Legislative Assembly of Ontario

The House met at 2 o’clock, p.m.

Prayers.

Mr. Speaker: I beg to inform the House that during the recess I received communication from the Lieutenant Governor in Council naming the members of the Board of Internal Economy, pursuant to the amendments of the Legislative Assembly Act, contained in Bill 170, which communication I have tabled.

Further, I have received the final report on cultural nationalism and the final report on economic nationalism from the select committee on economic and cultural nationalism, which completes that committee’s work.

I know that all hon. member’s will join with me in welcoming to the House this afternoon the distinguished members of the House of Assembly of the Province of Newfoundland who are seated in Mr. Speaker’s gallery.

We have Mr. Ben Howard, Mr. Michael Martin, Mr. Stephen Neary and Mr. Aubrey Senior. These people are visiting Toronto as part of the activities of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and they will be meeting a number of the members of the House. I know you will afford a warm welcome to our colleagues from Newfoundland.

I recognize the hon. Attorney General.

Hon. J. T. Clement (Provincial Secretary for Justice and Attorney General): Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to introduce to the House today the Hon. Lee Moore, Attorney General of St. Kitts, Nevis and Anguilla. He is in the Speaker’s gallery.

Mr. J. R. Breithaupt (Kitchener): Mr. Speaker, I too would like to take the opportunity of welcoming to the Legislature some 30 students from Forest Heights Secondary School in Kitchener with their teacher, Mr. William Lovell. They are visiting today, and I’m sure would be very interested in the operation of this first day of the resumed session.

Mr. Speaker: Statements by the ministry.

ROSS SHOULDICE

Hon. W. G. Davis (Premier): Mr. Speaker, I have a brief statement to make related to a story in this morning’s Globe and Mail. At about 11:30 this morning I held a press conference here in the buildings, at which time certain aspects of the story were discussed and questions asked. So that the members of the House won’t feel they were not a part of it, I would like to restate some of the things that were said this morning.

Firstly, Mr. Speaker, I think there were two aspects to the Globe and Mail story. Firstly, it related to the question of one Ross Shouldice and perhaps the suggestion that this government was not giving him the same kind of treatment it would anyone else as it related to his licence to practise in the real estate business in this province.

The second aspect related to the acquisition by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications of a certain parcel of land in Oakville and the suggestion, which I say with respect I think was contained in that story, Mr. Speaker, that some pressure was brought to bear on some members of the government or the ministry to acquire this land in other than a straightforward, appropriate fashion.

Mr. Breithaupt: I think there was that inference.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I should say to the House that I received a letter from Mr. Shouldice -- I believe it was dated Oct. 22 -- asking for an appointment to discuss the results, which were less than favourable as far as the party was concerned, in the Sudbury area. I met with Mr. Shouldice sometime in November. As a result of that meeting I spoke to Mr. Kelly --

Mr. E. W. Martel (Sudbury East): Nov. 16.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- the treasurer of the party in the Province of Ontario and told Mr. Kelly that Mr. Shouldice was not to be involved in any further aspects of party organization or fund raising, which point of view Mr. Kelly completely accepted.

Mr. Martel: Did it take the Premier 10 years to find that out?

An hon. member: He’d already done the job.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I haven’t known Mr. Shouldice as long as the member for Sudbury East has.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I can say, Mr. Speaker, from my standpoint and from the standpoint of the treasurer of the party, Mr. Shouldice is not involved. I can also say this, Mr. Speaker, as I read the Globe story, with respect to the suggestions that Mr. Shouldice had some influence and was in a position to suggest to this government who should or who should not receive work from this government by way of legal services or what have you, I think the story demonstrates, or at least this is my interpretation of it and I hope it’s right, that this actually did not happen.

Mr. J. F. Foulds (Port Arthur): Hope springs eternal.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I will be asking the Minister of Transportation and Communications, Mr. Speaker, to table the complete file as it relates to the particular property acquisition in question. I myself have seen that file. There is just nothing in it that suggests that Mr. Shouldice was in any way involved. There are two appraisals. The market price is without question within the context of those appraisals. The land was negotiated after a plan of dedication, which the lawyers opposite will understand, was filed in the registry office concerned; so any suggestion that this plan was not needed in terms of the plans of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications is totally wrong. I am also empowered to say, Mr. Speaker, that it has been communicated to me that Mr. Feldman, the gentleman who was referred to in the article, will be making something of a statement later on today and part of that statement will contain a statement by him that not only has he not contributed to the Progressive Conservative Party in the Province of Ontario, he hadn’t even been asked.

I would like to make this final observation, Mr. Speaker. I am prepared to accept responsibility for the affairs of the Progressive Conservative Party. I consider it a great honour to lead that party and my colleagues here in the House.

Mr. Breithaupt: Charge of the light brigade.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I cannot, nor shall I, take responsibility for those few individuals who from time to time misuse their positions of authority or responsibility, or in some cases just volunteered, and I refuse to accept those individual situations. I will not accept whatever Mr. Shouldice has or has not done as influencing me or any of my colleagues or the government of this province as it relates to our responsibilities, and I make that statement here categorically.

Mr. F. Laughren (Nickel Belt): Strange coincidence there.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Martel: And he lets the seals pound from time to time.

Mr. Speaker: Order please.

WOODCUTTING OPERATIONS NEAR ARMSTRONG

Hon. A. Grossman (Provincial Secretary for Resources Development): Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to announce that arrangements have been made with Domtar Ltd., to proceed with woodcutting operations near Armstrong. This will be carried out in co-operation with the Armstrong Development Corp. The operation will be between 10 to 30 miles from Armstrong and it is planned to operate a commuter bus service so that the employees will not be forced to live away from home.

This activity alone will provide an opportunity for the employment of at least 40 to 45 local residents and thus offset the loss in jobs created by the federal government’s closing of the radar base in Armstrong last year.

The Ontario government, through the Ministry of Natural Resources, will assist in the creation of these jobs through the Crown management unit announced earlier, and the funding of access roads in the logging area.

The first-stage access roads, costing a total of $100,000, are scheduled to be finished by spring. This operation alone will be providing 15 local jobs. The agreement with Domtar will not prevent private individuals from securing short-term licences to cut timber on the Crown management unit. The agreement with Domtar Ltd. should result in a capital-equipment investment in excess of half a million dollars and the creation of a $600,000 annual payroll for the community.

The logging activity is planned to begin this spring. In the interim, in conjunction with the Ontario Ministry of Colleges and Universities and the federal Department of Manpower and Immigration, Domtar will train the people of Armstrong who will be employed by the company, and provide payment during the training programme.

In addition to this, negotiations are still continuing between the provincial government, the federal government and private entrepreneurs to use the base for a small industrial plant. The sale of the base has been delayed to allow detailed investigation of all reasonable proposals toward this end.

However, Mr. Speaker, I should also advise the hon. members that we now have a similar problem arising in Moosonee, since on Friday, Jan. 17, the Minister of National Defence announced the closing of the Canadian Forces station in that municipality. We have already started to examine the possible effects of the closure. In addition, the hon. Robert Andras, who, since his appointment as federal co-ordinator on Armstrong, has worked closely with us on the problems confronting that community, has agreed to work with me in the same manner on the problems in Moosonee.

Arrangements are now being finalized for a visit to Moosonee within the next few days to review the situation with the community leaders in that municipality.

Mr. Speaker: Oral questions. The hon. Leader of the Opposition.

ROSS SHOULDICE

Mr. R. F. Nixon (Leader of the Opposition): Mr. Speaker, I’d like to put a question to the Premier following his statement --

[Applause.]

Hon. Mr. Grossman: The Leader of the Opposition hasn’t said anything yet.

Mr. Breithaupt: The Premier didn’t say anything but the members opposite applauded him.

An hon. member: It’s now or never, eh?

Mr. H. C. Parrott (Oxford): See if he is as brilliant as he has always been.

Hon. J. R. Rhodes (Minister of Transportation and Communications): Is the leader going to have another convention?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: That is the best way to get your applause in advance.

An hon. member: He’s got the people behind him now.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: He should quit when he’s ahead.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Let’s hear it for the member for Scarborough West.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to put a question to the Premier, following his statement. Since he must certainly be aware that not everyone in the province is as enthusiastically prepared as his colleagues to accept his statement today, and that there is --

Mr. Speaker: Question.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: -- evidently some substantial concern --

Mr. Speaker: Order please. Would the hon. Leader of the Opposition place his question?

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Yes, I’m getting to it, Mr. Speaker, with your assistance.

Mr. Speaker: Thank you.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: There is some substantial concern that in fact a commission was paid to someone who assisted in the sale of the property that the Premier has indicated in his press conference was needed for highway expansion; and since there has been a substantial parallel between what the Premier said today and what he said in 1971 after it became apparent that Fidinam Ltd. had contributed $50,000 to his party, would he not believe it would be the best thing for the people in the province, and particularly for himself, since he has accepted responsibility in this matter, if there were a full judicial inquiry into this and similar matters pertaining to the funding of the 1971 election, on behalf of the Progressive Conservatives and anyone else, and specifically the actions in fund raising since?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, there has been nothing in the story, or any documentation I have seen, that would prompt me into believing there should be a royal commission or a commission of inquiry and it’s not my intention --

Mr. T. P. Reid (Rainy River): That’s the Premier’s judgement.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Certainly that’s my judgement, and I’m prepared to exercise it.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Davis: If the Leader of the Opposition has available to him certain documentation that proves there was something paid by way of commission, that there was influence used with respect to the acquisition of that property --

Mr. S. Lewis (Scarborough West): That is what an inquiry would show.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- then, Mr. Speaker, I would be delighted to see it; but there is nothing in the Globe story that so states. Mr. Feldman is going to be stating that he made no contribution to the party, that he was not even approached by the party, and the treasurer of the party has said that there was none.

Mr. Laughren: Did he pay a commission?

Mr. Lewis: Did he pay a commission?

Hon. Mr. Davis: He says there was no commission to anyone.

Mr. Speaker: Order please.

Hon. Mr. Davis: He paid no commission. It was in the Globe story this morning.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I asked was there a commission?

Mr. Lewis: Was there a commission?

Mr. J. A. Renwick (Riverdale): No, none.

Mr. V. M. Singer (Downsview): No, no.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Well all right; reread it.

I would say, Mr. Speaker, that we have already -- and it was no easy decision on my part -- had the police investigate the situation related to Fidinam. It was debated in this House. It was the subject of a great deal of newspaper comment.

Mrs. M. Campbell (St. George): Still is.

Hon. Mr. Davis: It was investigated thoroughly by the Ontario Provincial Police, involving the Treasurer of the province and others; but of course it did not receive the same attention when their report came in stating categorically there was no wrongdoing whatsoever. I have no intention --

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Supplementary: Since it is apparent that the Premier’s answer is specifically, and in this case completely unsatisfactory, is he aware that if he does not refer this to a royal commission it will simply have to be decided by the people in a general election? And is he prepared to put it to that test?

Mr. Reid: Another by-election!

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I will be prepared to put a number of issues to the people of this province at the appropriate time. It will not be like the stated policy or position of the Liberal Party, where there are no issues, there are no policies and they are going to spend $5 million --

Mr. Reid: The Premier is the issue: the Premier and his government are the issues.

Hon. Mr. Davis: They are publicly on the record as spending $5 million to destroy the member for Peel North. I didn’t know I had such value until I read that. I didn’t know I had such value.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: The Premier thinks this is going to die like Fidinam? Pack away another $50,000 and smile all the way to the bank.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Five million dollars to destroy me? Heavens!

Mr. Breithaupt: Twice the price.

Mr. Lewis: If the Premier is implying that it could be done for less, he may be right.

Mr. Speaker: Order please.

Mr. E. R. Good (Waterloo North): He is doing it for nothing himself.

Mr. Lewis: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary, if I may. Since the Premier is so strong in his protestations of innocence about all of this --

Mr. Breithaupt: He doth protest too much.

Mr. Lewis: -- why does he not simply put it to a full public inquiry, if he feels that no flanks are exposed, if he feels there was integrity to the transaction? Since all the questions are now raised irreversibly in the public mind, why doesn’t the Premier, as leader of the government, set the public mind at rest and call the inquiry?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I am very confident that when the members of the opposition, along with the press, have assessed the file from the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, they can come to only one conclusion; that there was no influence whatsoever, there was nothing improper whatsoever in the acquisition of that property by the ministry. I would say to the leader of the New Democratic Party that if he and his colleagues felt so strongly about this, for heaven’s sake why did they sit on those letters for 14 months?

Mr. Lewis: I can answer that,

Mr. Speaker: Does the Leader of the Opposition have any further questions?

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Martel: Supplementary.

Mr. Speaker: Supplementary?

Mr. Martel: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker --

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. MacDonald: Nothing was said by the Premier about Fidinam for two years till somebody spoke to him.

Mr. Martel: I could answer the Premier’s question as well.

Will he table all the documentation that was seized from Mr. Shouldice --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The original question had to do with the possibility of an inquiry. The member may get to that question later.

Anything further from the hon. Leader of the Opposition?

Mr. Laughren: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: On this question?

Mr. Laughren: Yes, on this question.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: There is the long and the short of it.

Mr. E. J. Bounsall (Windsor West): Oh, the hon. minister is witty today!

Mr. Laughren: Well, he won’t divert us that way. Will the Premier assure us that Ross Shouldice, the ailing Ross Shouldice, will be brought back to this province in order to appear before the appeal tribunal of the real estate board?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member had done his homework --

Mr. Speaker: That was the wrong question but we will allow the answer.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- instead of just gossiping about it, he would have found out that the tribunal has already set a peremptory date as of April 8 for the determination of Mr. Shouldice’s licence.

Mr. Laughren: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Laughren: Why did it take this long to get him back here?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The member’s supplementary question was out of order.

Does the hon. Leader of the Opposition have any further questions?

REAL ESTATE AGENTS

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I’d like to put a question to the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations, with my compliments on his appointment.

Can he assure the House and the real estate dealers of the province that it was just an error which prompted the amendment to Bill 55, which is of concern to them, that they are going to be affected by an amendment which had not been preceded by any consultation?

Mr. Renwick: Of course not. He had representatives in the committee one day. He knows that.

Hon. S. B. Handleman (Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations): Mr. Speaker, first of all, the amendment was of course passed in an all-party standing committee of the Legislature. It wasn’t introduced by the government.

Hon. G. A. Kerr (Solicitor General): The member for Lakeshore (Mr. Lawlor), voted against that.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: I feel there is some misinterpretation of that particular section and we are not proceeding with the passage of the bill until we have had further consultations with the industry.

FIRE SAFETY ON LICENSED PREMISES

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I have a further question of the same minister. Has he followed and been informed of the findings of the inquest in Brant county having to do with the death of five residents of a hotel in Paris, Ont., where the fire inspection was clearly and directly the responsibility of the Liquor Licence Board of Ontario, and it was found that it was seriously in default, both in inspection and in maintenance, which led to the death of these five people?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, I am aware of the fact that there is an inquest going on, and I am not aware of the fact that the findings of the coroner are as described by the hon. Leader of the Opposition. I’ll wait until I get their findings before commenting.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Supplementary: Since the accident was of such a serious nature and evidently there is legislation that the minister may be putting before the House within the next day or two, will he inform himself in these circumstances so that when we come to those areas in the new legislation dealing with fire inspection, we can specifically put it back at the community level and take it out of the hands of the Liquor Licence Board?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, the power of the liquor inspectors to act as the fire marshal’s agents is not contained in the liquor legislation. It is contained in the fire marshal’s legislation. However, I certainly have been looking at it for the past few days and I hope to have some suggestions to make to the House.

GAS RATE INCREASE

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I have another question, Mr. Speaker, for the Minister of Energy, and I compliment him on his appointment.

I don’t know what he is going to do. He’s a little chubby to be a hatchet man, but maybe there is something that he can do. I’d like to ask him if he has informed himself as to the application of the rate increase for natural gas which apparently was to come into effect Jan. 1, 1975, but which has been applied to the bills from December, much to the dismay of people who have received these bills.

Hon. D. R. Timbrell (Minister of Energy): Yes, Mr. Speaker, I’m looking into that matter. It involves both our ministry and the Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations. I’ll report back on it.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Supplementary: Would it be within the ambit of the minister’s responsibility to issue an order that those bills must be recalled and reissued, based on the old rates for the December usage of gas?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: As I said, Mr. Speaker, I intend to report back on it. He is getting into the area of the division of responsibility between the two ministries and the responsibility of the Energy Board.

Mr. R. Haggerty (Welland South): Somebody has to have some responsibility.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Yes. And, as I say, when I have all the facts I will report back.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: If you will permit just one other supplementary, is it correct that those complaints that have come to us as members, from the users of natural gas -- that they have been billed on the basis of gas used before the rate increase was allowed -- are correct, and if they are correct, in fact they will not have to pay the elevated rates? Surely that’s apparent?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: I haven’t seen any letters from consumers on this specific subject since I have taken over, Mr. Speaker. I have seen some press reports. I have asked for more information on it. I believe there was some discussion between officials of the Energy Board and the gas companies on this and, as I said, when I have all of the facts -- not just press reports, but all of the facts -- I will report back.

Mr. Speaker: Any further questions? The leader of the New Democratic Party.

ROSS SHOULDICE

Mr. Lewis: I have a question of the Premier, Mr. Speaker. Is the Premier prepared to have tabled the correspondence that was seized from Mr. Shouldice, preparatory to the tribunal hearing which he now says has been set for April 8, or to order that that correspondence be tabled, particularly on those matters which related to political activity of one kind or another?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I am not prepared to say that we will. It’s a matter that I would be quite prepared to discuss with the minister if it relates to the hearing itself. I doubt that it could be, but. I will look into it.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Supplementary: Can the Premier comment on the indications that whoever had custody of that correspondence had copied it and made it available to other people in the community? Is he aware of the circumstances that permitted that to happen?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker; the member might ask somebody else.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Sudbury East.

Mr. J. M. Turner (Peterborough): Here he is. Here is the man.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Is this a supplementary?

Mr. Martel: Supplementary.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: It is the same guy who released the cabinet changes.

An hon. member: He’s one of the Snoop sisters.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The member for Sudbury East wishes to ask a supplementary question.

Mr. Martel: In the documentation which the police seized, was there in fact a letter similar to that addressed to the Premier, also addressed to the then Attorney General, soliciting favours?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I certainly am not aware of it. I haven’t seen the material that was obtained by, I gather, the OPP. I haven’t seen it.

Mr. Martel: Maybe the Premier got one. Isn’t it a fact that the reason the Premier doesn’t want to disclose that material is that Shouldice was a prolific writer and, in fact, throughout all his correspondence --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. This doesn’t seem to be supplementary to the original question.

Mr. Martel: This is a supplementary question.

Mr. Lewis: It is a supplementary.

Hon Mr. Rhodes: Show a little respect there.

Mr. Martel: He was a prolific writer and wrote to a vast number of people, and that’s included in the many boxes of documents, requesting favours and that’s why the Premier doesn’t want to release it?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, as far as I know, he may have been a prolific writer and he may have even written to the member for Sudbury East for all I know.

Mr. Martel: I can assure the Premier he didn’t write to me.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Well, he may have. I wouldn’t know.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: It is too bad he didn’t meet his quota.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: The member for Sudbury East writes to me for favours all the time.

Mr. Breithaupt: But he doesn’t get any.

Mr. M. Shulman (High Park): Supplementary.

Mr. Speaker: This will be the final supplementary on that.

Mr. Shulman: Is the Premier satisfied that there is no correspondence back and forth between Mr. Shouldice and any other senior members of the government, or of the Conservative Party, that might indicate wrongdoing?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I certainly haven’t seen any.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Scarborough East -- I am sorry, Scarborough West.

Mr. Lewis: I have seen nothing either. I have heard only what the Premier has heard, and who knows what the future will disclose.

ELECTION EXPENSES

Mr. Lewis: May I ask a question of the Premier, almost by way of eliciting the ritual response: Since he is tabling -- presumably this week or next -- a reform bill for election financing, would he at the same time, in order to clear the public air, table the major corporate contributors to the Progressive Conservative Party in the election of 1971?

Hon. Mr. Davis: No, Mr. Speaker. I have no intention either of tabling that or asking the official opposition or the New Democratic Party in the Province of Ontario to table anything.

Mr. Lewis: Why not?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Because I don’t intend to.

Mr. Lewis: By way of supplementary, does the Premier not think that, given what is now current, it would be in the interests of financial election reform to make those matters public record?

Some hon. members: No.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I think the legislation itself is the reform that is required. I see no purpose to be served in tabling contributions or lists, even if they existed, of contributions for 1971, and it was clearly stated in the report that this was not to be retroactive. People contributed on the basis of confidentiality. Whether this was right or wrong, those were the ground rules at the time and I have no intention of asking or tabling -- even if it were possible; which I doubt -- a list of contributors to the 1971 election; either from us or from anyone else.

Mr. Speaker: Any further questions? The hon. member for Scarborough West.

Mr. Lewis: The Premier doesn’t have a list? Who is he kidding?

DOCTORS’ FEE SCHEDULE

Mr. Lewis: A question of the Minister of Health, if I may. What is the status of the negotiations between the Ministry of Health and the medical profession, seeking a 14 per cent increase in their fee for service schedule?

Hon. F. S. Miller (Minister of Health): Somebody suggested a five per cent cut.

Interjection by an hon. member.

Hon. Mr. Miller: Mr. Speaker, those are going on right now with the Clawson committee. They are at a delicate stage.

The ministry has been showing the medical representatives of the Clawson committee data indicating the increase in the amount of money paid to physicians this year compared to last year. This shows the total extra flow of money per physician as it relates to the increase granted on May 1. And it has been in a total concept to show that, in fact, when we allowed a 7.75 per cent increase the net per doctor was considerably higher than that.

We are discussing this with the physicians, because it was a 7.75 per cent increase per billing. One has to take the total billings in a given year -- the total demand upon the physicians in Ontario. We are using those figures back and forth in an attempt to establish relative positions. As in most negotiations, when they are in their final stages, I think it’s just as wise not to comment too much upon them at this stage until we’ve reached either an agreement or a disagreement.

Mr. Lewis: By way of supplementary: Since the cut that the cabinet is taking will amount to $52,000, but once each one per cent increase to the medical profession amounts to in excess of $5 million, would the minister like to tell us what percentage of the public purse the government has already committed in its negotiations by way of an increase to the medical profession?

Hon. Mr. Miller: Mr. Speaker, none.

Mr. Speaker: Any further questions?

Mr. Lewis: Do I take it, by way of supplementary, that the minister will agree to no increase, then? Is it a hold the line policy?

Hon. Mr. Miller: To date, Mr. Speaker, that is correct.

CATHOLIC CHILDREN’S AID SOCIETY

Mr. Lewis: A question of the Minister of Labour. Can the Minister of Labour intervene in the dispute between the group calling itself FOCAS, representing the social workers and other semi-professional people at the Catholic Children’s Aid Society of Metropolitan Toronto, and the society?

Hon. J. P. MacBeth (Minister of Labour): Mr. Speaker, I understand that there’s a meeting with my ministry on Thursday with officials from my ministry. We have been in close contact with the Federation of Children’s Aid Staff. Some of them are out and some of them are there; and we hope to be back together with them on Thursday -- that is, my staff will be meeting with them on Thursday.

Mr. Lewis: By way of supplementary: Given the consequences to the service provided by the Catholic Children’s Aid Society, has the minister explained to the society that when an organization is certified -- as was the ease with FOCAS -- legally before the Ontario Labour Relations Board, that to provide them with a modified Rand formula is preferable to prompting a strike of this kind?

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: Mr. Speaker, I have not talked personally to them. I think they understand that through members of my staff; but I have not had any direct contact with them.

ROSS SHOULDICE

Mr. Lewis: One last question of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations: Why has it taken so long to bring Ross Shouldice to account here in the Province of Ontario for the matters which are clearly of some grave public import -- given his apparent capacity to travel back and forth, move, wheel and deal and, presumably, correspond in the last number of months?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, first of all, it hasn’t taken that long. The problem is that Mr. Shouldice -- as the hon. member undoubtedly knows -- did in fact undergo cardiac surgery at one time.

Mr. Martel: Three years ago.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Yes, he had some problems. In the meantime, his solicitor has been submitting medical certificates. He was also charged with certain criminal offences, which obviously pre-empted the tribunal from hearing a lesser offence at the same time, or they would not have accepted that.

My predecessor was pressing this case. I am quite prepared to give to the hon. member a chronological summary of what has taken place. I was looking at it this morning and, perhaps somewhat facetiously, said that if it happened to anybody else it might be considered harassment. There has been concerted and continuous action on this. My predecessor insisted on the fact that, notwithstanding the medical certificate, Mr. Shouldice either have the hearing in absentia and a decision be made, or that the tribunal should act immediately without waiting; and that’s exactly what has been done.

A date has been set for a hearing. Whether or not Mr. Shouldice appears -- he hasn’t committed an extraditable offence, as the member for Nickel Belt seemed to indicate in asking why we haven’t brought him back -- there is no authority to bring him back. We will have the hearing, it will be heard; but the tribunal, in my view, should not be prejudiced at this time in its finding.

Mr. Breithaupt: Why doesn’t the minister send the drainage subcommittee up there?

Mr. Speaker: The member for Windsor-Walkerville.

Mr. B. Newman (Windsor-Walkerville): Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Order please. A supplementary? Supplementary from the member for Sudbury?

Mr. M. C. Germa (Sudbury): To the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Affairs: What assurance have we that the minister’s department is not going to lose the evidence the way the Housing ministry did when Mr. Shouldice --

Mr. Speaker: Order please. The original question had to do with the delay. The member for Windsor-Walkerville.

Mr. Lewis: That’s a very good question. Answer the question.

Mr. Bounsall: Right on.

Mr. Speaker: Your supplementary?

Mr. Germa: I didn’t hear the Speaker, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: The original question had to do with the delay in bringing a certain gentleman back and your question had nothing to do with that. Does the member for Nickel Belt have one?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, if you don’t mind I would like to state right now that the evidence is in the hands of the tribunal at this time, and if they lose it it won’t be my ministry that loses it.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Nickel Belt.

Mr. Martel: It was the last time.

Mr. Laughren: To the minister: While the minister is perusing his files, would the minister also see if he can determine why it took from April of 1973 to January of 1975 for his ministry to take any kind of interest in responding to my letters of April, 1973?

Mr. Speaker: That question is out of order. It has nothing to do with the original question; it can be a new question.

The member for Windsor-Walkerville with his question.

UNEMPLOYMENT IN AUTO INDUSTRY

Mr. B. Newman: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the provincial Treasurer. In an attempt to alleviate the large-scale unemployment in the automotive industry, is the provincial Treasurer prepared to either exempt or remit sales tax on the purchase of new vehicles from the various dealers, for a given period of time, so that mass unemployment may be alleviated?

Hon. W. D. McKeough (Treasurer and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): Mr. Speaker, I recognize the concern which my friend the member for Windsor-Walkerville expresses, coming from his particular part of Ontario, which is my own part of Ontario. It is a concern which is shared, and which has been mentioned to me by members from Niagara, from Oshawa (Mr. McIlveen) and the member for Elgin (Mr. McNeil), among others -- all have expressed the concern which we share about the layoffs in the automobile industry.

I can only say at this moment that it is a matter of large concern to the government and to the Treasurer of the province. I am not prepared to make any commitments at the present time. We expect to be meeting with a great variety of people, including the Ontario Federation of Labour, which includes representation from the United Auto Workers, with the Automotive Parts Manufacturers Association and with the Canadian Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association. Hopefully, out of those meetings we will have a clearer picture of the problems, or the immediate future of that industry, and will be able to govern ourselves accordingly.

I would only point this out; of course we are talking about an industry where wage and salary rates have been high and where I think we can expect, for a reasonable period of time, the payments from the unemployment insurance fund, and elsewhere, to continue for some period of time and at a reasonably high rate. That is not much comfort to men who have been laid off for an indefinite period of time but 1 would ask members to keep that particular point in perspective. I recognize, I say again, the member’s concern and I can only tell him that we are looking at the situation very closely.

Mr. Bounsall: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker?

Mr. Speaker: Yes, a supplementary from the member for Windsor West.

Mr. Bounsall: Yes, a supplementary to the minister as it relates to the employment in the auto industry and employment generally.

In light of the minister’s responsibility and position as Minister of Economics and Intergovernmental Affairs, will he now make strong representation to the federal government that they should be insisting on the terms and statements of intention in the Canada-US auto trade pact, so that the production levels in Canada in fact equal the sales, which they fall far short of doing at the moment? Further, when one sees that prices are quite out of line --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. That is quite far removed --

Mr. Bounsall: -- between US and Canadian cars -- which, at the moment --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please, that’s a good question, but it’s far removed from the content of the original question.

The member for High Park.

ONTARIO STUDENT AWARDS PROGRAMME

Mr. Shulman: I have a question of the Minister of Colleges and Universities, Mr. Speaker. Would the minister agree, or is he taking any action in connection with the statement issued last Wednesday by the head of the Ontario Student Awards Programme, a Mr. Donald Bethune, in which he said that the financial assistance programme was nothing more than welfare? I quote him: “Everybody in the goddam field is off their bloody rocker.” I presume he included the minister.

Mr. Breithaupt: And if not, why not?

Hon. J. A. C. Auld (Minister of Colleges and Universities): It’s an interesting euphemism. To give a short answer, Mr. Speaker: Yes.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Waterloo North.

Mr. Shulman: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: A supplementary?

Mr. Shulman: Yes. Will Mr. Bethune be continuing as head of OSAP?

Mr. Laughren: Let’s hope not.

Hon. Mr. Auld: That will be decided in the fullness of time, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Waterloo North.

ONTARIO HUMANE SOCIETY ALLEGATIONS

Mr. Good: Thank you, Mr. Speaker; I have a question of the Solicitor General. In view of the serious allegations made against the Ontario Humane Society by two ex-employees -- ranging from conversion by theft by selling animals without notifying the owners, misusing the terms of their 1973-1974 lottery and the misuse of public funds -- and as the deputy minister has promised to look into the matter further, is the minister prepared to make public the looking into which has gone on in his ministry and could he allay the fears of the public one way or another regarding these allegations?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Mr. Speaker, the assistant deputy minister has had a meeting with the people making these allegations as well as the director of the Ontario Humane Society.

We understand that one lawsuit is pending as a result of these charges. The members of my staff want an opportunity to not only hear the evidence at the trial but also continue their investigations by interviewing one other person who, allegedly, was part of this seizure. We will, after that, then have a report. I would certainly be happy to give the hon. member the results of that investigation.

Mr. Good: A supplementary: Could the minister inform the House whether his ministry did look into the fact that 50,000 extra lottery tickets were printed over and above what had been authorized by the Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations? Is that a violation and is there any substance to that allegation?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: We are looking into that allegation as well. I understand a part of the problem, Mr. Speaker, was the fact that there was a mail strike at the time of the lottery and that the stubs were not turned in on time. This was the reason for the extra printing of tickets. But I will look into that.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Windsor West.

Mr. Breithaupt: A supplementary.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Is this a supplementary?

Mr. Breithaupt: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker, if I may. With respect to the allegations concerning the misuse of public funds, does the minister intend in his report to include a review of the financial operations of the society, so that those concerned and interested in its operation can be assured that the public moneys placed, as well as the other moneys raised, are being used properly and within the terms upon which they were raised?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Yes, Mr. Speaker. If our investigation by the ministry reveals that there is evidence that public funds have been misused, certainly we would delve further into the operations of the society. But the hon. member must remember that this is an independent agency and we give, I believe, about $50,000 a year towards the enforcement activities and aspects of the society. Certainly we can look into that part of it.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Windsor West.

Mr. Good: One final supplementary, if I may.

Mr. Speaker: One final supplementary then on that.

Mr. Good: Is it correct that the minister has given a commitment to the society to increase the provincial grant from $50,000 to $100,000 for the next year?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Mr. Speaker, hopefully, in our estimates there may be an increase from $50,000 to $75,000 this year for it.

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

UNEMPLOYMENT IN AUTO INDUSTRY

Mr. Bounsall: I have a question of the new Treasurer, Mr. Speaker, whom we congratulate on his return to the portfolio. It relates to his responsibilities as Minister of Economics and Intergovernmental Affairs.

With a view to the employment prospects and situation in the auto industry, will he now make from that position which he holds strong representation to the federal government, with a view to their insisting upon the terms and intentions of the US-Canadian auto pact relating to the dollar value in sales equalling the dollar value of production which it has not nearly reached at this point in Canada and, secondly, to the area relating to consumer costs that the sale price of new vehicles in Canada be equalized to that in the States, there being no justification for that continuing differential?

Mr. Laughren: Don’t buy it.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Mr. Speaker, those are matters which we will take under consideration in the deliberations and discussions which I mentioned previously to my friend from Windsor-Walkerville in response to his question. I simply point out, of course, it should be borne in mind, and I think it’s a fair statement, that the automobile industry generally and the parts industry as well are probably in a more serious condition in the United States than here. I think we have to keep that in mind.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Carleton East.

AID TO CARLETON RC SCHOOL BOARD

Mr. P. Taylor (Carleton East): I have a question of the Minister of Education. Could the minister say to what extent, if any, special financial assistance was extended to the Carleton Roman Catholic School Board to enable it to sign a collective agreement with its teachers as it did this past weekend, much to the relief of the community.

Hon. T. L. Wells (Minister of Education): Mr. Speaker, no special assistance was extended to the board during those negotiations.

Mr. P. Taylor: Supplementary: Can the minister say what aspects of the board’s current programme have had to be cut back in order to enable it to meet the new salary demands of the teachers?

Hon. Mr. Wells: Of course, Mr. Speaker, I can’t say that. These are local matters; the negotiations have gone on between the teachers and the board. I think, as I have said many times in this House and out around this province, there is enough money available under our ceilings policies for just and equitable salary settlements within the local autonomy, which members opposite say school boards should have, and with which I agree, and which they have here. The Carleton Roman Catholic Separate School Board will now have to look at the amount of money they can get from us in grants and what they can tax the people in the Carleton area and decide what their priorities are going to be, knowing what their salary bill is now going to be.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Sudbury East.

CAMBRIAN REAL ESTATE

Mr. Martel: I have a question of the Attorney General, Mr. Speaker. Can the Attorney General indicate why no charges have ever been laid against Cambrian Real Estate, of which Ross Shouldice held a share and in which he also owned the roadway which allowed the checkerboarding?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Speaker, when I had my former responsibility it came to our attention during the investigation of certain other matters that the office of the Attorney General should become involved. An investigation was conducted into the affairs of Cambrian and Silhouette by the Ontario Provincial Police and Touche Ross and Co., chartered accountants. As a result of those investigations, a Crown attorney in Sudbury came to the conclusion there was no evidence on which to proceed with criminal charges.

Mr. Martel: Does an inter-office memo exist, written by one of the solicitors in the former portfolio which the minister held, which indicates that the hearing in Toronto at which Cambrian was allowed to surrender its licence was deliberately blown?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Blown? I don’t know what the member means by that. I am not aware of such a memo. There was some discussion between the hon. member, Mr. Speaker, and myself which raised the question, and I was of the opinion at that time that no error had been made. The member opposite who asked the question did not share that view, but I was of that opinion at that time. There has been nothing further to change it.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Nipissing.

Mr. Martel: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker, if I might: Will the minister table all the documentation in the investigation into Cambrian Real Estate in Sudbury?

Hon. Mr. Clement: No, Mr. Speaker, I will not table documents pertaining to any investigation of any corporation or individual in this province, when the Crown law officers do not recommend that we proceed with charges. I think it would be most inequitable to do so.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Nipissing.

INDIAN REPRESENTATION ON SCHOOL BOARDS

Mr. R. S. Smith (Nipissing): Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Attorney General. When will the Attorney General, as he has indicated he will do, refer to the Supreme Court of Ontario the question of the appointment of an Indian to the Nipissing Roman Catholic school board, and make a ruling on the question of whether or not there are in fact 100 or more Indian students attending that school?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Speaker, this matter was referred to my ministry approximately some 10 or 12 days ago by the Minister of Education. As the member for Nipissing knows, if a board area has 100 or more Indian students, as of right an Indian representative must be seated. There is some question about the count of Indian children attending that school. The Minister of Education directed a commissioner to inquire into the number of children of Indian ancestry attending the school. As a result of his report, the Minister of Education requested the board up there to seat the Indian representative and I understand that it refused to do so. Accordingly, I am advised that my law officers have initiated proceedings in the Supreme Court, I believe last Tuesday or Wednesday. I have not had an up-to-date report on it this week.

Mr. R. S. Smith: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Would the Attorney General not agree that a simple amendment to the Act to remove subsection 6 of section 162, which sets out the numbers required for mandatory appointment of an Indian to a board, would clear up the whole situation and stop the numbers game that is being played, and in effect make it mandatory that a person be appointed as long as there is a band that enters into an agreement to provide education to Indian students with a board?

Hon. Mr. Clement: I haven’t considered it in that light. As the hon. member knows, if there is less than 100 the board has the option or discretion to appoint an Indian representative to the board, but it is not mandatory. I will look into the question. I haven’t considered it in that view.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for High Park.

ALLEGED LCBO HARASSMENT

Mr. Shulman: A question of the minister of consumer protection, Mr. Speaker: Has the minister looked into the complaints of harassment by the Liquor Licence Board which were sent to him by the Concordia Club in Kitchener? What has been the result of that looking in, if he has done it?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, that particular complaint hasn’t come to my attention. I’ll look into it immediately and reply to the hon. member.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Huron-Bruce.

INVERHURON PROVINCIAL PARK

Mr. M. Gaunt (Huron-Bruce): Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Energy. Since Ontario Hydro is now doing survey work within the confines of Inverhuron Provincial Park, does this mean that Ontario Hydro plans to build within that park?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, I have a meeting in a couple of days’ time with some of my colleagues to discuss the situation as it relates to the park. Once we’ve concluded our mutual concerns then we will make an announcement on that.

Mr. Gaunt: Supplementary: Does this indicate that the park will continue to be used for recreational purposes -- because it is one of the finest parks in the Province of Ontario -- or is this an indication that there is a lessening of the vigour and eagerness on the part of the government to maintain that recreational property?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, as I indicated, we are sitting down to discuss the matter from the various points of view. Once we have concluded our discussions, then we can make an announcement which I think will satisfy the member’s concern.

Mr. Gaunt: What is the minister’s position? That is all I want to know.

Mr. Laughren: The minister sounds like a Liberal.

Mr. Speaker: Order please.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, I would rather wait until I have concluded my discussions with my other colleagues. We have our position in the ministry, but I want to see what they have to say so that we come up with a satisfactory solution for the member and his constituents and everybody concerned.

Mr. Breithaupt: Hang all together.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Yorkview.

INQUIRY INTO DUMP TRUCK OPERATIONS

Mr. F. Young (Yorkview): Mr. Speaker, a question of the Minister of Transportation and Communications: On two occasions prior to the Christmas break, in answer to my questions, the minister indicated that he was giving serious consideration to an investigation of the dump truck industry of Ontario. I wonder if any progress has been made on that, and is, in fact, such an investigation going to be undertaken?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Yes, Mr. Speaker, such an investigation will be undertaken.

Mr. Young: Could I ask the minister, as a supplementary, how soon the announcement might be made?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: At the present time I am attempting to find an appropriate inquiry officer to carry out this inquiry, and I have already been in touch with the interested parties.

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

CONSUMER PRICES IN NORTHERN ONTARIO

Mr. Reid: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations because it comes under his responsibility, I am informed by the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Bernier).

Will the minister give instructions for a survey to be conducted in northern Ontario on prices relating to food, clothing, gasoline and heating oil, such a survey to be done perhaps by the northern affairs officers of the Ministry of Natural Resources?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, I’d like to take that question as notice, look into it and report back to the hon. member.

Mr. Speaker: The member for High Park.

PHYSIOTHERAPISTS’ FEES

Mr. Shulman: A question of the Minister of Health, Mr. Speaker. Has the minister yet had an opportunity to review the four years of reviewing that he and his various predecessors have promised the physiotherapists with regard to allowing new physiotherapists to open up private practices? Is the minister aware that no physiotherapist may open up a private practice in this province?

Hon. Mr. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I am quite aware that permission hasn’t been granted for fee-for-service physiotherapists. At the same time, it is a service that has been expanded very greatly, as the hon. member knows, through the hospital system in Ontario. At this point in time it is the thinking of the ministry that is probably the most suitable location. We are expanding physiotherapy services in other areas, such as nursing homes, but we are looking very bard at the fee-for-service mechanism as it applies to other than the physicians.

I am sure the member is aware that there are a great number of people attacking the physicians’ fee-for-service mechanism. So, rather than expand any other one at this point in time, when we are looking at the whole method of payment, I think we are quite proper to continue to expand the service itself through the recognized institutions in the province.

Mr. Shulman: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Can the minister explain why every other branch of medicine has been given a raise and yet the physiotherapists have not had a penny raise in nine years?

Hon. Mr. Miller: The hon. member is quite mistaken, Mr. Speaker. The physiotherapists got a raise of almost 30 per cent this year, since I became minister.

Mr. Shulman: No, they didn’t.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Windsor-Walkerville.

Mr. Shulman: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker, if I may.

Mr. Speaker: One more supplementary.

Mr. Shulman: Is the minister suggesting that they received a 30 per cent raise for the work they do in their offices? Is he not mistaken? Is he not referring to the raise they received for house calls, which they rarely make?

Hon. Mr. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I believe the current fee for service is $4.25. Is that right? Is it?

Mr. Shulman: I don’t know.

Hon. Mr. Miller: He doesn’t know? He is asking a question and he doesn’t know?

Mr. Shulman: He is the minister.

Mr. MacDonald: He is the minister.

Hon. Mr. Miller: All right. He is the one who was asking.

Mr. Lewis: The knife cuts both ways.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Doesn’t the member know what’s up, doc?

Hon. Mr. Miller: I was just looking, waiting for him to nod his head and say, for the first time ever, that he agreed with me.

Mr. Breithaupt: He does. He doesn’t know either.

Hon. Mr. Miller: The fact is it was somewhere in the range of $3.25 to $3.50 over that long period of time and it was increased to $4.25.

Mr. Shulman: When was it increased?

An hon. member: This year.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Windsor-Walkerville.

STATUS OF WINDSOR PROJECTS

Mr. B. Newman: Mr. Speaker, a question of the Minister of Government Services. Would the minister inform the House of the status of the provincial public building in the city of Windsor and the addition to the county courts building?

Mr. R. F. Nixon: He doesn’t know.

Hon. J. W. Snow (Minister of Government Services): Mr. Speaker, the plans have been drawn for the new Ontario government building -- I think the working drawings are now, completed -- but no decision has been made as to proceeding with the job; that depends upon the estimates of my ministry which are not yet finalized.

With regard to the courthouse, an architect has been appointed and two or three different alternative types of additions to the courthouse are being studied at this time, but no firm decision has been made as to just what the addition will be.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Yorkview.

AWARDS FOR CHIROPRACTIC STUDENTS

Mr. Young: Mr. Speaker, a question of the Minister of Colleges and Universities: The minister has been receiving representations from chiropractic students in, Ontario that they be qualified for student awards. Is any action being taken in this regard?

Hon. Mr. Auld: Mr. Speaker, the students who attend next year, in 1975-1976, will be qualified for the whole OSA programme. We are currently looking into whether 1974-1975 students who would not have been eligible for awards, had chiropractic students been included in the OSA programme last fall, but whose circumstances had changed so that they might now be eligible, might be considered. I hope that wasn’t too involved, if, in fact, it was a sentence. As far as the 1974-1975 students are concerned, I am looking into a couple of cases myself in that connection.

Mr. Breithaupt: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker. Can the minister advise --

Mr. Speaker: The question period expired a minute ago. We will allow one supplementary.

Mr. Breithaupt: This completes the question: Can the minister advise the reasoning as to why these students had not been included heretofore in being available for this programme?

Hon. Mr. Auld: No, I can’t, Mr. Speaker. I suppose it was one of those cases there and one of the fringe groups, some of which are presently included and some comparable ones are not yet included. We just decided that now is the time to include chiropractors.

Mr. Speaker: The oral question period has expired.

Petitions.

Presenting reports.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, I would like at this time to table the documents and the file as it relates to the acquisition of property from Fantum Holdings Ltd., as it relates to questions asked earlier in the House.

Hon. Mr. Auld presented the financial report of the Ontario College of Art for the year ended May 31, 1974.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Mr. Speaker, I wish at this time to table the report of His Honour, Judge Pringle, who was appointed a commissioner to investigate the conduct of police forces at Fort Erie on May 11, 1974.

Mr. Speaker: Motions. Introduction of bills.

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY ACT

Mr. R. F. Nixon moves first reading of bill intituled, An Act to amend the Legislative Assembly Act.

Motion agreed to; first reading of the bill.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Mr. Speaker, this bill removes the rights of members of the assembly to receive extra remuneration by reason of being appointed to various boards and commissions.

EXECUTIVE COUNCIL ACT

Mr. R. F. Nixon moves first reading of bill intituled, An Act to amend the Executive Council Act.

Motion agreed to; first reading of the bill.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Mr. Speaker, this bill implements the stated policy of the government to reduce the salaries of minister by five per cent and, together with an amendment in the previous bill I introduced, would reduce the salary of the Leader of the Opposition by the same amount.

Mr. Singer: If the government is prepared to proceed, does the House leader want to second that? Stand up and support it.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Nipissing.

EDUCATION ACT

Mr. R. S. Smith moves first reading of bill intituled, An Act to amend the Education Act, 1974.

Motion agreed to; first reading of the bill.

Mr. R. S. Smith: Mr. Speaker the purpose of the bill is to remove the discretionary appointment of the representative of the Indian pupils to the board when the number of Indian pupils falls below a certain amount. I would ask the minister to accept this amendment and to recall his request to the Attorney General for an appeal to the Supreme Court, and also, after amending the bill, to send a copy of the legislation to the Nipissing District Separate School Board, to give it an opportunity to accept what would be proper legislation and to accept the Indian appointment to the board.

HIGHWAY TRAFFIC ACT

Mr. Foulds moves first reading of bill intituled An Act to amend the Highway Traffic Act.

Motion agreed to: first reading of the bill.

Mr. Foulds: Mr. Speaker, this bill would permit the use of studded tires on automobiles in northern Ontario.

Hon. E. A. Winkler (Chairman, Management Board of Cabinet): Mr. Speaker, before the orders of the day let me say I hope to call Bill 181 -- I am about to call the 11th order, Mr. Speaker -- but I would like also to inform the House that following that we will discuss the two resolutions regarding the electoral boundaries commission -- the first one in the name of the opposition, and the second one signed by government members. Before the afternoon is over, I will present the members of the opposition with a list of the legislation we will deal with before we conclude this session.

Mr. Lewis: Mr. Speaker, a question? Will we discuss those resolutions on the redistribution jointly?

Hon. Mr. Winkler: I would think not, because there are two different principles involved. I will discuss it with my colleagues. In the meantime, your motion will be called first.

Mr. Lewis: I suspect that we might be flexible enough to embrace both. Of course, we don’t have a vote, do we?

Hon. Mr. Winkler: No, I think the discussion is over.

Mr. Speaker: Orders of the day.

NORTH PICKERING DEVELOPMENT CORP. ACT

Hon. Mr. Irvine moves second reading of Bill 181, An Act to establish the North Pickering Development Corp.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Downsview.

Mr. V. M. Singer (Downsview): Mr. Speaker, I will gladly yield to the minister if he wants to give us an introductory statement and follow him.

Hon. D. R. Irvine (Minister of Housing): Mr. Speaker, I made an introductory statement at the initial first reading. If the hon. member wishes to carry on I think it would be much more applicable.

Mr. Singer: All right. In the spirit of cooperation, as always, Mr. Speaker, I must advise you, sir, that after very careful consideration we cannot see our way clear to support this bill.

This bill establishes yet another government agency which is, by its nature, going to have to be out of touch with the people it is going to affect. There has been a great deal of concern expressed by the local councillors to the minister, to the Premier (Mr. Davis) and to others. It was only after great public complaining that a meeting finally took place with the Premier late in November of last year.

The local councillors were very unhappy about the proposed input they were going to have. The more we see, Mr. Speaker, of the way government operates, the more concerned we have to be about the remoteness of these important decisions and the continuing removal of the decision-making process from the hands of the elected people.

What is the government’s answer? The government’s answer nearly always is: “Let us set up another corporation, and let us stock it with people we are going to choose, and let us choose people who are going to do us no real harm. Then the decisions that are going to affect perhaps thousands of Ontario citizens as to where they’re going to live, how they’re going to live, what kind of water and road and sewer services they’re going to have, are going to be made by and large without consultation, beyond consultation with the local people, and this is going to be the way we are going to plan the Province of Ontario.”

Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, it has been proved time, and time again that this doesn’t work. My colleagues and I over a period of several months have been saying, and when we get, back to things like the budget debate and other opportunities we are going to continue our comments in relation to Ontario Housing Corp., that we believe responsibility should remain with the elected persons who sit in the Legislature; as do the various municipally-elected officials who are in this area, the mayor of Oshawa, the mayor of Whitby and all of these other people who came to the meetings. The minister mollified them to some extent, some of them; but many of them continued their concern and their objection about what was going to be their input into the planning.

What happens, unfortunately Mr. Speaker, is that we get great plans. They sound much better when a minister introduces a bill or a minister reads a speech. I don’t know if the minister happened to glance at Saturday’s paper where a correspondent, one of the members of the press gallery from the Star, tried to put together, and he had great trouble, a series of announcements from a variety of ministers of housing in which there were promises for building housing. And one reads that, six or eight times, as I had to do, to get the kind of planning this government is doing.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Ask me a question on that tomorrow.

Mr. Singer: I will be glad to ask the minister, I will be glad to get some further debate on housing; because, where is the housing?

Mrs. M. Campbell (St. George): Nowhere!

Mr. Singer: Nowhere!

Well, all right, this is the kind of thing that bothers us, Mr. Speaker; a succession of ministers of housing keeps on making a succession of speeches, which by and large are weighed by the number of lines of press they got not by the number of houses that are put on the ground. That’s unfortunate and the people of Ontario suffer as a result.

This North Pickering Development Corp. is an acknowledgement, I guess, of the abandonment of the Toronto-centred region plan. All of these great ideas about containing development whether we agree with them or not, all of these seem to have gone by the board. There is a great trunk sewer, the east Markham trunk sewer that is going to be built. Where goes Robarts’ Toronto-centred region plan? It is gone.

What is going to be done in North Pickering? Well, there is a local representative whose voice should be heard here in the Legislature.

Mr. J. R. Breithaupt (Kitchener): I am sure he meant it to be.

Mr. Singer: Yes, he may now have to be speaking through the mouths of some of the directors. I am sure that as long as this government stays in power he might be asked about who should be the directors, but we believe -- oh he won’t even be consulted; I find that hard to believe.

Mr. Breithaupt: He knows how the government operates.

Mr. Singer: I would far prefer having the hon. member from Pickering --

Hon. W. Newman (Minister of the Environment): Someone out in that area.

Mr. Singer: -- yes, from out there -- coming into the Legislature and saying: “We have decided today the streets should run up and down instead of backwards and forwards,” so that we could ask him about that. I would much sooner do that than have to talk to, or attempt to talk to, some appointed person whom this hon. member or the Minister of Housing thinks is appropriate.

I would think the mayor of Oshawa and the mayor of Pickering and the mayor of Whitby all would like to make the same kind of inquiries from the people on the ground. They are concerned about the location of industrial development. Is it all going to go into North Pickering? Is a share going to go into Oshawa? Should it go into Whitby? That kind of thing.

Whom do they talk to about it; and how do they get to the elected people with responsibility? Mr. Speaker, this kind of concern is expressed by us, frequently. The government pays very little attention to our concern and continues to appoint, by new statutes, more and more commissions, organizations, corporations and groups, which more and more remove from public responsibility, from the decision-making process of the elected people, the ability to plan their communities.

For those reasons -- and my colleagues the hon. member for St. George and the hon. member for Kitchener are going to expand on this at substantial length -- we are going to oppose this bill. We think it is wrong. We think it is wrong in principle; we think there has to be written into the bill a far better method for local control, for elected-official control, elected-person control, by both the members of the Legislature and local members of council, and it isn’t there.

We think it is wrong that there should be a constant change of planning; when the government has a Toronto-centred region plan, it at least should give it the decency of a good burial if it is going to abandon it. Mr. Robarts, a one-time Premier of the province, set a great deal of store by that plan and he stood up and said: “No question, we Tories are four-square behind planning. We have the Toronto-centred region plan and that’s going to mean a great deal to that portion of the Province of Ontario which has not yet developed.” Then, without even the ceremony of a decent execution, it’s gone.

Hon. W. Newman: It has not gone.

Mr. Singer: Sure, it’s gone.

Hon. W. Newman: All the mayors of those municipalities out there will find what the member is saying now will make very good reading.

Mr. Singer: Oh, I see. All right. Does the minister want me to read him what the mayor of Oshawa said, or the mayor of Pickering? They’re all here; they’re all in these clippings. They’re all here. They were not very happy that they weren’t called into consultation until almost the 11th hour.

They’re not happy that there isn’t a continuing consultation process to this. They’re not happy; no. The mayor of Oshawa was awfully concerned about what’s going to happen to industrial assessment. Will the minister tell me how he will satisfy the mayor in this bill; or is it because he is going to appoint good people he knows will take care of the mayor of Oshawa and his concern? It that the minister’s thinking? Mr. Speaker, it’s that kind of reasoning that we object to and it’s for those reasons we’re going to oppose this bill.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Riverdale.

Mr. J. A. Renwick (Riverdale): Mr. Speaker, I am fascinated with the Landmark report, but I will turn now to deal with the bill which the Minister of Housing has before the assembly, an Act to establish the North Pickering Development Corp.

Mr. Speaker, there are two or three ways in which this particular bill must be viewed by the assembly in considering whether it should be passed or not. In one sense it is the bare-bones structure of a corporation to be created for the purpose of developing a plan for the North Pickering area and has been foreshadowed in the debate which took place earlier in this session in respect of the Ontario Land Corp., which was a bill introduced under the aegis of the former Treasurer of the province, the member for London South (Mr. White). That aspect of the bill deserves attention and I certainly will speak about it in those terms.

The second aspect of the bill, which I think is by far the most important aspect, is not the bare-bones structure of the corporation, which may well form the model of other special project corporations to be spun off in the activities of the Ontario Land Corp., but whether or not the government has any intention and any deep commitment to the use of this particular corporation for the purpose of carrying out the rescue operation on the disastrous efforts made by the government in the North Pickering area to establish a new town.

That has a long history of debate and discussion and question and answer in the assembly and it is that particular aspect of this particular bill to which this party gives consideration. We are very much concerned that the government has no real intention to use this corporation as a vehicle for repairing the damage which has been done to the citizens of the province in the North Pickering area with respect to this particular development and, of course, its relation to the larger development of the international airport in that area.

The government has always taken the position that although this North Pickering development was part and parcel of the overall planning for the international airport, nevertheless, regardless of whether or not the airport went ahead it was going to pursue its plan to establish a satellite town immediately to the northeast of the Metropolitan Toronto area.

Of course, it relates to the multitude of planning documents and discussions which have taken place in the assembly touching upon the affairs, not just of the Ministry of Housing, but of many other ministries -- particularly the Ministry of the Environment, the Ministry of Agriculture and Food, and Ministry of Transportation and Communications, to name only those that immediately come to my mind as being intimately affected with what is going to take place in the North Pickering area.

I emphasize to the minister that our concern on this particular bill for this party is the use which the minister will make of the corporation to repair the damage and rescue the concept which was originally put forward for consideration by this assembly at the time when the government embarked upon the now long-since-disabused concept of an international airport in that area.

Let me turn, first of all, to the very first aspect of the comments that I want to make and deal with the corporation simply as a spinoff, if I may use that term, from the Ontario Land Corp. as a result of the stepped-down concept of the use of the Ontario Land Corp. which we debated earlier in this session.

The minister may very well recall -- and I would like his confirmation -- not only the remarks of the Treasurer when he spoke in the House, but the rather more laconic and succinct remarks made in an address given on behalf of the Treasurer by the Chairman of the Management Board (Mr. Winkler), to which I referred when we debated the Ontario Land Corp., being an address which he gave on the Ontario Land Corp., its concepts and the way it would function to the property forum on Nov. 19, 1974.

The Chairman of the Management Board announced publicly, really for the first time, after consultation with the investment community, having learned the lessons that the investment community always imposes upon a ministry of this government, that the Ontario Land Corp. would be a faint shadow of that envisaged in the original remarks by the Treasurer in his budget last April. Having delineated the way in which the concept of the Ontario Land Corp. would function, he goes on to deal with these projected project corporations, of which this is the first one to come before the assembly, and states:

As I have indicated, the Ontario Laud Corp. will raise money and assemble land but it will not develop the land. Instead it will in each case turn the land over to a special project corporation which will operate under the jurisdiction of one provincial ministry or another.

For instance, land for the residential portion of a new town would likely be turned over to a special project corporation reporting to the Ministry of Housing. Land for a new industrial park would be turned over to a special project corporation reporting to the Ministry of Industry and Tourism. Having served as a source of funds for a project corporation and having assembled land and turned it over to that corporation, the Ontario Land Corp. will recover its money as the project corporation develops the land and sells off or leases it wholly.

So in a very real sense, if I may interpolate, as I understand it -- and I want confirmation from the minister about this -- the North Pickering Development Corp. for practical purposes will merely be a conduit through which land taken from citizens of the province, on the one hand, by the government of the Province of Ontario, will pass through the Ontario Land Corp. into the North Pickering Development Corp. and back into the hands of citizens of the Province of Ontario.

It seems a very long and lengthy and cumbersome method to accomplish a purpose of government. The legitimacy of the objective of the government must be matched by the legitimacy of the procedures that are followed by the government, in carrying out that transition through the government of land previously owned by citizens of the province and ultimately, as I understand, to be again owned by citizens of the province.

In a sense, and perhaps if one could use a term or borrow a term, it’s almost as if the government were laundering the land that it is taking from the citizens of Ontario and passing it through this Ontario landbank to come out the other end in a neat little development which is going to be the preserve of the bureaucracy in the development of the plan. It must of necessity be so because the bill envisages a corporation tied totally to the ministry.

If I may go back to what the Chairman of the Management Board stated:

At an early stage in any new venture, the project corporation will be anxious to involve companies and individuals from the private sector as developers, owners and tenants. Where appropriate, the project corporation will also encourage other government corporations and agencies to play their special roles. In a new town, for instance, the special project corporation might encourage the Ontario Housing Corp. to develop some low-rental housing.

I’m delighted to see that even in a document such as this the Chairman of the Management Board is very careful to say “might” develop some low-rental housing, but that is most unlikely if the record of this minister and his predecessors in this ministry is any criterion by which we could pass such a judgement.

Then the Chairman of the Management Board went on:

The special project corporations will also be required to maintain close contact with all government ministries whose interests are affected by the corporations’ activities. It is obvious, for instance, that the development of a new town or an industrial park will have implications for such ministries as Environment, Transportation and Communications, and Agriculture, among others, and all such ministries will be asked not only to co-operate with the project corporation but to contribute their suggestions and know-how to the project at hand and to supply whatever services the project needs.

What a hydra-headed monster the government has created in trying to develop the new Pickering townsite. It is just inconceivable that through this maze of various interested bodies, the government in fact is going to be able to use this new corporation as a vehicle to accomplish what may very well have been a legitimate object of policy.

Mr. D. C. MacDonald (York South): And they accuse socialists of creating bureaucracy.

Mr. Renwick: We must remember, of course, that this is the first one of many within what appears to be the policy of the government to develop new townsites, but to develop them always as satellites to the existing communities because it has no real conception of how to carry out regional development on a broadly based scale which will give individual vitality to any of the new towns.

We will watch with interest, because we don’t think for one single moment -- barring, as may be the case, a change of government -- that this particular project will be finished and out of public view and in use for the people of the Province of Ontario for many years, and I emphasize the word “many.” I would anticipate that five years from now there will be little, if any, evidence of the existence of the end result of the plan, and that there will be few, if any, people in the Province of Ontario who will be living on that site at that time.

If I may go on again:

In any case, all three forms of government action through the Ontario Land Corp., through the project corporations or through the existing special agencies such as the Ontario Housing Corp., will be undertaken in co-operation with the private sector.

I take it that the Chairman of the Management Board, as always, was referring to the private sector in relationship to the business interest, not in relationship to the involvement of people in public participation in the planning and development of the overall plan for the North Pickering area.

Then the chairman went on:

I would like to point out that it will be part of the government’s operating policy to ensure that any lands acquired for development of either a new town or an industrial park will not be allowed to lie fallow while plans and arrangements are being made. As a regular routine procedure, agricultural lands acquired by the Ontario Land Corp. will be kept in production through whatever rental or leasing arrangement seems most appropriate. Similarly, woodlots acquired by the Ontario Land Corp. will be worked through similar arrangements.

I’m not going to relate those portions of the Chairman of the Management Board’s remarks relating specifically to the Ontario Land Corp.

He does go on to say:

It is quite likely that the Ontario Land Corp.’s first ventures will be to provide continuing financial support and land to special project corporations that will be established to develop the existing new town projects in North Pickering and near Nanticoke in Haldimand-Norfolk.

Organizationally [I continue the quotation] the Ontario Land Corp. will be closely tied to the special project corporations it finances by having at least one of its directors sit on the board of each project corporation.

In any event, that appears to be the way in which the government envisages the role to be played by this corporation, the skeleton of which is set out in Bill 181, which is before us this afternoon.

When the minister speaks in reply, I would like him to state whether or not that is as clear or as concise a statement as can be made of the role to be fulfilled by this particular corporation, being, as I have said, the forerunner of probably a number of other such corporations in the future, although not necessarily or exclusively being introduced under the aegis of this particular minister.

When one turns to the form of the corporation, I am interested in knowing whether or not it is the intention of the minister to refer this bill to the standing committee on the administration of justice so that it can be considered at the same time as consideration is given in that committee to the Ontario Land Corp. A number of people asked for a deferment of the consideration by that committee of the Ontario Land Corp. Act before the Christmas recess, and it will reconvene some time this month, presumably to deal with that bill.

I would assume, as this corporation is a part and parcel of the overall planning of the government with respect to the use to be made of the Ontario Land Corp. and its project corporations, that it would make very good sense that this, the first bill, would go before that standing committee as well. There are a number of matters in this bill which have correlative provisions in the Ontario Land Corp. bill and they could certainly he dealt with, conveniently and expeditiously, clause by clause in that one committee rather than take up the time of the House itself in committee of the whole House to repeat, perhaps at length, the same criticisms which will come forth when the Ontario Land Corp. Act is before that standing committee.

Having said that, and hoping that the minister would agree that that would be a sensible way in which this Act could be proceeded with. I’d like to dwell for a moment or two on the purpose of this corporation. The purpose of this corporation, as I understand it, is hidden away toward the end of the bill, so it is somewhat difficult to find. But in clause 18, the purpose of the corporation, the objects of the corporation or, as the marginal note states, the “duties of the corporation,” are as follows: “The corporation shall prepare the plan for development and develop” -- and I emphasize the word “develop” -- “the North Pickering planning area in accordance with the plan.”

Now, I have never known any corporation in my lifetime that has been available for public participation in the course of its deliberations in any meaningful way. I take it that what this corporation is going to do, and the thrust, as I take it, of the member for Downsview’s remarks when he stated that that party would oppose the bill, is that planning and development are roles to be performed by government under the Planning Act and not to be spun off to this kind of a corporation. Although there are controls by the minister written into the bill over what the corporation does, for practical purposes if all goes well, as the minister see it, and he doesn’t need to use the safeguard or backstop provisions which give him an overriding authority through the Lieutenant Governor in Council to require the corporation to comply with the directions of government about what they are doing in the corporation, apart from that background and safeguard provisions, the minister’s only responsibility -- not only responsibility because his title of minister is generously scattered throughout the bill for recommendation purposes and approval purposes -- but basically his major responsibility appears to be to designate the area which will be called the North Pickering planning area.

I would like to know, and I think that the House is entitled to know during the debate on this bill, the actual bounds and limits of the North Pickering planning area; because that must be designated by the minister. It is on that area as so designated by the minister which will be the focus of the activities of the corporation as it proceeds to develop the plan and to develop the area itself in accordance with the plan.

I would also like to know that within the lands which the minister envisages will be encompassed within the North Pickering planning area, how much of that land is presently owned by the government, how much of it is not going to be owned by the government, and what are the various stages of acquisition which have taken place for the other lands in the area so to be developed under this plan?

To what extent are there outstanding at the present time significant disputes, either before the board of referees or before the Land Compensation Board as to the settlement of the prices to be paid? To what extent are there negotiations taking place to acquire land other than under the Expropriations Act and what portion, if any of it, has been acquired though the expropriation procedures open to the government?

I think we must, for once and for all, have during the course of this debate the exact particulars of the status of the lands within that area. We must know how the development is going to take place, because earlier or later on in the bill, of course -- I am not quite certain whether it’s earlier or later -- there is provision for the Ontario Land Corp. presumably at the point in time after it has acquired the lands, to turn that land over to the North Pickering Development Project Corp. If that is so, what are the plans? What are the details of it? Surely we are not going to be told by the minister that we are debating a bill where those matters are not yet settled, where those matters are not yet determined, because they are part and parcel of any ongoing planning for that North Pickering area.

Throughout the bill there are a number of matters that we would deal with in committee, either here or outside. I want to mention them to the minister because we are not satisfied with them. We are not satisfied with the conflict-of-interest provisions. We are not satisfied with the implication that members of this assembly may sit on the board of directors of such a corporation. We are certainly far from satisfied with the overlapping of the public service and the private sector in these particular corporations and we will so move to provide that this kind of a board will be a representative board, but will not be a mixture of members of the public service as well as members of the private sector.

There are other specific matters which we can deal with in the committee, and I am not going to deal with those points at this particular time because they lend themselves much more adequately for debate in committee. But the point that I want to deal with is the major aspect of the bill which constrains us, subject to what the minister says, or subject of course to whatever persuasion I can exert upon myself that will perhaps lead me to say that we will oppose the bill, or to what my colleagues may say during the course of the debate which may impel us to oppose the bill regardless of what the minister says. What we are saying to the minister is, what use, in a living, ongoing way, is he going to make of this corporation to repair the ravages of the past and the damage which he has caused to the people in that area?

I want to speak somewhat about the very caustic remarks written in very politic language which appear in the report which deals with the proposals to change the Expropriations Act in order to provide a method by which some of the evils and wrongs done by the government in that area, with respect to its procedures in that area, can be rectified in the future. I refer of course to the report on the Expropriations Act, which is dated October, 1974, and was tabled in this House, if my memory serves me correctly, in December of last year. It was prepared by Mr. R. B. Robinson, QC, for the Ministry of the Attorney General, and has a very substantial section dealing with massive expropriations.

There are some points in the report bearing directly upon what happened in the North Pickering area. It seems to me that if this bill which is now before us is going to enable the government in some way to overcome those wrongs and to right those wrongs and to provide for adequate public participation, perhaps we can support the bill. If the minister can’t give us those assurances -- I’m rather sceptical to think that he can -- then we would perforce have to vote against the bill.

We must remember that this report would never have been prepared had it not been for the fiasco of the North Pickering development. There is no question whatsoever that it would not have been necessary. One of the strange things is that the major point which he makes was obvious to everybody but the government, and that is, that you don’t use an Expropriations Act, designed for the purpose of acquiring specific particular pieces of land for specific particular purposes, for the purposes of massive expropriation, and you don’t use a method of acquiring land by breaking down the area, by moving in and acquiring land through the private market in a haphazard manner, in such a way as to unsettle the whole community.

It proceeds by way of saying that the fair and equitable way is to proceed by way of expropriation if you are going to expropriate massively, and not to get involved in private negotiation which plays off one owner against another owner, unsettles well-established communities, causes immense concern and disruption in the life of those communities, and requires citizens to devote an inordinate amount of their time to making representations, to making their views felt, to bringing pressure to bear upon the government, to holding public meetings and trying to get, in this day and age, some forum where their voice can be heard in what they are about.

Mr. Robinson goes on to say:

The procedures contained in the Expropriations Act are intricate and complex; the courts heavily penalize any procedural error. A massive and smooth-running organization must be set up and maintained in operation for several months or even years [in connection with the expropriations for massive projects such as new town sites]. It includes a staff of land agents operating in the field in continual contact with the private owners who are losing their land. The agents feel the owners are antagonistic and unco-operative while the owners feel the agents are inept and insensitive; a problem of public relations arises.

A massive public project raises community and environmental concerns and the present inquiry procedure is not geared to examine them. This report cannot deal with the organizational problem. The necessary experience exists within the Ministry of Government Services, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, Ontario Hydro and the North Pickering project of the Ministry of Housing; this experience has shown that with sufficient advance planning, the procedures in the Expropriations Act will work successfully. As to the problem of public relations, a submission received from an owner in North Pickering expresses the viewpoint of “the victim” in making these comments:

I won’t itemize them -- there are 13 items that are involved in it -- but one of the essential parts is to have a detailed plan of the scheme which is going to be put forth for the area which is under consideration for massive acquisition by government, whether by expropriation or negotiated purchase.

He goes on to state: “These are valid points worthy of consideration.” He deals at some length with that particular aspect of it and then comes onto the vexed question of public involvement:

The pressures for public involvement in political decisions were not the same in 1968 as they are in 1974, and the changing attitudes will no doubt have to be reflected in the planning of massive projects requiring the exercise of the expropriating power.

Well as I say, if this is to be a rescue operation, it is not a question of whether you did proceed by way of expropriation or whether you did proceed by way of attempted negotiated purchase of large tracts of land in small parcels from individual owners, but I emphasize “the changing attitudes will no doubt have to be reflected in the planning of massive projects.” Mr. Robinson goes on:

The desire for group participation in the planning process, now very strong, relates to community and environmental concerns, such adjectives being broadly interpreted to include social, economic and cultural conditions.

He goes on to refer to the green paper on environmental assessment and quotes the first sentence in that paper, which was published in 1973:

In recent years, massive new projects such as nuclear power plants, freeways, new towns and international airports have drawn the attention of the public to the need for increased consideration of environmental matters.

And I emphasize the broad scope of that phase “social, economic and cultural conditions” of the area.

There are many further apt quotations from Mr. Robinson’s report. I simply say that the conclusion which he arrives at is that there must be public involvement on a broadly based scale in the development of the plan which is going to be implemented for the development of the particular area under consideration.

That’s exactly, I think, what our concern is. There is in the bill nothing which I can see which would indicate, clearly any intention by the government to involve the public -- the public in the sense of the people intimately concerned with the North Pickering development area because of the land which they used to own, or people who may own lands in the future in that area -- to involve them in the development of the plan, or indeed in its implementation.

That, Mr. Speaker, is the major thrust of the second aspect of the comments I wanted to make in opening on behalf of this party:

The absolutely essential requirement for public involvement in the preparation of that plan for development, and the vacuum which exists in the bill about any intention to so involve the public; and any suggestion that the corporate form is the method by which you provide for that kind of public involvement in any real sense of having an input to and an impact upon the ultimate result, which will be the fashioning of the plan in all of its aspects for that area.

The third aspect -- and I said there were two and possibly three aspects of it that I want to deal with -- is the developmental aspect. Assuming there is a plan, how does the minister see the corporation carrying through the development of the planning area after the plan has been developed? After the corporation owns the land, even though it may be in debt to the Ontario Land Corp. for it, how does the government see the implementation of that plan taking place? How is it going to be developed?

What is the relationship of this corporation going to be to the big developers? What is the relationship of this corporation going to be to the provision of the services which are required? What is the relationship going to be about the provision of the educational facilities needed for the area?

What is the cost going to be for the implementation of this scheme? Is the cost going to be borne by the Province of Ontario in the initial instance until such time far in the future when it may possibly be recovered at the time of the disposal of the sites or at the time of the various developmental contracts which take place? Is it going to be a centralized development in the way that, should inflation continue, the government of the Province of Ontario is going to be expending relatively better dollars and recovering relatively poorer dollars for the project? Is there any method by which the development of the project over a period of time in all its phases will be so done that no one will profit from the operation? Who will profit from the operation?

I notice that the Ontario Land Corp. is beautifully designated as a corporation without share capital; presumably it’s to be a nonprofit corporation. Is it going to adopt the policy of contracting out to various people who have the skills to do the development work in a manner which will permit them to make substantial profit on the transaction for the development of the new town site; or is it possible that the minister and his ministry through this corporation can, in fact, with the funds at its disposal so economically develop this townsite that people will say that it has been done on a fair and equitable basis and the result merits what is going to be done?

I think we perhaps are prepared to give a minor opportunity to the government to recover. Certainly the way in which they started in on this project showed that they hadn’t the faintest conception of how to go about it. I am a little bit concerned because, of course, the scheme of the Ontario Land Corp. had some merit as originally proposed by the Treasurer but it really wasn’t ever allowed to be thought out in public debate or in public forum, because he went down to Bay St. and then came back with this solution to the problem. If there’s one thing that Bay St. doesn’t like it is to have too much authority concentrated in the land of the Province of Ontario in the government, even though the land is such an integral part of the wealth of the people of the province.

We’ve got this funny kind of scheme which is going on and we’ve got so many people involved in it; yet this little simplistic bill which has come before us appears to have little, if any, actual thought given to it about the purposes that are to be accomplished and copies, with minor variations, sections which have appeared in other bills. We want some indication from the government that this corporation is the vehicle, sparse as it may be, which will be used for the purpose of a creative experiment in the development of townsite planning in the province, if that’s the road that the government intends to follow.

I’m not quite certain that a Ministry of Housing can have the authority to deal with this type of proposition and actually be able to say at the end that they have created a new town. They may have created a satellite bedroom adjunct to Metropolitan Toronto, but whether they will have created a vital new town under the aegis of the Ministry of Housing through this corporation remains to be seen.

I would think that we need to have a great deal of information, a great deal of financial information and a great deal of the background and knowledge which must exist somewhere in the government, considering the length of time they’ve talked about planning and development and considering the length of time, relatively speaking, that the North Pickering project has been agitating the surface pf public opinion in the southern part of Ontario.

Surely the minister has got to give us some sense of a conceptual, creative way in which he is looking at this particular venture and not expect us to say simply that we will approve the bill because this is the skeleton and he, the minister, will build, it into something great and beautiful at some date in the future when he can compound again the various mistakes which have been made. We want a clear indication from the minister that the mistakes of the past, although in some senses irreparable, are not going to be repeated or multiplied or new mistakes made in the future with respect to the North Pickering Development Corp..

There, Mr. Speaker, I’ve almost talked myself into opposing the bill now. But I’ll give the minister the opportunity perhaps to dissuade me otherwise.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Prince Edward-Lennox.

Mr. J. A. Taylor (Prince Edward-Lennox): Thank you, Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this bill. It interested me that the official opposition is just that, in opposition, to a concept of the landbanking and development and provision of housing for the people of this province. I had understood that it was concerned about the housing shortage and that something should be done at this level of government to ensure that there was land on the market that could be serviced and subdivided and put into the hands of the people for housing and, of course, in this case for other things. The member for Riverdale apparently has gone along with that concept because he all but concludes in opposition to the whole substance of this particular legislation.

Surely, if we are to provide housing, we must ensure that there is an adequate supply of serviced land. The steps have been taken by this government to assemble a great deal of land that can be serviced quickly. If that is to be done then, of course, there must be a corporation or a vehicle which can take over that land, do the necessary planning and the necessary servicing and put that land on the market where that is the thing to do and, if necessary, to build public housing and to ensure that there is plenty of housing for the people.

There was criticism on the basis that the municipalities would not be involved. This corporation does not provide for any substitution by way of government or by the corporation. The land itself is within municipally structured municipalities and is subject to those municipal laws and to the municipal jurisdictions. So there is no question of creating a separate political entity in terms of a land corporation.

The other aspect that was raised by the member for Riverdale was public involvement. If he reads the bill he will see that essentially the corporation will be planning the lands; in other words, it will be determining the ultimate use for those lands. It’s really an official plan that will be developed and then presented to the municipalities within whose jurisdictions that land lies. Surely it is essential in an area of this magnitude to define what land should be used for residential purposes and, of course, what land should be used to support that residential development in terms of commercial and industrial development. That is a part of the planning process.

Once an official plan is devised and developed by the corporation that will be created by this bill, then that corporation will submit that plan to the municipalities within which the land lies. Those municipalities no doubt have their own official plans. It is at that stage that the corporation will apply to those municipalities for an amendment to their official plans to implement the plan of the corporation. It is at that stage that the public involvement takes place. Surely, if an official plan of the municipality is to be amended then there must be public hearings, and that process is set out very fully in the Planning Act, so notification must go out and public hearings take place in connection with an amendment to the official plan of the municipality.

That is a concern that at first blush I thought may be a problem, I may say, particularly to the fringe areas of the site which would be for development. But I can see where anybody involved in terms of land ownership or with an interest can, along with the municipal corporations, have an adequate opportunity, and no doubt will, to express their views in terms of the development of the lands of the corporation. So there is a provision for that.

If the land is to be assembled then, of course, there has to be catalyst to see that that land is serviced. And if there has been any real cause for a lack of housing in this province it’s the lack of serviced lands so that the plans can be developed.

A part of that shortage has been caused as well by the delay in the processing of the plans of subdivision. There is no question in my mind that that has added to the lack of serviced lots. But with the land being assembled here controlled by the corporation in terms of processing its own plans of subdivision and servicing its own lands, then I can see no reason why the whole planning process cannot be expedited in terms of putting serviced lands on the market for housing.

The Act provides, of course, for the corporation to enter into agreements with the municipalities in terms of servicing where municipal services will be necessary, and other types of agreements that may result. It seems to me it is broad enough in its scope to facilitate whatever must be done to expedite the processing of raw land to serviced land. So I can see where a vehicle of this nature is essential if we are going to have land put on the market for development.

I think it is significant that this land is aloof from Toronto so that a new community can in fact evolve. No doubt it will be Metropolitan Toronto oriented, but nevertheless I think it’s a step in the right direction.

There is one concern I do have in regard to the legislation and that is the lack of definition of the boundaries of the lands that will be administered by the corporation. The provision in the bill defines the North Pickering planning area as an area of land “in Ontario” designated as such by the minister under this Act. I would like to see the lands at least defined as being in certain existing municipalities, so there will be no misunderstanding as to what this corporation may do in controlling lands that are quite apart from the North Pickering area. I think that might be clarified.

As for trying to delineate all of the responsibilities of the corporation and to define them in such detail as the member for Riverdale expects, I think that is asking just too much. It will certainly restrict flexibility if there is an attempt to define. As long as we can confine its jurisdiction to that geographical area I think it can do a good job.

The powers of the corporation extend to turning over the land to private enterprise -- to the private sector -- and I am glad to see that. I would think it will involve developers so that the land in question can be built upon. You can’t expect the government or government agencies to develop on their own all of this land. The best way, of course, is to involve the private sector in the development and physical construction of the houses and other buildings that may be necessary. So that that will be done, I don’t see one great big government town being developed like the government store. It will be a community that will be inspired and directed and planned at this level, but certainly revert to the private sector and to the homeowner for his enjoyment. So I heartily endorse the bill and its provisions, but would suggest that some further delineation of the geographical area be provided for in the bill.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Kitchener.

Mr. Breithaupt: Mr. Speaker, the member for Downsview has set out some of the basic points of our opposition to this bill. I certainly wish to confirm that it is the view of our party that we will oppose this bill, this spinoff from the original Ontario Land Corp. and the background that led up to that bill.

On Jan. 10, 1974, a former Minister of Housing, the hon. Robert Welch, in a speech entitled “A New Approach to North Pickering,” set out in rather lengthy form some of the sorts of things which he, as Minister of Housing at that point, looked forward to seeing in the development of this project. Here is just one brief quotation from the bottom of the second page of his press release:

The government’s policy on North Pickering has evolved in response to considerable public interest in ensuring that planning in this area reflects the importance of protecting the historical, agricultural and recreational resources for future generations, while allowing for sensible and balanced development where clearly appropriate.

Mr. Speaker, that was the view of the minister as he suggested that a decision on policy had been reached whereby the original intention of expropriating some 25,200 acres by either negotiated settlement or expropriation had been changed. The decision then was made to expropriate a somewhat smaller area of land, and as a result some 8,700 acres in all have been planned for expropriation in the North Pickering area. The view which the opposition had at that point was that the government’s decision as it was made then disregarded the normal property rights of the landowners in the area.

It is certainly not my intention to go into the merits or otherwise of this entire project. That decision, it appears, is still somewhat up in the air, because there seems to be an inability on the part of the provincial and federal governments to come to some firm conclusions as to this whole development within this part of the province. But the minister of the day in January of last year acknowledged that the plans which the province was making made it necessary to proceed with expropriation without the usual hearings of necessity that had been called for.

Those hearings would, of course, have allowed an entire review and examination of this North Pickering project. The Expropriations Act, as you know Mr. Speaker, provides for a hearing of necessity where this kind of an expropriation is an extraordinary infringement on the property rights of all private landowners; and this has to be justified, of course, as being in the public interest.

It is our view that these hearings of necessity should have taken place. I am sure the other speakers in this party who enter into this debate will go on at some length in the detail as to how those hearings should have been held.

It was at that point almost two years since the North Pickering project had first been announced, and certainly the concept of a large residential development in that area has been brought forward over these past three years without ever the opportunity of having an intelligent scrutiny of the whole project by a public inquiry.

There are, of course, many who fear that this entire project will be nothing more than a bedroom community that is going to overload the already burdened city of Toronto and municipality of Metropolitan Toronto. The member for Prince Edward-Lennox in his remarks has suggested that it may well be that this project will be oriented toward Metro Toronto. I think indeed it is inevitable that that would happen. Therefore the whole pattern of growth and the whole idea of development in this part of the province is subject once again to this greater pull towards the centre of the Metropolitan Toronto area within Ontario.

Well, of course, hearings of necessity on the development of this whole project should take place. There have been some changes made in the project but, as we see this bill before us now, we are in fact developing, as the member for Riverdale has said, a spinoff corporation that in turn is going to deal with the areas of development in this particular location that the Ontario Land Corp. in its entirety presumably would develop in certain other areas of the province.

In our view, there has been no effective or complete public involvement in this matter. Indeed, as late as October of this past year, various councillors in the area were concerned about the whole development of the project. The Oshawa newspaper reported on Oct 30, under a headline, “Davis Blasted by Committee,” the views of some of the councillors who were concerned that their public request for a meeting, as they phrased it, had been completely ignored. That, of course, was the end of October, some three months ago. We have had the opportunity to debate the Ontario Land Corp. bill, which debate went on in the second week of December, 1974.

The comments by the Leader of the Opposition are useful to review, I think, as we debate the principles underlining this particular bill. I will report only one brief paragraph, and that is the comment which my leader is reported at page 6338 as having made:

The minister, in my view, has usurped the planning function of the local community I felt that this was done in Pickering; it certainly has happened to Haldimand-Norfolk; and it appears to be happening in the Spencerville land assembly as well.

Mr. Speaker, that seems to me to sum up entirely the view that shows us as being at odds with the government as they bring forward this kind of legislation. We believe the planning function of the local communities are clearly being usurped.

It is worthwhile, I think, to note that the members of the New Democratic Party are going to support the opposition to this bill, as I take it from the speech of the member for Riverdale. They did not support our point of view with respect to the Ontario Land Corp. However, they appear to feel that at least in this particular circumstance the consistency of opinion which we have had in opposing this kind of a development is worthy of some support by them.

It would seem, though, that certain of the Conservative members of this Legislature are reported as being a little uncertain generally with the kinds of approach that have been taken in North Pickering. There are difficulties which are reported. The member for Victoria-Haliburton (Mr. R. C. Hodgson) reported somewhat at length in the Oshawa Times of Dec. 19; and I think there are a number of other supporters of the government who are concerned about this general slide of development, whether by expressway, sewer or whatever, to the centre part of the Metropolitan Toronto area. This slide certainly could and should be avoided by intelligent and proper planning and by the development of sound and well-balanced communities that are viable on their own.

There have been a number of critiques on this whole development, but I certainly don’t wish to review all the reasons as to why we think and why others have thought that this kind of project is not the sort of thing that should go forward in that part of Ontario in the way that is being suggested at the present time.

We have opposed the Ontario Land Corp. bill for the reasons that appear in issue No. 150 of Hansard of Thursday, Dec. 12. I will not review those comments, other than to say that the principles on which those comments were based, we think, are the valid principles which development of urban areas within the province should follow in the years to come.

There has been a lack of public debate. There has been an inability of elected officials -- at least it is so reported -- to obtain the kind of input and the feeling of involvement they think is worthwhile.

Certainly housing is needed, as the hon. member for Prince Edward-Lennox has suggested, but this kind of a bill will not provide the kind of housing that’s needed within the foreseeable future. Certainly the municipalities require to have an involvement and a commitment as their own areas are developed. They do not need the kinds of new projects which are going to ignore the infrastructure that already exists in the municipality we now have.

But as I’ve said, Mr. Speaker, the most important reason for our opposition is the lack of public involvement; and the removal, secondly, of the planning function from the community level as we see it. As a result of these views which we have in this party, we will oppose the bill and we will divide the House.

Mr. Speaker: Does any other hon. member wish to take part in this debate?

The hon. member for Scarborough West.

Mr. S. Lewis (Scarborough West): I’m just looking at some of the documents which were tabled today in the Legislature Mr. Speaker. They make almost as fascinating reading as Bill 181.

My colleague, the hon. member for Riverdale, put our position on the bill pretty succinctly, and I don’t want to elaborate on it unduly. I want to make a few remarks to the minister to try to provide some context and perspective for our tremendous reluctance to vote with the government, which reluctance, let me not be coy, will probably lead us to opposing the bill on second reading in the absence of any assurances from the minister; and I think that the request for the assurances is legitimate, given the background.

Mr. Speaker, perhaps I could make an observation about the background to this bill which fits the context of politics in Ontario it 1975. If the Tories in this province are in trouble -- I know, Mr. Speaker, you’re ambivalent about that -- they are clearly in trouble for a variety of reasons. One amongst them was the subject for much comment in the Globe and Mail this morning, speaking, as it did, to a pattern of difficulty for the government. Another is the unresponsiveness of government generally in Ontario to the pressure of individual communities, of groups of citizens, on the need to decentralize authority.

If ever there was a classic moment at which the government found itself in difficulty in respect of unresponsiveness, it is in terms of the North Pickering community project. The work which the People or Planes groups have done on behalf of the residents, and the work which has been done by the community antagonistic to the way in which the government has proceeded on North Pickering, speaks volumes about the problems which the government has.

Let me review it for you, Mr. Speaker. One of the difficulties with this piece of legislation is that it comes at the end of the road of a series of ministers and a series of initiatives which have left all of the people involved perplexed, angry and bitter about the government’s intentions. In my short duration in this Legislature I’ve managed to watch the evolution of North Pickering, and I’ve seen it go from John White to Claude -- what’s Claude’s last name? -- Bennett, to Bob Welch to Sidney Handleman to Don Irvine; and I suspect there were other interlopers along the way whose names escape me because they’ve probably retired from the cabinet for one indiscretion or another. As a matter of fact, the current Minister of the Environment (Mr. W. Newman) when he was a near private member, by that I mean a parliamentary secretary, made certain fairly major pronouncements on the North Pickering community project as well.

Mr. D. M. Deacon (York Centre): The matter of the inquiry.

Mr. Lewis: So that this project has not lacked for government intervention, although it was intervention of the most maladroit kind. That’s number one.

Number two: When the expropriation orders were given to proceed without an inquiry, when Bob Welch uttered those important words, the government introduced a degree of non-confidence in the entire North Pickering area that it can never retrieve; or rehabilitate rather, that’s the more appropriate word. The whole community lost such confidence in this government and in its motives and in its objects when it said expropriation without an inquiry that no bill, least of all this one, will rehabilitate its intentions in the eyes of the citizens.

Number three: The government made colossal mistakes in the expropriation procedures which have been applied. Having taken away the rights of an inquiry from the citizens involved, Mr. Speaker, the government then went about the expropriation in the most ham-handed way, requiring this report on the Expropriations Act prepared by Mr. Robinson, QC, which report is largely an indictment of the use of the Expropriation Act in the North Pickering community area. One would think that somewhere along the way something right could be done. This bill is an attempt, perhaps the first attempt, to make things go right. Yet it contains within it an Achilles heel so stark that the bill itself is, I think, largely insupportable.

First of all, there is a flux over five or six ministers. Then the government has an expropriation procedure which takes away the right of inquiry; then it has the expropriation mishandled; and then one has to look at it in the context of everything else that occurred in North Pickering which leads to this bill.

Mr. Speaker, how can one have confidence in a bill to establish the corporation whose object is to plan and then to develop -- those are the key words, as my colleague from Riverdale pointed out -- the North Pickering community, when all of the preliminary history suggests bad faith. Look at how often the population has changed for North Pickering. That in itself is worthy of a skit at some local night club on the way in which government plans.

When the Toronto-centred region plan was first introduced the government envisaged a group of small communities of 20,000 or 25,000 in population. After the, airport was announced, North Pickering assumed a, population of 300,000. It then retreated to 250,000, it then retreated to 200,000; and in the most recent pronouncement on a North Pickering community project, it lies in the area -- am I right? -- of around 70,000, Mr. Speaker.

The Minister of the Environment more or less acknowledges it with an inscrutable nod of his head. Lo and behold, no sooner do we get a suggestion of 70,000 people in the North Pickering community project than the Minister of the Environment announces the big pipe running through York and Durham, thereby destining the North Pickering community project to a population minimum of 250,000, no matter how one slices it. So we start at 25,000 and we move upward to the range of 300,000; we come down to 70,000, and now we are back to 250,000. God knows where it will all end. This corporation can hardly be trusted with making yet another decision of, that kind.

The other thing which is very important, Mr. Speaker, is that in the process leading to this finale, it becomes clear that the North Pickering community is no longer a separate community, but in fact will be an extension to the east of Metropolitan Toronto, which is precisely what everyone doesn’t want; and which of course speaks to the next point, which is the complete destruction of the Toronto-centred region plan. We have talked about that plan on umpteen occasions in this House, but the North Pickering community project is what destroyed the plan beyond retrieval.

It should also be pointed out, Mr. Speaker, that this Act to establish the North Pickering Development Corp. proceeds in the face of our not yet hearing of the airport decision. I gather that Jean Marchand is about to make an announcement about the airport; and I have no doubt, being fairly cynical about it -- my friend in the Legislature, the member for York Centre, may have other information, but I suspect he may share my cynicism -- that Jean Marchand will proceed with the second international airport at Pickering --

Mr. Deacon: About 2015.

Mr. Lewis: About 2015; absurd though that idea may be! This whole North Pickering community evolved in response to the airport. That’s why it is there.

The airport should never have been given encouragement by this government in the first place. If this government had said “we won’t build the services”, there would be no second international airport at Pickering. But by no means should this project have been tied to the airport, because what that necessarily involves is this massive urban extension east rather than a series of small and separate communities.

In other words, the whole history of this project is ignominious. The whole history of this project is a series of trials and errors without planning, without thought, without substance -- a kind of ad hoc response to events over which this government has no control. Now it brings in this final insult to the people of the area, having spent $150 million expropriating land and destroying communities.

I said a number of months ago no one paid any attention to it because it was seen to be self-serving then -- that one of the ironies about the Conservatives in 1974-1975 is that they are a party that destroys those things in Ontario’s heritage which are usefully preserved. We, on the other hand, have become a party -- that’s part of an infinite, philosophic --

An hon. member: Mismanagement.

Mr. Lewis: -- creativity. We are a party which wants to preserve what the Tories are now destroying in Ontario’s life.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: (Leader of the Opposition): That’s a new game.

Mr. Lewis: I want to tell the members something; there will never be any answer, they’ll get it at the polis. There will never be any answer for this government other than repudiation for the $150 million destruction of the North Pickering area, the agricultural land, some of the farms, many of the small communities; and doing it in a fashion so flat-footed and bullheaded that there are very few precedents for it.

As a matter of fact even the report on the Expropriations Act confirms that; although, as my colleague, the member for Riverdale points out, it has everything written by lawyers and is cast in language so discreet and so careful that it doesn’t seem to be the rebuke that all of us really know it is.

Nothing has gone right in North Pickering. Absolutely nothing has gone right in North Pickering. The basic reason for nothing going right in North Pickering is that the community has never been adequately consulted. This government has never really involved the people of the area. It has never really paid them any heed. They go to meeting after meeting with ministers and ministers’ subordinates who trample all over the people who appear at the meeting.

After the famous meeting with the member for Carleton (Mr. Handleman) when he’d taken over this portfolio, Anne Wanstall, who was then a Tory, wrote a letter to him that I want to put on the record. It speaks what everyone felt about the government’s approach to North Pickering.

Dear Mr. Handleman:

I went home an angry woman after last evening’s meeting in Brougham and I wonder whether you had as troubled a a night as I did.

Like so many others here I’m sick and tired of being fed platitudes about the joys of urbanization. I’ve seen what it does to the urbanites and I don’t want it to happen to me.

This whole concept of taking land and homes from some to give it to others has already made most of us bitter.

That old man, for instance, with his tartan collar flying out of its jacket; he’s nearly 90, nearly blind and recently lost his wife to a home because of senility. You couldn’t tell him who were the people who needed his home and property more than he did. You couldn’t even give him numbers, just some vague idea that people like to move every three years. How will you explain to this self-sufficient old farmer that his government is condemning him to an old people’s home?

The whole premise is utterly disgraceful and shouldn’t be tolerated in a democratic society. Your ignorance over the issues of the airport are far from healthy for a politician. At least developers know why they speculate on land. You don’t even appear to have interested yourself in whether there is a need for an airport in Pickering. Surely, we should expect better for the salaries we pay.

As you suggested, you’ll do as you like about the North Pickering land grab and toss the objectors aside. You won’t consider that you condemned the objectors to a life-long bitterness against your government; or that you condemned those who buy your houses to the misery of sterile organization under an airport which nobody needs. That’s immaterial so long as you keep face with voters who will only realize that it’s their turn when they get hit with an expropriation notice. I’m dismayed and disgusted that our party describes itself as Progressive Conservative.

Well, to defend Anne Wanstall, it is of course no longer her party. With fashionable enlightenment on her part she has shifted political allegiances and the Minister of the Environment more than most knows that when he loses his seat to the NDP in the next round Anne Wanstall will be one of those in there pitching.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: The member has to be a dreamer.

Mr. Lewis: As a matter of fact he doesn’t. I’m not a betting man, but I come as close as possible to say that the Minister of the Environment is facing retirement. Of course, he may not even run in Durham West. He will probably retreat into the riding of the member for Ontario (Mr. Dymond), knowing that Durham West is safe for the minister no longer. But we’ll wait and see what happens, we’ll hear about his choice.

Hon. W. Newman: It sure isn’t safe for the member for Scarborough West. It will never be safe for him and his party.

Mr. Lewis: I want to say, Mr. Speaker, that what Anne Wanstall wrote less than a year ago now -- I guess it was March --

Hon. Mr. Irvine: She’d be a great candidate for the NDP.

Mr. Lewis: As a matter of fact I think Dr. Charles Godfrey of People or Planes has already indicated that he’d like to run for us. How I wish the Minister of the Environment would run against him.

Hon. W. Newman: That would be a pleasure.

An hon. member: No contest.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Lewis: What a contest that will be with Newman pulling up the rear.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order please.

Mr. Lewis: Anyway that is apart from the issue. I thought I might engage the minister’s interest.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Lewis: I want to say to the minister, through the Speaker, that what Anne Wanstall wrote about speaks to the whole problem of North Pickering. There’s never been any serious consultation. Those people opposite don’t know what it means to involve the community; and when they involve the community now, whom are they going to involve?

Has anybody over there ever asked themselves whom they are going to involve? Has the Minister of Housing gone up the concession roads of North Pickering? What is left to North Pickering? They’ve expropriated all the people; more than half of them have now moved, the rest of them are embittered. There is no one left to consult with. The government practically destroyed that entire area of the province and it has never once had meaningful public consultation; its North Pickering community offices --

Hon. Mr. Irvine: The member knows better than that.

Mr. Lewis: I don’t know better than that. I’ve seen the minutes of the meetings and I’ve read of the indignation of the people involved and the minister has never, ever seriously involved them in this project. As a matter of fact even his bill is hypocrisy.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: How?

Mr. Lewis: Let the minister show me in any article of this bill where the public is involved.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Why doesn’t the member read it?

Mr. Lewis: I have read it, carefully. Does the minister realize that he’s got an entire piece of legislation here which flows from a total ignoring of the public; not in one clause does he involve the public in the planning process.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: Read sections 20 and 21.

Mr. Lewis: As a matter of fact, the member from Picton and area says to me, “Read section 20 in the Planning Act.” Do you know what it says, Mr. Speaker? It says, “The corporation shall provide a copy of the plan for development to the council of each municipality.” Let me ask the minister something: What does he mean it will provide a copy of the plan? That’s why those people opposite are losing this province and they can’t understand it.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: We are not losing it --

Mr. Lewis: The plan for development is something --

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. Lewis: No, no, no; the plan for development is something that the government arrives at after public consultation. They don’t understand the planning process.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: Read the section.

Mr. Lewis: I’ve read the section.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: No he hasn’t. Let him read the whole section.

Mr. Lewis: All right, I’ll read the whole section; the member can interpret it for me. He is a lawyer, right; he can interpret it.

The corporation shall provide a copy of the plan for development to the council of each municipality that is within or partly within the North Pickering planning area and shall, in accordance with the Planning Act, request the council of each municipality [A neat verb, “request”] that has planning jurisdiction to make such amendment to its official plan as may be required to enable the North Pickering planning area to be developed in conformity with the plan for development and the official plan for the municipality.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: Read the next section.

Mr. Lewis: “Section 20 applies, mutatis mutandis, to any amendment to the plan for development.”

Now all that that says is that the plan for development is presented as a fait accompli to the municipalities involved, to the councillors involved, and to all of the citizens’ groups involved.

An hon. member: No.

Mr. Lewis: Of course that’s what it says. It says “the plan for development,” and the minister knows and I know that there will be no citizens’ input at all to the decisions on North Pickering.

Another reason that the bill is a sham is contained in section 19, which says rather badly, “The proposed plan for development may contain,” and then it sets out all the things that are already decided upon. The Tories are really a most remarkable group. The general distribution and density of population; they have already made announcements on that. The general location of industry and commerce; they have already made announcements on that. The identification of major land use areas and the provision of major parks and open space; they have already tabled maps on that.

This isn’t a plan for development, this is a fait accompli. They are simply going through the motions of presenting to the community and the councils things which planners at Queen’s Park have decided upon. And damn it all, they cannot run Ontario that way forever.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: The member’s colleague on his left made a much better speech.

Mr. Lewis: They are so given to the infatuation with the sense of right at Queen’s Park that they don’t understand planning. Do you know, Mr. Speaker, there was not a single meeting -- not a single meeting -- with the residents who used to live in North Pickering which didn’t have within it intense bitterness, because at no time were they genuinely involved.

I listened to the member from Picton carefully when he spoke in response and I have listened to the minister on many occasions. Let me read something into the record of this House which says everything about the way in which the citizens felt toward this government’s manipulation of the planning process around North Pickering. The former Attorney General (Mr. Welch) came out to speak to the citizens as the government rotated from minister to minister. He sat before them one night and a tape was made of the proceedings, and the frustration of the people there grew as the evening went on, as they realized that yet again nothing was happening by way of real consultation.

Then John Livingston got to his feet and said the following, spontaneously, to the meeting. I want to put it on the record to give the government an idea of the views and the feelings in North Pickering:

As for myself, my wife and I have worked and saved most of our lives to own our home and land. Now we are expropriated forcibly. It is all taken from us. Only those who have been expropriated can know the bitter, traumatic shock that expropriation brings to its victims. It’s a dreadful thing to know that one’s bricks and mortar are to be torn down; one’s land bulldozed, and one’s trees and flowers and shrubs. But even more dreadful than the property damage is the damage that is done to the human soul.

The soul damage is not easily seen. It’s not recorded in the newspapers, but that soul damage is inside every one of us in this room who have struggled against this two-year threat of expropriation. Until this happened I was certain I was simple, rational, peaceful, compassionate, but now I am not certain of myself. Something dreadful has happened inside of me, something that changed me, and the change saddens and frightens me. My soul is now charged with cynicism, distrust and hate. The government has made me into a violent creature.

Now John Livingston is a man who lived on and cherished that land in North Pickering for many decades. And, like a tremendous number of people in that community, he doesn’t understand what has happened. He doesn’t understand the government’s motives. He doesn’t understand its actions or its objects. None of them do, and many of them have gone. In the process, the government has left citizen participation in tatters. There are some who are closer to it than I am, there really are. I have had great contact with the North Pickering community group over a period of time, but some who represent the area, some who have lived there, some who have visited there -- presumably the member for York Centre for example -- may know more of it directly than I do, but I want to tell the minister --

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Which group is the member talking about?

Mr. Lewis: I’m talking about the citizens’ groups who are involved. The project group I know about; I know more than I wish to know about them; I’ve read into the record the minutes of the meetings of the North Pickering community project group with some of the citizens. I’ve done that in the last two or three years. I’m telling the minister that in January of 1975 his government has no credibility left in North Pickering at all.

If ever there was an example of planning folly, it is North Pickering. If ever there was an example of the abuse of public consultation, it is North Pickering. If ever there was an example of the waste of public funds, it is North Pickering. If ever, therefore, there was an example of a bill which should include room for public participation, it is this one, and it doesn’t contain it.

Now, like the member for Riverdale, if the minister can show me where in this bill the people who are left or those who are around will participate, I’ll take a second look at it. But he can’t ask us to support a shambles of this kind in the name of some specious argument about housing. The government is not building North Pickering because it wants houses; it is building North Pickering because it locked itself in three years ago, it doesn’t know how to extricate itself, and it doesn’t care what damage is done in the process.

Mr. Speaker: The member for York Centre.

Mr. Deacon: Mr. Speaker, I certainly rise to oppose this bill and this disastrous concept of a new type of city; “Lord McKeough’s” dream city, a nightmare for the people of the North Pickering area -- Cedarwood, or whatever he has always called it in the past; I don’t know what he is going to call it in the future -- and a nightmare for the taxpayers of Ontario. It has been not only a pimple, it has developed into a canker, a cancerous growth against Toronto.

Mr. P. J. Yakabuski (Renfrew South): Has the member talked to Marchand?

Mr. Deacon: I feel sorry for this minister because, as has been mentioned, he is the sixth who has been sent in to correct a McKeough disaster -- after McNaughton, Bennett, White, Welch and Handleman. The cause, the reason? A plan that was based upon a sewer, the York sewer. The whole Toronto-centred region concept was a mistake because it was a mistake to put development and concentrate development so that the wastes of human settlements would be dumped into a lake instead of this province developing other means of providing treatment of our wastes and enabling us to develop our cities and communities in those parts of Ontario in ways that don’t involve our best agricultural land, that don’t enable speculators to concentrate ownership in a few hands land that don’t prevent full competitive development of housing in areas of Ontario that need it.

Cedarwood involved the confiscation of several long-established little communities, the kind that you and I dream about, hear about and didn’t believe still existed. But those of us who have lived in the areas know the people of Cedar Grove, Whitevale, Locust Hill and these other spots realize what we have done when we see what has happened in the last three or four years in that area. It was simply the saddest thing, driving through that area yesterday, to see what has happened to our prime agricultural land. Those barns that used to be a pride of the area now have boards off, sagging roofs, showing the effects of no incentive for the owners for the last several years.

We see now that land prices have spiralled to unheard of levels because of the fuel this government added to the fires of inflation in the Toronto area by buying up land close to Toronto, where already there was a demand; instead of, if it was going to provide for a new city, building it and locating it well away from an area where there was already inflationary pressure.

This government failed to learn the lessons of Malvern, where we saw $500-an-acre land in 1954 soar to prices of $150,000 an acre or higher in these days. Where is the benefit to the poor home buyer? Where has this government succeeded at any time in providing better housing at a lower cost by these practices of land assemblies and the way it has done them?

Now we have this York sewer, which is going ahead. The government needs to have this huge development of Cedarwood to help justify it, as it wants the government of Canada to build an airport there to help justify it, instead of encouraging new-type small sewage treatment plants located in centres well away from Toronto.

I oppose this bill because it removes planning from the normal channels. No matter what the minister says about the Planning Act and the way it is involved, there is no question here that from the way that this board is being set up we have a new bureaucracy that is going to be well insulated from political accountability in the normal way. There will be efforts made to influence the board members, no doubt to make certain that the government gets its money back from the poor ultimate home buyer.

As the previous speakers have mentioned, so far the public participation in this has really been a whitewash. I have attended some of these meetings. I have listened to the people present their ideas as to how they can preserve, hopefully, some of the essential aspects of those communities. I have heard those who have attended on behalf of the government indicate they will have to give that consideration. But nothing ever happens to get these communities back on their feet where we can have a centre on which any future development could be based.

I have mentioned to the minister before the fact that around existing communities in Ontario we have had many examples of where the population has expanded many times. Yet because of the existing facilities in those communities, because of the way the old residents and the new have mingled, we have been able to retain a sense of identity that is so essential to good development. In this North Pickering project, I suppose the government will probably provide for one token member of the community on the board of nine or 10, but what meaning has that? How does that help those people in the area to get proper involvement, because they won’t be in on the development of that plan.

They may have a chance, when it comes before their council, to see what this bunch of bureaucrats have dreamed up. But they won’t be involved unless the government provides for reasonable representation by those people on the board. Unless at least 40 per cent of the members of that board are elected by the local people or appointed from among the local residents, it is just tokenism of the worst sort.

The member for Prince Edward-Lennox asked what does the Liberal Party have as an alternative? We have an alternative. We want housing, not waste, inflation and bureaucracy. We want to have enterprise and efficiency. We want to open up serviced lots and create a truly competitive market, and we believe this can be done.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Deacon: We believe it can be done, and the government knows it can be done if it has any imagination. All it can think about is building up its bureaucracy and building up its power.

Mr. Deacon: If we had had for the last two or three years a major programme of servicing lots and providing trunk sewers, and not $80 million or $115 million a year but $400 or $500 million a year to catch up with the backlog --

Mr. J. A. Taylor: Who is going to do it?

Mr. Deacon: -- if we had provided financial support to the municipalities, instead of them having to worry about having a financial burden placed upon them because of low-cost housing that has been approved in their area, we could show them there are actual benefits. If we would emphasize this approach instead of wasting our money in buying $150 million of land and turning those funds over to speculators to buy somewhere else; if we would create this competitive market, we would kill this element of land speculation far more effectively than any land speculation tax. We haven’t solved the problem yet for the people that need housing --

Mr. R. Haggerty (Welland South): The government is in bed with the developer in this scheme.

Mr. Deacon: -- and we are not going to do it by buying up thousands of acres of land. We are only going to do it when we enable small house builders --

Mr. G. Nixon (Dovercourt): We are going to do it in North Pickering.

Mr. Deacon: Don’t tell me the government is going to do it with North Pickering. Look at Malvern. How many opportunities have there been for the small house builder in Malvern? How many opportunities will there be in North Pickering? None at all!

Until the minister’s colleagues in the cabinet can understand how they have been feeding the fires of inflation in the past --

Mr. Haggerty: Right on.

Mr. M. Gaunt (Huron-Bruce): Right on.

Mr. Deacon: Until they get back to the rudiments of high cost housing --

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Deacon: -- by eliminating the problem of shortage of building lots --

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Deacon: -- then we’re never going to solve our housing problems in this province. And for that reason we’re opposing this bill, because we believe there are better ways --

Mr. R. F. Ruston (Essex-Kent): When is the member for Prince Edward-Lennox going to be a parliamentary assistant?

Mr. Deacon: -- of providing housing for Ontario than the socialist approach these Tories have taken.

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

Mrs. Campbell: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Gaunt: He is right, too.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order please. The hon. member for St. George has the floor.

Mrs. Campbell: I was very interested, Mr. Speaker, in the remarks of the hon. member for Prince Edward-Lennox, when he challenged the official opposition as presumably not being interested in the development of housing. And I can understand why he would feel critical in this sense. He has viewed the fact that there is the Ontario Housing Corp. He has viewed the fact that there is a ministry and he has recognized its failures up until now. He is praying, I assume, that this new deal will accomplish what hasn’t been accomplished by this government in the past.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mrs. Campbell: However, Mr. Speaker, we in this party have to gain from the experience of the past and cannot presume that carrying out the same pattern is going to achieve something which has not been achieved under the other administration, be it the ministry or Ontario Housing Corp.

The Hon. member for Prince Edward-Lennox spoke about the involvement of the people in the planning process under the Planning Act. I tried to take down verbatim what he said, and I hope he’ll forgive me if I have not accurately done that because I do not take shorthand.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: I won’t forgive the member for inaccuracy.

Mrs. Campbell: No, well, all right. I’ll just have to bear with that lack of forgiveness.

What I understood him to say was that once a plan was developed the people would then have to be consulted. And, of course, this is precisely what has happened in the past. Once the government has developed a plan, the people are then consulted without having the expertise, without having any of the capabilities of facing the sophistication of the horse and buggy planning of the province at this point, and they are frustrated. What has been said about the history of North Pickering is so abundantly true.

And, again, I have great sympathy for the minister in trying to dig out from under the accountability of this government for the disaster in North Pickering, and to interpose between the people and their elected representatives another unresponsible group with no accountability to the people of this province for what it may do in North Pickering. I can appreciate his problem.

Like the leader of the New Democratic Party, I have a certain sympathy for this minister, because certainly as a minister he has not been responsible for all of the disastrous history of this particular area of the province. It is, Mr. Speaker, very unfortunate that this government seems to be determined to impose its will one way or the other upon the people of this province. There really isn’t much use, in fact, in presenting opposition, save and except it be recorded for future purposes. Surely one of the things that should happen in North Pickering at this point is to try overcome, so far as that may be possible, the autocracy of the past. We are now going to have a corporation proceeding under the present Planning Act determining what the future shall be, and I wonder what input there is going to be.

This surely might be a very useful area to bring the people who are left together with the province and the ministry itself to study such matters as impact zoning in the area; to find out what the impact is going to be on the soil conditions in this area; what the impact is going to be so far as the agricultural land in that area is concerned; and the sociological impact of putting masses of people into this area. This is the kind of planning performance that we have to move to in a democracy, where people are consulted at the beginning of the planning process and understand the criteria upon which a plan develops. This has to happen surely in this beleaguered area, if anywhere in the Province of Ontario.

The government cannot continue to put together these kinds of corporate bodies which have brought it so much trouble in the vast really because of their unaccountability. Surely the ministry concerned so deeply with housing could bring together with the, planning process the data available to bring the people of that area, no matter how few there may be, into the planning process at its very inception. This kind of corporate body is the kind that will proceed as every other one has proceeded, a developer in the name of the government of Ontario but not of the people of Ontario.

Mr. Speaker, something has to be done in this area, and we are aware of it. But it can’t -- and I urge the minister to consider this -- be done through this kind of corporate body. Surely he can understand and see that setting this up in the way he has continues the process by which this government relates to people, a process which is losing this government the trust and the confidence of the people of the province so that they are viewing it with suspicion; and indeed as has been stated in the House today, with hate.

Mr. J. E. Bullbrook (Sarnia): The minister is just a visitor anyway. He is only going to be here for one term. He will just be a visitor. They will enjoy him for the time being but they are going to send him back to Prescott.

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Speaker, I was about to say that I wonder what this minister will do when we perhaps bring in, or he brings in, a development corporation for the Prescott area. We’ll be interested in that.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: I will be interested too.

Mrs. Campbell: Surely, I don’t want at any time to introduce something other than what I really feel is a deep and vital concern for this particular area. It has suffered enough. Whatever the superficial comments of the member for Prince Edward-Lennox may be, in this party, we cannot tolerate the continuance of this basic lack of principle on behalf of this government. Thank you very much.

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

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’ve had a very interesting afternoon. Again, we’ve had a lot of thunder, very little substance --

Mr. Deacon: He’ll find out if he attends any more meetings.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: -- and I would think that the only member who has spoken in knowledge of the bill was the member for Prince Edward-Lennox.

Mr. Ruston: Wait till that lightning strikes the minister.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: The only one who had any idea of what the bill was about was my colleague from Prince Edward-Lennox.

An hon. member: That’s cause for alarm right there.

Mr. Breithaupt: He’s going to be the next minister.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: When we have the member for Riverdale stand up and say that he doesn’t understand what the Ontario Land Corp. is and he doesn’t understand what the North Pickering Development Corp. is. I wonder where he’s been. I wonder why he can’t understand what the Ontario Land Corp. is for, what the North Pickering Development Corp. is for and what it will do. It seems to me that the opposition members, not only the NDP but the Liberal Party, are saying one thing in common, and that is, “Nothing has happened. Don’t do anything.” Mr. Speaker, I’m saying to you that we’re going to do something.

Mr. E. R. Good (Waterloo North): It is not what the government is doing, it is what it is not doing.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: We’re going to provide a new community in the North Pickering area and we’re going to provide it through the proper planning process of the Planning Act. When the leader of the NDP says to me that he can’t find in the bill where we will provide this assurance, or we are providing this assurance, I say to him that he hasn’t read the bill. The plan will proceed underneath the full jurisdiction of the Planning Act with full community, municipal and regional participation in the plan of development.

If the people in the area have said at some times they haven’t had full participation, I have to take issue that people in the area --

Mr. Deacon: That is not participation and the minister knows it.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: -- have had the opportunity to participate in public meetings time and time again.

Mr. Deacon: Oh, that isn’t participation.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: I personally have met with tenants’ and owners’ groups, as I think I mentioned in this House not long ago, when at that time they said to me, “Why don’t you do something? Why don’t you get the property developed?” I agreed to provide them with a planner to help them have input into this plan, which will come about in due course if we get some mechanism to deal with it. We have not yet the mechanism and I want to say right now, I want to put it on the record very clearly, I’m not going to have this particular legislation held up by going to the standing committee. We’ll debate it in this House as long as the members wish --

Mr. Breithaupt: That will hold it up.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: -- but certainly we’re not going to go into standing committee.

Mr. Good: The minister doesn’t want any public input.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: The people of the North Pickering area and the people of Ontario are firmly convinced that this government will provide a community which will be a very viable community in the years to come.

Mr. Bullbrook: We are not going to interfere with the democratic process.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: We will have a community which will have been built in cooperation with this government and with the private sector, and in full consideration of the views of those who live in the area and those who may be coming into the area. I find it very difficult to understand why the NDP take issue with what I and my colleague from Prince Edward-Lennox have said in regard to developing this property. They have said in this House, that we should landbank and provide housing and related facilities at a lower cost than would be provided otherwise. This is exactly what we are doing here.

Mr. MacDonald: The minister’s colleague here is urging him to turn it over to private developers to make a good profit.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: We have owners in the North Pickering area who are very delighted to have had the government come in and provide them with what we feel is a very fair offer for their properties. Mr. Speaker, the member for Kitchener, the member for Riverdale, and the leader of the NDP are talking about spinoffs. As far as I’m concerned it is not a spinoff. It is a corporation setup, which will be directly responsible to the government. It will be a corporation to deal expeditiously with the development of a plan --

Mrs. Campbell: And to the House.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: -- which I believe is the only way we can proceed. Rather than proceed with the Minister of Housing being directly responsible, we must have a corporation. A board of the corporation will be in very close touch with the people in the area -- certainly with all those who are directly concerned about this development. Regardless of what the opposition members say, this will be a planned development. It will not be a development which will take place immediately -- in the next two years. It could be a development which will go gradually in the planning process. I expect a community of somewhere between 75,000 to 90,000 --

Mrs. Campbell: How does the minister know that?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: -- which will be enlarged at a later date after we have had the opportunity to assess where the development should occur in the future. Again I say, Mr. Speaker, the member who has spoken continually in this House about North Pickering, the member for York Centre, knows that the hamlets are going to be preserved. He knows this.

Mr. Deacon: The minister has killed them now. He has split them in half.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: He knows we are going to develop a well-planned community. He knows this in his own heart, but he doesn’t want to admit that the government is taking appropriate action at this time. That is the essence of his argument really. He is saying that we shouldn’t proceed. Why shouldn’t we proceed? He has been telling us we have delayed too long. He can’t have it both ways; he has to be one or the other.

Mr. Deacon: The minister has killed them already, he has split Cedar Grove.

Mrs. Campbell: The minister’s premises are wrong.

Mr. E. M. Havrot (Timiskaming): The member for York Centre would like to have his cake and eat it too.

Mr. Deacon: We would just like to have our cake. We had it. The minister has taken it away from us.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Speaker, all I want to assure the member for St. George, or any other member, is that this minister is not ducking out of any responsibility. This minister is acting in the right manner for the development of a new community. Now if we need another corporation in Haldimand- Norfolk we may do so.

Mr. Breithaupt: Why not?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: I don’t see where we will need one in Edwardsburg or Prescott. I don’t see that I’ll be going down to develop one right away, in case the member is interested.

But in any event, Mr. Speaker, the members of this House should realize the importance of this legislation. We have the responsibility to proceed as quickly as possible. We have the responsibility to proceed with the municipalities and the people deeply involved in this very important plan. We can have a very viable community if we all want it. But if the opposition members wish to vote against this bill, I would be delighted to see them on the record as being against progress in this particular area of Ontario.

Thank you.

Mr. Speaker: The motion is for second Yakabuski reading of Bill 181.

The House divided on the motion, which was approved on the following vote:

Ayes

Nays

Allan Brunelle Carruthers Dymond Eaton Evans Gilbertson Havrot Hodgson (Victoria-Haliburton) Hodgson (York Centre) Irvine Jessiman Kennedy Kerr Lane MacBeth Maeck McIlveen McKeough McNeil Meen Miller Morningstar Newman (Ontario South) Nixon (Dovercourt) Nuttall Parrott Potter Rhodes Rollins Root Scrivener Smith (Simcoe East) Snow Stewart Taylor (Prince Edward-Lennox) Timbrell Villeneuve Walker Wardle Welch White Winkler Wiseman Yakabuski Yaremko--47.

Bounsall Braithwaite Breithaupt Bullbrook Burr Campbell Davison Deacon Dukszta Edighoffer Ferrier Foulds Gaunt Germs Givens Good Haggerty Laughren Lawlor Lewis MacDonald Martel Newman (Windsor-Walkerville) Paterson Reid Riddell Ruston Samis Singer Smith (Nipissing) Taylor (Carleton-East) Young--34.

Clerk of the House: Mr. Speaker, the “ayes” are 47, the “nays” are 34.

Mr. Speaker: I declare the motion carried.

Motion agreed to; second reading of the bill.

Mr. Speaker: Shall this bill be ordered for third reading?

Interjections by hon. Members.

Mr. Speaker: Do I understand it is to go to committee of the whole House?

Agreed.

Clerk of the House: The second order, House in committee of the whole.

NORTH PICKERING DEVELOPMENT CORP. ACT

House in committee on Bill 181, An Act to establish the North Pickering Development Corp.

Mr. Chairman: Are there any questions, comments or amendments? If so, to what section?

Mr. D. M. Deacon (York Centre): Section 4.

Sections 1 to 3, inclusive, agreed to.

On section 4:

Mr. Deacon: Mr. Chairman, I am concerned about the representation on the board of directors, that there will be at least more than token representation; if the minister is planning on having any representation at all, I hope that it will be at least more than token representation. I’m not sure of the wording that should be in clause 4, but I suggest that in clause 4 (1) the following words be added after “minister” in the fourth line: “Of whom not less than two and not more than four shall be chosen from among the residents of the area.”

Mr. S. Lewis (Scarborough West): If there are four left.

Mr. Deacon: The reason for this is that I think it’s important that the residents have some opportunity to provide input at an important point in the planning process. I don’t think it’s sufficient for this to come in well after the plan is prepared by the board and presented to the council. It’s a slightly different type of project than a normal developer project would be, because in that case it’s a private individual bringing forward a plan which will be considered by the council and eventually ratified by the minister. In this case, in effect, the plan has been ratified by the province, by the minister, before it comes before the local council. I think it is therefore important that --

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. Deacon: -- at an early stage the minister involve representatives of the community in the planning process. They will see it before it gets out before the council. The input and the observations and comments of the local people will then be more adequately presented. I would hope that the minister would consider putting in this clause indicating to us how he will cover this necessity.

Mr. Chairman: The hon. minister.

Hon. D. R. Irvine (Minister of Housing): The amendment put forward by the hon. members is one I would need further clarification on. I would like to read what I understood you to say: “Not less than two and not more than four shall be chosen in the area.” Is that right?

Mr. Deacon: Should be represented.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Chosen in the area?

Mr. Deacon: I have written that down somewhere.

Mr. Chairman: Perhaps the Chair could read the amendment as submitted by the member for York Centre: That clause 4 be amended by the addition of the following words after “minister” in the fourth line, “of whom not less than two and not more than four shall be chosen from among the residents of the area.”

The hon. minister again.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Chairman, I don’t believe I can have a designation such as “among the residents in the area.” I would want to leave our options open as to making sure that we do have a very highly qualified board of directors on this North Pickering Development Corp.

Mr. Deacon: We certainly agree with you on that.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: It could be that there may be one or two or more -- I don’t know at this particular time where they’ll come from. I have no idea whatsoever as to who will be on the board of directors. But I do believe that at this time I am not prepared to accept the amendment on the basis that I think it is imperative that we keep the options open as to who should be on the board, who is the most qualified.

If we have a very highly qualified person from your area, then certainly that person should be considered, and on the board. it if we find that we have more highly qualified people who could act on the board -- for instance, from the region of York or from the region of Durham or from the region of Metropolitan Toronto or from any other area municipality -- the definition of “any area” bothers me on the basis that I think it is confining it too much. I want to make sure that we do have different types of professions represented on this particular board along with those who are knowledgeable of the area.

Mr. Deacon: Mr. Chairman, I would ask the minister to clarify who he considers to be “qualified.” We have a board of directors consisting of not fewer than five people. From among those residents I am sure that the minister would find five people who are quite aware of the important characteristics of any developing community. I think they could be people from whom the minister would get a much more honest input, and an important input from the point of view of the other members of the board. Because they are residents, they would reflect what the local people were feeling. They would also be able to report back to local residents what the input is. I am sure that the minister isn’t wanting to have a sham board, one that just does what he wants. He wants to have a board that is a responsive one.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: A responsible working board.

Mr. Deacon: I am not asking here for the majority of the members to be from the local area. I recognize the minister’s concern in that regard. But I would also hope that the minister would realize that the most qualified people, really, are those who are closest to the action; the people who are going to be affected by what happens. It could be that a John Livingston, or someone like him, -- might not be the easiest person for the minister to get along with in all circumstances, but John Livingston -- and I can’t think of all the other names but I can think of Austin Reesor, for example, in my riding -- people who really have a feeling for a community, people whose records show that personal, selfish motives are just never in their thoughts in whatever they do -- they are really recognized as community leaders and out for the community in every action that they carry out. These people would be a very important element in a good development proposal.

I was interested this afternoon in a comment one of the residents made to me that she really would love to see that the minister intends to make this work. One way to show them that the minister intends to make this work is to provide for that local participation on the board. I am sure that it will help a lot to overcome the problems of past mistakes that this minister has had to live with.

As I said at the beginning of my remarks, I feel sorry for this minister taking over something that I thought had been a mess from the beginning. I know he has been making a conscientious effort to correct the situation, but I would like to hear this minister make a commitment to that type of participation, recognizing that that is quality representation when you have local people of that type appointed to the board.

Mr. Lewis: Mr. Chairman, I would like very briefly to support that view. Not only is it quality in the sense of community representation, but there is immense quality in terms of the expertise you talk about in that group. I mean, that group has forced the federal government into two major inquiries on the airport. They have done more statistical and analytical documentation than 10 years of civil servants combined. They have made unknown trouble for you people for God knows how long now -- over three years -- around the North Pickering community. I mean they know more; they are better informed; they understand the intricacies; they have absorbed the figures. You have got all the expertise in the world in those citizens’ groups and the community people, and you have also got basic roots in the community.

I am not one who believes in co-option. I don’t like that very much, but it might be an interesting effort to make this corporation work if you were to commit yourself to the amendment as put.

I would also like to suggest when we get to it that we should strike out subsection 5. I really object to the proposition that an MPP might sit on this board and be further remunerated. It is unjust. How many little sinecures can you people have? Look at Jim Jessiman’s mouth. Already I see saliva forming at the edges of his mouth as he lusts for the post -- from here I can see it and the man is 50 ft away!

You have to stop this. You have to stop --

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Lewis: -- establishing all of these little patronage sinecures for backbench Tories and I really object to the proposition --

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. W. Ferrier (Cochrane South): You have already got yours, Charlie.

Mr. Lewis: I object to the proposition that MPPs should sit on this board. It is simply wrong.

Mr. J. R. Breithaupt (Kitchener): There are none left.

Mr. Lewis: -- and that they should be remunerated for it. You know what it is, Mr. Chairman; 71 out of the 74 Tories in this House have an extra emolument or job. There are three hangers-on -- and they are hanging -- and when this happens, then there will be two. You know that one about 10 little birdies sitting on a limb. I really think that it’s time that it stopped.

Interjections by hon. members.

An hon. member: Would you give me a ride in your limousine?

Mr. Lewis: I certainly wouldn’t.

Support the amendment put by the member for York Centre and strike out -- my colleague from Riverdale (Mr. Renwick) or Lakeshore (Mr. Lawlor) I hope will do this -- strike out subsection 5. We can’t be throwing MPPs on to every board, collecting more public money on per diems, when they shouldn’t be on there in the first place. They have the Legislature to debate. They are not supposed to be on a board of this kind. That’s ridiculous.

Mr. M. C. Germa (Sudbury): It certainly is.

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