added responsibility for his subsequent parole supervision -- and the federal government has now conceded this point.

However, as in health, Ontario is still fighting the battle of inequities in funding arising from the interpretation of the Canada Assistance Plan. Because they are regarded as “correctional” rather than “welfare” facilities, cost-sharing is denied to Ontario’s training schools and group homes. The provincial argument here is that the only thing that matters is the standard of care provided to the wards.

The quality of our services is not in question, and our ability to meet the spirit of the Canada Assistance Plan is not in question. It is only the reluctance of the federal government to amend the Canada Assistance Plan at this time that stands between Ontario and its rightful share of assistance. I am confident that justice will prevail in the long run and that the Act will eventually be amended. In the interim, Ontario’s progressive juvenile programme will not be allowed to suffer.

Considerable advances have been made this year in the treatment and training for juveniles. The reception and assessment centre at Oakville has proved its flexibility by being able to adapt to the changing proportions of the sexes coming into our care. Regionalization will no doubt further influence the role of this centre. In this connection, an internal task force has just reported on various alternative ways in which regionalization at the juvenile level might be further carried out.

Let me stress, Mr. Chairman, it is not if further regionalization will come about but how and at what rate. All our recent reforms in the juvenile field -- co-education, direct home placement after assessment and so on -- have been successful. We believe we are on the right track.

Now we have to determine the pace of change from what has been a predominantly institutionally-based juvenile system to what is now an increasingly community-based system. As our dependence on bricks and mortar diminishes our reliance on the skill, training and the ability of our staffs increases. There is clearly an optimum rate at which innovation can occur if it is not to be disruptive and as you are aware, Mr. Chairman, remarkable innovations were made during the year under review.

The Cecil Facer School in Sudbury and Brookside School in Cobourg have become co-educational institutions. Glendale School, as members learned earlier, is to be phased out as a training school and will become a young offenders’ unit for the 16-18 age group. Now, Sprucedale School is gradually being tailored to become the regional training school for southwestern Ontario. The transition, as I said, will be gradual as indeed will be the case with all such changes.

There are increasing numbers of ministry group homes. Twenty-eight are fully operational, three are just accepting their first wards, and two have just been acquired. I would like to add that these figures change very frequently and they represent a major change in emphasis.

However, they are only part of the placement possibilities in the community now open to selected juveniles. As a result of our improved techniques of selection, a study carried out over a six-month period revealed that 19.3 per cent or nearly one in five of the juveniles coming into our care are now placed directly after assessment in a setting other than a normal training school.

Some of the placement possibilities are: Their own homes, under appropriate supervision; foster homes; facilities operated by or through the Ministry of Health; contract group homes, sometimes referred to as special rates homes, where wards are provided with a particular kind of service that it would be uneconomic for the ministry to furnish directly.

We are reluctant to invest in hardware when we can invest in skills. This philosophy underlines not only the changed role in Glendale -- and it will not be the last ministry building to be adapted to changing needs -- but also the ministry’s takeover of the former St. Joseph’s School, which is now renamed Ecole Champlain/Champlain School. With a 30 per cent French-speaking intake, this facility at Alfred plays a key part in our plans for eastern Ontario. Now as a new non-denominational regional school it will have a new lease on life with those of the staff who have chosen to remain having entered the public service of Ontario. Elmcrest School, the former St. Euphrasia’s, dosed on Sept. 30, 1973, and again, the success of the group home programme in the Metropolitan setting made this closing possible.

In spite of what has been intimated in the press, I want to emphasize that there are no denominational overtones to these closings. We are confident that our wards are open today to the ministrations and spiritual guidance of dedicated volunteers as well as of chaplains. As our programmes become more flexible, as, for example, with Project DARE, which takes our wards into the wilderness, the mobility is seen as a unique opportunity for personal ministry. We expect spiritual counselling to be effective in whatever setting we may provide, be it an urban group home, a training school, or a camp on the fringe of a remote lake. We are gratified that these views of our purpose are so widely shared.

Now, Mr. Chairman, this brief view I have given you indicates clearly, I believe, the fact that our training schools programme is developing on progressive lines, but I would like to say a few words about one aspect of our Training Schools Act which has always been a contentious issue, and this is section 8. This section permits the court to admit to the training schools those children who have not committed what would constitute an offence if they were adults, but who are deemed to be unmanageable or beyond control.

Now while there is some weight to the contention that this section is a good preventive tool, it does raise some very fundamental questions about the protection of the child’s rights. In the past, consideration has been given to abolishing this section, and yet we were concerned as to what would happen to these children and who would care for them.

Mr. Chairman, we are now seeking verification of our belief that sufficient alternative resources are now available in the community for these children and if this proves to be the case, then we shall seek an amendment to the Training Schools Act which would remove these cases from our jurisdiction.

In the year under review, the audit programme has seen many changes. The Ontario Correctional Institute, replacing the Alex G. Brown Clinic at Mimico, was opened at Brampton on Sept. 20 last. It has accommodation for 200 male inmates, 48 in an assessment and classification section and the remainder in smaller treatment units. This new complex brings diagnostic, treatment, academic, recreational and accommodation units under one roof, with improved security arrangements.

The assessment and classification section accepts first incarcerates between the ages of 16 and 24, who are serving sentences of over six months, from all regions of the province except the north, which is served by the Monteith and Thunder Bay correctional centres.

In this new facility the treatment units are separate from the assessment and classification section. Now since this has caused some confusion in the minds of members, I would like to clarify the point that the treatment units take offenders whether or not they are first incarcerates, as long as they have enough time left on their sentences -- at least about 40 days -- to complete the treatment programme, as long as they have been assessed locally at the institutional level and recommended for treatment, and as long as they do not present a serious risk of escape or injury to others.

As the facility has been phased in, demand for the services of the Ontario Correctional Institute has been great and there have been some delays, but we are quickly catching up with the backlog of cases now.

Earlier today, Mr. Chairman, I had mentioned the fact that Glendale School will shortly be closing as a training school and will be used for young adult offenders. This enables us to take out of the Guelph Correctional Centre the 16- and the 17-year-olds and to free bed space at Guelph which we intend to use for the expansion of the neuropsychiatric centre.

When this is done, it will mean that those sexual deviates and those who must be kept in a secure setting because of the danger they present to others, and who are presently housed in Millbrook, will have the opportunity to benefit from the expanded range of treatment services at Guelph.

In the correctional centre at Guelph, I am pleased to report that the working conditions and the general atmosphere have continued to improve since the recommendations of the study of staff working conditions, or the Eastaugh recommendations, were released on July 5 last.

The coming of industry to the Guelph abattoir, of which I will speak later, will have a further effect. The inmates at Guelph have already been involved in refurbishing the administrative offices and making structural improvements. The general atmosphere there has been very good as both staff and inmates have been engaged in a most productive period of activity over the last eight months or so. As I mentioned the other day, 10 of the 12 Eastaugh recommendations have already been implemented; another is being implemented now, while the twelfth, referring to days off in lieu of statutory holidays, is a matter for negotiation between the Civil Service Association and the government of Ontario. With the new changes that are being made I don’t think there will be any need for overtime work.

The Niagara Regional Detention Centre was opened on June 20 last year and replaces the old St. Catharines and Welland jails which were structurally unsuited to modern needs.

An hon. member: It’s better equipped than any hospital in Ontario.

Hon. Mr. Potter: I can tell you it’s better than a lot I have seen.

In all, nine of the 37 jails taken over by the ministry in 1968 have been taken out of service as correctional facilities, although some have been put to other uses. In the past year, we have closed the Cayuga jail and McCreight’s Camp near Sault Ste. Marie. The Goderich jail has become a museum and the Ottawa jail a youth hostel. Mr. Chairman, after seeing some of the antique jails in the province, I am sure that one would make a damn good museum.

As you are aware, Management Board of Cabinet has given its approval for us to proceed with the initial construction planning for four new facilities to be located in Hamilton, London, and two in Toronto -- one in the east and one in the west end. The Toronto facility will be located near the ministry’s new main office which will be housed in the former Scarborough municipal building on Eglinton Ave. E. It is expected that our main office will move down there before the end of this year.

The Maplehurst Correction Centre at Milton is now under way and will be ready for occupancy next April. New dormitories have been built at the Brampton Adult Training Centre. The Kenora jail women’s unit, whose purposes were described on page 16 of the 1973 annual report, is now in operation.

These new facilities, Mr. Chairman, make possible improved programming. I should like to review some of the innovative things that have been happening in the programme area in the past year. But, obviously, the programme of most interest is the revamping of our industries to make them more applicable to the real world the inmate will find on release, and so I would like to explain our philosophy in this context.

In essence, we plan to invite business organizations to form partnerships with us. We will provide the physical plant, together with the labour force, while the employer will provide the expertise in production and marketing management and the actual means of putting the products on the general market.

We in this ministry will insist upon certain guidelines with regard to rates of pay and those aspects of working conditions which are at the discretion of the employer, but it is our intention otherwise to interfere as little as possible with the way in which the business is conducted. Our concerns are primarily that the rent paid by employers for our facilities is fair to the taxpayers of Ontario; that the type of work is consistent with our rehabilitative aims; that wages and other fringe benefits are commensurate with those prevailing in the industry for persons of similar skills; and that the employer will show willingness to provide employment elsewhere in his enterprise to suitable inmates on release.

In regard to the Guelph abattoir project, we are presently negotiating with a number of companies in the meat packing industry. When talks have been completed we shall call for formal tenders, and we expect to sign an agreement by which the successful bidder will assume management of the plant within a month to six weeks after the date of the opening of tenders.

At the present time, Mr. Chairman, the discussions are centering on technical matters. For example, the increased water flow and waste provision necessary to the increased volume of production and the plant rearrangement required before meat products can begin to be manufactured on the commercial scale that we envisage.

We have been able to assure staff that no one will lose his job as a result of this change in management. We are working very closely with the Ontario Federation of Labour and we have no intention of undercutting the free labour market, either as to pay or other benefits.

We intend to provide inmates with work experience which will replicate conditions in the community, and this means of course that production cannot be interrupted for institutional counts or traditional routines. In fact, the inmates will be as though they were on temporary absence without leaving the security of the premises, and this in turn implies that the greatest means of security will lie in the selection process.

Fortunately, Mr. Chairman, we have had over 4 1/2 years of successful experience of selection for the temporary absence programme, and we have maintained a 98 per cent success rate, so we shall be able to apply the same techniques to the institutional industrial programme as it gets under way.

By bringing private industry into our institutions in this way, we are moving one step closer to facing the inmate with real choices and real responsibilities -- which is why the temporary absence programme has been consistently more successful than institutional programmes, however well thought out. In the new industrial programme, we hope to impart good work habits, which will help inmates to obtain and keep steady jobs on release.

Since they will be paid, the inmates will have to contribute to the maintenance of their dependents. They will pay for their board and lodging in the institution to the extent of $20 a week initially, and, of course, we shall increase that figure if inflation demands it. Inmates will also pay federal and provincial income taxes and they will direct the balance of their earnings into a savings account for their use after release.

One change in institutional routines which will follow from the new programme is that we will have to provide counselling and educational programmes outside normal working hours. There will be further work for volunteers here, and the number of volunteers is now approaching the 2,000 mark throughout our system.

The inmate population likely to be employed on many industrial projects is young, of low educational achievement, serving an average sentence of about six months, and having had a history of sporadic unskilled employment, interspersed with periods of unemployment. As soon as we began to discuss seriously the revision of our industrial programme we realized that we would, in the absence of appropriate safeguards, leave ourselves open to the charge that we were creating a pool of unskilled workers for subsequent exploitation at the minimum wage. We were determined, Mr. Chairman, to see that this did not happen, and so we set in motion a pilot project of pre-release employment planning for inmates at the Mimico Correctional Centre.

We expect a full-scale version of this programme will be carried on side by side with an industrial programme at Maplehurst where there are 30,000 sq ft of space set aside specifically for industrial use. Having proved itself at Mimico, the programme will be greatly expanded and will become an after-work course at Maplehurst if industry moves in there.

This pre-release employment plan is a very practical group programme in that all the selected members live together in the same dormitory and they may be working together for industry as well. The course is specifically geared to prepare inmates to find and keep a job on release and to counter the suggestion and potential exploitation to which they might be expressly vulnerable on the street. Dealing with fellow workers, relations with supervisors, personal appearance and objectional mannerisms, job safety, the Labour Relations Act and the Human Rights Code are all studied. Firms send their actual application forms to be filled out for practice; videotape is used for interview critiques; and there are unobtrusively escorted field trips into the community in this key life-skills course by which we set great store.

In fact, Mr. Chairman, one of the most promising developments of the year has been the eagerness with which inmates have taken to the courses in life skills wherever they have been offered. I would refer members to page 20 of the annual report. For members’ convenience, I will have copies of the report brought to the House which the pages will distribute later.

Inmates in four northern Ontario jails take part in such a life skills programme at North Bay jail. Launched last August, the teaching is done by the staff of Canadore College of Applied Arts and Technology. In this case, it is a combination basic literacy course and life skills curriculum.

Mr. J. E. Stokes (Thunder Bay): Would the minister repeat that? What does that mean?

Hon. Mr. Potter: Just a second. The teachers come to the jail two afternoons a week and offer both group and individual instruction to the inmates. Transfers of suitable inmates have been made to North Bay jail from the jails at Parry Sound, Sudbury, Haileybury, and Sault Ste. Marie.

At the Rideau Correctional Centre, Burritt’s Rapids, a token economy system is in operation. An inmate’s positive behaviour is rewarded through a token system which allows him to purchase certain privileges otherwise unavailable to him. An inmate must apply for this programme, just as he would apply for temporary absence. The work done here is non-commercial, making toys for non-profit organizations.

However, Mr. Chairman, inmates who have graduated from this token economy programme are then eligible for the next step on the road to trust. They may become volunteer workers at the Burritt’s Rapids Regional Hospital, Smiths Falls, or at the Brockville Psychiatric Hospital’s geriatric ward. This part of the programme has proven so successful that the regional hospital management has offered employment to at least one inmate on release and is considering doing so to others.

At Monteith Correctional and Adult Training Centre, a daycare programme is operated by the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Correctional Services and the Addiction Research Foundation. Intensive group therapy is offered four days a week for eight weeks. There is also a weekend programme, taking two students at a time, at the Northeastern Regional Mental Health Centre.

Also at Monteith, the Northern College of Applied Arts and Technology is co-operating in yet another variant of the successful life skills curriculum. In this case, inmates spend 16 full weeks at the college, six hours a day, five days a week, on separate temporary absence, and the Canada Manpower office at Timmins keep a close watch on their progress with a view to helping them find work later on release.

Family counselling is now available to families of Toronto Jail inmates, in co-operation with the Junior League of Toronto, which operates from a church adjacent to the jail. At the Brampton Adult Training Centre, co-operation with the Manufacturers Life Insurance Co. made possible the production of playground equipment for the Sir John A. Macdonald Park in Kingston. Manufacturers Life Insurance gave $5,000 for the raw materials and also gave recreational and athletic equipment to the Adult Training Centre in appreciation for the inmates’ work.

An important step forward, Mr. Chairman, both in staff training and inmate programme, was made this year at Camp Bison, a satellite camp of Burwash Correctional Centre. Forty correctional officers were first selected to take part in a programme of reorientation from a mainly custodial to a more rehabilitative role. By the end of April, 1973, four staff teams had been formed and were working with groups of inmates transferred from the main camp six miles away. For a fuller discussion of this programme, members are referred to Vol. 1, No. 5 of the ministry’s newsletter, and again the pages can supply copies of these documents later to any member on request. The most significant advantage of the programme has been its effect upon the inmate sub-culture, which has now been largely broken.

And now, Mr. Chairman, I turn to the very imaginative concept of which mention was made in the Speech from the Throne, and that is the development of community resource centres.

As you know, the group homes programme for juveniles has borne out our contention that many people within our training schools did not need to be institutionalized and could be cared for in the community. The success of our temporary absence programme has equally borne out our similar contention that certain adults, who do not constitute a risk to the public, can equally be supervised and supported within the community.

The community resource centres will, in fact, be the adult equivalent of the group homes programme, i.e., they will house certain adults who under present circumstances are housed in correctional institutions of various kinds. The advantages are obvious. The man will be able to work to support his family and be given support and supervision at far less cost to the public purse than is involved in institutional care. To a large extent, the success of this venture will hinge upon careful selection but, with our temporary absence programme experience behind us, we are confident that only those who are suitable for this alternative to incarceration will be accepted.

Now, Mr. Chairman, I should like to review briefly matters relating to staffing and administration.

We have gone a long way to implementing the Botterell report. Appointments to the ministry’s Health Care Services Advisory Board have been made and the board is sitting regularly. Local health care services committees have been established for each institution. The nursing complement has been increased to the standard recommended in the report, and no jail or institution in the province is without nursing service. Physician’s remuneration for services rendered has been increased to conform with the Ontario Medical Association recommended fees; and relationships with university faculties in the health care sciences have been expanded.

We, in the ministry, are co-operating very closely with the Ontario Provincial Police and with other police forces and we have used on a number of occasions the Canadian Police Information Centre network, which is the new information system based on the RCMP computer in Ottawa. We have found it particularly useful to advise local police of the presence of inmates in their communities on temporary absence, at times such as Christmas when the mails are particularly slow.

Six senior members of my staff were involved recently in a four-week exchange programme with the Ontario Provincial Police. Their experiences included the investigation of a hit-and-run and a break-and-enter; they were formal witnesses to an autopsy; and they took their turn with bank surveillance and in patrol cars. Their respect for and understanding of police work has, I am assured, increased considerably. In return, six OPP officers have observed the complexities of our organization. We shall be extending this type of exchange throughout the justice policy field.

We have made further progress in the hiring of ex-offenders. In fact, Mr. Chairman, we have hired 160 of them since we began the practice several years ago -- 86 were hired to the ministry’s regular staff, and others to temporary or casual appointments. These employees have been of both sexes and of several ethnic backgrounds; and the regular appraisals of staff performance, which are made in respect of all ministry staff, are particularly good in most of these cases.

In the Kenora area, we are planning, in conjunction with the Kenora Fellowship Centre, a three-year community-institutional worker experiment. The selected native incumbent would work closely with community agencies on a crisis-intervention programme, particularly in regard to the many problems which arise when a parent is incarcerated and has a family in a remotely situated home.

The amalgamation of the ministry’s probation and parole services took place on Jan. 1 of this year. The transition was a little smoother than we had expected, largely as a result of the extensive pre-planning which had been completed in the previous year. The volunteer programme within probation and parole has expanded greatly in the past year. Some institutional staff roles now include responsibility for liaison with volunteers.

Since January of this year the adult and juvenile responsibilities in the probation and aftercare services have been completely separated and the services themselves have been regionalized. The localization of service within regions is now proceeding rapidly and we are encouraged by the favourable reaction of family court judges to these changes.

In our career planning pilot project, 11 candidates selected by a nomination and regional screening process and a subsequent 2 1/2-day evaluation seminar, were enrolled in an intensive three-week training programme conducted by the staff of Centennial College, with a senior judge, a Crown attorney, members of the police and of our own senior staff as resource personnel. Immediately following this course, the trainees were posted to selected assignments in all types of institutions and in several branches of the ministry.

These staff members are rotated to new responsibilities at intervals of approximately three months, and thus they acquire an overview of all facets of the ministry’s operation during their two-year tour of duty. Evaluation is continuous and, based on findings to date, a second course is planned which we hope will begin this fall.

A new operations manual has been issued by the ministry. It embodies basic operational information within the framework of our modern corrections philosophy. The sections not only direct staff as to their duties, but also explains to them the rationale behind what is expected of them.

We are moving toward automated information profiles for both inmates and wards and combining them with data previously accumulated, to give a complete picture of those in our care. The juvenile information system will be operational in May. The adult system will be tested in four institutions by Dec. 31 next and extended to all institutions by April 1, 1975.

At the Ontario Correctional Institute, computer facilities are speeding up assessments, while at the main office we are now tied into the central computer in the Macdonald block. Commencing this month, all staff, classified or casual, were placed on the computer payroll system and we are using data processing for research, accounting and many other purposes.

During the past year the research unit, as part of the planning and research branch, has expanded its role of providing service to operational branches. The research advisory committee has continued to review issues or requests around which research can assist in decision-making and programme planning. The committee has established priorities which complement new directions of the ministry, for example, greater utilization of community resources, alternatives to full incarceration and the differential training and uses of staff.

Among the projects under way, two major longitudinal studies, one on the adult female and the other on the adult male, are nearing completion. Comprehensive information has been collected which will provide additional insight into the inter- relationships of social history, attitudes, behaviour and environment. One and two-year follow-up investigations after discharge have been completed.

To summarize then, Mr. Chairman, this year has seen the ministry move from behind the high walls into the community, for those in its care who can function without danger to the public or themselves -- and my message is that they are many, while the dangerous offenders are relatively few. Our improved selection procedures and our growing experience of psychology and motivation have allowed us to make decisions which we would have hesitated to do in previous times when we knew less about human behaviour.

Of 20,673 temporary absences which have been granted since the inception of the programme in August, 1969, 20,038, to be exact, have been successfully completed. If we include the 246 that were withdrawn because, for example, an educational trainee was not profiting from an academic course, that leaves only 389 revoked for disciplinary reasons, or a 98 per cent success rate, which continues to be maintained. These figures, Mr. Chairman, were up to March 31 or just 11 days ago.

We look forward to the establishment and the development of the community resource centres I have described. We welcome the presence of increasing numbers of trained volunteers in our institutions. Our only problem relating to community acceptance is now in their initial opposition to the siting of facilities, and this is gradually diminishing, particularly as we involve ourselves more in community participation and dialogue in the planning stages of our proposals.

The figures tell the story. Ten years ago there were 6,115 people under supervision in the community and 5,092 were institutionalized. Today, those in institutions number 4,747, which is down seven per cent, while those functioning in the community under supervision now number over 12,000, or up 120 per cent. The overall increase in numbers is, of course, a function of the population growth and of urbanization during the decade. In the whole of our correctional system, excluding jails, we now have need for only 685 cells, a figure which speaks volumes.

An hon. member: It’s great politics.

Hon. Mr. Potter: We are certainly looking forward to the United Nations Congress here next year, Mr. Chairman, in the hope that it will focus public attention on the real problems of what has come to be known as social defence -- the whole science of crime and corrections in a sociological context. In the interim, I would urge all members who can, to visit our institutions and to examine our various programmes in action. We have nothing to hide. We only ask that you come singly or in small groups so as not to change the situation by your presence.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, let me say that although I assumed my present portfolio only a few weeks ago, I have already visited several of our institutions and have met many of the staff in those institutions and at main office. I want to say that I am truly impressed by the remarkable dedication and the commitment which has been shown by staff working in an area where there are certainly only very limited tangible rewards, where they are working day after day with those whom society has rejected and where they themselves are subject to many stresses and strains.

I want to express my appreciation to them and to state that the citizens of this province are indeed well served by these men and women who quietly perform an often thankless and always arduous task.

Mr. Chairman, I shall be delighted to try to answer any questions as we come to the individual votes after hearing the observations of the spokesmen for the opposition parties. Thank you.

Mr. R. F. Ruston (Essex-Kent): Mr. Chairman, I want to congratulate the new minister on his appointment and his very complex and detailed report of the ministry for the past year. I notice there are some comments in it that are probably in my remarks.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the previous minister, the member for Kingston and the Islands, for his dedication to his work. I found him very co-operative at all times and felt that he had a sincere desire to do a good job. I want to congratulate him on the position he held for a number of years. As the member for Grey-Bruce (Mr.

Sargent) always says, he was a good stick-handler and I guess he did a pretty good job in his portfolio anyway.

For the new minister, having been relieved of the large portfolio he had as Minister of Health, I suppose this is more or less a much smaller ministry to look after. There are many important parts of it dealing with people with severe problems and probably it is just as important a position as his previous position but much less arduous for the minister.

I would hope that with the minister’s background as a medical doctor, he will perhaps take some steps to improve the conditions in our institutions as far as medical treatment goes. I am sure he has been aware of the report made in 1972 by Dr. Botterell, the dean of medicine at Queen’s University, and of a number of recommendations in there. With regard to the girl who recently took her life in the Don Jail -- I take just one thing out of a quotation -- Dr. Botterell wrote in 1972 about this particular institution, “The psychiatric cell block and facilities and social workers’ offices are obsolete and physically scattered and communications are very difficult.”

I think the new minister can certainly look into that report; there is a lot of room for improvement in some of the institutions.

Also I would think the medical profession in Ontario should take some responsibility with regard to care in our institutions. Perhaps this is one area where they have been a little lax and I would think that the member, now that he is minister, can maybe get some co-operation in this line.

I read recently the federal report on incarceration, and it felt we put too many people in jail. It had an interesting recommendation that the lawbreaker should meet face to face with those he has robbed, be forced to repay them and be excused from a jail term provided that he carries out his commitment. It might work in some cases but it would have to be kept under very close scrutiny by correctional and parole officers. It is an interesting comment and I would think that Canada having the record of putting more people in institutions than most other countries we may have to start looking at some other method.

California tried some new methods in San Quentin by allowing all prisoners to move around at ease and work in workshops but they found that hardcore troublemakers caused so much trouble they had to put all of them back in cells to calm things down. They are now allowing the prisoners who are willing to behave to work and move around at ease, but have put the troublemakers in solitary confinement, each in his cell, and have told them they will remain there until they behave like other prisoners.

What this means is they have tried the kid glove approach to all but have found that this treatment will not work with the hardcore criminal who will probably have to be confined for most of his term away from his fellow prisoners.

I would like to comment on the matter of tendering the abattoir at Guelph. The minister did mention this in his opening remarks, but I question whether this is the right direction to be going. Should we not be looking at hiring two or three men with qualifications to operate this operation as a government project?

It seems to me that the Ministry of Correctional Services must furnish the general manpower and that perhaps the whole operation should be under the ministry’s control.

The hon. member for Wellington South (Mr. Worton) will be questioning the minister further in this matter, as he is very familiar with the situation and very knowledgeable, since he is close to the operations there.

I question the ministry in its determination to keep the care of juveniles in this ministry when it should be under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Community and Social Services. The government, in its stubbornness in refusing to change its concept of juvenile care, is losing out on about $10 million that is available from the government of Canada each year to assist in the care of juveniles.

I am concerned about the availability of care for juveniles in many parts of Ontario. I had a local lawyer draw my attention to a case he had of a 14-year-old girl who was pregnant and there was no place to have her stay in the local city. She was sent to a juvenile detention centre near Toronto.

We should have small group centres in different parts of the province available for such cases, rather than sending them so far away to large detention centres.

The family court judges are speaking out in these matters now, as they see firsthand the problems facing many from broken homes and those who are having trouble coping with the problems of day-to-day living in our fast-moving society. This proves also that divorce, separation and family troubles all should be dealt with in one judicial area, rather than the present system of different courts for each matter.

There are reports of the high cost of prosecuting criminals. I have read that it costs as much as $50,000 from the time a crime is committed until due process is made and the person may be committed to an institution.

I question whether society is prepared to accept this, and if we must find new methods to control these costs as they are escalating each year.

In looking over costs of this ministry, I see the proposed budget for 1974-1975 is $13 million more than for 1973-1974. The increase from 1972-1973 to 1973-1974 was $10 million. In other words, we are increasing spending in this one ministry by about 16 per cent in one year.

It is also interesting to compare the increases of the different departments. The rehabilitation of adult offenders for 1973-1974 was $7 million more than for 1972-1973, and the increase for 1974-1975 is $8 million, or 16 per cent, over 1973-1974.

The increase for rehabilitation of juveniles in 1973-1974 was $5 million higher than in 1972-1973, or 20 per cent, while the increase for 1974-1975 over 1973-1974 was $3 million, or 12 per cent.

Is this a squeeze on our juvenile care, or are we allowing more of them to be out on probation and it is not necessary to have them confined?

The cost of the administration of the ministry for 1972-1973 was $3,517,000, and in 1973-1974 it was $4,106,700, an increase of $600,000 or 17 per cent, while the cost is now $5,391,000 for 1974-1975, an increase of $1 million or 20 per cent.

When one ministry increases its budget for administration by 20 per cent in one year, is it any wonder we have inflation fanned by government overspending and, perhaps, wastefulness?

The matter of paroles concerns the public a great deal. When they hear of a prisoner, after being sentenced to one year definite and one year indefinite, being eligible for parole after serving eight months, they wonder what the judge was thinking when he sentenced the person. It appears that judges may be having their authority overridden by parole officers in the civil service.

The separation of first offenders and juveniles from repeaters, drug pushers, gun-toting holdup artists, rapists and pistol-whipping thugs is very important. I understand that with the building of new institutions, many of these facilities allow for this separation.

The jails in many of the counties that are as old as 100 years -- and that includes part of the Don Jail -- are something of the past and no doubt we should be tearing them down. A strange thing with correctional treatment is that none yet has made very many steps forward in modem correctional services. At least with the many innovations, there have been very few clear lines of general improvement in the minds of those being held in many of the centres.

However, I for one, feel we must continue to explore the many avenues of new thinking to improve the system. Merely keeping someone confined inside a wall is not helping the country as a whole, when you consider the cost of it. We must be prepared to continue to keep trying to do our best to get to the root of the problems facing those who are sent to these institutions.

The minister in his opening statement last year said that 24 new group homes would be opened, and I would like to know how many more -- other than the original 12 -- have been opened.

I would also like to know what work the regional administrators are doing and what type of programmes they have instigated and how many have been appointed.

I would also like to know if the integration of probation and aftercare services has been completed.

Further, I would like to know what progress has been made in the construction of the new detention centres in Etobicoke and Scarborough, as these units are to replace the old part of Toronto Jail.

What progress has been made in the proposed detention centres in Milton, Hamilton and London?

I should ask the minister about the famous jail in Owen Sound, as the member from Grey-Bruce will no doubt be asking him about his new jail in Owen Sound. I think that’s a question the member for Grey-Bruce likes to ask every year.

Now, Mr. Chairman, those are all the remarks I have prepared at this time. I have a number of questions I want to ask the minister when we get into each individual vote.

Mr. Chairman: The hon. member for Hamilton Centre.

Mr. N. Davison (Hamilton Centre): Mr. Chairman, before I speak on these estimates, I would like to express my appreciation for the efforts the former Minister of Correctional Services made in modernizing the correctional services to more nearly meet present day needs.

I have been reading newspaper reports and recommendations of various grand juries as they inspect our correctional institutions. So many of them seem to have a common factor: the repeated recommendations which have not been carried out from previous inspections.

Is it the practice of this ministry to ignore the grand jury recommendations; or how does it select the ones it intends to carry out?

I notice, too, that one in five federal prisoners are the victims of mental illness, to varying degrees. I would suspect that this would hold true at the provincial level.

Recently there was a case in Hamilton where the mother of a young man turned him over to the police on a fraud charge because he had mental problems. She thought he would receive needed care in prison. Hamilton’s Barton St. jail is a holding unit and, of course, the young man -- who was eventually released -- got no help at all.

It seems to me that we should make provisions to analyse and take steps to treat the mental health of the people like this young man, and people with more advanced problems. It would also be sensible to provide separate accommodation for these people.

Both the present Minister of Correctional Services and his predecessor have commented on the fact that the provincial government has employed more than 100 people who have been in the institutions -- and I think this is good. However, anyone with a criminal record has difficulty securing bonding. Metropolitan Toronto council’s appeal for a government bonding programme for ex-convicts was turned down by the Premier (Mr. Davis). I would hope that the ministry brings its influence to bear to obtain a programme similar to that in the United States. It works so well there that the fee has been reduced since its inception.

Most progressively-minded people agree that rehabilitation of prisoners is the best protection the public can get. The temporary absence programme appears to be a big step along the way. I like the method where the inmate works outside and returns to jail when his day’s work is done, although I don’t think $10 per week allowance for meals and transportation is sufficient. I don’t know what the extent of the operation is, but I feel it should be initiated in all institutions.

I particularly like the idea of this method allowing him to pay off his debts and provide for his family or, if single, to have saved money to help him when he is released. He returns to society free of the strain of being without funds and the pressure of trying to find a job immediately.

Has this programme been made available to women prisoners? Both inmates and staff at the Vanier Centre for Women state that the female prisoner should have been placed on welfare in advance of her release so that she could leave with her first welfare cheque in her hand. Many, they claim, are forced to renew old friendships that were not good for them or to enter a life of prostitution simply to be able to survive.

These are methods which extend the process of rehabilitation beyond the prison door and ease the return to a place in society and they should be initiated in our institutions across Ontario.

The federal government has taken a similar approach in the William Head Penitentiary in British Columbia. There the inmates work 40 hours a week building a new jail, for which they receive the federal minimum wage. They will pay the prison for room, board and clothing and will pay income tax and unemployment insurance. The advantage of paying unemployment insurance, of course, will be their ability to collect from it if they are unemployed after their release.

A survey of 1,070 adult first offenders in 1965 showed that in six years, by 1971, 64 per cent were repeaters. We have not solved the problem in the past. Perhaps these more imaginative human approaches will prove more effective.

Canada has the doubtful distinction of having more people in prison per capita than any other country. Holland, on the other hand, reduced its prison population by 50 per cent and its crime rate has not grown beyond the population growth rate. There are only 50 men in Holland serving more than four-year sentences and they have almost ceased to imprison women and have only 26 serving any length of sentence. Instead of expanding old facilities and building new ones, Holland is deciding which prisons to close down.

The deputy chief of the Dutch prison administration states:

“We certainly have not stopped crime in Holland but we can claim it is not rising any faster than the population growth. I am not going to claim that we have the answer to the question of curing criminals, because our present system is still too new to know that. All I can say is that longer sentences and stricter prisons certainly did nothing to deter people from returning to a life of crime, so we thought it worthwhile to try something else.”

This new approach was contained in a Prisons Act passed in 1951, but the drastically reduced sentences came about 10 years later. Judges were not instructed to reduce sentences but their public prosecutors may recommend sentences and it would seem that they are doing so.

First offenders seldom are prosecuted at all. The facts are investigated in the normal way, but instead of taking the case to court the prosecutor will usually give the offender a formal warning of the consequences of breaking the law. Only a minority of those warned ever commit further offences. Those who do are usually fined or placed on probation with the possibility of a suspended prison sentence.

Even after this, there is a great reluctance to jail and only the more serious or unbalanced offenders are remanded in custody before their trials, which usually take place before three judges within three or four months of arrest. Imprisonment is regarded as a failure of their legal system.

Anyone serving more than four months is considered to be a long-term prisoner and considerable care is taken to send him to the institution most likely to rehabilitate him. The essential ingredient for successful rehabilitation seems to be very small prisons. Their largest jail holds 152 inmates.

Prisoners can wear their own clothes, write and receive as many letters as they wish and elect committees which discuss complaints and problems with the prison director and his staff.

The deputy chief said:

“Prison is basically a return to the conditions of childhood, with the staff replacing parents as people who rule what you must do or cannot do. Our aim is to cut down the adverse effects of imprisonment to a minimum. We can do that not by making life pleasanter for the prisoners, but by modernizing it as far as possible. We must stimulate the prisoners’ independence, maturity and sense of responsibility, and believe me this puts more strain on the prisoners’ lives.”

The Dutch have introduced a new grade of prison worker called a group leader. Many have already trained in social work, but there is an opportunity for prison officers to convert to this grade. The group leaders work with self-contained sections of in- mates. Often there will be four of them working with a group of 10 to 12 prisoners.

Their feeling is that it is essential for prison authorities to realize that much of the outside world has changed in recent years. No longer can authoritarian governed islands exist in the midst of a society which is becoming more and more democratic.

In Holland, prison officers have generally adjusted to the new ways remarkably well, except for a few of the older men and they are allowed to volunteer for an early retirement.

A small step has been made toward the Dutch concept in East York where no charges are made for minor crimes. The experiment began in the spring of 1972 and covers police patrol area 5411 and was to continue for one year. The area was chosen because of its average urban makeup and because it had an average incidence of crime.

I am not certain under which level of government this experiment was involved. If it was under the provincial body I would be most interested in learning the outcome of this interesting experiment, as I am sure other honourable members in this House would be too.

Mr. Chairman: Does the hon. minister wish to respond to the opening remarks?

Hon. Mr. Potter: Mr. Chairman, before we get on to the actual section by section, earlier the critic from the Liberal caucus spoke about the Botterell report. He asked about it and I think I made reference in my opening statement to the fact that we had acted on the Botterell report and we had pretty well responded to every one of his recommendations and at the present time we are interviewing applicants for a medical director of the programme.

Other than that, as I told you earlier, the nursing services are provided now in accordance with Botterell’s recommendation. There isn’t an institution in the province without nursing services. Medical services are available, if not on a full-time basis, on a part-time basis and certainly on a 24-hour basis in the institutions. The other recommendations that Botterell recommended have also been complied with.

Reference was made to the number of people in our prisons, and all I can say to that, Mr. Chairman, is for gosh sakes don’t blame the ministry for the number of people who are confined to our institutions. We have nothing to do with putting them there. As a matter of fact, we are attempting to provide other types of facilities as quickly as we can throughout the province.

As you have already been informed, we have closed one of the training schools in the province, we are in the process of closing the second, and we hope we will be able to close the third within a short period of time.

Much has been said about the 16- and 17-year-olds and whether they should be in our ministry or whether they should be removed from this section of the Act and come under the Ministry of Community and Social Services. This also is a subject that requires a great deal of consideration.

One of the comments we received from the judges themselves and from lawyers is that as long as they are covered under this section of the Act, rather than commit these juveniles to a penitentiary sentence, the judges now commit them to one of our institutions because they feel they can get some training there. What would happen if it was under the Ministry of Community and Social Services, I don’t know.

The hon. member spoke about the increases in our budget. When you are reviewing the estimates, you will see that these increases are due to increases in salaries, and I am sure none of you will say that this wasn’t overdue.

As a matter of fact, there is great change in the philosophy in our jails. No longer do we have just turnkeys; we have people who must also be psychologists and social workers. They assume a much greater responsibility than they ever did in the past. Indeed, we must ask the Civil Service Commission to be continually reviewing the roles that they play in jails so that their salaries will be brought up to where they should be.

The increases are also due to increases in employee benefits and in the cost of food, services, supplies, clothing and so on in the institutions; the implementation of recommendations as we have had in the Botterell report; the addition of moneys for our new programmes of staff training, to which you have made reference and which I am sure you will agree were needed; and additional moneys which have been pinpointed for research into new types of programmes to which again you have made reference and which I am sure you will also agree were badly needed.

As you have stated, we took over the jails in 1988. Many of them were in terrible shape. We have spent a lot of money in trying to improve the conditions there, but I am sure we all appreciate that in some of them there is no way that they can be brought up to the level we want them to be at and they are going to have to be replaced.

Quite frankly, I would have liked to have seen our budget go up by another 15 or 20 per cent if the funds had been available. Then we would have been able to provide some of these badly needed changes that you have been drawing to my attention.

Certainly it has to be done. But one of the problems we are faced with in the province, of course, is that we have only so much money to spend. Having come from a ministry that was accountable for approximately 30 per cent of the budget -- and I never felt I had enough money there -- I can assure you it is not easy to spring the money loose. Priorities must be set by government; and in doing so, they made certain funds available to us in this ministry. We are attempting to see that we establish our own priorities and try to meet the most urgent needs as they arise.

I think that pretty well summarizes the comments. If there are any that I have missed, or if the members have any to bring to my attention, I shall be glad to discuss them with you later. Thank you.

On vote 1401:

Mr. Chairman: Vote 1401 then. You will notice that there are seven items. Do you wish to discuss them item by item?

Mr. Ruston: Item by item.

Mr. Chairman: Item 1 then under general administration in the ministry administration programme.

Mr. Ruston: Would the minister know how many of the regional administrators have been appointed so far?

Hon. Mr. Potter: There were six altogether, four adult and two juvenile, and they have all been appointed.

Mr. Ruston: What type of programmes will these people be developing?

Hon. Mr. Potter: They will be responsible for overseeing the institutional programmes in the region where they have been appointed.

Mr. B. Newman (Windsor-Walkerville): Mr. Chairman, I wanted to ask of the minister if the ministry is thinking of using the services of those who are unfortunate in being held within his institutions in natural disasters, such as we had last year with the heavy flooding that took part in the southwestern part of the Province of Ontario, in the Essex county area, and any other type of natural disaster that may take place.

I make mention of this, Mr. Chairman, from the fact that in the State of Michigan, when they were confronted with exactly the same situation as we were in Ontario they didn’t hesitate to use the services of those who happened to have some of their freedoms withdrawn from them for the time being, and there had been no complaints whatsoever with their experience. When we look into Michigan and think of Detroit, then we have all kinds of visions of the knife in the back, the bullet holes through the body, and everything of that sort. Rightly or wrongly, we immediately assume that those people over there are not going to be human and may behave in a different fashion from the Ontario inmate.

The second point I would like to ask of the minister too, in relation to the use of services of the individuals that are in his institutions, is concerning the harvesting of crops. We have to import farm labour from the four comers of the earth. I am just wondering if it is feasible or practical to use services of the inmates of your various institutions to assist in the harvesting of crops and to assist in any general way that government may think it can put their services to use.

Hon. Mr. Potter: Mr. Chairman, we have, in fact, used inmates for this purpose. During the flooding last year they were used at Port Credit, Mimico, and in that part of the province. Several of them were employed there for several weeks. After that, they assisted with the veterinary services, I believe, of the

Humane Society in that area.

We have a programme of assisting with the harvesting of crops. This has been a concern to me as it has been to you, because as you are aware they bring immigrants in from other countries -- labour from Mexico particularly -- to do this. We have had a programme to assist farmers now for some time and we would be delighted if we could assist them again this year. We have made the groups involved aware of the services that we can provide. We expect them to pay the going wage as they would to anyone else. This is part of the temporary absence programme that we have developed for our inmates which has proved so successful. We are determined to continue to push this programme because, as I have said earlier, the success rate has been very good.

Mr. B. Newman: Mr. Chairman, if I may follow up on that item for the time being, would the minister care to elaborate just exactly where the programme was in operation during the past year, the number of people that were involved and the type of work in which they were involved? If the minister has such programmes going in the province, I think it is the type of a project we would like to see widely expanded in labour-short areas if it has been successful in the parts to which the minister is going to refer shortly.

Hon. Mr. Potter: Mr. Chairman, as far as the farming programme is concerned, it was done in the Guelph area where there were 38 inmates from Guelph and a number from Burtch. I haven’t got the total number. All we were asked for was 38.

I think you’ll appreciate this type of programme is not the type of programme that every inmate is going to be allowed to go out on. We must select very, very carefully because we want to make sure that they aren’t inmates who are going to cause a disturbance, that they aren’t people who are going to take off and go AWOL, or who are going to do anything to disturb the programme so that we can’t continue it.

At the same time, inmates at Rideau are working with the retarded, as I said earlier, at Smiths Falls and other hospitals in the area, and inmates at Brampton are working with the retarded in Peel county. If anyone knows of any farmers or anyone else who wants to employ this type of labour on a temporary absence programme, we would be delighted to hear from them.

In the past few weeks when I was visiting some of our institutions, a request came in for help. It is a question of whether the correctional institutions have suitable inmates at the time when they are asked for. I would suggest that in any areas where there is a need and prospective employers are asking for help, if they’d get in touch with us, we’d be delighted to try to work closely with them.

Mr. B. Newman: The ministry isn’t actually trying to sell the programme itself, is it? It is waiting for a request to come from the area in which there happens to be the labour shortage.

Is there any merit in maybe widely expanding the salesman portion of the programme to see if there would be more areas of the province that could and would make use of the services of the inmates?

Mr. R. Haggerty (Welland South): Ask your colleague.

Hon. Mr. Potter: Well, quite frankly, I am not prepared to put any funds into running an advertising campaign. I have more than enough uses for them at the present time, but I do think that all of us here have a responsibility to let it be known in our own ridings that this programme is available. We’d be delighted to work with everyone as long as members are aware that we can’t necessarily fill all the demands too.

Mr. B. Newman: We did not intend the minister to advertise in newspapers for it, but to make the programme better known.

Hon. Mr. Potter: Yes, I think it would be a good idea.

Mr. F. Young (Yorkview): Mr. Chairman, I suppose this is the place to talk about the general philosophy of the department. I do want to say, first of all, that I appreciate the work that has been done by the former minister in this connection. I think he deserves a good deal of credit and I have found him very very helpful and co-operative.

I also want to say that I have a very profound respect for the deputy minister. I believe that right there is a signal for a pretty good future for this ministry. I think you were very fortunate in securing the services of the deputy, and I presume he is backed up by a staff equally competent, although my connection with this department over the recent years has not been as close as it was some years ago.

I was very interested in what the minister said -- I think he was speaking of the Guelph institution particularly at the time -- when he said that selected personnel have been trained to change from the custodial to the redemptive function. The whole correctional function is the one that is being stressed now.

For years and years of course that has been talked about. When I first came into this House and had some responsibility in this department and was visiting some of these institutions at the time, the thing that appalled us was this matter of custodial care, that the men were there to make sure the prisoners behaved themselves and didn’t escape, and that was about it.

At the time, successive ministers in this department talked a great deal about the change to correctional functions and that the custodial care was going to dim as the other emerged in all its brilliance. But for a lot of years we saw no real change in this respect. My feeling is that perhaps in very recent times there has been a change here and that the emphasis is gradually moving into something better than simply custodial things.

Of course, tied in with that is the matter of training and the matter of salaries, which must improve. When the minister speaks of his wish that we had more funds for this ministry, then I can sympathize with him, and also when he says that we must have enough to meet urgent needs. But the priorities of this government perhaps are a little cockeyed when we think of the tremendous increase -- just to use one example -- in the income of the medical profession in the province, and yet we hold down the budgets of ministries such as this. There are places I think where these changes could be made and where a better balance could be achieved in the allocation of funds throughout the government itself.

An hon. member: Priorities are out of whack.

Mr. Young: That’s right. It is simply priorities out of whack and I think this ministry over the years has had too low a priority as far as this government is concerned. I hope that the minister and his staff are going to change this and going to be able to do it and I would look forward to that change.

Now, the question I want to ask the minister particularly is what assurance we have at this point that this change is taking place and how extensive is the change throughout the institutions. Is it a change from the simply custodial function in institution after institution, or does it include the whole idea that we are going to really emphasize the retraining and the correctional function in these particular places?

Certainly we are getting a lot of young people through these institutions over the years. Year by year we find them coming in and going out, and then returning. What can the minister tell us to give us some real assurance that this change is taking place at a rate which is commensurate with the need that we see in this ministry?

Hon. Mr. Potter: Well, Mr. Chairman, as I said earlier in my remarks, I spoke about the new centre at Brampton and I said I thought it was a good indication of the change that has been taking place. Or we can go up to Guelph, one of our older institutions -- and I would invite the member to visit there. I was in there just two weeks ago, and Guelph has now been broken down into 12 smaller units.

An hon. member: How many are in Guelph now?

Hon. Mr. Potter: There are 550. It has been broken down into 12 units with each operating as a unit itself for meals and everything else. Although it is still one big building, it is really 12 small units that can be more easily handled in this way.

We have had a big expansion in staff, as you are aware, which has accounted for some of the increases in funding; and particularly in professional staff.

We are also planning -- I think I made reference to this earlier -- improved psychiatric facilities in our Guelph institution. We have looked at all plans for providing these facilities and now that we are finally able to close one of our training schools and make it into an adult training centre, we can relieve Guelph of about 150 inmates from there. This will allow us to convert one wing into additional psychiatric facilities to look after those patients I was describing earlier.

Mr. Young: May I ask the minister in that connection, have we full-time psychiatrists in Guelph and the other institutions?

Hon. Mr. Potter: Not in the other institutions.

Mr. Young: How many do we have then?

Hon. Mr. Potter: We have full-time staff in Guelph.

Mr. Young: Just Guelph?

Hon. Mr. Potter: Yes, we have four full-time and 25 part-time, altogether. If the member is interested, here are some figures that perhaps will bear out what has happened over the past six years.

From the psychiatric services standpoint, we have increased our psychologists, psychometrists and so on, from 34 to 51. Social service workers from seven to 59. Psychiatrists, themselves, from 13 to 29; medical officers are about the same.

Nurses have increased from 57 to 92. Dentists and dental assistants have increased from seven to 23. Academic teachers have increased from 133 to 161. And while this is going on our inmate population has been dropping, as you are aware. Chaplaincy service has increased, too. But this gives you an indication of the emphasis we are putting on increasing the professional staff to provide the type of service that wasn’t available in the past.

Mr. Young: I thank the minister very much for the information. I can see the trend certainly is a good trend.

In the days when I used to be wandering around these institutions, I would see doors with the title “psychiatrist,” “psychologist” or “social worker”. They would be locked, but I would be assured that they were going to have those offices occupied before too long or that part-time people were coming in from towns round about and filling those offices one day a week or half a day a week. Evidently that change is taking place. I understood it was; and I am delighted to get those figures.

I hope that this is significant of a major change that is taking place, and I hope that this minister will continue his struggle as the former minister did to get funding for a continuation of this work. Certainly there is no reason why a province as rich as Ontario -- and we are hearing this from the benches opposite all the time; the richest area in the world and the best, and so on -- that surely this province can afford the kind of funding which is needed for the kind of process which must take place within this department.

Mr. Chairman: The member for Thunder Bay.

Mr. Stokes: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I want to engage the minister for a few moments on the kind of rehabilitation programme that is necessary in the northern part of the province.

I don’t know whether the minister has had an opportunity to discuss the needs with probation officers in the northern part of the province, but it has been my understanding in speaking to people within the ministry that nothing of any consequence has been done to assist those who are incarcerated for minor offences, to get a kind of a rehabilitation programme much closer to where they live.

Of necessity, they have to be sent to foreign and alien parts of the province where they don’t know anybody, where they cannot have visits from relatives and friends on a regular basis, where they can’t communicate on a regular basis with those of their own tongue.

I am speaking specifically of native people who, for whatever reason, are incarcerated and spend even brief periods of time in correctional centres and facilities of that kind.

My reason for speaking about this at this time, Mr. Chairman, is because I had a short dialogue with somebody in your ministry. His name escapes me at the moment -- he may even be one of the gentlemen who are sitting there advising and assisting you.

The reason for bringing it up at this time is that there is a facility in northwestern Ontario that is available at the present time to do this kind of work. I am speaking of the radar base in Armstrong that is about to be abandoned by the federal Department of

National Defence.

It has been suggested by people who are socially conscious and socially aware of the need for rehabilitation services in the northern part of the province, that people -- particularly native people -- who need rehabilitation should be sent where they can have a rehabilitation programme -- a retraining programme that is more oriented to life as they know it and as they see it in the northern part of the province. If you were to conduct programmes where you would try to retrain them in home building, in trapping, in guiding, in resource-oriented activities, it seems to me that the possibility of rehabilitating this kind of offender would be much greater than if you sent them down to Guelph or sent them down to some of the other facilities that you have down here in the southern part of the province that are completely strange to them. They don’t feel at home, they have linguistic problems in many, many instances, and they don’t get the kind of opportunities for rehabilitation and retraining that they would get if you were to use a northern setting such as could be available in Armstrong at the present time.

I am not an expert in this field, Mr. Chairman, and I don’t know all of the problems that are inherent in such an undertaking. All I do know is that there is a need for this sort of thing, there is a facility there waiting and I would like to hear from the minister or from some of his officials to see whether they have done any digging since my conversation with them to see whether this facility and this kind of approach would be meaningful and worthwhile and be conducive to the rehabilitation of the offender.

Hon. Mr. Potter: Mr. Chairman, earlier today in my introductory remarks I spoke about the Kenora area where we were planning, in conjunction with Kenora Fellowship Centre, a three-year, community-institutional worker experiment where the native incumbent would work closely with the community agencies on the crisis-intervention programme.

I also mentioned that we were setting up a number of community resource centres in the province. Hopefully 16 centres will be established, and we stated that seven of these would be designed to provide programmes for native inmates and will be located primarily in the north. Kenora, Thunder Bay, Cochrane, Sioux Lookout, Sault Ste. Marie are all possible locations and of course they will be evaluated for individual centres.

I am delighted to hear from the hon. member the proposition that there is a radar base up there that might be used and we would be delighted to look into that. I have told you that we have been given additional resources for these community centres. We are determined that we are going to develop a native probation project, as I described, in that northwestern part of the province, which will be involving local volunteers along with it, and if the hon. member has any suggestions and can be of any help to us in doing this we would be delighted to sit down with him.

Mr. Davison: Mr. Chairman, I have a couple of questions I would like to ask of the minister.

I wonder if the minister can tell us when they are going to start building the new facility in Hamilton. The other thing is, on the grand jury reports, do you people really do anything much on it? I mean there are a lot of the older jails on which the reports are coming in the same each year, year after year, and there doesn’t seem to be any satisfaction at all, nothing is really done on it. What is the problem?

Hon. Mr. Potter: There is no problem. The funds have been made available, Mr. Chairman, The Minister of Government Services (Mr. Snow) informs me that plans have been finalized, that tenders have been called, they should be deciding on the tenders in June, and the building should be starting very quickly.

Mr. Chairman: The member for Windsor West.

Mr. E. J. Bounsall (Windsor West): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a couple of comments.

I was very interested to hear last week that you were closing two of your training schools and possibly a third. I can’t remember -- and I couldn’t quite find it in Hansard -- how it was you were able to do that, where you are replacing the training school people who would normally be there? Was it in a group home?

Hon. Mr. Potter: Group home programme.

Mr. Bounsall: It was in group homes. My one comment there is that I assume that’s a much smaller group of people together and you will simply have more of those around the province in a smaller form. Well, I am glad that is taking that tack. My wife and I have been foster parents for quite some time and my interest in it derives from seeing the great need for foster home placements out of the Galt training school for girls some 10 or 12 years ago, and I am glad to see that you are moving into the small home setting.

A couple of other points. I know two or three people in the volunteer probation programme in Windsor. They seem very enthused about being volunteer probation officers and working with the ministry there, and various people in the ministry there are quite interested in the programme and seeing that they function. But I gather -- and this feeling may not be correct on the part of the full- time workers there in Windsor -- that the department has rather a schizophrenic approach to this. They seem to run three or four months where they seem to get the feeling that the ministry is very much in favour of volunteer probation programmes and then things blow cool for three or four months, and they are never quite sure whether the ministry is really in favour of this or not.

So if the ministry really is finding the volunteer probation programme a successful programme and wishes to expand it, or at least encourage it, I would be interested to hear the minister say that today and maybe talk a little bit about whether they intend to expand it or how in fact it is going.

Third, this may well be an easier programme to run in federal institutions where the length of stay is a bit longer, but are there in our provincial jails, adult jails, training programmes such as I hear IBM is running in the federal system? IBM goes in and the person is on a full IBM course and comes out with training as if he had taken that course on the outside.

Do we have various of these courses, particularly like IBM, or what other courses are being given in our provincial adult institutions? I would be interested in hearing about that aspect of the programme.

Hon. Mr. Potter: Yes, Mr. Chairman, as the member mentioned it was the group home programme which proved so successful and allowed us to close some of our training schools. As I said earlier, we have closed one; we are now in the process of closing a second. We hope in another 18 months we will close a third and eventually get away from this type of programme. The group homes have been working out very effectively.

As for the volunteers, I find it very hard to understand why anyone anywhere would say that we blow hot and we blow cold. I have been quoted on many occasions as saying -- I don’t care whether it is in health or in welfare or in correctional services, hospital services, you name it -- without the volunteers none of our programmes would be as successful as they are today. We are determined to continue to explore the volunteer programme and promote them wherever we can.

If you have an area where there are particular problems, I wish you would bring them to our attention and let us know exactly where they are so that we can go in and see what the problems are. We are ignorant of any problems; we have thought it has been working out very satisfactorily. We would like to have it if you have any comment on that. What was the third one?

Mr. Bounsall: Training programmes.

Hon. Mr. Potter: The training programmes. Of course, as you are aware, we have short-term inmates who are sentenced to two years less a day. Many of them are in for six and eight months and by the time they get through the assessment centre they might have two or three or four months to serve. We cannot run a training programme which is going to qualify an individual completely, as they can in some of the federal institutions.

At the same time I also mentioned in my introductory remarks that we are trying to encourage industry to come in with some programmes. They will even send in their application forms so that the individual fills out the forms and knows what he has to contend with when he gets on the outside.

Perhaps they can assist in running some of these programmes and train them in the way they would be trained when they get on the outside. We are anxious to have the training start so they can continue when they get out. At the same time we are trying to be specific and say to these people we want them to run the programmes but there is no sense in attempting to run a programme unless they are prepared to offer job opportunities for these people after they get the training.

The province has provided leadership in providing job opportunities. As I have said, we have hired 120 odd -- 70 odd within the ministry -- and I am determined that this policy is going to continue as we have started over the past two or three years.

Mr. Ruston: Mr. Chairman, I wonder if I could ask the minister how many group homes does he have operating now? That was one question I wanted to ask.

The other question was on how many students have enrolled in the correctional worker courses which were to be held at Centennial and Sheridan Colleges? Do you have anything on this?

Hon. Mr. Potter: At the present time there is a total of 28 group homes in operation, 17 for boys, seven for girls and four co-educational. We expect to have an additional six in operation by this fall, three of which will be opening within the next month.

In the community college programme we had 28 students, and of those 28, we were only able to hire 27 because the 28th is going to Europe.

Mr. B. Newman: On the same topic, Mr. Chairman, I wanted to ask of the minister if he is familiar with the group called “New Beginnings” in the city of Windsor. They operate a small community centre home that helps young offenders and young men in need.

They have in the past been funded to a certain extent by the Ministry of Community and Social Services. I wonder if the present ministry has reviewed the programme that they have; have they found it effective? If they have, are they considering it as far as financial assistance is concerned so that they could continue the programme that they originally undertook in providing services to young offenders in the Windsor area?

Hon. Mr. Potter: As the hon. member has said, they were funded under Community and Social Services. We haven’t given any consideration to any funding.

In the first place, we haven’t got the funds. In the second place, I think with this type of a service it has to be finalized where it’s going to be; whether it’s going to be in Community and Social Services or whether it’s going to be covered under this ministry. If it is, then we would have to take another look at it.

Mr. B. Newman: Personally, Mr. Chairman, I think it is better to be funding it under Community and Social Services because of the sort of stigma that unnecessarily seems to be attached if your ministry were funding it, but if there is any way that your ministry can help the organization, I know it certainly would be appreciated, not only by the organization itself but also by those who have to use the services of the organization.

I want to ask of the minister if he is aware of the grand jury report concerning the Essex county jail, the Windsor provincial jail. One of the conclusions as a result of the inspection was that the safety of inmates were in some doubt in case of fire. Has your ministry looked into the report of the grand jury and taken any steps to overcoming the hazard to inmates in case of fire at the Windsor provincial jail?

Hon. Mr. Potter: Yes, Mr. Chairman, I do get the copies of the grand jury reports and take note of them. If there is any recommendation in there that should be looked into, as there was in this specific case, then we do have it looked into to see what the story is.

I must say that sometimes the grand jury in their deliberations don’t see all. They don’t see everything that can be seen in the short time that they have in the jail, but they have made recommendations to us from some of them and many of the things they bring to our attention are things that we already are aware of.

I brought up here earlier that some of our institutions were built well before Confederation. It’s only since 1968, since we’ve taken them over, that people are saying something should be done about it. As long as it was the local responsibility then funds weren’t available and it was agreed that nothing could be done about it. Now that it is my problem, they say get the funds somewhere.

In this specific instance, we are looking into it to see what the problem is, and we will certainly see that it is corrected if we possibly can.

As far as the group in Windsor is concerned, I wonder if the hon. member would be kind enough to ask them to get in touch with us to see if there is some way that we can be of assistance to them.

Mr. B. Newman: I’ll do that, Mr. Minister. I want to ask the minister another question. I have had the opportunity to meet the individuals who work for your ministry in the community. They had a whole series of comments that I thought should be brought to the minister’s attention, and if they can be corrected, they certainly should be.

One of the comments was that your jails apparently are classified according to numerical order, so to speak, Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Am I correct, Mr. Minister?

An hon. member: That’s right.

Mr. B. Newman: Now the superintendent of a jail gets 10 per cent more, according to his classification. If you are paying the superintendent more, are you considering paying the employees more because they work in a higher-class jail in relation to one that may be graded lower?

Hon. Mr. Potter: As I said earlier today, the whole question of wages in the institutions is a matter that we are now discussing with the Civil Service Commission. It is entirely different from what it used to be. It is not just a matter of the classification of the superintendent of the jail and what he is getting; it is also a matter of the duties and responsibilities of all of those who are working in the institution. We are having discussions at the present time with the Civil Service Commission to try to put these people into the proper category.

Mr. B. Newman: Another question concerns the custodial officers. Not only do they have their responsibilities in the jails or in the institutions, they also have added hazards and risks in the community itself. The person who has his freedom taken away sometimes attempts to take vengeance on the custodial officer, although the custodial officer is only performing the duties that he is assigned as a result of his employment.

Are there funds available or is there any compensation to custodial officers and/or for their property that may be damaged as a result of a former inmate seeking vengeance on an officer? For example, the tires on his car could be flat, a brick could be thrown through a window of his home, or there could be just general harassment of a custodial officer of an institution on the part of a former inmate.

Hon. Mr. Potter: I’m afraid I don’t know of any compensation of that nature that is available. I know that all of the employees would be covered by Workmen’s Compensation, just the same as anybody else. As for damage to their property, I would think they would be in the same position as you or I if somebody got mad and decided to split our tires.

The deputy tells me that if it’s proven that some of their personal effects have been damaged, then they are reimbursed.

Mr. B. Newman: That is good, because I was left with the impression that there was no compensation for them if they suffered adversely, either financially or otherwise, as a result of the performance of their responsibilities.

Another comment was that they always seem to have to wait a long time before they receive a supply of uniforms or the clothing they wear. Is there any way of speeding up delivery so that they could be taken care of at the proper time?

Hon. Mr. Potter: They get their uniforms when they are required, but unfortunately we don’t have anything to do with the supply houses, which have been on strike for six months. This isn’t a local problem as far as we are concerned. It’s a problem all over the country. We get them as quickly as we can, but as long as they are on strike, we can’t do much about it.

Mr. B. Newman: I would like to ask the minister if, in his estimation, the various jails throughout the province are understaffed. I was led to believe that they are understaffed. Whether this is so or not, I have no way of judging.

Hon. Mr. Potter: Generally speaking, I think we are pretty well fixed up now. There are undoubtedly one or two weak places that need to be brought up to strength, but there has been such tremendous improvement over the last couple of years, it is hardly noticeable.

Mr. B. Newman: The other topic that was discussed was cumulative sick leave. Is the ministry considering stacking cumulative sick leave, so that the individual could take it all at the one period of time or be reimbursed for it in the same way as they are in the teaching profession where the individual can collect on retirement or on leaving the job 50 per cent of the unused portion?

Hon. Mr. Potter: I am afraid that is something that we don’t get involved in. That comes under the Civil Service Association.

Mr. B. Newman: I see, right. The other matter that I wished to ask about was concerning the promotions. I was led to believe that if an individual used up his sick leave, then his opportunity for promotion was jeopardized. I hope that isn’t so.

Hon. Mr. Potter: It certainly isn’t.

Mr. B. Newman: Thank you, Mr. Minister.

Mr. Chairman: The member for Thunder Bay.

Mr. Stokes: Yes. I have one brief question of the minister. He did mention a number of psychiatrists and psychologists who he had on his staff. I am wondering what percentage of them, if any, are located in northern Ontario to assist in rehabilitating offenders.

Hon. Mr. Potter: I’ll get that for you but I’ll have to take time.

Mr. Stokes: Are there any? I don’t know of any.

Hon. Mr. Potter: There are part-time ones but no full-time, but I will get the information for you.

Mr. Chairman: Anything further on item 1? Is there an answer coming?

Hon. Mr. Potter: No, I will have to get it.

Mr. Chairman: Is item 1 carried? Is vote 1401 carried?

Vote 1401 agreed to.

On vote 1402:

Mr. B. Newman: Mr. Chairman, under vote 1402, I wanted to ask the minister about two items. One was about a SHEP programme that happened to have been implemented in the city of Windsor. That was a self-help employment programme for parolees. They apparently fixed electrical equipment in a storefront in the community. It happened to be extremely successful. However it passed out of existence. Is the ministry considering funding a programme such as that once again in the community and/or communities throughout the province?

Hon. Mr. Potter: I think that was under a LIP grant, Mr. Chairman. It wasn’t one of our programmes.

Mr. B. Newman: Yes, it could have been under the LIP programme. Now that that is not there, are you considering it?

Hon. Mr. Potter: Well, we haven’t been considering it but I would like to have some information on it that you might have for me.

Mr. B. Newman: Yes, I’ll pass it on to you, Mr. Minister.

Mr. Chairman: Anything further on vote 1402?

Mr. Stokes: On the treatment and training of adult offenders, do you have anyone whose responsibilities would parallel the responsibilities of a parole officer to go into certain communities where there is a high incidence of recidivism, where people keep coming back?

If you were to look at the dockets in the court, say at Armstrong, you would find that there seems to be a high degree of recidivism. A lot of them are for minor offences, but offences nevertheless for which they have to make retribution. If they can’t pay the fine, they are held for a certain number of days, usually five or 10 days. I am wondering if you wouldn’t consider putting people in the field where they would spend some time in preventive kind of activities, rather than wait for these things to happen.

I can think of one or two communities in my riding that I won’t mention by name, but I will discuss it in private with the minister.

I can see some efficacy in spending these kinds of dollars to try to prevent this from happening. I know that your probation officer can’t do this. He has to wait after the fact, so to speak.

I’m wondering if we couldn’t provide at least a pilot project to see whether this kind of thing would help; to go into these communities that I have in mind where you chat with these people, to be more of a social worker, to remind people of their obligations to society and how debilitating it is to be hauled up in court for liquor offences, and minor offences like that but for which, nevertheless, they become habitual offenders. And they really don’t get any admonition from the courts. The kind of sentence that is given is never a deterrent.

I’m wondering if you wouldn’t consider some kind of person who would perform this function, to go into a community to assist them in a good healthy outlook toward life and the law so that you get them before they commit these acts rather than after. It seems to me that this would be a much better approach than getting it after the fact. I’m wondering if you wouldn’t consider that kind of an approach in the instances that I’ve mentioned.

Hon. Mr. Potter: The Indian volunteer probation programme that we have been talking about instituting in the northern part of the province is exactly that. Talking about the recidivism and so forth, we don’t feel that these people should be going back for five or seven days. That’s not doing a darn bit of good anyway. I think we have to appreciate, though, that within the ministry, our funds are, as you have said, for treatment after the fact; we haven’t got funds to set up preventive programmes. But what we would be interested in is setting up a type of programme you’re talking about. This Indian volunteer probation programme that we have been discussing setting up in the northern part of the province, is to do just that.

Hon. Mr. Winkler moves the committee rise and report.

Motion agreed to.

The House resumed, Mr. Speaker, in the chair.

Mr. Chairman: Mr. Speaker, the committee of supply begs to report it has come to certain resolutions and asks for leave to sit again.

Report agreed to.

Hon. E. A. Winkler (Chairman, Management Board of Cabinet): Mr. Speaker, before I move the adjournment of the House I would like to say that on Thursday we will return to the first item, and if that doesn’t take up the whole time of the afternoon we will return to item 10 again, the same estimates that we have been considering, and the House will not sit on Thursday evening. On Friday, we will deal with items 8 and 9 on the order paper and, I would think, in that order.

Hon. Mr. Winkler moves the adjournment of the House.

Motion agreed to.

The House adjourned at 6 o’clock, p.m.