Legislative Assembly of Ontario

The House resumed at 8 o’clock, p.m.

BUDGET DEBATE

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Wentworth.

Mr. I. Deans (Wentworth): Thank you very much. I have got two or three additional remarks I want to make, this being volume 4 of my contribution to the budget debate. I want to say that it really is a pleasure to be able to pull in such a crowd. I didn’t realize that I had such a capacity.

Hon. E. A. Winkler (Chairman, Management Board of Cabinet): The member should be happy for the support he has at this particular time.

Mr. Deans: Well, of course, I told my own people they could have the evening off since I had all kinds of time and things to say.

Mr. L. C. Henderson (Lambton): One of them came out.

Mr. B. Gilbertson (Algoma): The member is not alone.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: One, two, button your shoe.

Mr. Deans: I couldn’t really begin without a friendly face. I didn’t want to start without one.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: The member is never without one.

Mr. Deans: Yes, but I have to have a mirror to find it.

Mr. Speaker: Will the hon. member for Wentworth proceed now?

Mr. Deans: You’ve got to give me a chance to warm up and to allow my dinner to settle, Mr. Speaker.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: The member is being unkind to himself.

Mr. Deans: Okay, here we go. I have covered a number of rather small points, all of them important but not taking much time, yet just enough to satisfy some concerns that I have about a number of different areas.

Now I want to move slowly but deliberately into the main topics that I want to talk about. I want to talk about housing and the cost of living; but before I begin with the main thrust of my remarks about housing, I want to say a word or two to you, Mr. Speaker, about the recently conducted lottery. I began to speak about this the other day and I didn’t really quite finish because, as you know, time simply didn’t allow it. The lottery has caused considerable anguish and concern to a number of people. I have had as many calls about that lottery as I have had about any single thing that has been done by the provincial government in the seven years plus that I have been a member here.

I am not going to go into the details, because it would be too time-consuming, but I want to tell the Minister of Housing (Mr. Irvine), if he should ever hear or read these words, that the lottery has not worked very well. There is a lot of concern, a lot of suspicion and a genuine feeling of hopelessness among a lot of people in the Hamilton area as a result of that lottery.

I urged upon the minister, at the time he conducted it, that it would have made good sense if he had drawn the names of all of the applicants from the drum and, by way of a priority list, had given the applicants who had their names in the drum the opportunity in sequence to obtain one of the homes being built under this lottery or would perhaps be built under the new programme which has been recently announced in the Stoney Creek Mountain area, which will house a great number of thousands of people over the course of a short period of time. He rejected that for what I consider to be a rather frivolous reason. He rejected it, as he stated it to me, because he felt that the possibility of people moving away or otherwise acquiring a property or their circumstances changing in the interim period didn’t justify carrying on with a system that would give priority to those who were already in the drum.

Well, that’s fine. I don’t consider it to be very valid, because obviously if they were given the opportunity and had either moved away or had acquired another property, then they wouldn’t require it and would simply turn it down and the next number would get the choice. I think that his reason was wrong and that my suggestion still is valid and that he should reconsider.

I want also to urge this on him. I’ve had a lot of calls from people complaining about specific people being drawn. They’ve expressed the concern that some of them, to the best of their knowledge, should have been ineligible. I tried to set their mind at ease in the following way, by saying that just by virtue of having your name drawn out of the drum doesn’t guarantee you that you’ll get a house. That simply guarantees that you’ll be given the opportunity, given that your application conformed with the law.

I want to suggest to the minister, if he should ever listen, that he has to be extremely careful in cross-referencing and in investigating the legitimate requirements of the lottery as it was set out. He has to be sure that the people whose names were drawn filled in their applications correctly, that the applications were factual and that on the basis of the application they did, in fact, qualify to get a home before the homes are ever really allocated. I urge him to do that. I urge him to be extremely careful and to check it extremely carefully. If he doesn’t do it and problems arise as a result of people getting homes who were either ineligible for one reason or another or who rendered themselves ineligible by action of misfiling, they should certainly not be able to get into the home. The people who were legitimate applicants should be given an opportunity to move in.

I raise that with the minister because I’m going to tell him, and he knows this as well as I do, that the allocation of homes by the HOME programme doesn’t seem to have been done very properly. There are a number of areas where people have got homes that shouldn’t have got them and where people have got homes and not lived in them as required by the law. They’ve got a home and they’ve rented it to someone else. That’s against the law, and little if anything was ever done about it.

I want to make reference to one particular case that was brought to my attention in order that I can substantiate what I’m saying to you, Mr. Speaker. Members have all read, I’m sure, in the paper about the difficulties encountered by the Nancekivells who live in Bramalea. The Nancekivells live at 12 Hernon Ct. and rent the home that they live in. Now 12 Hernon Ct. happens to be a Home Ownership Made Easy project. The Nancekivells, of course, weren’t aware of that at the time they rented it. In April of this year they moved into a home which had not been previously lived in and which belonged to a person who had obtained it from the Ontario Housing Corp. under the HOME programme. They wrote to the Premier (Mr. Davis), since the Premier represents that particular constituency, and they asked if he would look into the matter. They wrote around Nov. 1 of this year, and are still waiting for an answer and haven’t had it.

Well so be it he is a busy man; we understand that and that is the end of that particular part of the discussion. I raise it simply to let you know though, Mr. Speaker, that it was in fact raised previously in a private correspondence to which there has been no reply.

Let me tell you about what happened, Mr. Speaker. The Nancekivells answered an ad in the Toronto Star in April to rent a house at 12 Hernon Ct. They didn’t know it was an OHC development and they didn’t know the rules and regulations of OHC; and even if they had known the rules and regulations of OHC they wouldn’t have thought they applied to them in any event.

The Nancekivells have been tenants since April of 1974. Mr. Kalyani is the owner-landlord of the house. He bought it in March of 1974. He never moved in as per the OHC agreement, yet he surely must have known that these were to be owner-occupied homes; and Ontario Housing Corp. surely must have known, or surely must have checked to determine that in fact owners did and do occupy the homes.

I might have been able to overlook the fact that it was rented had it been one or two or three years after the fact and Mr. Kalyani, for one reason or another, had had to move; or if OHC had given permission to Mr. Kalyani to rent the property that he had acquired under the HOME programme. But the fact of the matter is that in spite of the requirements that a purchaser must move into the property within 15 days after signing the agreement, Mr. Kalyani has not to this day ever lived in that house. He rented it. He bought it for the purpose of renting it under the HOME ownership programme,

How did we find out? Well on Oct. 23 of this year, Mr. and Mrs. Nancekivell received a letter addressed to the occupant from OHC concerning two outstanding mortgage payments. They were advised by Central Park Developments, who are managers of the programme, to call a Mrs. Henderson of the Ontario Housing Corp. Mrs. Henderson suggested the possibility that Ontario Housing might repossess the home, another later advised the Nancekivells it was too late because Mr. Kalyani had sold the house on Oct. 1 of 1974.

He bought it in March and he sold it in October. In the interim period he never lived in it, he rented it. There was some problem over the payment of the mortgage, as I am told, and yet OHC apparently didn’t realize, or turned a blind eye to the fact, that the rules which they had set up in an effort to ensure that people are able to get a home at a price they can afford within their programme are ignored; or at best they made little if any effort to ensure they had been lived up to.

Now the Nancekivells unfortunately have paid the rent for October and November to Kalyani, though he doesn’t own the house according to OHC. In fact Mr. Kalyani sold the house to a Mr. Malhatra, who appears to be a friend of Mr. Kalyani; and to the best of the Nancekivells’ knowledge Mr. Malhatra has never been inside the house. Since they are the tenants and have lived there all along, it seems rather odd that somebody would buy a house that they haven’t even seen the inside of.

The OHC obviously had the grounds to repossess the house for two reasons. First, because it would appear, at least from the letter, to have been a non-payment of the mortgage payment. Secondly, because Mr. Kalyani had never lived up to his agreement to move in and had broken the law, or at least the regulations, by renting the property out.

Mr. and Mrs. Nancekivell would have liked to have purchased the house if it had been available. They were never given the chance. Mr. Kalyani sold it -- whether with or without the approval of Ontario Housing Corp. That’s not clear. But it seems that they were on the verge of repossessing when they discovered Mr. Kalyani no longer owned the house.

What in heaven’s name kind of programme is it that we’ve set up in the Province of Ontario to meet the needs of the housing market? A person can go out, because he happens to have a few extra dollars, and can buy a house under the HOME programme and can rent it to someone else -- and then can sell it, presumably at a profit, without Ontario Housing Corp. having any knowledge of it.

In how many other places is this occurring? It’s hard to tell, but there are empty houses in this subdivision that have been empty since the subdivision opened. No. 27 Havenbrook has been sitting empty since June 5. Why has the owner not moved in in accordance with the contract? I don’t know.

A lot of the information that I have I frankly don’t want to use, but I want to tell you my feelings about the Ontario Housing Corp. operation, Mr. Speaker. There has been a lot said by the people in this House about the slackness of the operation; about the inability of the Ontario Housing Corp. to do its job properly. I’m not suggesting for one minute that anybody who works there wouldn’t like to do a good job; not for one minute. I’m not even suggesting that the employees are anything other than honest and fair. I’m suggesting that it’s entirely possible that they’re overworked; that the job that they are required to do requires that they be given a different kind of freedom with which to pursue their work, if we’re going to have any kind of reason and reasonableness about the Ontario Housing Corp.’s programmes and developments.

This government can’t expect to have the support of the public in Ontario for its housing programmes if it’s going to have this kind of thing occurring under the nose of OHC, with the information having been brought to their attention and with them apparently or seemingly having been unable to do anything about it. This is part of why the people in Hamilton, and the people in Bramalea, and the people across the province are not very confident about the way in which Ontario Housing Corp. does business. They’re not confident at all.

They’re not confident because a married couple is now going to be dispossessed of their place of living, presumably because they can’t live there legally and simply because someone was able to circumvent the regulations, because there wasn’t a sufficient check made to determine if they did, in fact, live up to the regulations. That’s the concern. I express it now because that’s the concern that’s been expressed to me by so many people who are in the lottery and who have been involved in Ontario Housing Corp. dealings.

I’ve had calls from people about single people getting lots. This is also true in this subdivision, as related to me, assuming the information is correct -- and I can only assume that it is. I’ve had information about people who already owned Ontario Housing Corp homes getting into the lottery and getting lots, and I want to be sure that a sufficient check takes place to guarantee that people cannot circumvent the regulations.

I would like to think everybody was trustworthy. I would like to think we could just simply leave it open to people and allow them to live up to the things they are supposed to live up, but quite obviously they don’t. There are very clever people around who would use what should be legitimately available to lower income people for their own personal gain, and it’s wrong. If the housing corporation programmes are to be successful then we are going to have to make sure that they are available only to the people for whom they were intended.

The Ontario Housing Corp. HOME programme was never intended to be a way for people to sell the homes they have and to take the profit and move into a lower-cost home. That was never the intention. It was never intended that people should be able to take that home and use it to make magnificent profits. That was never the intention. It wasn’t intended that people should be able to manipulate the system with the use and help of Ontario Housing Corp. under the HOME programme, and yet that is what has been happening.

You’ll recall, Mr. Speaker, that earlier in the year I raised some problems of people who had purchased under the HOME programme and who had then, by a number of devious means, put the homes up for sale at a very handsome profit. The problem with that is that what they are doing is depriving other families, who desperately need the accommodation and can’t afford it, of the opportunity to get a home. That’s what Kalyani was doing. That’s exactly what he did in that situation. He deprived a legitimate family of living in a home of their own. He did it under the noses of Ontario Housing Corp.

The fact that there are empty homes in that subdivision, the fact that those homes have not been moved into, is in itself sufficient justification for Ontario Housing Corp. to review the entire subdivision and to determine whether or not the terms and conditions of the purchase agreement have been lived up to. The Nancekivells, of course, can’t get that house, though they perhaps should have been able to get it; and maybe if people like Mr. Kalyani hadn’t bought the house the Nancekivells, or people like the Nancekivells, could have gotten into it. That’s why I say that the programme the government has put forward makes sense on paper, but in practice it just doesn’t seem to stand up.

Every time I turn around I find someone somewhere, with very little effort, finding ways to use the Ontario government Home Ownership Made Easy programme to line their own pockets, at the expense of the public perhaps, but even more important, at the expense of so many other families who so desperately need the accommodation. I’ve got to say that the government must rewrite the terms of the HOME programme. If it is going to meet the needs of the middle and low-income groups then we are going to have to make sure that those are the people who get access to it.

Take my own situation. I could quite easily sell the house I live in, if I were lucky enough to have my name drawn in a lottery, and I could pocket -- who knows? -- $30,000 or $35,000. I could pay some ridiculous amount to Ontario Housing Corp. for a house perhaps much larger than the one I have, and I would then be using the system for my own gain at the expense of people who desperately need that accommodation. They couldn’t afford to buy the house that I was moving out of. If they could have afforded that, that’s where they would have been living.

So the government is going to have to rewrite the programme. It is going to have to rewrite the programme in order to ensure that the people for whom it was intended, the people who so desperately need an alternative market, the people who cannot go into the private market because they can’t raise either the down payment or they can’t afford the carrying charges or they can’t, for one reason or another -- generally speaking, income reasons -- qualify to fit into the normal home marketplace. If this programme is to be successful, then it must be done for the people at the middle- and low-income level.

Now that means another thing. That means building three and four times as many houses as the government is currently building. It means providing an actual alternative market. And the outcome of that would be, as I have said many times in the past, that we would be able to force the price of the private market down and we would generally then benefit from a much more reasonable shelter cost. Shelter costs for people just entering the market today are far, far in excess of their capacity to meet them.

I said when I was speaking the other night two or three days ago, in this same debate that the basic problem with the economy in Ontario does in fact rest with the Ontario government -- or at least one of the solutions rests with the Ontario government. When people have to put out 60 or 70 per cent of their income on accommodation and 35 per cent of their income on food, then there is nothing left for the other purchases which maintain the economic prosperity of Ontario.

It’s not the sale of houses and the sale of bread that makes Ontario economically prosperous; it’s the sale of televisions and the sale of cars and the sale of couches and the sale of rugs and all of the other things that go to make up the standard of living that people in Ontario have been educated to enjoy and to expect. When you allow the basic necessities to rise to a point where there is no disposable frivolous income, then you eat away at the very things in Ontario which create the economic prosperity that we enjoy.

If people have no disposable income -- and I repeat it for the benefit of the Speaker -- if people have no disposable income over and above that which is required for necessities, the first thing they do is borrow more. They think there is something wrong with the way they manage their affairs, so they borrow. Interest rates rise. They then consolidate, because they have to. More personal bankruptcies occur, because they suddenly find that they can’t make the payments any more. They didn’t realize why they couldn’t make them, but now they know they are not going to be able to live as they thought they were going to be able to live, given the job that they had. There is more marital breakdown. And then a cyclical problem develops: They stop purchasing, because they haven’t got the capacity to do it. It affects manufacturing, it affects the basic material industry, and it creates more and more unemployment.

I want to suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that housing, in itself, food notwithstanding -- I’ll talk about food later -- has risen, with the assistance in some instances of the government, to a point where people are spending 50 and 60 per cent of their income just to provide accommodation. Let me just tell you what has happened, according to the business section of the Globe and Mail of some weeks ago. I quote:

“The consumer price index is based on a 1967 survey of family spending patterns and weights major component indexes: food, 25 per cent; housing, 31 per cent; clothing, 11 per cent; transportation, 15 per cent; other items, 18 per cent.”

Do you realize that accommodation has risen faster than any other single part of the consumer price index? What cost $15,000 some 14 years ago now costs $48,000 to $50,000 on the free market. That’s been the rate of rise in the housing field because it has been allowed and encouraged by land speculation on the part of the government, encouraged by a lack of activity on the housing front on the part of the government, and encouraged by the kind of thing which happened in Bramalea with the permission of the government.

As a result of the government’s inability and incapacity or unwillingness to check and balance the system that it has created -- to ensure that, in fact, the people who need, get, and those who tend to want to use the system are not afforded the opportunity -- housing has eaten up so much more of the consumer’s dollar than is reasonable or justifiable, to the extent that people now going into the accommodation in the housing market are faced with the very bleak prospect of having virtually no disposable frivolous income. They are unable to purchase the additional things which make up what the other members and I might call the standard of living that we would expect to see in a province as rich and economically prosperous as this one has been, and hopefully will continue to be.

That’s where the real rub comes in, because when we talk about housing in Ontario, when we talk about it in this House, when we speak about the government’s programme to provide housing, we talk about it in terms of people earning $15,000 and $16,000 a year. When one talks about housing on the private market one is talking about housing for people who earn well in excess of that. When one talks about the Ontario Housing Corp. programme, one is talking about people paying out $360 of their income on principal, interest and taxes. That includes land rental, of course.

When one talks about the Ontario Housing Corp. programme, or for that matter when one talks about housing in the Province of Ontario at any level, one talks about something which is becoming virtually a luxury. And I don’t frankly see any conscious effort on the part of this government to do anything worthwhile in terms of trying to ensure that there will be the opportunity for young people and those moving into the housing market to obtain for themselves the same kinds of opportunities that we here obtained for ourselves, given our willingness to work. That’s the most distressing part; that’s the part that causes me so much concern.

When I consider that not so many years ago the norm was to spend 25 to 30 per cent of income on housing or accommodation, and I consider today that people in the same general financial situation that I was in, and that most people here were in, 10 and 15 years ago, are now having to put out 45, 50 or 60 per cent of their income to acquire for themselves the very selfsame kind of accommodation that I was able to get for 25 per cent of mine, then there is something drastically wrong with the budgetary policies of the government of the Province of Ontario. That’s why you can’t support it, for other reasons, political and otherwise.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Is the member comparing his income of that day to his income of this day?

Mr. Deans: It’s funny the minister should ask that, because I was just going to speak about it.

In the job that I was doing in 1954 I earned $5,200 a year. The house that I bought cost $14,880. It had a 6½ per cent mortgage, principal and interest payments of $87.50 a month, and it was amortized over 25 years. I still own it; it’s the only house I own. In fact, I still pay the mortgage; it doesn’t make sense to pay it off.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Does the member mean he hasn’t got the mortgage paid off?

Mr. Deans: No, why should I? At 6½ per cent? The minister is crazy. Now, let me tell the members, that selfsame job today pays $12,000 a year. That selfsame house, my friend, costs $48,000. The interest, at a minimum, is 11 per cent.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Is it inflated?

Mr. Deans: Is it inflated?

Hon Mr. Winkler: Yes, the price of the member’s house.

Mr. Deans: No, the price of my house is neither here nor there. We are talking about comparative situations --

Hon. Mr. Winkler: I just asked the question.

Mr. Deans: We are talking about comparative situations in terms of the exact same house built in today’s market for today’s people. The interest rate today is 11 per cent, or perhaps 12 per cent, depending on where you get your mortgage and how lucky you are. The payments on that house are a minimum of $240 a month, amortized over 35 years. I am saying that the opportunities available to people today are not anything like the opportunities that were available to people 10 years ago.

When we hear about the budgetary policies of the government of the Province of Ontario, we hear glowing terms about our economic prosperity and our triple-A rating. We are also told about the government’s housing programme and the number of houses they build. They also talk about their involvement with people and about how people’s incomes are rising. But the only way to determine whether people are as well off economically today as they were 10 years ago is to take the same job, the same income and the same house and compare them.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: We’re better off than any other province in Canada.

Mr. Deans: What I am saying to the government is that as a result of its land speculative policies and its inability to control housing costs --

Hon. Mr. Winkler: The member doesn’t believe in landbanking, eh?

Mr. Deans: -- and as a result of its inability to recognize that there was a major problem developing in housing and that housing. was going to cost considerably more in terms of the consumer dollar than it rightfully should; and because of the government’s inability to develop new and innovative programmes that would meet the needs of the people of the Province of Ontario, it has allowed those people whose prime purpose it is to obtain money not to build houses, but just to obtain money -- to take advantage of the population of the province who are in the housing market. That’s where the problem lies.

I can walk outside and sell my house to anybody I like. Of course I could sell my house for $48,000. The problem is, though, that I have got to spend the $48,000 to buy another one just like it.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: If you ask too much money, you are a speculator.

Mr. Deans: I am not one bit better off than if the house had been worth $14,800. If that house had still been worth $15,000, as it was 10 years ago, that would have meant that, comparatively speaking, other houses were in the same range and there would be a simple transfer of money. That’s all we are talking about. I am not better off. The only time one is better off is if one sells the house, pockets the money and leaves, and that doesn’t happen to be the case for most people. In fact, by virtue of the things that the government has and has not done, it has allowed that major component of the consumer price index, that major and essential part of everyday life, to get to the point where it is becoming virtually a luxury to own a house. It’s absolutely ridiculous, and it comes about by virtue of the kind of land deals that the government has been in and by virtue of the inability of the government and of its Ministers of Housing to go into competition with the private sector, rather than shoring it up. It has been a long-held policy of the government of Ontario to do that, rather than to compete and provide an alternative marketplace, albeit that it might not be quite as luxurious and that it might be ever so slightly smaller, but nevertheless a comparative and alternative marketplace to the private sector.

I am not saying that the government should take it over. I am just saying it has got to build houses that people can afford. I don’t care if they are amortized for 50 years. I don’t care if we do own the land. And if we have to amortize the return of cost for that land over 50 or 100 years, it makes no difference to me. The important thing is that we should have policies which will put houses into the market at something like a reasonable cost to the consumer of the Province of Ontario. The government hasn’t succeeded in doing that. If there is anything it has failed in, it has been in that area. And, by my view, for whatever that’s worth, it’s simply because this government doesn’t have any sense of the urgency felt by the majority of the people who are entering the housing market for the first time.

It’s so easy to sit back as a member of the Legislature pulling down $22,500, plus select committee money -- or a cabinet minister making considerably more -- it’s so easy to sit back and pretend to know what people feel and what kinds of pressures they’re under.

A lot of things have been said recently by the Minister of Housing about how his policies are working and how they’re holding down the price of housing. Let me read from a column of Dec. 7 in the Hamilton Spectator. I read it fairly regularly; it’s an excellent column. I’m sure my colleague, the member for Wentworth North (Mr. Ewen), also reads it. It’s written by Paul Wright and it’s about housing. He writes a column every Saturday about it.

It would serve the Minister of Housing well to read it, because it provides a remarkable insight into what’s happening in housing in the Province of Ontario. It provided a remarkable insight into what was happening 10 years ago. And it has, over the course of time, updated itself to the point where, had the Minister of Housing followed it with any degree of interest at all, he could have foreseen what the problems were going to be and how they could have been resolved.

Paul Wright’s reporting on a statement made by George Couillard of Quebec City. And he writes:

“The buyers market for real estate appears to be nearing an end and prices that have levelled off since late spring or early summer are expected to firm within the next two or three months, and then begin an upward climb.”

I’m always interested in terminology. Prices are “expected to firm”; what that means is they’re going to stabilize at the high end and then they’re going to rise some more.

This is the message delivered by George Couillard of Quebec City, president of the 37,500-member Canadian Real Estate Association.

“And once again Ontario, particularly the Golden Horseshoe area, will feel the heaviest punch with the price of resale homes increasing by as much as 22 per cent.”

Now I ask you, Mr. Speaker, if a house is valued today at $40,000 -- and, boy, that’s not much of a house these days -- and it rises by 22 per cent, that means that house is going to cost $51,000 by next year, or pretty close to it. It’s crazy, but nobody seems to be capable of doing anything about it.

Hon. G. A. Kerr (Solicitor General): Housing is going to go down in the next six months.

Mr. Deans: Housing is going to go down? Ha! Here he comes.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: It has reached its peak.

Mr. Deans: Nice to see the minister. Why doesn’t he listen?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: What the member is quoting is what a real estate agent is saying. He wants people to buy his houses now.

Mr. Deans: Yes, that’s right; that’s a real estate agent. That’s an interesting thing. I’ll come back to the column in a minute. Does the minister know that real estate agents have a great influence on whether housing prices will rise or fall?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: To a certain extent, with propaganda like that.

Mr. Deans: To a certain extent? To a big extent!

Real estate agents, in fact, use an escalating process where if they sell one house up the street for $40,000, they walk down to Mr. Jones four doors away and they. say to him: “Say, Mr. Jones, I got” --

Hon. Mr. Kerr: “I got $40,000 for that old shack up the road.”

Mr. Deans: -- $40,000 for the house up the street, and I think I can get you $42,000 for yours.” Now why do they do that? Is it because they’re really worried about Mr. Jones?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: More commission.

Mr. Deans: That’s right. So it’s funny how, when they predict that housing prices will rise, and since they have such a large influence on the market, the minister would then say to me that it’s not going to happen. The minister is wrong.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Because they want to get rid of them now. They know the prices are going to drop.

Mr. H. Worton (Wellington South): What a dreamer.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Take my word for it.

Mr. Deans: I took the minister’s word for the clean-up of Hamilton harbour, I’ve got to tell him.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Wait, wait.

Mr. Deans: Okay.

Addressing the media after making a swing across Canada, the CREA president based his predictions on the following observations. Listen.

1. Housing starts are likely to be between 175,000 and 195,000, and not the 210,000 forecast by Urban Affairs Minister Barney Danson.

2. Little change can be expected in mortgage interest rates in the immediate future although there may be a slight downturn in the new year.

Which by the way -- and I interject --

Hon. Mr. Kerr: It is gone down now.

Mr. Deans: Which by the way would result in a faster resale and increase in price; because people who were able to offer mortgages that could be renewed within a short period of time at a lower interest rate would therefore be in a position to sell the house much more readily and get a little extra for it.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: It won’t go down enough to make a difference. The gross won’t be big enough.

Mr. Deans: 3. There is a growing shortage of residential units in major cities.

The minister can’t disagree with that.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Certainly I can.

Mr. Deans: The minister doesn’t agree with that either?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: The number of unsold single-family dwellings has increased outstandingly in the last month. Substantially because of the mortgage situation.

Mr. Deans: I see. We will come to that too.

4. The shortage of serviced lots is making it increasingly difficult for builders to produce cheaper housing which meets requirements of the various levels of government.

Although Mr. Couillard predicts that the price increase next year will be lower than this, shortages will be the main problem facing the industry.

He is rather pessimistic about solutions offered by the federal government to solve the nation’s housing ills. He says although there are some commendable programmes to encourage housing construction for moderate income groups, many of the government’s efforts are negated by its other activities.

While taxpayers are being asked to tighten belts as inflation continues, the high living of federal governments and provincial governments, I might add --

Hon. Mr. Kerr: That is not in there though.

Mr. Deans: I said I might add -- is making it difficult for some taxpayers to make ends meet.

Mr. D. W. Ewen (Wentworth North): What date is that?

Mr. Deans: It is Dec. 7 this year; last week, last Saturday.

According to the CREA president, 70 per cent of Canadian families cannot afford to purchase a house despite the fact 23 per cent of them have an income of more than $15,000 a year.

Now that, in a nutshell, is the problem. Seventy per cent cannot afford to buy a house, although 23 per cent of them have an income of $15,000 a year.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: That’s single-family dwellings.

Mr. Deans: Now when the Solicitor General starts talking to me and making a difference between single-family dwellings and multiple-family dwellings, what he is telling me is that the people of today shouldn’t expect to have the same opportunities as he did. That’s what the minister is telling me.

When he sits there and says to me that’s single-family dwellings, I am telling him 10 years ago the average worker in the average plant making the average salary could afford to buy a single-family dwelling; and today he can’t.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Obviously we should have brought the spec tax in three or four years ago.

Mr. Deans: The government didn’t have to bring the spec tax in. If the government had done what was suggested by virtue of the use of the land it held at the time, it could have kept the price of housing down; and it didn’t.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: It was just a drop in the bucket then.

Mr. Deans: A drop in the bucket nothing; it would have had a major impact in the overall cost of housing.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: The government didn’t own enough land then.

Mr. Deans: I want to say this to the minister that it is an unfortunate circumstance when the child of a family can contemplate this: That if he earned the salary his father and mother earn, either singly or between them, he couldn’t afford to buy the house they live in; and that’s true for 90 per cent of young people today.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Yes, but he is making a lot more than his pappy did at his age.

Mr. Deans: It doesn’t matter. The fact is that at the time his father was making a lot less there were homes available for him to live in within his means; but today, in spite of the fact that he might earn the same salary as his parent, there is not a place available for him to live within the 25 to 30 per cent that we once thought was a reasonable amount of anyone’s income to expend on accommodation.

Now surely to heaven it makes sense that if we do nothing else; if we stop building Ontario Places, if we stop building Science Centres, if we stop renovating Parliament buildings, if we stop spending money on things which are delightful, pleasant, comfortable and nice and if we spend the money on the things which are essential; that we might be able to provide people with the essential things at a cost which they can afford.

Isn’t that the mandate of government? Isn’t that what government is all about? Isn’t it the function of government to have sufficient sway on the economy to ensure that the majority of the people who live in the jurisdiction over which it governs, can afford the essential things at a cost which they can afford within their means?

That’s where the government has failed. If it has failed in any single area it has failed there. It is the one indictment -- if there was to be no other, and there are so many of them -- but if there was to be no other indictment of the government it surely must be that in the one single area which takes the largest percentage of a person’s income and which is absolutely essential, the government hasn’t been able to exercise even a minor degree of control.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: We should have provided serviced lots and stayed out of housing.

Mr. Deans: That’s fine, but there’s no point in the minister sitting here in the House as the Solicitor General in the year 1974 and telling me what the government should have done, because it is still not doing it. It is still not, even yet, doing the very thing that he said it should have done.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Oh yes, we’re building 180,000 or 190,000 housing units.

Mr. Deans: The government is not building 180,000 or 190,000 houses.

Mr. Worton: Where has the minister been?

Mr. Deans: It will be lucky if it reaches 90,000 housing units this year -- lucky. That’s well below the projection and it’s only a fraction of the need.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Don’t forget the whole question of money supply and labour.

Mr. Deans: Then we’ll talk about money. By allowing the housing market to absorb such a large portion of disposable income and by allowing housing prices to rise --

Hon. Mr. Kerr: What percentage?

Mr. Deans: -- to three times what they were 10 years ago --

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Twenty.

Mr. Deans: Ten years ago. I told the minister; I gave the House the figures: $15,000 in 1964 --

Hon. Mr. Kerr: The member said 1954.

Mr. Deans: Nineteen sixty-four.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: The member should read Hansard tomorrow. He said 1954.

Mr. Deans: No, no, I said 1964.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: I said to myself, that’s 20 years ago.

Mr. Deans: To allow a house which cost $15,000 in 1964 to rise to $48,000 in 1974, what’s happened? The government says there isn’t enough money.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: The member made more than $5,000 in 1964.

Mr. Deans: In 1967 they told me the government couldn’t raise enough mortgage money to provide the numbers of houses that we thought the government should have and yet funnily enough, in 1964 when the average mortgage ran at about $12,000 per unit --

Hon. Mr. Kerr: NHA.

Mr. Deans: NHA? That doesn’t matter, the average mortgage -- it doesn’t matter whether it was NHA or otherwise --

Hon. Mr. Kerr: It’s not an average.

Mr. Deans: -- the average mortgage was $12,000 per unit. There was sufficient money available at that point to meet that need. That same house today has a mortgage of $40,000 per unit. That means there has to be 3.3 times as much money available for mortgages today as there was available for mortgages in 1964.

There was, in fact, the money. The money was there and had the government gone ahead and built the houses that it needed during the late 1960s and early 1970s and not allowed this extravagance and usury to take place, it could have built a sufficient number of houses without raising a single dollar more in terms of mortgage money than has been available. And it failed.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Were we in housing in 1964?

Mr. Deans: That’s exactly where the problem lies. I’m not going to talk to members about the government’s fancy programmes. I’m not going to talk to them about the kinds of things the government might do to improve the quality of life. I’m talking to them about providing for the needs of the people of the Province of Ontario, and nothing else.

I’m talking to members about the single, most important function and I’m talking to them about the one thing the government can’t blame the federal government for. It can’t even blame Saskatchewan or British Columbia. What they do, they have to answer for, and the fact that they don’t do what I would like to see them do, is what I indict them for.

Mr. Worton: The minister will have to resign.

Mr. Deans: What I’m saying is that the Solicitor General given the wealth of this province and its triple-A rating, the government should be able to raise the money necessary to build the houses that are required to lower the price.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Too many families.

Mr. Deans: That, I say to the Solicitor General, is the primary responsibility that faces the government of Ontario in 1974.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Where does the government get its money?

Mr. Deans: The government gets its money from exactly the same places as it has always gotten its money, it gets its money out of the country.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Oh, no.

Mr. Deans: Listen, I had a broker approach me the other day. The Solicitor General’s colleague just came back from Arabia or some place, and prior to that time had been in Germany -- he’d been raising money all over the world. I’ll tell the minister what I was told, and he can check it out. It may be false, but this party had no reason to tell me otherwise. He talked of $500 million available today at 8.5 per cent. Let’s add a half a per cent for the cost of administration; let’s even absorb the half a per cent and say it is, like a road, a worthwhile endeavour, and let’s build houses with that money.

Let’s put that money into housing. Let’s give people a chance to get a mortgage at a mortgage interest rate they can afford. Let’s do away with this nonsense of five-year renewable mortgages, because all that has happened in that regard is that the government has taken further from the pockets of people working in the Province of Ontario and put it in to the hands of the money lenders.

There is something wrong with a government that thinks that’s right. If the government thinks that’s right, then there is something wrong with its position in that regard.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: The government can’t lend the total amount of money to build housing. They have to rely on the private sector. The member knows that.

Mr. Deans: The government has relied on the private sector since the beginning of time. The government is in the mess it is in today because it has relied on the private sector almost totally to provide accommodation.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: The government should have provided the services, roads, planning.

Mr. Deans: Perhaps the government should have provided the services, perhaps the government should have taken into account a different method of making sure the developments could take place, but the fact of the matter is that it those the route that it chose.

It allowed the private sector to run hog wild. It allowed the private sector to raise the prices unnecessarily and without any justification. It refused every single step of the way to compete with the private sector.

Mr. Speaker: Would the Solicitor General, the hon. member for Halton West, refrain from interrupting the hon. member for Wentworth? He has an opportunity to reply to the budget debate at some later date.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: I didn’t realize you were over there, Mr. Speaker.

An hon. member: That’s the stuff.

Mr. Deans: I should say to you, Mr. Speaker, that I welcome the interruptions.

Mr. Speaker: I know you are enjoying it, but that’s not getting along with the business of the House.

Mr. Deans: What’s not getting along with the business of the House? What are you talking about? It’s not my fault that --

Mr. Speaker: You have the floor, and I want the members of the House to give you the opportunity to speak.

Mr. Deans: Don’t worry about it, I welcome it. It is such a pleasure to have the minister here.

Mr. Speaker: I know you are neighbours. If you want to have a friendly argument some time over the fence, why that’s your business, but not in the Legislature.

Mr. Deans: I want to tell you something; you are interrupting me more than he is if you want to know the truth. At least with him I could a word in edgeways.

An hon. member: So there!

Mr. Speaker: Do you want to carry on?

Mr. Deans: Yes.

Mr. Speaker: Go ahead then.

Mr. Deans: Talking about the business of the House reminds me of something I meant to say to you earlier, which is related, I suppose, to housing. It would have been more useful if instead of my speaking in the budget debate the government had brought in a housing policy that we could debate. It seems a shame that on Dec. 10 we should be debating the budget simply because the government hasn’t any legislation or any ministers here to do any work. Anyway, so be it.

People start telling me about housing prices dropping. I was kind of interested in an article in the Toronto Star of Dec. 7, because it too lends credence to what I was saying and to what was reported in the Paul Wright article of Saturday, Dec. 7, in the Hamilton Spectator.

Here we have a picture of an adjoined house, with two families living side by side. Do you know what the price is, Mr. Speaker? It is $49,300 per unit. Where do the working people of the Province of Ontario get the capital to buy a $50,000 house? That’s really the question I have been posing all the way along. People have the gall, the nerve, to speak of prices starting at only $52,000.

However, quite obviously I am not going to make any impression on members of the government since they are not here; so I’ll move on.

Mr. Worton: Don’t give up.

Mr. Deans: Oh, I never give up. If the member feels like interjecting, be careful. The Speaker cuts out interjections.

Mr. Speaker, I don’t believe we have a quorum.

Mr. S. Lewis (Scarborough West): A quorum call, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Deans: I don’t believe we have a quorum. I’m sorry; I would like to continue to speak, but I think it’s against the rules of the House.

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

Mr. Speaker: We now have a quorum. The hon. member may continue.

Mr. Deans: I am certainly delighted to have a quorum present. I wouldn’t want to speak without a quorum.

When we talk about housing prices rising, I tend to go back and talk about --

Mr. J. H. Jessiman (Fort William): The Marxist is missing. We would like to have him here. He is one of the member’s people.

Mr. Deans: I am sorry.

Mr. Jessiman: I said his millionaire Marxist is missing.

Mr. Deans: Oh, by the way, I am going to talk about land costs again tonight. Does the member want to stay?

Mr. Jessiman: I can’t hear the member.

Mr. Lewis: Does the member for Fort William remember the unearned increment on land? He knows something about that.

Mr. Jessiman: I can’t hear the leader of the NDP.

Mr. Lewis: The member just made a speech in Fort William defending it and attacking the big city press --

Mr. Jessiman: I can’t hear the member for Scarborough West, louder, please.

Mr. Lewis: -- and telling us how unfair they are to the Tories.

Mr. Deans: When I talk about housing and when I refer to prices of 1964 and compare them with prices of 1974 --

Mr. Jessiman: Where is the member for Port Arthur (Mr. Foulds) and also the member for Thunder Bay (Mr. Stokes)? They are both missing.

Mr. F. Young (Yorkview): The member for Fort William is missing far more.

Mr. Jessiman: They are both missing right now.

Mr. Deans: The difference is that I rehearsed this with them in caucus, and therefore they know what it’s about and don’t have to be here. They are in committee, that’s the difference.

Mr. Jessiman: The member for Port Arthur and the member for Thunder Bay are missing.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Deans: Let me just give you some examples, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Lewis: Is this the maiden speech of the member for Fort William?

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Jessiman: I can’t hear the member for Wentworth with his curly hair.

Mr. Deans: Who was that?

Mr. Lewis: That was Jessiman.

Mr. Deans: Jessiman.

Mr. Lewis: J-e-s-s-i-m-a-n.

An hon. member: He can spell it backwards too.

Mr. Lewis: He is not too well known to Hansard, he is the guru of grunts from the back row over there.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: What was the name of the gal with Brando in “The Last Tango”?

Mr. Speaker: I wonder if we could have some order here and if the member would continue his speech.

An hon. member: How about that for an acting Speaker?

Mr. Young: He looks like a red to me from the red shirt he is wearing.

Mr. Deans: You will recall, Mr. Speaker, particularly that we made some inquiries in the early part of the year about the rising costs of housing. We used some of the figures that were available to us at that time just to show what was happening. I think it probably serves my purpose fairly well if I were just to pick a selected few of those to show what I mean by pricing housing out of the reach of the average individual in the Province of Ontario.

Bear in mind that the average worker in the Province of Ontario doesn’t earn in excess of $12,000 a year. Keep in mind that in fact there are a great many people in the Province of Ontario who earn $7,000, $8,000 or $9,000 a year.

It might be worth telling you, Mr. Speaker, and I am sure you are aware of it if no one else in the House is, that many of the people in the civil service who are currently attempting to negotiate a settlement with the government are earning $8,000 a year and less and that their opportunities to live in the province of opportunity, given that they are employees of that province, are severely inhibited by the income levels paid to them by the government. I have personal knowledge of the incomes of some of them since I happen to be intimately related to one of them.

Let me just tell you, Mr. Speaker, that we took a look at some homes. Here’s a home that in 1965 sold for $12,600; in February, 1974, it was evaluated at $38,300. Another home in 1965 sold for $21,800; in February, 1974, it was evaluated at $50,500. Another home in 1963 sold for $11,700 and the value in 1974, in February, was $36,700. A home in 1964 that sold for $15,900 has the value, in February of this year, of $51,400.

I want you to remember, Mr. Speaker, when I talk of 1964 I am talking about a period when the average income of the average employee in the province was about $5,200 to $5,800 a year. It may. have run just slightly under $6,000. We are talking today about a time when the average income runs at something less than $12,000, and for a great many people earnings of $8,000 and $9,000 are quite common. We are talking about house prices that have risen since 1964 to a point two and three times what their value was at the time of evaluation.

Here is a house that sold in 1964 for $25,000; in February, 1974 it was valued at $60,000. Another one sold in 1963 for $14,500 -- by the way, by 1967 this house had risen to $18,000; a reasonable increase over the course of nearly four years -- by 1974 this house that had sold in 1963 for $14,500 was valued at $47,100.

And so it goes on. This is the problem that this government has failed to come to grips with. Here we have people with incomes rising from $5,200 or $5,800 to $12,000, with house prices rising from $14,000 up to close to $50,000. I think that’s where the government has failed rather miserably in trying to provide any kind of leadership, or any kind of guarantee, or any kind of protection for the people who ultimately have to pay the shot -- and hopefully ultimately have to vote against the government.

Anyway, it’s not only in housing, because we can talk about housing forever. The problem now is that it’s obvious to most of us that this government has absolutely lost the desire to do anything about it, that it has no intention of doing anything, that it never really did have any intention of doing anything, and that its policies over the course of time were geared more to protecting the private developer and the private sector in the housing market than they were toward ensuring that the public was protected against the gouging; and I think that’s one of those areas for which the government has to accept the full responsibility.

But we can go on, because the problems that we face in housing we face in other areas of the cost of living. I think that every day when the members go shopping, as I do, I am sure they realize that more and more of our disposable dollars are taken up by the cost of food and taken up by the cost of household supplies.

In order that we can set the background against which I want to make a case about rising costs, let me say that it might be reasonable for a person to think that in a time when the consumer dollar was under such pressure, in a time when the purchasing power of the consumer was being eaten away by extravagant costs, at a time when we find more and more of the available dollars taken up with essential things and fewer and fewer of the consumer dollars available for purchasing other than in the essential areas, we would see reflected in the profit margins of corporations a similar kind of pressure; that as the consumers and the employees of the province find fewer and fewer available dollars to spend for purchasing purposes, we might reasonably think that we would be able to see a similar pressure in the profit margins of the various corporations and in the various sectors of the economy, but this doesn’t seem to be the case, Mr. Speaker.

For example, in the Toronto Globe and Mail -- I am sure the member for Cochrane South (Mr. Ferrier), who is now in the Speaker’s chair, reads it every morning; at least when be is not in Timmins -- the Globe and Mail business section puts out a very good cataloguing of the various groups that make up the economy. The indications are that in spite of the pressures, in spite of increasing costs, profit margins have continued to rise at rates which heretofore would have been considered obscene. If profit margins had risen in years gone by at the rate at which they have been rising over this year, particularly in the essential areas, there would have been a hue and cry, and there should have been action by the government.

Let me go through them one by one. Banks: Looking at the third quarter of 1974 over 1973, we find banks with a rise of 8.8 per cent. We find chemicals with an increase of 118.3 per cent. We find construction and materials with an increase of 28.6 per cent. We find general manufacturing with an increase of 38.8 per cent Industrial mines, an increase of 35 per cent. Paper and forest industries, an increase of 91.9 per cent. Real estate -- which I have just finished discussing -- with an increase of 179 per cent. Steel had an increase of 56.8 per cent, and I hasten to draw to the members’ attention that the Steel Co. of Canada and Dominion Foundries and Steel have again recently announced increased prices for their basic steel products. In spite of profit margins which have never before been enjoyed, and profit rate increases that have never before been seen in the industry, they still found it necessary to raise the price.

Mr. J. A. Taylor (Prince Edward-Lennox): Now explain why share prices are so low?

Mr. Deans: In western oils, which are of some concern to everyone, there is an increase of 87.9 per cent; and that takes into account, of course, the recently negotiated settlement between the Premier of the Province of Ontario, who obviously didn’t have much expertise in the field, supposedly on behalf on the consumers of the Province of Ontario, and the federal government.

I think that when you recognize the increase in the profit margins in those fields, Mr. Speaker, you’ve got to feel a sense of both annoyance and frustration. You’ve got to be asking yourself, as I ask myself, how is it at a tune when the pressure is on the consuming dollar, at a time when people are finding it more and more difficult to make ends meet, that the profit margins of these major corporations are allowed to rise by leaps and bounds unchecked, they’re allowed to take out of the economy whatever the traffic will bear without any government scrutiny, and there is no effort made on the part of this government or the federal government to ensure that the consumer is being protected against the kind of gouging which the hon. members and I both suspect and feel sure has been taking place in the marketplace?

I want to refer the House to some other statistics because I think that they’re --

Mr. J. A. Taylor: Explain why the share prices are so low.

Mr. Lewis: Explain what?

Mr. J. A. Taylor: I said explain why, if the share prices are so low, these corporations are so attractive. It sounds contradictory. Maybe the member can elucidate and assist the members.

Mr. Lewis: Which share prices does the member refer to?

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: The whole category that the member for Scarborough West’s comrade has been speaking of.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Lewis: Banks and oil companies?

Mr. G. Samis (Stormont): Elucidate.

Mr. Lewis: Share prices are low?

Mr. J. A. Taylor: Certainly.

Mr. M. C. Germa (Sudbury): The member doesn’t understand Monte Carlo, eh? Does he know what crap games are?

Mr. J. A. Taylor: Check the stock market page.

Mr. Deans: The member talks about the stock market. The one thing I would do, I think, if I were the government, is I would ban the publishing daily of the stock market reports. Does the member know why?

Mr. J. A. Taylor: There would be no stock market if the members opposite were the government because they would own all industry. That’s a part of their philosophy.

Mr. Deans: That’s nonsense.

Mr. R. D. Kennedy (Peel South): Right on; right on.

Mr. Deans: The fact of the matter is that the stock market basically reflects an uninformed public’s gambling in the development of the country.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: The member for Wentworth doesn’t understand basic business.

Mr. Deans: Notwithstanding what the stock market might be doing, I don’t think that even the member for Prince Edward-Lennox could deny that profits have risen in the last year and a half at a rate that has never been seen in this country before.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: Explain why, interpret for us.

Mr. Deans: Is the member telling me that’s wrong? Is he telling me that the profits in this country have not risen by the amount I’ve said? Is he telling me for one minute there’s justification for the profit-taking that has been allowed in this country in the major areas? Is he telling me there was a need for price increase in the steel industry, given the rapid increase in profit that is shown by the statements of the companies involved?

Is he telling me that it’s right that we should be paying more for oil in Canada than we were paying a year ago, given the astronomical rate of return and profit margin of the oil companies? Is he telling me that the people who earn $5,000, $6,000, $7,000 and $8,000 a year should be paying the kinds of prices they’re paying for fuel oil, given the negotiations of the member’s Premier with the other premiers and the Prime Minister of Canada, given the rate of return and the profit margins of the oil companies? Is he telling me those things?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: He is trying to.

Mr. Deans: Is he telling me those things? Is he telling me that it’s right that real estate should show suds an astronomical increase in profit at a time when --

Mr. J. A. Taylor: The member won’t let me tell him. He doesn’t know the answers himself. Would he like me to tell him? If he would let me tell him, I will.

Mr. Deans: -- when prices are rising beyond the ability of people to pay? Is that what he’s telling me?

Mr. J. A. Taylor: But the member doesn’t want me to tell him.

Mr. Lewis: Well of course we don’t want him to tell us. He’s a barefoot boy from Bay St. who went down to muck about on the farm and he pretends not to know. Come on now. Who needs that? Who needs that? Come on now.

Mr. G. Nixon (Dovercourt): Get off that stuff.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: The member is a pompous ass who doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

Mr. R. F. Ruston (Essex-Kent): The people have lost confidence in the system and so share values are down, that’s all.

Mr. Kennedy: The two Liberal end men, what do they think of them?

Mr. J. A. Taylor: If the Speaker would permit me to respond to all of those inferences and questions I’d be delighted to do so.

Mr. Deans: Let me go on because I hear my colleague from -- where the devil is he from anyway?

Mr. Lewis: Prince Edward-Lennox.

Mr. Deans: Prince Edward-Lennox.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: The member will find out one of these days. We can’t expect too much from him.

Mr. Deans: I hear my colleague, the member for Prince Edward-Lennox, talking so much and saying so little. Let me ask him: Does he think at a time when people are finding their consumer dollars being eaten away by the rising cost of food, that it is reasonable that Maple Leaf Mills should have a 57.7 per cent increase in profits, net income after taxes --

Mr. J. A. Taylor: Don’t ask me these questions; because the member doesn’t want the answers.

Mr. Deans: -- in the nine-month period ending September, 1974.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: He is not interested in the truth.

Mr. Deans: Is the member telling me that it is reasonable that at a time when people don’t have sufficient income --

Mr. J. A. Taylor: But he doesn’t want me to tell him. He is only interested in histrionics.

Mr. Deans: -- to buy the things that they have to have, that it is reasonable that Gulf Oil should show a 91.8 per cent increase for the period ending Sept. 30, 1974, over a similar period in 1973? Is he telling me --

Hon. Mr. Kerr: That is gross; that is gross.

Mr. Lewis: Right! That is gross.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: The Province of Saskatchewan had a 9,000 per cent increase in the price it gets --

Mr. Lewis: That’s right. It is an agricultural economy.

Mr. Deans: Is he telling me that it is reasonable that in the mining sector Kerr Addison Mines should show an increase of 76.5 per cent in the nine-month period ending Sept. 30, 1974, over 1973? Is he telling me that it is reasonable that Noranda should show a 61 per cent profit increase, net income after taxes, in the period ending Sept. 30, 1974, over the similar period in 1973?

Mr. J. A. Taylor: He is asking a lot of questions. He doesn’t want the answers; and he doesn’t know the answers himself. Why doesn’t he go out and buy some of that stock?

Mr. Deans: Is he sitting there telling me that he is defending the corporate sector when it --

Mr. J. A. Taylor: I am not trying to tell the member anything. He is a know-it-all. No one can tell him anything.

Mr. Lewis: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, sir. Would you name the member for Prince Edward-Lennox and throw him out of the chamber? I presume you don’t take your task lightly?

Mr. Speaker: I am in a benevolent mood tonight.

Mr. Lewis: You have to be benevolent.

Mr. Deans: The member for Prince Edward-Lennox raises what he considers to be valid points. And let me continue to ask him, because I would like to know what he is telling me.

Mr. Speaker: I would prefer that you would address the Chair.

Mr. Deans: Mr. Speaker, to the member for Prince Edward-Lennox, since he seems to have so much to say --

Mr. C. J. S. Apps (Kingston and the Islands): It is the first time he has had an audience tonight.

Mr. Lewis: I wouldn’t call that an audience -- a straight man, yes; an audience, no.

Mr. Deans: Does the member for Prince Edward-Lennox think that it is reasonable that Abitibi should be enjoying a 115.4 per cent increase in net income after taxes for the six-month period ending June 30, 1974, over 1973? Is he telling us that it is reasonable that Consolidated-Bathurst should be enjoying a 216.1 per cent increase for the six-month period ending June 30, 1974, over 1973?

Mr. Lewis: Most of it from the Algonquin Park area.

Mr. Deans: Is he perhaps trying to tell us that it is reasonable that Alcan Aluminum should enjoy a 136 per cent increase for the six-month period ending June 30 over a similar period in 1973?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Just think of all those little old widows. They have that stock.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: He is trying to make a horse chestnut out of a chestnut horse?

Mr. Deans: Do you think, Mr. Speaker, that the member for Prince Edward-Lennox is telling me that Texasgulf’s second-quarter profit increase in 1974 over 1973 of 143.3 per cent is reasonable?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: That hits home doesn’t it, Mr. Speaker? Name him.

Mr. Deans: I mean, do you think, Mr. Speaker, that the member for Prince Edward-Lennox is defending the government because he thinks that Ashland Oil’s nine-month return of 86 per cent in the period ending June 30, 1974, over a similar period of 1973, is a reasonable rate of return and a reasonable increase? Do you think maybe he thinks, Mr. Speaker --

Mr. Lewis: I doubt it.

Mr. Deans: -- that given the pressure on the consumer dollar, that Imperial Oil -- paupers though they may be --

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Unleaded gas.

Mr. Deans: -- with an increase of 84.2 per cent in the six months ending June 30, 1974, over 1973, is fair? Do you?

Mr. Lewis: The member for Prince Edward-Lennox just lost his seat tonight.

Mr. Deans: How about Shell Oil? Maybe the member for Prince Edward-Lennox is speaking on behalf of the Shell Oil company. That’s probably what it is; and he is defending the 101.4 per cent increase in net income after taxes for the six-month period ending June 30, 1974, over 1973.

Mr. Germa: He probably is a shareholder.

Mr. Lewis: He probably is a shareholder.

Mr. Deans: Maybe he defends them in court. Or maybe he thinks that the Becker Milk Co. is entitled to a 46.9 per cent increase in net income after taxes for the year ending April 30, 1974, over 1973? Maybe he is convinced that Maple Leaf Mills deserves the 68.9 per cent that it now has as an increase for the six-month period ending June, 1974, over a similar period in 1973. Maybe he would like to go on to the hustings and defend the M. Loeb Co.’s returns for the 13 weeks ending April 27, 1974, over 1973 -- a 51.6 per cent increase.

Mr. Lewis: And it’s higher in Picton.

Mr. Deans: I’m always interested in having learned interjections from the member for Prince Edward-Lennox. If he’s defending those things then let him go into the hustings and tell the people of Ontario that that’s the kind of government and those are the kinds of actions that he thinks are protecting the consumers of the province against unfair pricing tactics. Maybe he would like to comment on the practices of a number of these major food stores.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Is the member going to go on for the rest of the evening? The member for Dovercourt wants to get up.

Mr. Deans: Yes.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Oh, the pig.

Mr. Lewis: They have nothing else to do in this present Legislature. We might as well have the New Democrats stay around and speak to them.

Mr. Deans: Maybe the member for Prince Edward-Lennox would like to comment on this, since he doesn’t seem to think that these profit increases that I’ve been mentioning -- just a few selected at random -- are unfair.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: We haven’t had a chance to comment on what the member has said. He won’t listen to any answers. He doesn’t want to know what the truth is.

Mr. Deans: I’ll listen when that member has his chance.

Let me read to you a letter. This is the company that the member for Prince Edward-Lennox is defending in this House and saying that they’re treating the public fairly. I wrote to the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs in Ottawa, the Hon. André Ouellet. I wrote him as follows:

“Dear Mr. Minister:

“It has become virtually impossible to determine what constitutes fair marketing, good business practice or misleading advertising. I nevertheless bring to your attention the matter which falls within one, if not all three, of the above. I want at the outset to make it clear that the complaint is directed against Dominion Stores.”

Mr. J. A. Taylor: Is the member defending them today?

Mr. Deans: It goes on:

“A check of the stores in the Hamilton area reveals that what I am about to say applies to more than one.”

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: I’m not defending anybody.

Mr. Deans: It continues:

“The suggested list price of a 35 oz box of Sunlight dishwash detergent -- ”

I’m going to talk about just one single item, but it shows the kind of thing that goes on within the major food chains and it shows just how much they’re prepared to do to try and protect the consumer.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: I’m not trying to defend anybody. I am only asking the member to explain what has happened to the share prices.

Mr. Deans: To continue:

“The suggested list price of a 35 oz box of Sunlight dishwash detergent (which I might add, is lemon fresh) is 83 cents. The 50 oz package of the same detergent, lemon and all, carries on the face of it, in letters at least one inch high, ‘42 per cent more free -- 50 oz for the price of 35 oz.’ I enclose the cash register tape showing the prices charged for both boxes purchased at the same time. You will note that the price on the 35 oz box is 81 cents and the price on the 50 oz box is $1.07. This hardly reflects ‘42 per cent more free.’

“When this lettering was brought to the attention of the store manager he pointed out the new price of the 35 oz box would be $1.07. This is hardly a satisfactory explanation, and even if it were the case an investigation of a price increase from 81 cents to $1.07 is warranted.

“I firmly believe that the public of this country is being cheated and abused by the major food retailers, and I ask that action be taken by you, as Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs, backed up by a firm policy position on the part of the Province of Ontario, which will guarantee protection for the consumers of this province and, hopefully, for the entire country.”

What I was complaining about was that in spite of what appeared on the face of the commodity; and in spite of the claims of the company and its manufacturer that you were able to obtain a percentage more at no additional cost, the store -- or the chain of stores -- decide that it would sell the product at the price plus the incremental increase that takes into account the additional product available.

I suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that that’s part of the reason why, when we talk about the profit margins, they are so high. Without exception -- not without exception but invariably -- you’ll find as you go around the stores that the prices of products are changed without any consideration for additional costs, without any consideration for whether the stock had been there for a period of time and without any consideration for what the product was worth at the time of purchase. Just whatever the traffic will bear is what the major supermarket will charge for the products of the commodities or the foodstuffs they are selling to the public.

I think that if the federal government in Ottawa are not prepared to act -- and I can only come to the conclusion, since I wrote the letter on Aug. 21, and have had no communication since Aug. 29, that they are not actively pursuing the matter -- then it is time that the Province of Ontario took up the cudgel on behalf of the consumers of Ontario and brought in a code that will protect the Ontario consumers against unconscionable price increases, and unjustified price increases. That’s really all that we say.

Nobody expects a corporation can operate without a reasonable rate of return, and no one expects that they will be selling products at less than they paid for them. No one expects they will be able to purchase today at prices of 10 and 15 years ago. But people do expect, as price increases take place, they will somehow or other be justified, they will somehow or other bear up under close scrutiny and will reflect additional costs, either of producing or purchasing or marketing the product that is on the shelf.

I don’t understand the reluctance of this government to move towards protecting the consumer, through the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Affairs, or the reluctance of this government to take some steps to protect the consuming public of Ontario, given that in two reports tabled in this House on the profitability of the food industry in Ontario it was reported without a moment’s hesitation that the rate of return in the food industry was at a level which did not justify further increases.

Given that statement and given that that was supposedly an impartial study done for the ministry and tabled before the members, there is surely then a responsibility on the part of the government of the Province of Ontario to take action to ensure that the recommendations contained in the study that they commissioned are brought about, are put into action and are enforced to protect the consuming public of the province.

You can read with or without interest any number of articles written about the rising food costs, Mr. Speaker. I want to quote to you from one that appeared in Maclean’s in April, 1974, and which I think is worth talking about for just a few moments. It begins with a little poem, it’s not a very good poem, but it probably bears repeating simply because it is accurate. It says:

“Old Mother Hubbard

“Went to the cupboard,

“To fetch her dog some bread;

“The bread was so dear

“She fought back a tear

“And ate it herself instead.”

I think that that does, in fact, reflect some kind of the sense of frustration that people feel.

Let me quote to you, Mr. Speaker, from this article in Maclean’s entitled, “Guide to the Food Price Crisis,” written by Walter Stewart.

“In all the welter of statistics, warnings, predictions, graphs and tables released in the recent months on the vexed question of rising food costs, one fact rings out like a tolling knell of doom.

“Canada produced about one billion pounds less milk last year than we did in 1969. Milk, the perfect food, is becoming a rarer and rarer commodity. There are more of us and less of it. While experts foregather, politicians thunder and pressure groups push and shove for a position at the national trough, Canada’s dairy herd winds slowly o’er the lee.

“Between 1961 and 1971 we gained 3.3 million people and lost 480,000 dairy cattle. There are perfectly plausible explanations for this, and they have to do with increased feed grain prices, higher labour costs, foreign competition and the general ‘ah-to-hell-with-it’ attitude that has finally spread from city to farm.

“But whatever the explanations, they are not good enough. A nation that so orders its priorities that it faces a glut of TV dinners and a shortage of milk is a nation whose approach can only be described as organized insanity.

“The articles on the following pages attempt to bring some order out of chaos by examining the way in which food is raised, marketed and used in this country. First, we break down the price structure of a dinner to find out how the proceeds are shared between farmer, processor and retailer. Next we meet Eugene Whelan, Canada’s Minister of Agriculture, an embattled exponent of reform. Then we look at the way one supermarket giant operates to see what retail competition really means to consumers. Finally, we examine the way that Canadians, one of the world’s most fortunate people in abundance of nourishing foods available, actually make use of their abundance.

“There are a number of surprises in store for anyone who looks closely into the food industry. For example, Walter Stewart’s article on Canada Safeway Ltd. suggests that supermarket giants are running up our grocery bill, not because of any excess profit they make, but because of market methods they use to lure us into the stores.

“This feature should be seen from the vantage point of a few rough statistics. Food prices in Canada rose by 17 per cent in 1973 and will probably rise by another 9.9 per cent this year.” He was overly optimistic; they rose by more. “Food prices have caught up to general wage gains; and the proportion of disposable income Canadians spend on food, after declining for a number of years to about 18 per cent, will rise in the next two years to 20 or 21 per cent. Although Canadians are better off than most nations, these sharp increases threaten us all, and particularly those on low and fixed incomes.

“There have, however, been some beneficiaries. Farm incomes have risen from disastrously low levels to more reasonable ones. Wholesale prices of farm products, which dropped despite increasing costs to the farmer during the 1970 and 1971 period rose a whopping 23.4 per cent in the period January to July, 1973 -- enough to cover the rising costs (11.6 per cent) and more.

“Farmers have improved a poor position. Processors and retailers who were already doing very well (food manufacturers, for example, made 10.8 per cent on every dollar invested in 1970, and retailers made 11 per cent) are for the most part making handsome profits. Average corporate profits rose 34 per cent in the first half of 1973 while the food processing companies were up 56 per cent in the same period over 1972.

“What all this suggests is that there are groups in the economy that stand to gain from jumps in food costs and that whatever public hand-wringing takes place before Beryl Plumptre’s Food Prices Review Board, the pressure from these groups has not eased. What is needed is some cohesive policy to restore equilibrium to Canada’s $10-billion food industry and make it more responsive to public needs and budgets.”

He goes on to talk about -- and I am going to quote it -- a number of foodstuffs which, I suppose, could be considered to make up a dinner.

“Anatomy of a Dinner

“In a time of rapidly rising food prices most of us are convinced that someone out there is making extraordinary profits at the consumers’ expense. Some blame the farmers, others the supermarkets, and still others the middlemen -- the wholesalers and the processors. Maclean’s has tried to settle the question by examining the cost and profit behind the kind of meal you might be putting on your family’s table these days.

“In the complex food industry it is very difficult to obtain reliable cost and profit figures. Individual variables can be so important. An efficient farmer might be able to turn a profit when a not so efficient farmer can’t. Some commodities are sold in two ways -- by spot purchase or by contract -- making it difficult to determine average prices from one week to the next. Growing seasons vary across the country as to freight charges and distribution costs. Retailers’ prices are subject to the vagaries of supply and demand and to changing market strategies. Profits can turn into losses quickly, quicker than the bat of an eye. Despite these difficulties, with the help of some advisers in the food industry, Maclean’s have prepared from the most reliable information possible the costs and profits involved in a typical meal, served to a family of four.”

The family ate -- and we are going to deal with these things, Mr. Speaker -- peas, milk, ice cream, butter, potatoes, tomato juice and chicken. I know you are interested in all of these things; I have seen you eat them myself.

The family ate 1 lb of peas which cost 43 cents in the supermarket. It cost the farmer four cents to produce them and he made a profit of two cents when he sold them to the processor for six cents. The processor’s costs were six cents for the peas and 15 cents to handle them; he made a profit of seven cents when he sold them to the retailer for 28 cents. It cost the retailer five cents to merchandise the peas, bringing his total cost to 33 cents. He made a profit of 10 cents. The profit: The farmer, two cents, the processor, seven cents, and the retailer, 10 cents.

Milk: It cost the farmer 19.5 cents to produce 1 qt of milk; he made a profit of three cents when he sold it to the processor for 22.5 cents. The processor’s costs were 22.5 cents for the raw milk, plus five cents for making it drinkable; he made a profit of two cents when he passed it on to the supermarket for 29.5 cents. The retailer’s costs were 29.5 cents for the milk, plus five cents to handle it, for a total of 34.5 cents. He lost 3.5 cents when he sold it to the family for 31 cents. Profit: Farmer, three cents; processor, two cents; retailer, loss 3.5 cents.

Ice cream: The dessert was one pint of chocolate ice cream made from 6 oz of industrial milk. The farmer’s costs for producing the milk were 1.6 cents, and he made a profit of 0.2 cents when he sold it to the processor for 1.8 cents. It cost the processor 25.2 cents to turn the milk, with several other ingredients, into ice cream and he made a profit of three cents when he sold it to the supermarket for 30 cents. The retailer costs were 30 cents for the ice cream and 6.7 cents to sell it; he sold it for 49 cents, making a profit of 12.3 cents. The profit: Farmer, 0.2 cents; processor, three cents; retailer 12.3 cents.

Butter: It cost the farmer 7.4 cents to produce the milk for 2 oz of butter, and he made a profit of 0.6 cents when he sold it to the dairy for eight cents. It cost the dairy eight cents for the farmer’s product, 0.5 cents to turn the milk into butter; the dairy made 0.6 cents profit on the butter, which it sold to the supermarket for 9.1 cents. The retailer’s costs were 9.1 cents for the butter, 1.6 cents to sell it, for a total of 10.7 cents. The retailer lost 0.7 of a cent when he sold the butter to the family for 10 cents. The profit: Farmer, 0.6 cents; processor, 0.6 cents; and the retailer again lost 0.7 cents.

Potatoes: Two pounds of potatoes were used per meal at a total cost to the family of 16.6 cents. It cost the farmer four cents to grow them; he made a profit of two cents when he sold them to the processor for six cents. The processor paid his six cents, it cost him three cents to package the potatoes and he made a profit of two cents when he sold them to the retailer for 11 cents. The retailer paid 11 cents, it cost him 3.4 cents to sell the potatoes, bringing his total cost to 14.4 cents. He made a profit of 2.2 cents when he sold them for 16.6 cents. Profit: Farmer, two cents; processor, two cents; retailer, 2.2 cents.

Tomato juice --

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. D. M. Deacon (York Centre): Does the member know the figures?

Mr. Deans: I have only two more.

Tomato juice: The farmer’s cost for raising tomatoes for 4 oz of juice each was 4.8 cents; he made a profit of 1.6 cents when he sold them to the processor at 6.4 cents. The processor’s cost in addition to the 6.4 cents was 1.6 cents, and he took a profit of two cents, putting the total up to 10 cents. The retailer paid that 10 cents, added 8.9 cents for merchandising costs and he took a profit of 0.8 cents for a grand total of 19.7 cents. Profit: Farmer, 1.6 cents; processor, two cents; retailer, 0.8 cents.

And finally, chicken. I have to try to make it out; it’s a little blurry.

The cost for the chicken was $2.07. The farmer’s cost for raising the chicken was 87 cents and he made a profit of 15 cents when he sold it to the processor for $1.02. The processor paid the $1.02, it cost him 60 cents for cleaning and packaging and he made a profit of nine cents when he sold it to the retailer for $1.71. The retailer’s cost was $1.71 for the chicken, it cost him 30 cents to merchandise it and he sold it at a profit of six cents, bringing the price at the end to $2.07 for the family. Profit: Farmer 15 cents, processor nine, retailer six cents.

The total cost of the meal was $3.76. It cost the Farmers a total of $1.28 to produce the commodities and their share of the final profit was 24 cents. The processors’ costs were $2.63 and they made a total profit of 26 cents. The costs were highest at the retail level, $3.49, and the profit was 27 cents, so it goes to show what kind of profit there is in the average meal.

Don’t draw any conclusions, because at that point we stop, and let’s take a look at what happens. People tend to draw conclusions about that and say that’s not a very large profit margin. But let’s take a look then at what it costs to buy commodities here in Toronto over against what it costs to buy basically the same commodities in Niagara Falls, N.Y.

Cooking oil, 12 oz: in Niagara Falls, N.Y., it cost 69 cents and in Toronto it cost 93 cents. Why? Floor cleaner, 16 oz: in Niagara Falls 79 cents, in Toronto 95 cents. Why? Eggs, per dozen: in Niagara Falls 75 cents, in Toronto 74. Sugar -- this is long before the price increase in sugar, by the way -- but the price quoted at this time, sugar, 5 lb: $1.79 -- eh, for the good old days -- in Niagara Falls, $2.49 in Toronto.

Butter, 77 cents in Niagara Falls and 94 cents in Toronto. Skim milk, 35 cents in Niagara Falls, 39 cents in Toronto. Bacon, 1 lb: $1.29 in Niagara Falls, $1.59 in Toronto. Tea, 16 bags: 29 cents in Niagara Falls, 33 cents in Toronto. Instant coffee, 6 oz: $1.39 in Niagara Falls, $1.67 in Toronto. T-bone steak at 87 cents per lb -- there’s not too much of that around these days -- $1.99 in Niagara Falls, $2.08 in Toronto. Bread, 16 oz: 44 cents in New York State, 51 cents in Toronto, and on and on.

It goes down through a variety of different products, the total price being $18.48 for the total market basket in New York State, in Niagara Falls, and $22.88 for the same produce purchased in Metropolitan Toronto.

We have got to ask ourselves why these things occur. It can’t be because of higher prices for help, because the price for labour in Niagara Falls, NY, is not unlike the price of labour in Toronto. It can’t be because the commodities cost that much more here, because the basic price paid in the US for foodstuffs at the wholesale and at the farm gate level is not unlike that paid in Canada for a similar product. It can’t be because of volume buying and selling, because there couldn’t be a larger volume purchase than that which takes place in Metropolitan Toronto, given the size of the market It’s much larger even than the market of Niagara Falls, NY.

So, what possible reason can there be for the housewife in Toronto to be paying $4.40 more than her counterpart in New York State, in Niagara Falls, NY? I think these are the kinds of questions that people have. When we start to talk about the cost of foodstuffs in the Province of Ontario, when we start to look into why it is that the consumer in Ontario is feeling the pinch, we come to the conclusion that somewhere somebody is taking advantage of the unwillingness of governments to insist on a reasonable level of price for essential foodstuffs.

I don’t think Beryl Plumptre, notwithstanding whatever desire she might have, is going to be able to come to grips with the difficulties that are facing the majority of Ontarians. I think it requires some affirmative action on the part of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations of the Province of Ontario (Mr. Clement).

It’s interesting to note the reaction of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations. One would expect that the minister would be speaking on behalf of the consumer. I’ve always found it very difficult to understand how any minister could serve two masters, but that is exactly what’s expected of that particular minister in that particular portfolio. He’s supposedly required by the laws of the province to protect the consumer on the one hand, while on the other hand he acts as the handmaiden of the corporate sector and looks after its interests. That’s really not very practical.

What’s required in this province, if the province is seriously going to challenge the retailing practices of the major food processors and, for that matter, of the major sellers in the Province of Ontario, is a minister whose only responsibility is the protection of consumers in this province. There has to be a separation of power that may require a minister to look after the affairs of corporations. But certainly the consumers, given the nature of the way in which they’ve been used over the last number of years, require someone to whom they can turn when they’re seeking some assistance against unfair business practices or unfair price increases or, for that matter, when they’re seeking some guidance about the fairness of the way in which the marketplace operates.

Let me suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that there are a sufficient number of ministers of the government looking after the affairs of business. The Ministry of Industry and Tourism looks after the affairs of business. The Treasurer (Mr. White) looks after the affairs of business. The Minister of Revenue (Mr. Meen) looks after the affairs of business. Any number of other ministers are oriented more toward business matters than they are toward protecting consumers.

It would make some sense if we were to separate the responsibilities of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations, and if we were to charge that minister and that ministry with the sole responsibility of ensuring that price increases and business practices fall within whatever guidelines the Province of Ontario wants to establish as being fair and equitable treatment or its consumers.

It makes sense, for example, that the minister should be in a position to challenge the recently announced increases in fire insurance premiums. But he can’t, because he’s part of the whole structure that sets the rates. His own ministry is oriented toward protecting those who are charging rather than those who are being charged. He has to maintain a good and viable day-to-day relationship with the corporate world because it is more in his interest and in the interest of the government to have that than it is to protect he consumer against unfair costs.

It’s so easy for the minister to say, “Well, it doesn’t fall within our responsibility. If you want consumer protection it’s more easily done in Ottawa.” It’s so easy for the ministers to say, “We can’t really move in because one jurisdiction can’t handle it by itself.” But the fact of the matter is that since Ottawa seems reluctant and unwilling to proceed with any meaningful action, this jurisdiction has to be protected by the government that it elects. That requires that the government of Ontario set up some kind of consumer protection mechanism to ensure that the kind of profits and pricing practices I mentioned earlier are not allowed to continue.

According to our Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations, profit increases are explained by increases in sales on the one hand and reductions in cost on the other. It is assumed that a given percentage increase in sales causes an identical percentage increase in profits. For example, when sales go up by 50 per cent, that explains the 50 per cent increase in profits. If sales increase by 75 per cent, that leaves only 25 per cent of the profit increase to be explained. That seems to be the minister’s attitude.

To determine the effect of cost reductions -- that’s productivity increases over profit increases -- it is assumed that in the absence of improvements in productivity costs would increase at the same percentage rate as sales. If costs increased at a lower rate than sales, the difference between what costs would have been had they increased at the same rate as sales and the actual cost is the dollar contribution of cost improvement to profit increases.

For example, comparing balance sheets in any two years, the contribution of sales to profit increase is percentage of increase in sales, times original profit. The contribution of cost to profit increase is the percentage increase in sales, minus percentage increase in cost, times original cost. If one were to pursue this all the way through the notes that I have, one would find that we come to a statement which says that because costs and profits are balance-sheet figures, their sum is equal to sales.

What happens in the Province of Ontario is that rather than the ministry investigating the costs; rather than the ministry accepting the responsibilities which are mandated to it; rather than the ministry even accepting the recommendations of the study group which it itself set up for the purpose of determining whether costs were rising more rapidly, or whether profits were rising unnecessarily, the ministry has taken the position of trying to hoodwink the public with statistics and figures, and not to involve itself -- and this is the worst part -- not to involve itself in any way in ensuring that there is not any unwarranted profit-taking in the province.

As I said earlier, given the statement of the minister’s own inquiry into the food industry, one could have reasonably concluded that there would be a statement from this government at this time to say clearly and unequivocally that the profit margins in the Province of Ontario in the food industry were sufficient; that it was unjustified to expect any more; and that they would require of the various companies involved that they submit to the government their reasons for increasing prices to the consumer. Then, given in the overall they would do that, we might reasonably expect to see a levelling-out of the costs, other than in those areas -- and they would be justified -- where the costs were contributed to by such things as the recent sugar problem.

I want to suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that the government in its budget dealt with any number of problems, but it didn’t address itself to the major problem. It made a passing reference, and it can only be considered to be that, about the housing crisis. It took tiny, hesitant steps. It made no reference at all to the crisis which is developing in the production and allocation and distribution of food. It tended to slough off its responsibility to the federal government.

It said -- and there is no question from use about the validity of the statement -- that it would be infinitely easier to manage those things at a federal level. But given the unwillingness of the federal government to act, this government had a responsibility to act and it continues to use the old ploy of trying to lay the blame in another jurisdiction.

Now that has got to come to an end some day. Some day the government will be held accountable for its actions. Some day it will be required to justify its existence. Some day someone in the Province of Ontario is going to ask the Ontario government: “What have you done for four years? What have you done on behalf of the consumers of Ontario to ensure that the basic commodities are available to all people at a price that they can afford?”

I wondered a bit about what the government has done in the last four years. I’ve given some thought to it. I’ve tried to come up with some answers on what I thought the government had done, and I must confess that I was having more than a little difficulty in finding anything of any substance.

I thought back over the four years. I can remember well, raising a variety of the same kinds of things that I raised here in the last couple of days. During that period I can remember talking about housing costs, talking about apartment rents, talking about food costs, discussing profit margins, and pointing out the extravagances which seem to exist in certain sectors of the economy.

I wondered a bit about the last four years, because to some extent what has to be done has to be done over a longer period of time than just one budget. Each budget should simply he building on the accomplishments of the last budget. What the government does this year should be in addition to the things that it did last year which should be adding on, in a positive way, to the things that occurred in the previous years, so that we are developing a better place -- so that we are developing in Ontario the kind of economic environment and physical environment that gives people hope for the future.

I looked at the Bill Davis years from 1971 because I thought that that was probably the era that was fairest to look at in determining what this budget did -- whether it was, in fact, a reasonable budget; whether the budget made sense; whether it was another step along the way toward economic stability, toward ensuring a reasonable lifestyle, toward a guarantee for young people coming into the work force and toward a guarantee for the elderly of security. I thought back about it.

Let me tell the members the things that stand out in my mind in the Bill Davis years and I know they’ll be interested. I went back to 1971 and I thought of the energy tax. I thought about the government’s aborted effort to impose a tax on energy, on hydro, on fuel costs. I thought about the statements of the Treasurer as he told people to simply wear a sweater if they feel cold, and then I thought of the government’s finally withdrawing that tax because it recognized that it was unpalatable. That, by the way, was the cornerstone of that year’s budget.

I thought some more and there came to mind a number of points -- I won’t go into them all. I thought of the Fidinam affair and I wondered what kind of impact that had on the government’s thinking. I thought of cabinet ministers who were exposed as having been in land deals over a period of time and of how they went and then returned, at least in one instance.

I thought of regional government and of how it was imposed, how there have been no checks and no balances and no interest shown by the government in the costs of regional government over the province and how the people are suffering as a result of it -- at least suffering economically, because the costs are rising and there is little, if any, benefit being shown for it.

I thought of the WCB inquiry and how we had to inquire into the Workmen’s Compensation Board trying to find out what in heaven’s name was wrong with it, how it finally evolved and changes took place and how it’s not a damn bit better today than it was when we started.

I thought of the Hydro inquiry -- and I sat on both. I thought of the Hydro inquiry and that very nice glass building that sits diagonally across the corner from this building, and I thought of all of the time and effort that was required by members of the Legislature at the expense of the public in investigating that particular operation. That came to mind.

I thought about the aged. I thought of all the old people who gathered on the steps of the Legislature since 1971, who stood in the cold and begged for a reasonable standard of living, and who said to the Premier: “Surely, for heaven’s sake, we contributed significantly to the growth of the province, surely we’re entitled to some kind of economic stability, surely we’re entitled to a life of some reason.”

I thought about the teachers of the province. Who would ever have believed that the teachers of the province would gather in front of the Legislature to protest an action of the Davis government?

I thought of hospital workers and how they were forced right to the wall -- to the point of almost being on strike, in some instances even being on strike illegally -- in order to raise their income levels to a point that wouldn’t even qualify them for the HOME programme; to a point which, even with the new wage rates, was well below the average income of the Province of Ontario.

I thought of the civil servants of the province and how they are being forced to the wall by the Chairman of Management Board of Cabinet and his colleagues in their negotiations, and how the negotiations have been conducted in such bad faith.

Then I thought of the housing scandals, the land deals and the things that we have spoken about; about the government’s capacity to pay twice what land is worth and to be implicated directly in forcing up housing costs in the Province of Ontario.

I looked at the destruction by the Provincial Secretary for Social Development (Mrs. Birch) of the confidence of all of the people involved in day care in the Province of Ontario by some ill-timed, ill-thought-out statements.

I thought to myself that just can’t be the government of Ontario.

I looked at the statements that came out in recent weeks about the mercury proliferation and how we hadn’t even yet begun to come to grips with the problems of mercury pollution in much of the northern part of the Province of Ontario. In spite of what appeared on the surface to be an effort by the government there was very little by way of actual change to show any progress in the field.

I thought about the workers in Elliot Lake and how they feel going into a mine, knowing full well that every time they go down that shaft they shorten their lives.

I thought about the Davis years a lot, because I had to decide if this budget really was building on the 1973 and 1972 and 1971 budget; if this was a step forward and if it was showing any signs of progress.

Then I realized that during that period I’d seen housing prices double. We saw the cornerstone of another budget, the land transfer tax, called into question and then finally changed to such an extent that it is almost unrecognizable. We saw the capacity of physicians to prescribe for their patients, particularly for the aged, called into question by the government; and we saw four cabinet ministers lose by-elections.

It is very difficult to look at these things -- and there are many others -- and to have any confidence in the government’s capacity to do what must be done on behalf of the people of the Province of Ontario. We don’t have a quorum.

Mr. Speaker: Will the Clerk take the quorum count?

Clerk of the House: We don’t have a quorum.

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

Mr. Speaker: The Clerk reports a quorum; the member for Wentworth may proceed.

Mr. Deans: Thank you.

Mr. O. F. Villeneuve (Glengarry): Very important speech.

Mr. Deans: It’s not important at all; but we have to keep a quorum. It’s not that I expect the members opposite to listen -- it’s just simply that that is a requirement of the House.

Mr. Kennedy: Don’t worry. We are counting.

Mr. Deans: No, it is not up to us to keep the quorum. The members opposite are the people who get defeated; not us.

Mr. Kennedy: It depends on who is speaking.

Mr. Deans: Well, I don’t care. How difficult it is doesn’t worry me, as long as the member does his job well.

Mr. Kennedy: Oh I know; I know.

Mr. Henderson: The member for Essex-Kent is not listening.

Mr. Deans: Anyway, I want to go on. I want to go on, because I thought some more about the Premier’s years since I sat down; and there were two other matters that came to my mind.

I can remember quite distinctly in the year 1968, Mr. Speaker, raising in this House the problems that were being encountered by many people in the Niagara Peninsula. I predicted something; and I predict it again, because it is all part of the whole programme of development in the area.

There hasn’t yet been a statement by this government of the way in which it intends to ensure that the productive lands of the peninsula will be kept in production. Everyone pays lip service to the fact that the area of the Niagara Peninsula is unique; that it has a potential for growth that is really not shared anywhere else, not to the same extent. And that, given that uniqueness, it would make sense that we should do everything in our power to protect it against urban encroachment.

We should do everything that we can to ensure that it is kept in production, and not allow it to disappear under the asphalt of parking lots and highways.

I think a great many people have expressed the concerns I have expressed about the diminishing farmlands. And further, statements have been made to try to counteract them; to counteract the expressions of concern.

Many would claim -- and I’m sure you have heard the claims made, Mr. Speaker -- that because of modern technology and new methods of farming, we can grow more and more per acre than we have ever been able to grow before. But I hasten to warn -- and I think it goes without saying -- that even that will come to an end at some point. We can’t expect, as the years go by, to forever develop more and more technology, and that more and more produce will sprout from less and less land.

I think there is a responsibility on the part of this government, given what can happen, to make a clear and definitive statement about the concern for the Niagara fruit belt. I think it is time that the government made known to everyone that it is in the business of ensuring that that fruit belt be kept in production, not just for next year or the year after, but for many years to come. The consequences of not maintaining the fruit belt in production are dire, as I see it. At a time when food costs are rising, it’s necessary for us to be as self-sufficient as is humanly possible. We can’t allow ourselves to be at the mercy of the foreign grower and the exporter-importer in Ontario.

Mr. Henderson: The member for Essex-Kent is not listening.

Mr. Deans: Well, actually he agrees with me, so it’s okay.

Mr. Villeneuve: He agrees but that costs more money.

Mr. Deans: There is no way we can afford to allow the fruit industry in the peninsula to become reliant on imports from the United States. There is no way we can take a chance on somehow being able to negotiate in years to come a fair price to be paid by Canadian consumers for products grown and sold in the United States. The only thing we have going for us in that regard, in terms of safeguarding the fruit belt and safeguarding future consumers’ dollars, is our ability to grow what we are capable of growing and to maintain in production the land which is currently growing it. It’s obviously much simpler to maintain land in production than it is to attempt to reclaim it at some future date and to put it back into production.

The cost of maintaining it in production will be high. There is no question about that. Nobody denies it. The cost of maintaining it in production today is high because of the urban growth around it and the pressure on the farms. I understand that.

Mr. Villeneuve: Right. What’s the hon. member’s answer? The 40-hour week?

Mr. Deans: But the cost of not maintaining it will be significantly higher -- and that’s where we have got a problem. We have to weigh the additional cost --

Mr. R. G. Hodgson (Victoria-Haliburton): What does the hon. member suggest? Does he suggest an embargo on vegetables?

Mr. Deans: I am talking about fruit at this point.

Mr. R. G. Hodgson: Does the hon. member suggest an embargo on vegetables?

Mr. Deans: I don’t know what the hon. member is saying. I can’t hear him.

Mr. R. G. Hodgson: Is the hon. member suggesting an embargo on vegetables?

Mr. Deans: No, no. I am coming to that. That isn’t so much the problem because the fruit that is imported is basically fruit that comes in much earlier in the season than the fruit that is produced domestically. The problem we have is that there is no protection against the importation of fruit from outside of the country. Although the responsibility may be federal in terms of negotiating an agreement between the two countries, there is a responsibility on behalf of the provincial government to have a clearly defined statement of policy to put before the federal government.

If the provincial government stated clearly and unquestionably that it was prepared to take whatever steps were necessary to ensure that the productive capacity of the peninsula is maintained and that we, the people of Ontario, were not going to be in a position at some point in our lives of having to pay considerably more for imported products than we would have had to pay had we continued to grow it, then and only then would the government have a justifiable reason for claiming that it was Ottawa that wasn’t holding up its share or doing the proper things.

I want to suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that it’s not going to be very easy. The development pressure in the peninsula area is immense, and people whose only concern is making money are quite willing to destroy the fruitlands right before our eyes, simply to make another dollar from another development. But let me say to you, sir, that there is sufficient land available for urban development, for housing and for industrial development that we need not take the best growing land out of production.

In fact, not only need we not take it out of production but we have an obligation to maintain it in production. Where else in the world would a country allow such valuable land to be destroyed? Where else in the world would a jurisdiction with such tremendous potential for self-sufficiency allow it to go by the board?

I am not pretending for one single moment that it would be easy or not costly. I am not pretending for a moment that we won’t have to set out fairly substantial sums of money, but I am telling you now that in the interests of the growth of future generations -- in the interests of protecting them, if not us -- there is an obligation to take steps today to enter into agreements, options to purchase, if need be, arrangements with the most valuable lands’ owners, to ensure that we don’t lose it over the course of time, simply by neglect if not by will. I don’t understand that attitude.

When I travelled in Germany and up the Rhine, I can remember looking at them growing grapes. The Minister of the Environment (Mr. W. Newman) was there. They grew them on every tiny little patch of ground, places that here you would have discarded as being useless places -- am I right? Here we have soil and climate that is the best in the country -- the best in this part of the country, in any event -- and for some reason or other we can’t seem to see the need to maintain it. When I was elected in 1967, on a Sunday I could drive down through the peninsula in my own riding and there was farm after farm in production. I want to tell you now, Mr. Speaker, that that same drive today yields me not nearly the same satisfaction, and certainly I am unable to see the same number of productive farms.

As I said -- I don’t know if the minister was here -- I appreciate the arguments about the capacity, due to technology, to grow more and more on less and less, but even that comes to an end. There’s a saturation point beyond which you can’t go.

So I suppose I am making an appeal, maybe for the last time -- who knows? -- to the government --

Hon. W. Newman (Minister of the Environment): That may be, but not that way.

Mr. Deans: Well, I understand that. It may be that there won’t be anything to appeal for -- that’s the whole problem. So many options are taken and so much land is being used up and taken out of production that even the most articulate, even the most concerned in the fruit-growing industry don’t seem to appreciate that the discussion we are having isn’t about today. The discussion we are having is about 10 years from now, 15 years from now, when we will be buying all of the things we were capable of growing at whatever the traffic will bear, whatever the seller wants, and that seller will invariably be from outside of the Province of Ontario and very likely from outside of the country.

Let’s not make the same mistake with the fruit industry that we made with the sugar beet industry. I am not pretending that I have been far-sighted enough to be able to say that the sugar beet industry was a necessity. I couldn’t tell that we were going to be held to ransom by the sugar-growing nations of the world, but we should be able to learn a lesson from it. We should be able to look at that and say: “By God, there’s a mistake we won’t make again.” And then we should be looking at our productive capacity, our capacity for self-sufficiency, and we should be taking whatever steps are necessary to ensure the maintenance of that capacity for the next generation.

It’s not good enough to do just enough to get you past the next election, Mr. Speaker. It’s not good enough to do just enough to get you through to 1980 or to 1985 or to 1990. We have to address ourselves to the problems which will confront children who are at this point still in school, and their children, and where they’ll go. It’s not good enough to sit back, as was done in the case of housing, and just simply say: “God, I hope it stops pretty soon.” It’s not good enough to sit back, as has been done in so many different areas, and hope that somehow or other some kind of pressure will come to bear and things will correct themselves.

When one recognizes there is a potential for disaster in a particular area which is of extreme significance to the economy of the province and to the self-sufficiency of the province, then the obligation of a government is surely to take steps to devise a programme, and to move carefully albeit, but progressively towards ensuring the continuation of that industry.

In this case I talk about the fruit-growing potential of the Niagara Peninsula, recognizing that there are some other areas in the province with a potential of their own, but also recognizing that we have the capacity here to grow sufficient, not only to meet the needs of Ontario but we’ve got a capacity here to grow sufficient to meet the needs of the rest of the country and an obligation to protect it.

Just as we may on this day in 1974 be a bit concerned about our lack of oil and worried about the fact that it’s out in Alberta, or a little bit in Saskatchewan; some day they will be worried about their lack of fruit and the fact that it’s here in Ontario or it’s not here in Ontario. It’s because of all of the indicators that I raise that matter as a legitimate concern and one that I’ve had for a considerable period of time.

Mr. Speaker, I do have one other matter and I think I’ll leave it until Thursday, if you would permit me. It looks very much to me as if it’s just about 10:30. If the Speaker would permit me, I would like to move the adjournment of the debate, since it’s almost 10:30.

Mr. Deans moves the adjournment of the debate.

Motion agreed to.

Hon. W. Newman moves the adjournment of the House.

Motion agreed to.

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