Legislative Assembly of Ontario

The House met at 10 o’clock, a.m.

Prayers.

Mr. Speaker: Orders of the day.

Clerk of the House: The 16th order, House in committee of supply.

SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES, MINISTRY OF COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES (CONCLUDED)

On vote 2502:

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

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

Mr. Minister, you are actively encouraging universities in this province to go out of business, by making the statements you have done in the last few weeks and taking the attitude you have with respect to the funds.

The operating grant in the supplementary estimates of $3.1 million is simply not enough to come even close to helping to cut down the deficits which the universities are having this year. Of that $3.1 million, almost $1.4 million goes to one university, Guelph, in order to expand its veterinary college. In point of fact, you’ve got only $1.7 million left to distribute in what one would call normal operating grants. The accumulated debt from this current year for all the universities collectively in Ontario is running between $4 million and $5 million, or will be by the time the academic year is over.

Some of those universities, as you have indicated, are going to break even and some may have a small surplus. We’re talking about four or five universities which are sharing the majority of that deficit and are in rather tough shape and are having to really ask themselves whether they can keep going. The university which is asking itself that question most seriously is Lakehead with a present deficit, or projected at year-end, of $1.7 million, perhaps going up to $2 million. The University of Windsor has about $1.6 million, Laurentian and Carleton --

Mr. Chairman: Order please. I’m wondering if the hon. members would desist from their conversations so that the Chair might listen to the hon. member for Windsor West.

Mr. Bounsall: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know you’re very interested in these university matters in the area from which you come. Carleton with its arrangement with St. Patrick’s is finding that expensive and is in tough shape as well. Trent would have been in very tough shape this year if it hadn’t taken some very stringent measures last year, stringent measures which it cannot continue. They cannot continue very much longer to hold the stretched position they are in this year. They are facing accumulated deficits.

Your statements in the House here of late about their sharpening their pencils and doing some more figuring is ludicrous in terms of the total collective debt they’re facing this year and which they are likely to face next year. Your announced budget for next year in the BIU is causing financial problems which are just too big for most universities to handle or to contemplate. One can look around, and if one makes some very stringent cuts in certain areas, one can see a saving of perhaps $10,000 or $12,000; but that’s absolutely ridiculous in terms of the deficits which they have and the deficit which they’ll be adding to from next year.

If you’re looking for some way to get the universities out of business, you’re sure taking the route in your announcements on lack of funding over these past few weeks. Your statement of a few weeks ago that the universities’ debt is not a provincial debt has caused great consternation. Some universities are asking, “Well, whose debt is it? Are we, collectively, on the board of governors, personally responsible for that debt?” It is causing them to really consider whether or not they can afford to have that university continuing with that sort of debt facing them.

You talk about and we in this Legislature talk about accountability in the past of universities and how it should be a cooperative venture. Both of those things are admirable from my point of view and from the minister’s point of view. Yet you go about denying that by statements like, “Your debt is your debt and isn’t part of the province’s debt.” You’ve absolutely denied any possibility of a co-operative type venture. You yourself have denied it by that sort of statement.

The accumulating deficits they have now and the ones for next year can only be accommodated in staff cuts, with the faculty and staff making up 80 per cent of the salary budgets. There’s one problem here. Sure, you can cut staff, but there’s a minimum number of staff needed to give a particular programme. Often you can triple the number of students and triple the BIUs in a programme without adding any more staff; that happens in some places as you maximize your enrolment. But if you are looking for cuts in the vicinity of millions of dollars or more, it can only come in staff cuts; and there is a minimum to which staff can be cut or you will cut the entire programme. If you cut your entire --

Mr. Chairman: If the Chair could interrupt the hon. member, it seems to me the minister explained last evening that this is really a transfer payment that applies to the Ontario Veterinary College and the University of Guelph, and I am trying to relate your comments to the actual money that is being voted here.

Mr. Bounsall: Mr. Chairman, that accounts for only $1.4 million of it; $1.7 million is in other operating grants and the rest is in student support.

Mr. Chairman: We are only debating vote 2502 right now, though.

Mr. Bounsall: That’s right, which is for operating grants, right?

Mr. J. F. Foulds (Port Arthur): And that money goes to all the universities.

Mr. Bounsall: Since $1.7 million of the total goes to universities province-wide, Mr. Chairman, it is quite proper to speak of the operating problems in all universities.

The minister mentioned that the staff-student ratios haven’t changed over the last four years; some were up, some were down and some stayed about the same with respect to various programmes. Well, that was to be expected. There have been enrolment dropoffs at various places and in various courses, and unless you actually cut staff, which might mean cutting the programmes in those areas, your staff-student ratio is going to decrease. In other areas, as you have an increasing number of students coming into a programme or you maximize the number of students, obviously that is going to help increase the staff-student ratio. But, on average, I am not surprised that it stayed about the same when you have had decreasing enrolments or only very small increases in enrolments. I wouldn’t have expected much difference.

Looking at this coming year, and bearing in mind that the deficits for the coming year will be added to the existing deficits which are not adequately funded in this budget, a very interesting calculation has been done which shows that if you want to balance the universities’ budgets for this coming year, the average salary increase that could be tolerated across the province, taking the universities collectively, is six per cent.

This coming year we are looking at a six per cent salary increase only if the budgets are to be balanced; and for every percentage point you go above that six per cent, you are adding collectively $5 million to the deficit position of the universities of Ontario -- $5 million is added for every percentage point over the six per cent to balance the budget.

In light of the inflation we have had in this past year and we can expect to have in the coming year, what the ministry is saying is, “We are happy for the university faculties and staff in this province to have only a six per cent salary increase on average.” That’s what it boils down to in terms of the amounts of money that you have been given. We already note some very interesting situations with respect to this.

The support staff in the health services field, some of them right in the same building in our medical centres in this province, have staff funded through the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Colleges and Universities. The staff funded through the Ministry of Health now are getting 20 to 35 per cent more in salary than those funded through the Ministry of Colleges and Universities, and you are saying the most they can have next year is six per cent.

Here you have people working side by side, doing identical work, with one group already getting 20 to 35 per cent more in salary through one ministry of this government; and to the disadvantaged group you are saying, because of your budget financing, that six per cent is all that you can expect. In terms of jobs and positions of faculty, they are well below what government is paying. Government service jobs requiring identical qualifications -- PhDs -- have been advertised in the newspapers in the last month or two at 15 to 16 per cent higher than these persons could be hired for at the university level; the salary is approximately $2,000 higher, and in some cases as high as $3,000 to $4,000 more, or 30 per cent higher, in advertised service jobs of federal and provincial governments.

So in terms of what the universities can pay to attract anybody should they have an opening to hire someone, they are severely disadvantaged over what they can receive elsewhere. At the University of Windsor, last spring, three persons in the geography department finally decided that they would no longer work at the salaries the university could afford to pay them and went into government services, either federal or provincial. There were three in the spring and a fourth left later. This is what is happening around our universities and you’re losing very good faculty.

Once you start to cut faculty to achieve costs you are not only in danger of losing your programme, but it works out that it’s the better faculty at the universities who, looking at the cuts and seeing that there are going to be problems with funding over the next few years, leave to take the higher-paying jobs for which their particular services are in demand. So you’re systematically destroying the university and stripping it of its best faculty members if you don’t rethink your formula financing in general for the universities.

My colleague from Nickel Belt (Mr. Laughren) last night mentioned alternatives to delivery.

Mr. W. Ferrier (Cochrane South): Great fellow.

Mr. Bounsall: He made some interesting remarks on that which I wholeheartedly support. There are problems with it and the ministry has to get in and really work on some of those problems. You can’t just do a television tape one year and expect that tape to be replayed year after year for general public consumption and not have carefully worked out the financing details with the faculty members and the university involved. I don’t think there has been any serious attempt to seriously confront the problems that exist in replays of television material, which has been going widespread across this province.

Also, what has the government done in programme-by-programme studies to see what the maximum number of students in it for dollars earned and greatest efficiency is? I bet that hasn’t been done. If that had been done and done right across this province you could quite readily say: “Look, there can be no expansion in a particular programme or no addition at another university of a particular programme, and should not be, because of this maximization effect.” And you could indicate it’s only a matter of correlation. We have computers that can do this for us where those vacancies are in the province for the students who want those particular programmes, as a means of maximizing efficiency.

When you come to the staff cuts which the universities are going to have to take, they’re going to look at other places first. There’s one place that sort of bothers me and that is the maintenance of university buildings. This is, of course, being done out of operating moneys, and there’s going to be a tremendous temptation to stop maintaining them. There is really a decrease in maintenance of public buildings. You’re going to have a depreciation in real, physical terms of Ontario public buildings if you push these cuts much further.

The ministry talks about the students having access to the universities of Ontario in its statements. The problem is: What have they got access to when they get there? This doesn’t seem to concern the minister nearly as much as it should.

The minister talks about $20 million unencumbered funds around the universities of Ontario. These were funds, by and large, not earmarked by a particular donor or what have you, but set aside as contingencies for equipment replacement and so forth -- things which are very desperately needed. The universities that have done this have been, in fact, good custodians of the moneys which they have received. They realize that capital equipment has to be replaced, mainly instrumentation, and they have put funds aside to help pay for this. For you to say to them, “Let’s take these funds of which you have been careful guardians and custodians and hand these out to another university,” is just so unrealistic as to be unthinkable.

You may well be moving to, or trying to move to, a University of Ontario with just the 16 or 17 campuses and so forth. But if you want to give the universities any autonomy and expect, for example in a university like Queen’s, that donations from its graduates will keep pouring in and help to sustain that university, that will all be lost if you move them to another university in Ontario.

To say that that $20 million could be easily shared around the province, particularly with the plans there are for that $20 million to help account for the almost $5 million deficit on this year’s funds, and it may be $15 million next year collectively, is just patently unrealistic.

The universities have tried in the last little bit, and they are very concerned about it, to be mindful of their long-term responsibilities as well. This is something which is very hard to do in this tight funding. The liabilities in unfunded pension funds --

Hon. J. A. C. Auld (Minister of Colleges and Universities): Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman: Order.

Mr. Bounsall: Yes.

Hon. Mr. Auld: Did the hon. member say I had said $20 million?

Mr. Bounsall: Yes, $20 million.

Hon. Mr. Auld: No, I said $50 million. Just for his information that total of operating and capital surplus has increased a little each year in the last three years.

Mr. Bounsall: They are in a position where it is not realistic of you to expect them to be shared around. Let me tell you another thing that’s important. Gone are the days when we were in an increasing enrolment situation. It was very simple and easy for the government then, though one couldn’t always predict with any great accuracy the amount of the increase, to tie it to a formula and to get away from sitting down with the universities in the province once a year and talking to them about what their actual needs were. I can quite see that in an expanding situation to formularize it was an easy, not too inequitable and plausible thing to do.

When you’ve reached the position where enrolments have been levelling off or increasing only slightly or decreasing only slightly by an amount of increase or decrease you can’t predict, you’ve gone behind the time when you can just leave it in a formula. Maybe some part of the formula can be left to a formula but you’ve reached that time when you are going to have to sit down, carefully look at the universities’ expenditures, carefully look at the universities’ needs and arrive at their funding position via that route.

The disadvantage has always been that some particular university president or whoever he brings to these meetings is much more of an entrepreneur than others and the fear is they’ll manage to extract more than their fair share. If the minister says there is $50 million unencumbered and that has been growing and he wants that shared around, he has a responsibility, if he feels that some of those unencumbered funds should not have been there in the first place and should not have been put aside that way, to get off his formula financing and devise another means -- and it may well be individual consultation with the universities -- to determine what their needs are as a means of funding for the future, rather than the present situation of slip-year financing.

The universities can no longer look at the long-term problem. There are tremendous liabilities building up in unfunded pension funds and they have to use operating funds to stabilize those pension plans. At the moment, there are not that many faculty members retiring. They can look ahead and see in the not-too-distant future that funds are going to start to pour out at a great rate from pension funds in payments to pensioners. Those funds are unfunded and they are worried about the extent of unfunding. Their only alternative is to put operating money into it, operating money, which in fact they don’t have.

Mr. Chairman, I could go on much longer but I think I will leave the situation there. The minister knows of my concerns. I am very concerned about the total funding for this year and next year, leaving the universities collectively in a deficit situation. Some are more so than others. Three or four of them bear much of the majority of that deficit.

For this coming year, the funds you’ve allowed, if you want a balanced budget, allow for only a six per cent increase in faculty and staff salaries, and some of those staff salaries are on a two-year collective agreement for amounts more than that. For every one per cent above that we are talking $5 million collective deficit. That really is serious, and the minister should take steps to do something about it.

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

Mr. Foulds: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’d like to speak on this item particularly in relation to the very serious situation at Lakehead University, the university of northwestern Ontario.

I must admit I have a soft spot in my heart for Lakehead University. When it was the old Lakehead Technical Institute, which offered only one year of university programming and two years of technical programming, I was able to go to it simply because it was in my home town. I would never have been able to go to university and to continue my university career at another institution if I hadn’t been able to save the money by going to Lakehead the first year.

I think that Lakehead University, probably more than most others, if not all the others, serves as a very definite regional university. It services the people of northwestern Ontario very well and very fully. It has certainly made every effort to do that in its history, and particularly in the last few years.

There recently has been a large amount of concern in Thunder Bay because of statements by the president of the university and because of a brief that was presented to the Ontario Council on University Affairs. Headlines in Thunder Bay read quite bluntly: “Support Lakehead University or Close It.” That is the way some of the administration at Lakehead see the situation at the present time.

When the matter was raised briefly in the House during question period, I admit that the minister said that he thought it would he “unthinkable for Lakehead University to close,” but that he could not stop them from closing. I want to assure the minister that neither the people of northwestern Ontario nor the administration of Lakehead University want to close it.

Lakehead University is in many ways one of the best, if not the best thing that has ever happened to northwestern Ontario -- both in terms of a developing industry and in terms of an educational institution that has served the people of the area; so that people who did not come from families with high incomes could go to university.

If universal accessibility to post-secondary education is a principle that we in this province give lip service to, the province must support Lakehead and must keep it alive and well.

I want very briefly, if I might, to summarize some of the problems that the university faces. The minister is probably aware of some of these problems, because he has been written to directly by the present chairman of the board of governors and, I believe, by the president.

I think that it should be pointed out that neither the administration, the faculty, nor the people of northwestern Ontario want to see a disruption of the university system. In fact, they would have some disagreement with my colleague from Windsor West, in that they would support the continuance of the BIU formula financing system.

All I want to put to the minister is that in that formula, which gives the grant per student enrolled, there should perhaps be worked in some additional factors that take cognizance of the conditions facing the four emerging universities, particularly Lakehead. Those factors may very well be the enormously extra high costs that Lakehead faces if it wants to put on an extension programme that truly serves all of the people oi northwestern Ontario.

It’s a truism, Mr. Chairman, that northwestern Ontario alone -- not northern Ontario, but northwestern Ontario alone; the five electoral ridings that comprise that area -- make up 58.2 per cent of the land mass of the province. Granted we have a population of somewhere around 300,000 people but in terms of putting on extension courses in Manitouwadge or Red Lake or Big Trout Lake or any place in that region which deserves to have extension courses for the people who can take advantage of them, extraordinarily high travel and administration costs are incurred. In Red Lake it may be possible to get only an enrolment of eight for an extension programme in any of the academic subjects, but surely it should be the right of those people in that community to have that service. They should not be penalized because they are, in fact, in the frontier portion of the province.

There is a limit; there is no quarrel with that. And there is no quarrel from the Lakehead University administration that the monetary situation and the money should be carefully monitored; that the spending should not be unduly unreasonable. But we get to the point of asking what is a university and I think you can argue with some justification, Mr. Chairman, that a university, for example, that does not offer a philosophy course is not a university. A university that does not offer classics is not truly a university. And a university that cannot by its nature put on science extension courses in the region is not really serving the science aspect of the university in its extension programme.

I think that what this boils down to is basically this: That new schemes for funding are necessary; they should be carefully looked at. I have no objection if they are tied to a BIU formula, as long as that BIU formula is sensitive to the needs of the region.

In the per-pupil grant that we give at the elementary and the secondary level, for example, there are all kinds of weighting factors. I would argue that often that is not sensitive enough to the needs of the communities that those schools serve, but at least it’s a model that the Minister of Colleges and Universities should look at. In the case of the northern universities they should look at -- include as a weighting factor to favour places like the Lakehead and Laurentian -- the sparsity or density of the population of the region they serve, so that you can take into account the high cost of travel and the putting on of extension courses in that region.

You should look at the high repair costs for scientific and technical equipment for a university like Lakehead, because often that equipment needs specialist servicing, so if you have to repair a sensitive piece of scientific equipment you have to call the serviceman in from Toronto, or Chicago, or Winnipeg, which is not unreasonable, but the university must take the expense of paying that man’s air fare and so on out of its ordinary operational budget. The universities of southern Ontario don’t have that problem.

The very simple fact that it has been below freezing in Thunder Bay for six weeks before it gets to that temperature in southern Ontario and continues for eight weeks afterwards -- below freezing, not below zero -- means that there are extraordinarily high heating and repair costs because of the harshness of the winter.

Mr. J. H. Jessiman (Fort William): Beautiful weather in Fort William.

Mr. Foulds: The member for Fort William doesn’t agree with me, and that is largely because he spends all of January in Florida. He hasn’t experienced the northwestern Ontario winter for some time, at least the peak of it.

Mr. Jessiman: No. I’m not --

Mr. J. E. Stokes (Thunder Bay): Are you denying that building costs are more in northwestern Ontario.

Mr. Jessiman: No, I didn’t say that.

Mr. Foulds: Fine.

Mr. Jessiman: You simply can’t make that excuse. It is not that cold.

Mr. Foulds: The repair and building costs are higher and the winters do cause more shifts and breakage of windows and that kind of thing.

Mr. E. M. Havrot (Timiskaming): Costs of houses are higher.

Mr. Foulds: Then there is a fourth factor that I want to mention that should be taken into consideration, if we are going to maintain the quality of the faculty of Lakehead Universities. A number of the people on the staff are very first rate indeed. If we are going to maintain their academic excellence, they should have extra travel allowance. At least the faculty administration should have extra travel allowance so that they can travel from Thunder Bay to those areas where the learned societies meet and conferences are held having to do with academic matters.

In other words, it is essential for the faculty at Lakehead University to have some contact and some stimulation from their academic peers. Although they can do that internally, they are restricted in the sense that there may be only one specialist in one area, say in the physics department. His colleagues may be very knowledgeable and learned men in their other specialist areas, but he doesn’t have anyone in his area with which to trade ideas. That should be taken into consideration.

I have experienced this as a member of the Legislature. Since I was elected in 1971, the return economy fare from Thunder Bay to Toronto has gone from $72 to $113, with the new tax. At Lakehead, they used to budget about $100 for a faculty member coming to Toronto for a conference, or a committee meeting -- or what have you. That used to cover it. There was $72 for the fare and he could have his hotel room; but he would have to pick up the cost of his own meals.

Now they can’t even do that. He can’t even fly. You have to drop him off over Owen Sound or some place if he is coming down on the plane.

An hon. member: Hitchhike.

Mr. Foulds: And hitchhike the rest of the way.

These are special factors and I want to suggest to the minister that it is a possibility to work these factors into an actuarially sound, carefully monitored weighting system in the BIU formula. I want to suggest that to him as a possibility.

I feel very strongly about it. I think Lakehead, more than any other university -- with the possible exception of Laurentian -- is a blue-collar university. The average income of parents of students at Lakehead is much below the average for the province. I think the average income of the family of the student enrolled at Lakehead is somewhere around $7,000 a year; whereas the average for the province is somewhere around $9,000. It seems to me that Lakehead is serving its true function. It is serving the people of the area who wouldn’t otherwise get to university.

Without unduly taking up the time of the House, I want to put to the minister those considerations. In another area, there is absolutely no doubt about all those traditional extra costs of the north applying. The member for Thunder Bay talks about them. The member for Cochrane South talks about them. And I talk about them. Books cost more up there. It simply happens that way. Paper costs more. Periodicals cost more, especially if you have to order them in.

The deficit that they project, as I understand it, is approximately $1.7 million.

What I want to get from the minister -- and I think what Mr. Philpott asked in his letter to the minister -- is a public commitment that the ministry will not let Lakehead University go down the drain.

What I ask the minister to do is to make the commitment that the university will not have to cut back on half its faculty to balance its books. I ask that the minister make the commitment that this government is committed to keeping Lakehead University alive and well and functioning as a true university -- not functioning as a diploma mill college; not functioning as a technical institute -- although, in certain terms, those functions are part of its mandate.

I just want to refer very briefly to the letter of Mr. Philpott that the minister has received. He said in his letter to the minister:

“The alternative to this kind of commitment from the ministry would be to achieve a balanced budget by terminating the services of from 75 to 120 of our faculty of 220, which, of course, would simply destroy the university from within, and the student response would close our doors within the next year.”

Neither the administration nor the president sees that as a viable alternative. They don’t want to do that. They won’t do it, but they are looking for some assurance from the minister that the government will find means so that that does not have to happen.

“The various media gave the meeting between Lakehead University and the Ontario Council on University Affairs full publicity, and the ‘moccasin telegraph’ within the university has contributed its share. The net result is an atmosphere of unrest among the student body as to the security of the future of Lakehead University, with some of them actively considering application elsewhere and others starting to think about it seriously.

“We, as a board, cannot conceive that our government will permit this university to close. However, in view of your directive, as announced at the meeting of Nov. 14 and in the House on Nov. 18, regarding continuing operating deficits, I personally cannot provide any public guarantee of assurance that we shall be able to continue to function as a university.

“To sum up, we feel that we must have some assurance from your ministry, something that we may make public, to reassure our students and faculty that the public purse, which founded this university, with large private donations from this area as well as grants, will keep it alive and vital, serving northwestern Ontario in the future just as it has in recent years.

“There is some degree of urgency about this matter, in our considered opinion. I hope, therefore, that you and your deputy minister will consider our problem and, hopefully, provide us with the necessary assurances about our immediate future by the early part of January.”

I think that that’s an assurance that the minister should give this House right now, during these estimates.

I want to mention just one other factor, and that is the role of the Ontario Council on University Affairs. I would hope that the minister will not use that council as a camouflage procedure. The university went to a lot of trouble preparing a brief and putting its case to the council. I would hope that the council, which seemed very sympathetic -- I was at the meeting, I heard the brief, I saw the council response -- would not merely be sloughed off in terms of its recommendations to the minister.

But technically, because of the way the legislation is drawn, the council has only the right to report to the minister on matters that the minister refers to it. I would hope that the minister would agree with the statement made by the chairman of the council, I believe in late September, that it considers its role to have some initiative function. If it does not, then it is simply a straw man, and we’re going through an exercise in futility.

To sum up then, Mr. Chairman, I want to put to the minister as strongly as possible that the supplementary grants, although welcome, are not the solution to the problems of emerging universities like Lakehead; that a permanent base for ongoing financing must be found; that perhaps that base could be the BIU formula financing system, but have built in for, say, the four emerging universities -- Brock, Trent, Laurentian and Lakehead -- special weighting factors such as those we have in the elementary and secondary school panel; that they take into account the special travel and operational costs because of distance, the special expenditure costs associated with extension programmes, the social and economic makeup of the student enrolment and so on.

I would like the minister to make a commitment in this House that the ministry will work co-operatively with the board of governors and the administration of Lakehead University to ensure its continued health and existence. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman: Does any other member wish to speak before the minister replies?

Mr. D. M. Deacon (York Centre): This is just in relation --

Mr. Chairman: I thought the minister wanted to answer some of these questions on vote 2502.

Hon. Mr. Auld: Mr. Chairman, I won’t comment on all the matters that have been raised. I think I have given my position on most of them previously. There are one or two things I would like to mention, though.

The hon. member was speaking about Lakehead University. I would draw to his attention that the statement of the university as of April 30, 1974, indicated a total operating plant surplus and an endowment and trust fund of $2,149,000, which is up from April 30, 1972, by about a little more than half a million dollars. As a matter of fact, in this fiscal year the university at the Lakehead will receive an operating grant of $8,494,978, and of this $1,045,000 is a special grant that takes into account the size, the location and the mix of students.

I am the first to admit that Lakehead and one or two of the other institutions do have some problems regarding size, because there is a minimum size as far as students are concerned, and they have not reached it. In fact, Dr. Booth, the president, said not too long ago that without any additional staff they could handle, I believe, 50 students in engineering and probably 50 in forestry.

One of the things I have asked the Council on University Affairs to do is look at this situation, which certainly from a statistical point of view you might call a mal-distribution of students, where we have some institutions crowded and others with a whole lot of space and good faculty available.

That’s one of the things, as I mentioned that I have asked the council to look at and to make recommendations to me. They have also been asked to look at the operating formula. The one thing that everybody agrees on with regard to the formula is that it isn’t adequate. On the other hand, nobody has been able to agree on what changes should be made. I believe it was two years ago or perhaps longer that the Ontario Council of Universities, the universities’ own organization, spent some little time on attempting to improve the formula but could not agree on what changes should be made. It may he that if we can’t get consensus on a change in formula, we will simply have to change it ourselves. I would prefer, though, to have the co-operation of the universities in achieving this.

I have told both the board chairman and the presidents, together and separately, that we are anxious to sit down with them, if they ask us to, to give them what advice and assistance we can in their financial mailers. They do have problems, there is no question about it; but I still repeat that if the provincial revenue is expected to increase by about 12 to 13 per cent, and the system as a whole is receiving an increase of 16.9 per cent, they are being fairly treated by comparison with all the other responsibilities of the province.

I am quite convinced that in perhaps a couple of years they will be able to get back into a viable operating situation as far as finances are concerned. As I mentioned last night, deficits to universities are not new; they have had them in the past. They have had problems and they have surmounted them. I believe that by working together we can achieve that same solution in the next two or three years, but I would be the first to say it won’t happen overnight.

Mr. Foulds: Mr. Chairman, before we let this pass, the minister mentioned special grants but those are the supplementary grants. What I was trying to point out to the minister was that the supplementary grants come at the end of the fiscal year. They have a continuing effect of bailing out. What I’m trying to tell the minister is that he must anticipate and build in that, if you like, bailing out formula ahead of time.

I want a clear commitment from the minister that this government considers Lakehead University an integral part of the university system of the province and it is not going to let it go down the drain. He has not given that commitment, Mr. Chairman, and I’m asking him to do so publicly.

Hon. Mr. Auld: Mr. Chairman, may I interrupt and say that I believe that all the universities should and will survive and I don’t believe that everybody is going to fold up tomorrow. I have also said, when I was asked a direct question, I couldn’t stop a university from folding up if it wanted to. I also said I thought that was highly unlikely, and that part was not reported.

Mr. Foulds: Unthinkable.

Mr. Stokes: That is ridiculous. It is not a case of anyone wanting them to fold up.

Mr. Foulds: The term that you used was “unthinkable” and that part was reported, but what you are not making any commitment on is that you consider it your ministry’s responsibility to ensure the continuance of those universities that wish to continue. The Lakehead University wishes to continue. Will you give the assurance to the House with that that you will co-operatively work to make sure that it does?

Hon. Mr. Auld: I really think I just said that.

Mr. Chairman: Does vote 2502 carry?

Vote 2502 agreed to.

On vote 2504:

Mr. Chairman: The member for Nickel Belt.

Mr. F. Laughren (Nickel Belt): Mr. Chairman, whenever we debate any aspect of this ministry it puts the members of this party in an untenable position -- well, no, not untenable, but a difficult position -- because whenever there is a dispute between the universities and the ministry, or between students and the ministry, we end up arguing for increased support to a system that’s designed to maintain the status quo in our society in Ontario. I find that terribly repulsive, and I know it’s going to be the problem when we come to debate the new Ministry of Culture and Recreation. The problem is going to be that we know the kind of culture and the kind of recreation which this government will lend its support to, even though we support the idea of increased delivery of culture and recreation to the people of Ontario.

Mr. J. R. Breithaupt (Kitchener): An election-year ministry.

Mr. Laughren: Yes, that’s right.

What bothers me about the whole question of student aid is the matter of who gets student aid in Ontario and, backing up one step beyond that, what people even apply for student aid in Ontario. If one examines the attendance at our universities in Ontario, it’s very obvious that we’re still catering to the elite in our society and the universities are perpetuating that same system.

In a dispute between the universities and the ministry one is inclined to say, “A pox on both their houses,” because neither one has made any commitment whatsoever to changing the kind of society we have in this province since it is in both their vested interests to maintain it as it is now. You need only look at the boards of governors of the various institutions to see that there’s really not going to be any serious attempt to build a different kind of society in Ontario because, of course, the elite that rules it is quite happy with it the way it is.

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. Laughren: Are you going to tell me that the board of governors at the University of Toronto --

Mr. I. Deans (Wentworth): The Ministry of Agriculture and Food estimates are over.

Mr. Laughren: -- is representative of our society? I’ve never seen such a grotesque representation of society out there as the governing council of the University of Toronto. You could go to every university in the Province of Ontario and you could go to every community college in Ontario and you would get the same kind of representation on the governing bodies, and you know that’s true. The minister knows it’s true. The governors are handpicked by this minister.

Mr. Havrot: Are you making a political speech or are you on estimates?

Mr. Laughren: You think that this chamber is not the place to make a political speech? That’s coming from the anti-academic member for Timiskaming, I might add.

Mr. Stokes: He just couldn’t help making it. He’s the only university member from Timiskaming.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Havrot: You spend more time in this House on nonsense. You just make plain nonsense.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Laughren: Yes, I see. When the member from Maple Mountain makes a plea for a community college on top of that mountain, then we’ll listen to him.

Mr. Havrot: You should slide down Maple Mountain on your head.

Mr. Laughren: You tell me how the member from Maple Mountain is going to sell tourism in that area when there are blackflies at the bottom and snow at the top year round in both cases.

Mr. Havrot: You wouldn’t know what blackflies were.

Mr. Laughren: I certainly would; I have been in Timiskaming.

Mr. J. A. Taylor (Prince Edward-Lennox): Not for long though.

Mr. Laughren: To get back to the vote, Mr. Chairman --

Mr. Havrot: Let’s get on with the business of the House, enough of this nonsense.

Mr. Laughren: Nonsense didn’t creep into the discussion until you did.

Mr. Stokes: That is enough of those grunts, the agricultural estimates are over.

Mr. Laughren: The guru of grunt, as he’s becoming known across Ontario.

Mr. H. C. Parrott (Oxford): Stop talking about your colleague that way, Jack.

Mr. Laughren: Mr. Chairman, if I could have the floor once again, I would like to make a couple of points about grants to students.

The present system of grants discriminates against a number of people. It discriminates against part-time students. If ever I have seen a joke, it’s the ministry’s programme on grants to part-time students. I don’t know what you call it, but I believe you approve bank loans of $250 and guarantee an interest rate of 10 per cent from the time the loan is negotiated. I’ve never seen anything more insulting to part-time students. Of course we know that discriminates against women who would like to take their courses part-time as well.

It really is remarkable, Mr. Chairman, what the ministry has done to students in the Province of Ontario in the last three or four years, since Bill Davis abandoned the ministry. He at least tried to protect his constituency when he was the minister, but since then none of the ministers have. They’ve increased tuition fees. They’ve removed or reduced the scholarships for post-graduate students. They’ve raised the loan ceiling for student awards; and they’ve imposed tuition fees for nurses and teachers in the province.

That’s some record of increasing accessibility for students in the Province of Ontario. When you consider the fact that inflation is compounding these problems, then the minister and this government are no more committed to increased accessibility to higher education in this province than I am to flying without wings.

One would have thought that given the recommendations of the Commission on Post-secondary Education there would have been an attempt to make education truly more accessible in Ontario. But it just doesn’t happen. The ministry is encouraging the same kind of education we’ve always had in Ontario, without any new ideas, without encouraging students out there who hitherto have been denied access to education to now take part in post-secondary education.

If one looks at the Franco-Ontarian population of Ontario, what is the ministry doing, given the fact, as brought out in the COPSE report, that half as many Franco-Ontarians receive degrees in Ontario as do Anglo-Ontarians? What is the minister doing about that? It is an obvious inequity in Ontario, and yet the minister makes no attempt to rectify it.

As though to make it worse, we are now being told that education is an individual responsibility and that students should be treated as consumers and should have to pay for that which they use.

I can tell you, Mr. Chairman, that as long as the system in Ontario supports the status quo as it does now, I’d have to come down on the side of that great pedagogue Paulo Freire when he says there are only two kinds of education. There’s one kind that supports the status quo and conditions people from the time they enter the educational system until the time they leave it so they accept our system; or a kind of education that frees people up as individuals and teaches them to judge critically that which is around them.

There is no question but what in Ontario it is the former that the students are getting; and there is no question but what that it is a deliberate programme of conditioning by the Ontario government.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: You don’t believe that.

Mr. Laughren: Yes; and the elite Tories to my left are products of that system, so I’m not surprised at all that they feel that way.

Mr. Deans: They are conditioned to go to Bay St.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: That shows how little you know.

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. Laughren: Well, that shows you how little you know about it. It seems that as soon as we stand up in this chamber and challenge the economic system we’ve got here the members of the Conservative Party feel somehow personally insulted.

Mr. Havrot: You are not suffering any pain.

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. Laughren: Maybe you should be personally insulted, that’s right. As long as you continue to perpetuate the system we’ve got there now, which is really there to churn out products for our economic system, then neither the universities nor the ministry will have my support.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Havrot: Look what we got from you.

Mr. Deans: Aren’t you going to make a speech?

Mr. Havrot: I wouldn’t waste the time of the House on a speech like that.

Mr. Chairman: Is vote 2504 carried?

Vote 2504 agreed to.

Mr. Chairman: That completes the supplementary estimates of the Ministry of Colleges and Universities.

SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES, MINISTRY OF COMMUNITY AND SOCIAL SERVICES

Mr. Laughren: Here is another winner.

On vote 2601:

Mrs. M. Campbell (St. George): Mr. Chairman, I wonder if we could invite the minister to make a statement prior to opening these estimates. Some of my fears may be allayed and we might shorten the debate if we could ask the minister to do that, Mr. Chairman.

Hon. R. Brunelle (Minister of Community and Social Services): Mr. Chairman, I would be very pleased to give a brief statement on the $30.4 million in the three votes before us.

In the first vote, 2601, about $1 million is required in order to provide funds in the ministry’s administration programme. A portion of this amount of money is required in order to facilitate the workings at the capital services branch of our ministry, and to administer the Ontario GAINS programme -- mainly for field workers.

The second vote, 2602, contains the largest amount -- $ 17.3 million. This is required to implement the rate increases for recipients of both family benefits and general welfare that were announced effective Oct. 1 of this year.

Vote 2603, the last vote, is our social and institutional services programme. The total of $12 million is divided into two parts -- capital and operating. The first component, the capital, is roughly $6 million and it has three components: $1.1 million for the Homes for Retarded Persons Mt; $2.7 million for the Day Nurseries Act; and $2.1 million for the Vocational Rehabilitation Services Act. The latter is for increases to the sheltered workshops. These increases in capital expenditures reflect the government’s new thrust in community services to the retarded as well as the desire to encourage the building of more daycare facilities for all groups with definite needs.

Mr. Chairman, I could elaborate on any of these items under each vote.

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

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Chairman, as we are confined to taking this, I suppose, line by line, it is difficult to get to the root of my concerns with three supplementary estimates.

Mr. Chairman: If it is agreed, why don’t we take vote 2601 as a whole? Does that suit the hon. minister?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Whatever the hon. members wish, Mr. Chairman.

Mrs. Campbell: I don’t think I can develop what I have in mind unless I can at least cover the whole of 2601 in my comments.

Mr. Chairman: We’ll deal with vote 2601 as a whole.

Mrs. Campbell: Thank you. If you look at the various items considered here, there are some things that come to mind to which we are asked to provide additional funds.

I would like the minister to advise me whether Betty Graham is still with this ministry. Would he then advise me as to what real thrust Betty Graham and that group has in relation to legislation which comes before this House from other ministries? Are they there simply as a token? If they are, I’d like to know how much there is for them.

Perhaps they should be deleted if we want to honestly face the situation of the status of women in this province. If they are there to serve a useful purpose, I was saddened not to see them when we were discussing the humiliating position of women as we went through the Employment Standards Act. Where do they act and how do they assist in any way?

Is there anything in these supplementary estimates which would indicate the funding available for International Women’s Year? We talk about it. The function is in your ministry -- not that particular function, but we couldn’t find out either from the provincial secretary. If you have this function in your ministry, there should be supplementary estimates for it here if it’s going to work, and I take it there really isn’t.

That is one of my major concerns. I would like to know if in these supplementary estimates we are indicating a development of programmes to assist the elderly in the housing in which they live. That is something that we asked the provincial secretary about, but unfortunately she was unable to answer the question before, and somebody has to have an answer to it.

You see, for us who are concerned with the quality of care to the people who desperately need our concerns, it’s so easy for us to say, “Supplementary estimates, great!,” but supplementary estimates is wages and salaries; to what extent is it a delivery of service to these people? And so you look at the items, the component parts of vote 2601, and what we are doing is to ensure that we have the administration, and ensure that we have the dollars for salaries, for wages, but we aren’t really ensuring any greater standard of care for those who require it, particularly at this time of the year.

It was interesting that the minister did point out that some of this pertained to salaries and wages for field workers involved in the GAINS programme. If it meant that the minister was committing to us today --

Mr. Deans: Mr. Chairman, if I may, on a point of order, there is not a quorum as I count. I think it’s up to the government to keep a quorum in the House, by the way, since they want to sit at 10 in the morning.

Mr. Laughren: That’s right. They want to sit the extra hours; but there are only six or seven Tories debating in the Community and Social Services estimates.

Clerk of the House: Mr. Chairman, there is not a quorum present.

Mr. Deans: I am sorry, Mrs. Campbell, but this 10 in the morning is nonsense and they should at least be here.

Mrs. Campbell: I think at least the House leader might be here when he has --

Mr. Chairman: Ring the bells.

Some hon. members: Ring the bells.

Mr. Laughren: The provincial secretary perhaps, too.

Will they ring the bells?

Mr. Deans: Yes.

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

Mr. Chairman: We now have a quorum. Will the member for St. George proceed?

Mrs. Campbell: If I may, I would prefer to wait until the minister took his seat, Mr. Chairman.

The minister specifically stated that some of this additional funding was for field workers in the GAINS programme. In the normal course, we would welcome the fact that this was so, if coupled with that there was the statement that the government actually was bringing forward in supplementary estimates a commitment to reviewing in a meaningful way those cases where people are unemployed handicapped, but not regarded as handicapped for the purposes of GAINS but merely as unemployable. If this were the thrust of these estimates instead of just salaries and wages, I would not be speaking I think, because I would be applauding the minister for taking this step.

There is nothing more unreal than the way in which this ministry looks at a person who, for example, is 60 years of age, a person who is under medical care, a person who is in and out of hospital from time to time. All we do is come up with the statement: “They are not handicapped, they are unemployable and therefore are at the bottom of the heap so far as assistance is concerned.”

Mr. Chairman, I would like to know at this point the salaries and wages that go to support a group of women, presumably to assist us in this ministry.

We have another group in the Labour ministry. If they’re not able to function, if they’re there only to enable this government to point with pride, then I suggest that perhaps we’d better scrap it and start the fight from the beginning, all over again. Then you wouldn’t need these supplementary estimates.

Have they any kind of thrust to you or to anyone, when this government decides it will punish women for seeking equality? That’s what you did with the Employment Standards Act. You said, “We will take away the protection that women were entitled to before, but we won’t give them equality because we’re not ready to do that yet.” Where are the women in your ministry? What is their responsibility? If they haven’t any input, then we’re paying for a camouflage, for a charade that I’m not prepared to pay for.

Mr. Chairman, I have nothing further to add on this vote, save and except to say that I really am not very happy to be asked to pass additional salaries and wages under these circumstances. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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

Mr. Ferrier: I would like to ask a question or two about programme development and delivery administration in connection with your regulations for unemployable and disabled. The minister in a letter said to me that part of this was laid down under the Canada Assistance Act, whereby this is written into the Act and the regulations of the province have to correspond to those of the federal government. I believe the minister has had meetings with his federal counterparts as late as the week of Nov. 18 or so. I hope this was one of the matters that was discussed.

This is a matter of great contention. People who are unemployable just cannot see the justice of not being treated the same as those who are disabled. The arguments have been put very forcefully by many people. I just cannot see that there is a distinction between the two. You’ve told me in correspondence that you were going to try to put as many as possible of the provincial recipients on the GAINS programme, but you were inhibited to some extent by the federal government Act. What headway have you made in removing that restrictive clause in the federal government’s regulations and when will it be possible to treat equally all people who must depend upon provincial assistance for their means of living and to remove this injustice that is there which causes so much disturbance to so many people? It just can’t be justified in any stretch of the imagination.

I would like you to comment on that, if you would, please.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Mr. Chairman, as the hon. member has indicated, there have been some discussions with the federal government. I’d like to say to the hon. member that under the Canada Assistance Plan there are some very stringent regulations. I’ll give you one example. Up until we made representation a few months ago, the liquid assets for single persons was only $1,000 and it has been that way, I believe, since about 1966. I recommended to the federal authorities that this be raised and at least be doubled to $2,000. After some consideration, they wrote back and said they would agree up to $1,500. So I just mention that as an example of the difficulty we have.

If we want to share under the Canada Assistance Plan -- and they pay half of all our allowances that meet their criteria -- we have to adhere to their rules. We have made representations and we are continuing to meet with them to see if there can’t be some relaxation, because I feel very strongly that if the liquid assets allowable were $1,000 six years ago, surely they should be double today. We have made some progress, but not as much as I would like to have.

We have transferred close to 6,000 people into the GAINS programme, I believe, since the programme was announced on July 1; we started with those from 65 to 60 years of age, and then from 60 to 55 years of age. But, as the hon. member knows, there is a certain number who are classified as more or less permanently unemployable who do not meet the criteria of the federal government under the Canada Assistance Plan. The reason that the blind and others like them are easily classified is that they have some expenses that are higher -- for a wheelchair, prosthetics and so forth -- than a person who is perhaps unemployable for only a limited period of time.

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Chairman, is the minister going to answer my questions or is he just picking and choosing?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Mr. Chairman. I didn’t intend to disregard the hon. member for St. George. She left and the hon. member for Cochrane South spoke.

Mr. Chairman, we are dealing with the supplementary estimates. With reference to Miss Betty Graham, as the hon. member knows, there is a women’s bureau in the ministry of my colleague, the Minister of Labour (Mr. MacBeth).

Mrs. Campbell: I know that.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Miss Graham, with a staff of two or three and a very small budget --

Mrs. Campbell: Exactly.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: -- has as her main responsibility to see that the female employees of our ministry -- we have perhaps 10,000 employees, and probably more than half are women -- are given every consideration under our ministry. Miss Graham is also a member of the women’s council, and there is coordination there.

Mrs. Campbell: Whatever it is.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: I don’t want to get into a philosophical discussion with the hon. member on the rights of women, although I agree that there is certainly room for improvement. In the regular estimates, which we debated in June, there are funds for Miss Graham’s programme, but there is no additional money in these supplementary estimates.

If I could review the items briefly, Mr. Chairman, the first one, item 4, for $172,000, is capital funding required for capital services, mainly the daycare programme. In addition, as the hon. member knows, we have increased substantially our recreational programme, so this capital funding looks after additional staff. The second item, item 5, for $29,000, comprises $19,000 for the daycare council and $10,000 for supporting staff. The third item, for $390,000, referred to as item 8, is for 20 field workers who will be looking after the elderly, those 65 years of age and over, in the GAINS programme. The last item for $360,000, is for the increase in funds resulting again from the GAINS programme for the drugs and the disabled who come under our ministry.

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Chairman, now that the minister has answered, I would like some clarification. If we have provision in this vote for funding of day care, under what regulations are we functioning at this point in time? The old ones, or are there new ones?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: As the hon. member knows, I have appointed an advisory council on day care and they’re looking at the best way the regulations can be implemented. We’re still operating under the existing ones.

Mrs. Campbell: And will, I trust, for some period of time at least.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Yes. They will be submitting a progress report and those who are interested will be able to receive copies of the work they’ve done. They’ve done some very valuable work, but, as the hon. member knows, it will take some time. They need research. They need to obtain as good advice as possible, and I’m very optimistic that they will come out with some very, very good regulations.

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Chairman, I am delighted to know that now we’re going to research the regulations which were to be introduced so many months ago. I commend the minister, in all sincerity, for the approach he has taken to these proposed new regulations. I did ask the question whether there was anything in this vote of a supplementary nature for delivery of services to the elderly, specifically.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Not in this vote, Mr. Chairman, but I would like to say that it’s certainly an area that we’re most interested in and that we’re improving. For instance, just in the last week our regulations were being amended to provide more assistance for homemakers services to the elderly and those in their own homes.

Mr. Chairman: The hon. member for Wentworth.

Mr. Deans: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to go back to the point raised by my colleague from Cochrane South. Did I understand the minister to say that because the regulations set down by the federal government were not sufficiently broad, and that because the 50 per cent payment that the federal government made to the province for assistance for the unemployable was less than half of the amount which they might normally qualify for under the GAINS programme, the provincial government wasn’t prepared to go ahead and to raise the level of payment under GAINS to everyone who is considered to be unemployable?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Mr. Chairman, as the hon. member knows, the GAINS programme has two components, those who are 65 years of age and over --

Mr. Deans: I don’t want to talk about that right now.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: We get the list from Ottawa and all those who are eligible to receive the guaranteed income supplement are eligible under the GAINS programme.

As the hon. member knows, eligibility to receive the guaranteed income supplement is based on an income test. The other component in the GAINS programme are those who are under 65 years of age and who are disabled. The criterion used there is a needs test. They were formerly under the Family Benefits Act and the Family Benefits Act is a needs test for those who are in need. The needs test is a fairly stringent test that the federal government has implemented and it applies to all provinces.

In order for us to utilize federal assistance -- I think the hon. member is in agreement that we should utilize federal funds as much as possible -- they have told us that if we do not use their criteria the funding would have to be 100 per cent from the province so, therefore we feel that we are more or less restricted to using the criteria under the Canada Assistance Plan.

Mr. Deans: Can you tell me what it would cost the Province of Ontario to put all the people who are currently in the category of unemployable under a programme similar to GAINS, in total cost, without any federal participation whatsoever?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: I’m just guessing, Mr. Chairman, when I use the figure of $10 million. My staff tells me it would be more than $10 million. Would it be about $15 million?

Mr. Deans: Don’t guess for a minute.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: It would be more than $10 million if we --

Mr. Deans: Let’s talk about it for a second. Let’s assume that it would be $20 million, just for the sake of argument. It may be less, it may be more. But, obviously, for a great number of people they would qualify for assistance under the federal government programme, therefore that would reduce it somewhat.

The question that comes to my mind, recognizing the tremendous difficulties that people who are judged to be unemployable have, is whether or not we in the Province of Ontario, given the tremendous wealth that we have, can’t afford a sufficient amount of money -- $15 million, perhaps -- to provide them with an income level that will allow them to live in dignity and with some reasonable sense of worth in this province.

I can appreciate that you would want -- I’m sorry, are you finished?

Mr. A. J. Roy (Ottawa East): I’m just saying good morning to the chairman.

An hon. member: He’s heckling.

Mr. Deans: Oh, I just thought maybe you had something you wanted to say.

Mr. E. Sargent (Grey-Bruce): Pretty sensitive.

Mr. Deans: Yes, I’m sensitive in the morning, I really am.

Mr. Sargent: Did you bring your hockey stick?

Mr. Deans: No, I didn’t.

I can’t help asking myself what it is I can appreciate that the minister wants to take full advantage of government money from Ottawa. I can appreciate that you don’t want to spend a cent more of the money of Ontario’s taxpayers than you absolutely have to. I can understand that you might prefer that the federal government will have to change their regulations in order to broaden them, in order to allow more people to come within the ambit of those regulations. I can appreciate that maybe you feel personally very sensitive towards the needs of those people.

I am not depreciating any of those things. But I don’t understand how we can have a category of people who are, in fact, unemployable -- through no fault of their own in most instances -- whose chances of having a reasonable existence, let alone a reasonable life style in the Province of Ontario, are severely inhibited and restricted; and how we can allow $5 million, $6 million, $7 million, or maybe even $10 million, to make the difference. This might be the difference between the money we could get legitimately within the guidelines for those who fall within the guidelines and what it would cost to provide some kind of a programme parallel to GAINS -- if not integrated with GAINS -- that would enable them to have an income level sufficient to live reasonably in the province.

I’ve never been able to understand it. I suppose I’ve spoken about this in a variety of different forms since 1967. I’ve kept asking the question: “What is it about the society that we create that it doesn’t feel any sense of responsibility towards people who can’t make it on their own?”

I’m not talking about those who sit on their backsides day after day by their own volition and by their own decision. I’m talking about people who legitimately cannot make it. Who don’t have what it takes. These are those who are injured, those who are born with some disability, those who go blind through no fault of their own.

Why is it we can allow $10 million to stand in the way? We can build a sports complex at Oakville. We can devote all kinds of public money to any number of different kinds of useless programmes.

Mrs. Campbell: Like Krauss-Maffei.

Mr. Deans: Like Krauss-Maffei. And yet we fail when it comes to dealing with the legitimate needs of a segment of society -- a very small segment of society -- who have no recourse whatsoever; who have no way of obtaining for themselves an income level sufficient to allow them to live in this grossly- inflated economy which you have helped create. And then you say to us: “We would like the federal government to change it. We wish the regulations were broader. We want to take full advantage of the grants available.”

Mrs. Campbell: Whose definition are you relying on for GAINS?

Mr. Deans: I applaud you for wanting to take advantage of the grants, I really do. But damn it all, between now and the time that those things happen, surely we can afford to look after the needs of those people at an income level that would be the equivalent to what you would pay them if you were able to take advantage of the GAINS programme.

I don’t know -- it causes me no end of aggravation when I think about it. I want the federal money, too, and I don’t want to take the chance of losing it. But surely to heaven those people are more important than those dollars at this particular point in time?

If we were talking about an overall income maintenance programme to cover everybody in the Province of Ontario, a guaranteed income of some kind that everyone could take advantage of, then we are talking in billions of dollars perhaps. When we are talking literally about a handful of people scattered all over the province who are deprived day in and day out of the things that they normally should be able to expect in the society of Ontario with its triple-A rating, them I think that you put aside what you would like to get from Ottawa. You continue the argument with them, you make your presentations to them, you do all of the things that are necessary to some day get them to change their minds, but in the meantime you make the money available. You make the money available to cover the legitimate needs of those people.

I suppose that is really what my colleague is talking about. That’s what we are talking about, and I think the member for St. George too. I think maybe you are talking about it as well. I just don’t understand it. You can’t possibly tell me that the Management Board of Cabinet that you go before or whatever the cabinet board is that you go before for money, where you say to them we’ve got X thousands of people in the Province of Ontario whose income levels are far below what we think is reasonable, and although we can get the money from Ottawa, we think we should be setting aside additional dollars to raise their level up to something equivalent to that which they would get under GAINS if it were available to them, has turned you down.

Are you telling me that that has happened? Did they turn you down? Because if they turned you down, then I’ve got to really question the priorities of this government. That’s really at the heart of it. Surely it’s more important that we recognize the needs of those people than that we spent money on Krauss-Maffei, as my colleague has said, or we spend money on all of the other quite important things that will no doubt benefit all numbers of people now and in the years to come, but that do absolutely nothing to satisfy what is a human need today.

I’m asking you as clearly as I can to do it. I would spend the additional money. I would use my triple-A rating and I would spend the additional money. I would say to the cabinet, if I were you, “Look, we can’t wait for Ottawa any more. We’ve waited long enough. If they don’t understand the need, that’s too damn bad. We are going to do it anyway. We are going to lead the way.”

The people of Ontario will support that. I haven’t had a single complaint from anyone in all the time that I have been in politics about the level of payment paid to people who were permanently unemployable or judged to be unemployable being too high. In fact, the truth of the matter is that the majority of the people don’t know what the payment is. And they don’t much care. But they do hope, I think, given the commitment they have to each other, that maybe the payment would be sufficiently high to allow people to live reasonably.

Don’t use the Ottawa excuse because it’s really only an excuse. It’s a legitimate excuse, but it’s not --

Mrs. Campbell: No, it is not.

Mr. Deans: -- legitimate enough to justify not doing it. It’s only legitimate to the extent that it means you are going to carry on dialogue and conversation and you are going to try and put pressure on them, but in the meantime you are going to make the payments anyway.

I just can’t accept that we sit and wait until Ottawa. I want to talk about something else but I’d like to hear what you have to say.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Mr. Chairman, I think there is a lot in what the hon. member says. Personally, I’m not unsympathetic to the permanently unemployables and, as the hon. member mentioned, there isn’t that large a number. It’s a very grey area, a very difficult line to define those who are permanently unemployable and the disabled.

Mr. J. A. Renwick (Riverdale): It is not difficult, except if you have a weird standard, then you really get into difficulty.

Mrs. Campbell: That’s right.

Mr. Chairman: Order, please.

Mr. Renwick: Let’s not talk about the difficulty of that problem. Let’s have a certain sense of charity about what you are involved in. You know as well as I do that that is a ridiculous standard.

Mr. Chairman: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: I would say, Mr. Chairman, to the hon. member for Wentworth, that it is a matter we are still considering. We have our own income security review and, as the hon. member knows, we are working also with the federal government. It is one that we are considering. As I said, it certainly is a grey area and it’s one where there could be improvements.

Mr. Deans: When you talk about grey areas, you have got to think of them in terms of being pretty bleak, because that’s the way things are for people who are in that position. You would honestly think --

Mr. Renwick: It’s like getting up every morning with the sky overcast.

Mr. Deans: -- it might be possible, given the small numbers of people we are talking about, to make that a priority among all the priorities, to honestly sit down and say we are going to make that a priority, we are going to come to a decision about it and we are going to do something about it.

Mr. Renwick: They are not interested.

Mr. Deans: My recollection of the debates of years gone by is not as clear this morning as it might normally be, but let me tell you something, Mr. Chairman.

An hon. member: It’s a bit foggy.

Mr. Deans: Well, it’s a wee bit foggy because I didn’t want to sit at 10 o’clock in the morning; that is the truth.

Mr. Roy: I hadn’t really noticed.

Mr. Deans: When I think back I know we have had this discussion in previous years. It has not exactly been centred on the same criteria but the same discussion, has been carried on in this last number of years about these same people. They sit and they wait, and it always seems to me that we end up talking about it on Christmas Eve. I don’t know why it is; it’s got something to do with the government psyche. We always end up talking about these people on Christmas Eve.

Mr. Renwick: We would even support another $50 handout bill at this time of year because you are so far behind now.

Mr. Deans: If you’d like to tell us that by the time we come back in January, you will have told your officials they must have a decision on this matter, and you are going to take it to the cabinet, then maybe that would be an acceptable proposition from you. But do you know something? That isn’t happening. You talk about setting up boards, you talk about talking to Ottawa, and the only thing you don’t talk about is what happens to those people while you are talking.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Mr. Chairman, in all fairness, we have transferred since July 1 as indicated earlier --

Mr. Renwick: It is not a grey area; it is grey people who are administering it.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: -- about 6,000 people.

Mr. Deans: I agree.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: We have transferred at least 50 per cent in the last few months.

Mr. Deans: Good Lord, how many people have you in your ministry? It’s a huge ministry with a massive budget.

Mr. Renwick: Put them all on and then take off the ones that aren’t right.

Mr. Deans: You do this thing one by one. Some of these people will be dead before they get the money. Surely there is a better way. Surely you can go through it now and say this will be the level payable, and pay it; then do your negotiating. Just don’t go on year after year with this, because it becomes almost sickening.

You are a pretty nice guy. Every single year you stand up and tell us how sorry you are for the people and how much you grieve for them and how you really agree there have to be changes made. It just tears at my heart, but the problem is that every year we have to raise the same things. If it isn’t the elderly, if it isn’t the mothers on mothers’ allowance, if it isn’t the disabled, if it isn’t the handicapped, it is some group every year, and it gets to be a bit much.

I have something more to talk about.

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

Mrs. Campbell: I just wanted to clarify this question of definition by citing an example. In my riding, as the minister knows, I drew to his attention the case of a man who was blind, who had lost one leg at the hip, who had lost part of a foot and initially was not entitled to GAINS. The definition of this was in your ministry, and I want to acknowledge my gratitude to the minister, in that when that case was drawn to his attention, the matter was straightened out. I use it only to point out that really the definition lies with the minister and with his ministry and that Ottawa, I am sure, will accept cases which can be defined by this ministry as those of handicapped people.

I would like a response to that because that is one clear case. Ottawa couldn’t be blamed for that. The definition was right here and that man had to have his member of this Legislature fight to get him on GAINS.

There are many, many other cases, for example, heart conditions. I have seen the doctors’ letters. There are doctors who say these people are permanently handicapped. There may be grey areas that are apart from all of this, but let’s get with those that are clearly definably, medically permanently handicapped and get them out of the unemployable definition into that of the handicapped. From any discussion I have had with Ottawa, the situation is that if that is your determination, there isn’t a problem with their funding. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman: The hon. member for Yorkview.

Mr. F. Young (Yorkview): Mr. Chairman, just a couple of words. First of all I want to make it absolutely clear that as far as I am concerned and this group is concerned, we are not letting the federal government off the hook in this regard.

Mrs. Campbell: Neither are we.

Mr. Young: The government there is perfectly willing to ensure its own security, as it tried to do this week, without the security of this particular group of people in desperate need in a way that they themselves are not and never were.

Mr. Renwick: They talk about their taxing powers but, they never exercise it for the poor.

Mr. Young: Right, but that aside, the fact is that this government does face this responsibility and I think every one of us in this House has had case after case of people who come to us and they are completely bewildered: “My neighbour is covered by this programme and I can’t get it. I am disabled. He’s disabled. What’s the difference?” They can’t understand it and they never will, and why should they, because neither of them will ever do a day’s work again.

Mr. Chairman, the priorities are wrong. The building of one fewer cloverleaf in this province would do the job.

Mr. R. Haggerty (Welland South): That’s right.

Mr. Young: The building of three or four fewer miles of highway would do the job, and even though an election year is coming and highways are desperately important in the programme leading up to an election, this is important too. Just a little shifting of allocations, a little shifting of priorities, is all that’s required in this province.

We are wealthy; we have never had as much income coming in, due to inflation but the fact is it’s there; we have the resources. Why do we ask these people to bear more of the burden than the rest of society? You know, even in the taxing field, it means that some of us might have to go without $10, $15 or $20 in assets next year in order that they might have something more in order to bring them up to a little bit nearer a living standard. That adjustment could be made too, if the government is willing to do it.

But, Mr. Chairman, I say to the minister that these people will never understand why it is that the government cannot order its priorities better and why they have to do without while the fellow just across the hall, or just down the street, or perhaps next door to him, as was the case of one man who came to me, is different in income. They don’t understand. It’s time this government was generous enough, if I could use that term, to bring this thing into balance, even if it means dipping into our own revenues here and even if the Ottawa people are dead blind in this kind of situation.

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

Mr. B. Newman (Windsor-Walkerville): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The case has been very well put by everyone who has spoken so far concerning the disabled, but there is another class that the ministry forgets about.

Very often when there is a permanently disabled person in the home who qualifies for GAINS and receives GAINS, there is the wife or the husband who, because of the disability of the spouse, cannot work at all. Physically he or she is able to work, but the disabled person needs 24-hour-a-day attention and that person, because he can’t work, qualifies only for social assistance and does not qualify for GAINS. To me this is wrong, Mr. Minister. I brought to your attention the case of one individual in my riding -- there are many others -- who has had two heart attacks, two strokes, is on all kinds of medication, and the total income of husband and wife is $351. You pay for the drugs on the formulary, but many of the drugs that this man has been taking for years and years -- that the doctor insists on him taking -- are not on the formulary, so he has to take from the combined income of $351 to pay for those drugs, and in some instances it amounts to as much as $40 a month, Mr. Minister.

You are completely unfair to those who happen to have a permanently disabled individual in their home and who, because of their necessity to stay with them around the clock, cannot become gainfully employed and have to accept only social welfare. It is wrong. Both of those individuals should be on the GAINS programme.

And, by the way, why isn’t the GAINS programme completely integrated into your ministry, so that it could qualify for grants from the federal government? Is there any reason, Mr. Minister, that GAINS is not? I would appreciate you giving me that reason when you do reply. It would make good sense to me to have it in with your programme, so that it could at least qualify for that additional assistance from the federal government. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman: The hon. minister.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Mr. Chairman, I wish to thank the hon. member for Yorkview and the hon. member for Windsor-Walkerville.

With reference to the hon. member for Yorkview and our income maintenance programmes, the hon. member will agree we have made substantial improvements in the last year or two -- and we will continue to do so. We have a committee and we will be making improvements. I can appreciate the concern of some of his constituents. One resident receives the GAINS programme and another one doesn’t, and they don’t understand it. And sometimes, as I’ve said, it varies. So, we hope to be able to improve upon it.

With reference to the hon. member for Windsor-Walkerville and the drug programme, there will be improvements on Jan. 1. This is administered under my colleague, the Minister of Health (Mr. Miller). And there are certain drugs --

Mr. B. Newman: What does one do in the meantime?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Pardon?

Mr. B. Newman: What does a person do in the meantime when they are confronted with those heavy medical expenses or heavy drug expenses that don’t happen to be on the formulary?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: I’m told that the Ministry of Health have really given this a very, very careful review. There are drugs that may not be the same drug that the constituent has been taking, but that are just as good, and they are the drugs that have been approved by the committee. And there will be changes in the formulary as of Jan. 1.

Mr. B. Newman: But in the meantime, Mr. Minister, he has had to lower his standard of living to purchase the drugs that his doctor insists on him using. And the doctor says, “No substitutes.”

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Is this the person that you wrote to me about? At one time you sent me some drugs that were not being purchased under the drug plan. Is that the same case?

Mr. B. Newman: I can’t tell you offhand, Mr. Minister.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: If the hon. member will send me the names of those drugs and the person’s name and address, we will certainly look into it, and then take it up with the Minister of Health. But, again, it’s really the Ministry of Health which administers the drug programme.

Mr. B. Newman: I will give you the letter from your ministry, I think dated Dec. 5, in which you’ve turned him down. It said the maximum was $35.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: We didn’t turn him down. Again, Mr. Chairman, the drug programme is administered by the Ministry of Health.

Mr. B. Newman: Yes, I know that. But it’s your officials that make the home visitation in the community to decide what type of assistance the individual should get.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: That’s right. But when it comes to drugs --

Mr. B. Newman: And regardless of whether it is covered or not covered by the medical or drug portion of the GAINS programme, the disabled individual has to buy this drug. He has been buying this drug for years. You come along and cut an alcoholic off from liquor immediately and what happens? He climbs the walls. But if you progressively reduced his consumption, you could rehabilitate him -- and likewise on this.

Had you phased out the drug programme over three months or so, and said, “Well, by Jan. 1 we will no longer pay for these certain drugs for which there are satisfactory substitutes,” then that individual could have accustomed himself for the change in the type of drug. But you didn’t do that, and so the individual insists on getting the other. You will not pay for it; he’s going to pay for it himself, and he lowers his standard of living.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Mr. Chairman, I know I’m just repeating what I said, but there are over 1,300 drugs listed in the drug programme formulary, and others will be added as of Jan. 1; and we do not administer the drug programme. Sure, our field workers call on the recipients. But, again, it’s strictly administered by the Ministry of Health.

Now, with reference to the question of GAINS, as I indicated earlier, those who are 65 years of age and over are reviewed on an income test. With those who are under 63 and who are disabled, it’s on the needs test. The guidelines for needs test were set by the federal government. The hon. members and I listened with great interest to the comments today. It’s certainly an area in which we will continue to make representation and, I hope, one which we will be able to improve and add more who are permanently unemployable.

Mr. B. Newman: That means, Mr. Minister, you don’t take into consideration the actual expenditure that that individual went through in providing himself with these drugs that are not on your formulary. That should be included, because when the man spends, let’s say in this case, some $40 for the month out of a combined income of $351, he really has only $311 income. That’s all, because the balance went for medication, and that’s wrong.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Well, Mr. Chairman, I think the hon. member wrote to me on Dec. 5?

Mr. B. Newman: No, I received a reply from your ministry on Dec. 5, stating that the individual is getting the maximum amount.

Votes 2601 and 2602 agreed to.

On vote 2603:

Mr. Chairman: On 2603, the hon. member for St. George.

Mrs. Campbell: I am interested in the transfer programme for the retarded. I haven’t been able to come to grips with exactly what is happening in this particular area, because Health had made the statement that they wanted to get the retarded into the community. We have had discussions about the education of the retarded in the Education Act; now we have this programme which seems to be leading towards institutionalizing the retarded. We had long discussions in the original estimates about the thrust of getting them into the community, but I haven’t been able to get information, either from this ministry or from Health, as to what happened with those who are transferred, for example, out of Orillia to Woodstock or to Kingston or to some of those other areas.

Since this vote does deal specifically with that programme, I would like at this point to have further assurance that we are in fact bringing services to these unfortunate people in many cases. I think sometimes they are more fortunate than some of the rest of us, but I really would like to understand exactly where we are going on this programme because I think it is of the deepest concern to a great many parents. I have again many of them in my riding who have been asking me questions and I have written for clarification, specifically on the Orillia case, and have had no reply.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Mr. Chairman, I think this year of 1974 is a year that I can say we can be proud of in what we are doing for the mentally handicapped. I will be making a statement soon, but I would like to give the highlights on recent improvements whereby we provide additional funding and services to those who are in institutions to be rehabilitated in their own communities. We think that 50 per cent, maybe more, could be rehabilitated over a period of time.

One of the Acts is the Homes for Retarded Persons Act. We are increasing our funding up to 80 per cent, for a maximum of $15,000 per bed. Up until now our funding was much lower, and therefore the local associations for the mentally retarded sometimes had difficulty in raising the difference through donations and other means of acquiring revenue, so this increased funding will provide for group homes and various other types of residential services.

Also, for children under the Day Nurseries Act we have 11 developmental centres. Up until now the funding -- and we’re speaking about the subsidies or the operating grants -- was 80 per cent by this government and 20 per cent that had to be raised by the parents. In some areas they had great difficulty in raising the 20 per cent. Now we will be funding 100 per cent of those children who are of school age, and those who are under school age will be paying what the parent of a normal child would be paying. We’ve had discussions with the local associations for the mentally retarded, and this is quite agreeable.

I would like to repeat that: There will be a 100 per cent funding for children of school age, and for those children who are under school age I think the formula is something like 100 per cent of the first 35 per cent and 80 per cent of the balance. In essence, it costs about 35 per cent more to look after a handicapped child than a normal child. We say that for those who are under school age, say up to five years of age, the parents will pay no more for their child to go to a developmental centre than they would pay if he was a normal child.

The third area where we are increasing our funding is where these persons are being rehabilitated in their communities. We need more workshops, and we need to expand our existing workshops. We will be increasing the funding. The funding up until now was quite limited. I believe it was 25 per cent or $3.75 per square foot. We are increasing that to 80 per cent, so it’s a substantial increase. We’re also increasing our operating grants to sheltered workshops.

Mr. Chairman, these are all very forward steps that will greatly help to provide support services and residential services necessary for the rehabilitation of the mentally handicapped.

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the minister’s explanation. Could I know now what is the definition of school age? What happens when they get beyond school age?

You see, the problem is that there are many people who have had children in Orillia, for example, who are confused, who would like to have them back in the community but could not possibly look after them in the home. They are obviously now beyond school age by any definition, I presume.

In view of the fact that the Education Act is providing for a lower compulsory age, what age are we looking at for this kind of assistance? I would hope it would be the normal school age and not, for instance, a reduction to the age of 14. Will you be providing some assistance for those who will be going to school and who are educable to some degree or other?

Is it possible that in this programme, if this is what you do, that you would fund on a purchase-of-service basis, or some such basis, the Roman Catholic children who perhaps ought to be able in their own system, as it exists today, have their education through your ministry, since they can’t now do it through the Education ministry?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Mr. Chairman, the hon. member mentioned several things. First, I think she asked me about the question of school age. Well, normal school age, Mr. Chairman --

Mrs. Campbell: Sixteen?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: It would be their normal school age. They begin school at five years of age, so those who are between --

Mrs. Campbell: They take them at four in areas of Metropolitan Toronto.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: For those who are school age, as I said, we will be paying 100 per cent.

The hon. member also must know that those who are 18 years of age and over are eligible under the GAINS programme.

With reference to the question of religion, I’m not aware this has been a problem. It hasn’t been brought to my attention yet. We only have 11 developmental centres in the province, and I’m not sure whether it would be advisable to have them operated according to religious lines.

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

Mr. Ferrier: Mr. Chairman, on June 4 the Provincial Secretary for Social Development (Mrs. Birch) made the commitment that this government was going to spend $15 million towards more adequate daycare facilities in this province and that this money would be made available as of Sept. 1, 1974. As I understand it, $10 million was to be used to help non-profit organizations build or expand their facilities, and the rest was to subsidize day care for the handicapped or lower-income children.

This was heralded as a great move forward. It was going to meet the daycare needs of the children. My leader and the member for Sudbury East (Mr. Martel) went into this in quite some detail and pointed out that it might look after about 30,000 of the children in the daycare age, whereas the need was for 300,000 or more.

Here we are being asked to vote something like $3.8 million for care facilities for children, which suggests there is $11 million or so of the commitment made by the provincial secretary that is not going to be spent in the 1974-1975 fiscal year, and that this programme, which was so much heralded, is not moving ahead with the dispatch that we were led to believe it would.

Why are you not spending that extra $11.5 million? Why haven’t you made the commitment to it, and why isn’t this money being used actively to move even as far as you said you were going to move? I’d like the minister to comment on that.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: There is very little comment I can make. I would say that the response to our daycare programme has been tremendous. For instance, up until Dec. 13, we had approved in principle 88 centres at an estimated cost of $9,333,170.

It’s quite true, as the hon. member mentioned, that in our estimates for the fiscal year that ends March 31, 1975, the amount is $3,584,400; but in the next fiscal year, beginning April 1, 1975, it is $11,942,700, making a total of $15,527,100. Therefore, the money has been allocated in this year and next year.

With regard to the statement’s reference to $15 million, you must realize that we operate on the fiscal year. We have so far approved in principle close to $10 million, and the requests are coming in continually. The response has been very good.

With reference to a universal programme, Mr. Chairman, we are all in support of group day care. But I’d like to remind the hon. member that he is probably familiar with other types of day care, such as family day care in private homes, which is very popular also. This is one of the areas being examined by the advisory council, which is looking into alternative means to provide a variety. We believe there could be alternatives. For instance, you could have a regular daycare centre with satellite homes in the area, and some of the staff could work closely with these homes.

What I am trying to say it that there are many alternatives to supplying daycare services, but the programme itself is proceeding exceedingly well.

Mr. Chairman: The hon. member for Sudbury.

Mr. M. C. Germa (Sudbury): Mr. Chairman, when the government announced its intention to move retarded children from institutional care into a community environment, it looked on paper or by word a proper attitude and method to get these people back into their home environment. But I suggest that in the case of those children, who by the very nature of their disability will always be institutionalized, the institution, in which you bring them back into the community could be of such a design that it lends itself to the rehabilitation and the living standards of these people.

A case in point has to do with a certain transfer of retarded children from the Rideau regional unit. The Rideau regional unit was designed to accommodate retarded children. We have certain facilities down there such as open space for these people to work off their energies. We have gymnasia. We have swimming pools. We have all manner of recreation for these institutionalized kids to stay in.

We had the case where the government arbitrarily, a few months ago, you will recall decided to move about 60 of these kids from Rideau regional up into the Sudbury Nursing Home, a home for extended care, a home which was designed for accommodating senior citizens, a home which does not lend itself to accommodating retarded children.

The roof fell in on the minister when that particular proposal was made. He backed off from his position that he would arbitrarily move all those kids from the Sudbury district back into Sudbury. He said he would agree not to move those whose parents were aware and astute enough and realized what environment their children were coming into at the Sudbury Nursing Home.

Lo and behold, people being people, they do not pursue their cause. We have now a situation in Sudbury, and I have visited the institution a couple of times, of an extended care home, designed for senior citizens, people who do not require recreational facilities or facilities for working off energy, where about 40 or 50 retarded children are now confined in these cubicles. There is no open space for these kids to participate in any of their activities. There is no theatre. There are no gymnasia. There is no swimming pool. It’s a home for senior citizens into which you have dumped about 40 or 50 retarded children.

Floors four and five are for retarded children. Floor six is the only geriatric floor in the whole institution. Explain to me the rationale of bringing children in there.

Granted, it’s a good project. These kids are near their parents and visitations are easier on their parents. But what kind of an environment do these kids have to live in when the only space they have is this white cell of a room, plus the hallway facing the room to run up and down in?

I say to you this kind of an attitude is wrong. If these kids are going to come back into the home community, into an institution, then the institution into which they are introduced has to be such that it accommodates their needs. I think what you’ve done in Sudbury in this instance is incorrect. I think it’s wrong. I think it’s bad.

I suspect there is a little bit of political patronage, because we know who owns the Sudbury Nursing Home, a former backbencher of the government side, Mr. Gaston Demers. He went out on a limb and overbuilt and we ran out of senior citizens to fill the beds. In order to try to save his bacon, the government decided it would fill that home built for senior citizens with retarded children from the Rideau regional hospital. You can’t sacrifice these kids on the altar of finance.

Mr. Breithaupt: Shame!

Mr. Germa: I would like the minister to answer that question.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Mr. Chairman, I think we all agree with the hon. member when he says the mentally retarded should be provided with as good accommodation as possible to look after their needs. Specifically with the area in question, my understanding is -- and I stand to be corrected -- that those who were transferred from Smiths Falls or whatever institution they were in, were transferred with the co-operation and agreement of the parents in question.

Mr. Deans: Oh, don’t give us that.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: The parents felt --

Mr. Deans: I knew that was what you would say.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: This was not an arbitrary decision; it was done with consent. I haven’t visited that facility in question but I will make a point to visit it. If, as the hon. member says, the facilities are wholly inadequate for the needs of those persons, we certainly will see they are provided with what they require.

Mr. Breithaupt: Perhaps the two of you can go together.

Mr. Germa: Mr. Chairman, maybe for the edification of the House I can describe what the situation is. The building is on a rock lot. The lot is on about a 45-degree angle, which is normal for the city of Sudbury. The building is perched; it’s hanging on this rock.

In front of this institution there is a four-lane, high-speed highway: Highway 69. It runs south from Sudbury as the route to Toronto. This is the main artery out of the city of Sudbury. You can’t possibly protect these kids; so you can’t put them out in front of a building like that.

On the other side is York St., another major artery. It leads to one of our major hospitals and various other institutions. In the back of the building there is a parking lot for about 100 cars. You might be able to enclose the kids or these people in this parking lot in the back. But as far as open space, as far as trees, as far as grass is concerned, there is nothing except these little strips that you have when you are in the congested area.

The whole environment is completely and absolutely wrong. The environment is not even good for a senior citizen, who does not require too much open space. There are the fumes from the highway; the noise from the highway. Huge trucks climb this hill right in front of it. It doesn’t even lend itself to senior citizens or a nursing home environment, let alone accommodation for retarded kids.

I ask you, Mr. Minister, to go up and take a look at the Sudbury Nursing Home. Try to imagine being locked into those little rooms, with no place to go. You cannot let them out of the building, because they cannot be controlled. They’ll get out on that highway. If you want to let them out, then you are going to have to build a fortress in order to protect them from themselves. That just wouldn’t be acceptable, because the open space available inside this theoretical fortress just would not be adequate to accommodate their needs. There is not even room for a swing or a tree out there. How do you expect these kids to live?

Now, I started out by saying there was an arbitrary decision made by the government to move certain people in. I got the flak. Pressure was put on me. I brought it to the government’s attention, and you did back off a little way. But you did, by some method, come to your decision that you were going to move those kids there.

Now, I don’t know how you got around the objections of the parents. But, as I said before, people are prone to back away from a fight. Ordinary, everyday citizens would rather give up and walk away from a fight. I think this is precisely what happened here.

I know some of the people wouldn’t give up. They wouldn’t accede to having their children transferred -- even though it meant long journeys to the Rideau region and Smiths Falls for their visitations. But some of them gave in; I know that.

But the government has horrendous pressure and power, and these people don’t know how vindictive you might be; that you might cut off any support for them.

Mr. Ferrier: They were always afraid.

Mr. Germa: They are afraid of big government. Rather than stand there and defy big government, they will give in; and they’ll sacrifice their kids to that. I think you should go back and ask every parent again, or allow me to ask them without the pressure of government, whether they wish their kids to remain in that institution. I think if it were other than a government person who asked the question, the answers might be a heck of a lot different.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Mr. Chairman, as I indicated earlier, I will make it a point to visit the facility in question. I would also like to add, Mr. Chairman, that this government can be proud of its record of what we are doing for the handicapped. If the facilities are not adequate, we will certainly see that they are provided with the proper facilities.

Mr. Deans: You are trying to precipitate a major debate.

Mr. Chairman: Vote 2603, the hon. member for Cochrane South.

Mr. Ferrier: Mr. Chairman, could I ask the minister if the March of Dimes sheltered workshops, such as the one in Timmins, come under this vote?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: I believe that the March of Dimes is an independent organization, and I don’t believe they come under this.

I believe that we have about 132 sheltered workshops and they are mainly operated by the local associations for the mentally retarded. I believe you have the Timmins and District Association for the Mentally Retarded. The March of Dimes is an independent organization, although we work closely with them.

Mr. Chairman: Shall vote 2603 carry?

Mr. Deans: No, I just want to ask one question. In regard to the matter raised by my colleague from Sudbury: Can the minister tell me the criteria for approval of homes for retarded children? Who approved that facility? I think that is as much to the point as you travelling into Sudbury to look at it. Obviously, as the minister you can’t go around the province visiting every single home to check out every complaint.

That’s why you have ministry officials. That’s what their job is. That’s what they’re paid for -- some of them handsomely. How, then, do they approve the conditions my colleague talks about? Do they fall within the guidelines established in terms of faculties for retarded children?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Mr. Chairman, as I indicated earlier, I haven’t visited the facility. However, it’s a new building, and was approved by the Ministry of Health. If it was approved by the Ministry of Health, it must meet all of their standards. I haven’t seen the building they came from, but I would venture to say it was built maybe 20, 30 or 40 years ago and that this other building is far superior.

Mr. Deans: That’s true. Structurally, that could well be so. It may be a much nicer building, built to modern specifications. That’s not the question. The question is: What kinds of facilities are required in order that a building be approved for the purposes of providing care for retarded children?

Look, there are all kinds of nice buildings outside here. They are building apartments, they are building office towers, they are building warehouses. They are all modern. They are much better than other buildings. It doesn’t mean they are any good for retarded children; okay?

So it’s not a matter of whether or not it’s a better-looking building or the facilities are a little better than the ones they had before. The question is whether or not there are sufficient facilities available in that building to provide for the needs of those kids. That’s what my colleague is asking about, and that’s what we are asking about.

It doesn’t require you to go there. It doesn’t do any harm, I suppose, except that it will become one of those grand tours. They will meet you at the door and usher you around and give you lunch and then you will leave and you will say they are very nice people there and the kids look very healthy and the building’s clean and well painted and running water and, lo and behold.

The problem is: Do you have standards in the government that say there must be certain facilities available in order that any building can be used for purposes of housing retarded children? If you have, does that building meet those standards? If it does, then one has to question whether the standards are adequate, if my colleague’s word on what is there is to be taken; and I take it as being gospel because I have never known him to even exaggerate, so I can only assume what he tells us is correct.

If it means that kids are going to be put into a small room with inadequate facilities for them to be able to take part in any recreational undertakings or programmes, then obviously that building isn’t suited. It may be suited for other things, but it certainly doesn’t sound to me as if it is suited for that. If it meets your standards, your standards are wrong.

Mr. Germa: Mr. Chairman, I don’t know whether the minister is being evasive by design or whether he doesn’t fully understand what I said. I stated right off the bat that the building was designed as a nursing home to accommodate extended care patients. Certainly it’s a brand new building, certainly the sanitary facilities are right, certainly the hallways are clean. It’s well heated, well ventilated and well lighted. Certainly all those things are there, but the facilities required for a nursing-bed patient are quite different from the facilities required for a retarded child.

I am surprised to hear you say that the building these kids came out of was probably 20 or 30 years old. As far as I understand, all of them came from Rideau regional. I don’t know how many hundreds of acres Rideau regional encompasses, but I do know it is a farm, open-space atmosphere. I know there are hundreds of acres for these people to gallop around in and spend their time at whatever they want to do. I think that is a good environment for people who have this affliction. But caging them in these small rooms, albeit certainly well heated, well lighted and well serviced as far as food service and sanitary facilities are concerned -- no argument there at all -- is the wrong kind of a structure, the wrong kind of an atmosphere for the type of person we are talking about, namely retarded children. They need a whole different environment.

To say that it is approved by the Ministry of Health carries no water with me whatsoever. It has to be approved by your officials, as far as what is required for the proper care and maintenance of a retarded child is concerned. That’s the kind of person we’re talking about; not a person who spends 18 or 20 hours a day in bed, which is what happens in nursing home environments.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Mr. Chairman, the hon. member is familiar with his area, and I think he knows there are not too many facilities in northern Ontario for children and the mentally retarded. There are very few facilities. Up until recently our funding did not lend itself to building more. But these estimates have been increased substantially, and there now is additional funding. Also, if the building in question is not suitable for children, as I have indicated, we certainly are prepared to look into it.

Mr. Deans: But how did they get there?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Also, I might mention, this was done with the approval of the parents; it was probably a temporary measure. Those children, and others who were moved from wherever they came from, were moved with the approval of the parents. They would much rather have their children in their own community than to have them 200, 400 or 500 miles away.

Again, I’d like to repeat what I said: I will visit that facility, and if it is felt that it doesn’t meet the needs of the children, we are prepared to provide the proper facility.

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. Deans: What’s the matter? Are you missing your lunch?

Mr. Germa: The choice you gave these parents was completely unacceptable. They had the choice of leaving them in Rideau regional; 350 miles away, or bringing them to this cage in Sudbury, where they can visit them on a weekly basis. What kind of a choice is that? Some of them did opt for the cage choice, but most of them who contacted me -- and there were dozens and dozens of them -- said that regardless of the distance, they were going to leave their kids in Rideau regional. That was the consensus I got from all the parents concerned.

Mr. Deans: It also says something about the government’s attitude towards the needs of northern Ontario.

Mr. Chairman: Shall vote 2603 carry?

Vote 2603 agreed to.

This completes the supplementary estimates of the Ministry of Community and Social Services.

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

Motion agreed to.

The House resumed, Mr. Speaker in the chair.

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

Report agreed to.

It being 12:30 o’clock, p.m., the House took recess.