Legislative Assembly of Ontario

The House resumed at 8 o’clock, p.m.

Hon. Mr. Winkler moves that the committee rise and report.

Motion agreed to.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

Mr. Chairman: Mr. Speaker, the committee of the whole House begs to report two bills without amendment and two bills with amendments and asks for leave to sit again.

Report agreed to.

THIRD READINGS

The following bills were given third reading upon motion:

Bill 28, An Act to provide for the Payment of Grants to First Time Home Buyers.

Bill 29, An Act to authorize the Raising of Money on the Credit of the Consolidated Revenue Fund.

Bill 40, An Act to provide for the Payment of Unconditional Grants.

Bill 41, An Act to amend the Municipal Act.

FARM PRODUCTS MARKETING AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Stewart moves second reading of Bill 37, An Act to amend the Farm Products Marketing Act.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Huron-Bruce.

Mr. M. Gaunt (Huron-Bruce): Mr. Speaker, we are supporting this bill. There are a number of reasons why we are doing so but mainly we think this is really the only device we have at our disposal by which we can get a handle on the problem.

It seems as though we’ve got some very serious problems in the egg industry. We’ve had them for some while, they’re not new. The Farm Products Marketing Board has over the past number of months been spending a lot of time on the problem working in conjunction with the egg board. Even the minister, I think, has been devoting a lot of attention in the last few months to the egg problem. It’s a problem that hopefully will be alleviated at least to some extent by this bill. I don’t think this is a panacea but I think it is a step in the right direction and, hopefully, it will resolve some of the difficulties we have provincially and nationally.

Everyone agrees with the principle of the bill having to do with production controls. I mentioned there is a widely-held view that this type of thing has to work nationally and herein lies some of the uneasiness, some very real uneasiness, that I sense within the industry itself about the long-term impact of this particular bill if, in fact, it doesn’t apply nationally.

One of the problems has been that when Ontario cuts back in its production, Quebec has more than taken up the slack. There are figures which indicate Quebec has increased its egg production 25 per cent this year over last year and last year’s production was up 30 per cent over the previous year. These figures may give a somewhat distorted picture because 40 per cent of Quebec’s production, I understand, does not go through registered egg-grading stations which are the basis for the calculation. Quebec has a different percentage of eggs going through registered egg-grading stations so it’s very difficult to compare.

Nonetheless, there is widespread feeling in the industry that Quebec production has been a seriously disrupting force in the marketplace. This is unfortunate because it’s left mistrust on both sides, which is the reason why Ontario people are presently conducting a hen count in Quebec and Quebec people are similarly engaged here. Neither trusted the other’s figures, I suppose. I understand that procedure is meeting with limited success.

There’s another concern that quotas will not help the smaller family farm operator. As I understand it, the egg board is devoting a lot of its attention to this problem and hopefully it can cope with it. I think there is a system being worked out, if I understand it correctly, whereby any quota that’s available for allocation will be given to the smaller producers first and on up a scale so that this kind of thing can be dealt with and the problem met, insofar as helping the small family farm operator is concerned. A big operator can operate, if he has to, on a 60 per cent quota; he simply leaves one of his buildings empty. But the farmer who has only one building cannot operate efficiently at 60 per cent capacity. In this sense, the quota is tougher on the smaller operator. So I think it is very important for the board to take this matter into consideration and be very cognizant of it.

Of course, the big operator says, “I’ve got a lot of investment. I’ve got a great deal of money tied up. Why should I be operating at 60 per cent?” Some of the bigger people in the industry, I am sure, would like to see an open-quota transfer system, but the disadvantage of that is that the bigger operator usually outbids the smaller man when it comes down to purchasing quota in the open market.

Mr. J. A. Renwick (Riverdale): Always, not usually; always for practical purposes.

Mr. Gaunt: There has to be some protection there for the smaller operator.

I have another concern. The pullet growers are at the complete mercy of the egg board in setting quotas and administering those quotas. I want to hear from the minister and I hope that he can give me some answers to this and assure the pullet growers across the province that they are going to be dealt with fairly. I am not implying that the present board wouldn’t deal with the pullet growers in a fair manner; I think they would. But they are not going to be there forever. There are going to be new people to replace them. There are going to be new people come on to that board.

I think it is important that pullet growers have some sort of formalized protection, whereby if some new members get elected to the board there isn’t a complete shift in policy with respect to the board’s dealings and the manner in which they deal with the pullet growers, because they have complete control over the setting of quotas and administering those quotas with respect to the pullet growers and with respect to the other people within the industry as well.

It not only refers to the pullet growers but it refers certainly to the breeder flock people and the hatchery people and so on. The complete industry is in a very real sense in the hands of the board when it comes to the setting of quotas and administering of those quotas. I think it is important that the board deal fairly and very openly with all segments of the industry and I am sure that they will. At the same time, I say again I think it is important that some of these things are formalized so that if changes are made in the board then we are not going to be subjected throughout the industry to the whims of the board at any particular point in time.

Is there going to be a cutoff date? That is an important point as far as the other people are concerned. On what basis will the board set up the quotas? What base period will be used?

Mr. Renwick: That is an essential question.

Mr. Gaunt: It is all up to the egg board. In my view there should be a cutoff date and it should be immediate. If the pullet building is not constructed by May 1, that building shouldn’t be allocated a quota. Otherwise, after this bill passes there will be a flurry of building to try to get under the wire for a quota. We have seen this happen time and time again. I think surely we can learn from those mistakes that have taken place in the past.

The latter part of the bill deals with the powers to search and inspect, and here again this section of the bill raises some interesting questions. What happens if a producer refuses? What does the board do? Does it prosecute under the Act where it takes two to three months to get to court and where the maximum fine, I think, is set at $500. Most judges, I am sure, would come down with no more than a $50 fine on a first offence, which really isn’t a deterrent at all.

Is the Farm Products Marketing Board going to give the egg board seizure and detention power like the broiler board received, only to lose it when the board started seizing Quebec broilers? The egg board says it needs that power. Maybe it does. I wonder if it is going to get it.

I have discussed this bill with quite a number of people, to get their viewpoints and to determine the problems within the industry as they see them. I think, generally speaking, the industry is prepared to accept this legislation provided there are certain conditions met which in my view are logical.

One of the points which is of great concern I think to many people within the industry is the matter of the quota credits. It has been suggested to me that if this bill comes into force immediately, the quota credits which have been built up pursuant to board policy over the past number of months will mean that as many as 300,000 to 350,000 starter pullets will be tossed on to the open market.

I am sure the minister will realize that would certainly create a very real problem and perhaps just aggravate the difficulties with which the board will be faced in the next few months in trying to make this Act work. I think perhaps the minister should give some consideration to that matter and perhaps it could be solved by a phasing-in process whereby this kind of thing could be avoided.

The other point that comes up almost without exception, I would say, is the fact that we have had our problems in dealing with Quebec. It shouldn’t be put on that basis, I suppose, because Quebec hasn’t always been the offender, but in most instances that’s been the case. I think there is some concern within the industry that unless the minister has some agreement and some commitment from the Province of Quebec that it is going to bring its production and its egg industry in total under some sort of control umbrella, there’s not really much point in our producers subjecting themselves to this kind of control, and attempting to work out their problems if, in fact, Quebec is going to exacerbate them on the other end of the scale.

Ideally, the other provinces across Canada should be introducing similar legislation. That’s ideally. I know it won’t happen overnight and it can’t happen overnight, but I think that’s the long-term objective and let’s hope it isn’t so long-term. Let’s hope it can be accomplished before too long and in that way perhaps we can get some order out of the chaos that we have seen in the egg industry in the past number of months.

The third thing that pops up quite frequently is the fact that if in fact, as a province and as a country, we do put our egg industry in order, then we have to be assured of import control. We have to have import protection. I know that’s a federal problem and my friend will no doubt seize the opportunity to verbally spank my colleague in Ottawa, but aside from that, I think it’s important to mention it, even though I hesitate. I gave it a great deal of thought before I mentioned it, but I felt impelled to say it.

Hon. W. A. Stewart (Minister of Agriculture and Food): The member just reminded me of it.

Mr. J. R. Breithaupt (Kitchener): The minister is being provocative again.

Mr. Gaunt: It is very important and I think we have to have some sort of commitment in that regard at the federal level. As I understand it, 17 carloads of eggs came into the province this week from the United States. I don’t think our producers can ever hope to put their house in order with that kind of interference from outside in regard to the marketplace.

In summary then, I would say that the producers say yes to the bill, provided they can get a fair shake at the national level. They don’t want to get whipsawed by the American eggs coming into this province. People in the industry have been asking for this legislation for some while. As a marketing board member suggested to me tonight, when we get the legislation then the big job is to make it work. Let’s hope for everyone’s sake, Mr. Speaker, that it does work.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Riverdale.

Mr. Renwick: Mr. Speaker, five years ago when I finished my remarks on the report that the minister tabled at that time in the House, I referred to it as a shell game, and that’s exactly what this bill perpetuates. My colleague, the member for Huron-Bruce, who has just spoken, referred to it, of course, as a panacea, but what it really is --

Mr. Gaunt: No, I didn’t. I said it wasn’t a panacea.

Mr. Renwick: It wasn’t a panacea, that’s right. That’s correct. What it is is a placebo; it accomplishes nothing, from the point of view of either the producer or the consumer.

The minister is not listening. Perhaps we’ll adjourn the debate until he is ready to listen.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Oh, don’t feel so important. Tear along. We’ll listen to the member if it’s worth listening to.

Mr. Renwick: We pointed out to the minister at the time of the debate on the report which he filed that he was condoning the control of the egg producing business by the feed merchants in the Province of Ontario and by the feed industry because of the financial controls which they exercised over those persons who were producing eggs.

One can always tell when the minister’s upset, because he talks in asides to other people.

An hon. member: Don’t get him angry.

Mr. Renwick: Let’s be perfectly clear, the last thing we saw in the newsprint about the minister, apart from his constant diatribes about blaming other people for his problems, was that he was going to conduct a head count in the Province of Ontario. We have never heard, either by statement in this Legislature or by announcement, the result of the hen head count in the Province of Ontario.

Mr. Breithaupt: It’s one each.

Mr. Renwick: I don’t know how he does it. I suppose he was going to multiply by four and divide by two and count their feet. I’m not sure how he was going to accomplish it.

Mr. Breithaupt: It’s got to be one each.

Mr. Renwick: If anybody had followed the price of loose eggs, as quoted every morning in the Globe and Mail, over the last five years, one could only have assumed that there could not have been a more chaotic condition in an industry for which this minister is responsible.

My friend, the member for Huron-Bruce, may speak for the producers. I don’t really think he really speaks for the producers. My guess is, in his riding, and certainly in my riding, there are more consumers than there are producers. We speak for the small farm person who wants to produce eggs. And what this minister has done in this bill -- as he has done for agriculture in the Province of Ontario -- is to provide for the continuing concentration of the industrial control of this industry by financial mechanisms, by agriculture of all kinds. The device which he is now using is to provide for this marketing board, this particular local board as he calls it, absolutely Draconian powers.

My friend from Huron-Bruce is so gracious about these matters. My friend says this will likely help. Oh, he has certain reservations about the small person being hurt and about the quota system. He says that usually it’s the big operator who can buy up the quotas. And, of course, it’s always the big operator who buys up the quota which is allotted for these purposes.

I suppose in the riding of Riverdale we have the highest per capita consumption of eggs in the Province of Ontario, probably in Canada. The price that the people have had to pay for eggs --

Mr. R. F. Ruston (Essex-Kent): Cheapest thing one can buy today.

Mr. Renwick: -- has fluctuated in such a violent manner in five years --

Mr. Ruston: Cheapest thing on the market.

Mr. Gaunt: Is it a very prolific riding?

Mr. Renwick: In five years it has fluctuated in such a manner that this minister has accomplished absolutely nothing to control and stabilize the price of eggs, both to protect the consumer -- and he disguises himself as the Minister of Agriculture and Food -- and to protect the small person who wants to farm and produce eggs in the Province of Ontario. Do members know what his solution is? It is to grant the kinds of powers that he has indicated in this bill will be provided to this board.

I don’t know whether anybody bothers sometimes. My colleague, the member for Lakeshore, who is kind of an expert on this whole question of the delegation of powers to boards and the way in which it is done, would be shattered were he in the House -- and I hope he does come in to speak on this bill -- when it says that everything done by the local board under the authority of clauses (c), (e), (g) or (i) of subsection 2 shall be deemed to be of an administrative and not of a legislative nature. That is legal gobbledygook for granting the kind of powers from which there is no appeal; no right of any kind for anybody to appeal from the powers which are given to them.

I am not going to recite them all. I don’t imagine it is worthwhile, with a government such as this, to try to put this particular bill into committee to try to give somebody some right of appeal, some authority, against the powers which he is granting to this particular board. Let me just recite some of them:

“... authorizing the local board ... to fix and allot to persons quotas for possessing fowl on such basis as the local board considers proper ... to refuse to fix and allot to any person a quota for possessing fowl for any reason that the local board considers proper ... to cancel or reduce, or refuse to increase, a quota fixed and allotted to any person [and so on and so forth].”

I don’t need to recite them. The powers are in clauses (c), (e), (g) or (i) for anybody who wants to peruse the bill.

“... authorizing the local board ... to fix and allot to persons quotas for producing chicks-for-placement on such basis as the local board considers proper ... to refuse to fix and allot to any person a quota for producing chicks-for-placement for any reason that the local board considers proper ... to cancel or reduce or refuse to increase a quota ... to permit any person to whom a quota has been fixed and allotted for the producing of chicks-for- placement to produce any chicks-for-placement in excess of such quotas on such terms and conditions as the local board considers proper ...”

It goes on, sort of indefinitely, to permit this local board, without any right of appeal, to establish the quotas in such a way that no one who is a producer of eggs has any right of appeal of any kind. He has no recourse of any kind and the minister says this is the method by which he chooses to stabilize the egg market so far as the Province of Ontario is concerned.

The minister stands condemned for the chaotic condition of the egg market. It is a national problem which can be solved only by the co-operation of this minister. This minister has failed to co-operate with the efforts made by the federal government to try to stabilize the problem; to try to work in concert with the federal authority and the other egg marketing boards across the country to produce the kind of stabilization which is necessary and essential. It is not only the small producer -- the big fellows will always take care of themselves because people are going to continue to eat eggs -- the small producer and the person who buys the eggs to eat the eggs are the people in the Province of Ontario who have been hurt by this minister’s policy.

I don’t really think there is any point in my suggesting I am some kind of an expert in the producing of eggs. I know a little bit about the marketing of commodities. The minister will have to justify in this House this evening -- I would have assumed he would have done it by an opening statement at the time he introduced this bill or at the time this bill was called for second reading -- what he in concert with the other Ministers of Agriculture across Canada and the federal minister are really doing to come to grips with this problem. When a Tory is really faced with the problem of chaos he imposes the iron hand and this is exactly what this minister does.

Mr. F. Laughren (Nickel Belt): The last one was a scoundrel.

Mr. Renwick: It’s funny to be talking about eggs in this particular term, because nobody really thinks that the egg producer is a person who has something called some rights of due process with respect to the powers which have been granted to this local board. He has no appeal. He has no rights of any kind.

Of course, the consumers in this province have even less protection than the small producers. They don’t have any because of the Minister of Agriculture and Food. I would have assumed, as we all did, that the word agriculture covered food. Then he changed his ministry to call it Agriculture and Food. We assumed that meant he was assuming some responsibility for the protection of the consumer over the price of the food which he was going to buy. He has defaulted every time in that obligation of this ministry, just as the whole government has defaulted.

But it’s quite all right because, the minister has said, “As long as we give the local board these powers, order will come out of chaos. The small producer will benefit. The big producer will benefit. The feed suppliers who control the major part of this industry will benefit. The consumer will benefit.”

Under this bill, we don’t think anybody will benefit except the big producers and those who control the feed business in the Province of Ontario, who basically control the small producer.

I’m not nearly as kind as my friend, the member for Huron-Bruce. I think the minister is a disaster. He’s been around too long. He hasn’t got the staying powers of Anastas Mikoyan. He ought to resign his ministry and make room for somebody other than the member for Middlesex South (Mr. Eaton) to take charge of the food producing business in this province and the field of egg marketing.

I expect, Mr. Speaker, a definitive statement by the minister on this particular isolated food commodity area. It will be a definitive statement about what he is going to do to protect, by decentralizing, the control of the egg producing business in this province; to protect the consumer; to work in concert with the federal government under the divided jurisdiction of the constitution of Canada; to work in co-operation with the Ministers of Agriculture in other provinces; and what he is going to do to provide some method by which the person subject to the Draconian powers of this particular board is going to have some recourse, by way of appeal or otherwise, to have this whole quota system reviewed should he be subject to an adverse ruling by that board. There will be many small producers -- no big producers but many small producers -- who will be subject to these rulings by the board who have no right of recourse of any kind or of any nature.

But so be it. That’s the way a Tory minister has always dealt with the agricultural industry in the Province of Ontario. In this particular food commodity, we require of the minister that he make a full statement of a major matter which has been the subject of immense press comment, media comment, for so many months, so that we who eat eggs occasionally would like to understand what it is about.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Kent.

Mr. J. P. Spence (Kent): Mr. Speaker, I have a point or two here. The member for Huron-Bruce has outlined our stand on this bill but I would like to bring to the attention of the minister some of the problems which have been brought to my attention by egg producers in the area in which I live.

This bill brings about a quota system for the egg producers in the Province of Ontario. As my colleague from Huron-Bruce has said, the egg producers in this province have been facing very difficult problems. Some of the concerns of those egg producers at the present time are that we have been selling a considerable number of eggs in Quebec. If other provinces in Canada don’t bring about a quota system similar to what the minister has introduced here tonight, it’s hard for them to believe that this quota system in the Province of Ontario is going to work, when some of the other provinces, if I’m informed correctly, such as the government of Quebec give money at three per cent to build poultry houses. Also I’m informed that they subsidize either the eggs or some part of the production of eggs. How are our egg producers in this province, if they are on a quota system, going to compete with a province that has more advantages than we have here in the Province of Ontario?

This is a step maybe in the right direction. If one could bring about a quota system in the other provinces similar to that in Ontario, this would work. But if the other provinces don’t move in the same direction, then they will be competing, and it would be unfair competition, here in Canada.

I believe the farmer who had 500 hens was exempt before this bill. I wonder if he still is exempt. Also I’d like to bring to the minister’s attention the concern of many and I’d like to hear from him what information he has gained from the other provinces about whether they are going to do something about quotas or cutting back in production in some way or another so that the bill will work.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Sudbury.

Mr. M. C. Germa (Sudbury): Mr. Speaker, I think what we are discussing here tonight is an emanation which happened a few months ago when we had all of these rotten eggs which were destroyed across Canada. There is no doubt about it that almost every producer of any commodity in the Province of Ontario is in trouble. It doesn’t seem to matter which area of production one is talking about. This minister certainly has reneged on his responsibilities for bringing about orderly marketing in the Province of Ontario.

It must be difficult for one of the greatest proponents of the free enterprise system, such as the minister, to come into the House here tonight and advocate that he is going to put controls on the free market economy. As a great free enterpriser or one of the greatest free enterprisers in the front benches, he finally has had to admit that he has to intervene in the marketplace.

Because his heart isn’t in it, he’s bound to make a fist of it, as happened before when the Canadian Egg Marketing Agency came into existence nearly a year and a half ago. They chose to limit the number of eggs in Canada by counting eggs rather than chickens. Finally, this great farming expert has come to the conclusion that maybe another way to control eggs is to control chickens. Most of us understood that even before we started, that if we are going to have chickens we are going to have eggs. It is so elementary.

Mr. Breithaupt: Which comes first?

Mr. Germa: And he just found that out tonight.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: The member wouldn’t know.

Mr. M. Cassidy (Ottawa Centre): He never thought of that, did he?

Mr. Germa: What a burst of wisdom he came in here with tonight.

Mr. R. D. Kennedy (Peel South): One has to feed them though.

Mr. Germa: It’s a wonder the minister didn’t try to control it by controlling the number of egg crates one could make in Ontario or maybe give chickens birth control pills. He is about the most ridiculous minister in this House. I support the member for Riverdale when he said that the minister should just give up and go away and let somebody else take over.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Good idea!

Mr. Germa: There is no doubt about it, egg marketing in Canada is in a mess and he as the minister in Ontario is responsible for a great part of that.

An hon. member: He has got egg on his face.

Mr. Germa: Sure, he’s got egg on his face.

Mr. B. Gilbertson (Algoma): He should have got advice from the member.

Mr. Laughren: He certainly should.

Mr. Germa: The reason we are here tonight is the production controls the Canadian Egg Marketing Agency has seen fit to levy. Even as early as January, they instructed the Province of Ontario to reduce its flocks to 7.6 million birds. They gave this government six weeks to do it and they haven’t done anything on it yet. On Jan. 1, we had 8.5 million laying hens in this province, so you’ve got to have a severe reduction in the number of hens in the province in order to bring the government’s egg quota into line, Mr. Speaker. This is precisely what the minister is going to try to do here tonight. As my colleague from Riverdale has pointed out, the minister over-reacted, as Tories usually do. They over-react. They are a reactionary party and they always go too far the other way.

Mr. Laughren: They don’t know anything about farming either.

Mr. Germa: That’s another thing -- he doesn’t know about farming. I understand he’s even got out of the business.

There is another problem plaguing the province in the matter of eggs. The per capita consumption is presently falling at the same time as a depressed market in the United States is causing an influx of eggs to come into the country. The federal minister, of course, is reluctant to put import quotas on because of our general agreements in trades and tariffs, or until such time as the Province of Ontario brings its flocks down to what has been dictated.

So that we are certainly in a dilemma. Of course it goes right across the country. Presently in Canada we have 25,984,000 hens and we have to bring that quota in Canada down to 22.5 million. The minister has not seen fit to make a statement as to how the Canadian egg marketing agency is treating the other provinces in response to the legitimate concern expressed by very many members here that we should know exactly how the feds are treating us vis-à-vis the other provinces, because there is no reason why we should be short-changed.

Another thing that I am concerned about -- and it has been pointed out generally and consistently -- is that marketing agencies should not be the direct tool of the producer to force prices up. I think the consumer has to be taken into consideration.

This minister is the Minister of Agriculture and Food and he has a dual capacity. He has a dual job. He has to think first of the producer and he also has to think of the supply of food to the residents of Ontario. He has to make a definitive statement of how the consumer is protected from the powers which are enunciated in the legislation. It appears to me that the marketing board is responsible to no one and were it to be overpowered by producers, I can very well see that the consumers in Ontario could suffer.

Now, I would ask the minister to make it clear to this House and to assure us that this is not what is going to happen. I think that is all I have to say on this, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Huron.

Mr. J. Riddell (Huron): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am just going to comment briefly on this bill. The member for Huron-Bruce has indicated our support of the bill, but he also indicated that there were a number of concerns.

I think we can probably go back to 1960 to make a comparison with the chicken broiler production.

In 1960, when quotas were first introduced, Ontario represented about 47 per cent of the total Canadian production. Now, since the quotas have been in effect, the Ontario production of chicken broilers represents about 35 per cent of the total Canadian production.

I suppose what really has permitted the chicken broiler industry to survive in light of this situation is the fact that when quotas were introduced in the chicken broiler industry, consumption was increasing. In connection with the egg situation, we are facing decreasing consumption, and we are imposing quotas at the same time. Unless we can put this quota business on a national level, I fear very strongly for what might happen in the egg industry in Ontario.

I really think our greatest concern is trying to get the other provinces to somehow adopt a programme similar to the one we are introducing here. Because of decreasing egg consumption and because we are introducing quotas at this particular time, I have a feeling that we might see our industry end up in pretty dire straits. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Is there any other hon. member who wishes to speak to this bill? The member for Middlesex South.

Mr. R. G. Eaton (Middlesex South): Mr. Speaker, I just want to take the opportunity to say a few words in support of this amendment to the Farm Products Marketing Act.

Mr. Laughren: Relax. The hon. member for Middlesex North is running again.

Mr. Eaton: I have had the opportunity of working closely with some of the producers on the board, and have a number of producers in my own area -- in fact, Middlesex county produces more eggs, I guess, than any other county in the Province of Ontario. I would like to indicate that I feel there is certainly a need for these amendments to the Farm Products Marketing Act to give the egg producers an opportunity to control their own industry and to provide an opportunity to keep the small producers in business, unlike my friend from Riverdale, who I see is running out now that people are beginning to talk to the other side --

Mr. E. P. Morningstar (Welland): Right on.

Mr. Eaton: He indicates the amendments would put control in the hands of larger producers. But if one were to see the proposals being made by the Egg Producers’ Marketing Board, which have been approved by the Farm Products Marketing Board, to allow quota transfers to take place by a quota being turned into the board and then sold to small producers under 5,000, it would give an indication that the board is certainly taking an interest in the small family farm. I think the board should be given credit for this, because the producers on that board certainly are not producers who are under 5,000. I think it shows their interest in the whole industry in general when they’re doing this and giving the small producers this opportunity.

The need for these controls, of course, came about because of a few people. I think that probably 95 per cent or better of the producers have been following very closely the marketing quotas that have been allotted by the board. It’s unfortunate that we always get a few people who try to take advantage of a situation --

Mr. D. W. Ewen (Wentworth North): How about that?

Mr. Germa: That’s free enterprise.

Mr. Eaton: No, it’s not. In this case, the people who are doing this are going to be required to be regulated by stronger terms and conditions than the Egg Producers’ Marketing Board have had, and in effect this is what this bill will give to them.

I’ve talked to many producers in my area and across this province, and a very large majority of them support this bill. Mr. Speaker, I would like to add my support and indicate that many of the members of our caucus, who are deeply concerned about what has taken place in the rural area, also support this plan.

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

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak in support of this bill, which I’ve introduced, and I welcome the support indicated by my friend, the member for Huron-Bruce. He raised several valid points, and I would like to deal with them, if I may.

First of all, the matter of getting a handle on overproduction is a very great concern to all of us. We had hoped that the marketing controls that were introduced when the egg plan was first introduced in Ontario would have resulted in the kind of reaction that would not have necessitated the introduction of actual production controls on hens themselves. But when one considers the hatchery industry and the pullet-growing industry and indeed, because of the increase in the price of eggs, the reintroduction into many farm yards of the smaller flocks, there has been quite an interest generated in furthering the production of eggs in Ontario.

I want to give members some idea of what we have been able to work out with the Ontario egg board, and to mention that whether the plan proceeds in other provinces or not, I think the Ontario board are entitled to have the kind of information that may be provided by what I would like to think will be a very sophisticated type of computerized control on the number of hens kept in the Province of Ontario.

First of all, we have agreed to provide staff to the Ontario egg board to assist them in setting up the computerized programme. The hatchery will have to have a permit from the Ontario egg board to set eggs and the hatchery will have to have a permit from the pullet grower or the egg producer to obtain chicks from that hatchery. A record will be kept of where those chicks go from that hatchery -- whether it be to a pullet grower or to an egg producer. From there, the pullet grower will have to relay to the computer centre where those pullets are dispersed when he gets rid of them at the appropriate age.

The person with the flock of hens of course will have to get a permit from the board to purchase pullets, whether they be day-olds or 10 weeks or 15 or 20 or whatever it may be. He will be required to keep a mortality check on his hens and indicate regularly -- perhaps every two to four weeks at least -- what the mortality on that flock has been and then he will be required to submit a sales slip indicating where the birds have gone at the conclusion of the lay period. That will be on his computer card as well.

This applies to the regulated flocks which will be paying levy, and there are about 1,250 such flocks in Ontario. It will also apply, as far as records are concerned, to the flocks under 500 -- in other words, the unregulated flocks. They will have to have a permit to purchase chicks at any level, the same as the regulated flocks, and they will have to be able to provide information to the computer centre as to where those birds were dispersed when they are through.

Of course, the purpose of this is to detect and to control those who might see fit to moult the birds out and recycle them, while continuing on with a new flock of birds and thereby adding to the problem that we are all so familiar with.

That, basically, is what the egg board is attempting to set up. Of course, plugged in with that information will be information that is required by the national marketing council and the Canadian Egg Marketing Agency which will help them in providing the necessary information for their records and controls as far as the provincial quota is concerned.

We have met on a number of occasions with all of the ministers across Canada. We have been attempting to work out what we had hoped would be a satisfactory arrangement, but we know full well that it didn’t work out the way it should have. This is an attempt to come to grips with it in a very positive and direct way.

My friend, the member for Huron-Bruce, mentions the open market sale and transfer of quotas, and if I detected rightly he was opposed to that -- at least I think that was what he said -- on the free and open market. If that happens I think we can see a very drastic increase in the price of the cost of producing a dozen eggs. The quotas get to an unreasonable level. As he so well pointed out, the problem, of course, will be that larger or well-financed producers can bid those quotas up for their own particular reasons.

I believe, as the member for Middlesex South has so well said, that the egg board has worked out what I think is a very reasonable and a very fair programme. It will offer to purchase the unused quota that is available at a figure that has been arrived at through a formula and it will then sell back to producers under the 5,000-hen level, on a pro-rata basis, the quota that would be available for them to bring them up to that 5,000 figure. Then, I suppose, from there on they would likely step it up to 10,000 or whatever it may be.

That would seem to be a reasonable way to approach the situation -- much more so than throwing it on the open market. I believe, as the member will recall, that Judge Ross in his report suggested this should simply not happen because it would have added, I think he suggested maybe three cents, to the cost of producing a dozen eggs and it would really serve no useful purpose.

My friend mentions the matter of pullet growers, and I share that concern. He suggests they should get fair play and they need formalized protection. I am sure we would all like to see that provided but I can tell the members that it’s not as easy to provide as my hon. friend would suggest it might be. It’s extremely difficult, because I think we have to recognize that the pullet growing facilities in this province, like egg production facilities, are so vastly over-facilitated that some sacrifices are going to have to be made.

There’s no easy answer to this situation in which Ontario producers, and in fact many other producers throughout Canada, find themselves. There’s going to be somebody get hurt. There is no question of this at all. To limit the hurt is the purpose which we are all pursuing. I would hope that it could be as painless as possible but I cannot guarantee at all that it won’t be painful to some people.

I think we also have to recognize that there has been an enormous build-up in pullet production facilities, encouraged perhaps through inputs from hatcheries but more particularly from feed companies who are interested in supplying ready-to-lay pullets to a variety of farmers throughout the province and in other provinces, regardless of what the net effect might be on egg production, egg marketing or egg pricing. The idea was to get as many pullets out and to sell as much feed as possible and thereby generate more business as far as the feed company was concerned.

Many of the pullet growers who have had contracts with those feed companies now find themselves in the position of having high capital investment in buildings but finding the production from their buildings is being curtailed.

Along with the computerized programme that will be put in place to control the dissemination of the chicks from the hatcheries or the pullet growths to the laying flocks in Ontario, there will also be input reports from the federal government insofar as the inter-provincial or international movement of female chicks is concerned, so that we will have that input. In other words, if some producer of eggs in Ontario decides to buy 25,000 pullets in Ohio or Michigan or somewhere in the United States or in another province, and bring them in here, that will be recorded as soon as they come in, because they have to come in under permit of the government of Canada. We have an assurance from the feds that they will do this.

The matter of the power of seizure is something that we are considering. We would hope that it would not be necessary to grant that power, but if necessary it would have to be done. I can assure my hon. friends, through you, Mr. Speaker, that we are not fooling as far as egg production and hen control is concerned in this province. We intend to make it work. I think we have fooled altogether too long with people who have taken advantage of the situation at the expense of other people, thinking I suppose that if they could work that kind of a plan they would eventually break the plan and, in turn, succeed in destroying what has become a livelihood for a good many people in this province.

The matter of quota credit was mentioned. This is a very complex subject but I believe it is one that the egg board has tried to be fair in and as reasonable as possible. The mention was made that 300,000 pullets were going to be tossed on the open market. I think those were the comments my friend from Huron-Bruce made. I simply ask, why are there 300,000 pullets likely to be tossed on the market? Those people should have known that there were quotas on those eggs and there was no need to have 300,000 pullets now ready to go out to the laying flocks of this province; and if somebody has to take a rap for it, so be it.

It will be just too bad as far as I am concerned, but I can assure my hon. friend, through you, Mr. Speaker, that there will be no subsidy paid by the Province of Ontario to either the pullet growers who find themselves in that predicament or to those who have too many hens in their hen houses today and will be required to get rid of them. If they go for a cent apiece, so be it. They should not be there in the first place, because they have totally and effectively destroyed national marketing in this country and in this province and I want to make that abundantly clear. The assurance has been asked that Quebec will be controlling production. As far as we’re concerned, Quebec is going along with production controls, at least in their way of doing it. It perhaps is not the same as we’re doing it, but I think through marketing controls -- they have a different formula than we. But we have insisted and we have been assured by the Canadian Egg Marketing Agency and the national marketing council and by the federal Minister of Agriculture, that the same type of marketing control and restrictions will be implemented right across Canada in all provinces.

We have a further assurance once we put our house in order. And by we, I mean Canadian egg producers; not just the Province of Ontario, but all Canadian egg producers. In other words, once we come within the provisions of national supply management and quota production, import controls will be implemented.

Someone mentioned the enormous number of eggs that have been coming in in recent months. This is of great concern to all of us. And while it can be said, by looking at statistics that are available on a week-to-week basis, that there are more eggs going out of Canada than are coming in, the sad part of it is those eggs that are going out are going out at breaker prices. But the eggs that are coming in, Mr. Speaker, are coming in at table egg prices. And the producer, the board of whom are sitting here in the gallery tonight, are having to pick up the difference. And, to me, it just doesn’t make any sense or logic whatever.

I’m not throwing bricks at my federal counterpart at all -- he realizes that this is a real problem. But he also realizes that to implement border controls without really any controls being implemented here within Canada, flies in the face of the trade agreements between various countries; not excluding, of course, Canada and the United States. I think we can count on that kind of production control being implemented.

The matter of establishing the share that Ontario has as far as total egg marketing in Canada is concerned has been established at just a bit over 38 per cent. I believe to be exact it’s 38.1 per cent, or something like that. The quota basis was arrived at, as I understand it, by taking a figure from the five-year average prior to the introduction of quota marketing, and that this same formula applied right across all provinces of Canada. We are naturally concerned, and it’s very difficult to really know how many unregulated flocks there are in Ontario. It’s estimated that there are about 2,000 such unregulated flocks, with a population of something like 650,000 hens.

It’s interesting to note, Mr. Speaker, that the percentage of producers under 5,000 equals 45 per cent of the regulated flock owners, but it just represents 10 per cent of total production. So that we have, in effect, the vast majority of flock owners with comparatively small regulated flocks, but being responsible for a comparatively small amount of the total eggs produced in Ontario.

My friend, the member for Riverdale, made some comments that I am almost hesitant to even refer to, because they were of no significance and obviously he didn’t really know what he was talking about.

Mr. Laughren: The minister is hurting.

Mr. Germa: The member for Riverdale hit the nail right on the head.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: The one thing that I do want to mention, Mr. Speaker, is that he referred to the fact that there was no right of appeal. Now, surely, a man of his legal training could read legislation. I doubt he had ever read it before he came in here tonight, but he suggested that there was no right of appeal.

Mr. Speaker, of all the legislation that I have brought into this House, I have been absolutely insistent that the right of appeal be granted to any aggrieved person of any kind at any time, and I shall never depart from that philosophy. That right of appeal is included in this legislation, as it is in other sections of the Farm Products Marketing Act. It affects even tobacco growers, who also have, under section 21 of the Farm Products Marketing Act, very vigorous production controls applied against them or for them, as the case may be.

Now, my friends in the NDP were suggesting that we were introducing something here that was a first for all Canada and all the rest of it; and what a dreadful thing it was.

Hon. E. A. Winkler (Chairman, Management Board of Cabinet): Where’s their professional farmer?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Yet the Province of Saskatchewan, Mr. Speaker, which boasted unfortunately that it had the first NDP government in Canada, was the first province to introduce production controls. I have to wonder who in the world he is talking about or who he thinks he is fooling. The rest of the comments are unworthy of mention.

My friend from Kent mentions the Quebec subsidization of egg production --

Mr. Laughren: The minister is in danger of becoming arrogant, does he know that?

Mr. P. D. Lawlor (Lakeshore): Becoming arrogant?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: -- the capital interest subsidization and the per dozen subsidy that we hear rumours about.

Mr. Laughren: Does he worry about becoming arrogant?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: I have to say, Mr. Speaker, that we have no substantiated evidence that there is per dozen subsidization of eggs in the Province of Quebec. I have heard those rumours. I have asked about it and we can’t substantiate it. That doesn’t say it hasn’t happened, that it isn’t happening, but we can’t substantiate it.

We do know that the Province of Quebec does pay interest subsidization on capital investment on certain farm buildings, but we in Ontario provide capital grants for the building of hen houses or other facilities. I think one should be just a bit cautious about being critical in that particular regard.

The position of the unregulated flock owners will be this -- that was another question the member asked -- they will be allowed to continue as they are now without paying the levy that has been assessed against the regulated flock owners but they will be required to obtain a permit to purchase the chicks either from the hatchery or from the pullet grower as the case may be. They will have to be registered but not regulated as the larger flock owners are. I can see no real problem there other than they will have to have that bit of red tape, as it were, but I think it is an understandable control we would all like to see implemented.

My friend from Sudbury -- and I use that term rather loosely --

Mr. Laughren: Which? Sudbury? What has the minister got against Sudbury?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: -- made reference to the --

Mr. E. M. Havrot (Timiskaming): It’s not Sudbury. It’s the people who represent it.

Mr. Laughren: There’s the anti-railroad member for Timiskaming.

Mr. E. W. Martel (Sudbury East): We had a letter about him in the Globe and Mail.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: He made reference to rotten eggs. I was interested to hear that reference to rotten eggs because it falls easily from the lips of the member for that area.

Mr. Laughren: The minister shouldn’t get his tail in a knot.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: I had to wonder, Mr. Speaker, why he made reference to something which was an unfortunate incident, as that was, which we all deplore and regret and which should not have happened. No one has defended it that I know of, including the federal Minister of Agriculture.

Mr. Breithaupt: That’s right. He is a good man.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: I have to say that I wonder why my friend, when he talked about rotten eggs, didn’t talk about the incredible loss sustained by the farmers of Canada because of the demurrage fees charged against the Canadian Wheat Board because of labour unrest in this country.

He was quick to point out this rotten egg fiasco that we had but he didn’t say anything about the $17 million demurrage fees that were assessed through the Canadian Wheat Board against the farmers of western Canada because ships lay at anchor and couldn’t load grain; carloads of grain were standing and couldn’t be unloaded --

Mr. Martel: Whose fault is that?

Mr. Laughren: It is the fault of the anti-labour member for Timiskaming.

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

Hon. Mr. Stewart: -- because of labour unrest resulting in labour strikes against the Canadian farming industry.

Our friends over there in the NDP, Mr. Speaker --

Hon. Mr. Winkler: We got to them.

Mr. Martel: Who precipitated the strike?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: The people in the NDP, who haven’t got the foggiest notion of what agriculture and food production is all about, fail to mention --

Mr. Lawlor: He sounds like a broken record.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: -- that since Jan. 1 this year labour strikes have cost the Canadian farmers more than $15 million.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: All they want to hear is that the egg marketing system has fallen at the expense of the Canadian farmer. I hope they are very proud of their support to Canadian agriculture, and let that be recorded.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Our friends in the NDP, Mr. Speaker, say they are the spokesmen for the consumer. They sure are. What would happen if eggs go back to four dozen for $1?

Is that what the members want? Is that what they really want, because from what they say -- and my friend, the member for Sudbury East nods his head in agreement. Indeed he does; that’s what he wants. Let the farmers of this province know where the NDP stand, because I’ll tell them, it’s no wonder they haven’t got a farmer over there, and they never will have.

Mr. Martel: Who is the minister playing to -- the group over there?

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Martel: That’s typical.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: They are all a bunch of phonies over there. That’s all they are. If they were in charge, I’d like to see their concern.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: They talk about protection for the consumer, Mr. Speaker. What would happen if those 2,000 producers with 5,000 hens or less -- the 45 per cent with fewer than 5,000 hens -- go out of business? That’s what they’d like to see happen. Of course they would. They go out of business -- and then what happens? It falls back in the hands of three or four large producers, and they set the price of eggs and they control it.

Mr. Martel: The minister is playing for the board and he knows it.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Then the consumers, whom the NDP suggests that it is protecting, would really be paying through the nose for eggs, and that’s the truth of the whole thing.

Mr. Martel: He’s grandstanding.

Mr. Laughren: Stop grandstanding.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Laughren: The minister has done a lot for them, hasn’t he?

Hon. Mr. Winkler: They are incapable and they know it.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Mr. Speaker, I want to assure those people that the agreements that we have reached with our colleagues across Canada, with the federal minister and, I trust, with those who represent the egg marketing boards of the respective provinces in Canada, simply will provide for the implementation of very vigorous production controls in the provinces that go this route. In other provinces, we will insist -- and we have the assurance of all concerned -- that equal authority and vigour will be pursued there to bring egg marketing in line. We will also agree, as we have indicated at Ottawa last week, that there would be a tolerance of six per cent produced over quota up to June 1, 1975, for producers in Ontario who purchased 20-week pullets since Jan. 1, 1975.

Mr. A. Carruthers (Durham): The same old story. I’ve heard it all before from the member for Sudbury East.

Mr. Martel: He’s heard it all before -- the grandstanding. The minister has been grandstanding for eight years.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: That would allow them to adjust to the new CEMA allotment in two stages. The second stage would be a tolerance of three per cent produced over quota up to Aug. 1, 1975, but from Aug. 1, 1975 on, all producers shall remain within quota.

Individual producers who purchased 20-week pullets prior to Jan. 1, 1975, shall abide by the new CEMA quota order by May 1, 1975. And we would hope that agreement would be approved by the Ontario Egg Producers’ Marketing Board, because we think that it is fair; it’s right. We have the agreement of our other sister provinces and the federal government that we can go along on that basis. They will help, in effect, to phase in the programme for those who might have, in good faith, bought pullets since Jan. 1, which are now laying.

Mr. Speaker, I ask for the favourable consideration of second reading of this bill, which I think will mean much to move forward egg marketing in the Province of Ontario and in all Canada.

Mr. Martel: How did the minister ever get the consent from the provinces after that big show?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The motion is for second reading of Bill 37. Shall the motion carry?

Motion agreed to; second reading of the bill.

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

Agreed.

THIRD READING

The following bill was given third reading upon motion:

Bill 37, An Act to amend the Farm Products Marketing Act.

Clerk of the House: The 23rd order, House in committee of supply.

ESTIMATES, MINISTRY OF CORRECTIONAL SERVICES (CONTINUED)

On vote 1402:

Mr. A. J. Roy (Ottawa East): Mr. Chairman, could I ask the minister a couple of questions?

Mr. Chairman: On vote 1402, item 2. The hon. member for Ottawa East.

Mr. P. D. Lawlor (Lakeshore): I adjourned the debate.

Mr. Chairman: I’m sorry. Now that you refresh my memory, I recall that it was the hon. member for Lakeshore.

Mr. Lawlor: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just have a few more words in the general proposition under the vote having to do with adult offenders.

Mr. E. W. Martel (Sudbury East): It is obvious to whom the Minister of Agriculture and Food was playing.

Hon. W. A. Stewart (Minister of Agriculture and Food): I was playing to the member for Sudbury East.

Mr. Lawlor: The article I was referring to is that in the New York Review of Books by Garry Wills, called “Beyond Attica”, a book written by a fellow in the New York Times called Tom Wickers, which is an indictment of the system as it presently stands. The thing I am getting into is the business of liaison under the secretariat of Justice, since the superminister is no longer. He has been demoted, coalesced and amalgamated into his inferior functions. I would trust that there is a good deal of relationship existing with the Attorney General’s department with respect to the entrance of people into the jail system of this province.

All too many are in jail who ought not to be in jail. The whole operation of the courts is punitively oriented, and not even punitively oriented in some instances. There is the good-natured magistrate or judge, the one who thinks he is doing a great deal of benefit to the person who has been convicted before. He thinks he is doing a favour by sending him off to one of these institutions. I think he should be disabused of that particular form of ignorance as quickly as possible. In the minister’s liaison and working relationships with the Attorney General, I think it should be made clear, with directives given and clear lines established as to those people who are so pathological and so deeply alienated from the society that simply for the purposes of the protection of other people around them -- not pretending that we are going to confer any great graces of benefit upon them at all by incarcerating them -- that simply for the protection of the public, these people would be sent there.

As for the rest, except for very serious crimes, they ought not to be in these institutions at all. Again the minister is moving out into the community group home concept in order to break down the barriers. But we’ll find out perhaps later in this vote what precisely the situation at Guelph is today, what ameliorations have taken place over the past year, how much the inmate population has been reduced there and what breakdowns are being achieved.

There has been a great foofaraw in the papers in the last 24 hours over the Don Jail situation. The minister has been subjected to some pillorying in this regard. Being a new minister, he can escape the full consequences of the thing. His answer the other morning with respect to the Don Jail was indicative that he is not only thoroughly aware of the situation but that some construction, as he indicated to me, was going on. In the light of the uproar of the past few hours, I would like the minister somewhere along the line to make a further statement, if he is prepared to do so, on the Don Jail future.

It is a running eyesore. It is a place of human pollution in our province. It has been like that. People have risen in this House time out of time to protest against it. We have received blandishing replies from the ministry, whoever the minister was, including -- and I’m going to give him an honourable mention -- the member for Kingston and the Islands (Mr. Apps), the minister’s predecessor in office and on the whole a good minister, but so far as the Don Jail was concerned we didn’t get very far under his ministry. A grand jury report has come out in the last few days and the minister knows all about it. Its contents are scathing with respect to that institution.

I really would try to put some pressure on and try to prevail upon the minister to move with greater alacrity to seize that issue by the horns, as he has really failed to do up until this time. There seems to be some kind of walking on eggs when this particular institution comes to attention. Why this should be so bypasses me, but there you are.

So there is the business of keeping people out of the jails and reformatories in the degree and the scale and the way that hasn’t been done up until this time in the province. The English system seems to me somewhat more flexible, more open and more devised to preventing the recidivist type of rape that we encounter here.

Whether they put people into jails under treatment-oriented conditions or whether they do it purely from punishment, it seems to make no difference as far as the statistics are concerned. Within six years 80 per cent of them are back in again, one way or the other. What’s the point, if that is the case? What kind of game are we hoodwinking ourselves with? Are we putting on a show?

I think that the whole thing -- and I’ll make an appeal to human psychology at this stage -- the whole thing about prisons and about our approach to prisons and our realizations of what their potential or lack thereof is, is to recognize that in ourselves each one of us is a potential criminal.

It’s not just a case of saying that nothing is human that is alien to me. That’s, true too, but the fact is, for those who set themselves apart Pharisee-like and say: “Oh, no. I couldn’t possibly commit an act like that. I couldn’t possibly be identified with this kind of individual. I couldn’t possibly enter into the same throes as this one has suffered from”; that is the first fallacy, the thing that sets them off.

Now this minister is a humane man. I’m sure he doesn’t feel that way; no holier-than-thou sanctimoniousness is involved. If we identify, if we become one with and know what we are capable of in our individual lives, the whole gamut of despair is our possibility. There are no limits to what we may or may not do given the circumstances and given the pressures that human beings have to bear.

If we come to terms and grips with it, it seems to me the whole society turns its back through fear. And what is the fear? The fear, we’ve learned in this psychology, is because they know it is in themselves and won’t face it. They are terrified at their own iniquitous possibilities, won’t face up to them, won’t assess them, won’t absorb them consciously. In the process of doing that we are able to transcend them, to come to terms with them; not, again, looking down our noses at everyone else. But this is the path of humility. This is the path of identity. This is the path of knowing we are one with our fellow man, the criminal maybe most of all.

This is the thing that has to be learned. And if that is meekly admitted -- and it isn’t in Ontario; old sanctimonious, whitewashed Ontario, where all the whited calves and the sepulchres walk about Bay St., parading their differences from other people --

Mr. D. M. Deacon (York Centre): Just on Bay St?

Mr. Lawlor: Oh God, we might even find it in the wilds of Scarborough, who knows? I wouldn’t care to say whether Lakeshore is possessed of any of this particular --

Mr. Roy: I hope not in Ottawa.

Mr. Lawlor: Ottawa, no. Ottawa is different; I can assure the member of that.

Mr. Deacon: One certainly wouldn’t find it in Sudbury.

Mr. Lawlor: The warmheartedness of the place, the sense of human banality --

Mr. Martel: The humility.

Mr. Lawlor: -- the fact that the whole place is corrupt and they know it, makes all the difference up there. With that in mind, and starting from that base --

Mr. Roy: We better get hold of this speech for future reference.

Mr. Lawlor: -- then we should reverse our whole trend. The North American society being deeply puritanical did think that incarceration, the mere fact of placing people in cells, did them a hell of a lot of good in some way; gave them an opportunity to revisit themselves. We know the consequences of that. We know the turning in upon themselves.

We know the viciousness that accrues and the vindictiveness and the business of, “I’ll get my own back, by George, I’ll revenge myself. Give me a few hours out of that thing and I’ll be smarter the next time and they won’t catch me. Look at all those beggars out there, greater offenders than I am, but they are upper middle class or they are professional men and they have learned the tools and techniques in the society, through the educational system, of being able to perform the very same functions as I do in terms of pelf, robbery and capacity without being visited with the consequences.”

This is the way they look at it and there is a good deal of truth in their point of view. Therefore they ought not to be subjected to that particular regimen.

Nevertheless there must be some kind of social process, some kind of -- I hate to use the word -- disciplining. If there is disciplining without authority that’s what I am for; all of which has something to do, I believe, with self-disciplining.

But the way must be shown. In other words, what it is is not coercion. It is not an authoritarian visitation from above. It is not telling other people, particularly adults, what to do -- we can’t tell the kids what to do any more anyhow, thank heavens -- so that we give a man a motive; we give him a reason to do certain things or not to do them. If that reason appeals to him, I see then a whole host of things. We’re deeply social people and if he thinks he can benefit or help another fellow man or a whole stratum in society by doing something socially useful, you’ve got your reason right there.

But to cut them off and segment and place them away in hiding so we won’t have to look at them or have anything to do with them! Like those children I saw one day up in the Smiths Falls hospital. How many people ever visit those children? The minister knows whom I speak of, he’s been there. Incredible. Half their difficulty is loneliness.

Jean Vanier has spoken about these things in a deeper and a more profound way, and held a session a year or so ago in Ottawa with 150 or so institutional officers, judges and social welfare workers. In his deep humanity, he too is seeking to work at this prison system. By the way, if the minister has some stuff of his over there that I haven’t seen and I could use, I would be very appreciative if he would have some of it photostated and sent across. We may never be here for another set of estimates, you know. Well, all right on that score.

Mr. Roy: We will send them to the member for Lakeshore, I can assure him. We will send them to him.

Mr. Lawlor: From this point on, I can assure you, in this debate I shall stick to the hard concrete facts of institutions, about salary scales and the business of how the trust funds are used in such nefarious institutions. But I thought those general remarks had some point and we do it much too seldom in this House. Thank you.

Hon. R. T. Potter (Minister of Correctional Services): Mr. Chairman, I am sure the hon. member for Lakeshore is aware that I, and I would say the vast majority of the members in my ministry, feel the same way as he does about a new approach to corrections in this province. We’re delighted with the steps that have been taken so far, and believe me, we intend to pursue them further.

You spoke earlier about the liaison that should be going on between the various ministries with the reorganization of government and with the advent of the policy fields. I think perhaps one of the best ongoing examples of this type of interministerial co-operation is the committee dealing with the native offender and the justice system, which involves each of the four justice policy ministries and represents seven native organizations in the province. This committee has been meeting regularly for almost a year now. It made some good proposals to the ministers’ conference which concerned the native people and criminal justice, and was held in Edmonton a few weeks ago.

Another committee which soon will be reporting is the one that deals with group homes or residential homes -- group homes of various types of facilities that are being purchased by various government ministries. This committee, too, has considered the use by government of these types of facilities -- the services that are being provided, the various rates that are being paid -- and it is due to report very shortly.

Another regular interministry committee is that involving our ministry meeting with Government Services on a monthly basis, when both the large capital projects and minor projects which we propose or which are under way are reviewed, considered, monitored and so on. This involves not only the ministers but the deputy ministers and senior officials in both our ministries.

Of course, the most regular interministry liaison occurs every week when all the cabinet ministers in the justice policy field meet and discuss our various problems and projects.

Mr. Lawlor: There are only three of you now. There used to be five.

Hon. Mr. Potter: Well, one is twins.

Mr. Martel: It depends who the one is.

Mr. Lawlor: You can all get into a telephone booth together now.

Hon. Mr. Potter: I might add, and the member has probably found this out with his own experience, that you can accomplish a lot more when you have three or four than you can when you have a dozen or two. There is no question about that.

Mr. Lawlor: That is probably true, that’s right. That is why we are always opposed to the superministers. They are always in the way.

Hon. Mr. Potter: They do provide an excellent medium for sharing information on new programmes and new initiatives, and generally a good medium for general communication and liaison between the various ministers and ministries in the policy field.

I think in addition to that, as I said in my opening statement, we have had an interchange arranged with, particularly, the Ontario Provincial Police and members of the correctional staff, so that we would each learn more about what the other man’s job is and appreciate the difficulties under which he is operating.

In the short time we have been operating this exchange we have found it to be quite worthwhile.

At the present time we have negotiations going on with some other countries, Holland particularly, where they are interested in exchanging personnel, possibly on a 12-month basis; which we are most interested in and they have signified they are interested in. Now it is a question of working out the details.

The member also mentioned earlier the developments at the Don Jail. I made reference to this in my opening remarks -- I am sure the members would have those -- in which I pointed out that the inmate population had decreased from 800 to 500, and that we now had units of 60 who operated as a unit with their correctional officers and so on.

I also made reference to the fact that we are in the process of changing a number of the cells into a larger psychiatric facility so that we will then have a 100-bed facility at Guelph. Of course, this has been made available by doing a great deal of the work ourselves and by the inmates themselves becoming involved. I might add that this is the type of work they do appreciate and they look forward to doing because they really --

Mr. Lawlor: I thought the psychiatric was being taken out completely.

Hon. Mr. Potter: At Guelph? No.

Mr. Lawlor: No, I meant the Don Jail.

Hon. Mr. Potter: Oh, no. We are talking about Guelph.

Mr. Lawlor: At Guelph. Okay.

Hon. Mr. Potter: The grand jury must have sat up at night studying it to bring in a report like that on the Don Jail. I don’t see how they possibly could have found the Don Jail as bad as we have known it has been for so long. It really hasn’t told us anything that we didn’t already know, and I am sure the hon. members feel that way about it too. We have been doing our utmost to try to correct the situation.

Mr. Martel: The minister might try a Guy Fawkes Day down there.

Hon. Mr. Potter: We have been criticized before about staffing. Recently, within the last few months, we have added an extra 25 permanent complement to the staff. We have added an extra five complement for training purposes.

I spoke in my opening comments about the use we were making of the two camps in the northern part of the province and of the negotiations going on at the present time with the Salvation Army for the House of Concord. As the members know, the two new facilities have been started; when they are finished next year they will remove 400 inmates from the Don Jail. The House of Concord we are hoping will look after at least 60. We hope to open another dozen community resource centres in the province next year.

At the same time we are exploring other methods of easing the pressure, one of which is the development of the forensic psychiatric facility. I think the member was here when I referred to that last week. The forensic science clinic will divert between 500 and 600 short-term people from the Don Jail who are sent in there for psychiatric examinations. We hope to have this operating very shortly. I can only reiterate what I have said in the past. No one feels any stronger about this than we do. We are moving as quickly as possible and we are prepared to use whatever facilities we can find to help ease the pressure there until we have the other facility available.

Mr. Chairman: The hon. member for Essex-Kent.

Mr. Martel: You’ve got some sense of timing, Mr. Chairman. He just walked in two minutes ago.

Mr. R. F. Ruston (Essex-Kent): Well, it doesn’t matter. I am going to be here for a while.

Mr. Martel: Go ahead.

Mr. Ruston: What is the status of the Guelph abattoir at the present time? About a year ago, as I recall, it was out for tender. I wonder if the minister could tell us the status of that now?

Hon. Mr. Potter: Unfortunately, it was held up because of the difficulty in getting some supplies, but it is going to be in operation on May 27.

Mr. Ruston: Who is going to operate it?

Hon. Mr. Potter: Essex Packers. I announced that some months ago.

Mr. Ruston: Oh, yes. That’s right.

Mr. Chairman: The member for Sudbury East.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Chairman, I am delighted. I was going to be nice to the minister this evening until I listened to the professional manure kicker, the member for Middlesex North (Mr. Stewart) as he went on his tirade and played to the gallery and the egg marketing board. What a performance! When he left, of course, all the cackling hens from that side of the House followed him out, clucking behind him and we got rid of all the farmers in one swoop -- except the member for Wellington-Dufferin.

Mr. J. Root (Wellington-Dufferin): Where’s the member for Riverdale?

Mr. Ruston: If it wasn’t for the farmers you wouldn’t eat, Eli.

Mr. Chairman: Order, please. I wonder if we can return to the estimates.

Mr. Martel: I just wanted to tell you why I am not going to be nice.

Mr. Lawlor: He’s a kind of distorted Lear over there.

Mr. Chairman: Order, please.

Mr. Martel: I thought the minister might appreciate it if we could lend him a few people from the Sudbury area who are familiar with dynamite. We could have a Guy Fawkes Day and get rid of the Don Jail for you in a hurry, if you like, with no problems. The one thing they are good at up there is using dynamite.

I really want to speak about Burwash. I was going to leave it out or comment on it briefly, but I have been kind of champing at the bit for about seven months to discuss this issue.

When the minister decided to close Burwash, I wrote some very lengthy letters to the ministry, and the deputy minister of the day replied: “Well, you can discuss this during the estimates.”

We were watching the fourth largest employer in the Sudbury basin move out, and the deputy minister told us, in effect: “Well, we really can’t be bothered giving you any information” -- I have the letters with me -- “because you can discuss that during the estimates.” Well, that’s what we are going to do tonight.

Some hon. members: Shame.

Mr. E. J. Bounsall (Windsor West): What an attitude.

Mr. Martel: The closing wouldn’t have been too bad, I guess, if there had been some justification for what the ministry was doing. I balance that against the fact that in 1973 the ministry was aware that there was a decline in the inmate population of the province as a result of some good programmes, such as getting more of the prisoners out on parole and so on -- and no one has anything but praise for that sort of programme.

What bothered me at that time, though, was that with a knowledge of that decline, this ministry signed an agreement with the Ministry of Government Services to build a new institution in Maplehurst. That was in 1973, when the population was known to be declining, and you decided to build a new institution. That’s where you lost credibility, Mr. Minister. When I learned that, the credibility stopped. The credibility of what the ministry was doing with respect to Burwash ended there. If you were sincere, you would not have started to build a new correctional institution, only a year later to close out an existing one.

The minister’s credibility is even further destroyed. One of the reasons for closing the institution -- and I recall well the night we had in Sudbury, that memorable evening when Mr. Fisher was about to sue me for some of my comments in a letter and I didn’t realize it was Mr. Fisher I was talking about, and he was commenting to me.

But, nonetheless, the minister indicates that the reason for closing Burwash was to get the prisoners closer to home for the rehabilitative process, and I couldn’t agree more. That’s an excellent reason -- except when it applies to prisoners from northern Ontario. Now they can go somewhere else.

The only figures I’ve been able to get were for the month of November. We have to remember that Burwash is about 215 miles from Toronto. In the month of November alone five prisoners from the Sudbury area were sent to Thunder Bay. That’s 700 miles. And another 21 or 22 were sent to Monteith, and that has to be 250 miles from Sudbury.

What about the rehabilitation aspects? We close Burwash so we can get the boys from southern Ontario closer to home for their rehabilitation, and I agree with that. But then we take the prisoners from the Sudbury area and we send them to places like Monteith and Thunder Bay. Before I’m finished tonight I want to know what the figures are -- I’ll give it to you in advance -- I want to know what the figures are for prisoners who went to Monteith in the months of January, February and March. I want to know what the figures are for those who went to Thunder Bay for January, February and March.

You’re not going to give them to me? Why?

Hon. Mr. Potter: I haven’t got those figures for you. You knew very well I hadn’t brought those figures here with me tonight.

Mr. Martel: Well, I’ll be here tomorrow. In fact I might be here until at least 10:30 tonight.

Hon. Mr. Potter: You can stay here till June as far as I’m concerned.

Mr. Martel: Well you must have those figures, surely to God. I wrote you about those figures on several occasions, you must have been well aware that I would bring it up. You must have been. I gave you ample warning.

Hon. Mr. Potter: You’re just kicking a dead horse.

Mr. Martel: No, it’s the principle. Because there’s a grand jury report which condemns you also --

Mr. M. C. Germa (Sudbury): The minister’s the dead horse.

Mr. Martel: -- you see, that’s what bothers me.

Mr. Germa: He’s finished.

Hon. Mr. Potter: Don’t kid yourself.

Mr. Germa: He might as well leave right now.

Hon. Mr. Potter: I wouldn’t count on it if I were you.

Mr. Germa: You’re on your way out and you know it.

Hon. Mr. Potter: Not for a hell of a long time.

Mr. Chairman: Order, please.

Mr. Martel: The minister says it’s a dead horse, but I think there’s an onus on the minister to justify what’s happening now. You know, you can play games in correspondence and say we’re doing this, but if one of the reasons for closing was that you wanted the prisoners closer to home for rehabilitation, I agree with that. I’m not suggesting you reopen that institute. In fact, we might use a little dynamite to get rid of it, too, because you’re going to have to tear it down eventually. I want to know why the prisoners from Sudbury are being sent somewhere else, and that’s fair enough, I think. That’s one of the problems, you see.

One of the other reasons, of course, was that eight per cent of the prisoners are from northern Ontario, and we have 11 per cent of the population, apparently. One thing about it, my friend was right that in the Sudbury area we have fewer prisoners -- in northern Ontario, we have fewer people involved in crime. That’s to the credit of northerners.

I also want the minister to answer several other things tonight. I realize the minister’s opinion is that he’s not running an employment programme, and I couldn’t agree with him more. He’s supposedly, hopefully, rehabilitating, and I think some of the programmes indicate that we’re moving out of the dark ages at last.

But what about what you’ve done? Surely to God you must have to justify to the taxpayer in Ontario what you’ve done in some way. You have to be accountable for the expenses, and I tried to get what the expenses were. From 1970 on alone -- just 1970 -- in speaking to some of the fairly senior personnel in Burwash, they indicated to me some of the following expenses in a four-year period. The former minister is here, of course, and he was the man who introduced some of those.

There is a gymnasium at $1 million; it sits there empty. I believe that’s the rough estimate. There are new staff quarters which cost in the neighbourhood of another $500,000, sitting empty. By the way, I have to remind you that place is still heated and I am told it is costing $500,000 just to keep it heated because of the central heating plant in there. You just spend $500,000 on fuel instead of utilizing that facility for some purpose -- this is from 1970 on. A sports building at Camp Bison.

The egg marketing people must have gone home; I see the Minister of Agriculture and Food back with his tail.

An hon. member: The minister of rotten eggs.

Mr. Chairman: Order, please. Can we stay with the estimates?

Mr. Martel: A sports building at Bison, $40,000, the bridge at Bison, $5,000; road surfacing -- a road surfacing programme was going on the very day the minister announced the closing of the institution.

Mr. F. Laughren (Nickel Belt): That’s why you have superministers.

Mr. Martel: They were paving the street and were announcing the closure of the institution. That makes a lot of sense. It only cost $30,000 for that.

A new post office which the federal government built, of course. Money from the taxpayers seems to be no object to government; you just throw it around like it is going out of style.

Mr. Chairman: The Chair would like to interrupt the member for a moment to indicate that he finds his comments most interesting. However, I am not aware that there is any money budgeted in these estimates for Burwash. It has all been transferred to another ministry and I would ask you to --

Mr. Martel: No, Mr. Chairman, you are not going to play that game with me. This was the closing of an institution --

Mr. Chairman: We are talking about the expenditure of money in this estimate.

Mr. Martel: Right.

Mr. Chairman: And there is no money voted in these estimates of this ministry, in this particular vote at least, for Burwash.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Chairman, I have at least three letters, if you would like me to quote them, in which I was advised that these items would have to be discussed during the estimates of the Minister of Correctional Services. Would you like me to quote those letters for you? I have them here.

Mr. Deacon: I am sure the Chairman will understand.

Mr. Martel: They closed it when the House wasn’t sitting. This is the first opportunity one has had to discuss that. The House was not sitting when it was closed.

Hon. Mr. Potter: That’s what you are suggesting.

Mr. Martel: It was announced on July 18 and the House wasn’t sitting.

Hon. Mr. Potter: It was announced we were closing it but it wasn’t closed until late in the fall. What are you talking about?

Mr. Martel: Your estimates were over. Do you recall that?

Hon. Mr. Potter: I don’t know what that’s got to do with it.

Mr. Martel: I am advised that these estimates we have been --

Hon. Mr. Potter: We are just wasting time right now.

Mr. Martel: No, we are not wasting time.

Mr. B. Gilbertson (Algoma): We are so.

Mr. Martel: We are talking about government spending on an institution in the Ministry of Correctional Services and if you don’t want to listen you can leave. I want to find out where this money went from 1970 to now; money spent out of this ministry for that institution which was closed down overnight.

Mr. Chairman: I would like again to draw to the attention of the member that we are talking about the money being budgeted or estimated to be budgeted for this year. I would think the way the money has been spent in the past would be up to the public accounts committee. You can question it there.

Mr. Martel: No, just a minute, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. M. Cassidy (Ottawa Centre): It is a matter of policy by the minister, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Martel: I will quote, if you want --

Mr. Chairman: We already have passed the head office vote. We are on item 2.

Mr. Martel: Yes, we are on item 2, correctional services in various institutions in the province. Burwash recently was within this ministry which determined it would close it. I was advised that I would have to discuss it under the estimates of the Ministry of Correctional Services this year in a letter by the deputy minister; in fact, in two letters by the deputy minister which I am trying to locate now, with your indulgence.

Mr. Chairman: I would draw to the attention of the member that the letters do not bind the Chair or direct the Chair.

Mr. Martel: I know, but they didn’t want to answer the question --

Mr. Chairman: I would urge you, sir, to be as brief as you can so we can get on with the estimates, the current estimates, not Burwash in the past.

Mr. Martel: I’m always brief, Mr. Chairman.

I was trying to find out what the taxpayer paid to have an institution closed and what we continue to pay. We’re talking about having these young people taken from the Sudbury area to Timmins and to Monteith, to Thunder Bay -- and what happens to the reason for closing Burwash. I was trying to show where there is a great deal of expenditure. The minister should be able to give me an overall cost of expenditure in the Burwash institution from 1970 to the present -- and the big waste of money in that four-year period -- only to have it closed. I don’t think that’s off the care, treatment and training of adult offenders, because we’re sending them to Thunder Bay or sending them to Monteith.

One might ask the minister at the same time where the inmates from Parry Sound and North Bay are going until we get some other facility. I suppose some of them are coming to Toronto, maybe, or are they going to Monteith and Thunder Bay for their rehabilitation. If that’s the case, how does that fit in with the minister’s statement that they were closing Burwash in order to have the inmates closer to their homes? You see, Mr. Chairman, how that all fits in?

Mr. Laughren: It is so obvious, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Martel: We will get back to the costs of destroying that programme. Inmate visiting rooms at $350,000 -- that’s talking about prisoners. There was a new sewage facility in there at $1 million. Could the minister tell me, so I don’t have to list all the expenditures that I’ve been able to dig out, what the total cost for upkeep in Burwash was from 1970 to July, 1974, when he announced the closure? Is that figure available?

Mr. Ruston: It was $4.5 million.

Hon. Mr. Potter: Mr. Chairman, I have no intention of responding to the hon. member’s questions about Burwash in this Legislature while we’re dealing with our 1975-1976 estimates. If he wants an answer to these questions, he can have answers to them. We can give them to him, but I’m not going to give them to him at this time.

The hon. member has been making all sorts of statements about the inmates from Sudbury and the hundreds of them that are in jail there. I think he should know that on Feb. 12, 1974, there were 23 people in Burwash from the northern part of the province, out of a total of 251. Of those 23, eight were from Sudbury. Is the hon. member suggesting that we must have a jail in Sudbury just for the Sudbury people? Does he suggest that we should have one in Wawa because there was one there who had to go to jail? Does he suggest that we should have one in North Bay because there was one from North Bay who had to go to jail?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Pour it on, pour it on.

Hon. Mr. Potter: It’s a damn lot of nonsense. Let’s get on with the estimates.

Mr. Martel: There’s the Minister of Agriculture and Food getting his kicks by saying, “Pour it on.”

Mr. Chairman: Order, please. Order.

Mr. Martel: The Minister of Agriculture and Food’s audience has gone.

Mr. Chairman: We’ll continue with the minister’s estimates for the current year.

Mr. Martel: We are talking about the estimates because at the time when there were eight prisoners from Sudbury and 23 from the north in Burwash, how many from Sudbury were in other institutions in the province? Give us that one. I’ll wait for the minister to give it to us.

Hon. Mr. Potter: No, I’m not giving it to the member.

Mr. Martel: Oh, he’s not giving it. In other words, when we write the minister and ask for information, he says: “No, I’m not giving it to you in correspondence.” And when we ask him in the Legislature, he says: “I’m not giving it to you there either.” What kind of foolish game is he playing?

Hon. Mr. Potter: Mr. Chairman, I take exception to the hon. member. He knows very well -- unless he wants to get up here and lie about it -- that he has never corresponded with me where I have not replied to him. If I haven’t replied in a letter, I’ve replied to him personally.

Mr. Martel: I’m telling the minister that on two occasions I was advised by his deputy minister that all the questions relating to Burwash would be answered during the estimates of the Ministry of Correctional Services. Is that a fact or not?

Hon. Mr. Potter: I haven’t any idea of what you are talking about.

Mr. Martel: You haven’t any idea, but you can get up and make a barefaced statement like that.

Mr. Chairman: Order, please.

Mr. Gilbertson: You are grandstanding and you are not getting anywhere.

Mr. Chairman: Order. As I said earlier, any letters that you may have from the ministry are not binding on the Chair. The Chair is operating this committee.

Mr. Martel: Well, you tell me, Mr. Chairman, where the hell you’re supposed to get the answers then.

Mr. Chairman: Order. Let’s get back to the estimates.

Mr. Martel: I am back to the estimates. The deputy minister refused to answer the questions when they were raised in correspondence to him. He said, “It will come during the estimates of Correctional Services. We are now in the estimates of Correctional Services.” I’m raising the issues and the minister says, “I’m not answering.” Now you tell me, where are we supposed to get the information, Mr. Chairman?

Mr. Chairman: The Chair will entertain any questions or comments on the current 1974-1975 estimates only.

Mr. Martel: That’s nonsense and you know it.

Mr. Chairman: Anything in the past is to be referred to the --

Mr. Martel: The minister just got up and said that at the time they --

Mr. Chairman: Order, please, anything that refers to the past should be referred to the public accounts committee or it should be given as notice on the order paper for an answer.

Mr. Martel: Do you think the public accounts people are going to have the number of prisoners who were from Sudbury in various institutions on the dates that the ministry spoke of? Do you think I can find that out in public accounts?

Mr. Chairman: Order, please, the hon. member realizes that the chairman’s ruling is not debatable. If you do not wish to challenge it, I suggest that you get back to the estimates of 1974-1975.

Mr. Martel: I’m right on the estimates. I asked the minister to provide me with the figures.

An hon. member: On what?

Mr. Martel: The figures of how many men from the Sudbury area, in October, November, December, January, February, April and up to the present, have been sent to Monteith and how many men have been sent to Thunder Bay or any other institution in the province. At the same time, I want to know how many were from the Parry Sound area and the North Bay area. The reason for closing Burwash was so that prisoners would be trained closer to home. Now if that’s the case for people from southern Ontario, surely to God it applies to those prisoners from the Sudbury-North Bay area. Does the chairman agree?

Mr. Chairman: I fail to see where this has anything to do with the estimates of the spending of the ministry, and the care, treatment and training of adult offenders for 1974-1975.

Mr. Martel: What do you think I’m talking about? Where are they still going, Mr. Chairman? I want to know --

Mr. Chairman: Or 1975-1976, I’m sorry.

Mr. Martel: -- about the prisoners who were sentenced today in Sudbury -- today; is that now? -- or will be sentenced tomorrow. Where are they going to be sent for their rehabilitation, Mr. Chairman?

Mr. Chairman: Perhaps if the hon. member would give the minister a chance he would answer that.

Mr. Martel: All right, I’ll sit down.

Hon. Mr. Potter: Of course, Mr. Chairman, I can’t give him that information tonight. It will take some time to get that together for the hon. member, but I’ll certainly see that he gets it.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Chairman, you see, when I wrote him on that, the minister did not respond to it either. He did not respond to my queries as to where, in fact, these young men or young ladies might go. I’ve raised it in subsequent letters, because I learned where the prisoners went for just one month. Contrary to the game the minister played a few moments ago when he in fact said that only eight prisoners were from Sudbury; for the month I quoted five from Sudbury went to Thunder Bay, and 22 or 23 went to Monteith.

I just think it tremendously unfair of the minister to stand in his place and in one breath say what he did, to use as a reason for closing an institution in the Sudbury area, that we want to rehabilitate prisoners closer to home. We all agree with it, but then he doesn’t provide a facility of any sort for the rehabilitation of those prisoners in the Sudbury-North Bay area, and I’d like to know what the minister has that’s going to take its place.

You see, Mr. Chairman, there is a grand jury report -- I’m looking for it -- on that institution which recommended that Camp Bison, which lies empty, has one of the best programmes in the province. It should remain open -- not housing a lot of prisoners; 200 at most. At the same time as the grand jury makes that recommendation it’s phased out and we build a new institution in southern Ontario, when the prison population is declining.

You’ve got a facility which was good. You have a declining inmate population. You build a new institution in the south while there is one that sits there. Here is a grand jury recommendation of Sept. 9, 1974. Let me just quote from it. It’s very brief, Mr. Chairman, only a couple of paragraphs.

“Burwash Farm: We as a grand jury will be the last to visit this institution to inspect and make recommendations. We want to make this final report as to our findings. The old cell blocks should be demolished [We all agree on that, Mr. Chairman. No one disagrees] as they would have to be gutted in order to be of any use to others. It amazed this group and was beyond our comprehension as to why our money was poured into this facility by the millions of dollars since 1970 and is now to be mothballed and more of our money to be continued so it will be maintained with heat and security.“

A half million dollars a year -- that’s the grand jury report. Now what does it say about Camp Bison? We remember our friends closed Camp Bison down and are building Maplehurst. Here’s what they say about Camp Bison:

“Camp Bison should be retained as a correctional centre. It may be a small facility by today’s standards but at least 200 inmates could be accommodated with ease and we as a jury in talking to inmates, all repeaters, found Burwash established a reputation amongst them as a place to learn a trade, upgrade education and social services, rehabilitate their personal life, habits and mode of life. We do not find being away from relatives, families and friends as being a deciding factor in phasing out.”

Tell me why it is that you fly in the face of a grand jury report, close it and build a new one, when you knew the inmate population was declining in the province. That’s what I’m talking about, Mr. Chairman. You’ve got it there sitting open and you’ve got a squandering of money the like of which the province would find difficult to duplicate.

Mr. Laughren: Not for this government.

Mr. Martel: I have the other letters now -- they are all in order -- if you want me to quote what I’ve told you in order to debate it here. How do you justify your actions? I’m not talking about the main camp now. I’m talking about Camp Bison. Here is what they say about the other thing, Mr. Chairman:

“The modern gym, large enough to have CFL teams play their games, and fully equipped, should be made use of.”

It sits empty and you continue to build and pay for Maplehurst. You continue to send prisoners from various parts of northern Ontario anywhere from 250 to 700 miles away from home to rehabilitate.

Then last week the minister has an ad in the newspaper to close out Portage Lake. I understand that might be changed now. One of the guards in Portage Lake had moved from Burwash to Portage Lake and now is moving on, if that decision isn’t altered. Not bad, two moves in six months. Not bad that everything that costs money sits there idly.

Not bad that one man at the institution, an employee living in Burwash, committed suicide by hanging himself when he learned that the institution was going to close. He had been there for 28 years. He told his family he would never move and went down to the basement and hanged himself.

Not bad that I-don’t-know-how-many men got cleaned by the phoney programme of the Minister of Government Services (Mr. Snow) on having the same appraiser appraise it for the government.

You stand condemned, Mr. Minister, not because some of what you were doing wasn’t right, but that you made it one fell swoop and that you built somewhere else and closed out an institution which sits there. Which brings me to several other minor points. What are you going to do with it now? It’s costing half a million dollars.

Interestingly, I spoke to the Treasurer (Mr. McKeough) today, and I said, “Tell me, Mr. Treasurer, what are you going to do with Burwash?” He said, “That’s not my responsibility.” When they first closed it, it was the Treasurer’s responsibility. Everything had to be directed to the then Treasurer (Mr. White). Now the present Treasurer says, “No, it’s not mine. It belongs to -- I think it might be Allan Grossman now who might have something to do with it.”

Mr. Laughren: That guy? He doesn’t look as if he knows much about it.

Mr. Martel: Doesn’t look as if he knows much about it either, so the Treasurer hasn’t told him yet.

Hon. A. Grossman (Provincial Secretary for Resources Development): I have been out of jail now for about four years.

Mr. Martel: What are we doing with it? Has the ministry got any plans?

That reminds me that the federal government, of course, is building a new institution north of Barrie and I understand the people of Barrie don’t want it. It would be close to your riding, Mr. Chairman. I understand that the people are opposed to it. There have been petitions and what not to this government and to the federal government suggesting they use the facility which is already there -- Burwash.

Again, I’m told from someone who was partially in on the negotiations between the Ontario government and, I guess, Warren Allmand’s branch, that the federal people were of a mind to buy it, but when the crunch came and a price was asked, the provincial government demanded too much. The minister shakes his head; hopefully he will deny it.

Mr. Laughren: Right or wrong.

Mr. Martel: Right or wrong. My information, from a lawyer, is that Ontario asked too much.

Now maybe that’s wrong, but it seems to me that rather than squander the taxpayers’ money and build yet another institution and spend another $1 million or $8 million near Barrie, one should get down to serious business with the federal government and do some very serious negotiating with respect to Burwash, or one then should turn it into some other facility for the use of the people of the Sudbury area.

The Minister of Health (Mr. Miller) might establish a Downsview there for rehabilitation. They might establish a crippled kids’ centre, or an institution for the mentally retarded instead of Smiths Falls for the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Brunelle). Something, rather than see it lie empty; something with a social service attachment to it.

Mr. Laughren: Trade you for the Sudbury nursing home.

Mr. Martel: Yes, instead of putting all the hundred mentally retarded kids in Gaston Demers nursing home, you might in fact put the hundred mentally retarded in homes at Burwash. The minister doesn’t agree with me, of course.

Mr. Laughren: What a farce that Sudbury nursing home is.

Mr. Martel: They have 100 kids on one floor; one ward. I visited it.

Mr. Laughren: You guys; politics can do anything.

Mr. Germa: Gaston’s making money, though.

Mr. Martel: You might put it to a use. I understand the university has asked for some of the property for its recreation programme. I understand Cambrian College has asked for some of the property for its shops, for the apprenticeships, so the young people wouldn’t have to go to Sault Ste. Marie or come to Toronto. It could be used for the mentally retarded, the physically-handicapped adults, when there is nothing in the Sudbury area for them.

You could develop that into a total government complex if you were sincere about providing services which are not available to the north. But you can’t even find out which minister is responsible. It is not the Minister of Government Services; it is not the Minister of Correctional Services; it is no one. But we continue to pay to have it operational.

An hon. member: It is the Minister of Agriculture and Food.

Mr. Martel: It might be the Minister of Agriculture and Food. He is going to lay some eggs there.

Maybe the minister will tell me how he can justify the closing of Camp Bison and the building of Maplehurst. We will start there.

Hon. Mr. Potter: Mr. Chairman, as I said earlier I am not going to get into a discussion of the closing of Burwash. This was accomplished some time ago. I don’t see what it has to do with these estimates at all.

Certainly, as far as Maplehurst is concerned, it is a different type of facility altogether. Burwash, like Guelph, was a medium security institution mostly for recidivists and there were very few individuals from Sudbury who would be committed and sent there unless they were recidivists.

This hasn’t got anything to do with it and I can’t see the point in arguing again why Burwash was closed. It’s a fait accompli. I will be glad to give the member any information he wants on the statistics he has asked for but I can’t do it this evening.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Chairman, that does disappoint me because what the minister is attempting to do, of course -- without the statistics tonight we can’t come back to it. It will carry and then we can go away and maybe discuss it in next year’s estimates.

Mr. Laughren: It’s called stonewalling.

Mr. Martel: Yes. What is the difference with Maplehurst then? If Burwash was minimum security and for recidivists, what is Maplehurst? Medium? Why could not one have established Bison to do the same function? Surely Bison could have carried on the same function as Maplehurst?

Hon. Mr. Potter: Camp Bison itself was. There is no question about it. There was a good part of the camp that could be used if it was needed. We don’t need it any longer and that is why we were able to take what inmates we had from Burwash and put them in Guelph and other places with less security.

The Maplehurst facility replaces Mimico, which had to be replaced, and it is a correctional centre. The individuals who go there would not be recidivists. They wouldn’t require the same degree of security that they require at Guelph, for instance.

Mr. Martel: Okay. What I am trying to get at is I don’t know how many prisoners leave the Sudbury, North Bay, Parry Sound triangle -- let’s look at it that way -- or where they go. Surely, if they are being transferred for 250 to 700 miles, what are the plans -- maybe we can attack from that point of view. What are the plans for retraining those people close to their homes? This was the reason for phasing out Burwash -- or one of the reasons. That is surely a legitimate question.

Hon. Mr. Potter: The member is aware we have established the CRCs. You have one now in Sudbury, one in Timmins and one in North Bay. You are also aware, because I have discussed it with you, of the possibility of opening more CRCs in that part of the province. Let’s face it, I should refer you back to your leader in 1969. I will tell you what he said.

Mr. Martel: I know what he said.

Hon. Mr. Potter: You know what he said. He said, “It is not necessary in the year 1969 to perpetuate the absurdity of Burwash as a correctional service.”

Hon. Mr. Grossman: How about that?

Hon. Mr. Potter: Then he went on to say, "It attests to the paucity of thinking on the part of government that the only kind of centre that can be envisaged is this particular conglomerate, which works against the residents and works against the people who serve them."

Mr. Martel: Wait a minute.

Hon. Mr. Potter: Now you have the nerve to get up here and say why did I close it? Last week the member for Lakeshore stood up in this House and said, “Mr. Minister, I am glad you closed it. Why don’t you do the same thing with Millbrook?”

And I said: “Yes, and I suppose you people will get up there and then complain about us closing Millbrook.”

Mr. Martel: Mr. Chairman, I was in on that debate, if you will recall. How that came about, of course, was that the Provincial Secretary for Resources Development was letting his friends in with their graders; one Mr. Fielding. That’s how that argument came about. I recall that debate well.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: You convinced us.

Mr. Martel: No, I didn’t convince you. The minister is playing on words again and he’s playing games. I am not talking about the old institution. I am not talking about that fort or the bastille. I am not talking about that at all; and the minister is well aware of what I am talking about when I talk about Bison. I am not talking about the sort of place that the old institution at Burwash was, and he knows it -- he well knows it. So don’t suggest that we are talking over here about keeping a place like the old bastille alive. No one has suggested that at any time. And let’s make that abundantly clear. But you are not suggesting to the House that Bison and Portage Lake are in the same category as Burwash. Is the minister suggesting to the House that there is no difference between Portage Lake and Bison, when comparing it to the old institution at Burwash itself?

Hon. Mr. Potter: I am not suggesting anything, Mr. Chairman. I don’t know how Portage Lake got into this.

Mr. Martel: Well, it is part of that series of camps.

Hon. Mr. Potter: Portage Lake is certainly still operating, and I expect it will be operating for a good long time. I just don’t see any point in continuing this argument. I have told the hon. member that the figures that he has asked for have been tabled. Other people have got them. If he wants them, he can certainly have them. I am not trying to hide anything, but I can’t see the point in going on and arguing and arguing and arguing about why the facility was closed out, when it was no longer needed.

Mr. Martel: Well, Mr. Chairman, the minister knows that just last week his ministry advertised for someone to take over Portage Lake. That’s why it was drawn in.

Hon. Mr. Potter: We didn’t advertise for somebody to take over Portage Lake. We advertised to see if anybody was interested in operating it on a contract --

Mr. Martel: What the hell is the difference?

Hon. Mr. Potter: Just a minute. We are looking for interest. We have two at the present time, and there was no way of comparing it to find out just how efficient or how economical it was. And we have been looking at the idea of whether or not we should consider putting one out on contract in the private sector so we would be able to compare it with another. The hon. member knows that, because I have discussed it with him. I don’t know how he has the nerve to stand up here and pretend he doesn’t know what’s going on.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Chairman, it’s interesting. The minister jumped up in his chair, and said: “That’s not true, we are not.” And in the next breath said: “We have advertised to see if somebody wants to take it over so we can make a comparison.”

Hon. Mr. Potter: Just a minute. You said we were closing it out. I understood you to say that. It is not being closed out. There’s no intention of closing it out.

Mr. Martel: You are going to turn it over to private enterprise.

Hon. Mr. Potter: No, I didn’t even say we were going to turn it over. I said we had requested to hear from anyone who might be interested, so that we could review it and decide whether we would or not.

Mr. Martel: Well, you know you are cutting it pretty thin.

Mr. Lawlor: Playing games.

Mr. Martel: You are playing on words and you know it. Because you asked the question: “How did Portage Lake get into it?” And the only reason that Portage Lake got into it, Mr. Minister, was that if you had your way, you would get out of Portage Lake as well. Are you not also getting out of the one on the other side of the Parry Sound area? The other DARE programme? Are you not getting out of it too?

Hon. Mr. Potter: Well, that’s the next vote. That’s not this vote.

Mr. Martel: I am just showing you where you are closing out. Most of it is in northern Ontario.

Hon. Mr. Potter: I wouldn’t count on it if I were you.

Mr. Martel: No, no. I wouldn’t count on it. It’s in a good Tory riding. I wouldn’t count on it either, but it’s interesting. You play games with words.

Hon. Mr. Potter: No games at all. It is just that you don’t want to listen.

Mr. Martel: No, I don’t want to be taken in. There’s a big difference you know. There’s a big difference.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Take him in.

Hon. Mr. Potter: I don’t know who the hell would want to take you in, to tell you the truth.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Take him in to the Don.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Chairman, I think the minister should have to answer about the costs. They were in his bailiwick. In estimates we study the costs projected for the coming year and the public accounts for last year; that’s how one goes about looking at estimates. Of course, the ministry can’t justify its actions. There are so many things about Burwash that it can’t justify, but most of all it’s the grand jury report.

However, I hope this minister might have some influence in the cabinet to get some use out of this facility, rather than continuing to watch money go up the stack in terms of fuel and security people looking after it. He was very quick to get it closed; it might be helpful if he was as quick to get it reopened for some useful function -- and not necessarily in the field of correctional services; I’ve suggested half a dozen possible uses.

Mr. Chairman: The hon. member for Essex-Kent.

Mr. Ruston: Mr. Chairman, could the minister tell us what type of industrial programme he has at the Maplehurst institution now? Or what type of industrial programme is he planning or putting into effect there?

Hon. Mr. Potter: Several smaller industries were interested; and we’re still negotiating with them. How we’re going to make out when we finally open is hard to say because of the unemployment situation today. There’s also the fact that so many who were interested earlier when we started are now finding they’re having to cut back a little on production and they’re beginning to lose some of their interest.

Mr. Ruston: Are you jobbing out things to industry? Is that what you said?

Hon. Mr. Potter: Is that what you’re referring to, jobbing out? Or the industries that are going to work in there?

Mr. Ruston: Either one or the other.

Hon. Mr. Potter: Well, for instance, we are contracting with Parnell Foods Ltd. to do the catering for the industry. Is that what you’re referring to? Or are you talking about the small industries that were interested in going in there and operating, like the abattoir at Guelph?

Mr. Ruston: I’m more interested in that, yes.

Hon. Mr. Potter: We’ve been negotiating with several small industries, but at the present time we haven’t got anything concrete yet.

Mr. Ruston: Could the minister tell me approximately how much it cost in the past year to rebuild the abattoir at Guelph in terms of changing it around and modernizing it? Do you know how much that cost?

Hon. Mr. Potter: I haven’t got the exact figure. I think it was in the vicinity of half a million dollars. It’s one of those deals in which we set the rent -- we lease the facilities and the equipment to them, and we recover it in the rent over a period of years.

Mr. Ruston: I suppose the minister is aware that --

Hon. Mr. Potter: It was $800,000, and it’s repaid at 12½ per cent interest.

Mr. Ruston: Speaking of grand jury reports, I noticed the one in Windsor had a brief discussion with the administrator, and they were informed there were no outside recreational facilities -- that is, there were some in the summertime but none at all in the winter. In their recommendations they are suggesting that the Ministry of Correctional Services consider acquiring the old county building, which adjoins the present correctional institution and is connected by a tunnel. Has the minister given this recommendation any consideration?

Hon. Mr. Potter: At the present time we haven’t. I think the hon. member is probably aware that we get a large number of grand jury reports. There are very few that we hear about, because most of them are quite complimentary. Unfortunately, some of the grand jury reports we get are not very well reported, as was evidenced recently with one on the Vanier Centre.

I noticed all the newspapers were quite anxious to jump on the bandwagon and print the report which was damning the centre. A few days later one of the local newspapers came out and ridiculed the report and said it couldn’t understand how it was written in the first place. It said it didn’t do this by going to the institute to find out what was wrong; it went to lawyers, to social workers, to people who have been going to the centre on a daily basis and they denied anything that was written in the grand jury report.

As a result of that there was an editorial in the Brampton paper -- I think it was -- saying the same thing and that they hoped the rest of the papers would pick it up. Of course, the other papers didn’t do that; they never pick those things up.

Mr. Ruston: That’s par for the course.

Hon. Mr. Potter: We have told them about the one you are speaking about, that we are interested in the building. When it becomes vacant we will certainly be glad to discuss it with them.

Mr. Chairman: The member for Nickel Belt.

Mr. Laughren: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I won’t discuss the penology aspect at Burwash because my inclinations are toward the phasing-out of penal institutions for non-violent crimes. I won’t get into that about Burwash. But there is something which does bother me about what this ministry did and it seemed to me there were a couple of things that went wrong in the phasing out of it.

One was the way in which they handled the staff transfers and, despite the assurances of the ministry, there were people, particularly in the instructional area, who did not get the kind of choices they were assured they would get. I have a specific example of that.

The other thing that bothers me is that the decision to close it was made not too long after the Ontario cabinet came to Sudbury in a blaze of glory with an awareness Ontario campaign. They met in the Sudbury area -- I think they had them elsewhere as well -- and then proceeded to wipe out, as my colleague says, the fourth largest employer in the Sudbury area. If they did see there was a need to phase out that institution for reasons of penal reform that is one argument I could live with and I don’t have the expertise to question that.

What really bothered me about it was the tremendous loss of potential. To this day it sits there idle and there is one thing that I personally would like to see it used for and that’s a rehabilitation centre for the Workmen’s Compensation Board. I am glad the Provincial Secretary for Resources Development is here because that falls within his jurisdiction. I think there is a large number of people from the Sudbury area, let alone the rest of northern Ontario, who come to the Downsview centre for rehabilitation. They spend a lot of time there away from their families and surely there should be a rehabilitation centre established in the Sudbury area.

There is not going to be one at the new hospital. We were led to believe at one time -- I don’t think we were deliberately misled -- that there was going to be a rehabilitation centre there. There isn’t, not one that is going to be able to cope with Compensation Board problems. The argument the Compensation Board uses, Mr. Chairman, is that it is too highly specialized and you shouldn’t duplicate the facilities they have at Downsview. I am not suggesting they duplicate all the facilities, the specialized facilities. I don’t think that is what most of the people who go to Downsview require anyway; they require different levels of rehabilitation.

Surely, there is no better thing that those facilities could be used for? You have the tremendous gymnasium and you have the houses there. There are enough office facilities so that you can decentralize the Compensation Board perhaps in other areas as well and I would urge you as strongly as I know how to give that serious consideration. The minister was involved with health before: he knows some of the problems with rehabilitation.

I would also urge the Ministry of Labour or the provincial secretary to take a look at the possibilities there. I think it would be a very positive move. It would make a big difference to the injured workmen in the area and I suspect there are enough injured workers from the Sudbury area alone to make such an investment worthwhile. If you have any power left in the decision as to what happens to those facilities, I sure hope you don’t allow it to be turned into some kind of industrial park which we hear rumours about occasionally. I would urge you to consider letting it go to the Workmen’s Compensation Board and they could make it into a northern Ontario rehabilitation centre.

Mr. Martel: You even might land in a helicopter next time.

Mr. Chairman: Shall item 2 carry?

Mr. J. F. Foulds (Port Arthur): No, Mr. Chairman, the minister wants to reply.

Mr. Chairman: Is it the pleasure of the committee --

Mr. Foulds: Let the minister reply.

Hon. Mr. Potter: Mr. Chairman, if I could have a minute, I just want to reply to the statement about the relocation of staff from Burwash. Actually, I was very proud of the job that was done by our personnel director and the members of the staff for that relocation; they worked very closely with the Civil Service Commission and the unions at the time. The unions were very generous in their praise of my staff and the way they handled the situation. As a matter of fact, the commission has used this particular project as a model of what can be done in relocating the members of the staff.

Mr. Laughren: Instructional staff.

Hon. Mr. Potter: I’m surprised to hear that --

Mr. Laughren: There are exceptions.

Hon. Mr. Potter: Of course, I suppose there are always going to be exceptions, no matter what happens.

Mr. Laughren: There shouldn’t be.

Hon. Mr. Potter: There shouldn’t be, but this world being what it is, I don’t think there is any way that everybody is going to be happy about everything.

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

Motion agreed to.

The House resumed, Mr. Speaker in the chair.

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

Report agreed to.

Hon. E. A. Winkler (Chairman, Management Board of Cabinet): Mr. Speaker, before I move the adjournment of the House I would like to inform the members that tomorrow morning we will call the private bills standing for second reading, and there is a substantial addition to that list. I believe that assent will be given later tomorrow, and we’ll proceed then with the consideration of the estimates of the Ministry of Correctional Services. Should we conclude that item, we will proceed to items 16 and 17 standing on the order paper. On Monday we will proceed further to the taxing bills, as called previously, standing in the name of the Minister of Revenue (Mr. Meen).

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

Motion agreed to.

The House adjourned at 10:35 o’clock, p.m.