Legislative Assembly of Ontario

The House resumed at 8 o’clock, p.m.

FRUITS AND VEGETABLES PRODUCE FOR PROCESSING ACT (CONCLUDED)

Mr. Speaker: When we recessed we were dealing with Bill 92, and all members had spoken. The hon. minister may respond now.

Hon. W. A. Stewart (Minister of Agriculture and Food): Mr. Speaker, in dealing with Bill 92 on second reading, there were a number of statements made with which I concurred, on the matter of communications particularly. The member for Essex South (Mr. Paterson) and the member for York South (Mr. MacDonald) both mentioned this, and I share that concern.

The history of the legislation as it has reached this stage is simply that the executive of the Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association -- that is, the president and secretary -- met with me and discussed the possibility of finding some other way of financing the organization and some way whereby there would be more equal sharing, inasmuch as the containers legislation it really is only those who are marketing on the fresh market that contribute to it at all. We explored various ways and had further meetings with a larger number of the executive; we told them that we would draft legislation and bring it forward along the lines we have suggested here.

After the bill was introduced, I think the Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association intended to talk to their membership throughout the province. I believe they felt there was some misunderstanding about when the bill should be discussed publicly. I contacted the secretary and the president and asked them what the objections were all about. They said they consciously made the decision not to talk about the bill because they felt it would be betraying a confidence if they knew what we were going to introduce. They felt that they should not say anything. But after the bill was introduced they would then discuss it with all of their membership; and at that time, and only at that time, would the clauses of the bill be implemented.

Obviously that generated a breakdown in communications, and it may be that I am as much to blame for that as anyone. I thought that it had been done, and they felt that they shouldn’t do that. So the membership in various parts of the province, quite understandably, did raise some objection, I think chiefly because they didn’t understand what was in the bill. They also wondered if this was going to do away with the existing producer commodity marketing boards, which have been in existence for a long time and have done an excellent job. Of course, this has nothing to do with the respective boards. The asparagus board, the fresh fruit board and all the rest of them that have done such an excellent job through the years will still carry on the same as ever. They have nothing to do with financing this thing.

The OFVGA is the central body of all producers of fruits and vegetables throughout Ontario. It is probably the oldest farm organization in Ontario. I think they celebrated their 114th annual meeting last winter here in Toronto. It’s a very distinguished body, and I am sure they are as much concerned as we are that there was some misunderstanding about that.

I had the opportunity of going on the air on Bill Brady’s open-line show in which the question was raised and explaining exactly what it does. As I understand it, the concern has not been as great since that explanation was given; I hope that’s the case. But the bill does not come in except on proclamation; and when it’s approved here, as I trust it will be, Mr. Speaker, we can then look forward to discussion among the various segments of the OFVGA, and they will bring it forward as they see fit.

The containers Act will still be retained for fresh fruit and vegetables, because that is really the only way that any contribution can be made by that group. There are so many outlets for fresh produce in the province that unless the containers Act is retained for fresh produce, then there will be no contribution made by that group -- and I am sure they don’t want that to happen. They certainly indicated that to us.

I would like to mention as well that the holder of a licence --

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Essex South would like to ask a question for clarification if the minister will permit.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Oh, I’m sorry.

Mr. D. A. Paterson (Essex South): The minister indicated that this would go forward and nothing would happen until it is proclaimed. Is he saying, in fact, that he will not have this proclaimed until after the OFVGA meeting this spring?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Mr. Speaker, we can do it either way. There is no thought, on behalf of the central executive of the OFVGA, that the bill will be implemented or any levies made whatever until they have had a thorough chance to discuss it at next year’s annual meeting.

Mr. Paterson: Is that the assurance?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Yes, that will be held in January, 1975; and I would give that assurance. Now, because the bill had passed here and received third reading, I wouldn’t want them to think that we weren’t going to give it proclamation. But rather than say proclamation on royal assent, we put it in as proclamation on a day to be named. That day, we thought, could be worked out with the OFVGA to suit their consideration.

Regarding the matter of licensing, which the member for Essex South raised, every person who sells to a processor is deemed to be the holder of a licence. He doesn’t have to acquire a licence. He is deemed to be the holder of the licence. I believe that is indicated on page 2 of the bill in section 3, subsection 2, which says: “Every person who sells produce to a processor shall be deemed to be the holder of a licence.”

That is really the same type of legislation we have in most of the other marketing Acts. Other than that, Mr. Speaker, I don’t think there is really anything more that I can add.

Mr. Speaker: The motion is for second reading of Bill 92.

Motion agreed to; second reading of the bill.

Mr. Speaker: Shall the bill be ordered for third reading?

Agreed.

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

AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES ACT

House in committee on Bill 21, An Act to amend the Agricultural Societies Act.

Mr. Chairman: Bill 21, An Act to amend the Agricultural Societies Act. Are there any comments, questions or amendments on this bill?

Mr. J. R. Breithaupt (Kitchener): Mr. Chairman, was this bill not put into committee so that the minister could consider a certain matter in it? Perhaps we could just hear from the minister so that we know it has been attended to.

Hon. W. A. Stewart (Minister of Agriculture and Food): When the bill was being discussed on second reading, Mr. Chairman, I indicated that because there was some criticism by the Provincial Auditor on the method of paying judges for agricultural societies in northern Ontario -- he criticized the fact that he didn’t see any statutory authority -- I determined we would amend the bill. Since that time, in going over with the staff of our ministry the matter of the Provincial Auditor’s concern, we have decided we will use the agricultural societies in the north in the same way as they are used in the south. In other words, they will pay the judges their per diems and expenses and those expenses will be included by the society in the expenses for organizing events through their application for grants to the Ministry of Agriculture and Food. Thereby we find the statutory authority and we eliminate the need for an amendment. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Breithaupt: Mr. Chairman, according to the minister then, he is assuring us that the matter raised by the Provincial Auditor has been attended to and we are back on the track as far as dealing with these societies is concerned.

Mr. Chairman: Shall this bill be reported?

Mr. D. A. Paterson (Essex South): I have one further question, Mr. Chairman. Is it the intention of the House to proceed prior to this summer’s activities with the bill concerning the Lord’s Day amendment that ties in with the Agricultural Societies Act?

Hon. E. A. Winkler (Chairman, Management Board of Cabinet): Yes.

Mr. Chairman: Shall this bill be reported?

Bill 21 reported.

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

Motion agreed to.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

Mr. Chairman: Mr. Speaker, the committee of the whole House reports one bill without amendment and asks for leave to sit again.

Report agreed to.

THIRD READINGS

The following bills were given third reading upon motion:

Bill 21, An Act to amend the Agricultural Societies Act.

Bill 92, An Act respecting Fruits and Vegetables Produce-for-Processing.

Bill 93, An Act respecting the Marketing of Wool.

Bill 103, An Act to amend the Milk Act.

CITY OF PORT COLBORNE ACT

Hon. Mr. Irvine, on behalf of Hon. Mr. White, moves second reading of Bill 83, An Act respecting the City of Port Colborne.

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

Mr. R. Haggerty (Welland South): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to make a few comments in connection with this bill. I want to commend the Treasurer (Mr. White) for the introduction of Bill 83, An Act respecting the City of Port Colborne. The bill will allow the city to claim a forgiveness amount of $30,420 under the federal employment loans programme.

I might add, Mr. Speaker, that every avenue was searched to find some way that the city could recapture this loan. I want to express my appreciation to the Clerk of this House for his advice in this matter and for telling me that it could be brought about by a government bill. This is what has taken place since then. I also want to express my gratitude to one of the minister’s assistants, Mr. McLeod of the municipal subsidies branch, for his assistance with this bill. It will mean about half a mill to the city, and I want to commend the minister for bringing the bill forward.

Mr. Speaker: Any further discussion on this bill? The hon. member for Ottawa Centre.

Mr. M. Cassidy (Ottawa Centre): Mr. Speaker, I believe this is the bill concerning the city of Port Colborne which regularizes some debentures that Port Colborne had which did not fit into the special federal-provincial winter works programme. Is that right?

I was unable to find out beforehand, given the volume of municipal bills, but perhaps the minister could indicate in his reply why it is that Port Colborne got into this particular jam. On the other hand, as the member from the area says, the people in the area are happy with it. It seems to be relatively routine to us.

I guess we can thank our stars that we don’t have a series of these things every year as they used to have in British Columbia under the Social Credit government. At the end of every session there, Mr. Speaker, there had to be an omnibus bill that corrected any number of errors in municipal administration which had taken place during the course of that year. We have only had one so far this year, and I hope we keep the record at that low level.

Mr. Speaker: Is there any other discussion? If not, the hon. minister.

Hon. D. R. Irvine (Minister without Portfolio): Mr. Speaker, I don’t wish to quarrel with what the hon. member for Ottawa Centre said --

Mr. Cassidy: I am comparing the minister with “Wacky” Bennett, not David Barrett, remember that.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: What we are trying to do is to assist the city, as the member quite rightly has said, to make sure that they don’t lose more than $30,000 that inadvertently was placed in a debenture and shouldn’t have been. We feel that we are doing a service to the people of this particular area by putting this bill through. Thank you.

Motion agreed to; second reading of the bill.

Mr. Speaker: Shall the bill be ordered for third reading?

Agreed.

THIRD READING

The following bill was given third reading upon motion:

Bill 83, An Act respecting the City of Port Colborne.

HIGHWAY TRAFFIC ACT

Mr. Beckett, on behalf of Hon. Mr. Rhodes, moves second reading of Bill 108, An Act to amend the Highway Traffic Act.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Essex-Kent.

Mr. R. F. Ruston (Essex-Kent): Mr. Speaker, I have just a few brief remarks on this. I believe that the first part of the bill more or less legalizes the registration and permits for the new stickers on five-year plates. We have no objection to that, of course. I might just throw in as an extra that we will bring up some similar points in the estimates of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications with regard to the plates and their quality as well as that of the stickers. However, we have no objection to that part.

The second part of the bill relates to the North York project, where a justice of the peace or a judge may reduce a fine for a driving offence if the driver agrees to take an Ontario traffic driving improvement programme. I think this is a good idea, and of course it also leaves it open to designate other areas where this may be done.

I have a great deal of interest in the driving ability of people in Ontario who have licences to drive. Some seem to think it is the right of a person to drive an automobile on our highways. I personally do not think it is a right, I think it is something that can be given, providing you can qualify, and I have felt that way ever since I was 16 years old, when I first got my driver’s licence.

I would certainly agree with this principle and I look forward to perhaps seeing it enlarged in the future. There again, I will be enlarging on this when the estimates of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications come up, because I have a number of remarks I want to make with regard to driver control.

Mr. Speaker: Do any other members wish to enter this debate? The hon. member for Yorkview.

Mr. F. Young (Yorkview): Mr. Speaker, I don’t think I have anything to add to what has already been said. I think the North York experiment is a good one, and as far as legalizing the stickers on the licence plates is concerned, that is a matter of routine which should have been looked after, of course, before the stickers were issued in the first place.

This is catch-up legislation, but I suppose it is typical of this government in some respects. We approve of the bill.

Mr. Speaker: Do any other members wish to enter the debate? If not, the hon. parliamentary assistant.

Mr. R. B. Beckett (Brantford): Mr. Speaker, as the two previous gentlemen have said regarding this matter, the first part is legislation prescribing the method of vehicle permit issue and display of the number plates and validation devices.

The second part is actually at the request of the Attorney General (Mr. Welch), in order that the North York traffic tribunal pilot project may continue and will now provide a motivation for the persons concerned. As has been indicated, if this project continues to be the success that we feel it is, undoubtedly there will be future projects suggested to this House.

Motion agreed to; second reading of the bill.

Mr. Speaker: Shall the bill be ordered for third reading?

Agreed.

THIRD READING

The following bill was given third reading upon motion:

Bill 108, An Act to amend the Highway Traffic Act.

JURIES ACT

Hon. Mr. Welch moves second reading of Bill 105, the Juries Act, 1974.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Kitchener.

Mr. J. R. Breithaupt (Kitchener): Mr. Speaker, in the recollection I have of the introduction of the bill I was not aware that we were necessarily going to go ahead with these changes to the Juries Act at this time. I had presumed that we would be having this matter stand over until the fall, so that if there were any further discussions or advice which the minister might have received we would have been in the position to have the benefit of it.

However, the minister has gone forward with second reading and I shall try to make some comments on this bill. I believe that we are in agreement with the developments, especially by the Law Reform Commission, which have led to the four particular areas of concern that this bill covers. The Jurors Act, of course, is now really being re-enacted and the major item in this bill, of course, will be the matter of preparing the way to abolish grand juries.

In the House, many members have been concerned for some years with the usefulness of the grand jury system. Its major usefulness seemed to be in dealing with the matters that are going to be dealt with in the companion piece of legislation, Bill 106, that deals with the visitation of various public facilities by some body of citizens who are interested in the administration and operation of these particular locations.

The matter of shortening the list of exempted occupations is certainly satisfactory to us, and we agree that it is necessary to modernize the procedures for the selection and return of jurors. In the statement which the minister made to us when this bill was introduced, there were a number of details gone into with respect to the striking of the jury panels and with the actions that could be tried by the jury and the various approaches which would streamline the choice of juries at trial.

I think these changes have generally followed the comments made not only by the Law Reform Commission but by those members of the bar who are active in court practice. Many lawyers, of course -- I must admit, I am one of them -- are not particularly involved with the day-to-day operations of litigation and the operations of the courts.

Surely if the Law Reform Commission and those lawyers who are involved feel these changes are both useful to the profession and, more importantly, useful to the persons who serve on the juries, I think we can agree with them.

There are a number of other amendments in the latter sections of the bill which I do not think require any particular further comment. It is good to see these items all pulled together now in one bill and we commend the minister for having brought it in.

Mr. Speaker: Is there any other discussion on this bill?

Mr. Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, I have to confess that I am not an expert on this at all. The member for Lakeshore is coming in a minute to comment on it. I know he wanted to say a few words.

An hon. member: Now, now.

Mr. Cassidy: We are simply put in this position because of the way in which the legislation is being called. In fact, the member for Lakeshore is here right now.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Cassidy: I think, rather than subjecting the House to my opinions on the Juries Act and the amendments, I would yield more properly to --

An hon. member: He’s just held it up.

Mr. Cassidy: No, I haven’t held it up as a matter of fact, if the member really wants to know.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, it does seem a bit silly to have this particular piece of minor tinkering legislation in advance of a major amendment to the Jurors Act. I understand the Jurors Act has antecedents which go back to the 19th century. It is revised but rarely and it would have made a lot more sense for the minister to have kept the existing system as it was for another year and to have gone forward with a major review in the fall.

I recognize that a certain modernization has taken place but only for one year. How is that for understanding the principle of the bill?

Interjections by hon. members.

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

Mr. B. Newman (Windsor-Walkerville): Mr. Speaker, my comments on the bill are going to be very brief and the one portion of my comments concerns the pay to individuals selected for jury duty. As the minister is fully cognizant the pay in the past certainly was not satisfactory at all. It rendered a hardship to many, especially to those who worked in industries which were low paying or in industries in which their pay was discontinued or they were not subsidized once they were selected for jury duty.

My plea to the minister is that he adjust jury pay so that it is in tune with the times; so that the least the individual would receive would be the minimum wage and, better still, the going wage for people in the community.

Mr. D. A. Paterson (Essex South): And their travelling expenses.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Lakeshore.

Mr. P. D. Lawlor (Lakeshore): Thank you, Mr. Minister.

An hon. member: Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye.

Mr. Lawlor: The member is not going to hear all that much. First of all, I want to congratulate my colleague from Ottawa Centre --

Mr. L. Maeck (Parry Sound): For his delaying tactics.

Mr. Lawlor: Yes, for his delaying tactics.

Mr. Breithaupt: Every party needs one.

Mr. Lawlor: And the contribution he makes to debate. He is indeed a polymath in the House. Every party needs such people who can dangle and get up on the tightrope and walk it with ease and aplomb --

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Lawlor: -- and adapt themselves chameleon-like to every colour of the rainbow on any occasion. People like that are so precious that the member --

An hon. member: Is this on the principle of the bill?

Mr. Lawlor: If this bill has a principle, I suppose the central thing in it is it’s a revision of the Jurors Act and numerous amendments down through the years to this particular piece of legislation; on the whole I find it palatable. First of all, because it’s more succinct; because it revamps the internal procedures by which juries are empanelled through the sheriffs of this province, both for criminal and civil cases to be heard. It sets forth, in a succinct and a very clear manner on the whole, the very processes of machinery that are set up for that particular objective, and in that particular regard the bill is fine.

I must confess, as a fragment of the great confession of our times, that I regret the non-presence for the moment of the member for Riverdale (Mr. Renwick), because in the issue of grand juries, which is central to this legislation, I don’t say we are at odds exactly, we are just not at idem altogether.

Hon. R. Welch (Provincial Secretary for Justice and Attorney General): The member for Riverdale?

Mr. Lawlor: Yes, the member for Riverdale. I have a predilection toward the abolition of the grand jury. I think that you’ll hear some words of wisdom from him in due course that might indicate a contrary intent; that he finds misgivings.

If I may, for the purposes of this debate, set out to this particular assembly what McRuer had to say in volume 2 of the great report, the bible, as to his conclusions, at 780, pro and con, with respect to grand juries and their operation in the province. He says:

“The advantages of the grand jury system may be summarized as follows:

“1. It affords an additional safeguard against requiring an accused to stand trial on evidence which is not sufficient to call upon him to present a defence.”

I’ll stand and comment on that. That’s the first advantage to the retention of the grand jury, which the Attorney General, I’m sure, will admit this legislation is a first step, a first mincing step, toward the abolition of.

In this particular regard, if you argue in British justice that it is better for a thousand guilty men to go free rather than one innocent man to be considered guilty and adjudged guilty, then there is a strong argument for the retention of the grand jury on that account, because the grand jury in the past few years -- well, throughout its history, but I think you and I are more cognizant of the period of the past few years -- three times, four times, five times or seven times a year a grand jury in this province, in criminal cases, will exculpate an accused and will send him out of that grand jury room a free man, over against hundreds of trials or hundreds of writs of preferment that come before the grand jury in which a no-bill is forthcoming.

That may not seem much, that may seem a drop in the bucket, but at the same time isn’t it the same principle in application with respect to those people who are not forced to go through a process of trial, with all the formidable obstacles that represents? Because no lawyer goes into a courtroom knowing for certain that he’s going to win a case. He goes in, if he’s any good at all, forever with trepidation, knowing that by a flick of the wrist, a turn of a phrase, a discountenancing by a witness, any number of incidents or vagaries, the contingencies of this life, the whole fury and the position may swing against him and his client will be adjudged guilty or innocent by as though a feather blowing in the wind.

It’s just that contingency and just that feeling that you are up against.

If the grand jury acts as an obstacle, acts as an extra preventive, to that sort of thing happening and sends a man into the community again because of insufficiency of evidence, then perhaps on those grounds also the grand jury has vindicated its purpose and justified itself in the life of this community, and it has done that for a long time. That is a commentary on the first advantage.

Second, the grand jury “performs a useful function in inspecting institutions wholly or partially maintained by public money.” Mr. Speaker, we won’t dwell on that particular one because we will have another bill before us shortly which does precisely that -- takes that function of inspection rather than adjudication away from the grand jury. It has been proverbially lodged there since about 1423. In our jurisdiction it has performed that function down through the years. I’m inclined to think it’s a little overblown now and that that function may just as well be performed by another institution designated specifically to that task. But we will come to that, as I say, as the next bill arises.

The third advantage: “It perpetuates an infusion of lay participation in the administration of justice.” That’s surely something to conjure with too, and not likely to be foregone, because the jury in this regard is a designation by a varied group of our fellow citizens who have the final say and word and, admittedly under claustrophobic conditions, which we’ll come to, within a very narrow line, may this grand jury operate in this province.

The Law Reform Commission of Ontario which has recently handed down its mandate in the wake of McRuer -- and, of course, with the former Chief Justice sitting on the commission too, as one of its members -- comes down heavily against the grand jury. No one seems to give very much affirmation to the American model of the grand jury, which has very wide investigative powers. I have not yet achieved a position, my friend from Riverdale will be pleased to learn. As things stand with Watergate, we all know what validity and perspicacity a grand jury has in the American system.

The Attorney General of this province may argue contrariwise and say: “Listen, we have other instruments for that purpose. We have task forces, on the one hand, which are nominated by government. We have royal commissions and various other kinds of judicial inquiries that could perform that function.” But those are without lay participation or with just minimal lay participation. Again, great weight must be placed on that particular element.

We don’t want to move away from the area of the man in the street; the man, as they usually put it in law, on the Clapham omnibus; that fellow upon whom we rely for final horse sense and whose rights invest this Legislature. We do become esoteric. We do lose contact. And the judges are more isolated men than we ever hope to be. In this particular regard I would ask that the Attorney General hesitate and draw back a little.

The fourth ground is that it “tends to ensure that the full functions of an assize court as a court of general jail delivery are performed.” That comes out of ancient law and out of the very viscera of the British jurisprudential system.

In this regard, again let us not abandon these things lightly if they perform or can be made to perform a valid function. There has been no effort to extend its range, to give it validity, to heap upon it or even to dispose it towards a greater range of powers.

What has happened over the past 110 years or so since the first bill recognizing this particular entity went through in 1866, the year before Confederation, is that there has been a contraction and a truncating of powers all along the line until today it’s so diminished that there is a very powerful argument that it no longer has any efficacy in this realm. But that need not be so. If there was a will the other way, then it could be vastly expanded and the participational feature of the man in the street could be greatly enforced in the administration of our system of justice.

The government and the commissions even go so far as to wish to jettison the petit jury of the province. There’s a kind of lordliness in all that. There’s a kind of sanctimonious patrician attitude towards the citizenry at large: “Oh, they get everything muddled up. They can’t keep the lines of logic straight. They’re influenced by meaty-tongued orators of various kinds, lawyers who obfuscate issues, those who are adroit at doing any number of weird things.”

Mr. J. A. Renwick (Riverdale): There is no humour in this bill. The Attorney General might know it now. There is no humour left in this bill.

Hon. Mr. Welch: Oh, go and get lost. The member for Riverdale is the one who needs a sense of humour.

Mr. Renwick: That’s right.

Hon. Mr. Welch: Go get a sense of humour.

Mr. Lawlor: The next area is that the system is open to criticism, and there are four grounds of criticism --

Hon. Mr. Welch: The member for Riverdale takes himself too seriously.

Mr. Renwick: The Attorney General can’t turn this one off with a bland smile.

Hon. Mr. Welch: The member doesn’t know what he is talking about. It’s a note from his colleague that makes me smile. Why doesn’t he go and get lost?

Mr. Lawlor: No. 1: “It enables a private prosecutor to maintain a vexatious prosecution without the consent of the Attorney General.” And it does. Surely there are weapons for that, though, it seems to me. A private prosecutor acting maliciously, if he places a man in prison, is subject to a suit for malicious prosecution and possibly for false imprisonment.

Hon. Mr. Welch: Someday the member for Riverdale will grow up.

Mr. Renwick: One can always tell, when the Attorney General puts his right arm up over his chair, that he is in trouble. He took it down.

Mr. R. F. Nixon (Leader of the Opposition): It’s a sign of aggression.

Mr. Renwick: That’s right. Now it’s more relaxed.

Mr. Lawlor: While this is not so, after the adjudication of the case by a court, the court protects these fellows; nevertheless that’s not the central issue of in this thing and it’s not a very strong argument.

No. 2: “It is an unnecessary and unwarranted trespass on the time and convenience of witnesses, as well as causing them in many cases substantial economic loss.” Well, if we paid our witnesses anything, if there was a real intent to compensate them for the time that they spend in their civic posts and in the public realm, then that particular objection would lose any validity that it may have.

“3. It is an unwarranted trespass on the time and convenience of members of the jury, as well causing them, in many cases, economic loss.” Again, if jurors’ fees were ever adequate to the day and to the need, which they haven’t been throughout practically the history of this Legislature, then that would be overcome. This is a very weak economic argument. Surely, in a Demos, in a community of our kind, that particular function performed is something that is deemed highly desirable and ought to be encouraged -- that is, the work of jurors and witnesses. And in the course of this bill, you seek to make it so.

Why? In section 2 of the bill you have eliminated whole trains of people who were formerly free of the operation of having to be jurors, could beg off on any number of pretexts and grounds, and who, because of their occupational backgrounds and so forth, were alleviated from that particular thing. It is a very privileged thing to be alleviated from the task of being a juror and must be regarded precisely as that.

I understand that in the first instance, by the way, the minister’s intention was to exclude very few -- that the professions, apart from judges and the legal profession itself, which, of course, would have an ingrained self-interest and would be incapacitated by the very kinds of knowledge it brings to a jury box, were the only ones. But now, through some kinds of pressures being levied upon the minister -- I don’t know whereof these winds blow -- but the doctors got to him and said, “No, as medical practitioners we wish not to serve on juries.”

Mr. Cassidy: They can’t afford to.

Mr. Lawlor: And the wives of medical practitioners, apparently being equally skilled in the arts, are alleviated from that responsibility too. The minister gets even so far as going to veterinary surgeons -- well, we’ll come back to that before I’m finished, in a moment.

I think that that is very ill-considered on many counts. The particular count I want to mention before I close is the chiropractors. I don’t know if they’ve been able to speak to the minister, but they spoke to me today and I would like to put in a word on their behalf before the second reading ends.

The last grounds, which are a criticism of the system, are that it causes delay in getting criminal cases tried. Well, it would need not cause all that delay. I would have thought there were more powerful arguments than that. Namely, that the preliminary inquiry before the provincial judges was in some way downgraded, or in some way can be trespassed upon by the invocation of the grand jury system, by the preferment of an indictment by the Crown attorney who may be acting, having produced only a prima facie case, and having brought it before the grand jury somehow seems to derogate from the functions of the provincial judge.

Consider that task itself and the nature in which it is conducted; it is conducted in camera. Neither the accused nor the accused’s lawyer or counsel may be present in order to present another side of the case. The Crown attorney alone presents the evidence to this claustrophobically enclosed grand jury sitting in a room. They hear what he tells them to hear. They see witnesses that he introduces to them, and in that way, and looking at it from that point of view, so enclosed and so truncated, it cannot but be that the grand jury system seems to lack vitality, it seems to lack a real purpose. It’s already traduced, it’s already biased necessarily because it only hears one portion.

The wonder of it all is that even in face of that one-sided presentation, on occasion and on frequent occasions, this grand jury nevertheless goes against, if I may put it that way, the Crown attorney and says, “No, you can’t proceed with this case and put this man through the toils and agony of a trial, eating up his substance in the process and, far more, racking his mind in that particular procedure. We will prevent you from doing so. That is our primary function in this regard.”

To come back to section 2, the argument, as I see it and that has been put to me basically, is that overtures were made to the minister’s office last fall that chiropractors not be involved, if the other medical disciplines were not similarly involved. The understanding that I thought was reached, to put it the other way around, was that none of them would be able to escape their civic responsibilities in this particular regard.

A medical practitioner has a special kind of skill which may so influence the jury, because a great many cases, particularly the civil cases, involve medical testimony of one kind or another, which a doctor would be privy to and which he would be able to overcome or dictate even to his fellow jurors in the enclosure of the jury room. If that is the case for a medical practitioner and if that is the case for a veterinary surgeon of all people -- I suppose you are trying cases in which cows run into automobiles or horses leap over stiles or something of that nature -- how they manage to work themselves in there puzzles me somewhat -- then chiropractors too have special physiological and biological training which very well may overreach and orient a jury in a way that hasn’t got that objective layman stance.

I would ask the minister to give some consideration either to excluding the one or including the other -- one or the other -- because they have pretty well equal validity. His predecessor in office, Allan Lawrence, some years ago when he was the Attorney General of this province, by a deliberate fiat wrote in an exclusion for the chiropractors of the province. He thought that was a valid and affirmable thing to do at that particular time. Having taken it out apparently and having now put it back in again, this minister put it back in, in a narrow and truncated form.

I would also on second reading ask the Attorney General, since it is not in the legislation, does he want to encompass most of the other provisions which are now being dropped from the Jurors Act? One which comes to mind immediately, and which I think is of some importance and very well might be included in this matter, is the view the jurors might take. Does he consider at the present time that the powers of a judge with respect to a jury is sufficient to include them in going out and inspecting the scene of an accident or visiting a factory and finding the condition of the machinery which caused the harm or if there is an underground stream as in Rylands and Fletcher detecting its dangerous possibilities of overflow or any number of things that affect cases? It has been dropped, and I was a little puzzled again as to why this should be so in this particular legislation.

It seems to me that the Law Reform Committee has come out flatfooted. McRuer didn’t go all the way. He wanted to give certain review powers to the Supreme Court of Ontario which, by the way, I haven’t seen. If these review powers were given on the amplitude and scope that he has set forth in his report of four or five years ago, then he says the grand jury might very well go by the wall. The subsequent report, the very recent one the minister and I mulled over some hours pleasantly together earlier this year trying to eviscerate its guts, comes out flatly against the retention of the grand jury at all. It does give some notice to certiorari proceedings and things of that kind in the process, but by and large it thinks the institution is otiose and no longer has efficacy in this province.

As I say, I have outlined the arguments pro and con as laid out by McRuer. The first part of the arguments that talk of its advantages seem to me to be more socially pertinent, reaching deeper into the life of the communities than the second phase of arguments which toss it out and which are more directed to economic matters, to bees, and to time being consumed by witnesses. These are very pragmatic and not so deep in social content as in the first case. If one has to weigh those two sets of arguments, I have a little doubt which side of the teeter-totter we would come down on in this particular matter. For further delectation and gratification, I shall turn over the matter to my colleague from Riverdale.

Mr. Speaker: Are there any other members who wish to enter the debate? The hon. member for Riverdale.

Mr. I. Deans (Wentworth): The second half of the routine.

Mr. S. Lewis (Scarborough West): Have you met Alphonse, Mr. Speaker?

Mr. Renwick: I think of myself more as Jeff.

An hon. member: Well, that’s his problem.

Mr. Renwick: The delectation may be not so significant. I happen to feel very strongly about this bill. I happen to be very disappointed in the Attorney General. This afternoon his display was despicable in my view.

Hon. Mr. Welch: Speak to the principle of this bill.

Mr. Renwick: That’s right. I will stick to the principle of the bill because the principle of this bill mirrors the attitude of the Attorney General of the Province of Ontario towards citizens’ rights in the province.

Mr. Cassidy: That’s right.

Mr. Renwick: What he said this afternoon in his statement, disguised as a government statement, with respect to a responsible --

Hon. Mr. Welch: That is not part of the debate right now.

Mr. Lewis: Sure it is.

Hon. Mr. Welch: Talk about Bill 105.

Mr. Renwick: It has to do constantly with the Attorney General destroying the rights of people in the Province of Ontario, and he knows it.

Mr. Cassidy: That’s right.

Mr. Renwick: And with his failure to face up to his responsibilities.

Hon. Mr. Welch: I am sure people will believe that coming from the member.

Mr. Renwick: When will we debate it?

Hon. Mr. Welch: This coming fall the bill will be debated.

Mr. Renwick: When we debate that bill, we will never be debating the substance of the problems that have been raised with respect to the relationships in the family property law relationships.

Hon. Mr. Welch: That is nonsense. The member’s leader knows very well my views.

Mr. Speaker: Let us now debate this bill.

Mr. Renwick: The minister knows very well that that’s so.

Mr. Speaker: Bill 105.

Mr. Renwick: He knows exactly why. Laura Sabia didn’t explain to us or anybody else what it was all about. He excused himself by that disguise.

Mr. Speaker: Bill 105.

Mr. Cassidy: That’s right.

Mr. Renwick: I understand. I accept the reprimand, Mr. Speaker. I just happen to feel strongly about it because the question period never allows me to express my views.

Mr. Lawlor: Mr. Speaker, the Attorney General doesn’t know the principle of the bill.

Mr. Renwick: But does he know what he is doing in this bill?

Hon. Mr. Welch: I happen to know that, yes.

Mr. Renwick: What does he know? Did he make a statement about this bill?

Hon. Mr. Welch: Yes, I did.

Mr. Renwick: Yes, I understand it. I read the explanatory notes and he read them in the House too.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Welch: No, I made a statement when this bill was introduced on first reading.

Mr. Renwick: That’s right. The legislative counsel dictated the remarks he made in this assembly, not as a responsible minister, and he knows it.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Renwick: Oh, yes, I can understand that. Yes, I learned that too. If the Attorney General puts an arm around the back of the chair, it indicates his hostility.

Mr. Speaker: This sort of debate is out of order.

Mr. Lawlor: Why doesn’t he slump down by the side?

Mr. Deans: Sit up straight.

Mr. Lewis: Let him handle his aggression a little more comfortably.

Mr. Renwick: Why doesn’t he do what his colleagues do and start to sign a few letters when we are talking about the government of the Province of Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Welch: I feel very sorry for what I am seeing in here.

Mr. Renwick: I used to do this too. I used to put my thumbs in my fists too.

Mr. Speaker: Can we get back to the bill?

Hon. Mr. Welch: The member is a very capable man and a very capable member of the profession. I hope he displays it now.

Mr. Renwick: Are the Attorney General’s thumbs in his fists today?

Hon. Mr. Welch: I wish the member would display just a little bit of it now.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please, will the hon. member please get back to Bill 105?

Mr. Renwick: Now I understand he is in a position of prayer or classroom attention.

Hon. Mr. Welch: Shame.

Mr. Renwick: Yes, shame. I understand that. We had this in his estimates too, the whole shame business. Let’s talk about what we are about in this assembly in relation to the grand jury.

Mr. Lawlor: The Attorney General will have to admit they were very shameful estimates this year.

Mr. Renwick: Mr. Speaker, now that I have the attention of the Attorney General, may I say to him that I am oppose to the abolition of the grand jury in the Province of Ontario. The members of this party, as my colleague has said, will vote against this bill.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Oh, did he say that?

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Lewis: He certainly did.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: If not, he is prepared to say it later.

Mr. Cassidy: He said it very clearly.

Mr. Lawlor: The member heard what I said. He dismissed it.

Mr. Ruston: Yes we did. That is the problem.

An hon. member: It is a stupid mistake.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: He said a lot but he didn’t say the member was opposing the bill.

Mr. Renwick: Mr. Speaker, anyone who has sat in this chamber from 1967 on has known exactly what the member for Lakeshore was saying.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: One of the new boys.

Mr. Renwick: And he was saying that we are opposed to this particular bill.

Mr. Lawlor: In my own very awkward way.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: He is used to defending the leader of the NDP. He is used to covering up. The old cover up.

Mr. Lewis: Oh come on! If any of the opposition members understood the English language they would understand the member for Lakeshore.

Mr. Renwick: I want to say to the Attorney General and his advisers under the gallery that if they do not understand the consequences of the Stephen Ward commission of suicide in England and a case called the Lucky Williams case, then they don’t understand what the result of the abolition of the grand jury could be in the Province of Ontario.

A jury is a sworn group of the citizens of the province who are designed to present people basically for criminal purposes. The presentation is made to the grand jury for the purpose of determining whether or not they will go to trial.

Do you know what the grand jury is all about? The grand jury basically is engaged in protecting the citizenry of Ontario, the citizenry of Canada -- and, God bless them, the citizenry of the United Kingdom, but they abolished the grand jury -- and the citizenry of the United States, against the abuse of executive power, insofar as it relates to the adumbration of the criminal process as a result of the abuse of the executive power.

Mr. Speaker, I am not one who wants to press upon the government of the Province of Ontario the -- and I can never pronounce his name --

Mr. Lawlor: Montesquieu.

Mr. Renwick: The Montesquieu separation of power theory, but I want to use it as at least illustrative of what I want to say tonight about this bill.

In 1776, 200 years ago, give or take a month or two, the government of the United States was established after the revolution which took place. And they adopted the separation theory of the roles of government.

In the Province of Ontario in 1792, which wasn’t so long after 1776, we adopted the laws of England and the customs of England, with relation to the administration of justice, which existed as of that time. And ever since that time there has been a constant effort and determination to erode the role of the petit jury and the role of the grand jury in the province.

Every time when the Family Compact and their successors, the Conservative government of the Province of Ontario, have moved to erode that particular prerogative of the petit jury and of the grand jury, the people in the Province of Ontario one way or another have got through to their government that they will not stand for it; that they will not allow that erosion to take place.

Somewhere, Mr. Speaker, if one looks at “A History of the English Law” by Holdsworth -- and I wouldn’t suggest for a moment that the Attorney General necessarily has read all of the volumes of Holdsworth, but I would not be surprised that he has read some part of it, or that when he was at law school he had a reference made to “A History of the English Law” by Holdsworth. And if he hasn’t read it, or if he hasn’t heard of it, they are out in the library -- and there are 12 or 13 volumes of it. I would recommend it to him. If he hasn’t read Holdsworth on the history of English law, and the laws of England as they presently exist, I am suggesting to him that he doesn’t understand that we cannot, at this point, in the Province of Ontario accept the abolition of the grand jury.

Mr. Speaker, the point is very simple. The grand jury, in the ultimate operation of the system as we understand it, means for practical purposes there is always available a legitimate body of the citizenry of the province or of the various areas within the province who can deal with something called the abuse of executive power when it is beyond the competence of this assembly to do it or when it is beyond the competence of the elective system to do it.

Mr. Speaker, I happen to believe in the supremacy, if we want to talk about it in those terms, of the legislative assembly of the Province of Ontario within its own competence. We also know there has been an immense daily, obvious encroachment by the executive council of the Province of Ontario on the rights of this body. This body has for practical purposes become something truncated -- like the grand jury has been truncated in its operation of the system.

We have very few rights. We never alter anything. We have certain minor crumbs tossed to us by the member for -- I am talking to the member for Grenville-Dundas (Mr. Irvine). We are representing a riding like Riverdale and we feel we have completed our role in the legislative assembly because the member for Grenville-Dundas has allowed us a certain minor amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I achieve most of my satisfaction by playing a little toy game of achieving an amendment to each bill as it comes through. That is a very minor operation of this assembly.

I am not talking about something that does not mean anything. I am talking about the fact that the role of the elected members of the legislative assembly, in the face of the Tory government, is negligible. I am talking about the fact that the role of the municipal governments, of the elected municipal members, of the Province of Ontario is negligible in the face of the ever-increasing pressure, basically related to the development of corporate pressure in the Province of Ontario, to the development of the all-powerful executive.

Let’s get it clear. I opened my remarks by referring to Stephen Ward who committed suicide after his trial in England. What is forgotten is that prior to the time when that particular scandal broke -- which destroyed the Conservative government in England -- there was a man named Lucky Williams -- he turned out to be unlucky -- who came from one of the islands in the West Indies and who happened to be involved with Christine Keeler. When that situation occurred that man was sentenced to jail in England for an offence for which there was no evidence because there was the element, the minor element for the first time, of corruption of the English judicial system.

I say this very advisedly, and those who want to read it can easily read it because the whole transcript of the trial of Lucky Williams, the whole transcript of the trial of Stephen Ward are available for anybody who wants to read them. Within hours -- and I say hours; I don’t mean it wasn’t days -- the Court of Criminal Appeals in England in the most hasty exercise of their judicial opinion, and the Court of Criminal Appeals in England is something the Attorney General and I respect with their regard to the protection of the rights of individuals -- where was Lucky Williams? He was out of prison; he was a free man again. Why? Because it touched upon the abuse of executive power. The authoritarian establishment moved in and they couldn’t for one single moment allow that man to remain in jail because there had been a miscarriage of justice.

I am not suggesting for one single moment that had there existed in England, which we all look to as an example of the system of justice we are talking about -- I am not suggesting for one moment that necessarily Lucky Williams, from the Caribbean Islands, would not have been released and the preferment would not have taken place. I am suggesting, Mr. Speaker, that at least there was the opportunity for a group of citizens in England, and knowing England as we know England, we believe those persons would not have preferred that indictment against Lucky Williams and he would never have served the time in jail which he did serve. If there was ever a discreditable operation, it was the haste with which the Court of Criminal Appeals moved to quash that whole indictment and to release that man for the stabbing of, or the alleged stabbing, or attempted stabbing, of Christine Keeler.

Let’s not kid ourselves. That is what we are talking about in this bill. We are not talking about all the nice people in this assembly. We are not talking about people like this. We are talking about a basic element of the origins of the democratic process which is the grand jury. Do members think for one single moment that we in this party are going to stand here and allow the minister to substitute something called the visitation, which has something almost Anglo-Catholic about the way in which it is going to operate? I am as good a Catholic, as good an Anglican, I may say, or as good an Anglo-Catholic as my friend the senior layman from the Niagara Peninsula may be, who is the Attorney General. Does he think for one moment that we are going to allow this to go through this assembly without dividing the assembly on the question of the abolition of the grand jury?

I like that nice little flick because the one thing the Attorney General doesn’t like is over-exposure in the course of his progress toward the leadership of the Conservative Party. We all know the Premier (Mr. Davis) is fighting his last hurrah. We know after 1975 we will still be here; he won’t be here, but somebody else will be and the low profile of the Attorney General is something which really bothers us.

We thought when he was going to be the Provincial Secretary for Justice and the Attorney General we would find there was some life and vitality left in that ministry. After all, he no longer sits down here; he is back up on the left hand. He is back up on the left hand but one of the Premier of the province. When is he going to show that he has any real concern about we are about in the province?

Mr. Speaker, I want to go back now to 1792, which isn’t so far from 1776.

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. Renwick: Oh, he is? He is very uncomfortable? I can understand that, yes. If the member for Timiskaming (Mr. Havrot) were here we could send him a Tum to quieten his stomach down, but --

Mr. Lewis: He is probably uncomfortable because it is hard for him to adapt to so late a period of the 18th century. He is more comfortable before 1066 with all that.

Mr. Renwick: My friend from Wentworth has a Tum; would the minister like one?

I want to say to the Attorney General, that this road --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Renwick: Oh, that’s fine. I understand the clown who sits two seats to the minister’s left at the present -- you know, Mr. Speaker, the Treasurer of Ontario -- who has created the financial disasters for the province, I want to protect this minister against that kind of disaster.

When we talk about the grand jury, I would suggest to the Attorney General that we cannot isolate ourselves from the United States of America with respect to the use and function of the grand jury.

I was talking about this matter to my friend, my colleague from Lakeshore, and we discussed many of these very esoteric -- yes, the other clown has come in to sit down three seats from his right.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. I would suggest the hon. member concentrate on the principle of this bill.

Mr. Renwick: Yes, I am concentrating on it; all I want is the Attorney General to concentrate on it.

I had discussed this question with my colleague, the member for Lakeshore, because it raised serious problems with respect to the attitude of our party about the abolition of the grand jury.

Mr. Speaker, in the United States of America, despite the divergence of the traditions with respect to the administration of justice, the fact of the matter is that the political process in the United States is incapable of dealing with the abuse of executive power. I think that’s fair to say. There are too many conflicting political pressures acting upon the judicial process so far as the congress of the United States is concerned dealing with the abuse of political process.

The reason these matters are before judges such as Gesell and Sirica, and that in the ultimate analysis the justice of what will be done in the United States depends on those men; the only reason they are seized, in the terminology of the law, with the items which are before them is as a result of grand jury action.

Now does the Attorney General understand that; and does the House understand it? And will the public in the Province of Ontario ever understand it? It is not possible at this late date to resurrect the legislative assembly of the Province of Ontario as a court. We believe in the mythology that the court is the last resort, and that it is a court.

Mr. Speaker, if I may pick up where I ended off, it is ridiculous, as we as members of the select committee on the Ontario Hydro building found out last summer, to suggest for one moment that we would be other than ridiculous in reviving and resuscitating some theory that this particular chamber is capable of exercising a judicial function as a court.

This is no longer the high court of parliament. We have very little capacity to deal even with the most overt discourtesies to this assembly, and let’s forget about it. When I say to the Attorney General that this government is engaged in the concentration and the over-concentration of executive power, its members are no different from any other group of persons who have power to exercise.

I am one who believes in the supremacy of the legislative system and in the democratic process but if there is an abuse by the executive council of the Province of Ontario of its powers, the response will not be through this assembly. The response will be through the actions of citizens who are responding to a derogation of their rights. The way in which that will be dealt with will ultimately be through something called the grand jury.

The minister shakes his head because the minister doesn’t understand what’s happening in the world. Mr. Speaker, if I could engage his attention, apart from his partisan concern of what he’s about --

Hon. Mr. Welch: This is not a partisan issue.

Mr. Renwick: Yes, this is a partisan issue.

Hon. Mr. Welch: The member may debate it on that basis but when I stand up I’ll debate it as a matter of principle. It is not partisan.

Mr. Renwick: All right. I’ll accept the Attorney General’s word that we will debate this as a matter of principle.

I come back to the proposition of what is happening in the United States. The United States adopted the grand jury system from the way in which it was in the United Kingdom -- or in Great Britain or England -- in 1776. We adopted it as it was in 1792; he and I will agree there wasn’t all that much change. Okay? All right.

The only -- I shouldn’t say the only because one never knows where the answer to the abuse of executive power will come from -- one of the places it may very well come from is the grand jury. The minister says we will phase out the grand jury. The minister says, for the inspection of public institutions in which people are held against their will in our society, we will substitute for it this Public Institutions Visitation Act.

I simply say to the Attorney General, why destroy an institution with the background, the tradition and the viability of the grand jury? Truncated, disused; but there. Why prevent us from having that kind of an institution available to us? I don’t know what the course in England was but I suggest to the Attorney General that the case I referred to of Lucky Williams is a very good example. I would suggest there are many more in the United Kingdom which would give him pause before he gave way to the pressures from the professionalized community to abolish the grand jury.

We always like to think that somehow or other we are refining our institutions so they are more able to deal. But do the members know something? We don’t ever refine institutions. Institutions are basic; they are related to the community as such. Whenever anyone wants to refine an institution one can be sure there is someone who wants to take away power from somebody else and to achieve that kind of power themselves. There has not been a single occasion when it was otherwise.

This government, and it is persistent in moving against the jury system, draws off and then comes back with a different version of it; and it’s hidden in sections of the statute. What this government is engaged in is playing the games of the judiciary.

The judiciary don’t want the grand jury. The judiciary don’t want the petit jury. The judiciary don’t want the preliminary hearing. All of the protections which protect the individual citizen against the encroachment of the criminal law and of the statutory offence operations are involved in this immense professionalization which is involved in our system of justice.

Our system of justice is not based on that. The minister, if he will relax and think about it, knows very well the great merit of our system of justice has to do with the existence of the jury system, both in civil trials and in criminal trials and in the grand jury system of presentment.

If anybody reads the truncation which has taken place of the grand jury he will understand what I’m talking about. In our world, we happen to think of the grand jury as only related to the presentment of citizens with respect to criminal offences on indictment. I think that’s fair; that’s by and large what takes place. Then there is this sort of roving commission which they have to go on, sporadically, erratically and without very much professional competence, to look at the institutions in which the citizens are incarcerated in the Province of Ontario; and of course to the extent that the grand jury exists in other provinces in those provinces.

Does the minister understand that the origin of the grand jury was involved in the presentment of people, in a much more effective way, dealing with matters related to local government; dealing with matters related to pollution abatement; dealing with matters related to nuisance; dealing with all sorts of matters? I’m not suggesting for one moment that we resuscitate the grand jury in all its full force and splendour. I think there’s a very real balance to be achieved, but let us not suggest for one moment that he can abolish in the Province of Ontario one of the basic institutions of our democratic system without affecting the viability of that democratic system.

I’m saying to the minister, Mr. Speaker -- I’m delighted I’ve now got his attention on what we’re talking about -- without Judge Sirica and without Judge Gesell in the United States at the present time -- and I’m not prejudging the issue; I’m talking about the judicial process in the United States -- without them there would be no satisfactory resolution of the problem of the abuse of the executive authority as against the citizen. The reason they have a handle on the system is because of the vitality of the grand jury system.

The minister and I may criticize the United States in many ways but if he analyses that process which is taking place -- whether we agree or disagree with what took place in the break-in at the psychiatrist’s office for -- what was his name?

An hon. member: Ellsberg.

Mr. Renwick: -- in the Ellsberg case -- whether he and I agree or disagree about the merits of that, it is going to be resolved and the decisions are going to be made with respect to the viability of that judicial process, and that originated in the grand jury.

It is no longer possible for us in Canada, let alone us in the Province of Ontario, to suggest for one single moment that we dare abolish the grand jury. The grand jury in the Province of Ontario, regardless of the statutory limitations upon it, has a certain vitality of its own; has a certain relationship to the cultural, legal tradition of the Province of Ontario which is of immense importance.

It’s not a question of tidying up a legal system. A legal system is never tidied up. The vitality of a legal system depends upon it never being tidied up. It depends entirely upon something called a body of sworn citizens who are required to discharge certain defined obligations.

And some of those defined obligations are the presentment of citizens with respect to indictments. Some of them are related to the question of whether or not the Law Reform Commission and the Criminal Code is going to abolish the preliminary inquiry, with respect to whether or not persons stand trial. And some of the matters are related to the visitation of institutions.

I’m not suggesting for one single moment that the grand juries have not performed their functions in the Province of Ontario up to now, but there may very well be such a great vitality left in that institution that I will not allow it, and my colleagues in this party will not allow this government to pass that kind of legislation which will abolish it. And that’s what this government is about.

You cannot subject the visitation of public institutions in which citizens of this province are held to something called the executive authority, or the authority given to the judiciary.

I know, and I share with the Provincial Secretary for Justice and the Attorney General, a very real regard for the judicial system of the province. The provincial court system -- sure, there are immense improvements which can be made with respect to its efficiency. I share an immense regard with respect to the way in which the county court judges deal in the matter of the county court judges criminal court and the session of voyez and terminae or jail delivery, which we’re all involved in.

I share with the Attorney General the immense regard which I have for the Supreme Court of Ontario, with respect to its dealing with criminal cases which come before it. I share with the Attorney General the knowledge of the scrupulous care with which the Ontario Court of Appeal deals with the criminal appeals which come before it. I share with the Attorney General my respect for the Supreme Court of Canada, with respect to the questions relating to criminal matters which come before it; also other matters related to the deprivation of the civil liberties of the people in the Province of Ontario.

That does not alter for one single moment my recommendation to the minister that he cannot do away with the origin of the system upon which all of those judges exercise their decisions. And when you come right back down to it, it is the grand jury. Sure there are certain cases in the Criminal Code which are the exclusive jurisdiction of the provincial judges, and there are exclusive jurisdictions about which indictable and non-indictable offenses will go forward for presentment and so on. I don’t pretend to be an expert on it.

But does the Attorney General understand that you cannot take away the fundamental base of our judicial system, with respect to the criminal law of the province, the criminal law of Canada -- which it is, of course, because that’s the jurisdiction in which it’s effected -- without altering the process by which justice is done in the province, by which justice is done in Canada.

How can we possibly take away the cornerstone of that system without affecting the ultimate working out of the system? Mr. Speaker, I used earlier in the evening -- and I wish I had it with me so I could read it to you; but I can’t find it. I wish I could read to you the case of Lucky Williams. You can’t pretend for one single moment that if there had been a grand jury in the United Kingdom at the time that that preferment of that indictment was made, in all likelihood that man would have gone free.

And why did he go free? He went free because of an abuse of the executive power in the United Kingdom. We all know because as everybody else knows -- I forget the cabinet minister who lost his seat --

Mr. F. Drea (Scarborough Centre): What, in the United Kingdom?

Mr. Renwick: In the United Kingdom; and the fact of the matter is that the Macmillan government came down to defeat because of that particular scandal.

Some hon. members: Profumo.

Mr. Renwick: The Profumo case, yes. That’s right.

Mr. V. M. Singer (Downsview): It has nothing to do with the grand jury at all.

Mr. Renwick: Oh, I can well understand that my friend from Downsview, who is a devout follower of Bentham and John Stuart Mill and Austin, would never understand the vitality of the grand jury.

Mr. Singer: Not under this system of law anyway.

Mr. Renwick: All right. This is one of the few evenings when I am not going to allow myself the luxury of distraction by the member for Downsview.

Mr. Singer: Oh dear; I am hurt.

Mr. Renwick: I am saying to the minister, and I am saying very clearly to him, that part of the fallout of the abuse of the executive power in the government of Great Britain which brought about the downfall of the Macmillan government was the abuse by Profumo of his responsibilities as a minister of state, which brought into court various persons, including Stephen Ward who committed suicide. And antedating back by far, but part of that fallout, was a man named Lucky Williams who was sentenced to jail and was released immediately afterwards by the court of criminal appeal. In my judgement -- and these are always matters of judgement -- he would not have gone to jail had there been a grand jury system in effect in the United Kingdom.

Now, I have said that three or four times, but I think it must be said three or four times, because the Juries Act, 1974, sounds very innocuous. The Tory government is introducing the updating of a bill related to the jury system in the Province of Ontario and saying this immense gradualism couldn’t possibly affect anybody. Then somewhere toward the end of it we find that for practical purposes they are redoing institutions in the Province of Ontario which they, as Tories, should never touch.

I am simply saying again -- and I guess I would like to think that repetition would have some effect -- I am saying that what happens in the United States should be a lesson to us that the abuse of executive power in the United States is going to be curtailed and curbed only because of the judicial process, and the judicial process can only operate in the United States because of the existence of the kind of grand jury which they brought into their constitution in 1776 and that we brought into our constitution in 1792.

I simply say that we in this party will continue to fight against any so-called erosion of the jury system -- petit jury, as was attempted by his predecessor, the former Attorney General, the former member for Sault Ste. Marie; or of the grand jury as attempted now -- because it is an illegitimate intrusion on the democratic process by the democratic process by the executive branch of the government, aided and abetted by the judicial branch of the government, aided and abetted by those sycophants who play in that particular system -- members of my profession who support that.

I have not heard one single voice from the Law Society of Upper Canada; I have not heard one single voice from the Canadian Bar Association; I have not heard one single voice from the Advocates’ Society -- although they can spend a great deal of time on Sir William Campbell’s house just outside the Canada Life Assurance building in downtown Toronto -- I haven’t heard a single voice raised by a law professor in any one of the law schools of the Province of Ontario; I haven’t heard a single voice raised in any one of the courses in political science in the Province of Ontario --

Mr. Singer: The member doesn’t listen very well.

Mr. Renwick: -- about the abolition of the grand jury. I listen.

Mr. Singer: Not very well.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Not as well as he talks.

Mr. Renwick: All right. It’s very nice of the member for Downsview to come back into the House. If he has other views to express, that’s very fine.

Mr. Singer: I missed the member earlier in the evening.

Mr. Renwick: I am simply saying to the Attorney General of the Province of Ontario that if he persists in this bill, he is creating an immense void in the democratic process as we understand it.

The member for Downsview may have better evidence than I. I would like to see tabled in this Legislature all of the correspondence or other articles which have been levied against the abolition of the grand jury.

There is an immense conspiracy to eliminate the jury system in the Province of Ontario. There is a continuing conspiracy always very paternalistically clothed, always very attractively disguised -- to reinstate the Family Compact as opposed to the democratic system in which we, in this party, believe.

I am saying to the minister, if he has any sense about what we are about, about what the people in the Province of Ontario are about, he will not proceed with this bill at this time.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Downsview.

Mr. Singer: Mr. Speaker, I have listened with some very fascinated interest to the latter remarks of the hon. member for Riverdale and as usual he waxes eloquent. He draws his parallels and as his witness, non-comparables.

He talks about Judge Sirica and the wonders of what goes on in the United States, and he knows as well as we all know, Mr. Speaker, that he’s comparing apples to oranges. Any similarity between the grand jury system and its inquisitorial functions and its ability to gather evidence to our system is not even coincidental. It just doesn’t exist.

The member for Riverdale waxes eloquent, as he usually does, and I have great respect for his intellect, but he was waxing eloquent just in the last few moments saying he has never heard any objection. I ask him, Mr. Speaker, where he has been for the last 10 or 12 or 15 years because this proposition -- the abandonment of the grand jury system here in the Province of Ontario -- has been put forward vociferously in this House for at least that period time, and he and his colleagues have joined in it.

Mr. Lewis: No, they haven’t.

Mr. Singer: Oh, yes. Well, I am glad that the leader of the NDP joined in here, because I have in my hand --

Mr. Lewis: No, they haven’t.

Mr. Singer: -- Hansard for June 18 when the bill was introduced, actually when the minister gave his statement, and on page 3300 -- no, I am sorry, 3360 -- the minister was saying:

“The bill also abolishes the grand jury -- thus implementing a recommendation made by the Ontario Law Reform Commission in its report on the administration of the courts.

“Mr. Singer: Some of us have been advocating that for over 10 years.

“Mr. Lewis: About time.”

Now, it’s very interesting, it’s very interesting -- and I only read it as it is written.

Mr. Lewis: Just a second now. On a point of privilege --

Mr. J. P. Spence (Kent): Caught in his own trap.

Mr. Lewis: No, as a matter of fact, I am not caught in my trap because I noticed that in Hansard at the time and wondered about it.

Mr. Singer: Yes.

Mr. Lewis: My reference to “about time” referred to the paragraph preceding, about the excusal of people from jury duty.

Mr. Singer: Oh, come on.

Mr. Lewis: Well, I realize that it appeared in lousy juxtaposition to what the member had said, but I recall listening to what the Attorney General had said about jury duty at the time and muttering that afterwards.

Mr. Breithaupt: What trouble his biographer is going to have.

Mr. Singer: It’s a strange coincidence, Mr. Speaker, that the hon. leader of the NDP was so careless --

Mr. Lewis: Very aggravating.

Mr. Singer: -- because he is one who guards so carefully the printed word as it reflects his thoughts.

Mr. Lewis: As a rule I do, yes.

Mr. Singer: It’s strange that when he gets caught out, he has another explanation. Well, let’s read a little further.

The Attorney General went on and the other interjection that’s there during the Attorney General’s remarks comes from the hon. member for Lakeshore.

Mr. Lewis: He just spoke against the bill.

Mr. Singer: No, I listened carefully and I got a very good report about what the hon. member for Lakeshore said. I was assured by my colleagues, whose word I trust and accept --

Mr. Lawlor: The member is a darn sight more clever than I am.

Mr. Singer: -- that the hon. member for Lakeshore made a very interesting speech and straddled the fence completely. When he sat down he said, “I left it open to you, member for Riverdale, as to which way you want to go.”

Mr. R. F. Nixon: “We could go either way.”

Mr. Singer: Yes. “We could go either way.” It is interesting to read the interjections --

Mr. Lewis: I didn’t hear him say that.

Mr. Lawlor: Mr. Speaker, I knew my colleague had some misgivings.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: He spoke about the bill. He didn’t speak for or against it.

Mr. Singer: It is very interesting to read the interjection made by the hon. member for Lakeshore which does something less than criticize the principle the Attorney General had just introduced.

Mr. Lawlor: I think I came down on the whole against it.

Mr. Singer: The hon. member for Lakeshore is quoted on the same page of Hansard as saying, “Stanfield is a grand jury man, you know.”

Mr. Lawlor: The trouble in this House, Mr. Speaker, is one can’t even try to be intelligent.

Mr. Singer: That hardly indicated violent animosity to the principle of the bill.

Mr. Lawlor: One has to be a partisan, damn fool all the time. Take a look at the member.

Mr. Singer: In case the hon. member for Lakeshore lost the context I will repeat it. At the bottom of page 3360 these words are attributed to the hon. member for Lakeshore.

Mr. Lawlor: One can even find worse words than that. Look at the estimates.

Mr. Singer: No, I don’t want to quote him out of context. I want to quote him completely, fairly and these are the words attributed to the hon. member.

Mr. Lawlor: The member has no --

Mr. Lewis: For 11 years, God help me, I have never spoken against the grand jury.

Mr. Singer: I don’t know why they are so concerned about my quoting their own words back to them, Mr. Speaker. These are their comments and if Hansard is wrong -- and occasionally it is wrong -- they should have stood in their place on a point of privilege and corrected it. However, this is what Hansard attributes to the hon. member for Lakeshore.

Mr. Lawlor: This is part of the dialectic of history. It appears to be a contradiction; it is not really so.

Mr. Lewis: As a matter of fact, that is exactly right, Mr. Speaker. In fact it is an Hegelian dialectic there.

Mr. Singer: Mr. Speaker, when the House is quiet again I will read the words attributed to the hon. member for Lakeshore.

Mr. Breithaupt: The consommé has become vegetable.

Mr. Singer: This is what Hansard says at that page: “Mr. P. D. Lawlor (Lakeshore): ‘Stanfield is a grand jury man, you know.’”

Mr. Lewis: He was just ridiculing Stanfield, for heaven’s sake.

Mr. Singer: That is right, Mr. Speaker, I am only a simple man and I don’t attach great hidden meanings to these things but one would have thought, having known the hon, member for Lakeshore for many years, that if he had violent exception to the new principle being introduced by the Attorney General he would have done something other than to quote Stanfield as the person whose view might have been favoured. Obviously one must conclude, knowing the hon. member for Lakeshore as I do and most of us do, that he was in agreement with what the Attorney General said.

Mr. Lawlor: The Liberals spend most of their time attacking men of straw, including Stanfield.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Singer: Now, suffice that for the day. The leader of the NDP and the member for Lakeshore at the time the minister made his statement seemed to accept the principle he introduced.

Mr. Lawlor: Why doesn’t the member stay on something like the principle of the bill?

Mr. Singer: I accept that, Mr. Speaker.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Singer: I think it is an advance in our legal system, I don’t think the continuation of the grand jury system adds anything to our system of justice. The member for Riverdale can wax as eloquent as he wants about what Judge Sirica might or might not have done. If we want to have a debate about Judge Sirica at some time, I think that would be a very enjoyable thing. There are a lot of people, including some of the very fine writers who write for the New York Times, who question what Judge Sirica has done from time to time --

Mr. Lewis: Shame.

Mr. Singer: -- about his use of various vehicles of the system of administration of justice in the United States to produce what some people suggest is a preconceived result; and to use people and to use plea bargaining and a whole variety of things, including the weapons of the grand jury, to get confessions, to get people who are charged to give evidence one against the other.

Mr. Lewis: Sirica is the only good thing about the administration of justice, for heaven’s sake.

Mr. Singer: This situation does not prevail in Canada, does not prevail in Ontario and that brings us back to the point that the Attorney General is now introducing.

Mr. Lewis: It does prevail in a perverse sort of way.

Mr. Singer: As I say, I have advocated this idea for at least 10 years, probably 12 years, in this House. I have advocated this with the concurrence of my colleagues; with the concurrence of many members of the bar; with the concurrence of many members of the teaching and legal profession, and now obviously with the concurrence of the Law Reform Commission.

I think what we are doing is an advance. I don’t think the grand jury performs a useful function. It is a vehicle whereby the Crown attorney can come before a selected group of people and present his evidence out of the presence of the accused and out of the presence of the accused’s solicitor. What goes on in the closed room where the grand jury sits is a mystery. The number of times the grand jury chooses to ignore the recommendation of the Crown is minimal. The fact that it takes place behind closed doors makes it suspect to me. I think it is well gone and it should have been long gone. My colleagues and I will support this principle in this bill.

Mr. Speaker: Do any other members wish to address themselves to this bill? If not, the hon. Attorney General.

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, I think it is fairly significant to draw the attention of the House to the fact that this debate is a very important debate. I have appreciated it very much that members from both parties have seen fit to enter the debate and to talk in terms of the principle of this bill in the detail they have.

I would like quietly to point out, simply as a matter of personal interest, that the member for Riverdale, who seemed to be somewhat concerned about the facial expressions of the Attorney General and his gestures and who was concerned with respect to the lack of attention or the degree of attention his remarks were given, is not even in the House right now to hear the response of the minister.

Mr. Deans: He was called out to make a phone call.

Hon. Mr. Welch: I can only say that one can only question his sincerity in raising all these questions with respect to the bill.

Mr. Lawlor: Come off it!

Hon. Mr. Welch: Notwithstanding the fact that he is not here, may I --

Mr. Deans: Considering the minister drops around one day a week, he has a hell of a nerve.

Hon. Mr. Welch: -- reply to the comments that have been made with respect to this legislation?

In the first place, the member for Windsor-Walkerville raises a fairly important question with respect to the adequacy of compensation to jurors, which is not the subject matter of the bill but is a concern to the Attorney General, as it is to the Solicitor General (Mr. Kerr) with respect to coroners. I can assure him that the Justice policy field is giving some consideration to this matter as we prepare certain considerations for our cabinet colleagues in this regard.

The member for Lakeshore quite properly raises some question with respect to the activities of juries, insofar as viewing certain scenes and seeing certain physical locations with respect to the discharge of their responsibilities. I would point out that this is covered in the Judicature Act and would not be the subject matter for this particular type of legislation. I am particularly anxious to address myself very shortly to the principles quite properly brought before the House by the member for Riverdale and the comments made by the member for Kitchener and the member for Downsview, on this whole question as to the role and the place of the grand jury.

I do not take lightly the comments that have been made because I think they are very important. I would think that we should be very careful there is no misunderstanding with respect to this whole question of civil rights and the role of the grand jury. I think there is, as the member for Downsview points out, some misunderstanding about the role and the function of the grand jury in this jurisdiction.

I say to you, Mr. Speaker, and to the members of this House, all of whom I’m sure have listened to this debate with a considerable amount of interest, the grand jury in our system never was constituted to deal with the abuse of executive power. This Legislature, of which all members are a part, the member for Riverdale included, will recall that in 1971 we brought in the Judicial Review Procedure Act and the Statutory Powers Procedure Act to protect the rights of our people from such abuse.

The authority to deal with such abuse on the basis of this rests with our courts of law and not with a tribunal, as the member for Downsview so correctly points out -- not with a tribunal which conducts its proceedings in camera.

I think we would address our first comments to this question of the abuse of executive power. I would also point out in our system the grand jury has never been used as an investigative tool, as the member for Downsview has so rightly pointed out to the House. It has always been used to assess the weight of evidence and to ascertain whether a citizen should be placed on his trial. I repeat that we have never used a grand jury in this jurisdiction as an investigative body as it is used in the United States. And so, as the member for Downsview points out, to compare the systems is really not to do justice to the argument of the principle that is involved in this bill.

We leave this whole question of investigation to duly constituted police authorities. Indeed, if we wanted to go to some particular source to satisfy ourselves with respect to the question of civil rights in this province, we go to the Royal commission inquiry into civil rights, report No. 1, volume 2, which deals with the grand jury and which ultimately recommends its abolition.

I would think that any commission charged with the responsibility of protecting civil rights would have to be listened to with some particular care in this area of responsibility. Indeed, if you look at page 772 of the royal commission report, dealing as it does with a history of the grand jury, the commissioner points out that by the year 1351 the trial function of the grand jury had been transferred to a second jury, as we already know, known as the petit jury. And its investigative function, which it earlier may have had, gradually lapsed into disuse with the development of a system of public prosecution and the establishment of police forces.

Mr. Singer: Did a fellow named McRuer write that?

Hon. Mr. Welch: Yes. That’s the McRuer report on civil rights.

Mr. Singer: Yes. The member for Lakeshore is quite an advocate of that report.

Hon. Mr. Welch: We go into this and we find -- of course, I don’t wish to prolong this particular argument.

Mr. Lawlor: Oh come on, the member for Downsview has heard me say something else on occasion.

Hon. Mr. Welch: In 1933 the bill was introduced by the then Attorney General in England to abolish the grand juries in England, at which time he said:

“We all recognize that in this particular age we can’t afford to pay too high a price for sentiment; the conclusion is that grand juries are not serving any really useful purpose, and are at the same time very expensive.”

In Canada -- and I draw attention to section 507 of the Criminal Code of Canada which supports this proposition -- grand juries were abolished in Manitoba in 1923, in British Columbia and Quebec in 1932, and in New Brunswick in 1959 --

Mr. Singer: We are a little slow in Ontario but eventually we catch up.

Hon. Mr. Welch: And so the report goes on -- and this is embodied in the Criminal Code. I certainly don’t feel there has been any great problems with respect to the abuse of powers; there being other methods and other ways to cope with that particular situation.

But particularly in the McRuer report on civil rights, he points out at page 781 that the system is open to criticism on the following grounds:

“1. It enables the private prosecutor to maintain a vexatious prosecution without the consent of the Attorney General.

“2. It is an unnecessary and unwarranted trespass on the time and convenience of witnesses, as well as causing them in many cases substantial economic loss.

“3. It is an unwarranted trespass on the time and convenience of members of the jury, as well as causing them in many cases economic loss; and it causes delay in getting criminal cases tried.”

So this particular statement from a very distinguished jurist, studying as he did the whole question of civil rights; supported later by the distinguished members of the Ontario Law Reform Commission, who set out in their reports --

Mr. Singer: The member for Riverdale never heard of any of that.

Hon. Mr. Welch: -- and who, in fact, recommended the abolition as well.

I want to underline, however, that I think a debate of this particular nature is very important, particularly in that we would understand the principle of this bill. I would want to say as the Attorney General, that I welcome the opportunity to listen to the views expressed by the members opposite and to perhaps have this further opportunity to underline the reasons based in principle as to why we would proceed in the way we are.

We are preserving -- as I pointed out at the time of the introduction of this bill and Bill 106 -- that function of the grand jury with respect to public inspection. This will be provided for, as I say, in Bill 106, being an Act to provide for the inspection of public institutions by public visitation; which I am sure will look after the public interest. I would urge the members of the House to support Bill 105.

Mr. Speaker: The motion is for second reading of Bill 105.

The House divided on the motion for second reading of Bill 105, which was approved on the following vote:

Ayes

Nays

Beckett Belanger Bernier Birch Breithaupt Brunelle Bullbrook Campbell Deacon Downer Drea Eaton Evans Ewen Gilbertson Good Haggerty Havrot Henderson Hodgson (York North) Irvine Kennedy Kerr Lane Lawrence Leluk MacBeth Maeck McIlveen McNeil Meen Morningstar Newman (Windsor-Walkerville) Nixon (Dovercourt) Nixon (Brant) Nuttall Paterson Riddell Root Rowe Ruston Scrivener Singer Smith (Simcoe East) Smith (Hamilton Mountain) Smith (Nipissing) Snow Spence Stewart Taylor Timbrell Turner Villeneuve Walker Wardle Welch White Winkler -- 58.

Bounsall Burr Cassidy Deans Dukszta Laughren Lawlor Lewis Martel Renwick Young -- 11.

Clerk of the House: Mr. Speaker, the “ayes” are 58 and the “nays” 11.

Mr. Speaker: I declare the motion carried.

Motion agreed to; second reading of the bill.

Mr. Speaker: Shall the bill be ordered for third reading? Committee of the whole House?

Agreed.

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

ONTARIO GUARANTEED ANNUAL INCOME ACT

House in committee on Bill 96, An Act to ensure a Guaranteed Annual Income to Ontario Residents 65 Years of Age and Over.

Mr. Chairman: Bill 96. Any comments, questions or amendments: in any section; and if so, which section?

On section 1:

Mrs. M. Campbell (St. George): Mr. Chairman, in section 1, subsection (d), we have the basic monthly income formula spelled out. Could we now have the equivalent basic monthly income figures for those on FBA? I think this is the first matter which should concern us in this bill, since we’ve not had the opportunity to equate these figures with the figures of those who are disabled and blind, and it would be impossible for us to proceed to discuss these particular figures in the absence of that information. That is my first point, Mr. Chairman. I would like to have those figures.

Hon. R. Brunelle (Minister of Community and Social Services): Mr. Chairman, I’m really not sure if I understood the member’s question. The rates for GAINS and for those who are blind or permanently disabled will be the same.

Mrs. Campbell: They will be the same?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Yes.

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Chairman, I know of very few on disability pension who, as single persons, would receive $167.18 per month. Do I take it that under this GAINS programme those who are disabled and who have been receiving $137 per month would now be increased to $216.67 under this formula?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Mr. Chairman, I haven’t got the figures before me, but about 30,000 persons who are now under the Family Benefits Act will be transferred to the GAINS programme and will be receiving the amount of $217.67 per month.

Mrs. Campbell: Thank you.

Mr. Chairman: On this particular point?

Mrs. Campbell: I am addressing myself at the moment, Mr. Chairman, to section 1(d)(i). I was hoping to follow the formula through in each case, Mr. Chairman. However, if someone else wishes to speak on that particular point --

Mr. S. Lewis (Scarborough West): Go ahead.

Mr. Chairman: I think it is in order for the hon. member for St. George to proceed.

Mrs. Campbell: We arrive at the position of the beneficiary, and that would be the FBA beneficiary, who is married to a person entitled, I presume. Would that mean that the eligibility in that case for each of them would be the same as in this bill? To start with, do we have a degree of disability?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Mr. Chairman, the definition for disability is that you are disabled if you have a major physical or mental handicap that severely limits you in carrying out your normal living activities. Your handicap must be permanent; if you have a temporary disability that prevents you from earning your living, you may be able to get general welfare assistance.

Your question of disability, of course, has to be approved by the medical advisory board. This is a committee appointed by the Minister of Community and Social Services, and has as its chairman a qualified medical practitioner.

It’s quite true, Mr. Chairman, that there are a certain number of those who are classified as permanently unemployable. Last year, I believe, you will recall that we transferred about 8,000 to 9,000 persons from the General Welfare Assistance Act to the Family Benefits Act. A certain number of those permanently unemployable persons in time will be transferred to the GAINS programme; but this should take several weeks before some of them will be transferred.

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Chairman, the reason for this interrogation is that in committee, when the minister did not know the effect of GAINS, he said that each case would have to be examined individually. In view of the fact that this programme has been announced to take effect as of July 1, it is incumbent upon us at least to know exactly what the procedure will be and how it will be affected by the formula spelled out in the bill before us.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Mr. Chairman, I now have fairly exact figures on the number who are presently under the Family Benefits Act and who will be transferred to the GAINS programme on July 1:

DISABLED PERSONS

Single persons ........................................ 24,880

Married persons ...................................... 2,670

------------

Total ...................................................... 27,550

BLIND PERSONS

Single blind persons ................................. 810

Married blind persons ............................... 90

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Total ...................................................... 900

DEPENDENT FATHERS

Disabled dependent fathers ........................ 3,200

Blind dependent fathers ............................. 100

------------

Total ........................................................ 3,300

Then there is an estimate of mothers of 1,500.

Added up, Mr. Chairman, these make an estimated total of 33,250 who are presently under the Family Benefits Act and who will come under the GAINS programme.

Under the permanently unemployable, there are probably somewhere around 10,000 persons who are presently receiving family benefits. Out of that 10,000 there will be a certain number whose cases in time will have to be examined individually. For instance, there may be some persons who have some sort of disability and are permanently unemployable due to social or slightly mental disorders. They will have to be examined individually in order to qualify for our qualifications. Our qualifications of eligibility as announced are:

“Disabled or blind persons who are not currently eligible for family benefits, but whose income falls below the new levels, may be eligible if they meet the following requirements: Degree of disability [Under degree of disability there will be certain numbers who will have to be examined individually]; liquid assets test.”

I would like to speak briefly on that. As the hon. members know, at the present, liquid assets allowed under our family benefits are, for a single person $1,000; for a married couple $1,500; and for the children, for the first dependant, I believe, $300 each. We are raising that for a single person to $2,000; a married couple $2,500; and then the dependants $500 for the first child and then $300 for the others. We think that the raising of the assets will be of substantial benefit.

As you know, we get the GIS list from Ottawa of the groups who are 65 years of age or over; we get the list from Ottawa and they are on an income test basis. It is our hope that in time that for those who are under 65, the blind and the permanently disabled, we will also go to an income test.

Mr. J. A. Renwick (Riverdale): The wealthiest province in Canada and you are always saying “in time.”

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Well, in order to have this effective as of July 1, we had to do it this way.

Mr. Renwick: Stop setting the objections and set the pace.

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Chairman --

Mr. Lewis: Sorry, I will only take a moment.

Mr. Chairman: All right, the hon. member for Scarborough West.

Mr. Lewis: I want to understand something, since this has been opened up, which has been confusing me mightily. You said you had 24,880 people, if I caught your figures correctly, who are receiving single disabled pensions.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: That’s right.

Mr. Lewis: And of those, I presume, 10,000 of them are permanently unemployable?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Mr. Chairman, I’d like to clarify that. This list that I read out a little while ago, of single persons permanently disabled -- 24,880 who are presently receiving family benefits -- automatically they will be under the GAINS programme as of July 1.

Mr. Lewis: They reach the $217 level?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: That’s right, exactly.

Mr. Lewis: Okay.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: It’s that category -- and I’m just estimating, Mr. Chairman -- of about 10,000 who are permanently unemployable --

Mr. Lewis: I see.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: -- but who are not physically disabled.

Mr. Lewis: I understand. So that 24,880 are permanently physically disabled and require raising immediately to $217?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: That’s right.

Mr. Lewis: I want you to explain something to me, and perhaps to the House. I hold no brief for what was announced in the Legislature as a minimum monthly income for those who are on pension from the Workmen’s Compensation Board. I want you to explain to me how a single person, permanently disabled, unable to find employment, under this programme gets $217 a month; and a single person, permanently disabled, unable to find employment, gets $260 under the Workmen’s Compensation programme as a minimum income.

I want you to explain to me how we create categories of people in Ontario whose disabilities are similar, whose removal from the work force is identical, whose inability to function is permanent, and because some happen to have been injured in one way we will pay them only $217 a month, and because others have been injured in another way we will pay them $260 a month --

Mr. I. Deans (Wentworth): Both of which are inadequate.

Mr. Lewis: Both of which are preposterous sums, inadequate sums; but leave that aside. So that the people who happen by accident, and in this case, unhappily, to fall within your GAINS programme will be receiving $516 less per year than the people who are permanently disabled under the workmen’s compensation plan.

Explain to me the justice, the sanity, the rationale for penalizing 24,880 people even to that extent. For these people $516 a year is a hell of a lot of money. I want to know why you have this perverse double standard for people who are in identical positions.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Mr. Chairman, I’d like to make a couple of comments on what the hon, member has raised. First, I’d like to say to him that the amount of GAINS, which is $217.67, plus the tax credit, comes to an average of about $260 a month.

Mr. Lewis: No, that’s a red herring.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Let me finish --

Mr. Lewis: All right. I’ll come right back to that.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: With the tax credit it comes to about $260.

Interjection by an hon. member.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: I agree with the hon. member that the programme has to be rationalized.

Mr. Lewis: Of course.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: That’s why we have an income security review. I agree with the hon. member that a person who breaks a leg at work, and has workmen’s compensation coverage, gets a certain amount of benefits. But as soon as he leaves work and comes to his home and falls down the steps, he is not covered by workmen’s compensation.

Mr. Lewis: That’s right.

Mr. Deans: It is right and it’s wrong.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: He still has the same number of dependants, the same number of children, and his expenses are the same.

Mr. Lewis: That’s right.

Mr. Deans: He qualifies for unemployment insurance --

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: That’s why the member for Scarborough Centre (Mr. Drea) and all the rest of us are working towards having a more rational system.

Mr. E. W. Martel (Sudbury East): We’d better bring in the New Zealand plan then.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: We agree there are many areas that have to be rationalized.

Mr. Lewis: Okay. I am glad you agree.

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. Lewis: Let me respond to you by pointing out that because these permanently disabled people are not over 65, they are under family benefits; therefore, the Workmen’s Compensation Board recipients are also eligible for the tax credit. So the tax credit is a red herring. They are both eligible for it. It therefore rules itself out, and you have to agree with that.

What we are really talking about is the incredible situation that you have now established of setting a minimum monthly income for people who are in identical circumstances, at one point $217 a month and at another level $260 a month. And you have just said that they have the same dependants, that they have the same needs and that their families require the same supports. How in heaven’s name can it be justified or defended that you give one group $516 a year less?

What I am saying to you is, that if you are serious about a minimum monthly income, then you should raise everyone to the $260 minimum that you are in the process of legislating for permanently disabled people under the Workmen’s Compensation Act. The points you make are right: Whether you are disabled on the job or off the job, you are a human being; your needs are identical. Don’t think for one moment that we credit the $260 as a legitimate figure. But if that is not a legitimate figure, how illegitimate is $217?

Why should these 24,880 people be discriminated against in this way? It’s not a small matter; it’s a serious matter. It’s kind of a class system within dependency. You are rating dependency. If you are injured off the job, you have had it; you get $217. If you are injured on the job, you may get $260. It’s an accident of fate whether or not you are entitled to a minimum income that is less than low.

I tell you, it’s mean, it’s perverse and it’s essentially nasty against those whom it’s directed. For goodness’ sake, the contradiction of it is really quite dramatic. You are bringing both bills in simultaneously. The Minister of Labour (Mr. MacBeth) will be bringing in his bill tomorrow or Thursday. This bill is being debated tonight. In one you establish a standard $43 a month below the other for people in an identical situation. I say to you it’s indefensible.

Interjection by an hon. member.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Mr. Chairman, briefly --

Mr. J. E. Bullbrook (Sarnia): The situations aren’t identical.

Mr. Lewis: Yes, they are.

Mr. Bullbrook: No, they aren’t.

Mr. Lewis: Yes, they are.

Mr. Bullbrook: No, no.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: The hon. member knows that the benefits under the Workmen’s Compensation Act --

Mr. Bullbrook: You say we should pay for the first situation.

Mr. Lewis: Yes, but the amounts should be the same.

Mr. Bullbrook: No, no.

Mr. Chairman: Order, please. The hon. minister has the floor.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: The benefits under WCBO are based on the employer-employee relationship. That’s entirely different.

Mr. Renwick: Oh, nonsense.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Now the hon. Treasurer (Mr. White), who is much more knowledgeable and who speaks much more eloquently, has stated before --

Mr. Bullbrook: What do you mean, we should pay for it? Because industry should pay for it.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: -- that this is a really positive step, and we agree.

Mr. Renwick: It is not a positive step.

An hon. member: Sure it is.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: At the same time, there is an income security review; the whole question of income security is under review. But this again, Mr. Chairman, is a really positive step.

Mr. Bullbrook: That is trying to equate the responsibility on society.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: This GAINS programme is a good programme, and I am sure that the members wil favour it.

Mr. Lewis: No, as a matter of fact --

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Renwick: You can always count on applause when you are under attack. It’s only when you are wrong --

Mr. Lewis: I’ll try to keep on the subject that was raised by the member for St. George in opening up this area. If one argues that the money which we tithe industry for in order to pay for workmen’s compensation --

Mr. Bullbrook: Now you are talking sense.

Mr. Lewis: Yes, I understand that --

Mr. Bullbrook: There is a difference.

Mr. Lewis: Yes, there is.

Mr. Bullbrook: Sure, there is a difference.

Mr. Lewis: It is a difference in the method of payment.

Mr. Bullbrook: There is a difference to the --

Mr. Chairman: Order, please.

Mr. Lewis: And it may be. And it may be.

Mr. Bullbrook: Industry doesn’t pay it now.

Mr. Lewis: No, no. Please don’t attribute that to me. I am not saying that. No, no, no. No, I am not. Now let me say what I said.

Mr. Bullbrook: You do when you equate them.

Mr. Lewis: If industry, by virtue of the way in which you take money from companies dealing with the Workmen’s Compensation Board --

Mr. Bullbrook: Yes, right.

Mr. Lewis: -- pays ultimately higher levels based upon the earnings of the individual involved at a given time, those are some of the things we have to cope with in Ontario.

Mr. Bullbrook: If you want --

Mr. Lewis: But don’t tell me that the minimum should be different.

Mr. Bullbrook: If you want to --

Mr. Lewis: No, I am not equating that responsibility with society.

Mr. Bullbrook: Well, try to bring them together.

Mr. Lewis: Because the minimum should be the same. The minimum should be the same.

Mr. Chairman: Order, please.

Mr. Bullbrook: They are two different things.

An hon. member: Boy, we sure have two classes of people.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Lewis: I mean it is recognizable that if we had an appropriate workmen’s compensation scheme, some of the levels of income which were paid would clearly be higher, because industry wouldn’t get away with murder. All right?

Mr. Bullbrook: Exactly.

Mr. Lewis: But that doesn’t justify the difference in the minimums. I am talking about the minimum monthly income. And you don’t introduce a minimum monthly income for the permanently disabled on Thursday, which is one level, and then introduce a minimum monthly income for the permanently disabled on Friday, which is another level. You set your minimum at a base level which is adequate for everyone to function on. If you pay more ultimately to workmen’s compensation recipients, obviously that’s legitimate.

As a matter of fact, the whole blessed system should be scrapped and you should have a public insurance plan for sickness and disability, whether on or off the job, which pays people an appropriate wage or pension at the point of injury or sickness -- and we will get rid of this whole nonsense of the Workmen’s Compensation Board and this kind of legislation.

But there’s something invidious in the difference in minima. I understand the point that’s being made in terms of how much more companies can pay than the state can pay. I appreciate that. But the minima should be the same, and the minima here are $516 a year less for those who are on the GAINS programme.

Mr. Bullbrook: Are you saying industry should be obliged to pay the same as the state --

Mr. Lewis: I am saying that the state should be obliged to pay the minima. I am saying the state should be obliged to pay the minima.

Interjections by an hon. member.

Mr. Chairman: The hon. Treasurer. Order, please. Order, please.

Hon. J. White (Treasurer and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): There is a great deal of merit in the hon. member’s remarks. We have taken a very great step toward a more suitable minimum and a minimum which is more broadly applicable to large numbers of our citizens. I think the figure was mentioned of $137 being the allowance for a single disabled person. That is now going to about $217.

Now, for the first time, a person under the age of 65 who is blind or disabled gets the same minimum benefits as those over 65. We have therefore, at one and the same time, provided additional moneys to the blind and disabled and at the same time put them on the same footing as the older people who previously were getting a very great deal more in the way of support from the state.

This is only an important step toward rationalizing the entire system. It seems simple until one gets into the complexities and then one learns that it isn’t simple at all. The reason, in fact, that this bill was put into standing committee was so that experts of one kind or another could deal with the technicalities. I know that’s not the point at issue now, except to say that those who had the opportunity of attending the standing committee meetings will have some appreciation of the enormous complexity, mathematical and otherwise.

Why didn’t we move to oppose $260? We didn’t have the money, because to move to a full $260 would have cost us, I should think, another $100 million.

Mr. Lewis: Oh, come now.

Hon. Mr. White: Because we’re talking about 311,000 recipients. You see, we want to get these people under 65 on the same basis as those 65 and over. As my hon. friend has pointed out, there was a great discrepancy previously. Now that discrepancy has been removed and we can reach for a rationalization of certain other programmes, including, I have no doubt, workmen’s compensation.

From an ethical standpoint, there’s no doubt but what this minimum should go right across the board.

Mr. Lewis: That’s right. Well, an ethical standpoint --

Hon. Mr. White: And this bill takes the largest step toward that objective, I dare say, of any legislation here in a generation or more.

Mr. Lewis: Okay. But I want to point out to you, don’t throw $100 million figures about quite so loosely. I accept what you say -- from an ethical standpoint it should be the same right across the board. It’s easy for you to say to us, “We don’t have the money.” It’s pretty hard to explain to somebody on GAINS why they’re receiving $43 a month less than the ethical view which you believe should obtain. We’re paying $65 million for this programme, and that includes all of those over the age of 65. If you subtract all of those over the age of 65 from this programme, which occupies the biggest percentage of the $65 million, then you’re probably down to --

Mr. L. C. Henderson (Lambton): Like the federal leader of the New Democrats?

Mr. Lewis: -- $15 million or $20 million for the disabled portion that we are talking about, and I want to remind you that that is under the Canada Assistance Plan, where it is a cost-sharing programme where we would receive 50 per cent back from the federal government, so we are not talking about $100 million; we are probably talking about something in the vicinity of $10 million to $20 million maximum, and I tell you, considering the way you throw around money for projects like Krauss-Maffei, it’s time you understood that the ethical standards you pretend to observe should obtain for these 24,000 people.

Mr. E. M. Havrot (Timiskaming): You have got to look after Saskatchewan.

Hon. Mr. White: Well, I would be glad to try to get this figure computed, but --

Mr. Lewis: I would appreciate your doing so.

Hon. Mr. White: -- if one is trying to increase from $217 to $260, which is an increase --

Mr. Deans: It would cost $14 to $16 million.

Mr. Lewis: It would cost $14 million to $16 million, my colleague from Wentworth says. That’s $14 million to $16 million in total.

Hon. Mr. White: -- of $43, and having in mind that there would be some sliding off, I suppose the average might be approximately $25. I guess the amount of money involved is $25 times 12, times 11,000. We can try to work that out now and I’ll --

Mr. Lewis: That is not the figure --

Mr. Deans: You are talking about 27,000 people --

Hon. Mr. White: No, I am talking about having the disabled on the same basis as the elderly for the first time in this province.

Mr. Deans: No, I am talking about disabled on the same basis as all other --

Hon. Mr. White: I know you are.

Mr. Chairman: The hon. member for Nipissing has the floor.

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. Lewis: Sixty-five million dollars for all of those on FBA.

Mr. Chairman: The member for Nipissing has the floor.

Mr. Lewis: -- yet $100 million for this category of the disabled. What nonsense is that?

Mr. R. S. Smith (Nipissing): Mr. Chairman, the point I would like to make is the fact that the people who are really being discriminated against in this whole thing are the permanently unemployed. The minister says that some of them are going to be reclassified as disabled, but the fact of the matter is that the permanently unemployed are going to remain at $157 or $167 per month for a single person. These people are usually under that category, because of their mental disabilities or their mental deficiencies.

It’s real discrimination, because people who are mentally disabled are going to receive an allowance far below those who are physically disabled. That’s why I call it discrimination, but I don’t know what the minister calls it. I would like him to explain to the House how they arrived at the fact that these 10,000 people would not receive the same benefits as those who are physically disabled.

Mr. Deans: I want to -- I am sorry, are you going to answer? Oh, I am sorry. I didn’t think he was getting up.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Mr. Chairman, the announcement of the provincial Treasurer in the budget was that the blind and the permanently handicapped persons who are permanently unemployable would be under the GAINS programme.

Mr. R. S. Smith: Well, they are not. The blind people are not included in the GAINS programme.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: That’s the definition of eligibility; physically handicapped and permanently unemployable. As I indicated earlier --

Mr. Renwick: Or permanently disabled.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Or permanently disabled. As I indicated earlier, the second category are permanently unemployable. These could be --

Mr. R. S. Smith: There are 10,000; many of them because of mental disabilities.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: -- for various reasons, for social problems and so forth. Some of these persons, as I said, will have to be looked at individually and some will come under the GAINS programme.

Mr. R. S. Smith: The whole 10,000 should come under the GAINS programme because obviously they are in a position where most of them cannot be employed because of their mental capabilities, and you know that as well as I. What you are doing is you are discriminating against those people, not in favour of, but as compared to those who are physically disabled. I thought we were past that in this province, that mental disability was a reason for discriminating against people. In effect this is what you are doing to most of those 10,000 people. You are asking them to live on $176 a month whereas all the physically disabled are going to get $216.67.

I do not know what you call that except discrimination against the mentally disabled. Most of those people are in that category because they don’t have the mental capability to hold down permanent jobs and you know that as well as I. We had that discussion in the estimates for the past five years before you finally even recognized most of these people. Why those 10,000 people are not included in the GAINS programme is certainly beyond any comprehension I have.

Mr. Chairman: The member for Sudbury East.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Chairman, what also bothers me in dealing with the group my friend from Nipissing deals with is that many of them are in room and board situations. It is even more devastating than has been indicated here. I would suspect the overwhelming majority of that group get about $120 a month.

I tried, if you recall, during the estimates which have just finished to find out how many of the unemployables and so on were getting maximum benefits. I tried, for example, to find out during your estimates how many of the handicapped were on full benefits. I tried last year and I am still awaiting the reply.

The irony of it is that when those of us in the Legislature contact the ministry to find out how it is determined who is unemployable and who is disabled, the fine line that distinguishes being unemployable from being physically disabled has never been explained to me adequately enough. I can recall two or three years ago, when the change ultimately came, even your colleagues in the Tory backbenches questioned it because no one can get a handle on the determination of what is unemployable and what is disabled.

What’s the difference? If a man can’t go out and earn or if a man can’t support himself, what’s the difference? What’s the difference between unemployable and disabled? I wish somebody would explain it to me in language I can understand that there is a difference between when a man can’t get out and get a job and when he is disabled. What is that fine line which separates them? The second point I want from the minister is how many people --

Mr. Henderson: You will know after the next election.

Mr. Martel: You will never know what it is.

Mr. Lewis: Go down and drain some tiles.

Mr. Martel: Go downstairs and drain the think tank.

Mr. P. D. Lawlor (Lakeshore): Will the member for Lambton stop making moronic statements?

Mr. Martel: The press up there knows all about him. You are an expert at getting more than the disabled get, I can assure you.

Mr. J. F. Foulds (Port Arthur): You rip off more in a day on your select committee than these people get in a month.

Mr. Martel: The second point I would like the minister to tell me is how many of the 10,000 unemployable are getting the maximum which is supposedly -- I heard a different figure tonight; the Treasurer said about $135 a month, plus the transportation, being raised to $217. The Minister of Community and Social Services likes to throw around the figure -- he was so embarrassed last year -- but it was really $170 the disabled were getting; $155 and $15.

Mrs. Campbell: That was the maximum.

Mr. Martel: Yes, the maximum, but nobody gets the maximum in this province.

Hon. Mr. White: I will make a point if I may. I have heard it said it was $137. I was using the figure utilized by the member for St. George, actually.

Mr. Martel: The unfortunate part is, as we try to get a handle on the total number of people who were getting the maximum benefits under the disability allowances last year, we couldn’t get that either from the ministry. I would like to know what the average is, at least, for the unemployables. I would suspect it is closer to $100 or $125, because many of them would be under the room and board situation, which gives them a straight $100 and you were supposed to make an increase in January, an extra allotment of a couple of bucks, for cigarettes. I am still awaiting that announcement as well. Possibly the minister could answer those two questions to start.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Mr. Chairman, these are the maximum amounts under family benefits for boarding rates. The maximum boarding rate is $140 and some receive travel and transportation of $15, making a total of $155.

Mr. Martel: That’s for the handicapped.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: As the hon. member knows, for the ordinary needs now, the maximum is $91 and the maximum shelter is $64; plus travel and transportation to those who are eligible, making a total of $170. That is the maximum.

As to the average, the numbers who are under, we would be pleased to get those figures for the member.

Mr. Martel: The minister still hasn’t answered the other part of the question. I would like an explanation of the difference between unemployable and disabled. I want the minister to tell me what the difference is.

Mr. R. S. Smith: For the most part it is a matter of disability.

Mr. Martel: Yes, I want to hear from the minister what the difference is between disabled and unemployable. Neither of them can work. But what makes it so that one is going to get $217 and the other is going to stay at, I would suspect, an average of $155, because most of them don’t get the maximum?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Again, Mr. Chairman, I can repeat what I said earlier. If you are blind or disabled, if you are 18 years or older, and if you have a major physical or mental disability --

Mr. Deans: Stop it.

Mr. Lewis: No. That isn’t the difference between unemployable and disabled; one of mental disability. Isn’t that a difference?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: -- that severely limits you in carrying out your normal living activities, and it is considered a permanent handicap -- it has to be reviewed by the medical advisory board -- this is the definition of a permanently disabled person.

Mr. Lewis: But what’s the difference? One is related to the other.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Minister, what you are saying is that those unemployable people aren’t capable of going out in the work force and earning a living. If that is what you are saying, all 10,000 should be included in the GAINS programme because they can’t go out and carry on in a normal fashion. They can’t go out and support themselves and, therefore, automatically they should be taken into the GAINS programme as well.

They are there; most of them were on general welfare for three, four or five years before you took them into the unemployable category and granted them FBA. They were already on welfare for four or five years. Are you going to say now that they have to go back and start the whole ball game over again to determine whether they are eligible for that part of the GAINS programme? That’s ridiculous. They have been through it all.

Most of them haven’t worked in five years and you know it because I don’t think there is a case that you took over last year that hadn’t been on general welfare for at least three years. I am saying to the minister there is no distinction between those 10,000 and the 24,000 you mention. They are incapable of earning or carrying on in a normal fashion and they should be included in the GAINS programme or, as the member for Nipissing says, you are discriminating against them.

Mr. Lewis: It is a kind of cheating at the expense of those who have mental disabilities of one kind or another; it is wretched little cheating at the expense of that 10,000.

Mr. Chairman: The member for St. George has the floor.

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Chairman, I opened this matter because it seemed to me that as we try to relate this formula to those who are disabled, we are going to find we cannot cover the situation in this formula, and some of that has already been raised now.

The question here is, there is no provision in this bill, as it is before us, in the formula for the situation which was raised in the estimates by me and which was to be answered when we came to the discussion of GAINS.

It relates very closely to something else that I want to say, I raised the question of the mother who has a disabled child who will presumably be under this, because that child is over 20 years of age. That child presumably would be entitled to GAINS. But what happened before, when that child got an increase? Mother’s allowance went down.

An hon. member: Right. Disgraceful.

Mrs. Campbell: I want to know if that is going to prevail in this programme. You have a mother who is on duty 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and she has no compensation. Basically, as I would see it, if this child gets the $216.67 -- and she needs it -- the mother is then cut back on her FBA. She’s not disabled yet, but if you continue the way you are going with her she is going to be so crippled from wheeling around a wheelchair every day, and several times a day, that she is at the moment going to be left with less than she had before.

I want an explanation of that case. I want to know where it fits into this kind of a formula, because it isn’t provided for as a formula here. I also want a clear explanation as to why we always take the position that if the federal government gives more, we will give less. Surely if ever there was a time, when you were doing a programme like this, to put in a clause to protect them from having to give back portions which they may get from the federal government, the time is now to ensure that they get to keep whatever the increases are.

I have to say in this House -- and I wish I didn’t -- that when I started in this business a year ago, people were on $131 a month on disability pension. That has been increased for these people, up to $137 in my riding. I have to take a position that I am grateful that at least they are getting this. I am not proud of taking that position, but when I see what they have been living on or existing on, it is infinitely better than what they have now.

But if you are going to cut back every chance you get, and if you are going to penalize the people in the cases I have suggested, then all I can say is that it is heartless and cruel. You have announced a programme that people are waiting to see begin July 1. I think we had better know the effect on these people too. Please, at this point in time, don’t start trying to chop and change or try to analyse people under some kind of a gigantic microscope to see whether or not they fit, because they have needs, they have terrible needs and you know it, Mr. Minister. You know it and we know it. I would like an answer to those questions, since they don’t fit into this formula as I see it.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Mr. Chairman, during the estimates when we were referring to the GAINS programme, I mentioned that there was no doubt, in view of the rising cost of living, that our next priority would probably be to provide additional assistance for mothers with children. I’d like to say now that the allowance of a mother who is presently receiving family benefits will not be reduced as a result of having a child or children who are under the GAINS programme. I’d like to repeat that. If the mother is presently receiving family benefits and if she has a child or children who are eligible for GAINS who are physically disabled and 18 years of age, her allowance will not be reduced.

Mrs. Campbell: And if she is on general welfare assistance?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: I think the same would apply, Mr. Chairman, if she was under general welfare assistance. But there are very few. As the hon. member knows, those who are receiving general welfare assistance are on the average short-term recipients -- about two to three months. If they are long-term, then they come under the Family Benefits Act.

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Chairman, this is just the problem with this whole matter. We have no assurances for any of these things. The minister thinks this is the way it will work. Does the minister not realize that as we go into our ridings -- any one of us, whether we be Conservative, NDP or Liberal -- people are waiting for us to explain to them what they are going to get come July 1? We don’t know and you don’t know, which is worse.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Mr. Chairman, the hon. member can tell them that no one will be adversely affected by the GAINS programme. The great majority will be receiving more.

Mrs. Campbell: The great majority will receive more and then there will be those who won’t get any change at all. We comprehend but we don’t understand. I suppose that is the way it is.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: As the Treasurer mentioned, there are somewhere around 311,000 elderly and at this time about 32,500 blind and permanently disabled. There will be probably several more thousand within a few weeks who will be transferred. At a rough guess, that makes about 360,000.

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Chairman, then I can take it that as of July 1 under the complex formula -- and I have to say, having sat in the committee, I appreciate the complexities of it and I’m not going to deny that -- all of those now on GIS entitled in accordance with this will automatically get a cheque. But are all of those who are on FBA in the position that they now must apply?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: No.

Mrs. Campbell: Are they automatically going to go on?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: No, that is in the ad. I hope the hon. member reads the ads in the newspapers.

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Chairman, I don’t expect to get the policies of this government from advertisements in newspapers. I expect the minister to give it to me in this House.

Hon. Mr. White: The question was answered about three times in the standing committee when you were there.

Mrs. Campbell: I’m sorry, I missed the pearls of wisdom from the Treasurer.

Hon. Mr. White: The question you are now asking was answered about three times or 30 times in the standing committee a few days ago in your presence.

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Chairman, at no time in the standing committee were we discussing the FBA.

Hon. Mr. White: Oh, yes, we were.

Mrs. Campbell: The Treasurer knows that perfectly well.

Mr. B. Newman (Windsor-Walkerville): That’s right.

Hon. Mr. White: We went through all the categories time and time again.

Mrs. Campbell: We did not touch FBA or the drug programme, and he knows it.

Mr. B. Newman: That’s right.

Mrs. Campbell: We discussed food for the first time.

Hon. Mr. White: We went through all of it. We went through all the categories time and time again.

Mrs. Campbell: The committee did not touch FBA or the drug programme and you know it.

Mr. B. Newman: That’s right.

Mrs. Campbell: Don’t tell me.

Hon. Mr. White: We read the advertisement to you.

Mrs. Campbell: You didn’t read the advertisement. You simply held it up and told us to advise our people to call that number. Do you know what happens when you call that number? Have you called it to find out what kind of nonsense you get?

Mr. B. Newman: They don’t know.

Mr. E. J. Bounsall (Windsor West): You get a Tory back-bencher soliciting funds.

Mrs. Campbell: No, they don’t know. Don’t talk to me about reading advertisements. They are as misleading sometimes as some of the things you’ve said in this House.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: How does one get information to the people if you don’t put it in advertisements, on the radio and so forth? This is how the ad reads: “If you are blind or disabled and you now receive assistance under Ontario’s family benefits programme you will receive your benefit cheque each month automatically. You do not have to apply for it.” The “You do not have to apply for it” is in big, black letters.

Mr. Bounsall: Did the minister put it in Braille as well?

Mrs. Campbell: I wanted to raise it in the House because that phone number is phoney.

Mr. R. S. Smith: The regional office said they don’t have any part of the programme there.

Mr. Lewis: What a $100 million red herring the minister pulled. We’ve just done the figures for you. You wait until the member for Wentworth speaks.

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Chairman, I take it that having established the first question under the first formula we are to pursue through all of the rest of it precisely the same formula for the handicapped as we have followed for those who are over 65. Is that correct?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: We are following the same formula for those who are under 65 as those who are over 65. Is that the hon. member’s question?

Mrs. Campbell: I’m talking now about two people who are both entitled; is their combined entitlement to be -- if they receive $298.64 will they not obtain GAINS? Is that true, under FBA?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: On an annual income it’s $2,600. The maximum is $2,600 of income and if they’re over that they are not eligible for GAINS; for a single person.

Mrs. Campbell: For a married couple?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: For a single person; a married couple get $5,200.

Mrs. Campbell: I am asking about the married couple. What is the maximum for a married couple, each of whom is disabled and entitled, presumably, to GAINS? Is it combined up to $5,200? Is $4,500 the maximum or what is the eligibility?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: My understanding, and I can be corrected, is it’s $5,200; $2,600 for a single person and double for a married couple.

Mrs. Campbell: Thank you very much. I’m glad that is confirmed; is it?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Again, Mr. Chairman, to the hon. member, it’s in the ad.

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Chairman, I’m delighted the minister is saying this because I think we found that in certain areas it is not double for a couple 65 or over. However, if that is what the minister is saying for those who are on disability pensions now at least that is a clarification.

I presume we’ll have the same -- the only cases involving a married couple, where the spouse would gain anything at all in this -- I don’t know how the spouse would gain anything. I’m wondering to what extent, if the spouse is on general welfare and the husband, we’ll say, is on disability, what will the figures be, what will the formula be, having in mind that they have no other income whatsoever?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: I don’t know if I’m answering the hon. member’s question. First, as I said earlier, a single person is allowed $2,600; and a married couple’s income is $5,200. And you are asking what it is if a person is under GAINS and the spouse is receiving general welfare assistance? Again, her welfare assistance is calculated as income and it depends on the amount. If his maximum is $217.67 a month, then 12 times that, whatever that is -- it’s roughly $2,600. Then she gets $100 welfare assistance a month, that’s $1,200 -- so that’s $3,800. They’re allowed up to $5,200. There’s no problem. I don’t see any reduction.

Mrs. Campbell: Do I understand from that, Mr. Chairman, that the GAINS programme under FBA makes up the difference between the $3,800 in the case put and $5,200?

Hon. Mr. White: If they are both on GAINS.

Mrs. Campbell: No, I’m talking about one on GAINS and one not.

Mr. Martel: The Treasurer is in trouble.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Would you repeat that again, please, Mr. Chairman?

Mr. B. Newman: One is on GAINS and one is not.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: One is on GAINS -- and the other one?

An hon. member: On welfare.

Mrs. Campbell: Is on general welfare.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Is on general welfare, yes.

Mrs. Campbell: And you worked it out that -- as I had it and I maybe misunderstood you -- if their combined income in this circumstances came to $3,800, my understanding of what the minister said, Mr. Chairman, was that they then would be allowed up to $5,200. Is that correct?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Mr. Chairman, the spouse would probably be under family benefits. If I can give you this example: A married disabled person, renting; under the family benefits, they’re presently getting $275 a month. Under the GAINS programme the recipient, the one who’s eligible, he or she would get the $216.67 and the spouse would get $105 making a total of $321.67.

So, in this particular case they would be better off by --

Mr. Martel: But there has been a cutback.

Mrs. Campbell: They would be better off, I presume, if they were both disabled?

Mr. B. Newman: Sure, then they could receive more.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: If they were both disabled, definitely. If they were both disabled then they get the maximum --

An hon. member: $5,200.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: They get $434 a month if they were both disabled.

Mr. B. Newman: Their needs are the same.

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Chairman, the reason for this exercise is this --

Mr. R. S. Smith: Don’t say that; that’s not right -- unless they are mentally and physically disabled.

Mrs. Campbell: -- can you not hear what you are saying? Can you not hear what you are saying in the kind of discrimination that you show in these cases? Can you not understand that? You say that if they are both disabled they can have -- and I’m delighted -- up to $5,200. I’m delighted, because as I have the figures for those over 65 they could have up to $4,500 -- and that was explained. I am glad that the disabled can have up to $5,200. But if only one of them is disabled, then can they afford to live on $3,000?

Mr. B. Newman: On $3,800.

Mrs. Campbell: All right, you are the mathematician. On $3,800. I am corrected and I accept it.

Mr. B. Newman: That is $1,400 less.

Mrs. Campbell: What is the philosophy of that? Why is it that again it would appear, from what I see in this, that if you are over 65 you are better off than if you are under 65 and one is disabled and one is on another form of welfare assistance? Isn’t it a fact that what we have been crying for in this Legislature is for an understanding that of the people who have been disadvantaged the worst off have been the disabled? These are the people to whom you cannot say with some of the talk that I’ve heard in this Legislature, which has shocked me, “Get to work, you are a bunch of bums.” You can’t say that of them surely because they can’t work. Yet you still keep up this same old discrimination, as I see it from what the minister is telling me.

I see the minister has now received some information from the experts over here. I would be delighted if they will clarify what the minister has said. Hopefully, it won’t come out the way he said it.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: The hon. member speaks as if there were unlimited resources.

Mr. Deans: Oh hell!

Mr. Foulds: Don’t start that argument.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: There are limited resources.

Mr. Deans: Don’t use that argument.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: The GAINS programme, as the Treasurer mentioned, is highlighting the needs of the elderly, the blind and the physically disabled persons.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Chairman: Order.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: That’s what GAINS is all about, to provide special assistance to those who have definite recognized needs.

Mr. Foulds: Why should it be special?

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Chairman, as I say, I have earlier expressed myself as having to feel somewhat grateful for the handicapped who indeed are getting a better break than they have had up until now. But surely the minister cannot in all conscience talk to this House or to the public about recognizing the needs of the handicapped, if indeed he is correct that we are still going to differentiate holding the handicapped at a lower rate than the over 65s. I thought that that was the thrust of what the Treasurer had said and that that was the thrust of what this minister had said, and that at long last we were recognizing the problems of the disabled and we were prepared to --

Mr. Martel: And their families.

Mrs. Campbell: -- cut the differential.

May I ask a question at this point, since I think it’s all part of the same situation? We have maintained, I take it from what the minister says, some differential in certain circumstances. The minister advised us during the estimates that there was serious discussion between his ministry and the Housing ministry on the matter of clarifying the problem whereby the disabled on less income were paying more rent in public housing. Is he going to make an announcement now that that differential has been clarified and that they will not be in a worse position on that point?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: I’d like to make a couple of comments, Mr. Chairman. During our estimates, I said it appears from the letters we are getting and the letters that the members are getting, the persons today who are having a really difficult time are those with families with children and that’s an area.

With reference to housing, as the hon. member knows and as I mentioned there were discussions going on between the Ministry of Housing and the federal department responsible for housing on this question of rent geared to income. It’s a very complex area. As was indicated in our estimates, the rents in OHC have been frozen since, I believe, March of 1973 and this whole question of rent and prices and so forth is one that the Ministry of Housing has under very active consideration. There have been talks within our own government as well as with the federal government and I believe in this area I will leave it to the Minister of Housing (Mr. Handleman).

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Chairman, if I may just --

Hon. Mr. White: If I may just interject for a moment, the hon. member took offence earlier at the suggestion that she might have read the adverts to inform herself about certain details of the plan. In fact it wasn’t necessary because as shown on page 3266 of Hansard, Friday, June 14, my statement included the following:

“The great majority of the elderly who are entitled to GAINS are already receiving the federal guaranteed income supplement. Beginning in July they will automatically receive GAINS cheques which will raise their incomes up to the guaranteed levels. They do not need to apply for it.

“Similarly, the blind and the disabled who are presently receiving family benefits will automatically receive the increased benefits under the Family Benefits Act.

“The drug benefits will also automatically embrace those who receive the guaranteed income supplement, GAINS or provincial family benefits.”

And so on. So I think the high dudgeon displayed earlier is not entirely appropriate.

Let me try to recapitulate the situation. If two people are over 65 years of age, they will have a minimum cash income of $100 per week, plus tax credits, and so on. If two people are under 65 and both qualify as disabled or blind, they will receive $100 a week cash money, plus tax credits, and so on. If one person is over 65, he will receive $50. If the spouse is between 60 and 65, she will have a certain entitlement under the widows’ allowance programme, so called. If a person is disabled and has a spouse who is not over 65 and who is not disabled --

Mrs. Campbell: What about if she’s not a widow but she’s --

Hon. Mr. White: -- that person will qualify for either FBA or general welfare and these benefits are being kept in place so that everybody among these 311,000 people or thereabouts will be increased very substantially. In so doing for the first time in the history of this province, we are bringing the disabled and blind up to the same level previously enjoyed and to the new level now being enjoyed by the older people in this province.

The reason we took this matter into the standing committee is because these mathematical determinations become extremely complicated and we had a great raft of experts who could sit down and describe the increase in benefits in given circumstances, which quite frankly, Mr. Chairman, is impossible in this setting.

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Chairman, I think that one of the things we should understand for those who weren’t at the committee was that notwithstanding that statement the formula doesn’t provide that everyone on GIS will in fact get the benefit of GAINS. I think this is part of the problem that we faced in that committee. When the matter came up and it was mentioned just in those terms, we did not discuss the matter of the unemployable, nor did we get to grips with how the drugs would work -- and we still haven’t. We don’t know at this point in time, notwithstanding some of the statements which have been made, just where the drug programme fits, what will be the responsibility of the municipality and what is the responsibility of the provincial government.

I was at a meeting recently when I stated that the matter was very fuzzy and that according to the statements contained in the blue book, in the matter of the Ministry of Community and Social Services, the drug programme was quite unclear and it was quite possible that some of those 65 and over would be receiving drugs via the municipalities.

I was corrected on that occasion. I stated that if I were wrong I would be happy to apologize and I did on that occasion. But when we tried to check with Health subsequent to that we could not find out from that ministry the answers to those questions. Perhaps now while we are in the midst of this whole formula picture we could be given that information at the same time.

I would, however, also like to point out that what was said by the Minister of Community and Social Services on the matter of housing, appears in Hansard on page S-1334. He said:

“And the GAINS legislation, as was indicated, definitely will be introduced this week and it will be fully discussed. There are also some ongoing discussions between the Ministry of Housing and our ministry, as well as with Treasury and Economics and with the Ministry of Revenue. The Minister of Health is also involved in the GAINS programme. The programme has to be rationalized. I think you are in agreement with that. If I understand the gist of your remarks, Mrs. Campbell -- ”

There was I think no mention at that point in time of any other involvement other than that as set out in Hansard. Could we know either from you or from somebody who has some answers on the matters of the housing position and who is supplying drugs to whom and on what date?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Mr. Chairman, during our estimates when the hon. member raised the question about GAINS, it was quite true that my understanding was the GAINS legislation was going to be introduced on a certain day. It was introduced a few days earlier.

Mrs. Campbell: I am not holding the minister to that, Mr. Chairman.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: I also said I believe that I would ask the minister responsible for piloting the GAINS bill to bring it to the standing committee on social development policy, and hopefully the various ministers and their officials would be at this meeting.

I also said that the question of housing was a very important one. It had implications on GAINS. There has been an interdepartmental task force with representatives from the various ministries dealing with this question, and it specifically comes under the Minister of Housing. At the same time, as the hon. member knows, in this legislation in Bill 96 there is no reference to housing. With reference to drugs, I think all the hon. members have received copies of the various news releases dealing with the various matters. There is one specifically under drug benefits.

Mr. Martel: It doesn’t say who is going to pay for it. Is GWA paying or is the Health ministry paying or who is paying for it? Out of whose budget is it coming?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: We have the Minister of Health here. Mr. Chairman, my understanding is this programme will be administered by the Ministry of Health and that powers will be issued. It will be effective Sept. 1. All those who are recipients of the GAINS programme will receive a card and will be covered for prescribed drugs.

Mr. Martel: But it will come out of the Ministry of Health estimates for payment.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Yes, that is right, except for those who are under the General Welfare Assistance Act. The municipalities will have no part in the drug programme under GAINS. That will be under the Ministry of Health.

Mr. Martel: Thank God.

Mr. F. Laughren (Nickel Belt): Thank goodness for that.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: The general welfare assistance recipients will be dealt with through the regular procedure under the municipal administrators.

Mr. Chairman: Is the member for St. George finished?

Mrs. Campbell: For the moment, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman: The member for Nipissing.

Mr. R. S. Smith: I just have one or two questions I want to ask on the drugs. We might as well cover it now, because the Minister of Health is here and I want to catch him before he leaves.

Under this programme the cheapest drug on the list will be dispensed by the pharmacist, whereas under the Parcost programme the ministry would not allow that to pass as an amendment put forward at that time. So what we are going to have is two classifications of drugs in this province; one for those who go in and buy their drugs -- they won’t be allowed to have, under the Parcost programme, the cheapest product which has been placed on the list -- but under this programme the people who are covered are going to be forced to take the cheapest drug on the list.

I would like one of the ministers to explain to me why, if you are over 65, you have to take the cheapest drugs, or if you are disabled, you have to take the cheapest drugs, or if you are in some other way a recipient of GAINS, why you have to take the cheapest drugs, whereas all the other people in the province are given the opportunity to discuss it with their pharmacist and not get the cheapest drugs on the programme?

Hon. F. S. Miller (Minister of Health): Mr. Chairman, I am rather surprised that the member, who obviously knows something about drugs, would equate cheapest with quality.

Mr. R. S. Smith: You did in your Act, and you wouldn’t accept the amendment that I put forward to force them to dispense the cheapest drugs.

Mr. Laughren: You wouldn’t accept the Manitoba plan.

Mr. R. S. Smith: I don’t but you do.

Hon. Mr. Miller: Again, you are a member of an organization which was very interested in this issue.

Mr. Laughren: You can’t have it both ways, Frank. You talk out of both sides of your mouth. It is your legislation that separates the quality from the cheapest price, not his.

Hon. Mr. Miller: We are only identifying things of equal quality in the Parcost drug index. Do you agree with that statement? Interchangeable quality?

Mr. R. S. Smith: Yes, well, it is more than that.

Hon. Mr. Miller: They are interchangeable, therefore they are equivalent in their therapeutic value.

Mr. R. S. Smith: Right.

Hon. Mr. Miller: The price that is charged for them is a function of the independent manufacturer’s opinion of the value of his product. When the government is paying for them I think the government has a right to demand that the lowest-cost interchangeable product be supplied, and we are doing it.

Mr. Laughren: Why not make it mandatory?

Mr. R. S. Smith: Why is that not applicable when the general public is paying for them? That’s the amendment that I put forward when you put the bill through the committee in place of the minister, who was ill at the time, and you refused to accept that amendment.

Mr. Laughren: You used the opposite argument then. It is a double-think.

Mr. R. S. Smith: So you can’t use that same argument you used then the other way round now. You were either right then or you are right now. So it is another case of you saying, “We will use the cheapest drug for these people, but for those who can afford better -- ” and you are, in effect, by not accepting that amendment at that time saying there is a better drug.

Hon. Mr. Miller: But the hon. member keeps on trying to imply that cheapest means poorer.

Mr. R. S. Smith: No, you do.

Hon. Mr. Miller: No I do not. I quite agree that if we call something interchangeable in the Parcost drug index, from the point of view of the patient it can be used with equal therapeutic value

Mr. R. S. Smith: If that’s the case, why didn’t you accept the amendment at that time?

Hon. Mr. Miller: For the simple reason that the people who are in the business, and you are one of them --

Mr. R. S. Smith: I am not any more.

Hon. Mr. Miller: Well you were; perhaps that’s why you can now talk with such fervour.

Mr. R. S. Smith: I have been out for three years, since before Parcost came in.

Hon. Mr. Miller: The fact remains that there were inventory problems, and you are aware of those inventory problems, and that not everyone has at all times got the lowest-cost Parcost item in his index. There is no incentive for a Parcost druggist to sell you something that is not the lowest, because he adds a fixed fee to the cost of the drug. Is that correct?

Mr. R. S. Smith: Right.

Hon. Mr. Miller: Therefore, it’s not a question of making more money on a product listed at a higher price in the Parcost index.

Mr. R. S. Smith: No, that is --

Hon. Mr. Miller: It is a question of trying to have in stock those things which physicians specify on a non-interchangeable basis. Is that correct?

Mr. R. S. Smith: You are wrong on the profits.

Mr. Chairman: I think we have discussed drugs. It really --

Mr. R. S. Smith: He asked me some questions and I am answering his questions.

Mr. Chairman: Section (d).

Mr. R. S. Smith: First of all --

Hon. Mr. Miller: You might as well enjoy the role. It is usually us who have to answer the questions.

Mr. J. P. Breithaupt (Kitchener): I’ll bet he does a better job.

Mr. R. S. Smith: First of all, you are wrong in saying there is not a difference in the profit, because the drug companies have made a farce of the index by offering different kinds of deals on different kinds of drugs. You know that as well as I. They have tried to undermine your whole programme with different costs from what are published in the index.

The point I’m trying to make is why did you not accept the amendment to have the pharmacist go to the cheapest drug on the index which is interchangeable and which, I say, is just as good as any of the brand name products if it is on the index?

I accept your index. I accept that programme as being a good programme except that now you come along and you are applying different principles to these people. You say it causes problems for the pharmacist in his stocking of these drugs. What is this going to do? The same pharmacists are going to have to fill these same prescriptions under this GAINS programme unless you are going to stipulate which ones are. You should go back to your Parcost programme and accept the amendment offered at that time. Then we would be back on an equal footing, with equity for all people.

Mr. Chairman: The member for Nickel Belt

Mr. Laughren: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Between this minister and the provincial secretary beside him, they are going to convert me from an avowed socialist to a doctrinaire one if they keep up with these kinds of policies.

I really don’t understand why the minister insists on segmenting the disadvantaged in the province. Does the minister really understand? I’ll go back to what the member for Scarborough West referred to earlier. Does he really understand the difference between physically disabled and mentally disabled? If he would spend an hour talking with some of the Workmen’s Compensation Board people who have told people who were injured on the job that they are not eligible for workmen’s compensation benefits because of something called functional overlay, he would understand how inequitable it is to make a distinction between those who are disabled on the job and those who are disabled for whatever reason.

Surely the minister can see that here we are in 1974 still segmenting people who are disabled whether they be mentally disabled, as the member for Nipissing said; or whether they be physically disabled as a result of an injury on the job; falling somewhere between so that no one can classify what kind of disability they have. It’s completely beyond me how the minister can sit there and see the distinction between the levels of benefits of those two classifications of disabled and live with this kind of legislation.

Mr. Martel: Even his medical staff can’t tell the difference.

Mr. Laughren: I really do see the fine hand of the provincial secretary in this legislation as she has yet to be identified with a progressive piece of legislation. I would suggest the minister prepare his own legislation from this point on.

I admit, Mr. Chairman, that I approach this problem with a different viewpoint from the one of the member for Sarnia, for example, but I would like an explanation from the minister as to how he can justify that.

He didn’t respond to the member for Scarborough West properly when the member asked him how he made a distinction between these kinds of disabilities. He didn’t respond to the member for Nipissing.

How do you justify this to the person who is refused workmen’s compensation benefits and therefore falls back as a disabled person under GAINS, and realizes how much less he is getting per month than he would have been if he had been accepted as a Workmen’s Compensation Board recipient? What are you going to tell that man?

Mr. Martel: You have 936 cases of --

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Mr. Chairman, I would like to say that there are a certain number who are mentally handicapped who will be eligible under GAINS. As I indicated earlier there is quite a sizable number who also will be eligible for GAINS.

Mr. Laughren: Surely, Mr. Chairman, you see now as your social policies unfold, that it’s a matter of time until you say to the Minister of Labour: “Look, let’s sit down and let’s put our programmes together. Let’s provide the kind of social insurance that will make sure that anyone who is injured, regardless of where they are injured, will be provided with the kind of benefits to which they are entitled.”

It is not a good enough argument, or a good enough rebuttal for you to say to me: “Then there is the whole problem of who pays those injured on the job.”

The employer has already been assessed the penalty for his accident rate. That’s no problem. That would not have to be changed. And then you could assess a premium -- possibly under the consolidated revenue fund -- but that is not the problem. It is done in other jurisdictions and it could be done in the Province of Ontario.

Every time you try to change social legislation in one area or another, either the Workmen’s Compensation Board or in Community and Social Services, you run headlong into those problems. You’ve simply got to move to a comprehensive social programme of insurance. Would you not agree?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Mr. Chairman, we’d be pleased to give consideration to the member’s comments. Again, I’d like to reiterate that the word “disabled” includes the handicapped, physically as well as mentally.

Mr. Martel: Oh come on -- what’s unemployable then?

Mr. Deans: There are a few occasions in the House when I hardly trust myself to speak to you -- and this is one of them. Because to be quite honest with you, if I were to be asked by someone to describe the difference between what I am politically and what I believe in ideologically and what Conservatives are, I’d have to say that it is all contained in the attitude of the government towards the people of the province who are least able to take care of themselves.

Hon. Mr. White: The highest benefits in the world -- what are you talking about?

Mr. Deans: That’s fine, the highest benefits in the world. I’m always pleased to have your interjections, because they are so damned meaningless when it comes to talking about the needs of people in the province. You always equate everything you do against what other people do around the world. Why in heaven s name can’t you deal with the needs of the people of this province as they live in this province in the society you create by your government policies?

Why can’t you begin by recognizing that you don’t have the right to establish a second class citizen in the Province of Ontario on the basis of something over which they had absolutely no control? When are you going to come to the realization that it is fundamentally wrong?

And it is also immoral the way this government looks at people who may have been born with a disability, or who may have had over the course of a lifetime evolve within them some physical or mental disability which deprives them of the opportunity to take part in the development of the province by way of work.

When are you going to understand that it is an obligation of society to provide people who are physically and mentally unable to look after themselves with a reasonable standard of income, that will assure them of a fair chance to have a decent life without having to grovel around under your thumb?

This is what makes me so blooming annoyed about the way you come into the Legislature and the way you cope with these kinds of things.

You talk about a number of people in this province -- a very small number of people in this province -- who fall into the category of being either disabled or unemployable. And the number is something close to 35,000, by the minister’s own statement; 34,800. You talk about providing them with an income level of $217 a month.

Now, I ask anyone of you: Where does a person go in this province in the year of 1974 to find anything resembling a decent standard of living on $217 a month?

As my leader said some time ago, even by the standards that you establish under the Workmen’s Compensation Board, standards which are totally inadequate to begin with, nevertheless standards which your government adopted as being a reasonable minimum for persons on a disability pension, you agree that a figure of $260 is the minimum required to live in this province.

And to provide for the 34,000 or 35,000 people who fall into an almost identical category the kind of increase from the $217 that you are about to provide to the minimum level which you claim through your Ministry of Labour is the minimum requirement in the Province of Ontario, would cost you not $100 million, not $50 million -- it would cost you $12 million for the whole year. Damn it all, you waste $12 million; you lose it in your estimates and you couldn’t even find it. There’s hardly an estimate of a major ministry of government that couldn’t find $12 million. And when you --

Hon. Mr. White: That would increase the --

Mr. Deans: I am sorry.

Hon. Mr. White: Your $12 million divided by 311,000 people would be less than $40 a year.

Mr. Deans: I want you first of all to put aside the 311,000. We’ll talk about them in a moment. We’ll talk about the 311,000 people.

Hon. Mr. White: The member for Wentworth lost a decimal point.

Mr. Deans: Let’s begin to talk, first of all, about the people who are disabled in the Province of Ontario; and they number 24,880 by the Treasurer’s own figures. The number of single disabled persons number 24,880 by his own figures.

What is so holy, what is so bloody righteous, about being injured in an industrial accident? What is it about an individual that, because he got injured in an industrial accident, he is therefore considered by this government to be more valuable; that his needs are greater than a person who happens to be born with a disability that made him permanently disabled?

What is it about that classification of person that makes this government believe that his need requires a higher level of income? Or in the reverse, what it is about the person who is born either with a physical or mental disability which makes him unemployable, that leads this government and this minister, the Treasurer, to believe that the person somehow or other is able to live in the Province of Ontario on less money per month than is required for a person who is totally disabled in his place of work?

It’s about those that I’m talking about now. We’ll talk about the others in a minute. And we’ll talk about the money for the others in a minute. But to provide for the 35,000 people who fall into that category -- 35,000 by the Treasurer’s own admission; 35,000 by the statement of his Minister of Community and Social Services -- would cost the Province of Ontario, recognizing that 50 per cent of it is paid for out of federal funds, $12 million additional dollars just to put the disabled in the Province of Ontario on an equal footing right across the province.

I can’t for the life of me understand how the government can be so obtuse, how it can be so cruel as to believe that it is possible to classify people differently even though their disability, to all intents and purposes, is the same disability. How can this government and this Treasurer sit and say: “It’s because we don’t have the money that we haven’t done it”? If he is saying to me that this province can’t afford $9 million a year, or $12 million a year in order to provide $260, which in itself is inadequate; if he is telling me that this province can’t find $12 million a year to provide these 34,000 or 35,000 people with a minimum income of $260, then I can only suggest that it’s because of mismanagement and stupidity on the part of the Treasurer.

Mr. T. P. Reid (Rainy River): The priorities are wrong.

Mr. Deans: There can be no other reason.

If he wants to go on to talk about the others I’d be delighted to do that, too. I happen to believe, in looking at the responsibilities of government, that the first priority is to ensure that the wealth of the Province of Ontario is used to offset the costs that are placed against the disadvantaged in the province. I happen to believe that the first priority is people and that it’s necessary for a government to recognize that it doesn’t bloody well have to build Krauss-Maffei trains down at the CNE. It doesn’t have to build exhibitions of the type at Ontario Place. It’s not absolutely necessary for us to have science centres. We don’t have to go ahead and build the unneeded Arnprior dam.

Mr. Lewis: For $80 million.

Mr. Deans: We don’t have to spend money on many of the things it is being spent on. If you ordered your priorities properly, you could find the $100 million that you need -- even five times the $100 million that you need -- if you truly believed in trying to assure the people of the Province of Ontario a reasonable standard of living.

You’ve admitted by the very introduction of this Act that there are literally tens of thousands of people in the Province of Ontario whose income levels are not adequate to meet their needs. You’ve admitted by the introduction of this Act that it is desirable in the Province of Ontario to establish something called a guaranteed annual income. And you’ve admitted by your own statements that there are many thousands of people in the Province of Ontario who, through no fault of their own, don’t have an income sufficient to meet their needs.

When are you going to admit that what you have brought forward, by way of a payment to those people, is a disgrace? When are you going to admit that the reason you’re not paying those people an income level sufficient to meet their needs is because you damned well don’t want to -- and not because you can’t?

When are you going to admit that your priorities are more in the line of fancy buildings and developments, rather than in ensuring people of an income level sufficient to meet the needs that are established by the policies of the Ontario government? Those are the things you’ve got to face.

You can sit there and tell me that you don’t have the capacity to make the payments, but I don’t believe it. Or you can sit there and tell me that you’re working towards it, but I’ll be old with a grey beard to my knees before it ever happens. And most of the people who might ever have benefitted from this programme will be dead and buried by the time you get around to it.

You might tell me that some day there’ll be an integration of the policies in order that in fact there will be some kind of reasonable annual income for people in the province who can’t make it on their own. But frankly I don’t believe that either, because I see no evidence of any action by the government to implement that kind of policy.

Frankly, I don’t understand, just as I didn’t understand it in December of last year, how you can justify paying one group of disabled $260 a month and another group of disabled $217 a month. I don’t understand how you can rationalize that. I don’t understand how you can sit down with your authorities under the gallery and come up with some reasonable explanation that would satisfy any sensible person as to how you have decided that because a man has muscular dystrophy, multiple sclerosis, some degenerative back disease or is born with a mental deficiency, he is only entitled to $217, while someone else who has a piece of brick fall on his head at work, or who slips and breaks his back or gets his arm caught in a machine, and is equally disabled, is entitled to $260 a month. I don’t understand it.

If it were on the basis of cost, then I suggest to you that that’s an unreal argument. Because $12 million to this government is not a significant amount of money. For the life of me, I just can’t see how in heaven’s name you can come forward and ask this Legislature to adopt this GAINS programme on behalf of people, when you know damned fine that it’s totally inadequate and a farce.

Hon. Mr. White: Mr. Chairman, I would just like to make a comment on the hon. member’s remarks. I think the hon. member for Wentworth may have been out of the chamber when I responded to his leader’s comments.

Mr. Deans: No, I was here. I heard you.

Hon. Mr. White: We are attempting to rationalize the entire system. It’s tremendously complicated, and it’s going to take a long time.

Mr. Deans: That’s right. We’ll all be dead before you get around to it. It doesn’t work.

Hon. Mr. White: It will be solved in part by bringing to Ontario the tax credit system which now has very important constraints imposed, not unreasonably, by Ottawa. I think I heard the hon. member for St. George say when she was elected 18 months ago or thereabouts that at that time a disabled person was receiving $117.

Mrs. Campbell: I said $131.

Hon. Mr. White: Now that is $217. This is a very large increase. The cost of these particular benefits, not only those shown in the bill, but those shown in the bill and collateral improvements under the FBA regulations and under the new drug plan, cost $98 million.

This is not all that we have added, however. We have added tens of millions of dollars in tax credits, 40 per cent of which go to the elderly. The disabled and blind receive a disproportionately high amount also because of the inverse relationship to income, which is an important feature of the tax credit system.

At the same time, we have had more or less independent increases to other measures. I suppose the entire enrichment has cost more than $200 million.

I want to repeat for the benefit of my colleagues here in the chamber the fact that a married couple, both in receipt of GAINS, will now receive not only $433.33 per month, but the pensioner tax credit, the sales tax credit, the property tax credit --

Mr. Deans: So will other people who are not receiving GAINS.

Hon. Mr. White: -- the free health premiums and the free prescription drugs; to bring the total value to $492.21 a month, which is to say $5,906.52 a year. I guess that is the highest in the world.

Mr. Lewis: Yes, that’s right. You said that on second reading. We know those figures.

Hon. Mr. White: It’s not the end. It’s the beginning --

Mr. Deans: Tell me about the difference between the disability pension and workmen’s compensation.

Hon. Mr. White: -- of a brave new attempt to channel very substantial new resources into these particular groups and other groups of low-income citizens within our community. The tax credit scheme is extremely important in the total picture.

I was overseas visiting fiscal agents in four capitals of Europe a month or so ago. At that time the Observer ran an interesting editorial, the heading of which is “Tax Revolution.” I won’t read it all. I have provided a copy to my friend from Lakeshore. I would like to read one or two paragraphs.

“It’s a pity that Mr. Barber’s imaginative scheme for tax credits, arguably the most far-reaching change in social security and personal taxation since Beveridge, has now become a source of party contention. It is not of the essence of the scheme that it should be so. After all, the original idea for what was called negative income tax belonged to Mr. Douglas Houghton in the early days of Mr. Wilson’s government -- ”

In fairness, Milton Friedman was about 20 years before that, I suppose.

Mr. Lewis: Milton Friedman’s negative income tax wasn’t the same. Their definition of tax credit is something you’ll never understand.

Hon. Mr. White: We were the first in the world to do it.

Mr. Lewis: Both Tawney and Brian Abel-Smith worked out the scheme before you even heard about tax credits. They were British socialists.

Hon. Mr. White: Aside from the theory, we were the first in the world to do it though. We were the first to do it, the member for Lakeshore and I.

Mr. Lewis: Silly little bits and pieces of fragmented tax credit.

Hon. Mr. White: Go on, don’t be silly.

Mr. Lewis: You call it guaranteed income. This isn’t a guaranteed income. This is a method of subsistence for the crippled, underprivileged and disabled.

Mr. Chairman: Order.

Hon. Mr. White: Try to keep your control. The session is almost over.

Mr. Deans: There is a real problem.

Hon. Mr. White: Settle down. Take a little Valium or something.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Lewis: Whenever you think you have a group that is dissenting, you slap on a tax credit.

Hon. Mr. White: To continue with the editorial:

“After all, the original idea for what is called negative income tax belonged to Mr. Douglas Houghton in the early days of Mr. Wilson’s government, though it was never put into effect.

“With that background there must be a hope that the Labour Party will confine its opposition to the detailed figures of the tax credits offered and the means of paying for them. For the principle makes very sound sense, etc.”

Mr. Lewis: I should think so. Every time you get antagonism you throw in a tax credit.

Hon. Mr. White: We have put more and more money into it each year since 1969 so that now it’s costing something over $300 million, if my memory serves me correctly.

Mr. Lewis: That is right, $300 million for the poor and $202 million for the mining industry. There’s equity.

Hon. Mr. White: The point I am trying to make, Mr. Chairman, is this; the world is full of injustice, as Mr. John F, Kennedy said. I think probably this jurisdiction has fewer injustices than --

Interjection by an hon. member.

Hon. Mr. White: -- many or most. Sometimes I think it has fewer injustices than any other jurisdiction anywhere. We are channelling enormous additional resources and we are providing probably the highest standard in the world for these large numbers of citizens.

My hon, friends opposite who are so quick to suggest enormous increases in expenditures of every kind are the same ones to run through the streets crying havoc when anybody tries to touch a tax of any kind. I am not deeply impressed by the sincerity of certain of the late night passionate outcries I hear around here.

Mr. Chairman: The member for Windsor-Walkerville is next.

Mr. B. Newman: Mr. Chairman, I wanted to make a few comments on the bill and show the minister how his press release has a tendency to mislead, I understand it, but an individual reading it for the first time or hearing it on the air is misled by the comments of the minister and his --

Mr. Lewis: It is government by headline.

Mr. B. Newman: -- Ontario Guaranteed Annual Income Act. I am reading from the June 13, 1974, press release from the Ministry of Revenue. Under the heading of “Eligibility Residents” it is couched in very nice terms; but reading it for the first time you assume you draw your certain conclusions:

“An eligible person is a person who is over age 65, is resident in Ontario, and who meets one of the following conditions:

“1. Is resident in Ontario on June 30, 1974, and is receiving the guaranteed income supplement under the federal Old Age Security Act from the Ontario regional office of the Department of National Health and Welfare of the government of Canada.”

It says who “is receiving the guaranteed income supplement” so any individual receiving a guaranteed income supplement automatically assumes he is going to benefit by the GAINS programme. Old age security provides, with the guaranteed supplement -- that’s the maximum supplement -- a total income of $192.18 so that person would be entitled to $24.49 to make his total income for a month to $216.67. According to the press release it covers anyone who receives a guaranteed income supplement. The person who gets an income supplement assumes he also is going to get the $24.49, but that is not so. Anyone who receives old age security, plus the guaranteed income supplement, if that totals $167.18 or less, does not get any benefit by GAINS. I understand why he doesn’t get benefit by GAINS.

An hon. member: But the people don’t.

Mr. B. Newman: But the public does not understand that. They assume if they are getting the supplement, they are automatically going to get $24.49.

A married couple, if they receive a combined total of old age security and guaranteed income supplement of $298.64 or less than that amount, will not benefit by GAINS; they will not benefit by GAINS if they receive $298.64 or less. If they receive more than that amount, they will benefit.

The public, hearing this for the first time, assume if they are on the supplement programme, they are going to be entitled to $24.49 and it’s not so at all. I don’t say it is intentional at all but you are misleading the public. What you should be printing in the press are the actual figures below which the individual will not receive any supplement. Over that amount, he will get supplement. I think you should print it for both the single individual and the married individuals.

Mr. Chairman, I wanted to make two comments on a portion of the bill later on.

Hon. Mr. White: We are certainly attempting to make this clear and I think we are succeeding. My hon. friend is drawing attention to some words contained in brackets in the adverts, which may not have been in the original press release.

The data put out by the Minister of Revenue (Mr. Meen) on June 13 says: “Payments are to be made to every eligible person and the criteria for eligibility are given on the preceding page of a guaranteed annual income increment sufficient to provide an income of $2,600 a year to each unmarried resident of Ontario, and a combined income of $5,200 to each married couple resident, where both spouses are qualified for their annual guaranteed income.” Toward the bottom it says, “As previously stated, payments are to be made to every eligible person of a guaranteed annual income sufficient to provide an income of $2,600 ... ”, etc.

These are the best words that communicators can choose and I frankly cannot improve upon. There may be some confusion in the minds of elderly people. I myself had two or three phone calls last weekend, and the best that one can do under these circumstances is to run through the illustration with them.

Mrs. Campbell: Suppose they can’t read the ad?

Hon. Mr. White: The adverts contain telephone numbers and the people operating that service can become more and more proficient in informing the citizen of his entitlement, so I appreciate the remarks made by the hon. member. All I can say is that we are doing our very best to meet his request of us.

Mr. B. Newman: If I may continue on this with the minister, a phone number is listed on the press release that you have. I made two calls to that office; I could get no one who could explain it to me.

Hon. Mr. White: Well, I think that I covered that, though.

Mr. B. Newman: Well, you see, Mr. Minister, I have checked with members of the Legislature. Who is going to benefit from GAINS? The first comment is, anyone who gets the supplement.

Mrs. Campbell: That’s right.

Mr. B. Newman: That is the first comment: If you get the supplement you benefit from GAINS. But that is not so at all. If you get $167.18 or less total old age security and supplement, you are not eligible for GAINS. If you get more than that, you can benefit by GAINS; but you will only benefit to the extent where your combined incomes will total $216.67. Sixty-four thousand people won’t get it.

Mr. Chairman: The member for Scarborough West.

Mr. Lewis: I want to put a question to the Minister of Community and Social Services. I would like to have him clear something up very specifically and in detail -- this category of 10,000 people. I would like to have that on the record and sorted out. These 10,000 people you describe as unemployable, is that correct?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Yes; I said, Mr. Chairman, that there is sort of an estimate. There are about 10,000 persons who are unemployable, and that may be a high figure. It is probably closer to, I’m advised, 6,000, who are classified as permanently unemployable. I would like to add to that, Mr. Chairman. I would like to say, as I said earlier, that many of that number will become eligible for GAINS.

Mr. Martel: They all should be eligible.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Many of that number will become eligible for GAINS. We intend to review our existing regulations, and this can be done administratively, and to relax them. Out of that number there are some, when we use the words “permanently unemployable,” who --

Mr. Martel: They have not worked for four years at least.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: -- through assistance, retraining and other programmes, could be gainfully employed. They are not 100 per cent unemployable, but they are unemployable at the present time for a certain length of time.

Mr. Martel: They have been on general welfare for three years before they become unemployable.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: But hopefully we intend to relax our regulations and to try to transfer those who are unable at any time to obtain employment.

Mr. Lewis: Mr. Chairman, I respect the process of retreat that is occurring -- if not retreat, at least revision. You read earlier from a document which had 10,000 on it.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: No, Mr. Chairman, just to be correct, what I read to the hon. member was the number of persons who are presently under FBA and who will be automatically transferred to the GAINS programme and -- I am going by memory at this time -- there are about 34,800, I believe.

Mr. Lewis: Yes. Okay, I accept that. Then you said you thought there were 10,000. Now you say there were 6,000, so you were only 40 per cent out. Well, a little here, a little there; one can’t expect a man to be complete master of his portfolio and to know that it is 6,000 and not 10,000.

Now you say that the 6,000 are not, in fact, permanently unemployable -- the term you originally used. You now say that at some point you hope they may be re-employable.

Explain to us, tell the Legislature, with what disability are these 6,000 people possessed? What is the nature, on balance, of the disability which allows you to categorize them as permanently unemployable until you relax your regulations? How would you describe that disability?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: As I indicated earlier, I haven’t the regulations in front of me, but the definition of a permanent disabled person --

Mr. Lewis: Not disabled, unemployable, this 6,000 group.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: I haven’t got the regulations in front of me of what our definition is of a permanently unemployable person, but it is a person who has been out of employment for a considerable length of time.

Mr. Lewis: My impression and my recollection, refurbished and assisted by my colleague from Sudbury East -- who, fortunately, is a master of his field -- is that they would have to be on general welfare allowance for something like three years before they were categorized as permanently unemployable within the family benefits programme.

Hon. Mr. Miller: Outstanding in his field?

Mr. Lewis: Pardon? Were you saying that the member for Sudbury is outstanding in his field? That’s also accurate.

Hon. Mr. Miller: Out; standing.

Mr. Lewis: No, but I think he is right in this, that you have had people who are permanently unemployable on general welfare assistance for three years, and I presume your mentors under the gallery are at this very moment about to give you a definition of the phrase “permanently unemployable” and I am going to wait for it. You wil see it is on its way. The paper is even now in the hands of my friend and yours.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Those who are categorized as permanently unemployable --

Mr. Martel: You can’t retrain them if they are permanently unemployable.

Mr. Lewis: Go ahead.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: There are various types of disability. The main difference between a disabled and a permanently unemployable person is one of degree. It is a very grey area. As I said earlier, it is our intention to relax our present regulations and to transfer a certain number of those who are now classified as permanently unemployable into the permanently-disabled classification and they will be eligible for GAINS.

Mr. Lewis: I want to take you a little further, because this is important. It is certainly important to the 6,000, I dare say. Can the minister explain to me the grey area? Are you able to convey in words the difference between a permanent physical disability and a permanently unemployed person? Are you able to convey that in words for the Legislature so that we understand why 24,000 people are included and 6,000 people are potentially excluded?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: The permanently disabled persons, physically and mentally, have a degree of permanency to their disability, and that is on a medical judgement.

Mr. Lewis: Right.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: The other category, the permanently unemployable, as I said earlier, is a grey area, and some may have just a very slight disability. It could be a social disorder. Some could be classified sort of as an alcoholic who has been unemployed for quite a length of time, but that person could be rehabilitated, and it has been shown that it is possible to rehabilitate the person.

Mr. Lewis: It’s funny that you should use the adjective “permanent” then. You might think you would use the adjective “temporarily unemployable” if rehabilitation was in mind.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Yes, temporary is a better word.

Mr. Lewis: It may be a better word, but from my years in this Legislature I know that “permanently unemployable” --

Mr. Martel: That’s what’s on the form.

Mr. Lewis: That’s right; that’s what’s on the form they fill out. It categorizes a group of people whom you regard as permanently subject to a given social allowance ad infinitum. But your description of these permanently unemployable people is interesting. I take it they are permanently unemployable largely because of a psychological difficulty of one kind or another,

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Mr. Chairman, although industry will not employ a great majority of those persons, I know the hon. member has heard a lot about the community employment programme, which is being considered by one of the federal-provincial working groups. As a result of such a community employment programme, I am sure that a certain number of those persons --

Mr. Laughren: I don’t think the provincial secretary will approve that programme.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: -- would much prefer to work if they could. There could be a certain number who could be gainfully employed and who would be earning a much higher income than they would be under the GAINS programme. So we are going to make every effort to try to rehabilitate those who can be gainfully employed.

Mr. Lewis: Mr. Chairman, I appreciate what the minister is saying, but as I understand it, the people he regarded as permanently unemployable until midnight tonight, when the definitions and rules suddenly change, are really permanently unemployable.

These are people whose degree of difficulty, largely emotional and psychological, to adjust to the society around them is so pronounced and so acute that the rehabilitation to which the minister refers is impossible. They also have a range of physical problems which add to that, and I think some of them have a degree of mental incapacity -- if I can be careful how I put it --

Mr. Martel: And age. Many of them are elderly.

Mr. Lewis: And age. But I mean a degree of mental incapacity in the sense of those who would be considered in areas of marginal retardation, as compared to those who would be in the areas of marginal mental illness. All in all, you have 6,000 people who are in a very difficult situation; and to pretend that any substantial number of them will be returned to the work force, is a debating device. It is not reality. It’s a ruse. Coming from a compassionate human being, it is a kind of wish -- but it isn’t going to happen; you know it and I know it. But for these 6,000 people, the world has closed. Why they should not be included in this programme is something I simply do not comprehend.

I must say that I appreciated the way the member for Nipissing injected himself into the debates of this House again; that was a pleasure. I also appreciated the way he leaped right in on this point. Because, unwittingly perhaps, but destructively nonetheless, you are isolating the most vulnerable category within the vulnerable category and excluding them from the benefits granted in this legislation. And that’s crazy, absolutely crazy.

You have a given number of people who are virtually defenceless. They are all experiencing an acute level of disability. Then you take that relative handful of 6,000, whose disability is so pronounced they may never again enter the work force for their entire lives, and on them you visit a particular prejudice. So you have one gradation of disabled in the Workmen’s Compensation Board; another gradation of disabled who are entitled to $217, or $43 a month less; and yet another gradation of disabled called the 6,000 untouchables. They are the uprooted and disinherited of Ontario who, usually because of acute emotional problems, however they are measured or described, are classed as permanently unemployable.

For them, you cannot even make the gesture of including them in your programme with no questions asked. For them, you will subject them to a one-by-one needs test, means test, individual investigation -- the entire, crummy humiliating procedure which has categorized this ministry for God knows how long.

The provincial Treasurer said the other day with great gusto and bravado we are getting rid of the categorical programmes. What was most objectionable about the categorical aid programmes in their heyday under Louis Cecile and Jimmy Band was the investigation of individual cases. That was what was most objectionable. It is the humiliation to which people are subject as the workers, well intentioned or otherwise, march into their homes and make the appraisals of their families. For these 6.000 people, who are the most vulnerable, you are doing that again.

That’s just nuts. I’m sorry I can’t provide an expletive that’s a little fresher or a little more refined, but it just makes no sense at all. There is the old phrase about grinding the faces of the poor. You choose to grind the faces of the poor and the disabled, which is a special perversity.

If the figure has diminished to 6,000 on one hand in the course of 45 minutes, and if the figure is accepted from you at 24,000 on the other, and if we are talking about 30,000 people at an additional $500 a year, then we are talking about a total programme of $15 million, 50 per cent of which is refundable from the government of Canada. This means that for three-quarters of a year the entire programme would cost $7.5 million and for one full year it would cost $10 million.

Can you as a man of conscience sitting beside your colleague the Provincial Secretary for Social Development (Mrs. Birch) refuse to allow the addition of $7.5 million for these 30,000 people, the single most vulnerable group in the province of Ontario? Does it make a smidgen of sense to you? Does it not appear as it is crude, miserable and brutish?

Why? Why when you cut back do you have to visit it on the most vulnerable? I have never understood that. The $80 million for the Arnprior dam won’t create a single job, and nobody bats an eye. Nobody bats an eye at the escalation in costs for Krauss-Maffei, documented in the House day after day. Nobody bats an eye at the amount of money that we spend everywhere. Nobody bats an eye at the debates today that we have on the increases in the regional government costs, whether it’s Oxford or Durham or York or Muskoka or Niagara.

Mr. B. Newman: Take the $2 million away from the racehorses.

Mr. Lewis: This amount of money for these people? Don’t flaunt your programme. Don’t boast about your programme to us. Let the Treasurer choke on the words which describe it as the most effective programme or the most generous programme in the world. You’ve managed to isolate this group in a way which I just don’t understand. I can’t comprehend it. Maybe you made the battle before Treasury Board. I don’t know where the guillotine comes down. But I’m telling you what you are doing to these 6,000 people is criminal, because they have no recourse at all.

I remember the cry of the Canadian Association of Mental Health in the 1960s when they talked about pennies for the mind. Pennies for the mind was their slogan when they were fighting for money for mental health when nobody was giving it on any front. It is exactly your attitude tonight; pennies for the mind.

The trifles for the physically disabled are bad enough, but pennies for the mind just won’t wash. You shouldn’t allow this bill to go through this way. You shouldn’t allow the regulations to be changed on July 1 this way.

This is discrimination of the most unacceptable variety against the most vulnerable people in the Province of Ontario. You can afford every penny that’s required to bring them up at least to the pathetic levels of the Workmen’s Compensation Board recipients. I plead with you to think about that before July 1.

You can’t amend it tonight as it’s not even in the bill. I understand that. The bill deals only with a guaranteed income for those over 65. But I point out to you what you are doing. You would never do it to middle-income earners, to high-income earners, to mining companies, to manufacturing corporations or to healthy people in Ontario. There is no greater relish for contemporary Toryism than to foist your most destructive attitudes on that little group who are most vulnerable. I’m asking the Treasurer to recant on this instance.

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

Mr. Martel: I just want to make a couple of points on this, Mr. Chairman, to the minister. The minister knows full well that the group that our leader speaks about has been tested at least twice; they went through the general welfare many years ago. Most of them have been there four or five years.

They ran the gamut of all the testing that was necessary and about a year, or a year and a half ago, he announced that he would transfer some 9,000 or 12,000 of these people from general welfare to FBA. And to qualify for FBA, of course, they went through the whole means test and the determination by the doctors as to whether they were going to fit under the definition of the unemployable.

At that time we argued that the determination of the unemployable was nearly impossible to understand. The minister tried to explain it in committee and ran into such a thrust, his own party included, that he tried to get a broader determination of what unemployable meant.

In fact, what unemployable means is that these people, for a variety of reasons, physical, some of them mental -- or go back to the physical. There are probably some of the 936 cases that are on FBA today that are from the Workmen’s Compensation Board. I wonder how many of the 6,000 are made up of the 936 cases of people who are on FBA as a result of industrial accidents, but who are determined to be unemployable and not disabled.

It’s kind of sick. We’ve gone over this in committee, not so much this year but in years gone by. The minister tried to explain it then, as he has tried desperately tonight, and he admitted several years ago there was such a fine line that it should be eliminated.

In view of the fact that we are moving into a GAINS programme, surely to God now is the time to eliminate that fine line, Mr. Minister, and take those people who have been through it twice already and destroy the fine line. He knows and I know that out of that group of 6,000, he couldn’t retrain 50 of them.

Mr. Lewis: That is right. That is the truth.

Mr. Martel: Many of them are aged. They are over 55 or over 60. Part of the reason they can’t be retrained is that their age is against them. Many are illiterate. The poverty report of Canada says that. Many of them are separated from their families. All of these things, when you put them altogether, make that group permanently unemployable. That’s what is on the form. It’s put in such a despicable place on the form as well, Mr. Minister, as to be misleading. I forget the form number, but it’s near the top -- and so the doctor usually fills it out. I have talked to doctors over and over and over about this, saying: “Please go down to point 4 to the disabled.”

When the doctor realizes that he has been taken in by “unemployable” as item 3 and he doesn’t go the full route to item 4, he knows full well that for any number of reasons that person is not going back to work. What the doctor usually checks off is the third one in the column. I’ve asked the minister before to reverse them. Because if the form items are reversed, then most doctors would put down that the person is disabled. It’s just the order. You know it; I’ve sent dozens of cases to you about it. The doctor doesn’t want to admit he read the form carelessly; he’s in a hurry. He’s got too many forms to fill out as it is. We know that whole group is out of it. Let’s stop playing around.

The second point I want to make is about the disabled and those with families. You’ve chiselled them, as usual. Take a look at a disabled person. Under the existing legislation, before this is implemented, he could get possibly $170. He’ll get $216.17, a raise of $46. Every handicapped person in the province, whether he has a family or not, believes he is going to get at least $46. What happens to the man who has a family? Your own example points it out pretty clearly. You have here a married, disabled person with two children who gets $367; he’ll go to $401. Do you know what the increase is for that family? It’s $34.

It’s the same for a family with one child but the increase isn’t as great. I’m not sure what you’ve done. I’m not sure how you came to that except you must have watered down either the amount the wife was receiving in her portion of the ordinary needs or taken the kids into consideration as well. They don’t get the same increase as would a person who’s totally disabled and living alone.

I’ve had a number of these. In fact, I mentioned this to the minister and his staff long before this material came to us because it wasn’t ready when the estimates started. I indicated at that time it was my understanding that the disabled family -- and I heard the Treasurer say tonight that’s the group we want to help the most -- if you want to help them the most, you don’t chisel the ordinary needs of the rest of the family. You can increase to $217 but to reduce the ordinary needs of the rest of the family by $10 or $12 is the lowest, I think, you could possibly weasel around. And you’ve done it.

It’s the same in every piece of legislation. I’ve been critic for three years and I’ve never seen a thing that was straightforward by this ministry. Not once. Not a single solitary once have I seen a thing that has been announced that could bear scrutiny.

Mr. Lewis: Right. Exactly.

Mr. Martel: Not once. Last fall we had an announcement of a five per cent increase. Everybody took for granted it was a five per cent increase in family benefits but it wasn’t a five per cent increase. It was a five per cent increase in the FBA. If there was a compensation pension involved or a payment involved there could be no increase, or only five per cent on the FBA portion but not five per cent across the board, as everyone was led to believe. Every single solitary announcement that’s ever come out of this ministry has been distorted, deceitful and perpetrated on the people who can least afford that type of distortion of fact. I have pleaded with this minister for three years --

Mr. Lewis: He deserves this.

Mr. Martel: -- instead of couching everything in language that looks so good, why don’t you be factual instead of misleading people? You met the handicapped man who called me months ago when he first heard about it and was told by his field worker he wouldn’t get the full benefits. And it was true. It was only months after the five per cent increase that I became aware that it wasn’t five per cent across the board. Or last year when we raised it supposedly for everyone, we in fact left 25 per cent off. Now why is it that when we deal with poor people we can act in such a perverse manner?

Mr. Laughren: Think how bad it would be without a humane provincial secretary.

Mr. Martel: Yes. I just say to the minister, everything you do with respect to the poor is couched in the way it is because you are so ashamed that you do so little. You can’t come out four-square; you just couch it every time to look good, but you are so ashamed you can’t be frank.

Mr. Laughren: Which one of you is influencing the other?

Mr. Martel: So I ask the minister, will you eliminate that thin line between unemployable and disabled, because they have all been tested, and to review each case individually is going to cost as much as it does to operate the bloody programme?

Mr. Laughren: Right. Right on.

Mr. Martel: And secondly, from here on in, would you make your announcements factual?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Mr. Chairman, that is the hon. member’s interpretation. Our announcements have been factual and they have been objective and they have been well received. On this question that you have been quoting, nowhere in figures that you have shown that are in our news release, nowhere is there any less amount than there are now. As I indicated earlier, they have all been increases, there are no reductions. And on this question of this very --

Mr. Martel: No one said there were lesser amounts.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: -- complex area of the degree, as I indicated earlier, we will be relaxing our regulations and there will be quite a large number who will be transferred. This will be done within the next few weeks.

Mr. Chairman: The member for St. George.

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Chairman, I just want to sum up, if I may, my concerns on this matter. When we had the discussion in the committee at a time when the minister -- I think he would agree -- was not really in a position to fully discuss the GAINS programme. I think that is fair. One of the things he said, according to Hansard, and this is June 10, page S-1293 --

Mr. Deans: Come on, Osie, wake up!

Mrs. Campbell: -- in answer to a question from me: “It will be those who are considered -- ”

Mr. Foulds: Look alive, Osie.

Mrs. Campbell: “ -- physically blind and/or physically disabled and permanently unemployable.” Coupling that statement -- and I express my concern about that statement, because it was in answer to my question as to whether there would be a consideration of degrees of disability. I don’t think the Treasurer has understood, because he hasn’t realized that there has been quite a spread in payments to those who are on FBA and regarded as disabled; so I can understand his not grasping it. But I am talking now to one who does understand that that is so.

Following that, and there was a good deal in between, we came back to the question, and if I may again put the question I asked: “Well again, I am uneasy with the answer to a question: Will all of those who are in receipt of disability assistance under FBA be entitled to the income of $50 a week -- or whatever it is -- will they all be entitled?”

The answer which the minister gave was: “Each case will be looked at individually. We have that information on file now. We have this our FBA file.”

And when I asked about the matter of an application, the Treasurer thought that I should gain the information from the advertisement, but again, of course, he was not aware of this interchange.

Much has been said about this 6,000 or whatever they are and I have a deep concern about them but I also want specific assurance that no longer are we talking about degrees of disability. I don’t want to have any misunderstanding about that and I do want to know that what the minister said tonight as I got it -- I want to be clear on this -- is that it is only those 6,000 -- only 6,000 -- who, I take it, are going to be looked at individually?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: That’s right.

Mrs. Campbell: It won’t matter really whether you are at $131 and you don’t need a special diet and you get $15 for transportation instead of $30. Those people who -- let’s put it this way -- are diabetic and who really do come, according to my experience, at the lowest ebb of this disability assistance, will they be entitled to GAINS?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Mr. Chairman, as I indicated earlier, the lowest cases that would be looked at individually are those 6,000 and it will be on the degree of disability; hopefully there will be quite a large number. We will be relaxing our definition of eligibility. It’s those who will not be under GAINS and who are diabetic -- as the hon. members know, I mentioned this during our estimates; we have doubled the amount they were entitled to.

I believe it was $12 and that is being raised to $24 for the diabetics; there were three categories under special diets. Their entitlement, previous to this month, has been doubled but they may not be eligible for GAINS, those who are diabetic. It’s the degree of disability. I am not a medical person and I can’t tell you who will be and who won’t be but they definitely will be. There is quite a large number who will be.

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Chairman, I am sorry to labour the point. The hour is growing late but you see it is this kind of answer which gives me my greatest concern. We are looking at degrees of disability and yet the Treasurer says anyone on FBA disability will not have to apply. He said it tonight in this House. You and I know, Mr. Minister, that that is not true. You know that these people will have to apply and be scrutinized one by one and they are not going to get it by July 1.

I have said, Mr. Chairman, that I do look at costs but, believe me, in this I wonder if we can possibly understand. This government has had a history of raising people’s expectations only to destroy them. It may be that you have some forgiveness in some of these areas but when you take the disabled people and you then say with your great policy statements, with your advertising, as the Treasurer said tonight “All our FBA disability doesn’t need to apply, it will be automatic.” What do you think those people think? They take you at your word. You have raised their expectations. They will be looking for that cheque as of July 1. And it wasn’t true. It was not true. To me it is unforgivable, totally unforgivable, to do this to people who have been living -- or I won’t call it that -- existing on a pittance. The crumbs from the table.

Mr. Chairman, as I have been before, so tonight I am in the same position. I cannot vote against this bill for the sake of those who will get something out of it. But I can say to you that then I have to face my people and say, “Oh, well, you didn’t count. You weren’t in that statement. I suggest you apply, but I don’t think that you are going to get it.”

Let me say this, if you want to take it, the degree of disability coupled with permanent unemployability, you can take somebody who may be at this point in time medically terminal to whom you can say, “Oh boy, we can help. If we can find a kidney you won’t be permanently unemployable.”

I recognize that that is carrying it to the extreme -- and I don’t believe that you will do that. But in order to try and get through to you just as people are expecting what you are doing to them, I’m taking a bizarre kind of case.

I am sick, very heartsick that this is now clear to me that probably those who have been getting along on $137 -- and I’m not going to be eligible at all for this -- so maybe those who are at the top of the disability schedule, to whom you won’t have to pay very much, maybe, they will be looked after. How can you do this? How can you in conscience do this to those people?

Well, Mr. Chairman, I know that by all the rules around here, nothing that I say or anyone else can say, is going to change anything. In the normal course I would be very critical of this minister, but from the statement he made in the estimates I recognize the fact that he did not know what the GAINS programme was all about; not that he intentionally tried to mislead us. As I say, yes, there will be people who will be getting more -- the Treasurer said that those that I talked about on $131 will be up to $216.67.

Well, Mr. Chairman, if that is not so then I trust that it will be the very last time that there will be a statement made to raise the expectations of people, only to dash them to the ground. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Section 1(d) agreed to.

Mr. Chairman: Are there any further comments, questions or amendments on a later section, and if so, what section? The member for Windsor-Walkerville.

Mr. B. Newman: I wanted to talk on section 1(h).

Mr. Chairman: Anything before 1(h)? The member for Windsor-Walkerville.

Mr. B. Newman: Mr. Chairman, I wanted to talk on 1(h)(ii), sections (A) and (B), on residency.

One of the aspects that does disturb me is that an individual, according to this, after five consecutive years immediately prior to his date of application, could be eligible to receive GAINS. I am interested in hearing from the minister as to what type of requirements they are going to impose, and what the individual will have to present, so that we don’t have individuals from foreign jurisdictions taking advantage of the GAINS programme? In the second portion, the residency apparently is only one year for an individual who has resided in Canada or in the Province of Ontario for 20 years after the age of 18; so, in other words, at the age of 39 or 40, he could have left Ontario, gone into a foreign jurisdiction, been disabled, would move back into Ontario, and after one year be eligible for the full disability benefits under the GAINS programme. It does disturb me that we are making it extremely easy and that there may be an influx of people into Ontario who could qualify under these two counts.

Hon. Mr. White: I can understand my hon. friend’s apprehension, because we have the highest such benefits in the world and there may be some people moving in here from places like Michigan --

Hon. W. D. McKeough (Minister of Energy): British Columbia.

Hon. Mr. White: -- British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Oh, they will flock in from Manitoba -- and England.

Hon. Mr. White: While I am up, I was just reading earlier tonight that the population of Ontario could double by the year 2001. It is a CP despatch of Friday, June 21: “Ontario may have twice the population of Quebec in the year 2001, and Saskatchewan only half its present population.”

So we do run the risk, I have no doubt, in having one of the best educational systems anywhere, one of the best health systems anywhere, one of the best welfare systems anywhere, and without doubt the best government that Ontario has even seen --

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Despite a weak opposition.

Mr. Bounsall: All due to the Treasurer’s policies.

Hon. Mr. White: -- that one would expect some number of people to flow into our province from other jurisdictions. There will have to be proof offered, however, that they have been here for five years. After a person has been in this province for 20 years he should be able to come back and have a shorter requirement for these benefits, and I think one year is not unreasonable. I can assure my hon. friend, however, that we will make sure people from Detroit don’t go to Windsor and five days later try to claim this benefit. I do promise him we will be alert to that kind of thing.

Mr. Lewis: Do you have any more interesting clippings in your desk?

Mr. Martel: You must have a bag full of clippings over there.

Mr. B. Newman: Mr. Chairman, is there any way that the ministry could check on foreign income, because an individual could be receiving social security benefits in the US and not declaring them and be receiving GAINS programme benefits?

Hon. Mr. White: We will check for this of course. The hon. member asked a question in committee a few days ago about whether or not US social security income was taxable, and I have since found out that it is taxable. I have likewise found out that benefits such as we have here are made available to Canadians who move to the United States. There are certain minimum provisions under the social security Act under which Canadians can qualify after a period of residency of five years, I think perhaps it is -- or some number of years -- so it flows both ways.

Section 3 agreed to.

Mr. Chairman: The hon. member for Sudbury East on section 4?

Mr. Martel: Section 4.

Mr. Chairman: Is there anything before section 4? All right.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Chairman, I would like to move an amendment to section 4.

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. Martel: I want to move a new subsection 4(6), I guess.

Mr. Martel moves that a new subsection, 6, be added to section 4 of the bill, to read as follows:

“When the federal government’s quarterly adjustment produces an increase in the guaranteed income supplement, the province will pass the amount of the increase on to those who are eligible for any income supplement under this Act.”

Mr. B. Newman: In other words the GAINS benefits will be more than $216.67 a month?

Mr. Martel: That’s right. Mr. Chairman, I think I mentioned earlier that there is always something perverse in the announcements with respect to benefits received by people in need. If I understand this bill correctly the government carries it on in this bill as well.

The federal portion of the guaranteed income supplement is looked at quarterly and there could be increases made. As those increases are made, as I understand it, rather than passing them on to the recipients under the GAINS programme it’s the province’s intention to lower its contribution towards the GAINS programme. Yes, it will guarantee $216.67, or whatever it is, per person, but it will not pass on the federal money to the recipients; rather it will cut back its share, Ontario’s share. In effect, if we had a raise next month of $1 in the guaranteed income supplement, people on GAINS in Ontario, instead of going to $217.67, would have the same $216.67 because the Ontario government would not pass that $1 on to those people -- if I understand it correctly and I think I do.

I find it strange that the Treasurer of Ontario -- and I think it’s still the same man who had this document prepared, “The Ontario Proposals for Amending the Canada Pension Plan” by the Hon, John White, Treasurer of Ontario, and the Hon. Rene Brunelle, Minister of Community and Social Services. On page 4 they are advising the federal government what it should do.

“In April, 1972, the federal government introduced a cost of living escalator clause in the old age security and guaranteed income supplement. It is logical and equitable to extend the same principle to the Canada Pension Plan. If this is not done, Canada Pension Plan benefits will steadily erode in relationship to other programmes and objectives of the plan will not be achieved.”

Mr. E. R. Good (Waterloo North): Who was it who said that?

Mr. Martel: The Treasurer and the Minister of Community and Social Services and it was presented by the minister. Here we have them, with the very sector they are talking about, they will chisel in Ontario and not pass it on.

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. Martel: What happens to those pensions? Are they eroded? I ask the Treasurer of Ontario, if he doesn’t pass on the buck or the buck and a half, what happens to the statement, “If this is not done, the Canada Pension Plan will steadily erode in relationship to other programmes”? We could substitute for Canada Pension Plan and say, “If this is not done, the guaranteed annual income to Ontario residents 65 years of age and over will steadily erode in relationship to other programmes and the objectives of the plan will not be achieved.”

Mrs. Campbell: It cost them less and that is what they are all laughing about.

Mr. Martel: How in God’s name can the minister go traipsing off to Ottawa and make the specious statements to convince the federal government; and I understand they did? They went along with it. They are going to pass on these increases. And here is Ontario which introduces a pension plan, after all of this sanctimonious garbage that they presented in Ottawa, which here in Ontario, in their own area, rather than see the income supplement passed on to the residents under the GAINS programme, they will see it frozen and cut Ontario’s share of the contributions.

It’s not even this government’s money, for God’s sake. The commitment was made commencing July 1. We’re not asking the government to spend a cent more. All we’re asking the government to do is follow what it recommended. Why the duplicity? Why won’t it pass on the federal money directly to those people, as BC is doing?

Hon. Mr. White: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Lewis: Oh no. “Duplicity” is parliamentary. It is a perfectly appropriate phrase to describe what is going on.

Hon. Mr. White: On the advice of my colleague, who is an expert in such matters, I object to the use of the word “duplicity” as being unparliamentary.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Lewis: I’m sure the minister would.

Hon. Mr. White: If the member for Scarborough West will let that pass I’ve got a few names saved up for these chaps.

Mr. Lewis: The word “duplicity” is a descriptive phrase to describe the shenanigans over there, and I don’t think it should be withdrawn for a moment.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Chairman, is the Treasurer really saying that he can go to Ottawa on one hand and tell them they must pass the money on or it will erode --

Hon. Mr. White: When the member sits down I will explain it.

Mr. Lewis: Don’t give us excuses.

Mr. Martel: -- or it will erode the programmes and the objectives of the programmes; and then in Ontario take another position? He simply can’t do it.

Mr. Deans: Tell us about the tax credits.

Mr. Lewis: Give us speech 4C on indexing; Economics 1-A.

Mr. Deans: Why doesn’t the minister pull out a clipping and tell us how wonderful he is?

Hon. Mr. White: No; settle down just for one minute. It won’t take long.

Mr. Lewis: Don’t tell us to settle down.

Hon. Mr. White: If we had adopted the indexing system, which the opposition now recommends; and indeed which the member’s amendment will cover --

Mr. Deans: If he had an adequate level to begin with.

Hon. Mr. White: -- the $137 referred to in the hon. member for St. George’s remarks would have gone up about 15 per cent, to about $157. But of course we didn’t index. We accepted the responsibility for moving these amounts up in keeping with not only increased standards but increased comprehension of appropriate quality of life; so we brought it up not the 15 per cent, we have gone up 58 per cent.

Mr. Lewis: The Treasurer should have the comprehension of the appropriate quality of life. He who dines at the Westbury should talk about the increased comprehension of appropriate quality of life for people on $270 a month.

Come on; what a bunch of gobbledegook.

Hon. Mr. White: We have gone up 58 per cent, and we have looked into -- I’ve got the floor.

Mr. Chairman: Order please. The hon. minister has the floor.

Hon. Mr. White: I’ve got the floor. I’ve been very quiet. I am going to insist on my rights here, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Lewis: The Treasurer insists on his rights. His rights are in verbal gymnastics.

Hon. Mr. White: If we had locked ourselves into this automatic formulation called indexing 15 months ago, the disabled person for whom we have great concern, the hon. member for St. George and myself, would now be getting $157; but the fact of the matter is he is going to get $217.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Lewis: What is the Treasurer talking about?

Mr. Deans: Except that the level of income 15 months ago was totally inadequate. If they had been paid an adequate income then --

Mr. Chairman: Order please!

Hon. Mr. White: He would have received a 15 per cent increase, and under the Act it has gone up 58 per cent. Now if the members of the NDP are still convinced, or some of them any way --

Mr. Lewis: Add it on.

Hon. Mr. White: Certainly the member for Windsor-Walkerville pointed out the deficiencies in indexing.

Mr. Lewis: Oh, stop it. You know what we are talking about. You make the English language obscene.

Hon. Mr. White: One would expect the GAINS programme to be increased very substantially and in advance of any indexing system. I contrast that with the efforts we made, starting in 1961 or 1962, to get the universal old age system indexed, as indeed we did. We succeeded in that undertaking a couple of years ago after trying for a decade. I have no objection to that.

Mr. Lewis: Why don’t you pass it on?

Hon. Mr. White: For those people, like my own mother, who have incomes of their own, I don’t object to having that indexed. But I’m telling you with respect to these lower-income groups we have to do better than the indexing, and better we will do.

Mr. Deans: But you are not doing better.

Hon. Mr. White: And better we have done. This is just the beginning.

Mr. Deans: You are not doing better.

Mr. Chairman: Order, please.

Mr. Deans: If you establish a reasonable level to begin with, then indexing works well.

Mr. Chairman: Order, please. The member for St. George.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Chairman, I wasn’t even finished when the Treasurer just jumped up.

Mr. Chairman: Order. I think you didn’t hear that the member for St. George had a point of clarification.

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Chairman, I wonder if it isn’t appropriate that at least we have visible attention in this House. When he gave the example of the $137, did the Treasurer not hear the question put to the Minister of Community and Social Services which indicated that those who were at the lowest end of the disability would not necessarily receive the GAINS programme? Therefore, would he please correct his statement that, indexing or not, they may not be any better off?

Hon. Mr. White: That matter has been dealt with thoroughly by a man who has the responsibility and the confidence to deal with it. We are talking about the disabled as such. The person who had been receiving $137 when you yourself were elected will now be getting $217 for an increase of 58 per cent. There are some marginal cases which will be looked at. I have no doubt that the minister is, as always, trying to develop a better overall system as part of his income maintenance review.

Mr. Lewis: That will probably make an appropriate quality of life be comprehended by those who live on $217 a month. What a spinner of phrases you are.

Mr. Chairman: The member for Sudbury East.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Chairman, the Treasurer should talk to his colleague, because I agree that both the federal and the provincial government made a mistake when they assumed that the consumer price index was the sort of thing one attaches those unfixed incomes to in order to give them an escalator clause. When you index in that way it doesn’t bear any real effect. It doesn’t indicate the effect on people on fixed income and the inflationary causes of it. We know, if one uses the consumer price index alone to determine what the escalator clause will be, that those on fixed incomes are going to take a real shafting.

Hon. Mr. White: Withdraw your amendment then.

Mr. Martel: No. I leave my amendment because it is going to raise it. That’s the point I want to come to. His colleague, the Minister of Community and Social Services, during the estimates that just finished up a week ago indicated he would instruct his research department to look into the real effects of inflation on those people who are on fixed incomes to determine, not the average because that is what the consumer price index is all about, but the real effects of inflation on those on fixed incomes. The Minister of Community and Social Services agreed to do that.

I presume by now he’s ordered that study to have been started and that we have this amendment in now, while that study is being done, so that people who are on fixed incomes will not fall so far behind as the cost of living continues to rise.

Knowing that the consumer price index isn’t the appropriate vehicle, surely to God this province is big enough to pass on the $1, the $1.50 or the 98 cents whenever it occurs.

Mr. B. Newman: It might give an extra quart of milk.

Mr. Martel: You can’t be that destitute --

Mr. Deans: Oh, yes.

Mr. Martel: -- that you couldn’t pass on that extra buck a month as the consumer price index rises. I shouldn’t say a buck a month; it could be a buck every three months -- or 98 cents.

Mr. Deans: Yes, they could be that destitute.

Mr. Martel: But with the minister’s promise to have inflation looked at --

Mr. Deans: You make Scrooge look like a big spender.

Mr. Martel: -- in terms of how it affects those on fixed incomes, as opposed to the effect of the consumer price index, because it deals in averages -- surely there is some way these people on fixed incomes could keep up with inflation. Surely the Treasurer is not saying that he can’t accept that, particularly when he and the Minister of Community and Social Services go to Ottawa on bended knee and make the point over and over again in their documentation.

You can’t have it both ways. You won’t introduce it in the workmen’s compensation pensions, over which this province has sole jurisdiction. You won’t introduce it in family benefits. You won’t introduce it in GAINS. But you can go down to Ottawa and scream blue murder to have it in Canada Pension and in the old age pension.

Mr. Deacon: That’s hypocritical.

Mr. Martel: You say it’s not duplicity? I suggest it’s even worse than that.

An hon. member: Shame.

Mr. Martel: And I would ask the Treasurer to accept this amendment to at least help these people keep close to the effects of inflation on them. Don’t be so chiselling that you can’t pass on that little amount to them. I say to the Treasurer that the BC government is doing that. They have found a way of passing it on; they are doing so -- and they have been doing so for a good number of months now.

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

Mr. Good: Mr. Chairman, I would say just a word on this. I think two points should be made.

Mr. Deans: Don’t tell me --

Mr. Good: The payments made by the provincial government in this programme will vary from a minimum of $2.50 a month to $20.49 a month, as the programme now stands, to yield a maximum of $216.67.

What is being discussed here, Mr. Chairman, is not the provincial government indexing their payment. We’re asking that the provincial government not garner to themselves the indexing of the federal government’s payment of the old age pension and the guaranteed income supplement. There should be some feeling of compunction over yonder, when they want to garner to themselves federal money that is earmarked by federal statute and federal law to the old age pension recipients of this province.

Every time the federal payment goes up by $2.50, it means there will be fewer people on your list of 270,000 who will receive benefits under the GAINS programme. So every time the federal payment goes up, you’re not only going to be saving yourself money in terms of the amount of money required, but you will also be cutting others from the programme. I think that is unconscionable. I think it’s a matter of conscience --

Mr. Deans: That’s why they don’t do anything about it.

Mr. Good: -- that this should be so geared -- that one level of government can take money earmarked by another level of government and take it unto themselves. I think you’ve got to think about it on that basis. I think it’s absolutely intolerable.

Mr. Chairman: The hon. Treasurer.

Hon. Mr. White: There were a number of speakers on second reading pointing out the deficiencies in indexing.

Mr. Deacon: We are not asking you to index anything.

Hon. Mr. White: There were those members of the opposition who pointed out that elderly people in general may have somewhat higher increases in costs than the average citizen. We did try to determine this by communicating with Statistics Canada. They are doing some research on the subject but have not as yet anything helpful by way of data along the lines of a package of goods and services for older citizens; or, for that matter, disabled and blind citizens.

To utilize the CPI, which other members point out is, in one way or another, unsatisfactory, I think is just lulling the least fortunate into a false sense of security and dulling our own sense of compassion by handing over these matters to some form of formulation.

Even sophisticated recipients of index benefits, such as the French public service, are now on strike because they don’t like the index.

Mr. Deans: No.

Hon. Mr. White: Right now, as I understand it, in France --

Mr. Deans: What do you want us to do, solve that problem too?

Hon. Mr. White: -- there is a strike among certain units of the French public service because they don’t like the index. Why would they like the index?

Mr. Lewis: We will take a chance on the senior citizens not wanting the index.

Mr. Deans: Even if the senior citizens went on strike --

Hon. Mr. White: When it represents, at best, a theoretical appreciation of an average person’s consumption. I know the gentleman next to me, who has very fine tastes, consumes quite a different selection of goods and services from those I do.

Mr. Deans: He consumes far more than that.

Mr. B. Newman: That is the only direction you could have pointed.

Hon. Mr. White: I didn’t mean to speak about that.

At any rate, indexing isn’t good enough in my opinion.

Mr. Martel: No, but you could pass on --

Hon. Mr. White: I have given the reason I thought the universal scheme should be indexed and I won’t repeat that, I think. I remind the hon. members that if we had indexed the disabled people’s allowance 15 months ago, at the time of by-elections -- that would have been a temptation, no doubt, in those frantic days when we were trying to save that riding -- the recipients today would be getting $157 instead of the $217 which we proposed. This programme is going to cost us $75 million this year --

Mr. Deans: That’s false. That’s a crazy argument based on secret logic.

Hon. Mr. White: -- and that is on the assumption there will be increases in the OASGIS. The $75 million -- or, had it been for a full 12 months, $100 million -- is based on the supposition that our increment to reach this particular minimum income --

Mr. Lewis: Come now.

Hon. Mr. White: -- for, indeed, that is what it is, although not as yet universal, would decrease. To that substantial increase, of course, as I mentioned earlier -- the Ontario tax credit system was increased from $305 to $375 million -- the free prescription drug programme will cost $20 million in this fiscal year. We are transferring, on an annual basis, something over $200 million as I had occasion to mention earlier.

These are the reasons, Mr. Chairman, that I think we are unwise to index. I think we are unwise to wash the federal indexing through our GAINS programme.

Mr. Martel: We are not asking you to index.

Mr. Deacon: We are not asking you to index.

Hon. Mr. White: I think we have to have the integrity and the compassion to take a look at this guaranteed annual income with some regularity, or if I may use --

Mr. Lewis: It is not a guaranteed annual income.

Hon. Mr. White: -- the words in my budget --

Mr. Lewis: It is a guaranteed annual social allowance. It is not an income. It is a subsistence level social allowance.

Hon. Mr. White: -- the guaranteed income levels will be escalated periodically in order to maintain the purchasing power of benefits over time.

Mr. Deans: When it is politically appropriate.

Hon. Mr. White: Also said in the budget was that the GAINS programme will be broadened to other groups as resources become available.

Mr. Martel: You wonder why Ottawa doesn’t want to talk to you.

Hon. Mr. White: Now we have a broadening of the base possible in a way that indexing wouldn’t permit. We have an enrichment in the minimum which the indexing itself might prevent, and that’s the reason we are doing it this way.

Mr. Chairman: The member for York Centre.

Mr. Deacon: Mr. Chairman, I remember yesterday we had some debate about the extended hours, because the debate really doesn’t become too logical. I really am more convinced than ever of that after listening to the Treasurer. He is a man in the past whom I have learned to respect on many occasions for his logic, but tonight is certainly not one of those occasions.

What we are trying to get across to the minister is that he has no responsibility as far as indexing is concerned. All we are asking him to do is not to profit by the federal indexing at the expense of the other people; other people who really can’t afford it -- the poor people we are trying to help.

There’s no need for the Treasurer to interfere with the increases that Ottawa is making available to these people. By adopting this amendment, we would not be interfering. And if the Treasurer, in his wisdom, comes up with a better plan, so that Ontario’s programme is not indexed, but there is a much improved approach to it -- fine -- but don’t interfere now with what Ottawa has made available to these people. Don’t profit by that. Surely the Treasurer doesn’t mean to profit at the expense of these people. Do you?

Hon. Mr. White: Mr. Chairman, as I pointed out, we are spending something over $200 million in these new programmes this year. Now, that’s a strange concept of profit. Is that the way they do it on Bay St.?

Mr. Deacon: It’s $200 million this year; but next year it may be only $100 million.

Mr. Martel: Come on, the Treasurer can’t have it both ways.

Hon. Mr. White: If we had a year ago indexed the Workmen’s Compensation Board pensions, the recipients would have gone up by about 12 per cent, I suppose. Instead, these recipients are going to go up by a maximum of 60 per cent. And here, again, I want to draw your attention to the fact that the indexing -- which is supposed to be a continuing purchasing capability -- is faulty. Because, as the member for Sudbury East said, the CPI is not an appropriate index. And reasons have been advanced in an earlier stage of this debate as to why it isn’t appropriate.

Mr. Deacon: You should: not steal from these people.

Hon. Mr. White: Just a minute; just a minute. I have got the floor for a minute. So there isn’t an appropriate index, although Statistics Canada are apparently trying to invent one. Much more important in my way of thinking is, having introduced an index, having introduced a formula, the decision-makers -- whether it be the members of the House of Commons or the mandarins that were tucked away in the dark little corners of those antique buildings -- must not lose sight of the fact that not only do living costs increase, as reflected in one or another index, not only do different people’s costs vary as their own consumption of goods and services varies from the norm, but we are increasing our standard of living each year. And that increase -- which is not included in the formula at all, at all--is very easily overlooked; and to the best of my knowledge has been largely overlooked in those areas where indexing is the custom.

We are quite prepared to increase these, as my budget said explicitly. And we are going to increase them, and those increases will reflect the increasing costs of living, the increased quality of living, the increased compassion among our people -- because if one moves too far too fast on certain of these measures --

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. White: -- there is a counter reaction which makes continuing reform virtually impossible. We have seen that happen with respect to tax reform emanating om the federal government. Mr. Carter was too ambitious. Mr. Benson was too ambitious. And we ended up with no reform at all. Now, we are moving this ahead very, very quickly. And I have no doubt we can do so in the future. But this is the way to do it. I am perfectly sure of it.

Mr. Lawlor: Well, you are certainly not too ambitious anyway.

Mr. B. Newman: When the minister makes mention that he has no intention of indexing or of providing additional benefits to the senior citizen, in other words he is going to reduce his contribution by the extent to which the federal government increases theirs. So what you are saying then is that we should allow the senior citizen, who is on guaranteed supplements income and who is eligible for the GAINS programme, to diminish his cost of living by the 2¼ per cent or so, or three per cent, that the cost of living rises each quarterly period. You want them to decrease their cost of living.

Mr. Good: That’s what he said.

Mr. B. Newman: That is what you are trying to tell us, rather than maintain that same cost of living by your contribution remaining the same or increasing as the federal contribution increases.

Mr. Good: You have to come back and make a new deal every year then.

Hon. Mr. White: Well the indexing system reflects certain increases, as we have all said more than once. It is done retrospectively, in that there is a lag between the collection of data and publishing of results and the implementation of the increases. Our system on the other hand, which has several advantages I mentioned already, is prospective. So looking ahead we have established that $5,200 for a married couple is the minimum we think is appropriate, although my hon. member for Wentworth would like to see that less than --

Mr. Deans: Don’t; don’t.

Mr. Lewis: The Treasurer is going to get himself in hot water and he’ll keep us here for another hour.

Mr. M. Cassidy (Ottawa Centre): Don’t, don’t.

Hon. Mr. White: The hon. member doesn’t want to see the couple get quite double the --

Mr. Deans: You are making a big mistake, dammit; I knew you were too stupid to keep your mouth shut.

Hon. D. R. Irvine (Minister without Portfolio): Withdraw.

Mr. Deans: That wasn’t what I said and you know it.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Withdraw.

Mr. Deans: Withdraw? I demand that the Treasurer withdraw a statement which he knows is untrue.

Hon. Mr. White: I wish you would watch your language.

Mr. Deans: I demand that the Treasurer withdraw a statement which he knows is untrue.

Hon. Mr. White: I’ll do a little research here.

Mr. Deans: Well you do your research; and while you are doing it I demand that you withdraw that statement because you know it is untrue.

Hon. Mr. White: I’ll just have to prove my point here.

Mr. Good: Here we go again.

Mr. Deans: I am sick and tired of having you lie in the House.

Mr. Chairman: Order please.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Withdraw.

Mr. Deans: And I’ll prove that it is, because I corrected him the last time.

Mr. Chairman: Order, please.

Mr. Deans: I’m fed up with it.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: We are fed up with you, too.

Mr. Martel: Well, are you ever getting some lines in there tonight, Don.

Mr. Chairman: Those in favour of Mr. Martel’s resolution --

Mr. Lewis: You cut that out.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Martel: It’s called dissembling, is it?

Hon. A. K. Meen (Minister of Revenue): I think the chairman should ask the member to withdraw that statement.

Mr. Deans: I am saying he lied; and he did.

Mr. Chairman: Order please.

Mr. Deans: Because he said that I was for making it less, and I corrected him. Then he objected that he had made a mistake. And he has repeated the same thing again knowing full well that it was untrue.

Mr. Chairman: Order. The member is persisting.

An hon. member: That’s an incredible accusation.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: You know it was untrue.

Mr. Deans: It is true.

Mr. Chairman: Order please.

Mr. Deans: And I wouldn’t make it about anyone else.

Mr. Chairman: Order please.

Hon. Mr. White: If you give me a moment I will find the record from Hansard, if you give me just one moment.

Mr. Lewis: We are going to take a little adjournment while the Treasurer looks it up.

Mr. Deans: I will wait while the Treasurer looks it up.

Mr. Chairman: Order please. I will ask the member to withdraw that.

Mr. Deans: Mr. Chairman, I will withdraw it --

Mr. Chairman: Let me finish. He should withdraw that remark. He knows this.

Mr. Deans: I cannot withdraw it, sir. I corrected it once before.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Get out.

Mr. Deans: Will you agree to wait till the minister puts it on the record?

Mr. Chairman: Order please. I can understand the misunderstanding because of the hour, but I would ask the member to withdraw those words because --

Mr. Deans: On a point of order, sir, he made the same statement before and I corrected it. Surely to God I am entitled to have the truth told for once.

Mr. Chairman: There may have been some confusion in the interpretation.

Mr. Deans: There was no confusion, it was deliberate.

Mr. Chairman: Order please. The member for Wentworth knows it is wrong and he must withdraw.

Mr. Deans: But it is equally wrong to tell an untruth in the House.

Mr. Martel: Surely, Mr. Chairman, you should wait for the minister.

Mr. Chairman: Order please.

Mr. Deans: Will the minister then put his statement on the record? And if I was wrong in saying that he lied, then I will withdraw.

An hon. member: You’ve asked the member to withdraw and he --

Mr. Lewis: Oh, you are all a bunch of punch-drunk nitwits over there.

Mr. Chairman: Order please. I think we should control ourselves a little bit.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Chairman: Order please. I am sure the hon. minister will clarify what was meant.

Mr. Deans: I will be pleased, when he clarifies it, to withdraw it if I was out of order.

Mr. Chairman: Order, please.

Mr. Lewis: Mr. Chairman, I withdraw the use of the word nitwits. I didn’t like the sound of that.

Mr. Chairman: Order please. I would ask the member for Wentworth to withdraw the word.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Lewis: An important member of the gallery is listening. You know that and I know that.

Mr. Lawlor: I called them a bunch of bedizened dolts and I don’t withdraw that.

Mr. Deans: I withdraw the use of the word, but not because I don’t believe it.

Now put it on the record; because the Treasurer knows what I said. What I said was it is time he understood that while it may cost $5,200 a year for a couple to live, it does not necessarily cost half of that for a single person to live, and that the single allowance should be more than half the double allowance. That’s what I said.

Hon. Mr. White: That’s what I am saying too. You don’t want a married couple to get twice as much as a single person.

Mr. Deans: Oh come on now!

Mr. Lewis: I can understand him losing his temper. You are acting like such an oaf. Is it 1:30 in the morning that turns you into a pumpkin?

Hon. Mr. White: That’s what the man said.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Deans: Don’t talk to me, talk to him. It is a bloody lie and you know it is.

Mr. Lewis: Are you going to read any more from holy writ there; or are you looking for anything specific?

Hon. Mr. White: I am just looking for what the hon. member said a moment ago.

Mr. Deans: I told you what I said a moment ago, and I will say it again.

Mr. Lewis: If you viewed these problems a little less from the outlook of the financial analyst and a little more from the point of view of compassion, which word you use so easily, we might resolve the problems in this bill.

Hon. Mr. White: It is the highest in the world.

Mr. Lewis: You talk, if I can quote you, about not moving too fast so that there won’t be a counter-reaction. It has been five years since we asked you to provide a minimum monthly income in Ontario; so don’t talk to us about guarantees in your budget to raise it six or 12 months hence. It took you five years to get this far.

What my colleague from Sudbury East has put by way of amendment is one of the most sensible amendments that has ever been brought to the House. All he is saying is the additional federal money which arrives quarterly over and above the basic pension should be added to the total amount. He is not justifying the consumer price increase; he is not legitimizing it. He is just saying it won’t cost Ontario a penny more if a given amount of money, roughly 10 to 12 per cent a year to reflect the cost of living across the board, is added onto the basic pension.

What could be more sensible, logical, or compelling than that? To try to obfuscate it with all kinds of intellectual clap-trap and sophistic economic rubbish about indexing is to make of the word compassion nonsense.

Mr. Good: These are the people for whom it was intended.

Mr. Lewis: The money is coming federally. It is there for you to use. It is obviously something which you should pass on. The unwillingness you have to make a marginal increase for individuals and families in this society and your willingness to give special compensation to your corporate friends are never more vividly demonstrated than in this bill.

Could I tell you an ironic note, Mr. Chairman? The Chairman of the Management Board tabled an answer to a question of mine just today. I want to read the question and the answer, because in the context of this bill it is just one of those extraordinary ironies that only occurs once in a while.

I asked of the ministry: “1. How many companies made claims for the five per cent investment tax credit in 1971-1972? 2. What was the total amount of investment tax credit claimed in 1972-1973?” Let me give you the answer to No. 1.

“The investment tax credit programme commenced April 26, 1971. For the period April 27, 1971, to March 31, 1972, there were 15,535 corporations which claimed the five per cent investment tax credit.” I presume, therefore, for a similar yearly period in 1973 that would double.

“2. The total amount of investment tax credit claimed for the period” -- now listen to this -- “April 1, 1972, to March 31, 1973, was $73,758,923.” At a time when corporate profits were going up 60 per cent a year, you provided a tax credit to them of $73 million.

Mr. Chairman: Order, please. Stick to the bill.

Mr. Lewis: I’m coming back to it. If we have to sit to 1:30, you must expect it.

But to provide for senior citizens of Ontario you can find only $65 million in this programme. Now you explain to me the equity in that. At a time when corporate profits have never been accelerating more disproportionately or more dramatically in this country you have on record a tax credit of $73 million -- $73 million thrown away to the corporations, courtesy of the taxpayers of Ontario. But for the disabled, the handicapped, and the aged, you can’t provide that equivalent amount in 1974.

Mr. Martel: You can’t even pass on the federal money.

Mr. Lewis: So, 15,000 corporations can get $73 million by way of straight rip-off from you people by snapping their fingers, but for the aged, the handicapped and the disabled there is no such money. When my colleague asks you to add in the 10 to 12 per cent a year which comes by way of increase to the consumer price index, costing Ontario no money but provided federally, you can’t find it in your compassionate heart to permit the transfer. Well the legislation is an ass in that respect.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: That’s nonsense.

Mr. Lewis: And that’s exactly what it means.

Hon. Mr. White: I would just like to meet the several points that have been raised here.

Mr. D. M. Deacon (York Centre): Even half a loaf is better than no loaf at all.

Hon. Mr. White: First of all, the member for Wentworth said on June 20 on Hansard page 3457 the following paragraph:

“Just as it doesn’t take twice as much for two to live -- in other words, it doesn’t cost exactly twice as much for two to live -- it obviously costs more than half as much for one to get by. What I am saying is one doesn’t pay half the rent because there is only one or twice the rent because there’s only two.”

This is very lucid prose Are you ready for it?

“What I am saying is the old method of calculating these things on a single person and then doubling it for two people is wrong.”

So obviously he doesn’t want it doubled for the couple.

Mr. Deans: On a point of order, I then went on to say:

“If it costs $433.33 for two people to live in a society like ours, it doesn’t cost only $216.67 for one person to live.”

Mr. Lewis: Now you just resign. It would benefit your whole party, as a matter of fact, if you resign now instead of in 1975.

Mr. Deans: I have explained that a number of times.

Hon. E. A. Winkler (Chairman, Management Board of Cabinet): The member is the biggest rip-off this country has ever seen.

Mr. Deans: If the Treasurer is too obtuse to understand it, then God help the province.

Mr. Chairman: Order, please.

Mr. Deans: It is not right.

Hon. Mr. White: Any rate, you do agree that you said then and say now that the couple shouldn’t get twice as much as a single person.

Mr. Deans: No.

Mr. Lewis: He never said that at all.

Mr. Deans: No. Mr. Chairman, on a point of order --

Hon. Mr. Irvine: There is no point of order.

Hon. Mr. White: I would like to move along.

Mr. Chairman: Order please.

Mr. Deans: I want, sir, to refer you back to the same Hansard. I can’t find the area it was said in, but I will find it for tomorrow. I want to say that I do not agree that it doesn’t cost twice as much for two. Let me just get it. Okay, I’ve got it. It just takes me a moment to find it.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Deans: We’ll find out. On the same point of order, on the same statement made by same minister, this is why I say he lied.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: There is no lying. He was reading your own words.

Mr. Deans: Hear me out. This is why I say he lied. On page 3478, I answered the same silly charge. I said this:

“No. On a point of order, I am not going to stand for that. No, sir. I did not suggest at any time that the married should receive less than double. I said that it took more than half of the married rate for a single person to survive, and that is considerably different.”

I made that correction of the same stupid statement by the same silly minister on June 20 on page 3478 of Hansard. I object --

Mr. Chairman: Order, please.

Mr. Deans: -- to having the minister make the same statement again.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: We object to you, too, making the same silly comments.

Mr. Chairman: Order, please. Those in favour of Mr. Martel’s motion --

Mr. Lewis: No, the minister is on his feet. Do you think because it’s 1:30 -- Mr. Chairman, I move the committee rise and report.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: No way.

Mr. Chairman: I think everyone is talking in circles on this one.

Hon. Mr. White: Mr. Chairman, I don’t want to quibble about it as long as my hon. friend accepts this assertion; what he is saying is the old method of calculating these things on a single person and then doubling it for two people is wrong. I understand what he’s saying, but I think the couple should get twice as much as a single person.

Mr. Deans: We are never going to get out of here.

Mr. J. M. Turner (Peterborough): We are just going to read old Hansards.

Hon. Mr. White: Now I’d like to move along to what the leader of the NDP was dealing with. He has sought out information for a tax credit scheme for business that would have been introduced in the budget of 1971.

Mr. Lewis: But the figures were for 1972-1973.

Hon. Mr. White: At that time the country was threatened not with inflation but with unemployment; that was the principal concern as the hon. members will recall. The then Treasurer (Mr. McKeough) introduced that measure to encourage investment, which of course is classic economic theory, to fill in the gaps and even out the peaks.

Mr. Deans: It was a handout by you to your friends.

Mr. Lewis: It was a straight Tory contribution to the corporate sector, that is what it was. It was a straight contribution.

Hon. Mr. White: And what was the consequence? The consequence was that our unemployment in the couple of years that followed went down to something like 3.6 per cent.

Mr. Cassidy: They gave you $5 million and you gave them $75 million.

Mr. Deans: You couldn’t point to one single job. You couldn’t identify one single new job; not one.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. White: Exactly; $73 million worth of capital was put into the system.

Mr. Deans: You couldn’t identify a single new job.

Hon. Mr. White: And the result was the lowest unemployment in this country.

Mr. Deans: The result was the highest profit margins for corporations in the Province of Ontario in history.

Hon. Mr. White: I point out to you that the $200 million --

Hon. Mr. McKeough: The Waffle are so much more honest than you people. At least they say --

Mr. Deans: Honesty? You don’t even know the meaning of the word.

Mr. Lewis: You can’t bait me, my friend at 2 in the afternoon, or at 2 in the morning. You are not credible, so relax.

Mr. Deans: When you are talking about honesty talk to your colleague.

Hon. Mr. White: I remind you that the $200 million which we are expending in the new programme, the heart of which is GAINS, is only a portion of the total. I remind you that we are increasing the tax credits from $305 to $375 million.

Mr. Lewis: Are you finished?

Mr. Martel: It is federal money; pass it on.

Hon. Mr. White: I see the policy field headed by the hon. Provincial Secretary for Social Development is going up to something over $600 million. I’m not going to have these large amounts of money -- I suppose approximating $1 billion in this present fiscal year, including this very large enrichment -- compared to a deliberate policy instituted early in 1971, designed to minimize unemployment, which history has proved to be very effective.

Mr. Lewis: Mr. Chairman, if you recall the budget of 1971, which some of us remember well, the appropriation which you set aside by way of tax credit was $125 million in the first year and $125 million in the second year. The programme was such a flop on every count that you ended up returning $73 million over the two years instead of $0.25 billion you intended. The $73 million turned out to be a complete and total handout to the corporate sector.

You are not able to this day to give an estimate of the jobs created. As a matter of fact, the first paragraph of your response to me on this question says: “It is impossible to obtain an exact figure on the number of new jobs created as a result of the investment tax credit incentive.” It was never meant to create jobs; it was meant to placate your friends in the corporate sector.

You used the rationale in your answer to me then and tonight that because employment went down in Ontario, it had something to do with the tax credit. I concede employment went down; it had nothing to do with the tax credit.

That aside, Mr. Chairman --

Hon. Mr. McKeough: It had a great deal to do with the drop in unemployment.

Mr. Lewis: Are you both engaged now? Well, what a charming pair you are.

Mr. Deans: It is the Treasurer and the ex-Treasurer.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: I would be the first to say the reduction in unemployment was not wholly attributable to my budget of the spring of 1971.

Mr. Lewis: Well, you are a modest fellow.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: One must give a great deal of credit to the fact that in the fall of 1971 the socialists were licked again.

An hon. member: Right.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. White: Mr. Chairman, I have done a little calculation. It created 50,000 new jobs. That is my calculation.

Mr. Lewis: Are you both pleased with that searing repartee at 20 to 2 in the morning? What a demolition job you are doing.

The Treasurer is a funny guy -- he’s a funny guy. It’s a good thing he’s resigning, because there wouldn’t be a Tory left in Ontario come the next election. Not one.

I want to tell you, Mr. Chairman, that all of this stuff and bother tonight about not having enough money to provide an adequate income level and to allow for the indexing is put to the lie by the emergence of figures which showed just how much largesse he gave to his friends; and even if that weren’t a factor, except that it’s a useful ironic juxtaposition, the truth is that he’s always so mean and so short and so ungiving when it comes to these things.

Hon. Mr. White: And the member for Scarborough West is just perfect.

Mr. Lewis: I mean it has nothing to do with comparisons. You never cut back this way on other projects. You don’t cut back this way when you’re dealing with physical objects; with building programmes; with the healthy or wealthy. You only do it when you deal with the vulnerable, which is what we were showing you before.

Mr. Laughren: It would be all right if it was for the Robarts library.

Mr. Lewis: From the Robarts library to any other testament at all, it doesn’t bother the Treasurer a twig, not a tinker’s damn, to give all the money in the world; but when it comes to passing on a few dollars to the senior citizens from the federal government, he won’t do it.

Hon. Mr. White: Highest in the world.

Mr. Lewis: He can’t do it. When it comes to providing 6,000 people who are permanently unemployable with a guarantee that they will get $217 a month he can’t do it. When it comes, in other words, to extending themselves to those who need it most the government can’t do it, but for those who need it least -- ready, aye, ready.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Highest in the world.

Mr. Lewis: That’s why the legislation in that sense is despicable. That’s why we made the fuss about the bill earlier. That’s why we want this motion to pass; and we ask him to think about it seriously, because it’s not costing the government a penny.

The Treasurer doesn’t have to give us his virtuous sense of perfection either. He doesn’t have to give us his halo about the guarantee in the budget of increasing it incrementally later on. It took him five years to get this far and he is already behind.

Mr. Cassidy: That is right.

Mr. Lewis: What guarantees do the senior citizens, disabled or handicapped of Ontario have that they’ll get anything commensurate with the increase in the cost of living? I’ll tell you, Mr. Chairman -- no guarantees. The only hope they have is that the provincial election in 1975 may be a sufficient catalyst for him to seek their votes --

Hon. Mr. White: For heaven’s sake.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: They’ll get rid of the member for Scarborough West.

Mr. Lewis: -- by some absolutely conscienceless offers here and there, but only in the way of attracting votes. Wait and see --

Hon. Mr. White: Thirty-one years of complete integrity, that’s their guarantee.

Mr. Lewis: Well, the minister won’t be Treasurer. That was his last budget; we’ll wait and see what the next one is like.

I know -- he doesn’t like his budgets to be toyed with. He likes to have them seen as hallowed instruments and every programme --

Hon. Mr. White: No, it’s socialists I don’t like.

Mr. Lewis: The Treasurer doesn’t like socialists either. There he is, eh?

Mr. Cassidy: What do you win by it?

Mr. Deans: We want him to feel comfortable, we don’t want him to accept us.

Mr. Lewis: I won’t tell him how I feel about Tories. I won’t even tell him how Patrick Lawlor feels about Tories --

Hon. Mr. Irvine: We hope not.

Mr. Lewis: -- because I don’t have the wealth of expressions he has.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Lewis: Mr. Chairman, I think we should probably have the vote on this cost of living indexing.

Hon. Mr. White: Good idea.

Mr. Lewis: But I’ll never understand why he won’t simply pass it on.

Hon. Mr. White: Because we’re going to do better than that.

Mr. Lewis: Oh yes. As the government has done in the past.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Chairman: Order please.

Mr. Lewis: They demonstrated in January on the steps of the Legislature. The senior citizens demonstrated in January, in the middle of winter, just as the workmen’s compensation recipients come on their crutches and with their braces to the steps of the Legislature to beg the government for money.

Mr. Chairman: The member for St. George.

Mr. Lewis: Some guarantee.

Mr. Chairman: The member for St. George.

Mr. Lewis: As my colleague said, if ever there was an issue where the socialists stand on one side and you unrepentant Tories on the other. It’s ridiculous; it is ridiculous.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Chairman: The member for St. George.

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Chairman, the Treasurer has given answers on the question --

Mr. Cassidy: I would like to see the Treasurer live on $217 a month.

Hon. Mr. White: I would like to see the member for Ottawa Centre getting $217; and he probably will be in a couple of years.

Mrs. Campbell: On this proposed amendment, the Treasurer has given some answers, and at the risk of repetition I want to make it clear to him that I don’t think, with respect, he understands the position. I’d like to be sure he does.

Hon. Mr. White: Oh, yes. I understand it, thank you. Don’t repeat it on my account.

Mr. Lewis: Oh, he understands it all right. If he sees someone who’s defenceless, he kicks them just once again. That’s kind of a mean, thumbnail description of his understanding.

Mrs. Campbell: The minister has repeatedly used the example of the person with a disability getting $137. I put it to him that it is now quite clear that persons on the lowest scale of disability -- lowest because they don’t need special diet or because they only get $15 for transportation; I want him to thoroughly understand this -- those persons will not, in all likelihood, get one cent more. Those persons, in all likelihood, will not be eligible for GAINS.

This is what is killing me in this House. With all the rest that everybody’s been saying and all the talk about compassion, it is the person who is much higher up in the income scale as a disabled person who will get it. I would ask that the Treasurer at least check with the minister behind him, or any of the officials, as to whether that is not true. And I say to him, please don’t keep making that statement in this House, because with the greatest respect, he is misleading himself, if not the House, in believing what he is saying.

It is quite clear those people will not --

Mr. Chairman: Order please. The member’s remarks were appropriate on an earlier section. They really have nothing to do with this motion --

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Chairman, I am speaking to the argument that the Treasurer has used. You didn’t stop the others when they were talking about corporate taxes.

Mr. Chairman: Order please. The hon. member is back on section 1(b).

Mrs. Campbell: I am not back on section 1. I am talking to the Treasurer about his expressed reasons in the whole discussion of indexing.

Mr. Chairman: Well we’re dealing with Mr. Martel’s motion.

Mrs. Campbell: That’s the case the Treasurer put; and I’m sure he will agree that that is true.

Now Mr. Chairman, I would ask you if you would be kind enough not to put the motion at least until you have read it to us.

Mr. Chairman: I have read it. Those in favour of --

Mrs. Campbell: Will you please read the motion?

Mr. Chairman: Mr. Martel had moved that a new subsection 6 be added to section 4 as follows:

“When the federal government’s quarterly adjustment produces an increase in the guaranteed income supplement, the province will pass the amount of the increase on to those who are eligible for any income supplement under this Act.”

The committee divided on Mr. Martel’s motion to add a new subsection 6 to section 4, which was negatived on the following vote:

Clerk of the House: Mr. Chairman, the “ayes” are 12; the “nays” 43.

Mr. Chairman: I declare the motion lost.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Chairman: Order please.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Mr. Chairman, on a point of order. I think the record should note that there are five Liberals here and seven NDP.

Mr. Chairman: The record already shows that.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Because from the result of that vote you would have thought they might have just stayed away completely.

Mr. Chairman: Order please, the member for Scarborough West.

Mr. Lewis: On a point of order.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Lewis: I think that the margin of victory is positively unfair, and I want you to know that.

Mr. Chairman: Order please. Any further comments, questions or amendments?

Hon. Mr. Winkler: On that point of order, I would like to suggest that the leader of the NDP and the Minister of Energy settle this argument the next time they have dinner together.

Mr. Lewis: No, because I have to pay the next time. No way.

Mr. Chairman: Order please.

Any further comments, questions or amendments on any other section of the bill? If not, shall the bill be reported?

Bill 96 reported.

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

Motion agreed to.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

Mr. Chairman: Mr. Speaker, the committee of the whole House begs to report one bill without amendment and asks for leave to sit again.

Report agreed to.

Hon. E. A. Winkler (Chairman, Management Board of Cabinet): Mr. Speaker, before I move the adjournment of the House I think I should ask that the House be prepared to deal with any item standing in committee of the whole House.

Mr. P. D. Lawlor (Lakeshore): The minister has been saying that for months.

Mrs. M. Campbell (St. George): Organized confusion.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: That is the member’s interpretation of it.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: I will announce the other items, if the members care to jot them down, which we will deal with tomorrow; and not necessarily in the order that I call them.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order please.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Items 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 --

An hon. member: Bingo!

Hon. Mr. Winkler: -- 28, 12, 13, 14 and 33.

Hon. W. D. McKeough (Minister of Energy): Doesn’t matter. They are not here anyway. They are not here anyway.

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

Mr. I. Deans (Wentworth): Before you place the motion, please --

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Winkler moves the adjournment of the House. Carried?

Mr. S. Lewis (Scarborough West): Come on!

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Deans: Just a minute. Jesus, don’t do that.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Winkler moves the adjournment of the House. Carried?

Motion agreed to.

The House adjourned at 2:30 o’clock, a.m.