Legislative Assembly of Ontario

The House met at 2 o’clock, p.m.

Prayers.

Mr. Speaker: Statements by the ministry.

Oral questions.

TEACHERS’ SUPERANNUATION FUND

Mr. R. F. Nixon (Leader of the Opposition): Mr. Speaker, I’d like to ask the Treasurer what is the justification for the transference of $70 million from the teachers’ superannuation fund to the consolidated revenue fund for the province at an interest payment of, I believe 8.06 per cent, when he is prepared to pay more than two per cent more than that, on a long-term basis, to borrow money on the regular markets available to him, both here and in the United States.

Wouldn’t he agree with the contention from the teachers’ professional organizations that that simply means they are put in a position where, unwillingly, they are subsidizing the rest of the taxpayers of the province?

Hon. J. White (Treasurer, Minister of Inter- governmental Affairs): Mr. Speaker, I’ll take this question as notice.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: A supplementary: I wonder if the Minister would, as well, inquire into the circumstances which led him to transfer the money to the consolidated revenue fund before the superannuation commissioners had even given their approval for the transference.

Mr. M. Shulman (High Park): Cash in and cash out.

LOOSENED WARRANTS FOR MENTAL HOSPITAL PATIENTS

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I would like now to ask the Minister of Health if he has any statement to be made as to the means of control available to him in conjunction with his colleague, the Attorney General (Mr. Welch), for those people who are given, loose warrants I believe they are called, from Penetanguishene. This is with direct reference to the case I raised in the Legislature on Friday, in which a former patient of Penetanguishene had been put back in the community of Brantford. Unfortunately, four months later he committed a murder; he has just been on trial for that, found guilty, and subjected to life imprisonment.

Hon. F. S. Miller (Minister of Health): Mr. Speaker, any time a person who is on a loosened warrant, or in fact anyone who is released from hospital following a mental illness and commits any kind of a crime, we are very concerned about it. The big danger is that we will jump to the conclusion that no one should be released. In fact, in reviewing the statistics I found that less than 10 per cent of the people released on loosened warrants have had to be readmitted to hospital.

I am concerned, as the member is, about the apparent lack of contact between this particular patient and hospital facilities. Yet I have been told by staff, who were in contact with this person and fully understood his illness, that the diagnosis not only made by them but by other psychiatrists on this particular patient was such that they had confidence in him, and felt that he was safe to operate within the community. Therefore his loosened warrant had fewer conditions attached to it than many others.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Supplementary: Wouldn’t it have been prudent, however, to inform the local police officers so that when, in fact, he came before them on three occasions during the four-month period they might have at least had the right to inform the psychiatrists and other experts in the field that further supervision was necessary?

Hon. Mr. Miller: Mr. Speaker, it has not been customary to advise the police when a person is released from a mental hospital on a loosened warrant. In other words, this was not an exception to the rule; this man was not ignored when others were automatically informed on.

I’m looking into that aspect, because that’s one that interests me. I think the question needs to be posed: “Should they or shouldn’t they?” But again, based on expert psychiatric evidence, there was apparently no concern that this would happen.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Further supplementary: I would trust the minister would give us a further report on this when he has all the facts. Would it not concern him that even though the person under discussion was in the community on a loose warrant -- is that what it’s called?

Hon. Mr. Miller: Loosened.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Loosened warrant -- there were certain requirements associated with that warrant which evidently were not being fulfilled? Shouldn’t there be someone, responsible indirectly to the minister, who is prepared to follow up on a fairly regular and careful basis at least for a reasonable period of time?

Hon. Mr. Miller: Well Mr. Speaker, the term “loosened warrant” means one that allows the person out of the particular institution into which he was placed. In other words, you are either under a warrant and in an institution, or on a loosened warrant in the community; so this is not a loose warrant compared to other warrants. Do you understand that difference? In this case a loosened warrant allowed this man to return to the community for rehabilitation therein.

The other issues I am actively looking at at this point in time.

Mr. Speaker: Any further questions?

Hon. Mr. Miller: I’ll be glad to make the information available. I assume the member will ask me.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: I wonder if the minister would undertake to table a full report of this incident. Certainly it has importance in my community and I think it has a bearing on similar incidents or similar circumstances across the province. I believe the information ought to be made public as far as is possible.

Hon. Mr. Miller: Mr. Speaker, rather than giving a full report on a specific person, I think we need to look at the general rules that apply to persons on loosened warrants.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Will he make a report to the House in this regard?

Mr. Speaker: Any further questions?

INSULIN SUPPLY

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I would like to ask a further question of this minister. Would he comment on this strange development between Connaught Laboratories, and I think Canada Packers, which seems to have many people who require insulin quite deeply concerned that the supply of that drug and certain other medications might either be in jeopardy, or the price may change in such a way that it would certainly be in anything but their best interests.

Hon. Mr. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I have to get more information on this. I only know that Connaught Laboratories was bought, I believe, by Canadian Development Corp. this year, which I believe is financed by the federal government, is it not?

Mr. J. A. Renwick (Riverdale): Then this government should never have allowed it to take place.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: It’s the minister’s money and mine.

Hon. Mr. Miller: It’s his money and mine; his government.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: My government?

Mr. T. P. Reid (Rainy River): Our government.

Hon. Mr. Miller: Let them have it their way. I am not too sure I want to admit to it.

Hon. E. A. Winkler (Chairman of Management Board of Cabinet): The election is over, fellas.

Hon. Mr. Miller: In any case, I understand there have been two increases in the price of diabetes during the present year. There are some negotiations going on at the present time with the federal government.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Diabetes has always been expensive.

Mr. J. E. Stokes (Thunder Bay): I think it was the price of insulin that went up.

Hon. Mr. Miller: -- and I understand they are having some meeting on Nov. 28 to discuss stabilization of price.

CONDOMINIUM APARTMENTS

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister of Housing if he is as concerned as are some others at the rate at which apartments are being changed to a condominium-type of financing, which is going to put more and more apartments out of availability for people on limited incomes?

Can he give an indication as to the rate of this change; and if, in fact, he is going to have some regulations which will enable him or his ministry to have some control of it?

Hon. D. R. Irvine (Minister of Housing): Mr. Speaker, this matter has been under investigation by myself and my ministry for some weeks now -- since the time I was acting minister and now as Minister of Housing. We have found in some areas the con- versions have not been of any significance whatsoever. There is one particular part of Metro Toronto, though, that is of some concern to us.

Mr. M. Cassidy (Ottawa Centre): That’s right.

Mr. S. Lewis (Scarborough West): It certainly is.

Mr. Cassidy: The thin edge of the wedge, too.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: At the present time we are funding a study, in co-operation with the mayor and council of that particular borough, to determine the effects of the displacement on the families who have rental accommodation and then are forced to find other accommodation.

Mr. Cassidy: The people being kicked out will sure be grateful about that.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: We do have figures throughout Ontario that show there really is no significant conversion factor at this time, except as I mentioned, in the one area of Metro Toronto.

Mr. Cassidy: There were several thousand applications; that is significant.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: I would be pleased to inform the House later this week as to the latest figures; which I haven’t got with me today.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Supplementary: Does the ministry have the power to regulate this in any way, or is the ministry simply in a position to gather information and report it?

Surely in those areas where it is going to be a substantial hardship there ought to be some power of regulation so that it will not mean a translation in the terms of rental to the much more expensive one-shot payments necessary, which are going to dislocate large segments of the Metro Toronto population.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Speaker, to the hon. Leader of the Opposition, the procedure used in the past has been that conversions have been allowed through the Planning Act. What we are asking now is for the municipalities to inform us in writing as to whether or not they wish to have this conversion take place -- in the past this was not a requirement. We are also asking them to inform us as to the numbers of families that will be displaced, at what income -- if they can find this out -- and also as to what they feel we can do to assist, along with municipalities, the families for rental accommodation.

Mr. Lewis: Just build some houses.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Now we are finding that this method of investigation has been quite satisfactory to those who are elected in this area, and we think the meetings we have had with those --

Mr. Cassidy: The Tories don’t care about families needing accommodation, that is what the minister means. That is darn true.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: -- who have had their rental accommodation converted into condominiums have been quite satisfactory to both concerned, the ministry and themselves.

Mr. Lewis: Oh come on; the government can’t throw people out of rental accommodation.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: We certainly feel there is not sufficient indication at this time --

Mr. Speaker: Order please. The minister has the floor.

Mr. Lewis: My friend the minister is so right wing he should be sitting in the corridor.

Mr. J. A. Taylor (Prince Edward-Lennox): And the leader of the NDP is so left wing he should be in the Kremlin.

Hon. S. B. Handleman (Minister without Portfolio): I hope Hansard got that.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: There is no necessity at this time for legislation to take away the rights of persons to convert a building, if they should so wish, in regard to whether it be a rental or a condominium unit.

Mr. Cassidy: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Ottawa Centre with a supplementary.

Mr. Cassidy: A supplementary to the minister, Mr. Speaker: Considering that families are the least able in general to pay for accommodation because of the expenses of having children and so on, what additional steps is the ministry willing and able to take in order to stop the increasing trend towards the creation of all-adult buildings or all-adult floors and the discrimination thereby entailed against families and against young people and children?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Well Mr. Speaker, whether it is a supplementary or not doesn’t make any difference, I would like to answer it because --

Mr. Taylor: He wouldn’t know the difference.

An hon. member: It isn’t a supplementary.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: -- the hon. member apparently doesn’t know what we have been doing to supplement the supply -- and we have done a lot to supplement the supply in the last few weeks.

Mr. Cassidy: Yes.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: If he would pay attention to what the government is doing, he might be aware of the fact that the supply will be there.

Mr. D. C. MacDonald (York South): They paid attention in the minister’s neighbouring riding to the east.

Mr. Cassidy: The housing starts are going down every week.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Speaker, the supply will be on hand for all those wishing accommodation -- rental accommodation, condominium accommodation, home ownership or whatever the case may be.

Mr. Lewis: We are going to be 20,000 units down in Ontario this year. Is that called increasing the supply?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: I think it’s about time that the socialist member from Ottawa understands that this government is well aware of the problems of the people --

Mr. Cassidy: The government is not doing a damned thing about it.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: We are going to do a lot for them -- and we have done a lot for them.

Mr. E. Sargent (Grey-Bruce): A supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Grey-Bruce with a final supplementary.

An hon. member: It took the member a long time to become aware.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Sargent: Mr. Speaker, I hope the minister knows what he is doing because we don’t know what he is doing.

Mr. Speaker: Is that a question?

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Sargent: With regard to the minister’s statement about conversions for condominiums, there is not a single apartment project going on in Metropolitan Toronto now --

Mr. Speaker: Order please. Your question?

Mr. Sargent: Is he forcing them to go into condominiums because they can’t get an apartment?

Now that’s a fact. There is not a single apartment project going on in Toronto now.

Mr. Speaker: Order please. This is question period.

Mr. Sargent: They have got to go into condominiums or row housing, and there are no more apartments being built.

Hon. D. R. Timbrell (Minister without Port- folio): Oh yes there are.

Mr. Sargent: No there are not.

Mr. Speaker: Order please.

Mr. Sargent: And so we have to have some sort of funds, Mr. Speaker --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. member is debating. He hasn’t asked a question.

Mr. Sargent: Will the minister let me know if he is going to make funds available for apartment building in the Province of Ontario, because there are none available now and he knows that?

Mr. Speaker: That is not really supplementary to the original question. Does the minister wish to answer it?

Mr. Sargent: Certainly, condominium con- versions.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Speaker, I would be delighted to inform the hon. member, as I said before, that we intend to increase the supply. If he has any influence with his hon. friends in Ottawa, maybe he could help us to get some more money.

Mr. Reid: It’s always Ottawa’s fault.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: I have asked for financing to be increased at the federal level. To this date, I have not got any increased funds.

Mr. Cassidy: Stop passing the buck. The Bill Davis government is the buck-passing government.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: I have said that the province would provide more funds than the federal government would in this fiscal year.

Mr. Cassidy: That is right; especially on housing and inflation, always blame the other guy.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Now if the federal government doesn’t recognize this as a social’ need, a social concern to all of us, then it’s too bad. I say this concern should be recognized by the federal government; it should be recognized by the provincial government, as it has been through my ministry and through my announcements in the last few days; and it should be recognized by the municipalities.

Hon. A. Grossman (Provincial Secretary for Resources Development): There is not a drop of compassion over there for people who are hit by the housing. If the hon. member from Ottawa has compassion, why is he keeping two houses? Why doesn’t he give one house up?

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

KRAUSS-MAFFEI SYSTEM

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I would like to ask the Minister of Transportation and Communications why the tour of the Krauss-Maffei demonstration system was cancelled, the tour that had been planned by the Ontario Transportation Development Corp.

Hon. J. R. Rhodes (Minister of Transportation and Communications): I am sorry, Mr. Speaker, there was an exchange going on from both sides, and I could not hear the question.

Mr. I. Deans (Wentworth): No, no, the minister’s colleague --

Mr. Lewis: The provincial secretary was hurling abuse across the floor.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I wanted to ask the minister why the Ontario Transportation Development Corp. cancelled the tour for its officials and various municipal officials to examine the Krauss-Maffei facility. Why was this cancelled on such short notice?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, I do not know why it was cancelled; I only learned shortly before coming here that it had been. I had no part in organizing any such tour or visit. It was done by the development corporation, so I really can’t answer. I just learned shortly before coming into the House that this had been cancelled.

Mr. Lewis: Can the minister find out and tell us tomorrow?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: I can find out, yes.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: A supplementary; I wonder if the minister could provide further information when it’s available, including those who were to have attended the tour?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Yes, Mr. Speaker, that’s no problem. There is no secret about who was attending.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Good, and why it was cancelled.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: The hon. member should ask some of his press colleagues. I think they were going. Did he notice I said “colleagues”?

Mr. Lewis: They say the minister is very good at one-liners.

Mr. Speaker: Any further questions by the hon. Leader of the Opposition?

The hon. member for Scarborough West.

HOUSING PROGRAMMES

Mr. Lewis: A question of the Minister of Housing: Since his housing programme is going so well and it’s based on the Ontario housing action programme, what is the minister going to do about the observations of David Strachan, the co-ordinator of the Ontario housing action programme in Peel, who says that the programme there is virtually a dead duck?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Well Mr. Speaker, I’m not aware how the statement was made.

Mr. MacDonald: The minister should take his --

Hon. Mr. Irvine: But let me say to the leader of the NDP that the programme is far from being a dead duck; the programme is very much alive. I will be most pleased to provide the House with some very interesting facts this week. At that time maybe the official opposition and the members of the NDP will finally recognize that the government of Ontario is doing something for the people in regard to housing.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Yes, the starting rate is lower than it was.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Lewis: Further, by way of a supplementary: The minister then repudiates the statements of one of his senior employees who says: “I don’t look upon it as being dead in Mississauga, but I can’t help thinking it’s pretty close to it.” The minister indicates that’s not accurate?

Hon. W. G. Davis (Premier): But Mississauga is not all of Peel.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Speaker, let me point out very clearly that I’m talking about all of Ontario. I don’t think Mississauga takes in all of Ontario yet.

An hon. member: But it’s pretty important.

Mr. Lewis: That’s true, it’s just the centrepiece.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: What I’m conveying to the House is that I will make a statement on the overall OHAP proposals which we will have received, and at that time the members can make their own judgement.

Mr. Cassidy: I hear it’s going terrifically at Moosonee!

Mr. Speaker: Supplementary? The hon. member for Wentworth.

Mr. Deans: Might I ask, even given that his programme may work, what does the minister propose to do in the interim to relieve the tremendous pressures currently being exerted by increased rents on those people who ought to benefit from the programme, and who will have at least a two-year waiting period before the programme reaches a point where there will be accommodation available to them alternative to that which they have to have now?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Well Mr. Speaker, I think one thing we have to recognize is this, that the rents in general have not increased as much as wages have increased in the past while. In certain areas they may have increased.

Mr. Cassidy: Like the metropolitan areas.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: I want to say this to the hon. member: I have personally investigated some of the cases that have been brought before us by the news media, and I have found there have been logical decisions made in regard to certain actions that were taken.

Mr. Lewis: Always logical.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: I do not foresee at this time any reason to feel that we will not be able to increase the supply necessary to offset unusual or too great an increase in rental accommodation. I feel the supply will be there.

Mr. Deans: Where?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: We’re talking about a matter of a few months, and in most cases the leases run from one to two years or more. If I find later on next year that the supply is not there -- I’m quite confident it will be -- and the rental factor is one which we should look at more closely in regard to legislation, fair enough, we’ll do so. But at this time I do not believe that’s the answer to it. I believe the answer is to make sure that we all co-operate in our efforts to make housing available to the low and moderate-income families. We’re doing that.

Mr. Deans: So nothing’s going to happen.

Mr. Speaker: Supplementary, the hon. member for Ottawa Centre.

Mr. Cassidy: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Could the minister explain why, in the case of Gloucester township, the ministry is falling over itself in order to try, unsuccessfully so far, to expedite development by developers in that area, while nothing is being done to the large federal-provincial land assembly which lies in the same general area?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Well Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member for Ottawa Centre has again misstated something, or maybe he’s not aware of what actually is happening in Gloucester. Probably he should get a little closer to the facts, and understand that there is something going on in Gloucester in regard to housing and there will be a proposal that affects Gloucester in particular.

As far as Carlsbad Springs is concerned, he, being a local member, should be well aware that the regional government and the area municipalities do not wish to proceed with Carlsbad Springs at this particular time. I think it’s about time that he, as a member stood up for the people in his area and said: “Proceed with the planning as it should be.” We should proceed in a logical manner, instead of wanting to proceed without giving full consideration to what effect Carlsbad Springs will have on the other parts of the region of Ottawa-Carleton.

Mr. Cassidy: That’s the government’s land. I haven’t heard a peep from the government, not a peep.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: The only one who wants Carlsbad Springs is the NDP candidate in Carleton East.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order please. The hon. member for Windsor-Walkerville on the last supplementary.

Mr. B. Newman (Windsor-Walkerville) : Mr. Speaker, a supplementary of the minister: In light of the fact there is a waiting list of some 1,248 senior citizen accommodations for the residents in the city of Windsor, and in light of the fact that only 60 have been accommodated in the last nine months, is the minister seriously considering the implementation of a rent supplement programme to senior citizens and to families needing accommodations in the private market and not necessarily in the Ontario Housing Corp. market?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Speaker, what I am seriously considering is receiving the co-operation of the municipalities in general, and the member’s municipality, to assist us in acquiring land for senior citizens, and for his municipality to make sure that the needs of its people are looked after by helping us to take options and get buildings on the ground, instead of having the municipality sit back.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Scarborough West.

Mr. Lewis: As a related, but separate, question: Just how many units is the minister now projecting for the year 1974, since he has had such pell-mell activity, lo these many months?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Speaker, how many units for what does the hon. member mean?

Mr. Lewis: How many starts in 1974?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Speaker, our latest figures for the overall programme, as I quoted only a few days ago, are expected to be around 90,000 to 95,000, and maybe more, I don’t know.

Mr. Lewis: May I ask, does the minister consider this drop of 20,000 units in one year to signify an increase in the housing stock? Is that how he evaluates it?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Speaker, this is rather a peculiar way for the --

Mr. Lewis: Well that says everything that is to be said about the minister’s housing programme in Ontario -- 20,000 units down in one year.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: -- leader of the NDP to express himself. He is, as usual, expressing himself backwards.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: It is 20,000 units up.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: What I would like to say to the leader of the NDP is this, that there are more than provincial concerns to be considered.

Mr. Lewis: Oh yes, oh yes.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: I think we have to make sure the federal government comes in with some money.

Mr. MacDonald: When this government succeeds it takes the credit; when it fails it blames the federal government.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: If we bring in the federal government, and if we bring in the programmes which we have initiated and which we have supplemented --

Interjection by an hon. member.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: -- the member will find out that he is going to be delighted with our programmes; he is going to be delighted.

Mr. Speaker: Any further questions?

STUDIES ON DEATHS IN URANIUM MINES

Mr. Lewis: A question, if I may, of the Minister of Health: When a major study on the causes of death in Ontario uranium mines is done courtesy of this ministry -- in this case by J. Muller, the medical consultant, occupational health protection branch, Ontario Ministry of Health -- and released, as it happens, at an international conference in Europe, is that study naturally shared with the minister’s colleagues who have jurisdiction in those areas as well?

Hon. Mr. Miller: Not automatically, Mr. Speaker, but staff levels of the government do exchange almost all matters of interest among themselves. The question of occupational health is one of those areas that we have talked about a great deal in the past few months, and I still place the problems of communication and of protection in occupational health very near the top of my list of priorities. We have been doing a lot of work on it and I am rather encouraged that before too long we will see even more co-operation than has existed in the past.

Mr. Lewis: Then that leads to the obvious supplementary: Is the minister aware of the study on causes of death in Ontario uranium mines as it relates to lung cancer? Has it been brought to his attention? Has the minister given it his interest?

Hon. Mr. Miller: I have been given a synopsis of it and I have been given all the issues, on the radon daughters and the dust in the air and these kinds of things that are affecting both the silicosis and the cancer. While I don’t know that I can regurgitate it at a moment’s notice I have been made fully aware of it. I am very interested in it and within the last day I have been talking to people who have been suffering from the disease.

Mr. Lewis: May I ask, by way of a supplementary, does the minister think a colleague of his, like the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Bernier), should suppress a study that demonstrates conclusively that the incidence of lung cancer in the uranium mines of Ontario is in excess of three times the incidence in the equivalent population; suppress that kind of study for a considerable period of time, knowing that miners were dying every year as a result of the conditions in those mines? Does the minister think that makes sense?

Hon. Mr. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I can make no comment on that. I’m sure the minister would have a reason.

Mr. Lewis: The minister would have a reason.

Mr. Speaker: Are there any further questions?

STUDIES ON DEATHS IN URANIUM MINES

Mr. Lewis: Let me ask the Premier. When the ministers of his government have in their possession, first a study done in 1973 tabulating the deaths from lung cancer up until 1970, and now a study in 1974 released in Europe, but never here, tabulating the deaths from lung cancer up to the end of 1972, doesn’t he think that something more should be done than playing about with a royal commission and not allowing the public to view the kind of documentation which his government has had and apparently never did anything about?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I really don’t know what the question is. I’m not personally familiar with the report emanating, as the hon. member suggests, I gather from Europe. I would think that if the member wishes to ask the Minister of Natural Resources a question on this matter, of course he should do so. I have no comment, as it relates to a report about which I don’t know anything.

Mr. Lewis: Okay, I’ll ask the Premier one further supplementary. Given all of the public focus around this issue, given the lives of the miners themselves, doesn’t he think the Minister of Natural Resources has a public obligation to release the material which is so central to the whole debate, so crucial to everything we’ve been talking about, and so upsetting in its contents? I now understand that it is the reason for the minister’s capitulation on this issue months ago. I must say that I didn’t understand it then, but he had these figures and nobody said a word about them.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I’m not sure whether we’re having a debate or a question period.

Mr. Lewis: I appreciate that.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I would only make the observation that the Minister of Natural Resources --

Mr. Deans: Should resign.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- moved, I think with the support of all members of this House, in a route to come to grips with this particular problem some months ago --

Mr. Lewis: And sat on it for I don’t know how long.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- and, Mr. Speaker, is in the process of doing so.

Mr. Lewis: And still wasting time.

Mr. Deans: The Minister of Natural Resources sat back while they were dying.

Mr. Speaker: Order please. Are there any further questions?

OIL PRICES

Mr. Lewis: I have one last question of the Premier. He will note that one of his friends and former colleagues, Mr. Macaulay -- I think it is that Robert Macaulay -- indicated in a fairly major speech on energy that the concept of the open marketplace should not determine energy prices, that the marketplace stresses short-term benefits, particularly profit, rather than long-term social needs, and that if he doesn’t abandon the marketplace concept he is going to bring something cataclysmic down around our heads. Does the Premier not think that in the face of all the evidence, and the support of men like Robert Macaulay, it’s time that his government intervened to force the oil companies to have their price increases publicly scrutinized in order to protect the consumers of Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I have known the gentleman referred to for some years and he has the ability of expressing himself in a very articulate, and on occasion, very colourful fashion. I would really have to discuss with him the speech that he made as it related to energy generally. I quite obviously gather from the New Democratic Party leader’s observation that he was referring to gasoline. I’m not so sure that he was, in fact, referring to gasoline; I think he was referring to energy in a much broader context.

Mr. Lewis: The open marketplace.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Well, of course Mr. Speaker, there is an open marketplace as it relates to energy in the broad sense of the word. I’ve always been interested in the observations of my former colleague, and of course I would be delighted to read what he suggested over the weekend. However, I think the leader of the New Democratic Party is attempting, and I totally understand why, to focus on a particular aspect of energy, when I suggest, and I’m not sure of this because I haven’t talked to Robert Macaulay, he was probably referring to energy in a much broader context.

Mr. Lewis: Focusing on protecting consumers.

Mr. Speaker: A supplementary from the member for Grey-Bruce.

Mr. Sargent: With regard to the same gentleman and the energy which is being discussed, Mr. Macaulay said that the government was costing us millions of dollars needlessly because it wouldn’t table an agreement between AECL and Ontario Hydro. In the same matter, how can the government set Hydro rates on Jan. 1, 1975, when it won’t table this agreement?

Mr. Speaker: That is hardly supplementary to the question. Does the hon. Premier have an answer?

Hon. Mr. Davis: I think, with great respect, the hon. member for Grey-Bruce is over-simplifying observations made, I assume, at the time of the Energy Board hearing. I don’t think he really referred to the fact that I wouldn’t provide it. If memory serves me correctly --

Mr. Sargent: No, he didn’t say that.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- he made no such observations, because the truth of the matter, Mr. Speaker, is that I don’t happen to have that particular agreement and I couldn’t produce it for the hon. member on this occasion. Once again, I think one has to read Mr. Macaulay’s speech -- and I think this related to his end submission to the Energy Board hearing -- in its total context. If the hon. member wishes to pursue this in some detail I would suggest he would do so with the Minister of Energy.

Mr. Sargent: A supplementary: He said the government should be forced to provide this agreement. Does the Premier agree?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member once again is saying I should be forced to produce the agreement. I don’t have the agreement and I suggest that if he has questions on this matter he raise them with the Minister of Energy.

Mr. Speaker: Further questions? The member for Huron.

BROILER PRICES

Mr. J. Riddell (Huron): Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Agriculture and Food. Is he aware of the recent action of the Farm Products Marketing Board in rescinding the regulation permitting the Ontario Broiler Chicken Producers’ Marketing Board to establish the price from last Thursday to this Thursday for broilers? Would he not agree that the board is acting irresponsibly catering to the whims and fancies of the processors at the expense of the producers who are, according to the latest statistics, making something like minus 4.8 return on their investment?

Hon. W. A. Stewart (Minister of Agriculture and Food): Mr. Speaker, I’m not aware what arrangements have been made between the Farm Products Marketing Board and the Broiler Chicken Producers’ Marketing Board. I would suppose that likely one of the reasons there was some discussion on the matter is that there is a reported 2.5 cents per pound difference between chickens produced in Ontario and those produced in Quebec. This may have had something to do with the discussion.

Mr. Deans: Supplementary question.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Wentworth.

Mr. Deans: Is the minister aware that there was a statement made by the Ontario marketing board to the broiler marketing board that they ought not to have the level in Ontario higher than the level in Quebec? Does the minister feel that it might not be possible that the costs in Ontario could, in fact, exceed those in Quebec and that the prices have to be established in relationship to the costs, rather than in relationship to some other jurisdiction over which we have no control?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Although it seemed a logical argument, one would be led to the conclusion it would be difficult to find why that difference of 2.5 cents per pound should exist, when, in fact, Quebec is almost totally dependent on imports of grain to that province for the feed those broilers use. Admittedly there may be some additional feed grain assistance provided, but as far as Ontario’s conditions are concerned, a good deal of that feed is produced right here in the Province of Ontario. One would be led to believe, with the amount of broiler stock in storage today that perhaps should be put on the market, that one would have to look rather carefully at the price structure that would be established. We certainly don’t want to have an- other surplus egg thing on our hands, with stocks being stored and frozen -- at the expense of the people who buy them off the market, and that in this case is the processors -- that really should be put back on the market for consumers.

Mr. M. Gaunt (Huron-Bruce): Supplementary.

Mr. Speaker: This will be the last supplementary.

Mr. Gaunt: May I ask the minister if he has ever had any discussions with the Farm Products Marketing Board in respect to asking them to take positions, such as have been described, where there are price variations in farm products from one province to the other?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Mr. Speaker, as, I like to think, a responsible minister of the Crown, I am interested in what all of the boards and commissions of our government are doing, particularly those that fall under our jurisdiction. I would like to suggest that when there is a problem I want to know about it, and I do have discussions from time to time. I do not put myself in the position of directing boards to do certain things, but I certainly am concerned.

While I’m on my feet, Mr. Speaker, I suggest that had the federal minister directed or had discussions with the national marketing council at Ottawa we wouldn’t have had the egg mess that has characterized and generated this incredible hassle on marketing boards right across the country.

Mr. Speaker: It is a member of the New Democratic Party’s turn this time.

The hon. member for Ottawa Centre.

GLOUCESTER TOWNSHIP SCHOOL TAXES

Mr. Cassidy: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a question of the Premier which is of special interest to the electors in Carleton East.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Is the member running there too?

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Cassidy: I wonder if the Premier is taking a personal interest in the appeal by Gloucester township to the cabinet on an OMB decision concerning the allocation of school taxes; whether he is aware that the amount of liability outstanding on public school taxpayers is about $900,000 or some- thing over $100 per public school taxpayer in Gloucester township; and whether he will undertake to have a decision by cabinet on that appeal by Gloucester before the Carleton East by-election?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I am aware there is an appeal, and it will be dealt with like other appeals, as expeditiously as possible.

Mr. Cassidy: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: In view of the fact no other municipalities, except Gloucester and March township, will have their public school taxpayers liable to pay this rather heavy amount of back taxes, and in view of the fact that Gloucester was following ministry directives in making the decisions which have now been overturned by the OMB, would the Premier undertake, if the cabinet rejects the Gloucester appeal, that special financial arrangements will be made to bail out the taxpayers in Gloucester?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, of course the member for Ottawa Centre is once again prejudging or presupposing what may or may not happen. I think it would be most improper, prior to the appeal being considered by cabinet, suggesting what may happen as a result of that appeal.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Rainy River.

Mr. Cassidy: The Premier is saying the answer is no.

Hon. Mr. Davis: The answer is not no nor is the answer yes.

Mr. Reid: Mr. Speaker, I have a question --

Mr. Cassidy: There is no answer before the by-election. That’s what he is saying.

Mr. Speaker: Order please. The member for Rainy River has a question.

VIOLENCE IN AMATEUR HOCKEY

Mr. Reid: I have a question of the Premier, Mr. Speaker, if I can have his undivided attention for a moment.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Certainly.

Mr. Reid: What action is the Premier and his cabinet contemplating as a result of the commission on violence in hockey, and in particular because of the mediaeval attitude of the OHA on banning fighting in hockey?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I don’t have all the figures here with me. I appreciate that question. I think all of us are encouraged to date by the response of a number of organizations in hockey.

If memory serves me correctly, about 90 per cent -- I think I am right in this -- of those who are participating in minor hockey at this moment are operating under this suggested rule change. As I understand it, and I’m going now by memory, it’s basically the Junior A to D part of the OHA where this is not functioning. I understand the OHA is having or has had a meeting very recently to discuss this.

From my own personal standpoint, and I’m not at this moment saying it is necessarily government policy because we want to see just what can be accomplished, I think obviously -- and I said this at the time of the report -- that a rule change of this kind is important and it makes a great deal of sense. I can’t recall too many other major sports in which if fighting takes place the automatic suspension doesn’t exist. I can think of two or three other sports where it does.

While I know it is not an easy penalty to enforce and that there are some practical problems involved, I am also persuaded, this being sort of symptomatic of some of the other difficulties we face in society today, and particularly with young people, if we want some sort of an example established, that this suggested rule change, from my standpoint at least, makes a great deal of sense.

As I said at the time of the press conference, it is my hope that the minor hockey associations, including the Thunder Bay -- is it the northern Ontario -- the Ottawa Valley and the OHA would all co-operate. It was encouraging to note, Mr. Speaker, that there has been some indication that Mr. McMurtry’s report has received acceptance outside the Province of Ontario, in that I think that the hockey association in Alberta, I believe -- and I can’t tell you the actual groupings or age groupings -- have also adopted this particular presentation.

What I do find is discouraging, Mr. Speaker, from my standpoint --

Interjection by an hon. member.

Hon. Mr. Davis: The member asked the question. He’s interested and so am I. I think it really has a little more importance than some members of the public perhaps are prepared to attach to it, I think it goes beyond hockey.

What concerned me at the time of the issuance of the report was the remark of the president of the National Hockey League, who had some personal observations about my interests, and of course I have never talked to Mr. Campbell about hockey or anything else. What I am interested in is seeing that minor hockey reflects the kind of society which we live in or we would like to see. I think that fighting is not an essential part of any sport unless it is boxing.

Mr. Reid: That is not sport.

Hon. Mr. Davis: If people want to fight as part of a sport, they can watch -- when is it, tonight or tomorrow night or whenever it is -- that is a recognized sport.

However, I am still optimistic, Mr. Speaker, that this thing will be brought to a conclusion. If it is, I look forward to the day that even in the professional ranks there is a recognition that hockey per se is a great game and one doesn’t need some of the donnybrooks we witness from time to time to en- courage, shall we say, audience enthusiasm or participation. I don’t happen to believe, as suggested by a few promoters in the game, that this is what brings people into the rinks. I think people come to see a good hockey game, and if the gloves are kept on, if the sticks aren’t swung and if there aren’t any fights, the crowds will still continue to come.

Mr. Reid: A very brief supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Granting the Premier’s premise that moral suasion may have an effect on amateur hockey, and granting the fact that McMurtry pointed out that the example was set particularly by the NHL in this regard, is the Premier prepared to take any steps in bringing something more than moral suasion on the NHL when they play in the jurisdiction of Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I guess there are some provisions of the Criminal Code that actually, technically applied, probably would have some effect. I am not sure of this but I think perhaps that’s the case.

Our prime interest at the moment -- I don’t say necessarily our total interest -- is with minor hockey, because this is where it has to start. Quite obviously, if this becomes an accepted policy with minor hockey, including Junior A, then the day will come, with or without legislation or action, in my view, where this kind of approach will obviously filter through to professional ranks.

I think it has been the rule in many of the college leagues, both in the United States and Canada. It hasn’t detracted from the game. It hasn’t detracted, in my view, from the calibre of the people who were brought up through that particular route, rather than the Junior A or B, although I am not an expert in this either.

At this moment, Mr. Speaker, we are concentrating our efforts on minor hockey. We are not oblivious of the problems in the professional ranks as they relate to this particular aspect of the rules, but I do say to the hon. member, the minor area is the one we are concentrating on at the moment.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Yorkview.

SPEED LIMITS

Mr. F. Young (Yorkview): Mr. Speaker, through you to the Minister of Transportation and Communications: In view of the fact that the United States road casualty figures are now in for September, showing a 15 per cent saving of life over a year ago, up considerably from the holiday slump; and in view of the fact that this indicates about a 10,000 life saving for 1974, due in large measure, they consider, to the lower speed limit, is the minister now considering or reconsidering the lowering of the speed limit on Ontario highways? I am very much concerned.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: No, Mr. Speaker, we are not considering a general lowering of the speed limits in the Province of Ontario, based entirely upon the figures that have been submitted by the National Safety Council in the United States.

As I have stated previously, the National Safety Council has seen fit to say simply that the reduction in fatalities on the highways in the United States is as a direct result of the lowering of the speed limits. Statistics have not been produced conclusively to indicate this to be so.

I can indicate to the House, for example, that I have had information from the State of Michigan where at the present time the rate of violation of the 55-mile-an-hour speed limit is at 83.6 per cent. When the speed limit was 70 miles an hour on the freeways and 55 miles an hour at night, the rate of violation was 15 to 25 per cent. Statistics gathered in the State of Michigan have indicated that the fatality decreases can be related to many other causes, not the least of which is the economy of the country. They have statistics going back to 1957 that would show this to be quite true.

Rather than going on with the various statistics that are available, I would simply say that we are not satisfied that you can relate directly the reduction in the number of fatalities on United States highways to the reduction of the speed limits, which were introduced at a time of an energy crisis which did in fact produce a substantial reduction in the number of miles travelled and a very substantial reduction in the number of vehicles using the highways.

Mr. Young: Could I ask a supplementary question, through you Mr. Speaker?

Mr. Speaker: One quick supplementary. The question period has just about expired.

Mr. Young: Since the Michigan figures are down 13 per cent approximately for September, how do the figures in Ontario compare with the United States figures?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, I think the only thing I could give the member at this time in our figures is that we are down 10 per cent in the first quarter of this year in fatal accidents. We are down seven per cent in the number -- I am sorry, down 10 per cent in fatalities, down seven per cent in that area in the number of fatal collisions. We have been experiencing in Ontario an increase in property damage accidents, but our fatalities in the first quarter have gone down.

I would like to ask the hon. member if he will give me the opportunity to get the exact figures and present them to him.

Mr. Young: This compares to about a 25 per cent reduction in the United States.

Mr. Speaker: The oral question period has now expired.

Petitions.

Presenting reports.

Motions.

Introduction of bills.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Mr. Speaker, just before the orders of the day, I know, sir, you would be glad to be informed that our colleague, the member for Kitchener (Mr. Breithaupt), was married this weekend, and I’m sure you will join with me in wishing him our best regards.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Stokes: What’s he doing here?

Mr. Speaker: I’m sure the applause is taken as especially good wishes.

Mr. J. R. Breithaupt (Kitchener): Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Deans: Mr. Speaker, before the orders of the day I would like to congratulate my colleague from Kitchener --

An hon. member: And ask him why he’s here.

Mr. Deans: -- and ask him why he did it and why he is here, but that’s beside the point.

I’d like to clear up the matter of the committee sittings so that everyone understands. I believe we have an understanding for the afternoon that the committee looking at the estimates of Labour will not sit during the time that the no-confidence motion is being debated in order that all members will have an opportunity to take part in the debate. I just wanted to make that clear so that the chairman of the committee may not be sitting there waiting for the members to show up and not have them there.

Second, I would like to ask the indulgence of the House to be sure that we don’t lose that afternoon since it’s important. There isn’t a great deal of time left for the study of estimates, and it’s important that we not lose that sessional afternoon in the committee and that we recognize that a no-confidence motion is an unusual and unique situation as opposed to all other matters that come before the House.

Hon. E. A. Winkler (Chairman, Management Board of Cabinet): Yes, Mr. Speaker, there’s nothing here for me to direct; as I’ve said on many occasions I don’t dictate the sitting of the committee. I do not hesitate to say that it is probably an overriding thought of committee members, and if they so decide not to sit that will suit me and I will follow the other suggestion.

Mr. Speaker: Orders of the day.

NOTICE OF MOTION NO. 7

Clerk of the House: Notice of motion No. 7, by Mr. R. F. Nixon (Brant).

“Resolution: That this House regrets the failure of the government to bring forward effective programmes to moderate the inflationary pressures on the cost of living in this province, particularly in the areas of food, rent and fuel, as well as the failure of the government to reduce the inflationary effect of its own deficit financing.”

Mr. R. F. Nixon (Leader of the Opposition): I move motion No. 7, being a want of confidence motion under standing order 87(i).

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. L. C. Henderson (Lambton): Speak to Ottawa.

Mr. E. M. Havrot (Timiskaming): The member has got the wrong House.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. leader may proceed.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: It is interesting that the interjections from the back row by those who have come in from the continuing euchre game to make their contribution is on the basis that we’ve got the wrong House. This is precisely the reason this debate is important.

Mr. Havrot: Wrong House, it should be in Ottawa.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: This is precisely the reason since this province, with a third of Canada’s population and over half of our nation’s wealth, has consistently failed to give any initiative or leadership to a programme at the provincial level to at least control the effects of inflation.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. G. A. Kerr (Solicitor General): They voted against a solution on July 8.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: There is no doubt in our minds that family budgets have been strained and dislocated; that --

Mr. Havrot: Who called for the conference?

Mr. R. F. Nixon: -- the confidence of investors in this province and elsewhere in Canada with funds initiating in this province has been seriously undermined --

Hon. J. White (Treasurer, Minister of Economics and Intergovernmental Affairs): Poppycock.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: -- that labour-management tensions have been such that the government itself is floundering in dealing with its own employees as well as failing to give the kind of leadership the province needs.

Mr. Havrot: Just like the grain strike, eh? Just like the grain situation.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: There are three specific areas Mr. Speaker wherein this no-confidence motion is timely. The first has to do with the fatuous contribution to the debate last week in which the Treasurer tried to indicate that our deficit projected this year for $848 million is in fact somehow good for the economy and that this is somehow associated with the provision of jobs and the balancing of a dis- location which is causing undue suffering in all parts of this province.

Hon. Mr. White: I didn’t expect the member to understand.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: While he says that I am not able to understand, I would submit to you. Mr. Speaker, that no other sensible person in this province is prepared to accept the ridiculous justification he gives, wherein even the contributions to OHIP as well as the contributions to the pension plans of this province are used as income by this Treasurer. He is prepared to take those contributions and singlehandedly, without consultation, transfer them to the consolidated revenue fund at interest payments of about eight per cent, when he is prepared to go to the New York market to borrow money for Ontario Hydro and for our regular needs at rates of about 10 1/4 to 10 1/3 per cent. So certainly the Treasurer’s interjection is something less than timely in this regard.

The second justification for the no-confidence motion is that the Premier (Mr. Davis), has declared publicly that there is nothing further the province can do in order to mitigate the inflationary pressures on our cost of living. This is unacceptable. It is an embarrassment for citizens of this province to hear the Premier speaking for his colleagues in the cabinet on this particular stance. Obviously the powers under the British North America Act have not been fully utilized. They have not even been brought into play in any significant way whatsoever with this problem we face.

The third justification surely is that on Oct. 30, two days from now, the Premier will join with the first ministers of the other provinces and the Prime Minister of Canada at a conference to discuss what the provinces and the government of Canada can do to moderate and offset these effects.

There is a fourth reason as well, and that is that while issues sometimes arise in this Legislature which have important political overtones, as does this, there is really a cold hand of fear gripping many of our citizens, whatever their level of salary or employment, which indicates a slipping away of the traditional confidence in the fiscal stance of the government, even in the free enterprise system itself, as we know it in this province. While it is our contention that the system is eminently defensible, the pressures brought upon it by the inaction of the government must surely still lead the members of this House to support a no-confidence move as put forward in my name today.

Mr. Speaker, we are concerned about a number of specific aspects and I want to begin by talking about the government’s supposed response to the inflationary pressures in the province already. The Premier repeatedly says that I as Leader of the Opposition am not even prepared to support his attempts to reduce the cost of education because we do not support the concept of centrally imposed ceilings on education costs.

I want to deal with this just for two minutes, Mr. Speaker, since time is limited. There is no reason why these ceilings should have anything whatsoever to do with the outflow from the treasury of the province. We should be presented by the Minister of Education (Mr. Wells) and the Treasurer with an education budget in block figures designed to support education in all levels of this province and that is the amount that should be spent during that ensuing year.

We should have confidence in the democratic procedure and the good sense of those elected to operate our school boards to leave the additional judgement to them to establish goals for education and levels of expenditure that they are prepared to put to their ratepayers and be judged by at the ensuing election. After all, it is the Treasurer of Ontario who has allowed the rate of expenditure to advance by 19 per cent this year, not the school boards. I am not prepared to say it is the centralization of decision on financial spending at the education level under the policy of this government that has contained that expenditure in any reasonable degree.

All the imposition of ceilings has done is removed the budgetary control from the democratically elected school boards and put it where it should not be, and that is in the hands of some third assistant deputy minister who reports from time to time to the minister. It is not only interfering with the quality of education, but surely it is interfering with the quality of democracy without saving us a plugged nickel and certainly disrupting the understanding of democratic control in this province.

The second thing that I want to refer to is that the government has from time to time indicated as its method of cutting public costs its attempt to cut the costs of the provision of medical services.

The former Minister of Health is not in his seat, but there is a certain irony in the fact that he, the present Minister of Correctional Services (Mr. Potter), when he became Minister of Health, brought forward a constraint or restraint package which was designed to cut the costs of medical services in this province, it was in fact approved by the cabinet two years ago, but it was not possible for that minister to implement it and thus reduce the cost of our medical programme here. He was not supported by his colleagues in the cabinet, and the pressures brought upon him externally meant that that constraint programme simply went by the boards, and all that we saw was that without consultation with this House, the doctors received a 10 per cent across-the-board increase in their incomes.

Mr. M. Shulman (High Park): Does the Leader of the Opposition think 10 per cent seems too high?

Mr. R. F. Nixon: As a matter of fact, in answer to the interjection from the hon. doctor from High Park, the doctors deserve some credit for at least not attempting to get a bigger increase or asking for one earlier.

Hon. A. Grossman (Provincial Secretary for Resources Development): Well, now the hon. member is on both sides.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: But I’ll tell you this, Mr. Speaker, that the day is gone when we’re simply going to read about any increase in service that everyone must have in order to live, whether it is food, doctors’ services or anything else, on the front page of the Globe and Mail or in a news release.

It is necessary for the elected members of this Legislature to at least hear the justification -- the arguments from the doctors that the increase should have been more or that it should have been earlier or the arguments from others who believe that $560 million in payment for medical services now is too much -- before the Premier simply arises and says that this, as a fait accompli is government policy and “Don’t bother us with details.”

This is surely not the way to involve the goodwill of the citizens in this province in the changes that they’re going to have pay for directly and indirectly.

We know very well, Mr. Speaker, that other methods of at least controlling the costs of hospital services have been attempted by the present Minister of Health (Mr. Miller) and his predecessor. But, once again, they have been predicated on unilateral decisions made by officials at the centre, which have flown directly in the face of not only extensive planning, but the commitment of millions of dollars in the provision of active treatment facilities across this province.

It seems ridiculous, when we are told by the present Minister of Health that the rate of expansion of health service is going to bankrupt the province -- a ridiculous reference, it seems to me -- because that is not going to be allowed to happen and when we see active treatment beds on ice. In this city there is a whole hospital on University Ave. which is not being used by anybody for anything. It certainly seems not only a waste of taxpayers’ money, but the worst kind of bad planning, which in education, particularly under the aegis of the former minister who is just taking his seat, and the Minister of Health, have brought us into the situation now where we are warned, as we are warned probably twice a decade, that we face a fiscal nightmare.

It’s interesting to recall those warnings that came from Charlie MacNaughton -- and, yes, Ross Whicher, if you want to involve him in a debate like this. Strangely enough, the present chairman of the Racing Commission, the former Treasurer, had some sort of an idea that in times when inflation was the problem, the government ought to be conserving its resources against the day when they would be needed to balance the economy. Even Ross Whicher had a similar view. And you will recall that many years ago Ross Whicher indicated that if the costs of education were allowed to expand as they were when the hon. member for Peel North (Mr. Davis) had the responsibility of the education budget, that by 1963 the province would be broke.

Well, fortunately there were some mitigating circumstances, and I feel the same thing is going to happen in health. I don’t believe the health costs are going to bankrupt this province, because the people won’t permit it and the members of this Legislature will not permit it.

Hon. W. G. Davis (Premier): The educational cost would if the Leader of the Opposition had his way.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: We have seen the government attempt to protest that its policy in controlling costs has in fact been effective, when all it has done has been to centralize the decision-making procedure.

The last point is the baby and brainchild of the Treasurer himself, regional government. In his strange amalgam or -- well, I suppose you would have to call it arrogance and condescension, he is prepared to say that everyone’s figures but his own are wrong. But I’ll tell you this: All he has to do is go into the areas where regional government has been imposed to realize the deep-seated dissatisfaction of the taxpayers in those areas with the government policy.

The minister himself realizes that it is unduly expensive and that it in itself, in calling upon the scarce resources for public administration, has fueled the fires of inflation and continues to do so.

This is a matter of great concern, not only as a policy alternative; the minister himself, the Treasurer, has said that the provision of the costs of municipal government are going to be one of the areas of greatest concern.

I have often felt that it was ironically misleading that he would say to municipal leaders that he was prepared to turn over to them every dollar of additional income that comes to us by way of the federal treasury. I was looking at his most recent report where we see that the federal treasury now pays about $2.2 billion in shared cost programmes; and that they collect about $1.2 billion as our share of the income tax. So, by any fair assessment the federal treasury collects and gives us, either without strings attached, or on the basis of shared-cost programmes, an amount that is close to 50 per cent of our budget.

I would hope that the Treasurer could negotiate a better deal with the government of Canada. However, we on this side say it is essentially our responsibility not to raise taxes but to cut our costs, an alternative that does not seem to have presented itself to the Treasurer as he goes his merry way, introducing these expensive programmes and attempting to blame the federal jurisdiction for the shortage of dollars.

The thing that does concern me, as we come up to the federal-provincial conference a couple of days from now, is the statement from the Premier that everything that can be done has been done on the provincial basis to moderate, if not control, the effects of the inflationary pressures on our cost of living.

We were treated again today to two outbursts from the Treasury benches which indicated that Ottawa is to blame for all of these problems. As a matter of fact, it must have been a substantial embarrassment to the supporters of the Conservative Party to see the machinations of the Treasurer before the last federal election, using his high office to attempt to assist politically his federal party in gaining power.

Hon. Mr. White: Oh no.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Oh yes he was. He will remember specifically that he brought down some misbegotten report on the cost of living two or three days before the election --

Hon. Mr. White: That was confirmed.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Yes, it was confirmed that it was our tax dollars and the minister’s rather strange approach to his high responsibility as Treasurer here --

Hon. Mr. White: Those forecasts were confirmed.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: -- which got him into trouble, because he was seen to be totally irresponsible in the utilization of the high trust that has been given to him by his leader, the Premier -- and, indirectly, by the people of the Province of Ontario.

Hon. Mr. White: That’s not so.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I trust that when the Premier goes to Ottawa he is not going to take the continuing negative aspect which attempts to shift the blame elsewhere; but to work as he can -- and as his predecessor showed frequently he could -- with the other Premiers and the Prime Minister, to come to the very best solution to a problem that is frightening in its proportions and which simply cannot be dismissed as simply another political smokescreen.

Hon. Mr. Davis: We have always done that.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: The Premier says, “Yes, I am always of that frame of mind.” I would say that that’s so; but if there was ever a time for initiative, this is it. And I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, that all of us will look for his announcements, either before that day or in Ottawa, with the greatest amount of concern.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I am interested to hear what the member is going to suggest by way of specific proposals that will be of interest to the federal government.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Right, fine.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: We have heard nothing so far.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: That specifically brings me to the proposals that I want to put before you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. V. M. Singer (Downsview): Tory bombast.

Hon. Mr. White: What was that?

Mr. Singer: Bombast -- but there are other words. I learned them from that side.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Oh no, never.

Mr. Speaker: Order please. The hon. member has the floor.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The first one, and certainly the most important, is a commitment that must come from the Premier that we are going to have a balanced or surplus budget in 1975-1976. I submit to you, Mr. Speaker, this can be done and it must be done. I am not prepared to accept the obfuscations of the Treasurer that more money is coming in than is going out and that somehow even with a deficit of $848 million -- I think he calls it a cash requirement of $848 million -- we have a balanced situation here.

We have heard the Premier say in one of his first interjections in the House when the Legislature began last week that we now have a triple-A rating as far as credit is concerned.

Hon. Mr. Davis: That wasn’t an interjection; it was an answer to the Leader of the Opposition’s question.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I thought he said it while I was talking. The Premier sometimes talks that way. It’s interesting to note that the government of Canada got a triple-A rating this year. The government of Australia got a triple-A rating.

Hon. Mr. White: The government of Australia has a single-A rating.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: As a matter of fact, Penn Central had a rating in the A classification up until about six months before it went bankrupt.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Please do not misunderstand me. The last thing I am predicting is any kind of fiscal bankruptcy here. It cannot happen. It cannot happen, because undoubtedly the government will change when the people understand the situation they are being led into by the policies of the present administration.

The first alternative we put to you, Mr. Speaker, is fiscal responsibility. There is no doubt in my mind it is essential to have deficits in times where unemployment is the major economic problem that faces us, but when inflation is the problem, when your revenues should be buoyant and not in an unhealthy way as they are now, we should be building up the credit in means other than triple-A ratings which will give us the power, which simply lurks out of our ken for a few months -- and certainly it will return -- so that we have the fiscal strength to deal with this, not to balance the budget then, but to balance the economy.

This is surely an approach that is accepted by economists who have even a better qualification than the Treasurer. I often find that when he gets involved in economic arguments he sounds like an underqualified lecturer at Western who never got tenure. He finds himself now sitting on top of the fiscal responsibility here at Queen’s Park with all the pedantry that his inadequate background somehow gives him.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: It seems to me that he should not be speaking as an economist. He is quick to say that obviously I am not, but we are trying to reflect the concerns that we feel as a political party, as taxpayers, as residents of Ontario and, probably more important than anything, as citizens of Canada.

Second, there is no doubt that we in this province must establish a price review procedure. We have under the British North America Act specific and separate responsibilities for certain areas of our economy which are not covered by the powers of the government of Canada. There has been a certain amount of chortling about Beryl Plumptre and her price review committee. I believe anyone who has followed this -- and certainly the Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. Stewart) -- would say that there has been a substantial impact in decisions taken by the price review board. Whether it is attributable to Mrs. Plumptre or not, one at least has got to --

Hon. Mr. Grossman: It is the federal Minister of Agriculture who is doing the chortling.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: All right. As a matter of fact, there can be all sorts of political confrontations, but we need a price review procedure here to cover those areas where the provincial responsibility is paramount.

It’s difficult to say because it is easily misunderstood, but why should the decisions of the Ontario Milk Marketing Board be announced in the newspaper without review? They have the power, and I believe they should have the power, to control that market and speak for the producers and not the consumers, but we in this Legislature should be the forum before which a decision like that is justified.

There is no justification in the minister’s office. The justification is in the editorial pages of the provincial press. That is fine, but I believe when price changes involving food commodities controlled provincially are going to be made unilaterally by marketing boards they should be justified before a public body. And surely that would serve both him and the farmers, because the reason for those changes would then be more readily understood, and there would be at least the confidence that the representatives of the people are in a position to give alternate arguments and make recommendations to the government in that regard.

Now, the third thing I want to raise specifically is in the same vein. It is a municipal rent-review procedure; which has been discussed in this House before. My colleague, the member for St. George (Mrs. Campbell), has private legislation before us in that regard. The board should have powers to call witnesses and compel evidence as arbitrators in landlord-tenant rent disputes. A similar review process has been functioning in Quebec since January and has generally limited rent increases to seven per cent without applying cumbersome controls.

Also in this regard -- and the Premier said he wants something positive -- the province’s landbank inventory, which totals now more than 20,000 acres, must be developed at least in large measure to restore some balance to the supply short housing market. Now, we have gone for 170,000 new homes in northeastern Toronto -- and the Premier justifies that by saying that compared with the development in Mississauga it is really not that significant. But surely we ought to have a provincial plan -- and we have discussed this previously -- which will allow the development to take place around the community facility already in place in the areas across the province.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I don’t want to interrupt, but if the member is going to quote me, he should quote me accurately. I’ll reply to it later, but that isn’t what I said. However, it is not unusual for the Leader of the Opposition to have it wrong.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Well, all right. I don’t want to get hung up on this, but when the question was asked, Mr. Speaker, whether the 170,000 new homes in northeastern Metro would throw the Toronto-centred region into a cocked hat, the Premier’s answer -- and I don’t have his words before me -- was that a statistical review had been prepared -- by somebody sitting under the gallery -- comparing it with the numbers of new homes in Mississauga; and the only conclusion that could be drawn was that, “Since they are having big expansion in Mississauga, why not have it up in York?”

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, just on a point of order -- so that the Leader of the Opposition won’t be in error again -- there was no one under the gallery preparing anything.

An hon. member: What are they doing there then?

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Well, they haven’t got enough to do; they want to listen to the Premier.

We are enumerating alternatives, Mr. Speaker, and my time limit is just about up. I can see you are starting to indicate that to me in your inimitable style.

But, fourth, we believe that the powers of the Ontario Food Council should be strengthened so that they can give the kind of comparative price information, naming the chain stores concerned. This would actually put some, let’s say decision-power, in the hands of the consumer.

Obviously, there are those who would think that this was unfair; that it would have to be structured along guidelines which would fit in with Mrs. Plumptre’s initiative, which has been working in Ottawa. It reduced food prices there four per cent in the first week of its operation, and I believe that we could use it in this province in the major municipalities to give people some kind of an idea of comparison prices and bring real pressure on the large chain stores -- who have had everything their own way up until now -- using the information from the food council in this regard.

And fifth and finally, I believe that we must give expanded powers to the Ontario Energy Board so that all fuel prices, as well as energy prices, come under its jurisdiction. Ontario’s position in negotiating with the federal government in this regard should be predicated on the policy that price increases for Canadian resources must serve all Canadians and not just those in the province of origin.

I was interested to read over the weekend that legislation has been introduced into parliament which would give additional pricing powers to the government of Canada; and it was predicted that natural gas prices would go up -- probably double -- with these powers. But I would hope that the government of Ontario is going to enter into very strong, let’s call it negotiations, in this regard, because we have a responsibility here which cannot be ignored. I do not believe we should give these powers to the government of Canada if, in fact, they are going to allow the additional fiscal credit for the production of these sources of energy to accrue to one particular province. I believe that a national policy can be supported only if it benefits all Canadians alike, and does not create a sheikdom within our borders where a tax Valhalla is allowed to exist.

The Premier is chuckling.

Hon. Mr. Davis: No, I am just chuckling at the terminology.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: In Alberta, there is no sales tax. Their gas tax is nine cents a gallon. There are no death duties. The government has something close to $1 billion a year and it doesn’t know what to do with the money in order to spend it. They bought an airline. I don’t know what else they are going to buy. It is exactly the problem the Shah of Iran is experiencing, except that over there he knows what to buy. He doesn’t buy airlines. He buys statistical -- or strategic, bombers; they are not statistical, they are hardware, and he has them right there.

Believe me, we in Ontario must be prepared to have our uranium -- yes, and our water power as well -- recognized as a national resource, if at the same time the resources of all other provinces are going to be put forward as a national value. We should, from our point of view, point out the disunifying pressures that are exerted under the present circumstances, and I would hope that the powers of the Ontario Energy Board can be brought to bear in order to bring some control over the costs, not only of energy in the broad field, but also energy for fuel and for heating.

Mr. Speaker, the Premier has specifically asked for specific alternatives, and I have put them before you, sir. We believe this matter to be of utmost urgency and importance and we are confident that the rational members of this House, in reviewing the arguments as they are put forward, will vote with us, no confidence in the present administration.

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

Mr. S. Lewis (Scarborough West): Yes. I am not sure I can infuse this contribution with coherence, but I will try. I rise, of course, to support the no-confidence motion. It will no doubt concern the Premier that we are voting against him, thereby imperilling his regime yet again, and that is something he will simply have to cope with. There is, I concede, a certain repetitive pattern to the debates in this Legislature around containing the cost of living and the problems of inflationary pressures. I don’t want to add to that unduly, just marginally, during the course of the few minutes that I intend to speak.

Mr. Speaker, I think there are two or three preliminary points which might be made. One, I want the Premier to know that we in this party recognize the truth of a good deal of what he has been saying. I don’t want him to think that the opposition to the contention about inflationary pressures is simply a dogmatic one, a partisan one, a mindless one. We understand the international realities of inflation, we understand the continental realities, and we accept the Premier’s contention that inflation and the pressures on the cost of living generally are very much a national phenomenon, and that it is, therefore, difficult for a province to intercede.

Having said that, the area of disagreement which we feel most profoundly is the contention that a province does nothing at all. It is our contention that there are ways for the Province of Ontario to intrude itself in defence of the consumer, and that there has been a total abdication of responsibility on the part of this government -- in fact, a kind of surrendering of the right to govern -- by not intruding on behalf of the consumer and protecting the consumer in a situation quite so desperate and so savage as this is, particularly for low and fixed income earners.

Everyone feels the weight and desperation of inflation. They feel it in working class Stormont and they feel it in middle class Carleton East, as we are now learning. Everyone feels it. And everyone singles out the government as the culprit, perhaps in this case rightly. But the refusal to adapt on the part of the government, the refusal to respond to any cry, any plea, any argument, no matter how effectively put or how well documented, I think is the Achilles heel of this government. There has to be some intervention on behalf of the consumers. The government has been absolutely dogged in its pursuit of a policy which lets the marketplace rule the roost. But the marketplace doesn’t put bread on the table, and the marketplace doesn’t help the low- income earner. The marketplace simply savages the incomes of those who are oppressed by inflation.

The government can talk forever about the external pressures of inflation, but it will never persuade us, as I think it will never persuade the Province of Ontario, that the government has no responsibility. That is the way we hear the government voices. The government says, “We have no responsibility” and it treats it in a fairly sophisticated way, in a way which is almost abstract to the ordinary citizens. The provincial Treasurer makes arguments involving the juggling of figures with an enormous facility and dexterity. My colleague from High Park paid private tribute to the Treasurer’s dexterity --

Hon. Mr. White: It is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. They are mathematically provable.

Mr. Lewis: Well, sir, the government then is choking on the truth. It is drowning in the truth. The truth will not wash in this situation.

Hon. Mr. White: The truth will set you free.

Mr. P. D. Lawlor (Lakeshore): He’s like Houdini playing with trinkets.

Mr. Lewis: Does the Treasurer want to throw that out again? I haven’t heard that one before.

Mr. Singer: Yes, that’s new.

Mr. Lewis: How about, “A stitch in time,” perhaps “Truth will out,” or something of the kind?

All of the Treasurer’s juggling of figures about the budget doesn’t mean a blessed thing to the old age pensioner who walks into the supermarket, trying to use the $225 a month the government has given him or her or the family.

Hon. Mr. White: I will remind the hon. member of what we have done.

Mr. Lewis: The $848 million that the Treasurer is talking about doesn’t mean a thing to someone on mother’s allowance -- not a thing. The fact that he talks about surpluses rather than deficits in great billion-dollar figures doesn’t mean a tinker’s dam to people who are permanently unemployable or wholly disabled when they are attempting to make ends meet in this kind of situation, or pay a rent or anything else which has to do with normal human behaviour --

Hon. Mr. White: Well, the Liberals say we are spending too much and this hon. member says we are spending too little.

Mr. Singer: And the Treasurer says they are just right.

Mr. Lewis: What the Treasurer doesn’t understand is that all his fancy budgetary jargon, all his self-hypnosis about tax credits, all of the arithmetic self-delusion doesn’t mean a thing to a person who has to meet the rising cost of living --

Hon. Mr. White: It puts more food on their table.

Mr. Lewis: -- on wages which are falling behind the cost of living monthly. Has the Treasurer looked at the latest figures? Does he know that using 100 as the base -- I will do it from memory because I know I have it firmly in memory -- using 100 as the base cost-of-living index for January, 1973, that that price index jumped 17.4 per cent by August, 1974, and that the wages --

Hon. Mr. White: That is what I was saying in June.

Mr. Lewis: Just a second, just a second -- and that the industrial composite of wages and salaries jumped by only 13.4 per cent? Does the Treasurer know that a man’s wage in August, 1974, represented in real income $328.64 less than he was receiving in January, 1973? Does the Treasurer know what’s happening to incomes, wages and salaries in this province, in this country? Those are Ontario figures I am giving. The incomes are falling steadily in real terms behind the cost of living.

Hon. Mr. White: I have been preaching this gospel for 12 months. Where has the hon. member been?

Mr. Lewis: All right. If the Treasurer has been preaching it -- and more power to him --

Hon. Mr. White: I know something about it, too.

Mr. Lewis: -- then he has got to start doing something about it. And doing something about it doesn’t consist of giving a friendly economics lecture in the Legislature.

I understand the Treasurer’s budget, as much as it is possible for something that is incomprehensible to be understood. I respect the figures he is giving. I have looked at the tax tables. I have seen the tax credit tables. I know how earnest he is. I am saying that his intentions are killing the consumers of Ontario because they do not experience it in practical ways.

In terms of sophisticated economic theory, it makes sense to make the kinds of adjustments that the Treasurer is trying to make, particularly by use of the tax credit during a budgetary period in terms of the payment of income tax, but that’s a once-a-year proposition. People deal with inflation on a daily basis. They don’t look for salvation on April 1. They look for salvation from day to day, and they look at their government and they ask whether or not their government will intervene on their behalf -- and it is never evident.

The Premier has been making two basic arguments, apart from the national and international dimension of inflation. The Premier has been saying that this government is reluctant to intrude on the private sector. In that sense his words were echoed strongly by the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr. Clement) who, with total charm and absolute irrelevance, indicated that he too wanted to let the marketplace find its level. Well, there are points where we have to intrude on the marketplace.

As I drove out to a speaking engagement last night, I was reading a speech by the Minister of Energy dealing with the oil companies. In it he indicated that there might well come a point, Mr. Speaker, when the Tory government would have to intrude on the oil companies and take some activity --

Hon. W. D. McKeough (Minister of Energy): The hon. member should never read my speeches on a Sunday night.

Mr. Lewis: Never on a Sunday night?

As a matter of fact, I remember that. “This isn’t socialism,” the minister said to them, himself kind of frantic at what he was suggesting.

Mr. D. C. MacDonald (York South): Red Toryism, I suppose.

Mr. Lewis: It was a speech on Oct. 18, I can’t remember to whom. The minister makes almost enough speeches for a man who is considering the leadership of the Tory party one day; I can hardly keep track of them.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: That will be nice.

Mr. J. A. Renwick (Riverdale): Wait until he reads the one on Oct. 24.

Mr. Lewis: And, you know, some of them aren’t bad -- some of them aren’t half bad.

Mr. Lawlor: That concentric circles speech.

Mr. Lewis: Does the member mean the one about centrifugal force with Darcy at the centre? I read his speeches and I enjoyed some of them. This one actually talked about the government of Ontario intervening in the private multinational corporation control of the energy sector. And he said: “That’s not socialism, but it’s just common sense, under the present circumstances.”

Well, what we’re saying to the Premier, just as the Minister of Energy said on Oct. 18 and Robert Macaulay said yesterday, is that the government has to relinquish its fetish about the private sector -- maybe it’s the Premier’s personal fetish -- and understand that the consumers have to be protected, too. That’s something the government just doesn’t appreciate or grasp. In political terms, it’s terribly damaging for the government out there in the countryside. Maybe one day it will understand that. If not, time will be shorter. It has had a long time anyway -- enough already.

Now, the second point that the Premier makes -- that the Premier always makes -- is the question of constitutional authority. And that has been shot down in flames. It was shot down in flames when we discussed the estimates of the Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations just a few days ago.

My colleague, the hon. member for Riverdale set out the constitutional prerogatives for the Province of Ontario, and set them out very well. He indicated that it’s well within our purview to engage in some selective price rollbacks; indeed, if we wanted to we could probably also impose an excess profits tax. As far as the Minister of Energy is concerned, he’s now aware that the government of Nova Scotia has been upheld by the Nova Scotia Supreme Court in giving to its public utilities commission the power to roll prices back.

So there really isn’t an argument on which the government of Ontario can take a stand. That’s what’s so frustrating and infuriating about the continuing debate around inflation. The government understands that the province can do something about it; it just won’t do it. The government understands that it has to intervene on the private sector; it just won’t do it. The government understands that there’s no constitutional problem; it just refuses to recognize it. In other words, the government is delinquent on every single count. Even when it makes a fairly strong admission about things being out of control, it does absolutely nothing about it.

I come back to that food profitability study which was released by the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations, who isn’t the economic manager of Ontario -- I concede that. That point was made by the hon. member for Downsview the other day, and in that sense of course, he was quite right. It’s the Premier and the Treasurer who are responsible for the policies we now have.

But the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations released the study, and he saw that the quality of that study was gross enough, was offensive enough, in terms of what it revealed, that he indicated quite explicitly that it shouldn’t be necessary for some of the companies to receive profits beyond that which they received in 1973. Well then, what do you do when you notice that M. Loeb Ltd. is up 80 per cent in the first 26 weeks of 1974? Maple Leaf Mills is up 68.9 per cent in the first six months of 1974. Canada Safeway Ltd. is up 41 per cent in the first 24 weeks of 1974. J. M. Schneider is up 15 per cent in the first 28 weeks of 1974. Dominion Stores is up 35 per cent in the first 13 weeks of 1974. Burns Foods is up 20.4 per cent in the first six months of 1974. Canada Packers Ltd. is up only 7.4 per cent in the first 13 weeks of 1974. Arid so it goes.

When one makes the argument as a cabinet or as a minister that food profitability is already high enough, what then does one do when food profitability outstrips one’s own maximum? I mean, how many times can the government identify the problem and then retreat from it? It is forever venturing to the brink, and coming back. Some of us would like it to plunge over in a most metaphorical fashion possible and take some kind of initiative.

I had a research colleague who works very closely with me take a look at some of the back evidence. I want very, very quickly, in a kind of machine-gun rapidity, if I can, to read into the record the chronicle of the William Davis year, 1974. Once upon a time I made a speech about the William Davis years, 1971-1974; historians will deal with that. But now I want to deal just with, in effect, this session of the Legislature, Mr. Speaker -- just the period when the Premier finally condescended to return to call the House together again in March, 1974. Now, I ask to bear with me, Mr. Speaker.

On March 6 we asked the then Minister of Housing (Mr. Handleman) what he would do about the increase in house prices from $31,000 to $46,000 in the period of that one year and he said: “My ministry will do everything possible to see that that happens,” meaning that it be lowered -- and that’s all, nothing else.

On March 8, 1974, we asked the hon. Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations about the appraisal of supermarkets and retail prices. What would he do about bringing them under control? He said: “We’re continuing to monitor and to meet with Herb Gray.” What was the province prepared to do? “Cut back government spending.” What about food? “That is not provincial jurisdiction,” said the minister.

On March 26, I asked the Premier about a statement in Charlottetown that he would get tough over price increases. What was he going to do with that? The Premier’s answer was: “I’ll leave it to the Hon. John Clement.”

Again, on March 26, 1974, we asked the Premier whether he was going to do anything about the rates of return for the supermarkets. His answer was “no.”

On March 13, we asked the Premier what he would do about the cost of living jump announced that day. The Premier said: “Inflation is the most important problem but the province can’t deal unilaterally.”

On March 29, we asked the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations: “What about the rise in bulk milk prices?” His answer was: “We’re going to release a food study.”

On April 1, we asked the Premier: “What about fuel and gasoline prices and the discrepancy in the figures in the conference?” The Premier said: ‘Mr. Speaker, I can’t reconcile the figures nor do I intend to.”

On April 5, my colleague from Wentworth goes to the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations, asks about the rent increases of 10 per cent, 15 per cent and 20 per cent in Metro. The minister says that there is no rent control in this province and they have no plans for it.

April 11, I go to the minister on a question about supermarkets again and the apparent increases in prices, and would he selectively roll back prices. The answer from the minister is “no.”

On April 18, I go to the Premier and ask about the milk price increases. “Is there any justification for it?” The Premier says: “I’m not sure 1.6 cents to the dairies is unjustified.” But no one looks at the dairies’ prices.

On the same day, I ask the Minister of Energy about whether, now that he had rebuked the oil companies -- and he was making many speeches rebuking the oil companies -- would he set a maximum cost that they could charge the consumer? The answer was “no.”

On April 19, we go to the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations and ask him if, in the study of the chain stores, he would look into price-fixing or possible vertical integration? He says, “No, not on the information available.”

On April 23, we go back to the Minister of Energy and ask him whether there could be price levels for gasoline and home heating oil and would he set legislation to roll prices back. “Always under consideration,” he announces, but absolutely no initiative whatsoever.

On April 29, we go to the Premier, asking about the first-quarter profits of Shell, and whether anything can be done to protect the consumer. The Premier says: “We are not contemplating controls.” We say to him: “Then he won’t lay a finger on the companies?” He replies: “I won’t repeat my answer.” Fair enough.

On May 3, we go to the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations, based on the Canadian Press survey showing profits of 117 companies in the food industry going up to 70 per cent. We ask for intervention; the answer is “no.” The answer is as always “no.”

Where is the rest of it?

On June 11, we go to the then Minister of Housing about the rent control legislation. The answer is “no.”

We raised with the hon. Treasurer on June 14 the question of Nova Scotia legislation on oil companies and whether we would intervene in a similar way. The answer is “no.” Specifically through the same period of time, we asked about interest rates, General Motors, Chrysler, Ford, automobile insurance companies -- all of the increases -- and whether there would be any intervention, and in every single instance the government copped out.

In the period of one short session there have come from this party, particularly of the opposition in general, questions relating to the defence of the consumer in the food industry, in oil and gasoline prices, in home fuel oil, in the automobile manufacturing sector, in the insurance industry, in the cost of housing, in the area of rent, in the interest rates on mortgages, in the interest rates on credit financing and in every single area which involves some protection for the consumer. In every single case the government has said no action. Its no action is the death knell of its political party. It obviously can’t go on forever.

I assume that the Premier of Ontario when he winds up is going to deal with the basic reasons about why the government will not intervene. I’ve never understood them. I’ve never understood why it isn’t possible for the government to take one fractional initiative. You can’t imagine what it would do for public confidence, Mr. Speaker. You can’t imagine what it would do to make generally oppressed people in the Province of Ontario a little more secure than they are now.

When we asked the Premier just days ago about milk prices -- I’ll only be two or three more minutes -- he indicated to the House that it concerned him because he drank a lot of milk. I’m glad to hear it. So does Marc Lalonde.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I didn’t say that.

Mr. Renwick: His family.

Mr. Lewis: His family all drink a lot of milk. He has a particular interest in it.

Hon. Mr. Davis: We are great consumers.

Mr. Lewis: Then the Premier indicated what pressure he’d put on the federal government to get it to maintain the subsidy. I believe that. When they refused to maintain the subsidy, what then does the government of Ontario do about it? In this instance again absolutely nothing.

That’s the pattern; total paralysis when it comes to the defence of the consumer. At some point the government is going to have to answer for it.

We are going to maintain the pressure on the government at every single turn in the area of the cost of living day in and day out, because we see it as the issue which is absolutely central to Ontario. We have given to the government by chapter and verse the alternatives we think should be put, from the powers to be given the Ontario Energy Board to the monitoring of food prices across the provinces to a prices review tribunal from food to rent with power to roll back the prices.

We’ve not pretended a select committee of the Legislature because we don’t think that members could manage that kind of expertise. But we have suggested the mechanisms by which the government can cope with inflation. Now the government doesn’t intend to cope with inflation. That is clearly the intention. The Premier is going to make some highfalutin and sophisticated and largely sophistic arguments about the problems of constitutional jurisdictions, about the problems of the private sector and about the national implications of inflation. Then he is going to call on the Treasurer to weave his webs of obfuscation and talk to us about figures in the hundreds of millions of dollars which mean nothing to the people who have to cope with the cost of living.

When it is all said and done, when the want of confidence motion is over and when the dust is clear, there will be the same despair amongst the low-income earners, there will be the same frustration amongst the aged, there will be the same frantic desperation amongst people on social allowances and there will be the same sense of never knowing where it will end amongst low-income earners everywhere. It has become so oppressive for the lowest quartile of the population that none of us here can give words to it in this Legislature and yet this cabinet, this ministry, this Premier will not lift a finger to protect the consumers of Ontario, no matter how vulnerable, how desperate, how frantic any of them may be.

That, Mr. Speaker, is why we support this want of confidence motion and that is why this government and this Premier is a government and a Premier that is currently in trouble in Ontario.

Hon. Mr. White: Mr. Speaker, towards the end of the speech by the Leader of the Opposition the member for Victoria-Haliburton (Mr. R. G. Hodgson) sent me a little note which says: “Old farm saying: He who sells from empty wagon has poor goods.” My hon. friend applied this old farm saying to the remarks of the Leader of the Opposition, and I say with very considerable regret that I have to agree. For that reason --

Mr. R. F. Nixon: There is nobody voting for the Conservatives, though.

Hon. Mr. White: -- I find it impossible to deal with the wishy-washy woolly remarks which have been made; rather, I will devote myself to some of the more rigorous arguments of the leader of the NDP.

Mr. Renwick: No, no.

Mr. Lewis: The Treasurer is not going to polarize us this time. He is going to try very hard but it is not going to work.

Mr. M. Gaunt (Huron-Bruce): He is trying that old ploy again.

Hon. Mr. White: Before I begin to do so, however, I want to hark back to certain remarks which I made last Tuesday and which I wasn’t able to quote exactly. I’m thinking of several recent articles in the Wall Street Journal --

Mr. Lewis: The Wall Street Journal doesn’t mean anything to pensioners at all.

Hon. Mr. White: I’m hoping it will mean something to the hon. member. I’m going to turn to the pensioners later.

Mr. J. E. Stokes (Thunder Bay): Him and his triple-A rating.

Hon. Mr. White: Just a minute, I only have 10 minutes.

Mr. Lewis: I am sorry.

Mr. J. R. Breithaupt (Kitchener): He can take all the time he needs.

Hon. Mr. White: The first quote is:

“The prime force behind [inflation] has been long abuilding. It has been the pouring forth of a flood of new money, new buying power. This happens when the [US] federal government spends more money than it takes in. When it does this, new money in effect must be printed up to cover the difference between income and outgo.

“The table below traces the federal budget record back to 1965. ‘Surplus’ means more money coming in than going out. ‘Deficit’ denotes a bigger outgo.”

Mr. Renwick: Let the Treasurer talk about his government, not the United States government.

Hon. Mr. White: Then it points out that only in one year of 10 was there a surplus by this definition.

Mr. Renwick: There aren’t even minor parallels between the government of the United States and this government and the Treasurer knows it.

Hon. Mr. White: We have had a surplus by this definition, which is the only economic definition, in the last two years.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Baloney!

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please!

Hon. Mr. White: That was from Mr. John O’ Riley in a review of current trends in business and finance.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. White: For any second I lose, Mr. Speaker, I do hope you’ll give me some more time on the end.

Mr. Lewis: Of course, but don’t be so inflammatory.

An hon. member: He can take it out of the vacuum left by the leaders.

Hon. Mr. White: Now, I want to quote from an article by William F. Kerby --

Mr. R. F. Nixon: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker --

Mr. Speaker: What is the point of order of the Leader of the Opposition?

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I wonder if you could explain to the House why he doesn’t have 30 minutes?

Mr. Lewis: Because the Premier wants it.

Mr. Speaker: I have got a sheet here --

Mr. R. F. Nixon: It’s not 30 minutes for him --

Mr. Speaker: -- agreed upon beforehand by the parties, I would imagine, and it says on my sheet, “White, 10 minutes; Gaunt, 10 minutes; Cassidy, 10 minutes; McKeough, 10 minutes -- “

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Cassidy 10 minutes? He’ll take 40 minutes.

Mr. Speaker: Then there’s extra time for Premier Davis, who, according to this sheet, starts speaking at 5:30.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: So nobody on that side gets 30 minutes? I don’t think they want a chance to speak because they haven’t any defence.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: It took the Leader of the Opposition 30 minutes.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Arrogance and bad manners -- that’s their defence.

Hon. Mr. White: The article is entitled, “How to aid inflation’s crisis areas.”

An hon. member: Not arrogance -- a little too startling.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I’ll judge the case myself.

Hon. Mr. White: One paragraph said:

“Importantly, savings from budget cuts and the additional tax revenues must not be treated as funds available for expenditure; they must be used for reduction in the national debt”

Now, sir, applying that proposition to Ontario, we have in the last 18 or 20 months reduced our outstanding public debt by $594 million --

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: And borrowed $900 million. That’s just great.

Mr. Renwick: That is an absolutely fallacious statement and the Treasurer knows it.

Hon. Mr. White: Then there is a third article here which I will come back to if time permits.

The Leader of the Opposition said Penn Central had a triple-A rating-

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I said an A rating.

Hon. Mr. White: In point of fact, they didn’t have an A rating. Penn Central’s rating as of May 9, 1968, was B. They went into receivership on June 21, 1970. Their collateral trust notes, fully secured, were CAA as of May, 1971. So he was actually incorrect again --

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Their ‘A’ rating was still effective in May, 1971.

Mr. MacDonald: The Treasurer would fail a freshman class that came back with that kind of circumstance.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Who else has got a triple-A rating?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: It has taken us 32 years to get rid of the legacy that Hepburn left this province in New York.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: It would only take a few months to displace the government.

Hon. Mr. White: The Leader of the Opposition came on with an introduction to which I fully subscribe. We are dealing with inflation as an international problem, a continental problem, a national problem --

Mr. Lewis: And a provincial problem.

Hon. Mr. White: -- just a minute -- and the national government has obvious responsibilities. He went on to say that the provinces had responsibilities too --

Mr. Lewis: Right.

Hon. Mr. White: -- which I am going to accept and I am going to try to detail our response. I would go beyond that, in fact, and say that the municipal level of government, and, indeed, the private sector, have obligations also.

Mr. Renwick: The Treasurer should talk about himself at the moment.

Hon. Mr. White: However, what did we do to deal with the matter of inflation? I am going to recapitulate and update what we have done in the last year or so.

The 1974 budget aimed to:

Offset the damage of inflation among those most vulnerable to its effects -- and I am going to describe that in a minute.

Restrain the impact of inflation by stabilizing land prices and holding down transit fares -- and we did that.

Stimulate supply to stabilize prices in sectors experiencing high demand pressures -- and those measures are working.

Share with the people of Ontario the inflationary profits from Ontario’s unique endowment of natural resources -- and I am going to detail the results of those, very, very important moves.

And share with the municipalities Ontario’s resources to ensure a sustained quality of service without undue pressure on local tax rates.

Now, sir, this is the time to report on our advance toward these goals. To offset inflation, Ontario introduced GAINS, the guaranteed annual income for the elderly, blind and disabled.

Mr. Renwick: It is not working.

Hon. Mr. White: The guaranteed level for a single person has been increased in October to $225 from the start-up level of $216.67. For a married couple the level is now $450, up from $433.33, well ahead of the inflationary increase.

We had increased welfare measures, I think it was last Jan. 1; we increased them again a month ago by 15.2 per cent, which is probably twice the increase in cost according to the CPI during that same period of time, determined as we are that the burden of inflation shall not fall on the poorest of our citizens, and you will see more moves, no doubt, from time to time in the future.

Mr. Lewis: But look at the base level to which the percentage was applied.

Hon. Mr. White: Family benefits assistance has been increased correspondingly to shoulder the essential needs of this group. This programme which will cost $84.2 million, like so much we have done this year preceded similar advice which had been recently advocated by some of North America’s leading authorities on the economy.

Now I am going to quote Paul McCracken -- a highly respected person -- from a Wall Street Journal article of May 29, and don’t forget we brought in our budget April 9. He said: “A strengthening of existing income maintenance programmes must be a part of any well-rounded approach to economic stabilization.” And we did that weeks before the advice was offered.

Mr. Lewis: There is something pretty fundamentally wrong when the Treasurer of Ontario spends all his time reading the Wall Street Journal.

Mr. Stokes: And Fortune magazine.

An hon. member: And Playboy.

Hon. Mr. White: We enriched the Ontario tax credit system by doubling the basic property tax credit to $180, increasing the pensioner tax credit to $110, focusing the new balance on those most in need while sustaining support to middle income families by an increase in the offset rate to two per cent of taxable income.

How do these benefits find themselves distributed? Of the $375 million in benefits expected for 1974 -- up from $305 million -- $180 million goes to those with incomes under $5,000; $124 million to those with incomes between $5,000 and $10,000; $71 million to those with over $10,000 income.

Of the $180 million to those with incomes under $5,000, almost two-thirds goes to pensioners. Now, sir, I accept the criticism that this is an annual rather than a quarterly or monthly payment. This, unfortunately, is the responsibility, in a sense, of the federal government. However, I would like to inform the hon. members here and now, if they don’t know it already, we have advised the federal government that we are taking over our own tax credit system independent from the federal personal income tax mechanism as of January 1976, so we will be able to pay out these very substantial credits on a monthly or quarterly basis, and that disadvantage will be washed out.

Now, sir, on this point, Arthur Okun, distinguished research fellow of the Brookings Institute in Washington, DC, recently recommended a tax credit method for the United States as the best method to compensate fairly for inflation.

The September edition of Fortune recommended a programme to President Ford which recommended additional tax breaks at the low end of the income scale -- and that’s exactly what we have done.

We are providing free prescription drugs for the elderly receiving the federal guaranteed income supplement.

Mr. R. Haggerty (Welland South): Some, yes, not all.

Hon. Mr. White: We are providing increased exemptions under the retail sales tax for a number of hygiene items. Measures to restrain inflation are working. I am thinking now of the land transfer tax and the land speculation tax.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. minister has a minute left.

Mr. Lewis: Oh, give him time.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: We will give him all the time he needs.

Hon. Mr. White: The average price of a house in this city was $57,461 in May and in September it has dropped to $54,321.

Mr. Haggerty: That’s hard to believe.

Hon. Mr. White: I have a list, sir, of new measures to assist small business, to stimulate the house sector, a recapitulation of changes regarding small business tax credits, debenture investment corporations and mortgage investment corporations. I say to you, sir, that we have fully met the suggestion of the leader of the NDP when he started his speech here today in saying, of course, the federal government has some responsibility too. Our whole budget on April 9 was a recognition of that fact. I have tried to point out here, breathlessly at breakneck speed, how it has worked in the seven or eight months we have had since that time.

Mr. Renwick: That’s the weakest defence I have ever heard the Treasurer make to an attack on the government.

Mr. Lewis: The Treasurer has done nothing about prices or profits. He has juggled figures. He hasn’t dealt with realities.

Hon. Mr. White: In conclusion, I want to say that I believe in my heart we have shown strong leadership in the fight against inflation. We have introduced imaginative and innovative policies and we have sustained the high performance of the Ontario economy. In September, the seasonal adjusted employment rate stood at 4.5 per cent for Ontario as compared to 5.8 per cent for Canada. I believe this record of achievement must command the support of all sections of this House. Thank you.

Mr. MacDonald: That was not the Treasurer’s finest hour.

Mr. Gaunt: Mr. Speaker, just to put the Treasurer’s mind at ease, I want to say that I am going to support this motion of my leader and reject the argument which the Treasurer has just put forward. I must say that I can’t quite follow the Treasurer’s logic in some of his statements, particularly in his defence of the debt that this province has. It seems to me that the Treasurer has a philosophy of borrowing money in order to get out of debt. As a farmer from Huron county, I just can’t quite understand that.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: They love it on Wall St.

Mr. MacDonald: He juggles the books.

Mr. Gaunt: I want to make a few comments with respect to food, which is a part of this motion. During this highly inflationary period a good deal of focus has been centred on food prices, which is quite understandable. However, I want to say that food is still a good buy with few exceptions, compared to other countries in the world, and I will talk about one or two exceptions in a moment.

First of all, let me give the House some figures which indicate the food budget as a percentage of consumer expenditures. These figures are in the United States; Canada is approximately one per cent higher. For the second quarter of 1973 -- this is the food budget as a percentage of consumer expenditures -- it was 17.5 per cent. The second quarter of 1974 was 18.5 per cent; so it is up about one point in the US and roughly the same here. Further, here are some figures showing food as a percentage of total disposable income, which perhaps is a more accurate figure. Once again these are US figures. They are second quarter of 1973, 15.7 per cent; second quarter of 1974, 16.6 per cent. Here again it is roughly one per cent higher here in Canada than in the US.

By way of comparison, in 1960 it was 20 per cent; in 1970 it was 16.2 per cent; and in 1972 it was 15.3 per cent. So we can see that it has gone down since 1960 and since 1972 has started to move up again.

Now some figures from Canada; these figures are from Statistics Canada, based on the average industrial wages in the years indicated, and point out how much time a person has to work in order to earn some basic foodstuffs. In 1961 the average industrial wage was $1.83 per hour; in 1974 it is $4.09 per hour. Those rates are the basis of these figures.

One pound of sirloin steak in 1961 took 32 minutes to earn; in 1974, 23 minutes. One pound of pork chops in 1961 took 24 minutes to earn; in August of 1974, 22 minutes. One pound of bread in 1961, five minutes; in 1974, five minutes -- exactly the same. One quart of milk in 1961, eight minutes; in 1974, six minutes. One pound of apples in 1961, six minutes; in 1974, six minutes as well.

It can be readily seen from these figures that it takes the same amount of time, or in some cases less time, to earn essentials than it did in 1961. These figures do not reflect the circumstances of everyone, because everyone is not earning the average industrial wage. There is no question that those earning below that amount, plus those on fixed incomes, are experiencing considerable difficulty with rising food prices. Those people need to be assisted by government to meet the additional pressures.

In that regard, the provincial government has not done nearly enough. Even though food prices have gone up in absolute terms, farmers have not benefited because their input costs have gone up substantially higher than food costs, plus the fact that very little of the increase in the price of food has returned to the farm gate.

Statistics Canada -- this is for eastern Canada -- outline part of the problem, and I want to relate these figures to members. They are the farm input price index costs based on the base period of 1960 equalling 100. In the second quarter of 1973, the index stood at 163.9; in the second quarter of 1974 it stood at 193.7, which is an 18 per cent increase in one year.

Let’s take a few commodities here. Let’s take feed, first of all. In the second quarter of 1972 the index sat at 156; in the second quarter of 1974 it was 200.5, which is a 28 per cent increase in two years. Fertilizer in the second quarter of 1973 stood at 112.2; in the second quarter of 1974 it was 152.5, which is a 36 per cent increase in one year. At the same time our beef farmers are faced with falling prices.

I just may say, while I am on this topic, that the programme announced by the minister on Friday has received, in my area of the province at least, a very negative reaction. They feel that it is just a programme which is going to get the beef producers deeper into debt and really isn’t going to alleviate their circumstance at the moment.

The cow-calf operators are particularly hard hit and the feedlot operators are too; there is no question about it. As far as the cow-calf people are concerned, I understand it takes about 55 to 60 cents to produce a calf to 300 to 400 lb and they are selling at around 35 cents at the moment. So it can be readily seen there is certainly no money in that enterprise, and hasn’t been for the past few months.

Hog prices: The hog people are losing money, or at the very best are just breaking even.

As far is the cattle situation is concerned, cattle don’t come under a marketing board. They have no marketing board for cattle. And yet these low prices have not reflected themselves in the marketplace, in the store. The consumer really hasn’t received the full benefit of these low prices, even though there’s no marketing board for beef cattle. I say that, because I think marketing boards have fallen into disrepute; perhaps because of the egg situation we read about a few months ago.

It’s unfortunate. I think there is a tragedy associated with that, but I don’t want to go into it other than to say that, in my view, I think marketing boards must have some form of public accountability.

One of the ways, in my view, is to have advisory boards attached to each marketing board. Consumers would be represented on the advisory boards. Consumers, in my mind, don’t have the right to be part of the industry or commodity management decisions, but they do have the right to know what’s going on.

Mr. Haggerty: The leader of the NDP agrees with that, does he?

Mr. Lewis: That’s probably a good point.

Mr. Gaunt: If consumers are locked out, marketing boards will be breeding grounds for consumer suspicion. Farmers can’t afford to let that happen; it’s too important to them. They must maintain consumer confidence.

Mr. D. M. Deacon (York Centre): Darn right.

Mr. Gaunt: However, there are several products that are an exception to the general statement that food is a reasonably good buy. The prime example of that is sugar. Great Western United Corp. had a 1,200 per cent increase in the corporation’s after tax profits during the four-month period ending Sept. 30 this year. Net income was $20.96 million, compared with $1.6 million for the same period in 1973.

Mr. Lewis: Not a bad increase.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Sweet operation.

Mr. Gaunt: They certainly have a sweet operation going for them.

In September alone, the company’s profit was $15 million, compared to $1.8 million in September of 1973. Frankly, I think that’s nothing short of scandalous.

The profit picture in Canada has been rather difficult to pinpoint for the same period. The only way I could get any figures for comparison purposes was from the report by the tariff board in 1971. In that study of the sugar industry, it was pointed out on page 271 that: “On a 10-year average, the refineries margin in Canada has exceeded that in the US by 29 cents and that in Great Britain by 68 cents per hundred weight.” And for the period 1965 to 1970, the figures were 43 cents and 80 cents, respectively.

If the same situation pertained in 1974, then the profit picture of our sugar companies would be over 1,200 per cent for the last four months.

Mr. Lewis: I think they have been.

Mr. Gaunt: The report goes on to further state:

“The published reports of Tate and Lyle Ltd., which controls Canada and Dominion, now Redpath, with refineries in Montreal and Toronto, reveals certain interesting figures on their refining operations for the years 1967, 1968 and 1969. In those years, the turnover in Canada was 15.6 million lb, 18.7 million lb and 21.6 million lb, respectively, as compared with 116 million lb, 127 million lb and 199 million lb in Britain. On these amounts, the profits before taxes in Canada were £2.3 million, £3.7 million and £3.2 million compared to £5.7 million, £3.3 million and £2.5 million in Britain.”

In other words, our Canadian refineries made more money in the two out of the three years, even though the British refineries had approximately seven times more volume. But the fact that Canadian sugar prices over the years have been higher than could be justified, is apparent from the report when it says on page 271:

“The price of refined cane sugar in Canada appears to be based primarily upon considerations not as closely related as is desirable to such factors as production costs and competitive pricing. It is based on a formula related to the London daily price for free market sugar, adjusted by a variety of factors. This situation has a further characteristic that one company is the price leader and the others assume that the refiner’s margin of the price leader is constant in the short run.”

In other words, what we have here, according to this report, is a pricing cartel. There’s no competition in the marketplace. That’s what we have here.

This is further substantiated by the fact that the anti-combines people have taken these companies -- Redpath Industries Ltd., Atlantic Sugar Refineries Co. Ltd., St. Lawrence Sugar Ltd. and SLSR Holdings Ltd., the largest refiners in eastern Canada -- to court. They’re now standing on trial for charges of conspiring to enhance prices and lessen competition from 1960 to 1973. It’s little wonder and it’s just about time, because not only do they fix prices and control the market, they also control it so finely that their production really doesn’t relate to their productive capacity in any way. In most cases, they’ve been producing anywhere from 50 -- even down as low as 37 -- per cent up to 80 per cent of their productive capacity. So they just produce and tailor it to the market demand and raise their prices. That’s obviously what they’re doing.

This government is to blame for some of the price gouging, because this government allowed the sugar beet industry in southwestern Ontario to die. Had it been kept alive by help from this government, we in eastern Canada would have had a buffer against sharply increasing prices. This way we are entirely dependent on imported sugar. Meanwhile, the government sits idly by and lets this happen to our consumers in Ontario. In my view, it’s shameful. It’s just one of many indications of this government that they have become unresponsive to the needs of our citizens.

This government, first of all, should revive the sugar beet industry in this province. I would also suggest that the government could get into the sugar refining business, as Quebec has done, by getting into the refining business itself or by buying the controlling interest in a refinery in this province. While that may be seen as socialism on the part of some of my friends opposite, I think that’s exactly what the Minister of Energy (Mr. McKeough) is eventually going to come around to with respect to the oil companies and oil prices.

Mr. Deacon: There is even a large plant in Chatham that is available.

Mr. Gaunt: Yes, I understand that’s so. What we need in this province is action and not excuses. As far as I’m concerned, I think we have to have action with respect to sugar.

As I said at the outset, this is one example of a situation in which I feel our consumers in this province, in relation to food and food pricing, are being gouged. Sugar prices influence a great many products on the shelf. When one goes into the supermarket and counts up the number of food items that contain sugar, one finds a great percentage of them do so. And so the sugar prices are reflected in the prices of those food products which contain sugar.

In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I’ve taken my time and I want to end up by saying that I fully agree with the motion put forward by my leader, and I urge all members to support it.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Ottawa Centre for 10 minutes.

Mr. M. Cassidy (Ottawa Centre): Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I want to make a few comments about inflation as it affects the riding of Carleton East, since it so happens that the electorate in that riding will be making a decision about their views of the Premier and the Conservative government’s anti-inflation policy in the next week and a half. I want to talk in particular both about the candidate in that area and his stand on inflation, and I want to talk about what this government is doing in relation to the inflation in the cost of housing in the suburban riding of Carleton East.

There is something very peculiar happening in that area, Mr. Speaker. First, because there happens to be a Davis candidate there who has done his best to dissociate himself from this government’s record. He is not proud of the record. He has said that the “big blue machine” will not be involved in the campaign. He has not asked the Premier or any cabinet minister to go in since the day of his nomination.

Mr. Breithaupt: He’s putting $50,000 up.

Mr. Cassidy: He has dissociated himself from the threats made by Fern Guindon and said he was very embarrassed by that. He is dissociating himself in his television commercials from Bill Davis.

Mr. Speaker: Order please; order please.

Mr. Cassidy: There is no check on his position to spend, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. G. Nixon (Dovercourt): Come on. Get on with it.

Mr. Speaker: Order please. I wonder if I could remind the hon. member for Ottawa Centre that members are referred to by their ridings. When he refers to the hon. member it should be as the member for Peel North (Mr. Davis) and not by name.

Mr. Cassidy: I quite agree. Yes, I quite agree, Mr. Speaker.

The candidate for the Davis party in Carleton East is seeking to dissociate himself from the record of the member for Peel North and is trying to make it as unclear as possible what party he happens to be running for. There is very good reason for that, because as far as inflation is concerned there has not been a single step taken by this government which has in any way benefited or protected the people of Carleton East from the inflation which is raging across the province at this time.

Hon. E. A. Winkler (Chairman, Management Board of Cabinet): And he’ll win, despite what the member says.

Mr. Cassidy: What’s that?

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Despite what the member says, he’ll win anyway.

Mr. Cassidy: We’ll see about that. I think it’s pretty arrogant for a candidate to simply pretend that no election is going on.

I want to give this House a kind of vignette of what happens in Conservative Ontario, which I find really gets to me, because this is what’s been happening for so long in the 31 years this government has been in power.

On a street called Swan’s Way in the township of Gloucester, in some federally-assisted, rent-controlled housing, lives a lady named Mrs. Mildred Nesbitt. She is the widow of a man named Nesbitt who, some 2 or 25 years ago, sold a tract of land of about 20 or 25 acres in the Rothwell Heights area. Mrs. Nesbitt is practically destitute and she is desperate for decent housing which she can’t in fact, afford.

She can’t afford what she has right now and there is no senior citizen housing in Gloucester township for which she would be eligible. Clearly, she has not benefited from the fact that some 20 years ago her husband made a sale of land. Those 22 acres of land, Mr. Speaker, are now on the market for about $500,000. It happens to be the last tract of unspoiled and undeveloped land in Beacon Hill North and Rothwell Heights in the northern part of Gloucester township; and the owner of that land, who wants $500,000 for it, is very anxious to let the land be sold for recreational purposes. He wants his pound of flesh.

So here, on the one hand, you have a widow who is destitute in Conservative Ontario; and on the other hand you have the man who bought, for a few thousand dollars, land that had been owned by her husband and who now is asking $500,000 for those 22 acres for residential development. The man who owns the land, of course, is Bert Lawrence, who was the member for the area and who, over the period of time that he represented that area, was unable to get any workable scheme of public land ownership in the area that would benefit people like Mrs. Nesbitt, but on the other hand was able to make land investments for speculation which were very profitable for his own private pocket.

Surely that’s a vignette of what’s been happening in Conservative Ontario; that the government, its friends, its ministers, its people, having been lining their own pockets at the expense of the people of Ontario, who now simply cannot afford decent accommodation at a reasonable price. Whether it’s Niven’s Wood or any other land in the area of Ottawa, the prices have gotten completely beyond belief.

I can give another example. While I was canvassing in Carleton East a short while ago I dropped in some homes that are called carriage homes; quite nice homes, almost townhouses, with garages connecting the units. They sold in 1971 for about $22,000. At the time, that was a price that was within reach of many working families in the Ottawa area; and many of the families that in fact moved in were semi-skilled, held down white-collar clerical jobs in the government and had incomes in the range of $6,000, $8,000 or $10,00 a year. Those houses are now almost the cheapest accommodation available for families in Gloucester township and Carleton East and they’re selling for $42,500. Because of the increase in mortgage rates, the price per month of running those homes has gone up from about $200 a month to something well over $400 a month. There are other homes available in the area but the price of all them is equally outlandish.

I started at the bottom, with two-bedroom apartments in Sutton Place in Gloucester township, selling for $25,000 and costing $300 a month, and therefore requiring an income of at least $12,000 a year. It so happens that half of the people living in Gloucester township make less than $12,000 a year in family income. Many of them are well housed; but a third of them are tenants and they have no protection through rent control, rent regulation, adequate accommodation or any other means from the soaring cost of housing that has happened even since 1971 alone under the Bill Davis government -- no protection at all. Nor have the adults’ children, the 19 and 21-year-old children of the families who moved to Gloucester some time ago, any protection when they go out in the housing market and find that just to begin they need an income of $12,000 a year in order to afford a minimum two-bedroom home, not really very suited for kids, in William Davis’ Ontario.

I look through the advertisements in a recent Ottawa Citizen -- the Saturday paper which has the ads -- and I find that once one leaves Sutton Place he goes very quickly to about $35,000 for two-bedroom condominiums and $40,000 for three-bedroom condominiums, some of which are on the ground, at prices of $380 to $400 per month and therefore requiring family incomes of around $15,000 a year.

It is very curious to go through this area and to see what inflation has done to the lifestyles of people moving into Ottawa. The area is wall-to-wall town housing. People are moving into town housing now, not because it provides an economical alternative to semi-detached and detached housing, but because it provides the only kind of family housing they can strain to afford. The advertisements indicate that the prices of housing on a monthly basis are running in general around the $400 mark per month. If one is talking about a detached house, one is talking about $60,000 or so, which is of the order of $600 or $700 a month or an income of over $20,000 a year.

Mr. Speaker, it is clear that the Premier, his various housing ministers -- I think about seven or eight of them have been on that hot seat up until now -- and all the other people who have been involved, simply do not understand the problems that people are having with housing these days. They will not speak to it, they will not defend it and they claim things are happening at a time when housing starts are in gross decline in the province. The man they have put forward to be the Davis candidate, the candidate representing the member for Peel North in the riding of Carleton East, simply won’t come to grips with the issues that are troubling people in Carleton East and throughout the province.

It is very curious but there is this undercurrent of feeling across the province which one can’t put one’s finger on. People won’t say: “I am suddenly converted to be an NDP, or, God forbid, a Liberal.” All they know is that they have had it with the member for Peel North and they have had it with the whole kit and caboodle of the people who have been sitting idly by while this province has gone to rack and ruin with rates of 10 and 12 per cent inflation, and while the inflation has continued with nary a piece of action on behalf of the government to stop the price gouging.

They fear, they know, they suspect that the reason the government has done so little in the field of housing is very simply that this government has for too long been in bed with big developers and it doesn’t know how to get out the other side.

In Carleton East they can see the spectacle of an Ontario government which is encouraging local politicians who for various reasons are in bed with developers and who have been creating new growth areas along the Rideau River in the south end of Ottawa with developers’ land. They now see that the Ontario government, far from resisting that trend and far from resisting the land price rises that has permitted, aids and abets it by going to the same developers and saying: “Fine, here’s some handouts under the Ontario housing action programme. Make us some promises and we’ll pretend these are new lots.”

People in that area and people in my area who want housing at prices they can afford see this happening, while at the same time they see no action at all being taken by this government in the case of the very large federal-provincial land assembly at Carlsbad Springs, which is an equivalent distance from the core of Ottawa. Nothing is being done there. All sorts of reasons are being found to explain why the land is difficult to develop; why it is going to take time; and why, it is said, the local people are right to want to defer development of that particular land.

If that be the case, then let’s see the Ontario government come into other parts of Gloucester and Osgoode townships and the east end of Ottawa and find other land that it can develop publicly in order to make housing available at reasonable cost.

If you want to come back to Bert Lawrence’s land; he wants to develop it for $80,000 and $90,000 luxury housing, while leaving a certain portion available -- a few acres -- as a kind of wildland park.

Now there are other tracts of land of similar size perhaps selling for about the same price. Once the land is carved up into lots, then the price of land, even at $22,000 an acre, suddenly jumps to $50,000, $60,000, $100,000, or even $200,000 an acre. And that is passed on to the people who buy those homes and the people who rent those homes in the Premier’s Ontario. It is passed on to them because the government has no idea of controlling the price of land, which has been one of the major aspects of inflation in housing prices -- and is the major aspect of the inflation of housing prices that is within the control of this particular government.

All we have are a few hundred HOME lots here and there, which are put out by the province. They provide a solution for those people who are lucky enough to win the lotteries and get those particular dwellings. But they have no solution at all for the people who are knocking on the door, who have families, who have dependants, who want to raise kids in a decent environment, who want to get what they used to be able to dream about -- decent housing at a reasonable cost.

Those HOME lots are no protection for people who are tenants and who want decent family accommodation. They are no protection for people who need subsidized housing and find that there is none in Gloucester township; that there is no new rent-to-income housing being built; that there is no innovation being taken in any substantial matter by the government in order to provide for people who are in the $100, $120, $150 a month rent category and find that no accommodation is being made available.

Now, when a government wrings its hands and looks at anywhere between half and two-thirds of the population of the province with family incomes below the levels that are required to rent or own property in the province today, and says: “It is not our responsibility; we won’t really do very much about it; it’s the federal government; it’s somebody else; it wasn’t our fault” -- then I would say that it is time for that government to hand in its time cards, to go out to pasture and let somebody else do the job. Because this government is not doing the job on inflation that it needs to do.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Chatham-Kent for 10 minutes.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Mr. Speaker, I thought it might be helpful if I started by looking rather carefully at the motion:

“This House regrets the failure of the government to bring forward effective programmes to moderate the inflationary pressures.”

I have little doubt that it took a long time for our friends in the Liberal caucus to find that word. They might have used the words relieve, or blunt, or subdue, or reverse. Instead, they came up with the word “moderate,” which was probably the only word that could lay blame on the doorstep of the province, while completely avoiding splashing the mantle of their friends in Ottawa.

It invites two responses. In the first instance, we have moderated these pressures -- Ottawa notwithstanding. And the second instance, the hon. Leader of the Opposition is equally charging all provinces, because inflation has been consistent over the entire range of responsibility of the government of Canada; over all the provinces. That is predictable. It is pretty hard, I would say to my friends -- and I am sorry the Leader of the Opposition isn’t here -- it is pretty hard to hold down the level of the water on one-tenth of the surface of a rising lake. And that is what he is proposing to do this afternoon.

Mr. T. P. Reid (Rainy River): They don’t all have $8 million to spend --

Hon. Mr. McKeough: All provinces have become aware of this difficulty when applied to inflation in Canada. Inflation is equal across the nation.

Mr. Reid: The federal government --

Mr. Speaker: Order please.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: The government of Canada, sir, is firmly on record that it is due to world-wide circumstances beyond the control of the national government.

The Leader of the Opposition implies that it is within the control -- the specific word is “moderation” -- of the provinces. And by the time another election rolls around, federal or provincial, Ontario and Ottawa Liberals, presumably, will have found some common and self-serving grounds. Well my field, sir, is fuel and that is what I propose to discuss with hon. members for a few moments.

Mr. Reid: Natural gas is more up the minister’s alley.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: I don’t know if the unique qualities of the hon. Leader of the Opposition acquaint more precisely with coal, oil or electricity or just plain gas, but I have my suspicions.

I will touch on all energy sources. Let’s look at oil first. When the last decade ended -- and that was only four years ago -- crude oil from the Persian Gulf, known in the trade as light Arabian, moved into world markets at about $1.40 a barrel. At the end of 1972, it was within pennies of $2 a barrel.

I do not have to recapitulate for hon. members the trauma of 12 months ago, when the middle east troop movements and oil price movements became inextricably intertwined. It is enough to note that it tightened the co-operation and the organization of petroleum exporting countries and the price of crude oil in the world trade rose almost vertically to close to $10 a barrel.

The figure used today -- it’s close enough for our estimates -- is about $11.50 a barrel. The precise figure is less important than the fact that the price of oil in the past year and a half has inflated by some 400 per cent plus.

Mr. E. Sargent (Grey-Bruce): The minister should tell them how he goofed at Ottawa in the oil talks.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Well, one would ask if the government of Ontario should have moderated that increase.

Mr. Sargent: Talk about Ontario, not the world.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Should the government of Ontario have moderated that increase in the price of oil? Obviously they could not.

What was going on in Canada at that point in time? The price of crude in Alberta was $2.77 as long ago as 1956. It dropped, moved up a little during the 1960s, and from April, 1972, to August, 1973, recorded five price increases totalling 95 cents a barrel. That took the price to $3.80 a barrel well- head.

Mr. Sargent: Why doesn’t the minister write his own speeches?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: After much urging from the leader of this province, the government of Canada finally sought and gained a voluntary freeze at that price level. Finally in January of this year, the long-sought first ministers’ conference was achieved; and out of that conference came the price, which still prevails, of $6.50 a barrel.

Well, the hon. Leader of the Opposition wants that price moderated. What does he mean by that? Is it a nickel a barrel, or $1 a barrel, or back to $3.80? What club does he suggest we use to beat the producing provinces into submission?

I can take the hon. members of the House through the circumstances as they relate to natural gas. On Sept. 4 I issued a very lengthy report to ensure that hon. members had access to the most current information, and they received a relatively detailed report on the meetings that had taken place, the outcome of those meetings, the aspirations of the producers and the prospects as to supply and price.

Well, would the hon. Leader of the Opposition, I think it’s fair to say, have moderated that price? How? Given his militancy here this afternoon -- at one point he suggested, if I heard him correctly, that the Ontario Energy Board was going to regulate the price of gas in Alberta, which was a fatuous silly statement -- the militancy which he showed this afternoon would seem to me to indicate he’s prepared to send troops into western Canada to try and settle the price.

I don’t know of any obvious way other than through the leadership which is finally coming forward, as shown by the statement on Friday last by the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources indicating that the government of Canada is prepared to regulate the price of natural gas in Canada, something we have suggested for the last year and a half.

The price of coal from the United States suppliers has risen 53 per cent in 1974 as compared with 1973. The question stands: Would the Leader of the Opposition moderate the price of US bituminous coal coming into Canada?

I say, Mr. Speaker, let’s just call it the way it is. In the world fuel game, the energy game, we don’t hold trumps. We don’t even hold, in Ontario, any face cards. In the national energy game, as I phrased it on Sept. 4 last, we can plan in this province, we can propose, we can discuss, we can negotiate, but vital decisions in the energy field are beyond the sole decision-making capability of the government of Ontario. We can do those things and we are doing them and we are accomplishing.

The hard fact is that Ontario always brings a great deal to the negotiating table at any national discussions. We are a large, important and desirable market. We have financial resources that can be deployed as necessary in the interest of the people of this province, and throughout Ontario there is a great reserve of human capacity, ability and commitment, much of it in this Legislature. And I must note in passing that a disproportionate amount of it is found on this side of the House.

We do not think, sir, that the national interest is served by an unreasonable escalation in energy prices. Nor is the interest of Ontario. But we do not have a monopoly in defining the national interest or, for that matter, in defining the prices of fossil fuels. The evidence is that the producing provinces both define it in somewhat different terms than the consuming provinces.

We take our stand for a reasonable price, and in taking that stand we acknowledge that price must perform the function of calling out needed supplies. That certainly does not mean that price must multiply. Nor should the additional price so invite the attention of the royalty collector and the federal tax gatherer that it has no impact on the long-term supply.

I don’t think it is particularly productive for me to take sides in the arm-wrestling that is currently taking place between the government of Canada and the producing provinces over revenues related to energy supplies. But all members of this Legislature must agree that it is counterproductive, that it is causing anarchy in the producing industry and that it results in the higher prices Ontario consumers are paying for fossil fuels being diverted into public pockets and leaves little residue that could call out extra and needed supplies.

We do have the ability to influence what takes place at Ontario Hydro. Look at the record there: On Sept. 26 Hydro issued a press release dealing with the rates for 1975. None of us wants to see rate increases, but the fact is that Ontario Hydro has succeeded in holding those rates pretty close to the rate of inflation throughout Canada.

What are the costs that Hydro has had to deal with? In the first eight months of 1974, 27.6 per cent of Ontario Hydro’s generating capacity was powered by coal. I’ve already noted that the cost of US coal to

Ontario Hydro has risen by up to 53 per cent in the first eight months of this year.

All in all, the increased price of hydro to the consumer experienced in 1974 and projected for 1975, when considered in the light of unavoidable increases in energy variable costs alone, is not bad; in fact, the record is very good.

We would like it to be better. That’s one of the reasons the Energy Board has spent long months in discussions and examinations with Ontario Hydro and has prepared the most careful reports dealing with the most important subjects of the cost to consumers, the protection of the environment -- the wide range of areas of direct importance to this Legislature and to the public. They’ve done a good job for the people of this province.

If the Leader of the Opposition has some secret weapon which he certainly didn’t unveil this afternoon --

Hon. Mr. White: He certainly did not.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: -- that would enable us to roll back price or, to use his weasel words, to moderate inflation of fuel costs, and that has its impact on food and rent, not to mention the necessity for additional public financing, then I wish he would reveal it, because he didn’t reveal it this afternoon and in my view it doesn’t exist.

This, sir, is a gimmick motion designed to exploit the fact that fuel prices have risen -- that all of us are concerned about inflation. There is a simpering hope from a simpering leader that honest concern as to the inflation across Canada might be turned to the advantage of the Ontario Liberal Party. It is about as equally relevant to introduce a motion regretting that the government had failed to moderate the time at which the sun comes up and deserves about as much attention.

Mr. Sargent: What a line. Sit down, sit down.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for York Centre has the floor.

Mr. J. Riddell (Huron): That speech was no better than the one the minister gave at the ACRO conference in Windsor last week. Political gobbledegook and it did him a lot of harm.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: We made a great contribution there.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Deacon: Mr. Speaker, we certainly have heard a lot of energy coming out of the Minister of Energy to no avail, just like a lot of the energy from this government has been to no avail except to feed the fires of inflation in this province. I wish to support the motion of non-confidence put forward by my leader because in three areas -- housing, bureaucracy and social assistance -- this government has been causing inflation to proceed at a rate unheard of anywhere else in this country; and the Ontario government is the major cause of it.

Mr. G. Nixon: No. The member is wrong.

Mr. Deacon: Back in 1951-1952, a fellow by the name of Oliver Crockford out in Scarborough was causing to be produced plenty of housing in a cost area of $13,000. Those houses are now costing in the order of $60,000. But the cost of constructing those houses hasn’t gone up --

Mr. G. Nixon: The member is wrong.

Mr. Deacon: I am not wrong. Tell me where I am wrong. The cost of construction of those houses has gone up in the order of 150 to 200 per cent, but the lot cost has gone up between 400 and 600 per cent. It is the land cost that has caused this spiral --

Hon. Mr. Davis: That is why the member supported the land speculation tax with such enthusiasm.

Mr. Deacon: -- this tremendous increase in cost. Now what has caused the land cost to escalate? It has been the Tory ineptitude or it has been a Tory scheme to make profit for themselves and their friends by creating a shortage --

Hon. Mr. Davis: That is very distasteful.

Mr. Deacon: -- because until 1955, and I know from my own personal experience, it was very difficult to persuade people to buy land as an investment. It wasn’t considered a good investment.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Whose friends are those?

Mr. Deacon: The land cost, the lot cost, was 10 to 15 per cent of the total house cost; but because of the lack of services, because of the municipal financial problems caused by this government and its failure to react to their needs --

Mr. G. Nixon: Nonsense. The member is wrong.

Mr. Deacon: No nonsense at all -- plus the provincial bureaucracy that was set up, the morass of bureaucracy, it switched this surplus of land available for housing to a shortage. For example, in government bureaucracy we see the spending rise from about $1.8 billion when I came into this House to $8 billion.

Mr. G. Nixon: Take a look at Ottawa.

Mr. Deacon: We have seen the civil service move up from 45,000 to 72,000, to say nothing of the county school boards and the regional government bureaucracy that has been inspired and ordered by the government that is now in control of this province.

In addition to those higher costs it has reduced the responsibility and the accountability that was possible when local people had control. The grant systems that have been put in have been nothing but bribery to spend money.

If you have a grant system, Mr. Speaker, that assures you that for every dollar you spend you only have to actually take 50 cents out of your own local tax sources, then of course that dollar of spending seems to cost only 50 cents; but it really costs $1, and we all know it. It is a non-productive method of providing grant assistance.

Mr. A. Carruthers (Durham): Boy, that is a clear statement.

Mr. Deacon: The third area I mentioned before that I wanted to speak about was the matter of social assistance, where we have been providing help to people on a basis that kills their incentive to contribute and work to produce, not only for themselves but for society as a whole.

Mr. L. Maeck (Parry Sound): Tell us about the unemployment insurance.

Mr. Deacon: When a family of four has a total income of $5,400 and then has to face a 75 per cent rate of income tax, no wonder we have a shortage of help to produce -- goods that we need in this area.

Mr. Carruthers: Why doesn’t the member talk to his Ottawa friends?

Hon. J. P. MacBeth (Minister of Labour): This is his blueprint for government, is it?

Mr. Deacon: The solution to this problem is three-fold. First of all, with regard to housing, we need to have new types of programmes to deal with the services, and we have programmes available. We have this organic waste treatment programme, or we could even put plenty of housing up in Parry Sound and not cause pollution problems.

Mr. Maeck: Tell us about the mortgage rates.

Mr. Deacon: We have new types of programmes that have been available all over the world for some time. But all we find in this area where housing is so desperately needed is a plan to put 200,000 homes in an area that certainly doesn’t need more housing and where the housing should be dispersed away from this class 1 and class 2 agricultural land where the development is to occur. It should be dispersed into areas where we are not going to destroy irreplaceable land that should produce food in the future.

We should be providing municipalities with financial incentive for low-cost housing.

Hon. Mr. White: We are.

Mr. Deacon: No, we are not. The $600 amount that has been suggested is completely inadequate. If the Treasurer had any knowledge of municipal financing and costs he would recognize that is not the approach that is required here.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Deacon: It would take a 10-year programme for a municipality, one under which municipal leaders can see that they can actually make money out of approving low-cost housing. The reason they used to approve subdivisions so readily in the old days is that they actually thought they got more revenue from those new developments than they had to pay out in expenditures.

It is necessary that we again re-establish that situation where municipal officials can see that it pays them to approve low-cost housing, and doesn’t cost them more than they can expect in revenues. In this way we can hope to disperse the availability of such housing, which is so desperately needed.

The second thing we need to do is bring in more public transit and make it more flexible. The government has done something in this direction but has refused so far to co-ordinate this with the rail service that is now provided in such a way that it is possible for people to use public transit facilities to more distant points.

It’s important that the type of approval for servicing and for all development be dispersed all over the areas where housing demand is evident and not concentrated as the Toronto-centred region proposes. We’ve got to break up the land monopoly which is making it possible for people to profit to such an extent in land. Regardless of what the land speculation tax -- which has caused such chaos in this province -- has done in the eyes of the Treasurer to lower the increase in housing costs, it actually won’t solve the problem in the long run. It will just frustrate the people who are trying to develop housing for us.

The next thing, with regard to municipalities, is that we should institute a system of unconditional grants, instead of having 90 cents out of every grant dollar as conditional, and institute a system of comparative evaluation of cost benefit of services so that we can eliminate the present incentive to spend and waste.

With regard to social assistance, we should provide a system whereby people do not have to choose between contributing by work or being on welfare. We must provide a system whereby the money spent is helping people to get on their feet --

Mr. Havrot: Like the unemployment insurance fund.

Mr. Deacon: -- and not forcing people to decide between being completely dependent on the state or whether they’re going to try to make it on their own.

If these three approaches were taken by this government, our party, I’m sure, would be reconsidering the present motion. So far, in the years I’ve been in this Legislature, they’ve done nothing but give us a feeling that --

Mr. Havrot: That’s progress.

Mr. Deacon: -- they’re profiting much more by their continual refusal to deal with the sources of inflation. I do support the motion of my leader that we do not have confidence in this government.

Mr. Havrot: The member really doesn’t believe that, does he?

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Riverdale.

Mr. J. A. Renwick (Riverdale): Mr. Speaker, I want specifically to pick up on the comments that were made by the hon. member for Chatham-Kent, the Minister of Energy, in the debate a few moments ago, because it happens that the area that I wanted to touch upon is in direct response, by happen- stance more than by planning, to the remarks which he made. I was, in fact, thinking about my usual opponent, the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations, who was to speak shortly before I was, but for reasons known only to him switched with the Minister of Energy. I’m glad he did, in the context of the remarks that I want to make.

I refer, of course, to last Thursday when the leader of this party and then myself followed along in dealing with some of the aspects of the need in the Province of Ontario for this government to have a commodity prices control Act as part of a reserve arsenal of legislation available to deal with the very problems of inflation to which this resolution of the Leader of the Opposition is addressed.

The hon. member for Chatham-Kent referred specifically to the motion that the House regrets the failure of the government to bring forward effective programmes to moderate the inflationary pressures on the cost of living. And he continued to emphasize the emphasis put in the resolution on the term “moderation.”

I want to say to the government that while the leader of this party tried clearly to indicate the limits within which the debate was going to take place, that did not mean that there was some general escape hatch for the government of Ontario to pass off the problem of inflation either to a world-wide situation exclusively, to the government of Canada exclusively or to the municipal governments exclusively. Each level of government has its responsibility to cease being gun-shy about the importance of using every effort which can be used to control the prices to consumers of products.

Mr. Speaker, I want to read the key paragraph of the decision of the Board of Public Utilities Commissioners in Nova Scotia to emphasize and point out exactly what we in this party have been talking about. I’m no longer talking about the constitutional problem. I spoke about the constitutional problem last week; anybody who wants any further information on that can read the remarks made in the Imperial Oil-Public Utilities case in Nova Scotia by the judge who granted leave to appeal.

He granted leave to appeal to Imperial Oil on two grounds which were based on constitutional points. It’s quite interesting that Imperial Oil abandoned the appeal on those grounds because they knew they were on very weak ground and they couldn’t possibly have sustained the argument in the Court of Appeal. That’s not my concern.

My concern now, in the very brief moments that I have, is to focus upon what the Board of Public Utilities Commissioners was saying and what we in this party are saying. The board, in its conclusion, said:

“Although the witnesses [and these were the witnesses of Imperial Oil] mentioned the high cost of crude [and in my remarks you can read, ‘commodities,’ because it’s not just related solely to the crude oil problem with which that board was faced], it seemed to the board that there was no intention on the part of Imperial Oil Ltd. to consider that the abnormal increase in crude should in any manner affect or modify the objectives of pricing that have been maintained in the past, or that there should be any change made in the marketing attitudes of Imperial Oil Ltd. The justification for price increases, it seems, is still to be based upon a judgement that reflects willingness to pay, or what the market will bear, related to availability of products on a world-wide basis.”

That is precisely the point, that the Board of Public Utilities Commissioners was no longer prepared to accept that rationale from Imperial Oil in its pricing policies, based upon some version of the abnormal price increases to which the Minister of Energy referred this afternoon and behind which he assumed to take protection for this government.

Having said why that board was not prepared to accept Imperial Oil’s justification, I want to go on and state what it thought were the considerations that it should take into account.

The board then made certain observations as to the principles by which it should be guided in its difficult task. Reference was made to the concern of many legislatures that there is a public interest to be protected and there are standards to be maintained.

There then follows, and I quote:

“There is nothing particularly new or magical in the total barrel concept of the pricing of products, commodities or services, because this is precisely a regulatory principle of rate-making. The financial requirements of a regulated supplier of commodities and services, which is comprised of total operating costs, including depreciation and taxes and reasonable net earnings sufficient to take care of debt servicing and to maintain an appropriate degree of financial strength, is recovered under rate schedules wherein the customer responsibility is distributed among the various commodities and services supplied under regulation.

“Rates and charges must not be unjustly discriminatory, and this in itself contemplates that rates will not be automatically related to cost of service, or any other engineering or accounting principles of formulae, or to whimsical or arbitrary price making, but will always be tempered by judgement. This judgement, however, is expected to be a responsible judgement that is not related primarily to the maximum prices dictated by world supply and demand, or similar conditions, and will reflect actual circumstances, conditions, policies and public interest within the area served by the regulated supplier.”

That is precisely what we have been saying, that there is a public interest which requires protection by this Legislature, against the abnormal increases in the price of commodities being sold in this province, which can no longer be justified upon traditional methods of pricing established by multi-national corporations such as Imperial Oil.

Mr. Stokes: Well said.

Mr. Renwick: I want to take the trouble to restate the board’s comments, with which I opened my remarks just a few moments ago.

“Although the witnesses mentioned the high cost of crude oil, it seemed to the board that there was no intention on the part of Imperial Oil Ltd. to consider that the abnormal increase in crude should in any manner affect or modify the objectives of pricing that have been maintained in the past, or that there should be any changes made in the marketing attitudes of Imperial Oil Ltd. The justification for price increases, it seems, is still to be based upon a judgement that reflects willingness to pay or what the market will bear related to availability of products on a world-wide basis.”

Mr. Speaker, let me say that that is exactly what the Minister for Consumer and Commercial Relations said a few days ago. I happen to have a more sophisticated version somewhere among my papers of exactly the philosophy of this government in an abnormal situation, which is the philosophy to which we object. We say that there is a public interest to be protected, and that no longer can the Tory philosophy, as expressed a few moments ago by the Minister of Energy and as expressed a few days ago by the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations, any longer be the sole and guiding principle which determines whether or not this assembly will intervene in the marketplace, to protect the consumer in the wide range of commodities and services and in the supply of housing, to which the leader of this party has referred on many, many occasions in this House.

The sophisticated statement, which we disagree with, of the philosophy of this government is as follows:

“The market is a mechanism of almost incredible effectiveness, because those who have command over resources continually reallocate them in response to the signals provided by relative prices. The businessman who wants to behave in a socially responsible way and promote the public good can do so most effectively by trying to maximize profits, or more accurately by increasing the present value of the assets at his command.”

I simply say to the government that we disagree with that statement. That is the philosophical rationale of an outmoded economic basis, upon which this government continues to say that it will not intervene in the field in which it has the authority and capacity to intervene.

Mr. Speaker: Thirty seconds left.

Mr. Renwick: I know I only have 30 seconds, Mr. Speaker, and I guess I will have to pick it up at some other point. But I want to make just one reference to what the chief protagonist for Imperial Oil had to say in the course of his remarks.

This is what Mr. Bell said before the board for Imperial Oil, and which the board would not accept: “We don’t sell our heavy oil in relation to what it costs. We don’t determine in our pricing the cost of our product.”

Mr. Lawlor: Of course not.

Mr. Renwick: “It’s just not an exercise which has meaning. We determine to the best of our judgement -- and I can’t overstress that -- what the market tone and level is for the price of our products.”

Mr. Lawlor: What it will pay.

Mr. Renwick: “This is nowhere more clear than in heavy fuel, and we get what we can on selling that product” --

Mr. Lawlor: Every nickel.

Mr. Renwick: -- “in relation to the tone of that market at that time.” He went on at some considerable length to attempt to justify, and categorically stated for the Board of Public Utilities Commissioners that there was no way that their prices were related to anything other than what the market could bear. I say to this government, thank God for the Board of Public Utilities Commissioners in Nova Scotia that they have focused attention upon the very need to protect the kind of public interests which they in that particular judgement did protect.

Mr. Speaker: The time has expired.

Mr. Renwick: This government must learn from that case --

Mr. Speaker: The time has expired.

Mr. Renwick: -- and introduce that kind of legislation.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Minister of Agriculture and Food.

Mr. Lawlor: Now we will know that the farmer gets a fair return and even better. Let that be understood before the minister starts.

Hon. W. A. Stewart (Minister of Agriculture and Food): Mr. Speaker, in dealing with this matter of inflation I would like to suggest that anything to increase production or to provide production incentives for producers to continue production is de- signed to control inflation and to provide consumers with a continuing source of high-quality food products. In this line I think the record of this government stands out as one of the leaders of all Canada in having to do just that.

Mr. Cassidy: This is as outlined, you know.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: We have established a monitoring system through the agricultural economics branch for fruit and vegetable costs of production, and this has resulted in long-term planning of the tender-fruit industry.

We would have been able to have accomplished this much sooner than we have been able to do had the federal government given us any indication whatever that they were going to provide any kind of protection at our international borders. We hope that this will be forthcoming. If it is, then I think that the plans we have under way will assure the people of Ontario of a continuing tender-fruit industry.

We have applied pressure on the federal government to provide price stabilization because we believe implicitly that any price stabilization has to be established at the national level to encourage farmers to continue producing. If we get into this business of price stabilization at the provincial level, we simply become further segregated within our provincial achievements.

A food land development committee has been set up to make use of vacant land across this province to get it back into production. And that really is the secret of trying to control, in my opinion, the inflationary tendencies that we have in many of our food commodities.

When one talks about the future of the agricultural industry in this province, there are those who will suggest that it is a province of farmers who have passed their best in years. I would like to remind the people, through you, Mr. Speaker, of this Legislature that at OAC last year, 20 per cent of the graduates went back to farming, and 50 per cent of all the graduates of our other agricultural colleges went back to farming themselves. More people left the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food last year to go back to farming than at any previous period of like months in its history before. That to me indicates that the people of Ontario have a faith in the farming industry and are willing to stake their future on it.

Let’s just take a look at some of the things that have been done. For instance, in the matter of credit counselling, we have been able to provide farm people with information as to how to get credit, how to use it and how to make business management decisions.

For instance, the tile drainage loan -- just take that as an illustration. That provides for up to 75 per cent of the cost repaid over a 10-year period. In 1973 we had 13,300 of these loans out with a value of $33.3 million. This is directly helping farmers to produce more. There is no improvement that anyone can make on land, Mr. Speaker, that will return the dollars as fast or increase production as quickly. That is done at a four percent subsidized interest rate by the Province of Ontario.

Then we take a look at municipal drainage grants to provide the outlet ditches for the farm programmes that I have just mentioned. Since 1970, this government has paid out $7 million in grants to farmers in municipalities to provide those outlet ditches.

Mr. Stokes: As a last-ditch stand.

Mr. Cassidy: This is looking at the ditches and ignoring the forest, you know.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Take a look at fertilizer. My hon. friend from Huron-Bruce mentioned fertilizer prices; certainly there were fertilizer prices that increased. But as a result of improved technology that’s been applied at the only phosphate manufacturing plant in Ontario, at Port Maitland -- we’ve been able to get that plant running sooner -- we’ll produce 24,000 tons of fertilizer more this fall by starting it earlier than we would have previously. I thank that that’s a move in the right direction.

We’re monitoring these programmes very carefully and closely and we have found no adverse affect whatever on the environment. Here again, I think, the Minister of the Environment of this government, whom our friends in the opposition so roundly want to condemn, is providing the leadership that is necessary in these particular fields.

Take a look at some of the industrial milk incentive programmes: We have been told that we’re not doing anything to increase production --

Mr. Cassidy: What about the decline in improved lands?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: In the four months of this year, Mr. Speaker, we have been able to provide --

Mr. Cassidy: What about the decline in the number of farms and farmers? What about the decline in acreage?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: We have been able to provide an increase of 39 million lbs in the last four months, compared with 2 years earlier. That to me is indicative of this government trying to produce food for the people of this province and succeeding in a very substantial manner. Those are things that to me are worth noting.

Take a look at our capital grants programme: Up until the end of March, 1973, we had put out just about $76 million; add on last year’s $18.5 million and we’ve got a programme of just under $100 million that we’ve put out since 1967 to help offset cost of food produced in this province to encourage production. Those things, to my mind, mean an awful lot.

The IMPIP programme that I mentioned a while ago involves a 20 per cent forgivable loan, Mr. Speaker; and we now have out more than 2,000 loans for in excess of $27 million. That’s the way I think a province responds to these kinds of things; not shooting off a lot of hot air that doesn’t really account for anything.

When one takes a look at what the Treasurer of this province has done in the last two years, by providing a $50,000 once-in-a-lifetime gift tax exemption for farms that stay within the family, that’s a move to keep farmers going. That’s a move to keep them on the land.

Mr. Cassidy: The price of food goes up 18 per cent and the minister talks about exemptions. More farmers are going out of production every day.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. member for Ottawa Centre does not have the floor.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Well, Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend over there talks about land going out of production.

Mr. Renwick: Six per cent of the population on the land.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: There never has been a time in the history of Ontario when as much food products has been produced -- never in the history of this province!

Mr. Renwick: That kind of bark has gone out of style.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: The sad part of it is, Mr. Speaker, that the hon. member for someplace in Ottawa and the Island --

An hon. member: Right.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: -- doesn’t know the difference between good agricultural land and poor agricultural land.

An hon. member: He knows about fertilizer, though.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: He doesn’t know enough to keep quiet. He keeps showing his ignorance.

Mr. Cassidy: What about the fifteen per cent of improved land that has gone out of business in the last three years?

Hon. Mr. Winkler: It went down that big mouth of yours, I think.

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Order!

Hon. Mr. Stewart: When one takes a look at what’s been accomplished by the Treasurer in the amendments to the Succession Duty Act, and the one twenty-fifth a year forgiveness in succession duty, if the farm stays in the family for 25 years, there is no succession duty at all.

All of these things are designed to help the situation, to make it meaningful, to make it productive; and that is what the agricultural industry in this province has been able to achieve.

We get criticized occasionally because of the seriousness of the beef situation, Mr. Speaker. Well, a few months ago in 1973, beef prices were so incredibly high; I have got some comparative prices, Mr. Speaker. When you take a look at them, live cattle prices here in Toronto for 1973, in the week ending Oct. 12, were almost identical with the prices of 1974. When one takes a look at the dressed cattle prices, they are almost identical.

Mr. Renwick: What about 1972?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: When one takes a look at the price of processing of meat, it’s down 16.2 per cent from this year in comparison with last year. That to me is an indication that there are some things that are being reduced in price in a way I think somewhat meaningful.

Mr. I. Deans (Wentworth): What about the cost in the supermarkets, then?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The time is expiring.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: That’s the consumer price taken from the consumer stores right here, a drop of 16.2 per cent in hamburg and processed meat prices. That’s a fact. I said it the other day in here and it’s here again, right now. There it is. Those are the figures taken right from the stores.

Mr. Renwick: It is the same piece of paper. That doesn’t make it correct today.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Mr. Speaker, I simply suggest that all of the talk emanating from the other side of the House is purely for political purposes. This government is designed to help the people of Ontario and that’s what we are doing.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for St. George.

Mrs. M. Campbell (St. George): Mr. Speaker, I am rising at this time to speak to this motion and I would like to make this preliminary observation. It has been described by the member for Chatham-Kent as a gimmicky motion. He has related the fact that he feels so much control of this problem does not lie with this province. For that reason, perhaps I could draw his attention and the attention of the government to an area which is without any question solely within the jurisdiction of this province and to a matter which is of deep and universal concern to the people of the province. I am talking now about the matter of housing.

Don’t give me any argument that this is something the federal government should be doing or that it is a matter of worldwide inflation. This government has the opportunity to do something in this area and it has again done absolutely, positively nothing to help with the rental situation in this province.

It was interesting to me to hear the Deputy Minister of Housing on a recent open-line show give his effective information to people who were desperately concerned about the escalation of housing prices and of rents. This was his solution, and I have to assume he’s speaking for this government. He said: “I’ll tell you what you do, madam. If your rent is up more than the inflationary spiral, call me and I will intervene with the landlord and sometimes I can be effective in that area.” There is the government’s policy. He made the statement that in Metropolitan Toronto a survey was made which indicated that the escalation of rent was only in accordance with the inflationary spiral.

I am going to tell you, Mr. Speaker, that not only did I have news for him but so did the people of the Metropolitan area, the people who responded to that statement on the telephone lines. Let me give a few examples of what is going on. In one complex in downtown Toronto, for the new leases the range in rent increases was from nine to 28 per cent. However, the rents for the garages in the same place, particularly those signed after June, 1974, went up by 66 per cent, and there the government sits and what is its excuse. It has heard from both of the opposition parties proposals to curb this kind of inflation, and all it can do is say, “We’ll have to think about it. We’ll get a report.”

Meanwhile, people aren’t able to find housing, and this, for the government’s information, is not just the poor, for whom it has demonstrated so little real concern. It may perhaps affect the government members when I tell them it is from one end of my riding to the other. Talk to people in ManuLife, talk to people in the Colonnade, talk to people in the other northern portions of that riding and the answers are still the same.

The only thing that’s going to happen is that there will be a filtering down, so that these people who can afford substantial rents will be looking at the very accommodation that is needed by those who do not have sufficient income to enable them to cope in the market today.

It was interesting too, Mr. Speaker, that notwithstanding the fact that an invitation was extended to the Minister of Housing (Mr. Irvine) and to the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Brunelle) to be present at a housing conference dealing with housing for the aged, neither of them found that this was of sufficient importance for them to be present. But if they had been there, they would have heard the pensioners concerned, many of whom are living in the conventional marketplace, but who can no longer afford it. They are asking this government, “Where do we go?”

It was very interesting that one of the speakers said that when Metropolitan Toronto was planning a zoo, the organizers worried about the rhesus monkeys; they worried about where the feeding troughs would be for the rhesus monkeys to assure them that they would be able to eat; they worried about the colours that the animals would enjoy most in their surroundings, and they even concerned themselves with the type of trainers that there would be for all of these animals. But the speaker said there is no such concern for the housing of people in this province.

What is the government’s answer? Its answer is, “It isn’t our fault.”

The government is like a ship without a captain. It isn’t going anywhere in this field. But the people around it are crying out for its attention. It even has the senior citizens up in arms and making this resolution:

“We are sending along our resolution to you to this government. In four months’ time we are going to be holding a second conference and we are demanding answers from you on the implementation of those resolutions.”

It is something when seniors get that concerned, because as a rule they do not speak out in such an impolite, if you like, term. They are usually rather gentle in their approach. But no longer, because they are afraid, they are anxious, they don’t know where they are going to live, and the government’s answers are totally, utterly without conscience without concern.

There is no security of tenure in this province for the tenants -- absolutely none. In many parts of this city the tenants cannot get any lease. And there are rent increases -- on the same apartments. Some of them get in one case, in June and August of this year, six months. Some of them get a year. Whose Act is the Landlord and Tenant Act? It is federal legislation, or is it this government’s legislation?

Mr. Speaker: The member’s time is expiring.

Mrs. Campbell: Thank you. I understand in closing, Mr. Speaker, that there is some suggestion that somebody is going to be looking at the Landlord and Tenant Act, but that it’s unlikely that any changes will be made during the current session.

I will say to you now, in my view it is no gimmick when the opposition stands up at a time of such crisis and deplores the state of this province at this time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Thunder Bay.

Mr. Stokes: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think it’s incumbent upon me to enter this debate to speak on behalf of a section of the province that has been forgotten for far too long. I want to pick up on something that the member for Riverdale developed in the few short minutes that were available to him. And I will use the figures that were just presented to the House a short time ago by the hon. Minister of Energy in discussing a commodity whose price is reflected almost everywhere you look in our overall economy in the Province of Ontario. I’m talking about the cost of oil, gas and its byproducts.

The hon. Minister of Energy quoted the offshore price of crude oil at $11.50 a barrel, while the domestic wellhead price is $6.50.

A short time ago I had occasion to be talking to officials from Imperial Oil who are responsible for their policies and their pricing in the Province of Ontario. I asked them -- when the dialogue was going on between the federal government and the provinces -- how they could justify the present price of gasoline and heating fuel oil in the light of the wellhead prices of $6.50 a barrel. In my somewhat simple approach to the problem, I did some rapid calculations. If you take the $6.50 price for a barrel of oil at the wellhead in Alberta -- given that a barrel of oil is 35 gal -- that means that the major oil companies were paying, on the average, 18.5 cents per gal.

In a good deal of my riding the customer is paying 75 cents a gallon for gasoline at the pumps. That’s No. 2 gasoline. If you translate that into the actual cost to the consumer, that’s $26.25 for a barrel of oil that cost the producer $6.50 at the wellhead.

Now, I’m not suggesting that you get 35 gal of gasoline out of 35 gal of crude at the wellhead, but I’m well aware that there are many byproducts that come from the processing and this is all a very lucrative part of the operation of any major oil company.

My question is directed to the Minister of Energy and to those who are responsible for justifying the prices of such important commodities as oil and gas. I want to find out -- I can’t find out from the oil companies but I want to find out from the responsible ministry over there -- what happens to the $19.75 per barrel increase from the wellhead to the consumer? I think this is central to the debate that we are engaging in here this afternoon.

As my colleague, the hon. member for Riverdale, has stated, when confronted with the court case in the Province of Nova Scotia, a spokesman for Imperial Oil was quoted as saying that “the cost to the consumer bears no relationship whatsoever to our costs. It’s done strictly on the basis of what the traffic will bear.”

I think it is unconscionable in any system of government, in any democratic society, when an official of a multinational corporation can stand up and barefacedly admit that the cost to the consumer bore no relationship whatsoever to their particular costs, and the gouging that was done was strictly on the basis of what the customer was prepared to pay and what governments in power were prepared to allow.

I want to say to this government that in travelling throughout the north this summer, as I do on every occasion that’s made available to me, I came across a situation where, in one community, people were paying $2.50 per gallon for gasoline. That was in the community of Kasabonika up on the Winisk River. I came across another place where gasoline was $2 a gallon. That had to be brought in on a Hudson Bay barge.

I ran into a situation where a constituent of mine was forced to pay $12.50 for a gallon of antifreeze. On the other hand, I know of a large pulp and paper operation where their actual cost was $2.95 a gallon. There’s a discrepancy between $2.95 and $12.50 on one gallon of antifreeze.

I ran into a situation where there was a discrepancy of between $11 and $16.50 on a 100 ]b tank of propane. I ran into a situation where, in the town of Manitouwadge, they paid $1.70 for 10 lb of new potatoes while they were selling for 89 cents in Thunder Bay, 250 miles away.

Mr. Deans: It’s really shameful.

Mr. Stokes: In view of a commitment made by the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations, when he undertook to do a study of all these things that we were bringing to his attention, I’m wondering whether it’s just an exercise in window dressing or whether that ministry is really serious in coming to grips with the kind of problems and the inflationary trends that the people in the north are so concerned about.

We had an announcement made in the Empire Hotel by the Premier of this province about 14 months ago, where he said his government, through the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission, was going to use those facilities to moderate the high cost of consumer goods in northeastern Ontario. That was announced with a great deal of fanfare. They chose a list of some 300 different products they were going to have it apply to to see if they could come to grips with the high cost of consumer goods in that section of the province where they had some concern and where they had a facility to initiate such a programme. I find no evidence at all that that has worked. As a matter of fact, in discussions with the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, they say it hasn’t worked.

This government has spent in excess of $5 million to undertake a highway in the sky programme, where it embarked upon a programme of building airstrips in the far north. We’ve got several of these facilities in operation. They’re being well used and they’re using DC-3 aircraft with much higher payloads than were ever possible in the past. There’s no indication at all that the benefits from that programme are finding their way into the pockets of the consumer. It is nothing but a straight benefit to the air carriers. There is no undertaking on behalf of this government to insist that the air carriers pass some of these savings and some of these economics on to the people for whom the programme was designed.

Mr. Speaker: The member’s time has expired.

Mr. Stokes: There are many instances where this government has taken some initiative, but the results haven’t been demonstrated. I think that the programmes went awry; I think it is high time that you took another look at those programmes to make sure that the programme actually helps the people for which it was designed.

Mr. Speaker, there are many, many other instances where I could show that by way of a direct subsidy, an incentive or a disincentive you could come up with programmes that would assist people in the high cost of living, the high cost of consumer goods in the north. You have failed to do this and I feel it incumbent upon me to support the resolution that has been presented by the Leader of the Opposition.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Premier.

Mr. Cassidy: The Premier always has to hang on to something, doesn’t he?

Hon. Mr. Davis: What?

Mr. Cassidy: They are putting their hopes in him. It may be a slender thread.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: That’s more than that member can say about anybody.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I couldn’t hear that constructive observation. What was it, again?

Mr. Cassidy: They are putting their hopes in the Premier because they have nothing else left.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Who is putting their hopes?

Mr. Cassidy: All of those guys.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Of course we are.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Well, Mr. Speaker, they have a lot more to put their hope in than that member has in the leadership of his party and the contribution it has made here this afternoon -- I can tell you that much.

Mr. Speaker, when I listened to the sanctimonious utterances of the member from whatever riding it is in Ottawa and Toronto here, I couldn’t help but say to myself -- and I listened very attentively: “Just how hypocritical can a member of this House be?” But I said to myself: “I guess there are no limitations when it comes to politics as practised by some members of this House.”

However, Mr. Speaker, I didn’t mean to digress --

Mr. Cassidy: They haven’t seen the Premier in Carleton East yet because they don’t want him in Carleton East. The fellow running doesn’t want him there.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I heard the references to Carleton East. I happened to be at the nominating convention when our very able candidate was nominated -- a much better convention than the member’s own, incidentally. That candidate stood up, identified himself and explained the very positive policies of this government in a way that very frankly I have heard very few other people do.

Mr. R. F. Ruston (Essex-Kent): The back- benchers will never get into the cabinet now.

Hon. Mr. Davis: For the member here to suggest that the candidate in Carleton East is not supporting the policies of this government is once again totally misleading. In fact he said so many nice things about the Treasurer and the leader of this party that I was embarrassed. In fact I was embarrassed for the Treasurer, he was saying such nice things about his policies and programmes.

Mr. Deans: That is a change. The Premier is normally embarrassed by the Treasurer.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I really didn’t mean to digress.

Mr. Cassidy: His TV ads says that he is not a Davis candidate. Now, what does the Premier make of that?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I could spend the balance of the afternoon discussing relevant issues with the member for Ottawa Centre.

Mr. Cassidy: That is very relevant for the people of Carleton East.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Well, the member’s observations are the ones I am referring to.

Mr. Cassidy: They are pretty relevant, too.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I shall try to deal with the substance of the resolution, and I shall attempt to do it as constructively and in as non-provocative a fashion as I can.

Mr. Renwick: Okay, the Premier had a good start.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I must say, and I say this constructively, that very little from the other side of the House this afternoon was of such substance as to provide much provocation, but I think that that, when you analyse what has been said, is abundantly true. I regret that the leader of the New Democratic Party on this issue that he says is so important and so vital finds matters of urgent public importance to be elsewhere --

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Oh, I listened, and I can give the members almost word for word --

Mr. Deans: Who wasn’t here all afternoon? He is listening to the Premier.

Hon. Mr. Davis: He is listening?

Mr. Deans: He is listening to the Premier.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Well, as long as the leader of the New Democratic Party is listening, I have a few things I want to say that I want him to hear --

Mr. Deans: Mind you, it may lull him to sleep, but he is listening.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- because I think it is time that some of the truths were known.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Face to face.

Hon. Mr. Davis: We sit here and we listen to some of this stuff -- we listen to the leader of the New Democratic Party being critical of the policies of this government. That’s fine; that is what the process is all about. But when you sit down and analyse what the Leader of the Opposition has said in terms of constructive suggestions as to how to improve the situation, Mr. Speaker, there is nothing of any substance whatsoever. I speak of the leader of the New Democratic Party, and I say show us in the year 1974 in the month of October any jurisdiction that has adopted his political philosophy that is having any better time as it relates to inflation, the cost of living or the economy generally. Show us that.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Look what socialism has done to the United Kingdom and its economic position today. Look what’s happening in Italy today, look what’s happening in Sweden today. Tell us --

Mr. Renwick: Never have more people in Great Britain had a higher standard of living than they have at the present time.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Nonsense, utter nonsense.

Mr. Renwick: Never have there been more people own their own homes in Great Britain than they do now.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Utter nonsense.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order please.

Mr. Renwick: Never has the distribution of wealth been more fair, never has the economy been more thriving, and never have they had a better government than the government they have today.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I was interested to hear this afternoon all of those things done by a provincial jurisdiction in this very serious problem of inflation. I heard of the numerous programmes emanating from the socialist jurisdictions of British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Of course, we didn’t hear a word because they haven’t been doing anything, they haven’t done nearly as much as we’ve done here in this province, not nearly as much. However, Mr. Speaker -- I’m being diverted.

Mr. Renwick: We are talking about Ontario. We are not talking about the western provinces. It is the Premier’s government.

Mr. Speaker: Order please.

Mr. Stokes: What about Moores in Newfoundland?

Mr. Renwick: It is the accountability of the Premier’s government.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I’m diverted, I really wanted to deal initially with the resolution itself --

Mr. Renwick: Why don’t we go ahead with it?

Sit down and start all over again.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- which I have to say, Mr. Speaker, and I say this very kindly, has to be one of the weakest resolutions I’ve seen put on the order paper here in a matter of this kind in a long time --

Mr. R. F. Nixon: That is why the Premier is responding so well.

Mr. Breithaupt: He will get a chance to do his own some day.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Well like hell, the Premier’s point is weak.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- to moderate the inflationary pressures that exist today -- and I take the five points. I won’t deal with them all. Not one of them, Mr. Speaker --

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Why not? The Premier started off with 20 minutes.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Not one of them is going to solve the problem of inflation. All five of them put together will have no real impact on inflation.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Certainly they would.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Do you know what they’re suggesting, Mr. Speaker? They’re suggesting something of a cosmetic process where they can put up a lot of window dressing to make people feel they’re doing something when in fact, of course, they are not. How realistic is it to say at one moment, “We want you to balance the budget and cut the deficit at the same time as you’ve been promising the by-electors in Stormont, in Carleton East and the province of Ontario (a) we will cut out educational ceilings, (b) we will add money programmes to the OHIP services” --

Hon. Mr. Grossman: All for free.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- Many, many things the Liberals have uttered in the last few months, that were substantially increased. The level of government expenditure, without any question whatsoever, Mr. Speaker. The leader of the Liberal Party in this province is saying --

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Education ceilings can be cut out if we put power back with the school boards. Won’t cost you a cent. The Premier is the author of educational extravagance. He is the author.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Well, with great respect the percentage increase has been rather consistent and the Liberal Party are the people at this moment who want to see it increased and they know it.

When we deal in a situation, Mr. Speaker --

Mr. Sargent: Why is the government so broke?

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- where the Leader of the Opposition is saying that his way to curb inflation is to spend hundreds of millions of dollars more by way of government expenditure, no increase in taxation and, of course, he has suggested the Treasurer balance the budget.

Mr. Breithaupt: No, this is the Stanfield speech. That is Mr. Stanfield.

Hon. Mr. Davis: And I say with respect that is totally irresponsible in this day and age.

Now, Mr. Speaker, this government is as concerned as anyone else about the impact of inflation today.

An hon. member: More than the federal government.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Much more than the federal government obviously, the people that the member supported with such enthusiasm.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Hasn’t the Premier got any points to make at all?

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order please.

Hon. Mr. Davis: We have made some progress and for it to be suggested by the leader of the New Democratic Party that we are raising any jurisdictional or constitutional reluctance, is just totally wrong again. Any suggestion that we are reluctant as it relates to the business community is wrong.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: What is the Premier going to say to them down in the --

Mr. Deans: The government has; it has continuously.

Mr. Cassidy: The Premier constantly says it is up to Ottawa.

Hon. Mr. Davis: But I’ll tell you this, Mr. Speaker, I have far greater confidence in the business community assisting in this problem than those people ever will and that’s the big difference between their philosophy and ours.

Mr. Lawlor: He sure has.

Mr. Renwick: The Premier is quite right and that is where he is wrong.

Hon. Mr. Davis: And the Leader of the Opposition had the unmitigated gall to try and raise regional government as being an inflationary problem. And I have to say that has to be one of the most irrelevant statements on this issue that I’ve heard in this House -- totally irrelevant.

Mr. Ruston: It is true. The Premier knows it is true.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Listen, I would take the member for Rainy River back through a little bit of history.

Mr. Speaker: Order please.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Because here we have again leadership from behind. Where is the member’s friend from York Centre who is his great, enthusiastic supporter in this leadership contest? I’ll take him back to his pamphlets, and I had them here before. The Liberals were the authors of county school boards; they were in favour of regional government. Yes they were, Mr. Speaker.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Davis: You know, Mr. Speaker, I --

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Point of order, Mr. Speaker. Just to set this matter clear, because he repeats it on public platforms from one end of this province to the other: We are the only party that spoke and voted against those particular matters and this is an honour we share with no other party, no other party at all.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Well, Mr. Speaker, I don’t doubt that for a moment, because the Leader of the Opposition in his customary way takes both sides of every issue, in every part of the province, where he thinks it is consistently the best for him -- and he knows it.

Interjection by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Where does he stand on the land speculation tax? We have had a lot of heat about the land speculation tax and I don’t deny that. But I just tell him this, Mr. Speaker -- and those people are hypocritical about this as well -- without any question the land speculation tax has cut down the trading in land and as a result has cut down cost of land without any question.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Davis: And I tell you something else, Mr. Speaker --

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order please.

Interjection by an hon. member.

Hon. Mr. Davis: We have got more of it in my riding than the member of Sarnia will ever have in his riding, and I know what has happened to it.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order please! The hon. Premier has the floor.

Interjections by hon. members.

An hon. member: Look who’s here.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Start all over, the member for Scarborough West just got in.

Mr. Lewis: I’ve dealt with him already.

Mr. Renwick: Start all over, the Minister of Colleges and Universities (Mr. Auld) just got in.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Well, Mr. Speaker, we then move to one or two of the other suggestions, one of them coming from the Leader of the Opposition -- where from I’m not sure yet; I won’t say what I nearly said.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Davis: No, no, I won’t. It would be provocative.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: The Premier shouldn’t be a hypocrite.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I will deal with the suggestion coming from the Leader of the Opposition with respect to a form of review board. He wasn’t as specific as the leader of the New Democratic Party. I don’t think he was, if I was listening carefully, because the leader of the New Democratic Party at least went the next step where he said this board, or agency, would have the statutory authority to actually roll back prices. The leader of the Liberal Party has said: “We’ll have a review,” and this is what I am suggesting --

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Well all right, so the Leader of the Opposition is saying then that we will in the confines of the cabinet room pass an order in council rolling back the price on a particular commodity.

I say, with respect, Mr. Speaker, that doesn’t make much more sense than some of his other suggestions. It’s just not a practical way of approaching it.

And, you know, the leader of the New Democratic Party can say that we can do this constitutionally. I’m not going to argue the constitution, but I raise some very practical problems with him. First of all, to get into the concept of some mechanism or structure, which by statute has the right to roll back -- actually roll back -- prices of a commodity, a consumer item or what have you, without taking into account what makes up that price, without taking into account the question --

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Renwick: The Premier does take that into account, does he?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Just a minute, let me finish, I didn’t interrupt him this afternoon -- without taking into account the effect of the rollback of that on other commodities, or sub-parts or sub-components of the final commodity, without taking into account the concept of wages as being a part of that.

An hon. member: Oh!

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Renwick: Of course the Premier does.

Hon. Mr. Davis: That’s right, and the relationship to that of other wage factors in the total economy, without taking into account --

Mr. Lewis: The Premier believes wages are responsible for inflation. We think prices and profits are responsible.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Now just a minute --

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order please.

Hon. Mr. Davis: All right, then let’s put it right on the record. The New Democratic Party believes --

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order please. The other members will have their opportunity to speak.

Hon. Mr. Davis: All right -- prices and profits -- and wages have no effect on inflation at all, all right.

Interjection by hon. members.

Mr. Renwick: We are talking about abnormal price increases -- abnormal, excessive, obscene and wrong.

Mr. Speaker: Order please.

Hon. Mr. Davis: All right, we will let others assess just how logical that is.

Mr. Lewis: Okay.

Hon. Mr. Davis: And then once again, let’s assume that you had such an organization, Mr. Speaker, and you have national companies -- and I am not referring now to multinational companies -- you have them doing business in our sister provinces You have prices rolled back here and not in Quebec, not necessarily in Manitoba. You relate it perhaps to profits. You have profits flowing into other parts of their operation in other parts of Canada. And I just tell you that it is totally impractical to do. If there is to be such a structure that is going to work, it has to be national in concept.

Mr. Renwick: Not at all -- what about Nova Scotia?

Mr. Lewis: The Premier knows it is not impractical -- they just did it in Nova Scotia. They have done it.

Hon. Mr. Davis: If there is such a structure --

Mr. Renwick: This is absolute nonsense -- this government can be defeated on this issue.

Mr. Speaker: Order please.

Mr. Renwick: Does the Premier mean they are not going to sell bread in this province if you control the price of bread? What absolute nonsense!

Hon. Mr. Davis: I want to get through to another part, and I will try to be moderate in this.

Mr. Speaker: Order please.

An hon. member: What does the Premier think is going to happen to --

Mr. Speaker: Order please. I remind the hon. members the time is running out. The hon. Premier has the floor.

Mr. Renwick: Thank God it is running out.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I would say to the member for Riverdale that sometimes the truth does hurt a little bit. I recognize that, I recognize that.

Mr. Renwick: The truth doesn’t hurt. Is the Premier saying there is no more --

Hon. Mr. Davis: Don’t get exercised.

Mr. Renwick: Doesn’t the Premier read in the papers what is going to other provinces? Why doesn’t he get up to date?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I try to keep up to date. I know I haven’t the capacity of the member from Riverdale, but I tell him I do my best, I really do my best.

I want to raise another aspect of inflation that gives me very great concern. Mr. Speaker, it is not just the cost increases or the prices to the consumer. I would say to the Leader of the New Democratic Party there is the question of rollback and its effects on the consumers who happen to be the producers of those commodities; the effect that it might have on employment in their jobs and in their power as consumers. And I tell members this, it is a very valid argument that has to be explored.

Mr. Renwick: The Premier is not going to do that -- he can’t get away with that.

Mr. Lewis: This is very great sophistry, but not an economic argument -- sophistry.

Hon. Mr. Davis: No, no; but it happens to be true.

Mr. Lewis: It is a very good argument.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, the concern that I want to express to this House now, as objectively as I can, is that while inflation is without any question a very significant problem for this province and for this country, I am concerned that our reaction to inflation doesn’t lead us into positions whereby the economic growth of this province or of this country is prejudiced in the process, because this is exactly what has happened in nearly every other jurisdiction in the world.

Mr. Lewis: Right.

Mr. Renwick: But inflation is jeopardizing that very growth.

Hon. Mr. Davis: There is not an economy anywhere in Canada, there is not an economy in North America, or Western Europe that is as healthy and vital as we are experiencing at this moment in our own Province of Ontario.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Davis: And you know, that doesn’t mean we haven’t got problems. I know them. I don’t pretend to have all the answers to them; but I tell you one answer cannot be something whereby investment and the continued expansion of our economy is prejudiced, because that will only lead us the route of several other jurisdictions -- and that is just total economic chaos. So that whatever governments do, we have to retain the confidence of the business community.

Mr. Lewis: That’s right, that’s right.

Hon. Mr. Davis: And that is what this government has been attempting to do.

Mr. Cassidy: The Premier doesn’t have to be so demanding about it.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Sure, it would be simple to make a lot of speeches and be critical of the business community or the private sector --

Mr. Lewis: Let them have a fair rate of investment. That’s just fine; but not excess.

Hon. Mr. Davis: But I just forewarn the members opposite, if they keep it up and others follow suit, they will be responsible for leading the economy of this province into some substantial difficulties. I tell them that right now.

Mr. Renwick: That’s a lot of nonsense.

Hon. Mr. Davis: You know, Mr. Speaker --

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order please.

Mr. Lawlor: The Premier lives by fear and threat -- nonsense.

Hon. Mr. Davis: No, no. I’m just saying members opposite have got to share some of the responsibility. It’s great to sit on the other side of the House --

Mr. Cassidy: Fern Guindon tried that in Stormont and we know what happened there.

Mr. Speaker: Order please.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I never intend to find out about it.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: The Premier is talking through his hat.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I never intend to find out about it. But I must say it would be interesting to experience.

Mr. Sargent: On a point of order.

Mr. Speaker: Does the member have a point of order?

Mr. Sargent: Will the Premier tell us --

Mr. Speaker: That is not a point of order.

Mr. Sargent: The point of order is this --

Mr. Speaker: That is not a point of order.

Will the member take his seat.

Mr. Sargent: What other province in Canada has put on a five cents a gallon exploration tax? --

Mr. Speaker: That is not a point of order.

The hon. Premier has the floor.

An hon. member: Write him a letter.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I wish the member for Grey-Bruce would once in a while communicate with the Leader of the Opposition and just get straight what the Liberal policies are. I am not going to deal with a five cent tax on exploration at this moment. That is not, with great respect --

Mr. Sargent: This government put it on.

Mr. Lewis: A very shabby argument, the argument the Premier just made. If it was any other province but Ontario --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. Sargent: It is $100 million a year and this government put it on.

Mr. Lewis: That’s a very shabby argument that the Premier just made.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Let him have the floor for the last few minutes.

Mr. Lewis: They are the government and they should be doing something about it. They are inviting the problems.

Mr. Speaker: Order please. Time has just about expired.

Mr. Lewis: When profits are obscene, a government will have problems.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Certainly, Mr. Speaker, the leader of the New Democratic Party talks about the day when profits are up. Just a few months ago he was asking me about certain automotive companies --

Mr. Lewis: Right.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- suggesting that there should be a rollback; the prices were too high. Take a look at the same companies in the United States today, within five months. What has happened to those same corporations as it relates to their present economic position and several thousands of employees who are not earning incomes at all because of it?

Mr. Lewis: Because nobody dealt with the price increases. That is the nature of it.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I can tell you here, Mr. Speaker, the basic policy of this government is to help those people who are most directly affected by inflation, which we are doing.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Davis: And in those areas, Mr. Speaker, where we can have some impact -- as we have had in land, as we are having in government expenditures, those things -- we have assumed that responsibility and we are doing something. But the basic way we must continue, Mr. Speaker, is to retain the confidence of the people of this province, the confidence of the business community and the people who make it work.

Mr. Lewis: They are losing it. They are losing it every day.

Mr. Speaker: Will the hon. Premier conclude his remarks please.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I would say, with great respect, regarding five proposals presented by the Leader of the Opposition, they just are not practical. They will not solve the problem, and I would hope, being a man of integrity and wisdom, he will now be totally convinced, after the arguments since 3 o’clock, that his resolution is hypocritical, it is contradictory and it is not an answer to the problems that we presently face, and will join the members on this side of the House in voting against that resolution.

Mr. Speaker: Order please. This completes the debate.

Mr. Lewis: The Premier was certainly animated, more animated than I have seen him in a long time. What did he say? It was very passionate.

Hon. Mr. Davis: More than the member said all afternoon.

Mr. Speaker: Order please. This completes the debate on this item. I will now put the question.

The House divided on Mr. R. F. Nixon’s motion, which was negatived on the following vote:

Ayes

Nays

Bounsall Breithaupt Bullbrook Burr Campbell Cassidy Davison Deacon Deans Dukszta Edighoffer Ferrier Gisborn Haggerty Lawlor Lewis Martel Newman (Windsor-Walkerville) Nixon (Brant) Paterson Reid Renwick Riddell Ruston Sargent Smith (Nipissing) Stokes Worton -- 28.

Allan Auld Belanger Bernier Birch Brunelle Carruthers Davis Drea Dymond Eaton Evans Ewen Gilbertson Grossman Hamilton Handleman Havrot Henderson Hodgson (Victoria-Haliburton) Hodgson (York North) Irvine Jessiman Kennedy Kerr Lane Leluk MacBeth Maeck McIlveen McKeough McNeil Meen Miller Morningstar Morrow Newman (Ontario South) Nixon (Dovercourt) Nuttall Potter Reilly Rhodes Rollins Root Scrivener Smith (Simcoe East) Smith (Hamilton Mountain) Snow Stewart Taylor Timbrell Turner Villeneuve Walker Wardle White Winkler Yaremko -- 58.

Clerk of the House: Mr. Speaker, the “ayes” are 28, the “nays” 58.

Mr. Speaker: I declare the motion lost.

Orders of the day.

Clerk of the House: The 18th order, House in committee of supply.

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