Legislative Assembly of Ontario

The House met at 2 o’clock, p.m.

Prayers.

Hon. W. Newman (Minister of the Environment): Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to introduce to the House 80 students from grade 10 at Henry St. High School in Whitby and their teacher, Mr. Efler. I would like to welcome them to the Legislature today to watch our deliberations.

Mr. Speaker: Statements by the ministry.

Oral questions.

ENFORCEMENT OF MORAL STANDARDS BY LIQUOR LICENCE BOARD

Mr. R. F. Nixon (Leader of the Opposition): I would like to ask the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations if, during his brief absence from the House, it has been brought to his attention that the chairman of the Liquor Licence Board has assumed even more of the powers of censorship which it is questionable belong to him under the statutes of the province? Is the minister prepared to make any statement as to the allocation of those powers? Has he discussed the matter with the chairman of the Liquor Licence Board? Does he believe it is proper for the chairman, through the inspectors, to threaten them with the loss of their licences if in fact they employ people not approved by the chairman?

Hon. J. T. Clement (Minister of Consumer and Commercial Affairs): Mr. Speaker, yes, it has been drawn to my attention that the leader of the Liberal Party indicated his tremendous interest in this area of activity.

Mr. P. D. Lawlor (Lakeshore): There have been more questions asked during the minister’s presence.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I have not discussed it with the chairman of the board. I would like to make one or two things clear. The chairman does not direct; the board directs. It is a collective decision.

Secondly, the type of entertainment that has been the subject of some discussion in this House, I believe last Friday, applies only to dining lounges and not to lounges.

Mr. M. Shulman (High Park): But he won’t give lounge licences.

Hon. Mr. Clement: The rationale is that the chairman of the board and the members of that board do not think it is in the best interests for the dining patrons of this province, particularly in the presence of minors, to be subjected to that type of entertainment.

There is no mandate, or no requirement, insofar as lounges are concerned. They are strictly within the purview of the municipal police force. If the police force finds some form of entertainment offensive, it then has to decide whether it will prosecute under the provisions of the Criminal Code or not.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Supplementary: Would the minister indicate as a matter of policy whether he approves of the chairman indicating his judgement through the inspectors this way, together with warnings that the licensee may lose the licence if there is not an indication of complying with the views of the chairman? Is he not further aware that the quotes that were in the public press at least indicated that these were judgements of the chairman and not of the board?

Hon. Mr. Clement: No, I wasn’t aware of that. I tell the members of this House that it is the collective judgement of the board itself; it is not a matter of a mandate being issued by the chairman of the board. I don’t find it in the public interest particularly to serve the interests of minors in this province, to have them entertained in that fashion, and for that reason I don’t propose to discuss it further with him.

I must point out that there have been acts which have been particularly offensive in the past that have occurred and have been the subject of criminal prosecution, in some cases resulting in acquittals and in others, of course, in convictions. I think that the board, because of its licensing of premises, holds out to the public an implied warranty that there will be a certain quality of food and service within those dining lounges or dining rooms, and that what goes on in there is not offensive to the travelling members of the public. If people want another form of entertainment, then they can go into a straight lounge and titillate their fancies or whatever they see fit to do.

Mr. Speaker: The member for High Park.

Mr. M. Shulman (High Park): Is the minister aware that the inspectors from his board went into these half-dozen establishments in Downsview and did exactly as the minister said, telling them, “You may not have these entertainments in dining lounges. However, you may have them in your lounges”? Is he aware that none of the establishments has a lounge and that they have all been refused lounges because the board will not issue them lounge licences? What land of games is the minister playing with us?

Hon. A. Grossman (Provincial Secretary for Resources Development): The member for High Park doesn’t even want them to drink in his riding.

Hon. Mr. Clement: It is not a matter of my not wanting to issue lounge licences. We have not issued lounge licences in this province since about 1952 --

Mr. Shulman: So what is the use of telling them to go to a lounge then?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Clement: -- save and except in hotels and motels and this sort of establishment. We don’t issue straight lounge licences.

Is the member suggesting that we should issue straight lounge licences?

Mr. Shulman: Yes, the law should let them entertain where they will.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Is the member suggesting we should issue them in High Park?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: How about that?

Mr. Shulman: No, High Park has voted dry.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Oh, I see.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: All of a sudden the laws are intelligent, eh?

Mr. Speaker: The Leader of the Opposition.

INDIAN FISHING RIGHTS

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I would like to ask a question of the policy minister for Natural Resources. Is that close enough to his title?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Resources Development.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Resources Development.

In the absence of a number of his colleagues in that policy field, is he aware of the judgement handed down by Provincial Judge C. E. Perkins on Aug. 30, 1974, in Chatham, which in a case known as Regina vs. Whiteye removed the aboriginal fishing rights that the Indians claim they have had since their treaties were signed with the white men in this part of the world? Is he aware of the continuing problem of the basic hunting and fishing rights with the Indians and with laws that come under the policy jurisdiction of this ministry? Is he going to take any action to assist the Indians with their appeal?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, mv memory goes back only to Aug. 31. I will have to look that up and find out. In any case, I will direct the question to the appropriate minister.

Mr. Speaker: Any further questions?

BRUTALITY IN TRAINING SCHOOLS

Mr. R. F. Nixon: In the absence of the Minister of Correctional Services (Mr. Potter), I would like to ask the Attorney General if he is aware of charges made by an employee, now suspended, of the Correctional Services ministry, and probation officer, William Brewer, that there is organized brutality occurring in the training school system in this province and that for that reason he finds it impossible to recommend to the courts that the disposition of certain cases be that the young person concerned go into the training school system? Does this concern the Attorney General in his capacity as chief law officer? Is he considering whether or not charges in this case might be laid?

Hon. R. Welch (Provincial Secretary for Justice and Attorney General): Well, Mr. Speaker, I became familiar with this matter by the report that was in the morning paper; secondly, this minister would be concerned; and thirdly, I am sure that the Minister of Correctional Services will have something to say about this shortly.

Mr. S. Lewis (Scarborough West): Supplementary: Now that the charges are more explicit and more accusatory from Mr. Brewer, does the minister not think that he should take the wraps off the private interrogation, not open to the public, which is going on in the Ministry of Correctional Services and allow an open and public hearing into the charges of this one-time probation officer?

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, I would remind the hon. member of my answer to the question posed by the Leader of the Opposition. I am sure the Minister of Correctional Services will have something further to say in this matter.

Mr. Speaker: Any further questions? The member for Scarborough West may ask his questions.

REPORT OF SEIZURE OF LEVI STRAUSS RECORDS

Mr. Lewis: One question of the Attorney General: Has it been brought to the Attorney General’s attention, and is it true, that the RCMP seized records a few weeks ago of Levi Strauss in Toronto? Has he, as the Attorney General and Provincial Secretary for Justice for Ontario, been informed that that did occur, and can he tell us what is happening, since there is so much Ontario money in that firm or in a subsidiary of that firm?

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, I don’t think this would be the appropriate time to provide any further information at this stage, but certainly when the investigation is completed anything that --

Mr. Lewis: Is there any investigation? Is that report accurate?

Hon. Mr. Welch: I think, under the circumstances, I would just like to leave my answer the way it is.

Mr. Lewis: Just a second now. By way of supplementary, I am not asking for an illumination of facts; I am asking if it is true that the RCMP seized files from Levi Strauss a number of weeks ago for the purposes of an investigation. Was that brought to the minister’s attention?

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, I have nothing further to add to what I have already said.

Mr. Speaker: Any further questions?

Mr. Shulman: Supplementary.

Mr. Speaker: It can’t be very much of a supplementary. There was no answer.

Mr. Shulman: May I try? Supplementary: Would the minister care to comment on the fact that today another firm, Atlas Overall and Pant, announced that it was closing down because of the moneys the government gave to Levi Strauss?

Mr. Speaker: That’s not exactly supplementary to the first question.

Mr. Shulman: Pretty close.

Hon. Mr. Welch: The answer would be “no,” Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Has the member for Scarborough West further questions?

Mr. Lewis: Yes, I have a question as well for the Provincial Secretary for Resources Development, given the absence of a number of colleagues in the secretariat.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Why doesn’t the minister get them in here?

Mr. W. Ferrier (Cochrane South): The minister is going to have to crack the whip.

Mr. I. Deans (Wentworth): Where is the whip?

FUTURE OF BLIND RIVER

Mr. Lewis: Does the minister think he might make an effort in the case of the community of Blind River, which parallels what his ministry clearly did in the case of the community of Armstrong, to mobilize all of the government’s resources to see whether the economic life of that community can be sustained, given the precipitate and unexpected shutdown of Champlain Lumber Co., the last indigenous industry in the life of the Blind River residents?

Mr. B. Gilbertson (Algoma): We are looking after that.

Mr. Lewis: Sure. The government hasn’t even met with them!

Hon. Mr. Grossman: We are certainly going to look into this.

Mr. F. Laughren (Nickel Belt): Going to? Why not already?

Mr. Lewis: May I ask whether the resource secretariat knows of any specific undertaking to keep the industry going, what the state of the receivership is and why no one officially from the provincial government has yet met with the town council, or the workers affected, since it is obviously catastrophic for the community?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, the answer to that at the moment is “no.”

Mr. Lewis: May I ask of the Minister of Revenue -- since he is the man, I think, under whom the Assessment Act falls, which Act gives the residential property tax rebate grants based on the various assessment formulae, can the minister take a look at the anomaly created for the town of Blind River giving it a level of grant from this government disproportionately lower than any other community in a similar circumstance, because of the way in which the grants are based?

Hon. A. K. Meen (Minister of Revenue): Mr. Speaker, I wasn’t aware of that alleged anomaly, but I’ll certainly be happy to look into the matter.

Mr. Lewis: May I ask the Minister of Labour, if, under the Employment Standards Act, he has initiated an investigation into the status of the rights of the employees, given the shutdown of Champlain Lumber Co, in Blind River -- the wage rights and severance pay rights -- since the banks and the government of Ontario have a call on that money before the workers?

Hon. J. P. MacBeth (Minister of Labour): Mr. Speaker, I don’t know that we have, but I’ll certainly make inquiries. I hope that it’s in the process and that my people are at work on it, but I don’t know the answer specifically.

Mr. Lewis: Might the minister, by way of policy, consider whether or not any of the $700,000 of loans which the government has made to this company in the past three or four years, which now is shut down, might perhaps not be reclaimed out of whatever assets there are in order that the workers be paid the appropriate severance payments?

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: I’ll include that in my inquiry, Mr. Speaker.

DOMINION WIRE CLOSING

Mr. Lewis: Thank you. May I ask the Minister of Labour: Has he yet ascertained the state of his ministry’s intervention in the Dominion Wire closing in Tillsonburg?

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: I know that we are working on it. Again, Mr. Speaker, it is one of those difficult positions where they are concerned with competition. There are various suggestions of their ability to carry on. We are doing our best to get the parties together.

STUDY OF VINYL CHLORIDE

Mr. Lewis: I want to ask of the Minister of the Environment: Is he aware that at an international conference in Europe, several medical scientists, as well as the workers representing various labour organizations, have asked that the only safe level for vinyl chloride emissions at all is no level, and that that is now in the process of implementation in the United States and European jurisdictions, while in Ontario it is still 200 parts per million? Before there is another tragedy akin to that of Elliot Lake, might he move on the situation of vinyl chloride emissions?

Hon. W. Newman: As I said the other day in the House, Mr. Speaker, in answer to this question, we have a complete compilation of all the plants that handle polyvinyl chlorides. There are different grades of polyvinyl chlorides, and at this particular point in time we are working on acceptable levels.

Mr. E. R. Good (Waterloo North): Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: That is exactly the same answer the minister gave in June, and through his estimates. What we want to know and what the public wants to know is: Is he intending to lower the acceptable limits, at least to the level that the emergency lowering of the levels in the States accomplished last April? For almost a year now he has been hedging --

Mr. Speaker: Order please. The member will have to pose the question.

Mr. Lewis: The minister knows what it is.

Hon. W. Newman: Mr. Speaker, I was asked a question about it last June, and we have spent the summer getting a report, as I said; that’s what I said in the estimates just the other day --

Mr. Lewis: It’s just like lung cancer in Elliot Lake -- he sits and watches and workers risk their lives. He does nothing. He does absolutely nothing.

Hon. W. Newman: Nonsense.

Mr. Speaker: Order please.

Hon. W. Newman: The member knows very well. He shouldn’t start getting himself recorded in Hansard making wild remarks. Let’s make sure he knows what he is talking about

Mr. Lewis: It is not difficult to get aggravated about it. He has seen the evidence now.

Mr. Speaker: Order please. Any further questions? The member for Downsview.

GOVERNMENT ACTION AGAINST DOW CHEMICAL

Mr. V. M. Singer (Downsview): Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Attorney General. I wonder if the Attorney General could, at this time in November, give us an up-to-date report on the progress of the Dow action?

The last report was given in April and at that time some $83,000 had been spent on outside counsel and a great battle was going on as to whether or not particulars were going to be given so that the defendants could plead? Can the Attorney General bring us up to date?

Mr. J. E. Stokes (Thunder Bay): That was before the courts at the end of August.

Mr. Lewis: This is probably sub judice, I would think.

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Downsview raises a very important question.

Mr. T. P. Reid (Rainy River): That is why he keeps raising it.

Hon. Mr. Welch: I would want to indicate that the matter which is before the courts is proceeding according to the rules of practice of the courts. I am meeting with our counsel in about a week’s time to be brought completely up to date with respect to any further steps that must be taken.

Mr. Singer: By way of supplementary: Has any further progress been made since a report was given by one of the Attorney General’s staff last April, some 6 1/2 months ago? Has anything more been achieved since that date in April?

Mr. R. F. Nixon: A little more money used up.

Hon. Mr. Welch: I am quite satisfied that once I have finished my meeting with the counsel for the Crown in this particular case, I could give the members complete details.

Mr. Singer: Oh, thank you.

Mr. Speaker: The member for High Park.

Mr. J. A. Renwick (Riverdale): Supplementary.

Mr. Speaker: All right, one supplementary.

Mr. Renwick: Is there any chance the Attorney General is considering dropping the prosecution?

Hon. Mr. Welch: No, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Oh, God forbid.

Mr. Singer: It doesn’t matter how much it costs; it will go ahead.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Polluters must pay.

Mr. Lewis: And Lake St. Clair fishermen are out of work --

Mr. Speaker: The member for High Park.

SHARE OFFER BY CORNAT INDUSTRIES

Mr. Shulman: I have a question of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations, Mr. Speaker, in three parts.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Okay, but go slowly.

Mr. Shulman: Yes, very slowly. No. 1: Will the minister investigate the offer made for shares of Comat Industries, which were kept open only for 24 hours, so that many shareholders were unaware of the offer?

No. 2: Inasmuch as Wood Gundy handled this offer for Comat, will the minister investigate whether the customers of Wood Gundy were notified while other shareholders were not?

Finally, inasmuch as Bob Morgan, director of Wood Gundy, is also the president of the Toronto Stock Exchange, should the minister not expect that customers of all firms would have been given an equal opportunity on this generous offer?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Question No. 1, yes. Question No. 2, yes. And question No. 3, I will look into that. I don’t know what the terms of the offer were. I am not familiar with it but I will look into it.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Minister of the Environment has an answer to a question which was posed on Friday.

MERCURY LEVELS IN LAKE ST. CLAIR

Hon. W. Newman: Yes, Mr. Speaker, in response to a question from the member for Elgin (Mr. McNeil) on mercury levels of fish in the St. Clair system, we would like to provide the following information.

As the hon. members are aware, the harmful effects of mercury contamination came to light in 1970. This was a world-wide discovery and as a result there was a great deal of work done to find out the nature and source of the problem. In Ontario we initiated extensive monitoring and sampling programmes in conjunction with the federal government to ensure that no citizen of the province would suffer ill effects of mercury contamination so evident in other parts of the world.

We established a task force to investigate the entire situation and make recommendations covering all aspects of the problem in all areas of the province. In March, 1970, ministerial control orders were placed on every industry in the province known to be using mercury in their processes. Our control programmes indicate that these control orders have been complied with and that mercury emissions from these industries have ceased. No new mercury discharges from these sources are evident.

In the St. Clair River system we have an indication of the effects of our control programme. We are very encouraged by the comparison of the 1970 mercury levels with the 1973 levels, which provide us with evidence of improvement. For example, in 1970, the average for a three-year-old walleye was two parts per million mercury. In 1973, a three-year-old walleye contained 0.97 parts per million mercury. In larger fish, the same trend was found. A six-year-old walleye in 1970 had an average of four parts per mil- lion mercury. By 1973 this had dropped to 1.8 parts per million. Twelve species of fish have been examined in our programme and all indicated similar improvement.

There has been a significant decline in mercury levels observed over the past four years. Our 1974 sampling programme, which was concluded in October, we believe will confirm this trend.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Rainy River.

COAL SUPPLIES FOR ONTARIO HYDRO

Mr. Reid: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Energy. Does the minister have any contingency plans in regard to coal for Ontario Hydro in case the United Mine Workers go on strike in the United States, or is such a plan necessary?

Hon. W. D. McKeough (Minister of Energy): Mr. Speaker, we reviewed our situation as recently as Friday. The position of Ontario Hydro, I think, is that they have adequate supplies of coal here and being moved on the dock in Conneaut under their ownership, to see us through a normal winter.

Mr. Reid: May I ask, by way of supplementary, in view of the fact that coal seems to be becoming in short supply, particularly in the United States, and there’s some talk of possible embargoes against Canada and Japan, what are the minister’s plans in case something like that happens?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Well, as long as a year and a half ago we convened a meeting in Energy of the steel companies and Ontario Hydro, who are practically the only users realistically of coal today in Ontario, and the Ministry of Transportation and Communications. The Ministry of Transportation and Communications subsequently hired very eminent consultants in terms of freight rates, and they have been working to try to get the cost data from the Canadian railways with or without the support of the Canadian Transport Commission.

Hopefully, it will not be necessary, although it would appear that we are going down that route, to secure an order from the CTC, as I understand it, to get the cost-related information. The cost of western Canadian coal, although it is a lesser cost at the mine mouth as compared to American coal because of the distances and because of the freight rates, whether they’re justified or not --

Mr. Reid: Mostly not.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: -- the cost of Canadian coal has run about 50 per cent higher than the cost of coal from either West Virginia or Pennsylvania, most of which is under rather long-term contracts, and we don’t anticipate that there would be any trouble.

The longer solution then is one of freight rates, and perhaps ultimately, either a coal-oil or, it would appear now, coal-water slurry pipeline from western Canada to here, which is actively being promoted by a group called Shelpac. Our interest in that matter -- through Hydro, through Energy and through the steel companies -- is a very real one. We’re following it with a great deal of interest and, if necessary, money.

I am encouraged within the last few months with the progress which it seems is being made between Ontario Hydro and certain western Canada producers of coal, in terms of getting close to some long-term contracts for perhaps up to four or five million tons of western Canadian coal for Ontario Hydro, which will be a very large foot in the door.

We don’t want to turn our back in any way on our traditional American suppliers. Their coal has certain qualities which the Canadian coal doesn’t have, and vice versa. Until the costs are settled, in terms of transportation particularly, we would be very loath to put all our eggs in a western Canadian basket, particularly with some of the problems which we seem to have in terms of some of our other eggs being in that basket.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Nickel Belt.

CSAO NEGOTIATIONS

Mr. Laughren: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Chairman of Management Board, if he’s willing to make his way back to his seat. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

In view of the minister’s claims that he and his government are committed to the collective bargaining process for the civil servants in Ontario, how does the Chairman of the Management Board justify the sending out of a document to all civil servants in the Province of Ontario which has clearly been designed to subvert that same collective bar- gaining process?

Hon. E. A. Winkler (Chairman, Management Board of Cabinet): Mr. Speaker, we must have this clear. Is this the government position paper that I sent out maybe a couple of weeks ago?

Mr. Laughren: That’s right.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Well, Mr. Speaker, I think that the question goes away beyond the actual information that the hon. member has made reference to. That paper was simply to put the government’s immediate position clear, and that’s what I did.

Mr. Laughren: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Does the Chairman of the Management Board not agree that the place to discuss the government’s position is at the bargaining table, and that this document is being regarded by the CSAQ as a clear attempt to divide and conquer the membership of the CSAO?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: It’s not full-page ads in every paper.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member must be naive if he hasn’t followed what’s gone on in the media for quite some weeks.

Mr. J. R. Smith (Hamilton Mountain): Listen to the radio!

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Attorney General has an answer to a question which was posed earlier.

OMB HEARINGS ON MATTICE

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, on Oct. 30 last the hon. member for Kitchener (Mr. Breithaupt) directed a question to my colleague, the Minister of Housing (Mr. Irvine), with respect to a hearing before the Ontario Municipal Board.

The hearing to which he refers deals with the union of townships and the application to the Ontario Municipal Board was made by the Citizens Committee for the Union of Mattice. The hearing had been scheduled for 12 noon, Oct. 29, 1974, at the Mattice Community Centre, and Messrs. Thompson and Kelly appeared for the board.

At that time, I’m advised, the solicitors for TransCanada Pipe Lines requested an adjournment because they had not been notified by the applicant in sufficient time to prepare for the hearing. The board, at the request of the solicitors for TransCanada Pipe Lines, adjourned the matter sine die, and a new hearing date will be set following re-application by the committee to the Ontario Municipal Board.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Huron.

BROILER PRICES

Mr. J. Riddell (Huron): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A question of the Minister of Agriculture and Food: In view of recent price reductions imposed on the chicken producers of Ontario, is the minister aware that a large number of chick orders to hatcheries have been cancelled? I believe the figure is somewhere in the neighbourhood of 400,000 chicks. Does the minister realize the chaos this government will be creating if it continues to compel the Ontario chicken producers’ marketing board to lower its price in order to compete with the Quebec market? I hope we don’t have any more of that chicken warmonger stuff.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: That’ll turn him on.

Hon. W. A. Stewart (Minister of Agriculture and Food): Mr. Speaker, --

Mr. R. F. Nixon: The chief chicken.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: -- as my hon. friend is fully aware, he was advised last Friday in the House that the chicken producers’ marketing board had the right to establish the price of chicken at whatever level they determine it should be; as of last Thursday they have that right. There was only one action taken in which there was one cent deducted from the price. There was only one instance that had come to our mind of a chick order having been cancelled and the producer apparently reconsidered and re-established his order with that flock. I am not aware of these other 400,000 that my hon. friend mentioned.

Mr. M. Gaunt (Huron Bruce): Supplementary Mr. Speaker?

Mr. Speaker: One supplementary.

Mr. Gaunt: Has there been any action by the minister with respect to taking the initiative with Ottawa to see if a national marketing plan can’t be instituted very soon to get away from over-production in one province coming in and upsetting the market in another?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: No, Mr. Speaker, there hasn’t been, but there has been action taken with the Quebec government and with the Quebec chicken marketing board. The Ontario board is meeting with the Quebec board today in an effort to try to resolve the matter of price differentiation and the matter of storage stocks.

Actually, I think that the Ontario chicken board has done an excellent job in gearing its production to the known market requirements, taking into consideration the amount of chicken that comes into Ontario from Quebec and from Manitoba into Quebec. That’s a standard practice that has been going on for years, and they, I think, have done an excellent job. There are about five million pounds of chicken, give or take a million pounds either way, in the market pipeline, and I don’t see how, in producing about 206 million pounds of chicken in Ontario, that you get any closer than that to a target objective over a period of a year.

In Quebec there seems to be a bit more. The Quebec board feel that they should have about two weeks’ supply, which is about eight million pounds of chicken, and they have something like 12 to 13 million pounds in the market pipeline there, a good deal of it in storage. That is, of course a problem, not only to the marketing of chicken in Quebec, but throughout the rest of Canada.

Some effective action has to be taken to reduce that to what the weekly market requirement should be and that is what the purpose of the discussion is all about today.

Frankly, I think it is quite wrong that there is this differentiation amounting to more than a cent a pound at times between Quebec and Ontario. I think both producer boards are losing money, and we would like to see that corrected; we would like to see it on a more even keel. But quite frankly, Mr. Speaker, I believe both boards have acted as responsibly as one could expect, bearing in mind the number of pounds of broiler chicken produced annually in both provinces.

These little matters I hope will be worked out and certainly there is no problem whatever as far as any chicken price war is concerned.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Sandwich-Riverside.

HEAT PUMP USAGE

Mr. F. A. Burr (Sandwich-Riverside): Mr. Speaker, a question of the Minister of Energy: In the interest of energy conservation, what is the minister doing to promote the use of heat pumps in new housing throughout the province?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Mr. Speaker, I understand Ontario Hydro has a very active programme in this regard. I am afraid I can’t say very much more than that. I will be glad to get the information and pass it to the member.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Waterloo North.

SALES TAX ON STAMPS

Mr. Good: Thank you, Mr. Speaker; a question of the Minister of Revenue: Could the minister detail the government policy as it relates to sales tax on first-day-issue stamps from post offices in the province?

Hon. Mr. Meen: I don’t have that, Mr. Speaker. I will get it for the hon. member.

Mr. Good: Mr. Speaker, while the minister is getting it I hope he has better luck than me. I have been trying to find out for months from his office what the government’s policy is.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Wentworth.

HOME SALES

Mr. Deans: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a question of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations. I asked the minister in May of this year whether he would investigate the actions of certain real estate companies with regard to the resale of Home Ownership property. He indicated that he would look into it and I have received no answer since that date.

Is there, in fact, anything illegal happening when a real estate agent sells a home, or attempts to sell a home, and lists it for more than the value approved by the Ontario Housing Corp. under the HOME programme? And further, is it illegal for an agent to arrange for a payment to be made after the deal has closed?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Speaker, I recall the question put to me by the member for Wentworth. I do have the information on my desk; I am sorry I didn’t get that back to him, I completely overlooked it.

It is not unlawful or contrary to the Real Estate and Business Brokers Act, per se, as I understand it, for a realtor to become involved in this type of activity. It may well be unlawful under the Home Ownership legislation.

I can’t put the question for the member, but I surmise he is wondering if it is unlawful or illegal under any statute. All I’m saying is under our real estate and business brokers legislation, as I understand it, it is not unlawful. I will get the information to the member within 24 hours. I’m sorry, I completely overlooked it.

Mr. Deans: Just one supplementary question: Is it unlawful for a real estate agent, licensed under the Real Estate and Business Brokers Act, to break another law for the purpose of finalizing the transaction?

Hon. Mr. Clement: I would think to break any law is unlawful. I don’t know, but I surmise --

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Deans: Well, isn’t that the answer?

Hon. Mr. Clement: That’s the kind of opinion, which if the member got it up in Downsview, might cost him a lot of money.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Lewis: That’s almost as good as the Minister of Energy’s observations.

Mr. M. Cassidy (Ottawa Centre): Almost as good.

Mr. Lewis: It is almost as good as the minister’s observation that inflation has something to do with it.

Mr. Speaker: The Minister of Government Services has the answer to a question.

RECLASSIFICATION OF MAINTENANCE MECHANICS

Hon. J. W. Snow (Minister of Government Services): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Last week the hon. member for Scarborough West asked me a question relating to certain maintenance mechanics employed by my ministry. I have the information now and I would like to answer the question.

In December, 1973, an audit of the positions in the repair-improvement section was conducted following major reorganization of the property management branch. This indicated that the position of maintenance mechanic 2 was apparently incorrectly classified and should, in fact, have been at the 1 level. There were seven incumbents in this position.

Property management branch was advised of the audit findings, and after discussions with personnel branch it was decided to have the position classified at the 1 level. At this stage, a meeting was held with the employees, the CSAO and management at which the decision to classify at the 1 level was discussed. This meeting took place in January, 1974. Although, in fact, the position had officially been reclassified at that time, no action to implement it as far as the seven incumbents were concerned had been taken, although in January one person had been hired at the 1 level.

As a result of the representations made at the meeting and a further detailed study of the matter, a second audit was agreed upon. This took place in June, 1974, following further discussions between personnel and property management and examination of similar positions elsewhere in that branch. The audit revealed two distinct levels of work, as a result of which personnel recommended that the positions be split between levels 1 and 2, and property management agreed that this be done. The positions were, therefore, written up and classified, three at the number 2 level and five at the number 1 level. Four incumbents were red-circled and one incumbent, as mentioned above, was already hired at the number 1 level.

Prior to implementation, which had the final approval of the branch director, the CSAO was advised on Oct. 22, 1974. The four were advised by letter on Oct. 23, 1974.

Mr. Renwick: That’s right. They were advised but there were no negotiations.

Hon. Mr. Snow: The CSAO felt that five at the 2 level and three at the 1 level was more correct but has, as yet, taken no official action in this regard. The CSAO position, apparently, was that three incumbents were working at the 2 level and two more were capable of working at that level and should, therefore, have that classification. The communications with the CSAO have been informal. We have no knowledge, Mr. Speaker, of mechanics 3 reclassified to mechanics 2 last month, as was suggested by the member for High Park. If the member has further information on that, I would be pleased to have it.

Mr. Lewis: By way of a supplementary, how does the minister reclassify down three people, two of whom had 19 years of work with his ministry and the other 18 years of work with his ministry, when they were working at an equivalent status with all the others? How does he do these things so arbitrarily and capriciously? How does he choose for people in that way?

Hon. Mr. Snow: Mr. Speaker, I don’t think it was done arbitrarily at all. There were several meetings --

Mr. Lewis: There were two meetings.

Hon. Mr. Snow: -- and several audits of the position. The work that was being carried out, as I understand it, by those particular employees was the class of work in the one level.

Mr. Renwick: The decision was made, and then the ministry approached the CSAO.

Mr. Speaker: The Leader of the Opposition.

BRUTALITY IN TRAINING SCHOOLS

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I have a question I want to direct to the Minister of Correctional Services, who is now in the chamber. Can he tell the House what investigation he has ordered into the allegations made by an employee of his department, William Brewer, as to the organized brutality that Mr. Brewer says is taking place in the training school system of this province? Has he got an investigation in process? If so, will there be public hearings? Or does he feel it is simply sufficient to go ahead with the hearings al- ready ordered into whether Mr. Brewer should be dismissed.

Hon. R. T. Potter (Minister of Correctional Services): Mr. Speaker, this is another case where, when disciplinary action is taken against one of the members of the staff and naturally he decides that unless the action is dropped then he’s going to make trouble. This doesn’t come to me as any great surprise because I’ve been told now for several weeks that if we continued with our action this was what would happen.

During this time we have carried on an investigation of the institutions that are mentioned and we don’t find any evidence to substantiate the charges that are made by Mr. Brewer. As a matter of fact, Mr. Brewer has never been in either one of these institutions.

As far as I’m concerned there certainly isn’t any indication at the present time that this was going on. I think the members will all agree that when we get into training schools or any other type of school where you have a group of boys, there is a certain amount of horsing around. Sometimes this is misinterpreted by some people. But we haven’t been able to find anything that would substantiate the charges that Mr. Brewer has made.

He has a grievance which will be heard later this month, and really I don’t think I should comment any more on Mr. Brewer and his particular case until after that grievance is heard.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Supplementary: Is the minister then prepared to tell the members of the House that there is no truth in the specific allegations made public in this morning’s Toronto Sun, where the institutions were named and the specific events were referred to? Is he prepared to table the results of his investigations in this connection?

Hon. Mr. Potter: As I said earlier, Mr. Speaker, we have not been able to find any evidence to warrant these allegations or to substantiate them. We are continuing of course, with our investigation and I’d be only too glad to advise the House of the results of our findings.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Lakeshore.

Mr. Lewis: Supplementary, if I may.

Mr. Speaker: This will be the last supplementary.

Mr. Lewis: Since the allegations have now been made publicly in this fashion and given the credence that comes with that publicity, why does the government insist on holding the inquiry into Mr. Brewer in camera? Surely it has a responsibility to open it up now to the public.

Hon. Mr. Potter: Mr. Speaker, I understand this is a procedure that is usually followed,

Mr. Lewis: That the government has decided upon.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: It is a grievance procedure.

Mr. Lewis: It is not a grievance.

Hon. Mr. Potter: Following this grievance hearing, if Mr. Brewer isn’t satisfied, then he has a grievance before the Civil Service Commission, which then --

Mr. Lewis: The minister is just hushing it up.

Hon. Mr. Potter: I’m not hushing up a damn thing.

Mr. Lewis: Oh, yes the minister is.

Hon. Mr. Potter: Oh, stop being so stupid! We are not hushing up anything!

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Lewis: That is two of us the minister has called stupid in a couple of days. That’s not very nice and not gentlemanly.

Mr. Cassidy: Is the member getting an itch? Can’t he take the heat?

Mr. Lewis: I must say the minister is probably on his way out of the cabinet.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The member for Lakeshore.

ROYAL COMMISSION ON ALLEGATIONS OF POLICE BRUTALITY

Mr. Lawlor: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Do hush up. That was not very diplomatic of the minister, or even parliamentary, for heaven’s sake.

To the Attorney General: Has he given any thought over there to providing counsel or some kind of legal help to the numerous complainants who will be appearing before the police violence royal commission by way of legal fees or covering them? Most of these people are down and out and, as I see it, they are going to be cut to pieces by counsel before the committee and need legal services.

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, to answer the question directly, the Attorney General has not been asked to give consideration to this matter. If I can interpret the member’s question as a request to give some consideration to it, I accept it in that regard and I will be glad to give it some consideration.

Mr. Lawlor: It’s elementary that the minister hasn’t done so.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Huron-Bruce.

CONTAMINATED LIVESTOCK SEMEN DISTRIBUTED

Mr. Gaunt: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Agriculture and Food. Since the minister has been notified that some contaminated AI semen has been distributed and sold, what action has the minister taken in this regard?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Mr. Speaker, to say the least, I am very much concerned by the implications behind the question asked by my friend from Huron-Bruce. I know that he, as a livestock man, is very much concerned too.

When I became aware that semen reportedly was being distributed throughout Ontario that apparently had been rejected at the federal lab at Hull, I asked for a report from all of the insemination units across Ontario going back to June 1, 1972, on every sample that had been sent to Hull. That was done through the assistant deputy minister’s office. We have not received that report to this date. We have to wonder why. We have discussed it with the federal officials and with the people at the Association of Animal Breeders.

I can tell the member that we are mightily concerned, Mr. Speaker. I can tell him as well that through the limitations of the Artificial Insemination of Cattle Act in Ontario, we will be pursuing it to the full.

Mr. Gaunt: A supplementary.

Mr. Shulman: A supplementary.

Mr. Speaker: The member who asked the question may have the first supplementary.

Mr. Gaunt: Since the OPP have also been informed, does the minister anticipate getting a report from them as well?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: I have certain documents in my possession, which I assume the hon. member has as well, which report certain things. They will all be part of the checking we will be doing.

Mr. Shulman: A supplementary.

Mr. Speaker: This will be the last supplementary. The member for High Park.

Mr. Shulman: Is the minister aware that United Breeders have posted a notice on their bulletin board forbidding their employees to give out the dates on which contaminated samples were supplied?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: No, Mr. Speaker, I was not aware of that.

Mr. Shulman: Would the minister look into that?

Hon. Mi. Stewart: I wonder if my hon. friend would give me some proof of that.

Mr. Speaker: The member for York South.

GAS PIPELINES

Mr. D. C. MacDonald (York South): I have a question of the Minister of Energy, a two-part question with regard to pipelines.

Now that the Canadian Arctic Gas consortium appears to be foundering, if not disintegrating, and there is some possibility of it being replaced by a Canadian-dominated consortium, the so-called Maple Leaf or Foothills Pipeline Co., is it accurate to say that the government of Ontario is tending to leave its support with the former American-dominated pipeline?

Coming back to the Ontario scene, what is the position of the Province of Ontario with regard to Interprovincial Pipe Line now that they have lost interest in the Sarnia to Montreal line? Is there any possibility that the Ontario government will join forces with the federal government in a publicly developed line and one, it is hoped, that would be in Canada and out of the prime farmland of southern Ontario?

Mr. Stokes: And through the north.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from York South for at least six questions that I think he asked --

Mr. MacDonald: There were two overall ones and some other --

Hon. Mr. McKeough: I’ll try to remember them.

Mr. Cassidy: Let the minister tread his way carefully.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: First of all, I think there were some reports following the first ministers’ conference which indicated that the Premier (Mr. Davis) had indicated the government’s support for the Foothills project, as opposed to the CAGSL project. That was not correct. He has not done so, nor has the government.

Mr. Lewis: Where is the Premier today?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: We continue to be more convinced of the viability -- let me put it this way: Our concern is to bring frontier gas to the Canadian markets and particularly to the Ontario market.

Mr. MacDonald: Would the government have a preference for a Canadian consortium?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Both are Canadian consortia. The member is tossing things around which I won’t bother taking issue with, but both are at this moment Canadian consortia. There are only two people in the Foothills project at the moment; whether it is going to get off the ground remains to be seen.

On the basis of the evidence that has been put in front of us and our investigations and studies, both engineering and economic, we would think that at this moment the project which has the best hope of completion in getting gas to market is the Canadian Arctic Gas Study Ltd. proposed Mackenzie Valley route. We remain flexible on this. If circumstances change, then certainly our position can be changed very easily. At this moment that is our best guess.

Was there a second part to that question?

Mr. MacDonald: No.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Then the member went to IPL. I don’t think it’s fair to say that Interprovincial Pipe Line has lost interest in the project. From my reading of the press they are concerned -- which is something which my friend from York South and his party wouldn’t understand -- as to whether they can make money on the project and not lose money, which happens to be a fact for which most businessmen and which most of us on this side of the House have an appreciation.

Mr. Lewis: Until the Treasurer (Mr. White) bails them out of the public treasury, as he knows he will. That’s what the deal is.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: No, we are not proposing to bail them out or anything else, but to say that they have lost interest because they don’t know how they are going to be paid is the sort of red-tinged socialism over there which just destroys the credibility of the members opposite.

Mr. Renwick: The government will finance it and they’ll make the profit.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Those members don’t understand making money. They think profit is a dirty word and that’s why the people of this province will never support that bunch of reds over in that party.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. MacDonald: Supplementary.

Mr. Speaker: We have overrun the oral question period.

The question period has expired. Order, please. Order.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Lewis: Supplementary, as the Premier of Ontario is canvassing --

Mr. Speaker: I think you are out of order, sir.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Lewis: -- at this very minute, I --

Hon. Mr. McKeough: On a point of order, I think it is safe to assume, sir, that the Premier is making sure that we are not inflicted with the same disaster which the people in Stormont had.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: All your points of order are out of order!

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order!

Mr. Lewis: The Premier is looking after what is known as an endangered species.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: No way.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Stokes: Let it be known that the Minister of Energy is calling Cornwall a disaster area.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. MacDonald: What those people don’t realize is that the Premier is the worst man to send down there.

Mr. Speaker: I would just remind the House we are not in Carleton East at the moment.

Order, please.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Petitions.

Presenting reports.

Hon. Mr. Welch presented the 68th annual report of the Ontario Municipal Board for the year ended Dec. 31, 1973, and the report of the public trustee for the year ended March 31, 1974.

Mr. Speaker: Motions.

Mr. G. Samis (Stormont): Mr. Speaker, on a point of privilege, I would like to say to the hon. minister that it’s true I am new to the House but I don’t yet consider myself to be a disaster.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Introduction of bills.

Now the member for Stormont may rise, before the orders of the day.

Mr. Lewis: Don’t dignify it by repeating it.

An hon. member: Hardly an objective opinion.

Mr. J. R. Breithaupt (Kitchener): Mr. Speaker, before we go into committee I would like to draw to your attention the fact that the member for Grey South, the hon. government House leader, has received a distinction yesterday from Wilfrid Laurier University, where he was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor at Laws.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Breithaupt: Both the minister and I have an involvement with the university --

Mr. Lewis: Their standards are declining! Maybe they’ll give me a degree.

Mr. Breithaupt: I did want to give him my best wishes. Not only have we shared an interest in the past in Waterloo Lutheran University together but I am sure we both have an interest in the development of Wilfrid Laurier University and I would congratulate the government House leader on this high award.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Dr. Winkler is so recognized.

Orders of the day.

Clerk of the House: The 20th order, House in committee of supply.

ESTIMATES, MINISTRY OF CONSUMER AND COMMERCIAL RELATIONS (CONTINUED)

On vote 1302:

Mr. Chairman: On item 3 of vote 1302.

Mr. P. D. Lawlor (Lakeshore): Mr. Chairman, I was on my feet the other evening when we adjourned this particular debate. And at that stage, Mr. Chairman, I was in the throes of a persevering debate, touching the recommendations that are before the minister, I’m sure, and his ministry, on no-fault insurance in the Province of Ontario, proceeding from the Insurance Bureau of Canada. This is a very powerful entity, and because of the foreclosure of the debate on these particular estimates -- in the sense that there is a limited time available to us -- I shan’t flagellate the issue, although I think it’s --

Mr. Chairman: Maybe the hon. member for Lakeshore would just like to take his seat until we get the Legislature prepared?

The hon. member for Lakeshore.

Mr. Lawlor: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As the minister will recall, we were on no-fault insurance. I was saying we can’t draw out these estimates, or really give this type of thing the scappling treatment that it deserves. Nor will I proceed along the lines of the other evening, seeking to set out the minutiae of the situation.

I’m sure you’re aware of the report of the symposium of the lawyers and the insurance people on this particular situation, and contained in the March, 1974 gazette of the Law Society of Upper Canada. I would just mention there are several more matters which would be of benefit to the people of Ontario from a totally non-partisan source, which I can give accord to -- that is, again, some of Linden’s recommendations. I read you a number of them the other night -- one, that the benefits of the present Ontario non-fault scheme should be improved.

Mr. J. A. Renwick (Riverdale): Even my friend can call him non-partisan; I don’t understand it.

Mr. Lawlor: Let’s say non-conservative. That makes one pretty non-partisan, doesn’t it, from the word go?

Mr. Renwick: It’s pretty hard to be non-partisan and be retained by the all-Canada insurance group.

Hon. J. T. Clement (Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations): It’s hard if he’s not conservative.

Mr. Lawlor: No, he wasn’t. When was he retained by them?

Mr. Renwick: Out in BC -- wasn’t he?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Who, Linden?

Mr. Renwick: Linden.

Mr. Lawlor: Out in British Columbia.

Mr. Renwick: Yes.

Mr. Lawlor: Linden says the benefits of the present Ontario no-fault scheme should be improved. The death benefit should be raised to $25,000. We should consider removing the $5,000 limit on rehabilitation costs, and replacing it with a limitless figure. The $70 per week disability allowance, although not insignificant, is still a long way from adequate. We should consider doubling that, and eventually perhaps tripling it, so that the majority of the population need not be out of pocket in the area of salary arising out of this.

Those are several points that he has made, which I would ask you take under advisement. There are some very pertinent and scappling points in the balance of that fairly lengthy symposium -- which, again, I would ask you to give some thought to.

I would like to know, arising out of the estimates, as to what your plans are in regard to no-fault at this stage in its development. My reason for speaking earlier was to try to forfend, as best one could, against your adopting or giving any credence to the proposals forthcoming, at least under this guise, from the industry.

I think from all quarters -- from the most aquamarine blue of the right to the most scarlet of the left -- the whole parameter of the rainbow in this province and elsewhere, they have been inveighed against. I think the insurance industry is taken very much aback and startled to see the response that has been forthcoming. They deserve to be startled and to be held back in this particular head, because what they have really devised under the scheme is a means whereby they are subsidized through hospital premiums and through the workmen’s compensation benefits and by any other ways through which social security measures flow to protect people who are injured or people who are killed arising out of motor vehicle accidents or in any wise.

Far from giving the subrogation rights, they wish to withdraw. In point after point, it is a scheme whereby very little money would be paid out to premium holders. The premiums would be increased and, thirdly, therefore the profit margins would be safeguarded which they claimed, for many generations now, have been in jeopardy. In other words, they don’t make any money on automobile insurance and if they can have this scheme brought into being, through the minister’s auspices because he is the boy in charge, then they would have ensured and guaranteed themselves a good rate of profit over against their present bellyaching.

With that in mind, please forfend in this regard. I would like to know your response to these proposals as they have come through. They have been long before us. In that response, would your general plans also be encapsulated -- what and where you intend to move in and whether you intend to do anything? Are you going to bring on legislation enlarging the plan before Christmas? Have you given any thought to taking it out of the hands of the private insurance industry completely, as we have advised?

As I said the other day, we are not opposed to tort action or tort claims or going forward in the courts with these claims should they be foolish enough to wish to do so. That is a peradventure of the bar with their clientele. Leave that open, that’s fine. We won’t foreclose, nor have they in British Columbia or Saskatchewan or other pioneering provinces, with regard to this particular kind of insurance.

What we do say, and I will have to have it proven to me to have it proved in any other way, is that the premium rates cannot by any logical or rational approach but be smaller under an overall compulsory universal governmental scheme. If the private insurance industry is going to administer it in terms of advertising, in terms of the competitive ethos or in terms of agencies all over the place, they simply cost more money. It has been proven, I think fairly conclusively, that you can save 15 to 20 per cent on the premiums if they are handled on a universal scheme. That is the whole meaning of insurance. That’s the whole meaning of governmental insurance. It was the meaning behind health. It is the meaning behind workmen’s compensation and it is the meaning here and the dawning realization is coming home to roost.

The only other point I want to make in order to foreclose these remarks, because I have to get down to the Revenue estimates, is why are people permitted to work under the automobile insurance plan of the province paying a pittance into that plan in order to obtain driving privileges and then using the general pooling of resources for victims of these particular people? Why isn’t it obligatory? Since we all consider driving in the province a privilege and not a right, why aren’t they obliged to fall within and produce insurance -- according to your purblindness at present, private insurance?

If they cannot afford to do that, then they ought not to be in automobiles. They are a hazard and a risk to the public in a way way beyond anything that would redound to them in terms of outlay and out-of-pocket expenses in order to obtain insurance.

We all feel that if you can’t afford to buy insurance, you shouldn’t drive. It is as simple as that. Why isn’t that equally applicable to the numerous individuals who take advantage of the scheme and pay a few dollars in? I wouldn’t oblige people to go for collision insurance. If they want to wreck their own automobile and have it as a write-off, I think there is an area of personal freedom that is within their domain, although if an across-the-board scheme came into being. I think collision may very well be provided for because the costs would be relatively negligible within the blanket coverage of that particular scheme.

Those are the few things that occur to me under this head and I would appreciate the minister’s remarks.

Mr. V. M. Singer (Downsview): Do you want to answer him? I will be asking questions on insurance, too.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Oh, I am sorry.

Mr. Chairman: The member for Downsview.

Mr. Singer: Mr. Chairman, I missed the be- ginning of the discussion on insurance the other evening and came in on the tail end of your remarks to the hon. member for Lakeshore, but many of the questions he raises I think are most valid.

I only got very mild encouragement from the minister’s introductory remarks that there was going to be an investigation of the whole Insurance Act. It is long, long overdue and I don’t know what vehicle the minister has in mind. If he has in mind a presently functioning select committee, the ability of that committee to get at the Insurance Act is probably very limited in time and it would probably be a year or a year and a half in the future.

There are many, many urgent questions about insurance, I think, that should be gotten at reasonably quickly. The whole rate structure is a constant source of amazement and puzzlement, not only to members, but to constituents who constantly raise the question -- to me, in any event. How do you explain the rate structure?

I think we have moved a little bit from the days when we did that investigation by a select committee of inquiry into automobile insurance in the early Sixties. We have an actuary who functions for government, but I have yet to see the actuary’s opinion about insurance rates. When our select committee visited England I was fascinated to find out that there is an actuarial department advising government in the United Kingdom and that they take on tasks like this. There is a whole department there that is able to advise government from an actuarial point of view as to this kind of question and many other questions. If we only have one actuary serving the whole government of Ontario, and I gather that’s all that we do have, then his ability to examine the green book that the underwriters or the insurance actuaries come up with is very, very limited.

There are so many gaps continuing. How does one explain this mysterious category -- and I suffer from this personally -- of the single, under-25 male as the greatest menace on the road? Should he happen to get married between his 16th birthday and his 25th birthday, he ceases to be such a menace; having had the ability to enjoy a marriage service suddenly apparently bestows upon him great responsibility, so he comes into a different category.

Let me be a little personal about it. I have a 21-year-old son who drives. He has been driving since he has been 16; he has never had an accident, but his premium is double mine because he is an under-25 single male. Surely his five years of driving and his accident-free record should be of some benefit, but it isn’t.

His sister, who is 18, and who has only been driving for two years, is in an entirely different category because she is presumed by these amazing fellows, these actuaries, to be a much better driver because she is female. Whether she is single or married apparently doesn’t matter, and her age doesn’t matter that much either.

I don’t think that makes any sense, and I think it is time that we had the ability to be advised by someone on behalf of government, no longer by insurance actuaries, as to the validity of this rate structure that we are absolutely unable to cope with.

To follow my own personal problem down the line a little further, when I got the bill in and saw it had gone up and not gone down, despite the accident-free record, I phoned up my agent. My agent has gone through one of those weird processes where he used to be an individual in business and through a series of deaths and amalgamations he is now a member of a mammoth insurance agency. You get a little sticker saying “phone Miss Jones” and everybody who answered that phone that day was Miss Jones, so I asked Miss Jones about the rate structure. She said: “Oh, I don’t know about the rate structure. Why don’t you phone the actuaries at Royal Insurance? They will be able to tell you.” You go round and round in circles, and the ability of an individual to inquire intelligently about rating structure just isn’t there.

I don’t know what kind of advice the minister gets; I don’t know what kind of advice the registrar gets. One would think that if the actuary seriously looks at those rating books as they come in, as they are presented -- and they are presented for in- formation, not for approval. If he has any inquiries we never get to hear about them, in any event. It is all an inside job.

The mysterious question of whether or not investment profits are taken into consideration in fixing the rate structure never really has been satisfactorily answered. We hear about underwriting losses only. I continue to believe that underwriting losses do not take into account investment profits.

If the automobile insurance business is in as bad shape as the occasional insurance executive would lead us to believe, one wonders why so many of them continue to stay in business. I’m not of a mood to believe that they stay in business only because they think they are providing a public service. They’re in business to make a profit, and if they’re not going to make a profit they’re not going to stay in that line of business. What about the interest on prepaid premiums which must run into many hundreds of thousands of dollars? Is that taken into consideration?

I think, Mr. Chairman, without waiting for the investigation by a standing committee of this House or a select committee, we should be entitled to have an intelligent report from the minister relating to the usefulness and the validity of the present rating structure. Along the same line, when our committee was sitting in the early 1960s, one thing that all members felt very strongly about was who determined who could drive on the road. Was it to be the insurance companies or was it to be the government licensing agency? The insurance companies at that time were saying: “Mr. Clement, we don’t like your driving record. We’re not going to give you any insurance,” Mr. Clement, being a reasonably intelligent person, would say: “If I can’t get any insurance, I’m not going to be on the road.” So, the insurance companies, at that point, were determining in that way who could be on the road.

As an alternative, the report recommended that the industry be offered, and I believe the government did offer to them, a driver licensing review board which the industry never, in fact, asked for and which, I gather, never has been set up. In other words, where a driver’s record was of such a bad state that the industry felt, or a particular company felt, that he should no longer have insurance, then the question of his right to continue to be on the road could have been or should have been able to be referred to this board.

They would determine whether or not he could stay on the road. If the licensing people decided he could stay on the road then there had to be insurance. It sounded great except for two things: One, that review board was never set up and, second, they switched tactics. They switched tactics not by saying: “You can’t have insurance,” but by saying: “If you’re going to have insurance, we’re going to double your premium or triple your premium.”

Somewhere along the line, the insurance industry is doing exactly the same thing. I can understand the complaint and the concern that, if the driving record of an individual applicant for insurance is so bad that it is reasonable to argue that he shouldn’t be on the road, there should be a review of his privilege to carry on with his licence, but I don’t think that should be a substantial determination by the insurance companies. I think it should be a determination by the appropriate government agency supported, if you will, by a review board.

In addition to that, Mr. Chairman, I think the government has got to get into the whole business of adjusters. The hon. minister hasn’t practised law for a few years, but I would imagine he can think back to when he was in his law office in Niagara Falls and from time to time had to speak to adjusters. In the last year or two, I found that the adjusters they are sending out are younger, less trained and with less authority than ever before. They come in to talk; if possible, to glean information, but certainly not to make any offer that is binding. It’s really a thorough-going waste of time. They don’t understand the automobile negligence field.

I would think the time is long, long overdue when a much stricter system of training and qualifying insurance adjusters must be embarked upon, and I think it’s a duty and responsibility of government that this be done in the public interest. It’s all right if the injured person or the claimant has a lawyer and a reasonably experienced and knowledgeable lawyer to act on his behalf. But how many individuals who are frightened by the legal process get misled or misinformed or improperly informed by an adjuster who really doesn’t seem to have, insofar as I’ve been able ascertain, any great standard of qualification, training or education?

The only time you really get reasonable adjusters is when you are able to deal with somebody who has been in the business for a fair length of time, who has established a fair reputation and who comes in and talks frankly and honestly. We see too many inexperienced and untrained adjusters who are abusing this whole field. I think that’s wrong, and I think the government has got to step in and begin to do something about it. So there’s rating and adjusting.

There is the other field of repairs too, when you are talking about collision damage. I guess it’s no great secret that when the body repair people or the garages first look at a car and have in mind an estimate, one of the questions they ask directly or indirectly is, “Who’s going to pay for it? Are you going to pay for it or is the insurance company going to pay for it?” If they get an indication that the insurance company is going to pay for it, it seems to me that where there is a dent in the fender or a dented bumper, rather than hammer it out and repaint it, the recommendation is -- and the estimate goes along with it -- to replace the fender or fit a brand-new bumper and so on.

Again, I think there has to be some serious kind of policing, because this whole system is beginning to run away with us.

For many years I have urged upon government and the industry that if the present matters that the public are complaining about are not dealt with reasonably and adequately, the demand for government insurance is going to be so overwhelming that it is not going to be able to be resisted. Government really has taken no serious action and the industry a little less.

Let me talk about what I think the minister is familiar with, the latest effort by one particular company to bring in a complete no-fault scheme. Elaborate presentations were made. Somewhere along the line the presenters of the scheme got into their mind the idea that as of Jan. 1, 1975, we were going to have a complete no-fault scheme. That was in their literature and in their presentations. Somehow, along the line, they also made a terrible mistake. They brought that scheme before the Advocates Society, and more lawyers attended that meeting, I think, than ever attended a legal meeting in Ontario before. Most lawyers who listened to that scheme found serious flaws in it. It may be that the whole scheme is not a bad one --

Mr. Renwick: What is that, the Insurance Bureau of Canada scheme?

Mr. Singer: Yes, which was really sponsored only by one company. It was imagined by one company and given the seal of approval or the imprimatur of the IBC, which it really didn’t have, because after it had been presented several companies detached themselves from that recommendation. But we haven’t heard a word from government about it. What does government think? Is it good? Is it bad? Should we do away with pain and’ suffering as a heading for damage or not? Should resort to the courts be taken away in all except the most serious instances, or shouldn’t it?

We are all worried about costing, and the problem of costing and the problem of rates seem to be the sole and entire concern of the industry. I haven’t yet been able to get from my good friend the registrar, or from Mr. Thompson in his department, any concrete basis on which they realistically examine the rate structure. I’d like to hear if the minister can tell me today why the single, under-25 male, until he either gets married or passes that magic age, has to be charged perhaps twice as much as anybody else, even if he has five, six or seven years of accident-free driving. These things just don’t make any sense.

One other thing that was brought to my attention the other day by a constituent, who didn’t have the best driving record in the world, was that he was awarded points because he committed certain offences -- and I think he got up to six. In his last notice about points they said those points will disappear in two years, which is the normal structure. “But,” he said, “by the same token, my insurance company tells me that because I had lost those points, I’m going to be penalized in additional premiums for three years.”

If the licensing branch says, “We’ll take those points away in two years,” why should the insurance company have the right to increase the premium for three years? Should the government not concern itself with that? I think it’s a very serious problem.

He sent me his conviction records and he said: “I went and told the provincial court judge about this, and said the fine was going to be $13. He felt very sorry for me and he reduced the fine to $5.” I don’t know what he was doing; driving a few miles over the speed limit, or failing to stop. It was nothing very serious. But he said: “I’m paying my insurance company $35 more a year for three years because I had this one conviction registered against me in which I was fined the sum of $5.”

Is that reasonable? Is it sensible? Why shouldn’t there be some sort of meshing together of the various departments and some real control by government?

Substantially, Mr. Chairman, what I’m saying is: I don’t know that it is sensible to wait until the availability of a particular committee to get into this. If the minister feels that a committee can do it better -- and probably I’m prepared to agree with him -- why can’t he start a committee working right away? And, certainly, why can’t we get some ministerial decisions that will begin to tackle some of the more serious problems?

There are very serious problems in this industry. They’re problems that affect all of the people who live in the Province of Ontario. They can understand that. They’re worried about rate structures. They’re worried about slowness in settlement. They’re worried about what they feel are inequitable settlements. They’re worried about the problems of possible litigation. They’re worried about the problems of consulting the profession. They’re worried about the things I’ve talked about -- and many others.

I would like to hear the minister deal at some length with what he has in mind, particularly about automobile insurance.

Mr. Renwick: May I make a couple of comments, Mr. Minister, or would you prefer to answer now?

Hon. Mr. Clement: No, go ahead -- and then I will answer.

Mr. Renwick: I’m certainly not going to repeat at length, but there seems to me to be about three or four areas that my colleague from Lakeshore and the member for Downsview have spoken about that are of concern to me.

One is: I would like to know, as a matter of record, how many of the 76-odd recommendations of the minister’s committee on insurance claims have been implemented? There’s no point in us talking about matters where the implementation has taken place, but I was speaking about the minister’s committee on insurance claims. It was set up by his predecessor, Bert Lawrence -- who is, of course, no longer a member of this assembly -- and it reported on Aug. 25, 1972.

Mr. Singer: That is that lawyer from Oakville, isn’t it?

Hon. Mr. Clement: McWilliams.

Mr. Renwick: The McWilliams report, yes.

Mr. Singer: McWilliams, yes.

Mr. Renwick: It tried to deal with an immense number of specific recommendations, because --

Mr. Lawlor: That’s the one the minister tried to suppress.

Mr. Singer: That’s the one we had so much trouble getting hold of.

Hon. Mr. Clement: The members didn’t say “please.”

Mr. Renwick: -- of the very adverse public image which the insurance industry -- particularly in the settlement of claims field -- had at that particular time. That’s the first point that I’m interested in.

The second is: I’m very much interested in this speech that the minister made about the question of change in the licensing provisions for adjusters employed by private companies as distinct from independent adjusters. I’m referring, apparently, to a speech which he made -- if I remember correctly, I think it must have been in June of this year -- in which he told a conference of the Canadian Federation of Insurance Agents and Brokers in Toronto, that his ministry is concerned about the inequality of accountability between independent adjusters who are licensed by the province and those working directly for insurers who are not licensed.

You are quoted as saying: “Mr. Clement suggested uniform licensing requirements across the country as being the most logical step.”

Forgetting the minister’s phrase “across the country,” what’s he going to do about the Province of Ontario with respect to providing a high standard of insurance adjusting for general insurance claims, including automobile insurance claims?

The third thing that I’d like to get some answers about is: What concerns does the minister have with respect to the life insurance industry at the present time? Again I’m referring to a very recent report with respect to the inadequacies of the present legislation governing the activities of life insurance agents.

The next matter that I would like him to deal with is, I wish he would do us the courtesy over the years of giving us gradually, one year at a time, the various reports of the superintendents of insurance, who apparently believe that they can deal nationwide without implementing any particular recommendation in any province until all the provinces agree. The reference to the life insurance field and the agents working in that field apparently was included in the report of the superintendents at their conference dealing with insurance agents, brokers and adjusters generally, not just entirely limited to the life insurance field.

Those are, for the moment anyway, the principal concerns I have. I think we have simply got to get down to grips about what the ministry is doing about it. Are they working on no-fault? Are they working on the Law Reform Commission report? Are they simply limping along and allowing the vested interests of the legal profession to scupper and torpedo every scheme which could possibly be conceived of as an improvement in the automobile insurance industry?

This, of course, is what takes place. I happen to have -- and if anybody wants to fool around with it I can read it into the record -- the reports from early this year where there has been a consistent, vocal, articulate, effective campaign by the vested interests of the legal profession who are intent upon preserving the tort liability, based on negligence, in the insurance field.

All right. Any vested interest has a perfect right to put its position. But there is never a contrary position put. The Law Reform Commission has put one contrary position, reported to the government and the government does nothing. It says nothing. There is no answer made by the Law Reform Commission to it.

The chairman of the Law Reform Commission doesn’t take to the stand in order to defend the report which they make. The Insurance Bureau of Canada -- sure it’s supported only by one company, but at least it was an initiative on its part to devise a no-fault scheme that would work, but it never gets off the ground. It is immediately torpedoed, or shot down, or whatever the proper term is in this sort of technological age of air travel. Whatever it is, we never ever get to the basis of the public’s concern about the insurance business.

I think the very fact that there were 76 specific concerns -- there was one general concern but the report was reduced to 76 specific recommendations in an attempt to say that if you would implement those recommendations maybe something could be done with respect to the failures to the community of what is happening in the automobile insurance field. The funny thing is that because it is focused always on the automobile insurance field in this province because of the failure of that industry in this province, similar problems, not of the same magnitude but of immense importance, with respect to classification and rating of fire and other general insurance fields, with respect to the way in which the life insurance industry is conducted in the Province of Ontario, those problems never ever see the light of day.

I think it is absolutely essential that the ministry has got to take a hold of the automobile insurance thing. We’ve talked about it. There is nothing new under the sun to be learned in the automobile insurance business. It is now the responsibility of government to decide what is the most adequate scheme for the Province of Ontario, what steps have to be taken to implement it and not simply drag along on the proposition that if we can make the least possible changes from year to year that serves the interest of the people in the province.

I don’t need to reiterate our stand on the matter. If anybody in the Province of Ontario knows anything about the New Democratic Party he knows the kind of scheme for automobile insurance which this party would put into force. The minister knows all about it, but the minister plays the same game. The funny thing is, I had a copy of some remarks of the minister in which he attacked the leader of this party. The minister is very capable and very able; he’s always sweet reasonableness in this chamber, but when he is outside he is one of the most violently partisan politicians in the Province of Ontario.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I cannot accept that. I find that hard to believe.

Mr. Renwick: I’ve lost the sheet of paper, because the leader of my party, in bundling up his papers, took it away, but I will give him the examples. Some time in June of this year you made a speech in which you used very extreme language about the leader of this party as one of those social visionaries, and then accused him -- without any qualification, without any reservation on your part -- of stating that the premiums in Manitoba were 74 per cent lower than they were in Ontario. There was no qualification of it. Now, if we are going to have a meaningful debate about it, I want to say to the minister that that particular kind of problem, to which we devote a reasonable amount of the very limited research resources at our disposal, deserves a better answer than the minister gave.

The leader of this party made a speech to which you were replying, and he made it in Lindsay on, I think it was, April 3 of this year. Some time later on, you responded to it. Attached to his speech were any number of samples of the premium differentials between various cities throughout Ontario and in Manitoba. It was based upon a complete and de- tailed study with respect to the various premiums that were payable in certain cities in the province as compared with what were payable in Winnipeg. The one class -- I think it was example No. 6 or 7 -- with a 20-year-old person for commuting purposes, showed quite clearly that as between Toronto, Ottawa and Winnipeg the differential in the premium over a period of two or three years was 71, 72 and 74 per cent.

Could the minister qualify his remarks now? He called the leader of this party a social visionary. On the one hand, he said that his information was inaccurate, and he didn’t have the courtesy or the sense of pubic responsibility in the field dealing with automobile insurance to even bother to give all of the examples which the leader of this party gave.

Well, I’m saying that the minister -- and to an extent some of his predecessors -- reflect exactly what I am saying: that no longer can you fool around with the automobile insurance industry. You have to decide on the basis of the immense number of studies, the immense number of reports and the immense number of problems, of which you must be aware, as to what is going to be done about it.

I have one specific case that I want to bring to your attention, but I wanted to make those remarks because it is so frustrating for us year after year to allow the people in the Province of Ontario to be subjected to this kind of in-game which is played between the insurance industry, the legal profession, the Law Reform Commission and the minister’s committee, and the minister is the person responsible. You have a responsibility to say: “This is the kind of insurance scheme we are going to have in the Province of Ontario; these are the classifications; these are going to be the rates; these are the people who are going to be licensed to work in that industry; these are the standards which they are going to meet; and that’s the way it’s going to be.” Then we will have an opportunity to assess whether it is possible to bring some kind of order out of what, for practical purposes, at the present time is immense chaos.

The actual number of classifications in the Province of Ontario, the various types of classifications based on region, make of auto- mobile, age of automobile, age of driver, sex of the driver --

Mr. Singer: Marital status.

Mr. Renwick: Marital status -- all of those things. It is as if you were trying to say that you have an alphabet with 25 letters in it, and what is the maximum number of combinations of words that are available in the English language given, every one of them being limited to 10 letters or fewer? That’s the kind of classification system, and it’s allowed to be immersed in that so that every single time somebody can quote one classification as distinct from any other classification, and there is no comparable basis for a true understanding of what takes place.

I emphasize again, at the risk of a minor repetition, in which I usually don’t engage, of course --

Mr. Singer: When did the member start that?

Mr. Renwick: -- that there are problems in the other areas of insurance in this province which are submerged because of the failure of this government to deal in the one field where they have pretended to have a real concern, but in which they don’t, so far as we can understand it, assume any of their public responsibility.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Chairman, I have enjoyed listening to the remarks of the opposition parties, from the member for Downsview and the members for Lakeshore and Riverdale. I will just deal with them in the chronological order as I listened to the speakers, if I may, and perhaps try to maintain some degree of order.

The member for Lakeshore opened today by speaking rather strongly as to the no-fault system and wondering where is no-fault. He suggested it be taken out of the hands of the industry. I felt he identified very strongly with the Advocates’ Society and that view was not continued in the remarks made by the member for Riverdale.

I think one must realize some basic facts before we can really deal with the insurance bureau submission. Ontario has a form of no-fault. There is no question about that. It has been working now for nearly three years and I think working quite well. I practised law at the time it was introduced, or was about to be introduced, and found it somewhat astounding to hear an insurance adjuster say to a client of mine through me, even some months prior to the inception of that plan, “We will pay you so much each week or every two weeks.” We lawyers traditionally have said, “Don’t sign anything or don’t accept anything until I read it.” We have overcome this somehow. We have learned as a legal professional and we have learned as a consumer that this programme is now available. I would say it is working extremely well. But that doesn’t mean that it has gone far enough.

Mr. Singer: It was recommended 10 years ago, 10 years before it was implemented.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Who made the recommendation?

Mr. Singer: The select committee on which there were three cabinet ministers, the Treasurer of the day, I think, and two others. It was the unanimous recommendation of the select committee.

Hon. Mr. Clement: That was the problem. You should have had me here about that time.

Mr. Singer: It was endorsed by all the Canadian insurance agencies and the elected benchers of the Law Society. You couldn’t have had stronger connections for that recommendation. And it took 10 years to implement it.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, I forgot you were here for a minute.

I think members should realize the IBC proposal was put forward -- and the member for Riverdale recognized it really for what it was, a proposal prepared, I am sure at rather substantial cost -- in answer or in an attempt to answer the question in all of our minds, “Can we go further to provide further protection and more adequate coverage for the ultimate consumer?” That came forward as a proposal. It was suggested in the material and the submission which was made to me, as I recollect, about the end of November, that should such a proposal be acceptable it could be implemented by Jan. 1, 1975.

Mr. Singer: The Premier (Mr. Davis) indicated that in a speech one day too.

Hon. Mr. Clement: That was put forward as a proposal. The next thing that happened, as I recollect the chronology, was that the Ontario Law Reform Commission came forward this past spring with its recommendations, which in essence abolished tort recovery completely. The IBC proposal doesn’t go quite that far. The Advocates’ Society had an opportunity to discuss this this past spring. I can think of no greater common thread of camaraderie that brought advocates together, who couldn’t spend the time of day with each other for years until these proposals were brought forward, at which time they found themselves face to face, in a rather social or quasi social environment, perhaps for the first time.

I have met with the Advocates’ Society, or members of it I should say, informally from time to time, as recently as perhaps the middle of August when along with the Attorney General (Mr. Welch), we discussed this very thing and invited a proposal from that society; saying in effect; “what is your position?” We haven’t heard from them as yet. They undertook to have such a proposal in our respective hands by the end of November.

I am looking forward to receiving it. I have every reason to believe that we will receive it; and as well I have every reason to believe that some of the items, some of the submissions, will be very beneficial to the ultimate consumers of what they propose. So that’s where it is right now.

One can run off in all directions at the same time, saying we are going to do this and do that, but you must look at the alternatives and you must hear from interested parties; and of course everybody is interested and everybody has an axe to grind, that’s what makes people work. You are not going to have them come in and speak against their own interest, and we have to proceed on that basis.

So that’s where it is right now. I am looking forward to receiving that and any other proposals which might come forward in order that we can then assess the situation; and not only from the point of view of protection for the ultimate victim, we must also assess it on the basis of cost. Anybody can devise a plan if cost is no barrier; we have to be realistic and look at it from a cost point of view.

Now I profess to know absolutely nothing about actuarial science, save that we do have two actuaries working for the branch and two students. The question was asked, I believe by the member for Downsview, if these one or two people reflect the thinking of all the actuaries in government service. I can’t speak to that. I believe that the Ministry of Government Services has actuarial staff but employed in doing its own type of work. We have two actuaries on our staff.

Mr. Singer: Two actuary students or actuaries?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Two actuaries and two actuarial students at the present time, as I understand it. I stand to be corrected.

Mr. Singer: Somebody is waving a finger at one answer.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Two actuaries. Who waved their finger? That’s the deputy. Don’t pay any attention to him, look at this one; this is the finger to watch, right here. Now under --

Mr. Singer: How many actuaries do you really have? One? Oh, one on each hand.

Hon. Mr. Clement: That’s right, two. Two, and two students. I am glad we clarified that. It’s a matter of rather pressing public urgency.

Mr. Singer: Have you got their report on the last green book?

Hon. Mr. Clement: No, but I should tell you about the green book because I question whether there may be an area or two on which there may be some confusion in your mind.

I understand, and am advised, that the green book dealing with automobile insurance is prepared under the direction of the provinces and is used by the industry across the country to do its various rating assessments so that the degree of risk can be deter- mined; and the rate of course must flow from it.

Now the member for Downsview, I think, treated the institution of marriage with great respect by referring to the fact that the young male, 16 to 25, when entering into that wonderful institution, obtains as one of the benefits, and perhaps the only one he will ever receive for having entered it, a possible drop in his rate; but what he will lose in the bananas he will make up in the coconuts in other areas. However, we are not here to debate that today; it is a subject about which I know absolutely nothing.

But I do know that the statistical input, assessed and compiled, indicates that particular sex and age range has a very significant degree of loss each and every year, disproportionate to any other age or sex group. For some peculiar reason, the single male under 25 is much higher in his incidents of loss than the married male under 25. I won’t try to estimate or assess why, but that is what the figures say.

Mr. Singer: But that’s not the answer. Why is that selection made? Why is that cubbyhole picked out?

Hon. Mr. Clement: That is done because you have to look at the alternatives.

Would you, as someone I presume to be over 25, be willing to accept a flat rate and subsidize those under 25? Of course you wouldn’t.

Mr. Singer: You are not wrestling with the problem; you are smart enough to know what the problem is.

Hon. Mr. Clement: No I am not smart enough to know what the problem is. I am just telling you that you have these alternatives. You can take the flat rate and have the careful driver, well over 25 -- single, married or otherwise -- bearing some of the loss by those who have less experience and less judgement and a much higher statistical rate of loss.

Now the mysterious -- you referred to something as an inside job, the rates, I think, or how rates are computed -- and I believe he used the word “mysterious,” that there was some mystery to it.

I think you can really assess whether there is any mystery about the rates applicable here in Ontario simply by comparing those rates with rates in other jurisdictions of comparable size and population within the area. I don’t have rates before me, but I can remember reading some not too long ago. For the same kind of coverage in Windsor, for example, it’s something like $212 a year, while across that river it’s more than $460 a year.

In our experience, rate reductions do not result in jurisdictions that have rate-setting boards. Very much the contrary applies. One of the factors that applies here -- and remember there are about 130 companies doing business in automobile insurance in Ontario -- one of the greatest factors, and something I think the consumer doesn’t realize or think about, is the competitiveness of the marketplace. The rates vary from company to company, depending on their losses and their administrative expertise, and they vary rather substantially.

I suggest to anyone who is thinking about going to buy automobile insurance, perhaps even for the first time, to not do as perhaps you and I have traditionally done, and used our father’s agent, our brother’s agent or our cousin across the road, but to compare rates on the same kind of coverage. Its a very interesting exercise and one that can be financially beneficial to the consumer.

The age-old question, and I answer it specifically, is: “Are investment funds’ moneys considered?” Yes. Before I was the minister, one of the rationales in dealing with estimates about two years ago, I believe in permitting the branch to retain the services of an actuary, was this very thing. Since that time we have had the services of an actuary and one other in addition, plus two students, and we are comparing and watching constantly this escalating cost in coverage.

It’s quite understandable, because everything’s going up. I know the member for Downsview doesn’t need any lecture from me; he knows better than I do the escalating cost of repairs, administrative expenses and so forth. But they have taken investment income into account because, as he knows as well as I do, if not better, that in many in- stances investment income is a very significant part of their earnings -- and not the moneys generated from the premiums alone in view of the escalating costs of losses.

I would like to speak, if I might, with reference to some of the comments made by the member for Riverdale regarding the McWilliams report.

Mr. Singer: What about adjusters and the cost of repairs before the minister gets into that?

Hon. Mr. Clement: All right. I should say the member made some mention about UK actuaries.

Mr. Singer: Yes, they have a whole department of 17 actuaries.

Hon. Mr. Clement: All they examine, I’m advised, is the adequacy of the rates. They don’t set the rates.

Mr. Singer: That’s right. I would like to see an opinion some day from the Ontario actuaries about the adequacy of the rates that we can’t get set. Is the minister going to get that for us?

Hon. Mr. Clement: I’m sorry. I didn’t get that.

Mr. Singer: Are we going to get an opinion from the ministry’s actuaries, one in each hand, as to the adequacy of the rates presently set by the branch in the McWilliams report?

Hon. Mr. Clement: He is of that opinion right now.

Mr. Singer: Then why doesn’t the minister give us the report so we can read it?

Hon. Mr. Clement: I think it was included in the last report from the branch. I’m not sure.

Mr. Singer: Oh.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I’m advised by the superintendent that we do a report on the adequacy of our Ontario companies, which are very small in number. For financial reasons, the bulk of them are federal companies and the federal superintendent of insurance does that very thing. I’ll let you debate it with the superintendent. I don’t know -- I am only passing on the information and advice he has given to me.

Mr. Singer: That is the problem with a series of ministries. There are no precedents.

Mr. F. Drea (Scarborough Centre): Make a phone call. You are the guy with a pipe to Ottawa.

Mr. R. Haggerty (Welland South): The member for Scarborough Centre has the answers. You tell them.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I am having a terrible time with the member for Downsview. I don’t know if I can protest to you, Mr. Chairman, or not. Can we bring him before the bench of the House or something?

Adjusters are examined orally by a three-man board of their peers and one departmental representative. That, as I understand it, is the only basic requirement, so far as minimal requirements are concerned. I think your remarks about adjusters -- some of them, certainly not all -- coming in on fishing expeditions are extremely valid; it’s very annoying and time consuming. If the industry doesn’t have guidelines as to minimal requirements, then perhaps we should suggest such minimal educational and experience requirements. I think that is pretty valid. I know most lawyers who practise usually ask an adjuster the first time when he comes in: “Have you the ability and power to bind your company?” If they say, “Well ...” -- they invariably say “No” -- then you can show them the way to the coffee room and thank them for dropping in.

But I think your point is well made. I am very much in favour of educational and experience minimums, because I think eventually the consumer suffers. The person who uses the services suffers if you don’t have some basic minimum educational and experience requirement.

I would like to tell the member for Riverdale that I am advised that about three-quarters of the recommendations set forth in the McWilliams report have been implemented by the industry itself and by guidelines sent forth by the superintendent’s branch. There are some which remain to be legislated on. Speaking privately, I find two or three of them in there very attractive, from a lawyer’s point of view, and perhaps the rules committee of the Supreme Court might well have to consider amending the rules to implement some of those. I like the way Mr. McWilliams has suggested that perhaps liability can be assessed very early in the game while the memories of witnesses are fresh and not some three or four or five years after the mishap when you are waiting for an injury to heal and memories deteriorate and people disappear.

Mr. Singer: Have you talked about that to your colleague, the Attorney General?

Hon. Mr. Clement: I haven’t talked to him about that specific recommendation. I have already mentioned educational standards of adjusters and so on. I am advised that the industry itself requires a two-year period of apprenticeship with a written examination, and the oral examination, which I have already touched on, by three peers or proprietor-adjusters.

The member for Riverdale asked a question about life insurance agents. We have been dealing generally here today with car insurance, and he very properly pointed out that there are other areas of insurance in which he certainly is interested.

Mr. Douglas Carruthers, QC, has been studying this for, I would recollect, perhaps 15 or 16 months, and will be putting forward shortly a second series of proposals to the superintendent’s office. He is dealing with some questions as to whether life agents should be restricted to sell for only one company or whether they should be like general agents and perhaps have a list of sponsor companies. That raises questions: If a man is in the industry, who is his sponsor? To whom do you look in the event of any breach of professional conduct? Who really is his principal? Is it company A, B, C, D, E or F? These are questions that have to be resolved. I think they are valid questions. I am looking forward to receiving Mr. Carruthers’ recommendations through the superintendent in the not too distant future.

I should point out -- and this has been currently drawn to my attention by my staff-- I did write to the former Attorney General with reference to some of the recommendations of the McWilliams report but I have not discussed it with my colleague, the current Attorney General.

The member for Riverdale dwelt strongly on dealing with the speech I made -- I believe he said back in June. I recall making that speech and I recall some of the statistics, but not in detail. I do recall that when I read his leader’s speech he did quote Manitoba rates but he did not point out in his speech that the scheme had lost $8 million, as admitted by the Manitoba government.

Mr. Renwick: That’s quite irrelevant. At the time he made the speech they hadn’t lost $8 million.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I suggest it is not irrelevant. If you are not going to say how much the house cost, why say it’s a bargain for $800 if you are going to pay $40,000 for the basement?

Mr. Renwick: That was not the point.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I just tell you that I don’t like playing games, but your leader, in the debate on my estimates the other day, dealt with the food studies and started to read off profits. He didn’t allocate anything. He didn’t bring to the attention of the House that those profits came from other than food only -- that was the inference -- they came from a host of sources, as the food study indicated.

Mr. Renwick: He was criticising your study.

Hon. Mr. Clement: No, he was criticising the study and giving the impression to the members of the House and the public here assembled that certain companies have made 45, 55, 65 per cent profits -- whatever he quoted -- the implication being, on the sale of food. He didn’t say anything about the income tax reduction --

Mr. Renwick: Mr. Chairman, on a point of order, my leader’s figures on the criticism of your food study -- and we can debate it again, and we can get the Hansard out and check it -- was as a result of the work which was done on the study of that report. It wasn’t engaged in trying to be either unfair to your report or anything else. He was pointing out certain criticisms.

I don’t want to take up a lot of time in your estimates on this matter, but I’m not going to allow the minister to get away on public platforms with destructive tactics and the minister knows that.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I don t know anything about destructive tactics.

Mr. Singer: The next thing you know you will be political too.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I will just say that I heard some figures quoted here the other day and your own leader said that it was a bogus report. I questioned him on it and he very properly stated that that was his opinion as to the opinions reflected in that report.

The member for Riverdale, in concluding his observations, said something to the effect that it was frustrating, for him in any event, to watch the “in” game being played between the industry, the legal profession and the government. I want to assure the House, and that particular member, that I am not playing any “in” game.

With reference to automobile insurance, I think that the present system can be improved upon. I think that we have to weigh the factors. My friend from Riverdale would not disagree with that. We have to weigh the factors. We have to have input from various people, many of whom and most of whom have axes to grind, but it is only that way that we can see what the alternatives are in terms of cost and in terms of protection.

I have certain personal feelings. I have certain personal feelings that run very strongly against the abolition of tort. That frightens me, and I speak as a private member of this House, it frightens me that we might well someday in this province see tort recovery completely abolished. It may be right that we move in that direction, but it frightens me to think that we may get to a standard scale of damages or injuries and that a three-year-old child having an injury, perhaps losing a leg, gets paid the same as the 85-year-old widow. I don’t want to take on the women’s liberation, saying that I am against old women, but you know the point I am trying to make, and this concerns me.

I think those are the only remarks that I have, Mr. Chairman, at this particular time.

Mr. Singer: Mr. Chairman, could I just very briefly add a postscript? The minister has done a beautiful job of skating around the problem. He has commented on a few of the things raised by some of the members -- by the member for Lakeshore, the member for Riverdale, and by myself.

But the predominant question that I was trying to put to him is: When are you going to come to grips with it? How are you going to come to grips with it? When can we reasonably anticipate either new statutes or an investigative body that will immediately be charged with the responsibility?

It is the same kind of a speech, really, that we have heard from this minister and his predecessors for several years. We have made the same kind of speeches, pointing out what in our opinion are faults and omissions and errors in the system. We have made suggestions.

I spoke in the Throne debate earlier in this session, and gave you six or eight suggestions that I thought had some merit; and they are still there. If you want to look back at Hansard, have a go.

But when are you going to do something? We just don’t want a summary of what your thoughts are. Are we reasonably able to anticipate a major revision of this statute soon, or a substantial revision, or the coming to grips with some of these problems -- and when, and how?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Chairman, really there are two questions that I see in the member’s remarks. Forgetting no-fault for the moment, one is a complete revision of the Act, which is something I understand you have been known to make comment about in the past, particularly at the time of the estimates.

And second, there is the question of an extension of the no-fault plan, if I may use that phrase.

I am advised by my people the new Act we propose will be phased in over a period of about the next year or two. It is a rather massive piece of drafting. It will be, I would say realistically, probably two years before it is brought in.

Insofar as the no-fault discussions that we have been having here today are concerned, I can give no undertaking to this House, because I must do the following things: My role is to get in the proposals, have my officials examine and weigh them, determine what the alternatives are, and then government itself will have to make a decision as to which avenue, which alternative it is going to follow, or none, and make a statement at that time. So, I can’t say when that is going to happen. I just don’t know. But I see it as two questions.

My superintendent gave me a note -- I think it is what I touched on initially about an updated or revised Insurance Act. And, I say, I think realistically we are talking probably two years from this date.

Mr. Singer: Mr. Chairman, if I may just follow this up, again. This minister has held the portfolio for -- what, two years now? Prior to him, I think it was the chairman of the Treasury Board who held the portfolio. I don’t know; if I thought deeply enough about it I could list the others who have held it. We have been getting the same kind of an answer for lo these many ministers, and lo these many years. And it is no answer at all. It is an evasion.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Are you suggesting we haven’t brought in any legislation?

Mr. Singer: You really haven’t changed the concepts, and you haven’t come to grips with the problems that are disturbing the people. And every year at the time of estimates, the same litany goes backwards and forwards. It doesn’t even have the cut and thrust any more. Some of us who thought that we were going to be able to help bring about some major changes, perhaps have lost our verve. We have seen ministers come and ministers go, and nothing ever being done. We had great hopes for this minister, but he’s slipping into the same amorphous package as the rest of them.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I have slipped all right.

Mr. Singer: He dodges the problem. “I can’t tell you,” he says, “when we’re going to change no-fault.” If the minister can’t tell us, who can?

Hon. Mr. Clement: I estimated it about two years ago --

Mr. Singer: He can’t tell us when we’re going to get any satisfaction about rates.

Hon. Mr. Clement: -- on the Insurance Act. I made no estimate on the no-fault insurance.

Mr. Singer: He can’t tell us about who determines who drives on the road. Is it going to be compulsory insurance? To what extent, if at all, does he accept the Allstate version of no-fault? To what extent, if at all, does he believe what the Advocates’ Society has already said or individual members have said as to the efficiency or reasonableness or sense to it?

I delivered to the minister myself the minutes of that meeting of the Advocates’ Society. It runs through 100 or 150 pages. There are some very, very thoughtful remarks in there. There is a lot of baloney in it too, but there are some very thoughtful remarks in there.

He’s got McWilliams there. As for the McWilliams report, when the minister and I were parrying or sparring backwards and forwards across the floor as to whether or not we could have a look at it, does he know why I was doing that? Because I had word from McWilliams that you were afraid to let it see the light of day, that’s why I did that.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Why?

Mr. Singer: Because McWilliams wanted the public to see those recommendations.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Was it made public?

Mr. Singer: I haven’t done a count but I’m interested to hear that figure. I would like to check. Perhaps we can bring Mr. McWilliams here some day and ask him what he thinks about the implementation of the recommendations.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Was it made public?

Mr. Singer: I would like to see the minister come to grips with the insurance problem. What he has given to us this afternoon is a bunch of pap.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Was it made public?

Mr. Singer: Oh, yes, six months later.

Hon. Mr. Clement: The member is saying it wasn’t convenient when he wanted it.

Mr. Singer: It wasn’t convenient. Once you get a report, surely it’s a public report. The public paid for it.

Hon. Mr. Clement: It was made public. I don’t want the member to create any impression that I was hiding anything. It was made public after I had an opportunity to read it, to examine it and to assess it. We made it public in two forms. I gave the hon. member the full set, I think. Then we had an abridgement of the recommendations compiled in a smaller, handier package. We made those available. There’s no question about it.

Mr. Singer: Yes, it came forward six months later.

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

Mr. Haggerty: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to add a few comments to this particular vote and to support my colleague from Downsview on it. I believe too that the minister hasn’t come to grips with the insurance programmes in Ontario, particularly the automobile insurance. He mentioned that there were 130 companies operating in Ontario. How many have ceased operations in the Province of Ontario? Or is it a good healthy programme for the insurance companies?

Hon. Mr. Clement: What companies have ceased operating over what period of time? Can the member help me on that?

Mr. Haggerty: Say in the last five years.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Automobile insurers?

Mr. Haggerty: Yes.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I am advised that there have been two or three which have voluntarily withdrawn from underwriting in the Province of Ontario in the last couple or three years.

Mr. Haggerty: In other words, the minister has indicated that it’s a good healthy business to be in the automobile insurance in the Province of Ontario. I’m rather disappointed that the government hasn’t actually taken any action to check into the enormous fees that are charged by insurance companies in the Province of Ontario, particularly when one can find that automobile insurance has jumped as high as 200 per cent to 300 per cent in some cases. As mentioned before young drivers on the road today, and I think there are many good young drivers today, have to pay enormous amounts of insurance fees to drive an automobile. I’ve known instances where they have been as high as $400 and, as has been indicated, also about $500 for a youngster to be driving a car on our highways today. I think it is rather ridiculous that these youngsters have to be placed in that cate- gory.

I would like to read a letter which I received from a schoolteacher in Crystal Beach, Ont. I would like to place this on the record. He said:

“I’m a teacher in Niagara South and I am ‘insured’ by the Commercial Union Insurance Co. Last year, in January, I had a very bad car accident. I was driving to Welland on a Sunday afternoon when my car struck a patch of ice, went out of control and struck a hydro pole. The car was totally demolished and the insurance company paid me $4,300 to replace my car. I was not charged under the Highway Traffic Act as weather conditions were ruled to be the case of the accident.

“Last year I paid $210 for ‘insurance.’ This year my cost for the same ‘insurance’ is $466. This is an increase of 221.9 per cent, and even in these highly inflationary days this seems a bit extreme. My insurance company tells me that I was charged a 50 per cent surcharge because I got a couple of traffic tickets in which no accident was involved. It seems that I am required not only to pay a fine to the courts but also a much larger one to the ‘insurance’ companies. When did these huge, impersonal companies become a branch of our judicial system?

I was never contacted by the company about these charges or even given a chance to explain in a letter, but I was arbitrarily assessed a fine of $256. I am told this surcharge will remain in force for five years, which makes my fine $1,280. The total cost of insurance for the next five years will be $2,330 for a car whose value right now is only about $2,800.

“I believe that it is time a man’s driving record became the property of the courts and not the public. The ‘insurance’ companies need information about charges that come as a result of accidents, there is no need for them to know things which do not concern them monetarily. I am also of the opinion that if the government was to charge a flat rate fee of perhaps $100 on all motor vehicles in Ontario, and perhaps slightly more for trucks and buses, there would be enough money to provide no-fault insurance to every driver in Ontario.”

Mr. F. Laughren (Nickel Belt): The Liberals are moving towards public automobile insurance.

Mr. Haggerty: To continue:

“It seems also that this insurance could be handled from a centrally located office by mail and phone in the same way that most of our huge money-grubbing, unconcerned ‘insurance’ companies handle it now. I am certain competent, compassionate men and women could be found to operate this service.”

Mr. Laughren: He has been persuaded by the western provinces.

Mr. Haggerty: Going on:

“The ‘insurance’ companies have been complaining for years about having to sell ‘low-profit’ car insurance. Well, let’s do them a favour and get them out of the business.

“Four hundred and sixty-six dollars represents close to one month’s take-home pay for me, or approximately one-twelfth of my spendable cash. Last year I spent slightly lover $700 for gas, oil and maintenance or only slight more than the cost of my ‘insurance.’ It is difficult to understand how anyone can afford this kind of ‘protection.’

“Just as a sidelight to the affair; the total property damage for the claim was $60, yet the cost of my PL and PD coverage jumped to $180 from $75. Also in the spirit of compassion that guides most men, since the replacement cost of my car was about $400 higher than the price I paid for it, I did not charge the company sales tax, thus saving them $308; it is regrettable that they did not see fit to return the favour.

“If your political leanings make it difficult to attack a large body of powerful corporations, perhaps you would return this letter with a list of names of men who would be willing to work towards the end I have described. I await a reply and I remain your constituent, George L. Strath.”

Hon. Mr. Clement: Did you send him 20 names?

Mr. Haggerty: He is a schoolteacher, one of your colleagues. He raises the point that in many cases in the Province of Ontario, insured persons call the insurance a rip-off. Now, that is what it is, in my opinion too -- a ripoff. I don’t quite agree with the insurance policies of our sister provinces; I am a strong believer of the free enterprise system --

Mr. Laughren: Free enterprise for the poor, socialism for the rich.

Mr. Haggerty: -- but one of the good pieces of legislation that they do have in our sister provinces is that a good driver doesn’t pick up the tab for a poor driver.

Our demerit system in the Province of Ontario is a complete failure. What they have done in our sister provinces, particularly out west in Saskatchewan, Manitoba and British Columbia, is they have applied a special assessment on the poor drivers on their drivers’ licences. That is where it should be applied in the Province of Ontario, and not on the insurance rates. I think it’s time a good driver in the Province of Ontario got that break and not charged an exorbitant premium increase year after year.

When you mentioned that there are 130 companies in the Province of Ontario and only two had ceased operations, I think that indicates it’s a healthy programme for them and a money-maker for them. There is no reason why the people of the Province of Ontario have to pay such high insurance rates. I know my insurance rate went up this year. There were no questions asked. They just sent me a bill and said, “Your increase is automatic.” I had no question about it.

I look to the superintendent of insurance to provide some guidelines in this matter so that the rate increases don’t come this easy to them and so that there is public review or scrutiny, as the member for Downsview has indicated. I think that is required in insurance in Ontario. As the member for Downsview said, there have been two or three ministers in two years, and two years from now you are going to bring in some revisions. Surely this is not “Laugh-In at Niagara Falls.” You can bring in revisions to the programme a lot sooner to assist the car owner in Ontario in terms of rates he can afford to pay.

Mr. Renwick: Mr. Chairman, I feel very much the way the member for Downsview does, that it’s probably a waste of the public’s time and, certainly it’s a waste of our time, to pursue the automobile insurance questions with the Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations.

I wonder, would the minister tell me whether or not any invitation has been made to the Canadian Bar Association, for example, to justify its criticisms of every scheme which comes out? I’m not talking about the Canadian Bar Association in its all-Canadian aspect; I’m talking about the Ontario section of the Canadian Bar Association, which presumably has available to it all of the skills of the so-called finest trial lawyers under the present negligence system in Canada. Okay? Has that been done?

Secondly, why doesn’t the ministry request the chairman of the Law Reform Commission to reply to the Advocates’ Society’s one-day seminar on the IBS no-fault plan? Why doesn’t the minister ask the IBC to comment publicly about the criticisms which are made of that plan?

The Advocates’ Society is exactly what it states it to be, the advocates’ society. It is a vested-interest organization of persons who earn their livelihood in the courts of law and are wedded to the negligence system. No question about it. Why doesn’t the minister ask some day somebody to advise him whether it is possible to incorporate an adequate scheme which will be run in the manner which will fully encompass no fault, but if there are additional margins that persons want to go to court about, they can go to court about them? That’s been the Saskatchewan scheme -- I don’t know whether it still is, but I assume it still is -- that you are not precluded from going to court on those other items.

Why hasn’t the minister answered the criticism of Allen Linden that there isn’t an updated study of the 1962 study, which was implemented when Allen Linden was a professor at Osgoode Hall Law School when it was at the Law Society of Upper Canada? Why don’t you say we will have another study and we will see whether or not the basic faults which were inherent in that report have or have not been corrected? Why doesn’t the minister disclose clearly in this Legislature whether or not your superintendent of insurance is meeting with the other superintendents of insurance and specifically discussing the IBC plan?

Will the minister indicate whether or not the report in the Globe and Mail on Aug. 27 of this year is true -- that many motorists in four provinces can expect a 35 per cent premium cut, which presumably is a rethinking by IBC of its plan? I understand the sequence was December, 1973, or January, 1974. It was shot down in so-called flames in March of 1974, I think it was. Very shortly after, as was stated by IBC, it went back to the so-called drawing boards.

Why did it go back, he said? Why did it go back? “Politicians who resent removal of the public’s right to sue for recovery in most cases.” I don’t think there are very many politicians who understand or resent it. I know every lawyer believes -- and it is holy writ -- in the right to sue for negligence and to have awarded to his client the damages which have been evolved by the courts as a method of quantifying, in dollars, the losses which people suffer for various tangible damages as a result of automobile accidents.

That doesn’t mean it’s holy writ. It doesn’t mean that there isn’t some other way of compensating people under a no-fault scheme for serious damage which they suffer. That can be done as well and no no-fault scheme worth its salt simply deals with economic loss to the exclusion of all other loss. And nobody in this party or in any other party who has any knowledge of the kind of damage which the automobile can cause, is going to suggest that for one single moment.

The other one was lawyers who criticize it for almost eliminating general damages. We’ve gone into that time and time again. Who does the other opposition come from? It’s the independent agency force. And who is the next group? The consumers groups who say that the plan fails to come to grips with company claims-delaying tactics that are the basis for most consumer complaints. That’s why we talked about the McWilliams report.

Doesn’t the minister understand that somebody’s got to pull it all together? Surely we’re not going to spend the rest of this century with further studies about this problem? The tactics are very clear. If the information is based on studies made by responsible authorities, or committees in other jurisdictions, the answer is they’re immediately attacked.

The hon. member for Glengarry (Mr. Villeneuve) torpedoed the safety-belt requirement for people in automobiles because what happened in Australia had no application here. That’s a tactic which is used. Then, if it is a report that is being made in the Province of Ontario that can be attacked for being out of date, it is attacked for being out of date. That is the second tactic that is used. The third tactic that is used is that it indicates the responsible body who happens to make a report has all kinds of dubious thinking in it.

I think if the chairman of the Law Reform Commission of the Province of Ontario, having issued the report which he issued, is subject to that kind of an attack -- because that commission has issued some very thoughtful and good reports, as you know -- and if they happen to take a different approach on automobile insurance, they need to be allowed to protect themselves.

There are any number of things which you can do. You can’t hide in the woods, Mr. Minister, any longer. You have to come out in the open and say what you are going to do about this issue.

Think of the time which has been absorbed in public debate, in public cost over the years, and the horrifying cost to the consumers of this province. The inadequacy of our scheme, it seems to me, can only be shouldered by the government that is responsible for it.

Let’s sort the whole thing out. Let every vested interest group have its say, and let the government accept its overall responsibility to put this plan into force. Whatever is required can be assessed and done. Because the community will accept it if you will deal with all the aspects, as the member for Downsview, the member for Lakeshore, myself, and many others before us have dealt with it until we are sort of sick about it.

I am going to deal very briefly with this one case of my colleague, the member for Yorkview (Mr. Young). This is a very simple case. A constituent of the member for Yorkview, a Mr. Baker, drives his car into a shopping plaza, parks it there and goes in to have lunch. While he is at lunch, his car is hit by a taxicab. The driver of the taxicab had a heart attack, and that is what caused the accident. So the guy comes out and he says, “I would like to recover from the insurer” -- he is not trying to sue the taxicab driver in the sense of trying to recover. He learns that the taxicab driver is insured through Lloyds of London. The cab driver is told that it was an act of God, therefore he doesn’t have to pay for it. So the constituent of the member for Yorkview suffers a loss for which he wasn’t covered. He had PL and PD insurance.

The funny thing is, of course -- if my under- standing is correct; and I stand to be corrected by the member for Downsview -- if he had happened to be sitting in the car at the time that it was hit, he also would have been excluded because it would have been an act of God, and he wouldn’t have got his recovery.

Surely, we don’t sit around in this day and age talking about allowing that kind of injury to be suffered by a person with respect to his property, or with respect to his person, and suggest for one single moment that allowing the automobile insurance to reside upon the hallowed, sanctioned language of the insurance policy against the liability imposed by law --

Mr. Singer: But if he had been hit by an unidentified driver he could have recovered.

Mr. Renwick: That’s right; he could have recovered from the fund.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Only if he had had collision.

Mr. Renwick: If he had had collision he could have recovered for his car, but he couldn’t have recovered for the damage to himself if he had happened to be still sitting in that car when it was hit by that person.

Hon. Mr. Clement: He would have got part of it.

Mr. Renwick: He might have got part of it. Yes, he would have got part of that now, that’s right; but he might not have got anywhere near the loss he suffered. All right.

Now at least the McWilliams’ report indicated that every automobile insurance policy issued in the Province of Ontario should carry mandatory collision coverage. Then Mr. Young’s constituent, when he bought his policy, would have had to pay for the collision aspect of it and would have received his recovery.

The McWilliams report then goes on to rule out subrogation; except to the extent of the deductible portion of it, so far as I understand it, which was to say that your own insurer insures you against collision and it’s not to be determined with respect to fault or not.

I don’t think that there is very much more in that field of automobile insurance that I won’t probably have an opportunity to say next year, if I should be returned in the election; and I make that a very real “if,” because nothing is sure in politics, as we will know on Thursday night.

Mr. Laughren: After Carleton East there won’t be an election next year.

Mr. Renwick: We will have an opportunity, because I would suggest that either myself or the person who succeeds me in this particular role of criticising this ministry -- or the Liberal Party, if we come back sitting in opposition, whoever is their critic

-- will be saying the same things we’ve all been saying. Elmer Sopha said them for many years; all the members of your committee back in the Sixties were saying the same things; but nothing ever happens. Little minor, patchwork pieces of Band-Aid are supplied to the system and you bow every time to the vested interests, every single time.

Mr. Singer: Mr. Chairman, the member for Huron-Bruce (Mr. Gaunt) has agreed to let me come on in his stead. I just want to finish this, if I may.

I think the member for Ottawa West (Mr. Morrow) was on that committee and the minister, I think, gave himself away when he asked about the bona fides of the select committee that sat in the early Sixties -- in the late Fifties and the early Sixties.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I didn’t say that.

Mr. Singer: I got the impression that you wanted to know about the bona fides of the committee.

Hon. Mr. Clement: No, I didn’t. I have to object to that, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Singer: It was as strong a committee as ever --

Hon. Mr. Clement: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman.

I didn’t question the bona fides of that committee at all. I wondered who was on it. I don’t know who is on it off the top of my head; but I didn’t question the bona fides of it.

My good grief! You’ve told me for four years that you were a member of it and I have never questioned your bona fides. I’ve often been an admirer of your bona fides.

Mr. Singer: Thank you. I admire your bona fides too, but I don’t admire your inaction.

Let me ask the minister a simple question, I --

Mr. Renwick: I often wonder, sometimes, where you get your bona fides.

Mr. Singer: One thing I’ve whirled away at for a number of years is the concept of gross negligence. Going back to Hepburn’s time, when he decided that no gratuitous passenger should ever be able to collect a judgement, we finally, after committee reports and arguing backwards and forwards, got something written in again called gross negligence. Many of us have been wondering, really, how long that ancient, mysterious and undefinable concept is going to remain in the law, particularly in these days of universal insurance. The minister’s predecessor, the present head of the Treasury Board, one day, in a moment of recklessness during these estimates, said: “We’ll take it out.” Well, it’s still there.

I wonder if the minister, who in his day as a lawyer must have had to agonize about that concept, is prepared to say he’ll take it out; and this time perhaps take it out.

In addition -- I think the question was posed earlier by the member for Riverdale, and it was posed by myself as well -- why don’t we have compulsory insurance? Surely it’s just a short step? Do away with the payment and the fund.

Could you start out a couple of things like that soon, like next week or so, and give us a couple of amendments to the Insurance Act with these things? And the Negligence Act?

Mr. Chairman: The member for Huron-Bruce.

Mr. M. Gaunt (Huron-Bruce): Mr. Chairman, I want to raise a matter with the minister in relation to insurance. It’s not automobile insurance but it is insurance. It’s a matter with which I have had considerable difficulty.

I’ve dealt with your Mr. Thompson. He’s been very good about it, but we still haven’t got the matter resolved. It’s been going on for some months, as a matter of fact it has been going on for over a year.

I raise the matter with the minister because I think, basically, we are talking about an amendment to the no-fault insurance Act. There seems to be some ambiguity about the Act and in this particular circumstance the company, in my view, is taking advantage of it. Let me outline the circumstances and the details as I understand them.

In May of 1973, this gentleman was driving home from work. He had a general contracting company, and he was driving home from work and was killed in an automobile accident. He had a policy with a company in this province. It’s a very reputable company; I won’t mention the name of it, but I can give the minister the name of the company privately if he so wishes. But he had a policy with the company that indicated that the spouse as the head of the household would get so much money -- I think it was $5,000. There were three children in the family and so the total amount payable, under my definition of the terms of the policy, was $8,000. The company said to his wife: “No, you get $2,500 because you have the higher income.” So we got into a great hassle about the language of the statute and the language of the insurance contract.

As I understand it, the statute says that the spouse of the head of the household shall be deemed to be the spouse with the lesser income in the year preceding the date of death. Now, that particular definition leaves two points at issue. The first one is the lesser income. It doesn’t say whether it’s net income; it doesn’t say whether it’s gross income; it doesn’t say what deductions are allowable if it is net income. The other point is the year preceding the date of death. It doesn’t say whether it’s the 12-month period immediately preceding the date of death, or whether it’s the calendar year preceding the date of death. And so we got into a great hassle about how this particular payment should be made. As a matter of fact, it isn’t resolved yet.

Mr. Chairman, I make the point with the minister that there are some points at issue here. As far as I am concerned, the intent of the policy, and certainly the intent of the policyholder, was that his wife should be paid $5,000 and $1,000 for each of the children upon his death. I think that was the intent. I don’t think they ever thought for a moment that there would be any hassle over that point.

I point out to you, Mr. Chairman, that the head of the household -- the man in this case -- had a gross income of $9,656.29 for the immediate 12-month period preceding his death; his wife had an income for the same period of $7,324.40. But when the company starts taking off overhead expenses, depreciation, and five per cent for the operation of the vehicle in the business, it brought it down to $6,080.63 as opposed to $7,324.40, which meant that the woman had the higher income in that particular period.

It seems to me, Mr. Chairman, that that’s against the intent of the Act. If the minister feels that there is some ambiguity there, then I think the Act should be amended, because in my view, particularly in this day and age with so many women working, it would be very easy for problems to arise.

Let us say the man was an executive and he was earning $24,000 a year; the woman was perhaps working and was earning $12,000. But let us say that the man happened to take ill for a period, say six months, and thus was in the position where during the calendar year he had a lesser income than his wife. If he happened to go out on the road and was killed, under those circumstances the company would say, “Sorry, but we pay you on the basis of $2,500”, because obviously the man would be the spouse in that case because he was earning the lesser income.

It seems to me that this kind of thing should be corrected, and until it is corrected I think the minister has an obligation to make it very plain to these insurance companies that they are negating the spirit of the Act when they engage in this kind of thing.

Mr. Chairman: Do you want to answer at this time, Mr. Minister?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would refer firstly to the observations offered by the member for Welland South. In the case cited I understand the constituent wrote to us within the last few days and the matter is being looked into right now. The increase being asked is, I believe, some 121 per cent. If he will write to me and give me particulars of anyone paying a rate increase 200 or 300 per cent over the previous year I will be glad to look into it to see if, in fact, any such increase is warranted.

The constituent wrote to the member for Welland South. He did his computations on the basis that the increase would be applicable over a five-year period. The constituent’s understanding is incorrect; it is, of course, over a three-year period in most instances and in some instances only over a two-year period.

The reference the member for Riverdale made -- and I wasn’t aware of this; the superintendent drew this to my attention -- the reference made about the reduction of 35 per cent was looked into by my staff at the time of that article in August. You quoted it and it was a misprint. It should have read 15 per cent.

Mr. Renwick: Well, even 15 per cent!

Hon. Mr. Clement: I just thought you might be interested in those statistics, and you can correct it on your copy there.

Insofar as the no-fault provision --

Mr. Renwick: I am interested. Mr. Welsh writes some good articles.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Pardon?

Mr. Renwick: The reporter on the Globe and Mail who writes on insurance matters --

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Welsh?

Mr. Renwick: -- is quite informed.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Sure he is. You talk about how you see my role in referring to the discussions of no-fault. I’m very fortunate that I have what I consider to be a very valuable tool in my ministry, namely an insurance advisory committee, and various submissions and observations have been coming in to us, not only from those different groups that we have been referring to here today, such as the Advocates’ Society and so on, but from some pretty bright individuals who have an interest in this particular matter.

I will be taking no steps whatsoever until I have an opportunity to consult with my advisory group, on which is Prof. Linden, Allan Leal, the chairman of the Ontario Law Reform Commission, and also Mr. David Griffiths, a member of the Advocates’ Society. There are industry people on there and there is consumer representation. I have found in the past that their input collectively has been very valuable, and I put that information before the House because I think it is of some value and perhaps of some interest to the member for Riverdale.

My friend from Downsview asked about compulsory insurance. If I thought that you wouldn’t be so hard on me in the future I’d be inclined to go on record right today and say, “That’s where we are going to go.”

Mr. Singer: I’ll give you a gold star for that.

Hon. Mr. Clement: You’ll give me a gold star for that and I’ll bet I get this back in spades at some future time. I think compulsory insurance is the eventual point where we must arrive. We can never get to the point where we can abolish a motor accident claims fund completely.

Mr. Singer: I couldn’t agree more. You are absolutely right.

Hon. Mr. Clement: We have to retain that for reasons that are well known to members of the House. No one can argue with me that you should abolish it because there will always be those who insist on driving --

Mr. Renwick: The thief and the hit-and-run driver.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Yes, the thief and the hit-and-run driver and all those sorts.

Mr. Singer: And the law breaker.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I sympathize with the man who suffered some damage to his vehicle, as referred to by the member for Riverdale. The defence of inevitable accident has been a tort defence handed to us down through the English common law for hundreds of years. Tort always indicated -- as I understood tort law -- some culpability, some wilful neglect. If one was robbed of the ability to form a wilful neglect through an act of God, such as a heart attack, then he should not be held liable for his actions.

Mr. Renwick: But if your colleague, the Minister of Health (Mr. Miller) has his way, we will all be to blame.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I can’t say that the defence of inevitable accident is right or wrong. I make no apologies for it. It is a fact of life. Had the unfortunate victim of that accident had his own collision, he would have recovered there. Unfortunately, I presume, he didn’t and he has to bear the loss. It is difficult to advise a person and tell him that, if you are being consulted, he has no recovery. There seems to be a feeling the way the law is today there is always recovery for every wrong. This is not true and it was recognized some years ago with the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board being set up so that people could get at least partial recovery.

The member for Huron-Bruce touches on a matter that I believe we discussed some time ago. If my memory serves me correctly, I think you had in your constituency two somewhat identical cases and within a short period of time. Is this the one that Mr. Donnelly was --

Mr. Gaunt: That’s right.

Hon. Mr. Clement: All right. I know the case to which you refer. As a result of our telephone conversations and some exchange of correspondence some months ago, the super- intendent became involved. We share your concern that we think that someone who is taking too strict an interpretation of the definitions and the wording and that type of thing, as described by you, probably deserves criticism and probably the definition should be extended or clarified. However, I have been advised here today, and I didn’t know this until today, that apparently a compromise has been worked out between the solicitors involved and the matter has either been resolved or is in the process of being resolved, arising out of that matter that you made reference to today.

We run into a number of problems, particularly pertaining to automobile insurance coverages. But you must remember that there are over 2 1/2 million policies in effect in Ontario and we receive relatively a small number of complaints, by and large. I think the industry, substantially so, is being responsible. There are these matters that come to our attention, and quite rightly so.

I invite the members of this House -- those who are shy and afraid to write -- to let us know of matters they don’t think are equitable and we will look into them. Like anything else, we can’t guarantee 100 per cent results, but we will look into them to see if the consumer or the victim, the person who is entitled, is in fact being handled in a responsible way. If they are not, then we will make it our business to attempt to make the industry react in the proper way.

I think those are the only comments I have at this time in response to those other remarks, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Singer: What about gross negligence?

Hon. Mr. Clement: As to your comments pertaining to gross negligence, that’s under the Highway Traffic Act, is it not?

Mr. Singer: And the Negligence Act and the Insurance Act.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I have made certain representations in writing to my colleague, the Minister of Transportation and Communications (Mr. Rhodes), dealing with gross negligence. I am not at liberty to go any further at this particular time. You have got quite enough today. Look how nicely I have treated you in dealing with my comments with compulsory insurance, and here you are asking for more and more. You remind me of the beadle out of “Oliver.”

Mr. Chairman: The member for Huron-Bruce wants to speak on the same subject we were on before. Then the member for Nickel Belt.

Mr. Singer: If I am here for another 50 years, maybe we’ll get the Insurance Act amended.

Mr. Gaunt: Just to respond to the minister’s comment about the matter being resolved, the minister knows that Mr. Donnelly did take the matter to examination for discovery and certain things were clarified at that time.

However, there were really three things in contention, as it turned out. First, what was viewed to be a year under the terms of the statute and under the terms of the insurance contract? Was it the 12 months preceding the death or was it the calendar year? That was one. Mr. Donnelly, acting on behalf of his client and the insurance company, came to an agreement that they would take the immediate 12-month period preceding the death.

The other thing was income, whether it should be gross or net. The company went out on that point; they said it should be net and that the deductions which they took were actually legal and were perfectly reasonable under the circumstances.

Then there was the matter of whether the farm income -- he was also a farmer -- should be charged to his income solely or whether it should be split, as the farm was jointly held. So the company agreed that the income should be placed to the credit of the deceased because he had always claimed it under has income tax.

So what actually happened was that when they got down to horse trading the lawyer and the company agreed that the client should be given two out of the three. In other words, Mr. Donnelly won two points out of the three which were in contention. So the company said: “Okay, we’ll give you $6,500 -- two-thirds. We’ll saw it off at that point and we’ll pay for the legal fees incurred by the client.”

I had a very difficult time in this because I’m sort of in between the lawyer for the client and the lawyer for the company. I keep running back and forth and then every once in a while I give your Mr. Thompson a call. He is in a very difficult spot, too, because we are trying to operate within a framework that is somewhat difficult because the lawyers are at both ends and we’re in the middle.

But I met with the lawyer for the company and the company also agreed to pay the interest that the client had incurred because she had to borrow some money while waiting for the payment from the insurance company. That amounted to only $200-odd and really wasn’t that much.

So that is where it sits. The client says: “No, I’m not prepared to take that; I think I should have the full $8,000.” The company says: “Well, we’ve gone as far as we can. We are prepared to pay you what amounts to about $6,800.” And that’s it. We are at an impasse, so the matter isn’t resolved, unfortunately.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Just in conclusion, as the member got on his feet I did receive a note from one of my staff saying the ministry is still in contact with Lloyd’s -- I believe that is the company which is involved -- or Dominion of Canada. They are still in contact with them. We are very sympathetic to the views the member has expressed on behalf of his constituent. I have nothing further I can add. I have no personal involvement in it other than our initial discussions and the correspondence the member was good enough to forward to me.

So what the member is saying is that if it is not clear, it should be drafted in such a way or guidelines prepared in such a way to clarify it, which is a perfectly reasonable request.

Mr. Chairman: The member for Nickel Belt.

Mr. Laughren: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m sure the minister is aware of the publication Stone and Cox which lists the insurance premiums for the various insurance companies for different kinds of coverage. I am wondering why his ministry, particularly in terms of the consumer aspect of his ministry, does not publish a Canadian equivalent to it, because I know most insurance policies are virtually incomprehensible to the average person. He really doesn’t know exactly what he’s getting. You would have to be a Riverdale lawyer to really know the difference between the various insurance policies and to know whether you’re getting the same kind of coverage for the same kind of premium dollar.

Mr. Renwick: What does the member mean by a “Riverdale lawyer”?

Mr. Laughren: I’m wondering why the minister doesn’t take it on to himself to publish a document like that from within his ministry.

Hon. Mr. Clement: The publication is well known to me, Mr. Chairman. It would be an additional expense and a duplication, because it is a Canadian publication that indicates the premium for age -- so many dollars per thousand, age 35, 36, and so forth. I can quite understand that there are those among us who do not understand what it says up at the top: “non-participating income, annuity added” -- and this sort of thing. I can understand that, because it is involved.

Some of the companies within the industry are starting to, themselves, put forward comparative briefs. I don’t wish to incur the expense of publishing something as involved as Stone and Cox. The last edition I ever got was quite thick, and I suppose there are 100-odd companies in it. There are certain publications written by laymen available at a very modest charge for the consumer to read on how to buy life insurance; which is what Stone and Cox deals with. So, I have never explored the possibility of my sitting down, or having the ministry sit down, and say: “If you want this type of plan, here’s the cheapest company to buy it.” Stone and Cox, I presume, is self-explanatory.

There are insurance counsellors and there are lawyers and there are bankers. Many people take their business advice from those kinds of people. Others seem to take it from their neighbours. In my experience, they often take it from people who know less than the persons taking the advice. It is an involved thing to know the phraseology. If one is confused, or one is in doubt, then I think he should seek some advice through his financial adviser, his neighbour, his banker, his lawyer, and find out what it is he wants.

An hon. member: Not his lawyer.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Because the greatest confusion I ever had in dealing with life insurance, as a consumer, was to hear the virtues of the various packages put forward to me. I soon learned to ask an agent for a quote on a person aged X number of years of age wanting such and such a coverage -- and forget about the waiver of premium and all those little goodies that flow along behind it. Because then, it simplified it for my eyes, and I was able to compare company A, company B and so on.

Mr. Laughren: It’s not as simple as that in that Stone and Cox isn’t a layman’s publication and also, Stone and Cox in recent years is not making it as clear as they should be. As a matter of fact, Stone and Cox, in my opinion, is not as good a publication as it was five years ago when it did give clearer facts in terms of comparing the premiums for the different insurance companies.

What I’m thinking of is a smaller booklet that would allow groups to subscribe to it. For example, a trade union could subscribe to it for its membership, or your own employees in the civil service could have access to this booklet so that people would not have to go and contact a lawyer. You could even have a requirement that insurance agents had to show it to a potential buyer before they sold him insurance, because you and I both know that the average person, when he’s under the gun from an insurance agent, isn’t going to consult a lawyer. He just doesn’t do it. There’s the expense --

An hon. member: He can’t afford it.

Mr. Laughren: -- and there’s the time involved. The insurance agent ends up selling that man or woman insurance and they don’t have sufficient knowledge about it. I don’t understand the minister’s reason -- that it would be too expensive for the ministry and he would be using tax dollars for it. He would be protecting those same consumers who he is worried about having their tax dollar wasted. I don’t think that argument makes sense.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I don’t want to carry this on without determination. But I suppose if I took the position that okay, we will publish a document dealing with insurance, then I would have to do the same for every other consumer service and commodity over which we have jurisdiction. Then, in effect, I would see my ministry as being the selector for the consumers of the service or the type of goods that one would want to buy. I don’t see myself in that role.

I think there is an onus on most of us to find out as much as we can within our limits, and I don’t think you will disagree with me on that. My experience has been, in dealing with things like insurance which I concede very often are very complex, that if we made it the law of this province that one had to wave a ministerial document under somebody, or they had to show them Stone and Cox, in many instances the consumer wouldn’t know what it was anyway.

He would say, “I want to buy a $5,000 or $10,000 policy. How much is it going to cost me?” And that’s really, in many instances, as far as he really wants to know. You and I know and many people who are interested in it know that you can shop for insurance like anything else and there could be savings effected.

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

Mr. J. E. Stokes (Thunder Bay): I have a brief comment I would like to make. Notwithstanding the assurance that the minister gave to my colleague with regard to the task force and the advisory body that you have got, and that you’re waiting for the evidence to come in before you make any material or substantial change in automobile insurance, I’m sure all members of this Legislature have, from time to time, had communications with your superintendent of insurance, Mr. Grundy, and I know he reacts very positively to anything that I send to him.

By and large, as a result of the representations that I have made to Mr. Grundy, and his representations to the company, we have been able to resolve it, certainly to the satisfaction of the insured. But what does this say for the kind of insurance policies that are being written today, and the unwillingness of the insurer to settle out of court in a fair way without going to some form of arbitration or something like this?

I could talk here all afternoon about specific cases. I’m not going to. But as a result of the representations that are made on behalf of buyers of insurance, and as a result of representations made to various companies which are most reluctant to settle, surely you must have some people who are in a position to analyse the nature of the problem, the nature of the claim, the reluctance of the insurance company to settle with a fairly straightforward case where they are, in fact, liable for compensating the insured as a result of the premiums he pays.

It is clear in my mind that after having made a representation and the company is more than willing to settle, it says something for the way that they conduct, operate and do their business, that on two or three occasions I have had the adjuster go to my constituent who is the buyer of insurance and say, “What did you take this up with an NDP member of the Legislature for? You know, that’s real poison. You know what they do with unsatisfied claims. Why didn’t you give me more time?”

“Well”, the claimant says, “I’ve been waiting six months for you to settle the claim and I thought that was long enough so I turned it over to him.”

Obviously I’m not saying all insurance companies are this way, but if the kind of workload that I get is an accurate reflection of all of the problems that are being brought to the attention of members of this Legislature, I think that you have enough evidence to indicate there are certain companies in the automobile insurance field that make their living by selling short the consumer.

So I’m wondering, what do you do with the information on these cases that are brought to your attention? As a result of them, haven’t you made up your mind that there are good companies and some bad ones that should clean up their act? Why do you need to wait for advice from the bodies you mentioned earlier when the evidence is already in, in many cases when it comes to the reluctance of some of these insurance companies to deal in a straightforward and in an honest way with their customers?

Mr. Chairman: Will the House leader move the committee rise and report?

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

Motion agreed to.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

Mr. Chairman: Mr. Speaker, the committee of supply begs to report progress and asks for leave to sit again.

Report agreed to.

PRIVATE MEMBERS’ HOUR

CROWN EMPLOYEES COLLECTIVE BARGAINING ACT

Mr. Laughren moves second reading of Bill 46, An Act to amend the Crown Employees Collective Bargaining Act, 1972.

Mr. F. Laughren (Nickel Belt): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This bill to amend the Crown Employees Collective Bargaining Act would accomplish two things. One, it would remove section 17 from the present Act, which outlines the exclusive functions of the employer; secondly, it would remove the prohibition against employees of the Crown going on strike.

Mr. Speaker, it is obvious that Ontario’s civil servants are restless. They are resentful, and they are somewhat beleaguered. Civil servants are unhappy with their level of wages and with the legislation which governs their employment. And that resentment manifests itself in billboards which plead with Bill Davis to free them, bumper stickers which plead the same thing, and with media advertisements which refer to Bill Davis as a cheapskate.

Mr. B. Gilbertson (Algoma): That back-fired though, didn’t it?

Mr. Laughren: Not yet it hasn’t, no sir. You’ll find out what a back-fire is in Carleton East on Thursday.

Mr. Gilbertson: That is all the comments I hear -- back-fired.

Mr. Laughren: Mr. Speaker, the Ontario civil service, which in the past has been known as the sleeping giant, is not just stirring, it’s flexing its muscles and I can tell you that those tremors are disquieting. Pickets appear as though out of the woodwork wherever Bill Davis appears.

The community college teachers refuse to subject themselves to arbitration despite the fact that it is the law of the province. Civil servants refuse to use their own cars because of the mileage allowance that is paid to them. And so we have a continuing series of confrontations between the civil servants and the government of Ontario.

And in response the government behaves badly, if not stupidly. In the middle of the controversy over section 17, which deals with the exclusive rights of the employer, the Chairman of the Management Board (Mr. Winkler) stands up in this chamber and announces a unilateral decision, with no discussion whatsoever with the CSAO, to put a freeze on the civil service in Ontario. I don’t know how he expects to cultivate the goodwill of the Civil Service Association and his employees in the Province of Ontario with that kind of unilateral action.

Then a letter, dated Oct. 8 was mailed out to every civil servant in the Province of Ontario -- as a matter of fact to some people who are not even civil servants -- stating the government’s reaction to the media campaign being carried out by the CSAO. When I asked the Chairman of Management Board this afternoon why he was doing that and did he not see it as a blatant attempt to subvert the collective bargain process, he called me naive and suggested that maybe I should be following the media and the campaign the CSAO is waging.

Well there’s a slight difference, Mr. Speaker. The CSAO, since it presented its brief on June 11 to Management Board, has been trying to meet with the government. They had a meeting on July 23. Although nothing meaningful occurred at that meeting, it’s not the fault of the CSAO and the civil servants in the Province of Ontario that there has not been meaningful negotiation since that brief was presented.

Now the Chairman of the Management Board claims that he is going to introduce changes to the Crown Employees Collective Bargaining Act this session. He has had no discussion with the civil servants in the Province of Ontario. He is again just going to bring in those amendments unilaterally. Instead of the amendments being something worked out in conjunction with the employees of the Province of Ontario, they will be brought in as a result of the government’s unbelievably heavy-handed approach to labour relations.

The Chairman of Management Board’s attitude takes me back to 1964 when in the Province of Quebec the Premier of that province said in response to the civil servants who were trying to obtain bargaining rights for themselves, that: “The Queen does not negotiate.” Well maybe she didn’t, but the following year the civil servants in the Province of Quebec achieved what they were after.

In Ontario we have a government which is haughty and arrogant. There was never any need for this legislation to have been introduced in the first place. There was no need for this kind of repressive legislation. It’s strange, Mr. Speaker, that the same Premier (Mr. Davis), who regards himself as the saviour of Toronto’s transit riders, hopes now to become the darling of a much larger constituency, namely the people in Ontario whom he thinks will rejoice as he stomps all over the employees of the Province of Ontario.

Well he may be ahead in the short term on the political balance sheet, Mr. Speaker, but as some of us know, a balance sheet can fix a situation at a given point in time, but as the weeks and the months and the years go by and increasing numbers of people in the Province of Ontario become alienated with the kind of labour relations conducted by the Premier, by the Chairman of Management Board, by the Minister of Labour (Mr. MacBeth), things will change. If the truth were known, it’s not only the teachers, it’s not only the elevator operators, it’s not only the hospital workers and the transit operators, probably half of his own caucus are disenchanted with the administration.

Mr. Speaker, the Crown Employees Collective Bargaining Act as it now stands has a number of offensive sections, but probably the worst is section 17. That is why Bill 46, which stands in my name, deals specifically with that section and would remove from management the right to disallow certain working conditions, virtually all working conditions, being debated or discussed at the bargaining table.

Almost all non-monetary items are prevented now from being discussed. I will list them, because I think the members need to have their memory refreshed with the unbelievable list of things that cannot be negotiated: Employment, appointment, complement, organization, work methods and procedures, kinds and location of equipment, discipline, termination of employment, assignment, classification, job evaluation system, merit system, training and development, appraisals, superannuation, principles and standards governing promotion, demotion, transfer, lay-off and reappointment.

Mr. Speaker, that’s the kind of management clause that would have made the robber barons of yesterday drool. When you take away a person’s right even to discuss his environment in the work-place, you are surely demeaning that person, Mr. Speaker; and when you do that you cannot expect anything in return but resentment and even contempt. I have read some of the correspondence between the Chairman of Management Board and the Civil Service Association and it’s there; the resentment is there. And it’s there primarily because of the Chairman of Management Board’s determination to deal in confrontation tactics throughout this whole dispute.

I can tell you that if Saul Alinsky was alive today he would be plotting the moves of the Chairman of Management Board on a graph sheet, he is that predictable. Surely, Mr. Speaker, in this day of universal education and rising expectations among those people who are better educated, the time has come when the Province of Ontario should be saying to these people: “We want you to have more of a say, not less, in the kind of conditions under which you are employed.”

It’s just not fair to people to say to them: “We want you to be well qualified in order to be employed in the civil service, but then we won’t give you very much of a say in the kind of things that go on.”

I am not talking just about fringe benefits and wages. I am talking about the kind of service that is delivered and the kind of goods that are produced, if they are involved in that as well. I believe that civil servants are responsible enough to bargain realistically and in good faith over the whole range of working conditions. Obviously the government does not believe that.

In Judge Walter Little’s report in 1969 on collective bargaining he argued that a government should be a good employer. I would go even further and suggest that a government should be a model employer, one that the private sector could emulate. Whether the civil servant is employed in a government ministry, or a government agency or Crown corporation, surely that employee should enjoy working conditions which have been bargained for through the collective bargaining process, and not handed down by an arbitrary and paternalistic employer.

An employer who manipulates his employees for short term gains is offensive in any case, but when that employer is the government itself, I would suggest it is time to change the employer and put him right out of business.

Surely we must put an end to the kind of master-servant relationship that permeates the work-place now, and which is a carry-over from days gone by. Who better to set the tone for a new kind of environment in a work-place than the government.

The loss of human potential because people are not allowed to develop and grow in their jobs cannot be calculated. There is no reason why the government couldn’t be leading the way in this respect. I would suggest that the government should remove section 17 from the Crown Employees Collective Bargaining Act and demonstrate its confidence in the civil servants who have served so well these many years.

Besides restoring those working conditions to the bargaining table, Mr. Speaker, this amendment would allow civil servants the right to the entire collective bargaining process, including the right to strike. I do not believe that right would be abused by the civil service in Ontario. I believe that if essential services were threatened the civil servants, through their bargaining agent the CSAO, would respond by ensuring there would be no threat to public health or safety.

I realize the pressures on a government as an employer. The government must be the guardian of the purse strings; the government must be a good employer; and of course the government must ensure that people’s taxes deliver to them the services for which they are paying. I see no conflict in these three pressures upon the government as an employer.

I don’t believe the public wants its civil servants to be working under repressive legislation; I don’t believe the public wants its civil servants to be denied the right to free collective bargaining; and I don’t think that they want second class citizens delivering the services for which they are paying through their taxes.

I suspect an agreement that is hammered out over a bargaining table is always going to be more satisfying to employees than an award handed down by compulsory arbitration. I am sure if an award is made, even if it was equal to one that was won through negotiations, the employees would not be as satisfied, because a compulsory arbitration award is going to leave a bitter taste in the mouths of those employees.

I believe that is inevitable. I was reading some of Prof. John Crispo’s essays on labour relations in the public sector and he was saying that this was bound to be the case, that unless employees have access to free collective bargaining they will not be satisfied with an award.

There are several reasons, Mr. Speaker, why employees demand the right to strike. One reason, of course, is that they have a feeling that unless they have the right to strike as a threat, or as a weapon, a tool, they will not get the same kind of collective agreement as if there is compulsory arbitration.

They also feel -- a gut feeling I think -- that the right to strike is something which everyone has the right to in this province. As long as there is no threat to public health or public safety there is no reason why they should not have that right to strike. When you think about it, Mr. Speaker, why should an employer decide to compromise if the end of the route, when the talks break down, there is compulsory arbitration?

I was reading some material from the United States. This didn’t come from the United Steelworkers, but it came from a publication called the “Guild Practitioner”, a legal journal from the United States. Some consultants named David Gordon and Joseph Persky and associates were writing on the economic consequences of strikes on steelworkers, and the right to strike in the basic steel industry. I’d like to quote what they say:

“Without the right to strike, labour economists agree, the ability of workers to affect their wages and working conditions would be seriously crippled. Without being able to strike to strengthen their position, workers would be forced either to succumb to management’s position or in the long run, to resort to social disruption and violence.

“According to the economic literature, the strike provides a mechanism, the only possible mechanism, through which the rhetoric and bluff of bargaining across the table is replaced by a credible test, of both union and management positions.

“It is reasoned that it would be involuntary servitude to deny workers the right to strike. Moreover, it is argued, without the right to strike unions could not really operate as unions because they would then have no effective power to compel the employers to bargain.”

Well I think that says a lot about the attitude of the trade union movement. By the way, Mr. Speaker, in that particular case 2,000 steelworkers laid a class action against their own union and against the steel industry for negotiating a series of no-strike contracts. The statistical information is there which indicates that the employees invariably get hurt when they either do not have the right to strike or do not exercise it. So it is not hard to understand why employees insist on the right to strike.

I know the arguments against giving civil servants the right to strike, Mr. Speaker. There is the job security argument; that since civil servants enjoy job security, that that should be sufficient to them. The argument that they perform an essential service is used; also that they should dedicate themselves to public service.

I think those are very weak arguments. Because job security without dignity is not worth it. I think also that the vast majority of jobs in the civil service are not essential; and I refuse to believe that the public in Ontario would be traumatized by the thought that some of the civil servants in the province would be given the right to strike, and even exercise it if they had to.

I don’t know how we can expect an employee to be dedicated if he performs his job with a sense of injustice always simmering in his mind. I know the government has promised to introduce amendments. I would urge them to discuss those amendments with the civil service before they bring them in. They should do two things: Remove the management rights clause and give the civil service the right to strike.

While they are at it -- I know this bill doesn’t deal with it Mr. Speaker -- the Chairman of Management Board should take a close look at the Public Service Act which denies civil servants the right to engage in political activity as well.

In closing I would say that all I am asking is that the government treat civil servants as equals; allow civil servants to negotiate all working conditions, and provide them with real collective bargaining in the Province of Ontario.

I believe that as long as there is oppressive legislation we are going to have people who are oppressed under it; and it’s not necessary. This government should cast off its master complex and stop treating its employees as servants, because the real problem, Mr. Speaker, is an attitudinal one.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Prince Edward-Lennox.

Mr. J. A. Taylor (Prince Edward-Lennox): Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to Bill 46, An Act to Amend the Crown Employees Collective Bargaining Act, 1972.

The question of labour relations is an important internal issue, not only facing Ontario but indeed Canada and the whole of western democracy.

“It presents the question of the fundamental reconciliation of the working population with its economic, social and political leadership.” So concluded the late Mr. Justice Ivan C. Rand who, members of this assembly may recall was instructed under order in council of this province in the year 1966:

“To inquire into the means of enforcement of the rights, duties, obligations and liabilities of employees and employers, individually and collectively, with relation to each other and to the general public or any individual or section thereof; and the use of strikes, cessations of work, lockouts, picketing, demonstrations and boycotts, whether lawful or unlawful, in labour disputes; and to examine the use of and the procedures for obtaining injunctions in relation thereto, and to report thereon and make such recommendations as he may deem fit to the Lieutenant Governor in Council.”

A part of the intensive two-year study and commission report concerned itself with the subjects of public employment and essential industries, businesses or services. In my view, the conclusions and recommendations made public on Sept. 4, 1968 are even more relevant today.

After pointing out that the permanence of economic security in terms of annual income, pensions, insurance and other benefits demonstrate the life outlook that has supplanted the day-to-day concern, the commissioner also remarks that this desideratum in employment is most fully satisfied in the public sector. This permanence of security should be taken into account in public collective bargaining.

Mr. Speaker, permit me to quote a few short passages from the Rand report, which distils as purely as possible a point of view to which I personally subscribe.

“The phenomenon in public service that is becoming clearer each day is the commitment of vital public functions to a rapidly increasing number of small minorities and the equally rapid expansion of community dependence on their faithful performance. When individuals or groups voluntarily undertake these responsibilities they enter a field of virtual monopoly. The community cannot secure itself against rejection of those responsibilities by maintaining a standby force which itself would be open to a similar freedom of action.

“Our society is built within a structure of interwoven trust, credit and obligation. Good faith and reliability are essential to its mode of living, and when these obligations are repudiated, confusion may be the harbinger of social disintegration.

“Claims of the class under consideration, in the context of our democracy, although of importance to the individual, have an impact on the public interest out of all proportion to that importance, and their consequences to increasingly larger segments of the community soon become intolerable.

“It is the community that recognizes the social necessity of reconciling total interests, including that of the individual; and it is that recognition which is distorted at times by arrogant individual or group dictation. Ultimately it is going to be the community, through its supreme authority the Legislature, which will determine the limits.

“But we can’t have a special legislative assembly whenever such a dispute arises. Generally speaking, in Ontario it can be said that in public employment, arbitration has so far proved reasonably satisfactory, and that in certain cases the fact that it is compulsory does not detract from the quality of its results.

“One advantage in the public over the private field lies in the fact that the latter furnishes criteria which assist arbitration, by analogy, to effect a broad uniformity. This does not mean that uniformity is always and necessarily justifiable, but a relative consistency renders it substantially unobjectionable.

“A strike for better terms than such criteria relatively set would be a challenge to government which, as a last resort, calls for acceptance and the exercise of the power of government in resistance to it.

“In public employment strikes, as for example school teaching, the object is directly to coerce concessions from the public through taxation by the deliberate throwing into disorder of an essential public function -- denying to children the training that is vital to the cultural standards of our civilization. That school teachers should be remunerated suitably to their function is not questioned; but that any such group should be permitted, by such means, to compel the public to submit to arbitrary demands is repugnant to democratic government.

“In the United States, where the widest freedoms are the constitutional foundations of its policy, there has never, so far as searches have revealed, been a recognition of the right to strike in government services. Under federal law a person who engages in that conduct is guilty of a felony and is liable to a fine of $1,000 or to imprisonment for a year or both.”

Mr. Laughren: How about Canada?

Mr. Taylor: Quoting:

“As a result of the strike of teachers in New York last year, the president of the teachers’ association was sent to jail and the association was fined $150,000.”

Mr. Laughren: Why doesn’t the member quote a Canadian situation?

Mr. T. P. Reid (Rainy River): The member should have read that speech over before he came in here.

Mr. Taylor: The report goes on to say:

“A strike in the public service is directly against the public, and it is obviously open to the action of that public to withhold its benefits from or its protection of the violator. This could extend to a resort of centuries ago -- outlawing -- by which a person was divested of civil rights. But to a civilized community that is fundamentally impossible, and we are forced to seek other means of minimizing economic and social inconvenience and disruption through an abdication of duty.

“The public contribution to pensions, un- employment insurance, health and welfare services, education and other reliefs and assistances is too great today to justify serious charges of the betrayal of any group. There is no justification in the field of public employment for a refusal of settlement of disputes in a manner similar to the innumerable conflicts, many of them of far greater individual concern than the economic claims of public employees, which are being decided every day in our courts and other tribunals.”

The report concludes that employees in an essential industry, business or service, which has been so declared by the Lieutenant Governor in Council, may not strike, and if already on strike must immediately return to work under penalty of fine.

In my opinion, the heart of the report is the recommendation that an industrial tribunal be established. This new tribunal would supervise the workings of a proposed new Act. It would inquire into the facts of any labour relations matter, sit as a board of arbitration on labour disputes, and have the authority to issue injunctions, orders and declarations of strike termination.

The bill before the House today, if passed, would place all matters on the bargaining table as the subject matter of negotiation. No item would be considered the exclusive function of the employer. Employees in the public service would have the right to strike.

While I am of the opinion that the widest possible range of subject matter should be open to the parties for review, nevertheless, I am convinced that it would be a retrograde step to acknowledge the right to strike in the public service. Some new system must be found to resolve labour disputes and I think we should look very closely at the Rand report in this regard.

While some might consider the views of the columnist Richard J. Needham extravagant, if not extreme, I commend to the hon. members a recent series of articles entitled “The Wages of Irresponsibility.” These articles point to the public confusion between wants and needs; the insatiable appetite for more and more, now; the trend toward the institutionalization of equality and self-indulgence. We are developing an inverted society in which the emphasis is on consumption rather than production -- a country so coddled by government that the less one strives and achieves, the better he is off.

Mr. Needham asks whether the people corrupted the politicians, or was it the reverse? He quotes William Ophals of Yale University as follows:

“By the standards of many of the men who founded our nation (and whose moral capital we have just about squandered), we are indeed a corrupt people.

“We understand liberty as a licence for self-indulgence, so that we exploit our rights to the full while scanting our duties.

“We understand democracy as a political means of gratifying our desires, rather than as a system of government that gives us the precious freedom to impose laws on ourselves -- instead of having some remote sovereign impose them on us without our participation or consent.

“Moreover, the desires we express through our political system are primarily for material gain; the pursuit of happiness has been degraded into a mass quest for what wise men have always said would injure our souls.”

I fear, Mr. Speaker, that participatory democracy has become a euphemism for self-interest. We must discipline ourselves to think more of public service.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1937 stated:

“A strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an attempt to prevent or obstruct the operation of government until their demands are satisfied. Such action, looking toward the paralysis of government by those who have sworn to support it, is unthinkable and intolerable.”

Mr. Speaker: Order please. Can the member close down his remarks then, please. The time has expired.

Mr. Taylor: Yes. Reflecting on groups in this country who cavalierly reject any limitation on individual or collective action, the late Mr. Justice Rand said:

“What is lacking in their outlook is an adequate appreciation of the structure of this society; the powerful forces that operate in its functioning and the problems arising from its tensions.”

Bill 46 merely manifests political posturing and the irresponsibility of its proposer. I cannot stress too strongly my opposition to it.

Thank you very much for your indulgence.

Mr. Laughren: Check out the western provinces and see if it is possible --

Mr. J. E. Stokes (Thunder Bay): Who wrote that for the member?

Mr. Speaker: The Leader of the Opposition.

Mr. R. F. Nixon (Leader of the Opposition): It is interesting that the original Crown employment bargaining bill went through the House at a time when the way was paved to some extent by a rather long and acrimonious garbage strike.

Mr. F. Drea (Scarborough Centre): Which the member’s party wanted arbitrated.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: You may recall, Mr. Speaker, that the community did not oppose the government’s position in any significant way at that time, although both opposition parties did oppose it.

I looked up the debate at that time and it’s so good that I felt like reading it all into the record again. On May 9, 1972, I ended my remarks, sir, by saying as follows: “I say to you most sincerely, Mr. Speaker, that I believe it is wrong in principle and that any- one who supports it will regret it.”

I would say to you this, that the way things are shaping up and the attitude expressed, not only by the government but by the spokesman for the Civil Service Association, does indicate that we’re going to get into a regrettable situation as of Jan. 1. Sometimes when I hear the Premier respond to the threats of the civil service, I think that politically he almost welcomes such a confrontation.

I find this most particularly regrettable and of deep and considerable concern to all of us. We saw the news reports over the last two or three days of an illegal strike taking place in the Province of Quebec involving the firemen. Most people were very very seriously disturbed indeed that people with that level of heavy community responsibility would act as they did in that community and at that time.

These all conspire in many ways to reduce the level of public support for the position taken by the Civil Service Association in its recent pronouncements. Certainly, Mr. Speaker, we must take very seriously, as something considerably more than a threat, that if their demands are not met by Dec. 31, an illegal strike will take place in this province. The strikes were outlawed more than two years ago, but there will be a dislocating, protracted and acrimonious strike anyway, unless the government acts promptly, decisively and in good faith to restore order and reason to its own labour-management relations.

Clearly the provincial employees are not deterred by the fact that their strike would be illegal under present legislation. In fact, the compulsory arbitration aspect of the government’s heavy-handed and insensitive bargaining procedure has intensified their current militancy. If the government acts now to modify its restrictive Crown Employees Collective Bargaining Act, then a strike can be avoided; otherwise an illegal strike appears to be inevitable.

I believe that the present statute, which became law on May 30, 1972, is unnecessarily restrictive. It is now apparent that the legislation is self-defeating, that rather than preventing strikes it has engendered a bitterness and frustration within the civil service that threatens to provoke a strike.

The arbitration provisions which leave a two-to-one built-in majority favouring the government and the exclusion of almost all conditions of employment except salary, are two areas that must be corrected before useful negotiations can continue.

One of those is dealt with specifically in the bill before us at the present time. In that one area, section 1, it does remove the unnecessary restrictions on the areas to be negotiated and opens it up widely to all matters, including the terms and conditions of employment.

I think the suggestion that the government should deal openly with representatives of the Civil Service Association before introducing the bill is an excellent one. As a matter of fact all of us feel like the employers of the civil service since we vote the money that pays them. It is the authority of this chamber that establishes the procedures for negotiation and, under the leadership of this government, compulsory arbitration. I would like to see a committee of MPPs established, as well as representatives of the Management Board, to meet with representatives of the Civil Service Association to see if we can iron out some of these things before the bill is introduced.

If this is not done, then the bill, of course, becomes a piece of holy Conservative writ which must be supported by all the back-benchers. This means that any flexibility that might otherwise lead to a settlement would become very difficult to achieve indeed.

The new legislation should establish free and open negotiations in all areas dealing with salary and working conditions for provincial employees. The new law must recognize, however, that certain employees of the government perform essential services which they cannot be permitted to withdraw by means of a strike or a walk-out. Specifically, police protection and certain other services, such as the basic care of patients in psychiatric hospitals, should be recognized by reasonable people as essential.

A joint committee, such as I have already referred to, should determine which other categories of employees would endanger the health or safety of the community at large if they were to withdraw their services and should provide for an efficient and fair arbitration procedure under those limited circumstances.

It is true, Mr. Speaker, that the right to strike could be left with all employees, with the power of this Legislature being brought into play if in fact a strike were to come into effect which in the wisdom of the Legislature was such that we felt the safety and health of any part of the community was in danger. But there is no doubt in my view that the police should not have the right to strike, and certain employees associated with the provision of health services should not have such a right to strike either. It should be understood, and it should be well established in our law, that such a strike would be illegal; but to spread that over all of the employees is irrational and disruptive.

There is no way that any essential characteristic can be associated with the people who work, for example, in the liquor stores -- would the government be prepared to argue that? -- or in many of the government offices where services, while important to the community, are not so essential that their withdrawal would endanger health or safety. As a matter of fact, the liquor stores could close down and improve the health and safety of the community.

During the last two years we have had experiences at the federal, provincial and municipal levels with strikes in the public service area. We have had illegal strikes among the firefighters at airports and by some hospital workers in this province and in other jurisdictions. Obviously the solution is not simply to put those people breaking the law as it presently is in jail. It must be recognized that if the laws are so constructed that broad categories of sensible people find themselves unable to obey, then we do not have the proper solution to the problems our laws are designed to solve -- problems that have been with us in the past and are growing in intensity and in scope day by day.

This view is apparently shared by Senator Carl Goldenberg, who was recently appointed by the government as mediator in the Toronto Transit Commission labour dispute. He wrote last year as follows:

“Compulsory arbitration will not in itself eliminate strikes ....

“In Australia, where it has been in effect for many years, there are many more strikes and lockouts annually than in Canada. Its experience shows that compulsory arbitration does not prevent strikes; it only makes them illegal.”

Now people like the next speaker from the Conservative side would, probably with some delight, throw large categories of people into jail. It will be interesting to hear what he has to say, because he can’t wait until that clock gets around one more minute and he can start in again. It will be very interesting to hear what he says.

Mr. Drea: Stay around.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Sure, I’ll stay around.

Surely the government’s objective must be to prevent strikes, not simply to make them illegal. In the present circumstances it appears that a civil service strike cannot be prevented unless the law is changed to provide greater freedom of negotiation and to restrict compulsory arbitration to employees whose services are essential.

The present advertising campaign by the Civil Service Association has emphasized this aspect even more than the financial issue, and I believe that it will be impossible for any reasonable negotiations to take place on salaries and wages until the real feelings related to the method of negotiations are dealt with.

I personally don’t believe their advertising campaign is having the desired effect to line up public support for their contentions, but that is a decision that they must make. If they want to buy large sections in the newspaper that says that Bill Davis is a cheapskate and so on, if they feel that furthers their position, well I suppose it’s their money they are spending.

In my opinion, the demand for 61.5 per cent pay increase is unrealistic and inflationary and must surely be recognized as an initial bargaining stance only adopted by government employees.

I do not feel that there should be interference at this stage with the negotiations between the representatives of the workers -- that is the executive -- of the CSAO -- and the Management Board of the province, which has the responsibility to bargain for the management side.

I simply say in closing, Mr. Speaker, that if the atmosphere of bitterness surrounding the Crown Employees Collective Bargaining Act is dispelled by the passage of new legislation, the salary demands would undoubtedly be modified by negotiations in the regular course of events. The alternative is heightened confrontation and resistance on both sides, and eventually an illegal strike which will cause hardship to citizens and taxpayers in every part of the province.

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

Mr. E. J. Bounsall (Windsor West): Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We have in the Crown Employees Collective Bargaining Act the most regressive, repressive, anti-labour statute in the Province of Ontario and one of the most regressive in Canada. It denies the rights enjoyed by very similar looking employees in the municipal government sector and in Ontario Hydro. Many of these employees have the same type of function. In fact the way in which programmes are shared between the three levels of government, there is often very little to distinguish the municipal employee from the provincial employee. Yet they do not have the rights that these municipal employees have.

Chief Justice McRuer, in talking about the right to strike, said that if that right is taken away there must be compensating benefits. What are the compensating benefits that the Crown employees in Ontario get by having had the right to strike denied them in the spring of 1972?

The compensating benefits are, at the moment, a wage level that is 37 per cent behind comparable employees doing the same work in other jurisdictions. They have a management rights clause that is the most repressive and incredible statement of the rights that the employer has that I have ever seen in legislation.

If they have to go to arbitration to solve disputes, they have an arbitration board which is weighted two-to-one against them. In addition, if they have to deal with the public service labour relations tribunal, all three on it are appointed by the government. The Public Service Grievance Board, which makes binding decisions on grievances, has all 14 members appointed by the government. The Classification Rating Committee, whose function is to make final recommendations on complaints about job classifications, has all four appointed by the government, there is no employee representation at all. The Public Service Superannuation Board of four members has three appointed by the government and only one appointed by the employees.

These are the compensating benefits which the government of Ontario decided to confer upon its own employees, from whom they took away the right to strike.

Mr. Laughren: Save us from Davis.

Mr. Bounsall: Mr. Speaker, the very name of the Act, when it was introduced in 1972, is George Orwellian double talk: An Act to Establish Collective Bargaining for Crown Employees. It says you can bargain on wages but that you can’t bargain on pensions and a whole host of other bargainable points that every other organized sector has.

Also, you don’t have the right to strike and you have committees in all of these areas that are heavily weighted against you. It is not an Act to establish collective bargaining for these employees; it is an Act to deny real collective bargaining for these employees.

The section of the Act itself which my colleague would wish to amend -- section 6, which indicates to the employees exactly what it is they would be able to bargain on -- is paternalistic and presumptuous. They can hardily boast of an Act to provide collective bargaining when they outline what is bargainable. My colleague is right on in his bill when he says that section 6 should read: “Upon being granted representation rights, the employee organization is authorized to bargain with the employer on terms and conditions of employment” period. There shouldn’t be any phrases outlining what they can bargain about if this Act is to provide true and free collective bargaining.

Section 17(1), which my colleague would propose to be repealed must be repealed. There is no other clause like it in any other legislation, Mr. Speaker, where government says that employees are not going to be able to bargain over their superannuation. Superannuation has been bargained for right across the entire unionized sector of Ontario. Not only is the level of benefits bargained for, but we are well into the stage where employees talk to their employer about where those funds are going to be invested. Here in Ontario, according to this bill, the government won’t even allow that.

I don’t know why the government, with these excessively oppressive clauses, wants to create problems for itself. Anyone who has had anything to do with supervision of employees knows that most problems come when you have a dictatorial head making all the decisions on the things which are denied here. The only way to achieve real peace and real harmony is for the employees to have, if not the power to make the entire decision, at least a really meaningful input into the result which comes forward.

The complement, the work methods and procedures are areas the government takes as its sole right to decide upon. I can’t think of anything more geared to create dissension among fellow employees than being told exactly how they are to do things and exactly when they are to do things, which is a government prerequisite here.

As to the kinds and location of equipment, if I were an employer I would want my employees telling me what is the best equipment and where it can be best located. I would want that kind of input, rather than deny them the right to say anything about it and deny the right so specifically as it does here.

Mr. Gilbertson: I never had the need of it.

Mr. Bounsall: Principles and standards governing promotions: Mr. Speaker, it’s so repressive one hardly knows where to start talking against it. Again, one just creates far too many problems for oneself when one leaves that entirely to the whim of a particular person placed in charge of it -- a particular person on management side placed in charge of it -- and does not have this sort of thing talked about between management and worker, and a proper grievance procedure able to be followed because of the problems which arise.

I was kind of interested in the remarks which the speakers from the Liberal Party were making on today’s bill, since they voted in favour of this original Act.

Mr. M. Gaunt (Huron-Bruce): No, we didn’t. No, that is not so.

Mr. Bounsall: They voted in favour.

Mr. Gaunt: We didn’t vote in favour of that bill.

Mr. Stokes: Yes, the members did.

Mr. Bounsall: They most certainly did -- on May 8, 1972.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: No way.

Mr. Bounsall: The Liberal Party supported the government on this Act to establish Collective Bargaining for Crown Employees, in no uncertain terms.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: No way.

Mr. Bounsall: The Liberals supported the government on this.

Mr. W. Ferrier (Cochrane South): The Leader of the Opposition can’t have it both ways.

An hon. member: He wants to have it both ways again.

Mr. Taylor: In one of his more lucid moments.

An hon. member: Yes, with his feet planted firmly in the air.

Mr. Gaunt: Is that the one that Charlie MacNaughton brought in?

Mr. Bounsall: That is the one that Charlie MacNaughton brought in and the Liberal Party over there stood up and supported him.

Mr. Speaker: Thirty seconds left, I might remind the hon. member.

Mr. Bounsall: Yes. I’ll briefly indicate just how repressive this legislation is with respect to other governments, Mr. Speaker.

On the right to strike, only Alberta and Ontario have taken away the right to strike. Prince Edward Island looks to have been bringing in compulsory arbitration, but the whole bill there is much softer and it’s working out.

All the rest of the provinces, in fact, have the right to strike. Saskatchewan, British Columbia -- Manitoba has the commitment that they will give the right to strike -- Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Newfoundland has the right to strike in all areas except hospital workers, and civil servants still have the right to strike. There is a bill introduced at this point, but it will not be proceeded with.

Mr. Speaker: Order please.

Mr. Gaunt: A point of order, Mr. Speaker. The member said we had voted in favour of the bill. I call his attention to the record, which clearly indicates we voted against it.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Mr. Speaker, it is page 88 of the Legislative Assembly Act of Ontario, volume 106; and certainly that is true. I said that in my comments earlier; I can’t imagine how the NDP could be so ill- informed.

Mr. Speaker: Is the hon. member finished?

Mr. Reid: Consistently.

Mr. Stokes: On a further point of order.

It was a member of the NDP who brought it to the Leader of the Opposition’s attention.

Mr. Speaker: Objection sustained.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Those two ought to get together over there.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Scar- borough Centre.

Mr. Drea: Somehow, Mr. Speaker, I imagine it is a form of ploy aimed at trying to cut into my time. I’m now down to eight minutes, Mr. Speaker. But in view of the rather inept performances --

Mr. Reid: The member doesn’t say anything for the first 12 minutes, anyway.

Mr. Drea: Look, the member for Rainy River wasn’t even here to vote on this bill it was put in. Now you check that one in the record, my friend.

Mr. Reid: Yes; I know where I was, Mr. Speaker. On a point of order --

Mr. Drea: Yes.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Reid: I was attending an annual meeting of one of the many organizations that I represent.

Mr. Drea: Most important bill in the House, and he wasn’t even here.

Mr. A. Carruthers (Durham): Where was the member?

Mr. Drea: Now, Mr. Speaker, if I can have some uninterrupted, peaceful decorum here, I shall point out a number of things that are the product of some rather faulty logic.

First of all, Mr. Speaker, for some minutes I’ve been listening with a rather bitter taste in my mouth about this concept that somehow the present Crown Employees Collective Bargaining Act brings about heightened confrontation between the Civil Servants Association of Ontario and the government of Ontario. Mr. Speaker, when we say something like that --

Mr. Bounsall: Something is bringing it about.

Mr. Drea: I wonder what the confrontation is when you allow people to go on strike and they exercise their franchise. What is that supposed to be some kind of a picnic?

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Does he know what he is talking about? What is that all about?

Mr. Reid: His logic completely defies all understanding.

Mr. Speaker: Order please.

Mr. Drea: For a guy who wasn’t even here for the bill, I wouldn’t open it now.

Mr. Speaker, there are two principles outlined in this bill this afternoon. The first one is --

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Seven minutes remaining.

Mr. Stokes: He is like Elizabeth Browning. When he wrote it, only he and God knew; now only God knows.

Mr. Drea: The Leader of the Opposition was here. I can never forget him that day; he couldn’t make up his mind until the end.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: He said God not broad.

Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, there are two concepts in this bill. The first is whether or not the public employees of the Province of Ontario -- because I suspect the author of this bill would include the public employees as well as the civil servants -- should have the right to go on strike against their employer.

The second is the ability of the public employee to negotiate his working conditions. I would like briefly to discuss both of them.

First of all, Mr. Speaker, it seems to be an outrage that in this Legislature in the year 1974, when all across Canada, all across this province, people want to avoid the confrontation, the waste, the dreadful personal toil that strikes take, we are here in the Legislature with one party saying: “Let them go,” and the official opposition saying: “We don’t know if all should go, but let some of them go.”

Mr. Speaker, surely if there is to be an improvement over the present dismal industrial relations record in the Dominion of Canada, I would suggest to you that --

Mr. Reid: What is the member’s alternative, compulsory arbitration?

Mr. Drea: -- at a critical time in the economy of the western world, when we still tolerate the strike because we cannot come up with a better answer as a normal day-to-day weapon, Mr. Speaker, I suggest to you that that kind of thinking is not only redundant, but is indeed an insult to the people of this province. Because where else can they look for ideas but to this Legislature? If they can’t listen to and look to this Legislature, Mr. Speaker, then I suggest to you we have been found wanting.

Mr. Reid: The member would have been better off in doing what his colleague did and have somebody write his speeches for him.

Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, I am not the devotee of compulsory arbitration -- that is the Liberal Party over there.

Mr. Reid: What?

Mr. Drea: What! I sat here during the Toronto garbage strike and day after day the Liberal’s deputy leader -- the member for Downsview -- with the member for Rainy River patting him on the back -- kept saying: “When are you going to arbitrate; when are you going to send them back to work?” Then he stands up today and says: “I do this with misgivings;” or something else. Every time the crunch comes he wants us to send them back to work.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I have no misgivings. The only misgiving I have is that I have to listen to the hon. member for another five minutes.

Mr. Speaker: Order please.

Mr. Drea: Well, I had to listen to the hon. member’s rather poorly ghosted script. Either he had better get a new writer or he should put new ideas in it.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Never. I wrote that myself.

Mr. Drea: I would suggest to the hon. member that if it was ghosted, they should have stayed down last Thursday night.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Oh geez, somebody saw me last Thursday night.

Mr. Drea: It was Hallowe’en.

Mr. Stokes: He was just masquerading.

Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, every time we have a strike in an essential service in this province, whether it is garbage collectors, bus drivers, hospital employees or even a non-essential service, involving for example elevator constructors, which really becomes essential because nothing has been done for six months -- in all of these things there is one constant in this Legislature. First of all, I give them full marks for it: The New Democratic Party are totally opposed to compulsory arbitration under any circumstances, and I admire them for it. I don’t agree with it, but I admire them. They’re consistent.

Mr. Reid: Both the Tories and the NDP are extremists.

Mr. Drea: But over there, from the opposition, comes the cry: “You send them back to work.” Every single time, that happens.

Mr. Bounsall: And they can’t agree which to choose.

Mr. Drea: If it isn’t: “Seize the company;” it’s “Seize the union.” And there’s a little Castroite in one of those speeches this afternoon, but we won’t go into that.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Is that what Castro says?

Mr. Reid: Is that what Castro says? Of course, the hon. member would be a friend of his, I imagine.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Drea: It’s called: “Let them go on strike until I decide they shouldn’t go on strike and then we’ll forbid them to go on strike.” Now you tell me where that kind of stuff came from.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Gaunt: Another wild man.

An hon. member: Go back to the hills.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Order please.

Mr. Drea: Well, as the self-styled leader of the Liberal-Labour party, who wasn’t even around to vote on this, the hon. member shouldn’t criticize me.

Mr. Reid: Okay. Three times more.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Only three minutes left.

Mr. Reid: That’s his best point so far.

Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, the question of strikes in essential services is one of paramount interest in our society today. Nothing is more essential to the welfare of the people of this province than the efficient, orderly and productive carrying out of business by the public employees of this province.

I give full marks to the present employees of this province, both the public service and the civil service people. I think they carry out their jobs with responsibility, dignity, efficiency, and -- in a great many cases -- a great deal of imagination.

Mr. Reid: But don’t give them any responsibility for their own actions.

Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, I would give them every responsibility, but surely the responsibility of the Civil Service Association of Ontario is to do some productive thinking about what the alternatives of the strike can be rather than to get into some kind of a campaign where they want to exercise a series of rotating strikes, because that’s all they want to do.

Mr. Bounsall: They want solutions!

Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, in the brief time remaining to me, I want to recall the Ontario Hydro strike. Oh boy, did they vote to go out. Then after a few weeks, every day on the telephone to the government: “Order Hydro to take them back. We’re losing the strike.” We said to them: “But you voted to go on strike.” They said: “But nobody ever told us it was going to be like this.’ This, Mr. Speaker, is what I come back to --

Mr. Stokes: The member can’t have it both ways.

Mr. Drea: If there is heightened confrontation --

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Drea: -- through a number of rather hard-nosed, nasty newspaper advertisements, then I suggest to you, Mr. Speaker --

Mr. Reid: If the member doesn’t understand that compulsory arbitration causes this --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The member for Scarborough Centre has the right to present his viewpoint.

Mr. Drea: -- the prospect of going on strike, and indeed going on strike, is going to produce the kind of lasting embroilments, personal hatreds, personal disputes and all the legacies that come from a strike.

Mr. Bounsall: And the government can avoid it all.

Mr. Laughren: By bargaining in good faith.

Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, I am in favour of retaining the present system, which bans the public and civil service employees of this province from going on strike. I think there are far better ways to solve a dispute between labour and management --

Mr. Stokes: Like what?

Mr. Reid: Give us constructive things.

Mr. Drea: As a matter of fact, Mr. Speaker, let me refer to my friend from Nickel Belt and his great study about the steelworkers. Here are the steelworkers, 400,000 of them in the basic steel industry of the United States. Do you know, sir, they don’t go on strike for wages any more?

Mr. Laughren: That’s what I said.

Mr. Drea: He quotes the fact that 2,000 of them are opposed to it -- but 398,000 love it because they are not out on the streets any more, year after year.

Mr. H. Worton (Wellington South): Time.

Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, I have one moment left. I want to come to the second point of this bill.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Drea: No, Mr. Speaker, I intend to finish on it. This concerns the right of the civil servant to bargain on employment conditions. Mr. Speaker, I suggest that a government that has suggested to boards of education that teachers have the right to bargain on employment conditions would not be consistent if it did not give the same thing to its own employees.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Attaboy!

Mr. Drea: However, Mr. Speaker, I would like to add just one thing, and I don’t want to get into detail on this because we are talking about principle.

Mr. Speaker: Can you do it in five seconds?

Mr. Drea: I can do it in five seconds.

Mr. Speaker, before we can remove the two sections that my friend wants removed and give them the right to bargain on these things, I suggest to you a rather informal or short type of study to bring in the kind of management-right clause that is applicable to every other type of collective bargaining in this province. And I end on that.

Clerk of the House: The 20th order, House in committee of supply.

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