Legislative Assembly of Ontario

The House met at 2:30 o’clock p.m.

Prayers.

Mr. Speaker: Statements by the ministry.

TAXI AND LIMOUSINE SERVICES AT AIRPORT

Hon. J. R. Rhodes (Minister of Transportation and Communications): Mr. Speaker, I wish to announce that an agreement has been reached with the federal government to resolve the present difficulties associated with the provision of taxi and limousine services at Toronto International Airport. This agreement is based upon acceptance by the federal government of a formula which had been suggested by the province.

The formula is described fully in a joint press release which is being issued simultaneously by myself and by the federal Minister of Transport, Hon. Jean Marchand.

While a copy of the release is being distributed to each hon. member, I believe that a summary of its contents, together with a few background remarks, may be of interest to this House.

Essentially, the current situation arose because of the federal government’s decision to change its regulations so as to allow free and unrestricted access by all municipally licensed taxis for the purpose of picking up passengers at the two airport terminals. I should make it quite clear at this point that the decision to introduce taxicabs as one of the forms of ground transportation available at the airport was a decision taken by the federal government on the basis of its own assessment of airport requirements.

As hon. members are aware, the decision by the federal government to add municipally licensed taxis to those forms of ground transportation available at the Toronto International Airport resulted in difficulties for all concerned, and especially for the travelling public. In the absence of federal access controls, taxis operating beyond the boundaries of the municipality in which they are licensed have been unregulated with regard to the service provided and the fare charged. The physical limitations on the space available for pickups have led to long taxi lines, frayed tempers and poor service to the public.

From Ontario’s point of view the taxicab is basically an intra-municipal form of transportation. This is why the industry is regulated by municipal authorities under the provisions of the Municipal Act rather than under the Public Vehicles Act or other legislation which is the responsibility of my ministry. We did not participate in the original decision to use municipal taxis to serve the airport, nor do we have any intention at this time of following the route adopted by the Province of Quebec in bringing all taxis under provincial control. Not only are the complexities of such an undertaking immense, but I am not convinced that provincial control would be in the best interests of either the taxi industry or of the public who make use of this form of transportation.

In our view, the regulation of municipal taxicabs operating out of Toronto International Airport is a special situation and requires a special solution rather than one of province-wide application. Taxis are licensed by their respective municipalities on the basis of municipal need. Service to the airport is, and should remain, a supplement to the taxis’ regular business.

Under these circumstances, I have suggested -- and the federal minister has now agreed -- that the situation be resolved by a procedure based upon the federal government’s control over access to airport property. Under this arrangement, the privilege of tucking up passengers at the two terminals will be available only to taxi operators which enter into an agreement to provide service under certain stipulated conditions including: minimum vehicle standards; co-operation with airport authorities; fare to be charged; terms under which the agreement may be revoked; etc. Violations of this agreement will result in a suspension of the taxi operator’s privilege to pick up passengers at the airport. This suspension will not affect the taxi’s regular municipal licence.

For its part, the Ontario government will co-operate in making this federal solution work by making available the chairman and members of the Ontario Highway Transport Board as advisers to the federal minister regarding the terms and conditions under which a taxi operator will be permitted to pick up passengers at the airport. The board will also serve as advisers to the federal minister with respect to alleged violations and suspensions.

Hon. members will be aware that the chairman and members of the OHTB have very considerable experience in the regulatory field. They already act on behalf of the federal government in the field of extra-provincial truck and bus regulation under the terms of the federal Motor Vehicle Transport Act, and the province is pleased to make their expertise available to advise the federal minister in this case.

In addition, my colleague, the Treasurer (Mr. White), will be introducing into the Legislature a minor amendment to the Municipal Act which is required because of the airport’s location within Mississauga boundaries. At present, the Municipal Act gives that municipality jurisdiction over all taxi trips which are entirely within Mississauga boundaries. The amendment will permit a taxi which does not have a Mississauga licence to carry passengers from the airport to a destination within Mississauga.

I should also point out to hon. members that the new procedure will also cover airport limousine services. Historically, these limousines were operated as a part of the regular airport bus service, which held licences under the Public Vehicles Act. While the Ontario Highway Transport Board has continued to issue licences to limousines as a stop-gap measure since their separation from the scheduled bus service, the new procedure will ensure that they have proper authorization and that the service which they provide is related to that provided by the taxis.

In concluding, Mr. Speaker, I wish to emphasize the importance of co-operation in making this solution work. While the basic responsibility rests with the federal government, the co-operation of all parties -- the province, the municipal licensing authorities, and the taxi operators themselves -- will be required.

For the province’s part, I pledge the fullest co-operation by my officials and by the Ontario Highway Transport Board with the Airport Authority and with the federal Ministry of Transport, upon whose shoulders responsibility rests for the implementation of the new procedures. I am confident that, working together, we can ensure that the public interest is met.

FINANCIAL SUPPORT FOR COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES

Hon. J. A. C. Auld (Minister of Colleges and Universities): Mr. Speaker, I would like to give the House details today of the levels of financial operating support we intend to provide to colleges of applied arts and technology and universities for the 1975-1976 academic year. Total support to both the colleges and the universities will be increased from $659 million to $768 million.

In 1975-1976, operating support to the colleges of applied arts and technology will be increased by approximately 15.4 per cent from $173 million to $200 million. The university system will receive a total of $568 million in operating funds, an increase of 16.9 per cent over the $486 million that is the current level of support.

With the proposed levels of operating support and no increase in students’ tuition fees, the svstems’ income will increase by approximated 5 per cent. We believe this amount is sufficient to offset inflationary trends, to maintain or improve existing levels of service and to accommodate predicted enrolment increases.

The matter of distribution will be determined on the advice of the council of regents for colleges of applied arts and technology and of the Ontario Council on University Affairs, after consulting with the institutions.

In the guidelines I have given to the two councils, I have indicated that there will be no increase in students’ tuition fees, that our policy of accessibility should be maintained, that institutional autonomy should be preserved, and that the global sums I have mentioned should not be exceeded. These global sums include an amount for special and committed expenditures, and expenditures controlled by the ministry on a line-budget basis.

I have suggested that the options considered by the council of regents and the Ontario Council on University Affairs include the following:

1. A continuation of the present formula, to allocate the amounts I mentioned among the various institutions. This would permit a 7.4 per cent increase in the value of the basic income unit to $2,100 in the case of the universities and a 5.5 per cent increase to $2,063 for the colleges;

2. A system whereby one BIU value would be applied to 1973-1974 enrolment to compensate for inflation and a lesser BIU value would be applied to enrolment growth in the current year, or

3. A suspension of the operating grants formula and a flat increase to be applied to each institution’s operating grant for the current year.

It is expected that, with this early announcement, our consultative approach will ensure that any distribution mechanism adopted takes into account the diverse needs of the institutions. An early recommendation by the councils will be acted upon speedily by the government, allowing the institutions to make the appropriate budgetary arrangements for next year.

The government will inform the House when we have received the advice of the council of regents and the Ontario Council on University Affairs and when we have decided what course of action to follow in this matter.

SHUTDOWNS OF PICKERING HYDRO STATIONS

Hon. W. D. McKeough (Minister of Energy): Mr. Speaker, just for the information of the members, I believe I mentioned last week that Pickering unit 4 was to be shut down, and in fact it was shut down late Thursday evening, Nov. 14, in order to carry out maintenance work on both nuclear and conventional equipment. Planned work has been largely completed and the unit is expected to restart late this evening or early Tuesday morning.

Additionally, Pickering unit 1 was shut down Sunday evening, Nov. 17, when problems were experienced with one of the two digital computers used to control the reactor. It is normal when such events occur to transfer control either manually or automatically to the second computer. In this case, the transfer was unsuccessful due to an operator error. As a result, the unit was automatically shut down in a safe manner, as it is designed to do. Because of the nature of the shutdown a certain delay is necessary before the unit can be restored to service. But it is anticipated the unit will be restarted tomorrow -- i.e., Tuesday.

Mr. R. B. Beckett (Brantford): Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to introduce to you and the members of this House 23 grade 11 students from St. John’s College, Brantford. I ask you to join in a welcome to these students.

Mr. J. Dukszta (Parkdale): Mr. Speaker, I would like to introduce 50 students, and Mr. Sheppard, their teacher, from the West Toronto Secondary School in Parkdale. They are sitting in the west gallery.

Mr. Speaker: Oral questions.

CSAO NEGOTIATIONS

Mr. J. R. Breithaupt (Kitchener): Mr. Speaker, my first question is of the Chairman of the Management Board of Cabinet.

Now that the civil service members have rejected the first offer which was made, can the minister advise us of the terms of the second offer, which I understand was made at 8 o’clock this morning?

Hon. E. A. Winkler (Chairman, Management Board of Cabinet): Mr. Speaker, that is not correct. But I think if you would permit me, rather than doing it by way of a statement, I would like to read the correspondence, which will clear that question.

Mr. J. A. Renwick (Riverdale): Cannot we revert to statements?

Mr. Breithaupt: Can we revert to statements, Mr. Speaker, and this could be dealt with then?

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Certainly.

Mr. M. Shulman (High Park): We cannot revert to ministerial statements without unanimous consent.

Mr. S. Lewis (Scarborough West): Well, we can’t revert then. Go ahead.

Mr. Speaker: Do we have the consent of the House to revert to ministerial statements?

Mr. Shulman: Never, never, never!

Mr. Lewis: It would appear that is a dissenting voice.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: In almost everything.

Mr. Breithaupt: Mr. Speaker, perhaps the time could be added to the question period then.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. A. Grossman (Provincial Secretary for Resources Development): The minister is answering the question now.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: On Nov. 12, 1974, a letter was forwarded to the chief negotiator of the Civil Service Association of Ontario at their address. It goes thusly:

“Dear Mr. Trower:

“As I understand the position of your negotiating committee, you have decided to go back to the membership on Sunday, Nov. 17, to review your mandate before responding to the government’s initial offer because your mandate has been to negotiate an across-the-board increase. In view of your opening statement that you would spare no effort to find a basis of settlement, we had hoped for some response to our opening position and some indication that you would be prepared to modify your opening demand for a 61.5 per cent increase in a one-year contract. Such a response from you would have called for a second response from us, hopefully, we could have been on the way to a negotiated settlement.

“In order that there will be no misunderstanding of our starting position, I am setting out the details and repeating some of mv supporting comments. The details of the position I outlined to you on Friday, Nov. 8, are as follows:

“1. Wages -- first year: Our initial offer ranged from 10 per cent to 17 per cent depending on the rates currently being paid for similar jobs by other major employers. This offer would result in first-year increases of 16 per cent or more for some 10,500 employees out of approximately 19,000 employees in this category.

“Wages -- second year: Our opening position was an eight per cent increase for all classes and, in addition, we indicated we were prepared to discuss some means of protecting employees from the effects of inflation. This, as you know, can be achieved by building protection into the wage increase or by reducing the term of the contract. You will be aware that we have recently negotiated other contracts for less than two years.

“2. All five-step job ranges will be reduced to four steps by deleting the first step in the range. The anniversary date of all employees who move to the second step of the range on Jan. 1, 1975, as a result of this change will have an anniversary date of Jan. 1 from that point on.

“3. Attendants Oak Ridge 1 and 2 will receive parity with correctional officers 1 and 2 effective on Jan. 1, 1975. Attendants Oak Ridge 1 to 4 will then receive the same increase as is negotiated for correctional officers.

“4. Industrial safety inspector 2 will achieve parity with construction safety officer on Jan. 1, 1975, and industrial safety inspector 1 will maintain the present salary relationship with industrial safety inspector 2.

“5. The custodial responsibility allowance will be increased from $750 to $900 per year, beginning with the year 1975.

“I repeat our willingness to meet again on Nov. 18 and as frequently as possible thereafter in an all-out effort to reach agreement before Dec. 31.”

That was signed by our senior staff negotiator.

Then this morning we sent the letter or the information that I think maybe the hon. member is referring to. That letter, as I indicated, was dated Nov. 12. This is dated Nov. 18 and addressed to the president of the Civil Service Association at their Toronto address.

“Dear Mr. Darrow:

“I am very disturbed at the various reports appearing in the press on the status of negotiations for the operational services category. I am particularly concerned about some of the statements which are attributed to members of the CSAO staff. For example, an article in the Globe and Mail on Saturday, Nov. 16, quoted Mr. Norman as follows:

“Negotiations concluded last Friday and up until this moment there has been no attempt by management to give us another package. There has been no overture by government to invite us back to the table.

“We are not holding to any hard and fast position. Mr. Winkler should have put his best shot forward and if he has something else in the bag, it’s bargaining in bad faith.”

“As you and Mr. Norman should know and Mr. Trower does know, these statements bear no resemblance whatsoever to the true position of the parties as stated by the respective spokesmen at the meeting of Friday, Nov. 8.

“Speaking for the employer, Mr. Veskimets tabled a wage offer ranging from 10 per cent to 17 per cent in the first year of the agreement and eight per cent for all classes in the second year. In addition, Mr. Veskimets offered significant revisions to job ranges and indicated he was prepared to consider some means of recognizing the effects of inflation which develop in a two-year contract. The offer was clearly described as a starting position which was designed to get the negotiations under way.

“Mr. Trower indicated that he could not respond to our offer at this time because his committee had decided to go back to the membership to review the bargaining mandate. The employer’s spokesman expressed his concern over the delay and indicated his willingness to continue to meet as often as necessary in order to bring about an agreement.

“When subsequent reports indicated that the members might be asked to vote on the employer’s starting offer, it was decided that, to avoid any misunderstanding of the offer, it should be set out in writing.

“A summary was prepared and delivered to Mr. Trower on Tuesday, Nov. 12. The summary also makes it very clear that the offer was a starting position only and repeats our willingness to meet again on Nov. 18.

“You realize as well as I do, Mr. Darrow, that concessions will have to be made by both sides if a satisfactory agreement is to be negotiated at the bargaining table.

“If we can accept the press report that you will not hold hard and fast to your original demand, I would urge you to direct your committee to return to the bargaining table, so that there can be an honest opportunity of reaching an agreement. The employer’s position is negotiable, we trust your position is negotiable as well.

“As Mr. Veskimets has already confirmed, we are ready to meet just as soon as your committee can be assembled and to continue to meet as often as necessary from that point on.”

It is signed by our Mr. Scott.

Mr. Lewis: I have a supplementary, if I may, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Scarborough West.

Mr. Renwick: It’s a little hard to frame a supplementary to that.

Mr. Lewis: Since in the letter dated Nov. 12, which the minister has read, he indicated a willingness to tie some adjustment for inflation to the package, why does he not now make an offer in good faith, involving not just a wage increase but the cost-of-living indexing which the union has asked for and which the minister now indicates on the floor of the House he might be willing to do, and get this thing settled?

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Mr. Speaker, the very obvious answer to that is that we do not negotiate in the media. Nor do we negotiate in this House.

Mr. Lewis: What is he doing?

Mr. Renwick: He has been doing it since he started.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Oh, no. The hon. member is quite wrong. I have just set out our position as clearly as it can be up to the present point in negotiations. I have only revealed to the House what was that opening offer, which I trust is available now to the members of the CSAO --

Mr. Renwick: The minister negotiated publicly all last week.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: -- then I will be satisfied. But I would not be bargaining in good faith if I were to put that forward here today. The place to negotiate is at the table.

The government has always been willing -- and it’s been ready to negotiate.

Mr. Lewis: Then do it at the table -- but do it.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Well, we offered to do that today and we were rejected.

Mr. R. F. Nixon (Leader of the Opposition): A supplementary: I am sorry I wasn’t here when the original question was asked --

Mr. Speaker: I will allow one more supplementary.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Can the minister make it clear whether or not there will be an opportunity today or tomorrow to sit down at the table and bargain and negotiate, hopefully in good faith on both sides?

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Oh, yes, there is no question about that. We really should be there today.

Mr. Lewis: That’s right. They’re willing -- make an offer.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: No, no --

Mr. Lewis: Make another offer.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: No, no --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

GO-URBAN SYSTEM

Mr. Breithaupt: A question of the Minister of Transportation and Communications: Is the minister able to confirm the report on CFTO television news on Friday evening that the real reason for the West German termination of support for Krauss-Maffei was that it would take 100 engineers another four years and another $50 million from the West German government to perfect the system?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, I am not able to confirm that. I did not hear that particular report. I have never had that brought to my attention. I can say that it has been indicated that we recognize that in order to carry out the continuation of the programme there will be a substantial amount of engineering capability required but, as I have also indicated, this matter is being looked at by officials of OTDC at the present time to determine exactly what those costs may be to continue.

Mr. Breithaupt: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker: If, as the minister has said, the decision to end this programme was based on a move away from certain long-range technological programmes, how can the minister explain the fact that Krauss-Maffei is continuing with its long-range programme and it is still being funded?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, I believe this will probably be the fourth time that I have made these remarks in response to similar questions.

I said at the very beginning regarding the programme that was being carried on in West Germany -- and I was told by the West German officials in my discussions with them -- that they were withdrawing from the programmes of the Transurban programme, that is the inner-urban service that was being proposed for magnetic levitation. At the same time, they are withdrawing their support from two other urban transit programmes that they were financially supporting.

They said, as well at the beginning, that they were going to continue to be involved in the Transrapid programme, which is the inter-community, inter-city programme. That is being continued with the West German government funding a combined operation of a firm known as MBB and Krauss-Maffei. This was the very original magnetic levitation programme that was started in Germany prior to the move into the urban programme.

Mr. Speaker: The member for York-Forest Hill.

Mr. P. G. Givens (York-Forest Hill): Mr. Speaker is Krauss-Maffei returning two payments of $250,000 each, which were paid to it by this government, under the licensing agreement of May 1, 1973 -- under the licensing agreement of that date -- in addition to the $10 million with respect to the demonstration system at the CNE?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, I would have to ask the hon. member if he is referring to arrangements that were made with a firm that was known as TUSCAN -- if that is what he is referring to?

Mr. Givens: I’m referring to a licensing agreement dated May 1, 1973, under which the government paid Krauss-Maffei two payments of $250,000 each for licensing rights under that agreement. There was $500,000 paid by us for licensing rights under that agreement. De we receive back that $500,000 in addition to the payments which the government in getting back for the demonstration system expenditures which this government made at the CNE?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, I believe we do get that back, but I want to check on that. I am aware of an arrangement, and I am not sure whether it is the same one the hon. member is referring to, with a company known as TUSCAN, which would carry the licence capability here. If the hon. member would agree, I would get the definite information and reply, but I believe we are recovering that funding. The agreement was to terminate on Dec. 31 with that particular firm: and if that agreement cannot be reached, then we would be refunded our money. Obviously, they cannot meet the terms of the agreement by the end of the year.

Mr. Lewis: Otherwise it would be like a forgivable loan.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Kitchener.

LEAD POLLUTION

Mr. Breithaupt: A question of the Minister of the Environment, Mr. Speaker: Now that the minister has a precedent set with respect to prosecution of lead polluters with a conviction against Prestolite batteries, does he intend to prosecute the other even worse lead polluters, including Canada Metals, Toronto Refiners and Smelters, Tonnolli Smelting Co. of Canada and the Electric Storage Battery Co.?

Hon. W. Newman (Minister of the Environment): Mr. Speaker, if the member read the paper he will know about the charge we laid. There was a breakdown at the Prestolite plant at the time and there were heavy emissions from the plant at the time the charge was laid. Subsequently they went to court and were charged and were fined $2,000, as the member saw by the paper.

We do have control orders; we do have abatement equipment on all these companies; and they are within the ambient air quality that is set down by our regulations at the present time.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Scarborough West.

Mr. Lewis: The Chairman of Management Board or the Provincial Secretary for Social Development (Mrs. Birch) -- are they in the wings, or have they, in fact, gone?

Mr. Renwick: They’ve flown; flown the coop.

NEW TORONTO AIRPORT

Mr. Lewis: May I ask the Minister of the Environment: Has the Minister of the Environment at any time in his capacity as minister ordered research into the quality or capacity of the lands in the North Pickering area to carry runways or cut tunnels for the proposed international airport?

Hon. W. Newman: We have some monitoring stations monitoring streams in the area right now.

Mr. Lewis: Would it be true to say that on the basis of the minister’s initial findings he has learned that much of the land, by reason of production, contour and water level, is of a kind that would be unsatisfactory to an airport, despite the fact that this knowledge was not previously known?

Hon. W. Newman: As far as the environmental work that was done on the airport site is concerned, it was done basically by Environment Canada. We are doing the monitoring of streams to make sure we have all the necessary data on the matter, but basically, as far as the environmental impact of the proposed airport site is concerned this is up to Environment Canada.

Mr. Lewis: I will ask one further supplementary then: Is the minister satisfied that the findings which are now available to him from his monitoring would indicate that an airport can, in fact, be placed on that site?

Hon. W. Newman: All I can say, Mr. Speaker, to the leader of the New Democratic Party, is that we are still doing monitoring and we want to make sure that if anything does transpire there, we will be in a position to deal with it.

LAND TRANSFER TAX EXEMPTIONS

Mr. Lewis: A question, if I may, of the Minister of Revenue: May I ask what the reason was for his forgiving the land transfer tax in the case of the Kellogg Co. of Canada Ltd. in, I guess it was, London, Ont.?

Hon. A. K. Meen (Minister of Revenue): I’ll get that information for the hon. member.

Mr. Lewis: Yes. By way of a supplementary, can he explain how it is that he has to grant a company of that size a $5,000 tax forgiveness to construct a parking lot? Can he explain to us how that has maintained Canadian jobs in London which might not otherwise have been maintained; how that $5,000 was pivotal to the economic security of London?

Hon. Mr. Meen: I’ll bear that in mind in my response, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Breithaupt: Mr. Speaker, I have a kind of supplementary. Would the minister provide us with the details of the other amounts that have been forgiven and the reasons for them, so that we can see that as a public record as well?

Hon. Mr. Meen: Yes, Mr. Speaker. There is a summary which I have been preparing of the exemptions that have been granted to date, the reasoning behind them and, although in my opinion it may be questionable as to whether the amount is of significance, that amount would also be established.

PETERBOROUGH BYPASS

Mr. Lewis: I just have one question of the Minister of Transportation and Communications. Has he discussed with his colleague, the Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. Stewart), the effect of the loss of agricultural land and farms from the proposed Peterborough bypass? Can he give the House a statement as to the agricultural consequences of the chosen corridor?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Yes, Mr. Speaker, a very detailed discussion was held with the minister and with other members of his ministry.

The decision on that particular corridor and that particular route was based very much upon the information we received from the Minister of Agriculture and Food and his officials. I can make available to the hon. member and the House a detailed report as to the acreage that would have been involved, whether we went to the west side or the east side of Peterborough, and the eventual moving of the corridor to its present site. I’d be pleased to provide that and I can assure the hon. member that one of our major considerations was the effect on the agricultural land.

Mr. Lewis: I would appreciate that. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker: The Minister of Health has an answer to a previous question.

EFFECTS OF MBK

Hon. F. S. Miller (Minister of Health): Mr. Speaker, further to the information supplied on Nov. 12 to the hon. member for Sandwich-Riverside (Mr. Burr), in response to a question on the effects of methyl n-butyl ketone, I would like to advise that it came to our attention during the past month that 11 employees of a coated fabric plant in Columbus, Ohio, had developed peripheral neuropathy, or neuritis, which was thought to be related to their work environment. In addition, about 30 employees showed electromyographic changes, but no clinical symptoms.

Methyl isobutyl ketone had been used as a dye solvent until one year ago, when it was replaced by methyl n-butyl ketone. The epidemiological and toxicological evidence obtained on investigation leads to the conclusion that exposure to methyl n-butyl ketone caused the outbreak of peripheral neuropathy. The use of the solvent has been discontinued.

The above information has been passed to the Workmen’s Compensation Board and to the industrial safety branch of the Ministry of Labour. However, we have no knowledge of any cases of peripheral neuropathy occurring in Ontario as a result of exposure to methyl n-butyl ketone at work.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Rainy River.

NORONTAIR NORTHWEST

Mr. T. P. Reid (Rainy River): Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Transport and Communications. Is he prepared to make a statement to the Legislature concerning norOntair air service in northwestern Ontario and is he aware of the press release concerning same that was in the Thunder Bay paper on Saturday?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, I do not have a statement to make to the House at this time. I believe a statement is on record of what our plan was for extending the service into northwestern Ontario sometime back. I am aware of a press release that was released by the chairman of the ONTC, which outlined the carriers that would be involved and the communities that it was intended to serve.

Mr. Reid: Supplementary, if I may: The minister is aware then that the communities that are presently being served by air carrier such as Fort Frances, Sioux Lookout and Red Lake, were not a part of that initial plan.

Does that mean that norOntair will not be operating those routes, and they will therefore collapse?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, I question the fact that Fort Frances has been left out. I will have to look into the details of it.

Mr. Reid: It isn’t in the press release.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: I believe it probably should have been.

As far as Red Lake is concerned, our original plan had been to put Red Lake into the service. But Red Lake -- the community itself and the community leaders -- have requested us to leave them off the norOntair service. I believe they were concerned that it might interfere with the present service they have that runs from there to Winnipeg.

We would like to have put Red Lake in; it would help, we think, the overall service.

But they were so insistent upon not being included that we acceded to their wishes.

Mr. Reid: When will the minister make a statement?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: If a statement is necessary I can make one tomorrow as to the details. I’d be quite happy to do so.

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

ILLUMINATION OF BUILDINGS

Mr. F. A. Burr (Sandwich-Riverside): Mr. Speaker, a question of the Minister of Energy: Why is it that so many government and commercial buildings are illuminated 24 hours a day, although there is an obvious need to conserve fossil fuels from which comes the electricity to illuminate these buildings?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: That question, Mr. Speaker, might be more properly directed to the Minister of Government Services (Mr. Snow).

Mr. E. J. Bounsall (Windsor West): This minister is the energy minister.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: I would simply say that the Ministry of Government Services, to the knowledge of the Ministry of Energy and to the minister personally, has been doing more in terms of energy conservation in my view than most other groups or organizations in this province. The deputy minister and the minister himself have taken a very personal interest in the whole subject of energy conservation. If the member goes over to the complex he’ll find a lot of missing light bulbs. They are doing a great deal of experimentation.

My observation of the buildings at night is that there are considerably fewer lights on than there used to be. I presume they are on for cleaning purposes. They are not that easily switched off.

But I know that the minister, perhaps after he’s had a chance to look into it just a little bit further, will be glad to give the member a very full report. I can only say that if all the citizens of this great province of ours were co-operating the way the Ministry of Government Services is, in terms of energy conservation, we would have very few problems indeed.

Mr. P. D. Lawlor (Lakeshore): Balderdash.

Mr. Burr: Mr. Speaker, would the minister now answer the other half of the question -- why there are so many commercial buildings still using 24-hour-a-day illumination? Has the minister not been persuading them to discontinue?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: We haven’t added to the advertising campaign which we had about a year ago now, no.

Mr. Burr: Has the minister considered using the telephone to talk to them?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: I would think there are something like 500,000 commercial establishments in this province; I can’t really see our staff of 30 or 40 people getting on the telephone to them, or that it would be very much use to do so. If the member thinks so, when the day finally comes that he comes to work for the Ministry of Energy as a consultant, we will put him to work on that job and I am sure he will do a great one.

Mr. Burr: There are some very big ones downtown where one phone call could put many lights out.

Mr. Speaker: Order please; order.

The member for Waterloo North.

APARTMENT ELECTRICAL RATES

Mr. E. R. Good (Waterloo North): A question of the Minister of Energy: Has the minister had time to ask Hydro to justify their policy in that they charge the same rate for electricity for people living in highrise apartments as commercial and industrial, which is a higher rate than that for people living in single-family private homes?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Is the member talking about apartment buildings in Waterloo?

Mr. Good: No, any of them.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Yes, I am getting a reply to that. But specifically in Waterloo what the member should do, of course, is talk to the Waterloo utilities commission who set that rate.

Mr. Good: Yes, but Hydro approves the rate.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Which is ultimately approved by Ontario Hydro, quite correct; but it is also a question of definition. We are getting an answer to the member’s question but we haven’t got it yet.

Mr. Good: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Is the minister not aware that the local utilities commission have no authority as to the classification in which highrise multiple units must be placed? By Hydro’s direction they must be placed as commercial and industrial users, and therefore people have to pay a higher rate than they would if they lived in single- family units. That is the crux of the problem.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Mr. Speaker, as I said, there is a question of definition, which is interpreted differently, as I understand it, by different people in different parts of the province. I recognize this is of concern to the member and we are getting a reply for him.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Huron-Bruce.

Mr. Shulman: Do they get two questions and we get one?

Mr. Speaker: I am sorry.

THERAPEUTIC ABORTION COMMITTEES

Mr. M. Gaunt (Huron-Bruce): Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Health: Since the Attorney General (Mr. Welch) is investigating a possible conflict of interest involving members of the Greater Niagara Falls General Hospital therapeutic abortion committee, has the minister been monitoring the abortion procedures in the various hospitals across the province by way of calling for the records of the committees and the doctors involved?

Hon. Mr. Miller: Mr. Speaker, this question of the right of the Minister of Health to monitor therapeutic abortion committees has been raised, but to this point in time I do not believe I have any statutory right to do so. However, I would rather have the question redirected to the Attorney General in terms of the legal implications.

Mr. Gaunt: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Would the minister not consider that section 251 of the Criminal Code would give him that authority? If not, then I will redirect the question to the Attorney General.

Hon. Mr. Miller: Although I have been reading quite a bit lately, that section doesn’t come to mind immediately. I would be pleased to look at it and check.

FREE PRESCRIPTION DRUG PROGRAMME

Mr. Speaker: The member for High Park.

Mr. Shulman: A question of the Minister of Health, Mr. Speaker: Can the minister explain the mild discrepancy between the statement he made in the House last Thursday in which he said druggists would be covered for the increase in costs of all drugs by Parke-Davis, Cooper and Burroughs Wellcome who raised their prices; and the release made by his officials to the drugstores -- by coincidence the same day -- that says exactly the opposite? I quote: “Eligible claims for formulary drugs will be paid at the price lifted in the drug benefit formulary.”

Hon. Mr. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I am quite aware that my staff intended the bulletin the member saw go out, to be policy; I personally disagreed with it and changed it.

Mr. Shulman: Supplementary: When is the minister going to be good enough to let all the druggists in Ontario know; many of whom happen to believe that this bulletin is correct? It is all very well for him to say it here; when are they going to send out a correcting bulletin?

Mr. J. M. Turner (Peterborough): They know now.

Hon. Mr. Miller: They will know, certainly.

Mr. Speaker: The member for York Centre.

METRO ONTARIO HOUSING UNITS

Mr. D. M. Deacon (York Centre): A question of the Minister of Housing: Why is the ministry restricting applications for housing located in Metro to only those who reside in Metro, when in fact there aren’t Ontario Housing units available in outside municipalities for which these people can apply? Why, since these are Ontario Housing units, are they not available for applicants from outside Metro as well as those inside Metro?

Hon. D. R. Irvine (Minister of Housing): Mr. Speaker, the one-year residency clause is something which the municipalities themselves have concurred with, in most cases, throughout Ontario. If a municipality wishes not to have that clause, we will be willing to agree with whatever the municipality tells us in writing. We want to have it in writing as to which way the municipality wants the residency clause, whether it be on two years or more.

Mr. Deacon: Supplementary: Is this to encourage other municipalities to come to Ontario Housing to have units built? Is this the purpose of it? Is this to force these municipalities to do it? Otherwise those living in municipalities without Ontario Housing are out of luck.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Speaker, this is not to encourage a municipality one way or the other. It’s a matter of local jurisdiction, as to whether or not they want the year clause in, as I mentioned, or whether they do not wish this. One or two municipalities I have talked to recently decided they will not have the residency clause; others have said they would want it.

Mr. Lewis: Supplementary: When did the residency clause come into effect in Metro Toronto?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: I can’t give you an exact date, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Lewis: It is very recent, is it not? And it wasn’t announced, as I recall -- I just ran into it today.

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

MERCURY POLLUTION

Mr. J. F. Foulds (Port Arthur): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A question of the Minister of Health, if I may: Does the minister know how many people from the Kenora area Crown Attorneys have been referred to the Lakehead Psychiatric Hospital for assessment before sentencing, and can he tell us how many of those people have been tested for mercury poisoning in terms of evaluating their behaviour and actions?

Hon. Mr. Miller: No, Mr. Speaker, I cannot; but I would be pleased to look into it.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Downsview.

SOUTH MILTON DEVELOPMENT

Mr. V. M. Singer (Downs view): Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Housing. Is the minister yet able to tell us the exact role played by Gibson Willoughby in the land assembly at Milton? If not, when does he expect that information to be available?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Speaker, I am not able to tell the House at this particular time.

I left word with my staff to look into all of the related matters that I mentioned Friday morning. I am hopeful we will have it this week. I wish to discuss the matter also with the company. I will make a full report.

Mr. Singer: By way of supplementary: While these investigations are going on, could the minister inquire as well whether or not in fact Gibson Willoughby negotiated the purchase of some 250 acres of land from a father and son who were both farmers, which two gentlemen apparently had the land listed for $1,500 an acre with another real estate agent and had no buyers? Then Gibson Willoughby, I guess as a service to the community, came along and convinced them they should accept $5,500 an acre.

An hon. member: Fine people.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Well Mr. Speaker, certainly I’ll look into that and any other related information.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Yes, it has a ring to it all right.

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

APPEARANCE OF WCB

Mr. Bounsall: A question of the Chairman of the Management Board of Cabinet, Mr. Speaker: When and before what committee might we expect the Workmen’s Compensation Board to appear this fall, as specifically required by the last Workmen’s Compensation Act, which we passed last December?

Hon. Mr. Winkler: I am aware, Mr. Speaker, that it is covered under a separate Act for separate consideration, and I will make arrangements for that to be called.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Waterloo North.

Mr. Good: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A question of the Minister of Colleges and Universities -- oh, I’m sorry --

An hon. member: He’s disappeared.

Mr. Good: He’s disappeared. Where is he? He was there a minute ago, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Parkdale.

PRACTICE OF PSYCHO-SURGERY

Mr. Dukszta: A question of the Minister of Health: Could the Minister of Health tell the House whether psycho-surgery is still being done in the Ontario Hospital system? If it is, how many times has it been done in the last year? Third, what is his own opinion of this so-called therapeutic procedure?

Hon. Mr. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I can safely say that psycho-surgery has not been performed in the Province of Ontario in the past year. If it has been, it has not been reported to me. I asked that question recently and got a negative answer.

I got information on the number of cases of psycho-surgery that had been performed and some appreciation of the results. As to my opinion, I can only give the member the opinion of people who have advised me, since I am not able to make any other appreciation of it except to say that psycho-surgery is deemed at the present time to be a very dangerous type of procedure, to be embarked upon only under very serious conditions and only after a complete review of the case by a series of psychiatrists and surgeons not involved in the actual procedure or diagnosis.

Mr. Dukszta: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Did the minister say that he got reports from all psychiatric hospitals and general hospitals?

Hon. Mr. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I can’t say my reports were all-inclusive. I can only say that we checked through the Ontario Hospital system, those hospitals which we operate. The information given to me, and I have assumed it is correct, stated that psycho-surgery had been discontinued. I believe the great bulk of it was done in Kingston.

Mr. Speaker: The member for High Park. I allowed two questions for the official opposition so I am going to even it up by allowing two here now.

SOUTH TIMISKAMING HOSPITAL SITE

Mr. Shulman: I have a question of the Minister of Health, Mr. Speaker. Why did he override the local people in south Timiskaming, and the hospital board, in choosing the site of the hospital in that area?

Hon. Mr. Miller: Is the hon. member changing his seat in the next election?

Mr. Shulman: I may take that one too.

Hon. Mr. Miller: Mr. Speaker, you don’t overrule a hospital board lightly. I had received the advice of the Timiskaming Hospitals Board, back in June, of a vote of 9 to 6 recommending that a new hospital be built in the town of Haileybury. That conflicted with a consultant’s report, commissioned by that very hospital board, which said that the site which I eventually chose should be chosen. That was the original study of the consultant. The consultant had changed his recommendation after being requested by the hospital board to review it.

I did receive advice from the people in that area and from staff, but I looked at the vote. The nine people lived in one town and the six people lived in another. It seemed to me there was a basic rivalry between those two towns.

Having looked over not only the consultant’s reports but other independent reports, I personally changed the decision. Having done that, I was visited by a number of delegations from the area, led by the mayor of Haileybury, and I relented to the point of going to see the sites myself. I did so and I said I would make a decision within a week or two. That was delayed by a number of things, including a statement by the chief coroner of the province that the access to the site I had recommended or chosen was not good.

Following that piece of advice, I asked the Ministry of Transportation and Communications to look into the matter and both the deputy minister and the minister personally visited the site and prepared a technical report for me, saying the site had the best approach in the area. On that basis, I reaffirmed my original decision.

Mr. Shulman: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Is the minister aware that of the 9-6 vote not one of those 15 approved of the site he has chosen? Second, is the minister aware that the consultant of whom the minister spoke, as mentioned has himself placed the site the minister picked fourth in order of acceptability of all the sites considered?

Hon. Mr. Miller: I think, Mr. Speaker, the hon. member had better read more of the background information.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Waterloo North.

Mr. Lewis: The minister is making a great many decisions these days, isn’t he?

Mr. Shulman: There goes another seat.

An hon. member: Where is the local member?

An hon. member: What does the local member have to say about that?

Mr. Speaker: Order.

TRUCK LOAD COVERS

Mr. Good: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a question of the Solicitor General. When are police departments going to enforce regulation regarding the covering of gravel trucks, which I understand were put into effect earlier this year; especially on Highway 401 and other main highways?

Hon. G. A. Kerr (Solicitor General): Mr. Speaker, those regulations have been in effect for longer than a year really.

Mr. Good: There isn’t one covered yet.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: I must say I have had reference to the fact that somebody in the London area was charged just this past weekend with hauling a load of corn and not having a tarp on his truck.

Mr. Lewis: That was a farmer.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: I was under the impression the law was being enforced. If it is not being enforced in the hon. member’s area I’ll look into it.

Mr. Good: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: I am sure no one is as greatly concerned about corn as they are about gravel. I personally have made a count in the last two weeks. I have seen just one gravel truck on Highway 401 with its load covered by a tarpaulin.

That was a trucker from Markham. Those trucks which do have covers available have them folded neatly up at the front of the truck; they are never pulled over the load.

The rest of us following behind have the gravel blown off --

Mr. Speaker: Question please.

Mr. Good: What is the minister going to do about it? It has been going on for years.

An hon. member: Blow the whistle on them.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Mr. Speaker, I agree with the hon. member. We have a number of quarry operations in my riding. I know it’s a problem there and --

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order please; order.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: I will look into it. My colleague, the Minister of Transportation and Communication, tells me he is bringing in new regulations. But as the hon. member will say, it’s a matter of enforcing what exists at the present time. I will do what I can. I know that there are a number of short hauls. For example, some of the trucks don’t necessarily reach a main highway or King’s highway, but --

Mr. Breithaupt: There are thousands of cars on Highway 401.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: On Highway 401; right.

Mr. Speaker: Order please. The member for Sandwich-Riverside.

SOLAR ENERGY

Mr. Burr: Mr. Speaker, a question of the Minister of Housing: How long has Ontario Housing been conducting feasibility studies on the use of solar energy to heat or help heat homes?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: How long have they been? Mr. Speaker, I made a report to the House last week on this particular feasibility study. I will find out the exact dates. I can’t tell the hon. member offhand as to when we started, but I will find out.

Mr. Burr: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker: Is the Ontario Housing Corp. promoting the use of heat pumps in new housing?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: I will also investigate that report.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Huron-Bruce.

ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE IN HURON COUNTY

Mr. Gaunt: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Attorney General: In view of the fact that plea bargaining might be delayed and lenient sentences appear to have got out of hand in Huron county, would the Attorney General institute an inquiry into the administration of justice in the county?

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. R. Welch (Provincial Secretary for Justice and Attorney General): Mr. Speaker, the members for Huron-Bruce and Huron (Mr. Riddell) raised this question in the House two or three weeks ago, and indeed have been kind enough to discuss some details with me by way of notice.

Indeed, as well, three newspaper clippings concerning the administration of justice in the county have been brought to my attention and have indicated the concern of those particular journals with respect to an inquiry as well.

The member for Huron-Bruce, as recently as Friday, did furnish me with particulars concerning four specific incidents which are said to reflect the need for the inquiry to which he made reference.

If I could have permission, I would like at this time just to make a brief response. I have examined these allegations and I have obtained a full report concerning the administration of justice in Huron county. Both the local Crown attorney and the local provincial court judge are able and experienced men. They have served well in their respective capacities for a number of years. I have found nothing in their conduct to support any request for such an inquiry.

I don’t find, as a matter of fact, that there has been any undue leniency in the disposition of cases by the court or that the court has failed to support its law enforcement officers. Two of the specific incidences to which reference was made by the member for Huron-Bruce, were cases in which the Crown attorney quite properly withdrew charges, because there was no evidence to support those charges.

Another incident involved charges of theft, possession and assault against three persons, in which one person only was convicted of one charge of assault. In this case there was no evidence to support the charges of theft and possession, and no evidence to support the assault charge against two defendants who were acquitted.

The fourth incident concerns a matter in juvenile court arising from a fire which resulted in damage of about $30,000. That matter has not yet been disposed of and the juvenile involved is presently a patient in the Goderich psychiatric hospital. The Crown attorney is alleged to have said that the matter was not worth pursuing; I am assured that he made no such remark.

It has also been alleged there have been no convictions in the Supreme Court since the present Crown attorney assumed office. This is not true. It is true that there have been no convictions for murder during this period; the only two murder trials having resulted in acquittals. However, there have been convictions for attempted murder and being an accessory after the fact to murder. There have also been convictions for criminal negligence causing death and for rape. Another alleged murder was disposed of in juvenile court after the Crown attorney attempted unsuccessfully to move it into the Supreme Court.

Huron county certainly is not a high crime area, Mr. Speaker, and I think the local Crown attorney and the provincial court judge, along with most of the local law enforcement agencies, can claim credit for this. Whatever problems may exist do so on a local law enforcement level and are not the result of undue leniency in the courts.

The local Crown attorney at all times stands between the police and the public. He advises the police concerning the laying of charges as well as about other matters. However, when he, as a law officer of the Crown, encounters a case where the charge laid by the police is not supported by the evidence, it is his duty -- and I underline that, Mr. Speaker -- it is his duty to see that the accused is not convicted of that charge. So far as I have been able to determine, that is all the local Crown attorney in Huron county has done.

Mr. Gaunt: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Would the Attorney General consider that a 14-month delay is normal?

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, I am quite satisfied -- and I know the hon. member has been kind enough to give me particulars without involving any people -- following a very extensive review of all of these matters and other matters over the weekend, that there is no justification for an inquiry into the administration of justice in Huron county.

Mr. Speaker: The time for the question period has now expired.

Petitions.

Presenting reports.

Hon. Mr. Snow, in the absence of Hon. Mr. White, presented volume 1 of the public accounts for the year 1973-1974.

Mr. Speaker: Motions.

Introduction of bills.

Orders of the day.

Clerk of the House: The 10th order, resuming the adjourned debate on the motion for second reading of Bill 82, An act to amend the Corporations Tax Act. 1972.

CORPORATIONS TAX ACT (CONTINUED)

Mr. Speaker: The member for Lakeshore.

Mr. P. D. Lawlor (Lakeshore): When we quit the last day, having launched into the midst of this piece of legislation, I was inveighing against the schizoid personalities of the departments of government over there, namely that in a wide range of the legislation directly touching the mining interests of this province, we find a part of the legislation coming up under the Mining Tax Act, and the balance of the legislation before us today in the corporations tax bill.

That is unacceptable, and I wish the minister would bring some weight to bear to end this particular special pleading and hiving-off of special interests into one area of government, which has no particular competence in the matter and which in any event is a severe breach of the discretions and jurisdiction that have been precisely reposed of fairly recent date in this particular minister. It’s his job to look after the revenues in all their amplitude in this province; and for some reason, which is not all that mysterious, he doesn’t do so. I think that should be changed. I suspect there is no other jurisdiction on the face of the earth that permits that bifurcation of functions and responsibilities as they exist in this province for historical and other reasons.

Under this particular head I wonder if the minister would have an opportunity, coming into Christmas, to take a look at H. V. Nelles’ book on the “Politics of Development,” which has been recently published here. It is an analytical history of the resources field, both timber and mines, as to the incidence and reception of taxes in those fields, where the weight fell and what motivations were exercised by succeeding governments, Liberal and Tory, down through the centuries over this particular area of taxation. I think it will be an eye-opener.

Nelles is not a wild-eyed socialist; on the contrary. But I think the fundamental lesson that he has been able to disinter from that mess of pottage is that the government of this province, instead of governing on behalf of the whole people, exists so far as these industries are concerned, and so far as the government itself is concerned, in a subservient role, acting as a servant to the mining and timber interests and has done so time out of mind. He shows what the manipulation is, down, as I say for almost 100 years now, and particularly since 1900, precisely what way these people have been able to bring the government to serve their own self interests. They don’t want government interference, but God bless the government if it serves whatever they wish it to do and interferes on their behalf, but if it interferes in any other way then it’s anathema and can’t be accepted.

To get back to the legislation and its precision, the minister proposes to do a number of things. The fact that he is doubling taxation under this particular head -- not precisely under this particular legislation, although he goes some distance in that way -- is a move very much to be accepted and affirmed by this party. We’ve long asked that that be the case. We’ve pointed out the virginal field that exists in the mining industry with respect to resource revenues for the province. Now the government has come to such a poor pass in its overall financing -- with its various axioms of cash in, cash out, cash flows and all the various forms of subterfuge that are presently used over there in order to hide its true position -- its crying need of more money without hitting the taxpayer, particularly as we are coming into an election year, is so overwhelming that is has to turn to resource industries as its final benison. Necessity is not the mother of invention, but it certainly helps the Treasury funds in the Province of Ontario. To that extent, under duress or however it may be, the minister has come to that insight himself.

Henceforth, mining taxes and royalties will no longer be deductible from the taxable income. That was the slick little manipulation that used to be pulled. Any taxes they did pay were automatically deducted from the corporate income tax and therefore they ended up paying very little. We all take that with a grain of salt, let’s put it that way; because we feel that the taxable profits of mining corporations, after the mining assessors have finished with their innumerable and sleight-of-hand deductions, are sufficiently reduced not to give all that benefit. But let’s give the devil his due, and to the extent that this legislation goes in refusing that deduction henceforth, it is all to the good.

I mentioned the depletion allowances the other day -- just briefly we’ll recount it again -- and sought to bring some pressure upon the mind of the minister with respect to the Carter recommendations under this head, which were, as I say, extremely well reasoned. They set terror in the hearts of the mining industry admittedly, but from a penetrating social point of view, from the point of the whole citizenry, they had enormous merit. The federal government moved in on the same area, of fairly recent date, in a way quite different from this government. I find some internal contradiction in the minister’s position.

The federal government is going to restrict the deletion allowance to operators after Dec. 31, 1976, and it must be earned by actual capital expenditures in mining processing in mining towns. This is still a tax concession, but it puts some strings on the gift. Succeeding Ministers of Finance used to en- capsulate revenue, and at the same time have taken the stand that they would not tie this depletion allowance to the rolling back of the moneys thus saved into further exploration. The minister has always taken that position. But the proposed depletion rate of 33 1/3 per cent is among the highest rates in the world. Surprisingly, the Ontario government, in its white paper on tax reform in Canada, issued in 1970, suggested that unconditional depletion be limited to 15 per cent and that a further 10 per cent be granted to companies processing materials in Canada or undertaking further exploration and development. This is located on page 37 of that document. Again, with this 33 1/3 per cent depletion allowance, the government is certainly running contrary to its own proposals as outlined in that particular document. We still might have misgivings, but a 15 per cent right is far closer to equity than the present one.

The minister well knows the enormous impact being made in the United States Senate and House with respect to the depletion allowances over there. There are bills presently pending and some of them -- well, not under Ford, but under a future government -- very well may go into effect, severely cutting into this particular form of largesse and ripoff that takes place touching depletion allowances. In other words, the thing is at this time stirred up in the United States, where depletion allowances run rampant and have done so for a long time. I think some of the stirring might spill over the border. Some of the good things might come over here as well as some of the bad, and the minister’s attitude with respect to this particular area of basic handout would be altered in the next budget and in time to come.

It also applies with respect to gas or oil -- there is a 33 1/3 per cent depletion as stated in the budget’s position paper.

Further on in the bill there is a section having to do with the mine and mill allowances which were previously allowed in computing capital tax -- they are to be no longer allowed. Again, that’s moving into the area in a way which we find appetizing.

On the whole, though, even with the $50 million increase in mining revenue, it raises the total contribution of the mining industry from 1.1 per cent of the total provincial revenue to 1.6 per cent. I don’t say that time should stand still, but it ought not to move, all that much backwards. If the minister takes a look at that book of Nelles that I told him about, there was a time in the history of this province when mining revenue by itself represented a good 28 to 35 per cent of the total revenue of the province. Now, there are other modes of taxation, of course, that have come to the fore since that day. Nevertheless, what a falling-off of my countrymen with respect to the -- and for the government to pretend that 1.6 percentage of the gross revenue is anywhere commensurate with the benefits derived from this billion-dollar profit industry in the province of which it gets about $150 million is hardly to the point. That field remains wide open. If the inflationary press is felt to be that great, then I would suggest that the government take another look at the situation.

The allowance on exploration -- first of all, the preproduction expenses are now going to be allowed, which cuts in a little bit to the government’s more incisive stand. In other words, it gives away with its left hand a little of what it gets with its right. But such is the nature of the beast, and if it had three hands, it might be able to do the people of this province some good in this field.

The section in here applies only to corporations which are not in the mining bust -- non-principal mining corporations. My understanding on that score, and I would like the minister to confirm that, is that this is acceptable. Of course, it has been long in effect and is thoroughly applicable to existing mining corporations that they may make these deductions with respect to their exploration expenses from their income in full, as has presently been granted to the non-mining corporations. This is going to cost us about $50 million in the process of doing that, according to the budget statement, and I find that I wonder, really, in the absence of the government as a Crown organization at least making some penetration into the mining field on its own hook -- in order to garner in the resources here to the people, if the government expects and to what extent it would anticipate that the non-principal business corporation will march into this on the basis of the bait that it has held out to them in this particular legislation.

The third great area that is covered under the Act has to do with small businesses. As I said, it is a long, much overdue and longed-for movement into a field where the big boys have always got a rake-off and the benefits, while the small businessman of Ontario has been ignored and put down, and whatever he may say has gone by the board.

I suppose we can wait upon the day and watch the situation. Since this legislation went through back in April, has the minister had any indicia or any signs at all in the heavens as to it beneficially affecting small business corporations in any way? Is there any way of telling whether this has stimulated that particular area of industry upon which we are extremely reliant, and will be increasingly so, as we try to develop our secondary industry, particularly arising out of resource development?

Within the bill a small business is a privately held Canadian-controlled corporation that qualifies for the lower federal corporate rate of 25 per cent; that is, 20 per cent of it in manufacturing or processing on the first $35,000 of profit. They lose the qualification after $400,000 of profits have been earned since 1971, unless they have paid out these profits by way of dividends. The tax credit will be equal to five per cent of the increase in taxable paid-up capital allocable to Ontario over the previous high. The maximum credit available is limited to 50 per cent of

Ontario income tax payable, up to $3,000 annually. Unused credit may be carried forward five years, subject to the limitation that the corporation still qualifies for the federal small business deduction. There is some difficulty in this legislation in tying it in with the federal government, I believe.

The second area is as to whether it will mean more jobs on the whole and as to our being able to justify that over against the loss of revenue incurred in bringing the legislation into being. On the whole, nevertheless, the small business tax credit has merit, and I would say nothing detrimental about the thing as it now stands.

Entering the area of VICs, the venture investment corporations, this is also a feature written into this legislation to assist small businesses. As the budget statement puts it, it says that there will be a flow- through of funds and the corporation itself will not have to be taxed if it qualifies as this precise kind of new corporation, and that the tax would take place in the hands of the recipients at the end of the day. The tax in the hands of recipients would be by way of interest rather than dividends, and I would like the minister to explain the difference to me. I would have thought, with the knowledge I have of taxation matters, which isn’t much, that the dividends do enjoy a prerogative or lower rate of tax worked into the income stream, and that to take it by way of income, far from acting as an incentive to investment by individuals in this kind of corporation, would act as a detriment.

Perhaps the minister would spend a few moments explaining the benefits as he sees them, because the budget statement on page 12 says that the tax treatment of mortgage investment corporations will encourage the flow of funds into the residential mortgage market from small investors ...” The same type of reasoning applies in the one as in the other. My guess is that with mortgage investment corporations, not very much has been added to the mortgage market in Ontario by way of funds. I certainly would like to know the impact of that in practical terms. When a corporation has a flat capital tax rate of $50 and is accorded the privilege of not enough being taxed so long as these funds flow through in this particular context, I think that some unequivocal social benefit that stands out and can be detected should be seen.

It strikes me that most individuals who have got a little extra money and are investing in the mortgage market do it on an individual basis, almost as a one-to-one relationship, or through their solicitors or through real estate corporations that have licences in this field, and through investment corporations. But I would like to see some figures and some indication of the growth, and the capital potential of corporations of this kind, again since many months have gone by since this legislation came through. It is in this area that the budget statement makes the particular reference that the investors will derive their usufruct by way of interest rather than dividends. It puzzled me as to how that was more beneficial in order to encourage investment in this particular field, as the statement claims that it is.

The rest of the legislation here has some petty points. There are nice distinctions. There are things that must be pointed out in committee. But it need not take up the time of the House on second reading except for one final point. Subsection 7 of section 11 makes the section having to do with MICs retroactive to Jan. 1, 1972. I can’t for the life of me, see how dating back the legislation would have brought or could have brought or would bring or by any stretch of the imagination makes a visitation of extra mortgage money into those funds. Either they had the money or they were given the money. The fact of dating it back certainly doesn’t give any encouragement or serve any purpose. If the money was already there, what benefit does the legislation confer upon individuals who put it there? Those are the basic thoughts of this party, at least as flowing from myself on this legislation.

Mr. J. A. Renwick (Riverdale): Mr. Speaker, I only have one brief comment on the bill, if I may make it. It is really a procedural matter more than anything else.

I take it from the minister’s comments in response to the query put by my colleague that he will not be assuming any responsibility for discussion of policy matters with respect to the impact of the charges in the Corporations Tax Act on the mining industry; but that that matter is best dealt with under the aegis of his colleague, the Treasurer of Ontario (Mr. White), when the bill comes through. I take it, therefore, that those sections of the bill which is before as today, bearing upon the mining industry, are really correlative to the policy decisions which are implicit in the budgetary address of the Treasurer and now will reflect it in the Mining Tax Amendment Act which will be introduced by his colleague’s ministry and not by this minister.

Mr. Speaker: Do any other hon. members wish to speak to this bill? If not, the hon. minister.

Hon. A. K. Meen (Minister of Revenue): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Referring to the comments by the hon. member for Riverdale first, I would say, yes, I think that’s essentially correct. They are correlative to the amendments proposed in Bill 111. I think that’s the number of the bill introduced by my colleague, the Treasurer. I think it is scheduled for debate later on this month when he returns from the Middle East.

I wonder, Mr. Speaker, since members, particularly the member for Lakeshore, have dwelled on a number of the items in this Act, whether it wouldn’t be just as well for me to review some of the principles in the bill in a few words. In that way, I can pick up most of the points the member for Lakeshore raised.

To begin with, sections 2 and 3 deal with the disallowance of the deduction from income of mining royalties and mining taxes; section 2 dealing with mining tax and section 3, I believe it to be, dealing with the repeal of the deduction of mining royalties. Presently, as the hon. member knows, the Act specifically permits the deduction in computing business income or property income of an amount in respect of provincial and municipal mining taxes based on the operating profits of a mineral resource operation anywhere in Canada. However, there are no deductions permitted for taxes paid to other jurisdictions. I might say, although not specifically stated, the deduction is permitted of mining royalty taxes based on the production from a mineral resource and expense paid out to earn a business or property income.

Now, the reason for the amendment, as I understand it from the Treasurer, is to implement the proposals. These proposals were in the Treasurer’s budget statement with respect to taxations of mines. Among other things, he proposed that the deduction of mining taxes and royalties for corporate income tax purposes be discontinued with the result, of course, that the taxable income of mining corporations would increase.

I was impressed to hear the comments from the hon. member that he and his party endorse this increase. We think it is appropriate that some of these deductions should be removed.

I will go on to section 4, which establishes the uniform 33 1/3 per cent depletion allowance in respect of oil, gas wells and of course, with respect to mining resources. I think the hon. member at that point in his comments was referring to Carter, and perhaps to some of our own views expressed at other times.

I think he should bear in mind though that the faster the write-down, the sooner the depletion has been completed and, therefore, the sooner the province begins to recover a very substantial amount of revenue. It is not as if we were giving something away; we are simply advancing the time within which the expenses incurred in bringing an oil or gas well into production, or mining resource into production, can be depreciated. From there on, with the depletion allowance having been used up, then the full tax would be payable -- and that would occur after a three-year period.

He didn’t mention the straddling of the April 9, 1974 period. I might just mention that this amendment does apply to corporations for all fiscal years ending after April 9, 1974. But for fiscal years that end after April 9, 1974, that include that date -- in other words, for fiscal years that straddle April 9, 1974 -- there are transitional provisions in section 11 which provide for pro-ration of the amount of any increase or decrease in the income resulting from the enacting of the uniform rate.

With the repeal of the three-year tax exemption for mining companies set out in section 6, I think I might just mention that the Act as it presently stands provides that:

“Income derived from the operation of a mine shall not be included in computing income of a corporation during the 36-month period, commencing with the day the mine came into commercial operation.”

The reason for the amendment is to implement, again, the proposal in the budget statement to increase the income tax revenues from the mining industry by abolishing this three-year exemption period. For a corporation whose mine commenced production after 1969, but before 1974, the exempt income will terminate as at Dec. 31, 1973. For a corporation whose mine commenced production after 1973, there is going to be no exempt income period.

I missed one point, in reference to section 5 because the hon. member for Lakeshore did refer to exploration deductions here in Ontario. I want to touch on that for a moment. Section 63(3) of the Act, if the hon. member wishes to refer to that, presently limits the amount a non-principle business corporation can deduct in computing income for a fiscal year in respect of Canadian exploration and development, and it was felt that it was appropriate to encourage exploration here in Ontario and that we should have these special allowances for such deductions.

I am advised, incidentally, that I may have been slightly in error in advising the members with respect to the impact of section 4, as the allowance for oil, gas and mineral resources of 33 1/3 per cent is not necessarily used up in three years. It applies each year to the profits themselves.

Mr. Lawlor: Oh, I see. It is not depreciation, it is appreciation.

Hon. Mr. Meen: Well, in that case it is essentially a very significant incentive to the companies to get on with development work, of course.

The hon. member dwelled at some length, both in his opening comments and later on, on the small-business incentive deduction for companies eligible under section 125. I want to touch on that for a moment, too.

The intention of the amendment is to provide tax relief that is related to growth to all-Canadian corporations qualifying for the small-business deduction under the Income Tax Act of Canada. He asked if we had any particulars on this matter. I do not know whether we have any available, but when this matter goes to the standing committee on legal administration of justice certainly if we have any such information I will be pleased to give it to the hon. members at that time. I don’t have any particulars currently.

Also the hon. member referred to mortgage investment corporations. I am advised that there are three to date of which we are aware. I may have more particulars later but I understand there are only three, and these were under the Loan and Trust Corporations Act, and are classified now as mortgage investment corporations. They were all federally incorporated corporations; so far as I am aware there are no provincial incorporations to date. Two of them, are Artio Mortgage Investment Corp. and Fidmore Mortgage Investors Corp. I am told that both of these have initial capitalization of $1 million, which is the minimum provided for under the Act, but no shares have been issued and there are no borrowings to date, and I am told also that the companies would appear to be inactive. The third and last one is Morguard Mortgage Investment Co. of Canada, with an initial capitalization of $20 million. I am told the company is active, but we have no information as to the extent of its activity.

The member also asked about the retroactivity dealing with this section, and I am advised that section 11, sub 7, which deals with the effective date of these various sections in the bill, does go back to Jan. 1, 1972, to pick up federal companies formed under the federal legislation which took effect on that date, and it was therefore appropriate to make that retroactive. Although at the time when we drew the Act we had no idea what companies there might be, it seemed appropriate to us to make it retroactive to the same date to pick up any companies that might have come in at that time.

The member also directed some comments in reference to mortgage investment corporations, to the flow-through provisions, and I can give him an illustration now if he would like, or we could wait until later. I think it’s pretty clear, though, that the effect is to get the income into the hands of the shareholders of a mortgage investment corporation as though they were investing in a non-corporate structure, where the corporation pays no tax but where the money flows through into the hands of the shareholders. They receive the money deemed to be interest in their hands rather than dividends, and they receive it at their normal personal income tax rate.

I could give the hon. member an illustration of the tables and comparison of the figures. If we compare the net income tax payable all down through the line by the company if it were a conventional corporation, and then the personal income tax payable by the individual, with his 20 per cent allowances and so on, it would indicate that if we take the corporate shareholder as having a personal tax rate of, I think we assume something like 40 per cent. Let me just see how my illustration does work out. I think that was the rate, since that’s reasonable. I think that was the figure --

Mr. Lawlor: Yes.

Hon. Mr. Meen: -- that we took in our illustration, which I can give the hon. members. There is a net tax reduction on a $100,000 investment of return of some $1,852 in the illustration, which has a benefit, under the mortgage investment corporation type of structure, to the shareholders over the amount of tax they would pay were it a conventional corporation. So there is some incentive to use this structure.

If we are taking a 40 per cent assumed rate, it doesn’t appear to be large but it’s probably a realistic figure, to assume that the person with a lesser end rate on his income perhaps would not likely have money to put out on such investments. Others, with higher rates, might have their money out in other areas. In any event, if we were to raise the assumed personal income tax level of the taxpayer from that 40 per cent estimated figure to 52 per cent, which is the amount a normal corporation would pay, then there would be no advantage to a mortgage investment corporation as I understand it, but it is therefore an advantage to the investors in the smaller income brackets, where their end rate would be around 40 per cent.

Mr. F. Laughren (Nickel Belt): Well, we could discuss this further in committee.

Hon. Mr. Meen: Yes. The hon. member also talked about the venture investment corporations which had been mentioned in the Treasurer’s budget statement. They are not picked up in this set of amendments. I am advised that we are waiting until the federal structure has been established in order to know how to draw up our own amendments and that, premising that the federal amendments are accomplished perhaps this fall, then our appropriate further amendments to the Act would, I am told, be ready for the spring session.

Mr. Speaker, that covers my comments as I feel appropriate at the moment. I hope I haven’t missed any points that were raised by the members opposite. I think it covers the major points they raised, and when we have completed this debate I will be pleased to --

Mr. Lawlor: When is the minister going to take over the mining tax; the timber tax?

Hon. Mr. Meen: Oh, yes, the member did raise the point and I intended to dwell on that. Excuse me for the oversight. I wish I perhaps had a little more experience in this ministry to understand the reasoning behind some of the taxing statutes not being in the Ministry of Revenue where others are.

Mr. Laughren: Oh, come off it.

Hon. Mr. Meen: It would appear that the reason for the mining tax legislation being other than in my ministry deals with the technical expertise required in the analysing of the returns.

Mr. Renwick: The minister would be too tough. He would be too tough.

Hon. Mr. Meen: I have no idea whether it’s proposed to alter that at any time, but I think Bill 111 by the Treasurer picks up the other end of things, and at that time the members opposite will be able to debate with him the principles behind the amendments to that Act.

Mr. Speaker: The motion is for second reading of Bill 82. Is it the pleasure of the House the motion carry?

Motion agreed to; second reading of the bill.

Mr. Speaker: I understand this is to be referred to the standing committee of the administration of justice.

Agreed.

Mr. Speaker: I understand the minister who was on next is about to come in.

Clerk of the House: The seventh order, second reading of Bill 72, the Education Act. 1974, hon. Mr. Wells.

Mr. Speaker: There will be a slight delay, it seems.

Mr. J. R. Breithaupt (Kitchener): Mr. Speaker, it was understood that we would go on to the second order and complete it, I think, before Bill 72 was called. So that if we could --

Mr. I. Deans (Wentworth): The third order.

Mr. Breithaupt: I am sorry, the third order. rather. We could proceed with that, I believe. It will be fairly brief -- if that was wished.

NOTICE OF MOTION NO. 4 (CONCLUDED)

Clerk of the House: The third order, resuming the adjourned debate on the motion that this House confirms the order made under the Niagara Escarpment Planning and Development Act, 1973, and filed as Ontario regulation 118/74.

Mr. Speaker: As I understand it we had the debate on this motion the other day, and then it was referred to the standing committee. Any questions were to be resolved there, and it was just a matter of placing the motion. Am I correct in that?

Mr. Deans: No, no. I don’t want you to be labouring under any misapprehension.

Mr. Speaker: I am just asking a question.

Mr. Deans: That wasn’t the agreement, not exactly that. The understanding was, as I recall it, that there would be an opportunity made available to members of the Legislature who are interested to meet with officials of the ministry, and other parties who might have information on the Wednesday immediately following the debate, and that we would then return to the debate. It was explicitly understood that there would be an opportunity for further discussion if that were required after the meeting had taken place.

I would like to avail myself of that additional opportunity, because there are some things that I want to say. I don’t want to repeat anything I said the other day, because what I said the other day was said without the benefit of the meeting with the officials and the members of the escarpment commission. I am not much wiser now, Mr. Speaker, than I was on the day that we first debated the order.

The decisions that we are being asked to affirm with regard to the defining of the Niagara Escarpment planning area boundary were made by the ministry -- or, I suspect, by the commission -- with knowledge which is not available to us. They have at their disposal the designated areas that are going to be used by the ministry to preserve those parts of the escarpment which it deems are worthy or necessary to preserve. I want to suggest to you that it’s extremely difficult for us to make a judgment on the value of the Niagara planning area without having the knowledge of what it is that the commission and the government are prepared to preserve in the interim period.

Between now and the day that this final planning area is defined and the integration takes place between the various municipalities within the Niagara escarpment, and the overall plan which the commission is going to be empowered or required to establish, between this day and that, quite a number of changes are going to take place in the escarpment. The one thing that I found out from the discussion I had in which, I believe, five of the members of the Legislature took part, was that the designated areas, as designated by the ministry, have no set criteria attached to them; that there would be no way for anyone to try to determine in advance what the designated areas are likely to encompass; that any thing that falls outside the designated area will be subject to whatever changes the owner deems are desirable; that any amount of additional development could take place along the escarpment as long as it doesn’t fall within the so-called designated areas. So the overall escarpment plan will be rendered useless by the fact that any amount of development could quite easily take place between now and the time that the plan finally comes into force four or five years from now.

I asked the ministry officials if they could give me an indication as to what the criteria were going to be for the designated areas, or if they could perhaps give me a couple of examples of designated areas so that I would understand what it was that we were about to save. I asked why it was that we didn’t establish the escarpment face as a designated area in toto and a portion of the escarpment above and below, simply to ensure that after the plan was completed, there would be something left for the escarpment commission to use by way of saving the escarpment for future recreational and natural purposes.

I am persuaded now that I think it’s unfair for the minister to ask us to pass this resolution. I think it’s unfair for the minister to ask us, as an act of faith, to simply pass the resolution in order that he can go ahead and establish the designated areas, because I don’t think that’s my responsibility as a member of the Legislature. I don’t think I would be properly exercising my duty as a member of the Legislature if I were to pass this particular piece of legislation and these regulations, simply on the say-so of the minister and his officials, without knowing fully what it was that was behind them and how the regulations would affect the people I am supposedly representing here.

I don’t know what in Saltfleet township could possibly be left out of the designated area. In fact, I don’t know what in the whole of the Niagara Escarpment or the whole of the Niagara Peninsula could possibly be left out of a designated area. And yet I suspect -- and you will pardon me for being a bit suspicious, Mr. Speaker -- that there are some developers in the area who are rather eager to have their lands left out of those areas that are designated by the ministry for planning purposes. I suspect that there will be tremendous pressures placed, and I have to trust the minister and his officials to exercise their office judiciously to make sure that they don’t give away more than they preserve. That’s too difficult a task for me to have to undertake. I can’t do that. I couldn’t, in good conscience, place all of the trust that is required in the officials in the ministry to come up with the right designated areas at any given time.

I think that before we were asked to vote on this, the minister should have filed with the House his plan for areas that are to be designated immediately as being not to be developed and a set of criteria to be used by his ministry in determining what future areas would be considered as not to be developed. I think we should have had clearly set before us what areas within the escarpment may well be permitted to be developed. More than that, we should have had set before us very clearly what compatible development really means.

Let me just tell you that as I think of the escarpment and the areas of the escarpment that I know well -- and I walk on it regularly -- I can think of areas that in themselves should be set aside as being designated areas for purposes of saving it. But I can also think of areas adjacent to those which, if they were permitted to be built up, it would destroy the value of the piece that was being saved. This piecemeal approach to saving the escarpment just isn’t going to be satisfactory.

I was disappointed that we weren’t able to get the kind of information that we needed in order to make this kind of reasonable judgement about the value of these regulations.

Let me give you an example, Mr. Speaker. I can see someone coming along and wanting to develop land owned by him on the escarpment for the purposes of recreation, perhaps a hotel or a motel. That land obviously would be land which ought to be very close to, if not immediately abutting on, the designated areas because they would want to have access to that for the patrons of the hotel, for the visitors. Then the decision of the escarpment commission would be what then is compatible with that hotel, rather than what is compatible with the area that has been designated to be saved? I think that the ministry and the minister have an obligation to this House and to every member to make known to us what it is that is on his mind and how he intends to save the escarpment and to ensure that improper development will not take place during the planning process.

I can’t support the position that we have to go on faith, because I don’t happen to think that that’s the way you legislate. It might be okay, Mr. Speaker, if you are in the government back-bench and you have to trust the government to do the right thing, but it certainly isn’t okay if you are charged with the responsibility of being an opposition member. We have the right to say on behalf of the public that we require concrete proof of what is about to happen, rather than have confidence in the capacity and the ability of the ministry to do its job properly.

And so I must say to you reluctantly, Mr. Speaker, that I personally can’t pass the regulations even knowing full well that it is necessary to pass these regulations in order that we can get the plan developed, or so I am told, although I suspect there might be even a little bit of work being done in the interim period. I want to tell you that I would like to pass them in such a way as to enable me to go back into mv constituency and to explain to the local people what it is that they can look forward to seeing by way of preservation and what the criteria will be for development that will be allowed during the planning process. But I honestly can’t do it, and until I can do that, then I personally can’t support the motion, even although the boundaries that are set out may well in an overall sense make sense. But even that isn’t clear because we weren’t given the kind of information that we needed in order to make that judgement, anymore than we were given the information needed to office any other judgement.

I really regret it because we have waited a long time for this. We have waited a number of years. Since Gertler first began right through until this day, we have waited to see what it was on the Niagara Escarpment that was going to be saved, and what of the Niagara Escarpment we were going to have to hand on to future generations. I think we must be expected to make our judgements based on facts and not on the kind of faith that the ministry might require of us in order to do its job. I think that we have to be told clearly what these designated areas are.

Therefore, until such time as I know what is going to happen with the escarpment, I would prefer that they just go ahead with the plan without the regulations. They can begin with the areas that are obviously savable, start on the escarpment, do a little bit with the quarries and maybe come out with a policy as to how we are going to rehabilitate the quarry areas or maybe even come out with an interim policy on what kinds of development we are going to permit within certain parts of the escarpment, for example, the more densely populated areas where much pressure is now being exerted. Or maybe there could be simply an overall freeze on development of all of the escarpment face back for a mile from the edge, both above and below, simply to ensure that that will still be there to plan with, if and when the official plan is ever finalized, so there will still be something there to use.

Maybe those kinds of statements would help my conscience a bit and allow me to support it; and maybe a statement about the way in which the government intends to make the moneys available for the preservation; and maybe a statement about what areas are to be purchased -- maybe those things would help my conscience a little bit. Maybe I’d better understand what it is that we could expect to see derive from this kind of regulation.

I won’t support it. I don’t expect any other member of the House to do anything, but I’m speaking as an individual. I won’t support what’s being asked of me simply because I don’t think it fair that I should be asked to vote on something for which the rationale, justification and criteria are not sufficiently available.

Mr. Speaker: The member for St. George.

Mrs. M. Campbell (St. George): Mr. Speaker, I will be brief, but I am concerned about this matter. I feel badly that I have to take the position I do, because I think that the minister left the House with the understanding that we would probably support the position that he took, although we did give some warning that it would depend largely on the result of the meeting that we had with the officials.

I came away from that meeting, Mr. Speaker, with a great deal of concern because it seemed to me that we were entitled to know, when we were dealing with the matter of the escarpment, what the guidelines were going to be for the controls. There isn’t a member in this House who is not prepared to support an attempt to protect the escarpment. What we feel, or what I feel -- and I, too, am not going to speak for the total caucus -- is that what has happened here is that again we have a very clear-cut delineation of area which permits a very clear notice to anyone who is interested in development, and no assurance that we will have, in fact, the controls within a very reasonable time that would make it possible to ensure the protection of the total escarpment.

I recognize, Mr. Speaker, that there are some controls now. I must confess that I do not know what applications re the quarries have been brought forward or how they have been dealt with in the meantime and I can’t make any statement about it. But as long as we have this situation where we have a general plan with the idea that eventually there will be spot-control areas, as I understood the way in which this developed, I don’t see that the bringing forward of this plan in this form guarantees anything in the way of the protection for which we all, I believe, voted in principle some months ago.

If you take an area and produce this and say, “This is the area which we are hoping to plan for, and we will be exercising controls in parts of these areas but we can’t tell you now what the guidelines will be for choosing the areas of control, as we just don’t know,” then, as has been said by others, what you get is a pick-and-choose kind of situation.

I am pleased that I have so much of an audience on the government side to hear the pearls of wisdom which I am trying to roll out.

Mr. E. R. Good (Waterloo North): All three of them.

An hon. member: There is no minister.

Mr. Lawlor: They have all gone home for Christmas.

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Speaker, speaking for myself, I would like to see us get on with the protection of the escarpment but I challenge the government to bring out its guidelines forthwith, if you like, so that we then will be able to see that in fact the deed is following closely the thought and that we do in fact intend not to break up this area by bits and pieces of spot development.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Breithaupt: Mr. Speaker, I fail to see a quorum in the House.

Mrs. Campbell: Well, that isn’t unusual, is it?

Mr. Speaker ordered that the bells be rung for four minutes.

Mr. Speaker: We now have a quorum. Did the member for Lakeshore wish to speak to this?

Mr. Lawlor: Mr. Speaker, I was one of the five members who attended the other morning, and I think that merits a few acerbic remarks, under the circumstances.

The situation on the Niagara Escarpment is heartbreaking; I don’t think there is any other word for it. It isn’t the fault of the civil servants. Their tongues are almost as much tied as their hands. They have to defend a policy and they can’t make disclosures, and they have as much as said so. But the possibilities for the ravishment of the escarpment are overpowering. They exist. The only thing you could do is refer to “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune ... the law’s delay ... a proud man’s contumely.” I think of the law’s delay -- eight months for this particular bill -- since the last bill came to this House to give them the basic authority to do what we had given them eight months ago. It needed reaffirmation, and here it is. But that is the history of this bill. I inveighed against it on that particular occasion downstairs, but they are hardly the proper people to take the lash of the tongue.

It is almost eight years since Gertler, with nothing done, in effect, and with the prospect of even less being done -- if it is possible to do less than nothing, which is what is happening. The spot zoning and the determination by tourist interests of recreational facilities raises the possibility of hot-dog stands arising over every yonder hill as far as the eye can see. The total despoliation of the escarpment lies before us today.

I won’t speak any longer. I have lost faith in this possibility. It has been too long played with; the thing is going out from under us. The Conservative government has to balance two things; one of them being the monetary benefits to the province in terms of taxation revenue; and the maintenance of certain industries around the escarpment has been an overpowering prerogative over against mere green recreational and forested landscape for future generations. They have made their choice. This is the way it stands. I think we can wash our hands of it.

With the legislation they have effectively shoved everything over until 1976, until after the next election and beyond that. They have taken it out of contention; the issue has been taken off the pot. They have done it time after time in several succeeding elections, and the same machination is being performed before us. The whole thing is one grotesque farce, and the sooner the people of Ontario know it the better.

Resolution concurred in.

EDUCATION ACT, 1974

Hon. Mr. Wells moves second reading of Bill 72, the Education Act, 1974.

Mr. B. Newman (Windsor-Walkerville): Mr. Speaker, as I rise to make a few comments on Bill 72, I would like at the outset to bring to the members’ attention that it was back in 1950, if my memory serves me correctly, that the Hope commission came down with a recommendation that suggested a consolidation of all of the education Acts into one package. In spite of the recommendation of the commission, the Premier of the day, the Hon. Leslie Frost, didn’t see fit to actually accept the recommendation and put it into practice. I would assume that probably it was partly as a result of the fact that 16 members of the committee suggested the consolidation, but the four Catholic members opposed it, and as a result, there was no action taken on this.

The minister, in introducing this piece of legislation did it in a very nice way, I think. I liked the approach that the Minister of Health (Mr. Miller) used when he introduced the Health Disciplines Act. He brought it before a committee and got input from all of the interested bodies. As a result, a piece of legislation came down that met with the general approval of the disciplines. I understand the minister is going to follow the same procedure here, in that immediately after second reading, this bill will go to the standing committee of the Legislature, and any interested individuals, groups or organizations will have their opportunity at that time to make some input. In that way, when the legislation returns to the House, whether it is amended or not, all interested parties will have had a chance to express their opinion.

With the passing of this Act, Mr. Speaker, it really means that for the first time in approximately 119 years there will not be an individual Separate Schools Act for both separate schools and for Protestant separate schools. The Ontario Separate School Trustees Association has, from the information provided to me, accepted the principle of the bill, even while accepting the principle of the consolidation of these five major Acts. They do accept it on the advice of their legal talent that none of the rights of the separate school will be taken away from them and that the rights don’t depend so much on the legislation as on the rights that have been laid down in previous statutes and also in court decisions.

I hope that the minister, in his reply at the end of the comments from both parties in the House, assures the separate schools that their rights will be maintained even though now, rather than having a Separate Schools Act, it’s being consolidated into one omnibus bill. I have also noted in some of my research that the Rev. Carl Matthews is still a bit concerned over the consolidating of the Acts. He would have preferred to have had the separate school question sort of tagged on at the end of the bill.

Referring to the bill itself, Mr. Speaker, I would like to bring to the attention of the minister one of the things that I haven’t been able to find in the bill -- if it is in there, I would certainly like to be corrected by the minister -- and that is the recommendation that was presented by the select committee on the utilization of educational facilities. Their main recommendation, which was sort of a basic recommendation to the use of the schools, was recommendation No. 2, and I will read it for the record:

“The Minister of Education, in directing the consolidation of the school Acts, should incorporate the principle of ‘a right and not just a privilege’ into the intent and body of the legislation through the adoption of community involvement and co- ordination as basic guidelines.”

The principle of a right and not a privilege was sort of the basic recommendation of the committee, and I certainly would have liked to have seen that incorporated directly into the Act just as the committee made mention.

Mr. Speaker, one of the sections of the Act that does puzzle me a bit is that concerning the rights of the legislator to visit schools.

From what I understand, he can only visit a school in his own riding. He wouldn’t be permitted, under legislation, to go into any other school and we, as legislators, wishing to be able to compare one school operation with another, couldn’t cross political geographic boundaries.

I think another area in the bill that needs clarification so that it would be quite the same throughout is the introduction of the words “and/or British subject.” I thought that when we have the qualifications of the trustees as “a Canadian citizen” then the other qualifications that don’t necessarily refer to trustees but refer to the electorate, likewise should use the Canadian citizen connotation rather than British subject. It may require phasing out the “British subject” reference over a period of time, but I think that we should now have an Education Act that speaks in terms of Canadian citizenship instead.

When it comes to financially providing for members of various elected offices, it’s always embarrassing to have a body deciding on their own pay increments. Now, I have noticed in here that the provision for payment to members of boards varies according to the number of students under the board’s jurisdiction. That’s all well and good, Mr. Speaker, but I think that there should likewise be a provision for an indexing so that board members don’t have to be coming to the ministry or the ministry doesn’t have to be raising the increment to board members on any periodical basis. It would be sort of automatic -- as the cost of living would in- crease or as the number of students in the school system would increase, then the indemnity of the official would likewise automatically increase. It’s unfortunate that we in the Legislature didn’t adopt that when we were considering ourselves at one time. I think automatically indexing is probably a better approach than having to pass on your own salary increment.

Mr. Speaker. I have 33 other topics that I could speak on in individual sections on the bill, but since the bill is going to go into a standing committee of the Legislature, I think I would be wrong in taking up the time of the House now and then repeating each of the 33 suggestions to the standing committee.

This completes my comments on this, Mr. Speaker.

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

Mr. J. F. Foulds (Port Arthur): Mr. Speaker, I am not going to be nearly as kind as the spokesman for the Liberal Party on this bill. I noticed that when the minister first introduced the bill -- I believe it was in the first consolidation on Nov. 30 -- he indicated that it was not being introduced for the purpose of making broad changes in policy but rather to bring existing legislation up to date in a more convenient and rational form. He also indicated that the changes are mere refinements, not major policy changes, and this is in keeping with the commitment made by the ministry to the education community in January, 1973.

Mr. Speaker, when I went through this bill for the second time over the weekend, I had the most strong feelings of anger -- I suppose that is not too strong a word -- and of frustration. As I went through it, I said to myself: What is the purpose of this bill? What is the principle behind this bill? Surely what we have a right to expect in 1974 is not simply a mechanical rehash of the former education Acts, provisions of which literally go back to the 19th century, but we have a right to expect from something calling itself the Education Act, 1974, a bill that attempts to cope with the reality of education in the 1970s. Surely we have a right to expect a bill whose principles will be such that the Act will cope with the realities of education for the next 30 to 40 years -- that means into the 21st century, Mr. Speaker -- and certainly this bill does not do that.

Surely we have a right to expect a bill that will have a preamble outlining the aims, objectives and principles of education in Ontario and not merely the occasional statements of the minister. Even the Labour Relations Act has a preamble that outlines its principles; even the Ontario Human Rights Code has such a preamble outlining its principles.

I am going to specifically refer to half a dozen sections in the bill, if I may, Mr. Speaker, as illustrations of what is wrong with the principle of this bill and what is wrong with education in the Province of Ontario.

As is normal what we have in this bill at the very beginning is a section of definitions of the Act. The one that really leaped off the page at me was the one that is section 1(1)(2): “‘average daily enrolment’ for a calendar year means the number obtained by adding ... the sum of” -- and it outlines a formula there that I defy anybody to understand without a slide rule or a computer. If that is the first thing that hits anybody who reads the Education Act of Ontario in 1974 he is going to be put off not only education but reading about what education is sup- posed to be about.

I won’t take the time of the House to actually read that section into the record, but just the words in the subsection -- “the product of 0.3,” “the product of 0.4,” “the product of 0.15,” and so on -- symbolically say to me, Mr. Speaker, that that is how children are viewed in our educational system. They’re viewed as a product.

They’re viewed as a product in two ways: One, they are viewed as a product just like a product in a factory system only, with our kids, they go in at age three, or age four or age five and they come out the other end of the sausage factory machine at age 24 or 32.

Hon. T. L. Wells (Minister of Education): The product referred to is a mathematical term.

Mr. Foulds: Okay, I’m getting to that. The children in our educational system are viewed as a product, as I’ve just outlined. They are also viewed as a product in this section, specifically as an average daily enrolment which equals money for the local board of education. That’s what it does. The first en- counter in our Education Act having to do with children views them as a product so the board can get money, basically, based on the average daily enrolment. That is symbolic of Ontario’s view and the Conservative view of education and of children.

There are some areas that I found surprising in terms of the imbalance in the Act. For example, although there is a whole section on boards of education, and a section on trustees, nowhere in the bill is there clearly outlined the authority, the responsibilities or the purpose of local school boards. An article as recently as last Saturday in the Toronto Star indicates just how much of a problem that is, particularly with boards such as the Metro Toronto board. They are having difficulty, they say, because they lack the power to make the decisions to run their school systems effectively and efficiently.

One of the examples quoted in that particular story was that it took over a year for the Toronto Board of Education to get provincial approval to start a Chinese cultural programme at two schools, even though it wasn’t asking for any money from the province. And, by the time they did get the approval, they had lost the volunteers they had lined up, so that the programme could not be run effectively.

It seems to me that, in a bill of this kind, we have a right to expect from the ministry a clear statement in legislative terms of the responsibilities, of the duties, of the scope of activity and authority of boards and of trustees.

The trend to a heavily-centralized ministry where, for all practical purposes, all the essential decision-making power lies, is conferred in this bill. And no number of statements by the minister, or his officials, will abrogate the legislation. There are no pro- visions to safeguard the authority and the rights of the local boards.

That prompts one to raise the question: If this government is moving to such a heavily centralized form of education in Ontario, why continue to have the boards function at all? Unless the ministry expects them to be the guys who take the shots for the ministry; unless the ministry expects them to be the fall guys.

It is symbolic of this piece of legislation that one of the few new sections clearly marked in it is the section under boards of education. It is on page 134, section 147, subsection 1, item 8, that “a board may enter into an agreement in respect to the use of a computer or a system of computer programming.”

That is how we move into the 20th century in education in Ontario -- by a reference to allowing the boards to enter into an agreement over the use of the computer or computer programming. But, Mr. Speaker, just in case we’re getting too far into the 20th century with technology, we want to balance that out and we keep, in section 147, subsection 1, section 32, the old provision that the board may still -- God bless them -- “erect and maintain any wall or fence considered necessary by the board for enclosure of the school premises.” That is just to keep the balance.

I am tempted at this point to read into the record, a few lines by Robert Frost about walls:

“Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,

That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,

And spills the upper boulders in the sun;

And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,

That wants it down. I could say

‘Elves’ to him,

But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather

He said it for himself.

Before I built a wall I’d ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out.”

That is typical of this bill.

The other thing that is startling to me is that while the Act does clearly outline the responsibilities of secretaries and treasurers of boards, the role, the function, the power of the trustee is only indirectly hinted at, and is only implied. Now, when we come to teachers there is a whole different attitude in the Act. The teachers’ duties are pretty clearly outlined in section 229 of the bill and the duties of the principals are pretty clearly outlined in section 230 of the bill.

I just want to bring to your attention the first three items in that list of duties of the principal:

“It is the duty of a principal of a school, in addition to his duties as a teacher (a) to maintain proper order and discipline in the school; (b) to develop co-operation and co-ordination of effort among the members of the staff of the school; (c) to register the pupils and to ensure that the attendance of pupils for every school day is recorded either in the register supplied by the minister in accordance with the instructions contained therein or in such other manner as may be approved by the minister.”

Now, those three things are not necessarily the most important duties of the principal, but in the very emphasis that we put on them by placement the one that leaps out at you is “to maintain order and discipline in the school.” No one would quarrel with that. But that seems to be the thrust in the attitude overseeing all of our attitudes toward education in Ontario.

Mr. Speaker, if I might, that is a convenient place for me to break my remarks before the private members’ hour and I would be glad to adjourn the debate.

Mr. Foulds moves the adjournment of the debate.

Motion agreed to.

PRIVATE MEMBERS’ HOUR: EMPLOYMENT STANDARDS ACT

Mr. Drea moves second reading of Bill 122, An Act to amend the Employment Standards Act.

Mr. F. Drea (Scarborough Centre): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I introduce this bill to draw attention to the particular predicament that a rather substantial group in our work force finds itself in. That predicament is that because the Employment Standards Act has failed to keep pace with certain modern occupational methods and techniques, they find themselves, literally, a forgotten people across this province. They are specifically exempted from the provisions of the Employment Standards Act.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to draw the attention of the House to the fundamental reason for an Employment Standards Act in this province, and that was to guarantee to as many people as possible who work for wages and salaries some very simple and essential and fundamental economic and social rights.

That legislation was passed in the full knowledge that there are a great many people in our society -- most of them because of the occupation they find themselves in or perhaps the employer they find themselves with; an employer who has a very small payroll -- who find themselves incapable of exercising the right that is extended to most workers in this province, and that is of joining a union and entering into collective bargaining procedures with their employer.

The purpose of the Employment Standards Act, although at the moment it sometimes surpasses certain labour agreements, nonetheless was to provide a basic floor, particularly for wage and salary earners who were incapable for one reason or another of exercising the type of collective bargaining that generally pertains to those in heavy industry or with large employers.

Mr. Speaker, I think it is a phenomenon of this legislation that the particular exemptions are not spelled out in the legislation. They are dealt with by regulation. You will notice in Bill 122 that we are really taking a back door route. I am trying to get at the regulatory authority rather than the legislative one because the specific exemption pertaining to apartment superintendents who reside within the buildings where they work is contained in the regulations.

The purpose of this Act is to remove that regulatory right. When we look at the question of apartment superintendents today, and albeit most of them are in the larger metropolitan centres, we find that that occupation has come a long way, that no longer is it a person who is granted a form of subsidized housing either in a free apartment or in a rent-reduced apartment in return for part-time activities that he or she carries on. I say this because in the beginning the apartment superintendent really was the superintendent of a collection of flats or of duplexes and there wasn’t the problem because quite often he was gainfully employed elsewhere. He took this as part-time employment in order that he might alleviate his shelter cost.

Mr. Speaker, we have come a long way from that particular point. There has evolved now an occupational category of apartment superintendents. We have people in charge of the overall maintenance and protection of very large units with 300, 400, 500 or 700 apartment suites -- very large buildings. These people bear enormous responsibilities because they are literally within a building that often encompasses the size of a small town as we knew it 20 or 25 years ago, and they are the people who have to respond in virtually all emergencies.

With the utmost respect to the profession of the particular member, I would like to say that in a lot of ways they are akin to the country doctor of a great many years ago. Many of them are not only the first person that tragedy or some unwarranted circumstance brings into the apartment, they are often the one who has to deal with the breakup of families and the dissolution of property. They have to be relatively astute to deal with the very intricate economic problems people today find themselves in.

They are responsible when the rent cannot be collected. They are responsible for the way in which you get sheltered, because often the renting of the units is left to them and they have to make the judgement as to whether or not you are the proper kind of tenant. Yet, Mr. Speaker, as far as the laws of Ontario are concerned, these people are not even entitled to a day off a year.

I don’t think that in the proposals I make, I’m asking too much when you have a class of people who bear responsible jobs, and they are not even entitled to an hour off a year. If their employers see fit, and, quite frankly some of them do, that they are responsible 24 hours a day, seven days a week, they either accept it or they get out. It is very easy for the 117 of us in this chamber, who wield a considerable amount of economic power and influence, to say, “If a person doesn’t like his job he can always leave.”

I want to make a few remarks on that situation, Mr. Speaker, because not everybody finds himself in this position, particularly the middle-aged man or woman. They may find themselves, at that point in life not possessed of the best health in the world, nor of all the skills required for steady, full-time, very gainful employment. Perhaps they are encumbered not only by illness but by the size of their family; perhaps they are in a situation where their lack of earning capacity has them in financial difficulties that can only be alleviated if they can somehow ease the present high cost of rental accommodation.

Mr. Speaker, what I’m basically after is to see that people who work in this type of occupation are as entitled as everybody else not to one day off a week, but to at least two. As it is, they would be better off in prison. If they committed a crime they would be entitled to a number of weekend passes, where they could go home to see their families in privacy. If they work as an apartment superintendent and live in, they are entitled to nothing. That is a very sad commentary on the social position of our province.

Secondly, once they live in and forfeit all of these rights, they may find themselves in the very bizarre position where a caretaker brought in from the outside, who does not live in, is within the full protection of the Employment Standards Act, but the superintendent who is in charge and must bear all the responsibility is specifically excluded from any of the benefits.

This is the second time the Ministry of Labour has done this in its employment standards branch, because we are in the same position with the domestic servant. If the domestic servant lives in, she -- most of them are females -- is not entitled to the protection of the Employment Standards Act. But if she works for an agency, in effect she becomes a supply worker and is sent in on a temporary basis, and she is within the full scope of the Employment Standards Act.

So over the years there has developed within the ministry responsible for the evolvement of the regulations, a very peculiar attitude toward those whose occupations have them residing at their point of employment.

This would be akin to saying that a man in lumbering or mining, in this province, by virtue of the fact he entered into an agreement with his employer to “bunk-up” and to pay room and board, or to receive it, once again would be denied the protection of the Act. I suppose the reason they are not excluded from the Act is that it is a pretty fundamental piece of social progress in this province that virtually all workers in those two classes are unionized. They really have very little opportunity to use the Employment Standards Act.

When it comes to the government of this province, as an employer, and I am talking about the superintendents and caretakers in Ontario Housing Corp., if we were to be consistent, we would deny some of them because they do live in Ontario Housing, at the point of their employment. We would deny them the protections of this Act. But we do not. They are already covered within the scope of union agreements and don’t need it.

Mr. Speaker, we are turning this whole field over to the ability of unions. Hopefully, unions can do something for the apartment superintendent. Until we are prepared to make some rather fundamental changes in the Labour Relations Act of this province, I think that is a futile hope.

When it comes to dealing with the rights of a small number of people to organize with a relatively large employer, which is spread out over a very lengthy area, it is virtually impossible to get the number of people to join that would entitle them to certification. It is far too easy for the employer to take the easy way out, as has been the case. They simply contract out to a maintenance company.

If that was the only penalty, Mr. Speaker, perhaps I would not be suggesting some reforms. The penalty, when an apartment superintendent stands up for his rights, dares to protest, suggests reforms, is far more severe than is allowed anywhere else in society. He forfeits his shelter. Not only does he forfeit his shelter, he must leave immediately, because the shelter is provided as a term of employment. Since he is never within the scope of an employment unit large enough to require more than cursory notice, he is virtually put out on the street. When he is put out on the street, he must marshal all the resources he has to provide two months rent in his new accommodation.

Now, for a person earning a rather marginal amount of money this is extremely difficult. Yet, big developers, the ones who don’t pay income tax, release facts to the newspaper and the newspaper believes them, that indicate, if you did cost accounting principles, these people make $14,000 a year and up. Mr. Speaker, using the same cost accounting principle, I make somewhere around $78,000. If you take into account the amount of money the Ontario taxpayers pay to provide heat for this chamber, and reckon it as a cost benefit for me, I am really a very wealthy man.

Most of these people make barely above the minimum wage. They are on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They must also bring their families into a type of chattel arrangement that is almost beyond belief in 1974. The typical employment opportunity is for a man and wife. The man comes ostensibly as the superintendent, but they want a female with him. They want his wife there because while he is doing many of the chores -- say he has to be out in the hall cleaning -- she can be faithfully there to answer the telephone if somebody has left his key at home or a tap is leaking. With this arrangement, tenants get instant service. The apartments owners also like a couple of kids as well because the parents can get even more cleaning done while the phone is maintained by the kids.

Mr. Speaker, this kind of working agreement went out when we abolished the legislation concerning indentured service. Yet, because we will not face up to our responsibilities in this province, these practices go on. They are accepted. Occasionally there is a protest but not very often.

The reason this goes on is that this type of job is offered to people, as I said before, who are kind of in the position already of being second-class workers. They are usually the kind of people whose health or whose education or whose skills are not the highest. I am not downgrading them, but I think we should look at the situation realistically. They are in a position where they are not exactly the most attractive bet for the high-paying industries to employ.

They usually have families, and as people who are only marginally employed with just slightly above the marginal income, they find the cost of housing, the cost of food and a great many other things a much more heavy burden than do others in our society. They feel that they can enter into this type of occupation and, because there is a reduced rent or no rent at all, they can somehow pull themselves out of this economic morass within a reasonable period of time and go forward and get further or new employment, and that, frankly, this is just a temporary measure.

Mr. Speaker, once most of them get into this, they find out it is a lifetime measure, because once again they are only at a marginal level of pay. If they are going to leave that job, they must vacate that shelter, they must go out into the open market, incur the very high costs of new shelter and hope that they will be able to get enough stable employment at a proper rate that they will be successful. For a middle-aged man and woman who went into the labour force at a time when not all of the free education and free trades training and free everything was available as a matter of right but more as a matter of geography and birth in this province, surely that’s asking a bit too much.

Mr. Speaker, if I believed the developers, that this was going to raise rents 30 per cent a month, I might pause. I don’t think if they gave these men and women a day or two off a week -- and I will go for two -- it would raise the cost of rent in a highrise accommodation more than $2 a month per unit, if that, and that would be a bit of a ripoff by the apartment owner. You certainly can’t blame the apartment superintendent now, because of his wages or because of his relatively free accommodation, for the present state of rents. Whatever he gets is a very, very minor thing in the present escalation of rents in the larger centres of Ontario.

Mr. Speaker, if it would cause great and grave hardship to the tenants of apartment houses, I would not recommend this. Why does an apartment superintendent have to be around for a phone call that says the pipe is broken? He can’t fix it anyway. If he did, he would be breaking the municipal bylaw. He can’t fix a broken electrical circuit. He would be breaking bylaws. All he really is is a referral service to the maintenance company that’s contracting to do this work. You can hire an answering service to do it on a Sunday afternoon, Mr. Speaker.

If a tenant loses his key or can’t find his key, or has a tendency to leave his key where he has been or he leaves the key in the suit that he changed yesterday, because he lives in an apartment house, I don’t really think he should enjoy a particular status in our society, or that somebody has to work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, just to provide him with a key.

Mr. Speaker, I think this is incumbent upon the province. We have been studying this matter now for four years. I think we will study it for another 40 years until some heat is put upon the Ministry of Labour.

They studied the men’s minimum wage in this province, Mr. Speaker, for 30 years before they did anything about it. They have studied a great many things in this province. It is my feeling that the longer you study things, the more problems you will encounter and the more studies and consultants you will need to overcome them.

It is the end of 1974 and I respectfully suggest to you that the time has come for the Ministry of Labour to provide people, not with a present at the end of the year to mark season’s greetings, but to accept its responsibilities to extend the Employment Standards Act of this province to a group of people who at the moment need it far more than anybody else.

Mrs. M. Campbell (St. George): Mr. Speaker, I am interested that this matter has been brought forward by the member, who has shown a deep concern for the people involved in this kind of work in this province. The one thing that bothers me about it is whether in fact, it is going to benefit the wife, who is really the slave labourer in the whole field. I don’t know whether a day off for the superintendent will mean she fills in on the job. That happens in our big buildings today.

There is no question that we have to give all the people of this province the opportunity for some respite from work, some recreation, and some relief. Certainly there was never a time in the history of the province when the superintendent had more responsibilities of a graver nature than today. I, of course, am only familiar with the situation basically in Metropolitan Toronto.

Here you have someone responsible in cases where people are alone. As the member for Scarborough Centre has said, they may be the first people into an apartment in a tragic situation. They have to be tactful and understanding. In many cases they have a large population of people within the apartment not oriented to English as a first language. They have to understand their problems. They have to be able to interpret.

It is incredible to think they must be on the job around the clock, 365 days of the year. What it does to their families, of course, is incredible because, as has been said, when the wife is also on duty she is, of course an unpaid servant. She is expected to pick up the load if the superintendent gets ill or some such thing befalls him.

Even in some of the very large projects, many wives are quite critical of those wives who are not willing to sit down and take over and be there around the clock, because they are accepting the responsibility to keep their families and to give the fullest assistance to their husbands.

You really can’t work all the time. Of course, many of them are not actually “working” all the time. But they are on duty. I can recall when I was with the fire department at the city, for example, the fire chief and the deputy and the assistant deputy were never off duty. They were always on call, and, as a matter of fact, unless they had some specific provision to enable them to leave the city, for a conference or something of that kind, or for holidays, they couldn’t get out of town, because they had to be within the communication system in the event of fire. This was changed in the city because we felt it was an intolerable burden to expect people to be on duty, even though not actively engaged in the pursuit of their particular profession.

Yet it seems, we do not want to make the same considerations for these people. At the recent conference involving provisions and services for the elderly, we were advised this province has initiated, in some cases at least, courses for superintendents, to assist them to help people, particularly the elderly, who have problems living in highrise. If we are going to do this, and if we are going to recognize this is an occupation which requires skill and diplomacy, then surely they should be brought within the terms of the statute to enable them to recreate themselves between times, and be able to cope with these daily situations.

Mr. Speaker, on the question of the increase in rents that might result, I would say they would be totally specious. Most of the increases which we have seen have not had any real bearing on increased costs. There are some. Taxes have gone up. It is interesting that when the apartment developments had lower taxes, there was no effort to lower the rent.

I am not of the opinion that we can look at it from that point of view. However, if the member would look at the problem of the tenants in a major city, if he would be inclined to try to take steps to ensure some security of tenure for tenants, if he would look at my private member’s bill and try to get some kind of reason for the way in which rents are escalating, perhaps we could overcome the criticism of this particular proposal.

I am sure the member, in bringing it forward, has concern for any increases that might flow from it. I could almost say at this point, perhaps I shouldn’t support him until I see what he does about my private member’s bill.

Perhaps that kind of pressure has to come, but I don’t believe one segment of the population should be asked to take responsibility for all that is happening. I don’t think the developer, the apartment owner, the tenant, or the superintendent should.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to support this particular proposal and amendment, and I trust something of what I have said in other areas may cause some thinking on the part of this government as it relates to the whole problem of tenants, superintendents and landlords, at this point in our highly inflated period. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. E. J. Bounsall (Windsor West): Mr. Speaker, this private member’s bill is one I can support, certainly as far as it goes. It removes a superintendent, janitor or caretaker of a residential building who resides in that building from other groups of employees who have been exempted from the various provisions and protections of this Act.

There are other exceptions that are included throughout all of these other sections, whose positions, sorry positions -- and who is sorry when each of them are told -- are just as compelling as the superintendents, janitors and caretakers of our residential buildings and large apartments that abound in all the cities of Ontario.

Certainly, specifically for the superintendents and janitors, one finds they are exempt from the hours-of-work provisions under the Act; and no group of employees should be required to work more than the 48 hours a week which is stipulated in the Act. In fact, I feel they should not be required to work any more than 40 hours.

They are exempt from overtime pay provisions. If they work continuously and overtime is involved, overtime pay should certainly be applicable to any group of employees, including superintendents of apartment buildings.

They are also exempt from the minimum wage regulations. This is particularly obnoxious, Mr. Speaker, for this group of employees. One can calculate the going rate of the apartment or the unit in which they live. One can do a study on the amount of real hours of work that someone, particularly a janitor, provides. One could in fact ensure that the wage paid, taking into account the rent on the apartment unit in which he lives, the worth of the rental, does amount to the minimum wage.

I am sure that there are many who do receive the minimum wage, perhaps some above the minimum wage. But there is nothing in this Act which would prevent payment below the minimum wage, and this certainly must be corrected.

There is an entirely new Employment Standards Act before us in the House at the moment. It has been introduced. We hear, as a companion study to that Act, that all the exemptions were carefully gone into and looked at and there are memos pertaining to these exemptions before the minister and the Minister of Labour’s staff. I would hope that when that bill is brought in it will be sent to committee and those exemptions which would appear in these regulations will be tabled at the same time as the bill is dismissed, so that the members of this House and other interested groups could have a look, as we are doing today in connection with this one small group of employees, at those exemptions and be able to express ourselves quite forcefully, as the other two speakers have on this particular group of employees.

I do not find in the regulations accompanying the Act that the superintendents and caretakers are exempted from holidays with pay or vacations. The only problem is that if they are exempt from hours of work and part of the requirement is that they be on hand at all times -- which I understand is the case -- then they are automatically ruled out of taking holidays or taking vacations. I assume because they are not exempt from pay in lieu of vacations, that they do receive that minimum two weeks per year or four per cent of one’s salary pay in lieu of vacation. But those people engaged in the superintendent and caretaker and janitorial service in the huge apartment buildings which are now common in our cities need that time off. Pay in lieu of having a vacation or a holiday is simply not an adequate recompense.

The other exceptions that run throughout the Act, and I won’t dwell on them except to mention them, are just as compelling as these. Salesmen, other than route salesmen, who receive all or part of their remuneration from commissions are also exempt from the various sections of the Act. Most salesmen, except for some insurance salesmen and many real estate salesmen, do receive a fair proportion of their wages or total earnings in the form of salary. This group of workers cries out for the protection of this Act with respect to that portion of their earnings which comes as salary. Certainly that portion which comes from commissions is another story.

But this group of employees, salesmen other than the route salesmen, the milk and bread salesmen, do not receive pay in lieu of vacations and it is my point that they should be receiving it on at least the salary portion of their earnings.

Farm workers are exempt from virtually everything, be they full-time or part-time, Mr. Speaker. They are exempt from hours of work regulations, from overtime pay, from minimum wages, from vacations with pay or pay in lieu of vacations or holidays. This is another group of workers, many of whom in Ontario are full-time farm workers, who need to be brought in and given the full protection of this Act in the same way that building superintendents need full protection.

On looking at the Act, there seems to me a rather intriguing group of employees with the same exemptions from protection of the Act as janitors and superintendents of apartment buildings. These are employees of a telephone company operating or owning telephone systems and exchanges serving fewer than 300 subscribers. There are presumably not many telephone companies of this size in our province any more, Mr. Speaker, but if there are I can’t see any reason why the employees of that particular company should be exempted from the minimum wage provisions in the Employment Standards Act, or do not get overtime pay. If they are for some reason required to be exempted from hours of work legislation in a particular week -- and I can see from time to time that might happen -- they should certainly receive overtime pay.

I can see that for these employees, for farm workers and perhaps for building superintendents, we should be talking in terms of a certain number of hours worked per year and perhaps not tie it to hours in a day or a week. Beyond a certain number of hours per year they should be eligible for overtime pay. Certainly they should be paid, in each and every case, the minimum wage.

My only disappointment with the bill is that it could have been easily extended to cover these other groups of employees. This doesn’t detract from the fact that it is needed for building superintendents. Certainly complaints of this have reached my ears long before this, from various sources.

The complaint has usually taken the form of a superintendent or janitor finding the only way he can be absent from the building without leaving one of the other members of his family there is by working twice as hard. He makes an arrangement with the identical person in the building next door that he will do all the janitorial or supervisory work for whatever period he hopes to get away with his family, in return for an equivalent number of days the reverse way. He finds that in order to get a vacation or a few days off he has to, in exchange, do all the supervisory and janitorial work on behalf of a colleague caught in the same situation.

This Employment Standards Act most certainly needs to be up-dated and entirely reorganized in the areas of exemptions, so that groups of employees, be they farm workers, salesmen on salary as well as commission or building superintendents, are not caught in this very discriminatory way that the Act catches them at present, through the regulations.

Mr. T. A. Wardle (Beaches-Woodbine): Mr. Speaker, I rise to support my colleague from Scarborough Centre in the matter of Bill 122. I do think this bill is possibly the basis of helping other groups in the community, groups that I feel perform a very useful service but do not receive adequate compensation.

In addition to the people mentioned by my hon. colleague, I am thinking of people employed on piece work who are probably receiving less than the minimum wage, and also people who take work out and work in the home. They are also not receiving adequate compensation for the work they do.

I have a number of apartment buildings in my riding of Beaches-Woodbine. I speak to the superintendents in those buildings and I pay tribute to the work that they do. They are more than janitors and caretakers; they are custodians. They are the key persons in the buildings, there to help people in time of trouble. Those I know are conscientious and hardworking in the performance of their duties.

This is a family affair with many people, Mr. Speaker, and the men and women are concerned with those who live in the building. They are friends, and they are conscientious in the performance of their duties.

I know that many people work under a contract or an arrangement where they have a free apartment. In exchange for this and some salary or wages, they take on a great responsibility in many cases in looking after that particular apartment building. There is no 40- or 48-hour week for them; it is many hours more than that and often it is a full 24-hours day.

Many building superintendents I know receive calls during the night. A person takes ill and an ambulance is required. The first thing to do is to get the superintendent, whatever the problem is. I would imagine that living on the premises means they are never free from their duties.

Other workers leave their office, or a businessman locks the office door and usually is free until the next morning; not so with the superintendent of a building or, indeed, his family. They are called on to fix leaky pipes and to deal with heating problems, sudden illness, and as mentioned before family problems, oftentimes the superintendent is arbitrator in family problems.

I would imagine the building owner would make some arrangement to have a person take over this responsibility. As I understand the principle of this bill, it would require a building owner or employer to give his employee at least one full day and hopefully two full days, free of responsibilities. This would be a requirement. I know that now a building superintendent can often leave for a day or half a day, but his wife is expected to carry on the duties. I would think the owner of the building could make some arrangements, for one or two days a week, to have some other person, or another person in the building, come over and take that responsibility. I think the onus is on the owner to do this.

Now this is not the type of job that can be defined in a clear way. There are many duties put on the incumbent of this position. In addition to keeping the building clean, he is continually receiving calls from people in the building; I would imagine a good conscientious building superintendent would have many calls. If he does a good job for one apartment tenant, he would be expected to do the same type of job for every tenant; so a good man could have a lot of extra work. I think that under our Employment Standards Act this particular person should have this protection.

We are thinking, of course, of others in addition to this one particular category of employment. Others have been mentioned this afternoon. It seems to me the principle and the basis are here to include those people in amendments that I think should come in this Act.

From the employer’s point of view, I would think, Mr. Speaker, that if he had a happy employee, a person who does have adequate time free from responsibilities, this person would be able to do an even better job. A happier employee would, I think, support the owner of the building even more than he does at the present time.

I realize there could be some cost increase. Every improvement in standards of wages or standards of employment requires additional costs. We have overcome those things in the past. I don’t think anyone in a building would begrudge a person having one or two days free of responsibilities.

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to support Bill 122 put forward by my hon. colleague. I hope the government will see fit to pass these amendments. Thank you very much.

Mr. Speaker: The member for York-Forest Hill.

Mr. P. G. Givens (York-Forest Hill): Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the member for Scarborough Centre and the member for Beaches-Woodbine on this very serious topic. I wish to congratulate and commend the member for Scarborough Centre for bringing this matter to our attention.

I had some knowledge of what was going on with respect to superintendents, janitors and caretakers. I don’t think any of us had knowledge these abuses were as serious as the hon. member has pictured them today. On the other hand, listening to these two members on the government side speaking, Mr. Speaker, I cannot understand why this government has taken so long to discuss this thing, particularly in the form of a private member’s bill. This is the government that has been in power for 32 years. This is the government that has governed this province during the time of this explosion in the development of apartment houses which has brought about the abuses the members, particularly the member for Scarborough Centre, talked about.

A tremendous metamorphosis has taken place. The construction of huge buildings of 200, 500, and 700 units, has resulted in the exploitation of caretakers, janitors and superintendents in the manner indicated. Many of the people who built or own these buildings, are friends of this government, they are its supporters and financial backers. Now, in this period of 1974, they come in with a private member’s bill and begin to talk about abuses that are taking place. Abuses which they have done nothing about for so many years.

I can’t understand why, at this late date, they come in and talk about these things, when action should have been taken a long time ago. There is no question in my mind that with respect to large units which we have seen grow up, particularly in the boroughs of Metropolitan Toronto, Scarborough, North York and the various peripheral municipalities in the townships and boroughs, they should have made this provision in respect to the Employment Standards Act many years ago. I was under the impression Queen Victoria freed the slaves back in the 19th century. To hear this kind of indenture slavery still persists is something I find very shocking. This kind of legislation has long been overdue.

What worries me in discussing a matter of this kind, our mind’s eye focuses on the huge units, the big apartment buildings, and we sometimes forget there are more units, which are not in the big building categories, owned by the big conglomerates and big companies.

What concerns me is how we fashion a piece of legislation to deal with the big commercial monsters with the number of units ranging up to 700, and differentiate between them and those that have 10, 15 or 20 units, where the janitor is a part-time person, where he is a marginal employee, from the standpoint of the time he puts in and the skill and expertise he has.

How do you differentiate between the two categories of workers: The man who is in the big unit, who really has to give it his full time and the full time of his wife and his family; and the man in the smaller unit, where he’s just sort of filling in some time? It’s a marginal kind of job where, if you apply strict measures of control, it may be that he would not have an opportunity to fill in and to have this kind of employment, which he obviously requires for the purpose of getting the shelter and getting some of the tax-free perquisites which he derives from providing this kind of service in a smaller building.

This is the kind of problem that would concern me. I think that what would happen is that if you demanded a high degree of service under the Employment Standards Act you would require higher pay and you would require time off, which would have to be met out of higher revenue which in turn would come from higher rents. There is no reason to think that the rents wouldn’t go up; they should go up. However, there’s no more reason to say that rents should be kept low by virtue of the fact that janitors or superintendents are paid less money, than to say that you should bring back slavery and there- by low rent. There is no reason for saying that you should take it out of the hides of the janitors and superintendents.

I think we must give some concern to this problem with respect to people who provide this kind of service in the smaller units. I would be worried that over a period of time the trend would be toward bigger units, with a tendency of the landlord company to contract out the matter of the pipe-fixing and the matter of the servicing and the matter of doing all the things these superintendents and janitors do, the services they provide in these buildings. The trend would be toward bigger units, which we would not like to see in the big urban areas of this province.

There is a tendency today, we feel, that people are against the highrise, they are against the larger units. People don’t want to be hived together in the huge units today. There is a trend away from it.

Consequently we would like to see more units of a smaller nature constructed. It should be possible for an optimum kind of unit to be built where a superintendent can service that unit and be treated like a human being, with all the rights and privileges which are accorded to any employee working as a human being in any other industry. They should be accorded those kind of rights and privileges that any person has in any other kind of industry.

Mr. Speaker, I say to the member for Scarborough Centre I congratulate him for bringing in this private member’s bill. He should get the ear of his friend and Minister of Labour, the hon. member for York West (Mr. MacBeth), and take him over in a corner. He’s an honourable man and he’s an honest man. Talk to him about this discussion that has taken place this afternoon, and sometime in this session or the next session have this be introduced as a piece of government legislation. It is high time these terrible abuses that we all talked about this afternoon be remedied.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Hamilton East.

Mr. R. Gisborn (Hamilton East): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. One would have to be a very miserable individual at least to deny the provisions of this bill to anyone in the province. What we are saying is that we are going to extend to a certain group the most miserable of provisions, excepting one or two that never could be devised. So we are going to do something for them, but I don’t think anybody should be clapping their desks about support of this bill.

I will ask the member for Scarborough West if he has raised this issue with the Minister of Labour and what his answer has been. I would think he has said: “No, I can’t convince the cabinet or I can’t convince my colleagues to bring it in.” Otherwise the member would have no need to bring in this bill.

We are dealing with the minimum standards, that is what the Employment Standards Act is, the minimum we can give any poor soul in this province; and we want to extend it to a group.

Somehow I feel we are blowing in the wind in talking about this, because I haven’t heard of a great uprising by superintendents in apartment buildings. I have had some very raucous problems in Hamilton where there has been a real mean situation where the superintendent or janitor or janitoress, what- ever they choose to call themselves, are treated pretty mean because the absentee owner has gone to Florida or some place and no one knows how they are going to get the automatic alarms fixed or how they are going to get the electrical controls fixed, and this sort of thing.

But who are the janitors or the superintendents? How do we relate them to those agents, supervisors, managers and foremen of other companies who are in a great sense in a confidential capacity? How do we relate them? Some superintendents are very dignified, well-paid people in some of the large apartment buildings. They have an administration system beyond any that I have heard mentioned here. They have instantaneous answering services. They have their maintenance people tied down on 24-hour call for elevators, electrical systems, water maintenance and that sort of thing. I don’t know how we specify these situations.

What I think the hon. member for Scarborough Centre should be doing is going, as parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr. Clement) and saying to him: “Don’t you think it is about time we drafted an apartment buildings administration Act where we set out the guidelines and mandatory provisions for supervision; set out the guidelines from the administration down through the maintenance so that we really know what is going on today in these massive apartment buildings? How have we problems with elevators, with children falling off balconies and this sort of thing?”

I think we are missing the boat in treating so lightly such an important measure.

I think most who consider themselves super- intendents or janitors or janitoresses in some of the apartment buildings are nothing more than lackeys for the apartment owners. They take on every responsibility. They point out the undesirable tenant, they bring in the white-haired tenant, they hire the friend they want to sweep the halls and all this sort of thing. Most of this is a supplement to a full-time job, and in this case nobody is getting treated right.

So I would think it is the responsibility of one of the ministers of this government to take a look at the whole situation. We are taking a real look now at the condominium mess, because it got into real serious problems where people were taking a beating on their rights as far as administration was concerned. I think now, because of the great number of highrise apartments, that it is time that the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations took under advisement recommendations from his parliamentary assistant and the Minister of Labour -- or any other colleague in the government who could help him out -- to draft a workable, mandatory administration Act for apartment buildings, so that people have protection as well as the man who has the responsibility to do the job.

Mr. Speaker: This order of business is dis- charged from the order paper.

Hon. E. A. Winkler (Chairman, Management Board of Cabinet): Mr. Speaker, just before you leave the Chair, if I may I would like to put the motion that tomorrow following the question period the standing administration of justice committee will meet concurrently with the House to consider Bill 82, An Act to Amend the Corporations Tax Act, 1972.

Motion agreed to.

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