Legislative Assembly of Ontario

The House met at 2 o’clock, p.m.

Prayers.

Mr. Speaker: Before we get to the orders of the day, I feel I should deal with the matter which was carried over from last night and which I took for further consideration.

In the course of proceedings the member for Port Arthur (Mr. Foulds) suggested that the motion for the House to sit after the normal hour of 10:30 p.m. was in fact out of order; and in so doing he cited several extracts from May dealing with notices and other matters relating to motions.

I point out, however, that our own standing order No. 32, in clauses (a) and (c), sets out very clearly those motions which require notice and those which do not.

The motion under standing order No. 3 to sit past the normal hour is clearly an ancillary motion forming part of the technical procedure of the House which, like motions to adjourn the debate or to adjourn the House, are moved as required, without notice, and do not require unanimous consent. I ruled that last night.

Regarding the second matter we should also deal with, I point out that under standing order No. 15 when a member is called to order by the Chairman or by the Speaker he shall sit down immediately. There was a little bit of confusion on that point last night. When the Chairman called the member to order, I believe, he did not sit down. I wonder if the hon. member would have something to say now.

Mr. J. F. Foulds (Port Arthur): Mr. Speaker, I regret the raucousness and the emotion of the incident last night. I certainly meant no disrespect to the office of the Chair or its authority, although I did feel -- and still do -- that I had a legitimate procedural point. I would point out to you that I did take my seat once the Chairman decided to refer the matter to you, and I certainly will abide by your decision.

Mr. Speaker: I thank the hon. member and I think that closes the matter.

Mr. L. C. Henderson (Lambton): He never apologized.

Mr. S. Lewis (Scarborough West): Why should he apologize? The Chair has no respect for the House.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. A. J. Roy (Ottawa East): Mr. Speaker, I would like to stand on a point of order and say to you, Mr. Speaker, that I understand from the House leader there will be no question period.

I would suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that before we can change such a fundamental role of the House as not having a question period, that it should be decided either by unanimous consent of the House, or by having a vote in this House. I, for one, object to doing away with the question period. I understand, Mr. Speaker, that the reason for not having a question period is the unavailability of ministers -- and I see enough ministers here --

An hon. member: More than ever before.

Mr. Roy: There are more than ever. I would think, Mr. Speaker, that we should have the question period. We have wasted all this session, Mr. Speaker, and we are trying to save 45 minutes.

Hon. G. A. Kerr (Solicitor General): The member is wasting time now.

Mr. I. Deans (Wentworth): :Mr. Speaker, if I may speak to the point of order. I, together with the Liberal House leader and the government House leader, agreed that we would proceed today at 2 o’clock without a question period. I agreed that it would be nice to have one, but we did agree not to, and we are quite prepared to abide by the commitment that we made.

Hon. J. R. Rhodes (Minister of Transportation and Communications): The member for Ottawa East should check with his House leader.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please; if I might just clarify that. This was the understanding last evening and there was no objection raised at the time; so to me that is unanimous consent. This was the order agreed to by the three House leaders.

Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order.

Mr. M. Cassidy (Ottawa Centre): See if the Chairman of the Management Board can set us off again.

Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, you said it was by unanimous consent. I would point out to you, Mr. Speaker, that when the House leader announced that there would be no question period, some of us here objected to it. It is on the record that we objected to it and there was not unanimous consent. I would suggest --

Mr. W. Ferrier (Cochrane South): They are going to have a new House leader over there.

Hon. E. A. Winkler (Chairman, Management Board of Cabinet): Mr. Speaker, of course the best judge of the situation is yourself.

Mr. Speaker: Thank you.

Mr. Roy: Why don’t they give us a question period? They have got enough ministers. Mr. Speaker, is it your ruling there was unanimous consent? There was not.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. It was agreed, yes; and no one rose to object to it at the time.

Mr. Lewis: No, there was no unanimous consent last night. There was an agreement. There was no unanimous consent.

Mr. Roy: I did object --

Mr. Speaker: Shall we say “it carries,” if we don’t like the words “unanimous consent.” No one rose to object to it at the time. Thank you.

Mr. J. E. Stokes (Thunder Bay): The member for Ottawa East should talk to his House leader.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Roy: They’ve got enough ministers there. What are they hiding from?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. For the sake of the orderly business of the House, we should proceed as agreed upon.

Orders of the day.

Clerk of the House: Order for committee of supply.

SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES, MINISTRY OF HOUSING (CONCLUDED)

On vote 804:

Mr. Chairman: The hon. member for Downsview.

Mr. A. J. Roy (Ottawa East): Are you prepared to answer my question, Mr. Chairman?

Mr. V. M. Singer (Downsview): I want to speak on item 3.

Mr. Chairman: Order, please. The hon. member for Downsview has the floor. We are on vote 804, item 2.

Mr. Singer: Mr. Chairman, I spoke on item 2 yesterday, and I may want to reply again. The minister wants to speak.

Hon. D. R. Irvine (Minister for Housing): Point of order, Mr. Chairman. I wish to reply to the member for Ottawa Centre (Mr. Cassidy) in regard to the question he raised around 6 o’clock, if it would be in order at this time. I think I should clarify the question which he asked me.

Mr. Chairman: The Chair will recognize the minister to answer the question.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Thank you. Mr. Chairman, the hon. member asked me around 6 o’clock yesterday, if I remember correctly, that he wished to be informed as to the number of acres which were under the control of the government, by expropriation or otherwise, in the North Pickering area.

I wish to say today that the government on March 2, 1972 originally announced that they were going to acquire 25,000 acres in that particular area. On Jan. 10, 1974, the then Minister of Housing, the present Attorney General (Mr. Welch), announced that there would be 17,000 acres acquired in the inner part for planning purposes and an open area of 8,000 acres for the outer circle.

Since then we have acquired 16,813 acres up to the end of September, 1974 in the inner planning area. We have an open space area of approximately 2,750 acres acquired by negotiations or, I should say, by mutual agreement in any event. We may acquire further acreage in the open space if the owners are willing to sell, because there was an undertaking to the owners at the original time whereby the government had announced that they may acquire 8,000 acres. We may acquire some further acreage in the open space.

I believe, Mr. Chairman, that is all that is necessary at this time, unless the hon. member for Ottawa Centre wishes further clarification as to the acreages which we have and which we intend to acquire.

Mr. Chairman: The hon. member for Ottawa Centre.

Mr. M. Cassidy (Ottawa Centre): Is my understanding correct that the $215 million total which we’re talking about has been spent to acquire just under 17,000 acres plus the 3,000 acres in this outside ring?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: No.

Mr. Cassidy: Then we’re still a bit unclear about the total cost and what you get in terms of acreage for that total cost.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Chairman, we didn’t mention $200-and-some million yesterday that I know of, but somebody else may have. I didn’t. I indicated that the total cost up to date was $170 million with other funds yet to be expended, which I wouldn’t know until such time as negotiations are completed, in the open space area. The correct figure is $170 million within a few dollars.

Mr. Cassidy: Okay, then. Mr. Chairman, what does the minister hope to get for the $45 million which is now being requested? Is that money still for land acquisition?

If so, does that relate to the remainder of the outside ring which is yet to be acquired or to some other land that we’re not aware of?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Chairman, it’s divided between two parts. We had originally in our budget $7 million because we felt, as I said yesterday, we would get federal funds on a 90-10 basis. We have not received any federal funding to this date. The $45 million is to supplement the consolidated revenue fund, whereby we have acquired some funds from that fund for the lands that we have acquired. We will need additional funds which we anticipate to be somewhere up to the $45 million. That’s what the supplementary estimates are about.

In any event, there will no doubt be some other land acquisitions which will have to be in the fiscal year of 1975-1976 in regard to the total cost.

Mr. Cassidy: Mr. Chairman, I am sorry to belabour this with the House, but my understanding is that in fact that at the end of September the minister had acquired 17,000 acres, but that he had spent $170 million that had been committed in estimates up until that time, plus an additional sum.

I don’t know what the $45 million is for. However I cut it, I come up with a figure of about 20,000 acres costing around $200 million. Maybe it’s fair to talk in those terms, since we can’t get detailed or precise figures from the minister. If that’s the case, Mr. Chairman, then we’re talking about an average cost of about $10,000 an acre or three times what was originally estimated at the time that the project was announced in March, 1972 by the then Treasurer (Mr. McKeough).

It’s worth asking as well what now are the population projections for the North Pickering town site? How many people do you expect it will ultimately have?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Chairman, I can, at this time, give you the exact figures as of Sept. 30, 1974, if the hon. member wishes. In 1972-1973 we spent $30.4 million; in 1973-1974, $116 million; in 1974-1975 up to Sept. 30, $19,650,000 for a total of $166,050,000. As I said, my $170 million was approximate because that is as of Sept. 30. Those are the latest figures I have. If we go in now to the matter of population, having settled, I think the fact that we do know exactly how much --

Mr. Cassidy: You haven’t explained why you need the extra $45 million, why you require the funds and the land you want for the money.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Yes. We needed the funds because we had, in our initial budget, which is in the member’s hands, allowed only $7 million for acquisition purposes. We have acquired much more than that, as far as dollars are concerned.

The $7 million was there as we felt we would have federal funding, as I said before. So we have to have supplementary estimates to make allowance for the fact that we have not to this date, nor do we expect to have in the near future, federal allocation for the funds under the 90-10 percentage basis.

The population that we are talking about at this particular time, or expecting in the next few years, is somewhere in the figure of 70,000 to 85,000 or 90,000 people, depending upon the acceptance of the plan which will be submitted by the development corporation and approved at some stage or other by all the regional municipalities, area municipalities, and the people in the area, as I said yesterday.

The maximum number of people will not be determined until many years later. It is going to take some while for this particular area to be at its ultimate level of growth. I would guess that it would probably take at least 20 to 25 years before the total population will be there.

Originally the government, I believe, had felt we could accommodate somewhere around 200,000 people, in the final analysis of what the townsites should be in regard to population. However, we must recognize that no townsite is built overnight, and it will take many years before that goal is reached, if ever. But certainly I think that we will start off with a projected population within the next 10 years of, as I said, somewhere in the neighbourhood of 75,000 people. That depends upon the acceptance of the plan.

Mr. Cassidy: If I might comment on this, Mr. Chairman, I just wish that the government would decide which figure it wants to choose. The minister dances around between the two. He says that on one hand the population of the area is going to be between 70,000 and 90,000 people, in which case the land acquired for Pickering at $200 million is devilishly expensive. No matter how you look at it, it is extraordinarily expensive to have a raw land cost of the order of about $5,000 or $6,000 or more per family before you even begin to put in services and do the other things that need to be done in that particular area.

On the other hand, he says that the ultimate population might go up to 200,000, and that’s confirmed by the central York servicing plan -- I have the map here -- which says specifically that the North Pickering community is slated to have a population of 200,000 people, which is the figure that the minister has just given us, too. I grant that this central York scheme -- the document I have here -- is dated 1972. I didn’t realize it was that old, but the minister should be very clear and I think the people in the area should be very clear: Are you going to service for 200,000 but then guarantee absolutely that you won’t put more than 100,000 people in there? Because in that case you are needlessly spending money on servicing that could be going into other parts of the province.

On the other hand, if you intend to service because you expect that by the turn of the century the area is going to accommodate 200,000, then I think you should frankly say so, but perhaps say to the people that for the next 10 years you will respect certain growth limits in order that the community not grow too fast.

We don’t know what you are doing and we believe that you should be much clearer about it than you are right now. We feel, as well, that the whole experience of North Pickering, where you began to acquire land at $3,000 an acre with a 90 per cent contribution from the federal government -- that was the plan -- and you are now acquiring land at $10,000 an acre without federal participation, and for some reason can’t get that particular act together, is really a sign of the problems created by the lack of commitment of this government to land acquisition and the problems created --

Mr. D. M. Deacon (York Centre): That shows how bad the scheme was.

Mr. Cassidy: -- by not having, if you will, proper legislation in order that you could have gone in in March of 1972 and said, “Having made a decision, we will acquire the land,” at the then prevailing prices. You have been held to ransom by landholders, and for the most part, I am afraid, those landholders have been speculators from the big city -- not legitimate long-time residents of that area.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Chairman, that’s a very interesting statement the member has made. I would be interested to know what his views would be in regard to the actual development. Would he then be in agreement that we should proceed with the plan to develop the area for 200,000 people because of the actual investment in lands and servicing? Would the member mind giving me the benefit of his views?

Mr. Cassidy: The stock answer is to say that you are the government and you tell me what you are going to do. I’ll tell you what we would do, Mr. Chairman; and I think I can confront this.

In order to accommodate a certain amount of growth around Metro Toronto, some areas have got to be designated. Therefore, it is quite possible that an NDP government would have to say that certain areas, three or four areas, would be growing to a higher level. But we would do that in the context of a plan that was taking growth away from Metro Toronto.

The reason that people are so concerned about what this government is doing is that the government is telling them that Pickering is going to grow to 200,000 people in addition to all of the other sprawl and growth that is going to slurp and slurp its way into the eastern fringes of Metro Toronto. That is why they’re appalled.

If they were told that North Pickering was going to go to 200,000 in phases over the next 40 years as part of a planned containment of growth within the Metro Toronto area, but that in the meantime the government would be doing everything in its power to shift growth to the east -- to the minister’s area, to my area, to other parts of eastern Ontario and to the north of the province -- then I think the people would understand an awful lot better.

Yes, we would make a clear statement. I haven’t been very clear because I haven’t got all the planning tools that the minister has over there in terms of people -- but he doesn’t know how to use them.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Chairman, I would never admit that. I think we do know how to use the planning tools that we have available. But it’s very good to hear the member state so positively that with growth needed in other areas, and with growth being recognized in this area, that we shouldn’t stop at 75,000 people, that the area should have a larger population than that. I agree with the member that this may come about, but first of all I want to put on the record that we are --

Mr. Cassidy: I made a fairly clear statement. The minister should make one too now. Are you going to put it up to the 200,000?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: I want to put it on the record very clearly that although the NDP may wish to proceed on the basis of 200,000 people immediately, I don’t wish to proceed in that manner. I wish to say that we will proceed with a population figure of somewhere around 75,000, which in the long run --

Mr. S. Lewis (Scarborough West): That’s simply dishonest.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Well, the leader of the NDP can express his views. Why does he say it’s dishonest?

Mr. Lewis: With respect, Mr. Chairman, just continuing the argument, it is patently dishonest. The minister may wish to use a figure of 70,000 to 90,000, but the trunk plan tabled by the Ministry of the Environment, on which the government is spending $200 million, clearly demonstrates a population by 1995 of something between 883,000 and 1.3 million; it is inconceivable that it will be less in terms of the population and housing using the services provided by that trunk. The figures that it has been indicated we will reach are two and three times the original estimates in the Toronto-centred region plan, and given the growth pressures being premeditatedly created by this madness of the trunk line that the government is building, to pretend that the community of North Pickering will only be 70,000 to 90,000 is to be frankly dishonest.

I don’t mean that the minister is misleading the House deliberately or anything else. I mean he is pretending population figures which will be tripled by the pressures that the government has created, and he is doing it in wanton irresponsibility because, as my colleague from Ottawa Centre points out, it’s part of no plan for the area around Metropolitan Toronto -- none at all.

Mr. Deacon: Except the big sewer. That’s the only plan.

Mr. Lewis: Except for the trunk sewer; except for the pipe. While I concur in what my colleague said about the way the government is ordering growth, the reality is that one of the places it doesn’t order growth is capriciously and unpredictably in the northeast corner of Metropolitan Toronto, in conjunction with Malvern, the airport and North Pickering.

Why is the government destroying that part of Metropolitan Toronto? That’s precisely the place where you don’t unleash another 200,000 people.

Mr. Chairman, I don’t have the material in front of me. I had intended to have references to the sewer pipe planning, that my friend from York Centre says you’ve introduced in Ontario.

Mrs. M. Campbell (St. George): Be careful when you say that.

Mr. Deacon: It is the basic structure on which the province plans.

Mr. Lewis: As a matter of fact, we all laugh about it -- that we are the only jurisdiction in Canada, I venture to guess, that plans population, location of industry, housing and growth on the basis of sewer capacity. Now you tell me another jurisdiction in this country that decides on sewer capacity first and then uses that as a determinate of growth. Do you think that’s intelligent economic planning?

Mr. Roy: That’s what the Treasurer (Mr. White) says.

Mr. Lewis: I tell you that is so silly it is almost impossible it should occur. The Treasurer talked about the pipe.

Mr. Roy: The size.

Mr. Lewis: The size of the pipe.

Mr. Roy: He said the population will be --

Mr. Lewis: I don’t know what this affection for sewers is. I don’t know what compels you, but that’s what you are doing on the $200 million. I had intended, Mr. Chairman, to deal with the documents of the Minister of the Environment (Mr. W. Newman) during the environmental estimates. I don’t have the material immediately in front of me and I don’t want to prolong these estimates. But let me very quickly, as I recall, lay it out for you.

When the Toronto-centred region plan came in there was one population estimate. There was then a 1972 Ministry of the Environment document three to four years later setting out the trunk as it was then predicted. There is then a 1974 document which the Ministry of the Environment tabled.

The difference in the documents between 1972 and 1974 is indicated in that table which talks about the daily flow capacity and which dictates population growth. In the jump between 1972 to 1974, what none of the planners picked up when they looked at the document was that the change in daily flow was mistabulated, misestimated, so that, in fact, you are building to a population of 880,000 to 1.3 million over the next 25 years. When you do that you predetermine that North Pickering’s population must be a quarter of a million people. You are going to clobber intelligent economic growth in the eastern part of Metropolitan Toronto as a result, all of the wishes of the local citizenry notwithstanding. I heard you introduce the little bill on the North Pickering community yesterday on my speaker. This is yet another planning group to plan a community towards which the local citizenry have had little contribution to make, that is seriously listened to. All of this is going out the window. You are destroying it completely by your sewer projections.

With great respect, Mr. Minister, I know what you say to me. You say to me honourably, and I don’t doubt it for a moment, when you say 70,000 to 90,000 -- that those are the figures you would wish to see.

They are nonsense. It can’t be contained at that level. You have unleashed forces which are no longer controllable. Sensing others who want to jump in, let me subside by telling you that that’s really a dreadful mistake. That’s a dreadful mistake. You’ve just clobbered the Toronto-centred region plan; you really have.

We didn’t like that plan much to begin with because it posited too many people, eight million people by the year 2000, in the Toronto-centred region. Even those predictions are now going out the window, because with this sewer planning of yours, you are destroying orderly economic growth in the south part of Ontario. You are building wall-to-wall communities from north Metro through to Simcoe. It will cover all Pickering township and everything right through to Oshawa. It is being done without thought, without rationale, without any order at all.

The provincial Treasurer some weeks ago said that he would have a provincial plan for Ontario. It would probably come in in December. Where is it? Do you realize that he commissioned a plan for Ontario eight months ago, exasperated and embarrassed by the hodge-podge of individual plans? He admitted that in the Legislature. We still don’t have a provincial plan for this province. Yet we are building mechanisms which will inundate Metropolitan Toronto with yet further population and distort the whole region, and we have no sense of the relationship to eastern Ontario or to northern Ontario.

There is about it such intense irresponsibility that it can’t really be conveyed. You’re kind of frantically trying to set up a corporation here to control North Pickering and a corporation there to buy land and none of it is integrated with any overall planning at all. And every time you turn around your own intentions are scuppered by the activities of a fellow minister. That’s what the Minister of the Environment did when he stood proudly one day and said the government was building this $200 million sewer pipe for 170,000 households and maybe 400,000 to 500,000 people, and never realized that what he was talking about was 800,000 to 1.3 million people and that he had in one stroke destroyed rational planning around Metropolitan Toronto.

You talk of 70,000 to 90,000 -- it is to laugh. Not a single prediction hitherto has been right; nor is this one. That’s why we disagree.

Mr. Roy: Maybe you want to use the sewer as a subway.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Many of the things you have said are not entirely in their correct relation to what I was referring to and what I did say to your colleague. I asked him what his party would do, or what he would do, in regard to the overall plan for North Pickering. Would he have 200,000 people there immediately, because of the cost? Or would he try to respond to the people? Well, the answer I thought I received from him was that 200,000 was the figure we should have. I said we are going to plan -- and this is what I want to say to you -- now for a population of 75,000 to 90,000 people in the immediate future -- that it, within 10 years.

Ultimately, there are going to be more than that, I wouldn’t doubt. But at least we go through the Planning Act. Apparently you didn’t hear when you were listening to the loudspeaker system when I introduced my bill, but I said the development corporation would be acting under the Planning Act, which means that the plan for the development in North Pickering will have every input possible. We have had all kinds of local participation with the North Pickering staff up to this date. When we implement the development corporation they will then present a plan for public participation again.

Mr. Lewis: What public participation?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: How much more participation can you have than though the Planning Act itself?

Mr. Lewis: What public participation?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Are you saying to me that we should not get the plan through the Planning Act, but that we should immediately go out and develop the area for 200,000 people? Is this what you are saying?

Mr. Lewis: No, I am saying there was no consultation.

I have in front of me a letter from a former federal Tory candidacy contestant -- less than a year ago -- who has already joined the New Democratic Party in disgust with what has happened to you in North Pickering.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: He must be out of his mind.

Mr. Lewis: It is interesting you would always make the sexist assumption that he must be out of his mind. Only by Tories would it be assumed that a candidate has to be a male.

Mr. Roy: We want it on the record that he is still out of his mind. Always out of his mind.

Mr. Lewis: I’m not differing with you about that possible irrationality. Maybe you are right -- maybe only males are capable of --

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. Lewis: All right, I’m just telling you that there has never been --

Hon. W. Newman (Minister of the Environment): Tell us who it is.

Mr. Lewis: And you! You had to excise -- Mr. Chairman, although it might be premature, I want to point out that in order to save his seat, the Minister of the Environment had to excise the airport and North Pickering from the re-redistribution, knowing what would happen to you, given the community. Now, it wasn’t a personal gerrymander -- you had others to handle it for you, but --

Mr. Roy: You are afraid of our candidate.

Hon. W. Newman: On a point of personal privilege --

Mr. Lewis: On a point of privilege! I retire.

Hon. W. Newman: I am not afraid to run anywhere, but if anybody suggests that I do something to get out of doing something when there is an independent commission which did that work, then you had better retract that statement and not say that I had any influence in trying to do it.

Mr. Lewis: Oh, perish the thought that you had influence. It’s the convenience I was talking about rather than the influence.

Mr. Roy: Is the minister afraid of our man? Is that why you are backing off?

Mr. Chairman: Order, please. Will the hon. member return to the estimates?

Mr. Lewis: Yes.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Chairman, in order that I might answer --

Mr. Roy: Yes, don’t spoil the fun.

Mr. Lewis: We will beat both of them in that riding, Mr. Chairman -- I’m not concerned about that.

Mr. R. F. Ruston (Essex-Kent): Don’t count on that.

An hon. member: Oh ho ho!

Mr. Lewis: Would you like to wager on it?

An hon. member: Yes.

Mr. Roy: On what?

Mr. Lewis: Okay, after this. All right, may I come back to this matter?

Mr. Roy: You are reading subsection 4.

Mr. Lewis: There never was any serious planning in North Pickering. That’s why the community is so incensed, and I think you understand that. You know that People or Planes group in the North Pickering community are bitterly antagonistic to the government because of the way the project has been handled.

lnterjections by hon. members.

Mr. Lewis: And now to pull it all within the Planning Act to give it a rationale isn’t going to result in better planning for North Pickering. It just means that the arbitrariness of your approach is complete. Local consultation hasn’t meant a thing in North Pickering.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: It has.

Mr. Lewis: Don’t ask me; ask your Conservative friends who have turned against you en masse. I presume the member for York Centre can add to that from personal experience.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Chairman, let me finish my reply to the leader of the NDP.

Mr. E. Sargent (Grey-Bruce): Make it perfectly clear.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: I would like to, if I can, make it perfectly clear. As far as I am concerned, we have had as much public participation as possible in the North Pickering area. We will never receive unanimous consent for any plan. We have already three conceptual plans presented to the people in the area. Now we are going forth with a plan for the areas surrounding the people. It could be accepted or amended, as they see fit.

Mr. Deacon: What is the point of it? You don’t listen to people.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: I don’t see how we can do anything more for the people who are going to be affected living in that area other than to do it under the Planning Act. If you would suggest to me that we should proceed forthwith --

Mr. Lewis: No.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: You are not suggesting that?

Mr. Lewis: No, I am not.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Then I want to get your position on the line. Are you saying that we should proceed with a plan for 200,000 people then?

Mr. Lewis: I am saying that you should dismantle the whole North Pickering plan; that it makes no sense at all; that it is destroying growth in southern Ontario.

Mr. Deacon: It’s an insane scheme.

Mr. Lewis: When we talk about growth around Metropolitan Toronto, there have to be better ways of approaching it than expropriating land in an area -- good farmland, by the way -- just because the federal government and the provincial government have entered into some senseless little cabal or arrangement to build an airport.

Mr. Deacon: They want to help their friends.

Mr. Lewis: That’s no way to plan a community in anticipation of an airport. The whole thing should go out the window; the airport, the community -- it’s all crazy.

Mr. Sargent: Right.

Mr. Lewis: And you would start again further from Metro, let me say; not as an extension of Scarborough, but rather further from Metro. That’s what orderly growth means. You don’t make it a natural extension of a metropolis already choking on its own population, industry, pollution and everything else.

Mr. Sargent: You’ve got too many eggheads running the show.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Chairman, to go back to the point of planning. The leader of the NDP has repeatedly said we haven’t got a plan. I think we’ve got a plan which is going to be very effective. We are installing, quite true, sewers and water for future growth in the --

Mr. Sargent: What are you going to use for money from now on?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: -- regions of York --

Mr. Sargent: There is $170 million in there now.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: -- and in Durham. Now, if we were to put pipes in that were too small, I would think that would be a very bad mistake on the part of this government. I think we should plan for growth. And we have a plan --

Mr. Lewis: Oh, there you are; there it is.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: -- for growth in northern Ontario --

Mr. J. F. Foulds (Port Arthur): Not controlled growth. Not decentralized growth.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: -- we have a plan for growth in eastern Ontario; we have a plan for dispersed growth outside of Metro Toronto. This government has a very definite plan in regards to how we should proceed with the allocation of population in the future years. What I was trying to determine --

Mr. Cassidy: Where is that plan after 30 years?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: The plan will be announced in due course by the Treasurer.

Mr. Lewis: Oh, thank you very much.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: And when it is announced, you’ll understand --

Mr. Lewis: What are you talking about -- it will be introduced in due course?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: When it is announced you’ll understand that this government has been giving very serious consideration to the fact that we do have --

Mr. Lewis: But how do you make these arbitrary decisions without letting the people see your plans?

Mrs. Campbell: The ones to be announced shortly.

Mr. Lewis: How do you make plans without public consultation?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: We happen to be a government that rules on behalf of the people --

Some hon. members: Oh!

An hon. member: Rule -- a very good word!

Mr. Lewis: Oh really; on behalf of the people!

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: The NDP doesn’t have the same philosophy. The NDP wants to take --

Mr. Lewis: So it cannot consult. A government that rules on behalf of the people doesn’t consult people.

Mr. Chairman: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: It’s a government that acts on behalf of the people. Would you like that better? Is that a better word?

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: But the people have voted the Conservative government in because they know they can rely on the government, and they know they can’t rely on the NDP philosophy.

Now I want to --

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Cassidy: Marie Antoinette used to rule on behalf of the people, too. She said, “Let them eat cake.”

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Chairman, I want to make awfully sure the NDP understand that the reason we have provided for servicing is the very simple fact that there will be growth in those areas. There’s no doubt, and I am not misleading the leader of the NDP, when I say we are planning now for 75,000 people in the immediate future; I am not misleading him. I am saying that is what we are planning for, and then if it’s necessary to expand, which you seem to think it will be, and possibly this will happen, I am saying that then we will do it on the same basis whereby we will consult with the people.

Mr. Lewis: Yon are determining growth, but why do you want that growth there? What do you need it for? Why not have it, say, in Oshawa?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Chairman, it would appear to me that the NDP feel there is no future whatsoever for the people in this area, in Metropolitan Toronto or the surrounding area. I think there’s a great future for them. I think we should provide services for the people in this area and for those who wish to come into this area.

We have said as a government, and I am saying as the minister, that we will provide housing in other areas of Ontario though, to offset the fact that we must have population in other areas besides Metro Toronto and surrounding Toronto.

Mr. Lewis: But your big money is invested here.

Mrs. Campbell: That’s right.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: So far we have expended --

Mr. Lewis: You can’t get sewer pipe in Ear Falls for a housing project.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: So far we have expended or will expend quite a bit of money as far as servicing is concerned, but I think it’s money well spent. The lands in question will be developed, to some extent residential-wise --

Mr. Cassidy: You spend $400 million around Metro.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: -- and some industrial, but there will also be agricultural lands preserved. Now there is nothing wrong, as far as I am concerned, in having a real good planned development of this area.

Mr. Lewis: Fair enough.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: And that’s exactly what we are going to do.

Mr. Lewis: Where is the plan?

Mr. Cassidy: Where is the plan?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: The plan will come about in the new year, when we have the development corporation formed, and the plan will be put before --

Mr. Lewis: You mean you put a sewer pipe in to locate a million people and then you formulate a plan? Come on now, you don’t believe that yourself.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Just sit down, please; sit down for a minute, please.

The plan will be put before the people to decide as to how much growth they want and where they want the growth.

Mr. Lewis: What decision? You have dictated it.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: No we haven’t.

Mr. Lewis: Of course you have. You are already dictating it.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: No we haven’t. Look, you may say what you wish. I am saying we haven’t dictated where the growth will be or how much the growth will be. I am saying that we are anticipating where the growth will be.

Mr. Lewis: You certainly are; and to anticipate is to create when you are talking about population.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: When we have the final plan approved, then of course we will determine what the population is.

Mr. Lewis: You are very anti-Metro, anti-east and anti-north; you are a very anti-person.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: As a matter of fact I am not anti-anything. I am going to make sure there is a plan for development for all of Ontario as part of this government’s programme, and the government will be announcing a plan that I think will meet with the approval of all of the people of Ontario. Maybe it won’t meet with your approval, but that’s something which we have to wait and see.

However, Mr. Chairman, if we go back to the original proposal that we should proceed, possibly with a definite figure, say a population figure of 200,000 at this time, I think that’s the wrong way to start. We should start with a plan which will come out with a much lesser population, which will meet with the approval of the people, and then we will have the people in the area decide later as to whether 200,000 or 250,000 or 175,000 is the acceptable level.

Mr. Cassidy: That is not fair, you know. You can’t do it that way.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Well, maybe we can’t do it that way as far as you are concerned --

Mr. Lewis: No, but you can’t. It is not sane; it is not rational.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: -- but I am saying we are going to do it that way, because this is what the people wish to have happen.

Mr. Lewis: The people wish no growth at all in Pickering; that is what they wish.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: As long as we can make sure that the people of Ontario fully understand what this plan is and fully agree with it, then I think we have done what we should do as a government; and we are going to do that.

Mr. Chairman: The hon. member for York Centre.

Mr. Deacon: Mr. Chairman, the sad thing is that this whole mess started back about nine years ago when for some reason or another this government decided the only solution to treating sewage, and we come back to sewage again, was to have no more upstream plants. Instead of adopting a programme of finding and developing new technology to deal with the problem of pollution from our wastes, this government decided instead it would tie itself to a very rigid, expensive programme which would enforce and require high density development around Toronto; and basically this whole big York trunk sewer and the high density of population this is going to impose on us, is because that darned Ontario Water Resources Commission, and the government that was listening to it, wouldn’t look to newer methods and more sensible approaches to this problem. Basically this government wouldn’t say, “We will not accept that sort of approach to dealing with our waste because we realize that will trap us.”

When we have the situation, which we now have in York and which we are going to have in North Pickering, of $170 million going into sewer and water lines, we are trapped by that investment and by the investment we have made in this North Pickering project. Until we change that basic policy, until we recognize there is technology available which will enable us to stage our programmes of development and to develop projects well to the east of Toronto, well away from this hyped-up, souped-up economy we have here, we’re going to have a problem in the future.

I don’t want to talk too much more about that because it can be discussed later when we are dealing with the supplementary estimates of the Ministry of the Environment. But I do want to come back to one point about this area which I think the minister was wise at least to announce; that is, that there is to be some permanent greenbelt around the North Pickering project. When the government takes over in 1975, I hope that the entire area, except for about 1,000 acres in the gravel area in the southeast corner, eventually is going to be greenbelt.

We don’t want to destroy the very fine agricultural land in North Pickering. In relation to the 8,000 acres, I wonder if the minister will consider one approach that I think is essential; that is, that he sell back that land, minus the development rights, to the farmers in that area. In that way it could only be used for farming and for housing farmers who live on and are using that land; there would be no right to develop the land other than for agricultural purposes because the government would hang on to the other rights.

This approach is being used by the State of New Jersey. It means that people can again have some pride of ownership or become interested in the farm buildings, the fences and all the other things that are so essential, in addition to good cropping, to the maintenance of property. It is well known that tenants, especially who have the prospect of a very short lease, are not going to take the interest in the maintenance of that area that they would if they owned it. There’s no reason why they shouldn’t own it if, in fact, they have no prospect of being able to develop on it and it’s going to continually be in use for agricultural purposes.

I would ask the minister to consider selling those lands, minus development rights, to these people purely for the agricultural value. Would he comment on that approach and that 8,000 acres?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: I will consider the proposal, Mr. Chairman. I believe that within the last couple of days I received a copy of the specific proposal the hon. member is talking about. In any event, Mr. Chairman, could I ask the hon. member to clarify whether he’s saying there should be no growth in the region of York? Is that what he was saying?

Mr. Deacon: I think that any growth in the region of York should occur in areas where the land is not good agricultural land. There is plenty of land in York that comes within that category. This will require arrangements and provision for sewage and waste disposal other than the normal big trunk collector sewer approach that this government has been taking. It will mean utilizing the wastes so that in effect they are recycled. There are plenty of projects that the minister can be shown that demonstrate that it’s not necessary for us to confine ourselves to this concentrated approach to development.

In York or in any other part of this province, I think we should be confining our development to areas where we’re not destroying the class 1 and class 2 agricultural land, which makes up a very small percentage of our land mass in this province and unfortunately is decreasing very rapidly every day.

I’m saying to the minister that we should give ourselves more flexibility by not tying ourselves to the present approach of a great big sewer project. The last point I was making to the minister was, let’s get that land that he is going to keep as greenbelt back into ownership, so that people have some pride and a long-term interest in its improvement and are not just there with a feeling of no sense of permanence, and no sense of pride, which they can’t have unless they do know it is theirs.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Chairman, I want to pursue this a bit further. On the matter of the extension of the sewer and water facilities which we have talked about relating to the allocation of population in the region of York and Durham and whatever area it may affect, I would like to find out from the hon. member if he is actually saying that he would go against the wishes of some municipalities that want to grow and want to expand in the two regions that I am talking about. Is that what the member is saying?

Mr. Deacon: If their expansion plans include using up our good agricultural lands, if their expansion plans mean a continuous urban sprawl, I am opposed to that. I am opposed to it, though, not by saying you can’t do it here, but by providing an alternative, by providing the facilities, the services, the transportation access and the incentives to municipalities to develop in areas where we are not destroying first-grade agricultural laud and where, in fact, we are giving a thrust to growth away from Toronto and not around Toronto. This idea that we now are tied to, if we go ahead with this York scheme, if we go ahead with this concept of a four, five or six million population for this area, is surely going to destroy it in the end, destroy the whole fine city we now have. I am certainly opposed to that.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Chairman, we go back then to the very obvious fact that the area surrounding Metro Toronto will have growth pressures and we have to plan for those growth pressures.

Mr. Deacon: Right.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: We are doing that. When the hon. member says we should go against the wishes of the municipalities that wish to expand, I can’t agree with him on that. I can agree that we shouldn’t build on class 1 and class 2 lands, if we have other lands available. I can agree on that certainly. We have to make sure we have those lands available in the areas where there are growth pressures. Sometimes there is only that type of soil to build on.

Mr. Deacon: You have it; you have plenty of it.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: I do want to determine what the Liberal Party --

Mr. Cassidy: It depends on your priorities.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: -- has as an alternative to the plan which we propose for North Pickering and to the plan which we have said we would provide for future population growth in the region of York and in Durham. What does the Liberal Party, or what does the hon. member suggest that I, as the minister, can bring into effect in regard to the population growth in the next 10 years or 20 years for Metro Toronto and for the region of Durham and for the region of York or for any other region, as far as that is concerned? I want specifically to have the member relate to me what he would propose that we should do.

Mr. Deacon: Without taking up the time of the House in doing it, I will give him the booklet that I prepared at the time of one of the meetings of his predecessors out in our area as to what I would do specifically. There are literally at least 40 or 50 communities within 50 or 60 miles of Toronto which are centred in areas where there is not prime agricultural land, where we could be putting in services, where we could be putting in transportation access, and where we could be giving financial incentives to municipalities to develop.

We know very well from our experience in other areas that we can have a tremendous amount of growth take place in an existing community and not destroy the community. We have seen it in my own particular hamlet of Unionville whose population was 400 and is now 4,000, but unfortunately that happened to be prime agricultural land. It isn’t necessary to restrict ourselves to prime agricultural land, unless we follow the present government’s route of using the York trunk sewer design. That happens to be going through some of the best land we have got in Ontario.

What I’m saying to the minister -- I’ll give him a copy of the booklet -- is that there’s a lot of other land available, and if we don’t confine ourselves to this concept of planning by sewer then we can take advantage of it. I would certainly urge the minister, in his future North Pickering plans, to go easy on the development, take it into a corner where he is not using the best land and go to the areas in the north and the east where there are other lands -- and he will be able to see plenty on his land maps -- which are not good land and can have good access easily constructed to them or made available to them so that they can be very viable and strong communities.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Chairman, I won’t delay this too much longer, but I do want to come back to one point. There is no doubt whatsoever that we will be considering very fully where the development in North Pickering will be. It no doubt will end up in the land which the member is talking about -- the lands which are not class 1 and 2. I would hope so.

Mr. Deacon: I hope so, too.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: But that will be determined by the plan and by the people who are, in the long run, going to be the ones who approve of the plan.

Would the hon. member give me the benefit of his views in regard to those municipalities that do not wish to have growth but have lands that are not class 1 and class 2? Would he tell me if his party would insist, by legislation, that these municipalities must have residential development in order that we can accommodate the necessary housing in Ontario?

Mr. Deacon: I’ve never found it necessary to force these things. The main problem that I, as a municipal councillor, found was that when the government came to us and said, “We want to have development,” the government would also not show how they were going to avoid an increased property tax burden on that municipality and, therefore, the blame for that having to be borne by the local council. This is one of the most essential, basic omissions of this government in its approach, so far, to the municipalities that I represent with regard to developments they want to have occur in their area.

Until this government recognizes the position of local councillors, it’s primarily to be sure that their existing property owners don’t take the full shock of these developments and don’t have to bear the cost of it themselves when there’s really no benefit to them. I think, until they do that, they’re going to have opposition. I know from talking last night to some of the local councillors in our area that one of the major causes of resistance is this government’s refusal to assure them of the necessary financial assistance. Certainly, in my mind, it’s not necessary, when you have a need, to force people to accept something.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Chairman, before the leader of the NDP wishes to comment, I want to go a bit further on this particular matter. It relates to the expenditure of the $200 million which has been referred to in regard to sewer and water. In case the member thinks we’re off the point, we’re not off the point at all.

I want to find out from the member if he is saying, then, that this government has not provided incentives to those municipalities. We have provided incentives.

Mr. Deacon: No, it hasn’t provided incentives at all.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: We have.

Mrs. Campbell: No.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: We have provided incentives by the very obvious fact of the OHAP proposals which have come forth. They have been accepted in certain areas.

Mrs. Campbell: Because you put it over their heads.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: I’m wondering if the member is saying that in his area he wants the rest of Ontario to subsidize certain municipalities more, or whether he is saying that the grants he would provide would not directly be related to the cost of the housing or the development. It’s very easy to skate around the problem.

The member is not really saying too much in what he’s said so far, because I’ve said to him that we’ve gone to municipalities with proposals which will provide them with initiatives and with funds related to the direct cost of housing, I’ve asked him what he would do in regard to providing housing, and he hasn’t really said anything. He hasn’t said that he would do any more than go and talk to them.

I can talk to them until I am blue in the face. If they don’t want to do it, what would he do then? That is what I would like to hear the member say. What will he do then if the municipalities don’t want to expand and don’t want to provide the services for housing? What is his programme?

Mr. Deacon: You have not been providing them with the answer. You’ve said, “We’ll give you a $600 grant for a house, or up to $600.” And you know darn well a small house in a municipality could be actually costing $600 a year to the rest of the taxpayers.

I’m not asking for the rest of Ontario to subsidize these schemes of yours. What I’m asking is: Don’t force the people or anyone in the municipality where you are putting one of these schemes to subsidize the rest of Ontario.

We recognize the need for growth and the need to provide housing. But we are also saying: Do it in a way that does not put all the burden on a few people in a local municipality. You’ve got to clearly demonstrate that approach, which you’ve failed to do so far.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Chairman, again we have --

Mr. Chairman: Order, please. It seems to me the debate is getting a bit repetitive. I’m wondering if we can proceed in a more positive manner and not be repetitive. The hon. minister, did you wish to reply?

Mr. Lewis: You know, Mr. Chairman, on a point of order. I know how hassled everybody gets at the end of a session. It was kind of interesting that a minister was asking questions of a member and there was an exchange taking place, which may not shake the world, but it was probably profitable.

I beg your indulgence, sir. We are coming back in January. We don’t have to finish everything up this afternoon.

Mr. Chairman: The Chair felt that the debate was repetitive and there were several points being repeated.

Mr. Lewis: It was repetitious because we are all wrestling with --

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

Mr. Lewis: The minister was replying.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Before the hon. member for St. George speaks, I want to put it clearly on the record that this government has provided funds to the municipalities that wish to expand by way of not only $600 maximum grants per unit, but also by way of directly related costs to the provision of housing.

We have provided funds, for instance, in the Ottawa area of $2.4 million for a storm sewer. We have provided funds for hospitals. We have provided funds for any other related costs.

What I was trying to determine was what else would the hon. member of the Liberal Party do over and above that after we have exhausted what we think are every means in the way of accommodation for housing -- and by not going against the wishes of a municipality. The member did not give me an answer; but I just was trying to find out what he would do. If he wishes to give me an answer, I would really appreciate it. What would he do? If he does not wish to, fair enough.

Mr. Deacon: I just wanted to be sure that there is a demonstrable accounting clearly in front of the council that, as a result of their having agreed to this scheme, they can see down the road that it is going to be self-supporting in the taxation from that development and the revenues the province gives to assist it. That is something that the province has so far failed to do.

All I said was: “We are going to give you up to $600 here. We may help you with a hospital there. We may give you some money there for a sewer.”

But you really haven’t gone down and shown them that you have taken care of their future requirements.

Too often municipalities have been sucked in by some proposal, and then the taxpayers have had to pay for it later on. It’s not fair. It’s up to you folks and your staff. You’ve got floor after floor of personnel. It is time you used those people to do some of that calculating, instead of this darn snow job that they are trying to d0 to us around North Pickering.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Chairman, there is no snow job in North Pickering. No snow job at all.

Mr. Lewis: Oh yes; that’s the worst example of planning in the province -- North Pickering. They all resent the North Pickering project. You cannot believe how they resent it. They see it as a terrible project.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Chairman, let’s make it again clear to the leader of the NDP that the plan has not been approved for development -- so how can you say that we have not --

Mr. Lewis: Because at every public meeting that they had, the citizens have viewed it as a snow job. They viewed it as an arbitrary imposition -- not honest, not real, not answering questions. There is more antagonism to that North Pickering project group than to almost any similar project group around the province, because nobody senses that it is real.

Surely you must know that. Certainly the Attorney General knows it. He sat in the meeting when Livingstone got up and spoke with the audience. There were several hundred people there; they broke into loud and spontaneous applause. He said to the Attorney General, “You’ve turned me into a man who hates.” This old farmer, who had lived in North Pickering for God knows how many years, said that; and the audience burst into spontaneous applause, because that’s the way they felt about that North Pickering project group. Don’t tell us about North Pickering.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: The audience has broken out into applause too when we announced, as we have, that we are going under the Planning Act with a plan which will meet with the approval of the people in the area. That’s what the leader of the NDP fails to recognize.

Mr. Lewis: No, I understand you are doing that now.

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

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Chairman, I don’t like to labour this point, but I would like to make some observations on this vote as it pertains to Pickering, and I would like to review, if I could, the statements which this minister has already made in the last two days on this particular subject.

He told us that they had spent, with this $45 million which is already spent, $170 million and that they would have to come back to us for further supplementary funding presumably, or perhaps in the next budget for additional acquisition. He has said there will be a plan announced in due course, and he really used that statement as a response to the criticism levelled at the government that there was no plan. At the same time, the same minister says there will not be a plan until it is developed with the people. And that, of course, is a commitment which was made by one of his predecessors, Mr. Welch, when he occupied the same position.

So you see what kind of a plan we’ve got. A plan to be announced, which won’t be announced because the people have to approve it or something. We have put in sewers for a plan that we have, which can’t be brought about until the people have approved it. We have spent $170 million, and we don’t know how much more, because of a plan which will be announced soon, but which can’t be announced soon because the people have to approve it.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Chairman, would the member let me interject?

Mrs. Campbell: I would like to finish, if I may, because I’m a little tired of the interruptions which the minister has made. I am not yielding, Mr. Chairman.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: I want to correct a statement.

Mrs. Campbell: The minister certainly can address me when I am finished.

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

Mr. R. Haggerty (Welland South): There is no point of order.

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Chairman, may I continue? I haven’t yielded.

Mr. Chairman: The Chair would rule that the minister is out of order.

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Chairman, may I point out that the minister entered into this question-and-answer period with my colleague trying to bring about answers in the most simplistic kind of way to questions which of course have to begin far behind the questions that he placed.

There are areas that want growth. There are areas that want growth because the government plans, not just by sewers -- although that’s one of the things -- but by assessment. They produce the kind of government which has been costly to the people, and those municipalities caught in that have to have the funding in order to carry out the kinds of projects that are required.

The minister has talked about incentives. One of their incentives is an agreement to expend up to $600 toward sewer services. In the first place, it doesn’t even say $600, it says “up to,” and in some cases it may be $450. Now $600 today does not cover the costs of the sewer connections.

That’s an incentive? Indeed, $600 is not enough to seed an acre of parkland. But the municipalities are going to have to put in that parkland, if they are going to have any kind of human quality in their development. They have to have schools to take care of this kind of development. There is precious little in the way of incentive to developing school programmes and school facilities which have to have a priority call on the tax dollars.

Certainly there are places that don’t want development; they can’t afford it. This government keeps crying they can’t do these things because Ottawa doesn’t help them out. Well, just in turn, remember that your municipalities across this province are crying out that you are trying to impose things on them without giving them the assistance they need to make a human kind of development.

We have had the Toronto-centred region plan. I don’t know where it is, nor do I know what’s left of it. If the minister wants to talk about a plan which is an overall plan to be introduced, and I think that might have been the point he was trying to make, there aren’t too many people who would have too much confidence in any such overall planning, because they have seen the way the Toronto-centred region plan has not been developed.

The other night I was having a discussion with some people who were very concerned about the conditions of this world today and our form of democracy. They said democracy is great as long as things are going well, but when things are tough it takes strong voices to tell people the truth about what is happening. I think what my colleague was saying was if we think we are having problems with the petroleum industry and trying to get the facts to the people of what is happening there, what really is going to happen when you have to face them with the facts that we are running out of food, because with your kind of approach to North Pickering you have a lot of fallow land. I think we cannot afford to be a totally importing province, because the countries from which we are presently importing are running out of time for export purposes.

There is no question that some growth is natural growth. There is some growth, however, that is purposely a matter of the development approach by government. I think what we are all saying about North Pickering is that these people have either been left in the dark for a long time at the initial stages or they have been given something -- and I am not suggesting that the minister is deliberately misleading -- which they can’t accept in manageable terms, if one talks about a growth of about 75,000 to 90,000 as the minister has suggested.

The trouble is that when you get to these public meetings it doesn’t come through that that’s for starters, it doesn’t come through that all of the facility planning is for a much larger population.

This is what makes us say, as indeed the NDP have said, that there is a dishonesty in this.

There is a lack of frankness because what they are asked to accept is not really what the government foresees for the area, nor is it in accordance with the plans which have been made by government in its development processes. One of the reasons I have always felt that this North Pickering was a very poor project was because, no matter how you look at it, it is a link in, a build-up, which will carry us not just to Oshawa, but it will go much farther than that over the course of years. This is what is of concern to me.

Now I would like to turn to one other aspect of this particular vote. I can recognize the fact that the minister is not in a position to disclose to us what further funding he will need for land acquisition. It couldn’t be on global terms since the area is pretty well defined, and I think that is quite understandable. But what really concerns me in all this is what this supplementary figure, together with the 1973-1974 figures, provide something in the nature of $15,816,000-odd more than was provided in 1973 and 1974.

We don’t need to do anything other than state the fact there has been a serious decline in housing starts this year. We have concern as to where the housing is coming out of this since we know that these figures will not produce housing -- and the minister has been perfectly honest about that for some period of time. This represents a six per cent increase over the actual expenditure as we have it in public accounts over last year.

I would like to know, since this is entirely allocated to North Pickering, what are the provisions for family rental housing. Are we to assume that’s been phased out? There hasn’t been a statement on it, but it would appear to me from this kind of a supplementary estimate that that seems to be falling by the wayside. I would like some assurance on that before voting on this.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman: The hon. minister.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Chairman, the point of order that I was trying to bring out earlier was the fact that I spoke on an overall of development for Ontario and that was not related to the North Pickering plan, which the member quite properly brought forward. I wanted to make sure that we understood when I was speaking before that it’s a plan for development for all of Ontario which would include North Pickering, Haldimand-Norfolk, northern Ontario and eastern Ontario.

The interpretation of the grants that municipalities have received has to be brought into a clearer perspective than that the member has given this House to believe; because although we are providing, as I stated before, up to $600 per unit, we must also understand that the Treasurer provides to municipalities grants up to more than $2 billion in a year. The developer provides to the municipalities, as he rightly should, a certain amount.

But the municipality should not charge exorbitant rates -- which in some cases they are at the present time -- for every lot the developer wishes to develop. There are some municipalities asking for catch-up funds, and this is where the member must, I think, be a little bit clearer in the understanding of the provision of housing, to realize that municipalities should not be in a position to stop housing because they are asking for funds from the developer and for funds from the Province of Ontario which are not directly related to housing.

We go back to the fact of North Pickering costing a certain amount of money. I think we will find when the ultimate growth of North Pickering is decided and has been attained, that the cost of the housing, of the development in its entirety, in North Pickering, will be at a very reasonable cost. At the present time, we have expended a lot of money; but when you break it down into the number of residential units which you may have, the commercial and industrial enterprises which we will have, it will be, in my opinion, an expenditure well worth while.

Mrs. Campbell: The most inflated are in your opinion well worthwhile!

Hon. Mr. Irvine: In my opinion, you seem to insist that the plans that have been presented to the people in North Pickering were definite plans. I want to correct that interpretation. They were not definite plans. They were only conceptual plans. They have been debated loud and long; and as the leader of the NDP has said, with some dissent no doubt. I think any plan will have that dissent, regardless of where it is. We are going to make sure that the plan we are proceeding with now is a positive plan for development and one which will, in the overall, be for the betterment of all of this area of Metro Toronto, and the North Pickering area in particular.

Now, I see nothing wrong with the expenditure of $170 million for land to this date, or additional expenditures, because I really believe this development will be one which we all can be proud of in the final analysis. But let’s give it a chance. I don’t think we can take the negative attitude that this North Pickering development is something which should not occur because the airport is coming. That was not why the decision was made. Whether the airport comes or not, the development is going to go ahead.

Mr. Lewis: No, that was the basis for the decision.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: And we will proceed with the plan in the early part of this year, as soon as possible.

Mr. Chairman: Shall item 2 carry?

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Chairman, might I have some answers to my other questions about the family rental housing?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: That has no bearing whatsoever on this particular vote. The rental housing --

Mrs. Campbell: It has on a supplementary budget item.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: No, the funds for rental housing are still in our estimates.

Mrs. Campbell: Unspent?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Not unspent entirely.

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

Mr. Haggerty: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman: On item 2?

Mr. Haggerty: Item 2, yes. I was perhaps caught between the two particular parties here this afternoon; the minister and the delegation from the town of Fort Erie, Ald. Vic Miller and the building inspector, Mr. Ken Chesney, who I guess are waiting for the minister to sign the official plan for the town of Fort Erie. I believe this has been some three or four years in the making, and perhaps I should give up my time this afternoon and let the minister run over there and sign that document, because I think it’s important to the town of Fort Erie.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Chairman, I think I can do it for you.

Mr. Roy: Have you learned to sign your name yet, Don?

Mr. M. Gaunt (Huron-Bruce): Bring it over here. Sign it over here.

Mr. Haggerty: But, Mr. Chairman, I do want to speak on vote 804, relating to the Ministry of Housing supplementary vote and the additional funds of $103 million for the housing development programme. I was particularly interested in an article in the Times Review of Fort Erie, Ont., of Nov. 27, 1974, and it’s headlined --

Mr. Chairman: I am wondering if the hon. member isn’t on item 3 on the $103 million.

Mr. Haggerty: No, this is Ontario Housing.

Mr. Chairman: Oh, I am sorry. Continue, please.

Mr. Haggerty: You will have to wait till I get into it, Mr. Chairman, to follow my comments. I was interested to read the article whose headline was “HOME 200-lot Subdivision Okayed.” It read:

“Monday evening council unanimously agreed to the proposal of a 200-lot subdivision along Crescent Rd. which will put low-cost on the market on an easy financing scheme with guaranteed prices.”

Of course, this is an agreement by St. David’s Investment, located some place in the city of St. Catharines, under the planning, or joint planning, with Ontario Housing Corp. which will purchase the lots in 67-lot packages. I was interested further in the article:

“The lots can be acquired under a 50-year lease but residents have the option to purchase a lot outright from OHC every five years. The mortgages will be based upon a 50-year mortgage term rather than the usual 25-year mortgages.”

Of course, when one looks at the particular section here it means that regardless of how many years a person is purchasing that home it will take about 15 years before he gets maybe $100 equity into the purchase of the home. When you extend it for 50 years, that is rather a long time, you know. It is a question whether a person will be living by that time to pay off the mortgage.

Mr. Chairman: Order, please. I think the hon. member is on item 3, which is the Ontario Mortgage Corp. and not on the North Pickering project.

Mr. Haggerty: Does this deal particularly with North Pickering? It doesn’t say in here.

Mr. Chairman: We are on item 2, which is the Ontario Housing North Pickering project. I would say that the member is out of order if he is not speaking to the particular money voted in that estimate.

Mr. Haggerty: Perhaps you are quite right. I will allow the minister to go and sign that document.

Mr. Chairman: The hon. member for Victoria-Haliburton.

Mr. R. G. Hodgson (Victoria-Haliburton): Mr. Chairman, I wonder if the minister would comment upon the North Pickering project developing plan, whereby the citizen advisory group are working with the planners. It seems to me there is some cause for concern in the reflection of the development of the plan which is very much due to the lack of sufficient co-operation among these two groups.

I want to say, too, that I think the idea of the citizen advisory group working with the planners is an excellent one. The only thing I am very much concerned with is the comments that I get from some of those people that decisions are always arrived at before they sit down to decide upon them. If that is the case, you will soon lose that group who are advising you and working with you on the development of the plan, and I think this is very much a reflection of the development of the North Pickering plan itself and its project.

I just simply want to remind the minister that the has to have the full co-operation of other ministries of this government to develop this project, because, as I have said in this House before, confusion and chaos are going to happen out there because everybody is setting a target date of 1977 to start everything. You have the airport starting; you have this project starting; you have 407 starting; you have the widening of Highway 7 starting; and you have the housing that is directly south of Markham being completed. You have all that, and then you have the garbage trucks and everything else going out to that garbage area, which is through that very section. It seems to me that you have got everything, and everybody is doing an excellent job, but there is lack of co-ordination for the services of the people.

I am particularly concerned because I come down through there every week from my riding to this place, and I can visualize that the first guy who tosses away the key to a car on one of those one-way sections of the highway will stop everything in that particular section of this province for about two weeks, because we will never get a tow truck close to that car.

It seems to me you don’t have the outlets or facilities for this sort of thing.

I wonder if that North Pickering project planning group is doing anything more than looking at the 8,000-acre piece of land and thinking outside and whether it is really utilizing the citizen’s group there who can reflect some of these things that are of great concern to places around the project. These problems are certainly going to interfere with the way of life of much of Ontario of those who have to go back and forth through that particular section of this province.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Chairman, the hon. member has brought forward a very important point and I would like to comment on it. Only this week I met with the advisory group of some of the citizens in the area, at least in North Pickering. We assured them that they would have the services of a planner to assist them to have their views known to the development corporation and to the minister at all times.

We also have to say to the member certainly when the plan is developed it will be with the full co-ordination and full cooperation, I hope, of all our ministries. On the matter of transportation and the matter of the protection of the environment, all of the related ministries will certainly have full input as to the ultimate plan.

In the past, it’s my understanding that the North Pickering staff have endeavoured to combine all the ministries involved in regard to their views. Now that we have a development corporation and the staff for North Pickering, we will have a plan which relates directly to all the problems which will have to be resolved before the official plan for development is approved by the minister.

Mr. R. G. Hodgson: Mr. Chairman, I would simply point out that some of the biggest projects this province has ever seen are all going to take place in one small acreage of Ontario in the same year without the present facilities being adequate for the present services required for the population of that area and the rest of the province at the present time.

Highway 48 going through Markham cannot handle the traffic that is there now, north of Highway 401 up to Markham. You need a bypass at Markham for Highway 48 now, not in 1977. You need Highway 407 running past this project now, if you’re going to start trucking, construction and everything.

If you can just visualize the size of the North Pickering project, the possibility and a target date of the international airport and the garbage trucks of Metro going through there; if you can visualize all that taking place in 1977, along with a greater population directly using those facilities under way now by the Minister of Housing in his own housing programme, thereby adding an additional load on the facilities in that immediate area; and all of this happening at one time, within months, and everybody doing a good job of planning on his own project, I seriously doubt this province is co-ordinating all those projects and activity on that small piece of land.

What it’s going to mean, I’ll tell you, if you stop all the traffic from that northeastern and eastern part of Ontario flowing into this city, is that you’ll have such chaos as you’ve never run into before.

Mr. Chairman: The hon. member for Kent.

Mr. J. P. Spence (Kent): Mr. Chairman, listening to this debate makes me just wonder. When I listen to the amount of money that’s being spent in one part of the province for housing and so forth, it makes me wonder about other parts of the province where we have towns and villages which actually have land for housing and which have land for small industries. Yet some of them at the present time, have built sewage plants and they are delighted to get an industry to even consider establishing in the town.

I firmly believe that our good land shouldn’t be used for housing or industry. I know that towns and villages in southwestern Ontario have land available for housing and industry, as I said, but they have great difficulty in encouraging them to establish in those places.

One of the reasons is that there is no work available in those towns and villages in southwestern Ontario at the present time, and many of them feel that it’s practically impossible to afford sewage plants. They hesitate because there are so many pensioners in those towns and villages, although they have the land for housing and small industries.

In southwestern Ontario, Mr. Chairman, we produce many agricultural products, such as soya beans, which we have to ship to Toronto or to Hamilton to have them crushed. We also produce tobacco in that area, but again it has to be transported to Toronto, where there is one plant that manufactures cigarettes. It’s unusual, I think, that these plants aren’t established in towns and villages in southwestern Ontario where the products are produced.

We are proud of the city of Toronto, but it has a problem in terms of crowding; it is at the saturation point and there are not enough means of transportation. But in the towns and villages in agricultural areas, after high school students are educated to grade 13 they are sent to universities across the province of Ontario. When they graduate, of course, they have to go to the great metropolitan areas in order to get jobs that will pay them the salaries to which they are entitled.

As I said before, these towns and villages are anxious for development because they have the land for housing and for small industries. I hope, therefore, that the minister will look at this. We’ve had incentive programmes, under the Ministry of Industry and Tourism, to encourage them to establish small plants in those areas, but it never happened.

When these towns and villages build their pollution control plants, they know they must have some development in order to pay for these new services, which have been needed for many years. When I listen to the debates here, and I think about the overcrowding and lack of balance in the Province of Ontario at the present time, I wonder why these towns and villages can’t get any development. I hope the minister will take a serious look at this situation.

The population of our towns and villages has been stationary for 50 years; there has been no growth whatsoever. Yet when we look at the great Metropolitan Toronto area -- and we are proud of it; we are not against it -- we see that it is overcrowded and that there is a scarcity of land for housing -- but still no development takes place. We don’t want industries that are too big in these towns and villages, but there is lots of room for small industries in the towns and villages of southwestern Ontario.

Mr. Singer: Well said.

Mr. Chairman: Perhaps we are straying a little bit from the particular item.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: We might be, Mr. Chairman. I guess the hon. member was relating his remarks to the overall cost of North Pickering, so I’ll reply to that and perhaps stray a bit too.

In any event, the development of the project will certainly not be self-sustaining for many years, but it would be my hope that we would recover all the costs of this development when the final plan for development has been obtained.

Now, the member relates to other areas which haven’t received adequate development. That was what I was referring to when I said there was to be an overall plan for development throughout all of Ontario -- which the Treasurer will be announcing in the not too distant future. For those municipalities that wish to expand and wish to have finances provided, I am quite confident that it will be done. We have assisted in many cases in the past, and will continue to do so in the future.

When we talk about the North Pickering area being a preferred area, really it’s not the case. We are talking about providing funding now for a project which I think in the long run will be self-sustaining, and will also provide funding for municipalities throughout other parts of Ontario.

Mr. Chairman: Shall item 2 carry? Item 2 agreed to.

The hon. member for Downsview in item 3.

Mr. Singer: Mr. Chairman, in item 3 the minister is asking for some $58 million for the Ontario Mortgage Corp. And when you look at the page 7 in the estimate book, under disbursements, it describes it as “advances to the Ontario Mortgage Corp. to be disbursed in the form of primary and secondary financing under the HOME plan, the Condominium Act and the Ontario Housing Corp. Act.”

Now, the minister knows that I have been trying to get the specifics of the use of these moneys from him; the statutory authority or the regulations that have been passed in regard to this; or even the ministerial directives that govern this. I’ve been trying to get it from him. He’s promised to look it up and provide it to me.

Our research staff have been trying to get it, and we haven’t really come up with any specific programme, direction, order, controlling mechanism -- certainly no regulations, certainly no statutory provisions -- which looks after the disbursal of these moneys and sets down the rules by which they are looked after.

The best I’ve been able to come up with is this, Mr. Chairman. Ontario Mortgage Corp. apparently is a corporation incorporated under the Business Corporations Act, and it was incorporated by government. There are no specific statutory directions relating to Ontario Mortgage Corp. The shareholders or the people owning the shares of that company are, I guess, the government of Ontario.

We’ve heard about the HOME plan in various speeches and announcements made by this minister and his predecessors. The Condominium Act really is nothing more than the statute which provides the legal method of creating condominiums and registering them in the appropriate registry offices. And the Housing Corporation Act is the enabling statute for the Ontario Housing Corp.

So, having said all that, we are really back to point one. What are the rules and regulations governing these mortgages?

This is as far as I have been able to figure out. I have here a copy of a circular talking about another HOME community developed by Ontario Housing Corp., an agency of the Province of Ontario, in co-operation with the government of Canada. There are some rules here about these mortgages.

I would presume that what I am going to read now applies generally to the mortgages that the Ontario Mortgage Corp. advances, particularly insofar as condominiums are concerned. And that is the sphere I’m going to comment on at some length now.

Under the heading of eligibility rules in this circular, it says:

“Applicants must have been a resident of Ontario for at least one full year. Applications are limited to one per family.”

Now I think that’s the first point I would ask the minister to note carefully.

“Applications are limited to one per family. In order to meet the objectives of the HOME plan, applications are limited to couples or individuals with at least one legal dependent.”

I think that’s important.

“Generally, persons who have already purchased an OHC-sponsored house are not eligible to participate in this lottery.”

Well, a lottery is not really applicable, because we are talking about certain HOME houses. I’m talking about these mortgages so far as they relate to the HOME mortgages and so far as they relate to condominium units.

Planned dwellings are for owner-occupancy only and may not be sublet. If the successful applicant owns a house or a home at present, he or she must sell it before moving into a dwelling offered in this lottery. Applicants are restricted to single-income families whose current gross annual incomes do not exceed $14,500 and to two-income families earning up to $17,000. In the latter case, 100 per cent of both incomes may be totalled to determine eligibility.

In order to qualify as a purchaser a family’s monthly carrying charges, land rental and municipal taxes must not exceed 30 per cent of the gross family income.

So what have we got, if those are the general conditions? Would the minister agree with me that generally those are the general conditions that would apply to condominium mortgages?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Yes.

Mr. Singer: All right. We have gone that far. So they are limited to people within certain incomes, minimum and maximum. They are limited to people who do not already live in a home or they have to sell it, and are limited to people who --

Mrs. Campbell: And can only buy one.

Mr. Singer: -- yes, can only buy one -- and are limited to people who aren’t allowed to sublet.

Those, basically, are the general conditions. If you look at one of these mortgages -- I am reading from a HOME mortgage, and the forms are substantially the same; they are printed forms -- clause 21 of the mortgage I am reading from says:

“Providing that within a period of five years of the date of registration, any transfer or conveyance or other dealing with the said unit, other than the transfer of conveyance by the mortgagee to the first purchaser, which has the effect of transferring the legal or equitable interest in the sad unit, shall take place without the prior consent of the mortgagee [and that’s HOME] then, in that event, and at the option of the mortgagee herein and upon demand, the balance of the principal sum hereby secured, together with any other moneys due and owing to the mortgagee pursuant to the terms of this mortgage together with interest as herein divided, shall forthwith become due and payable.”

To attempt to translate that into a little simpler English, what it means is that after the sale to the first owner, who is able to take advantage of this government mortgage, subsequent sales are subject to supervision and prior approval of Ontario Housing, and in the event that they don’t approve they can call for the immediate payment of all the balance due and owing under the mortgage; not an unreasonable control step at all.

What kind of mortgage are we talking about in addition to the specific qualifications? We are talking about 8¾ per cent mortgages; at least some 3¼ per cent below the going market rate. So we are talking about people who have the need for condominium housing and who are being given an advantage by government under this plan. That’s what the minister is asking for; he is asking for another $58 million worth of funds to help people who need housing. In fact, it’s more than helping; it’s subsidizing, because he is enabling a certain group of the community of Ontario to arrange mortgages at less than the going rate. That is a subsidy. And if somebody can get an 8¾ per cent mortgage, they are going to benefit from that. They are, in fact, being provided a subsidy by the rest of the people of the Province of Ontario.

In principle we don’t object to that, provided, Mr. Chairman -- and this is what these remarks are all about -- that this is fairly and equitably done and the rules are lived up to. What I am going to establish now, Mr. Chairman, are half a dozen examples where the rules have not been lived up to. And I am going to say that in light of the past performance of Ontario Housing and of the ministry, the minister does not deserve to have voted to him the $58 million he is now asking for; because there is no evidence at all that his officials or the officials of Ontario Housing Corp. who are charged with this responsibility have done their work properly, if at all.

While it’s bad enough if it’s merely negligence, it may be much more; and I don’t understand what it is, Mr. Chairman -- but let me give you some of the history that we have been able to ascertain.

I am going to talk about specific titles and mention specific names. The first building I am talking about is unit 18, level 29, building 5, Crescent Town, York condominium 76, 5 Massey Square. There is a charge or mortgage. These mortgages I think run to what, Mr. Minister, about 90 per cent or 95 per cent?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: About 90 or 95 per cent.

Mr. Singer: Yes, 90 or 95. There is the charge that goes on on July 1, 1972. It is put on by the owner-developers, I suppose for the record you might as well have the names of the owner-developers. They are Rose Park St. James Investments, Rose Park Parliament Investments, Rose Park Wellesley, Rose Park Bleeker and Rose Park Howard Investments. Those are the developers. Ontario Housing Corp. gives them a mortgage and it’s in the standard form for $22,074 and that mortgage bears interest at the rate of 8¾ per cent.

Then the first owner is a gentleman called Al Hladik. He buys that property from the owners, that condominium unit, for $23,196. So, in fact, his down payment, according to this, is the difference between $22,000 and $23,000, roughly $1,000. Mr. Hladik becomes the owner of this condominium unit, subject to a $22,000 mortgage, interest at 8¾ per cent, and he has put up his down payment, presumably of $1,000, in September, 1973.

In November 1973, two months later, Mr. Hladik sells to a Eugene Pavelek, the same unit, for $26,500. That is not a bad turnover for Mr. Hladik in a two-month period. He makes a profit apparently of some $3,500. But interestingly enough, Mr. Chairman, the mortgage stays there; so Mr. Hladik really had something very merchantable. He puts up $1,000, he gets a cheap mortgage subsidized by all of the people in Ontario and then he turns around and sells it to Mr. Pavelek for the extra $3,000. Mr. Pavelek gives back to Mr. Hladik a second mortgage for 10 per cent on $3,400, a little more than the difference in price. Mr. Hladik is a pretty shrewd operator. He takes back a second mortgage at a higher rate of interest and more than the difference in the two prices. Instance one, Mr. Hladik.

Let’s go now to unit 1, level 18, building 3, the same condominium development. The owners put on a mortgage to Ontario Housing Corp., and they then sell it to Oldrick Hladik. Our research indicates that Oldrick Hladik is the same person as Al Hladik. There is no doubt. He becomes the owner of a second one.

Remember the conditions, Mr. Chairman. The conditions were only one to a customer and it’s to benefit a person in a particular income bracket; and if he changes, then Ontario Housing should be able to move in and demand the payment of it. I guess they didn’t pay too much attention to Mr. Hladik or their checking wasn’t very close. Now Mr. Hladik on Nov. 4, 1972, owns unit 1, level 18, building 3. At that point, he has owned one and sold it at a profit and he now owns the second one.

Mrs. Campbell: No, this one he bought in 1972. The other was in 1973.

Mr. Singer: Oh yes. There’s a second one in any event. Then look at unit 1, level 11, building 1. A mortgage again, a low rate of interest again and transferred to -- guess who? Good old Oldrick Hladik. He gets the third one.

One to a customer, Mr. Chairman; but here’s old Rick Hladik who has had three. Then there is unit 7, level 28, building 5, the same development.

Mr. Ruston: He must know the minister.

Mr. Gaunt: He must be a good Conservative.

Mr. Singer: I don’t know who he was. There’s a charge on July 1, 1972, to Ontario Housing.

Mr. D. A. Evans (Simcoe Centre): There are no bad ones.

Mr. Singer: The first owner is not Mr. Hladik but a lady named Sylvia Bucek. However, she doesn’t hold it for very long. On Jan. 15, 1974, she sells it to good old Oldrick Hladik. So now he has four. Hladik holds that then for two months from Jan. 15, 1974, to Mar. 12, 1974, and then he sells it to someone called Mohan Dixon for $25,000; and Mohan Dixon gives back a second mortgage to Hladik for $2,900 at 11 per cent per annum.

So this scheme certainly has been a great benefit plan to Oldrick Hladik. The government obviously has not checked, or Ontario Housing has not checked carefully or at all, insofar as the approval of the initial purchaser is concerned. Certainly no approval seemed to have been sought when the units changed hands for second and third times, because the original mortgage, the first mortgage to Ontario Housing, remains. It wouldn’t appear from anything registered on the title that this clause 21, being one of the standard printed clauses in the mortgage, has ever been used.

What are you up to? Or what are your officials up to? If I use the word “you,” Mr. Minister, you’ll understand I’m not referring to you doing it personally I’m referring to the administration that it is apparent you are accountable for, and the people who I do not believe are doing their job.

All right, that’s one set of properties. In the same area, unit 10, level 29, building 5, there’s a charge or mortgage on July 1, 1972, given by the owners to Ontario Housing; the same mortgage, same interest rate and so on. They transferred, on Feb. 1, 1974, to Wilmot Watson. And Wilmot Watson, on Nov. 15, 1974, not very long ago, transfers the property to Mohammedali Bandali for some $35,000. That’s one instance.

Unit 11, level 29, building 5: A charge from the owners to Ontario Housing Corp. transferred on Nov. 14, 1973, to Mohammedali. So, he’s got a second one. And then he transfers it, on Dec. 31, 1973, to Doris Wisiak. The price increasing every time and people profiteering -- the same people profiteering -- at the expense of the people of the Province of Ontario.

You have the safeguards, you don’t use them; these things take place in instance after instance, and there is no policing work done by the Ontario Housing Corp.

Let me give you another one. Flemingdon Woods, York condominium 73743. The developers are Davill Investments Ltd., Car-Allen Investments Ltd. and Olympia and York Developments Ltd. And for condominium unit 8, level 7, condominium 43, 5 Vicora Linkway the history is much the same; just some of the actors change.

There is a charge from the owners to Ontario Housing in 1971. In 1974, Mar. 11, Harry Anthony and V. Milner -- I’m missing one document; the owners must have transferred to Harry Anthony and V. Milner -- they sell it to David Morris for $35,500, and David Morris gives back a second mortgage to Harry Anthony and V. Milner.

I may say there is one common thread that runs through this. Not once is the original mortgage to Ontario Housing ever discharged; not once has this clause 21 ever been taken advantage of.

In the same development, unit 15, level 15, condominium 43, the charge from the owners to Ontario Housing in 1974; and then on Feb. 5, 1974, one William Pye sells it to none other than David Morris. So there David Morris has two.

But there’s more to come about David Morris. Unit 7, level 1, condominium 43, charge in November of 1971 to Ontario Housing, transferred April 22, 1974, to -- guess who? -- David Morris by the owners. Now he’s got three.

And then the penthouse 3, level 20, 60 Pavance Linkway; there is a transfer again, I am advised, to David Morris. He’s got four.

One to a customer? No profiteering? Controlled income, high and low levels? What kind of nonsense does the government do?

Who do they subsidize? Why do they subsidize people who apparently don’t need it, people who deal in land, people who take advantage of the bonus given to them by the people of the province of Ontario to provide low interest rate mortgages? What kind of controls do you have?

Let me give you another one. Flemingdon Woods condominium No. 77, unit 14, level 13; condominium 77, 5 Victoria Linkway. Charge from the owners to Ontario Housing Corp., May 1, 1972; transfer from the owners on Dec. 20, 1972, to Pierre Imbert.

As I say, the actors change, but the story is exactly the same.

Unit 1, level 16, condominium 77. Charge from the owners to Ontario Housing; transfer from the owners on Feb. 9, 1973 to Pierre Imbert.

Mr. Good: Public inquiry.

Mr. Singer: Unit 1, level -- I can’t read the typing here, the level really doesn’t matter, we can find it if the minister is awfully concerned -- condominium 77. Pierre Imbert is there again. So he has got three.

When we had found out that much, Mr. Chairman, I decided the case was well enough established. Obviously there are speculators speculating on the HOME land. Obviously there are speculators speculating at the expense of the people of Ontario. Although there are directions and policies, and even mortgage clause privileges that allow this to be stopped, and requirements for a check of the first purchaser, obviously whoever is charged with that responsibility either has done their work very badly or they haven’t done it at all. If the excuse is negligence there is no excuse for it, and if the excuse is something else then perhaps some criminal charges should be laid.

Mr. Haggerty: Time for an inquiry.

Mr. Singer: I say, Mr. Chairman, the time has come -- and it is long overdue -- for a complete and thorough-going top to bottom investigation and public inquiry into the business management and the affairs of Ontario Housing Corp. Mr. Chairman, you may be aware that I am sort of in the midst of the saga of South Milton. I am not going to continue that today; I will continue that on another day.

I also have another phase of Ontario Housing that on another day I am going to take up with the minister and I have been nibbling at it in question period. That is about overcharging and payments of inflated invoices -- how many times it happened -- and the relationship of all those incidents to the 27 charges that were laid against Ontario Housing employees for accepting gifts; because I suggest, Mr. Chairman, there is a definite relationship.

However, appropriate only to this hour is the request of the minister for some $58 million for more mortgages, and I say, Mr. Chairman, that my colleagues and I cannot bring ourselves to vote this amount of money, even though the idea behind this kind of mortgage lending is a good one and is for a group of Ontario citizens who need some substantial help to buy housing units.

We are not satisfied, Mr. Chairman. We are not satisfied that Ontario Housing is doing its job and is letting out these mortgages on a fair and reasonable and equitable basis. It has allowed, for whatever reason, it has allowed exploiters and developers and speculators to move in and to make a profit. Unless and until the minister can give us some reasonable explanation as to why this kind of event should have taken place, not once but dozens of times, then I don’t know how he can expect the House to have confidence in the administration of this scheme.

Mr. Chairman: The member for Welland South.

Mr. Haggerty: Did the minister want to reply?

Mr. Chairman: Did the minister want to reply to the member for Downsview?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Yes, Mr. Chairman. Obviously I will look into the matters that have been raised by the member for Downsview. I haven’t got the facts, as he has. I wish to substantiate what he has said and will do so. If there has been a misuse of the plan then I will certainly take steps to correct any misuse.

I am aware of one other instance which took place without our knowledge -- without OHC being aware that a transfer had been made. This happens at times when the mortgage is not discharged, a person can make a sale without the knowledge of OHC. Now it may be that the member has hit a very important point when he said the original mortgage was not discharged. That, I think, is the crux of the problem.

If we are not aware of the sales, it is not that OHC is not doing its job properly. I think it’s a matter of people being dishonest with the intent of the programme. It doesn’t relieve us, though, of the obligation to be on top of problems such as this, and I will look into the matter. I think if we had allowed the mortgage to be discharged and this man to have three properties, knowing that he had three properties, then I would say that we are very much in the wrong. But I do not believe that OHC, or any of its officers, knew that one person had two or three or four properties.

Mr. Singer: Mr. Chairman, I would think that whatever system of checking did exist, surely there should have been some kind of sworn declaration on behalf of the first owner that he owned no others, and that should have been renewed. When you get one owner with four and you have some kind of affidavit, then the man is guilty of perjury.

An hon. member: How?

Mr. Singer: Wait a minute. Secondly, if I buy a house on which there is an existing mortgage, my lawyer is going to ask for a mortgage statement. I’m certain that the secondary and tertiary purchasers would have had lawyers who would have asked for mortgage statements and they would have asked the mortgagee; and the mortgagee was Ontario Housing Corp. When the request came in, surely somebody should have been alerted in Ontario Housing Corp., when they had to send out a mortgage statement as to how much was owing under an existing mortgage, that there was a pending change in ownership.

Third, after the ownership had moved from A to B the mortgage payments would no longer come in from A, who was the original first owner. If you get a cheque from B when the mortgage is with A, that might have sounded some kind of a warning bell.

If the scheme is such that one of these multiple owners arranged some complicated system of getting the money due under the mortgage paid to him so the cheques would be sent in by him, then you’re in the midst of the great scheme of fraud. Then, I think, you should get your police after that and charge some of these people.

But it doesn’t seem logical to me, Mr. Chairman, that when mortgage statements should be required, when cheques are required regularly, and when you get the same names on your books three, four and five times, that somebody over there shouldn’t have been able to find out what was going on.

Mr. R. G. Hodgson: Were they different lawyers?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Chairman, I think we have to determine, first of all, who was the lawyer involved on behalf of the owner and on behalf of the next buyer; whether it was the same lawyer or not. It could have been. And whether the standards used by the lawyers in all cases are at the same level, I’m not going to comment on. I would suggest there could be a difference.

I’m going to assure the hon. member, though, I’m going to look into the matters raised before us. If we are at fault, I will quite readily admit to this and find out why. First of all, before I make any comments, I want to find out what the transactions actually were, and how they took place. I think that is a reasonable request.

Mr. Singer: Mr. Chairman, before I let the minister go on this: Can you tell me, in brief outline, what system of checking exists now, today, Dec. 18, 1974, for handling these mortgages?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: You have already read the book.

Mr. Singer: Is that the system? My friend Mr. Breithaupt, not the member for Kitchener, my friend Mr. Breithaupt puts himself within that income category. What does he have to do to get approval? Does he fill out forms? Does he swear an affidavit?

Once Ontario Housing Corp. sees his name, is it run through a card list to see if he’s already a mortgagor? What is your specific system of checking? What are the mechanics of it? Because I think the mechanics are very, very important.

It’s my suggestion that it just isn’t working, in view of the evidence I’ve heard here. The mechanics can’t be very accurate, unless there is some explanation for this strange series of events; not just one instance, but the four or five I’ve outlined and many more that I understand exist.

Does the minister know, and can he explain to us how the present system works as of Dec. 18, 1974?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Chairman, we have already clarified this in answering the member’s previous comments about the system. But what we haven’t really determined is how you can be assured, when someone makes an affidavit, that he is not telling the truth. Generally you would assume they are telling the truth.

Mr. Singer: If there is an affidavit; do you know?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: if they sign an affidavit that they have no other homes, then I assume that that should be the truth. If someone is committing fraud we will look into that, and that’s what I want to do.

Mr. Singer: Do you have the forms with you? What documentation is required? Is it in the form of an affidavit? Is it in the form of a statement? Can you indicate the extent to which the requests for mortgage statements are related to existing records and the extent to which payments are related to named mortgagors whom the government or Ontario Housing believes are the existing mortgagors --

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Chairman, obviously I haven’t got them with me, but I will undertake to find out what procedures are followed and what happened in these particular cases and tell the House what we do and what happens when we resume in the next few days.

Mr. Chairman: Is the member for Welland South on the same question? If not, the member for Wentworth.

Mr. Haggerty: I am on vote 804.

Mr. Chairman: Yes, I know you are on the same vote, but I think the member for Wentworth had a question on the same subject as the member for Downsview.

Mr. I. Deans (Wentworth): I have a very similar question to the one raised by the member for Downsview. I raised the question last week about the family in Bramalea.

You are familiar, are you, with the Nancekivell situation with Mr. Kalyani, who purchased the home, never lived in it and rented it? Perhaps you can answer the questions that I raised last week, but what I would like to ask of you in that regard is this: Ontario Housing were obviously aware that Mr. Kalyani wasn’t living in the home, because they sent put two letters addressed to “the occupant” because they didn’t know who was there. If they were aware that was going on, if they were aware that Mr. Kalyani had never ever moved in and that he had rented it from day one, in what I think is in violation of the agreement that he signed with Ontario Housing --

Mr. Singer: It is.

Mr. Deans: I haven’t seen the agreement; I can only assume it was in violation.

Mr. Singer: It was in violation of those conditions. I read the conditions.

Mr. Deans: Then how can it be that this can go on and Ontario Housing can be aware of it and absolutely nothing happens?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Chairman, on this particular case the member is referring to, I haven’t got the answer with me. But I have the answer in that particular case and I will read it out tomorrow.

Mr. Deans: You are aware there are other homes in the area that have been sitting empty since April of last year.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Well, there is more to it than what you see on the surface.

Mr. Deans: Okay, I am only telling you what I know. I’m not claiming for one minute that every word I uttered in that regard was gospel truth. It was, as far as I was concerned. I was telling you what I believed to be true.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: I have a full statement I can give you on that.

Mr. Deans: And when will you make it?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: I can do it tomorrow.

Mr. Deans: Okay. I do have another matter, but I’ll yield to the member from Welland, since I interjected into his comments.

Mr. Chairman: The member for Welland South.

Mr. Haggerty: Mr. Chairman, perhaps I can continue what I started before I was ruled out of order, and that deals in particular with the housing development programme, vote 804, item 3. I was making reference to an article in the Fort Erie Times Review of Nov. 27, 1974, headlined “HOME 200-lot Subdivision Okayed.” It said:

“Monday evening, council unanimously agreed to the proposal of a 200-lot subdivision along Crescent Rd. which will put low-cost on the market on an easy financing scheme with guaranteed prices.”

It is not my intention to slight council. I have every confidence in the members of the Fort Erie council, but when I look at the scheme with guaranteed prices and I go on down further in the article -- perhaps I’ll outline just what they mean by “guaranteed income.”

The article said: “It had been mentioned by Alderman Miller that the average cost of a lot would be $10,000 and the average cost of one of the homes would be $22,000.” So I suppose if you look at the total it would be $32,000 to purchase a Home Ownership Made Easy home in that area. The agreement is with St. David’s Investments, who perhaps are located in the city of St. Catharines, and the property consists of the Crescent Farms in the Crescent Park area of Fort Erie.

I was interested further in the article that lots can be acquired under a 50-year lease, but residents have the option to purchase the lots outright from the OHC every five years. The mortgages will be based on a 50- year term rather than on the usual 20- to 25-year mortgages.

I must say to the minister that I don’t think a person would ever pay off a 50-year mortgage. He would be between 70 and 80 years of age. I suppose on a long-term mortgage like that it might take 15 years before the owner obtains any equity in the land or the home itself. I’m sure the minister would be able to come up with a better and more equitable scheme than that to provide housing for the citizens of this province.

The more I look into this matter of the involvement of Ontario Housing Corp., the more I believe that it’s not going to provide land at a reasonable cost. For the life of me I can’t understand why your ministry hasn’t done some research in the area of the cost of existing serviced lots and lots being sold in subdivisions. There is an exceptionally good subdivision between Crystal Beach and Ridgeway, and the lots there have been selling there for anywhere from $5,200 to $6,000, including a $500 impost charge by the municipality. The lot price includes hard-surfaced roads with two coats of asphalt, storm sewers, water services and underground wiring.

The lots in that subdivision are 75 ft in frontage by 132 ft in depth, while the lots that are covered by the agreement between Ontario Housing and St. David’s Investments have a frontage of approximately 50 ft, I believe. In other words, they will be approximately 4½ or five lots on an acre of land.

Based on those figures, as well as the information I have before me and the information I have obtained through a good source, the developers who purchased the land at a cost of $2,500 an acre will sell serviced lots at $10,000 each. So there is going to be a good profit -- almost $25,000 -- on an acre of land after it is all serviced.

I have also talked to a contractor in the area, and he tells me that he can install sewer and water services in that area for approximately $8 a ft frontage. Therefore, you are talking about $400 a serviced lot; if you split it down both sides, I suppose that is what it will work out at for these services.

As I look into this matter further, it is my feeling that the people who are going to purchase these lots will have been taken. Do you know what that is going to do to that municipality? It’s going to change the whole assessment pattern of that municipality, based on the interest and the involvement of the Ontario Housing Corp. They haven’t done any research before going into an agreement in a municipality -- at least they didn’t in this particular municipality -- because if they had they would have searched out the price at which property was being sold. There was no appraisal given on the property They just went in and said: “This is the agreement, and this is what it is going to cost the homeowner to purchase this land under the Home Ownership Made Easy Programme.” I can’t see that it’s going to be easy for any person to buy a lot to build a home in this particular area, because I think they have been taken. It only adds further to the inflated land values in that area.

As the member for Downsview stated, a complete overhaul of Ontario Housing is needed. He was right when he said there should be an inquiry made into their operations, because I don’t think they are doing the job they should be doing in the Province of Ontario -- not when they can go out and get involved in a scheme like this, where persons are going to have to pay $10,000 for a lot. It might be worth $10,000 in the city of Toronto or some other area, but a lot is not worth $10,000 in the town of Fort Erie, because land is never sold for that price.

In the official plan that the minister has just signed today for the town of Fort Erie, I believe there is a clause that refers to “unique development” or “estate planning,” I believe. You might find that the lots will sell for that much on the Niagara Blvd., but then again you are talking about one or two acres of land; however there is land worth $10,000 a serviced lot in the town of Fort Erie.

I hope the minister will take seriously the words that I am trying to convey to him this afternoon and that before Ontario Housing gets involved in any more of these schemes they should go out and make an appraisal of what land is worth in the area, without just coming in and saying, “This is the agreement today; the lots are going to be worth $10,000 a year from now.” It just throws the value of land right out the door.

I have talked to a number of real estate persons and brokers in the area and they have definitely told me that land is not worth that much in that area. Now you have come in, you have allowed them to establish the price of $10,000 and it’s just going to mushroom across that whole municipality.

It’s going to add further to the costs of those persons who want to purchase a HOME condominium and can’t; not at that price, because perhaps the income is not that high in that area as it is perhaps in the city of Toronto. All these things should be taken into consideration before you allow Ontario Housing to venture into such a scheme.

I believe the member for St. George mentioned the other day -- was it SAS or something like that? I think she’s right when she said there was special assistance to speculators in the Province of Ontario. This instance indicates that you are tied in with certain developers in the Province of Ontario, and there hasn’t been any saving passed back to the person who wants to purchase the home.

There is much to be gained by past experience in housing in Canada. One can go back to the war years and look at the wartime housing, the crisis that we had at that time and how it was solved. I see some of those houses as I drive to the city of St. Catharines, the town of Fort Erie or the city of Welland. Those houses are still there today, and they have met the needs of the housing crisis without establishing some houses on 70- or 80-foot lots that you are perhaps going to have in some of these plans in the Province of Ontario.

I think the basic needs of a house should be there without having a two-car garage attached to it, saddling the homeowner with additional cost to purchase a home. Give them the basic needs first for that home and then the garage and that can follow later on. I just hope that your ministry would take a look at the wartime housing. It has served a purpose and there is no reason why it cannot be done today without saddling people with a 50-year mortgage. It’s ridiculous to go out and buy a home today with 50 years to pay it off. They’ll never pay it off.

I am hoping the minister will take these things into consideration. I suppose, too, when you look at the uniform building code this should bring down the cost of housing too. If a person wanted to go out and build a home today, he shouldn’t have to get money through another source or agency of the government or through some developer. His job should be the security for obtaining a loan to build a home. That’s all that’s required.

He shouldn’t have to go through this agency or that agency. By the time they get the rake-off and a commission on it, that’s about $4,000 on a home. These things have to be changed if you want to put homes up for the average person to purchase in the Province of Ontario. The scheme that you have going today is going to saddle that man with debt for the rest of his life; that’s what it does.

He will never be able to obtain ownership unless you change your programme and let his job provide the security. Let him go to the bank, and you finance the bank, in a sense, to let him get the loan from them without going through all your special agents, which puts a hidden tax on to the cost of borrowing that money. This is what is taking place in the Province of Ontario. A different approach has to be taken to it.

With private lenders people don’t go through two or three hands to get money. They go through one party. Perhaps I have to assess it this way: As soon as the government gets involved in it, the cost can go sky-high. He’ll pay for the rest of his life, on a 50-year mortgage, as long as the government is involved in it; and I think this is wrong.

Perhaps if you went back to the 25-year mortgage, to the 25-year club, it would probably be better for us today. We wouldn’t be into this inflationary spiral which the government has caused through this type of a programme. It’s time the minister took a good look at this. Cut out the red tape, cut out all these fringe benefits to your associates and the developers and give the homeowner a break if you really want to do something.

Mr. Chairman: Does the minister want to reply to this?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Yes, Mr. Chairman. The member has brought up various points which I feel have to be answered to get this HOME plan in its right perspective. Right now what we do is we have three appraisals for every purchase that is made through OHC; two independent appraisals and one appraisal by our own OHC staff --

Mr. Singer: Like in South Milton.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: -- on the lands that are purchased for HOME or for senior citizens’ accommodation or for rent-geared-to-income accommodation. In your particular municipality, I am not aware of the actual circumstances. You should be. You say you are not in agreement with your municipality. I think this is where some of the problems lie in the cost of housing.

Mr. Haggerty: I didn’t say I wasn’t in agreement, Mr. Chairman.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Didn’t you?

Mr. Haggerty: I said I didn’t want to slight them in any way.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: What else did you say? I am sorry.

Mr. Haggerty: I said I had every confidence in their judgement.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Well, you can’t have it both ways.

Mr. Haggerty: I don’t want it both ways. I have every confidence in the council.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: I thought you were taking issue with your municipality.

Mr. Haggerty: I am taking issue with you.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: I couldn’t hear you. Would you repeat what you said because I couldn’t hear?

Mr. Haggerty: To make a reply to your comments, you said there is an appraisal given and I said that to my knowledge there was no appraisal given of the land values in that area. I have talked to real estate persons in that area and they have indicated to me that to their knowledge also no appraisal was given. The other real estate agencies had property available for housing; I can say this much: almost a stone’s throw from- the property that was purchased, land was available which you could have bought cheaper than that.

What I am saying is that when you get into a scheme such as this, if you are going to do it, deal directly with the municipalities. Why must you bring a developer into it and let him walk off with $25,000 profit on an acre of land? That’s a ripoff at the expense of those persons who are going to purchase that property and it is at the expense of the taxpayers of this province.

OHC isn’t going to make a profit off it, so why should the developer come in and reap the profits off it? That’s the point I am making.

I said you have got a lot to learn, if you go back some 30 or 40 years ago and look at the programmes we had for wartime housing. It solved the problem of a housing crisis at that time and those homes are still standing today. Some of the owners have made vast improvements on them. The old saying is: “A home is a man’s castle.”

Mr. Chairman: Has the minister had enough of the member’s speech repeated now?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: The point I wished to make was that the purchase of the property, if it is by OHC, has to be with the approval of the municipality. This is what I thought the member was taking issue on, that he didn’t agree with the municipality’s decision that we should purchase lands in that particular area. As to the point of the profit, I say again that the method we use is that appraisals are made on the lands that are purchased. So I don’t see that there’s a ripoff there --

Mr. Haggerty: Do you say $25,000 in that area isn’t a ripoff?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: I am not saying there was $25,000. You are saying it. I am saying that I don’t believe there is a ripoff in any area where we go in with the HOME plan.

What I want to also remark on is the fact the mortgages are 50 years at the present time -- because of the high rate of interest. We are not the ones responsible primarily for the high rate of interest. It is the federal government’s responsibility to lower the interest rate to where it should be by curbing inflation. We have entered into a limited dividend programme at eight per cent but we have also subsidized housing where necessary, as far as we can with our limited resources. The federal government has much more resources than us and has not provided us with the funding that’s necessary.

Mr. Haggerty: Have you no scheme in the Province of Ontario -- let’s take ODC. In the past you’ve given interest-free loans, haven’t you? I think their interest at the present time doesn’t amount to 11 per cent or 12 per cent, as it is to purchase a home today. You are giving a preferred interest rate of, what? -- eight per cent or something like that?

Surely, if you can give it to one segment of society you can give it to the other. It’s as the member for Grey-Bruce said; there are two types of socialists, the rich and the poor, and you’ve certainly defined it.

Mr. Chairman: The hon. member for Wentworth.

Mr. Deans: Thank you. I’m going to be very brief because I want to touch on something I spoke about last week, but I want to make a point with the minister about it. On Monday last he answered a question that I asked about a week ago, and he said that he wasn’t contemplating any changes in the lottery which he proposed to conduct in January, I believe, of this coming year, for homes that will be available in the immediate Hamilton area, the Saltfleet satellite city area.

I want to make one last plea to you to make some changes, because there are some changes which are absolutely necessary if you’re going to restore public confidence in the lottery. Obviously, the people who got homes are reasonably happy. They weren’t happy before they got them; they weren’t happy with the way the lottery was conducted before their names were drawn, Many of them are honest enough to say they would have preferred it had been changed, but now that they’ve got the home they won’t want it changed for that lottery, and I don’t blame them. Okay? But I think from now on, for the next lottery there are a few things you should consider.

You answered one letter from a Mr. Murray, stating that it would take something like a year, or a year and a half, for all of the names to be drawn if they drew all 713 and gave them a choice. I want to give you a technique which may well work and which would eliminate the problem.

Why would you not ask the person to list on the application form in order of preference the builder and the type of home from the selected builders? Then, as the forms are drawn, there will be a board on the wall. And as they are drawn the forms say: first choice, builder X; home type, Y; price, whatever. Okay? And that’s marked off all the way through as you draw them.

It would take no longer than the current system. It wouldn’t require then that there be any contact between builder and applicant to the extent that there has been in the past. And it would give everyone a chance -- one in whatever the total number of lots were that were going to be drawn.

If their first choice wasn’t available, their second choice would be checked on the board. If that were not available their third choice would be checked on the board; if that were not available their fourth choice would be checked, until each of the choices had been checked off and they were allocated to a builder and allocated the home that their number was drawn for.

Surely that would make sense and it wouldn’t take a year for it to be accomplished. It could be accomplished in the same length of time as it took to have the original lottery -- perhaps an extra two or three hours at the very most. I think that that could be done with no difficulty at all and we wouldn’t be faced with the kinds of problems that we’re now faced with.

Let me just quickly go through what I see as the problem areas, okay? I think that the narrowing down the choice from the choice of a total number of lots to the choice of the number of lots allocated to one single builder severely inhibits the opportunity for a great many people to get a home at all. It means that rather than having one choice -- in this case one choice out of 713 -- they may have one choice in 56, one choice in 43, one choice in 80, or whatever.

And we could have a repetition of what occurred in this recently passed lottery. That is, a particular builder didn’t have a sufficient number of applicants for the lots that he had available. That’s because people had to choose and they chose other builders. I want to stress on the minister the majority of people who applied in that lottery -- 99 per cent, I would venture the opinion -- were perfectly happy to accept any builder. All they wanted was a house.

I want to say that I think the suggestion I’ve made would fill the bill; it wouldn’t create any great problem administratively and would certainly give people a far greater range of chances in the lottery.

I want to suggest too that the next time there be a restriction on the area from which the applicants will be accepted. It’s unreasonable, from my point of view, to hold a lottery in Hamilton which is intended to satisfy the housing needs of the people in the immediate area, and have people from Ottawa have their name drawn; have people from Toronto have their name drawn. I think that we should define the area much more clearly and we should make the draw on the basis of trying to satisfy an immediate housing need for people in the area in which the houses are being built.

I think further that to whatever extent it is possible -- and this requires some discussion, I think -- the homes should be restricted to first-time purchasers. I think that that is one of the things we may have to iron out some problems with. But I think to whatever extent that is possible, that priority should be given to first-time purchasers.

I want you to concern yourselves particularly about changes occurring in the method of conducting the lottery during the period while the lottery is in effect. In other words, after the date when the lottery is started to the date when it is completed and the draw is made, there should be no changes other than those which are approved specifically by the ministry. I think that you are going to have to have a much closer look at single persons applying and having their names drawn.

Now you are familiar, I am sure, with one or two cases in Hamilton -- one in particular -- which has gained some notoriety of a young man having his name drawn for the lottery. He and his fiancé, who intend to marry sometime in May or June of next year, had applied jointly, I presume, But they didn’t, in fact, comply with the regulations. Their need, great though it is, is not comparable to the need of many of the others. There are those living in rooms and living in substandard accommodation who have families, and can’t possibly have a home, or get into accommodation of their own. I want to come back to that point in a moment.

I want to urge that whoever is going to be giving out the information about a lottery, be briefed to the greatest extent possible in order that there will be no misinformation given out about the lottery. The last time in Hamilton there was serious misinformation given out which caused some considerable concern, and may well have resulted in certain people not getting an opportunity to acquire a home.

I want you to concern yourselves about the workmanship of those builders who are, in fact, involved in building under the HOME programme. I really feel, as I stressed with you some time ago, that we have to have more inspectors maintaining a high level of quality.

We all appreciate that a person can’t expect to get a Cadillac for a Volkswagen price, but I think you can expect to get a well-built Volkswagen for a Volkswagen price. It is a very large investment for those people. It may well be cheaper than the private market, but the investment of their life savings is to them as great as the investment of anyone else’s life savings. For many of them they are investing a great deal of their income. They can expect, I think, to get decent workmanship; they can expect that the builder will fulfil his obligation to them in terms not only of building a home of reasonable standards, but also of repairing or bringing up to standard anything that is in the home that may have been either overlooked or done in a less than satisfactory way.

I really do urge you to impose upon the builders a much more serious examination; that you have inspectors in the area to check out the development as it goes along, and to identify the inspectors for the benefit of the purchasers in order that they can make contact with them.

These developments are very large. We have got over 1,000 homes being built in the Hamilton area under the auspices of the HOME programme. That would justify a number of inspectors being there. One inspector, two inspectors or three inspectors couldn’t possibly inspect all those homes at the time the development is taking place.

I want to tell you about a couple of things that have upset me about the way in which the lottery was conducted. I have had brought to my attention that the advertisements in the newspaper were inaccurate; that they did not convey factual information to the prospective home purchaser. For example, on at least one occasion -- and there may be others -- it was indicated that the builder had considerably more lots available to him than he actually had. One, for example, showed that there were 25 lots available to Settlement Corp. when, in fact, there were only five. People, had they known that there were only five, obviously might have chosen another builder, but they went to Settlement.

I know an individual who was chosen sixth for a single-family home and discovered after he had been chosen that of the five -- not the 25 that he thought Settlement had as a result of the ad in the paper -- only three of them were actually available for private purchase because, in fact, two had been allocated for rental purposes to Ontario Housing Corp. So he was drawn sixth and thought he had a home. When he was called by Settlement, Settlement said: “We’ve got some attached homes ready now. Would you like one of those?” He said: “No, I’ll wait until May for the home that I thought I was going to get.”

Then, some time later, he was informed that the ad was wrong and that he wasn’t going to get a single-family home. In fact, he had turned down the opportunity of one of the other homes and the likelihood is that this young man and his wife and family are not going to be able to get a home at all, although their number was drawn sixth.

Another situation that was brought to my attention was that people received, on Friday last, a letter from the National Trust, which handled the lottery, informing them that they had been drawn and that their builder was whoever and that he would be in contact with them very shortly. The builder called that very night and said: “Meet me in the morning.” He showed them the home and said: “You’ve got 48 hours in which to decide.” You and I both know that over the weekend there was no opportunity for them to go to the bank and make arrangements. There was no opportunity for them to take the documents to their lawyer for his advice, and yet they had to advise that builder by Sunday night or Monday morning at the latest whether or not they accepted the property that had been offered to them.

Builders are telling people that they don’t have a choice. They’re being shown a lot, shown a building completed and told, “That’s yours.” That’s not the way the lottery was intended to be conducted. I know it and you know it. It was intended that the people would be given a choice of what was available within the range of what they had asked for, according to the number that was drawn, according to their priority on the list. That is not being afforded to people as it should have been afforded to them.

I think that those things can be changed. They’re not sort of fundamental changes to the lottery system; they’re not the sorts of things that will destroy the lottery in any way; to the greatest extent they’re probably matters of administration that would improve the relationship between the HOME programme and the prospective purchaser.

I think that the builders tend to look down on the people whose names are drawn. I’m going to be quite frank with you about it. I think they tend to treat them in a shabby way. Their attitude toward the people is not the kind of attitude that they would have if they were out peddling their houses on the market. They know that they’ve got a captive market. They know that these people are desperate and their attitude toward them is, in some instances, disgusting. I think that you’ve got to talk to those builders about shaping up a little bit with regard to their purchaser-seller relationship, because they’re taking advantage of the situation that they’re in to bully people and it’s wrong.

I don’t want to suggest that all builders do that, because I can’t do that honestly, but I can tell you that I’ve had a number of complaints.

I might tell you something else -- the complaint that I had in that regard about one builder, I also had the last time he was involved in the lottery. I had to talk to him personally about his attitude toward one family in the last lottery, and I think that his attitude toward people needs a real change or else he should go peddle his wares in the private market, because we don’t need him that badly.

He’s making a reasonable living out of the HOME programme, I would suspect -- maybe not a killing but a reasonable living. It is certainly providing him with work when there may not be other work available for him. I think he should be grateful he’s in the programme, rather than thinking he is doing somebody a big favour. Those people are citizens of the province and they are entitled to respect in that regard.

There are other things, but I’m not critical of the programme in general. Given all the range of possibilities in terms of the way in which it might be handled, this may well be the most satisfactory way.

It may well be that the lottery does afford a better opportunity. But I think for the things I’ve mentioned and a few other things I will talk to you about again privately -- because I’m not going to take the time of the House -- we could make it better, more equitable and more acceptable. We could treat people better. We could ensure their opportunities for obtaining a house are greater than they are at this point, by the system that I suggested.

You may argue with me that it will take a little longer. Okay, it may take a little longer. Given that there are some two or three weeks between the time the lottery is conducted and the time the notifications finally have to be sent out, and given that people would have a much wider range of opportunity. I’m sure they would be prepared to wait an extra week in order to get the thing done properly.

I’m really concerned because there are so many people involved. I might say to you, Mr. Minister, I have worked very hard in support of the system. I don’t want anybody to labour under any misapprehensions about my role in it. My role was not destructive at any time. In fact, I devoted a lot of time to advising people on how they can apply, advising people on what they should do and answering to them for the sins of the system. I may suffer for that someday, but that’s beside the point, because I want to see it work.

But I also want to see it work more equitably. If you can make those changes, I think they make sense. They’ll improve the confidence of the people in that particular kind of operation by 100 per cent. You’ll be able to walk into Hamilton and to talk to those people and they’ll be happy to see you. When you run your lottery again, they’ll recognize that while they may not ever win and they may not acquire a house through that particular lottery system, at least it is run as fairly as is humanly possible.

That’s what we have to strive for. I really do urge you to consider seriously making those changes, even at the expense of a little time.

Mr. Chairman: Does the minister wish to reply?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Chairman, I will reply very briefly because we’ve gone somewhat through this before. I would like to say to the member for Wentworth that I share his concern that the lottery system is as good as possible. If what he has suggested will improve the system, we’ll certainly consider it for the next draw. I have said I will put it into a standing committee to find out if we can even improve that system. I’m quite willing to make any changes necessary in any part of our ministry if we can improve. I have to be convinced that we will improve the system, first of all.

As far as the builders are concerned, if the builders are not adequate I would appreciate receiving the name or names of builders you feel in the past have not performed. I believe they should in all cases have been checked out in regard to their capabilities of providing the house that was designed and was accepted by the owner. If they are not fulfilling the obligation which they have, not only to our government but to the owner, then certainly I want to know about it.

Mr. Deans: Just one point and then I’ll speak no more about it -- I mean not today. I think the method of communicating with the perspective purchaser is bad. One of the builders called in the daytime to a house where a husband and wife were away working. They finally called the builder to find out what was happening. He said, “I’ve been trying to get you. Your number has gone by now. I’ve given it to somebody else.” Damn it all, that’s no way to deal with people.

I mean, their number was drawn. They were entitled to receive a letter from the builder saying, “I am attempting to contact you.” Just as he has a business to perform, they have to work in order to live. They can’t sit home and wait for him. He should have understood that, but he didn’t seem to. There’s a tremendous communication gap.

One thing I meant to say, and I must say to you -- and I don’t care if it means expanding your ministry for a week or two and putting in a new person -- is that I want you to please check every single person who was drawn to make sure that each of them is eligible. Okay? I don’t care how it’s done. I don’t care what procedure you have to go through. I want you to go through every single application to determine the eligibility of every person whose name was drawn and to make sure that each one is eligible to be part of that lottery and to obtain a home.

I’ve been telling people that just by virtue of setting your name drawn, doesn’t mean you’ve got a home. That only means you are eligible to go down and fulfil the obligations and legal requirements; and if you do that, then you’ve got a home. I’ve been telling those who were successful and those who weren’t: “Don’t for a moment think you’ve got it simply because your name was drawn. What you have is a priority number which entitles you to a home, provided you fulfil all of the obligations and legal requirements.”

I ask you, for heaven’s sake, don’t let them come back in two or three months and say to me or to you that Mrs. So-and-so down the street wasn’t eligible and it was obvious. Please make sure that they are eligible. If they are not, it will destroy the programme much more quickly than any other single thing.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Chairman, the rules of eligibility used in every other draw were the same as those in Hamilton; and they certainly have worked in other places. I did say that there were mistakes made in the previous draw. We are going to ensure to the best of our ability that there are no mistakes in the next lottery draw in Hamilton. It’s unusual that this has happened in only this one area, because we haven’t had complaints in other areas. I regret that we have a problem, if we have one, in your area --

Mr. Cassidy: No, they exist in Ottawa as well.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: -- but we will endeavour to correct the mistakes that were made in the last one and I will guarantee you that those people will be eligible.

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

Mr. B. Newman (Windsor-Walkerville): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to bring to the attention of the minister the acute need for housing in certain categories in my own area.

In the field of family housing, Mr. Minister, the ministry has given a creditable performance. For example, in 1972 there was a need for 984 housing units; you provided 652 in that year. But as requests kept coming in during the course of the year, you still ended up at the end of the year with the need for 949 units. In 1973 you provided 690 units and ended up with 452 still needing accommodation. You have progressively whittled that down with the provision of housing, and it is really appreciated.

But you could show improvement in the provision of three-bedroom units, Mr. Minister, because as of approximately Dec. 1 of this year, there was still the need for 415 family accommodations.

As you can see, Mr. Minister, I am trying to show that you have done a good job there, but there is still room for improvement -- and there will always be room for improvement. But in one area you haven’t done as well, and it does disturb me very much, because it’s that segment of our society least able to fend for themselves -- the senior citizens.

You have provided accommodations in cooperation with the city and the federal authorities. We appreciate that very much. But the numbers do not diminish as they do in family accommodations, where you started with 984 requests in January, 1972, and you’ve got it down to only 415 requests as of December, 1974, whereas in senior citizens’ housing it is approximately the reverse of that, Mr. Chairman, in spite of having provided accommodations. For example, in 1972 there was the request at the first of the year for 1,164 senior citizens’ accommodations -- be they in row housing, in apartment complexes, and so forth; I am simply stating a total request.

Now, during the course of the year, Mr. Chairman, the government was able to provide for only 45 senior citizens to be accommodated. That is in the whole of the year 1972. We started with the need for 1,164 units in 1972, and by the end of the year we had the need for 1,184 units. You did provide accommodations for 45, but that was only because that many senior citizens passed away who had lived in the accommodations. You are only providing approximately four units per month; and that is as a result of deaths.

In 1973 we started the year with the need for 1,18-4 units; we ended that year with 1,081 units -- even though you did build a complex that accommodated 375 senior citizens. You did that; and we still ended up with a shortfall of 1,081 units. During the whole of 1973, 49 senior citizens were able to get accommodations in the government housing in the community.

Now, in the year 1974, Mr. Chairman, 73 were able to get accommodation. That is a result of the mortality factor, rather than the provision of accommodation.

I know the minister has plans in mind to complete approximately 600 units. I don’t think any of those will be available in 1975. If there are any available, it’ll be quite late in 1975.

As I said earlier, we appreciate it; you are doing the right thing in providing accommodations. But you are not going quite fast enough at it. We certainly would like to see you accelerate the programme, if it is possible. In my estimation, it is possible.

One of the parts of this whole exercise that I am going through, Mr. Chairman, is the fact that you really don’t know in the community what the need for senior citizens’ housing is. You really don’t know if all of the people who have requested senior-citizen housing actually need housing. Of the 1,164 senior citizens at the end of 1972 who had their applications in for senior citizens’ housing, 980 of them were not investigated. And that disturbs me -- 980 were not investigated.

When it comes to family units, your percentage of investigations is about 50 per cent. That’s fair; that’s acceptable. But it isn’t acceptable in requests for senior-citizen housing.

I can’t blame your officials back in the community, because I think they are understaffed and overworked. Were you to come along and provide additional investigative personnel, then they could actually estimate whether the requests for housing are valid or not.

In the year 1973, of 1,184 requests, 995 were not investigated at the end of the year. And during 1974, of the 1,081 who had requested housing, 830 had not been investigated.

So you see, Mr. Minister, you really don’t know in the community the number of people who genuinely need senior citizens’ housing. However, there still is an answer to the problem, and it isn’t necessarily the building of a lot of senior-citizen highrise complexes. To me, a vastly expanded rent supplement programme could provide an answer while you programme the development of additional senior-citizen units in the community. You could provide the rent supplement programme by going right into the commercial market.

There is nothing wrong, in my estimation, with providing a senior citizen with a supplement if he lives in a private home. You could very easily, through your officials in the Windsor Housing Authority, investigate the home, investigate the landlord, and find out if the landlord would be willing to accept a certain rental. Then you, in turn, would charge that individual the same rental as you charge him when he lives in one of your senior-citizen complexes.

Mr. Minister, it isn’t really fair to the senior citizen who goes into the commercial market for housing to have his gross income reduced by approximately $75 a month, because the individuals living in senior-citizen housing in my community have their rents supplemented -- or subsidized, I should say -- by our ministry and the government of Canada to the extent of approximately $70 to $75 per month. So an old-age pensioner receiving GAINS and getting $227 a month really is getting $312 a month because you are supplementing his income by $75 a month by paying for his rental. When the other senior citizen, who lives in the commercial rental market, has to pay $125 instead of maybe $50 a month, you have lowered his standard of living substantially.

It really isn’t fair. I think you should treat all alike: where you subsidize one, then you can supplement the other so that they are on par. I would respectfully suggest to you, Mr. Minister, that you do look at a widely expanded rent supplement programme. You have no units in the city of Windsor under your rent supplement programme, I was told by your officials back home when meeting with them -- if I am not mistaken -- in either August or September of this year. I would certainly like to see you get into that market to give these senior citizens at least a fair shake so that they can have the same standard of living as those who live in the geared-to-income housing.

We appreciate what has been provided for those who are in that housing accommodation, but we would like the other group who are penalized to have a rent supplement to put them both on an equal level. Please consider that, Mr. Minister.

Vote 804 agreed to.

Mr. Chairman: That completes the supplementary estimates of the Ministry of Housing.

SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES, MINISTRY OF REVENUE

Mrs. Campbell: Where’s the minister?

Mr. J. R. Breithaupt (Kitchener): Perhaps it might be convenient to proceed with the Minister of Agriculture and Food’s estimate if the Minister of Revenue (Mr. Meen) is not available.

Mrs. Campbell: Here he comes.

An hon. member: He means business.

On vote 904:

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

Mr. E. R. Good (Waterloo North): Mr. Chairman, I would like to say a word on this and the GAINS programme, which is the purpose for this additional $11 million being asked for under this programme. In my view it has a flaw which I think it is very important to bring to public attention.

As you know, Mr. Chairman, the requirement here is needed to bring the level of senior citizens as well as other disabled persons, who are in receipt of the guaranteed income supplement, up to a level which is designated by the provincial government. We debated this thing at great length at the time the programme went through, and the provincial Treasurer at that time was not ready to allow that the provincial amount would not be affected if the federal amount did increase.

Well, we know that on Oct. 1 the federal amount for both old age pension and for guaranteed income supplement did increase, and I for one am happy to note that the provincial government did not reduce its amount by the amount that the federal government did increase, as it had first intended.

But, Mr. Chairman, there’s an important thing here that I think must be stressed. That is, that the many thousands of senior citizens who have a limited amount of income -- so that they are not in receipt of the total guaranteed income supplement but are in receipt of a partial income supplement -- do not benefit from the GAINS programme if they are able to generate additional income from what little capital they still have left.

This was demonstrated to me very forcibly by a senior citizen who discussed the matter with me, as to the investment of a small amount of money that she had, whether or not she should renew government bonds with it or buy a guaranteed certificate at a trust company, or just how she should invest it, because she wanted to get the most income she could from that. She asked, “How will this affect my GAINS programme payment?” Well, I began to do some figuring, Mr. Chairman, and it soon became evident that whatever increased income senior citizens get from their small amount of capital that they may still have remaining, they will lose that increased income to the provincial government in its GAINS programme.

The federal guaranteed income supplement is reduced by $1 for each $2 of income that a senior citizen has per month. The other dollar, Mr. Chairman, is taken away by the provincial government if that senior citizen increases his or her income by an additional dollar. I just don’t think this is the right approach. I think we should be encouraging our senior citizens to handle what little money they still have in a prudent manner, in a manner following good investment principles, so that they are not penalized by having any additional income that they can derive from what money they have left taken away from them under this GAINS programme.

I spoke briefly on this matter in committee when the Minister of Revenue’s estimates were before the House, and his officials assured the minister at that time that that was the case. I wonder if he is giving any consideration to correcting what I think, is a situation which is demeaning to the elderly and completely takes away any incentive to handle their money in a businesslike fashion.

Hon. A. K. Meen (Minister of Revenue): Mr. Chairman, this, of course, is a problem with income levels that are at the level of, initially, $2,600 or $2,700 for a single person. I can’t speak for the Treasurer, but I can say that I recognize the problem.

I had the pleasure the other evening of meeting a gentleman who had written an article in the paper, and perhaps the hon. member has seen it. The heading of it was, “Would You Work if Your Income Were Taxed 100 Per Cent?” I made an observation to this effect, and the gentleman standing in the group in which I was having this little discussion said, “Well, I’m the fellow who wrote that article.” That was Mr. Clare, as it turned out -- Mr. James Clare -- and I wound up having quite a spirited discussion on the entire subject.

It is a problem we face in any case where we have the philosophy of trying to bring people up and to enrich their income to a particular level. When you hit the subsistence level at $2,700 a year, or exceed that, then, of course, you drop out of the assistance category, or the area in which you would gain some assistance. I can’t honestly say to the hon. member that I, myself, am looking at other ways to do this. I would expect that Treasury and Economics recognize this problem just as clearly as does anyone else.

The OAS-GIS schedule, as the hon. member mentioned, would disentitle the individual to 50 per cent of the assistance they got as represented by the increase in their income.

The basic principle of the GAINS programme is to provide this assistance. There is the cutoff point, and when you hit that cutoff point, indeed you tend to get what appears to be an iniquitous situation. If the person through his own means, and I would certainly never discourage anyone from doing this, is able to raise his own level of income above that particular figure, then he would not qualify for assistance.

Remember too, that the amount of money the province has available for all the various areas in which we wish to extend assistance, whether it be to municipalities or wherever, is not unlimited. The original budgeted figure of $50 million, as indicated by the supplementary estimates, has turned out to be somewhat on the light side. Perhaps the Treasurer in his wisdom at some later time will find that there are no other ways in which he can enrich the assistance still further.

For about the third time, I guess, it is fair to say that I recognize what the member for Waterloo North is saying about this problem and I wish there were some simple answer.

Mr. Singer: Mr. Chairman, I wonder if the minister could tell us the extent to which he is in contact and in liaison with his colleagues. I brought to the attention of the Minister of Housing the other day the plight in which a constituent of mine finds himself.

He is now in receipt of the GAINS grant of $6 a month. He lives in Ontario Housing. When Ontario Housing heard about that they adjusted his rent upwards by $10 a month, but they threw in the cost of the hydro. The arithmetic shows that he is now 50 cents behind the deal.

Fascinatingly, the gentleman’s name is Handleman. He is not the same gentleman who shares the front benches with you, but he lives in Ontario Housing in Lawrence Heights.

He is a little puzzled as to the benefit that he is really getting. He gets $6 from GAINS, his rent from an Ontario Housing unit goes up $10 a month, but they throw in the hydro, and he ends up being 50 cents a month further behind than he was before he got the GAINS money.

Hon. Mr. Meen: Mr. Chairman, I think I heard the hon. member for Downsview express that point to my colleague, but I must say I haven’t reviewed with the minister (Mr. Irvine) the question of what happened to this individual. It sounded to me at the time as though it was more a problem under the schedule of rent adjustments applicable under the Housing Corporation and Housing Ministry principles than under my own ministry.

Mr. Singer: Would the minister not agree that the object of the GAINS programme is to put more money in the hands of people who need it?

Mr. J. E. Stokes (Thunder Bay): You’ would think so.

Mr. Singer: Yes, that’s your whole object.

Hon. Mr. Meen: I don’t disagree with that, the principle being to get into the hands of our senior citizens a minimum somehow or other, through their own means and our own, of $2,700.

Mr. Singer: That’s right. Then would it not be logical there be some kind of checkout programme to see exactly whether or not the beneficiaries really benefit or whether they are really being put into a deficit position?

Hon. Mr. Meen: Mr. Chairman, we are not getting involved that deeply in the way in which our clients, as we call them, spend this money or how it is used to help them keep body and soul together, but rather the money is paid out to them. It is not welfare; it is an entitlement to them when they are at this level, and so we don’t go digging into how they spend it, whether wisely or foolishly.

Mr. Singer: It is not just a question, Mr. Minister, of how they spend it. The question is the right band giveth and the left hand taketh away. The left hand is taking away more than the right hand is giving, and I think that is wrong.

Hon. Mr. Meen: I heard the hon. member point that out to my colleague at the time.

Mr. Chairman: The member for Cochrane South.

Mr. W. Ferrier (Cochrane South): Yes, as we know, Mr. Chairman, the old age pension and supplement is tied to the cost of living index. Every three months or so it rises and the pensioner has a little higher pension and supplement. I’m not sure, but I don’t think that the GAINS programme at this point is so indexed. If I’m wrong, correct me.

If it’s not indexed, are you doing any studies or proposing to do so? Because if you’re going to keep the basic amount that you feel people need then, surely, you’ve got to keep the purchasing power and value of that dollar sort of constant in their hands. I wonder if the minister would comment on that?

Hon. Mr. Meen: Mr. Chairman, I think the philosophy may well be sound. But my colleague, the Treasurer, when he had the bill in the House in the spring, expressed our reluctance about a straight indexing of these provisions. He expressed our undertaking to review, from time to time, and not necessarily in a direct relationship to any inflation factor, the amount of money that the province might be able to pay out to GAINS recipients.

The increase in October was somewhat greater in terms of assistance than an indexing factor would have applied. As I recall, it was 5.75 per cent on top of the other assistance by way of the increase in the OAS-GIS. It exceeded, as I understand, the cost of living index increase that had been experienced in that period of time. So we had not wanted to lock ourselves into that, but rather to give the Treasurer the opportunity to review this situation from time to time.

Mr. Ferrier: Is the Treasurer just going to do that annually? I mean to say, what about the cost of the basics needed by most old people who are on this part of the GAINS programme -- food and that kind of thing? In a sense, these items are going up disproportionate to some of the other items in the cost of living. If the federal government gives a little more and you take away; or you remain constant, then --

Hon. Mr. Meen: Mr. Chairman, so far we haven’t taken away anything. Subject to what the member for Downsview might say about the policies of the Ministry of Housing and what it might have to do in the subsidized housing area, we have been passing on everything --

Mr. Stokes: You are talking about the left hand.

Hon. Mr. Meen: -- that the federal government has given in October. We passed that on and we enriched our own assistance as well -- so we have not taken away anything. Mind you, I suppose it’s fair to say that that option could be available without the indexing provision, but I can imagine that we would not want to do that. We demonstrated with the increase in October that we were prepared to pass on the entire amount of the increase -- and, indeed, supplement it ourselves with further assistance.

Mr. Singer: I don’t think Mr. Handleman can afford much more of that generosity.

Mr. Ferrier: Just one final point. Can the minister give us any indication of how often the Treasurer proposes to review this and to make adjustments? Is there any mechanism, or is it just as he reviews his spending estimates from time to time that he will make that decision on this matter?

Hon. Mr. Meen: Mr. Chairman, I think the Treasurer would be the one to give a more definitive answer to the question. I suppose it’s obvious enough that as long as the federal government continues to review its OAS-GIS payments on a quarterly basis, that probably the Treasurer would take a look at it as frequently as that -- and, perhaps, more frequently. That is not to say that he would make a change in policy every time. But I would expect that he would look at it as frequently as the OAS-GIS percentages and amounts are adjusted.

Mr. Chairman: The member for St. George.

Mrs. Campbell: Yes, Mr. Chairman, I would like to recall to the minister the kinds of discussion which I think went on in part in this House -- although the GAINS programme in toto was a very confused kind of debate because we were, in fact, debating in other estimates part of the GAINS programme without knowing what it was.

What is of concern to me is, I see here these salaries and wages, I see building into this ministry one portion of the GAINS programme. I wonder if the minister could tell me not only is there any kind of cross-referencing, such as indicated by my colleague from Downsview, but is there any overview of this programme as it presents, or would appear on occasion to present, inequities between the two types of recipients, the elderly and the handicapped?

When the minister suggests that he doesn’t investigate how people spend this money -- and this is, of course, the senior citizens exclusively, as I understand it -- does he not have some concern with the fact that they have very little opportunity to object to or to take a position on the increases in the rents which come about, not just in the Ontario Housing -- that surely is something he can talk about -- but as they come about in the private sector by reason of the increases of these moneys? Could he not, with the other ministers involved -- Housing, Community and Social Services, Health -- recognize the fact that in many cases this is not as meaningful as it might be?

There are discrepancies in the case that my colleague gave, but if you discuss with the Minister of Health (Mr. Miller) the problems of those in nursing homes who have lost even more as a result of the GAINS programme, I am concerned that we are developing separate units to deal with, overall, virtually the same subject. I don’t think there is anything in what we are getting now -- the explanations are not clear in the Ministry of Community and Social Services -- to really indicate whether any portion of this refers to the GAINS programme as well, because of the handicapped.

I’d like to understand that we are not building in an administrative unit in two ministries to cover the same essential type of programme, and at the same time having no concern about the fact that we are in some cases simply distributing from the Ministry of Revenue to the Ministry of Housing or to Ontario Housing the moneys which really don’t go to the people at all. We have no concern, I take it, with the fact that these people, in some cases which have been brought to my attention, have simply had automatic rent increases in the private sector. We have no concern that the government’s own action in the health programme in the nursing home situation is simply to drop its financial participation, increasing the individual financial participation of the senior citizen.

I would like an explanation as to just where the minister stands and if it is possible for him to let us have the benefit of any kinds of discussion that there may have been, or at least advise whether there has been any discussion, between all of these ministries dealing very much in the same field?

Hon. Mr. Meen: Mr. Chairman, the Ministry of Treasury and Economics is really the co-ordinating centre for all of these. The fiscal end of Treasury and Economics is the one that first works up the amount of money which it is felt, within budgetary restraints, can be used in this area.

There is, so far as I see, no significant overlap of responsibility or functions between my ministry and Community and Social Services. For example, when there are people under age 65 who are being assisted though Community and Social Services and they attain age 65, those names are moved into my records in my ministry.

Mrs. Campbell: I am not worried that you might give them too much.

Hon. Mr. Meen: We are trying not to duplicate a service. The 270,000 or so who are on OAS-GIS, and from whom we got the initial figures -- well, we didn’t get them; they were only very rough figures that we had from the federal government in the spring when the original estimate of some $49.3 million for grants for the fiscal transfer payments was obtained -- continue now to provide us with updates through their information about the people coming into the GIS end of the spectrum.

Our mechanism is really the information service that looks after queries from all quarters of the community, be they blind and disabled, who are wondering whether they are entitled to qualify. We would screen those inquiries and probably pass that information along to Community and Social Services, because --

Mrs. Campbell: I thought I was doing all that myself.

Hon. Mr. Meen: -- if they qualified they would receive the assistance, but if they didn’t qualify by way of income there might be other assistance that Community and Social Services could provide to them. For example, if they aren’t completely blind or they do not qualify within the definitions by Community and Social Services, then there may still be some other way in which they could be aided. That kind of function is where Community and Social Services, through its field workers -- and I don’t have field workers in the Ministry of Revenue to get into this kind of thing -- would go out and determine whether some other kind of assistance was necessary.

By the same token, when you are looking at housing, the Ministry of Housing’s policies contain certain schedules of rental which I suppose are based on the needs and incomes of the tenants. If we enrich some assistance through GAINS to a particular individual who is living in a rental accommodation of the housing corporation and, as a result, he is moved into another category, he then becomes responsible for paying more rental -- to come back to the point made by the member for Downsview -- it’s really something in that ministry rather than in mine.

Again, although we try to have some co-operation, remember that what this programme does is maintain a level of income. We endeavour to co-ordinate that function of course, with Community and Social Services, with Health and their drug plan and so on. Treasury itself is involved as the co-ordinating agency and the funding agency, for that matter.

Still, there are other ministries, such as Housing, with whom I think it is fair to say that I have not had any direct liaison to determine what might happen with a particular GAINS recipient if we were to raise his level. His level would he raised because his income drops or perhaps because we raised the ceiling, as we did, from $2,600 to $2,700.

There may be instances where a private lessor decides that his tenant, to whom he may have been giving a break -- although there aren’t many lessors who give breaks to their lessees these days -- but he might have given him a break, and he might decide, for whatever reason, that he could then justifiably and in his own conscience require an increase in rental that was being paid. To repeat, my ministry does not get involved in determining the needs of these individuals. If they are still in dire straits I would say that it would be the Ministry of Community and Social Services which would then have a field worker on the scene to determine what, if any, additional help could be made available.

Mrs. Campbell: Could I ask a supplementary question? One of the other concerns I have is that it seems to me that we may be in danger in the programme as it affects the handicapped, when the lines seem to be so very finely drawn, that perhaps we are looking at the dollar figure in this programme in the same way that we have, I think unfortunately, been looking at a maintenance programme or sustaining programme, or whatever it’s called -- I forget now -- in Community and Social Services. Again you have this determination that somebody who is 64 years of age -- in one case a person who was in his 60s was blind, had lost most of one leg and part of a foot, and was not considered at the first blush to be disabled, but was regarded as unemployable, even with the blind provision in there. This had to be then worked on by a member of this legislative assembly, and there didn’t seem to be anybody up there who was really working on that kind of problem.

If all you are is the sort of “CMHC friendly banker” in all of this, then I am worried that you may yourself, inadvertently perhaps, be having a serious effect on the recipients by the way in which the dollar is allocated to the programme.

Hon. Mr. Meen: Mr. Chairman, I know my colleague, the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Brunelle), has been looking over the last few months at this distinction which his ministry does draw between the blind and the disabled on the one hand and the permanently unemployable, who many of us, I think, might be inclined -- in isolated “for-instance” type cases -- to consider to be, for emotional reasons or whatever, unemployable and in that sense disabled. I know my colleague is very sensitive to that point and has been looking at it very seriously.

Mr. Ferrier: It is a distinction he cannot justify and you cannot justify.

Hon. Mr. Meen: I am not trying to justify it, Mr. Chairman, because I simply don’t pretend to know enough about the factors that go into this mailer when Community and Social Services have drawn this distinction. I suppose it is fair enough to say that I presume they have drawn it for some very good reasons, but I also know that they have been looking at this, and if it should happen that they were to change that definition, I expect it would automatically reflect into further moneys payable then through the GAINS programme to whatever we then called the blind and the disabled or the permanent unemployables or whatever, because it is intended to assist that same general area of people.

I think it has to be remembered that since those people are under 65, in many cases, they are not in receipt of any OAS-GIS assistance. It follows, then, that a very substantial part of these moneys flows to that fairly limited, in terms of numbers, quantity of clients. So it would have a profound effect, though I am in no position to tell the members of the committee, Mr. Chairman, just how many dollars we would be talking about if that were to happen. I would expect that if my colleague were contemplating a redefinition he would want to look at and consider with us and with Treasury the fiscal implications, not only through his own ministry in that direct fashion, but also within the GAINS programme.

Mr. Chairman: The member for Thunder Bay. The member for Carleton East is next.

Will the member for Thunder Bay start the debate?

Mr. Stokes: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don’t have too much to say on this, but I would like to discuss with the minister for a few moments the problem that senior citizens and those who are entitled to some assistance under GAINS have in getting information. I have seen some of the leaflets that are handed out and they leave a lot to be desired in the kind of information that they contain.

Hon. Mr. Meen: Sorry, Mr. Chairman. I got distracted momentarily. Would the member for Thunder Bay repeat the comment, please?

Mr. Stokes: Yes, I am saying the chief criticism I have of the GAINS programme is in the dissemination of literature that tells the client what he or she is entitled to in any given instance. In the ones that I have seen I am still not clear in my own mind. I want to bring to the attention of the minister a specific case of a widow whose total income in 1973 was something in the neighbourhood of $2,200. From what I can gather, a person’s eligibility under the GAINS programme is based on the previous year’s earnings, not on the current year’s earnings, so that they would always be a year behind if, for some reason or other, they had some unusual income of, say, even $300 or $400. Just because they had that unusual income --

Mr. B. Newman: And spent it.

Mr. Stokes: -- yes -- in 1973, it means they are ineligible to receive the benefits under the GAINS programme in 1974. You have already nodded in agreement, saying that the eligibility in any given year is based on the income for the previous year. This particular person had a small endowment of something like $5,000. If she were to invest this, say, at eight per cent with Guaranty Trust or in one of these term certificates where she couldn’t withdraw it for a five-year period or greater, this would mean an income of $400 a month added to the old age security payments and whatever modest income supplement she might have.

Hon. Mr. Meen: She would not get the GIS then.

Mr. Stokes: Pardon?

Hon. Mr. Meen: She would not even qualify for the GIS.

Mr. Stokes: Well, why wouldn’t she qualify for GIS as long as the combined income was less than $2,700?

Hon. Mr. Meen: Well, $400 a month wouldn’t come within that.

Mr. Stokes: Well, $400 a year. I am talking about investing $5,000 at eight per cent, say, over a five-year period. This individual went down to I think it was Guaranty Trust and said: “I have got this money. What would you suggest I do with this $5,000?” They said: “All right, leave it with us for a five-year period and we won’t show any earnings for this amount. It will be cumulative, but not shown.”

Now, there has to be a day of reckoning, obviously, after the five years or whatever the term of the certificate was. Is this, in fact, your interpretation of the way it should apply? Because some of these investment houses are leading our senior citizens down the road and creating a false impression in their minds if they are suggesting that they should just leave it there, where the interest compounds and they don’t have to declare it, because there is a day of reckoning coming. If it’s five or 10 years down the road, all right, it means they are going to have an unusual income for one year.

I would like some kind of assurance from the minister that we can have this kind of information so that we can pass it along to senior citizens and those who may be entitled to assistance under the GAINS programme. And if, in fact, the situation isn’t as I have stated it, perhaps you can enlighten me, because there’s going to be a lot of disillusioned and disappointed senior citizens, if they’re taking this kind of advice which is not valid under the programme. I’d like to have that kind of assurance from the minister.

Hon. Mr. Meen: I haven’t had occasion to think about it for very long. But it sounds to me, Mr. Chairman, as if this would be analogous, say, to bearer bonds or bonds registered as to principal but with coupons attached, where, for however many years you care to keep the bonds, you can leave them there and not bother clipping the coupons. Your income would then not reflect the accrual of those coupons for yea number of years or all those years that you’ve held the coupons attached to your bonds. Then when the year comes that you cash the coupons, of course, the value of those coupons falls into that year for taxation purposes.

It seems to me that’s no different from the arrangement the trust company is offering to the GAINS recipient. I don’t think I would have any way of knowing about it, for one thing. I don’t think that I’d be anxious to go back and pro-rate it over the years. It would certainly apply to reduce the GAINS recipient’s income in the year in which he or she clipped those coupons or took the cheque from Guaranty Trust or from whomever at the end of, say, the five-year period. However, it would certainly affect it in the year following the year in which the money was received, because in that year following the income then would be based on that year in which there was some pretty substantial income.

I expect that’s the way we would work it. As I say, I don’t think I relish the thought of going back and reworking a lot of returns. We’re anxious to help our senior citizens on an ongoing basis, not to come along later on and penalize them with chargebacks over the year, which could only be accomplished by reducing the amount of current monthly cheques that were going out.

Mr. Stokes: You haven’t answered the one question that I really wanted answered. That was: Will the minister, if he hasn’t already done so, undertake to compile a small pamphlet that will cover most of the situations that might occur as they affect senior citizens and their eligibility under this programme? I haven’t got a copy of it. If it does contain those, I’d be happy to get a copy of it. Anything that I’ve seen is nothing much more than what I see in the ads that were purchased in most of the daily and weekly papers when this programme came into being. It said to contact a Zenith number and all of the information would be made available.

I had one person who did it. She was notified that she would have to send a letter to some address down in Don Mills even to get an application. There was no place at the local level where she could apply to see whether she was eligible for any assistance under this programme. There was nobody at the regional level or the district level who could say, “Come on in and we’ll give you an application form to fill out.” They had to apply in writing to this address down here in Don Mills even to get an application to see whether they were eligible.

This seems to be putting roadblocks in the way of senior citizens, many of whom are very apprehensive about filling out forms and do not know just where to go. When I don’t know that it’s absolutely essential that the client send all the way down to Don Mills even for an application form, how do you expect the client out there, many of them who are senior citizens and haven’t had the experience of dealing with government bureaucracies before, to do so? This is the kind of thing that bothers senior citizens and causes elected members a lot of undue trouble.

You could cut out the red tape. I should be able to say, “Yes, I’ll phone a certain office and say ‘Will you send an application form to Mrs. Jane Doe?’” This doesn’t happen, and it causes so much aggravation and anxiety to your clients, and I think it is totally unnecessary.

Hon. Mr. Meen: Mr. Chairman, I have been sort of dying to get up on my feet and answer this one because -- well, there are a number of points the hon. member has raised.

The letter you are talking about is required by the Department of National Health and Welfare, which administers the GIS-OAS payments through their Don Mills office. They will not take it from us. I am advised they insist that the applicant write in to them and file the application with them. Now, we are only too anxious to help, and we have gone out of our way to help wherever we can in that area. But that is a matter of federal jurisdiction, I am advised, and that would be what your constituent faced.

Incidentally, on the other point, we have printed up many thousands of this booklet, “Guaranteed Annual Income System.” We have circulated it as widely as we could. It does cover all the various characteristics of the plan -- age, residency, income, items that are considered as income in determining whether you qualify or not -- also items that are not considered as income. It tells how GAINS payments are calculated; explains the drug benefits plan; what you need to do about a change of address. It points out, too, that there was no need to apply to us if you were already on the OAS-GIS.

Now, if someone qualifies for OAS-GIS and he comes to us and we find that he is not in it, we are not about to pay out $2,600 to an individual when he qualifies for payments under OAS-GIS. Therefore, in some instances we would insist that they make their applications for OAS-GIS.

Now, there were roughly 270,000 we knew of for whom we would get the figures, the names, addresses and amounts and so on, from the federal government -- from the Department of National Health and Welfare -- from their OAS-GIS rolls here in Ontario, where they are resident. But we knew that they didn’t have to apply. They didn’t have to do anything. They were automatically on and we were able to determine from that just how much they would receive in order that it would bring their income up to the supplemental level of $2,600.

There were others, though; those who did not qualify for OAS-GIS. For example, those who did not meet the 10-year residency rule for OAS-GIS, but did meet a five-year residency rule. We had no way of knowing who they were, and hence we did have to advertise and we did manage to reach quite a number of them.

When they have phoned our Zenith 2000 number -- or, if they are in Toronto, our other information officers here who speak some 20 languages -- we have tried to assist them and explain to them what was necessary, and sent out to them one of these bulletins.

I might add also, Mr. Chairman, that copies of these were made available to all members of the Legislature back in the summer. I see one or two members nodding their heads as remembering receiving these from me. If the member for Thunder Bay would like some further copies, I expect we still have some around and I would be happy to see that he does get some. They are very useful indeed.

I might point out, too, that in going into the drug plan in September it showed up that some individuals who were sort of marginally qualified for OAS-GIS hadn’t bothered to apply -- because maybe they received the minimum of a dollar or two dollars, or whatever the minimum monthly payment was under OAS-GIS. In any event, once the drug card became available it was really worthwhile for them to apply, so many of those have come into the OAS-GIS plan of the federal government. I don’t have any figure of the numbers, but certainly a significant number -- measurable perhaps in the thousands -- have come into the system because of the drug benefit scheme that came into effect in September.

Hon. J. White (Treasurer, Minister of Economics and Intergovernmental Affairs): Mr. Chairman, could I interrupt the proceedings to inform the House that I have just been informed the Parliament of Canada has postponed the debate on the pay increases for MPs and that the government will be introducing a new bill at some later date.

Mr. Stokes: Thanks to the NDP.

Mr. T. P. Reid (Rainy River): Yes, in about four years.

Hon. Mr. White: I think those people, including I’m glad to say myself, who exercised pressure on the federal politicians -- and I quite agree with the hon. member opposite -- can be very satisfied with this response. Any other answer would have been completely unthinkable.

Mr. Ferrier: Not Bob Stanfield though.

Mr. Reid: They should all be ashamed of themselves.

Mr. Breithaupt: I think, Mr. Chairman, along that line that we, on this side of the House, welcome the announcement which the hon. Treasurer has made. I believe that the decision made with the acceptability of all members in this House will be seen as a wise move and something which may dispel the unfortunate connotations that were in the public mind when this was first introduced.

Mr. Stokes: I’d like to associate myself with the remarks of the hon. Treasurer and the House leader for the Liberal Party. We’re very grateful in this party that those people who did not agree initially with the NDP in Ottawa have finally come to their senses and we welcome them.

An hon. member: The Treasurer gets the credit.

Mr. Breithaupt: All the credit?

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Chairman: Order, please. The member for Carleton East.

Mr. P. Taylor (Carleton East): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If I may be permitted a quick preliminary remark on the subject of the Treasurer’s announcement, which, of course, we all knew about earlier, it would be to the effect that the fact that cooler heads have prevailed in the House of Commons in Ottawa sort of rips the rug right from under the negotiations between the government and the CSAO.

Hon. Mr. White: Say that slowly.

Mr. P. Taylor: Well, if you can’t figure it out I’ll leave it for you to think about and maybe I’ll come back a little later.

Hon. W. A. Stewart (Minister of Agriculture and Food): What are you talking about?

Hon. Mr. Meen: Explain that, will you?

Mr. L. Maeck (Parry Sound): Tell us.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Clarify that, would you?

Mr. P. Taylor: I don’t want to take the time of the House to explain the obvious.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Let us hear it.

Hon. Mr. Meen: You don’t know what to say after that, that’s why.

Mr. P. Taylor: Oh, relax!

Hon. Mr. Stewart: You tied yourself into a hole that time.

Mr. Chairman: Order.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Hansard should record that.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. P. Taylor: I don’t want to take the time of the House to explain the obvious.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. P. Taylor: Mr. Chairman, can we have a little bit of order here?

Mr. Foulds: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman. Is there a press party going on this evening?

Mr. Chairman: That is no point of order.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. P. Taylor: Mr. Chairman, I’m glad to see you’ve regained control of the other side of the House. It’s obvious that we’re getting to them and they don’t like it.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: I tell you I would have learned a lot more in there than listening to him.

Mr. Roy: I didn’t know the Minister of Agriculture and Food would get so excited.

Mr. P. Taylor: Could we ask the Minister of Agriculture and Food to contain himself, please?

Mr. Roy: Call him a chicken warmonger.

Mr. P. Taylor: Call him anything you want, but please be quiet because I have some very short remarks that I’d like to make in this House with respect to the GAINS programme. I don’t want to upset the chaps on the other side too much, so I’ll just stick to the GAINS programme. That’s upsetting enough.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: That’s a good idea.

Mr. P. Taylor: The aspect of this programme that disturbs me most is the obvious political nature of the decision to alter the ceiling of the accumulation of the OAS-GIS in GAINS. We all know that the federal programme is pegged to the cost-of-living index and is altered every three months accordingly.

Hon. Mr. Meen: I just told you that.

Mr. P. Taylor: If I understand how the system here works -- and I invite the minister to correct me later if I utter any untruths here --

An hon. member: The member would never do that.

Mr. P. Taylor: It would be out of sheer innocence; it wouldn’t be any deliberate move on my part. But if I understand the GAINS programme, they take the total of OAS-GIS and add an amount that reaches a ceiling, I believe, right now of around $228 a month. The two of them add up to $228 a month.

The political decision is whether or not to alter that total. That is not by statute or by total vote of all parties of this House; it is for the decision of the government -- that small group of insensitive chaps over there who aren’t really paying too much attention to reality in this province today. Now that, to me, is wrong, and it is the use of the public’s money to bribe them in the worst sense.

In my opinion the fact that the Ontario government has done this is indicative of their complete lack of real interest in helping old-age pensioners. Their only real interest is in making timely, happy announcements calculated to win them the greatest political kudos in a very large segment of our population.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Why don’t you vote against it, then?

Mr. P. Taylor: The Minister of Agriculture and Food just asked me why I don’t vote against it. The point is we have no vote on this subject in this House because it is by executive order. It is by order of the Lieutenant Governor in Council as to whether or not that ceiling is altered from time to time.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Vote against it -- call the vote.

Mr. Chairman: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. White: Would you vote against it if you had a chance to?

Mr. Roy: We agree with the principle but we don’t agree with the method.

Mr. P. Taylor: We all know that this is wrong. They know it over there and, best of all, the people of Ontario know it.

An hon. member: Why don’t you index it?

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Roy: I’ve got a good idea for you guys -- an energy tax.

Mr. Chairman: Order, please.

Mr. P. Taylor: I would prefer to see a system in which a ceiling is arrived at and is periodically -- perhaps a month or two following the federal escalator every three months -- raised according to the cost of living index, and in which the only political decision retained in this process is whether or not to alter that process. By a political decision I mean by a vote of all members of all parties of this House.

Hon. Mr. Meen: Let’s go -- we debated this in the spring.

Mr. Chairman: Shall item 2 of vote 904 carry?

Mr. Roy: Are you going to answer that?

Hon. Mr. Meen: I have answered it 55 different times.

Mr. Roy: Yes, but we didn’t understand it.

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

Mr. B. Newman: Mr. Chairman, the minister earlier in his comments said that you have to write a letter to the Department of National Health and Welfare to get an application for a supplement. You don’t write letters at all for supplement forms. All you do is phone them up and they send them to the individual. I have never written a letter at any time for them, and I’ve had hundreds sent back into my riding. They are most accommodating in that fashion.

I also want to bring to the minister’s attention --

Mr. Foulds: Quit making apologies for the federal government.

Mr. B. Newman: No, you just phone up the office.

An hon. member: It works very well up there.

Mr. B. Newman: There is no difficulty getting a supplement form sent to any constituent.

Mr. Stokes: There are many areas in the north that don’t have telephones.

Mr. B. Newman: That’s right. But those of us who live in the urban areas aren’t confronted with this problem at all. The minister has to be aware also that many people do not ask for the GIS. They have looked upon it in the past as being something taken out of the public purse -- the equivalent, almost, to welfare -- and they have neglected to ask for GIS. But they still could qualify under GAINS. Practically every week -- not every week, but maybe every month -- I do contact the ministry on behalf of individuals for GIS application forms so they can get the supplement.

One area that I want to bring to the minister’s attention where in my estimation the guaranteed annual income supplement is not fair is where the individual is completely disabled -- regardless of age. He could be on old-age security or not, while his wife is not old enough, but she is not able to work at all because she is needed full-time at home, so she also is disabled as far as job opportunities are concerned. But she doesn’t qualify for the GAINS programme, and in my estimation she should be entitled to exactly the same consideration as the individual who is getting the GAINS, being disabled.

Mr. Chairman: Does the minister wish to answer this briefly before we adjourn for supper?

Hon. Mr. Meen: I could be very brief and just say that the qualification criteria -- there are some seven different categories, as I recall -- were all debated at some length, both back in the spring, in here and in the House, and when the bill was in committee. I suppose the Treasurer might want to take a look some day at the manner in which one might want to extend this, but you have to remember this -- that it would cost the Treasury of this province a tremendous amount of money to get into a wholesale support to the level of $2,600 per capita in an area in which there is not basic OAS-GIS support.

I repeat what I said earlier, we would insist that if someone qualified for GIS he make application for GIS. Incidentally, I am told, Mr. Chairman, that the member for Windsor-Walkerville may well be right; that in some cases the federal government might accept less than a letter in the form of an application, but many times it has required that there be a letter filed.

Mr. Chairman: Shall vote 904 carry?

Vote 904 agreed to.

Mr. Chairman: This completes the supplementary estimates of the Ministry of Revenue.

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