Legislative Assembly of Ontario

The House met at 2 o’clock, p.m.

Prayers.

Hon. L. Bernier (Minister of Natural Resources): Mr. Speaker, I know members of the Legislature will want to join me in welcoming 35 grade 8 students sitting in the west gallery from the Central Public School of Sioux Lookout, Ont. I would point out that these students are led by their principal, Mr. Murray McFayden, and assisted by teachers Douglas Allen and Barbara Roy. I would further point out that they are assisted in coming to Toronto through the government’s Young Travellers programme to the tune of over $5,000, and these particular students have raised an additional $5,000 to stay in the Toronto area for over six days.

Hon. M. Birch (Provincial Secretary for Social Development): Mr. Speaker, I would like to. take this opportunity to welcome 22 students from St. Ursula’s Separate School with their teacher, Mrs. Fitzpatrick; and I would ask the members to join with me in welcoming them to the Legislature.

Mr. G. W. Walker (London North): Mr. Speaker, in the east gallery are grade 8 students from Hillcrest Public School in London. They are under the instructorship of Mr. McKellar and Mr. Rawlins; and I would ask the Legislature to join in welcoming these 68 people.

Mr. Speaker: Statements by the ministry. The hon. Treasurer.

ASSISTANCE TO LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Hon. W. D. McKeough (Treasurer and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): Mr. Speaker, since 1969 the Ontario government has made a determined effort to alleviate the relative burden of property taxes. This was done in spite of severe pressures on the province’s own financial position.

However, tax reform, and notably relief of property tax burdens, had become one of the province’s high priority objectives. The approach to moderating property tax burdens has been to introduce a number of complementary measures.

First, the property tax credits: These were designed to provide relief from existing property taxes to low-income people. These credits were significantly enriched over the past few years to protect those most vulnerable to inflation. In 1975, the value of these credits alone should reach about $275 million.

Pensioner credits: An additional tax credit was made available to needy pensioners. This assistance has proved invaluable to these pensioners and is presently at a level of about $50 million.

Grants to school boards: The province’s overall support was gradually raised from 48 per cent in 1969 to 60 per cent in 1973 and is currently estimated at $1.5 billion. This move represented a significant shift away from the property tax.

School board spending ceilings: In addition to higher support rates, the property taxpayer is further protected by successful spending constraints imposed by the province.

In a number of critical and high cost areas, the province introduced considerably more attractive cost-sharing arrangements. This was the case for such functions as water and sewerage, transit, social assistance, libraries and housing.

The most significant reforms of transfers to local government were made in unconditional grants. The 1973 property tax stabilization plan involved a very large enrichment. It contained a comprehensive package of different unconditional grants to deal with a great variety of circumstances. It dealt with the problem of unequally distributed local tax bases; it dealt with a general local financing problem; it further recognized the differential fiscal need of communities that pay for their own policing; and it made allowance for special cost problems associated with non-permanent population.

The Ontario government also recognized the special circumstances under which the people in northern Ontario live. They face high heating costs, they face high costs for most commodities because of long-distance transportation costs; and their local governments face similar cost disadvantages. The unconditional grants package, therefore, contains a special support grant to northern Ontario municipalities to ensure generally lower property tax burdens in the north than in the south. In this way, northern Ontario households enjoy an offset-cost advantage over the south. This year, the special support grant to the north is being enriched considerably.

Mr. F. Laughren (Nickel Belt): Oh cut it out.

Mr. T. P. Reid (Rainy River): And we don’t get the services either.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: The above comprehensive Ontario approach to relief of property tax burdens prevented the large increases in property taxes that would otherwise have been inevitable.

The past two years witnessed the effects of inflation on local government spending which far outstripped the revenue growth of its relatively inelastic tax base. At present the local tax base, of course, fails to reflect the very real growth that has occurred in property values during the past few years.

Mr. E. W. Martel (Sudbury East): That’s not the case in Sudbury. It’s the minister’s decision.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Nevertheless, the measures taken by the Ontario government made it possible for the provincial average mill rate in 1974 to remain below the average mill rate of two years previously. In addition, property tax credits provided yet further relief from these already lower mill rates. During the same period, personal incomes in Ontario experienced a large increase and so did a person’s ability to pay. lit is fair to conclude, therefore, that the Ontario government reform has resulted in a dramatic reduction in the relative burden of property taxes.

In respect to the 1975-1976 fiscal year, the province has reviewed its total transfers within the context of the revenue-sharing commitment. The total estimated basic transfers in 1974-1975 amounted to $3,325 million, some $37 million higher than originally anticipated. However, provincial revenue growth turned out considerably in excess of the 11.7 per cent predicted last year. In other words, transfers to local governments would have reached as high as $2,392 million, if provincial revenue growth at 18.9 per cent had been taken into account.

The Ontario government, as I indicated last night, will fully honour its revenue-sharing commitment, including the shortfall during 1974-1975. As a result of considerable tax cuts, notably in the retail sales tax, the province’s revenue growth rate in 1975-1976 will be 10.3 per cent. Adding this growth rate to the full commitment for last year allows the province to increase total transfers in 1975-1976 by $380 million. This amounts to an increase of 16.3 per cent over last year’s total transfers.

Most of the dollar increase is accounted for by conditional grants, such as school grants, transportation, transit and social assistance. More modest residual increases to unconditional grants allow the province to deliver in 1975 some $60 million or 23.5 per cent more in unconditional grants than during 1974. In addition, special payments to restructured governments will rise by $5 million.

In designing the 1975 unconditional grants package, the government has emphasized greater simplicity for general support grants, the special cost problems for northern Ontario residents, the special position of the district of Parry Sound, as well as the unique and severe cost increases for municipalities with their own police forces.

In simplifying the general support grant by introducing a flat rate and removing the spending growth schedule, the government does not imply less urgency in restraint. The latter remains of the utmost importance.

The new general support grant I am introducing will provide greater certainty. It will be responsive to local tax effort and fiscal need and it will avoid many administrative complications. Northern Ontario residents will benefit from a 42 per cent increase in the northern Ontario special support grant. This will go a long way in further alleviating the differential living costs faced by those living in the north. A 69 per cent increase in unconditional grants toward policing will take much, of the sting out of the rapidly rising costs which are confronting municipalities with their own police forces.

I am also pleased to announce another important reform. As hon. members know, we have already introduced a fixed split mill rate differential of 15 per cent in all regional governments. This means that residential and farm taxpayers have a 15 per cent lower mill rate than commercial and industrial taxpayers. Outside present regional governments, however, the split in mill rates still varies a great deal. This year the government will standardize the fixed split mill rate at 15 per cent throughout the province. This measure will greater simplify the apportionment process and make for significant administrative advantages, notably for local treasurers. It will also enhance overall equity as the split in mill rates will no longer relate to the particular assessment mix in each municipality. I have decided that in 1975 only we will cushion the impact of this change on residential taxpayers to avoid increases in taxes in excess of five per cent on account of this change.

In reviewing the period 1969 to 1975, Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to highlight to you that the province’s total revenue has grown on an average by 12.6 per cent, while financial assistance to local governments has risen by 16.5 per cent per year. As a result, such financial transfers have increased from 24.5 per cent of provincial revenue in 1969 to over 30 per cent in 1975. This rise in the local share of provincial revenue in itself is worth over $500 million in 1975 alone.

The document I am tabling today contains all the details on the 1975 unconditional grants package. It also provides tentative estimates for the entitlements to those grants for each municipality. In section 2 of the document we display for all municipalities the 1974 property taxes per household and the change in mill rates during the past four years. In section 3 we show, on a more selective basis, the 1970 and 1973 values for offsets against property taxes in the form of tax credits and rebates.

I am pleased to make this document available to all members of the Legislature, to all our local governments and anybody else who may be interested in the province’s progress in tax reform and assistance to local governments.

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

OTTAWA TEACHERS’ DISPUTE

Mr. R. F. Nixon (Leader of the Opposition): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In the absence of the Minister of Education (Mr. Wells) and the Premier (Mr. Davis), I wonder if the Provincial Secretary for Social Development can inform the House as to the progress being made in the continuing strike in Ottawa? Since his return from his holiday, has the Minister of Education had an opportunity to consult with his mediator, and what is the status of the negotiation at the present time?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Mr. Speaker, I’m very happy to inform the Leader of the Opposition that the Minister of Education is meeting at this very moment with the Ottawa Board of Education and the teachers.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Ottawa East.

Mr. A. J. Roy (Ottawa East): Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary. Would the provincial secretary advise how long the situation in Ottawa is going to be tolerated, and what is the deadline for taking action here? Secondly, why has the minister waited so long to intercede personally in this dispute?

An hon. member: She is not interceding personally.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Mr. Speaker, I’m not in a position to answer those questions.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Carleton East.

Mr. S. Lewis (Scarborough West): I have a supplementary.

Mr. Speaker: I’ll get to the member for Scarborough West next.

Mr. P. Taylor (Carleton East): Thank you. A supplementary of the Minister of Colleges and Universities (Mr. Auld): Can the minister give this House and the thousands of grade 13 students affected by this --

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. J. R. Rhodes (Minister of Transportation and Communications): Sit down. That doesn’t apply under the rules.

Mr. Speaker: To whom is the member for Carleton East’s question directed?

Mr. P. Taylor: It’s a supplementary on this issue, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Scarborough West has a supplementary to the first question.

Mr. Lewis: I’m sorry. I think the burden of the question, although the member for Carleton East didn’t complete it, is roughly the same. Is it true that the universities in the Ottawa area have given an ultimatum to the parties that the settlement must be reached by April 15 or those grade 13 students who seek entry to university will be denied such entry? If that is so, has any member of the social development group, particularly the Minister of Colleges and Universities, been in contact with the universities about the situation?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Mr. Speaker, I’m not aware of that ultimatum, but I think the question could be more properly directed to the Minister of Colleges and Universities.

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

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Mr. Speaker, since my colleague originally wanted to direct the question to the Minister of Colleges and Universities perhaps that minister could respond to it. Was he following this discussion at all?

Mr. P. Taylor: No, he was talking.

Mr. Roy: He doesn’t know what’s going on.

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

Mr. Lewis: Which bit?

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Well it’s the important matter dealing with the educational future of the grade 13 students in the Ottawa area, since the universities have indicated that unless they return to their classrooms by April 15 the universities cannot consider their applications, in the usual course of events, to continue their education. Is the minister aware of this problem and is he going to assist the students concerned in any way?

Hon. Mr. Auld: Mr. Speaker, I heard an hour or so ago that it was reported that somebody had said that the universities were taking this position. I have not yet been able to find out whether, in fact, that is true or not. I would remind the hon. members, though, that university admission standards are up to the universities. There was a somewhat similar situation a year ago as far as students from York were concerned and that seemed to be resolved satisfactorily. However, I will undertake to find out exactly what has been stated to be the position, if, in fact, the universities in the Ottawa-Carleton area have said this, or if any other universities have said this.

Mr. P. Taylor: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Lewis: A supplementary.

Mr. Speaker: One moment, the member for Carleton East.

Mr. P. Taylor: Is the Minister of Colleges and Universities aware of a document that apparently emanates from the Council of Ontario Universities dealing with this subject at great length, and that the universities acknowledged that because of the disruption of services some secondary schools and students in the province will be unable to meet the established schedule in this connection? Is he aware of that document and the important statements made in that document with respect to this problem; and can he give any commitment to the thousands of grade 13 students in the Ottawa area that they will not encounter difficulties in getting admitted to Ontario universities and colleges?

Hon. Mr. Auld: I’m not aware of that document. If the hon. member could send me a copy I would be pleased to read it. Is that a document of the committee of the Council of Ontario Universities or a document of the council itself?

Mr. P. Taylor: It’s my understanding that it’s from the Council of Ontario Universities.

Hon. Mr. Auld: I would appreciate it if the hon. member would send me a copy of it, because I haven’t seen one as of the mail that came in this morning.

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

Mr. J. F. Foulds (Port Arthur): Supplementary: Is the minister not aware that the usual practice for admission to university is for universities to take grade 12 results and the first term of grade 13 results? Why is there this apparent intervention by the Ottawa universities in this case when that’s the usual procedure?

Hon. Mr. Auld: Mr. Speaker, that’s the whole point. It is sort of a hypothetical question that has been asked as far as I’m concerned, and I’d like to find out the facts before I try to give an answer now.

Mr. Lewis: Supplementary: Hypothetical or not, I take it simply -- I’m sorry go ahead; does the member want to get in on it?

Mr. M. Cassidy (Ottawa Centre): Yes, I just wanted to broaden the question, Mr. Speaker, and simply say that since the Ottawa universities have also indicated that they are reserving places for Ottawa students in the restricted programmes -- the programmes with a restricted entry -- will the minister ensure that similar arrangements are made to accommodate students from Ottawa who may be trying to get into universities in the rest of the province?

Hon. Mr. Auld: Mr. Speaker, I simply repeat: I am going to find out what’s going on, and then I’ll have a statement.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Scarborough West.

Mr. Lewis: I take it, by way of a final supplementary Mr. Speaker, that it is the minister’s position that he would not tolerate exclusion by universities on the grounds which are implied -- whether or not he can pin it down. As minister he surely wouldn’t tolerate it; he would tell the universities there are other ways on which to judge for purposes of entry? Yes or no?

Hon. Mr. Auld: I thought the member was stating my position.

Mr. Roy: He doesn’t know it.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: He is only the Minister of Colleges and Universities.

Mr. Lewis: I would like to do that for him.

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

Mr. Roy: Supplementary.

Mr. Speaker: No, that was the final supplementary.

Mr. Roy: We have asked for supplementaries here.

Mr. Speaker: There have been enough questions on this now.

An hon. member: We have only had one supplementary.

An hon. member: It is an important issue to the opposition.

Mr. Roy: Supplementary, one final supplementary.

Mr. Speaker: One final final supplementary.

Mr. Roy: Could I ask the same minister, Mr. Speaker, if he would not limit his investigation of this to the Ottawa universities, but look specifically at Queen’s University? It apparently has sent out a memorandum to the school boards in Ottawa indicating the problem and indicating apparently that there will be no special approach taken to the Ottawa student because of this strike?

Hon. Mr. Auld: Mr. Speaker, I think I mentioned that I would find out whether it is simply Ottawa and Carleton or the other universities.

Mr. Roy: Look at Queen’s.

Hon. Mr. Auld: One of the member’s colleagues has mentioned some document from the Council of Ontario Universities, which I would dearly love to see because I am not aware of it. I’ll find out what’s going on.

Mr. P. Taylor: It is coming right over.

Hon. Mr. Auld: But I’m not sure, from the questions being asked here, that the other members of the House have any more knowledge than I have on what the facts are.

Mr. Speaker: Has the Leader of the Opposition further questions?

ONTARIO NET CASH REQUIREMENTS

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I’d like to ask the Treasurer, Mr. Speaker, in view of the net cash requirements of about $1.7 billion that he told us about last night in the budget, what is his plan to borrow the $575 million on which is indicated in one of his budget papers the financing is to be determined? Is that by any chance going to be a follow-up on his predecessor’s trip to Yemen or Kuwait, or one of those places? Is he negotiating with that kind of offshore money; or is he going to go through the usual avenues in the money markets of New York?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Mr. Speaker, I expect that we will, as the budget indicates, be using a judicious programme of using our reserves. We are certainly exploring a number of borrowing mechanisms, perhaps offshore funds. The Canadian capital market is particularly attractive, of course, and it’s particularly strong, as is the American market.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: What are these reserves that we may have access to? Surely if the Treasurer is getting $750 million from the Canada Pension Plan, $200 million from the teachers and $130 million from OMERS, he doesn’t have, really, many reserves other than go on the market and borrow the money for this massive deficit.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: The province carries cash balances at all times.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Is it possible that those reserves might even approach covering the $575 million which is yet to be arranged as well as $1 5 billion that we must substantiate and support and guarantee for Ontario Hydro?

Hon Mr. McKeough: The reserves would be considerably more than the $545 million which is mentioned in the budget. But of course it would be imprudent to run them down completely.

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

Mr. Lewis: By way of supplementary: When was the last time the government of Ontario went to the market to borrow for the purposes of the government, independent of Ontario Hydro?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Offhand, I would think three years ago.

Mr. Lewis: Three years ago? For what purpose at the time, does the Treasurer recall?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: The government of Ontario, over the last 10 years -- without giving chapter and verse -- has been in the market and out of the market. We opened up the German market with the thought that it would ultimately be used by Hydro, as it was.

Mr. Lewis: Other than Hydro, are there any others outstanding?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: No, we borrowed it ourselves on our own account. We also went into the Canadian market about four years ago. We, of course, ran up I think something in excess of $300 million of treasury bills.

Mr. Lewis: No, what about long-term borrowing?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: We were in the Canadian market two or three years ago. The fact is that Ontario has in the last two years reduced its publicly-held debt by one-third.

Mr. Lewis: No. The Treasurer is begging the question. The question is when did he borrow -- long-term borrowing, let me be specific -- on the Canadian market for the purposes of the Province of Ontario, independent of Hydro?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Three years ago.

Mr. Lewis: Three years ago.

Mr. Speaker: A supplementary, the member for Rainy River.

Mr. Reid: Does the Treasurer consider that we will probably have supplementary estimates of the same amount as last year and how is he going to finance those?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Mr. Speaker, if they are necessary they may well be financed in the same way as this year’s excess spending was, by an increase in revenues. If the member would refer to the budget, he will find the very fine performance of the 1974-1975 fiscal year under the guidance and tutelage of my predecessor.

Mr. Lewis: Who isn’t here.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Who seems to have left the House momentarily.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Don’t forget the member for Haldimand-Norfolk (Mr. Allan).

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Yes, and the member for Haldimand-Norfolk, who is in the great tradition of Ontario Treasurers as well. There is no question about that.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Mr. Speaker, I would draw the attention of the member for Rainy River to page C6 of the Ontario budget which showed that budgetary expenditures increased during the course of the year by some $484 million -- which is something in the neighbour of inflation last year I think that is a very good record indeed. Budgetary revenue increased by about the same amount and the budgetary deficit -- the interim budgetary deficit -- was actually $34 million less than that predicted by my predecessor one year ago.

Mr. Reid: How much was the government short on that?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: How much were we -- we paid off last year some $200 million or $300 million in publicly-held debts.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Cassidy: The Treasurer is getting as bad as the Minister without Portfolio (Mr. White).

Hon. Mr. McKeough: I would draw -- while I am on my feet, Mr. Speaker --

Mr. R. F. Nixon: He is just like the Social Credit --

Hon. Mr. McKeough: If the member would stop talking and just sit down for an hour and read this budget it would be of great edification to him.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Buying votes.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: And he might have some hope of understanding the finances of this province.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Mr. Speaker, I might also point out --

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Well, it’s great to hear the socialists are worried about provincial debt. We’ve now come full circle.

Mr. Good: Our children’s children will be worried about it.

Mr. R. F. Ruston (Essex-Kent): Our children will never pay off the Tories’ debt.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: I would point out, Mr. Speaker, that if members look at table C8 --

Interjection by an hon. member.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: -- they will find that the investments by this province estimated for 1975-1976 in such things as roads, public buildings, hospitals and universities, things which have a life expectancy of considerably more than one year --

Mr. R. F. Nixon: The John Robarts Library?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Yes, I suppose.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Is that collateral for a loan?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: I suppose -- why doesn’t the member sit down?

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Why doesn’t he just sit down and go and read the budget? He doesn’t understand it.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I know the government has $50 million invested there and in books.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: That investment in capital assets, sir, is nearly $1,700 million which considerably exceeds the amount of the net cash requirements of this province. We are, in fact, putting into bricks and mortar and highways and things that make this province grow and be alive, $1,700 million. We will go on doing that.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Why doesn’t he say some more while he is on his feet?

Mr. Lewis: What grows with bricks and mortar?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: I would say this to my friend from Brant, that if he ever has any hope of leading his party, let alone leading this province, he had better get away from his horse and buggy mentality and come into the 20th century fast.

lnterjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order. We would like to hear the question of the Leader of the Opposition.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I have a further question of the Treasurer on this matter.

Mr. Lewis: The Treasurer shook the rats out of the rafters with that one.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: The rats at the back row there are leaving the ship. Doesn’t the Treasurer feel that his rocketship mentality, which in fact has added $4 billion net debt to the province in the four years since the present Premier took office, is going to be anything but in the best interest of the taxpayers and the people of this province? How can we possibly stand the kind of fiscal irresponsibility that this Treasurer is putting forward in a situation that is as inflationary as it ever was?

Mr. Roy: Let him shout his way out of this.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: It is thoroughly irresponsible.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: I would simply say this, that the finances of this province are in good hands.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: He is selling the farm.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: The financial statements of this province reflect the integrity --

Mr. J. R. Breithaupt (Kitchener): They certainly do!

Mr. Reid: We are almost bankrupt.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: -- and they reflect the sound financial management of some 30 years of Progressive Conservative rule in this province; and it’s taken us that long to get rid of the vestiges of the Hepburn administration.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. V. M. Singer (Downsview): Not very good.

Mr. Speaker: It seems to me that the question period has strayed away from questions and answers. Does the hon. Leader of the Opposition have further different questions?

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Mr. Speaker, it’s not the 32 years we are worried about, it’s the last four years that have gone down the drain. I thought with your permission, Mr. Speaker, I could direct this question --

Mr. Lewis: It is not the last four years, it is the last 24 hours since the Treasurer started to float his budget.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Haven’t we seen that suit on the cover of the Sun?

An hon. member: Is this any way to run a hardware store?

HOME BUYER GRANT

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Perhaps we should ask the Treasurer this, but maybe it should be directed to the Minister of Housing. With the home buyer grant of $1,500 announced yesterday, has he a procedure, through his ministry, or the Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations or through the Treasury, to monitor the costs of housing so that the price of housing does not take a quantum jump of $1,500 per unit overnight?

Mr. D. C. MacDonald (York South): Does the member mean a price review board or something like that?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Well, the leader of the New Democrats sure hopes so.

Hon. D. R. Irvine (Minister of Housing): Mr. Speaker, it’s impossible to have a mechanism to determine whether housing will jump as the member has indicated. We expect the opposite; we expect to have a drop in housing costs and we expect to have consumer confidence restored.

Mr. Roy: Would the minister put that in writing?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: We will have buyers in the market who will take care of new and used vacant housing at the present time. It will assist us in the economy of Ontario and the economy of Canada. We expect to find that the related industries, which are very much affected, by the lack of housing starts will now be in the very prosperity that we have expected for the last few months in Ontario.

Mr. Martel: The minister is not for real.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Speaker, I want to say to the Leader of the Opposition that it would be helpful if he and his party were to get behind this very strong initiative in housing for Ontario --

Mr. Breithaupt: Certainly we won’t get in front of it.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: -- and make sure that everyone understands that these home buyer grants will be very much needed in the next few months in order that we do have housing for all of Ontario.

Mr. Speaker: Any further questions?

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker. Since the minister is so sanguine about the possibility of the prices going down, is he going to undertake, as a part of his responsibility, if not a monitoring operation at least some spot checks, so that we will find out in the next day or two if, in fact, the prices have gone down as a result of this initiative or, what is obviously going to happen, they are going to go up by a minimum of $1,500? Why doesn’t he find out?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Speaker, we have a very progressive government, but I think it’s very difficult, in the next day or two, to determine whether or not the cost of housing through Ontario will drop or go up as the Leader of the Opposition has indicated.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: The minister could monitor this.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: I expect we will be monitoring prices throughout Ontario continually and we’ll find, as I have said, that housing will drop in cost because of the housing starts which will come on the market. It will be a buyer’s market, not a seller’s market.

Mr. P. D. Lawlor (Lakeshore): He is a dreamer.

Mr. Speaker: Supplementary, the member for High Park.

Mr. M. Shulman (High Park): Is the minister aware that as a result of the home buyer grants, word has already gone down fraternity road -- some three blocks from here -- that any group of students who want to can have a free fraternity house by merely transferring the ownership from one to another?

Mr. Speaker: It seems to me that’s not very supplementary to the original question.

The member for Ottawa-Centre.

Mr. Cassidy: Can the minister explain, Mr. Speaker, why the government’s concern with first-time home buyers only emerged this year and why it will evaporate two or three months after the anticipated date of the forthcoming election?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Speaker, we haven’t indicated that it will evaporate as the member has suggested.

Mr. Breithaupt: When will it evaporate?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: What we are saying is that the programme will be in effect for a three-year period.

An hon. member: Three years.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: There is a $1,000 grant for this year; $250 the next year and $250 for the year after. If the member will look at the budget he will find that stated quite clearly.

We do feel that it will assist a lot of people; the same as the federal programme with its $600.

An hon. member: That’s $600,000.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: The federal government’s grant of $500 for home buyers will be supplementary to our grants. We feel the federal government hasn’t gone far enough and we are indicating to the people that we are prepared to make sure that we do have housing available at affordable prices.

Mr. Cassidy: Would the minister not agree --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The original question had to do with any possible plan for monitoring the prices of homes. Some of the questions are getting far off that. Is your supplementary on this?

Mr. I. Deans (Wentworth): Mr. Speaker, I wouldn’t ask a question which wasn’t a supplementary.

Mr. Speaker: I am sure of that. The member for Wentworth may ask a supplementary.

Mr. Deans: I would like to ask the Minister of Housing whether he can tell me how many families will now be able to go into the housing market as a result of this $1,000 that will be made available to them, over and above the numbers that would have been able to go into the existing housing market?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Speaker, obviously that is a matter which can’t be determined at this time.

Mr. Deans: But that is what the minister is doing it for, surely?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: It depends on the acceptance of the consumers and whether or not they wish to participate in this programme. We have made the money available and it is very obvious there are some very high-priced houses coming on the market right now because of these incentives the government is offering.

Mr. Deans: How many more people will be able to get a house as a result of this?

Mr. Speaker: Any further questions? The Leader of the Opposition?

The hon. member for Scarborough West with his questions then.

ONTARIO MORTGAGE CORP.

Mr. Lewis: Yes, I have a question I’d like to ask the Minister of Housing; perhaps he can tell me whether I am right or not.

The amount of money promised to the Ontario Mortgage Corp. last year was $133 million according to the budget.

On Oct. 21, last year, the minister announced an additional $100 million -- $50 million in 1974-1975; $50 million in 1975-1976 -- indicating an expenditure of $233 million for the Mortgage Corp. None of the first $50 million was spent and in the budget yesterday the minister reduced the total expenditure for the Ontario Mortgage Corp. to $208 million. Why has the minister reduced the expenditure in such a crucial area by $25 million in such a few short months?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Speaker, whether or not we have reduced is a matter to be determined at a later date.

Mr. Lewis: It is part of the minister’s commitment.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: What we are indicating to the members of this House is the fact that we feel we now have private investments which will come in and provide mortgage financing -- which they should have done last year and didn’t do -- but we do have the confidence of the investment world whereby it will provide mortgages at reasonable rates.

An hon. member: Interesting.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: This is what we have to have.

Mr. Lewis: Right, but the minister can see the fraudulence of this part of the budget --

Mr. Speaker: Order please.

Mr. Lewis: -- which, in fact --

An hon. member: Come on.

Mr. Speaker: Do you have a question?

Mr. Lewis: Yes, a supplementary.

The minister can see the fraudulence of this part of the budget, which in fact amounts to a significant reduction in the government’s commitment to mortgages from that which has already been announced in this Legislature. Is the rest of the supply package for housing equally fraudulent?

An hon. member: Yes.

Mr. Breithaupt: Say yes.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Speaker, a question like that doesn’t deserve an answer, but because it comes from the leader of the NDP who can’t understand --

Mr. Lewis: Thank you.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: -- what housing is all about --

Mr. Cassidy: He understands. We are worried about the minister.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: -- and who doesn’t understand that we are providing housing --

lnterjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: -- I’ll tell the member and every other member of the House that the mortgages will be provided where necessary. The programmes will be provided when necessary and the programmes will proceed as we have indicated.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: A supplementary: Since the minister knows all about housing, evidently, why is it that his efforts last year were such a disappointment, surely, to himself and the citizens of Ontario, when the housing starts dropped off and when mortgage money was precisely what we needed?

The minister himself said that the companies would not contribute it. What makes him think they are going to get into that business this year? Just because they like him?

Mr. G. A. Kerr (Halton West): The member should consider the reaction of some municipal councils.

Mr. Lewis: It is the weakest part of the budget. It is nonsense in the budget.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition knows full well that there is more than the provincial government, there is more than the federal government, and more than municipal governments involved in housing starts. There is the private sector, which is responsible for the majority of the starts, and has been.

Ontario was the leader in housing starts as far as provincial governments in Canada are concerned. Ontario did better than the United States and overseas and the rest of Canada. Therefore, the government of Ontario led the way as far as housing starts are concerned. The federal government, if the members care to check it out, did very little in regard to providing housing starts throughout Canada and in Ontario.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: The federal government contributed $407 million to CHMC.

Mr. Lewis: Even the budget went down 10,000 starts.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Scarborough West.

Mr. Lewis: Can the minister indicate to the Legislature how the 10,600 units of senior-citizen, socially assisted and rental-subsidy housing breaks down? How many units in each category?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Speaker, we had indicated this before. It was approximately 1,600 family units, 7,000 senior-citizen units -- 1,000 of that being in Metropolitan Toronto -- we had a 2,000 figure community-sponsored, and we also indicated before that community-integrated housing would provide 1,500 starts, which is up a couple of hundred.

Mr. Lewis: What is the minister saying?

Mr. Deans: That was a statement.

Mr. Lewis: Does he mean that that supposedly new commitment in the budget was in fact the statement that he made in this House?

Mr. Deans: About a month ago.

Mr. Lewis: I guess about a month ago. Is that also an exact repeat of what he said before?

Mr. J. E. Stokes (Thunder Bay): It’s a regurgitation.

Mr. Lewis: We are really beginning to isolate the components, aren’t we? It amounts to nothing.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Speaker, it’s unfortunate that the leader of the NDP cannot understand that the housing --

Mr. MacDonald: The minister doesn’t understand it; that is the problem.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: -- projections that I have stated in the House have now been related in the budget.

Mr. Lewis: Oh, I see.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: It is housing for Ontario which we projected a month ago, yes.

Mr. Lewis: Ten thousand six hundred a month ago --

An hon. member: But they never did anything about it.

Mr. Foulds: A recycled announcement.

Mr. Deans: The minister is a disaster, he really is.

Mr. Speaker: Any further questions?

FUEL TAX CHANGES

Mr. Lewis: May I ask the Treasurer, how did the $19 million that he is returning by the changes in the fuel tax portion of the budget break down? He will recall that he said it would be of special benefit to northern Ontario. How much for institutions? How much for the resource sector? How much for other areas?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: I haven’t got that information here, Mr. Speaker, but I will be glad to get it for the member.

Mr. Lewis: Thank you very much.

ONTARIO UNEMPLOYMENT RATE

Mr. Lewis: What is the exact unemployment rate for Ontario on the basis of the new figures this morning?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Seasonally adjusted today, six per cent.

Mr. Lewis: Is that all?

Mr. Reid: Does the Treasurer have a prediction of what it is going to go to? Mr. Speaker, supplementary.

Mr. MacDonald: Isn’t it interesting unemployment wasn’t in the budget statement? There was no mention made of it.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: The member for York South is muttering --

Mr. J. A. Renwick (Riverdale): It wasn’t in his public statement.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: It certainly is. It certainly is in the budget statement.

Mr. Lewis: Not once in the public statement.

Mr. Renwick: Not once in the public statement.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: It certainly is -- what we refer to and what we expect is going to happen with unemployment this year. It’s nice to hear those people over there worried about unemployment. I have been sitting here for two months and it is the first time they have asked that question. They are so worried about deficit financing they have forgotten about getting people back to work. That’s their problem over there.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Scarborough West.

Mr. Martel: The Treasurer lectures almost as much as the Premier.

Mr. Lewis: You know, Mr. Speaker, the Treasurer’s problem is that he forgets that the member for Peel North is still Premier through one more election. The Treasurer is just too anxious.

SALES TAX EXEMPTIONS

Mr. Lewis: Can I ask the Treasurer precisely how many new jobs will the retail sales tax exemption on production machinery and equipment -- that exemption, concession, credit -- provide?

Mr. R. F. Nixon: It was 1971 when they predicted the exact figure --

Hon. Mr. McKeough: We don’t have a number on that.

Mr. Lewis: He never has. All he knows is that it is $100 million for the corporations tax. How many jobs will it cost?

Mr. Speaker: Order please; order.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: While I am on my feet, Mr. Speaker, I might point out that I think I said last night that it came from the United Auto Workers. That is wrong, and I apologize to the House. It didn’t come from the United Auto Workers. The suggestion came from the Ontario Federation of Labour and I want to put that on the record.

An hon. member: Does he?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Yes.

Mr. Lewis: Shall I put on the record what the Treasurer told use about the OF of L?

Mr. Speaker: Any further questions?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: The member for Scarborough West just doesn’t understand. He just doesn’t understand that to compete in the world today our industry has to be competitive, and if he would get that through his head he would be a great leader. But they have to be able to compete, and to compete their costs have to be low and that’s important.

Mr. Lewis: They need $410 million worth of public money as a corporate gift over 2½ years. This budget is a disaster in that area. It’s a straight gift to the government’s friends.

Hon. E. A. Winkler (Chairman, Management Board of Cabinet): The leader of the NDP is the only disaster around here.

Mr. Martel: They could be looking for campaign funds over there.

Mr. Lewis: My colleague, the hon. member for Wentworth, nudges me to ask the minister, since he was Treasurer pro tem, does he recall how many jobs the investment tax credit -- the identical programme to this one -- created in 1971 to 1973? And I urge him to be careful in his response.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Mr. Speaker, I don’t have that information with me.

Mr. Lewis: No, because they are throwing the money away.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: I would have really expected that my friend, the leader of the New Democratic Party, would have talked today about this year’s budget instead of something that happened three years ago. He is living in the past. Come into the 20th century and join the rest of us. He’s worse than the Grits. Both of them are in the same camp.

lnterjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order please. Could we get back to the question period? The hon. member for Scarborough West.

Mr. Lewis: On a point of privilege,. Mr. Speaker, I don’t mind being slandered, abused or vilified, but don’t ever tell me I’m worse than the Grits!

Mr. Breithaupt: Even we’ve got to draw the line somewhere.

Mr. Lewis: I have some pride left.

Interjections by an hon. member.

Mr. Lewis: Well, that’s the only approximation of the Grits I have.

Mr. Speaker: Order please.

HEALTH SURVEY OF ELLIOT LAKE MINES

Mr. Lewis: May I ask the Minister of Health, when will the report on the health condition of the workers in Elliot Lake be tabled in this Legislature? Will it be in advance of Dr. Tidey of this ministry meeting with the workers on Friday in Elliot Lake? Will the minister meet with them earlier this week? Since they seek that report can he tell us about it?

Hon. F. S. Miller (Minister of Health): Mr. Speaker, I had hoped to table the report this week. I did listen carefully to the member’s Throne debate speech the other day. He referred to Dr. Stewart and to other people. I took those comments very seriously and, in fact, invited Dr. Stewart, other members of the Workmen’s Compensation Board and other ministries to a meeting last week to review the report that was prepared by my staff, and we did so. We found certain disagreements between the things that our staff were preparing and the things they said. I asked that they review the data in that report and reach an agreement and that’s being done right now. Once this agreement is reached we will be ready to go public with it.

Mr. MacDonald: It is a more legitimate excuse than usual.

Mr. Lewis: It is amazing. They waited a year. No further questions.

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

DRIVER LICENCES FOR HARD OF HEARING

Mr. P. Taylor: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A question of the Minister of Transportation and Communications: The minister has received a number of representations from various associations representing the hard of hearing, and in some cases the deaf, regarding the criteria for licensing drivers, Will the minister undertake to study these special problems faced by these people in order to determine whether or not the licensing criteria are fair and reasonable?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Yes, Mr. Speaker, we are already doing that. We have had a number of submissions from various associations interested in that very topic, the question of the deaf drivers or those whose hearing has been impaired. We are looking at all of these submissions and we are meeting with experts in the field to determine how we can fairly deal with this licensing problem.

Mr. P. Taylor: A short supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Can the minister say if there are any reliable statistics available to show the risk factor among the deaf and hard of hearing as compared to the risk factor in drivers suffering other forms of disability?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, I’m not familiar with whether there are statistics available or not. My own personal feeling is that I don’t recall seeing any statistics that would indicate that this is any more of a risk than any other form of disability.

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

STUDENT PURCHASES OF HOMES

Mr. Shulman: May I ask a question of the Minister of Housing that was ruled out of order before, Mr. Speaker? Is the minister aware of and is he doing anything about the problem of groups of students buying a house in turn daily, transferring it back and forth or from each to each, and ending up with a free house at the end of several weeks?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: No, I am not aware.

Mr. Shulman: Okay.

Mr. Deans: Is there anything he is aware of?

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

OIL AND GASOLINE PRICES

Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, a question of the Treasurer: In light of his announcement yesterday, his concern about inflation and his discussions in the past, especially about the increasing prices of energy and fuel oil and the discussions that are going to take place this week, why doesn’t the minister take the approach of the Liberal administration in Nova Scotia and pass a law that would require oil companies to get approval from the government before increasing their prices? Apparently it has been very successful.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Mr. Speaker, gasoline and oil prices now are effectively controlled by the government of Canada, and I see no reason to duplicate that effort.

Mr. W. Ferrier (Cochrane South): The Treasurer is just copping out.

Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, if I might ask one supplementary, is there any truth to the rumour that the situation in Nova Scotia has been so successful that this province is looking at that approach vis-à-vis the increases in the price of oil?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: No, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Thunder Bay.

MOBILE DENTAL SERVICES

Mr. Stokes: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Health. Does the Minister of Health recall making a commitment that he would look into the dental needs of remote communities in northwestern Ontario? Does he recall specifically that I brought to his attention that the community of Upsala hadn’t had the services of the railway dental car for five years? Is the minister aware that because of other priorities, such as $400 million to the corporate sector, he doesn’t have the money to provide dental services to this town of Upsala for at least another two years, which will mean seven years between visits?

Mr. Laughren: The same is true in many other communities.

Hon. Mr. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I certainly recall the first two parts of the member’s question. I did review the matter, as the member knows, because he has correspondence from us. I still don’t have as much money as I would like to have for all the programmes and it happens, as I have found out, I haven’t got enough money to expand that particular programme in spite of a budget that I assume is very close to $3 billion.

Mr. Stokes: A supplementary: Does the minister think it is more important to reimburse the corporate sector to the extent of more than $400 million than it is to provide something as basic and as essential as dental services to northwestern Ontario?

Mr. Lewis: That’s the question. We’ve let $108 million go down the drain but we can’t have a dental plan.

Hon. Mr. Miller: The hon. member, I think, is confusing horses and cows in this issue.

Mr. Lewis: Not at all.

Hon. Mr. Miller: Completely.

Mr. Stokes: It is our money the minister is using too.

Mr. Lewis: The government is giving that money away -- and it has already lost its corporate contributions.

Mr. Speaker: Order please. The member for Huron with his question.

ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT

Mr. J. Riddell (Huron): Mr. Speaker, a question of the Minister of the Environment: In connection with the environmental impact legislation, can the minister tell us when the submissions to the green paper on environmental assessment were made public?

Hon. W. Newman (Minister of the Environment): Mr. Speaker, I think I indicated in the House at the time that I would take that under consideration. We have reviewed it and it is public information; anyone can come and see it at any time. We have not reproduced all the submissions and reports because they are about 5 ft high. They are in our offices for review by anybody who would like to come and take a look at them.

Mr. Riddell: A supplementary: Can the minister say how many submissions suggested that it be made mandatory that notice of an undertaking be given to interested and affected individuals?

Hon. W. Newman: I can’t tell the member exactly because there were about 170 submissions, and at one time in the House I did answer a question and gave the details of the various submissions of the green paper; but I can’t tell the member specifically how many there were.

Mr. E. R. Good (Waterloo North): A supplementary, Mr. Speaker?

Mr. Speaker: A final supplementary.

Mr. Good: Since this is the very basis of and an important factor in the environmental assessment legislation, would the minister say that half or three quarters of the submissions indicated that persons living in the areas or others should be involved in the hearings when an environmental assessment hearing is being held? How many suggested that?

Hon. W. Newman: Mr. Speaker, any environmental assessment hearing we hold will be open to the public; there will be necessity for a public hearing. The proper advertising will appear in the local news media, as we do now for environmental hearing boards, and people will have their chance to have their input.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Wentworth.

HOUSING PROBLEM SOLUTION

Mr. Deans: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a question of the Minister of Housing.

Now that we have seen his budgetary proposals for the nine-month period ending in December of this year, can the minister explain to the House how he proposes to protect tenants against rent increases that are unjustified, and how he proposes to make accommodation available to people earning less than $10,000 a year within their capacity to pay?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Speaker, it would be great if the member for Wentworth would ask a question only once. This is about the 15th time he has asked the same question, and I am going to give him the same answer.

Mr. Deans: That’s right, and I am asking it because the minister is doing absolutely nothing.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: We are going to provide housing for the people in Ontario --

Mr. Deans: Is that so?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Let the member get that through his thick head if he can.

Mr. Lewis: The minister is in trouble; he is in trouble.

Mr. Deans: Is it the opinion of the minister that all of the people of Ontario earn over $10,000 a year? Is it the opinion of the minister that, within any of the housing programmes that he is offering, it is possible for a person working in Ontario, earning what is ostensibly the average wage in the Province of Ontario, to get into any single one of the programmes? And is there a programme anywhere, either in fact or in the planning stage, that will provide reasonable accommodation at a reasonable cost for people who earn reasonable wages?

Mr. Lewis: The answer is no, he doesn’t have one.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Yes; the answer is yes.

Mr. Deans: Where?

Mr. Lewis: Name one.

Mr. Speaker: Order please. The member for Rainy River.

MANPOWER REQUIREMENTS

Mr. Reid: I have a question of the member for Hamilton West, who is in charge of manpower in the Province of Ontario. Can the minister indicate what he is doing? What is he doing, first of all? Can he indicate, for instance, that he has pinpointed the need for manpower in the various parts of the province? Where are those areas, where are we short, what skills are needed and what has been his input into the Dymond commission on apprenticeship?

Hon. J. McNie (Minister without Portfolio): Mr. Speaker, there were a number of questions asked.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: The minister can take them as notice.

Hon. Mr. McNie: Yes, I think the House will be interested to know that today the deputy ministers from the other provinces concerned with manpower are meeting in our city. It’s a task force that is preparing for a meeting in Ottawa with the Minister of Immigration and Manpower, Mr. Andras.

One of the issues that they are addressing themselves to is how they can best collect and utilize the various resources that are available.

We’re very well aware of the fact that across Canada today there is a growing unemployment problem. Together -- and I say together -- we’re looking with the other provinces and the federal government to try to find ways in which we can increase, among other things, the mobility of the work force, recognizing that in some areas there is a shortage of employment, and in other areas there is abundance of work.

In some areas, including the member’s own riding, Mr. Speaker, the greatest problem is turnover. The turnover in some industries is as high as 100 per cent. As the member knows, we were there in January, along with the federal people, and discussed the question as to how we might improve the situation. We are doing the same thing in other parts of the province, again working with the Canada Manpower people.

It is a very complex problem and anyone who has been following the figures would know they have changed very drastically during the last two or three months. May I reassure the House that we are very close to this situation.

One of the things that we are doing -- in answer to the first question asked by the member -- is to try and co-ordinate the efforts of about nine ministries involved in one way or another in the development of our human resources, and to co-ordinate those with the other provinces and with the federal government. I think I may say it is being done with some success.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Port Arthur.

OLD FORT WILLIAM

Mr. Foulds: Mr. Speaker, a question of the Minister of Natural Resources, if I might. Can he tell me if there is any present-day military significance to Old Fort William?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: There’s a firing squad there for the member for Port Arthur.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: I didn’t get the question. It sounded like a stupid one anyway.

Mr. Foulds: I am asking the minister, Mr. Speaker, if there is any present-day military significance to Old Fort William?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: There might be, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Foulds: A supplementary: Can the minister then explain why a freelance photographer and writer was denied permission to take photographs of Old Fort William on March 19, 1975, and whether that was denied by the ministry or by the construction firm involved?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: No, I can’t, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Foulds: Mr. Speaker, could the minister get an answer for me?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: No.

Mr. Deans: Why won’t he?

Mr. Speaker: The member for Simcoe East.

Mr. Foulds: Why can’t a citizen take photographs?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. I can’t hear the member for Simcoe East’s question.

Mr. G. E. Smith (Simcoe East): A question of the provincial Treasurer --

Mr. Laughren: Some tourist attraction -- they can’t take pictures of it.

Mr. Speaker: I’m sorry, I still can’t hear the hon. member.

Mr. Laughren: if the minister would answer his questions we wouldn’t be interjecting.

Mr. Deans: He is not saying anything.

HOME BUYER GRANT

Mr. G. E. Smith: A question of the provincial Treasurer: Under the programme to stimulate home ownership, where he has announced a $1,500 grant toward the assistance of the purchase of a first home, will this same grant apply to the initial purchase of a mobile home?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Yes, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Lewis: It says so in the budget.

Mr. Ruston: Read the book.

Mr. Speaker: The oral question period has expired.

Petitions.

Presenting reports.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes presented the annual report of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications for the year ended March 31, 1974, and the annual report of the Ontario Highway Transport Board for the year ended Dec. 31, 1974.

Hon. Mr. Snow presented the report of the Public Service Superannuation Hoard for the year ended March 31, 1974.

Mr. Morrow, from the standing procedural affairs committee, presented the committee’s report which was read as follows and adopted:

Your committee has carefully examined the following applications for private Acts and finds the notices, as published in each case, sufficient:

Protestant Children’s Village, Ottawa

City of Brantford (No. 1)

Borough of York

City of St. Catharines

City of Ottawa

Borough of North York

Peter Allan Gifford and others

St. Margaret’s School, Elora

City of Brantford (No. 2)

Town of Cobourg

City of Toronto (No. 1)

Town of Kapuskasing

City of London

City of Toronto (No. 2)

City of Windsor

Hartford Limited

City of Toronto (No. .3)

City of Sarnia.

Your committee recommends the filing fee, plus penalties, if any, be remitted on the application of the Canadian Environmental Law Research Foundation, the application having been withdrawn.

Mr. Speaker: Motions.

Introduction of bills.

FARM PRODUCTS MARKETING AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Stewart moves first reading of bill intituled, An Act to amend the Farm Products Marketing Act.

Motion agreed to; first reading of the bill.

Hon. W. A. Stewart (Minister of Agriculture and Food): Mr. Speaker, this bill provides production controls for egg production in Ontario.

ST. MARGARET’S SCHOOL, ELORA, ACT

Mr. Worton moves first reading of bill intituled, An Act to incorporate St. Margaret’s School, Elora.

Motion agreed to; first reading of the bill.

MINISTRY OF CULTURE AND RECREATION AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Welch moves first reading of bill intituled, An Act to amend the Ministry of Culture and Recreation Act, 1974.

Motion agreed to; first reading of the bill.

Mr. Lewis: This is its abolition.

Mr. Stokes: Where are the regulations?

Hon. R. Welch (Minister of Culture and Recreation): Mr. Speaker, the purpose of this bill is to effect the transfer of various programmes from the Ministry of Colleges and Universities, the Ministry of Treasury, Economics and Intergovernmental Affairs and the Ministry of Community and Social Services to the new Ministry of Culture and Recreation.

MINISTRY OF COMMUNITY AND SOCIAL SERVICES AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Welch, on behalf of Hon. Mr. Brunelle, moves first reading of bill intituled, An Act to amend the Ministry of Community and Social Services Act.

Motion agreed to; first reading of the bill.

ONTARIO UNCONDITIONAL GRANTS ACT

Hon. Mr. McKeough moves first reading of bill intituled, An Act to provide for the payment of Unconditional Grants.

Motion agreed to; first reading of the bill.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Mr. Speaker, this bill consolidates into one Act the Municipal Unconditional Grants Act, 1974, the Regional Municipal Grants Act and the Property Tax Stabilization Act, 1973.

MUNICIPAL AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. McKeough moves first reading of bill intituled, An Act to amend the Municipal Act.

Motion agreed to; first reading of the bill.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Mr. Speaker, these amendments to the Municipal Act provide for the following:

They delete the sections in the Act which outline the method of calculating the general purpose mill rates. The differential between residential, farm and commercial mill rates will be standardized at 15 per cent across the province, and calculated in accordance with the Ontario Unconditional Grants Act, 1975.

Payments in lieu of taxation under section 304 will now be made in respect of certain previously exempt institutions, such as provincial educational institutions and agricultural research stations.

Payments for the educational institutions, such as the schools for the deaf and blind and agricultural colleges, such as the one in Ridgetown, will be calculated at $50 per student place.

Payments for agricultural research stations will be calculated on an acreage basis, as is currently done for provincial parks. This formula provides $5 per acre for the first 100 acres, $2 per acre for the next 9,900 acres and 50 cents an acre on the acreage in excess of 10,000 acres.

In addition, at the urging of my friend, the member for Lanark (Mr. Wiseman), the amendments delete the limitation in the Act which restricted the payment under section 304 to no more than 25 per cent of the net municipal levy, which solves his problem with Montague township.

BOROUGH OF NORTH YORK ACT

Mr. Bales moves first reading of bill intituled, An Act respecting the Borough of North York.

Motion agreed to; first reading of the bill.

CITY OF OTTAWA ACT

Mr. Morrow moves first reading of bill intituled, An Act respecting the City of Ottawa.

Motion agreed to; first reading of the bill.

PROTESTANT CHILDREN’S VILLAGE, OTTAWA ACT

Mr. Morrow moves first reading of bill intituled, An Act respecting Protestant Children’s Village, Ottawa.

Motion agreed to; first reading of the bill.

BOROUGH OF YORK ACT

Mr. Leluk moves first reading of bill intituled, An Act respecting the Borough of York.

Motion agreed to; first reading of the bill.

CITY OF ST. CATHARINES ACT

Mr. Villeneuve, on behalf of Mr. Johnston, moves first reading of bill intituled, An Act respecting the City of St. Catharines.

Motion agreed to; first reading of the bill.

CITY OF BRANTFORD ACT

Mr. Beckett moves first reading of bill intituled, An Act respecting the City of Brantford.

Motion agreed to; first reading of the bill.

CITY OF BRANTFORD ACT

Mr. Beckett moves first reading of bill intituled, An Act respecting the City of Brantford.

Motion agreed to; first reading of the bill.

MATRIMONIAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ACT

Mr. Bounsall moves first reading of bill intituled, An Act to establish Matrimonial Property Rights.

Motion agreed to; first reading of the bill.

Mr. E. J. Bounsall (Windsor West): Mr. Speaker, this bill recognizes that marriage is an equal partnership and, upon a divorce or annulment, the total value of the combined assets of the spouses acquired during marriage shall be divided equally between them. In addition, a husband or wife shall not dispose of the matrimonial home without the consent of the other spouse.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Mr. Speaker, before you call the orders of the day -- unfortunately the gentleman has just left, but I wanted the record for this day to be correct -- I want to draw to the attention of the House that the former member for Algoma-Manitoulin, well respected by all members, was sitting under the gallery today.

I wish to table the answers to questions 5, 6 and 10 on the order paper, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Orders of the day.

ELECTION FINANCES REFORM ACT

Hon. Mr. White moves second reading of Bill 3, An Act to regulate Political Party Financing and Election Contributions and Expenses.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Downsview.

Mr. V. M. Singer (Downsview): Mr. Speaker, we have come a long way since one day in this House a private member’s bill was debated, I think at the instance of one of my colleagues; the hon. member for York West (Mr. MacBeth) had been scheduled to speak against it, but he was adaptable, because earlier that same day the Premier (Mr. Davis) had suddenly changed his mind in midstream.

One of the highlights of the goings-on in this House was the fact that the hon. member for Algoma (Mr. Gilbertson) was unable to change his mind. He had a speech prepared to talk against an election expenses bill and he didn’t really care very much whether the Premier was in favour of it or not; he went on and delivered his speech. I am sorry that he isn’t here; we would like to hear from him as to how he now regards the bill and whether he believes what the Premier does or doesn’t believe; it might be of some historical value to him.

Mr. Speaker, this bill naturally is going to be supported by my colleagues and myself because we believe this bill is a very important part of the electoral process in the Province of Ontario. We don’t think that there is any point at the moment in giving a long history of why it is here; suffice for the day that it is here. As I say, in broad terms we are going to support it.

There are a number of problems that arise out of this bill that frankly make it a little hard to understand, and I would hope as this debate goes on here and in committee that there could be and should be some substantial revisions.

For instance -- and I am just going to list about four or five of the problems that I see -- there is the clause about the restriction of spending insofar as it relates to advertising. I believe that is section 38. The original report of the Committee on the Legislature advocated there be no such control. However, there was a dissent, given interestingly enough by the Liberal appointee, Mr. Farquhar Oliver, who was recommended by my leader to sit as a member of that commission. The recommendation of the commission was not accepted by the government, but on the other hand the dissent as expressed by Mr. Oliver was not accepted either.

It is strange to me why the government has now chosen to opt only for the control of advertising expenses and for limiting advertising to a 21-day period. Advertising expenses, certainly in the area of Metropolitan Toronto, are not particularly meaningful at all. I would very much doubt whether any candidate who runs in the Metropolitan Toronto area spends any money at all on radio, on television or on advertising in the daily newspapers.

Over and beyond that, the kind of advertising that is looked at by the Act affects some members in some sections. Why, Mr. Speaker? In very of all the complicated machinery I that is set up here -- the audit accounts, the reports, the documents and so on -- why is there not an overall control of the amount that can be spent? It makes no sense to me at all that there cannot be, that it is too difficult to administer, that there should not be.

Certainly one of the main purposes of this statute is to let the horses run equally from the gate to give them a fair chance, to more or less have an equality of electoral opportunity, electoral expenditure, full disclosure and that sort of thing. So why can there not be some sort of a limit on the expenditure? There is a limit suggested for these advertising expenses. It is not an unreasonable limit to attach to all expenses. Or, if the formula seems a little bit low, why not raise it a bit? Surely, Mr. Speaker, it makes good sense that there should be overall control of the amount that can be spent by any candidate or any party in an election campaign.

One of the anomalies that seems to emerge from this statute is the question of contribution by the candidate himself or herself. It would seem that a candidate can only contribute the sum of $500 to his own campaign. It puzzles me as to who is going to pick up the deficit, if there is a deficit campaign. These things have been known to happen.

Somehow something goes wrong and the bills are more than the receipts. The people who have been good enough to extend credit, printers and poster painters and people who make pickets to put signs on and all that sort of thing, expect to be paid. If they can’t be paid by the candidate, who is going to pay them? I think, as soon as this aspect becomes a little more known, candidates are going to find that it’s perhaps just a bit difficult to get credit from the suppliers; because if the supplier is going to be put in the position that he can’t legally be paid by the candidate and the candidate doesn’t want to break the law and he has already put his $500 into his own campaign, we have great trouble.

Mr. J. F. Bullbrook (Sarnia): I like it. Don’t change it.

Mr. Singer: I would hope somebody would do something about that.

Then, Mr. Speaker, there is another unfair incident in this, and that relates to the definition of what is a candidate. A candidate, as defined in the Act, is a person who is duly nominated in accordance with the Election Act -- that means after the writ is issued -- or is a person who is nominated by a constituency association, or a person who, on or after the date of the issue of the writ, declares himself to be an independent candidate. That’s fine, I suppose, and it’s simple and it’s straight forward, except that it gives certain people a very substantial advantage.

It gives the members of the Legislature who are intending to run again a very substantial advantage because they can delay their nomination until after the issue of the writ, but they can be running very hard long before the issue of the writ. Their expenditures are not controlled until, in fact, the writ is issued, because until the writ is issued they are really not candidates. I don’t think that this goes to the principle of equality that the bill seems to strive for.

In England, a person is a candidate as soon as he has given any indication that he might be a candidate, whether he is a member or whether he is not a member. If a political type goes to a meeting and indicates to that meeting he is interested in being a candidate in X constituency, as of that moment he is a candidate under their legislation and he is accountable from there on in for the money that is spent by him or on his behalf in advancing that kind of candidacy. I think here there is an undue and unfair advantage given to people who are not formally candidates as they come within the definition of this Act. I would hope that something can be done in relation to this.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, I am puzzled and I am unhappy, both as a lawyer and as a politician, about the meaning of section 1, subsection 4, which talks about trusts. I always understood that when a trust is established there has to be someone who establishes the trust and there has to be a beneficiary and there has to be a purpose for the trust. There are nice Latin phrases that we were taught in law school that apply to this. There’s the person who puts up the money and there’s the beneficiary of the trust. The statute does not define trust in any way, and I'm puzzled as to what the trust is that the statute talks about.

If the Progressive Conservative riding association of Durham has $10,000 in its kitty, is that a trust? If so, it is a trust for whom? Who has the right, in law, to go to the court and say: “You must account to me for those moneys. You must tell me how it’s going to be spent. I have a right, from time to time, to choose the people who are going to be in charge of it”? Or, if the money is taken for a purpose, that I, as a member of that association, don’t think is proper, do I have any remedies? Can I pursue those remedies in court? Can I tell somebody how the trust should be administered, or can I go to court and enforce those rights?

None of those things are dealt with in this statute. And the word trust may have been very meaningful to the draftsman of the statute, but I think that we are just looking for great difficulty and trouble when we don’t bother to define it here. Trust has to have a beneficiary. The Latin phrase is cestui que trust; the person for whose benefit the trust has been set up. And there falls from the setting up of the trust, in law, certain rights and remedies that can be enforced in the courts.

If what is meant in this section, and throughout the Act where trust is referred to, is that any funds in the hands of a riding association are held in trust, then the Act should specify for whom they are held in trust, and who has enforceable rights in regard to them.

Now, it has been suggested to me when I raised this question with some people I was talking to, that I was talking about a very technical legal matter. And I suggest, Mr. Speaker, it’s much more than a technical legal matter, because in the absence of a definition and in the absence of a unit or an entity known in law as a trust, these words in the statute as they now appear are almost meaningless. And it’s just more or less begging for trouble. When there are directions about funds held in trust, they have to ha dealt with in a certain way.

Then, Mr. Speaker, I’m unhappy as well with either the grammar or the parsing or the setting up of that section 4. I presume it is meant to mean that if there are funds held in trust, that within 60 days of the coming into force of the Act, which is April 13 -- that’s five days from now -- a report has to be made to the commission of the total amount of the funds that are in.

And I presume as well -- and I’m not at all sure of this -- that this only applies to funds for a constituency association or the future candidacy of any person. If that’s what it means, I think the section could be a little more clearly written. If that is in fact what it means, and this trust that we’re talking about does not apply to party funds, are party funds in any way controlled at all? This gets to be a very, very difficult thing to contemplate, and actually the only reference that I could find was in section 39, where we talk about foundations.

If section 1, subsection 4, does not apply to party funds, then I guess we’ve got to go to section 39, where we talk about a foundation. The setting up of a foundation is permissive -- it’s not mandatory. If a party has a large sum of money -- which may or may not be a trust -- and if the party, I suppose, comes to the conclusion that it isn’t a trust, and that it doesn’t want to set up a foundation, what in fact happens to that money? Is it accountable for in any way? Should it be accountable?

If we’re going to have a starting position, would it not be reasonable, Mr. Speaker, to include the party funds under this trust concept that is purportedly being set up in the earlier section? Should there not be a mandatory setting up of an accountability of party funds? And should sub (c) of 4 not apply, and within 60 days after the day when that section comes into force, a party as well as a constituency “should report in writing to the commission the existence of such trust and the total amount of the funds therein”? That’s what sub (c) says.

It would seem to me that if the section is going to be meaningful it should say something like that. Otherwise the gap is just so broad that the real purpose of the statute is probably going to be defeated. I have heard rumours that a party has presently in trust -- is that the word? -- has control of a large sum of money which it apparently is going to use for election purposes. Is that money going to be accounted for? How is it going to be accounted for? Is it a trust fund? Does the commission have to know about it? Do they have to set up a foundation and be governed by -- obviously they don’t have to set up a foundation; they can if they want. What happens to these moneys if somebody comes to the conclusion they are not in trust? Can they be spent in ways that don’t bring the provisions and enforcement of the Act into play?

These are things that I think have to be worried about at some length if this statute is going to be meaningful. My colleagues and I believe that the statute in principle is a good one. We will support it and I would hope we will hear from the minister who introduced it, the member for London South (Mr. White), when he comes to reply as to how he proposes to deal with some of these apparent obvious difficulties. I am sure there are more.

We will be introducing some amendments, hopefully to try to take care of some of these things which we believe are deficiencies. We would hope the minister has already studied some of these problems and has some amendments ready himself.

Mr. Speaker: The member for York South.

Mr. D. C. MacDonald (York South): Mr. Speaker, this legislation is based primarily on the Camp commission recommendations and it grows out of a growing public concern on two matters. First, the skyrocketing costs of elections these days and, secondly, the undue reliance of the Liberal and Conservative parties on corporate contributions and the NDP on trade union contributions.

The Camp commission assessed that reliance on the part of the old parties at 90 per cent on corporate contributions, and on the part of the NDP at 40 per cent on the trade union movement. I am not going to dispute those figures; I just cite them as an indication of the conclusion they came to, though I think they might be disputed to some degree.

Apart from the disclosure of the sources of contributions politically, the bill fixes limits on party revenues which can be received from any single source and it seeks to broaden the base of political contributions. In other words, to democratize the financing of political parties.

I would like to discuss each of these concerns in brief for a moment. The first concern is with regard to the skyrocketing of election costs.

I am not certain, Mr. Speaker, that this bill is going to achieve the objective which is set in this connection. The Camp commission fixed no limits on what might be spent in an election. The majority of the commission supported that proposition because they felt it was impossible to police it. Therefore they operated on what is otherwise a rather sound principle -- that if one has a law that can’t be enforced, or if one hasn’t got a law that can be enforced, don’t put the law on the books because it just brings it all into disrepute.

The minority view was that there could be a ceiling fixed. The bill sort of falls half-way in between. The government indulged, if the minister will forgive me for saying so, in a bit of political posturing by saying, “This is too important an area and we must move in and fix the limits on what is undoubtedly one of the major areas of escalating costs, namely, advertising.” I want to suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that the limits which have been fixed merely legalize exorbitant levels of expenditure.

I won’t take the time of the House at this point with the team effort that we’re going to present in discussing this bill. I will leave that to some of my colleagues who are particularly interested in it.

If there is effective enforcement on the limits of giving from any single source, and if there is an adequate switch to public financing away from those traditional private sources, then future elections could be held at the level at which they now are. I seriously doubt whether you could reduce them, Mr. Speaker, but I repeat, I think you might be able to hold them at the level that they now are.

But if, Mr. Speaker, there is no effective enforcement, and instead of a switch of some of the expenditure to public money there is just simply a supplanting of the traditional private sources of money with the public sources of money, then I venture the prediction that we’re going to be spending more on elections, not less. If that is the case, I would assume that would confirm my conclusion that this objective of the Act is a rather shaky one.

I move to a second concern; that of broadening the base of party financing. Some major steps have been taken and I would concede that they are real steps forward. For the most part they are paralleling what has already been done in the federal legislation, namely a rebate of personal and corporate income tax -- the familiar figures now; 75 per cent on the first $100 and so forth. However, the explanatory note in the bill, I want to suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, and to the minister, is not accurate, because the explanatory note in the bill states this legislation “implements the basic recommendations of the report” -- that’s the Camp commission report -- “with the following major differences.”

It lists differences, but it doesn’t list the fact that nothing has been done, either in this bill or in the companion amendments to the personal income tax and to the corporations tax, to implement what is in my view that key recommendation of the Camp commission namely that there should be in addition to rebates the $2 checkoff for each person who files an income tax return. In other words, the person would have the right to designate the party of his choice -- and I presume that it would be one party of his choice -- and the $2 would be sent on his behalf out of the public treasury.

The explanation that I have received privately in discussions with the minister and with others in the cabinet is that the reason why this is not either in this bill, or in the companion bills amending the Income Tax Act, is because the federal government objected to it. As I understand the federal government’s position, it is ready to permit provinces to parallel anything that it has done in relationship to tax collecting and exemptions and things of that nature, but not to go beyond it.

I just want to put on the record, Mr. Speaker, that if that is the position of the federal government I suggest it’s irrelevant, because all this government wants to know presumably, in light of the recommendation of the Camp commission, is what people want to have done on their behalf. We now know that we have the so-called purple-coloured schedule on our income tax filings in which we deal with Ontario tax credits and things of that nature, and presumably there is a box --

Mr. E. R. Good (Waterloo North): Not next year.

Mr. MacDonald: Not next year? Well, a comparable kind of schedule in which a person filing an income tax return could indicate what contribution would be made on his behalf. All the federal government would have to do is to indicate that X number of people wanted the contribution to be made to the Conservative Party, to the Liberal Party, or to the New Democratic Party. There would be no money out of their treasury. It would be reported back here to Queen’s Park and Queen’s Park makes the contribution.

So I can’t see what substance there is in the objections that are being made by the federal government if this government is willing to proceed and implement all of the recommendations of the Camp commission.

I want to suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that this is extremely important, because I concede that the rebate is going to result in much heavier personal contributions and there will be a compulsion on parties to seek to broaden the base because of the $2,000 ceilings -- $4,000 including the contributions that can be made to local riding associations -- and therefore they will be getting more money conceivably into the party by that broadening of the base.

But, particularly for the old parties -- and I’d be the first to concede, in some instances for the New Democratic Party -- where they get from certain trade unions a contribution of some thousands of dollars, that large contribution is now going to be out the window and it’s going to take a lot of work to get the smaller contributions to make up for it.

My very serious concern is that in switching away from the traditional sources which had become so concentrated we make very certain we do get a real broadening of the base, and quite frankly this simple little proposition -- which is a steal from the American scene that the Camp commission indulged in -- of a checkoff of $2 from the public treasury to the party of his choice, or party of her choice, is the real opportunity for broadening the base of political financing.

After all, I suppose 50 per cent as many people who file income taxes vote in this province, and therefore we get the opportunity for broadening the base for ongoing party purposes in the fashion that the Camp commission was quite eloquent in saying was necessary if we were going to escape some of the unfortunate features of party financing.

There is another point in this connection, Mr. Speaker, that I’d like to mention. The historical record in Canada in terms of enforcing legislation dealing with fund raising and election financing of any kind is really the sorriest record that one could conceive of. There has been no enforcement at all; no real effort at enforcement. As a matter of fact, the House may be interested in just a few, brief reminders to be found on pages 18 and 19 of the report of the committee on election expenses that was done at the federal level and dated 1966.

Back about 1906, 1907 and 1908 a fair amount of political flack developed because of charges of electoral and administrative corruption and patronage in the civil service and things of this nature. As a result of that the government moved at that time toward some electoral reform, including -- believe it or not, Mr. Speaker, listen to this -- including the prohibition on corporations from making any contributions to a candidate or a political party.

I suspect most people in Canada would hardly believe that that is the case. As a matter of fact I’m a little curious -- and I suppose I should have checked and confirmed this -- as to whether that really is still on the statute book, that no political contribution can be made by a corporation to a candidate or to a political party. We know, of course, that no attention was paid to it.

As was pointed out in the one speech in the House of Commons some years later, there was no lessening or slackening of corporate contributions, there were no prosecutions of these who made the contributions, there was no effort or no intent on the part of the government that passed the bill to enforce it and, indeed, there was no effort on the part of the opposition to seek to have enforcement of the legislation.

The point that K. Z. Paltiel, professor at Carleton University -- who was the research director for the Barbeau commission and who has in subsequent years pursued his interest in this whole phase of political science and writes periodic articles to bring the picture up to date -- has made time and time again in his books -- I suppose the most well known being “Political Party Financing in Canada” in the McGraw-Hill series -- is the fact that the enforcement of election regulations and fund raising and efforts to root out corruption and things of that nature has been honoured in the breach consistently all down through our history.

My fear, Mr. Speaker, is this, that if we don’t have real assurance of alternative sources for fund raising there is going to be a very strong compulsion once again on the part of the parties, on the part of those who have the responsibility -- or rather the extreme difficulty of enforcing this legislation, to cut corners, to continue the old procedures which are trying to be rooted out here, or which at least are trying to be reduced in their impact by this broadening of the financial base.

I remember some years ago, just to deal finally with this point, an article that the late Blair Fraser wrote in Maclean’s Magazine which was entitled, “Our illegal elections.” He pointed out that all of the elections, federal and provincial, were illegal because of the manner in which the funds were raised. He asserted -- and nobody ever challenged him -- that the heart and soul and spinal column of old-party funds at the provincial level come from those who have contracts to do work for the government.

It is precisely that kind of thing that it seems to me we want to get away from and that this bill seeks to get away from. It further seems to me we are going to be much more assured of the prospect of getting away from it if we have real alternative sources, a real genuine broadening of the base. The most effective way to get a real democratization of political financing, I suggest, is going to be by this purely voluntary proposition of being able to indicate that $2, a rather small sum, will be sent from the public treasury on your behalf.

Perhaps there is another footnote I would like to make to this, Mr. Speaker, and that is that this kind of thing has been tried by parties and hasn’t worked.

I can remember a few years ago -- I won’t name the spot -- somebody within the framework of the New Democratic Party said, “You know, we’ve got thousands of people out there who vote for us. In a given riding we may get 10,000 votes. If we’d only get people to send in $1, we would have $10,000 and our problems would be greatly relieved, if not solved, in terms of financing the election.” As a result, they decided that they would experiment.

In this certain city they ran newspaper ads that cost approximately $450 or $500, inviting people to send in the money. Well, you know what happened, Mr. Speaker: They didn’t get in enough money to cover the cost of the ads.

That isn’t just true of the New Democratic Party. In some of the reading I’ve done this past year, I recall one instance in which the federal Conservative organizer, back in the early 1940s, attempted to have this kind of a campaign, appealing all across the country, to get money in by voluntary contributions of small amounts. It was a flop -- it was an utter flop.

Mr. M. Cassidy (Ottawa Centre): Action Canada.

Mr. MacDonald: We can’t engage in compulsion, but at least in this instance we could have rather a simple voluntary procedure of ticking off a little square indicating the party that you want to make a contribution to and it would come out of the public treasury. It seems to me it would be the greatest single step towards achieving the broadening of the financial base and therefore the objectives of this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I want to make a brief comment about what I think is the potentially great strength of this bill, and that is the so-called commission on election contributions and expenses. In contrast, while I acknowledge that the federal legislation is a real step forward, I think its great weakness, as Prof. Paltiel has underlined, is the fact that there is no machinery for effective enforcement. There is the chief electoral officer and his chief financial officer, and that man would need to be Solomon and an octopus with a thousand heads and arms and legs and everything to do the job. It simply is an impossible job.

But what we have done in the Province of Ontario, on the Camp commission’s recommendation, is to establish a commission which is going to be made up of appointees, two appointees from each party, plus a full-time chairman and the chief electoral officer. The function of this commission will be to be both a watchdog and a counsellor to all those who are involved. They will have the powers of investigation. They will have the complete powers of a public inquiry, if necessary. There is, of course, all the auditing procedures.

Presumably they are going to have field people who will move into a constituency, when and if necessary, and sit down with local people to acquaint them with the procedures in the earlier stage, if it becomes necessary to do something other than just providing booklets and explanations. That I think is the assurance, the greatest possible assurance, that this bill is going to be more enforceable. Indeed I would hope it will be more enforced than all the other bills which have preceded it down through the years and which really were a travesty.

There are a number of areas which are grey areas. The member for Downsview has cited some of them. Some of them didn’t seem as grey to me as they did to him; conversely some of the things which I think are grey, he may think are as clear as crystal.

Perhaps the first comment I want to make is that it is inevitable when one moves into this kind of field, with all of its complexities and with all its areas in which at some point there has to be adjudication as to what the rules are, what the guidelines are, we are going to have a continuing watching brief with somebody having the power to adjudicate and say, “This is the guideline; this is how we’re going to operate.”

Since that body, the commission, has representatives of all parties on it -- it’s an administrative detail, it’s really non-partisan -- it will likely he that it will be able to get cabinet agreement or a consensus, even though its members may vote and have some division of opinion along the way on occasion.

Let me cite two of these areas which bother me. The first one is in section 20. Section 20 states that a contributor is to contribute only the funds belonging to him. Let me create for members a little scenario.

A certain organization or a certain individual wants to make a sizable contribution to a political party or a sizable contribution to a certain candidate. He can’t do it within the limitations which are imposed upon him so he goes to 20 different people and says, “Here is $100” so that names wouldn’t be revealed -- or $500 when names would be revealed -- and says, “Put them in.” Under the Act, the spirit of the Act is going to be violated because they can only contribute their own money.

I’m just a little uncertain as to how the government is going to come to grips with that and how it is going to avoid the violation of the Act.

I suppose it’s just a case of being a watchdog and when the government finds instances in which it thinks it’s being violated, it will move in and, if it can get documentation of it, the penalties are imposed. We hope the lesson will be learned and it won’t happen again; but it’s an unfortunate grey area that may cause trouble.

Section 23 is another one. It says:

“Where any corporate person, corporation or trade union with the knowledge and consent of a political party or a candidate promotes the political party or the election of the candidate or opposes any other registered party.”

Than it goes on. How is the minister going to be able to say with certainty that such-and-such a person took action or such a corporation took action for or against a candidate or a party with their knowledge or consent? How is he going to be dead certain about that? Again, it’s a grey area.

It may well be that one has to state these grey areas and work at it, knowing that the law will be violated, and then just play a double role as watchdog in that connection.

Perhaps it’s like the Human Rights Commission which says people aren’t going to discriminate on the basis of race, colour or creed but we know somebody is going to do it because he’s always thought that way. We counsel him otherwise and if he can’t see the error of his ways and the fact that he is violating the law, the next time he does it, he’s charged. Maybe it’s that kind of an approach. I don’t know but it’s a grey area that rather disturbs me.

Mr. R. Gisborn (Hamilton East): How about an anonymous donation?

Mr. MacDonald: Yes, anonymous donations are another grey area. If one gets an anonymous donation, one is supposed to send it back if one knows the source; alternatively if one doesn’t know the source, one sends it to the commission.

Mr. Singer: One can find it lying on the doorstep sometimes.

Mr. MacDonald: I will let the minister let his imagination go off in any one of six different directions as to how one can play games with that. How he is going to enforce it I’m not certain, but there it is.

There are other areas which I think are in the category that I referred to in reference to the comments of the member for Downsview. I think we are just going to have to count on experience being the guide. The commission then sets forth the guidelines, as they are entitled to do, under section 4, subsection (l)(j).

I know of one case the minister has given some thought to, and I know that my colleague from Thunder Bay is disturbed about it and I understand others are. That is the requirement that all the money must be kept in one bank account. Well, one bank account in Thunder Bay, if you just pause for a moment to consider the proportions of Thunder Bay, Mr. Speaker --

Mr. J. E. Stokes (Thunder Bay): It is 110,000 square miles.

Mr. MacDonald: -- it is an unnecessary kind of restriction and perhaps we should take a look at that kind of thing.

I want to deal for a bit in the final part of my remarks, Mr. Speaker, on two sections that I am disturbed about, because I think they violate principles rather badly or they conjure up the prospect of administrative complexities and difficulties that are really mind-boggling. The first one that I want to refer to is section 30, in which it states that the first $10 or any portion thereof that is a membership fee shall not be receipted and therefore, open to be able to get a rebate in filing on income tax.

I think to be very fair and frank on this, Mr. Speaker, the Camp commission may well have put this clause in here to meet the situation in the New Democratic Party. Our basic membership fee is now $10. Without bothering the House at any great length, that fee is split, a portion of it going to the riding association; a portion of it going to the provincial party and a portion of it going to the federal party. We know elsewhere in the Act it says that one can’t have money going from the federal to the provincial level and vice versa.

I think the Camp commission concluded that if they were just to exempt that fee, then they would get out of all of those complexities that existed within the framework of the administration in the New Democratic Party. What they didn’t realize, however, is that they are not lessening the problem at all. If a person contributes a sustaining membership, which is a contribution beyond the basic membership, of any figure that he wants -- maybe $25, $50 or $100; it may be done on post-dated cheques over the period of the year and so on -- there is also a division of that among all three levels of the party.

The net result is going to be that it doesn’t really solve the problem. The net result of administration is going to be that if we leave that section in there the first $10 can be receipted as a contribution to the federal party and, therefore, a receipt will be sent out for the first $10 on the federal legislation. Anything beyond that would have to be in the provincial legislation.

That is a piece of nonsense. Without taking too much time, I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, that all you have got to do is go back to the next convention and change the constitution as to what the level of the fee will be. It may be down to $1 or $2 rather than $10. You can circumvent it. It is not necessary and it is just an undesirable proposition.

Members of the House may be interested to know that we have a bit of guidance from the federal experience already, even though they are less than a year old in trying to cope with these problems.

The federal legislation in the first instance was interpreted as saying that memberships would not be included as an item that could be receipted and, therefore, one could get his rebate on income tax. That was the first interpretation that was placed on it. In Ottawa, to a very great extent, interpretations on the Act are made by the federal revenue department because they handle the income tax, and one had better please those boys because if he doesn’t, he will be running into trouble at a later date.

So all parties, as most people are likely aware, or spokesmen or representatives of all parties, met with the federal revenue department in countless meetings over a period of a number of months to iron it out. What I wanted to report to the House is that, after about two or three months of wrestling with this, all political parties agreed that it was administratively a nightmare and that the government should make the receipt eligible from the first dollar right through and forget the membership altogether. I suggest that is sound in principle, in the context of what the Camp commission is saying.

What the Camp commission is saying is that we are interested not only in the funding, the viable operation of a party at election time, but we are interested in the viable operation of a party between elections, and if the government’s interest is there, and this whole bill is designed to meet that interest, what’s the point of making the distinction between the money that went in as a membership, because it’s always small, and money that went in as a contribution not described as membership. In short, we certainly will move an amendment and I hope that the case is such a reasonable one that the minister might be willing to move himself in eliminating that $10 feature there.

Section 31 is an even more complicated one, and if the House will forgive me I am afraid I have got to give members a bit of an explanation as to the relationships between the New Democratic Party and the trade union movement with regard to affiliation fees. What this section says is that any affiliation fee that is paid by a local union to the New Democratic Party will be deemed to be a contribution from the union rather than from the individual members in the union.

In the first place, I just want to give members some indication as to why that is a violation that is just false. It’s wrong in principle. It’s an inaccurate reflection of what the situation is, because what happens is that when a union decides that it is going to affiliate to the New Democratic Party it does so by giving notice of it, it is considered at the next meeting, if the majority of people vote for it then the union is affiliated. Usually, to be very frank -- I will let members in on a secret within these four walls -- most unions will affiliate about 80 per cent of their members, partly because it’s cheaper to do it that way and partly. because they concede that there will be some people --

Mr. R. G. Hodgson (Victoria-Haliburton): Yes, but they have their price in obtaining a good spokesman too.

Mr. MacDonald: -- who are opposed, who are supporters of other parties, and they are left out. They are sort of not included. However, the constitution of the New Democratic Party -- not of the union, of the New Democratic Party -- says that any individual member of a union which has collectively decided by a majority vote that it wants to affiliate to the New Democratic Party has the right to opt out and say: “No contribution shall be made on my behalf.” The point I am making is that it’s an individual decision. It’s an individual contribution that is being made on his behalf, even though it may be sent in collectively from the union on behalf of the 50 or 100 or whatever members there happen to be.

There’s a second feature that I wanted to draw to the members’ attention and that is that in the constitution of the New Democratic Party it is stipulated that a trade unionist who has become an affiliate member of the party through his union can then pay, if he wants to become an individual member, not the basic $10 but the basic $10 minus $1.20 -- the 10 cents a month that was sent in in his affiliation fee. In short, once again the affiliation fee is deemed to be an individual decision.

However, let me not try to make my case wholly on the basis of circumstances within the New Democratic Party and our constitution, that some members may view with a degree of scepticism. I know the hon. minister is never sceptical.

Mr. Stokes: I don’t know why.

Mr. MacDonald: I don’t know why, but let me go to Camp --

Mr. J. F. Foulds (Port Arthur): He is just a Candide of this world.

Mr. MacDonald: -- to pages 34 and 35 of the Camp commission’s recommendations. I want to read about three or four paragraphs here. It is talking about group contributions and then it says:

“As an exception to the above, the commission recommends that employees, union members, or salaried members of any bona fide organization, be allowed to contribute to a political party through the ‘checkoff’ procedure, without regard to and independent of any other political contributions by the participating individuals, provided that their contributions are voluntary, or are made according to the constitutional authority vested in the organization concerned, and that the amount of the checkoff is not more than 10 cents per month for each contributor.

“This practice is a familiar and well-established one, notably with trade unions, and since the individual amounts are nominal the commission would wish to encourage such a practice rather than inhibit it.”

Would the minister note that? “The commission would wish to encourage such a practice rather than to inhibit it.” Well, I suggest that section 31 is not only going to be an inhibition, but it’s going to be a real compulsion, a real obstacle to affiliation.

Let me give the minister the really classic case to show the inequity of this section. Say there’s a union that has 1,600 members in it, and it decides to affiliate: presumably they pay $1.20 a year in this instance for all 1,600 of them, so they’re going to contribute close to the $2,000 in their affiliation fees. That means that they’re denied any opportunity to make any contribution beyond that affiliation fee. I suggest to you, sir, that’s unfair. Indeed, I want to suggest that it becomes ludicrous when we consider the example of the union of my friend from Hamilton, the big steel local at Stelco which has 10,000 members in it. Their affiliation fee is going to be in excess of the $2,000 that this bill has fixed as a limit. In other words, their affiliation fee is going to put them in contravention of the Act by paying the affiliation fee alone.

I let my case rest there and we can discuss it further if there is any aspect of it that is unclear. But it seems to me that the section is based on the misconception that that contribution is a group contribution, whereas it is not; it is an individual contribution, as indicated by two or three aspects of the constitution of the New Democratic Party. Secondly, it’s the kind of thing that the Camp commission urged should be done, because it is a way of broadening the base of political parties and their membership, and the financing of them.

Let me conclude, Mr. Speaker. I understand that this bill, along with those portions of the companion bills that deal with the amendments to the income and corporation tax acts, is going to go to a standing committee and there will be opportunities for public representations to be made and, therefore, an opportunity to discuss this with some outside input.

I am very pleased that’s going to happen, because I think we want to thrash through the detail of this now to make it as fair as possible, as clear as possible and as uncomplicated as possible. And in many of these sections there is not clarity or there are elements that I think are unfair, as in sections 30 and 31. Certainly it’s unnecessarily complicated.

At that stage, like the Liberal Party, we will certainly be making some amendments. Perhaps the minister will anticipate some of them and be willing to introduce them himself at the committee stage. As for the bill itself on second reading, we will support it in the New Democratic Party. With all of the problems that it is going to create, it is a step forward and one that we welcome.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Nipissing.

Mr. R. S. Smith (Nipissing): Mr. Speaker, I have a few comments to make on this bill. I believe that most of the comments have been covered by the hon. member for Downsview and the previous speaker, but the one point I would like to make is that obviously the introduction of this bill is a reaction of the government to the feeling among the people of this province that elections cost too much money and that political parties are spending too much money.

I am firmly of the opinion that rather than decreasing the costs of operating elections and equalizing the opportunities of all people to take part, this bill in effect will increase the total expenditures of political parties, particularly at the constituency level.

Consider, first of all, that the average constituency of perhaps 40,000 voters is going to have an input of approximately $6,000 from the provincial coffers. Then there’s going to be the case of collection in many constituencies that hasn’t existed before because of the tax writeoff that’s going to be given, particularly the 75 per cent tax writeoff that’s going to be given for contributions of $100 or less. I know this may not be true in the larger more urban areas but certainly in the smaller municipalities of 50,000 or 75,000 and the rural constituencies this really does broaden the base front which collections can be made. I would suspect that much more money will be collected locally because there will be a lot of people who will be prepared to contribute $100 knowing full well that 75 per cent of it actually is coming from the coffers of the provincial income tax.

In that way I believe there will be much more money available to candidates across the province without even considering the funds which may be provided to them through the foundations which might be established by those parties which now have large sums of money -- or that party which may have a large sum of money to place into a foundation and distribute across this province to its constituencies before the oncoming election.

I think when we consider these matters in that light it becomes apparent that unless we have on overall restriction on the total expenditures a candidate or an association at the constituency level might make, what we are going to have is higher expenditures than we ever had before. The public, in the long run, is certainly going to be disillusioned by what otherwise could be good legislation.

I suggest to the minister, through you, Mr. Speaker, that in order for this piece of legislation to be acceptable, not only to us as members and to the political parties we all represent here but also to those people who really count, the general public, we must have overall control on the expenditures that can be made both at the provincial level and at the constituency level. I would suggest that a 50 cents per voter expenditure level should be set for each constituency in the province.

In other words, in the constituency I was discussing a few minutes ago, the total amount that could be spent to stay within the terms of this Act would be $20,000. In this Legislature we all realize that there are campaigns which have cost far in excess of that, both at the provincial and the federal level. These are the type of campaigns that really turn the public off and this is the reason for this type of legislation.

I would suggest to the minister that rather than have those sections of this Act which control the expenditures of advertising for 21 days prior to the election, he take the bull by the horns and include in the Act an amendment to provide total overall expenditure control. Certainly I would agree with those who say this will be very difficult to police and very difficult to control but obviously in any type of Act such as this it would be left to the commission naturally to make the final determination. I do believe also that in this type of legislation the policing of the Act falls not only on the commission and the chief electoral officer but also falls on the parties themselves. In other words, they are going to watch each other. This is what has happened in other jurisdictions and this is how they have made it work.

The English legislation to which my confrere from Downsview referred earlier builds into its Act the fact that each party carries on an almost ongoing auditing of the expenditures of the other parties. In that way they make the authorities aware of transgressions against the overall expenditures that are set. He has also mentioned the fact that once a person declares himself as a candidate, or declares himself as one who is interested in being a candidate, that any moneys or expenses from then on are charged against the total of expenditures to which he or the party which he represents in that riding is entitled to up to the time of the election date.

From the observations that were made by a number of us while in England, the legislation appears to be workable and to be enforceable. There have been a number of cases in England where candidates who have been successful have been unseated because of the enforcement of the Act based on information provided by the other parties. So policing becomes not only the responsibility of the commission established here, but also becomes that of the other parties concerned and, in fact, the general public.

So I would suggest that if we are going to have public financing, public assistance to candidates and to political parties, then we have to have a definitive line above which expenditures cannot go. I think limiting expenditures insofar as advertising is concerned will be as difficult to enforce as any other type of expenditure limit. Although some other expenditures could be made under the table, or may be made some other way, I think you’re going to have that type of expenditure whether you have this Act or not. Of course, those people who take part in that type of political games are covered under the Election Act, as well as being covered here.

There are also a couple of other points which I would like to make that rather baffle me. In section 37, subsection 3, the amount that a candidate or a constituency association can be charged by a publication for an advertisement has to be the same as what the publication charges other advertisers. For the life of me I cannot understand why that isn’t extended to include the other media as well. We’re all aware in this Legislature that there are many television and radio stations across this province that have two or three rates, and at election time they always seem to come up with a fourth rate that they apply for political advertisements. This rate is much higher than what they ordinarily charge to other advertisers.

So, if you’re going to cover that contingency in regard to periodicals -- and I presume periodicals in that section would also mean newspapers -- then I cannot understand why the other media are not covered in the same way.

The other matter that I wanted to cover and bring up a bit more is the question of the overrun of expenditures -- which the member for Downsview also mentioned -- and the fact that candidates will not be responsible because they can only contribute $500. Perhaps we’ll all be walking around having to pay cash for any type of advertising or any type of a promotion which candidates of their constituency might want to do. Because, certainly as I read the Act, there is no responsibility left for payment of debts after an election if, in fact, there is an overrun of expenditures.

Along with that, I see that section 35 allows for the borrowing of money by a political party, constituency association or a candidate, but in section 36 it says that no persons, etc., can guarantee these loans. So when you put that together with the fact that the candidate himself cannot contribute more than $500, Mr. Speaker, it is very difficult to understand what would happen if there were an overrun of expenditures in a campaign. Certainly the money can be borrowed, according to section 35. And, according to section 36, the candidate can co-sign or provide collateral responsibility for the repayment of the loan. But if the loan is, in fact, in excess of $500 he will be outside of the Act, because if he’s called upon to repay that note he will be expending and contributing to his own political campaign in excess of what he’s allowed under the Act. I, for ones would like to see that discussed more fully by the minister and explained as to what the intentions of the Act are.

These are the only points I believe that I wanted to bring up that have not already been covered as fully as I would wish. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

Mr. F. A. Burr (Sandwich-Riverside): Mr. Speaker, I don’t want to cover any ground that has been covered already. I welcome this bill as one of progress. I personally feel that it hasn’t faced the issues quite clearly.

As I understand it, the purpose of the legislation is to free political parties and political candidates from undue influence from the various vested interests in our society. For example, to use a kind of a non-partisan provincial example, it could be that if the Bell Telephone Co. made a huge contribution to a federal political party which attained power, it might find it very easy to raise its rates at a later date. All members, I think, are aware of the possibilities that campaign funds have for working against the public interest. I don’t think I need give any further examples. Perhaps that one example wasn’t even needed.

I think the reform should have come in this manner. I believe that each candidate should have been allowed a certain sum -- in my opinion, about 10 cents per voter -- so that in a riding of 70,000 voters a sum of $7,000 would have been allowed. The candidate would be allowed to spend up to this amount -- borrow it from a bank, I would suggest -- and then be reimbursed up to that amount after the election had been concluded. In my opinion, he should not be allowed to take any money from any other person, any other group or any other organization -- from nobody. In that way he would be entirely free from any indebtedness to any person or any organization. I think this would turn out to be a much cheaper way in the long run for the taxpayers of this province.

We would then have elected members who were free from any obligation, and the political parties they belong to would be free from any financial political obligations.

Mr. Bullbrook: I agree with that. I agree totally with what the member is saying.

Mr. Burr: Thank you, Mr. Sarnia.

Mr. Bullbrook: Well, not quite Mr. Sarnia.

Mr. Burr: There would have to be some kind of very careful auditing -- perhaps the auditing that is proposed now under the commission. I would suggest that there would be a penalty for overspending -- perhaps the loss of the seat for the winner and perhaps a fine for the losers, if this overspending took place.

Some members might say that 10 cents per voter -- that is, $7,000 for a 70,000-member riding -- would not be enough. I think it would be quite sufficient. It would be some indication of the candidate’s ability to use money to organize his campaign and to spend the money wisely. If he chose to spend it on television, radio or newspaper advertising; if he preferred to put out leaflets; if he preferred to use lawn signs -- this would be entirely up to him and he could spend the amount of money in any of the approved ways he wished -- any way short of bribery.

I think also that each provincial party could be given a certain sum of money to spend as it saw fit -- on TV, radio, newspapers, leaders’ tours or any other specified ways.

However, Mr. Speaker, as I said, I think the bill is a step towards our goal, which in my opinion is freeing political parties and candidates from influence of the vested interests of the various kinds. I support the bill.

Mr. Speaker: Does any other hon. member wish to speak to this bill before the minister replies?

The member for Port Arthur.

Mr. Foulds: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. A. J. Roy (Ottawa East): Could we alternate here?

Mr. Speaker: We could alternate, yes.

Mr. Foulds: Well, I would be glad to --

Mr. Speaker: No one rose until the member for Port Arthur rose.

The member for Ottawa East.

Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, I just want to make a few brief remarks on the legislation itself. Some of the points that I will be referring to have been covered by my colleague from Downsview and possibly by my colleague from Nipissing, but I would like to make a few general comments on the bill.

My major concern about the legislation as it stands is that there are no provisions, as far as I can see, to record the amount of moneys that will be going into this trust fund. That is, moneys collected prior to 3 p.m. on Feb. 13 of this year. Mr. Speaker, I feel that there should be provision for that. The purpose of the legislation, after all, is full disclosure of financing sources, expenditures and so on.

It seems to me that if we are going to enforce this through legislation for the next provincial election, and if we don’t have that sort of provision, we are in some way avoiding the intent and purpose of this legislation by not having disclosure of amounts of money that are going in to this fund.

As I read the legislation, it may well be that a constituency association or a candidate will have to record moneys received from the party, and it’s possible that some of those funds will come from a trust fund and moneys collected prior to Feb. 13, 1975, but the fact remains that that type of accounting of what was in that fund will not, in my opinion, be accurate. The moneys could be spent for advertising or a variety of other matters and could not be checked or accounted for reasonably.

Mr. Speaker, if we are going to take this legislation seriously and if we are going to convince the public that we are going to level with them and make full disclosure of sources and expenditures, then we need this type of legislation. And I hope that this party, and the government, of course, will see fit to bring in amendments to the legislation -- which will force all political parties to state the amounts of moneys collected prior to Feb. 13 and how much is going into this fund.

We’ve heard all sorts of allegations, and there have been a number of newspaper stories. For instance, Harold Greer, in his column in the Ottawa Citizen -- I have a number of articles he has written. He has stated, and this has not been denied by anyone, that the legislation is, in his opinion, a $4 million loophole. It may well be that is an exaggeration, that that amount of money has not been collected by the government party, the Conservatives in this province.

Mr. Good: It could be an underestimate, too.

Mr. Roy: I don’t know. It could be that it’s more than this amount but at no time have I heard any attempt to disclose the amounts of money which have been collected.

I think as long as people are making this type of allegation -- and as long as we continue to perpetrate this type of secrecy in relation to the moneys going into this particular fund, allegations will be made -- the public itself will not be satisfied that all political parties in this province are prepared to live by their own legislation. That is, to disclose where the funds come from, what the amounts are and how they are spent.

Mr. Speaker, I would hope that the government would see fit to amend the legislation to compel all political parties in this province to state the amount of funds going into this trust fund; in other words, moneys collected prior to Feb. 13, 1975. I would think it would be to the advantage of the government because allegations have been made that the Conservative fund-raisers were extremely active some months or years prior to the enactment or the presentation of this legislation to the House. This would be a way for the government party and for all other parties here, to dispel this type of suspicion and to dispel any type of apprehension on the part of the public.

Mr. Speaker, one further matter I would like to comment upon on the legislation itself is that there should be limits on amounts of money spent in each constituency. I feel that if the federal legislation and other legislation which has been referred to -- the English legislation -- does have limits on this and that if we are, again, spreading the contribution of individuals -- and this type of legislation as my colleague from Nipissing has said will do this -- it will enable individuals from all walks of life to participate in the political process and I think that is healthy.

I was extremely pleased to see the minister has decided to take advantage of the tax legislation to allow deductions for contributors to political parties in this province. I think it would have been in some ways a very large deficiency in this bill if we had federal legislation which permitted tax deductions and provincial legislation which would not. I think that would have been extremely unfair to people who would have wanted to participate in the political process provincially. I think really that it was a wise move and we had no choice if we were serious about this type of legislation.

I do feel there should be limits on spending and I feel that the limits imposed by the legislation on spending for advertising are no limits at all. I think my colleagues have mentioned that they are not adequate. My colleague from Downsview has stated some of the deficiencies in the legislation -- some technical problems with the legislation. I was pleased to see the minister’s response that this bill will be going to standing committee because I think this is that type of legislation -- especially when we consider the difficulty and the problems they had at the federal level with their legislation and the lengthy. debates they had on it.

Mr. Speaker, these are basically my comments to this bill. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Port Arthur.

Mr. Foulds: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I welcome this bill and I am particularly pleased that the present minister is the one who is guiding it through. I hope it won’t be his swan song in spite of his announced retirement because I’ve enjoyed the minister in the House. I think he is often aggressive, often pugnacious, but always stimulating.

Mr. Roy: The minister’s performance yesterday left something to be desired.

Mr. F. Laughren (Nickel Belt): Except his Throne Speech wind up. That wasn’t very stimulating.

Mr. Roy: The minister was weak there.

Mr. Foulds: I was trying to be complimentary. I didn’t know I was going to raise such a storm about being complimentary to this minister.

Hon. S. B. Handleman (Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations): It wasn’t the hon. member. He is fine.

Mr. Foulds: I have often disagreed with this minister on principle in terms of his previous portfolios. That’s why I am pleased to agree with the principle of this bill that he is guiding through the House.

We used to play a game when we were kids about one small step, one medium-size step and one giant step. I think this is a step somewhere between medium size and giant --

Mr. Laughren: It is called “May I.”

Mr. Foulds: -- in the right direction, in the game of “May I.” I especially think of the way that this bill has broken ground in setting up a very clearly defined commission to administer the Act. That is something quite different, if I am correct, from any other legislation whatsoever. That is a genuine attempt, I think, on the part of the government to ensure tough enforcement of this bill. Frankly, I welcome tough enforcement of this bill. In fact, I would hope that some provisions under the bill would go further, because I think that there is a ennui, an apathy that has taken hold of the public in North America with regard to political parties and political activity. Anything that we can do in this northern half of North America to rehabilitate that attitude is welcome.

There are a number of limitations that the hon. member for York South touched on, a number of reservations that I have that he mentioned and which I endorse. I am disappointed that there are no overall limits on spending, either at the constituency level or on the provincial overall level -- not just limits on advertising but overall spending limits. I wouldn’t go quite as far as my colleague from Sandwich-Riverside in limiting every constituency --

Mr. Burr: Oh, come on!

Mr. Foulds: -- to $7,000 in expenditure. I think -- and this is just a slight personal disagreement that we might have -- that that would tend to favour the well known or established person, particularly in one-town constituencies like Sault Ste. Marie or something like that. Someone who had a business that for years had advertised publicly would have a name that would be better known than, say, a machinist out of a factory or a humble school teacher or someone like that.

Mr. Singer: Are there some of those around?

Mr. Foulds: There aren’t very many humble school teachers any more, that I admit.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Foulds: There are a few of us who have been invalided out of the profession, so to speak.

Mr. Bullbrook: The hon. member for Sudbury East is the only one I can think of.

Mr. R. F. Nixon (Leader of the Opposition): Humble Elie.

Mr. Foulds: Yes, the hon. member for Sudbury East.

Mr. E. W. Martel (Sudbury East): Members can tell my humility is always present.

An hon. member: We can always hear it.

Mr. Foulds: Anyway, I think the limit should be somewhat higher than that, but not substantially, certainly within the $15,000 range at the constituency level.

Mr. Burr: I will go to 12 or 13 cents.

Mr. Foulds: Agreed, Mr. Speaker? We got that cleared up. But 12½ cents would be more than enough for the average-sized constituency in Ontario, I would think.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Foulds: There are a couple of sections that I would like to mention on second reading to the minister so that we can discuss them more fully and he will have some idea of our thoughts when we get into committee. Perhaps he can explain either in committee or in his wind-up about some of the specific sections.

It occurred to me that in section 18 which was briefly touched upon -- this is the section which covers anonymous donations -- there is the possibility, in the style of Robert Redford and Paul Newman in “The Sting,” one could be set up. Maybe this is not a bad thing, but it did occur to me that --

Mr. Laughren: Watch it, Jessiman.

Mr. Foulds: -- if someone really wanted to do in a present hon. member, who shall remain anonymous, and sent him $100 anonymously and he felt, “Well, I will just put it in at a social,” and then the anonymous donor surfaced about a month after the election and said: “What happened to that $100 that I sent?” and it hadn’t been declared, what then? But I think the provisions of the bill are tough enough to prevent a fiddling there, if you like.

Mr. MacDonald: Of course the minister wouldn’t have received it, would he?

An hon. member: No, certainly not.

Mr. Foulds: The only trouble is, the anonymous donor who wants to do a setup is going to have to register the anonymous contribution and I suppose that’s one way it becomes non-anonymous. They can trace it back and find out who it was.

Hon. J. White (Minister without Portfolio): I should think it would be very easy to locate the anonymous donor. Simply by asking at any public meeting, “Who gave me this $1,000 anonymously?” you would have at least one hand in the air.

Mr. Foulds: To claim the tax rebate. Hey, he does have this figured out.

Mr. Laughren: What a devious mind. That’s why he was Treasurer.

Mr. Foulds: Another section that I want to mention that I find really quite fuzzy and I think we should examine fairly closely for clarification is section 23, sub-clause 1, where it says, “any person, corporation, or trade union with the knowledge and consent of a political party” -- and it goes on -- puts in the advertisement. What I don’t understand, and perhaps this can be clarified in the wording or the regulations that come out of the Act, with my full consent I know that the Liberals and the Conservatives are going to oppose me -- I would hope that they would -- but as I read the Act, if I know that they are going to oppose me -- there’s an “or” in there and it’s a parallel structure -- with an advertisement, then I am somehow liable to claim that. Maybe there’s a wording problem there that I don’t quite understand, but from a grammarian’s point of view there’s a parallel structure that means if you know that your opponent is going to oppose you, you can be in difficulty in terms of this Act. Perhaps one of the minister’s officials can clarify that.

The other problem is one that I always face in my riding when the Communist Party doesn’t run a candidate. They always take out a big ad, without notifying us, about three or four days before election day --

Mr. R. F. Nixon: We pay for that.

Mr. Cassidy: They do as a matter of fact.

Mr. Foulds: -- saying that “in the absence of a Communist Party candidate we support the NDP candidate” and that loses me at least 2,500 votes although it gets me 17 in my riding.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Oh, that is a great ad. The Communist Party has rights.

Mr. Foulds: They have rights, absolutely.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: In fact, the Communists are running ahead of the Tories up in Sudbury.

Mr. Foulds: Now, what happens, Mr. Speaker, through you to the minister, if someone in another party -- say Social Credit, say Communist Party, say the anarchist party, say what have you -- notifies somebody in my riding association, somebody who is just a canvasser in our terms, and does not notify the election committee or anybody in a responsible position and the canvasser doesn’t pass on the word? Is that considered notifying the political party when they have notified a member of the political party who just may have a membership and not be very active? There is a clarification that I think we would like to see there. Maybe in terms of the regulations that could be defined as the consent of the candidate or any of the executive of his riding association or of the campaign committee heads. But there is a problem there.

I suppose that section 27, the transfer from one riding association to another within the provincial party, is put in there primarily to aid all political parties when they are engaged in fighting a by-election. I would assume that that’s the main reason for that section, and certainly would approve of it for that reason.

I would certainly like to endorse the comments Of the hon. member for York South on section 30, and particularly on section 31, about the individual nature of the contribution by the trade union person whose local affiliates to my party.

What happens, in effect, is that the local, the trade union itself, is simply acting as an administrative agent, admittedly on behalf of my party, but also on behalf of its members, because the member can make a legitimate individual decision to opt out, and if he decides to take out a full membership in the party -- as the hon. member for York South pointed out -- he does not have to make up the full $10 in our base membership. It works out to $8.80.

I suggest to the minister, Mr. Speaker, that it is an individual membership and should not be considered as the contribution that the union as a body could make if it wished, either to my party or any other party, for that matter. There have been trade unions in my area that have contributed to other political parties, much to my embarrassment -- but there it is.

Mr. Laughren: Is that right? That’s incredible.

Mr. Martel: They haven’t learned yet.

Mr. Foulds: That’s changing; and it will change dramatically in 1975 and in 1976.

Mr. Laughren: Thanks to the representation of the hon. member for Port Arthur.

Mr. Foulds: Right. Absolutely. Having heard that very nice thing from my friend, the hon. member for Nickel Belt, I want to say something on his behalf with regard to section 44.

Mr. Laughren: If he doesn’t. I will withdraw the remark.

Mr. Foulds: There is a special condition that is included in the public funding of candidate expenses in section 44 for the electoral districts of Cochrane North, Rainy River and Thunder Bay. I would submit that the riding of Nickel Belt should be included in that section. It is as large in physical size as the Rainy River riding, if not larger, and the transportation problems in it are just as great, if not greater, than the traffic and transportation and communication problems in Rainy River. I think that was simply an oversight on the part of the Camp commission when they made their recommendations. I would certainly ask the minister to look at that as a possible amendment.

I only have two more comments that I would like to make on the bill. One of them has to do with the tabulation of volunteer goods and services and the definition under that. I’ll give you an example that we thrashed out in my riding association. Mr. Speaker, since we couldn’t get a clear definition of it. Generally, we thought if a person volunteered his professional capability or professional service, then this would have to be accounted for.

In our election campaign we use signs a good deal. We have a corner grocer with a truck and we use his truck sometimes to go on the rounds to erect signs. The truck is part of his business. He’s not in the trucking business, but it’s part of his professional way of making a living. That was one thing that came to mind. Perhaps we need to define a little hit more clearly what are volunteer services that we need to keep an account of in terms of goods and services as political party contributions.

I certainly would endorse the comments of the hon. member for Nipissing on the point about the rates for media advertising other than periodicals. I don’t know what other members experience in their areas --

Mr. Martel: Double rates.

Mr. Foulds: -- but as soon as the election is called, the rates for newspaper, radio and television advertising -- and in our riding we tend to use a good deal of that kind of advertising; it is in the nature of the riding both historically and in terms of communications -- the rates go up quite dramatically. There is what one could call a special ripoff rate for political parties -- and it affects all political parties -- which is at least 1½ and sometimes double the highest prime rate for any other form of advertising. Therefore, I would think that the safeguards that are included in the bill with regard to periodicals certainly should be broadened to include the other media as well.

Those are my comments, Mr. Speaker. In principle I support the bill, and I am extremely glad that this particular minister is bringing it through the House and will be guiding it through committee. We will be making specific points and amendments during the clause-by-clause debate, but in principle I support the bill. I am sure all members of the House, and particularly members of the public, welcome the general thrust of the legislation.

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

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Mr. Speaker, I want to speak briefly on the bill. We are supporting it in principle, and in general we think it is an excellent initiative indeed.

I remember very well when the Premier gave the additional terms of reference to the commission on the Legislature so that it would have the responsibility to advise us. At that time he said one thing not up for negotiation or even discussion is the fact that all sources of finance, beyond a very low limit, be revealed. This is one of the cornerstones in the improvement of the situation which this bill puts forward. The other one, in my view, must be an appropriate limit on expenditure, which has not been brought forward in this bill.

I really could never understand why Dalton Camp and Doug Fisher could not understand the basic strength and justice of a limit on individual and province-wide campaigns, both having participated in the political process themselves. Their argument that it was impossible to police it is one that cannot be accepted when we see that almost every jurisdiction that has moved in this sort of legislation has established a limit.

I would be the last to say that these limits have been effective. I have the impression, for example, in the Province of Quebec, that the limits are anything but effective. In the federal legislation they are established so high, certainly in the kinds of campaigns that are conducted in many areas of the province, that the limit has no effect at all. I don’t know about London South or Kingston and the Islands, or some of the richer NDP campaigns in Sudbury --

Mr. Martel: They are filthy rich.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: -- where they get all the support from the insurance groups and so on. You never know how much they want to spend.

Mr. R. G. Hodgson: Is that why the member was elected?

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: But I will tell you, sir, that back in what I suppose is the politically naive hinterland of Brant constituency you have got to work very hard to spend much more than about $7,000 or $8,000 -- although I think my Tory opponents normally spend more than that.

What I am saying, Mr. Speaker, is that it is regretful, as far as I am concerned, that the other keystone was not included in the report from the commission or in this legislation, and that is a meaningful limit on expenditure. I will tell you one thing: If we are prepared, as undoubtedly we are, to support a bill which is going to be a drain on the public treasury in support of bona fide candidates to the extent of maybe an average of $6,000 per constituency, I really believe it is irresponsible not to have a top limit.

Failing that limit, even with the procedures and the requirements in this bill, in many respects this original payment from the public treasury -- which admittedly comes after the election, after the candidate has garnered 15 per cent of the votes cast -- this $6,000 is just the ante that comes in from all three parties and upon which the expenditure can be built in a way which I think often subverts the political process.

It is interesting that the Minister without Portfolio is putting this legislation before the House. It is common knowledge that he is in fact conducting the campaign for the Conservatives. He doesn’t like it when people say he’s being paid $7,500 of public money to be the campaign manager.

Mr. Bullbrook: He doesn’t like it at all.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I would think that if there were any loopholes in this particular legislation the place to look for them would be in the Byzantine recesses of the Minister without Portfolio’s mind. If they can be found he will have found them and he will have seen that this bill has been put forward with that in mind. It was with great glee, suppressed glee on the part of the Premier but not so suppressed on the part of the Minister without Portfolio, that the operative date, now many weeks ago, Feb. 13, 1975 was imposed.

I suppose, and I might as well be frank, that we were pretty good at that stage. There were those people in the province who, for the first time in more than a quarter of a century, could see there was an alternative moving forward to unseat the Conservative Party which has been holding the reigns of power for so long.

I can’t say that I have any regrets. This little bit of financial gerrymandering is something that actually we support because we do believe that the provisions of this bill will, in the long run, be very effective indeed. The fact that the Tories have got their $5 billion salted down in kegs somewhere -- maybe in Old Fort William, I don’t know -- ready to be doled out without attribution to its source is something we are prepared to overcome and surmount.

Mr. Martel: Joe Fabbro’s got it hidden at Inco.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Joe Fabbro is working on that, is he? Fabbro used to run for Liberal nominations but evidently the Minister without Portfolio in charge of saving the unsavable has been working on Fabbro the way he was working on Benoit. I think he’s got that great spokesman for the north, Leo Del Villano, on his short list.

Mr. Bullbrook: Are they getting Leo back again?

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I think probably Leo is prepared to come down and address the gathering of the Tory hierarchy at the Albany Club. I think that probably they would learn a little bit from him but I don’t know what the future holds. I doubt if there are going to be any more Tory members from the north. I think there are going to be fewer if anything. There are certainly going to be fewer from the London area and that goes without saying.

Mr. Bullbrook: Where will Merle be?

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Merle? Is Merle back on the campaign trail again? They certainly go for those top-flight municipal leaders, don’t they?

Mr. Bullbrook: Do they know Merle’s address now?

Mr. R. F. Nixon: We are, I suppose, prepared to say that this legislation, in its principle and its concept, is excellent. It will, in fact, have much more application in the election after this one when the Conservative Party is not going to have the ample resources -- rumoured to be in excess of $5 million -- which they don’t have to report and which they collected during their palmy days before their house of cards started to fall in. That was one political decision -- that was before the Premier fired Mr. Shouldice I think, wasn’t it, when they were still gathering those funds?

Mr. Bullbrook: Yes.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I regret that there is a certain ingredient of hypocrisy in the approach to this legislation but its principle certainly is one which must be supported.

I wish the commission on the Legislature had been able to give a majority recommendation that there be a limit on expenditure.

It is incomprehensible to me that only Farquhar Oliver in his minority report put forward that strong recommendation. We in this party are prepared to put forward amendments which will call for a limit which we believe is enforceable, which would be carefully audited and policed by the commissioners which will be appointed to enforce the requirements of this bill.

Those people are going to have a great deal of responsibility. Presumably they will be paid for the responsibility and we are prepared to give them the complete independent authorization to impose such an upper ceiling and see that it is an enforceable and a workable one.

I personally am surprised that the Conservatives are prepared to dip into the public treasury for public support for candidates without going to the only control method which would make that system effectively operable and that is the establishment of a ceiling. I hope, Mr. Speaker, that the members of the House can be persuaded, since this is legislation of value, to make it more valuable and put on a ceiling not only for province-wide campaigns but for individual campaigns in that regard.

I remember when the Premier got up in his place defending the $50,000 contribution from Fidinam, of which we had prima facie evidence in the press. He said he would give his personal undertaking there had been nothing untoward, nor was there any association between that $50,000 donation and the contract to build the Workmen’s Compensation Board building. He was still in the first flush of his victory in 1971. So there didn’t seem to be anything that could be done about it, other than to move on to other things eventually.

I personally believe that it was the embarrassment that the Premier must certainly have felt at the revelation of the facts associated with that case and others that have since been revealed that led him to give the additional term of reference to the commission. I’m glad that the commission report has resulted in legislation, even as effective as we have here.

I still say that the concept is incomplete. I hope by way of amendment we can improve the legislation, but we intend to support it in principle.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Nickel Belt.

Mr. Laughren: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are supporting this bill, of course, because we are quite enthusiastic about the whole principle of public financing of elections. I’m really disappointed, when we’ve gone as far as we have in terms of appointing the commission with all its powers of monitoring and enforcement, that we didn’t go that next step, as the leader of the Liberal Party has suggested, and set ceilings. I’ve always felt that if the ongoing expenses of running political parties cannot be publicly financed, then certainly the election campaign should be, and I think that serves us all the best.

Quite frankly, it seems to me this government is not in a position that it should quibble over that. Given the last 3½ years, one would think they would be most eager to remove any of the kinds of suspicions that are there about party financing. I think it would have been politically astute for this government to have done that. There is no better way to do that than through what has been called the detached checkoff, whereby people can indicate they wish to have some tax dollars go for the support of the political party of their choice. In that way you have extremely broad financing of the whole political process, Mr. Speaker, that way it also helps finance parties between elections and allows them to conduct a campaign as well. I would see nothing wrong with that. It wouldn’t be an undue burden on the public purse at all.

I’m confused by section 17 of the bill which talks about the first $10 not being rebatable. I’m surprised at that. I would have thought that it would have simplified matters if the whole contribution could be rebatable. I think I know why that was put in. But I think that it probably isn’t going to serve its purpose and that the whole thing should be rebatable.

Like my other colleagues, I’m naturally concerned about the whole question of the trade union checkoff. I don’t think it makes sense to say that a union that’s affiliated with a party can suddenly be told that it is performing an illegal act, when in effect what’s really happening is that that local is acting on behalf of its membership to process the contribution of the membership to the political party of their choice. I don’t think it’s fair to consider that as a union contribution, which when the large locals are involved would automatically contravene the Act because of the size of the contribution -- and certainly Sudbury locals are a good example.

The other thing my colleague from Port Arthur spoke of on my behalf was the subsidy for certain of the ridings, namely Cochrane North, Rainy River, Kenora and Thunder Bay. If I might be so bold as to launch a plea on my own behalf, or at least on behalf of the riding of Nickel Belt, because it would effect not just me, of course, but the other candidates as well, Nickel Belt is a very large riding. They tell me it’s 20,000 square miles and travel is a considerable burden during a campaign.

It is not just travel, though. It’s the whole question of the distances. It means that if you want to communicate with your constituents 300 miles from one community, then you have to use different media. For example, advertising in the Sudbury Star -- not that I would do much of that -- or on the local radio or TV would not have any impact at all on the north part of the riding, because they just don’t get the paper and they don’t receive the electronic media either; so one has an expense that way.

There is the whole question of travel expenses, the food, lodging -- and as a matter of fact I have often thought there should be an extra bonus for me in my travels in some of these small communities. It’s very difficult to spend time down here during the week and then weekends 300 miles from one’s home as well.

But that really isn’t what I started to say. I started to say there should be some kind of reward or extra incentive to stay in some of the hotels that I have to stay in. There are hotels in that riding that I stay in that are very old, and I’ve stayed in hotels where even my feet hung over the end of the bed.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: They could put the member up in the bureau drawer.

Mr. Laughren: The Provincial Secretary for Resources Development (Mr. Grossman) and I could sleep end to end in most beds. But I think the riding of Nickel Belt should be added to those lists of ridings that receive subsidy --

Mr. Stokes: If members came into some of the hotels in my riding I could show them where the fire escape is a one-inch rope.

Mr. Martel: They could use it to hang a few cabinet ministers.

Mr. Laughren: -- so that the riding of Nickel Belt for the benefit of all candidates who will aspire to public office, can receive the benefit of the increased subsidy. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

Mr. Cassidy: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Along with the other speakers I would like to endorse the bill as a whole, and just point out for the record that one of the interesting things about this debate has been the fact that the proposal to subsidize candidates to the tune of $6,000. or $7,000 during the course of an election has got such general support in the House that in fact it has not been commented upon at all.

I think that the concerns that I want to air, Mr. Speaker, are that some of the general purposes of the bill, in terms of democratizing the election process in this province and in terms of loosening or eliminating the grip that large corporations have had on the campaigns of the old parties, with the subsequent influence that might have bad on government -- and that is alleged to have taken place as well in the case of the links between the labour movement and the NDP -- that not all of those purposes are fulfilled with this particular bill.

I would like to deal with three particular areas; and, with one or two side notes, the areas I want to talk about are the limits on contributions, the trade union checkoff and the absurd level of spending limits that is provided for in the bill for expenditures on media -- and that point in particular I have put some research into. I would like the minister to consider those points very carefully.

On the question of contribution limits first, I think the limits that are proposed in the bill are, frankly, far too high. As the minister knows, the Camp commission recommended that there be a limit of $2,000 per annum for a contribution by an individual, a corporation or a trade union to any registered political party, plus a maximum of $500 to a constituency association or to a combination of constituencies; and in an election year the Camp commission suggested that those figures could be doubled. The bill has gone beyond that, and it suggests that a maximum of $4,000 may be given in an ordinary year and double -- $8,000 -- in an election year by any individual or corporation or trade union to any registered party.

The bill doesn’t say it, but the reference in section 20 to giving money that isn’t yours is sufficiently broad that, in fact, where a husband and wife, who are for all practical purposes one economic unit, wish to increase their contribution to a political party, then money can simply be handed along by the wife as well as by the husband. As a consequence, the practical limit in a non-election year for contributions by a married couple, by a man who wishes to use the support of his wife, is $8,000; and in an election year it is double that again, or $16,000.

Because of the way the system works, it appears clear that there is no restriction on earmarking of money which is given to a registered political party. It is therefore possible for the contributor to say he wants the money to go to this particular purpose or this particular riding. A man, therefore, who is still married and has his wife chipping in along on his behalf, can devote as much as $10,000 in an election year to a particular constituency, along with another $6,000 which can be put into other constituencies.

Well I just have to say, Mr. Speaker, that that figure, whether it’s $8,000 for a corporation or trade union, or in certain cases double that amount for an individual with his wife, is excessive. It bears no relationship to the kinds of incomes that people are enjoying in the province today, and certainly bears no relationship to the idea that people should be able to contribute and, in fact, encouraged to contribute to political parties on a relatively equal basis.

Now it was the purpose of the proposal to give tax credits to contributors to try and encourage widespread participation in the financing of political parties. That’s why there are credits of up to $500 available; and my people are encouraged to give up to $1,000 or so.

But the sums that are involved here are quite out of sight, Mr. Speaker. The median family income in this province is about $13,500. About 90 per cent of the family units in the province have got incomes that are below $20,000 or $21,000, and only a very small proportion have got incomes in the $20,000 range and up.

Even if you’re talking about a tithe of 10 per cent of taxable income or of post-tax income, Mr. Speaker, you’re saying that the limits would only begin to bite for people earning upwards of $100,000 a year. Now that, clearly, is inequitable.

It seems to me, and I think on behalf of my party as well, that much more reasonable limits could and should have been brought in. If the limits were reasonable, then the artificial division which has been put in the bill between registered parties and the constituency associations would not be necessary.

Since it’s easy to earmark money, it seems to me that it’s a facade or a sham to say that money can be given to a party, but only so much to a particular constituency association. Provided the overall amount is not too great, the individual or corporation or trade union should have the option of where to put their money.

I would suggest that in the first place the contributions should be based on a family unit. In other words, where a husband and wife wish to contribute, or where a wife is being used as a channel to launder money that the husband couldn’t give, that should be stopped by ensuring that a family unit would have the same overall limit on what it can contribute. The case where husband and wife are both working and earning an income could be accommodated, if the limits were not made too restrictive.

I’ve joked that we ought to make it maybe $10 or $20 per person, but obviously there’s probably a climate out there that says that people are willing to accept something more than that. In fact, that was the finding of the survey that was carried out by the people who did research for the Camp committee. That survey suggested a figure of around $1,000 per person would be a reasonable limit on contributions.

I would suggest that the limit might be a total of $2,000 per annum, which could be given by an individual or an individual and his wife, or a corporation, or a trade union, to each registered party or to any of its constituency associations. And how they spend that $2,000 is between the party and its riding associations and would be up to the contributor, presumably in consultation with the party.

Then I would suggest, Mr. Speaker, that during the course of an election year that it is not the same people in fact who become the major contributors. It’s fallacious to say that you’re always going back to the same well and that therefore you have to double to triple the amounts that those people can be permitted to give.

In fact, as we all know, there are a certain group of regular contributors -- presumably to all three parties -- who see it as a public duty to give on a regular basis to sustain the ongoing activity of the party. At election time, a far broader group is drawn in and can be hit for money, can be asked for donations to support a candidate a party or the workings of the political process.

As a consequence, I don’t think it is necessary to double the limits on contributions during an election year. What I would suggest would be that in order to accommodate extra effort, by regular contributors, the limit for all purposes for the party during an election year possibly should be raised by $1,000 to a maximum of $3,000 per individual, per corporation or per trade union.

It seems to me that this is not going to be onerous on anybody in a modest, middle- or even an upper-income bracket. I would point out to the minister that the people in the survey conducted for the Camp committee who felt most strongly that there should be limits on expenditures, along with disclosure of names and amounts, were people who were already regular contributors to a particular political party. If that is the case, people who know and understand the system would welcome the reasonable kinds of limits that would define the extent to which they can be hit but would permit a broadening of that base of contributions to the party, and I think that that is something that this Legislature can take up.

I am aware, in suggesting limits of that nature, that it involves readjustments on the part of all three parties. It involves adjustments for the Conservative Party, where developers used to come in for breakfast with the Premier and wound up by giving $20,000 cheques. I am sure it involves the same kind of adjustment, although the sums may be lesser, with the Liberal Party. And in our case there are certain trade unions that have a larger membership and have been accustomed to giving more than $3,000 per annum to the NDP as their contribution to the political process and as their political activity. We are prepared to make that kind of adjustment, and I think that all parties should be prepared to try to make it.

I have a couple of other points related to contributions, Mr. Speaker, and obviously we will also be raising them during the course of the clause by clause study on this particular question.

The first is that it is an old tradition in our party, and possibly within at least the ladies’ association of the Conservative association in my riding as well as, I am sure, in other political parties, that they take up a collection when they have a meeting. You pass the hat, the cup, the bowl or whatever it is you happen to have in order to help to pay for the cost of the hall, to pay for the coffee, the tea or the sherry if drinks are provided and that kind of thing. It is a normal kind of thing; people like to do it.

The purpose of this legislation is not to stop parties from passing the bowl; it is to stop them from passing the bag. It seems to me, Mr. Speaker, that some kind of adjustment might be permitted in order to permit small collections of silver, up to a few dollars, during the course of election meetings.

Secondly, the provisions for permitting extra contributions during the course of an election campaign allow the creation of a financial campaign committee only at the time the writs are issued. That committee would not only last for 30 or 37 days, whatever is the length of the actual campaign, but it would continue to last for four months after the campaign was over.

If the period after the campaign is necessary in order to permit wrapping up, cleaning up and so on, I don’t particularly dispute that. However, it is a fact of life that during an election campaign there are a great many duties to be done, and many parties, particularly when they have to look to a broader base of financial contributions, will want to get pledges or get money for an election campaign before the writs are actually issued. It is a bit awkward, it seems to me, that you have to go and accept a pledge and then cash in on the pledge as many as five or six months later.

I wonder whether those provisions about the date on which the money can be accepted for the campaign itself could not be broadened in order to permit the collection of actual money in the form of cheques and its deposit in a designated bank account prior to the writs actually being issued.

We all have a fairly good idea of when the writs are going to be issued; and, for that matter, the spending limits, if they were made more reasonable, would be sensible enough that if money happened to be given for an election and the election wasn’t held that year, there would be no substantial abuse.

Secondly, Mr. Speaker, I would like to lend my support to the comments made by other members of my party about the misapprehension of the minister and the people who drafted the bill about the nature of the money paid by trade union members under the checkoff. I can do so in a completely impartial kind of manner because to my knowledge I don’t think there is a single local chartered within my riding for which the checkoff applies.

The trade union checkoff however, Mr. Speaker, is a means for individuals to give money to a political party and the restrictions that are put on the agency through which that money is passed, that is the trade union, are wrong. No one is suggesting, Mr. Speaker, that if, for example, a corporation wishes to give money to its chief officers or its directors in the form of income for them to pass through to a political party and take advantage of the tax credits, that the corporation should thereby have a limit set on the amount it can contribute. It can give the money in the form of income.

Hon. Mr. White: It must be their own money.

Mr. Cassidy: It must be their own money but it can increase the income of those individuals and then, so long as they are not bound by contract to contribute to the party, they can decide they will give the money to the party even though, in fact, it is money which is coming out of corporate coffers. That could take place, for example, in the case of a closely-held family corporation.

Nobody is suggesting that the corporate limits be restricted because of money being passed through or because of the fact that the board of directors or the chief executive officer decided as a group that they will each chip in $500 or $1,000 towards the party of their choice. It seems particularly perverse to pick on moneys paid through the trade union checkoff when it was proposed in the original bill that contributions under the sum of $10 to political parties should be exempt. The rule being applied in the bill is that all contributions under $10 are exempt except for those amounting to around $1.20 a year which are made through the form of the trade union checkoff.

I would suggest, Mr. Speaker, that there will be practical problems raised by this as well. The member for York South has pointed out that certain unions now affiliated provide more to the New Democratic Party through the checkoff -- that is, their members provide more -- than they would be permitted to provide under this bill. Therefore, they are breaking the law, effective at this time the bill was put in, I suppose. The minister has to come to some kind of an accommodation under that particular problem no matter what he does, because I think it would be absolutely unacceptable that he would force people to disaffiliate and interfere in the life of collective organizations in that way.

I would suggest as well, Mr. Speaker, if I can appeal to the Conservative sense of self-interest, that there is a halfway house right now by which many union members contribute to a political party through the checkoff but really don’t do a heck of a lot more than that. If disaffiliation is compelled upon them, on their union, by this legislation it seems to me the union will disaffiliate; it will turn around and will continue to give the maximum it can give out of its own funds to the party of its choice.

It will then move heaven and earth within its own ranks to take those members who were affiliated at $1.20 a year and turn them into active members of a political party at $10 or $20 or $30 a year and at a much larger personal commitment than may exist right now. In applying this, the Conservative government may be cutting off its nose to spite its face given the political leanings of most active trade unionists.

The Camp commission wanted more mass participation in parties but this is a move which would discourage it. I hope the minister will accept very seriously the advice and comments that have been made from this side of the House. We believe that this is one of those areas which can be negotiated and can be settled and in which the government does not have to be totally rigid.

On the general question of an expenditure limit, I understand the government is going to be rigid. I have directed my comments on that understanding because I would like to suggest some reforms and some changes to be made in this particular bill which I think perhaps the minister can listen to and hopefully accept or accommodate. I support and endorse the view that there should be overall spending limits as has been said by members of my party and also of the opposition party. I don’t really want to go into that any further, because it’s clear, I think, now that the government on the matter of principle has decided not to have any limits at all. It is acting in that case on the advice of two of the three commissioners on the Camp commission.

However, Mr. Speaker, I think the government should bear in mind more than it has the relatively strong view of the public, as interviewed by the researchers of the Camp commission, that spending limits were desirable, that political parties are spending too much and that something should be done. I think we should also bear in mind that some of the controls that the Camp commission offered as alternatives to the fact that it was not recommending an overall spending limit have vanished in the process by which the report was translated into legislation.

For example, it does not appear to be possible now that the election campaign will be limited to 30 days from the present 35 or 37 days, because of practical problems with electoral lists and other things that the chief electoral officer has made representations about.

Secondly, the incentive plan, whereby candidates would be restrained from increasing their spending because every dollar in increased spending would lose them some money in public subsidy, has been taken out. The subsidy is now to be paid, regardless of whether a candidate spends $10,000 or $100,000 on his particular campaign.

Thirdly, the contribution limits proposed in Camp of a maximum of $2,500 and $5,000 have been increased to $4,000 and $8,000, or, as I suggest, to the maximum of $16,000 in an election year on behalf of a husband and wife. So there’s going to be more money running around than Camp had anticipated, a longer campaign and less incentive to each candidate to try to restrict spending.

We don’t know for sure what the Conservatives spent last time, although $5 million is the popular estimate. Two-thirds of the people who responded on the Camp commission said they thought that $5 million was too, much and they wanted to try to do something about it. They said that the amounts given should be reduced and they wanted to find some kind of limits on spending as well.

It’s curious, Mr. Speaker, that the survey indicated that the public didn’t really think it was that much influenced by radio or TV commercials. In fact, next to lawn signs, in which we are the specialists, they thought that radio and TV commercials were the least effective form of campaigning. Nevertheless, the Camp commission itself seems to believe that television, in particular, is a very important kind of influence. Moreover, there is no limit to be imposed on spending before the writ, and there are very high ceilings that have been imposed as far as the actual spending itself goes.

The Camp commission suggested that there were limits on TV spending which would protect candidates and that candidates themselves couldn’t really spend that much on TV because of what they could afford. With the $6,000 or so that each candidate will receive in public subsidy, he can afford, as I will suggest in a few minutes, a very substantial media campaign, quite apart from whatever resources were available before. All of us know that there are going to be more funds available, because of the tax credits, than existed before.

I think it’s true, Mr. Speaker, that we also feel -- we certainly feel and maybe the government feels as well -- we can cope with disparities in expenditure when it’s on the ground and not in the media. If the Premier wants to have a fancy four-colour leaflet and we put out a pedestrian one-colour leaflet, that is, black on white, then it’s the message that still counts. If the message isn’t acceptable to the public, all amounts of four-colour printing are not going to help this government in its efforts to regain election.

When it comes to advertising in the media, however, Mr. Speaker, not only are the limits too large, but there is no control on the use of central party funds to work for or against a specific candidate. In other words, it isn’t a matter of $12,000 in local spending on the media according to the 25-cent rule, or $25,000 if you say that the riding will get an equivalent from the party. It could be a case of $50,000 being used by the NDP in order to defeat the Minister Without Portfolio’s successor in London South.

It would be possible for our party, if we had the money, to concentrate our media spending on a particular government minister or member or candidate who we thought was particularly vulnerable. That certainly happened in the last campaign in the ridings of Oshawa and Peterborough. I particularly remember Peterborough -- I see that the new member is here -- where there was an absolute deluge of television advertising directed against the sitting member, Walter Pitman, one of the finest members in the House --

Mr. J. M. Turner (Peterborough): That is not true.

Mr. Cassidy: That is certainly true. Every bus bench was devoted to the merits, such as they were, of the Conservative candidate.

Mr. J. A. Renwick (Riverdale): Such as they are.

Mr. Cassidy: Such as they are; that’s right.

Mr. Turner: That is not true. It’s absolute nonsense.

Mr. Cassidy: Everything was used there in order to see to the election of the Conservative candidate, and Walter Pitman was defeated by a very marginal result.

Mr. Turner: That is absolute nonsense.

Mr. Cassidy: Well, I have noticed that the member has been trying to gerrymander his riding in order to get back in this time, but we can tell him that he won’t be here next year.

Mr. Turner: Prove that.

Mr. Cassidy: Well, I can show you on the map, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Turner: Show me.

Hon. Mr. White: If he is not good enough for the NDP, he is not good enough for the people of Peterborough.

Mr. Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, I say to the minister, I didn’t really mean to get into this political kind of parrying --

Mr. Turner: Stick to the facts.

Mr. Cassidy: -- with the hon. gentleman from Peterborough, because the point that I wanted to make is that --

Mr. Turner: Let’s get back to the bill.

Mr. Cassidy: -- even if saturation advertising was not used last time, it is clear that the only thing that can save the member for Peterborough would be saturation advertising this time on CHEX-TV, and that is possible under this particular bill because of the very loose kind of restrictions on the use of provincial party funds and the very large amounts that are available.

Mr. Speaker, I want to go into this question of what a party can spend. I also want to put some figures on the record, because I think they are important and I think they are disturbing in terms of what the government says it is trying to achieve and what it is actually trying to achieve. On the one hand, it says it is trying to limit the use of media as a means of buying elections; and on the other hand, it has not done so in the actual bill.

If I can summarize, Mr. Speaker, with about five million electors across the province, and 25 cents per elector to be spent by each party, each party will have the sum of approximately $1.25 million to spend on paid media. Production costs are not included in that total. If you take all of the candidates of a party together, they will have another $1.25 million to spend.

Mr. Speaker, to have a complete saturation campaign on TV and radio across the province, it would cost $1.25 million for the 20 days during which media advertising will be permitted during the course of this campaign. In other words, that’s where provincial funds could go for a saturation campaign -- and I will define that in a couple of minutes.

Then, for the candidates to have a saturation campaign that covered newspapers, billboards, community papers and bus and subway transit, would cost an additional sum of $500,000. And within the limits that have been proposed here, there would still be $750,000 in slush funds which could be used for God knows what purpose, but presumably to double or redouble the saturation campaigns that had already been bought.

By saturation, Mr. Speaker, I have in mind that every hour of every day, during all of the TV viewing hours between about 3:00 p.m. and 1:00 a.m., there would be a one-minute commercial for that party. Whether it would be prime time during “Gunsmoke” and “Hawaii Five-0,” or during the lesser times, there would be 10 commercials a day on television; there would be about twenty-five 30-second spots on radio, or about three per hour in the better listening periods on every radio station in the province. There would be 500 radio spots and 200 TV commercials on every TV and radio station in the province that accepts advertising; that is, every one except for the CBC outlets, which don’t take political ads.

Then there would be enough billboard advertising in order that there would be five million people see the political message every day -- that’s 100 per cent coverage, according to the way they measure these kinds of things.

There would be four advertisements for the Tory, Liberal or the New Democratic parties in every bus or subway car running in the province for the entire duration of the campaign, and there will be 20,000 agate lines of newspaper advertising in every newspaper in the province during the permissible time of advertising of the campaign. That equals a substantial ad in every paper, every day, for 20 days.

TV, Mr. Speaker, would cost about $700,000. The saturation on TV ranges from about $12,000 on the stations in Pembroke or in Sault Ste. Marie, to about $132,000 on CFTO here in Toronto. That assumes, in fact, that the spending would be as heavy at the beginning of the three weeks as it would be at the end of the three weeks, whereas the minister probably knows from his gurus that one begins small and builds up. By the final week, one party spending this kind of budget could command half of the TV time that was available for advertising in the province. The three parties would simply dominate the media completely if it were possible to get that time; and the answer, of course, is that it would not be possible to get that time.

If I can get down to more specifics again, I’m suggesting there would be about four ads in each of the double or triple A times and two ads apiece in the A, B and C time slots on every TV station in the province; and the same kind of spread on the radio stations. I have figures here, if anybody wishes to consult me, but for $700,000 one can have absolute saturation in television and for $580,000 absolute saturation in radio.

As far as billboards are concerned -- I put this on the record if anybody is interested -- $85,000 gives one saturation coverage on billboards; transit, $30,000 gives one saturation coverage; and newspapers $350,000 gives one saturation coverage in all of the daily newspapers of the province. The community papers add another $70,000 if one wanted to have a full-page ad in every community paper across the province for the three weeks in which media advertising is permitted. And, as I say, one then has enough money to go back and, on behalf of only one party, Mr. Speaker, spend the equivalent of another complete saturation campaign in TV or in some mixture of the various media that I have put down.

So what is the government proposing with these so-called limits on media spending? They’re proposing page after page of political ads. They are proposing that every billboard in the province will be devoted to one or the other political party. They are proposing that transit is saturated, TV is saturated, radio is saturated; that, in short, the three parties among them will have the right to buy the advertising media of the province. All the government has done is to legitimize any conceivable level of spending.

Mr. Speaker, the minister can ask his people before we go into committee to look into those figures in detail. In fact, if I can get them typed up I will send them over to him in order that he can look at them. I’m trying to sort of get away from very political comment in my statements about the need for overall spending limits, but I think this is excessive.

I think it’s quite legitimate that the parties should not have a direction as to where they spend their media dollars, as to whether they put them into newspaper ads, or community papers, or TV, or radio. I think that a reasonable access to media in order that the parties can put forward the messages that they want to put, rather than have interviewers interviewing candidates and that kind of thing, is also a reasonable part of our process as it has built up. However, it’s become excessive when we look at the fact that no conceivable amount of media spending during the 20 days which is permitted in an election campaign will be too much to be accommodated under the spending limits that are proposed by the minister. Therefore, I plead with the minister to look into this matter very closely and to consider that some more reasonable kinds of limits on the spending may be put forward.

I would point out to him, as far as the TV stations are concerned, that except in the depths of summer when they don’t have many advertisers, the advertising which will undoubtedly flow to their doors is more of an embarrassment than anything else. For 20 days, the three parties are going to be clamouring for time and the TV stations know that the parties won’t be there again for another one and one-half or two years -- that is until we have the run-off election which I confidently predict after this one -- or at any rate, in a normal kind of situation, not for four years.

They have to disrupt established advertising campaigns; they have to be nasty to their established advertisers. They face the problem of what to do if the Conservatives can put a downpayment on TV time now whereas the NDP gets its money about 30 days before the election and comes hustling in at the end and wants equal time and they are trying to assure some equity. I know they try but sometimes it’s difficult and it won’t always be fair.

They face real problems particularly on TV. The problems are less in radio and obviously don’t exist in the same measure in the case of newspapers because they can simply expand the size of their newspapers if they get a large amount of political advertising.

It seems to me that the government should be sitting down with the parties. We should be sitting down in committee in order to talk about a collective approach to the electronic media of the province in order to find other means by which candidates, leaders, cabinet ministers and front-bench spokesmen can have an opportunity to have dialogue with people of the province through the intermediary of the airwaves. We should be doing that in conjunction with the CRTC which has the power to direct that a certain amount of media will be given over to political affairs during the course of an election campaign.

As the minister knows, the media already do a lot of that. Our media in Ottawa are quite responsible about that and I’m sure that’s the case in most parts of the province. They make an attempt to bring the candidate together in three or four candidate debates. They interview them individually and they look at their wives and their lifestyles and that sort of thing. They do a fairly good job. They do the same thing with the leaders as well.

Working in conjunction with the CRTC it seems to me it will be possible to give every candidate in every party reasonable access to the airways, at which time a much more limited ceiling on spending, whether via the airwaves or the press, would be in order. That’s the kind of goal I believe we should be looking for.

I would urge, if the minister wanted me to be specific, that rather than the present limits of 25 cents and 25 cents we consider limits in the range of between a nickel and a dime per elector at the riding level and on the provincial level. If it were to be a dime and a dime for example -- and that’s more of a final point than a beginning point in my mind -- with approximately five million electors that would mean each party could spend up to $1 million on media advertising during the course of a campaign or $50,000 a day.

If we want to go back to the campaigns I have talked about, in which saturation on television, for example, is available for $700,000; saturation on the radio is available for about $600,000; and saturation on newspapers for about $350,000; it’s clear that a party which chose and thought, for example, it had a photogenic leader and wanted to stress his leadership and his charisma and so on, could still have the option of putting a lot of its dollars into a province-wide TV campaign. Another party that wished to stress policy might decide to put a lot of its bucks into newspaper advertising because that’s the way to carry across policy.

Those choices would still be there but we would not risk, as we risk now, that a party would cold-bloodedly decide that in order to save the seat of a Margaret Scrivener or a John Turner it would devote $80,000 or $100,000 to total saturation of the media in that particular campaign.

Mr. Turner: All this free advertising is terrific.

Mr. Cassidy: We would have a much more sensible kind of level of spending in the area which we all agree is the most easily controlled.

Yes, the member for St. David is in trouble. I don’t think that the disparities in spending in other fields, such as whether we have glossy pamphlets or plain ones, are nearly of such impact as this question of media advertising. That is why I’ve tried to lay a case out before the minister. I hope he will consider it seriously and look carefully at the possibility of coming down to a much more reasonable figure such as a dime and a dime rather than the full amount.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Does any other hon. member wish to speak? The hon. member for Thunder Bay.

Mr. Stokes: I want to speak for about 30 seconds. I am going to address myself specifically to section 44, since none of the other members has spoken yet from those ridings that were mentioned -- that is Cochrane North, Rainy River, Kenora and Thunder Bay -- where the government has seen fit to give the candidates in those four ridings the opportunity to get around in remote places that are accessible only by air by increasing the provisions of section 44 whereby public funding of candidates’ expenses is increased to the amount of $2,500. I want to thank the minister for including that in the bill. It will go a considerable distance in ameliorating the excessively high cost of air transport in the far north. On behalf of the four ridings mentioned in it, I want to say thank you to him for taking that into consideration.

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

Mr. T. P. Reid (Rainy River): Mr. Speaker, I would like to say a few words about this bill myself. You may recall, sir, that about two years ago now I introduced a bill into the Legislature, a private member’s bill, suggesting that there be spending limits on elections; and particularly that those people making donations of money, goods or services to election campaigns be identified if the donation was of a certain amount. I am glad to see that we are getting to that, because I think it’s going to go a long way to restoring the voters’ confidence in government so that they can be sure, especially after the scandals that this administration has gone through in regard to patronage and political donations, that perhaps the political system will be cleaned up and will be seen to be cleaned up.

In relation to my colleague from the north who just spoke about the extra added -- I won’t say incentive, finances available to northern members -- I think sometimes Mr. Speaker, we do much better when we don’t show up in any of these places.

Mr. Stokes: Let the member speak for himself.

Mr. Reid: Well, I was thinking of what they told me about the member for Thunder Bay in Ignace last week.

Mr. Stokes: Ignace is in the member for Rainy River’s riding.

Mr. Reid: I know, but some people from Savant Lake were there.

Mr. Stokes: People at Savant Lake support me quite readily.

Mr. Reid: Yes I know, I’m just kidding. But it does recall to mind, Mr. Speaker, particularly in the 1967 election, that because of a severe shortage of funds --

Mr. Stokes: In fact, I hope that --

Mr. Reid: -- there were many places in my area I wasn’t able to visit because I didn’t have the money to do it, first of all. That led to a lack of aircraft being available to take me in to see my constituents in those places. For people in northern Ontario this is certainly a welcome addition.

I suppose most of the technical points have been covered by other speakers. I do want to reiterate this party’s objection to the fact there aren’t any top-spending limits on just what a candidate can spend.

In the northern ridings perhaps -- again to be somewhat parochial -- the amount of money that is spent compares in no way to the advertising campaigns that I suppose in some cases must be put on in the urban ridings where the competition for the press is keen and advertising rates so much higher. But I still think, Mr. Speaker, and I say this most strongly, that this bill is incomplete without the provision that there be spending limits on individual campaigns and also on the party campaign, because it still allows an election to be bought, so to speak, in one sense or another, if there aren’t any limits on it.

Again, it puts those who are financially well off in a better position to have an undue and unequal influence, perhaps on the voters because of that financial position.

I would reiterate what my colleague from Downsview that said, and urge the minister to reconsider. I think it would be in the interests not only of the political parties themselves but of the whole electorate, that there be some ceiling on individual riding expenditures as well as party expenditures.

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

Mr. B. Newman (Windsor-Walkerville): Mr. Speaker, my comments will be very brief. In checking over that legislation, I have two suggestions to make as to items that should be included. The one I would like to bring to the attention of the minister is that one of the responsibilities of a returning officer -- and possibly I would bring this under the public funding of candidate expenses -- rather than the candidate being responsible, is that the returning officer should see that the voters’ lists, after the enumeration, are sent to each individual voter or family on the list. In that way, if the individual does not get a copy of the voters’ list, then he or she knows that they have not been included on the list. That might save the expense of the appointment of revising officers; or even though revising officers would be appointed, at least their work would be substantially reduced. In addition, the voters’ lists would be much more accurate than they are today.

Another suggestion I would make is that it should be the responsibility of the same individual to distribute “you-vote-at. . .” cards through the mails. If each of the parties was sending out You-vote-at. . . cards, the expense involved by four parties could be substantially reduced if they were sent out at one time by the returning officer for each riding.

In addition, I would heartily endorse the recommendation of the limitation of election expenses. It’s unfortunate that quite often there seems to be no bottom to the well when it comes to election expenditures. I think there should be a ceiling, and it should be a reasonable ceiling. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Any other hon. members want to speak to this? The hon. minister.

Hon. Mr. White: Mr. Speaker, I think I’ll just speak to 6:00 o’clock, dealing with several of the many points that have been raised and proceed with this in the standing committee on Thursday, I hope, where we can get into a dialogue with advisers and experts around us. The suggestion is that we take it into the standing committee on justice as soon as that committee can deal with it, which apparently cannot be on Wednesdays.

I want to express my appreciation of those who have contributed. I’ve got seven pages of notes here, as a matter of fact, for my own consideration and that of the law officers.

There’s been quite lot of sound and fury from the Liberal benches about limits on advertising and overall limits on expenditures, notwithstanding the reasoned objections posed by two or three members of the royal commission. I’ve got some good news for the Liberals: they don’t have to spend it. They don’t have to spend any more than they want to. And certainly one would hope they don’t go ahead and spend the $5 million which their leader’s chief adviser was promising to spend a few months ago. That was before he was fired -- no, he quit, did he? Before he was fired or quit, whichever it may have been. But they don’t have to spend that.

Along the same line, I must say to the member for Ottawa Centre, having proven that $1.25 million buys saturation advertising in this province -- and may I point out that advertising costs have gone up something like 40 per cent since October 1971 -- how in the world could the Conservative Party have ever spent $5 million in this province? That’s the most ridiculous estimation that’s ever come our way. He’s proven that it’s absolutely arithmetically impossible for us to do so, has he not?

Mr. Cassidy: I hope the minister will answer my question; which is, why not reduce the limits now?

Mr. Foulds: We are used to the old shell game.

Hon. Mr. White: Those who are most anxious to limit expenditures are among those who are in the four ridings getting the bonus. I suppose there is no really serious incongruity, but when I hear some of the four members for some of those ridings saying, “Well, it’s certainly nice to have extra dough” and “You’d better tighten up on the limits,” it did seem to me that there might be just a tiny inconsistency involved there.

Mr. Reid: We don’t come anywhere near spending that kind of money.

Hon. Mr. White: The member doesn’t agree?

Mr. Reid: Don’t be foolish.

Hon. Mr. White: Oh, I see.

Mr. Stokes: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I have the largest riding in the Province of Ontario, and that provision in total amounts to $5,200.

Mr. Reid: Mr. Speaker, I have been impugned, too. I rise on a point of order because he is speaking about me also.

I want to say, Mr. Speaker, that the highest expenditure in the Rainy River riding last election was $12,000 spent by the Conservative candidate who managed to get a whopping 18 per cent of the vote.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. This is not a point of order. The time is very short, would the minister continue.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. White: You will recall, Mr. Speaker, that two of the three royal commissioners said that controls were unworkable while the third royal commissioner urged that there be controls on expenditures overall.

We have no philosophical objection to it at all as I think we have proved, at least in part, by introducing limits on those portions of expenditures which can be qualified by the commission or by other parties involved in the election.

Mr. Reid: How much does the minister think it costs to run an election?

Hon. Mr. White: The royal commissioners concluded it was absolutely impossible when it came to certain other types of election expenditures. That’s the reason purely and simply why we haven’t included overall limits in this bill.

Mr. Reid: Why not have a dry run?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. White: The question was asked, and it is a very good one too, by the member for Downsview about the limit on candidates’ contributions and the effect on credit when a candidate is not permitted to pay for a campaign deficit.

In point of fact, whilst it is generally held to be the responsibility of the candidate in the case of such a deficit, the legal advisers have informed me that there never has been a case in law to establish that. The members and I know the practical consequence is invariably that the candidate’s friends gather around, he himself puts in something and the debt is paid.

Mr. Reid: It doesn’t make any provision for anybody.

Hon. Mr. White: I think it is impossible to change this without destroying the entire principle of the bill. One can picture a very wealthy candidate expending tens of thousands of dollars and then, post facto, making an unlimited contribution to his own campaign as, indeed, Lord Thompson of Fleet would have done when he ran unsuccessfully.

Mr. Reid: Stephen Roman even.

Hon. Mr. White: One can’t remove that even though it may pose a little bit of awkwardness as parties clean up the deficits. I think we have to hang on to that.

Mr. Reid: But the minister doesn’t make any provision for anybody.

Mr. Speaker: Order please.

Mr. Reid: Who does pay? Who pays?

Hon. Mr. White: Certainly the obligation can be paid off over time. The candidate himself can contribute $500 per year and those of his supporters who wish to contribute in annual chunks until every nickel is paid off.

Mr. I. Deans (Wentworth): Can the minister imagine how long that would take?

Hon. Mr. White: Mention was made of the definition of candidate and I rather think that maybe this should be looked at. It was said that the definitions are advantageous to the incumbent. I am not so sure that that is true and I don’t know how one can impose controls before there is some form of nomination.

Originally, the draft bill I saw had the form of nomination as the official nomination day. That wasn’t satisfactory in our view and so we have added a couple of alternatives there in that definition. However, I am quite prepared to look at that when we get into the committee stage, if members so desire.

Trusts were not defined, deliberately, because there is a working definition of trusts. There is an appreciation of that function in the courts and it was thought to embark upon some definition outside of the well-established precedents might be more troublesome than accepting the --

Mr. Reid: There is more than one definition.

Hon. Mr. White: No, it was a complicated legal matter which I think the member and I will not discuss here now.

Mr. Reid: I know but I have looked into it. I don’t think the minister has.

Hon. Mr. White: Yes, we have looked into it.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. There is very little time left. Out of courtesy, I think we should listen to the minister and not other people who have had their opportunity to speak.

Hon. E. A. Winkler (Chairman, Management Board of Cabinet): The hon. member doesn’t know what courtesy means.

Hon. Mr. White: The member for York West has done a great deal of work on this and he has come in with several very good suggestions.

First of all, with respect to the $10, I do believe that was exempted from the rebatable portion at the suggestion of the NDP. I think this is what the member for York West told me. Now that they see the disadvantages and the cumbersome nature of it, I feel perfectly sure that the bill can be amended in the committee stage. He and others are very keen on the idea of a $2 checkoff.

We have general approval from Ottawa to permit tax credits, always provided our formulas are identical to theirs -- and we understand the reason. If we didn’t have tax credits, all of the money would be given to our federal counterparts and, of course, the federal government won’t let us exceed those credits for fear that the same thing will happen in reverse no doubt. We have accepted that proposition and there will be a collateral bill coming in to put that into effect insofar as the personal income tax is concerned. We have complete control over our corporations tax and we are going to proceed along the lines indicated.

Insofar as the $2 checkoff is concerned -- and I will just end on this note I think, Mr. Speaker -- we have now explicitly asked the federal government if they would permit us to use their form, whether it be on their part of their form or our part of their form for such a checkoff. This was implicitly excluded in the general response we got from the Minister of National Revenue, when he said that it would have to follow their formulation exactly. Now our Minister of Revenue (Mr. Meen) has written him more explicitly asking if they would accommodate us insofar as the $2 checkoff is concerned. He has followed that up in the last week. We have yet to receive a substantive answer to the question.

Now then, sir, we will be taking this into committee. In addition to those members who are interested, I do hope that the several parties will bring together their advisers, the tax lawyers, the accountants and others, who will have the responsibility in part of implementing this legislation. So everyone is welcome as we try to sort out a very good non-partisan bill.

Mr. Deans: Can we try to get advance notice?

Motion agreed to; second reading of the bill.

Mr. Speaker: I understand it is to go to the appropriate standing committee on justice.

Agreed.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Mr. Speaker, before I move the adjournment of the House, I would like to outline the course of business for the next number of days. On Thursday I would ask the House, because the ministers are not available to meet today, to be prepared for the bills as a result of the budget, Nos. 8 through 16, for second reading. On Friday morning we will proceed to the estimates of the Ministry of Correctional Services. On Monday, as I understand by agreement, we will go back on to the budget -- or start the budget debate formally. Beyond that, I will announce in due course.

Mr. Deans: May I ask a question? What has become of order No. 7? That was going to be the next order debated. The minister said No. 3 and No. 7 and that now seems to have been left off.

An hon. member: Eight through 16.

Mr. Deans: Are we not going to go ahead with the Representation Act?

Hon. Mr. Winkler: No, Mr. Speaker, we will not be going ahead this week with item No. 7.

Mr. Deans: Just for clarification, do I understand we will not sit evenings until the week of the 21st?

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Yes, well, that is correct, Mr. Speaker. I won’t even make that date permanent; certainly, not until then.

Mr. Deans: One further point if I may: Is it possible to get advance notice of the meetings of the committee of justice in order that we can comply with the request of the minister?

Hon. Mr. Winkler: I am very certain, Mr. Speaker, that the very generous, amiable, agreeable Minister without Portfolio will see that notice is given.

Mr. Deans: I am not so very certain.

Hon. Mr. Winkler moves the adjournment of the House.

Motion agreed to.

The House adjourned at 6:05 o’clock, p.m.