Legislative Assembly of Ontario

Thursday, November 7, 1974

The House resumed at 8 o’clock, p.m.

ESTIMATES, MINISTRY OF EDUCATION (CONTINUED)

On vote 2701:

Mr. Chairman: The hon. member for Sandwich-Riverside.

Mr. F. A. Burr (Sandwich-Riverside): Mr. Chairman, I wasn’t quite satisfied with the minister’s response to my suggestion that the percentage be not used in giving these increases from time to time, if that’s what’s going to be done.

I would like to pursue the example I gave before where a $3,000-a-year pensioner was given the eight per cent and received, therefore, an increase of $240, and the $10,000-a-year pensioner received $800. Now, suppose that after another period of time goes by the next time there is a bonus or whatever it is called, and the percentage is 10. Then the person who started out with $3,000 would by now be getting $3,564, and the person who had the $10,000 pension originally would be getting $11,888.

This means that after these two increases the pensioner with the great need had received $564, whereas the $10,000 pensioner had received $1,880. This means that the spread between the two, which was $7,000, has become $8,316. Now, surely this is not an equitable distribution of the increases.

I was not complaining about the eight per cent increase; I was just complaining about the distribution of the eight per cent. I would urge again, when your committee is considering this matter and trying to work out a formula, that this aspect be looked into. Thank you.

Hon. T. L. Wells (Minister of Education): I am sorry. I didn’t really, Mr. Chairman, mean to leave you with the impression that I had sort of dismissed this. I indicated, I think, that this would be passed on to the committee, which is still meeting, in its study of this whole matter. That will be looked at.

I’ve been informed that when this last increase was brought in it was considered as one of the alternatives, but it was obviously rejected in favour of the other one for this time.

Mr. Burr: I just felt I didn’t impress you enough.

Mr. Chairman: Shall vote 2701 carry?

Mr. J. F. Foulds (Port Arthur): No, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman: The hon. member for Port Arthur, who has taken his seat.

Mr. Foulds: Thank you. I would like to ask the minister what his relationship to OISE is and what authority he has over it.

Mr. F. Laughren (Nickel Belt): Incestuous!

Hon. Mr. Wells: Well, the answer to that is my relationship with OISE is very good, I think. My relationship, as I see it, is as the minister through which the Ontario Institute for Education reports to this Legislature, and the minister who has responsibility for the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education Act. But it doesn’t go beyond that. It’s not a part of my ministry -- an operating branch of my ministry or anything like that.

Mr. Foulds: Do you have the authority, and if you have, have you given any thought to making sure that an independent review committee be set up to review the reasons that OISE has refused to appoint Dr. John Seeley?

Mr. Laughren: A good question.

Hon. Mr. Wells: No, I don’t think I have the authority to do that. The board of governors is considering it on next Tuesday.

Mr. Foulds: The board is considering it on next Tuesday. Have you been in contact with the board about the situation?

Hon. Mr. Wells: Which situation?

Mr. Foulds: About the one surrounding the Seeley non-appointment.

Hon. Mr. Wells: Have I officially been in contact with the board? You mean, have I written the board or something like that?

Mr. Foulds: Have you talked to them? Have you telephoned them or had lunch with the chairman or --

Hon. Mr. Wells: I have talked to them about the matter, yes.

Mr. Foulds: Have you recommended to them that they should either set up an independent review committee or that they should seriously give some favourable consideration to appointing John Seeley, in view of the fact that the faculty association has, I think as recently as today, passed a resolution 49 to 2 in favour of such an independent review committee, and in view of the fact that the department concerned, the sociology department, unanimously or virtually unanimously recommends the appointment of Dr. John Seeley as the chairman of this faculty?

Hon. Mr. Wells: I am not sure what the hon. member wants. I understand the board is holding a special meeting to consider this matter next Tuesday. I can’t think of anything more that they can do.

Mr. Foulds: Excuse me, maybe my memory is slightly faulty, but didn’t you intervene in a previous appointment to OISE to ensure that a Canadian would be appointed? Was that about the director?

Hon. Mr. Wells: Yes, I wrote a letter to the institute -- not in terms of personalities but in terms of the fact that the government of this province would look with favour upon the appointment of a Canadian to the position of director.

Mr. Foulds: Do you think that you could have the same sort of drive, will and desire to write the board a letter that appointing a Canadian who is internationally renowned in the field of sociology to the chairmanship of that institution would be looked upon favourably by your government?

Hon. Mr. Wells: No, I don’t think so.

Mr. Foulds: Why is there a difference between the two circumstances?

Hon. Mr. Wells: The difference is that I was establishing a principle. In this case, I am not writing and saying appoint this person or so forth, and in the other case I stated a principle. It was stated that perhaps the institute, because of certain advertisements that appeared in certain places, was considering appointing a non-Canadian. As it turned out this wasn’t the case. It was merely a very widespread dissemination of the fact that the director’s position was open so that Canadians in various parts of the country could apply.

Mr. Foulds: I raise the matter because I think it’s a matter of considerable concern to me personally. I have always shied away from attacking OISE during these estimates because I feel and have felt that it had a valuable and important role to play in education in this province. Contrary to some of the gibes that I occasionally give the minister, I do feel that in a way OISE is beginning to play that role. I cannot understand why the directors’ personnel advisory committee rejected the Seeley appointment. I have the memorandum which outlined their four reasons. I think I’ll read a section of that into the record. I also have some other material that refutes that. I, too, want to put it on a matter of principle, Mr. Chairman, through you to the minister, because I think the principle involved here -- there are probably three principles involved here.

One is that John Seeley is a Canadian of international reputation in his field. The second is: Who is OISE answerable to, if not to the Legislature?

Mr. M. Shulman (High Park): We won! It’s all over!

On a point of order, if I may. May I?

Mr. Foulds: A point of party privilege, I would assume.

Mr. Shulman: On a point of party privilege, the final results are in, gentlemen -- Gigantes, 9322, the Liberals, 9293, and somebody named Benoit, 6,800.

An hon. member: Who is Benoit?

Mr. Chairman: Will the hon. member for Port Arthur continue with the estimates?

Mr. I. Deans (Wentworth): Don’t be that way. Be happy for us. We don’t win much very often.

Mr. Shulman: We won -- not by much.

Mr. E. W. Martel (Sudbury East): I’d sooner be that much ahead than that much behind, though.

Mr. Deans: It’s a nice time to make it 22, you must admit.

An hon. member: What’s the difference?

Mr. Shulman: Thirty votes.

Mr. Foulds: The big difference is Davis.

Mr. Martel: He’s on our side, you know. Billy Davis is on our side.

An hon. member: You’ve got to keep Davis out in that province. Send him out more often.

Mr. Deans: Don’t let him in the House at all.

Mr. Chairman: Order, please.

Mr. Martel: Just keep sending him out in the province.

An hon. member: Keep him out talking to the people.

Mr. Chairman: Order, please!

Mr. Foulds: Thank you for that good news, my friend from High Park. I’m sure the chairman regards that announcement as important as the announcement that we have guests in the Legislature.

Mr. Chairman: Order!

Mr. Foulds: As I was saying, Mr. Chairman, there are three principles, it seems to me, involved in the controversy surrounding the appointment -- or the non-appointment -- of John Seeley to OISE.

The first one, as I said, is the question of a well-known Canadian academic with international credentials being refused an appointment at an institution that should be interested in that kind of appointment.

The second one is: who is the OISE board of governors responsible to, if it is not responsible to the minister and this Legislature, in view of the fact that we vote them on this item, I believe it is, some $2,250,000?

Hon. Mr. Wells: Yes.

Mr. Foulds: And the third principle involved, I suppose, related to that, is the whole principle of accountability and the public’s right to understand the situation in view of the fact that OISE is a quasi-public institution.

The directors’ personnel advisory committee notified the sociology department at the institution, I believe on May 29, that it could not recommend the appointment of the man. These are the reasons that they gave. The committee raised serious questions about the usefulness to the department, and to the institute, for making this appointment. These questions were based on a lack of evidence in a number of areas:

1. Specifically on the basis of information contained in Mr. Seeley’s curriculum data, the committee could find no evidence of recent productive scholarship normally associated with a senior appointment of this type over the past four years.

2. In light of the department’s wish to employ Mr. Seeley, primarily in the teaching and methodology courses, the committee noted that Mr. Seeley has had no recent experience in this area.

3. Further, the committee could find no evidence of successful experience in working intensively with graduate students through to the completion of their thesis over the past several years. This seemed particularly important in view of the department’s expressed intention to involve Mr. Seeley heavily in the area of student and thesis supervision.

4. Finally, the committee could find no satisfactory explanation as to the basis for the decision on the part of the University of Toronto’s sociology department not to pursue Mr. Seeley’s proposed appointment there this year.

Those four reasons look pretty good on paper, but the department of sociology at OISE felt sufficiently strongly about the matter that they sent the memorandum to Mr. R. W. B. Jackson, the director, on June 4, in which they put those four reasons point by point and disputed them.

On the first, that the director’s personnel advisory committee could not find evidence of recent productive scholarship, they drew up a list of papers written and delivered by Prof. John Seeley only in 1973-74. That’s as recent as you can get in terms of productive scholarship:

1. An article entitled “Administered Persons,” presented at the department of sociology, OISE, printed in the scholarly magazine Interchange, in March, 1974:

2. “The Non-Petty Politics of Social Problems,” the paper presented by the department of sociology, University of Toronto, Sept. 19, 1973.

3. “Redefinition of the Problem of Addiction,” presented at the Addiction Research Foundation, Sept. 1973.

4. “Researchable Questions Bearing on the Death Penalty,” requested by the US federal government national symposium on the death penalty, California, July, 1973.

5. “Epidemiology of Suicide and its Dangers,” 40-page critique of the California state department of health, monographed by Nancy Allen, 1973.

6. Developed proposal and charter for Centre for the Study and Promotion of Peace and Justice and the Productive Resolution of Conflict in the Ghetto, Neuro-Psychiatric Institute, UCLA, 1973.

7. “Mr. T, A Black Male, A Case of Violence and Depression and Psycho-analytical and Socio-cultural Perspective,” Neuro-Psychiatric Institute, UCLA, 1973.

8. “The Psycho-Technology of the Violence Issue,” paper and preparation for transition, 1974.

9. “Theory, Reality and Recruitment,” keynote address at UCLA series on alienation, 1974.

10. “The Idea of the Child, Punishment and Corporal Punishment; Invited Public Lecture for Series on the Rights of Children,” University of California at San Diego, Jan. 1974.

11. “The Politics of Medicine,” seminar paper at the UCLA School of Public Health, 1974.

12. “Law and Society,” key speaker with Jeremy Stone for the Canadian Department of Justice policy seminar, Ottawa, 1973.

Now, 12 serious scholarly papers, three at least of which were published. That’s a better average than most academics, I would say.

The second reason, no recent experience in the teaching of methodology.

This is part of the memo sent to Mr. Jackson by E. B. Harvey, the chairman of the department of sociology and education.

“Prof. Seeley has been involved in activities that bear directly on sociological methodology throughout his career, including the past few years. He has been involved in the planning of a number of projects that involve substantial methodological components. Two years ago he was the co-ordinator of the evaluation study of experimental schools in Berkeley, funded by the US office of education.

“Seeley ran a series of staff meetings on the planning and operationalization of all aspects of project methodology.

“Also, during the last two years he taught a joint seminar with Prof. Len Duhl in the Department of Public Health and Policy at the University of California at Berkeley on problems of methodology, which was taught to graduate students in the dual degree programme in health sciences and medical education. He played a major role in the development of a proposal to establish a centre for the study of violence. Not only is Seeley qualified to teach methodology, it is one of his main assets, and he has experience and expertise in all major phases of the research process. In his writings, in his research projects of the past few years, and in his interaction with students, he has been concerned with problems in the philosophy of science, in problem selection and conceptualization, in the theoretical grounding of research and the use of a range of data gathering and data analysing techniques and in the problems of interpreting and utilizing sociological data in action and policy contexts.”

In other words, Seeley’s expertise as a methodologist is confirmed time and time again. It is also confirmed in the references from all kinds of reputable scholars in his field.

In terms of the aspect of the position as a graduate thesis adviser, it is a fact that during the last four years Seeley has participated in thesis committees with Len Duhl of the College of Environment at the University of California, Berkeley. It is a fact that his experience involves at least four such committees, including a recently completed doctoral dissertation by Prof. Howell Baum. Seeley was responsible for the doctoral thesis seminar during his time at Brandeis, and that particular seminar was required of all doctoral students in the programme.

During the 1950s, which admittedly goes back some time, at the University of Toronto he was noted as one of the leading intellectual figures with the graduate students there. In other words, the charge by the director’s personnel advisory committee simply does not stand up.

The most peculiar reason given, the fourth one, that they could find no satisfactory explanation as to why the University of Toronto did not appoint Seeley, seems to me to be a very strange reason indeed; and there is an implication and innuendo that perhaps could damage the man’s reputation, which I think is very serious indeed.

If I may, I want to read in total the two paragraphs of the memo rebutting that particular objection by the TPAC.

“The decision of any given academic department made in terms of its own particular situation not to pursue a specific candidate, is surely not sufficient grounds for denying his appointment to another department. Certainly the specific basis for such decisions may vary from department to department. The criteria in our case [that is, the case of the sociology department] at OISE were very explicit. We were informed by the chairman of the University of Toronto sociology department that the decision not to appoint Seeley was not based on any criteria similar to ours -- for example, scholarship, teaching ability, etc. -- but rather on internal political considerations, specifically the opposition of several senior faculty.”

And that is a consideration when appointing a man, because if he can’t get along with people he is supposed to work with, particularly as a chairman, then there are valid considerations to be given to that particular reason. But this posture was not shared by all the senior faculty at the U of T, first of all, particularly in view of the fact that Seeley has a glowing letter of reference from Prof. Norman Bell.

The critical difference is that there is no divisiveness whatsoever to be caused by Seeley’s appointment at OISE. There is virtual unanimity by the sociology department on the appointment, and “surely unsubstantiated concerns of members of another department at the University of Toronto do not outweigh” -- and should not outweigh -- “an OISE department’s unanimous recommendation, which is fully documented, plus the superb documentation of all the references.”

I suppose the fundamental question is why then did not the directors’ personnel advisory committee, and why has the board, not seen fit to appoint Seeley? And why has the board of governors continued to postpone the ultimate decision? Because the decision was made on June 26 that it was urgent for the department to have an appointment. They should have had it by this fall. Their enrolment is up 40 per cent. There is an acting chairman of the department, rather than a full chairman.

I really would urge the minister to take the necessary steps to ensure that an independent review committee is set up to review the decision and to see if there are justifiable reasons why the appointment was not made, in view of the support of the faculty association, of the students in the department, and of the faculty in the department itself. In view of that, there must be some overwhelming reason that the appointment was not made.

If the board and if the committee cannot make those reasons stand up, I believe that the minister should intervene. I believe he should intervene for a number of reasons. Is it possible that OISE felt that John Seeley was too big a name? That he was too well known internationally to make the appointment? I think that must be looked at quite seriously. He does have a reputation of being innovative. He certainly has a reputation of not being a company man. Is that the reason for the failure to appoint him?

What I want to concentrate on is the necessity for these kinds of boards appointed partly by the ministry, or partly by Lieutenant Governor in Council on the advice of the government, to act like the family compact -- to make safe appointments.

Hon. Mr. Wells: You can’t say that about OISE.

Mr. Foulds: I can say it about the board of governors.

Hon. Mr. Wells: There are all kinds of people on the faculty there.

Mr. Foulds: There are all kinds of people on the faculty, true enough.

Hon. Mr. Wells: And they are all appointed by the board.

Mr. Foulds: But the board, in this case, seems to have acted in a very strange manner, and I think the public deserves an explanation for that behaviour. I think it is your responsibility to give that explanation. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Chairman, as I said a few minutes ago, all these points are to be considered by the board next Tuesday. They’re going to decide whether or not to establish an independent review panel at that particular time to study this case and report upon it to the board.

In case I’ve left the wrong impression with the hon. member, I want to tell him that I do not know Prof. Seeley. I don’t recall that I’ve ever met him. But I do want to tell him that it comes to my mind, six months or so ago, one or two prominent educators in this province phoned me and indicated that they thought it would be bad for OISE if John Seeley was appointed there. I did communicate this information to the director, because these were very respected educators of this province. I communicated that information to the director and indicated to him that I’d had these calls. So I don’t want to leave you with the impression that somehow I had never even known about this. These calls were made to me about six months ago, but since then I haven’t heard anything more about it.

Mr. Foulds: Excuse me, but I’m flabbergasted. Are you willing to make public the nature of the calls you received and from whom?

Hon. Mr. Wells: No, I am not. They were private calls to me, just as I receive private calls about all kinds of things. They were just private calls to indicate an opinion on the matter. I said I had nothing to do with the appointment, I would pass on their concern. Perhaps you should indicate your concern directly to the person.

As I say, I do not know Prof. Seeley, but I guess he realizes that he is a controversial figure. For some reason or other I received a copy of a letter, from someone again at another university, which I gather has been sent to the Star. I would not presume to read the letter at this particular time because I don’t know whether it’s a public letter or whether it was ever published in the Star, but it indicates to me that this gentleman is a controversial figure in academic circles. I guess that explains the actions of the boards, perhaps, and why they are having a review and why the whole thing has not been, let’s say, a normal type of appointment.

Mr. Foulds: I don’t know if you understand the importance of what you have just said. What you have said is that you intervened --

Hon. Mr. Wells: No, I didn’t.

Mr. Foulds: You conveyed to the director of OISE hearsay evidence from two “respected academics” in Ontario who are not willing to publicly damage the man. You passed that information on to the director. Obviously he took it into consideration in the appointment, and you, in fact, may have been the key in tipping the scales against Dr. Seeley. Now, unless there is substantiated evidence that you and those reputable academics are willing to make public, that seems to me to be the worst kind of interference. It seems to be -- if I may say so, and I say it with great respect -- that you were manipulating.

Hon. Mr. Wells: No.

Mr. Foulds: Then you deliberately passed on hearsay evidence. That’s not very good behaviour for a minister of the Crown.

Hon. Mr. Wells: It is not hearsay evidence.

An hon. member: Corporal punishment.

Mr. B. Gilbertson (Algoma): Oh, come on.

Hon. Mr. Wells: My friend knows me better than that. I would not pass on hearsay evidence, but if someone phones me about a matter that he thinks is important enough to talk to me about, and I have no direct jurisdiction over it, I am going to talk to someone else about it and pass on that concern. I imagine that the concern that was passed on to me was passed on directly to the board, too. In fact, I’m sure it probably was.

Mr. Foulds: Well, I am not so sure that it probably was.

Hon. Mr. Wells: Well, I suspect that it was, and if it was, I think it would be quite proper that that concern should have been passed on to the board.

Mr. Foulds: But surely it was the responsibility of the reputable academics concerned to do that. Surely if they are going to indicate to an institution their misgivings about an appointment, they (a) should have the guts to do that themselves, (b) be able to back it up, and (c) be able to put it in writing and -- I don’t know quite how to phrase it -- not to do it in a surreptitious way.

Hon. Mr. Wells: Well, I suspect that perhaps it comes about because of the same misunderstanding that perhaps some members of this House have about the role that the minister plays with the board of OISE. Some people seem to believe that we run OISE, that it’s like hiring somebody for our department, and of course it is not. That’s why I imagine people talk to me just as people complain to me about what goes on there and about how money is spent and everything, and I say there is a board of governors that has that responsibility, and there is a director, and they are the ones that are responsible. But I suspect that others think that we, or I as the minister, since I am responsible for the Act, have a greater responsibility for the direct management of the operation than I, in fact, do. And for that very reason, they phone me about it.

All I’m saying is that I did have these calls, I recall, about six months ago and I passed them on to the director. That’s all I can really remember.

Mr. Foulds: Well, let’s just leave that for the time being, if I may. How do we change the board of governors at OISE?

Mr. Deans: Change the government.

Hon. Mr. Wells: How do you change the board of governors? You change the board of governors, I guess, by changing -- Do you mean changing the personnel on the board of governors? They are appointed under the legislation, some by the Lieutenant Governor in Council as representatives of the general public on the recommendation of the Minister of Education, and the others by appointment by specific groups. If you look in the Act, there is a long list of various groups -- the Ontario Teachers Federation, the universities -- in the Act, which I haven’t got in front of me, which name people who are then appointed by order in council to the board. I think the hon. member realizes the board is holding this meeting next Tuesday, they will be considering the matter then.

Mr. Foulds: I gather you will be watching the results very closely. I think, if you have a faculty, which from my information at suppertime today voted 49 to two in favour of an independent review committee, that is, in effect, a vote of non-confidence in the board. If you have that kind of split developing between a board that is running an institution and the people who are carrying on the job at the institution, you have, I think, a serious problem on your hands. Because you are, as the minister, responsible for the administration of the Act, it seems you are also ultimately responsible for the good running of that institution. It seems to me a potential, very devisive split, between the faculty and its board, can hamper the good running of OISE.

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

Mr. B. Newman (Windsor-Walkerville): Mr. Chairman, I wanted to ask if we could, under this first vote, discuss the disposition of surplus schools?

Mr. Chairman: I think this would come under vote 2701. I don’t see it covered in any of the individual votes of the subsequent vote. I’ll ask the minister as soon as he is ready.

Would the hon. minister indicate whether we discuss the disposal of surplus schools under vote 2701?

Mr. B. Newman: Also, the closing of certain schools.

Mr. Chairman: It would seem to the chair this is ministerial policy. I would assume this would come under vote 2701. We may as well discuss it now.

Mr. B. Newman: I know the minister is aware of the situation in the Pelham School where the residents wanted the school to remain, and also the controversy back and forth. There was also the concern expressed by the people in the Halton district about the Norval School. I wanted to ask the minister whether he is considering introducing legislation so that there would be an appeal when regional school boards decide to make changes, phase out, eliminate or close a school.

It makes good sense to give the taxpayers in the area the opportunity to express their thoughts concerning the school rather than the local or regional school board unilaterally closing it down. I would mention the Monarch Secondary School in the city of Windsor that was going to be closed out for this year. As a result of the concern of the residents who had children going there and those whose children may be going to the school in future years meeting with the board it was eventually decided to keep the school open. This didn’t happen in the Norval or Pelham situations. I am asking of you, Mr. Minister, whether you are going to set up legislation to provide a procedure for appealing decisions of regional school boards?

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Chairman, I have thought about that but I find it a difficult thing to do. If we believe in the autonomy of the local board and in all the things that we say about local government being closer to the people than other governments, and the things I hear from school boards about arbitrators, and how they can’t have arbitrators setting policy for them, I really believe we have to trust the judgment of local trustees. I have met with both the residents and the boards in both the Pelham and the Norval cases. I indicated, as you have rightly stated, there is no appeal from the legislation. It is up to the board; they have the right to close that school if they wish. I think that in both cases a full hearing was given to all the residents and, at the meetings I attended, the board were very fair and frank in presenting their opinions and yet they still came to the decisions. Now, at this point in time, I can think of nothing else that they can do, and I am really not considering any legislation to appeal these decisions. Someone will always say to me, “Well, there’s the OMB. You can appeal decisions of a council to the OMB.” Well, of course, as I think my friend realizes, you can’t appeal these kinds of decisions to the OMB. You can appeal zoning decisions and certain things on monetary matters, but if a municipality decides to close an ice arena in one area of the town, there’s no appeal from that to the OMB. That’s a decision that council can make themselves and I guess, just as we are, they are ultimately responsible to the people who elected them.

Mr. B. Newman: I was going to bring up the OMB situation, but since you brought it up, there’s no need to repeat it. However, it would make good sense if the residents at least had another body to whom they could appeal, present their case and be satisfied with a similar decision from the second body.

Appealing only to one body is almost the same as applying to the Liquor Licence Board for a liquor licence and being refused for some unknown reason, whereas if you had another body to whom you could appeal their decision, then perhaps you could present your case in a better fashion and perhaps convince them.

As I said earlier, the second body might uphold the decision originally rendered, but I think the taxpayer would be far more satisfied then than having a unilateral decision made on the part of one district board.

As I said earlier, in the situation regarding the Monarch school in the city of Windsor, I think the board approached that in the right way. They studied the situation and said it wasn’t economically sound to keep the school in operation, that they were going to phase out the school. They met with the residents and explained everything to them. The residents were able to convince the board, the school was kept in operation and now it’s overflowing with students. They increased their enrolment from 220 to about 280. In fact, if I am not mistaken, they have had to hire either two or three extra teachers to keep the school in operation.

When it comes to a school in the core area of a community, by phasing a school out in that area you are really penalizing and punishing those who live in the core area. Too often in the core area you have not the best type of housing in a community, and those who are economically deprived live there. As a result, you are depriving their children of the opportunity of going to a school in their area and making the families pay for transportation to a school miles away. We should be encouraging the students to go to school, especially those from economically deprived families; instead, we are discouraging them by making them travel farther. I am referring only in this case to a school in a metropolitan area or in a fairly large city. I am not referring to the Norval school.

But, getting back to Norval, I think it does make good sense to have some type of appeal procedure set up to let the people have their day in court, so to speak.

Mr. Chairman: Shall vote 2701 carry?

Vote 2701 agreed to.

On vote 2702:

Mr. Chairman: Any discussion on item 1? Item 2?

The hon. member for Nickel Belt.

Mr. Laughren: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There is an issue in Ontario which simmers continually, and that’s the issue of French-language education in our schools. I know all the arguments that are used by people who don’t want to see a serious programme of bilingualism in our public schools, and some of them are valid.

For example, there is the argument that if you teach a child to be bilingual, he never gets a chance to use it. I can understand that. I have known people myself who learned French and then went years without using it, and they felt that they had put a lot of effort into learning something and never had an opportunity to use it.

But what I would suggest is that the French language be an option such as is recommended in the Gillin report, with which I am sure the minister is very familiar. I don’t think it is useful haranguing the minister or blaming him for the problem of the lack of French in our schools, but surely the blame does belong with the Ministry of Education as well as with the school boards. I, for one minute, do not remove blame from the school boards for the lack of French in our elementary schools.

In the Sudbury area, a situation arose which I thought was classical and should be documented and should be put on the record, as we are wont to say in this chamber. Last spring the Sudbury board sent out a questionnaire to people in the Sudbury Basin asking them if they would be interested in a French immersion programme starting at kindergarten and going through to the end of Grade 4, I believe it was. In the questionnaire, they made it quite clear that transportation would not be provided -- the parents would have to provide their own transportation.

When they had a response to the questionnaire there were public meetings set up throughout the area and certain areas were designated as having the kind of response that would indicate there was a demand for an immersion programme beginning at kindergarten. But all the time the board maintained that they would not provide transportation.

I have a certain conflict of interest in this matter because I have three children and one of them would have been starting in the kindergarten programme this past September. I was quite excited about that -- so were my children and so was my wife. But when they indicated that transportation was going to be up to the parents, it was like slapping the people’s faces. After they had thought there might be a chance, finally, for their children to become bilingual. What they were doing by saying that people would have to provide their own transportation was that if you are fortunate enough to have two cars -- so when the husband is at work the wife can drive the child to school -- okay, you can plug into the programme. Because what people were being asked to do was commit themselves to five years of driving their children to school.

The illogic of it confounds me, because the board has a policy which says that they will drive students to school at the secondary level. They go to the nearest school unless the programme they need isn’t there, it is offered at a further school and they will drive them to that school -- if it is a shop, for example, or if it is a particular business programme. But here we have something as important as a second language and the board won’t do it. I think the board stands condemned on that. I am very disappointed. I don’t think they have provided the kind of leadership they should have in the Sudbury area for the teaching of French in our schools.

I made a personal appearance to the board with some ratepayers to argue for it, and I wrote to the board. I said, “Would you please tell me if there is any argument I can make with the ministry, as the provincial member, to give you support on this?” The letter I get back from the board of education, after my offer to help, was this:

“Dear Floyd:

“Thank you for your letter of Dec. 5 addressed to Mr. G. W. Thompson, outlining your concerns about the teaching of French in the Sudbury school system. Your letter was referred to me for reply.”

This was the superintendent of programmes.

“Our present oral French programme extends from grades 5 to 8 in our elementary schools. Our board is presently surveying our pre-kindergarten and kindergarten parents re a total immersion French programme in our elementary schools and there is discussion in the continued improvement and extension of our present oral French programme within our present budgetary guidelines set down by the ministry.

“The above information was outlined in a letter to Mrs. Petterson, Onaping, Ontario. We appreciate your concern and assure you that the board is presently actively engaged in trying to solve the problem.

“Yours truly,

“W. N. Roman”

There was an opportunity for the board to say, “Yes, we would be willing to do more if only the Minister of Education would provide us with the funds. The culprit here is the Minister of Education and help us make the following arguments”. No, the board isn’t even blaming the Ministry of Education and I don’t understand that.

Mr. Martel: I do, I know why.

Mr. Laughren: It is disgraceful.

Mr. Martel: They are all Tory hacks.

Mr. Laughren: No, they are not all Tory hacks. I went to talk to the individual school board members, including the one in the area where I live, and said “Why are you not doing this?” He gave me a number of reasons and then he said “Besides, have you never heard of Bill 22?” I almost crawled through the telephone wire at him with that crack, because if the school boards are interested in playing this kind of language war with the Province of Quebec, they can sure count me out.

Of course, I am not putting all the blame on the school board either because the leadership and the direction has not been there from the Ministry of Education, and the ministry certainly stands condemned on that.

Hon. Mr. Wells: Were they saying that they couldn’t pay it because of our grant policy? Was that what you said?

Mr. Laughren: No, as a matter of fact I was mad at them because they didn’t say that.

Hon. Mr. Wells: That happens to be untrue, because our grants are there. The legislation is permissive. If they provide the transportation they qualify for grants under our transportation policy. There is no problem with that.

Mr. Laughren: So what you are saying is that the entire responsibility for not offering an immersion French programme starting at grade 5 and going through to the end of grade 8 is entirely the responsibility of the board. That there are absolutely no financial encumbrances to them if they do it. Is that what you are saying?

Hon. Mr. Wells: No, no, I am talking about the transportation. I thought you were saying that they wouldn’t provide transportation. I am saying that if they wish to provide transportation for the students that wish to attend, they would come under our regular formula for grants for transportation and we would pay the grants. In other words I know of nothing that we have in our grant regulations that would inhibit them from doing it. The legislation doesn’t say they have to provide it for you, it says they may. So if you can convince them there is nothing that should stop them from providing it, they would get money from us for it.

Mr. Laughren: Okay. I would appreciate a response, after I have said a few other things, as to exactly what would have prevented the board from offering the programme. If there are no restrictions in terms of transportation costs, then why are they not doing it, unless it is purely an attitudinal problem? If it is an attitudinal problem then that is reprehensible, and they stand even more condemned in my eyes than they do right now. I would be interested in your remarks on that.

What I would like to see is that the legislation is not permissive. So help me if I have to beg, to plead, to demand, I will fight to see that the legislation be changed to make it mandatory that an immersion programme be offered if there is sufficient demand by the parents. I am not suggesting for a minute that we lay on in the ham-fisted kind of way in the school system that the federal government did with its civil service.

I would like to give an example of the wrong way to go about it, and I hope that the ministry will never get itself into this position. Knowing Tory Ontario I suspect the ministry will not do it. But mind you, one has to wonder about Tory Ontario seeing the results from Carleton East tonight.

Hon. Mr. Wells: That was your friend though. I gave you credit for two and I hear it didn’t work out that way.

Mr. Laughren: I know.

Mr. Foulds: Our friend from High Park is overenthusiastic.

Mr. Laughren: Yes, he gets carried away at times.

Hon. Mr. Wells: He should have come back for an encore.

Mr. Foulds: For a guy who plays the stock markets he is not very mathematically inclined.

Mr. Laughren: What bothered me very much about the kind of approach to bilingualism at the federal level was that I happen to have a father who cannot read or write in any language -- totally illiterate. He operates a furnace for one of the federal government buildings. He is over 60. He received a letter in the mail, which one of the younger brothers read to him, and which said: “We are going to investigate your job to determine whether or not you must be bilingual in order to keep it.” Can you imagine the kind of mental anguish that someone like that goes through when they have never had a chance to learn to read or write in their own language -- the French language -- and now they are being told that they might have to become bilingual.

That’s what I mean by a “ham-fisted approach to bilingualism,” because I think that’s reprehensible and I would hope that we would never be into that position. I’m a tremendous believer in biculturalism and bilingualism, much more than the minister or the government of this province. They have messed around with it; there is a token kind of acknowledgement of it, but really that’s all.

What really got me excited in the last year about this whole concept of an immersion programme was reading the experimental study that was done in St. Lambert, which is a suburb of Montreal. They took English-speaking students -- enrolled them in kindergarten in their French-immersion programme, and the results were truly amazing. That report was out a year or so ahead of the Gillin report. And it documents very well the good aspects of an immersion programme.

The students who went into the immersion programme ended up not being harmed in any discipline. They had much more respect for their French friends, for French culture, for historical, political, cultural and educational appreciation for the French in this country. When I read that, it was clear that was the direction we must go. The students in the immersion programme continually wanted more whereas if they were put in a programme of 20 or 30 minutes a day, they wanted back into the English programme.

So it seems that if you give them a taste of immersion they want more. They will end up truly bilingual and liking what they’re doing. They will not lose it that way.

I want to read to the minister a letter from a constituent. I don’t normally do this, but this letter is very eloquent, without using fancy language, and says better than I could how a parent in the Sudbury area feels about a lost opportunity to have bilingual children.

“Dear Mr. Laughren:

“As English-speaking parents only, my husband and I are very concerned over the inconsistent French programme in our Ontario schools. Having been raised in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and having lived in and enjoyed a number of years in Quebec, we strongly feel a second language, namely French, a definite asset.

“We were most happy, upon coming to Falconbridge, Ont., to find our youngsters, then in kindergarten and grade 1, had the opportunity to take French. However, at Christmas, due to a forced cutback in staff, the part-time French teacher was let go. The school principal informed me not to worry as the children would still benefit and just as much, for upon reaching grade 4 they could again take French, this being the level at which it was now going to be introduced throughout the school system.

“We moved to Onaping in August of this year to find French starts here in grade 5. Mr. Laughren, would it not be much cheaper and far more beneficial to our children, and Canada, if French could be started in kindergarten and kept up? Both my eldest daughter, now 9, in grade 4, and myself wrote Premier Davis about this matter in September. To date, we have received no reply.”

This is dated Nov. 16.

An hon. member: That was last year.

An hon. member: He was over in Italy.

An hon. member: That’s a year ago.

Mr. Laughren: That is 1973.

“I have never seen her so upset as when she found this long-awaited privilege to take French had been postponed yet another year. I did call her teacher to inquire in this matter and met with only the utmost of concern and helpfulness. Because this child is a clever student, she is allowed to take French with the grade 5 class. For this consideration, we are more than grateful and so, perhaps, should bow out and say no more.

“However, what of the other children, and our other children now in grade three and kindergarten? Not being as clever, they have to wait longer, and perhaps upon reaching grade 5, find even longer.

“Because we feel so deeply about the matter I called long distance and spoke at some length to Prime Minister Trudeau’s secretary yesterday only to find that, while the Prime Minister is most aware of the situation, his hands are tied.

“I next called Premier Davis’ office and spoke with his secretary, who had been most sympathetic and understanding but only advised me to write to Mr. Davis again, which I did yesterday. I have also written Prime Minister Trudeau and have spoken to a Mrs. McEwen with the Sudbury Board of Education. She advised me to write to Mr. Thomson which I also did yesterday, plus a letter to Mr. Thomas Wells for good measure and one to Mr. Elie Martel, Mr. John Rodriguez and now yourself; next Mr. Jerome. I had no luck with calling you all.

“I do not mind a $40 to $50 long-distance bill. My husband certainly does, though, heaven help me. Even so, I could not find any answers. Mr. Laughren, is there nothing at all that can be done in this matter?

“This letter is truly written out of sheer frustration, and with a great deal of disillusionment at this point. We seem to be up against a brick wall. Why? Please, I beg of you, do not feel we are critical of our children’s schools or teachers. Their love of both and their good grades assure us that these are high calibre indeed, so far.

“Might I mention we get twice as puzzled when a traveling van called Music Machine is allowed by the board to come in and charge, we feel, too much money for special lessons in piano, etc., for half an hour or so per week. The children taking Music Machine are excused from class, well and good. Children who are not taking this, along with a number of others, are, we have been assured, not wasting their time, which I fully believe.

“Still the question is, is this precious school time not really being wasted after all? Could not a French machine come around instead? Then we would gladly pay this price in order to start our children in French now. With our youngest son in kindergarten now, we would have a marvelous start.

“We love Canada with all our hearts and would truly like to see far more understanding between our people of all religions and languages. Such a fuss has been made about re-educating English to French, etc., etc. Yet here in the school programme where it could be established and learnt easily and willingly it is very, very sadly neglected. How shameful.

“Thank you for your time, Mr. Laughren, and if could find some answers as to who decides, and why some schools in Ontario get French in kindergarten and others start in grade 4, 5 or 6 we would truly appreciate it.

“Yours with little hope,

“Marianne E. Petterson.”

I read that letter because I think it expresses the kind of frustration that not only Mrs. Petterson, but I as a parent, and a large number of people in the Sudbury area and all across Ontario feel about the lack of an opportunity to enroll their children in an immersion program which will painlessly make those children truly bilingual. That is what is so ridiculous about the situation.

I remember taking French in the traditional system in Ontario and it was painful indeed. I came out of it with no grasp of French. Here we have an opportunity to enroll students in an immersion programme that they’ll enjoy. It will have all sorts of educational, historical, and cultural benefits, not only to those children but to our society as a whole. And it’s being denied because the boards won’t do it because of an attitudinal problem. The Ministry of Education must be condemned the same way because they continue to leave the legislation permissive. Until we change it, I see very little hope.

Give some of us a choice to enroll our children in immersion programmes; help us destroy the kind of myths about French Canadians that are out there in the English community. Surely you are aware of what the COPSE report -- the Committee on Post-Secondary Education -- had to say about the educational levels of French Canadians in Ontario. Less than half as many French Canadians on a per capita basis get degrees in Ontario as do their English-speaking counterparts.

If that isn’t a condemnation of our educational system in Ontario, I don’t know what is. That is discrimination, very thinly disguised if disguised at all. The fact that we have five French high schools in the Sudbury area is excellent, and it’s going to place increasing demands on the post-secondary system which this minister is not responsible for. But that’s sadly lacking as well, because Laurentian university is not a truly bilingual institution. Neither is Cambrian college -- much less even than Laurentian university.

I don’t know how long this government’s going to sit back and watch the students pouring out of French high schools and going to Ottawa university. I think the Minister of Education should start leaning on his counterpart in the Ministry of Colleges and Universities. Those students coming out of high schools are coming out of your system. You have given them the opportunity to speak French at the high school level, and for that I give you credit, for the grants that go to the school boards there. But we’re still sadly lacking at the post-secondary level.

I think that in Sudbury we have a unique opportunity to build a model of bilingualism in which not only will French-speaking people be bilingual, but English people who make it their choice can also be bilingual. I urge the minister to bring in legislation that will make it mandatory to offer immersion programmes when there is sufficient demand at no financial penalty to the board. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would appreciate the minister’s indication as to what way a board, such as Sudbury, is penalized financially if an immersion programme is offered.

Mr. Chairman: The minister would like to reply.

Hon. Mr. Wells: I would like to refer to that. I said in my opening remarks, I don’t think any other provincial government in this country has done more to foster the development of bilingualism. I notice Keith Spicer said recently that dramatic progress had been made in the past 10 years with bilingualism in Ontario. He said the climate has become more civilized. The progress in other provinces, however, has been less dramatic.

I think, when you look at the developments in the French language school system in five years -- from about 11,000 to 28,000 in the secondary system -- we will find more continuing at a higher level. I’ll be glad to intercede with my colleague, the Minister of Colleges and Universities (Mr. Auld), to see what I can do about French in post-secondary institutions. I think, when we see this influx that’s now coming through the French language system that has been developed, many more will be getting degrees because they are now getting their full education, both elementary and secondary, in the French language.

As far as the teaching of French as a second language to anglophones is concerned, I agree with my friend, that there is a place for immersion courses beginning in kindergarten. I don’t think that is going to be the rule for everybody. It’s for those who want it. I said many times that it should be offered in every school jurisdiction in this province. It is obviously now offered in Sudbury but there are impediments to its operation because of transportation. A board may offer the transportation but there are grants from us to pay for it. But the decision to offer it rests with the board.

At the present time there are no special grants for immersion programmes. These must be worked out within the board, as indeed many have, such as Sudbury. There are many programmes in the northwestern region. I see that Cochrane and Iroquois Falls apparently have one, as do Kapuskasing, Nipissing, Timiskaming Board of Education, Elgin county board, Lincoln board, North York, Toronto, Peel, Scarborough, Ottawa, Ottawa Roman Catholic separate, Carleton and so forth. Many boards, without any special financial arrangements, have offered these programmes. There are probably others that we haven’t even heard about.

The development of any special assistance to encourage the offering of these courses is, of course, what we are considering now in response to the Gillin report, along with the way French as a second language will be handled in the regular school system. There are two distinct divisions. There is the immersion programme which will, in all likelihood, turn out fluently bilingual young people. There is also the teaching of French as a second language as we are now doing, but not well enough.

Mr. Martel: It’s a disaster.

Hon. Mr. Wells: A programme will not turn out bilingual individuals. I don’t think we can ever hope that it can do that. It will, in some cases, but in a lot of cases it will whet their appetite for French, give them an understanding of the culture and an appreciation of the two basic founding peoples in Canada, and of the relationships between our different groups, languages.

Mrs. M. Campbell (St. George): Not peoples -- languages. There are other founding people.

Hon. Mr. Wells: Excuse me, right, there are other people here. I refer to the two language groups that were here. It will give them a better understanding of the culture of those groups and thus help, I believe, in the development of Canadian unity. They are the two different programmes. That’s all we are doing now as a result of this report.

Mr. Laughren: Mr. Chairman, in response to that. At the present time, I think you are wrong in one sense, in that teaching French as a second language as opposed to immersion doesn’t seem to whet the appetite. That’s part of the problem with the present system; it doesn’t whet the appetite, whereas immersion does whet the appetite for more. At least the results of the St. Lambert study, indicated that.

The second point is that I wanted to be very sure on this, because you can imagine how people get shunted back and forth when they are trying to nail down a responsibility. The board will say it’s the ministry’s fault, and the ministry will say it’s the board’s. Are the financial restrictions on developing an immersion programme solely that of staffing? There are no restrictions at all in busing, so that once a programme is established the only increased costs are not busing. In other words, you could bus people from all over the region and it would cost the taxpayers in Ontario more money, obviously, but would not cost the school board, under its system of grants and its budgeting, anything extra except staffing. Is that right?

Hon. Mr. Wells: I am not saying that the grants we pay on transportation would pay the complete cost of busing, but there is a transportation fund that applies to bus services in this case. In all the various cases where buses are used, there is a transportation formula.

Let me just say that in regard to the development of special, say, financial programmes to assist in the development of these kind of courses, I think the hon. member knows we do have some pilot projects going at the present time in the Ottawa area. The Ottawa Roman Catholic Separate School Board, the Ottawa board, the Carleton Roman Catholic Separate School Board and the Carleton board are being funded to the tune of about $2 million for all four of them a year.

They have had this for the last two years, the money being given to us by the federal government and then transferred by us to those boards. This year the federal government is giving us half the amount and we are paying the other half. There is also a very large research component which we are paying for that has been added on to this and is being done in conjunction with those boards.

They are offering some of these types of programmes, and out of these experiments will come formulae that we hope we can build upon to spread this to the rest of the province. But those will be ready about June, 1975. We will have the results of those and the results of the extra funding -- what it has been able to do and how much it has cost to do various different enrichment programmes and so forth in French.

Mr. Laughren: Why didn’t you do this in Sudbury?

Hon. Mr. Wells: We didn’t use Sudbury because the federal government wanted us to use the Ottawa capital region.

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

Mrs. Campbell: Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I would like to add my voice to this particular curriculum development debate. I am speaking about the matter of French in the Toronto schools. I have to tell you that I have had a tremendous dichotomy in myself about the teaching of French because I felt that French was so badly taught that I did not want to see French taught on the basis of what we had been seeing in our Toronto schools.

In a school in my area, but not in my riding, which my grand-daughter attends she has now been taking “French” -- I put it in quotations -- for some three years. She can indeed sing Frère Jacques, and that’s about the extent of her knowledge of French. To me it is an insult to the people of this country whose language is French that we should be teaching French on that kind of basis.

I have said that until we get an immersion course, until we get some kind of educational system that gives us a truly French education, what we are doing is the same sort of tokenism that we see in so many other areas of this country and its disregard for people.

Just how much money is available for French immersion courses in the city of Toronto? I believe that so often when you make your statements about your great support in the educational programme, Toronto is often left to fend pretty much for itself. As a result, the citizens of Toronto in many cases are really regarded as red-neck people or something of that kind through no fault of their own. But because the board of education has had to fund so many other programmes relating to the new population, and no one denies the need for them, then I am afraid that French comes a very bad third -- I guess third is a good figure for tonight -- in the whole system of languages in the Toronto schools.

I want to know how much is available to the Toronto board for immersion courses. I believe that for three years my grand-daughter has been receiving two 20-minute periods in French a week. If you think that isn’t a sheer waste of time, I don’t know what is. They are not going to get French in that kind of a relationship at all. At first in discussing the matter with my grand-daughter, I thought that perhaps she was slow in picking up languages. But I found she was tremendously fast in picking up Italian, and therefore I am sure she could have picked up more than she has in French.

Now, there is a determined effort by the parents in this school, in conjunction with the board, to improve the French-language course. Perhaps the minister would give me a specific breakdown, since he has told us about Ottawa and other areas. Exactly what does the board of education in Toronto get to encourage French in those schools?

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Chairman, I will have the actual dollar figures in a minute -- at least an estimate of what the Toronto board gets in grants for French programmes. I just want to say that the kind of things the hon. member has said are the kind of things that I said when we set up the Gillin committee and commission.

Mrs. Campbell: I know.

Hon. Mr. Wells: That’s why they were set up and that’s why they have reported. Their report is here. We have had it about a month or so. Bob Gillin has done an excellent job. It’s a very well done report, it has been very well received and it has gained a great deal of positive response. We are now developing the kind of responses and changes that can come out of this for our programme. It’s because of the very things that you said were happening in the schools that we set up this committee. The results of this, plus the experiments and the research connected with them in the Ottawa area, will, I am sure, chart a much better course for the future.

The two 20-minute programmes you talked about are in no way immersion programmes. The Toronto board has immersion programmes operating at Allenby Public School and Brown Public School.

Mrs. Campbell: They want it at Rosedale.

Hon. Mr. Wells: Perhaps I can give you the answer in a few minutes. They are digging the figures out for me. As you will appreciate, there are really no strictly identifiable figures, because the grants given to boards are total grants and they decide what their priorities will be. All the things are built in; we don’t say there’s so much money for books, so much for salaries, so much for French and so on. We will get you a figure for the approximate amount of money that Toronto is getting for this particular programme, but it will take a few minutes.

Mrs. Campbell: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, if I might, I would just like to say that indeed one of the problems, as I have indicated, is that special education in Toronto has had to take a priority. Special courses for children, whose first language is other than either French or English, has had to take priority. But as a very proud Toronto person -- and I am sure you feel this way -- I resent the kind of criticism of us that we are somewhat red-necked English-speaking people who do not want French -- when indeed we do. But we want it taught in a way that will produce people who are at least able to converse in French without translating.

This is why I am concerned about it, because I think our reputation as red necks is undeserved. I think it is partly because of the fact that the school board in Toronto has had to put first things first, and French can’t be first when you have tremendous other problems that have, I think, in all humanity, a priority. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman: Shall item 2 carry?

Mr. B. Newman: No, Mr. Chairman.

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

Mr. B. Newman: Mr. Chairman, the minister is aware of the attempt on the part of the ministry to set up a French-language secondary school in the Essex county area. Could the minister explain why the difficulty? Do you want me to repeat, Mr. Minister?

Hon. Mr. Wells: Yes.

Mr. B. Newman: The establishment of a French-language secondary school in the Essex county area: You have been pushing it, Mr. Minister. The francophones, likewise, but there seems to be a roadblock in there What is preventing the establishment of the school?

Hon. Mr. Wells: I might tell the hon. member that at the present time the matter rests exactly in this particular state: The Languages of Instruction Commission recommended the building of a school in Essex county, and upon receiving a recommendation of the board, did not agree to that request. The board so informed me. I wrote the board back and indicated some things that might have been disturbing the board, because this school was intended not just for Essex county, but for Windsor.

I suggested that they should approach the Windsor board and perhaps put in a joint proposal, and that if that was the impediment to proceeding with the school, would they consider it and get back to me.

Since that time, I understand they have had meetings with the Windsor board, and both boards, as I understand it, as a result of a meeting earlier this week, are now to put a motion to their boards to set up a small committee to try to work out details.

I might say that I am very hopeful that all the roadblocks will be overcome and that school will be presented and that we will be able to give approval to it very shortly.

Mr. B. Newman: Mr. Minister, if they are unable to arrive at a resolution to the problem, would the ministry consider allowing the separate school board to set up a secondary French school in the county?

Hon. Mr. Wells: I don’t think that it is possible for them to set up a secondary French school, because they couldn’t get grants for part of the programme.

Mr. B. Newman: Would you consider it?

Hon. Mr. Wells: No. It is a very noble effort of them to offer, but the ground rules for establishing French-language schools and the legislation provides for them to be under the public school system.

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

Mr. Foulds: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to reinforce some of the remarks by the hon. member for Nickel Belt about the teaching of French in Ontario. I would like not only to endorse them, but make one or two observations in addition in a general way about the report that is officially called the Report of the Ministerial Committee on the Teaching of French.

I think that most of us, for once, felt that a ministerial report was a good one. It indicates a certain amount of realism about the situation in Ontario, and it makes some very positive recommendations. I am a little disappointed in the minister’s statements this afternoon. He endorses the principles. Perhaps it is unfair, and I certainly don’t plan to castigate him for not being more concrete at this stage, but there are a couple of concrete things that I think need to be said.

One of them is that I think the recommendations sound great, provided that the government really comes through with the specific funding necessary. I am sure that the minister was pleased; certainly I was pleased -- I am sure you get as adequate or probably an even better clipping service than I do, but if you read the clippings from the newspapers across the province, you in fact get a good indication of widespread support among boards and parents as well as editorial writers, particularly for immersion courses.

I just had some noted down from the clippings in areas as diverse as Ottawa, Sault Ste. Marie, Hamilton, Brockville, Cornwall and Sudbury, all basically endorsing the thrust of the Gillin report. I think that speaks well for the possible success of the implementation of the report, and I would simply urge the minister to take advantage of the favourable climate that has been created in the public mind in this regard. I think it is particularly important to emphasize recommendations 1, 4 and 12.

Recommendation 1, of course, is that French-language education be introduced at the kindergarten level, and at the very latest at the junior level, which I -- forgive me, I don’t seem to be thinking all that clearly. Is the junior level grades 4 to 6?

Hon. Mr. Wells: Yes.

Mr. Foulds: The one minor caveat that I have with that recommendation 1 is that it could mean, in effect, that it wasn’t until grade 6 that the language instruction be instituted. What I would simply urge is that the best possible time is to introduce it at kindergarten level, and not let it lag.

I know all these programmes take time, but I think it would be symbolic of the government’s commitment if they really endorsed the recommendation that it be started at the very early end of the scale. I think that the recommendation 4 should start at the grade 7 level. The way I would read the component is you start with the French-language instruction at the very early level, and that it is at grade 7, after you have got through the junior level, that you make it available as an option.

I think the other key recommendation that certainly we in our party would support, and support wholeheartedly, is recommendation 12, having to do with immersion programmes, so that at least one school in every board jurisdiction where there was sufficient demand be set up for this programme. I really would like the minister to use his good offices to encourage the boards to find the busing necessary and certainly to make, in those cases, the full busing formula available to them.

I think one part of the Gillin report perhaps hasn’t received as much attention as it might -- and it is one area that I am particularly concerned with, as well as the French-language instruction -- and that is the whole area of the cultural development and the aid and the encouragement that that could do in terms of all the things that we want to do through French-language instruction here in Ontario. There are some very, very good things said on pages 38 and 39, immediately following recommendation 22 and before recommendation 23. I want to read them, simply because I think I would suggest that that aspect of our liaison with Quebec could go a long way to bringing Canada to be a truly bilingual and bicultural nation.

“Bringing French-speaking students and groups of artists into Ontario schools is another way of increasing the contact between English and French students. For several years the Ministry of Education has arranged for a small number of assistants to come from France to work in Ontario schools. In 1973, the ministry undertook to co-ordinate in Ontario the interprovincial programme of second-language monitors. Under this plan, 135 French-speaking students from Quebec were helped financially to attend Ontario universities and were employed several hours a week in language classrooms in secondary schools. These young people who were paid by the federal department of the Secretary of State provided Ontario students with both motivation and opportunity to speak French. Their success in the first year indicates that the monitor programme should be expanded.”

I would certainly underline that. That kind of practical use of talent from Quebec would be very welcome and very worthwhile.

The opposite, the expansion of centres or contacts in Quebec for Ontario people, is an extremely important recommendation. You can correct me if I’m wrong on this. I think that the recommendation that you establish a permanent centre in the French-speaking milieu in order to offer year-round immersion courses in French to student-teachers, teachers and administrators is first-rate, and with all the difficulties inherent in it really should be looked at.

Hon. Mr. Wells: I’ve even got the site but I can’t sell it to anyone.

Mr. Foulds: You’ve got a site, but you can’t sell it to anybody.

One small point that I would like to make -- and you can correct me if I’m wrong: Is there anywhere in the report a mention of developing curricula from source materials in Quebec as well as obtaining advice and consultants from Quebec? It is a couple of weeks since I actually read through the report and I can’t recall that particular thing being mentioned. Perhaps you could comment on that particular point. Do you know?

Hon. Mr. Wells: What exactly was that point?

Mr. Foulds: There were two points. It seems to me there isn’t any mention in the report of developing curricula in Ontario from source materials from Quebec.

Hon. Mr. Wells: Incidentally, this is Mr. Gillin sitting out in front of me right now in case you were unaware. The committee has recommended that publishers try to work together to get published novels and so forth available in this province so they could be used. The whole question of learning materials for the French-language school system in Ontario is one to which we still haven’t got all the answers. The ministry has some money in the learning materials development fund which it is going to make available to one of the French-language teachers’ associations who are producing their own material for the school system. They are developing curriculum aids and material that they are publishing themselves. I understand it’s very good.

There seems to be a problem with directly bringing in material that is being used in the Quebec school system. I’m not just sure what the problem with this is. Perhaps there can be a greater use of this but the people in the Ontario French-language school system seem to want to develop their own material. Let’s be very frank, it is in short supply at the present time and they are going to have to do more work in this particular area. It’s the same as the problem that is going to develop, unless we are able to meet it, and that is to provide teachers for increased programmes. This is one of the impediments that we have got to meet.

In other words, it is fine to say we should move into all these programmes, but we have got to be sure we have got the teachers. There are all kinds of things that have to go on.

Again, at the meeting with the Ontario teachers’ federation yesterday, we chatted about immersion courses for teachers in northern Ontario who find themselves displaced because of the change in a school from its traditional pattern to that of a bilingual secondary school. In order that they can remain in that school and be part of the programme, we are looking at ways with the OTF to get them into programmes, maybe the federal government’s immersion programme, so that they can become bilingual.

There’s going to be a real challenge in meeting the need for teachers, and particularly for the teachers who would teach French as a second language to anglophones in the school system. I don’t know whether you are aware of it, but this idea of a centre in a French milieu that could be used to help develop teachers for this programme possibly may have come out of the summer courses that the ministry has operated at Compton, Que., in the girls’ school there. What’s the name of the school?

Mr. Laughren: Nobody knows.

Hon. Mr. Wells: The name of the school is King’s Hall in Compton, Quebec. It was a very famous private girls’ school. That school has amalgamated with Bishop’s College in Lennoxville, I think. The building became available and several of the staff in my ministry have been encouraging us to buy it. I felt that perhaps there would be a problem with the Province of Ontario buying a school and hundreds of acres of land in the Province of Quebec. This hasn’t been a very realistic thing, but that’s the kind of setting where I suppose you could develop an immersion centre. It has got all kinds of interesting possibilities, because of course it is Louis St. Laurent’s home town and we could call it the Louis St. Laurent Immersion Centre for Canadians or something like that. But I haven’t been able to sell the idea to anybody with public money. Perhaps there is some generous benefactor around who would like to set up this centre and donate it to the people of Ontario and Quebec. That might be a good idea, but I don’t know.

Mr. B. Newman: The sugar business millionaires.

Hon. Mr. Wells: Bob Gillin says it’s only three-quarters of a million dollars. The price has gone down since I heard about it the last time. I don’t know if you have been there, but it’s one of the most beautiful sections of the Eastern Townships of Quebec. The school is on a hill overlooking the whole of the Eastern Townships.

But it has an excellent programme for teachers of French to anglophones. I attended the programme, and I was very impressed because they were being taught in an immersion milieu. They didn’t speak English for the six weeks they were there, and they played ball down in the village. It was a real experience.

The monitor programme, of course, has been expanded. There are currently 250 in that programme this year. This is one of the programmes the Council of Ministers of Education co-ordinates for the Secretary of State’s department. We have had some problem with that programme in terms of getting people into the Province of Quebec. There have been problems with the teachers’ unions in Quebec in letting these people go in and take part in the school as aides. Unfortunately, the Ontario people going into Quebec are not acceptable in the secondary schools, although they can work in the universities. But we are working on that.

Mr. Foulds: What about the elementary schools?

Hon. Mr. Wells: No, not in the elementary schools either. I have spoken to the minister in Quebec many times; he is very sympathetic and he wants to see the programme operate exactly as it does in reverse, with his people coming into Ontario, but there have been problems in regard to the teacher associations and unions, who haven’t made it possible yet, as I understand it. That’s what I have been told.

Mr. Foulds: Mr. Chairman, I want to get back to my original question about source material, if I might pursue that for just a moment or two. Is there any problem over copyright? Not so much text and that kind of material, which I can understand the franco-Ontarians wanting to develop; but I was thinking of original French source material in terms of novels, historical documents, and using those as a basis for developing curricula in Ontario by franco-Ontarians. Is there any problem in that?

Hon. Mr. Wells: I don’t think there would be any problem with material like that, if it’s published in Quebec. It’s available, of course, to anyone that wants it. I suppose you could even go so far as to take the example of -- what I am trying to recall, I guess, was the last time I was in Quebec City. There are, just as we see here, walls of pocket books in English available; there are walls of pocket books in French available down there. There is all kinds of literature, I suppose, from the best to the worst. There’s no reason why that kind of thing couldn’t be available for use in our schools and by our people; just as, for instance, that kind of material -- pocket books, paperbacks -- used here in the literature field to a great degree.

Mr. Chairman: Does item 2 carry? The hon. member for Port Arthur.

Mr. Foulds: One or two more points on this particular theme, if I might, Mr. Chairman, that I want to find out from the minister.

Have we -- and forgive my ignorance. As a unilingual person, I apologize. But has the Quebec system the equivalent to our Ontario government consultant, and are such people available to us, if we wish to invite them, to help us develop and implement some of the recommendations of this report?

Hon. Mr. Wells: My deputy minister informs me that they do have roughly the same kind of people in their ministry, and that there is exchange going on between our people and their people in this particular area. In fact, he even tells me he thinks they may be here right now this week meeting with some of their people.

Mr. Foulds: One last question, and I raise it because it’s important in terms of the decline in the number of secondary school students taking French in Ontario -- from 45 per cent of them in 1970-1971, I believe, to 34 per cent in 1973-1974. I think that’s roughly accurate.

Recommendation 67, in particular, suggested that the funds to boards for French-language programmes be specifically and especially earmarked exclusively for that purpose. Are you yet at liberty to disclose whether that is your intention, or have you made a policy decision on that?

Hon. Mr. Wells: I think that in general terms it is our intention to move that way. We did this year, in fact, because we added the grant, a visible $44 for French, above the ceilings for boards -- for the students in boards which had French programmes.

Mr. Foulds: Are those the French immersion programmes?

Hon. Mr. Wells: These are all French programmes, yes -- 20-minute immersion, or French-to-French. So that, in fact, in this last year -- the present year that we are in -- they are much more visible than they ever were before; and they can be sorted out.

For instance, my friend from St. George asked about the situation in Toronto. Of course they get $44 at their rate of grant, for a visible grant of $1.5 million for their French programme, and an increase in ceilings of $4.5 million on top of the others for the development of their French programme.

Mr. Chairman: The member for Windsor-Walkerville.

Mr. B. Newman: Mr. Minister, under curriculum development are you strengthening some of the subjects on the second level so that any student could complete his high school education in four years rather than five years?

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Chairman, under the credit system it is possible for a student with the ability and aptitude to get the necessary credits. In the new HS1 there is a discretionary element that rests with the principal, to allow a student to move ahead faster in order to do that. At the discretion of the principal, using his good judgement of the students in the school, it is quite possible to complete it in four years.

If you read the HS1 document you basically need 33 credits. But at the discretion of the principal in certain cases -- and this would depend to a great degree on the ability and aptitude shown by that student -- it is possible for him to move forward and get that secondary school honour graduation diploma, perhaps with less than 33 total credits.

Mr. B. Newman: Perhaps less. I am concerned. Mr. Minister, that you strengthen the curricula in the various subjects in the schools so that practically any student could get his honours certificate within four years rather than five. Don’t you see the economy involved, if you had a four-year high school programme? I know there is the problem of teachers. You would have grade 13 teachers phased out as a result, but why not have a uniform four-year programme throughout Canada rather than having Ontario completely different by having grade 13?

Hon. Mr. Wells: We could get into a long discussion on this, Mr. Chairman. Indeed there are a great number of students who do complete their secondary school education.

Mr. B. Newman: Not a great many.

Hon. Mr. Wells: Yes, there are a great number because about half of those who complete grade 12 or year 4 of the programme go on and take year 5. Basically, they are the ones going into university. There are a great number of students who get the secondary school graduation diploma and move on to all those other post-secondary education institutions where you just need the secondary school graduation diploma -- community colleges, nursing, and so on.

So you have a whole group of students completing it in four years for that diploma which fits the path they wish to take. Then you have the other group taking the extra six honour subjects, who are going on basically to university. It is possible to get the honour diploma in 4½ years, and in some exceptional cases in four years. So even those people, if they have the aptitude and ability, will do that.

I think the mistake that we make is that, having built our whole system on continuous learning, and on the aptitudes and individual abilities of each student, we want them all to finish at exactly the same time. It isn’t necessarily going to be possible. Some people are going to finish their courses at one time; others are going to take a little longer.

Mr. B. Newman: Could you strengthen the curriculum in the various subjects so that it would be possible to complete the equivalent of today’s 32 credits with 27 credits instead?

Hon. Mr. Wells: I don’t think that would be strengthening it, that would be watering down the curriculum.

Mr. B. Newman: How could it be watering down when you would have exactly the same content in the four years rather than in the five years? How would you be watering it down in that way? You come along and make the first-year credit the equivalent of 1¼ years of schooling under our present system in a given subject and in the second year the equivalent of another 1¼. After four years you’ve completed what today requires five years. You’d make it more meaningful for those students.

Hon. Mr. Wells: I’ve got a son in secondary school and you’ve taught secondary school. The programme now is pretty full.

Mr. D. M. Deacon (York Centre): Do you think so?

Hon. Mr. Wells: I certainly do think so. There are 110 hours in a credit. To suggest we could suddenly put all that work into less than that time for every student, I don’t think would work.

Mr. B. Newman: I don’t mean for every student, Mr. Minister. By no means do I mean for every student.

Hon. Mr. Wells: Well, what do you mean?

Mr. B. Newman: There are a lot of students who want to complete their high school education in four years, their equivalent of a grade 13 in four years. You are saving them one year of secondary education. They get into the university one year earlier. They are qualified exactly to the same extent as the student who has today’s grade 13 qualifications. The programme is a little more meaningful. It’s a little more challenging to the individual who can do it in this fashion, rather than have him go 4½ years or even five years on the programme. I think it does make good sense. It enables that student to complete his university education, if he wishes to go on, in one year earlier. He’s into the work force one year earlier -- unless you want the schools to be holding tanks to keep people off the job market.

Hon. Mr. Wells: As I indicated, it is possible for students today to get their complete programme in four years, if they have the aptitude and the ability. I would say to my friend that I am sure -- I don’t know whether he would agree with me -- that the graduate of the Ontario five-year programme has a better -- better isn’t the word -- more complete education than in most of the other provinces at that particular time. He’s taken 33 very full credits and very full courses, whereas in a lot of the provinces where they have just four years of the programme it’s about 27 or 28 credits. It has got to mean that these students in Ontario, while they may have taken a year longer, if they do, have had a richer and fuller programme.

Mr. B. Newman: I can’t argue with you on that, but you can still arrange the programme so that the individual can complete exactly the same contents that he is completing today in the five years in the secondary level, in four years by simply adding content to certain courses. I’m not going to discuss that any further.

I wanted to ask the minister why doesn’t he consider physical education in a school one of the really important subjects? When we are looking upon the health of our young folk, you would think that of all the ministries the Education ministry would be concerned with the health of our youth and would develop programmes so that physical education wouldn’t be pushups, it wouldn’t be jogging, it wouldn’t be gymnastics and it wouldn’t be football only. It could be really meaningful.

Hon. Mr. Wells: As the hon. member knows, I have said this many times myself that I think the physical education programme that is offered should be meaningful. It should have a component in it that develops in this whole area, as we say, of lifelong education something that will be used throughout the rest of his or her life by that young person. It should develop an awareness and a desire to want to be fit and perhaps even teach skills that can be used further on. I think there are a lot of our people doing this. Certainly in the case of our people and any consultants that we have, this is the emphasis that they are taking. We are developing even now more guidelines in physical education to encourage even more of the kind of thing you are talking about. But we are not thinking of making physical education compulsory in the secondary schools.

Mr. B. Newman: Remember, Mr. Minister, when we sat on the select committee on youth and we travelled all over Canada and the US looking into that. Remember the recommendations put out by that committee concerning physical education, that it be compulsory in all levels of the school? At that time, it was compulsory up to 12 and it was voluntary in 13. You yourself signed that report, wanting it to be compulsory in 13. Why the change of heart now? Aren’t you concerned with the physical fitness of our own school-attending youth?

Mr. Foulds: He’s better educated now.

Hon. Mr. Wells: I am better educated now -- that’s what my friend said. I certainly don’t think that compulsory phys-ed in secondary schools particularly does anything to improve the fitness of our population. All of us who are sitting here just slightly overweight and so forth are the products of years of compulsory physical education, back when we went to school, the ones who are supposedly the unfit generation in Canada today. We are all the products of an era when physical education was compulsory.

As I have said many times, of all the things that I hated in secondary school it was physical education. Not only did I hate it, but it ruined some of the rest of my enjoyment of secondary school. I could say the same thing for the universities which had some crazy criteria about physical education and what you should do.

Mr. B. Newman: Mr. Minister, what you say was true in those days but you are assuming that your people can’t develop a physical education programme that is meaningful. Look at the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Brunelle). You couldn’t find a fitter specimen than him and the minister next to him.

Mr. Laughren: Oh, come on -- look at him.

Mr. B. Newman: You don’t see him being corpulent or obese. He is nicely streamlined.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. B. Newman: Mr. Minister, I’d like to say that for the rump out there, but I am afraid I really couldn’t say it for all of them.

Interjections by hon. members.

An hon. member: That’s right, talk about it.

Mr. B. Newman: Well, Mr. Minister, you and I may not be as physically fit as we’d like to be but I am --

Hon. Mr. Wells: Sure we are.

Mr. B. Newman: Well, maybe you are but I am not. But I certainly think that when we are talking about our youth we should do everything we possibly can to see that they are fit in the school. As I said earlier, I don’t think physical education is doing pushups or swinging on a high bar or coming along and throwing a football through a tire suspended from a goalpost in the backyard. There are a lot of other things that could come along and improve the physical well-being of our people.

When we look into some of the totalitarian states, they really emphasize physical education. I don’t mean that we should emphasize it to that extent, but I think we should look upon your own Ministry of Health’s big medical bills, and I think we could dramatically reduce those bills if we were concerned with the fitness of your youth.

And we should do it on the elementary level too, because I don’t think -- I am subject to correction -- they get physical education in elementary schools to the extent that they could get it. You can develop qualified personnel, you can develop a programme, it can be enjoyable in the schools and maybe you could make it so enjoyable in the schools that it wouldn’t have to be a compulsory subject -- they’d want to take it. But you are not as concerned with the fitness of our young folk, Mr. Minister, as I thought you should be. If you were concerned you’d look upon this more seriously than you are looking upon it.

You know, you are still thinking of your own high school days and what you had to do in phys-ed, and I look upon that, too. But I wouldn’t implement that style of a programme in today’s school system. You have got people in the gallery here who know physical education extremely well, and they certainly could develop the type of programme that would be meaningful.

Now, I say that, Mr. Minister, for the sake of our younger folk who are going to be competing in another two years in international competition in the Olympics, where Canada is going to try to be a really proud nation and show the skills that her young folk have been able to develop in the various endeavours that are generally competed in in Olympic competition. Not that Olympic competition means everything, Mr. Minister, but the world does look upon us when it comes to the competition and when we do place very poorly then they immediately criticize the health of our younger folk, and in that way they are really criticizing the school system.

I think, Mr. Minister, you can develop programmes.

Hon. Mr. Wells: I don’t disagree with anything that the hon. member has said, Mr. Chairman. The only place where we part company is on whether you make these programmes compulsory or not. I agree that they should be in the schools. We are doing all we can to make it possible and encourage school boards to develop these programmes. We are issuing new physical education guidelines in the intermediate division. There will be a senior guideline revision very shortly. There is continuing emphasis in the elementary school and the P(1) J(1) documents I talked about in my opening remarks will emphasize physical education for younger children.

The emphasis will be on these areas for the very reasons that you have stated, and the only place that we would part company is in the fact of making it compulsory in the secondary schools. Everything else applies. We’re putting full emphasis there.

I think that many of our physical education people in the schools, particularly again the secondary schools, are developing innovative programmes and that some of the impetus to do this has been the fact that they do have to develop programmes that kids will want to take rather than programmes that people are forced to take. Therefore they don’t have to worry about making them relevant and interesting and really vital, as you and I think they should be. So I think we are making progress and I certainly completely agree with you that we must put great emphasis in this area because we must develop a population that is fit.

Mr. B. Newman: Mr. Minister, many of my colleagues don’t agree with me when I attempt to say that physical education should be compulsory, but having taught physical education and, likewise, seeing the fitness of our youth today and knowing that it can be improved through a meaningful physical education programme, I personally would like to see it made compulsory in the schools.

I think you shouldn’t wait until you get into the high schools. I think you should be doing some of this on the elementary level. There’s where you really have to start, because if you start with the youngster he is more than likely going to continue to be interested in his own physical well-being and, as a result, it will be not only to his own betterment physically, he will be better mentally, because in a sound body the chance of having a sound mind is that much greater. Where we can come along and develop sound bodies and sound minds, then we are going to have at least what I think will be a little closer to the ideal.

The other topic that I wanted to discuss with the minister under curriculum development is the fact I am still receiving complaints from parents concerning the new math. They are completely confused. Is there any concern being expressed in the ministry to modify the programme, or do you intend to have it carry on just as it has been set up over the last years?

Mr. Chairman: Does the minister wish to reply?

Mr. B. Newman: Syl, you get up on phys-ed there, eh?

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. B. Newman: Don’t be afraid. They are not going to do anything to you.

Hon. Mr. Wells: In the course of the cyclic review which has been completed for the P(1) J(1), in which the new guidelines will be set out, a review of all the subjects has been undertaken and in the intermediate area it will be undertaken. To answer the hon. member’s question, there hasn’t been any major change in that curriculum that was brought out and that was called colloquially the new math. That is still the backbone of the curriculum that is being taught.

Mr. B. Newman: There is no intent to phase it out at all? You are just going to carry it on as it is?

Hon. Mr. Wells: We don’t carry anything on just forever and ever. There are always people looking at it. I might say to you right now that there’s no intention to ever phase it out and there may be a committee working somewhere that’s going to come in with a recommendation six months from now, or three months from now, and say: “We are going to work on a new curriculum guideline and this is what we are going to do.”

Now, these committees, of course, are made up of teachers who teach math and consultants in math, and so forth. I am not unmindful of the kind of criticism that the hon. member has heard, and I am sure neither are our consultants or experts in this field.

Mr. Chairman: The hon. member for Kingston and the Islands.

Mr. C. J. S. Apps (Kingston and the Islands): Mr. Chairman, if this is the proper vote, I would like to ask the minister just what part physical education plays within the framework of the curriculum. Is it an optional subject? Is it compulsory? Is it still given in grade 13, and how effective does the minister feel that this particular physical education programme is within the elementary and secondary schools?

Hon. Mr. Wells: I would be happy to answer, again, Mr. Chairman. The hon. member, I guess, has just come in. We have just had a 15-minute discussion about the whole area of physical education. It is being stressed very strongly by the ministry. There are very good programmes being developed. It is an optional subject in the secondary school programme. I think that because of this, much better and much more innovative physical education programmes are being developed, and I think that they are much to the benefit of our young people.

As I said a few minutes ago, it is not the intention of the ministry to make those programmes compulsory in the secondary schools. But there is the intention to emphasize very strongly physical education, the development of a healthy body and a good physical condition, starting right from the elementary school.

There are new guidelines going out in the intermediate division. There is a revised senior physical education guideline, and within a year or so there will be a programme for the grade 13 year, the fifth year.

Mr. Apps: Mr. Chairman, I wonder if the minister might tell me what percentage of the students take advantage of the physical education programme.

Hon. Mr. Wells: I’ll try to get that answer. I don’t know that we have those figures here, or whether we have the figures on courses.

Mr. B. Newman: You have enrolment figures on it.

Hon. Mr. Wells: I will get them for you in a minute.

Mr. Apps: One other point, Mr. Chairman, during the Health estimates, I indicated to the minister (Mr. Miller) that one of the ways he could cut down ultimately in the cost of medical services is to try and do what he could in co-operation with you to make sure that the young people in the province are reasonably physically fit. I am wondering if the minister in the policy field has had any opportunity to discuss with the Minister of Health the programmes the Minister of Health might suggest to him that would enable the Minister of Education to do a better job in trying to make certain that all the young people have an opportunity within the schools to take enough physical education to become a little more physically fit than maybe at the present time.

Hon. Mr. Wells: The answer to that, of course, Mr. Chairman, is yes. The Minister of Health and I have discussed this on many occasions, and there are many joint programmes of our ministries moving forward with their assisting us in family life education, in nutrition, and various other programmes.

I have to emphasize that there somehow seems to be this feeling that there isn’t an emphasis on physical education in the school system, and this is just not so. The mere fact as to whether a course is compulsory or not has nothing to do with it. It is a very simplistic approach to suggest that, “Make physical education compulsory and your problem is solved. If it isn’t compulsory nothing is being done.” That just isn’t the way it is, because a lot is being done and a lot more will be done. It doesn’t rest on whether that programme is compulsory whatever that term means for students in the schools.

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. Apps: Mr. Minister, I think the figures on the number of people who take advantage of physical education courses would be some indication as to whether they are doing any good or not. As I understand it, you are going to advise me what those figures are and when we get those figures I guess we will have a better indication as to how good the physical education courses are within the schools.

The thing that concerns me, Mr. Chairman, is that somehow along the line we must try and get the impression to the young people that being physically fit is something to be desired. I don’t know whether this is so at the present time or not. I don’t think really it is and that the fact that you are physically fit is something you can be proud of. If you can be proud of it, then you’re going to take advantage of all these physical education courses that you have available within the schools and, hopefully, are being taken advantage of by the young people who are in the schools.

I think anybody who saw on TV the gymnastics display at Maple Leaf Gardens a couple of nights ago or who were able to be there would realize the tremendous thrill and the tremendous accomplishment of these young people who do those things so well. These are the kinds of things we should be encouraging throughout the school system to get the youngsters interested in this type of thing, along with many others that are available. I would hope that the minister would see fit to encourage all the schools to make an extra effort to make sure all their students take part in the physical education programmes that are available to them.

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

Mr. Laughren: Thank you. As one ordinary superjock to another, to the minister, I would like to engage him in a discussion on something a little different, namely, the whole question of curriculum development and involvement of the community in the development of curriculum in the schools.

As you may be aware, there are a number of us who are members of a select committee of this Legislature dealing with the involvement of the community in the life of the schools. One part of that involvement, of course, has nothing to do with curriculum. It has to do with the physical facilities and the way that the building is used by certain groups, about what time of day it becomes the property of the community versus the schoolboard and those kinds of questions.

There’s another aspect of it that I think is often overlooked. I don’t think the ministry is very seriously looking at the whole question of how much of a role parents and other people in the community should have in the setting of priorities within a school. I am not talking about taking out of the hands of the school board all kinds of powers that they now have. I’m not talking about going over their heads. I’m not talking about circumventing the experts in the Ministry of Education either. I’m talking about bringing in the people in the community to have a say in the development of that school and the kind of emphasis that it gets.

For example, in a school near the area where I live there is a programme for the Indian children from the Indian reserve who attend that school, and that is the kind of thing where the people in the community did have a say in the development of that part of the curriculum. Perhaps in an area like Sudbury the people in the community would decide there should be more emphasis on the history of labour in this province or in this country.

Mr. B. Newman: Not only Sudbury but any place.

Mr. Laughren: Any place. I’m using Sudbury because I know it well and because there’s an identifiable group called labour who could have a say in the development of a curriculum there.

I know the school that we call Kensington here in Toronto has had some involvement that way, and I understand it’s working fairly well. I’m wondering just at what stage the ministry is at in encouraging the school boards to develop a community school across the province. I’m not talking about the community use of schools. I’m sure the minister understands the difference between what is sometimes known as a community school and a school that really does involve the community in the development of its curriculum. I would be very interested in knowing to what extent the ministry is pioneering and is encouraging schoolboards to move in this direction.

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Chairman, in the speech last week to a community school conference, I think I outlined at least the first phase of our programme, a six-point programme which I repeated in my remarks here this afternoon. In the course of that speech I indicated what our response is to the kinds of things that the hon. member is referring to.

I indicated that we are in favour of the development of the school as a centre of the community. We feel that this must and can only begin when the full co-operation, involvement and enthusiasm of the principal is developed. He will provide the focal point along with his staff and the community. I suggested that the development of a community school committee to work in an advisory capacity with the principal is a good thing and should be encouraged.

I further suggested that we have to go one step even further back in a lot of communities. At the present time, there is a good number of parents in all kinds of communities in the province who feel somewhat threatened by the school. In other words, it’s not a case of being involved in developing some of the things in the school; they feel even afraid to go into the school and ask about what kind of programmes are now being taught their children. I think that this is regrettable and it has to be broken down.

The idea that parents can come in once or twice a year and talk to the teacher about what is going on with their child is not a healthy situation. Parents should feel that at any time, given the normal courtesies of arranging appointments and convenient times and not expecting to barge in at any time, they should be able to come in and talk with the child’s teacher and get straight answers and straight explanations about what is going on. This is the kind of spirit that has to develop, and once that develops in the school and a community school committee evolves, the kind of things that you are talking about will happen.

Then I further said that the school has to develop relationships with the other community organizations that are serving and helping the people in that community, perhaps Children’s Aid Societies, social service agencies, and a lot of other health departments that are all working together. It is then up to the school to co-ordinate with them so that the school can become a focal point and a co-ordinator for all these activities. I think that has to grow out of this kind of involvement.

We have suggested, as I said this afternoon, that for school boards that would like to get into this kind of programme we have offered some special money this year. If they will write up a proposal, we have grants up to $10,000 per project available for them to develop different ways of going about this and to help them do it.

Mr. Laughren: How is the response?

Hon. Mr. Wells: We only issued the programme last week. We have told them the response has to be in by the end of December. I think we will find that all of the money we have for that programme for this year will be used up, because the people who were in the audience the night I was talking were all those who would be developing the programmes. I imagine they went right back and are working on the development to send in the proposals.

As I say, our first-phase response is to encourage boards to do this officially. We are going to develop a handbook to tell them about it. I get the feeling there has been a lot of high-sounding talk about this but there is not too much practical “how do you do it?” and “what is it?” in simple terms. People make philosophical statements about community schools and community education, but the people out there in the community just don’t quite understand what this is. We are going to develop a gutsy handbook that can tell people exactly what it is all about, give some examples and tell them how they can develop it.

There are a lot of examples in Ontario. You mentioned Kensington. There is Ogden school in Thunder Bay, Holy Rosary in Windsor, and Maple Grove school in Lincoln. There are all different kinds of examples.

One of the other things we have to make very clear and get across to people is that to develop a community school you don’t have to have a new building like Kensington. Some people equate a community school with a great big new building which has been designed specifically for that purpose. Obviously, we cannot rebuild every building across this province. You can still develop that school within existing structures. There are going to be a lot of empty classrooms in schools. If they are not needed, there are plenty of opportunities there to develop all kinds of innovative programmes.

This is part of the job of the community school unit we have in our ministry with consultants in each of the regional offices.

Mr. Laughren: I would very briefly in more of a comment than a question, Mr. Chairman, suggest to the minister that with the advent of the regional school boards there was an increased sense of alienation of parents from the school which their children attended. This is one way of getting people back into the feeling that they are part of the education of their children. Every time you close a school and every time you create a larger unit of administration, you increase the alienation of people in the community from their school. I think that it is very important that you do this and I am encouraged by your programme.

Hon. Mr. Wells: Can I just break in here to tell you that the figures I have pulled out for the Sudbury Board of Education indicate that for the French-language programme, the identifiable part, the amount is $308,000, and the grant on that amounts to $185,000. That is an increase in the ceiling of $308,000. Then our rate of grant is $185,000 on that.

The Sudbury Separate School Board has a ceiling increase of $185,000 because of their French programmes and rate a grant of $725,000. The amount of the grant would be $725,000.

Mr. Chairman: Does item 2 carry?

Mr. Foulds: Item 2.

Mr. Chairman: Do you have a question?

Mr. Foulds: I have a quick one, yes. I’m almost tempted to get up on a point of personal privilege with this --

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. W. Ferrier (Cochrane South): Is the member for Grey-Bruce buying for everybody?

Mr. Chairman: Order, please.

We can understand the enthusiasm of some of the members. However, we are here to discuss estimates.

Mr. Foulds: Absolutely right, Mr. Chairman. I almost feel like getting up on a point of personal privilege with this discussion that was raging previously about physical education and fitness. I want to state for my party that we, too, are in favour of fitness.

I was glad the member for Kingston and the Islands is finally going to give me my chance to make it to Maple Leaf Gardens. Way back 20-odd years ago I once beat Bruce Gamble out for a goaltending job in minor hockey in Thunder Bay. Mind you, from that point on his career went upward and onward and mine plummeted, to say the least. Look where I am right now.

Mr. J. R. Breithaupt (Kitchener): Are there no depths?

Mr. Foulds: The only way I was able to keep fit in this particular position was by four months ago betting a friend of mine a bottle of Cointreau that I could lose 15 lb in three months. I managed to do it, but what a decadent way to do it.

Anyway, having said all that there is one point that I’d like to raise about the minister’s statement in his lead-off this afternoon with regard to the community schools unit within the ministry. The one reservation I have about it -- and this is a terrible dilemma, I think, for anyone dealing with education -- is that it does seem to have a centralist thrust. That is, you are developing the handbook, and the unit is selected within your ministry, centrally.

I’d like to know, for example, who has been appointed to that unit. It may be just a Freudian slip in the phrasing, but you are going to tell them, i.e. the people, what community schools are all about? Now, that may have just been a slip, but that is an exact quote. If the thrust is going to be informational and a desire to therefore have the local community develop community school councils or whatever they will be, then that is super.

In fact, I had to restrain myself, as I mentioned to the minister privately just after we broke at the supper hour. I was going to say some nice things about him with regard to that part of the announcement. He informed me that every time I said nice things about him he lost votes. Therefore I will say some nice things about him. Rather tortuous logic.

I have two basic questions about it. Could the minister provide each of the opposition critics with a copy of the details of the plan he has sent out to the schoolboards? For some reason our research office haven’t received that particular memorandum and I’d certainly appreciate it.

I wonder if the minister could also undertake to inform us of the total amount that he has budgeted in these estimates for that, and where it comes in the vote.

Third, I wonder if he would make a commitment so that by the end of December he could make an announcement about the response. Or if the proposals really actually go to Dec. 31, perhaps he could make an announcement in the first days of the new session about what the response has been. I think it is a matter that a number of people in the province, including myself personally, would like to monitor, so I think the minister has made a step in the right direction. I think he has an opportunity to perhaps improve some of the ill-fortune suffered recently by his government.

Hon. Mr. Wells: I certainly do not want to suggest that there is a centralist approach in this area. As a matter of fact, if I can find the quote in my speech, I very definitely indicated the same kind of thing that I think the hon. member is talking about. I can’t find the exact quote, but I said something along the lines that you can’t create community schools or community education by the government waving a big stick or by somebody saying, “You, community, you need a community school; you have got needs; these are your needs and we perceive that this is the way they should be answered.” They don’t do it that way, and I think you agree with that and I agree with that. It’s got to come from the bottom up. The only reason that we have the community school unit being developed is because, in order to give impetus to it, we need a focal point. We have people who can help the community. Mrs. Shannon Hogan is the head of that unit.

Mr. Foulds: A good appointment.

Hon. Mr. Wells: Yes, I am glad you think so.

Mr. Foulds: For a whole variety of reasons, I might add.

Hon. Mr. Wells: I think it’s a good appointment too. She and a very small staff in the central office are working on this, assisted by one person in each of our regional offices. They are there as resource people merely to provide a catalyst to help boards, because a lot of people need that. They need a little help, they want information, they want to know how to do things, they want to know a lot of things about this programme, and that’s all these people are here for.

As I also said, there will be an advisory committee appointed to me but which will work very directly with Shannon and that unit. They are the ones who are going to help develop the handbook and they will be representative of all the different groups, because there are other groups in the community interested in this and, of course, there are other ministries here who are interested.

Our programme has been developed in co-operation with my colleague, the Minister of Community and Social Services, who has the recreation and sports branch, which provides money and funds to the municipal recreation people who, through arrangements with school boards, will be able to develop joint programmes. That’s all provided for in legislation; agreements can be entered into; moneys can be available from his ministry to the recreation department; the school board money; it can be put together to develop community schools, programmes and so forth. This is all possible. Those people and others will be on this advisory committee and they will help develop this handbook. Somebody has to take the initiative and get that out so that it can be there as a tool to be used by people in the community who have got to develop things.

A good example of this was the group that I introduced here this afternoon, the Chartland Community School Association; there were 30 women here. This is a school in my area of Agincourt that has developed a real community school programme. They have a community school committee, they work with the principal and they have developed programmes.

This visit to the Legislature was one of a series for the women of the community, and any of the men who are home in the daytime. They have a whole series of programmes -- I think 10 -- that they have developed to help broaden their outlook of various things, culturally and otherwise. That’s part of their community school programme. They have courses developed for families. They have all kinds of things going on in the Chartland School. They have an ordinary public school, with no special facilities built into it, but they have a keen, active committee, they have a dedicated principal who is committed to this idea and the whole thing works very well.

That’s just one example, and there are all these other examples that we are talking about. But there are a lot of communities in Ontario that don’t have anything, and I don’t want to suggest that we can force them to do anything. They’ve got to identify the need. All I am saying is that it probably takes a principal or somebody who has a keen understanding of this and wants to act as the leader in the thing, at least to get it going. That’s what we, from the school point of view and the ministry point of view, want to try and develop from our community school unit.

Mr. Chairman: Shall item 2 carry? Carried.

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 that it has come to a certain resolution and asks for leave to sit again.

Report agreed to.

Mr. J. R. Breithaupt (Kitchener): Mr. Speaker, before the adjournment of the House I would like to bring to your attention that it would appear the electors in Carleton East have chosen Mr. Paul Taylor, the Liberal candidate, as their new member.

The approximate votes, according to information that I have received, are 9,600 for Mr. Taylor, 9,200 for Mrs. Gigantes, the New Democratic candidate, and 7,300 for Mr. Benoit, the Conservative candidate.

Mr. F. Laughren (Nickel Belt): Free those servants. It’s a civil service town.

Hon. E. A. Winkler (Chairman, Management Board of Cabinet): Well, Mr. Speaker, I must compliment my counterpart on the other side for making us privy to this information, which we knew some time ago. However, I will not accept the remarks of the NDP member since his colleague, the member for High Park (Mr. Shulman) was, I think, in a rather jubilant and rather --

Mr. E. W. Martel (Sudbury East): Euphoric is the word.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Well, I suppose that is correct, but it was very unwarranted. Have no worry about it -- we will make that very clear.

Mr. I. Deans (Wentworth): I might tell the House leader that we consider this a victory.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: At least the people in that riding had enough judgement to know that the NDP candidate wasn’t the right candidate.

Mr. Deans: We consider this a victory.

Mr. J. F. Foulds (Port Arthur): On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I think that Hansard will show that the hon. member for High Park ran into the Legislature, saying, “I won,” not “We won.” The hon. member for High Park meant that he managed to cull a certain amount of money in bets from Conservative people.

Hon. W. A. Stewart (Minister of Agriculture and Food): So what’s new?

Hon. Mr. Winkler: It’s well known how he can tap the public for money at any time.

Mr. Foulds: Not the public.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Mr. Speaker, tomorrow we will proceed with consideration of government notice of motion No. 4 standing in the name of the Treasurer (Mr. White). Following that, we will continue with the estimates of the Ministry of Education.

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

Motion agreed to.

The House adjourned at 10:30 o’clock, p.m.