Legislative Assembly of Ontario

The House resumed at 8 o’clock, p.m.

Mr. Speaker: I recognize the member for Peel South.

Mr. R. D. Kennedy (Peel South): Mr. Speaker, before debate continues, I would like to introduce to the members of the House the First Clarkson Scout Troop Adventurers and their leaders, Mr. Gordon, Mr. Russell and Mr. Amos. I’m sure the members join me in welcoming this group to the House here this evening.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Scarborough Centre.

Mr. L. A. Braithwaite (Etobicoke): I’m sorry, one moment, please. If I may, before the House commences regular business, I would like to present to the House a group of 25 people including 19 Cubs from Humbervale United Church on Royal York Rd. and the pearl of the constituencies, Etobicoke. They are members of the 320th Humber West Cub Pack. They are here to help earn their citizenship badges. I’m sure the rest of the members of the House join me in welcoming these young people and their guides under Mr. M. McLellan.

BUDGET DEBATE (CONTINUED)

Mr. Speaker: The member for Scarborough Centre.

Mr. F. Drea (Scarborough Centre): Mr. Speaker before resuming the debate, may I present to you -- in the west gallery -- the members of the Scarborough Centre Progressive Conservative Association which is the finest political organization in the province.

Mr. Speaker, when I adjourned the debate this afternoon for the private members’ hour I was almost through with the presentation I was making on the need for gun control in the province. I would just like to devote a minute to the conclusion.

Mr. Speaker, as I pointed out this afternoon, unless the province enters into meaningful control of firearms -- particularly those in our jurisdiction, shotguns and rifles -- the federal government is going to be handcuffed in any of its attempts under the Criminal Code to deal with pistols and concealed weapons.

Mr. Speaker, I suggest to you that any delay in moving toward a confrontation with this issue only widens the avenues that inevitably will lead us down the path that has afflicted our friends to the south.

Mr. Speaker, the fact that the United States, despite its terrible turmoil, has not been able to achieve such legislation should be meaningless to us. I suggest to you that Ontario has always, since Confederation, been in the forefront of not only moral but ethical reform in this country. Mr. Speaker, I also suggest to you that the time has come for this province to set the pace for all of North America. It may very well be that the only way that reform will ever be achieved on guns in the United States is because they have an example of an industrialized, populated, and sophisticated type of province which has indeed been able to achieve it. And achieve it despite split jurisdiction; despite the inherent difficulties caused by the need for communication, and despite the fact that the very arms manufacturers who supply the American market are the suppliers of ours.

I suggest to you that the time has come when we can no longer lament what is going on in the United States, but instead must do something, not only to make certain that it will not happen here, but hopefully to do something for our friends there. Let us give them the moral stimulus to help them overcome the tremendous lobbies that exist there.

Mr. Speaker, turning to the budget, and with due concern for my friend the member for Essex-Kent (Mr. Ruston), the Ontario budget, I suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that if my friend, the provincial Treasurer (Mr. White) had been the Finance Minister in Ottawa last week and had presented the Ontario budget as a federal document, there would not be an election. That is the difference between this government and the shabby remnants of what once was a very strong government in Ottawa.

I suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that in this Ontario budget we have done more than achieve a kind of economic balance in this province. Regardless of the tremendous things that are contained in this budget and regardless of the tremendous obstacles -- most of them put in our path by Ottawa -- that the provincial Treasurer had to overcome he has produced a rather historic budget. I suggest to you that just as it was in the first part of this century --

Mr. M. Gaunt (Huron-Bruce): Really, is the member setting up a straw man?

Mr. Drea: -- when there was a fundamental change in the economic approach to government, and that was the introduction of Keynesian economics, for the first time since the introduction of Keynesian economics, the Ontario government assumed by its own policy the economic control and the economic stimulus over society.

In this budget, the provincial Treasurer has made economic history. For the first time in the history of Canada, he has not only met the pressures of the day but he has made the social policy of this government part and parcel of the budget. He has transformed the budget from a mere economic weapon into a weapon that will achieve many of the social reforms that are the hallmarks of this party.

I suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that he has also changed the motto of this province. For many years the motto of this province has been that we are the province of opportunity. But, Mr. Speaker, the ability of this government to use economic policy to foster social development and social equality across this province only underlines what is coming to be the real meaning of life in Ontario -- and that is two words, “fair share.”

Mr. J. A. Renwick (Riverdale): The hon. member is confusing economic policies with tax legislation. They’re not economic policies.

Hon. E. A. Winkler (Chairman, Management Board of Cabinet): Everybody’s not opposed to them either, don’t forget.

Mr. Drea: The hon. member for Riverdale is the only person I know who’s opposed to our tax policies.

Mr. Renwick: Let’s be realistic tonight.

Mr. Drea: Oh, I’m very realistic. I’m very realistic.

Mr. Renwick: After all, it’s cold out.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Get after that man, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Drea: Is the hon. member having troubles?

Mr. Renwick: I just want the hon. member to come in out of the cold.

Mr. Drea: I’m in out of the cold. I wonder what the hon. member is in out of.

Mr. Speaker, a government cannot exist by economic means alone. If we were to remain the province of opportunity, and considered that to be the main thrust of our policies, then I suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, we would be a rather heartless government. Because we would be failing to recognize that there are many people, because of conditions or circumstances far beyond their control, many of them by an accident of birth, who are unable to share fully in that opportunity.

That is why I suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that the very basis of this budget is the fair share. That is what we have done. And that is why I say that had my friend the Treasurer been the Finance Minister of Canada last week there would have been no want of confidence; there would have been no vote of confidence, there would have been no dissolution of government.

Since we heard so much about the federal budget today, how it was so important and how so many things have been neglected, let’s take a look at the Ontario budget, because every single piece of it is going to be passed into legislation or become reality during this session of the Legislature.

Mr. Renwick: Until it is declared unconstitutional by the court in one of its decisions.

Mr. Drea: And the hon. member would be the lawyer who took it there.

Mr. Renwick: Right.

Mr. Drea: For many years there have been complaints by parents that the size of children’s shoes, because children are bigger these days, imposed an unfair burden upon them in terms of the sales tax; while they still technically enjoyed a retail sales tax exemption, when it came to buying shoes, they were having to pay the full tax.

Mr. Renwick: The government has finally recognized that everybody in the province wears shoes.

Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, this government listens to people. As a matter of fact, since I have been elected I have received over 100 letters complaining about the sales tax on shoes.

Mr. F. Young (Yorkview): We were complaining years ago.

Mr. Drea: It is very interesting, halfway through our term, that every Conservative member can now send out letters saying: “This government listens to you; the tax is off.” That is another indication of how we do business.

An hon. member: Sit down!

Mr. Young: Why didn’t they listen when they put the tax on?

Mr. Drea: We have removed more items from sales tax and granted more exemptions than any other jurisdiction that has sales tax.

Mr. Renwick: The government imposed the tax!

Mr. Young: Who put the tax on?

Mr. Renwick: The government imposed the tax -- and it raised the rate. That’s why it’s at seven per cent. That’s --

Mr. Speaker: Order. Order, please.

Mr. Drea: Do you want us to take the seven per cent off and let the municipalities pay their own way? Stand up on a platform and say that. Go ahead.

Mr. Renwick: That’s totally ridiculous.

Mr. Drea: Oh, everything is totally ridiculous to the hon. member.

Mr. Renwick: The government imposes the tax and then it takes part of it off.

Mr. Drea: Everything is totally ridiculous to the hon. member. That’s why his party has 19 seats.

Interjection by an hon. member.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Every cent goes to the municipalities. Every cent.

Mr. Drea: We have removed the sales tax from the items that people felt were not luxuries --

Mr. Renwick: The Tory party discovered soap in this budget.

Mr. Drea: I could think of a use for soap, but I won’t. We have removed the sales tax from more items and granted more exemptions than any other jurisdiction in North America which has a sales tax.

Mr. Renwick: Prove it.

Mr. Young: Maybe the others don’t put it on so many things.

Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, I am not enamoured of sales taxes. If the federal government would share the revenues it generates from this province on a more equitable basis, then we wouldn’t need a sales tax. But unfortunately that has not been the case for several years. It may very well be the case after July 8.

Mr. Renwick: This government has even forgotten to levy the tax.

Mr. Drea: And it should be a rather significant change for us to get our fair share from Ottawa.

Mr. E. R. Good (Waterloo North): This government will still use the sales tax as its biggest source of revenue in Ontario.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: And it all goes back to the municipalities. If the hon. member doesn’t know that, then he hasn’t learned anything.

Mr. Renwick: It does not go back to the municipalities, and the House leader knows it.

Mr. Drea: Does the hon. member want us to take the sales tax off? We’ll take it off, and let the property owners pay the tax they’d be paying.

Mr. Speaker: Order please. Everyone has an opportunity to debate in his turn.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Renwick: If it’s a regressive tax, the Tory party levies it.

Mr. Speaker: Order please. The member for Scarborough Centre has the floor.

Mr. Drea: And if it’s a sweetheart deal, you’re the people who are the d-e-a-l.

Mr. Young: He is provoking us.

Mr. E. Sargent (Grey-Bruce): It is the same speech the member gave last year; all the

Mr. Drea: Oh, no.

Mr. E. W. Martel (Sudbury East): The member wasn’t here then.

Mr. Drea: The member himself hasn’t been here in a while. I want him to give me a line, I am waiting for it.

Mr. Sargent: Take your hands out of your pockets.

Mr. Drea: That’s his usual one.

Mr. Speaker, despite the increased costs, despite the inflation in construction, despite the necessary inflation in employees’ wages, despite increased costs everywhere along the line, we have frozen the transit rates in Ontario. I think we would have been justified had we said that everything else is going up, surely we should have to pay a little more for your transit. Mr. Speaker, I think that once again this underlines the social policies of this government. We are trying to make public transit as attractive as possible as an alternative to the automobile so that cities, large and small, will not see their downtown core areas demolished for parking lots. We have frozen the transit rates.

I suggest that since the Premier of this province (Mr. Davis) was the American Transit Association man-of-the-year last year, they are going to have to bring somebody else from Ontario to their convention this year; because nowhere else on this continent does that kind of thing happen, nowhere else is there a meaningful attempt by government to make transit as attractive, both economically and in other ways, as the private automobile.

Mr. Speaker, it has always been a concern of mine, as the budgets are unveiled, that we are punishing thrift and we are punishing the homeowner. Last year, because of the budget of the Ontario Treasurer, the people in the borough of Scarborough had the largest tax cut in their history. This year there was some trepidation, because costs are up everywhere. But instead of increased taxes in the area of $150 or $200 a household, which, would have resulted in eviction of many elderly people on fixed incomes who are unable to meet a sudden increase like that, tax increases have been held to an absolute minimum. Once again the province has poured $124 million into the municipalities.

When we are asked what a Conservative government has done to roll back any type of high prices, what it has done to roll back the cost of inflation, I suggest to you in Ontario that because of our budgetary policies, we have rolled back the most important price for the largest segment of this province, and that is the homeowner. At the end of this year, despite inflation --

Mr. Renwick: What about the prices right now?

Mr. Drea: -- despite your money going down by 10, 11 and 12 per cent every year, despite the high mortgage rates --

Mr. Renwick: What about the price right now, not at the end of the year?

Mr. Drea: -- Ontario homeowners are going to be paying less taxes on their property than in 1972.

Mr. Speaker, I defy any other jurisdiction to point out that kind of a price rollback, achieved without a windfall profit.

Mr. Renwick: That is because the government is revaluing the properties, it has nothing to do with the existence of tax.

Mr. Drea: There are two places in the west that have come into some windfall profits and they are spending it. There have been no windfalls for the Treasurer of this province.

Mr. Renwick: Talk about dollars. More dollars will be paid by more property owners in Ontario for municipal taxes and the member knows it.

Mr. Speaker: Order please.

Mr. Drea: And that is quite an accomplishment, that we have rolled back the cost of municipal services --

Mr. Renwick: This government has not rolled it back because they will in fact pay more taxes.

Mr. Drea: -- particularly for the older people.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: The hon. member for Scarborough Centre is getting to him; he is getting to him now.

Mr. Renwick: They are paying more taxes.

Mr. Speaker: Order please.

Mr. Renwick: Next year --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The member for Riverdale does not have the floor.

Mr. Renwick: Let’s not talk about percentages, let’s talk about actual dollars in taxation.

Mr. Speaker: Order please.

Mr. Drea: If the hon. member would listen to me instead of going into his diatribes.

Mr. Renwick: Actual dollars are what we want to compare.

Mr. Drea: We cut the taxes in Scarborough by the largest amount in history last year. They are being raised very minimally this year. That means that homeowners are going to pay less taxes than they did two years ago.

Mr. Renwick: Next year they will be raised again and the member knows it.

Mr. Drea: The member doesn’t know what we are going to do next year. The way the Treasurer of this province operates we may again get the biggest single tax cut that we’ve ever had.

Mr. Renwick: We will not get a tax cut next year, mark my words; because the government has raised the tax this year and the member knows it.

Mr. Drea: I marked the member’s words last year and he said the sales tax was going up in 1974.

Mr. J. E. Bullbrook (Sarnia): This is like “Alice in Wonderland.”

Mr. Renwick: This is Wonderland and that is Alice.

Mr. Sargent: No wonder he has nobody to talk to.

Mr. Drea: I think if the members are going to heckle they might at least be in their seats. That would be the first order they ever obeyed in here.

Mr. Speaker, for many years in this country there has been a debate over whether a guaranteed annual income was appropriate not just in terms of economics but in terms of the social milieu of the country. I think, quite frankly, that philosophically the objections or the concerns about a form of guaranteed annual income have far outweighed the economic pros and cons.

In this province we have taken the first step toward a guaranteed annual income in this budget. For those over 65 there will be the GAINS programme. Included in this programme along with those over 65 years of age will be the disabled, the blind and so forth. Mr. Speaker, 311,000 low income people now have a guaranteed annual income. In addition to that they will receive free drugs as of July 1.

For the last year we have heard what a great spender, a great philanthropist was a fellow by the name of Dave Barrett. For months on end we have been told if BC can give $200 and guarantee it to everybody, why can’t Ontario? In this budget we have made Dave Barrett out to be a piker and he’s got more disposable money in his coffers than we will ever have.

Mr. Sargent: He doesn’t owe $7 billion though. He’s debt free and this government is broke.

Mr. Renwick: It’s sitting on the wealthiest province in Canada and knows it and it is still a piker.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Sargent: Tories always have been pikers.

Mr. Drea: We’re pikers? The opposition told is to give $200 and we’ve gone to $216 plus free drugs. That is hardly the earmark of a piker.

Mr. Sargent: Read the financial paper.

Mr. Renwick: We cannot compare the wealth of this province to the wealth of British Columbia, and the member knows it, either in resources, secondary industry or primary industry.

Mr. Drea: If I had said that to the member and he was championing the cause of Dave Barrett, he would have laughed me out of here.

Mr. Renwick: We cannot compare the wealth of this province to British Columbia.

Mr. Speaker: Order please; order.

Mr. Drea: Those members are the people who introduced the Barrett argument into this House. Now because it is going the other way they don’t even want to hear about it.

Mr. Renwick: The Province of Ontario is the wealthiest province in Canada and has the lowest pay-out for social services of any province.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The member for Riverdale does not have the floor. Order.

Mr. G. W. Walker (London North): We won’t allow him to disown Barrett.

Mr. Drea: Has he defended him enough, or what is left of him?

Mr. Renwick: I wasn’t defending Barrett. Barrett can take care of himself.

Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, we haven’t thought only about those 311,000 people who are not sharing the monumental prosperity which the Prime Minister of this country seems to think is in every household, we haven’t limited our concerns just to them. For next year, we have doubled the property tax rebate. We have not only doubled the basic amount from $90 to $180, we have doubled the offset --

Mr. Sargent: Election year!

Mr. Drea: -- from one per cent to two per cent. It means that more people, both tenants and owners, will be receiving a larger rebate than ever before. I suggest it takes a Treasurer of considerable economic acumen to produce a budget which can reach throughout the fabric of society -- not just to the low income people; not just to the disadvantaged; not just to the disabled; not just to the handicapped. I think those things are tremendous; but it also assures the majority of this province, the middle class people who have built this province, who have developed it and who have made it into the finest place to live, that they are not forgotten.

Mr. Sargent: But they can’t buy a house.

Mr. Drea: That, I suggest, puts added meaning into the words “fair share.”

We haven’t forgotten small business; there are not only tax credits, there are the new venture investments. We haven’t forgotten the widow who has been hit by inflation; we have taken the measure of inflation and duty so that she will not be disadvantaged just because Ottawa cannot keep control of the money supply or the economic situation in the country.

I am glad the member for Riverdale raised the question about the accuracy of our figures concerning municipal taxes. In 1968, Mr. Speaker, the net tax on a home was $302 or 3.7 per cent of household income. Last year -- and this doesn’t include anything we are doing in this budget -- that net tax was down to $298 or 2.8 per cent of household income.

Mr. Renwick: The hon. member will need supporting evidence for those statements, and he knows it.

Mr. Drea: Where else in the world has the senior government been so efficient that it has been able to channel sufficient funds to the junior government so that the property owner does not have to go into the poor- house keeping up with the cost of paying for municipal services? I suggest to you nowhere, Mr. Speaker.

Despite all of this, Mr. Speaker, we only raised our own costs by about 14.2 per cent. Last week in Ottawa, if they had kept their increase to 14.2 per cent, there wouldn’t be an election. But instead they came out with a cheap, cheaper, cheapest kind of budget.

And despite the fact that neither the member for Riverdale nor any other member of his party and I agree, I would say to you, Mr. Speaker, that he knows and so does his federal party that if what was posing as the federal Finance Minister had the economic acumen of our provincial Treasurer, the social vision of our provincial Treasurer, and the plain common sense of a good solid Conservative government, it too could have produced a budget that would have done for all of Canada what we want done for the Province of Ontario this year.

Mr. Sargent: We’re a half a billion dollars in debt!

Mr. Drea: And we don’t have to go to a bank!

Mr. Sargent: They don’t, eh?

Mr. Drea: But the federal government has to go to a bank. We are paying off the bonds.

Mr. Sargent: We are paying $3 million a day in interest on our debt.

An hon. member: It shows how much the member for Scarborough Centre knows.

Mr. Drea: That is why we are going to retire over $400 million worth of bonds.

Mr. Sargent: And Stanfield is going to impose controls now; price controls and wage controls.

Mr. Drea: I am waiting for the member’s leader to take his seat. It is no fun without him.

Mr. R. F. Nixon (Leader of the Opposition): Go ahead, get funny.

Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, it was mentioned in the House this afternoon that it was very bad politics for Mr. Stanfield to become involved with the Davis government. The question was raised about the integrity of certain people on this side of the House. I only want to deal with one of those people.

Mr. Speaker, the member for York Mills (Mr. Bales) sits next to me, on my left. He has had a long and distinguished career in this government. He has not only served the people of York Mills extremely well, he has served the people of this province to the best of his abilities -- and those abilities were considerable.

Mr. Sargent: That’s the way they treat him, eh? They kick him out.

Mr. Drea: I just want to say one thing about the member for York Mills, who sits on my left. When it comes to personal integrity, I would stake everything I have and I would bet every cent I have on the integrity, on the personal conduct and upon the character of a man whom I will always call, regardless of the office he holds, the Honourable Dalton Bales.

I don’t think there is a time or place in this House for us to get into making a value judgement across the floor, on the basis of an election, as to what the integrity of a man is. I may not always agree with his judgement and I may not always agree with his views; but I want to underscore it, and I am sure every member of this party will do so as well, that when it comes to personal integrity, the hon. member for York Mills is in the forefront. As I say, he will always be known as the Honourable Dalton Bales and that not just as a symbol of his office.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, I have complimented the Treasurer of this province on an outstanding and a historic budget. That budget would not have been possible were it not for the policies that have been enacted and followed by this government since we were elected in October, 1971.

This budget would not have been possible if it were not for the fact that the Minister of Education (Mr. Wells) used restraint and made sure that the spending on education was brought into line. This budget would not have been possible without that.

This budget would not have been possible without the work of the former Minister of Health; because when we came into office they told us that OHIP and the cost of health were going out of sight and would bankrupt us. I suggest to the hon. members that the work the hon. member for Quinte (Mr. Potter) did in the Ministry of Health is another reason the Treasurer could produce a budget as meaningful, as fair and as just as the one he did.

Mr. P. D. Lawlor (Lakeshore): Unbelievable!

Mr. Drea: I suggest to the hon. member too -- and I am glad the Minister of Government Services (Mr. Snow) is here tonight --

Mr. Lawlor: Is the hon. member still a Progressive Conservative?

Mr. Drea: -- were it not for the efficiency of the Ministry of Government Services and the cost controls they have put in, this budget would not have been possible.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Is the member preaching for a call?

Mr. Lawlor: Is the hon. member preaching to convert or subvert the Establishment?

Mr. R. F. Nixon: The Treasurer is enjoying everything the hon. member is saying and so is the former Minister of Health.

Mr. Drea: Now that the hon. members have interrupted me, I have to say a couple of words about Ward Cornell. That’s the way to really get them.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I am very protocol about Ward Cornell. The hon. member is right. Does he mean the chap who was the Treasurer’s campaign manager?

Mr. Drea: Yes, I will tell the hon. members about Ward Cornell. Mr. Speaker, if I may just divert for a moment --

Mr. Renwick: We cannot tell whether the hon. member is diverting or not.

Mr. Drea: One of the problems with being a Conservative is we are open to free ideas. We don’t throw people out for having an idea, and I can understand why the hon. members find great difficulty in following me.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: What did the member do to the member for York Mills then?

Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, I want to say a word about Ward Cornell.

Mr. Lawlor: The government has so few ideas that it doesn’t have an opportunity to throw many ideas out.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: It must be lonely over there.

Mr. Lawlor: I haven’t noticed much originality.

Mr. Drea: I haven’t heard a new idea from the hon. member for Lakeshore in all the time I have been here. That’s the greatest disenchantment I have ever had.

Mr. Lawlor: The reason I came here tonight is to be put to sleep. I felt tired and I came in to listen to the hon. member for Scarborough Centre.

Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, may I return for a moment to Ward Cornell because I think it is of some significance?

I met a lady who had emigrated to this country, Mr. Speaker. She was in dreadful difficulty because of the arbitrary action of a British steamship company. When she and her husband were emigrating here, they arranged for their furniture to come behind them because, unfortunately, they were arriving in Toronto when the Seaway was still frozen. They waited and they waited for that furniture to arrive.

Finally, after seven months, somebody found it down in a warehouse and said: “Oh yes, madam, you can have your furniture; but you will have to pay us $540 storage charges.” For these people, being very ordinary people who had emigrated to this country with a family, that was a rather exorbitant bill.

The difficulty was that the English steamship company had sent that furniture without a bill of lading. The mistake was made in England. There was nothing our Highway Transport Board could do. There was nothing the Toronto harbour commissioners could do. In fact, there was nothing the federal government could do.

I like to save money, I like to go to the people who are paid to do these things. But they said there was nothing they could do, that it was too bad. They hoped the people had the $540. Frankly, the federal government’s advice was to get it out of storage right away, to pay the $540 before it became $640 or $740.

Mr. Speaker, those are people without furniture. They didn’t make an awful lot of money. They came to me and I went through the Highway Transport Board, I went through the harbour commissioners and I went through the federal government. That was last winter, and that was the time when England was on a three-day week, the lights were turned out and it was a very difficult time over there.

Mr. Speaker, I addressed a letter -- because I’m thrifty, 13 cents by air mail -- to my good friend Ward Cornell. I told Ward about the problem and I told him the address of the --

Mr. H. Worton (Wellington South): The member should have phoned.

Mr. Drea: I am always respectful of the taxpayer’s money. For 13 cents it would get there just as fast.

I am very proud to say that within 18 hours there was a cable in Canada to the Canadian agent for that shipping company and the $540 charge had been withdrawn. Part of the cable was an apology to the woman that she had been put to this inconvenience and strain.

Mr. Speaker, I suggest to you that is why we need Ward Cornell in London and not a striped-pants diplomat, because when you want action you get it from Ward Cornell.

Mr. G. Nixon (Dovercourt): Right on.

Mr. Drea: If I’d tried that two years ago I’d still be waiting and so would the woman with the furniture.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Yes, but who is going to run the Treasurer’s next campaign?

Hon. Mr. Winkler: He doesn’t need anybody.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: That’s right, he is not running again.

Mr. Drea: One more budget like this and it will be an acclamation.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: One more budget like this and the province will be broke. This is the biggest deficit in our history.

Mr. Drea: Oh now, the last of the big time spenders saying we’re going broke.

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. Drea: The only way this province will ever go broke is to elect the Leader of the Opposition as Premier, and I wish I didn’t have to say that.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Did the Treasurer have these fellows out for dinner? How did he get them so enthused?

Mr. Lawlor: They are really going for broke there.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Drea: No, the reason we are enthused is that we are celebrating a divorce. It is the first time the Liberals and the NDP aren’t in together. That must be a great relief to both of them.

Mr. Lawlor: One can’t calm him down when he has a gallery.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I know why he is here tonight, his buddies must be in the gallery. That’s the stuff.

Mr. Drea: Doesn’t the member wish he had an organization like that?

Mr. Lawlor: I sat here for an hour and it was just boring. The member is much better tonight. Keep going. It is a new quality; some people need audiences to keep themselves going.

Mr. Drea: No, when the member for Lakeshore suggests that I keep going he has some type of devious plot afoot and I think I’ll get out before it is hatched.

Mr. Speaker I’ve given credit to the Minister of Education for his policy of restraints despite great personal abuse. I have given credit to the Minister of Government Services, a ministry that is seldom recognized for the efficiency and the cost cutting it has brought the government; to the Minister of Health --

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Why not congratulate the Chairman of the Management Board? He is the only minister here.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: He did that before the member came in.

Mr. Drea: If the member was ever here he would realize I spent most of this after- noon complimenting him.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I am here to listen to the member, unfortunately.

Mr. Drea: I really think the member likes to listen to me. It must be better than that debacle he had up in Sudbury where they gave him half an hour out of three days and told him he had to bow down because the federal party was in trouble. I don’t ask him to do that.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: No, the Premier is getting us out of trouble.

Mr. Drea: I even understand why the member wants to be politically neutral in the election campaign. Isn’t he going to be?

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Of course not.

Mr. Drea: He is going to go out and campaign for Trudeau?

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Darn right.

Mr. Drea: He is? Great. Great.

Mr. J. R. Breithaupt (Kitchener): And so are we all.

Mr. Drea: Great. I understood he was going to be neutral.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I don’t know where the member would ever get that from.

Mr. Drea: Well he was suggesting to us to be neutral.

An hon. member: It just seems that way.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: He must have been reading Action Line.

Mr. Drea: No, that is not mine any more.

Mr. Lawlor: Surely the member is not going to speak on behalf of Stanfield? He is not in the same league as the member.

Mr. Breithaupt: He is better 430 ways.

Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, when it comes to comparing Frank Drea and Robert Stanfield there isn’t any comparison. On the best day I ever had I couldn’t tie his shoes. That’s how much I think of our federal leader.

Mr. Lawlor: The member may stand up in his longjohns but he can’t tie his shoes.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Tell the Premier to leave him alone. He is just getting him into trouble.

Mr. Drea: That’s what the member was suggesting this afternoon.

Mr. Lawlor: Such humility. It is almost grovelling.

An hon. member: He is right.

Mr. Drea: Well isn’t the member for Essex-Kent a liberal?

An hon. member: Yes.

Mr. Drea: They haven’t thrown him out.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Yes, we’re proud of him; very good speech.

Mr. Breithaupt: He made sense.

Mr. Drea: Good. Terrific.

Mr. Lawlor: How about getting on with this speech? The member spent a long time working on it.

Mr. Drea: I’m trying to, if I wouldn’t be interrupted.

Mr. Lawlor: We want to hear it.

Mr. Drea: Want to what?

Mr. Lawlor: I said the member has worked at it hard, we want to hear it.

Mr. Drea: Oh, I haven’t worked at all.

Mr. Lawlor: No?

Mr. Drea: No. Look, I was going to stop about five minutes ago, but I’ll tell the member this, every time he opens his mouth I’m going to go another minute. We may be here a long time.

Mr. Lawlor: I find the member one of the better Conservative speakers so I can put up with him for a little while longer.

Mr. Drea: The member for Lakeshore has only another year to put up with me, because he’ll be unemployed after 1975.

Mr. Lawlor: I was here before the member came and I will be here after he leaves.

Mr. Drea: I don’t think I’d put money on that one.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: The member for Scarborough Centre is only an overnight guest.

Mr. Lawlor: Nice talk about humility; now we have to listen to typical Tory arrogance. The member should get on with his speech. The sooner he makes it, the sooner it is over -- thank heaven.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Don’t step back.

Mr. Drea: One of the things that always endear the New Democrats to me is their refusal to accept the concept of reality.

Mr. Lawlor: Reality? That is a term to conjure with.

Mr. Drea: Now that the divorce is permanent the finality may be permanent as well. I don’t think I would bet against the proposition that I advanced.

Mr. Speaker, to wind up my portion of the reply to the budget: The budget would not have been possible without the day-to-day policies of this government. Mr. Speaker, we are not a government that reacts to crisis. We are a government that tries to anticipate problems, that tries to look ahead so there will be in the future, as there has been in the past, an orderly, a stable growth in this province as well as the opportunity for all of its citizens to develop themselves to the utmost of their talents. That is their choice. But with this budget we have gone much further than any other jurisdiction in Canada, whether it is federal or provincial --

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Biggest deficit in Canada.

Mr. Drea: -- and that is that we have made the budget not merely an economic weapon, but we have put it in the forefront of achieving the social goals of this province. Whatever we achieve in the field of social reform or social equality is now an integral part of the economic and other growths in Ontario.

Mr. Lawlor: Malignant or otherwise?

Mr. Drea: The only malignancy around here is --

Mr. Lawlor: Sometimes I think the member is from Belfast the way he acts.

Mr. Drea: Well, a couple of generations ago not far from there.

Mr. Renwick: My friend from Dublin was right as usual.

Mr. Drea: You see, one of the difficulties is, you can -- well, I won’t say it.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Drea: There is only one thing about this budget that really concerns me and that is the opposition’s overriding concern on behalf of the land speculators. I thought the land speculation tax would be the easiest thing that ever went through here. It really perplexes me that people who have shouted and screamed and foamed and roared and begged and cajoled and whined -- you see, I can use the same words as the member for Lakeshore -- the people who have done that for so long are now standing up and saying “it’s confiscatory -- terrible, you have to think about the rights of the speculator.” Oh, how we have changed. Why have we changed?

Mr. Renwick: The member hasn’t heard the debate. He hasn’t understood the --

Mr. Drea: The reason they have changed is --

Mr. Renwick: Why doesn’t the member come back on Thursday?

Mr. Drea: -- there isn’t a single thing in this budget the opposition can criticize; there isn’t a single thing in here that they haven’t been claiming and shouting to the rooftops that we would never do. Well, we have not only done it, we have done it all at once. It must really be galling to the self-styled social reformers that the first government in the world to deal with the question of land speculation is the Conservative government of Ontario.

Mr. Lawlor: Come on -- not the first government; that is ridiculous.

Mr. Drea: That is why I am glad to be a member of this government. That is why we have been the government of this province for over 30 years. And, Mr. Speaker, that is why the people of Ontario have more than abundant confidence in our ability to meet the challenges ahead. I suggest that is the difference between us --

Mr. Lawlor: Venezuela had it 45 years ago.

Mr. Drea: -- and the remnants of what was once a proud party in Ottawa. Mackenzie King must be looking down at you now and saying: “What did I do?”

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Drea: I need one more line; I have got something for the member for Sarnia.

Mr. Bullbrook: I will give the member for Scarborough Centre two minutes to reply to that.

Mr. Drea: No, one line. Mr. Speaker, last year in his reply to the Speech from the Throne -- and I can’t resist this, I like to tantalize the fine legal mind from Sarnia -- last year in his reply to the Speech from the Throne, the member for Sarnia pointed out that this party had no interest in organized labour and we never mentioned it in our Throne Speech. I think he said it again at the Liberal rally last month in Sudbury.

Mr. Bullbrook: Yes, that is right.

Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, on opening night at the Liberal rally, I noticed there was quite --

An hon. member: That was the federal Liberal rally.

Mr. J. R. Smith (Hamilton Mountain): Federal.

Mr. Drea: Yes, that’s the one when the provincial people had to take a very short time because it was so important to save Trudeau.

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. Drea: Yes? Were they?

Mr. Breithaupt: The member will find the time is equally balanced if he will only look at it.

Mr. Drea: I wonder if they had to pay their own way?

Hon. Mr. Winkler: No, they all flew up.

Mr. Drea: They all flew up. Government of Canada plane?

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Sure.

Mr. Drea: I thought so. Taxpayers again.

Mr. Bullbrook: The member has more nerve than Errol Flynn ever had.

An hon. member: Hits all the way.

Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, the thing was raised --

Mr. R. F. Nixon: They just like to fly.

Mr. Bullbrook: Is that a Masonic apron there?

Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, the point was raised that in the Throne Speech there was no mention of labour -- just a minute; the members want to hear this. At the opening of the Liberal rally in Sudbury, there was a great protest from the delegates. For two days- was it three days? -- federal cabinet ministers were jetting in and jetting out and somebody said: “Aren’t we going to do anything about labour?” One of those federal fellows said: “Gee, I guess we neglected it; we’ll do it next year.”

Mr. Speaker, I couldn’t resist bringing that to the attention of the member for Sarnia.

An hon. member: He’s left.

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

Mr. Drea: I am sure it is.

An hon. member: He knew it was coming.

Mr. Drea: But I’d like to point out some things, just for the record.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: It’s a quarter to nine.

Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, in closing --

Mr. Lawlor: I thought that was at 4 o’clock this afternoon.

Mr. Drea: No.

Mr. Young: He was just putting in time.

Mr. Drea: I would like to mention health. I have always been concerned about the cost of health in this province. In the past I have worked very hard, and I think somewhat effectively, to bring the cost of health care in the post-Medicare days to something within the cost which can be borne by the working people and the older people of this province.

It makes me very proud to be a Conservative that on July 1 of this year we will remove about 95 per cent of the financial cost that could ever accrue to an elderly person because of poor health. We have provided the finest Medicare programme in the country; we have the finest hospital programme in the country; we have a nursing home programme which is not only the envy of this country but of the United States.

Mr. Young: Twenty years behind Saskatchewan.

Mr. Drea: Now, Mr. Speaker, for those senior citizens and those disabled people who are in receipt of supplements, either from us or from the federal government, we are going to provide the cost of drugs.

Mr. Young: Thirty years behind Saskatchewan.

Mr. Drea: Thirty years nothing! There is no other government that can take a bow in that direction.

Mr. Lawlor: The member will agree about this government’s poor consumer legislation.

Mr. M. Shulman (High Park): In the member’s last speech he said the Minister of Health (Mr. Miller) was incompetent.

Mr. Drea: If that were all the provincial Treasurer could do, it would be enough. To provide a form of guaranteed annual income, to meet the needs of municipalities, to meet some of the needs of small business, to produce an anti-inflationary budget, to begin paying off the provincial debt and still take the string out of the cost of health care for elderly people, I suggest is the reason we have been here for more than 30 years and the reason we will be here for many more years to come.

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

Motion agreed to.

Clerk of the House: The 21st order. House in committee of supply.

ESTIMATES, MINISTRY OF GOVERNMENT SERVICES (CONTINUED)

On vote 702:

Mr. Chairman: Does any member wish to speak on this item? The member for High Park.

Mr. M. Shulman (High Park): I would like to question the minister on his policies insofar as construction for various ministeries is concerned. I am a little confused. We have had some correspondence, which I’m sure the minister recalls, in connection with a project up at Monteith. How can it be that you’ll ask for estimates from various firms to construct something if the money is not available? Can you explain that to me?

Hon. J. W. Snow (Minister of Government Services): Mr. Chairman, as the member is well aware, I sent him a very detailed letter of explanation --

Mr. Shulman: I can’t understand it.

Hon. Mr. Snow: -- regarding the tenders for the mechanical work for the Monteith facility. First of all, I might say that is one of the few capital construction projects that my ministry is not responsible for, as far as the overall construction of the facility is concerned.

This is a new facility being built mainly by prison labour as a training project for prisoners in the Monteith correctional facility. But in order to carry out the mechanical and electrical portions of the work, my ministry was asked to design those portions of the work and to call tenders for their construction. As I say, all the other trade work and the purchase of materials were being carried out by the Ministry of Correctional Services as one of its training programmes.

We were requested to call tenders for this work, which we did. After we had received the tenders, the ministry decided that it could not go ahead with the work immediately at that time and asked us to defer the awarding of the contract for the mechanical and electrical work because the other construction was not going to be ready. We notified the bidders at that time that the contract had been cancelled, because, of course, there is a limited time during which the bidders hold their prices firm.

After the finalization of the estimates this spring, I believe, the Ministry of Correctional Services was able to rearrange its finances in some way that it was able to proceed with this project and asked us then to award the contracts for the mechanical and electrical work. As the tenders had expired beyond the date called for in the tender call, we then contacted the low bidder in each particular case and asked him if he was prepared to proceed with the work at his original bid price. I believe it was the mechanical contractor who agreed he would accept the contract, even though the expiry date had gone by, and do the work at the original price. The electrical contractor declined, which was perfectly within his rights. We recalled tenders for the electrical work and it has since been awarded, I think that’s the whole explanation.

Mr. Shulman: I would like to pursue this a little, Mr. Chairman, but first perhaps you would be good enough to get me a quorum.

Clerk of the House: Mr. Chairman, there are 19 members present.

Mr. Chairman ordered that the bells be rung for four minutes.

Clerk of the House: Mr. Chairman, a quorum is present.

Mr. Chairman: The member for High Park.

Mr. Shulman: I would like to pursue two points here. I find it very difficult to understand how in February you put out tenders because the department says it has got the money to do it. Three weeks later, it says it doesn’t have the money to do it so you cancel the tenders; then five weeks later again it says it does have the money to do it and you have to put tenders out again. Is this chaos entirely in the other departments? Can we absolve you of this entirely?

Hon. Mr. Snow: Mr. Chairman, you would have to ask the Minister of Correctional Services (Mr. Potter) about the financing of this project because the funds are not in our ministry.

Mr. Shulman: Did you not find it a little odd with all this jumping back and forth? Did it enter your head that you might ask him what the hell was going on?

Hon. Mr. Snow: Mr. Chairman, I assure you we pointed out the problems of delaying the award of this contract once we had called the tenders, and pointed out the fact that if it was not awarded by a certain date the tenderers had no obligation to do the job at their tendered price. Because of some priorities and limitations in the budgeting of the Ministry of Correctional Services these decisions were made by their officials, not mine.

Mr. Shulman: I am a little surprised at the rate at which prices go up. You are giving out a lot of tenders; do you find that prices are really rising at the rate of 6¼ per cent a month or every six weeks, which is what happened in this particular case?

Hon. Mr. Snow: We certainly are alarmed at the increase in prices, Mr. Chairman; but in this particular job the low bidder on the mechanical, as I say, accepted the price of his low bid of $97,314. The low bidder on the electrical, for some reason or other, turned out to be, I believe, the high bidder on the second go around. Their tender price increased by 25 per cent. The actual low bidder on the second tender call was 6¼ per cent higher than the low bid was the first time when it was a different bidder. It may very well have been that the low bidder the first time found he had made an error in his tender and that’s why he wouldn’t hold his price when he had an opportunity to get out. I don’t know.

Mr. Shulman: The question I am asking you is: Is this pattern being repeated throughout your department? Are you finding that prices are going up at that rate?

Hon. Mr. Snow: No, they are not going up at that rate.

Mr. Shulman: At what rate are they going up? If you are having a contract done this month, how does it compare with a similar contract that was done six months ago or a year ago?

Hon. Mr. Snow: Approximately 1½ per cent per month is the escalation factor that our research shows at the present time. That’s considerably higher than it was a year ago. When we’re budgeting our jobs we figure the estimated cost of a project if it goes to tender today. If the job is not scheduled to go to tender until six months from now we would have to add in an inflation factor to have a proper estimate for Management Board at the time the job would go to tender. The figure we are presently using, startling and shocking as it is, disturbing as it is to me and to my staff, is 1½ per cent per month.

Mr. Shulman: Is it? All right. I want to be very fair -- 1½ per cent per month. That’s 18 per cent per year and that is how you estimated the rate of increase at the present time under this vote. Is that correct?

Hon. Mr. Snow: Well, that is the rate we allow from the time we estimate jobs until the job goes to tender.

Mr. Shulman: Actually, my colleague points out it is more than 18 per cent. At 1½ per cent per month it would be about 21 per cent per year. Does that apply to capital construction, leasing and land acquisition? I’m taking the three items under this vote. Are they all going up at that particular rate?

Hon. Mr. Snow: That’s the figure we use for capital construction only.

Mr. Shulman: What is the figure you use for leasing and for land acquisition?

Hon. Mr. Snow: I don’t think we have any specific figure for that, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Shulman: Well, you’ve been acquiring land right along, I presume, for various projects. How does the cost of acquiring land today compare with the cost a year ago?

Hon. Mr. Snow: It varies from area to area.

Mr. Shulman: On an average.

Hon. Mr. Snow: Costs certainly have been going up. When we are purchasing land we do up-to-date appraisals on land and check the most current sales that we can in any particular area to try to come up with a proper appraisal. We do in-house appraisals, that is by my own staff, on a piece of property before we buy it. We also have outside appraisals carried out. In some large transactions we may ask for two outside appraisals.

Mr. Shulman: Are you able to give me an average figure as to the increase over this past year?

Hon. Mr. Snow: I don’t think I can give you any average figure on the increase in the cost of land.

Mr. Shulman: Has your department acquired any land at all recently?

Hon. Mr. Snow: Oh yes; we are acquiring land every day.

Mr. Shulman: What has happened in the last six weeks? Are the prices continuing to go up?

Hon. Mr. Snow: Most of the land we have been acquiring has been rural land. I don’t have the exact figures or comparisons between this week and last week. Most of these properties are under negotiation for some time.

Mr. Shulman: I’m interested in your recent experience. You’ve acquired some land, I gather, in the last couple of months. If the negotiation went on for some time, are you paying the prices that you were originally expecting or are you having to pay higher prices?

Hon. Mr. Snow: I would say we are paying the appraised price or less in most cases.

Mr. Shulman: Okay. Can you give one example of where you’ve done that?

Hon. Mr. Snow: No, I can’t. I haven’t got those figures here.

Mr. Shulman: Don’t you have your experts here?

Hon. Mr. Snow: Yes, but I don’t have all the figures on every parcel of land. I don’t know if we have any figures here.

Mr. Shulman: Well, I don’t want all the figures at one time.

Mr. P. D. Lawlor (Lakeshore): You know whether it’s going up or down.

Mr. Shulman: Is there one specific case in the whole province where you’ve paid less than you expected?

Hon. Mr. Snow: Well, I would say, comparing the purchase of land, no two parcels are similar.

Mr. Shulman: That’s not what I asked you.

Mr. Lawlor: The same land one year ago.

Mr. Shulman: These acquisitions that you’ve made in the last few weeks, presumably you’ve negotiated on them for some time. You said to me just two minutes ago the land you’ve been acquiring, you acquired at the appraised price or less. Can you give me one example to illustrate what you just said, where you acquired it at less?

Hon. Mr. Snow: No, I can’t. I can get figures for the hon. member, but I haven’t got any figures here on specific parcels of land.

Mr. Shulman: Well, let’s look at Pickering, for example. Is it not true that the price --

Hon. Mr. Snow: Before you waste any time on Pickering, my ministry is not purchasing any land at Pickering.

Mr. Shulman: Would you be so kind as to ask your people to bring back, at your convenience, just one example where the land was appraised at a certain value and you managed to get it for less within the last few weeks? I’m going to suggest to you that’s not correct.

Hon. Mr. Snow: I’m sure there are properties we buy at less than appraised value.

Mr. Shulman: Mr. Minister, it must be very clear to you by this time what I’m driving at. What I’m trying to find out -- and I presume your deputy and his assistants are aware of it -- and what I am informed of from your ministry, is that in recent weeks the price of land has continued to climb. I gather from your remarks that you’re saying that is not so? Your acquisition prices have not continued to climb in recent weeks. The suggestion is that they’ve gone down, is that what you’re saying?

Hon. Mr. Snow: No, I don’t think I said that at all. I don’t think I said they have gone down. I said there is no set figure as to rate of increase. I can tell you that we can see from tendering of our construction projects that costs are increasing at approximately 1½ per cent per month. But I do not have a set figure of one per cent or two per cent or 10 per cent for land. We all know that land has been going up in value right across the country as long as I can remember, and I’m sure as long as you can remember.

Mr. Lawlor: And continues to do so.

Mr. Shulman: Yes, but I’m trying to find out if there’s been any reversal in that trend, or if the land that you are having to acquire is continuing to cost us, the province, more money. Who is in charge in your ministry of acquiring land? What is his name?

Hon. Mr. Snow: Mr. Gray.

Mr. Shulman: Is he here?

Hon. Mr. Snow: Yes.

Mr. Shulman: Would it be improper for you to ask him if the price of land is continuing to climb?

Hon. Mr. Snow: Mr. Gray advises me that he has not got detailed comparisons with him this evening.

Mr. Shulman: He must have made comparisons in general. Is he able to advise you, and you advise us, if the price of land is continuing to increase?

Hon. Mr. Snow: Mr. Gray advises me that from what he can see the price of land is continuing to increase.

Mr. Shulman: Thank you. That’s all I wanted to know.

Mr. J. E. Bullbrook (Sarnia): Better tell the Minister of Housing (Mr. Handleman) that.

Mr. Chairman: The hon. member for Hamilton Mountain is next.

Mr. J. R. Smith (Hamilton Mountain): Mr. Chairman, while the Minister of Government Services receives many brickbats and comments directed his way, I’d like to commend him --

Mr. Lawlor: Not at all.

Mr. J. R. Smith: -- and his ministry for stepping forward with construction of the Hamilton-Wentworth Regional Detention Centre.

I read with interest, Mr. Chairman, that the former Ottawa jail has been retained as a youth hostel. In many respects I think it is most fortunate that the old Hamilton jail is to be demolished and on the adjoining property the new regional detention centre constructed. Several times a year I try to visit this institution, which for almost a century was under municipal direction. I must report through you to the hon. members that it is indeed a monument to man’s inhumanity to man.

Every time I return to this place I see it in a new perspective and a new way. Last summer the cell block I visited was undergoing painting and other minor repairs from the ministry. And it seemed almost incredible that in our community, after over 100 years, here there was still a cell block of single cells, with two single beds in each, housing approximately 40 prisoners. It was only within the last year the cell blocks had a toilet installed at the end of each corridor and hot water had been provided for the prisoners.

This really did reflect a harsh and cruel form of punishment facility under the former system. The prisoners in this institution, every night, are handed a pot or a can which, when the cells are open in the early hours of the morning, they have to empty in one or two sinks -- one toilet for approximately 40 people.

Perhaps it says something that our city has a very high rate of inmates in its detention centre; this might well be a study for perhaps the Ministry of Correctional Services. It may find out why for example, Hamilton has twice as many people in prison as the municipality of Ottawa-Carleton.

We have, I think, a fine police force. So has Ottawa a very fine force. It’s not in that relationship. But our city does have a very high ratio of transient men who, for some reason or other, habitually find themselves reincarcerated.

Mr. Chairman, I hope the minister will see that the new facility is constructed with all due haste and that it also provides facilities for those agencies within the community which try to serve the --

Mr. Lawlor: Do you think your judges may sentence more people to jail than they do in Ottawa-Carleton? Have you looked into those statistics?

Mr. J. R. Smith: The convictions?

Mr. Lawlor: Yes. And what they do in sentencing?

Mr. J. R. Smith: Well that is another field, the justice field. It would make a very interesting study, I’d say to the member for Lakeshore.

The new facility, I would hope, would have adequate space provided for those agencies within the community that are interested in rehabilitation of prisoners, such as the Salvation Army and other related organizations; and even for counselling with legal and other professions.

We’re entering a new era and it is unfortunate that this facility is just going up now. I only wish it had been under way sooner. But I commend the minister for seeing to it this was provided for in his budget.

Secondly, I’d like to say a few words about the cost of acquisitions of recreational lands for Hamilton-Wentworth which have been announced by the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Bernier). He has put forward a proposal involving two parcels as possible sites -- one, the Lax Bros, properties in the west end of Hamilton harbour; and secondly, the Allarco property on the top of Hamilton Mountain at Highway 403 and the Hydro right of way. I hope a full hearing is provided within the community for all segments to express their feelings. I found it rather paradoxical that after the Halton-Bronte Creek part was acquired, the study was made as to what facilities were to be placed there and provided for the use of the general public.

This whole policy of bringing provincial parks to the people is most commendable and long overdue. We have such a state of heavy congestion on our highways on weekends that many people are now reluctant to venture onto the highways to seek the enjoyment and relaxation provided in provincial parks along the peninsula or in northern Ontario. This new programme of bringing the provincial parks to the people is an exciting venture.

The facilities which these lands provide are many, and already the proposed swimming complex for Bronte Creek provides a multitude of opportunities. And these are not just for the people of Burlington but for the surrounding area, which is one of the most densely populated regions of the province. Yet I think there isn’t one public park within driving distance that a church picnic or a labour union can go to that has an outdoor swimming pool. The other ones that are presently there are all privately owned. This is why I would like to see on the Allarco property and a goodly portion of those lands acquired. I also would like to see the escarpment face preserved in its original form and perhaps some of the other areas might be designated for active recreational use or otherwise. Anyway, the community is awaiting the public hearings and already there are indications of ideas from many organizations.

The matter of the Lax property is also challenging. Many of the more affluent people in the community are interested in boating and sailing, and there is a need, I understand, for a public marina, so that those people who cannot afford to join the local yacht club, and so forth, can avail themselves of public facilities -- just even a place to take their canoes or boats and to launch them in the Hamilton Harbour and Cootes Paradise.

I would advise the minister that here, again, he should be very cautious as to the prices paid for this particular property. The community is well aware of the fact that these were water lots acquired by the Lax Bros, under corporation from the government of Canada for a very reasonable price. The lands were landfilled from soils and other materials excavated from the Claremont access on Hamilton Mountain for a nominal fee and trucked down to the city and onto the harbour site to fill in the land. They were fortunate to have been able to acquire the materials to fill in these lots.

Nevertheless, there is an extremely strong feeling in the community about whether or not it was legal. So this whole matter of legal jurisdiction of the water lots, and whether or not they had the right to proceed with the landfill and so on, is questionable. One figure quoted millions of dollars as a possible pricetag for these lands. I think this should be a matter that might have to go for expropriation, if the government decides to proceed, so that the taxpayers, in other words, don’t line the pockets of the present property owners, that the just price is paid and that’s all.

It means moving in a very exciting area -- this acquisition would, as the member for Hamilton West (Mr. McNie) said, complement the Dundurn Castle and Royal Botanical Gardens properties and that whole area.

Indeed, perhaps the minister could make arrangements for some of the lands through the Royal Botanical Gardens so perhaps the new combined CN, TH and B Railway facility could be established at Bayview in the west end of the city. Then we would be able to tie into the GO-Transit Service to Metro, Bronte, Burlington and Oakville, and so on; as we are prevented from doing so at present by the heavy use of the trackage from Bayview into the CNR station.

Mr. Chairman: The member for Wentworth is next.

Mr. I. Deans (Wentworth): It is exactly on this point that the member for Hamilton Mountain ended up on. Frankly, I wasn’t aware that this was an appropriate place to raise it. I thought, in fact, that it might be more appropriate to raise it with the Minister of Natural Resources and have, in fact done this.

But I do want to say something about this point. I’m worried that if the government decides that it should, in fact, move to expropriate that something called the ‘fair market value’ will come into it. Now, the ‘fair market value’ bears no relationship in this case to the actual investment of the Lax Brothers in the property. The market value of the property as it is currently set up would run at about $7 million, and maybe even higher. The actual investment itself, as I raised it in the House, you will recall, about a week ago, was about $270,000. What has happened is that Lax, speculating, purchased some land and the water lots and this speculation has resulted in a lot of problems for the city of Hamilton.

You will recall, Mr. Minister, I’m sure, that about two years ago we were having a rather serious problem in Hamilton with regard to jurisdiction over the harbour and the discussion over who should have the authority to purchase and sell land. I raised with the government, at that time, one of the basic problems. That was that the harbour commission, in spite of its best efforts, obviously saw itself as the owner of the entire harbour. They took to themselves that they had the sole jurisdiction to purchase and dispose of land. The Lax property that the member for Hamilton Mountain has just finished speaking about is obviously an integral part of the particular harbour property we are talking about.

To begin with, I think that expropriation at anything resembling market value would be totally wrong. If there is to be any move at all by the government, it has to be either a freeze on the land, which guarantees it will never devalue at all -- and that sounds pretty harsh -- or a simple offer to purchase the land from Lax at a cost not to exceed the cost that he has incurred in acquiring and developing it.

He had no right to expect in the first instance that he should be able to build on that land. He had no right to expect that he should be allowed to fill the water lots. He shouldn’t have been allowed to fill the water lots, and I am sure the minister will recall that I raised with the then Minister of the Environment -- I think it was the member for Halton West (Mr. Kerr) at the time -- the problems of using the kind of fill that Lax was using. He was using much of what was torn out of an old roadbed on the side of the Hamilton mountain. A lot of it was tar macadam and the like; it wasn’t really very satisfactory fill in the first place.

But the jurisdiction over those water lots has to be taken away from the Hamilton Harbour Commission -- not only those, but all of the others. The Hamilton Harbour Commission’s function should be to look after the harbour itself; to maintain access and to develop the harbour in whatever way it sees fit for the purposes of shipping.

The minister is going to be faced, if I may say so, not only with the proposition of acquiring the land that the member for Hamilton Mountain was talking about, but also acquiring additional land immediately adjacent to die existing beach strip properties. Because the harbour commission, for reasons which only they understand, entered into a swap arrangement with the Steel Co. of Canada. They have given over a number of water lots, again stretching far out into the bay, in return for some water lots immediately adjacent to the beach strip.

Now the minister is going to be asked, I am fairly sure, some time within the next 12 months, by his colleague, the Minister of Transportation and Communications (Mr. Rhodes), and perhaps by his colleague, the Minister of Natural Resources, to ac- quire as much of the property on the beach that can be acquired, if not all; and that will include the land I am talking about, these water lots and some of the lots where the filling has occurred.

Before you enter into that, I think you should make your position known in terms of the policy of the matter and say that you are going to acquire it. Then you should negotiate with the people who currently live on the beach strip to assure them a fair return for their property; and it should take into consideration a lot of things that you may not be prepared to take into consideration. For instance what happens to someone whose entire livelihood was centred on sup- plying a particular variety store type of service for those people who no longer will live there?

All those things are considerations.

One of the primary things to be done is that if you are asked to acquire the waterlot properties, you are going to have to make a policy decision in the cabinet to acquire total jurisdiction over the bay.

Now, because I suspect it’s part of the bed of navigable waters, that may require some kind of arrangement with the federal government. But for the purpose of development of the land itself, I think that its necessary that it be vested in the Province of Ontario, as opposed to being left in the hands of the harbour commission, or part of it with the city of Hamilton, or perhaps some of it in private hands and some of it under the jurisdiction of the federal government.

I am really quite eager that you not get sucked into paying the kind of prices that are going to be demanded of you in order to acquire this land.

The land that the member for Hamilton Mountain is talking about is not worth more than $300,000 at the outside; and I am being generous. It may not be worth more than $250,000, but I am going to be extremely generous tonight and say that if you paid $300,000, I wouldn’t argue. But I am going to tell you that if you have to go to an appraiser, and that appraiser has to somehow or other evaluate the market value of that property, the market value of the property, assuming its highest and best use, will almost certainly be $7 million, and that is an awful lot of money. That’s an awful lot of money for a piece of property that could never be developed, because the zoning for the property will not allow it to be developed. I urge the minister to --

Hon. Mr. Snow: May I ask a question? How can the hon. member say the “highest and best use” when he says the zoning of the property won’t allow it to be developed?

First of all, I am not familiar with the particular piece of property in question, and we have not been requested by the Ministry of Natural Resources as of yet to purchase it, I don’t believe.

Mr. Deans: What I am saying is that the land initially was water lots. It was then filled. It is immediately adjacent to both industrial and residential land. Regardless of whether it were to be sold for industrial or residential, its value would be in the $7 million bracket. It might be higher, in fact, if it were industrial, but it certainly would not be less than $6.5 million to $7 million on the market.

The problem with it is that the city, at least at this point -- and nobody can tell what they might want to do at some future time -- is not of a mind to permit zoning which would be compatible with either of those two uses. Does that make sense to the minister? It doesn’t mean, though, that at some other point Lax couldn’t appeal to the Ontario Municipal Board, for example, and say that he had been unfairly treated because his land is adjacent to land currently being used for either residential or industrial purposes and that he should be permitted to develop it as other lands along the same strip are being developed. I think that if the minister is going to sit back and wait too long, he will likely get drawn into the game of trying to establish some fair value for the property, and that fair value is going to be many millions of dollars.

I suppose, really, what I am saying here is this: That if by some chance the suggestion of the hon. member for Hamilton West to the hon. Minister of Natural Resources is undertaken by the government, and the minister is asked to purchase that land, if the government pays more than $300,000 for it, they are paying too much -- even though its value in accordance with the value of all other land around there may well be considerably higher. But Lax has only $212,000 invested in it and of this amount a great percentage is in an option to purchase, an option which runs out on Dec. 30 of this year.

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. Deans: So this minister has a major problem ahead of him. If he starts dickering with them now, they will simply exercise their option, in which they have something like $10,000 invested, in order to acquire the full occupancy of the land in order to sell it to the government for $4 million or $5 million. So the government is going to have to find a way around that problem. Don’t get taken in by it, that’s all.

Mr. J. R. Breithaupt (Kitchener): I hope they don’t read Hansard.

Mr. Chairman: The member for Wellington South is next.

Does the minister want to reply to that?

Hon. Mr. Snow: I will certainly take note of the suggestions of the member for Hamilton Mountain and the member for Wentworth and if and when we are requested to purchase this land by the other ministries then we will certainly look at all the details surrounding the value of the land.

But I must say that under the protection of the Expropriation Act -- if it has to go through expropriation -- this Act was designed to protect the property owner. I don’t think we can say that it should protect property owner A and not property owner B. But we will certainly take a long look at the zoning. A lot will depend on how the city decides to zone the land; whether Mr. Lax is able to appeal that decision; and what type of zoning he might end up with at the Ontario Municipal Board. This, of course, will have a major impact on the value of any piece of land.

Now, I am not talking about this piece specifically, because I told the hon. members that I am not familiar with this particular piece of landfill. But I will certainly make myself familiar with it, if we get a request to purchase it.

Mr. Chairman: The member for Wellington South.

Mr. H. Worton (Wellington South): Mr. Chairman, I’d like to have the views of the minister on two or three items as they pertain to the area that I represent.

Over the past two years there has been representation made by the city of Guelph following a directive from the Guelph Police Commission in regards to establishing some new court buildings in Guelph to serve the area. I notice in your book here that you have certain items approved for design. It was my understanding that you were considering some of the county buildings, but this would lead me to believe that you are just talking about putting up some new buildings.

The second item is the fact that we have a registry office in Guelph and while it isn’t too many years old -- I think about 20 years old -- it’s badly in need of improvements. The staff are handicapped by the lack of adequate facilities and I think in the past year they’ve got considerably behind with their registration work. I would like to have your views on that.

The third item is in regard to disposal of property. I think a few years ago when the then Minister of Correctional Institutions (Mr. Grossman) was in charge, he decided to dispose of a number of acres of the land that was involved with the correctional centre there. I think there can be a just case made for disposing of the properties on the boundary line roads, but there’s one area that I am concerned about, as to whether you should dispose of it. I think it can be used for public purposes, and that’s the property at the rear of the institution, on the Stone Rd. I question whether you should let the population, whether it be industry or residential development, get that close to the main buildings.

I would like you to have a second look. I think the property on the Victoria Rd. side and on the Watson Rd. side can be certainly classed as excess property now that there is no farming operation. I would like to have your views on those three items that I have raised.

Hon. Mr. Snow: Mr. Chairman, we have had preliminary talks with the county as to the possibility of purchasing from the county of Wellington the present county facilities. We have completed appraisals. We have been awaiting the county to have their own appraisal completed, and I’m just advised that that has now been completed and that we will probably be negotiating with the county next week as to whether we can purchase their existing facilities. Apparently the county are quite interested in selling their facilities to us and, I guess, building a new place to suit their needs better, as we are occupying quite a bit of their space now.

If we are successful in purchasing that property then we will be making the necessary alterations there, if I understand it, to include the provincial courts that are now in the police building, I believe. The city would like us to vacate the police building and we are working at all these different things. I guess if we are not able to make any arrangements with the county as far as their complex is concerned, then we will have to consider a new provincial court building perhaps.

As for the registry office in Guelph, to my knowledge we have no programme for the replacement of the registry office or no request from the --

Mr. Worton: No, not replacement. I think getting some new, improved facilities within the building and --

Hon. Mr. Snow: Is it in the present county complex too?

Mr. Worton: It’s part of that, in that, area, yes.

Hon. Mr. Snow: If we purchase that, then our alterations there would include the expansion of the present registry office. I just know that we don’t have it as a separate project in our capital programmes.

The land that the hon. member refers to at the Guelph Reformatory; there is a large amount of land there that has been declared surplus, something in the neighbourhood of 700 acres, as I recall it. We have had discussions. In fact, I had a very excellent meeting about a month or six weeks ago with the mayor of Guelph, his planners, engineers, some representatives from the university, I think probably the warden of the county, I just can’t recall who else, but there were 10 or a dozen people from Guelph met to discuss this property and they were of the opinion that only one portion of the property was surplus to our needs. That was the 250-acre portion on the west side of the reformatory, over by the Pine Ridge School or whatever the name of it is. That’s where the orchard is at the present time.

When we got together and started discussing it, they were made aware of the fact that there was a total of about 700 acres. I suggested to the mayor that we should look at the overall parcel and not at one parcel individually. I might say I also had a representative of the conservation authority there and a representative of the conservation authorities branch of the Ministry of Natural Resources. The administrator of the correctional institute was on the trip, too, and outlined plans he has for making the parkland along Highway 7 much more available to the public and more like a public park than the front lawn of the reformatory.

We discussed the possibility of making land down the river, the lowlands, available to the conservation authority for recreational purposes and the possible use of other lands for both housing and industrial uses. The administrator of the institution was quite interested in the possibility of some industries locating there which could use the services of some of the inmates on a temporary absence or daily basis.

The way it was left, Mr. Chairman, was the mayor of Guelph and his delegation went back home. They were to take a long look at the overall property from a planning point of view and were to get back to me. Since then I have had a letter from the mayor saying they were doing this; they were working on it and they would be back with, they hoped, some suggestions for the overall use of this 700 acres of land. I hope we are able to work out some plan which is mutually beneficial to both the city of Guelph and the government and makes proper use of the land now owned by the taxpayers of Ontario.

Mr. Worton: Mr. Chairman, there is another item, while we are discussing that property. I think the minister is quite familiar with airport requirements. Adjoining the property the department owns we have a very active airport. Are there any safeguard’s put in for the club which is there in regard to landings? I think they have to have a setback of some 400 ft from the airstrip. Has any consideration been given to some protection for that individual user if the property is sold?

Hon. Mr. Snow: Mr. Chairman, when

Mayor -- Jubb, is it?

Mr. Worton: Pardon?

Hon. Mr. Snow: I am trying to think of the mayor’s name.

Mr. Worton: Jary.

Hon. Mr. Snow: Jary, yes. When the delegation was down, we did discuss the airport as the Ministry of Transportation and Communications had looked at the airport and was concerned about protection if the surplus land should be sold. This is a privately-owned airport.

I think I can safely say the Ministry of Transportation and Communications is interested in seeing some reasonable protection given to that facility. It’s a very valuable facility -- I happen to know; I use it every weekend, practically.

We did discuss with the city the possibility of that one parcel of land being used partly, perhaps, as industrial land and wondered whether a portion of it could be leased to the airport for a period of years, say, as long as the airport was there. It should not be dis- posed of nor sold but perhaps leased for air- port purposes. If, in 10 or 20 years’ time, the present owner of that airport decides to make it into an industrial plaza or something, this land would not have been sold; it would revert back. This is under consideration. I discussed this with the mayor of Guelph. He was quite receptive to the idea and agreed that there should be some protection for the airport.

Mr. Worton: Mr. Chairman, I might say that your ministry, under the previous minister, was very co-operative when it came to expanding on an east-west runway. I sincerely hope that you will continue in this spirit because it is a very important operation for a number of business people.

Now, the other issue that I wanted to raise is that you have acquired a good many acres in Pilkington township. The question that is raised that the Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. Stewart) is aware of and I hope you are aware of is that the township of Pilkington is continuing to lose tax dollars on that property. They have had a few new roads which they appreciate very much, but they are losing about $5,000 or $6,000 a year in taxes. I hope that there can be some policy worked out with your department and the Ministry of Agriculture and Food to provide some additional tax money for the property taxes they have lost in that regard.

The other item that I’d like to raise is how many acres have you bought in the parkway belt for the $17 million. How much do you propose to purchase in that area for $17 million?

Hon. Mr. Snow: Well, to answer your first question, I believe the land at the Flora research station is the land to which you refer as far as the taxes are concerned. I can understand the problem there and I assure the hon. member that every consideration is being given to a policy that will alleviate the inequity which exists at the present time.

Regarding the purchase in the parkway belt, there has been no land purchased as of this date, but there is $17 million in our estimates for the purchase of land in the parkway belt area.

Mr. Chairman: The member for Yorkview.

Mr. F. Young (Yorkview): Mr. Chairman, the question that I had in mind has been largely answered, I think -- the $7 million increase this year is largely for purchases within the parkway belt. Has the minister any other plans for the purchase of land in the province, any amount at all? It seems to me that if we are going to simply confine the $17 million to the parkway belt, then it leaves them no leeway to purchase land elsewhere for house building or any kind of price control anywhere.

Hon. Mr. Snow: Well, Mr. Chairman, the total in my estimates for land acquisition is almost $30 million. I am sure the hon. member recognizes that. There is $29,959,600, which is an increase from about $12 million over last --

Mr. Young: That’s $17 million extra.

Hon. Mr. Snow: The $17 million is for parkway belt land. We still have the $12 million-odd for normal purchases. Now this, again, does not include the purchase of parkland for the Ministry of Natural Resources. Although we purchase that land, the money for those purchases is in its budget and I am sure it is being discussed down in the other chamber at this moment. But the $10 million to $12 million is for the acquisition of land -- not land for housing; housing purchases are within the Ministry of Housing -- but for public buildings and general land acquisition for new facilities. In some cases it includes the purchase of existing buildings; for in- stance, the county building at Guelph. If it is purchased, it would be out of the $12 million that is separate from the $17 million.

Mr. Young: Then does it mean that housing land does not appear at all in your budget, although you do the work of actually purchasing it?

Hon. Mr. Snow: No, there is no money in our budget for acquisition of land for housing; and up to this time we have not purchased land for housing. In some cases we have sold land to the Ontario Housing Corp. for specific projects -- land that was surplus to our needs. We sold 100 acres of surplus land at the Bowmanville training school to the Ontario Housing Corp. to develop a subdivision. But normally we do not buy land -- or have not in the past bought land for housing.

Mr. Young: In effect, then, your purchases are largely for public buildings and that sort of thing? Parkland is purchased by one department, housing land by another department; and in addition to the $17 million you are going to spend on the parkway belt, the $12 million is largely spent on land for public purposes such as public buildings and that sort of thing. Is that correct.

Hon. Mr. Snow: That is right, but we may purchase $10 million, $12 million or $15 million worth of land for the Minister of Natural Resources each year as well. I am not too sure what his budget-

Mr. Young: But that will not appear in your budget.

Hon. Mr. Snow: It will not appear in my budget; it will be in the budget of the Minister of Natural Resources.

Mr. Young: And he pays for this land.

Hon. Mr. Snow: We do the purchasing, and we requisition the funds from his ministry to pay for the land when the deal closes.

Mr. Chairman: The member for Sarnia.

Mr. Bullbrook: Following up on this, Mr. Chairman, I take it I am correct in saying that the particular expenditures that the minister has given to us to vote on relate to the provision of accommodation for other ministries or his own and don’t relate, for example, to the acquisition of property with respect to Pickering or, as my colleague from Yorkview has mentioned, in connection with his ministry’s acquisitions of parkland for the Ministry of Natural Resources. Am I correct in that assumption?

Hon. Mr. Snow: That is basically right.

Mr. Bullbrook: Then I take it with some validity, from the actual expenditures of your ministry in 1972 with respect to land acquisition that you are going to elevate your requirements by something in excess of 500 per cent over the amounts that were expended in the fiscal year 1972-1973. You are going from $5.7 million up to about $30 million. That bears the message I want to ask you about.

I think my colleague who led off for our party, the member for Essex South (Mr. Paterson), mentioned the question of the public accounts committee meeting that was held a week ago last Thursday -- I attended it -- wherein someone from your ministry was there to make an explanation with respect to the expenditures of $154,000 for vacant premises. I was taken with the explanation, and I want to say, although I thought it was a little significant, I do recognize the difficulty that your ministry has with respect to accommodating your client ministries.

Now, it is in connection with your philosophy of what your ministry does that I want to question you, because at that time I brought up the involvement of your ministry in the acquisition of the Moog proposal for the provision of OISE facilities at the corner of St. George and Bloor Sts. It is with respect to that type of undertaking that I am interested in knowing what you, as a minister, feel your obligation to be with respect to the client ministries for whom you deal.

During the course of my questioning of your ministry official, I took up again -- probably in a nauseating fashion, because we have talked about it so many times -- the question of why it seems to be the purpose of your client ministries to locate in some of the highest land value areas, not in the Province of Ontario, but in the Dominion of Canada. And it is not only applicable to lease-purchase arrangements, but also to straight lease arrangements.

When one looks at your expenditure this year of some $38.5 million with respect to lease arrangements, one would like to know for a moment what the capital value is of that type of lease, straight lease or lease-purchase arrangement. That value must be pretty well nudging the billion-dollar figure, I would think.

I want to talk about your involvement with OISE and what your involvement is going to be. With the greatest respect to your ministry -- you smile and I can recognize the reason you smile -- you were brought into OISE because of a peculiar set of circumstances with respect to the financing of that undertaking. We are all familiar with it, especially those of us who sat on the select committee with respect to the investigation of the head office facilities at Hydro.

Your man said to me last week, “Yes, Mr. Bullbrook, we do take issue with the locations with respect to our client ministries.” I want you to give me some idea of what you do with respect to your responsibility to the public purse.

When a ministry comes along and says, “We have a deal to locate OISE at the comer of Bloor and St. George Sts. It is going to be a lease-purchase arrangement which will fund itself out over 30 years at a cost to the provincial Treasury of some $60 million; it seems to me, were I Minister of Government Services, I would want to undertake with my colleague, the Minister of Education, or my colleague, the Minister of Colleges and Universities, (1) the propriety of that location; (2) alternative locations; (3) the validity of the proposal method.

I am going to sit down now and ask you to explain to me what the philosophy of your ministry is in this connection. I’d like you to give me examples, if you could, to support your philosophy especially if your philosophy is, as I hope it to be, that you take issue with your client ministries at times in connection with location.

Hon. Mr. Snow: My philosophy, Mr. Chairman, is that I don’t want any client ministry to be going around making deals on any corner for any building and then coming to me as Minister of Government Services and saying, “Here is the deal.” That’s not the responsibility of my ministry.

What I want is the information of the requirements of the client ministry or the board or the commission; then it is the responsibility of my ministry to produce space suitable, we hope, for the client ministry. It is quite possible we would come up with several alternatives and with recommendations as to space which would suitably accommodate their needs.

We do this all over the Province of Ontario, not only in downtown Toronto. If a ministry needs a new office in Windsor or Sarnia or wherever it may be, we will investigate the locations or the office space; if it’s a lease deal, we will investigate the space for lease and make recommendations to the ministry. If it is a large enough requirement, we will advertise publicly in the newspaper that we need this space so that anyone who has space available can put it forward.

Normally, in leasing some kind of a subjective judgement has to be made because all spaces are not equal. One space may be out in the boondocks somewhere and be totally inadequate to serve the Ministry of Community and Social Services, for instance, which needs to be downtown on a public transit route where its clients can find it.

We take all these things into consideration. I am the first to admit sometimes there are disputes or disagreements with the client ministries as to where they think they should be or what space they should have and the space we have to offer them or recommend to them.

Mr. Bullbrook: Am I correct in assuming that the person who has the ultimate decision-making responsibility is the Minister of Government Services?

Hon. Mr. Snow: No, I don’t think you would be correct in that statement.

Mr. Bullbrook: Now we are getting to the nub of it.

Hon. Mr. Snow: Normally, I would think you are correct. We assess the space and we may have many reasons unbeknownst to the client ministry for putting different spaces together, working out terminations of leases, where we are going to be building new buildings, but when we do come into an area of conflict between a client ministry and our recommendation, then that area of conflict is settled by Management Board.

Mr. Bullbrook: It is settled ultimately by Management Board? Would I be invading the privacy of your high office by asking you on how many occasions during the last fiscal year there was a conflict between your ministry and the client ministry as to the provision of accommodation that was settled by Management Board?

Hon. Mr. Snow: There was no conflict in the last fiscal year that I can recall.

Mr. Bullbrook: No, I assumed that there was none. The problem I want to discuss basically hearkens back to the OISE situation. I reiterate for the sake of clarity. Your ministry came in almost like a slaughtered sheep in that situation, because it was a fait accompli as far as your ministry is concerned.

Hon. Mr. Snow: What building are you talking about?

Mr. Bullbrook: The OISE building. Do you agree with me? It had already been done by the Minister of Education.

Hon. Mr. Snow: That I can’t comment on, because --

Mr. Bullbrook: Would you care to take it up with your officials, recognizing that you weren’t the minister at the time?

Hon. Mr. Snow: We’re now referring to about three ministers back.

Mr. Bullbrook: Yes. It is a tremendously good example of the insensitivity of some of your predecessors toward their responsibility in expending public funds, because you see, of all the buildings that stand out as being mislocated, and a waste of public funds, that OISE building is the prime example.

But I can’t for the life of me understand if government is adopting a policy -- and I don’t want to be deflected by talking about Sarnia or Windsor -- and I don’t defame Windsor by saying they are smaller places -- I think you do a very good, conscientious job in attempting to locate.

I want to say to you, you have your friends. But if I were in your position, I would have my friends. I throw no so-called brickbats at you. The fact that people like John Stonehouse, one of the big Tory hacks in Sarnia, gets most of the building is understandable. If we were in, it might well be one of the Liberal hacks, I don’t know, so it isn’t in that context that I want to speak to you, it is in the context --

Hon. A. Grossman (Provincial Secretary for Resources Development): Is that what you say about your friends? They are hacks?

Mr. Bullbrook: We know what goes on. We know the self-perpetuating devices --

Hon. Mr. Grossman: They won’t like that.

Mr. Bullbrook: We know that government on no level is pure. I am very much concerned.

OISE is a prime example. You sit back in a negative posture, understandably negative, wanting to wash your hands of that particular responsibility. But, you see, it was done by this government, and it was done by your portfolio, and I can’t for the life of me understand why your government continues to resist, with its boards, its agencies, its ministries, this question of centralization that has been brought up every year by the Leader of the Opposition.

Is there something sacrosanct in having the Minister of Energy (Mr. McKeough) and his portfolio housed downtown? Is there something particular about the Ministry of the Environment that has an affinity to this area? Is there some reason why we must go to the Travelers Building to supply the Ministry of Labour with its accommodation -- improbably the most intensively valued land in Canada? This is all we ask on the opposition side. If the Ministry of Government Services says to us that it undertakes with significant resistance, and from a point of view of significant subjectivity, its client ministries -- which I say to you, frankly, I must say to you, I don’t believe it -- in the last fiscal year Management Board has not had one case to resolve. Let me sit down and ask you -- in the fiscal year 1971-1972 -- how many cases did Management Board have to resolve?

Hon. Mr. Snow: I am not so sure of the years that the member is quoting, but one specific one since I have been minister.

Mr. Bullbrook: One significant one. I’m wondering if the minister would regard it an invasion of his privacy if he would let me have a list of those disputes as to quality of accommodation or, more important, location with client ministries that were resolved by Management Board. Would that be possible?

Hon. Mr. Snow: Yes.

Mr. Bullbrook: So I have his undertaking to give it? Shall we say over the last four fiscal years?

Hon. Mr. Snow: I can’t recall beyond my term, of course, but --

Mr. Bullbrook: Would you feel it unfair of me to pick out four fiscal years, so that I can get some feeling as to what your ministry has done with respect to client ministries? We have some idea of what the capital programme has been, what the leasing programme has been, what the proposal programme has been, what the least-purchase programme has been and what the land acquisition programme is at present. I’m vitally concerned about what you say, because do you, as Minister of Government Services, see as a matter other than of convenience for the ministry -- or, more appropriately, for the minister himself -- any real reason why the Environment portfolio has to be in downtown Toronto?

Hon. Mr. Snow: Well, Mr. Chairman, the Environment minister’s offices -- I guess you’d call them in downtown Toronto -- are not in the Queen’s Park area --

Mr. Bullbrook: I’m not talking about the Queen’s Park area.

Hon. Mr. Snow: They are on St. Clair Ave. But Mr. Chairman, we will very shortly be complete in the movement of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications to Downsview.

Mr. Bullbrook: Right. A very good step.

Hon. Mr. Snow: That has taken place over a number of years and I’ve never really checked on who was responsible for that decision, but somebody made a good decision some number of years ago. I’m told many civil servants and perhaps some government members and ministers were not happy with that decision at that particular time. But that has turned out to be an excellent decision and now we have built a new office building at Downsview which will be completed next month in June. That will almost totally move the balance of T and C, which is in the Ferguson block, to Downsview, and bring some other scattered operations into the Downsview complex. That would just leave the minister’s office and room for some of his --

Mr. Bullbrook: Senior advisers.

Hon. Mr. Snow: -- senior staff or advisers down here. I think that’s an excellent plan. I take no credit for it. I’ve been able to help complete it.

Mr. Bullbrook: Well, your ministry can take credit for it, I hope.

Hon. Mr. Snow: But we have since bought the Scarborough municipal building on Eglinton Ave. out in Scarborough. We are remodelling that building and bringing it up to first-rate building standards. That will become the head office of the Ministry of Correctional Services. They will be totally --

Mr. Bullbrook: Good.

Hon. Mr. Snow: -- moved to Scarborough. The only offices they will have down here will be a few for the minister and his staff, which will be probably over in the Whitney block. I agree with this. We are looking at other possibilities for other ministries and other locations that can be used to disperse from the core area. But there are certain ministries I think do have to be down in the core area.

Mr. Bullbrook: I agree with that.

Hon. Mr. Snow: I don’t think you would want the Ministry of the Attorney General --

Mr. Bullbrook: I agree.

Hon. Mr. Snow: -- away out at Whitby or Oakville or somewhere.

Mr. Bullbrook: I agree.

Hon. Mr. Snow: They should be down here on University Ave.

Mr. Bullbrook: I agree.

Hon. Mr. Snow: Next door to Osgoode Hall and the courthouse and so on.

Mr. Bullbrook: You’ve got to stop it. I’m agreeing too much. If this is a change in direction, I commend you to it, Mr. Minister, because I picked out those particular ministries from the top of my head, which is not very difficult. Labour, for example, is not oriented towards this particular city or particular milieu that we live in. Energy likewise. I don’t necessarily ask you just to move Correctional Services to Scarborough. It might well serve the purposes of the government, even politically, to consider what has been espoused in this House previously -- to move the Ministry of Natural Resources to northern Ontario. I would think, frankly, as a person long since removed from northern Ontario, nothing would develop their esprit de province more than to have the head office of a ministry in northern Ontario.

I trust the deputy minister smiles because of my French and not because of the suggestion. It is an old suggestion but a very valid suggestion.

Hon. Mr. Snow: I didn’t smile because I didn’t understand it, that’s all.

Mr. Bullbrook: Esprit de province? That means that the people in Rainy River will not feel closer to Winnipeg than they do to Toronto, notwithstanding the tremendous distance between them.

Mr. Deans: Is that what it means?

Mr. Bullbrook: I want to say this to you, I leave you with these comments of commendation as to what is obviously a change in direction, shall I say, a vicarious type of chastisement because of the fact that your colleagues before you wouldn’t listen to this argument. They felt there was something very sanctified about their right to choose to have their colleagues downtown. You obviously are changing the mind. You obviously are developing another philosophy, because you see the important thing is this, that your obligation to pay out of the public purse for the accommodation continues, but you see their programmes go round and round, especially that of the Ministry of Education.

Every time they ask you to do something, begin with a negative response. I invite you to consider, every time the Ministry of Colleges and Universities asks you to do something, begin with a negative response because they are populated with programme building. For example, OISE -- I continue with OISE. That could have been begun in a most realistic fashion and could have had developed for them on the campus of some university in the Province of Ontario a beginning that would be a shadow of what took place in Berkeley.

But no. No, we had to go ahead because of the tremendous propulsion of those people, the senior advisers in those two ministries, and say we are going to have a grandiose type of adventure called the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education and the thing right now is atrophied. Everybody knows it is atrophying and you are locked in there for 30 years at $2 million a year. Your predecessor in title has locked you in. In sitting down, I invite that you consider, don’t be locked in again. Because more than any other portfolios in government those two will give it to you every time. Every time.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Hon. Mr. Snow: I don’t know whether I am supposed to reply to that advice or not --

Mr. Bullbrook: No, you are not supposed to reply. You are supposed to take the advice.

Hon. Mr. Snow: But, I must say that the requirements of the two ministries he refers to, I think both capital and lease-wise, are perhaps the lowest of any of our client ministries at the present time.

Mr. Bullbrook: Yes, they might well be the lowest. I’m not arguing whether they are the lowest or not.

Mr. W. Hodgson (York North): Good building.

Mr. Bullbrook: I’m giving you the advice that they’re the worst. Just come down some time and sit in during the estimates of the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Colleges and Universities. If you want to see money wasted -- like the community college programme, where you have in the past been involved in land acquisition -- get involved in that type of thing. See the tripling and quadrupling of land values where sufficient land was not acquired by the colleges themselves in the first instance. This is the advice I am giving you.

Mr. Chairman: The member for Essex-Kent.

Mr. R. F. Ruston (Essex-Kent): Yes, Mr. Chairman, I want to ask the minister if he has any office space leased in Commerce Court or the Toronto Dominion Centre.

Hon. Mr. Snow: I don’t think so. None, to my knowledge, in either the Commerce Court or the Toronto Dominion Centre, or any of the three towers, if we include Royal Trust.

Mr. Ruston: None whatsoever, eh? Okay. What about in your approval for designs on page 37 --

Hon. Mr. Snow: I might say the federal government has quite a bit leased in those buildings.

Mr. Ruston: They have, eh? I see. But you have none?

Mr. Deans: You might say that, or you are saying --

Mr. Ruston: Are you putting air tempering in the Quinte Regional Detention Centre, the Carleton Region Detention Centre and the Niagara Regional Detention Centre? Is this continuation of your construction or is this new work being done in there?

Hon. Mr. Snow: Well, this is in addition to the mechanical systems for those buildings, when they were designed. They are relatively new detention centres. Two of them have been opened since I was minister. At the time they were built the air tempering was not included as part of the mechanical system and it is now being added.

Mr. Ruston: You are putting air conditioning systems into them now?

Hon. Mr. Snow: It is not, as I understand it, technically air-conditioning as in an air-conditioned office building. It is --

Mr. Ruston: Air changes.

Hon. Mr. Snow: -- an air changing and cooling system. There is cooling involved, too, but it is not a complete atmospheric control like you have in an office.

Mr. Ruston: Okay, that’s all.

Mr. Chairman: The member for Wentworth.

Mr. Deans: Thank you. I want to know something about the government’s use of the developer proposal method for building. You will recall that the select committee that looked into the Hydro head office building made a recommendation. I’ll read it to you so that we all know what I am talking about.

Hon. Mr. Snow: Well it may save the member some time, we don’t use the developer proposal system.

Mr. Deans: Oh, you don’t. Good. Well, I am still interested in discussing it with you. While you may not use it, obviously some of these other agencies who are responsible to us do. We recommend that, in fact, if the government felt it was financially or otherwise advantageous -- because we were unable to make that determination -- that, of course, it should be used. Whatever is the best method of getting things done should be the method that we use.

But we also said that guidelines should be established by the government, I presume by your ministry, for any use to which this was to be put and that the guidelines should specifically require the developer to make complete disclosure as a condition of dealing with a public body.

I wonder, since that recommendation was made in September of last year, whether this matter has come under discussion by your ministry with an eye to setting out some guidelines to be used by other government agencies in the event that they should decide again to use a developer proposal method for the development of any of the facilities that they may want to see built.

If they have been discussed by the ministry, just exactly in what direction are you taking in this regard? Could we get an indication whether you feel that it is practical and reasonable to adopt a recommendation of this kind -- to work out a set of guidelines -- so that commissions and boards would understand the implications of whatever it is they are going to do. And could you tell us the view of the government with regard to the kinds and types of disclosures that ought to be made to the agencies in the event that they should ever again be involved in that kind of development?

Hon. Mr. Snow: I am not sure to what type of disclosure the hon. member is referring. I had some experience in the proposal call or developer proposal system during the three years that I spent as a director of Ontario Housing Corp. A great deal of the corporation’s work was by the developer proposal system and there was a very detailed guideline or performance specification. Under it, you don’t specify a particular building on a particular site, but you specify a certain quality of building and a certain performance standard. This, I think, worked very well for Ontario Housing. We do not use it; we do build some buildings under the leaseback proposal, but we acquire the sites ourselves, design the buildings ourselves and call the tenders for buildings to be built according to these designs. That is the way we are doing leasebacks at this moment.

We have the two buildings in Thunder Bay which are under construction now on leaseback. One is the courthouse which is just completed; I think they are moving into it today or tomorrow. The other is the so-called mini-Queen’s Park which we’ve all heard so much about; that will be finished this December. In those cases we bought the land and we designed the buildings to a sort of sketch plan stage -- an outline drawing -- and then asked the bidders to bid on them on that basis.

It worked out quite satisfactorily but you do have bidders bidding on different qualities of buildings. You have one with a better mechanical system than another; one might have better outside cladding than another; the theory of that system is to leave a certain amount of leeway for the builder himself who may have more expertise in pre-cast concrete work than in brick work. In Thunder Bay bricks aren’t readily available so maybe the builder wants to use pre-cast concrete; we don’t specify that and we leave it up to them.

It does still leave a certain amount of subjective judgement to be made at the end as to does one fellow’s better something-or-other make up for the few dollars more he may be in price?

Mr. Deans: Yes, that’s true.

Hon. Mr. Snow: We have changed this policy and we are designing the building totally to our standards now and then calling for tenders to build the building and lease it to us.

Mr. Deans: Of course, the other day I suggested to you that the development of building ought to be done through your ministry in any event. I am assuming for the time being that won’t happen immediately. I don’t quite understand and I didn’t understand during the umpteen weeks -- I don’t know how many there were but there was a long time of hearings -- how one evaluated the value and worth under the developer proposal method. I never could quite come to grips with how you knew whether you were getting a $20 million building, a $30 million building or a $38 million building because somehow or other it seemed to be left in the developer’s hands to determine the value of the components.

While you could look at certain things and you knew that I-beams were valued at X number of dollars and concrete pillars were worth so much, you never really could tell what the actual building itself was worth. You could get an appraised value but that didn’t take into account really what it cost to build it. It simply took into account what it might be worth if you were to sell it at some given point in time.

We became quite concerned that the area was so fuzzy and the science so inexact that it was virtually impossible for anyone to sit down and really determine what you were getting for your dollars. I think that’s a fair thing to say about that hearing and about the way in which the developer proposal method was used by Hydro. I am not suggesting they were taken. I don’t know; I have no idea. All I am suggesting is that because we were unable to find out, because, in spite of the best evidence given to us, the conflicting evidence was so great -- and there was so much conflict throughout the entire hearing with regard to value and worth, which are two entirely different things -- we had a lot of problems sorting out whether Hydro got a good or a bad deal. I suspect they didn’t do too well but that is my own view.

With that in mind we recommended that the government ought to develop some guidelines for any future use of developer proposal methods. I think what you are suggesting is the perfect guideline. There should be an acquisition of property; there should be, further, the development of the plans and specifications to a final point so mat all you are doing is saying, “We want you to build us this.” Then an evaluation can be made quite quickly as to the actual value both in terms of product put into the development and resale value of the finished product.

If the minister were going to do that, if he were going to follow through on what he said is now being done by the ministry in the development of buildings for the use of other ministries and for his own ministry’s use, I would like to suggest that it should be a matter of government policy that that same proposal be put to all the boards and com- missions who currently have the power to develop on their own. I would suggest that as a matter of government policy, that’s how a building should be undertaken by them to ensure that public funds are not wasted. There should be a provision in any future use of developer proposals that the developer has to clearly set out for the use of the agency involved the actual builder’s cost for building the building.

In this way we can clearly see whether or not we are getting a reasonable building at a reasonable price; or whether we are getting -- as some would obviously claim -- an exceptional building at a reasonable price; or for that matter, a somewhat less than exceptional building at an unreasonable price.

I would first like to know if the minister has even read the recommendation; not him personally, but anybody in his ministry. I am curious if they took the time to look at the recommendation; took the time to look at the amount of evidence that was presented with regard to the development of that building that is on the comer of University and College, with an eye to seeing whether or not there were errors made during the entire process from the day it was first conceived in the brain of somebody in Hydro, to the day that it was finally given over to Canada Square for building purposes and the contracts were signed.

Can the minister tell me whether, in fact, anyone within his ministry was charged with the responsibility of reviewing the evidence of that particular facility to determine for his own satisfaction -- as the minister in charge of these kinds of developments for government purposes -- whether or not Hydro’s procedures were reasonable? I am not asking him to tell me if they were reasonable, I am asking him if anybody did review it?

Hon. Mr. Snow: I didn’t designate anyone specifically, Mr. Chairman, to review all the procedures of Hydro, or the findings of the select committee. I personally took a keen interest --

Mr. Deans: We all did.

Hon. Mr. Snow: -- and I kept up to date pretty well with both the points made by Hydro and the recommendations of the committee. However, we had no real reason to review it, since my ministry was not involved with the building of that building, nor were we asked to be. In defence of the system, the member says there is no way of knowing what you are getting.

Mr. Deans: That’s right.

Hon. Mr. Snow: If you know what you are doing, you know what you are getting; because the staff in my ministry can tell me what a building is going to cost within a very fine margin, whether it is a leaseback building or a capital project. We estimate every one of these jobs and know what the capital cost is going to be.

Mr. Deans: The minister realizes that in the case of Hydro they were unable to make a judgement and that’s why, of course, they shouldn’t have done the thing in the first place. That’s why this ministry should have done it; but that’s another story for another day.

Hon. Mr. Snow: Another story for another day; right.

Mr. Deans: We have spent the $44 million or $45 million now, so there is no point in rehashing that. But what I am concerned about is: Can I ask the minister if he will have someone -- whoever does these things within his ministry -- take a look at that particular recommendation to see whether it is possible, in conjunction with government policy, to set out some guidelines? This would be in the event that any other government agency should ever decide that they want to use the developer proposal method for acquiring a head office or any other office, or any other building for that matter, for their own use.

I think the government has a responsibility in that regard. I know that the claim up until this last few months was that Hydro was distinctly separate from government and ran its own show.

Obviously that wasn’t entirely so. There was a great deal of relationship between government and the Hydro development and the Hydro offices. I think it’s basically true of the Workmen’s Compensation Board too in the development they’re undertaking.

They’re not the only ones. Over the course of the next 10 or 15 years there is going to be any number of them doing the same kinds of things unless there’s a drastic change in policy. Assuming that change won’t take place, I think it would be useful if you would get a policy decision from your colleagues with regard to how any agency, board or commission, operating independently of the government, should be permitted to develop any facilities that it wants to develop and to set out the guidelines clearly, so that there can’t be a repetition of what occurred down the street.

Mr. Chairman: The hon. member for Windsor-Walkerville.

Mr. B. Newman (Windsor-Walkerville): Mr. Chairman, I wanted to ask of the minister on the development of the provincial public building in the city of Windsor, is that through sketch planning or is it with the final plans developed by your department and then tenders called on your specifications?

Hon. Mr. Snow: The complete plans, working plans and specifications, are being prepared now ready for a tender call in August.

Mr. B. Newman: When is it anticipated that the building will be completed?

Hon. Mr. Snow: There are a lot of variables in here, depending upon how many strikes we have or material shortages. There are many things, but I would estimate that that building would take about a year. After the contract is awarded, it should be built in about a year.

Mr. B. Newman: Thank you, Mr. Minister. I want to ask of the minister at the same time, Mr. Chairman, in the addition to the Essex county courthouse, is it contemplated that tenders will be called this year?

Hon. Mr. Snow: I would doubt it, because I think we’re just in the planning stages on that project. Dec. 15 is the preliminary estimate for the tender call on that.

Mr. B. Newman: Of this year?

Hon. Mr. Snow: Dec. 15, 1974, yes.

Mr. B. Newman: I asked the Attorney General (Mr. Welch) that question during his estimates. His reply to me was: “It is my understanding of the Windsor situation that it is anticipated that tender call will be made this year for the addition.” Then that is correct?

Hon. Mr. Snow: It is correct.

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

Hon. Mr. Snow: He would never lead you astray.

Mr. Chairman: Does vote 702 carry?

Mr. H. Edighoffer (Perth): Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman: On vote 702 or vote 703?

Mr. Edighoffer: No, you were just looking across the way there.

Mr. Chairman: On vote 702, the hon. member for Perth.

Mr. Edighoffer: Mr. Chairman, I just have a couple of brief questions regarding the capital works programme. I find it most confusing to read these books on capital works.

Hon. Mr. Snow: You found them confusing last year and we changed them so you wouldn’t find them confusing this year.

Mr. Edighoffer: I did mention it because it was confusing then and I find that it’s very similar this year.

I’m just wondering if you could take, for instance, the alterations to the legislative buildings down here. I think our leadoff speaker made mention of this the other day. As I see the book this year, the estimated project cost is $2,065,000. That’s the estimated project cost. The contract price is $1,816,000. Each year for the last three years, it has been considerably different. What is the total project cost down there?

Hon. Mr. Snow: Mr. Chairman, it all depends. The estimated project cost is as per the blue book here which is $2,065,000. That includes all the architects’ fees, the additional mechanical work that is being done and the supervision costs. That would also, I presume, include furniture and furnishings.

Mr. D. A. Paterson (Essex South): Great chairs!

Hon. Mr. Snow: What happened to the chairs?

Mr. Paterson: They’re falling apart.

Hon. Mr. Snow: I’m sure the supplier will be hearing about that.

Mr. Edighoffer: How is this budgeted for? When you go through the last three years and total up what’s been budgeted each year, it just doesn’t come near that total.

Hon. Mr. Snow: The budget has had to be increased. As I explained the other night, a great deal of additional mechanical work was carried out that was never anticipated in the first place. All the drains under the floor are 80 or 90 years old, and they were found to be corroded and all had to be replaced. There are a complete new communications system, telephone system, telephone room. and complete new transformer rooms and the main switchboards for the whole building have been completely replaced. A great deal of work is included in this $2 million figure that really has nothing to do with the actual building alterations that you see when you go down into the basement level.

The installation of air conditioning equipment and air conditioning pipes in the ceilings for the future air conditioning of the rest of this building was carried out at the time those alterations were done. This building never had a sprinkler system before. It now has a complete new sprinkler system covering the full basement level.

Mr. Chairman: Vote 702?

Mr. Edighoffer: No, I have some more questions.

Mr. Chairman: If you have more questions you will have to leave them until the next time.

Hon. Mr. Winkler moves that 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 progress and asks for leave to sit again.

Report agreed to.

Hon. E. A. Winkler (Chairman, Management Board of Cabinet): Mr. Speaker, before the adjournment of the House I would say that tomorrow we will proceed as announced last Thursday evening, the first item being item No. 2, Bill 25.

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

Motion agreed to.

The House adjourned at 10:35 o’clock, p.m.