Legislative Assembly of Ontario

The House met at 2 o’clock, p.m.

Prayers.

Mr. J. Lane (Algoma-Manitoulin): Mr. Speaker, I would like to introduce to you and the members of this House, 60 grade 8 students from Elliot Lake. Mr. Maloney and five other adults are in charge of this group; they are seated in the east gallery. Could we extend our welcome to them at this time?

Mr. B. Gilbertson (Algoma): Mr. Speaker, I would like to introduce to the House, 30 students from the great riding of Algoma, from Prince Township Public School. The person in charge is Mr. L. Cowell.

Mr. E. J. Bounsall (Windsor West): Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to introduce to the House today 27 students from General Brock School along with three of their teachers under the direction of Mr. Ken Vickers from the city of Windsor. I hope that you, sir, and the Legislature will give them a warm welcome.

Mr. Speaker: Statements by the ministry.

LAND PURCHASES IN HALDIMAND-NORFOLK

Hon. J. White (Treasurer and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): Mr. Speaker, yesterday the suggestion was made to me that the documentary information relating to the average cost per acre, and the documentary evidence concerning the consortium’s expenses on the assembly might be made public, and I agreed to that suggestion.

My officials informed me today that in fairness to the individual concerned these figures should be aggregated, and Clarkson Gordon has been asked to do that. I will be tabling that information on Thursday.

Mr. D. M. Deacon (York Centre): The Treasurer sure bailed them out.

Mr. V. M. Singer (Downsview): I’m glad the Treasurer can consult Clarkson Gordon. Why doesn’t he get the Minister of Revenue (Mr. Meen) to consult them?

Hon. Mr. White: We aren’t consulting them at all. What is the member talking about?

Mr. Singer: Clarkson Gordon, yes.

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

HOUSING PROGRAMMES

Mr. R. F. Nixon (Leader of the Opposition): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to ask the Minister of Housing if he can now announce to the House which municipalities and which developers have indicated formally to him or his ministry officials that they will participate in the housing action programme at either of the levels which had been announced over a number of weeks and which were collated in the presentation yesterday.

Hon. S. B. Handleman (Minister of Housing): Mr. Speaker, some developers have formally agreed and some municipalities have formally agreed. Our problem is to try to get developers and municipalities together with formal agreements. We certainly hope to have that. I expect to be making an announcement on that as soon as we possibly can. We don’t want to fragment the programme. There will be a number of announcements made at the same time.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Supplementary: Would the minister confirm to the House that he has some formal agreements? Or is the rumour factual that none of the municipalities has accepted the housing action programme in its present form, because of the problems they foresee in coming under the jurisdiction of the programme the minister has enunciated?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: No, Mr. Speaker. Of course it would be a definition of what is a formal agreement. We had some resolutions of councils which have agreed in principle with the housing action programme. However, we will not sit down and sign formal agreements with municipalities until we have the developers in those particular municipalities also formally agreed. It will be a three-way arrangement. We must get all three parties to the table at the same time.

Mr. I. Deans (Wentworth): Supplementary: Could the minister indicate what stage they have reached in trying to get agreements between developers and municipalities on Ontario Housing Corp.? Are we within a week, within a month or within a year of getting one off the ground?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, we are within, I would say, 10 days to two weeks of having a number of formal agreements formally signed. As I’ve said before, I believe the municipalities should have the privilege of actually entering into the formal agreement first before it is announced anywhere else.

HOUSING STARTS

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I have a further question of the same minister, Mr. Speaker. Since his announcement yesterday indicated that about $680 million will be channelled from all levels of government into the housing programme here in this province, can he explain why we are going to achieve only the same number of starts if we achieve the optimistic goal that the minister has put before us? And can he explain why Mr. Kirkup, whom he frequently quotes when Mr. Kirkup tends to agree with him, has predicted there will be a 30 per cent decrease in these starts in spite of the minister’s best but ineffectual efforts?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, I would like to enter into a pact with the Leader of the Opposition: If he won’t quote Mr. Kirkup I won’t quote Mr. Kirkup.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I find him more quotable this week than he was last.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: We can quote Mr. Kirkup on almost anything and sometimes those questions are diametrically opposed to each other. All I can say on Mr. Kirkup’s most recent statement --

Interjection by an hon. member.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: -- is that obviously he didn’t take into account this massive intervention by governments at all levels in the housing market. Any forecast he might be making with regard to starts completely ignores the massively increased government intervention in the housing programmes of Ontario.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: A supplementary: Since there are these large numbers of dollars actually directed by this ministry, how can the minister justify the small allocation to those groups in the lower income levels of our community, since the minister’s own statement indicates a very large share -- the lion’s share by far -- is going to the moderate and upper income levels?

Mr. Deans: By the minister’s definition.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Surely there has to be a statement of policy from the minister or the Premier (Mr. Davis) to justify what is essentially an unacceptable concept in that regard?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, I don’t accept for one minute that the government intervention in Ontario is not directed at the lower and moderate income groups. In fact all of it is. We are more than tripling the total government intervention in terms of output over last year --

Mr. R. F. Nixon: In comparison with the total thrust it is a very small proportion.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: -- and more than doubling the amount of intervention for the low income group.

Mr. Deans: A supplementary: At what point is the minister going to recognize that the middle income in Ontario is not $14,000 to $20,000? The middle income is somewhere between $8,000 and $10,000. When is the minister going to gear a programme which will satisfy the needs of the 60 per cent of the population which falls within the income groups of $6,000 to $10,000?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: The member’s own leader used the figure of 60 per cent below the figure of $14,500 and that is what our programme is geared to.

Mr. Deans: It isn’t!

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Certainly all of our programmes are geared to what we consider to be the low and moderate income groups. I haven’t used the words middle income group, the member used that term.

Mr. Deans: All right, moderate income.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: The average income in Ontario is approximately $11,000 and that fits right into the group we are trying to serve with our programmes.

Mr. Deans: A supplementary: Surely --

Mr. Speaker: The member for St. George.

Mr. J. A. Renwick (Riverdale): What is the median average?

Mr. Deans: Eighty-seven hundred.

Mrs. M. Campbell (St. George): Mr. Speaker, to the minister, in the provision of low income housing units I understand that 2,000 units of public housing are to be provided in 1974. Is that a misprint? Is that just for Metropolitan Toronto or is it for the whole province?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, I would like to sit down with the member -- I will probably have that opportunity during the examination of my estimates -- because the figure of 2,000 she attributes to low income housing is simply incorrect. If she will look at page 40 of the statement yesterday, she will see the figure of 2,000; then there is community sponsored housing, rent supplements and senior citizens’ housing, all of which fits into the low income group.

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Speaker, excuse me, but on that point, I asked specifically about the 2,000 units of public housing. I was not talking about 500 units of integrated housing, 500 of community housing or the rent supplements. Is it a fact that 2,000 units of public housing is what is provided, and is that for Metropolitan Toronto or is it for the province?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, there are considerably more than 2,000 units on page 40; if the member will simply examine them there are well over 2,000. Without adding up the figures, because I don’t want to play the numbers game --

Mr. J. R. Breithaupt (Kitchener): For the whole province?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: -- there would be at least 19,000 units this year in which the Province of Ontario will have direct intervention and full financing.

Mr. J. E. Bullbrook (Sarnia): That is not what the member asked.

Mrs. Campbell: That is not what I asked. The minister can never answer a simple question.

Mr. Speaker: The Leader of the Opposition.

POLICE RAID ON HOTEL

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I have a question of the Solicitor General, now that further information is available on the police raids at the Landmark Motor Inn in Fort Erie. Is he prepared to order an inquiry by a judge or by the Ontario Police Commission into the circumstances of the raid that was brought to the attention of the House yesterday by my colleague, the member for Downsview; and further to that is he prepared to direct the police forces of the province, in his capacity I presume as the chief enforcement officer, as to the acceptable procedures that must be followed in circumstances so that such a matter will not reoccur?

Hon. G. A. Kerr (Solicitor General): First of all, Mr. Speaker, complete information has not been received by either myself or the Ontario Police Commission as far as this particular raid is concerned. There is some information in today’s newspaper. There still isn’t enough information as to why the raid was conducted; or what cause or reasonable and probable cause or grounds existed to conduct that raid, and other information as to why a raid of this size was conducted on this particular motel.

I have asked for a full report. I expect, as I said yesterday, to have that this week. My preliminary information is that there were previous occasions when this particular facility did have people trafficking or using drugs of various kinds --

Mr. Singer: Did they arrest them? Convict them?

Mr. Bullbrook: Were there convictions?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: This whole area along this part of the peninsula, where people cross the border from New York State, is an area that is of some concern from the point of trafficking in drugs. So my preliminary information, Mr. Speaker --

Mr. Singer: That John Clement is a bad fellow, he comes from the Niagara Peninsula, he should not have been let in the House.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: -- is that a raid was justified. Whether a raid of that size was justified is something that I will find out.

I will also find out whether or not -- as reported in today’s papers -- there was a misuse of police power in any respect as far as the search was concerned. Now the police had a warrant. They had every reason, I understand, to suspect there were drugs within that particular motel, and, therefore, that suspicion would justify the raid.

Mr. A. J. Roy (Ottawa East): Terrible, terrible. Drugs!

Mr. Singer: The police searched 150 people.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Supplementary: Since there is such a great deal of public concern over this matter, would the minister not agree there must be a public inquiry, rather than just something emanating from his own office?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Mr. Speaker, I don’t agree there is a great deal of public concern.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: There is though.

Mr. Singer: There certainly is.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: The fact is, Mr. Speaker, that this matter was raised yesterday -- which is about two weeks after the raid took place.

Mr. Singer: That’s right.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: None of the people who were involved or searched by the police complained in any way to either the police --

Mr. Singer: Oh come on.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: -- to the OPC or to myself, or any of the local municipal councils in the area.

Mr. Singer: What started the minister’s investigation?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: So what one reads in today’s paper doesn’t necessarily reflect public concern. There is a great deal of public concern about the use and trafficking of drugs in this province.

Mr. Singer: Mr. Speaker, by way of supplementary --

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Wentworth.

Mr. Deans: Supplementary, if I may, Mr. Speaker. Doesn’t the Solicitor General find it odd that the deputy police chief of the area would have no prior knowledge of the raid, wouldn’t have read the report of the raid and would have claimed at the point of the interview -- which I assume was within the last two or three days -- that he hadn’t yet acquainted himself with the details? And can the Solicitor General inform the House as to who it was that issued the warrant permitting this kind of raid to take place?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: As far as the latter part of the question is concerned, Mr. Speaker, that’s the type of information I have asked for.

Mr. Deans: Well surely that is simple --

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Now as far as the deputy chief of police is concerned, I can understand that he probably wouldn’t be aware of this particular raid.

Mr. Deans: Wouldn’t be aware?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: If it was conducted by a particular squad within the regional police force in conjunction with the RCMP, this is a fairly common occurrence in that area; not necessarily of that size.

Mr. Deans: Fifty men?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: But there are raids conducted on public premises quite frequently in the area of the Niagara Peninsula.

Mr. Deans: With 60 policemen?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Not of that size; I will agree.

Mr. Singer: No, of course not.

Mr. Deans: Surely a raid of that magnitude would have required some authority.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Another point I should make is it would appear that the raid was abortive.

Mr. Breithaupt: It must have been a common occurrence.

Mr. Singer: Yes. It happens every day in the Niagara Peninsula.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: It wasn’t that successful, shall we say, from the police point of view. Because there wasn’t this publicity and because there were no complaints by the people at that point --

Mr. Singer: What started the minister investigating if there were no complaints?

Mr. Breithaupt: What about the deputy?

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: -- it is quite possible that the deputy chief wouldn’t know.

Mr. Singer: By way of supplementary, Mr. Speaker, could the Solicitor General tell us why he started to investigate if there were no complaints? And does he not believe that the time is now here when there should be some system of dealing with police complaints, other than by having the deputy chief, who doesn’t read his reports, or the judge who’s on the police commission, who said he never heard anything about it, pretend ignorance? Isn’t it about time there was some public presence into the inquiries relating to arbitrary police actions?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Again, Mr. Speaker, I don’t agree there were arbitrary police actions.

Mr. Singer: Oh come on!

Hon. Mr. Kerr: The hon. member really hasn’t any more information than I have, and he shouldn’t make that statement.

Mr. T. P. Reid (Rainy River): We’ve got to have more than the minister has.

Mr. Singer: It’s just an ordinary every day event where they strip 150 people and search them!

Hon. Mr. Kerr: I was aware as a result of a very small item in a local newspaper -- I think it was a weekly -- in the area where this raid was conducted. It really didn’t say very much; it just indicated the place of the raid and who conducted it.

Mr. Singer: It only took the Globe and the Star a few hours to get many more details than the Solicitor General has been able to get in a few weeks.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: That was this week. The hon. member is talking about this week.

Mr. Singer: The minister’s investigations are not very good.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: I think it’s rather significant that it took 10 days or two weeks before this matter reached this Legislature, or before there was any public comment.

Mr. Singer: The only reason the minister is looking at it now is because it reached the Legislature.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: No, I was aware of it and I asked for this report. I was told I would have to wait 10 days, but I had indicated I was not waiting 10 days for a report.

I would ask that the House wait until I have a full report before hon. members ask for any kind of inquiry, judicial or otherwise.

Mr. Singer: Get the Globe and the Star and their reporters; they can inform the minister more quickly.

Mr. Speaker: There have been five supplementaries which is reasonable.

The hon. Leader of the Opposition.

USE OF STOL AIRCRAFT

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Could I ask the Premier, Mr. Speaker, if he can announce to the House the policy of the government on the utilization of STOL aircraft, now that the government of Canada has bought de Havilland?

Also, since the special committee convened by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, meeting in secret, is apparently considering a recommendation for two island airports, one of which would use STOL facilities, is this a part of the overall transportation concept that the Premier enjoys so much putting forward in grandiose terms?

Before I sit down I would also like to ask him if he can determine, from his colleague, the Minister of Transportation and Communications (Mr. Rhodes) or some other source, why the minutes of the secret meetings that finally were received by my office were substantially different from the minutes received by the members of the committee itself? In other words, the minutes themselves had been edited and doctored to remove specific pieces of information.

Hon. W. G. Davis (Premier): Mr. Speaker, I haven’t seen any minutes so I can’t answer that question.

As the question relates to the use of STOL aircraft, the government has encouraged this as a possible area, particularly for the federal government of Canada. I won’t comment on the acquisition of de Havilland and Canadair -- I might be provoked into commenting -- other than to say --

Mr. Singer: Go ahead and comment.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- that I seriously hope the government will continue the development of this kind of potential transportation.

As the question relates to any minutes, Mr. Speaker, I’m not aware of any minutes. I haven’t seen any. I haven’t seen any report.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: A supplementary: I would like to ask the Premier further about the technological information, through the auspices of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, recommending two airports. Would he accept his responsibility to see that the transportation studies, and presumably the environmental studies, and the communications with the planning authorities of Metropolitan Toronto and the city of Toronto, are tabled in the Legislature so that we, as members of the Legislature and of the community involved, know what progress has been made and what the policy of the government is in this regard?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I think it’s very appropriate to point out that there may be some reports, there may be some discussions. There has been no determination by government as to its policy with respect to the development or non-development of other airport facilities. I want to make it abundantly clear to the members of the House on all sides that there has been no such determination. Any observations by the research critic or the research analyst for the Liberal Party of the Province of Ontario saying that there is an eleventh-hour situation are just totally ridiculous. It has not come to government in terms of any recommendations or any reports, and I want to make that abundantly clear.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: A supplementary: Is the Premier prepared to be critical of those representatives of the council of Toronto, who were also active on that committee and who have expressed their dismay as well that the government programme has gone so far forward without adequate involvement of the community on a public basis?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I am not prepared to be critical of any representatives from Toronto or Metropolitan Toronto with respect to this issue whatsoever, but I do think it is questionable that somebody who is titled the research analyst, or whatever term that is, of the Liberal Party of the Province of Ontario, endeavours to create the impression that there has been a decision, or very close to it -- the eleventh hour, I think, is the terminology -- and I just say to the Leader of the Opposition that it is factually not correct.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Wentworth.

Mr. Deans: A supplementary: Can the Premier indicate what factually then is correct? Is the government of Ontario actively working with the federal government to make a proposal for the development of a second airport on the island properties?

Mrs. Campbell: Two airports?

Mr. Deans: A second airport on the island properties.

Secondly, if that is --

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member should ask only one supplementary at a time.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Transportation and Communications I am sure will be delighted to deal with this issue on Thursday. He is at a ministers’ conference at this precise moment.

I would say to the hon. member for Wentworth there has been no determination with respect to government policy as it relates to a second, third or fifth airport.

Mr. E. Sargent (Huron-Bruce): He doesn’t know.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I think it is fair to state, Mr. Speaker --

Mr. Sargent: He admits he doesn’t know.

An hon. member: What does the member know?

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- and I would like to think others would support this, that if there is some new technology or new ability available for us for the utilization of new types of aircraft for the transportation of people that will solve problems, that we would all have sufficiently open minds that we would be prepared to move ahead with such a programme.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: The Premier’s solutions don’t seem to be very effective.

Hon. Mr. Davis: What I say to the hon. members, Mr. Speaker, is that there has been no such determination here.

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

Mr. Deacon: Would the Premier not agree that perhaps openness of hearings at this time, where the need can be divulged and the details and the facts can be made available to the public, would perhaps lead to a more constructive public attitude toward fulfilling that need?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I think I would agree with the hon. member to this extent, that if there is some thought and some serious proposal as it relates to another facility for the landing of STOL aircraft or others, certainly there would have to be public involvement and public discussion.

I would only say to the hon. member for York Centre that we haven’t reached that point, and I don’t know that we ever will as it relates to the island. I think it is fair to state, and I am really hopeful that the federal government will show some very genuine initiative with respect to this, not only as it relates to transportation here but the potential export market that exists.

I think we are just two or three years late in doing this, very frankly. I think it is something the federal government, with their involvement in the aircraft industry, should have rationalized several years ago. I make no bones about it.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. member for Wentworth wanted to ask a second supplementary.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Well, I tell the Leader of the Opposition, if the Liberal government of the day had built the Jetliner instead of the Arrow we would be much better off.

Mr. Reid: It got cut off.

Mr. Roy: That was Diefenbaker that cut it off.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Did the hon. Leader of the Opposition have a supplementary?

Hon. Mr. Davis: It was C. D. Howe.

An hon. member: Oh come on.

Mr. Roy: The Premier has a poor sense of history.

Mr. Speaker: Order. If not, the hon. member for Grey-Bruce has a supplementary.

Mr. J. F. Foulds (Port Arthur): It was “C. D.” Diefenbaker.

Hon. Mr. Davis: The man who stopped the Jetliner? The member is wrong.

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

Mr. Sargent: Has the Premier flown over to see what is going on down there? They are building it now, does he know that?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I am always pleased to hear information from the hon. member for Grey-Bruce; he is so well informed on all these major issues. Yes, I have -- perhaps not as often as he has -- flown over that area. Although not an expert, I would still question from what I have seen that anyone is building an airport.

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

PARK NEAR KOMOKA

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Just briefly, can the Minister of Government Services tell us whether the Komoka properties have now been expropriated; and if so, what is the cost of the properties that were missed out in the acquisition of the parklands in Komoka?

Hon. J. W. Snow (Minister of Government Services): Mr. Speaker, the answer to the first part of the question is yes; and of course the matter of the costs of the properties will in due course, I would expect, be determined by the land compensation board.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: A supplementary: Is there any indication from the minister of what it will cost the taxpayers because the minister and his colleague, the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Bernier), somehow missed out on that property when they acquired the park site?

Hon. Mr. Snow: I presume again, Mr. Speaker, that the Leader of the Opposition is referring to the plan of subdivision of 15 lots. I’m not sure this was missed out in any development or in any plan for the park.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Were the minister and his colleagues leaving it to the others to get that property lined up?

Hon. Mr. Snow: It was an approved plan of subdivision, approved prior to the announcement of the overall boundaries of the park. My ministry carried out negotiations with the owners of that particular land. We were not successful in obtaining the purchase of the land at the appraised value and we have since proceeded to expropriate.

Mr. Speaker: Does the Leader of the Opposition have further questions?

The hon. member for Wentworth.

GASOLINE PRICES

Mr. Deans: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a question of the Premier. Does the Premier feel, now that the gasoline price situation has stabilized and it’s clear to all of us that tremendous additional costs will have to be borne by Ontario residents, that it might be appropriate that he indicate government policy with regard to some form of subsidy or cushioning action by this government with regard to the tremendous costs which will have to be borne?

Hon. Mr. Davis: I think it is fair to state --

Mr. Roy: Let him tell us he won’t make any more mistakes.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- we have discussed this issue on a number of occasions and, as I have said before -- and I believe the provincial Treasurer has said -- we do not contemplate reducing our gasoline tax as it relates to the sale of gasoline in this province.

Hon. Mr. White: Let the federal government knock off its tax. It created the problem.

Mr. Roy: Who made the mistake?

Mr. Deans: Let me ask the Premier this supplementary question: Given that the Treasurer believes the federal government should knock off its tax how can the Premier come to the conclusion that --

Hon. Mr. White: Let the federal government knock it off.

Mr. Deans: -- if it is proper for the federal government to reduce its tax it’s improper for the provincial government to do likewise in order to ease the cost on the consumers in Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Davis: I think the answer to that is very simple, Mr. Speaker. If the member for Wentworth would study it very carefully he would recognize the federal government, through the export tax, is the recipient of substantially increased revenues. Some of these revenues are now being used by our sister provinces with the programme of subsidization and I think it has to be national if it’s to be done on that basis.

Mr. Deans: I have a question of the Attorney General, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Bullbrook: He has to be here.

Mr. Deans: Now that he’s here.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: He is here.

COMMENTS BY JUDGE DNIEPER

Mr. Deans: It certainly is a pleasure to see him. Does the Attorney General concur with the views of Judge Dnieper who stated yesterday that moral law is the most dangerous law in the world? Further, does he agree with the views of Judge Dnieper that moral law was the basis for Nazi persecution of the Jews, when he found three clergymen guilty, of trespassing I believe it was, when picketing at Dominion Stores in Metropolitan Toronto?

Mr. Roy: The minister doesn’t know anything about morals.

Hon. R. Welch (Provincial Secretary for Justice and Attorney General): Mr. Speaker, I don’t think it would be proper for the Attorney General to comment on a summary --

Mr. Deans: I think it would be very proper.

Hon. Mr. Welch: -- of comments which has appeared in the press. I would make it my business to take a look at the statement in its entirety.

Mr. Deans: A supplementary: In the event that the Attorney General finds the comments as reported in the press are reasonably accurate, will the Attorney General offer the benefit of his offices to those clergymen in order that they might properly prepare an appeal against this outlandish and ridiculous decision and statement?

Mr. Roy: The minister can tell him he will talk to the policy secretary.

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, I am sure the clergy would have access to legal advice as to what their rights are by way of appealing the conviction referred to.

Mr. Roy: Has the minister discussed it with his pastor?

Mr. P. D. Lawlor (Lakeshore): Mr. Speaker, a supplementary: Would the Attorney General consider amending the anachronistic provisions of the Petty Trespass Act, which was designed to protect private homes, etc., in a period long before shopping malls and such commercial outlets as Dominion Stores came into being in this province?

Hon. Mr. Welch: Is the member asking the Attorney General if he would amend the law to exclude commercial properties?

Mr. Lawlor: Would he give consideration to it?

Mr. Renwick: He is asking whether the minister would amend it.

Hon. Mr. Welch: Pardon?

Mr. Lawlor: Would he amend it?

Hon. Mr. Welch: I would be glad to take a look at that.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Wentworth.

Mr. Deans: I have a question of the Premier.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: The Attorney General can leave now.

Mr. M. Shulman (High Park): If only all the ministers were as smart as he is.

WORKMEN’S COMPENSATION BOARD PENSIONS

Mr. Deans: Yesterday, the Minister of Labour (Mr. Guindon) indicated that it was now a matter of government policy, and in the hands of cabinet, to determine whether there would be amendments to the Workmen’s Compensation Act pertaining to benefits to widows and workers on full pension. Is it the intention of the government to bring forward recommendations which will meet the rising cost of living for all of those people and to ensure that what little they got previously will be increased so as to be sufficient in the future to meet their needs?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, in answer to that long editorialized question, government policy in this area will be announced in due course.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Deans: Supplementary: To be announced in due course is fine, but for six months now the Minister of Labour has been indicating there would be changes. Will there be changes during the current session of this Legislature in order to meet what are extraordinary costs imposed upon recipients of benefits from the Workmen’s Compensation Board, recognizing that the board itself has recommended such changes take place?

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, as I said to the hon. member, and I am sorry I didn’t make it more clear and I shall try to do so this time, when government policy is determined it will be made known to the members of this House.

Mr. Deans: That is not going to win for the Minister of Labour.

Mr. Foulds: We thought the change would be made.

Mr. Singer: Mr. Speaker, I have a question.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. member has not completed his questions.

Mr. Singer: Oh, I am sorry.

WOODSTOCK GENERAL HOSPITAL STRIKE

Mr. Deans: One final question, I want to ask the Premier, in the absence of the Minister of Labour, if he can inform the House whether any steps are being taken by the cabinet or the government of Ontario to ensure that those employees at the Woodstock General Hospital, who are currently on strike, who have now gained the support of all of their colleagues and who are being underpaid even by provincial standards, will be given a fair wage as a result of the current negotiations? Will he take steps to ensure that there will be a resolution of the problem as quickly as possible?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I’d like to assure the hon. member that certainly we would hope there would be a resolution to the problem as soon as possible. The Ministry of Labour is keeping a very careful eye on the situation. I discussed it with them as recently as yesterday. Beyond that, I can’t make any comment.

Mr. Deans: They are not even watching it.

Mr. Speaker: Does the hon. member for Wentworth have further questions on behalf of his party? If not, the hon. the Minister of Health has the answer to a question asked previously.

SCARBOROUGH HOSPITAL EXPANSION

Hon. F. S. Miller (Minister of Health): Mr. Speaker, the member for High Park yesterday asked me some questions about an addition to Scarborough General Hospital and I was unable to answer them in any definitive way at that point. That means I really didn’t know.

Mr. Roy: Somebody else knows; tell us what somebody else knows.

Hon. Mr. Miller: At this point in time the approval has been granted. It had been granted for quite a period of time for an addition to the chronic wing to the hospital, but not for an active treatment expansion. There is no impending approval for an addition to active treatment facilities.

Just for the record, this is being entirely financed by the hospital, not by provincial funds. The hospital has made an equity contribution of $500,000, plus the donation of land. The board arranged to borrow a balance of $1.7 million. The Ministry of Health is not required or obligated to provide any capital cost dollars for the construction of the 168-bed chronic unit.

The Ministry of Health has agreed to an operating cost formula based on 1973 price levels and based on 95 per cent occupancy. The calculations are based on an optimum occupancy of 95 per cent. However, it is estimated it will take one year to build up to that level. We are paying a per diem rate per patient of $21.82. The unit will be organized and operated to obtain the appropriate mix of patients from the four levels of chronic care. Diagnostic and therapy services will be obtained on an outpatient basis from the hospital itself.

Mr. Shulman: Supplementary, if I may, Mr. Speaker: Does it make any sense, whether he calls them acute beds or chronic beds, to build more beds when just a few blocks away the ministry has all the beds at the Victoria Medical Inn, which it won’t allow to be used? Why not make a deal with them instead of building more? What difference does it make where it came from?

Mr. Roy: The member is not asking the minister to be logical is he?

Mr. Shulman: Well, I have got to make him understand.

Hon. Mr. Miller: Mr. Speaker, the member is confusing a public hospital in this case with a private hospital.

Mr. Shulman: How about St. Michael’s? Is that public?

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Downsview.

FEDERAL AID FOR MAINTENANCE OF PROVINCIAL POLICE FORCES

Mr. Singer: Thank you, Mr. Speaker; I have a question of the Attorney General. Is the Attorney General familiar with the submissions made by the government of the Province of Quebec through the government of Canada respecting financial compensation claimed from the government of Canada by the Quebec government for maintaining police forces in Quebec? That’s the matter of the QPP. Is Ontario’s Attorney General, as I suspect he is, contemplating similar representations on behalf of Ontario in relation to the OPP? This matter has been discussed, I know, in senior police circles within the Province of Ontario.

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, the Attorney General is familiar with the request of the Attorney General of Quebec. In fact when the Attorneys General from across the country were here two weeks ago this was discussed as part of the programme.

I think the specific question contained in the latter part of the hon. member’s question should be directed to the Solicitor General who has accountability to the House for the police.

Mr. Singer: By way of supplementary: I was addressing it to the minister in his dual capacity as Provincial Secretary for Justice --

Mr. Breithaupt: It is a policy matter.

Mr. Singer: It is a policy matter; it surely isn’t a police matter. It is a matter of policy as to whether or not Ontario is entitled to money.

Mr. Roy: Why doesn’t the minister have a meeting with himself?

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Singer: Since it’s a policy matter, couldn’t the Attorney General, wearing his other hat as Provincial Secretary for Justice, attempt to respond and tell us if Ontario has any attitude about this?

Hon. Mr. Welch: The Provincial Secretary for Justice would be quite prepared to respond to general matters with respect to policy, but this falls strictly within the responsibilities of the Solicitor General, and the question should be directed to the Solicitor General.

Mr. Singer: Oh come on!

Interjections by hon. members.

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

LENNOX GENERATING STATION

Mr. Shulman: Mr. Speaker, a question of the Minister of Energy: Why was the contract for the construction of the switchyard at the Lennox generating station given to Comstock with its tender of $2.1 million when the minister had a tender some hundreds of thousands of dollars less than that from Ontario Hydro’s own construction department?

Hon. W. D. McKeough (Minister of Energy): Mr. Speaker, Ontario Hydro doesn’t bid its own jobs in the same way that I think MTC bids its own jobs. Hydro prepares estimates which may or may not be correct. To put the facts on record, and the member was good enough to give notice of this question, the estimated cost by Hydro, including a profit, would probably be about $1.8 million. Five bids were received. The low tender was $2.1 million and the high bid was $3 million.

Mr. Shulman: If the lowest bid was $2.1 million and Hydro’s own construction people’s figure was actually $1.5 million -- let’s suppose they make a profit and it comes up to $1.8 million -- doesn’t the minister think that $300,000 should be saved since the construction department was anxious to do the job?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Mr. Speaker, perhaps the hon. member might take a look at what is happening to construction costs these days.

Mr. Shulman: Is the minister suggesting these bids were not properly prepared?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: The bids were most properly prepared, but like most estimates today, they just don’t stand up.

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

Mr. Sargent: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Premier.

Mr. E. M. Havrot (Timiskaming): Now hear this.

SHORTAGE OF BEDS IN OWEN SOUND AREA HOSPITALS

Mr. Sargent: In view of the fact that today there is a waiting list of 193 patients for elective surgery and 87 for urgent surgery in the Owen Sound General Hospital, and we have a request from Southampton Saugeen Memorial Hospital for urgent beds and all we have left are stretchers, what are we going to do in the Owen Sound area for our hospitals?

Mr. R. F. Nixon: His offer still stands.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition said the offer still stood. I won’t get into that.

Mr. Sargent: I don’t want that kind of answer. I want to know what the government is going to do.

Hon. Mr. Davis: He said so; I didn’t say so.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Sargent: That’s nonsense to me.

Hon. Mr. Davis: The member for Grey-Bruce and his problems in his riding receive the same attention as do those of any member in this House. The Minister of Health will get in touch with the members of the hospital boards.

Mr. Sargent: That is a lot of nonsense. What are we going to do up there?

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Sargent: I am not talking about this seat or whether I will resign or not, which I will gladly do if the government will play ball with us. Lives are more important than politics, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Roy: The Premier is just afraid to lose the by-election.

Mr. Sargent: What is the Premier going to do about it? We can’t go on this way!

Mr. Speaker: I think there is obviously no further answer.

Mr. Sargent: Mr. Speaker, I don’t think this is fair. I don’t care whether you boot me out again or not, but this is important enough that I want an answer from this man.

Interjections by hon. members.

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

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Port Arthur has the floor.

Mr. Sargent: Mr. Speaker, I hate to embarrass you, sir, but I’m going to insist on an answer about what he is going to do there.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Port Arthur has the floor. Perhaps you will direct your question.

Mr. Sargent: I will give the Premier an “out”. Does he have an answer from the Minister of Health as to what he is going to do here?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. member for Port Arthur.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Port Arthur will please direct his question.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Sargent: Mr. Speaker, I’m sorry: I am going to insist I get an answer from the Premier.

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

Mr. Sargent: The Speaker is testing me.

An hon. member: The member for Grey-Bruce is testing all of us.

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

Mr. Foulds: A question of the Premier --

Mr. Sargent: Is the Premier going to give us an answer?

Hon. Mr. Davis: On a point of order, so that you, sir, are not tested by the member for Grey-Bruce; perhaps I will repeat what I said, which I will assume he did not hear --

Mr. Sargent: No, I didn’t.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- so that he may now understand what I did say.

Hon. Mr. White: Oh, he’ll never understand.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I said very simply that the Minister of Health is quite aware of the situation. There have been discussions with the local hospital board. We are anxious to see a solution to the problem that is reasonable, and I’m relatively confident of what can be found. Now that is some amplification of what I said about two minutes ago. But if the hon. member had been listening, perhaps he would have gained from it.

Mr. Roy: The Premier wasn’t tested; he had to give an answer.

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

WITHDRAWAL OF TEACHERS’ SERVICES

Mr. Foulds: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A question of the Premier: In view of the fact that the arbitration award in the York county teachers’ dispute has not yet been brought down, could the Premier tell the House if the Minister of Education (Mr. Wells) is considering extending the date for the submission of resignations by the teachers in York county?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I can’t comment on that. I would be delighted to ask the Minister of Education. I would doubt there is consideration of the extension of the date for resignation submissions, but I don’t know. I shall find out.

Mr. Foulds: Supplementary: Could the Premier ask the minister to have that information in before the end of the week, as May 31 is the final date on which teachers can resign under normal circumstances.

The Premier nods agreement. I’d like to get that on the record; that nod isn’t recorded by Hansard.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Of course, be careful how the member interprets a nod.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for York Centre with a supplementary.

Mr. Deacon: Would it not be important that all settlements which have not been completed, or where decisions have not been handed down, that such extensions be available to them as well?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I didn’t hear the total question because of the noise emanating from the other side of the House. What was it again?

Mr. Deacon: I thought the noise was from the Premier’s left.

Would it not be fair to extend the date of resignation in every situation where a decision as to the final settlement has not been handed down?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I doubt that very much. As I say, I’m really very hopeful that all of them are going to be resolved, including the one in York.

Mr. Deacon: In two days?

Hon. Mr. Davis: I think that it will prove to be relatively academic.

But I would only say this to the member for York Centre: If I heard reports of last night’s meeting accurately, does he really believe in members of the Legislature being recalled?

Mr. Deacon: If they have to be.

Mr. Foulds: Supplementary.

Mr. Deacon: I think in a lot of places it would work very well.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Port Arthur may ask a supplementary.

Mr. Foulds: Wouldn’t the Premier agree that there is a categorical difference between the situation in York county and the other arbitration awards in that all the other awards went voluntarily to arbitration, but this Legislature imposed arbitration upon the York county teachers?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, there are occasions in these days when I do find the hon. member for Port Arthur perceptive; not always aware, but sometimes perceptive. Of course, he’s quite right; there is a distinction between the situation in York and the other arbitrations or negotiations that are going on. There is no question about that.

Mr. Foulds: Supplementary: Wouldn’t that be a reason for extending the date of resignations in that particular case?

Mr. Speaker: In view of the short time remaining I think there have been enough supplementaries.

The hon. member for Ottawa East.

JOHANNES STEVENS

Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Solicitor General --

Mr. Havrot: When did he get back from Ottawa?

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Roy: My question deals with one Johannes Stevens from Oakville who --

Mr. Havrot: The member is not from Oakville.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order please.

Mr. Roy: Yes; keep them down a bit, they are getting excited. Who is that?

An hon. member: The member for Ottawa East is pointing his finger.

Mr. Roy: They are testing me.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Roy: My question of the -- would the members keep it down back there.

My question of the Solicitor General, Mr. Speaker, involves Mr. Stevens of Oakville, who in 1971 was charged with theft. Certain documents were seized from him by the Oakville police and returned to the complainant, in breach of the Criminal Code. Has the minister investigated this situation in light of the fact that a complaint has been made to the Ontario Attorney General, the Ontario Police Commission and the Oakville Police Commission?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member really hasn’t given me enough information to identify that particular case. I haven’t even got any names. I would suggest he gives me the information and I will look into it.

Mr. Bullbrook: I think we should ask the Attorney General.

Mr. Roy: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: How can the minister explain that he has no information in light of the fact that in February, 1973, a complaint was made to the Ontario Police Commission? And how come he has not done anything about this, in light of the fact that the police, in seizing the records and giving them to the complainant, have in fact breached the Criminal Code and have denied the right of this man to have these records to prepare his defence?

Mr. Bullbrook: A very good question.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: I might say, Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is still adding more facts. He’s really confusing me and confusing the House.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: I still haven’t got the name of the particular complainant to whom he refers.

Mr. Roy: I will sit down with the minister.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Right. I would suggest that he give me the information.

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

DISPUTE AT BORDEN CO. LTD.

Mr. Bounsall: A question of the Premier, Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Minister of Labour: Does he not think there is categorical evidence of bad faith bargaining on the part of Borden’s milk company at its plant in Belmont, Ont., which having locked out its employees on May 2 is now advertising for and employing other workers? Secondly, what is the Ministry of Labour doing to assist in solving this dispute?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I don’t want to use a double negative but no, I do not think there is because I don’t know.

Mr. Bounsall: Supplementary: Will the Premier -- in the absence of the Minister of Labour, and perhaps a prolonged absence -- find out and inform this House?

Hon. Mr. Davis: I would be delighted.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Waterloo North.

ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT

Mr. E. R. Good (Waterloo North): A question of the Minister of the Environment: Is it correct there have been over 200 submissions to the green paper on environmental assessment? Does the minister plan a public discussion of the most pertinent facts that have been brought up in the submissions to the ministry on the green paper?

Hon. W. Newman (Minister of the Environment): Mr. Speaker, there were 179 submissions. We have evaluated them and are still evaluating the submissions on the green paper that was presented last November here in the House.

Mr. Good: Supplementary: Is the minister prepared to present a draft for public perusal of the main points of concern that have been brought in by these submissions; and does he expect to submit legislation at the spring session that can be looked at over the summer until the matter is dealt with on second reading?

Hon. W. Newman: Mr. Speaker, the green paper was set out so people could make submissions. We have taken those submissions. We have analysed them. We are still analysing them. As far as the latter part of the member’s question is concerned, as far as legislation is concerned -- in the fullness of time.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Roy: Oh yes, he knows what he is talking about.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Thunder Bay.

RADAR BASE AT ARMSTRONG

Mr. J. E. Stokes (Thunder Bay): I have a question of the policy minister for Social Development. Is her policy field doing any consultation with the Resources Development policy field to ensure that the town of Armstrong won’t wither on the vine as a result of the closing down of the radar base by the federal government?

Hon. M. Birch (Provincial Secretary for Social Development): Mr. Speaker, no; there has not been any consultation.

Mr. Roy: Isn’t the Premier concerned that all those ministers are leaving his cabinet?

Mr. Speaker: Time for oral questions has now expired.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I will tell the member, they are going to do it with more success than the member had.

Mr. Roy: Want to bet? Does the Premier want to bet on that election?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Yes.

Mr. Speaker: Petitions.

Presenting reports.

Hon. Mr. Welch presented the seventh annual report of the Ontario Law Reform Commission for the fiscal year April 1, 1973, to March 31, 1974.

Mr. Roy: Is he presenting that as policy secretary or Attorney General?

Hon. Mr. Welch: I’ve been writing the report; notice: “March 31, 1974.”

Mr. Wiseman, in the absence of Mr. McNeil, from the standing resources development committee reported the following resolution:

RESOLVED: That supply in the following amounts and to defray the expenses of the Ministry of Natural Resources be granted to Her Majesty for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1975:

MINISTRY OF NATURAL RESOURCES

Ministry administration programme .............................. $21,748,000

Land management programme ................................ 72,308,000

Outdoor recreation programme ................................ 45,394,000

Resource products programme ................................ 31,979,000

Mr. Speaker: Motions.

Introduction of bills.

Before the orders of the day, I should like to remind the hon. members that tomorrow evening the great social event of the year is taking place.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Reid: Singing at this one.

Mr. Speaker: I extend a special invitation to all members to attend the Speaker’s dinner. I promise you there will be good entertainment.

Mr. Foulds: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order --

Mr. H. Edighoffer (Perth): Before the orders of the day, Mr. Speaker, I would like to draw to the attention of the members the colourful brochure that was placed on their desks today. It is the brochure from the Stratford Festival which has its grand opening next Monday evening. It still remains one of the leading tourist highlights of Ontario and I invite all members to visit the Stratford Festival this year.

Mr. Foulds: Mr. Speaker, before the orders of the day and on a point of order, I would like to draw your attention to the committee notices printed in the order paper, in which the social development committee is evidently meeting in two places at once. One is to consider the estimates of the Ministry of Colleges and Universities and one is to consider the Health Disciplines Act. I understand the solution has been worked out, but I draw it to your attention --

Mr. Deans: No, it hasn’t.

Mr. Foulds: -- because it shows the shambles the ordering of the business of this House is in. Perhaps a clarification should be made publicly so the members of those committees know which is being considered and where.

Hon. E. A. Winkler (Chairman, Management Board of Cabinet): Mr. Speaker, I don’t wish to comment at great length on that, but the shambles in the business of the House is the nonsensical use of time which has existed for about the last six weeks.

Interjections by hon. members.

An hon. member: The minister doesn’t like discussion of anything.

Mr. Deans: Speaking to the point of order and the reply of the House leader, it is evident to anyone with even half a brain, which might include the House leader --

An hon. member: If the House leader had another half a brain he would be lucky.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order, order. This sort of language is not parliamentary and should be withdrawn.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: The member doesn’t know it.

Mr. Deans: I withdraw it, Mr. Speaker; “anyone with half a brain” wouldn’t include the House leader. The fact of the matter is that a standing committee cannot hear two things at the same time.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. I don’t believe this sort of language should be permitted in any Legislature in this country and I would ask the hon. member to withdraw it.

Mr. Deans: All right, I withdraw it. Let’s begin again.

It is evident to anyone in the House that one standing committee cannot sit and hear two matters at the same time. The House leader informed me five, perhaps seven minutes ago, that it was his intention to have both the Ministry of Colleges and Universities’ estimates and the Health Disciplines Act heard at the same time. I bring to your attention, sir, that this doesn’t make for an orderly procedure which can be reasonably followed by any member. The committee can only address itself to one matter at one time and I ask for your guidance on which of these matters will be dealt with today.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Mr. Speaker, I would like to make this comment -- it is not a precedent that two matters of business are referred to a standing committee.

Mr. Deans: Not to the same committee.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Not at all -- the same committee, in the function of this House.

Mr. Bullbrook: What would be a precedent? The minister said it wasn’t a precedent.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Pardon me?

Mr. Bullbrook: Give us a precedent.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Over the years on many occasions there have been two or three items referred to the same committee and the committee deals with it in its own wisdom.

Mr. E. W. Martel (Sudbury East): Yes, but not at the same time.

Mr. Bullbrook: In two different locations? Since the House leader has now given us an assertive statement -- and I know it is not his custom to mislead the House -- do I understand the House leader to say there is precedent for a standing committee to sit in two places at the same time on two different matters?

Hon. Mr. Winkler: I didn’t say that.

Mr. Bullbrook: That is what he is doing today.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: That is not what I said.

Mr. Bullbrook: All right. Then I say, most respectfully, through the Speaker, that the House leader did mislead me. I thought the House leader said there is precedent for a standing committee to be sitting in two places at once?

Hon. Mr. Winkler: No, that is what the member said.

Mr. Bullbrook: That is what is going to happen this afternoon.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: No.

Mr. Bullbrook: It is not going to happen?

Hon. Mr. Winkler: No.

Mr. Deans: May I, Mr. Speaker --

Mr. Bullbrook: Just permit me for a moment. Do I understand the order of business? Let me tell the House something; I am not going to get into this debate, because unfortunately --

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Bullbrook: -- I deprived myself of the right to join the debate. I was so incensed with the order of business in the House, while recognizing it is the function of government, I went to the Speaker today as a private member and colleague of his to register my personal objection to the destruction, in effect, of the normal parliamentary process here. I did that. I am really concerned about it. I want to say this to the House leader, if I might, through the Speaker, I am very interested in knowing if we are going to do Colleges and Universities at the same time as the Health Discipline Act in the same place?

Mr. Deans: Before the House leader answers may I bring to your attention, sir, exactly what the situation is? The order paper shows --

Mr. Speaker: I might point out to the hon. member I have read the order paper. I am aware of the apparent discrepancy.

Mr. Deans: One can’t be in both rooms --

Mr. Speaker: I had thought it might have been a printer’s error. I am not certain, but I think the House leader can straighten it out.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I will reiterate that it is not uncommon that two matters of business be referred to the same standing committee and the committee deals with it as it sees fit.

Mr. Deans: I was right. I don’t take back my statement.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: It so happens that the Minister of Health will not be here on Thursday, Friday and Monday, and the committee will deal with the estimates of the Ministry of Colleges and Universities at that time. That is not unusual either.

Mr. Bullbrook: Are we not dealing with Colleges and Universities today?

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Mr. Speaker, I will say of the member of that party who is getting up and being critical and of the House leader of the NDP --

Mr. Bullbrook: I am going to join in this point of order right now.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: -- if they were half the gentlemen that the House leader of the Liberal Party is, we wouldn’t have any of this nonsense.

Mr. Bullbrook: Mr. Speaker, I want to say something to you about the point of order. Do you realize that the House leader is now telling us that Colleges and Universities estimates are not going to go on this afternoon? Let me give you the history of this, if I may -- just a short history --

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Bullbrook: This is the third time in 24 hours he has changed his mind. What type of government order is that?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. Speaker: I do recognize there appears to be some difficulty --

Mr. Bullbrook: You bet your life.

Mr. Speaker: -- in connection with the ordering of the business as set forth in the order paper. This was noticed this morning. I wasn’t certain just what the explanation would be.

Mr. Stokes: It is just chaos here, utter chaos.

Mr. Speaker: In any event, at this particular time I am about to call for orders of the day. It’s up to the House leader to indicate the next order of business; and in any event there is nothing I can do about the conduct of the committees.

Mr. Bullbrook: That’s right. You are right.

Mr. Speaker: I am sure this will be straightened out one way or the other, because the committees cannot be in two different places at the same time.

Mr. Stokes: What is going on in committee?

Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order --

Mr. Stokes: You are going to do what with which and to whom?

Mr. Shulman: Don’t leave, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Foulds: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, as a member of the social development committee, what room do I go to?

Mr. Speaker: Orders of the day.

Clerk of the House: The second order, House in committee of the whole.

LAND SPECULATION TAX ACT (CONTINUED)

House in committee on Bill 25, An Act to impose a Tax on Land in respect of certain speculative Transactions affecting the Control or Ownership of Land.

On section 5:

Mr. I. Deans (Wentworth): Mr. Chairman, on a point of order, if I may --

Mr. Chairman: Order, please.

Mr. Deans: Mr. Chairman, on a point of order --

Mr. Chairman: State your point of order.

Mr. Deans: Thank you. My point of order is this: As part of my function, I am required to inform my colleagues in this party where they are supposed to be in order to conduct the orderly business of the House.

Mr. Chairman: Well --

Mr. Deans: Just hear me out. In order to do that, I need to know whether to advise them to be in committee room 1 to deal with the Health Disciplines Act or in committee room 230 --

Mr. Chairman: Order, please. If I might --

Mr. Deans: -- in order to deal with the Ministry of Colleges and Universities estimates.

Mr. Chairman: Order, please.

Hon. E. A. Winkler (Chairman, Management Board of Cabinet): Mr. Chairman, I just want to say again that there is no sense in that member pulling this stuff on me when I told him precisely what the circumstances were.

Mr. Deans: They can’t be done.

Mr. Chairman: Order, please.

Mr. Deans: They can’t do it.

Mr. A. J. Roy (Ottawa East): Where are they sitting? Just tell us.

Mr. Chairman: Order, please. That matter is not before the committee.

Mr. Deans: Then I move the committee rise and report in order that it can be put before the appropriate body.

Mr. Chairman: I consider this a frivolous motion.

Mr. Deans: I move the committee rise and report. It’s a procedural motion to deal with a matter that has to be dealt with.

Mr. Chairman: I will put the motion then.

Those in favour of Mr. Dean’s motion will please say “aye.”

Those opposed will please say “nay.”

In my opinion the “nays” have it.

Mr. Deans: Well, we will have to call in the members.

Mr. R. G. Eaton (Middlesex South): Talk about wasting time!

Mr. Deans: They can’t be in two places at the same time.

Mr. Chairman: Call in the members.

The committee divided on Mr. Deans motion that the committee rise and report, which was negatived on the following vote.

Clerk of the House: Mr. Chairman, the “ayes” are 28, the “nays” are 56.

Mr. Chairman: I declare the motion lost.

When we were dealing with bill 25 last evening, although we were discussing section 5, subsection 4, there was a leftover item, an answer to a question on subsection 3. Perhaps the minister might clarify that now.

Hon. A. K. Meen (Minister of Revenue): Mr. Chairman, toward the end of last evening I indicated to the hon. member for High Park that I would like to ruminate for a little bit on his suggestion that the affidavit might contain a reference --

Mr. Chairman: Order, please. It’s very noisy in the chamber.

Hon. Mr. Meen: -- that the affidavit might contain a reference to the residency of the deponent. On reflecting on it, as I indicated I would do, I concluded that that would create no particular advantage, inasmuch as if the deponent is prepared to swear a false affidavit as to the circumstances set forth, then he’s just as likely to swear a false affidavit with respect to his residency since he would be out of the country. It, therefore, would be of no meaning and no advantage to put it into subsection 3, and I therefore would not propose to amend subsection 3 of section 5 at this time.

Mr. Chairman: Shall subsection 3 stand as part of the bill? Carried. On subsection 4, any further discussion on that? The member for High Park.

Mr. M. Shulman (High Park): You will recall, Mr. Chairman, last night we were talking about sending registered letters to people. The subsection lets everybody get a registered letter but doesn’t let them do very much with their registered letter. The suggestion I made to the minister was that if someone is going to pay this lien, this payment he makes should be given a priority. For example, if the first mortgagor declines to pay the lien and the second mortgagor pays the lien, surely that payment he is making should rank ahead of the first mortgage? The minister was thinking about what I said and perhaps he has some response.

Hon. Mr. Meen: The practice in cases like this, Mr. Chairman, where an encumbrancer pays up a prior lien of whatever nature, is that the amount of his payment is added to his own encumbrance and accrues, along with his own encumbrance, at the rate of interest that is provided for in his own encumbrance, and that’s the way this would work in this instance.

Mr. Shulman: I am sorry, what is the reason you gave for that?

Hon. Mr. Meen: That it is the normal practice in anything of this sort, where the second mortgagee pays off an execution and where the execution creditor might be seizing and selling property under a writ of fi. fa. and the encumbrancer comes forward to pay it off, it is added to this encumbrance and, as I say, accrues interest from the date of payment at the rate set out in that encumbrance.

Mr. Shulman: It may be normal practice but it doesn’t make any common sense, so let’s think afresh, and even if you have been doing things wrong all these years, we will try to improve them.

It obviously doesn’t make any sense for a person with a second or third encumbrance or mortgage, or whatever you call it, to make a payment if he is not getting a first priority with the payment. What you are saying, in effect, is that we are going to send out all these registered letters but it doesn’t do anybody any good, because the only person to whom it would make any sense whatsoever would be the first mortgagor.

Just because it has always been done the wrong way I don’t think it is logical to continue to do it the wrong way. It would appear common sense to me -- perhaps the lawyers will disabuse me of common sense here -- to allow the persons to make the payment in order of their priority, and if the person who holds the first mortgage doesn’t wish to make the payment then the person holding the second mortgage should be allowed to do it, and whatever payment he makes should come as a first encumbrance on the property. Right or wrong?

Hon. Mr. Meen: Mr. Chairman, I have already set out the practice that would be followed.

Mr. Shulman: We know it is the practice, but it is wrong.

Mr. Chairman: On subsection 4, the member for Lakeshore.

Mr. P. D. Lawlor (Lakeshore): The hon. member is perfectly right. The answer, it seems to me --

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Lawlor: May I have a little peace so that I may soliloquize? There are two different things involved here. What I think the member for High Park is asking is, if any one of the encumbrancers down the line steps in and takes over your lien, why doesn’t he step into your position, into your shoes? Why don’t you make an assignment of it and give him that priority?

The thing you are talking about is a tacking doctrine, which is somewhat different. Oh, and by the way, I would like to consult with the minister on an answer. Have you checked the mortgage law very carefully, and the wording in the normal mortgage very carefully, to see whether this very kind of payment in lieu of somebody else is subject to the doctrine of tacking, or is the wording in mortgages -- I haven’t checked this -- sufficiently broad to encompass this particular thing?

We all know it does it with respect to taxes that are paid and with respect to other kinds of encumbrances that are moved in on, and you can bring it into your mortgage figure, add it to the principal and the mortgage goes on. You have assumed some responsibility. I am not sure in law whether or not the assumption of this particular liability would be so regarded by the law of mortgages or by the courts in this context. That is really the first point.

The second one is, that’s not helping somebody who is pretty far down the line of encumbrancers and who has to protect himself in this way over against the prior encumbrancers who have refused to participate in that. By adding that particular burden on to the thing he could leave himself in a very detrimental position, and I think you will agree with me that in law he will be in a very much better position were he in your shoes and not merely relying upon some tertiary right.

Hon. Mr. Meen: Mr. Chairman, that could be one way to do it. One could have a provision where, with the lien paid off, the person paying off the claim was subrogated to the position of the minister.

Mr. Lawlor: Right.

Hon. Mr. Meen: However, I think that could be subject to abuse because that would put his claim then in priority to all the other claimants on the property who might be, as a result of that, unjustly affected. The law is clear, as I understand it anyway, with respect to mortgages. I don’t think that this would be contrary to the law that one would expect to apply in the normal practice with respect to mortgages.

I might add, Mr. Chairman, what we’re talking about in subsection 4 of 5, is simply the matter of notice. When we want to talk about the way in which that person recovers the money he’s paid, I would suggest the hon. members look down at subsection 7. Now, when we get to that we can talk about that part of it, if the hon. members care to. What we’re talking about under subsection 4 of 5 is simply the matter of notice requiring the minister to bring to the attention of all those who appear to have an interest in the title the fact here is a claim about to be exercised by the minister.

Mr. Chairman: Does subsection 4 then stand as part of the bill?

Mr. Lawlor: I reserve my comments until I get there.

Mr. J. E. Bullbrook (Sarnia): It’s subsection 7 we want to get to -- but we’ll get to that. I just want to record again, not at length, but the comments made last night in connection with subsection 2. You recognize that because of the fact that as a retention of your lien privileges, notwithstanding the issuance of the certificate, you’re going to put a person in a position of losing their land when, in fact, they’ve relied on a certificate issued by your ministry.

Mr. Chairman: Does subsection 4 stand as part of the bill?

Subsection 4 agreed to.

Subsection 5?

Subsection 5 agreed to.

Is there anything on subsection 6?

Subsection 6 agreed to.

Subsection 7?

The member for Lakeshore.

Mr. Lawlor: The minister mentioned that it would be subject to some possible abuse by way of a subrogation, or assignment, or substitution of some kind. Without being too harsh, it’s no greater abuse than the abuse that you yourself conferred by giving yourself this peculiar kind of priority. If, in order to protect his interests, an innocent individual was placed in that position, then it is no greater abuse than the Crown has already saw fit to bring into effect. Therefore, if it’s an abuse, it’s an abuse by second degree.

We’ve heard the argument about the abuse involved in the thing in the first subsection. I’m not going to recapitulate that argument. That would be possible, but I don’t think your answer went to the heart of the matter. If it’s there and someone is being subjected to this particular penalty, then that tax under the circumstances -- I think the minister will agree -- could be very high indeed; a 50 per cent tax on an increment of $100,000. The sum of $50,000 is a lot of money to be added on to some fourth, third or second mortgage along the way.

Wouldn’t it be more just and equitable in the circumstances, since the lien already exists, since it’s sitting there in priority to everything, that someone else would take it over and pay it? It would be placed in precisely the same position.

Mr. Chairman: The member for Riverdale.

Mr. J. A. Renwick (Riverdale): I would like to ask the minister a question on the same point. Presumably a person who doesn’t have an encumbrance gets no protection whatsoever if he makes the payment which is provided for in subsection 7?

It would seem to me in those situations in which a change of control has taken place in a corporate body of the kind which would attract the tax set out in subsection 2 of section 2 -- that while there’s been no transfer of the land in the registry office, there’s been a change of control in the corporation. A change of control would attract the tax, create the lien against the land with respect to which the owner corporation had had the change of control. And then if one of the shareholders said, “I now want to pay the tax so that I can be protected against this lien and have the lien discharged,” such a person would have no priority of any kind and no protection for the funds which he paid.

It seems to me that the point made by the member for High Park and the point made by the member for Lakeshore must also include the requirement that anybody who pays should get some kind of protection.

I agree with what I take to be the meaning of the comments made by the member for Lakeshore that the protection for the person who has an encumbrance, by having the amount of the payment added to the encumbrance, is in itself not adequate. I take it that that’s what the member for Lakeshore is saying. Well, if that is not adequate in the view of the member for Lakeshore, it certainly is less than adequate if you don’t happen to have an encumbrance and are a person who is interested in protecting the land, because I am a shareholder in a company which has had a change of control and which has attracted the tax and therefore attracted the lien on the land.

It seems to me that there must be some method by which a payor who takes that step to protect his position should be given some protection. I agree with the member for Lakeshore that even when he has an encumbrance he should be given a priority over other encumbrances --

Mr. Lawlor: That’s right, and on this particular lien.

Mr. Renwick: -- with respect to the moneys which are paid.

Hon. Mr. Meen: The member for Riverdale and the member for Lakeshore raised an interesting point -- two points. The member for Lakeshore suggested it should be in priority to all other claims.

Mr. Renwick: Yes.

Hon. Mr. Meen: Yes; he is suggesting that it should, in effect, be a subrogation.

Mr. Bullbrook: Would the minister speak up just a bit?

Hon. Mr. Meen: The member for Riverdale suggests that there should be some automatic mechanism whereby the payor --

Mr. Bullbrook: On a point of order for a moment. I am very much interested in what you are saying, but for some reason I can’t hear you too well. I don’t know whether it’s the amplification, or what it is.

Hon. Mr. Meen: I’ll try again. Is that better?

Mr. Bullbrook: Yes.

Hon. Mr. Meen: Maybe if I aim my speech this way a little bit.

In the second instance the member for Riverdale suggests that there should be some mechanism built into the section for security, in some fashion, to the person paying off the lien, in the case where he does not have some kind of encumbrance as elementary perhaps as a writ of execution to which he could add the amount outstanding. It raises a good point and certainly the illustration given by the member --

Mr. Bullbrook: I don’t follow the point, I must say.

Hon. Mr. Meen: -- would be one in which there was maybe nothing on title; where there had been a change in the shares of the company, perhaps; where a deemed disposition has occurred; where maybe the shareholder feels himself aggrieved and needs to protect his interest. If that were so, I am sure he could make the necessary arrangement -- I would think he could make the necessary arrangement -- with the company to take a security for, say, another mortgage for the advance used to clear off the lien of the Crown, or some kind of security from the company, or shares, or whatever --

Mr. Renwick: I think he should be given it.

Hon. Mr. Meen: -- in order to protect himself. Certainly subsection 7, as it stands --

Mr. Renwick: I think what we are saying is --

Hon. Mr. Meen: -- would give no individual automatically a right because his right does not appear on the face of the title. He has no interest in the title, as it appears.

Mr. Renwick: Mr. Chairman, I like the use by the minister of the term “subrogation” because that’s exactly what the member for Lakeshore was saying, that he should be subrogated to the right of the Crown and have the same priority with respect to the payment that the Crown had with respect to the lien.

The example I used, of course, was simply to think up an example of a situation where a person might, to protect his interest, have to make a payment and, at the same time, didn’t have the kind of encumbrance. I think both situations could be covered by providing that the payor to the extent of the payment made to discharge the lien would be given the statutory priority over everybody and be placed in the same position as the Crown was placed in.

I would certainly be interested in the comments of the member for Sarnia or any of the other members.

Mr. Bullbrook: I must confess I believe, to the minister through the chairman, that I am missing the point put forward by both the member for Riverdale and the member for Lakeshore. I understand that you are distinguishing, if we may, between the rights of someone with an interest in the equity of redemption and a right in a person holding an encumbrance or charge. We are involving ourselves with the right of the interest of the owner of the equity of redemption. Then the value placed in addition, or the obligation of payment, still leaves him with his ability to recover that because he has control of the sale of the asset. Where the encumbrancer doesn’t, that’s what I thought the distinction was, that we don’t have to add that on to the person having the interest because he recovers that in his control of the asset.

Mr. Lawlor: That is not the point.

Mr. Bullbrook: Well then, maybe I am missing your point.

Mr. Lawlor: Mr. Chairman, as I understand the situation it is not the question of the equitable owner, it is the encumbrancers.

If a fairly large piece of property had say four mortgages on it, the fourth mortgage very well might be, say a $10,000 mortgage. The lien itself might be $50,000, five times greater than the mortgage itself. If for one reason or another the other encumbrancers are not prepared or do not have adequate cash to move in on that situation, this fourth mortgagee has only got a $60,000 mortgage which may leave him really holding the bag over against the rest of the boys if he should be foolish enough to move in on the situation. Nevertheless to protect himself he might feel obliged to do so.

Why shouldn’t the person with this very special kind of tax -- a really extraordinary form of taxation unknown to this moment to the laws of Ontario and not encompassed by way of prevision within the Mortgages Act as to what may be tacked on to the principal of a mortgage -- why shouldn’t he be able, in these circumstances, considering the weight that must be borne in hard monetary terms, step into the shoes of the ministry? He is paying them, why shouldn’t he achieve that status under the law? Wouldn’t it be the fairest possible thing for them to do in the circumstances?

Mr. Bullbrook: In other words, as I understand it -- I can’t see the point in connection with a subsequent encumbrancer. You, I think, will agree with my problem with respect to the owner of the equity of redemption.

Mr. Lawlor: He’s all right. He has got the money.

Mr. Bullbrook: He’s all right. The point, I take it, is that you want him to have priority as to the money paid to the ministry in priority to any other encumbrancer.

Mr. Renwick: He should be subrogated to the position of the Crown.

Mr. Bullbrook: Yes, I must say that I am without any great thought in that. I see equity on one side and yet on the other side I see the fact that that’s part of the normal mortgage business transaction.

For example, supposing you have got a second mortgagee undertaking a power of sale or foreclosure, then an execution creditor has to take that gamble. Right? Am I correct, Mr. Minister, that he takes that gamble if he wants to pay off the first and second mortgage?

Hon. Mr. Meen: Yes, I think so.

Mr. Bullbrook: I am inclined to think it is part of the gamble that that person holding a financial interest must take. On the other hand, I see the point made where for example a first mortgagee might not be in a sufficiently liquid position at the time to protect his interest, so a second mortgagee, in order to protect not only his own interest but the position of the first mortgagee, does deal with your ministry. Then it does seem reasonable that he should have some priority of protection.

I think on balance probably their argument is acceptable.

Hon. Mr. Meen: You can see both sides of this and I’m rather inclined to look at the risk that a fourth mortgagee may have to adopt when he advances money on that kind of security. You see, for example, he will have been given notice of the impending sale for that matter, if it came about in that kind of transaction. Then he will receive a subsequent notice.

I can see that we would have some difficulties if we simply gave him the right to step into the shoes of the minister. And although I would like to reflect on that one a little longer I think that I would rather not tamper with that at the present time. That’s a very standard kind of provision. In fact, we have I believe a virtually identical section in the Land Transfer Tax Act.

Mr. Lawlor: The tax is nowhere close.

Hon. Mr. Meen: It could be 20 per cent.

Mr. Chairman: Shall subsection 7 stand as part of the bill?

Mr. Bullbrook: I want to ask a question of a technical nature. I notice in subsection 4 we use the words, “interest, encumbrance or charge.” I relate my comments to a possible situation. Since there is no definition of encumbrance in the statute -- I haven’t looked at the Interpretation Act -- but you don’t mention “charge” as to the right in subsection 7; you just talk about the encumbrance there.

Can the minister think of a situation where a person who is given a right under subsection 7 might have a charge under subsection 4 and because of the wording not be given the protection that you have given under subsection 7? It’s just a technical thing.

Hon. Mr. Meen: No sir, not offhand. I think that they are probably mutually inclusive.

Mr. Bullbrook: I am prepared to rely on your legal opinion or your ministerial opinion. I’m just wondering, it would seem to me that we should have said in subsection 7 “encumbrance or charge” just to make sure that we are not missing any situation.

Hon. Mr. Meen: I am sorry, my mind was elsewhere. Would the member repeat that?

Mr. Bullbrook: I was suggesting to the minister that he might consider perhaps amplifying this under subsection 7; where he has used the words “encumbrance or charge” in subsection 4 the minister might want to use the same words. I just don’t know if a court interpreting a specific position of a holder of some equity in the property might say, “I’m sorry, you don’t have a right because you’re a charge” and only the encumbrance has a right under subsection 7.

Hon. Mr. Meen: I think we, as lawyers, sometimes use more words than necessary and I’ll take a look at that. I would like to think, as I said, they are mutually inclusive but since there is a difference in the two, I think we might want to take a look at that to determine which one of them we might alter some day

Mr. Chairman: Shall subsection 7 stand as part of the bill?

Subsection 7 agreed to.

Mr. Chairman: Subsection 8, the member for Downsview.

Mr. V. M. Singer (Downsview): Mr. Chairman, subsection 8 is another one of these sections in which the wording is so broad as to almost be meaningless. It says:

“Upon such conditions as he may impose, the minister may abandon, postpone, release or waive with respect to all or any part of any designated land any special lien conferred by this Act.”

What exactly does it mean? Does it mean I can write the minister a letter and say, “Please, Mr. Minister, withdraw the lien” and the minister will say, “If you will write me another letter saying the same thing, that’s the condition I impose”?

Surely, there must be some testing for the withdrawal of the lien? If the lien is validly there -- we are going to come to this again in a different context, in a later section -- should we be prepared in a taxing statute to say, “Let the minister, as his discretion deems best, abandon the lien for whatever reasons are known only to him”? What is the purpose of the section? Why should any minister ask for such broad discretion in a taxing statute? Frankly, in absence of an explanation, I can’t see how I can support subsection 8.

Mr. Chairman: The minister?

Hon. Mr. Meen: Mr. Chairman, this is not an uncommon section. I would refer the member to the Corporations Tax Act which has a similar section in it. I think it is section 167, subsection 3, which reads:

“Upon such conditions as he may impose, the minister may abandon, postpone, release or waive with respect to any or all of the property of a corporation any lien or charge for taxes, interests, penalties, costs and other amounts imposed under this or any predecessor Act.”

Mr. Lawlor: We objected to that at that time.

Hon. Mr. Meen: That’s a rather typical section. Again, we’ve got the same provision in the Land Transfer Tax Act, section 6, subsection 3. I suggest the purpose of it is for the kind of thing which I outlined to the members last evening.

Mr. Lawlor: We fought for three days over that.

Hon. Mr. Meen: At one stage we were talking about the release of this lien and I observed that under certain circumstances a solicitor might contact the ministry and say, “I need a lien clearance certificate on this property but obviously there is going to be some tax payable. I don’t have the money to pay you now but I can pay you out of the proceeds.” On the solicitor’s undertaking to pay the amount of tax eligible on the completion of the sale, the ministry could issue a lien clearance certificate and deliver it to the solicitor for use when he completes the transaction. It is for purposes such as that that subsection 8 is included in section 5.

Mr. Singer: Mr. Chairman, I can’t accept the fact that there may be similar sections in other statutes. This statute is before us and that kind of ex post facto argument doesn’t impress me at all. I have read the section. It gives far too broad a discretion to the minister and I don’t think the minister should have that kind of discretion in this statute.

His last example about a solicitor phoning and saying, “We can’t pay the tax now but we’ll pay it out of the proceeds” seems to be somewhat specious because if the proceeds are forthcoming at the time of the sale, surely it would be the simplest thing in the world for the vendor to provide direction that out of the proceeds X per cent be made payable to the Treasurer of Ontario, which would at that time discharge any lien. The balance, whatever that may be, would be payable to the vendor or however else the vendor may direct.

Unless the minister is prepared to put some limits upon the opening phraseology, “upon such conditions as he may impose,” I don’t think I can support that section. I think it is a bad section for a taxing statute. I don’t think any taxing minister should have that kind of authority. It invites abuse -- I’m not suggesting that this minister is going to abuse it -- but it invites abuse of the process.

I don’t think it should be there because this is going to be a very difficult statute to administer and I don’t think the Legislature should open the door to the kind of pressures which may arise by allowing this blanket permission to the minister to avoid the lien.

If there were some conditions on which the lien could be avoided, if there was something to replace it, I would look at it differently. But that, together with the first part of the regulation section, to me are complete anathema and I just can’t support them, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman: The member for Riverdale.

Mr. Renwick: I have a question that concerns me. Subsection 1 of this section 5 states that the tax, until paid, is a special lien having priority over every other claim. I take it that that is exactly what the statute says: “Every tax imposed upon designated land by this Act is until paid a special lien in favour of Her Majesty upon the designated land ...”

Does the abandonment, or release, or waiver of the special lien under section 8 discharge the tax?

Hon. Mr. Meen: Mr. Chairman, no. I recognize the point the member is making. It’s not our intention to treat it that way and certainly we do not think it does. We say under sub 1, every tax until paid constitutes a special lien. Now, we say however -- in effect, we are qualifying that:

“Upon such conditions as he may impose, the minister may abandon, postpone, release or waive with respect to all or any part of the designated land any special lien conferred by this Act.”

Subsection 8 modifies this subsection 1.

I have wondered, too, but my counsel tell me that this is clear and there is no question that the tax still remains a tax payable even though the lien has been wiped out. But I must say I raised the same question my own mind.

Mr. Renwick: I think it’s passing strange that under subsections 2 and 3 you have the saving clause with respect to the continuing liability of the transferor with respect to the payment of the tax, and you don’t have it in subsection 8. It would appear to me that there must be some Latin maxim which covers that in the way which would allow at least an argument to be made in the court that a waiver of the lien or a release of the lien under subsection 8 would in fact discharge the tax that was payable.

I refer specifically to the end of subsection 2 and the end of subsection 3 where it says: “... and the giving of the certificate does not impair or relieve the transferor from his responsibility to pay any tax imposed by this Act.” And at the bottom: “... but the making of such affidavit does not impair or relieve the transferor from his responsibility to pay any tax imposed by this Act.” I still think that you should have a saving clause in subsection 8.

Hon. Mr. Meen: Yes, as I say, I had wondered about that but I am advised that it does not release the liability to pay. It could be that those clauses in subsections 2 and 3 of the section are superfluous, but I recognize the problem.

I’d like to see maybe either it added in sometime or else deleted from the other two, although I think it helps to clarify the position in subsections 2 and 3 to have it in.

Mr. Chairman: Shall subsection 8 then stand as part of the bill?

Mr. Singer: No.

Mr. Chairman: Those in favour of subsection 8 standing as part of the bill will please say “aye.”

Those opposed will please say “nay.”

In my opinion, the “ayes” have it.

I declare the subsection carried.

Section 5 agreed to.

On section 6:

Mr. Chairman: The member for Riverdale.

Mr. Renwick: You will notice, Mr. Chairman -- I am sure the minister will notice since it is his bill -- that opposite this section is the term “avoidance.”

Mr. Lawlor: Yes, it doesn’t do what you say it is going to do.

Mr. Renwick: And if my memory serves me correctly, elsewhere later in this Act there is a provision with respect to evasion.

Mr. Bullbrook: Were you looking at 16?

Mr. Renwick: Maybe I was thinking of 16.

Mr. Bullbrook: Section 16(3)(b).

Mr. Renwick: Yes, to evade; subsection 3(b). I take it that this has just been taken holus-bolus out of one of the other taxing statutes. The language sounds very familiar from the Income Tax Act of Canada.

Hon. Mr. Meen: Yes, it is based on section 55 of the Income Tax Act, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Renwick: Yes, I thought so. Perhaps it is worth the minister putting on the record his understanding of the section, because it is supposed to be trite law that a person is so entitled to arrange his affairs with respect to taxing matters that he pays the least amount of tax, and that that tax avoidance is perfectly proper and perfectly legal as distinct from tax evasion, which is an intention to evade paying the tax which is properly payable.

This is a situation where this kind of language tries to say both things, that what is otherwise proper becomes improper if the conclusion can be made that “he may reasonably be considered to have artificially or unduly reduced the amount of the taxable value of the designated land that he has disposed of [and] the taxable value shall be computed as if such reduction had not occurred.”

Why isn’t it quite proper, within the framework of this taxing statute, for persons to make such arrangements of their affairs so that if they do in fact effect a disposition that escapes the net set out by the tax collector, the Minister of Revenue in this statute, they are entitled to have the benefit of it?

Mr. Singer: Well, perhaps before the Minister answers that --

Hon. Mr. Meen: I will answer that, and then I will be happy to listen to the member for Downsview.

Mr. Singer: I beg your pardon?

Hon. Mr. Meen: The operative words really are “artificially and unduly.” That is the same phraseology that appears in section 55.

“For the purposes of this subdivision [it says in section 55 of the Income Tax Act], where the result of one or more sales, exchanges, declarations of trust, or other transactions of any kind whatsoever is that a taxpayer has disposed of property under circumstances such that he may reasonably be considered to have artificially or unduly

“(a) reduced the amount of his gain from the disposition,

“(b) created as loss from the disposition, or

“(c) increased the amount of his loss from the disposition,

“the taxpayer’s gain or loss, as the case may be, from the disposition of the property shall be computed as if such reduction, creation or increase, as the case may be, had not occurred.”

The hon. members will note a distinct similarity between that section 55 and the present section 6 we are looking at in this bill.

Tax avoidance per se, I agree with the member for Riverdale, has always been something that clever lawyers felt they could advise their clients to do in a legal way --

Mr. Renwick: Not only that, it has been upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada.

Hon. Mr. Meen: -- but the way in which this is set up, what they are talking about as a tax avoidance here would be a manner in which the tax was added back in but, in my opinion, would not carry with it the same criminal connotation as under the sections of the Income Tax Act dealing with tax evasion.

I think there is a nice difference between the nature of the penalties and interest that are charged for offences under section 55 for avoidance and the other sections of the Income Tax Act dealing with evasion.

Although I think it is a proper thing for a lawyer or an accountant to advise his client as to how best to arrange or organize his affairs to minimize his tax, that’s not what we are getting at here when we are talking about arrangements such as to artificially or unduly reduce the amount of the taxable value of the designated land that he has disposed of. That’s a very different thing.

Mr. Singer: The minister has just confirmed my worst fears. What bothers me is that when we were talking about those sections on page 5, section 1, subsection (d), parts (v), (vi) and (vii), the minister threw out the thought that if someone availed themselves of those provisions of the statute, the minister was going to descend on them under section 6, if they did it with the idea of avoiding tax.

I agree completely with what the member for Riverdale has said; that avoidance, as long as it is within the law, is legitimate. It is accepted by the highest court in the land, the Supreme Court of Canada. It is accepted by the House of Lords in the United Kingdom. It is the way in which these things are looked at.

What the minister seems to have said just a few moments ago is that if someone avails himself of the provisions of those parts of section 1 and puts himself in the position where he can avoid a tax, the minister comes to the conclusion that if the taxpayer “may reasonably be considered to have artificially or unduly reduced the amount of taxable value of designated land that he has disposed of, the taxable value shall be computed as if such reduction had not occurred.”

I think he defeats completely all established tax law. Would the minister consider the addition to section 6 of a phrase to the effect that, “shall be computed as if such reduction had not occurred, provided that the provisions of this Act have not been complied with.” It would be something to that effect. I am not quite sure of my instant draftsmanship as I am standing on my feet, but the intent is pretty obvious.

I don’t think it is reasonable that we should accept what the minister said several days ago, since now, apparently, he is saying that if someone can legally bring himself within certain provisions of this Act and so avoid the tax, that the minister can then descend on him under the provisions of section 6, because someone else has deemed that they have artificially or unduly reduced the amount of the taxable value of the designated land or even eliminated it.

What we were suggesting -- what my colleague from Sarnia particularly was suggesting when we got started on this, and several of us joined in -- was that it is not beyond human imagination, in fact, it’s logical to expect, that some people may find it worth their while to create the structures mentioned in (v), (vi) and (vii) of 1(d) in order to legally avoid the tax.

Now, the minute we opposed (v), (vi) and (vii) for that reason, the minister insisted that they stay. We divided the House on it. The majority of the House insisted that they stay. Now, since the minister insists that they stay, then he should honour them. And then I think that he should qualify section 6 so that he can’t negate the previous provisions of the statute which he has insisted remain in the statute.

Hon. Mr. Meen: Mr. Chairman, I think it’s quite obvious that if the steps are taken pursuant to the statute, then one could not hold that they were artificially or unduly reduced. If he has complied with the statute, then he hasn’t done anything artificial. But if he has, in fact, availed himself of some subterfuge which is not specifically provided for, or which was not contemplated and which, as a result, artificially or unduly reduced the amount, then --

Mr. Bullbrook: You keep on saying, “which is not contemplated.”

Hon. Mr. Meen: -- the provision for assessment by the minister, beginning with section 8, would be appropriate and the normal mechanisms would flow from that.

Mr. Chairman: The hon. member for Lakeshore.

Mr. Lawlor: Mr. Chairman, in my, not judicial but in my legislative wisdom, reading this clause I am not going to argue that it doesn’t do what you think it is supposed to do; although I don’t think it does. But when you read that clause at the first blush -- and even after a few readings -- it doesn’t seem to encompass, at least in clear terms, what you are apparently after here.

This is the clause that forced this debate. Day after day you have referred us to that which would move in on collusions of all kinds; participations by anyone engaged in or who had an interest in the transaction by way of a fraud vis-à-vis the government. I wish you would say so. I really wish you’d get down to that. I think it can be said in plain and terse English to that effect.

I think a fair reading of it, an immediate reading of the clause, is it seems to fall basically on the transferor, although that’s not your intention. The breadth of the wording is such that one would have very grave difficulties in coming to the conclusion that this encapsulates all forms of collusion, any type of trespassing or trying to undermine the statute itself.

The chief purpose, I take it, of 16(c) of the section on evasion is somewhat allied to and in line with and a confirmation of the contents of this particular clause -- if this clause means as much as you seem to think it means. This is a question of evasion of tax. Why don’t you say so? If you’ve caught it under a subsequent section, which we will come to, so be it and that’s the way it ought to be.

This particular clause, it seems to me, is obfuscatory and it is difficult to disentangle what the intent of the section is. Certainly a clause of this magnitude with the weighty importance it must have for people involved in transactions, because of this gravamen, I would think the clause should be as crystal clear as you can get it with all the difficulty involved. This is very far from that.

Hon. Mr. Meen: Mr. Chairman, one of the difficulties one encounters in trying to make something crystal clear is that he might very well limit it in its form and in its extent and make it all the easier to evade the payment of some tax by way of some artificial or unduly characterized series of negotiations.

The federal Act which is drafted in very similar language, as I read to the members, has been interpreted to cover all kinds of things, such as a series of corporate transactions which has been set up for the purpose of tax avoidance but which has been held to have been, I suppose, a form of tax evasion.

I think in the circumstances here the ministry, suspecting there was collusion or some kind of collusive action between the parties or that some kind of steps had been taken with the deliberate intent of artificially or unduly reducing the tax payable or avoiding it altogether perhaps, would make an appropriate assessment. Then, as I indicated, it would be up to the courts, by the procedures set out beginning with section 8, to determine whether, in fact, there had been some collusive action or whether, in fact, there had been some steps taken which artificially or unduly reduced the amount of the tax payable.

Mr. Lawlor: In your law you do not often call upon the federal government in condemnation of your particular malpractices but when it suits your purposes you do so well. It seems to me that the casting of the net as broadly as that really means it’s a kind of regimen of terror because the Act is so defective, so full of loopholes and so difficult to construe in most of its provisions. You use it simply by way of blandishment or by way of an overall brolly held like a Damoclean sword, wavering above all the heads at once. Who knows, the sword may fall.

The way you’re going to keep them honest is not by well drafted and precisely structured legislation as to what the contour lines are, but by throwing the blanket so broadly that by way of confusion, by way of irrationality, by way of forfending and straight fear, you’re going to get this Act into operation and make it operative.

That seems to me a kind of perversion, a kind of way of doing things indirectly and by cross sections that you can’t do, or are unable to do, or haven’t done, so far as this legislation is concerned, in a direct, forceful, honest and intelligent way, and that’s the bringing into effect of a section like that.

Mr. Chairman: The hon. member for Sarnia.

Mr. Bullbrook: Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to bring to the attention of the minister and all members of the House the fact that the minister seems to rely upon the efficacy and equity of section 55 of the Income Tax Act.

That section relates to the computation of income. It is worthy of comment, and I ask the consideration of our colleagues. That section begins: “For the purpose of this subdivision.” The subdivision that is related to is subdivision (b) of the Income Tax Act, namely, with respect to the computation of income. Basically the intent of the legislation there is not only efficacious but acceptable and equitable. What they are saying there, in effect, is if, through a scheme, you artificially or unduly create a loss of income, or increase a loss which already exists, or reduce the amount of a gain, then that affects the computation of your income.

The House of Commons understood what it was doing. They say, “For the purpose of this subdivision.” Subdivision (a) is the liability for tax. In other words, section 55 of the Income Tax Act does not affect the liability for tax. That is understood. Or they wouldn’t have put it in. They would have said, “For the purposes of this Act,” or they would have left out the preamble, “For the purposes of this subdivision.”

So I think we, as reasonable people, can assume that they intended only that the words “artificially or unduly” relate to the computation of income.

Here, of course, it is a much different thing. What you have done is plucked it out of the federal Act and applied it to the taxable value of land, which you define in your first section. What you are saying, in effect, is a much more onerous thing here. You are saying, in effect, that if, as the result of the disposition of designated land, you unduly decrease the taxable value of land -- and I am really worried about the word “unduly” there; artificially is one thing, but I am really worried about the word “unduly,” because, again going back to section 55, the word unduly did have application with respect to the computation of income. But what you are saying here now, by plucking out that statute, is that if you unduly create a taxable loss with respect to the disposition of designated land -- over which you might sometimes have no control at all, may I say -- then you are deemed to have disposed of it at the taxable value that it had, notwithstanding the loss that was suffered as a result of the disposition.

I see a distinction here, I really do. I don’t think you can pluck that section out and relate it to the taxable value of land. There is a distinct purpose, in the computation of a taxpayer’s income, to put those sections in, but you can’t affect a man’s right of disposal where there is an undue loss over which he might have no control at all. I think that’s really the concern originally expressed by the member for Riverdale. It is, in point of fact, an undue loss, but under this section you deem that the taxable value is as originally defined under your definition of taxable value.

I am worried about -- I use the phrase again -- the ability that you have to pluck that section out, because I can see the purpose of it in connection with the computation of income. I would be interested in the minister’s response and perhaps in the comments of other members.

Mr. Chairman: The hon. member for Riverdale.

Mr. Renwick: Mr. Chairman, I think the matter deserves a few moments’ further consideration. I am going to propose that we delete the section from the bill, and I will do that in a moment.

I share what the member for Sarnia has said, and what my colleague from Lakeshore has commented about, and also the member for Downsview, on this particular clause.

There may well be an appropriate reason, as stated by the member for Sarnia, for this kind of a clause related to that particular portion of the Income Tax Act of Canada, and I share the elucidation of it that he made for the minister’s benefit.

We are talking here about a different kind of taxing statute. This is a taxing statute which, above all else, must be clear, both because of the quantum of the tax which you are imposing in the one place, and secondly, because you are dealing with land.

It does not seem to me that you should place persons owning land in the Province of Ontario and their advisers in that position. We don’t need to add the adjectival description of their advisers. It’s legitimate in tax accounting and legitimate in tax law to advise people as to what they’re entitled to do. I do not think we should be a party to the land of law which will result in a tax lawyer or a tax accountant or an informed layman saying to himself: “I think what I am doing in accordance with everything else in the statute is perfectly all right, but I will never know, because somebody may be able to say, using these weasel words, that what I have done has artificially or unduly reduced the amount of the taxable value.”

Mr. Singer: Even if you brought yourself under another section.

Mr. Renwick: Yes, even if you had clearly complied with every other provision of the Act. The scheme was laid out; you knew exactly what you were doing. You were advised that this is what you could do. The tax lawyer or the tax accountant is always going to have to say: “My opinion is subject to section 6 of the bill, about which I am not going to express any opinion to you, my client.”

Taxable value, as the member for Sarnia points out, brings us right back to the definition section. Taxable value is quite straightforwardly defined in subsection (o) of section 1 of the bill which says:

“Taxable value” when used in relation to designated land means the amount by which the proceeds of disposition of designated land [and the proceeds of disposition is a defined term; designated land is a defined term] exceed the adjusted value of that designated land [adjusted value of the designated land is a defined term] and the taxable value of designated land shall be computed separately for each disposition of designated land.”

That’s the whole gut scheme of the Act. It seems to me that people are entitled to look to the very definitions which are involved in this bill. And I’m glad I’ve talked on at this length because I think I’ve got a clue as to the reasons for it.

It’s very interesting, as the member for Sarnia said, that in the Income Tax Act they are talking about the computation of income. As everyone knows, despite the fact that it’s called an income tax Act, the word “income” is not defined, nor really is the word “profit,” nor really is the word “loss,” except in contradistinction to profit. There are multitudinous ways in which people can compute their income in accordance with accounting principles. I can see, on balance, the revenue needs the protection under the Income Tax Act with respect to that kind of ordering of very complicated accounting affairs. This is not designed to be a complicated Act. This is designed to provide clear definitions in the definition section and those definitions have to stand or fall by themselves.

I do not think that it is within any concept of political economy in terms of taxing philosophy, as we understand it, that you can then give the minister the determination, which is really what you’re doing. Ultimately the matter may go to a court, if it’s disputed. But in the initial instance we’re saying if the person, the transferor, can be said to have acted “under circumstances such that he [the transferor] may reasonably be considered to have artificially or unduly reduced the amount of the taxable value of the designated land,” it’s the minister who is going to make that determination in the first instance. He is the one who is going to say that --

Hon. Mr. Meen: Subject to appeal, of course.

Mr. Renwick: Yes, that is right. I don’t think that in this kind of a taxing statute the revenue needs that protection. If you find that there are loopholes, you have to do what they’ve had to do in the Income Tax Act and other taxing statutes; you’ve got to come in with the amendment to close the loopholes. But you cannot have this kind of weasel language here, which means that you would vitiate in a very real sense the very definitions over which we laboured for many hours in this committee, trying to make them clear and understandable.

Well, if we are not making any progress with the minister, all I can do, assuming we have five members in the opposition benches, which we do happen to have, and if we have their support, is to move the deletion of section 6 of the bill.

Mr. Singer: We’ll just vote against it.

Mr. Renwick: Yes, vote against it.

Mr. Singer: Yes.

Hon. Mr. Meen: Obviously I can’t accede to that. To remove that section would, of course, wipe out the Act so far as the right of the minister to look at any of these transactions and to make an assessment is concerned. I would suggest to the members that maybe that’s what the NDP would like, but that is not what the Liberal Party would want and it’s not what we want.

Mr. Renwick: Of course they do.

Hon. Mr. Meen: I might observe that one of the clearer cases that would be dealt with under section 6, apart from collusion, which I think is quite clearly within the four corners of section 6, is the matter of, say, the renovator who perhaps artificially inflates the bills which he alleges he has paid for renovations in a house in order to achieve the 20 per cent figure. If the minister determines that those have been artificially inflated, then, of course, he would make an assessment accordingly.

That’s the kind of thing we are talking about in section 6, and it’s essential that that be part of the bill. Without it, you could forget about the bill. So I would have to oppose any such suggestion that we not approve section 6 and would certainly urge the members to approve it.

Mr. Bullbrook: I want to say, if I may -- I am not going to belabour the argument -- that it is indeed unfortunate that the minister doesn’t do us the courtesy, and I don’t mean this personally, of even responding to our comments as to the technical application of these words in the context of the words of the Income Tax Act, because there is a distinction there. I am going to exaggerate for clarity --

Hon. Mr. Meen: All right. I heard the member. May I just apologize to him? I intended to respond --

Mr. Bullbrook: I am not going to make the argument again.

Hon. Mr. Meen: All right.

Mr. Bullbrook: I am going to exaggerate for the sake of clarity. A man has a hotel worth a quarter of a million dollars; it burns down. Okay? He collects the insurance. The designated value as of valuation date is a quarter of a million dollars. He then sells the land for $100,000.

I want to read the section, as I understand it. It says:

“Where the result of one or more sales, exchanges, declarations of trust, or other transactions of any kind whatever is that a transferor has disposed of property under circumstances that he may reasonably be considered to have ... unduly reduced” --

The court is called upon there to say whether he in effect reduced the value. Again, I tell you, I just exaggerate for the sake of clarity; I don’t think any court in the world would say that that’s where the distinction comes between the Income Tax Act of Canada, where it says for the purpose of computation of income, not for the purpose, as the member for Riverdale says, of arriving at a defined thing, namely, taxable value.

The situation in that exaggerated example is that he is disposing of land that has unduly depreciated as far as taxable value is concerned. Maybe he is not the author of it, and perhaps that is where he extricates himself from this section. Perhaps it’s a poor example, but that basically is the type of factual situation that we worry about -- and we don’t worry about it when you are arriving at a computation of that undefined term called income.

Hon. Mr. Meen: I don’t know whether the illustration given by the member for Sarnia is a good one or not, because the act of God situation may very well take him out of that kind of operation of section 55; it might take him out of the operation of this section. But that is not the kind of circumstance one would anticipate this section to be basically applicable to --

Mr. Lawlor: There’s only one act of God around here and that is the act of the minister.

Hon. Mr. Meen: -- just like section 55, which doesn’t impute a criminal intent to the taxpayer. It simply says, “We consider what you did to be not a proper course of action, in trying to moderate or reduce your taxes to the minimum, and so we will call it an avoidance rather than an evasion.” It simply provides in subdivision (b) for adding back the adjusted amount into the taxpayers’ income for the purpose of computation of the tax assessable under subdivision (a), I think it is.

I think the analogy here is fairly close to that situation. We are saying, “Look, for whatever reason we think that you have reduced the taxable value of the designated land we are making an appropriate assessment which you may appeal in the normal channels through the courts.”

Mr. Chairman: All those in favour of section 6 forming a part of the bill, please say “aye.”

All opposed please say “nay.”

In my opinion the “ayes” have it.

Mr. Lawlor: No stacking.

Mr. Chairman: Call in the members. Stack it? Do the hon. members want to stack it?

Mr. Singer: No, don’t stack it.

The committee divided on the motion that section 6 shall stand as part of the bill, which was approved on the following vote:

Clerk of the House: Mr. Chairman the “ayes” are 53 and the “nays” are 29.

Mr. Chairman: I declare the section stands as part of the bill.

Section 6 agreed to.

Section 7 agreed to.

On section 8:

Mr. Chairman: Section 8?

Order please. On which subsection?

Mr. Renwick: Pardon?

Mr. Chairman: On which subsection?

Mr. Renwick: I just want to hold the section.

Mr. Chairman: Any comments, questions or amendments on any subsection of section 8? If so, which one?

Mr. Renwick: I’m concerned about subsection 4.

Mr. Chairman: Anything before 4? Subsections 1, 2 and 3 then shall stand as part of the bill. The member for Riverdale on subsection 4.

Mr. Renwick: Why does the minister have to have, under subsection 4, a wide-open right, at any time that he considers reasonable, to assess or reassess any tax payable by any person under the Act? Why isn’t there some limitation period, as there is in any other normal, reasonable taxing statute?

Hon. Mr. Meen: With the qualifications the member applied I’m not sure whether he’d allow me to refer to some of our other taxing statutes or not. But I might refer him to the Gasoline Tax Act, that has, I believe, an identical section to this. It is simply this, Mr. Chairman, one never knows how long, particularly with real estate, these matters may remain without anything coming to the attention of the ministry.

For example, under a deemed disposition by way of merger or amalgamation it might be years before something of this sort came to the attention of the ministry. Therefore it is not at all appropriate that there should be a time limit.

Mr. Renwick: Let me say that it is appropriate. One of the things which they at least tried to do in the Carter commission and under the Income Tax Act was to define the situations under which assessments were closed and final. I don’t care what the time limit is that the minister may choose to put in, but there should be a time limit where, in cases of bona fide good faith and no fraud or misrepresentation by the taxpayer, the matter should be over, done with and terminated.

There is just no excuse for the minister thinking that he can have it just the way he wants to have it every time. Surely a taxpayer is entitled at some point, in the absence of fraud or misrepresentation on his part, to know that the matter is final and closed and if whatever tax was eligible has been paid, that’s the end of it; if no tax has been levied, that’s the end of it.

Mr. Chairman: Shall subsection 4 of section 8 stand as part of the bill?

Mr. Renwick: No.

Mr. Bullbrook: I just want to make a comment.

Mr. Chairman: The member for Sarnia.

Mr. Bullbrook: The problem -- to the minister, through the chairman -- is that not only is there a tax liability but this statute goes further. This statute claims a lien with respect to a tax liability.

The member for Riverdale is quite right. As you know well, there are specific times for doing things under the Income Tax Act. There are specific times for assessment, for notices of objection, for appeals, for the right of the government to assess, or to reassess, for that matter. But superimposed upon that fact is that here the minister attempts to give himself, without restriction, a right to reassess a taxpayer at any time that he wishes. You’ve got the problem of the fact that there continues to be a lien in connection with any tax liability.

I wonder if the minister would comment with respect to that.

Hon. Mr. Meen: Mr. Chairman, if a lien has been released, as it would be in a normal transaction, then it can never arise again. So that problem doesn’t come up.

I recognize that it may look rather high-handed in the general sense of an assessment being made. But suppose a misrepresentation has been made, suppose -- as I mentioned to the member for Riverdale -- there is a case of a merger or amalgamation in which there is nothing on the registry records to trigger the matter coming to the attention of the ministry. This kind of thing, therefore, simply cannot be subject to a time limit.

Mr. Bullbrook: Section 56(2), is it? I don’t know whether it is or not, I’m not going to look at the statute -- always gave the Minister of National Revenue in connection with a fraudulent misrepresentation --

Mr. Singer: Yes, he can go in anytime.

Mr. Bullbrook: He can go in any time he wants to. That’s all the member for Riverdale and the rest of us are asking. You don’t cloud the taxpayer with what, in effect, is an eternal burden. You let him know what his position is. If he has been fraudulent, then you say fine, we’ll go in. But why not do it in that manner?

Mr. Singer: Mr. Chairman, the minister, under section 7, says that where there is a refund, if it isn’t applied for within three years, you can’t get it back. But now, where a mistake has been made and he doesn’t limit it to fraudulent mistakes or criminal mistakes or deliberate mistakes -- any kind of a mistake -- the minister may at any time go in.

Does that mean that people are compelled to keep their records forever? It isn’t reasonable. Surely you can limit that in the same kind of concept that the Income Tax Act is limited. Where everyone has acted in good faith, or where the taxpayer has acted in good faith and there is nothing criminal about it, then there should be a time limit.

Take the minister’s own time limit of three years where he says he won’t pay a refund unless you apply for it within three years. If the minister is going to be consistent, why doesn’t he give a refund at any time? Probably because he would find it would be very inconvenient to keep those records ad infinitum. Why then should a taxpayer be expected to keep his records ad infinitum if he has acted honestly?

Hon. Mr. Meen: Mr. Chairman, my answer is essentially the same. We have no way of knowing, under this section -- unless I were to try to set out the kind of offence that we are talking about -- I think I have no way to know whether a time limit of, say, seven years or 10 years or 15 years, is at all realistic. Certainly for many of these transactions it would be.

I would think that if a taxpayer wanted to be reassured that there would be no liability, he could make application after X number of years if he wanted to toss out his old records.

But there may well be cases that couldn’t come to the attention of the ministry for many years following the time of disposition or deemed disposition. I’m in no position where I can suggest any kind of date that would be a practical period. Certainly not a short period of time like three years.

Mr. Singer: Where does the minister find any authority in the Act that allows a taxpayer to apply for permission to discard his records? All you say in subsection 4 of section 8 is: “The minister may, at any time he considers reasonable, assess or reassess any tax payable by any person under this Act.” Theoretically you could come in 10 years later and say: “Oh, I guess you have to pay another tax. Send us $100,00 plus interest at whatever per cent payable compounded over the last 10 years.”

It doesn’t make sense. It isn’t fair. It isn’t logical. It isn’t in keeping with the scheme set down by the minister himself for a payment of refunds. You just want everything your own way in this Act. You want to be able to do anything at all at any time that you deem is reasonable. We just voted on in section 6 the power to override the provisions of other sections. Now you want the power to go in and reassess at any time whether there is fraud or connivance or deliberate avoidance or anything at all. It is a bad, bad section.

Mr. Chairman: Does subsection 4 stand as part of the bill?

Mr. Singer: No.

Mr. Chairman: Those in favour of subsection 4 standing as part of the bill will please say “aye.”

Those opposed will please say “nay.”

In my opinion, the “ayes” have it.

I declare subsection 4 as part of the bill.

Subsection 5? Any comments, questions or amendments on the later subsections of this section? If so, which section; if not the rest of section 8 shall carry.

Section 8 agreed to.

Section 9 agreed to.

On section 10:

Mr. Chairman: Section 10; any comments, questions or amendments on any of those subsections? If so, which subsection?

Mr. Singer: Yes. Let’s look at the scheme under section 10, the appeal section from the minister to the courts, bearing in mind section 8(4) where the minister may at any time he considers reasonable assess and reassess. Then after the minister has given notice required by subsection 3 of section 9, the person who has served notice of objection may appeal to the Supreme Court:

“... but no appeal under this section shall be instituted after the expiration of 90 days from the date on which the notice has been mailed to such person under subsection 3 of section 9, and an appeal under this section shall not be made to the divisional court.”

Let’s presume under section 8(4) the minister has reassessed seven years after the date. Then he sends out a notice to somebody who may or may not be there at that time, who may have moved and may have had six different mailing addresses since.

The minister has discharged his obligation by putting a letter in the mail. Once the letter has gone in the mail with the assessment, there is no appeal to be instituted after the expiration of 90 days from which the notice has been mailed. Is that fair? Bearing in mind that you can come in anytime you want, and presumably you are going to mail it to the last known address, you can come in, say, seven, eight, or 10 or 15 years later and reassess, then you have discharged your obligation and eliminated the right to appeal if you put a piece of paper in the mail whether it is delivered or not.

Why shouldn’t there be service on the taxpayer if you are going to do it, or at least mailing by registered mail with proof of service or something of that sort? Surely the taxpayer is entitled to have some kind of notice, keeping in mind again, and I can’t overemphasize this, section 8(4) allows the minister to come in at any time.

Hon. Mr. Meen: We are dealing with an appeal following the notice of objection filed under section 9(1). Mr. Chairman, we went by that section. It says:

“Where a person objects to an assessment [and I am reading from section 9(1)] under section 8, [and that is what we are talking about] ... within 90 days [of the assessment he has to serve the minister with notice. Then under section 10] After the minister has given the notification required by subsection 3 of section 9, a person who has served notice of objection under section 9 may appeal to the Supreme Court.”

So each one has a period of 90 days.

Mr. Chairman: Shall this subsection stand as part of the bill?

Subsection 1 agreed to.

Mr. Bullbrook: Why do you not make any provision for interest to be paid on a refund order?

Hon. Mr. Meen: Which section is the hon. member referring to there, Mr. Chairman?

Mr. Bullbrook: Subsection 7 says:

“The court may dispose of an appeal by allowing it, by dismissing it, or by allowing it in part and directing the minister to vacate the assessment, vary the assessment or reconsider the assessment and reassess as indicated by the judgement of the court.”

Subsection 8:

“In delivering judgement disposing of an appeal, the court may order payment or refund of tax by the appellant or by the Treasurer as the case may be ...”

The minister has provided for the taxpayer to be responsible for interest. In the next section, for example, if any payment is made pursuant to the Act, the payment is for interest first. Why doesn’t the minister consider paying the taxpayer interest if he has improperly assessed him?

Hon. Mr. Meen: I have a provision in the section dealing with abatement of a refund which provides, as the hon. members will have noticed in section 7, for interest at such rate as may be established, I think. Let me just take a look at this.

No, I haven’t -- at least I don’t see it there. But it had been my expectation that interest would be allowed at a modest amount on any moneys that were repaid, Mr. Chairman. I may be thinking in terms of tax paid under protest but I can’t put my finger on it right at the moment.

Mr. Bullbrook: Do I take it that the minister is sympathetic to the concept of interest where there has been an erroneous assessment and payment of tax?

Hon. Mr. Meen: Yes, I am, Mr. Chairman. In fact I have been reminded that section 22(2)(i) provides for the establishment of the amount by regulation and that’s what I had in mind. I was looking around for it.

Mr. Chairman: Shall section 10 then stand as part of the bill?

Section 10 agreed to.

Mr. Bullbrook: Mr. Chairman, I was looking at the wording to make sure that -- I am sorry to take your time -- I was making sure that the wording was covered under not only a voluntary refund but a refund pursuant to an order of the court.

Section 11 agreed to.

On section 12:

Mr. Chairman: Section 12. There are a number of subsections here. Any comments, questions or amendments on any subsection? If so, which one?

Mr. Bullbrook: I would think the member for Downsview would be interested in this section.

Mr. Singer: I am, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman: Which subsection?

Mr. Singer: Section 12(1):

“Any person authorized by the minister for any purpose related to the administration or enforcement of this Act may at all reasonable times enter into any premises where any business is carried on or any property is kept or anything is done in connection with any business or where any books or records are or should be kept ... --”

Would that, in the minister’s opinion -- I know it is the opinion of many lawyers -- allow the minister to come into any legal office and run through books and records and documents without any particular authorization? Is that what the minister contemplates under this section?

Hon. Mr. Meen: Mr. Chairman, if that’s where the records are to be found, that would be one of the areas in which doubtless the inspection would take place.

Mr. Singer: The minister is not concerned at all about solicitor and client privilege and/or the extent to which persons authorized by the minister may examine legal files and the right of a solicitor to make available to persons authorized by the minister the books or records of accounts or so on of the taxpayer who happens to be the client? Is the minister not concerned with solicitor and client privilege?

Hon. Mr. Meen: Yes, I am, but I don’t think that this would intrude on the solicitor-client relationship. I raised the question, I remember, when we had the same sections in the Land Transfer Tax Act and I am advised that this has been tested and found to be not contrary to the solicitor and client relationship although, as a lawyer, I had cause to wonder about that myself. It is not so much communication between the solicitor and client as records of the client dealing with his transaction, Mr. Chairman, and I think that’s where the distinction lies.

Mr. Chairman: Shall section 12 then stand as part of the bill?

Mr. Lawlor: I trust the minister respects the solicitor’s lien in those circumstances before you take the thing away. You pay the boy before you take off with the boodle.

The section, if in no other way, I suspect, offends against certain nostrums of the greatest panjandrum of them all, McRuer. You make no provision, as I remember him making provision, with respect to private dwelling houses. He said that no search and no entry of a private dwelling house ought to take place without judicial authority. As far as this section is concerned, you see fit to ignore that particular injunction. I wonder what consideration you have given that.

Hon. Mr. Meen: I’m sorry, Mr. Chairman, but I didn’t follow the hon. member. What we were talking about in the earlier documents, if I can try and grasp what he’s saying -- and I was looking at subclause 1(d) at the bottom of page 19, if that’s what the hon. member is directing his attention to.

Mr. Lawlor: You are way ahead of me.

Hon. Mr. Meen: The auditor or investigator would be there lawfully at the time, that wouldn’t be a problem. Is he talking then about entry under other auspices; as for example with a search warrant? Or as in another case in which he suspects there may be documents and he has to descend upon them and seize them without being there in the normal course of auditing.

Mr. Lawlor: No. What I’m directing my remarks to is two sections as I remember it, in McRuer’s recommendations. In section 12, subsection 1, you say: “For the purposes of enforcement and administration of this statute at all reasonable times authorized persons may enter into any premises where any business is carried on or any property is kept.” I’m saying have you given sufficient attention, have you really adverted to the injunctions of McRuer with respect to entering private dwelling houses? He says without judicial authority that ought not to be done.

Hon. Mr. Meen: I would agree with his observations, but here in the opening paragraph of subsection (1), just paraphrasing the last two or three lines, we’re talking about “or any property is kept or anything is done in connection with any business.” I think one would have to assume that would be a business property and not a residence. It is not necessarily the case though, but it is probably broad enough to cover entry. Remember again it would be entry not by way of breaking down a door. This would be entry during normal business hours.

Mr. Lawlor: Why not breaking down a door? I don’t see anything in there saying he may not break down the door.

Mr. R. G. Hodgson (Victoria-Haliburton): Nothing there says you should either.

Mr. Lawlor: Well, the presumption is that --

Mr. J. E. Stokes (Thunder Bay): Break down the door if necessary, but not necessarily break down the door.

Hon. Mr. Meen: We haven’t worked our way through it yet; we’re still talking about section 12, subsection (1). If we can just jump for a moment to subsection (4), it says:

“The minister may, for any purposes related to the administration or enforcement of the Act, with the approval of a judge of the Supreme Court [and so on] ... upon ex parte application, authorize in writing an officer of the Ministry of Revenue, together with such members of the [OPP] or other peace officers as he calls upon to assist him and such other persons as are named therein, to enter and search, and if necessary by force ...”

That section is the one which contemplates having to enter any place, including a dwelling house no doubt, for the purpose of seizure of documents. What we’re talking about here under 12(1) is entry by permission I would say; and that could, by the general wording of 12(1), I expect cover a dwelling house.

Mr. Lawlor: That’s precisely my argument. One of my favourite words, as you probably know, is nugatory. The first part, subsection 1 obviates, overcomes and renders nugatory the provisions in subsection 4. You are giving real cognizance to the McRuer nostrums in subsection 4; that’s what he was talking about. This is where you go to the court and where you get your authority to enter. I take it this is not just in a context of force where that is necessary, but as they say it the other way, as my friend just said it, if necessary by force, as the section reads.

You don’t really have to resort to or utilize the provisions of subsection 4. There would be a context in which you would no doubt do so, but not only may you enter but under clause (d) subsection 1 you may seize and take away in a certain context.

I don’t think that seizure and taking away runs contrary to McRuer, by the way. I think when you do find suspicious circumstances you would be justified in doing so. But my feeling with him is that where a private dwelling house is involved, the overriding rule in the matter is that the utilization of subsection 4 would be very much in order. I would suggest that perhaps the minister would give some consideration to altering your legislation to the extent of giving recognition to that particular principle.

Many dwelling houses have certain commercial uses or certain business uses. Many of us have dens or studies or whatnot in which we keep books of account, in which we do even maybe a bit of doodling in the legal line. In that particular way I would hate to think that a fairly fundamental premise in British law is being obviated by this section as it presently stands.

Mr. Chairman: Any further comments?

Hon. Mr. Meen: I was just going to observe, Mr. Chairman, that the subsections 1 and 4 really contemplate different circumstances.

Subsection 1 deals with the rather normal audit that might be conducted of a builder’s offices and that sort of thing. When the auditor is in he may come on documents which it is necessary for him to seize. Otherwise, if he goes away to get a warrant to authorize him to take them he may find when he returns with the warrant that the documents or records are no longer there. Paper being paper, it is reasonably easy to dispose of it. So he has to have the authority under subsection 1 to take the documents with him having found them in the first place and being lawfully there.

Then subsection 4 is the case where he may have some notion that documents are elsewhere and he may have no right otherwise or no opportunity to get in to inspect or to seize those documents without triggering the reactions that would inevitably result in their being spirited away or altered or destroyed.

So the two subsections really deal with different circumstances.

Mr. Lawlor: I think when we are drafting sections of this kind some attention should be paid by the draftsmen and by the minister responsible -- in no elaborate way -- to spelling out the circumstances and context in which the various sections would be used, particularly the penetrations of privacy such as these sections envisage.

A little of what the minister said in good sense just a few minutes ago should be spelled into the course of the section itself, because that ain’t the way it is. You don’t have to resort to 4, at all in most contexts, it seems to me. You simply ignore 4 and may never utilize it, no matter what the situation is insofar as it suits your purposes, because you have already overridden it in effect in the previous subsection. That’s a lamentable situation, and all the good faith in the world is not going to prevent us from writing arbitrary and even quasi-dictatorial powers into legislation, such as is being done in this context.

Mr. Chairman: Shall section 12 stand as part of the bill then?

Mr. Lawlor: No, I am sorry. Could I just mention for a moment or two subsection 6 of 12 -- this is where you are supplying copies. It says: “May cause to be made one or more copies thereof”. Then it goes on to say that these documents as certified by the minister are admissible as evidence in court.

That’s fine, you don’t have to produce the originals, I suppose, unless they are directly called for by the judge in court. Does that envisage -- it doesn’t say so but I suspect it may -- that copies, if you are going to retain the originals for a while, may be supplied to the individual for whom they were taken? Or is it envisaged that you are going to give the originals back and keep the copies? Or just what does it look into?

Hon. Mr. Meen: I expect it covers all of those, Mr. Chairman. It might be that the taxpayer needed his books back in order to be able to carry on, or it might be that they were required in some other court for some other purpose. It would be unfair to requisition those books, seize those books from him and hold them to his operating detriment when all that is necessary is that appropriate legible copies be available. Pursuant to this section, as certified by the ministry they may be used in the court proceedings as though they were the original.

Mr. Lawlor: I think we should document all this and make little summary notes and headings -- do it up in flowered print and send it to the judges of the courts of Ontario. Then they would know what we really want to do.

Section 12 agreed to.

On section 13:

Mr. Chairman: Any comments, questions or amendments on section 13 in any subsection; and if so which one?

Mr. Lawlor: Section 13(3).

Mr. Chairman: Is there anything before 13(3)?

The member for Lakeshore.

Mr. Lawlor: My penetrating comment on this particular subsection is, what has the minister got in mind in bringing forward this subsection? You are talking about remedies here and then you go off on some elongated tangent:

“... remedies provided by this Act for the recovery and enforcement of the payment of any tax are in addition to any other remedies existing by law, and no action or other proceeding taken in any way prejudices, limits or affects any lien, charge or priority existing under this Act or at law in favour of ...”

What are all these other remedies you are talking about? What have you got in mind?

Hon. Mr. Meen: Mr. Chairman, the basic remedy would be the lien, I suppose.

Mr. Lawlor: Right. That’s pretty clear.

Hon. Mr. Meen: All right. There may be cases, however, in which the minister has, for good reason at the time, perhaps released the lien and accepted an undertaking from the solicitor acting for the vendor to pay the amount of the tax assessed to be due. It may turn out that, for whatever reason, the counsel who receives the money does not remit the proceeds.

This is the section which would permit the minister, the Crown, to recover the money from the party who received it. It would enable him to recover any other assets which it would not, by the law, have set off against any other moneys which might have been collected for, say, corporation tax. There may be all kinds of ways in which the ministry could recover the amount of the money besides the normal procedure for recovery and the normal sources of the money one would anticipate under this Act. This simply gives the authority to recover in any direction in which the moneys may be available.

Section 13 agreed to.

Mr. Chairman: Are there any comments, questions or amendments to any other section; if so, which one?

On section 14:

Mr. Singer: Section 14, Mr. Chairman, is the garnishee section. Is there any limit? I can’t see anything, in any of the subsections, on the amount that may be garnished. Am I reading this correctly when I suggest you can garnish the whole of the salary of a taxpayer in default?

Mr. Lawlor: Garnish the whole salad, not the whole salary.

Mr. Singer: You send a garnishee notice to an employer on account of an employee who is a defaulting taxpayer. Do I read this correctly when I conclude you can take the whole of his salary, ad infinitum, until the tax is paid? He will have nothing left to live on or are the other statutes relating to garnishee procedures --

Hon. Mr. Meen: I cannot imagine that this would take priority over the Wages Act -- is it? If my memory serves me -- which places a limitation.

Mr. Singer: Why didn’t you say so?

Hon. Mr. Meen: In any event this is not just aimed at that. It’s aimed at the general liability of one person for money owing by him to the taxpayer who owes it to the Crown. If there is any impediment on the payment of that money, of course those impediments would apply.

Mr. Singer: Why don’t you see what your official said in the note and see who is right?

Mr. Chairman: Shall section 14 stand?

Mr. Renwick: No, Mr. Chairman. As a matter of principle I am opposed to the garnishment of wages under any circumstances. I don’t think people earning wages are the kind of people this Act is designed to catch. I’m going to oppose and ask that we record a vote on the garnishment of wages provision in subsection 6 of section 14.

Mr. Chairman: Shall subsection 6 stand as part of the bill?

Mr. Singer: The minister said he can’t imagine that other legislation wouldn’t prevail. Can you tell us the basis on which you can’t imagine that because it seems to me this Act prevails?

Hon. Mr. Meen: I’m advised that the Wages Act does not apply to the Crown which would mean that, technically, the whole of the wages would be eligible. As far as I’m concerned I would never approve that sort of thing. It happens that that is a standard section in all our taxing statutes. I would like to take a look at that some day and determine whether we can’t impose a limitation in accordance with the Wages Act for the reasons which would be evident to us all. I don’t think we can very simply do it in subsection 6. I would want to take a look at that another time, which I will do.

Mr. Singer: I get very unhappy when the minister stands up and says, “I certainly would never act in that unfair way.” Not that I question what the minister is saying but who knows how long he is going to be the minister in that portfolio or have the authority to say it? I don’t know how complicated it would be if you wanted to write an exemption there into subsection 6. Why don’t you stand subsection 6 down and see if you can use some accommodation?

Some very zealous officer who can act in your name might not even consult you about it. The minister tells me he’s got 35 to 40 officers he is appointing, all of whom can act presumably without consulting him. Anything the minister can do can be done by one of his officers, eh? So, an officer without even consulting the minister could go in and grab all of somebody’s salary without leaving him enough to live on. I don’t know what you are going to achieve by that. He’s going to stop working, that’s the first thing you are going to achieve. Why can’t the ministers stand subsection 6 down to work out an amendment.

Hon. Mr. Meen: Yes. Mr. Chairman, are we down to subsection 6 now?

Mr. Chairman: We are at subsection 6.

Hon. Mr. Meen: We have passed the other five subsections?

Mr. Chairman: Yes. That’s my understanding.

Hon. Mr. Meen: I would agree to standing subsection 6 down until 8 o’clock tonight --

Mr. Renwick: Very good.

Hon. Mr. Meen: -- because I think that it should be appropriate to have some words in here such as “subject to the provisions of the Wages Act” or however we would refer to that. I will look at that over the dinner hour anyway if the members would prefer.

Mr. Renwick: That shows a commendable degree of flexibility.

Mr. Chairman: I understand all other subsections are carried then, and subsection 6 shall be stood down until later this evening.

On section 15:

Mr. Chairman: Any comments, questions, or amendments on any subsection here?

Section 15 agreed to.

On section 16:

Mr. Chairman: The member for Lakeshore.

Mr. Lawlor: We are back to this evasion bit here, just for a moment or two in any event. It’s the business of “every person who has made, participated in, assented to or acquiesced in the making of a false or deceptive statement” required under this Act, or the regulation, is going to be subject to these fairly onerous penalties.

First of all I would like to know from the minister whether -- not that it justifies it -- but out of what particular legislation this was extracted? Doesn’t he feel that that is very widely drawn indeed? I can imagine anyone who made a false statement being caught under this matter. I am still very much concerned throughout this legislation with the onus and weight that you are placing upon solicitors not acting for the vendors or transferors who are the beneficiaries of the profit to be made out of land speculation. It is upon the lawyers and the individuals acting in the purchaser’s capacity.

What on earth would be deemed to be acquiescing in, how wide that net is cast, what it really means? That kind of wording, it seems to me, can get a man in jail by merely blinking his eyes if he looks nonchalant --

Hon. Mr. Meen: Oh, no.

Mr. Lawlor: -- or shrugs his shoulders wrong on some particular afternoon. It may be taken very well that he has acquiesced in, or is making a false representation. I would ask that that be given some consideration too. The wording is just too blunt and too wide and has that kind of generality in a penalizing section that may involve many innocent people and very grave consequences.

Hon. Mr. Meen: Mr. Chairman, this section is again very similar to the one such as in our Gasoline Tax Act and others of like nature. The Income Tax Act, I am advised, has similar provision. There are all kinds of people who I suppose would say, “Well, you know. I sort of went along with it.” They are cloaked with the same kind of culpability as the person who actually perpetrated the misrepresentation that eventually resulted in the charge being laid under this section. I would suggest it is not too broad. It is consistent with other practices in our taxing statute.

Mr. Chairman: Shall section 16 stand?

Mr. Bullbrook: I want to say to you that you talk about the culpability of a person who has been involved collaterally. You’ve covered that with the words, “made, participated, assented to or acquiesced in” but the key ingredient the member for Lakeshore talks about is the lack of the word “knowingly.” There doesn’t have to be any intention on the part of the person who contravenes the section. All you have to do, for the sake of rendering him liable to the punitive aspects of this statute, is prove that it was done.

You amended section 3, as far as the obligation of the solicitor is concerned, to make him liable to it only if he knew there was an obligation with respect to the tax. I’ve sent back my copy of the Income Tax Act to the library; I’m sorry I did. What is so unattractive about using “everyone who knowingly has”?

Hon. Mr. Meen: Mr. Chairman, we are talking here about a false or deceptive statement. If one makes, participates in the making, assents to or acquiesces in the making of a false or deceptive statement surely he knows? I think it would be redundant in that section to suggest we say, “knowingly makes, participates in, assents to or acquiesces in the making of a false or deceptive statement.”

Mr. Bullbrook: Supposing I take an affidavit of exemption --

Hon. Mr. Meen: I’m sorry?

Mr. Bullbrook: Supposing I, as a commissioner, take an affidavit of exemption? I’ve participated in -- and I don’t know that I have participated in -- the affiant knowingly making a false affidavit. I am a commissioner; I participate in the making of the affidavit.

Hon. Mr. Meen: You are not making it; you are taking it or swearing it but you are not making that affidavit.

Mr. Lawlor: He’s acquiescing.

Mr. Bullbrook: You say I am not participating in the making of it?

Hon. Mr. Meen: Not in that sense.

Mr. Bullbrook: I tell you, the problem, again, in connection with this, Mr. Chairman, is the obligation we keep putting upon people. I’m not saying for one moment that you or your officials are going to interpret the statute in this way. I’m saying to you that, as far as concerns the interpretation of the clear, unequivocal, unambiguous wording of that, if I swear an affidavit, if someone swears an affidavit to me, I am participating in the making of a false affidavit.

To begin with, the affidavit can not be made without the affirmation given to the affiant by the commissioner and if he is not participating in it -- again I use it as an exaggeration for the sake of clarity and so you understand the word “knowingly” should be there. To begin with, you only want to punish people who have been involved in this type of conspiracy or overt wrong-doing who knew they were being involved in it. Is there an onus which the word “knowingly” puts in that makes it so unattractive?

Hon. Mr. Meen: Mr. Chairman, I think ‘‘knowingly” is redundant. I think, though, that if a commissioner for oaths were to swear an affidavit by his client when he knew that affidavit to be false he would himself be guilty of an offence -- not necessarily under this section but he would be guilty of an offence under the Commissioners for taking Affidavits Act. In any event, he would certainly not go scot-free.

Mr. Bullbrook: Can I just say one thing? I am sorry. Look at conspiracy, in (d) -- “conspired with any person to commit any offence described in clause a, b or c.” Conspiracy is an agreement by one or more persons to perform an illegal act.

Hon. Mr. Meen: Two or more persons.

Mr. Bullbrook: I am sorry, two or more persons; quite right -- by two or more persons to commit an illegal act.

It is absolutely essential that a person involved in that type of thing knows he is involved in it.

Hon. Mr. Meen: I know.

Mr. Bullbrook: I can’t for the life of me understand why you’re not attracted to the word “knowingly.” It is in many other punitive statutes and sections.

Mr. Lawlor: It is interesting that you use “willingly” in (c).

Hon. Mr. Meen: That’s “wilfully.”

Mr. Lawlor: Even if you held that the solicitor would not be deemed to be participating in this making of a false affidavit, in the sense that you use it, I think the member for Sarnia is perfectly right on straight English parsing and semantics alone. The term “acquiesce in” is of such vague and universal import, what does it really mean “to acquiesce”? That he was there? That he seemed to go along? What was he going along with?

He swore the affidavit, he wasn’t aware what the contents were or, if he was aware of what they were, he didn’t know them to be false. Nevertheless, he was there and on the wording you have here, I think on strict, literal, golden rule interpretation, he’s had it if you really wanted to put the blocks to him. You don’t want to do that in terms of legislation or any other way.

If you find the word “knowingly” not to be unpalatable to you but simply think it’s redundant, might you not bend a little in this particular context because we don’t think it’s redundant; at least I don’t. I think it is very pertinent indeed to what could flow as a criminal penalty arising out of this particular statute. If it’s not going to offend you, please put it in.

Hon. Mr. Meen: Mr. Chairman, I simply repeat it would be redundant. My advisers have confirmed that my interpretation of this is correct and it would be simply redundant to put it in. But if the members want to put it in, I suppose -- I can see the concern that some would have. The member for Sarnia wants to make sure that if he’s participated in the swearing of a false affidavit when he had no knowledge that it was false, he wants to be very sure he’s not going to wind up before the discipline committee, if not otherwise involved in a court action under this section.

Mr. Bullbrook: Yes.

Hon. Mr. Meen: I would suppose we could do this. I’m just wondering where I would put it -- whether I would put it right at the beginning or whether one would say, “made, participated in.” I suppose if you are going to put it in at all it goes in at the beginning.

Mr. Bullbrook: Why don’t you put it in there?

Hon. Mr. Meen: It would be, “Knowingly makes, participates in, assents to or acquiesces in the making of a false or deceptive statement” and so on.

Mr. Bullbrook: You don’t have to make it present tense; “Every person who has knowingly ...” Okay?

Hon. Mr. Meen: Then it would apply to all four subsections.

Mr. Bullbrook: We could say, “Every person who has made, knowingly participated in.” Okay? Because “assenting to” and “acquiescing to” --

Hon. Mr. Meen: To come back to the member’s suggestion, he might find that somebody interpreted taking an affidavit as having participated in the making of it.

Mr. Bullbrook: No; he must knowingly participate in the making of the false statement.

Hon. Mr. Meen: I think it would be incorrect to put it in the lead line of sub 3.

Mr. Bullbrook: Why don’t we leave it --

Hon. Mr. Meen: I think if we put it in at all it would be, “knowingly made, participated in, assented to or acquiesced in the making of ...” It’s redundant but --

Mr. Lawlor: That’s right. That’s the way it should be done.

Hon. Mr. Meen: -- I think it will probably take care of the situation.

Mr. Chairman: Does the minister so move then?

Hon. Mr. Meen moves that subsection 3(a) of section 16 be amended by adding the word “knowingly” ahead of the word “made” where it appears in the first line.

Motion agreed to.

Mr. Lawlor: Congratulations.

Mr. Renwick: The minister shows immense flexibility.

Section 16, as amended agreed to.

Mr. Bullbrook: The minister is becoming so flexible if we don’t watch it we are going to get through this bill today. Who knows?

Mr. Renwick: No, no.

On section 17:

Mr. Singer: On section 17, Mr. Chairman --

Mr. Chairman: The member for Downsview.

Mr. Singer: -- why should there be as long a time as six years to lay an information? Surely the offence should be ascertainable reasonably quickly? The minister has all these powers and all these officials and if he’s found something wrong why should he be allowed six years in which to lay an information? How long should the sword hang over the errant taxpayer’s head? Shouldn’t there be some finality? That’s what I was arguing about earlier, but I didn’t convince you.

Hon. Mr. Meen: I agree there should be some finality and I think six years is a good period.

Mr. Singer: Why six years? Why not three years?

Mr. Renwick: Put the onus on the government.

Mr. Singer: Yes, but why not three years?

Mr. Renwick: Put the onus on the government.

Mr. Singer: How did you pick six years? What’s the rationalization for it?

Hon. Mr. Meen: Very easy, Mr. Chairman. It’s the same as in all the other Acts. I think if we were going to change this one, I would want to take a look at all of them. I think that six is a long time but I don’t think it’s too long. But that’s another matter that I intend to take a look at.

Mr. Singer: When do you intend to take a look at it? After the statute has been passed?

Hon. Mr. Meen: When I can get some time, when the legislation is through the House, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Bullbrook: You should have thought of that ahead of time, may I suggest to you most respectfully. I want to say to you that I think the wording of this section restricts you too much. I agree that six years is too long but I understand the wording of this section, which is different from the limitation under most -- I don’t think the Criminal Code is in this particular fashion. Your problem here is that you are limited to six years from the factual situation having taken place or the offence having been committed, as I read this. Normally it’s from time of knowledge of the offence.

Hon. Mr. Meen: No, this is when the information --

Mr. Singer: No, I don’t think --

Mr. Bullbrook: “An information in respect of an offence against this Act shall be laid within six years of the time when the matter of the information arose.”

All right, let’s just for the sake of -- here is the way I like these sections to go -- an offence takes place in 1974. Your statute barred in 1981, even if knowledge didn’t come to you until 1981, as I read this, whereas it should --

Mr. Singer: No, I don’t think that’s true.

Mr. Bullbrook: No? Well, that’s fine. I want some help on this, because the way it should be is that the limitation period should begin to run from the time that the Crown was aware of the factual situation --

Mr. Singer: Which could be forever.

Mr. Bullbrook: -- which created the offence.

Mr. Singer: You’ve got forever plus six years, as I read it.

Hon. Mr. Meen: No, but not the way this section reads. This section reads that from the time when the offence occurred -- not when it came to the attention of the minister.

Mr. Bullbrook: That’s right. That’s right. You agree with me?

Hon. Mr. Meen: I recall that under the Land Transfer Act we had a similar section, with three years in. I think it was the member for Riverdale that suggested we increase that to six years. I’m wondering if under these circumstances -- in which some of these things may be just a little nebulous -- whether six years is adequate for the information to be laid. This is for the prosecution under section 16 -- not the recovery of the money for which there is no time limit, as we discussed earlier. This is the laying of the information out of which might arise a prosecution under section 16.

I’m wondering -- prompted by the member for Sarnia, and I’m thinking out loud here -- whether it wouldn’t be appropriate to have this from the time when the matter came to the attention of the minister.

Mr. Singer: That means forever plus six years. Is that what you are saying?

Hon. Mr. Meen: No -- potentially. That is the other side of the coin. Are we going to have that sword of Damocles hanging over the head of the malfeasant forever plus six years? That’s the other side of the coin.

Mr. Bullbrook: It is obvious my colleague and I don’t particularly look upon this the same way, but I really feel that if there is an infraction of the statute, then limitation periods don’t run against that infraction until the Crown is aware of it. There’s nothing inequitable about that. I must say I don’t regard it as a sword of Damocles.

Mr. Singer: Oh, I do.

Mr. Bullbrook: If he’s done something wrong then he is entitled to look at the fact that there might be some prosecution of him for it.

Mr. Chairman: Shall section 17 stand as part of the bill?

Mr. Renwick: Mr. Chairman, I have a point on this that I want to share with the minister at 8 o’clock.

It being 6 o’clock, p.m., the House took recess.