The House met at 3:05 o’clock, p.m.

Prayers.

Hon. L. Bernier (Minister of Natural Resources): Mr. Speaker, in the galleries this afternoon we will have two important groups from northwestern Ontario.

One group is from the Red Lake Road area; they are students attending the Red Lake Road Public School. I might say they have been assisted in coming down to Toronto through the Young Travellers programme, but the uniqueness of this particular group is that they are making a tour of the entire great Province of Ontario. They are travelling by minibus from the Vermilion Bay and Red Lake Road area, down through the greater part of this province. They will be visiting not only Toronto but Belleville and other areas that will be of interest to them, and of course to their parents back home.

Another group with us today are grades 6, 7 and 8 students from the Madsen Public School at Madsen, Ont. Again, this group has been assisted by the Young Travellers programme, and they raised about $1,600 in their own community to assist them make a five-day tour of southern Ontario.

Mr. J. E. Stokes (Thunder Bay): Mr. Speaker, I too have a group of 35 grade 8 students from St. Martin Separate School in Terrace Bay visiting parts of southern Ontario, including the Ontario Legislature, under the guidance of Mr. and Mrs. Mike Anderson, Mr. Ed McAdam, Ev Fazzetta and their bus driver, Werner Schuschenpflug. I hope you will welcome them to the Legislature.

Mr. S. Lewis (Scarborough West): We socialists leave out no one.

Mr. J. Yaremko (Bellwoods): Mr. Speaker, also in the east and west galleries, but not from so far away -- indeed, from within walking distance of this building -- are some 125 students from St. Raymond’s Separate School in the very heart of the riding of Bellwoods, under the guidance of their principal, Mr. Albert Smith, accompanied by trustee Fr. Matthews. I’m sure that though they are residents of Toronto, we welcome them as much as those from the far north.

Mr. Lewis: The member must be running again.

Mr. Speaker: I am sure also that all the members will wish to welcome the distinguished parliamentarians from the African region of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, accompanied by Mr. Maurice Dupras, MP, from Ottawa, who are all seated in the Speaker’s gallery this afternoon. Representatives are here from Gambia, Kenya, Malawi, Mauritius, Seychelles, Tanzania and Zambia. I know the hon. members will want to welcome this group to our chamber this afternoon.

Statements by the ministry.

NIAGARA ESCARPMENT DEVELOPMENT

Hon. W. D. McKeough (Treasurer, Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): Mr. Speaker, in the absence of my colleague, I would like to announce that the Minister of Housing (Mr. Irvine) has signed and filed with the registrar of regulations, the regulations to establish a procedure for development control of sensitive areas within the Niagara Escarpment planning area. This regulation is to become effective June 10, 1975.

In June, 1973, the Legislature passed the Niagara Escarpment Planning and Development Act and later in that year, the Treasurer appointed the 17-member Niagara Escarpment Commission.

While the primary responsibility of the commission is to prepare a master plan for the Niagara Escarpment area, the Act also provides for the establishment of interim development controls to be administered by the commission. The programme of development control will permit new development that is considered compatible with the goals and objectives set out for the escarpment.

Development control is a method of land-use control that is new in Ontario. It is to be distinguished from the traditional zoning system in that there are no zones or detailed standards set out in the regulations. Each application will be dealt with on its own merits. In areas where there are approved municipal planning programmes, however, applications for development will also be evaluated in the light of such plans. In addition, the commission will consult with the municipality on each application. It is our belief that this procedure will be an effective means of achieving our objectives.

In addition, this Act makes the Minister of Housing responsible for the establishment of hearing procedures involved in an appeal from a decision made by the Niagara Escarpment Commission. The final decision on an appeal rests with him. My colleague will soon be announcing the appointment of a chief hearing officer who will be responsible for the administration of these hearings as set out in the Act.

Finally, since the administration of the development control regulation will rest with the Niagara Escarpment Commission, the commission has been requested to meet immediately with the officials of the affected municipalities. These meetings will be open to the press.

I am confident, Mr. Speaker, that the procedures I have announced today will enable us, with the co-operation of the Niagara Escarpment Commission, to move resolutely toward our goal of preserving a unique and valuable feature to our landscape for the benefit of Ontario citizens for generations to come.

AGREEMENT ON OPP SALARIES

Hon. E. A. Winkler (Chairman, Management Board of Cabinet): Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to announce that a one-year memorandum of understanding has been negotiated between the government and the Ontario Provincial Police Association. The agreement covers the period from April 1, 1975, to March 31, 1976, and provides improvements in salaries, employee benefits and other terms of employment for approximately 3,800 uniformed staff in the bargaining unit. The maximum salary for a constable under the new agreement will be $16,000 per year, effective from April 1, 1975.

In addition to the salary increases, a shift premium of 15 cents per hour will be introduced, effective from June 2, 1975; plainclothes allowance will be increased from $425 per year to $500 per year; there will be an improvement in the payment with respect to statutory holidays; and the government will pay the full premium for the supplementary health and hospital insurance plan -- to this point, employees have paid 75 per cent of this premium.

It gives me particular pleasure to report that the parties have once again reached agreement in direct negotiations. This means, Mr. Speaker, that they have maintained the commendable record which began more than 11 years ago when collective bargaining was first instituted for members of the Ontario Provincial Police.

MINERAL EXPLORATION ASSISTANCE PROGRAMME

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to advise the members of the House that it is the intention of this government to continue the mineral exploration assistance programme which, if you will recall, sir, was first introduced in August, 1971, to assist the Ontario economy by stimulating mineral exploration in the resource products industries field.

I am also pleased to say that eastern Ontario has now been added to this programme. Initially, the programme included the areas of Geraldton-Beardmore, Kirkland Lake and Red Lake.

Mr. Lewis: Eastern Ontario? Is that the reason for Spencerville?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Later in 1971, Cobalt was added and in 1972 the designated areas were enlarged. Atikokan was added in July. 1974, and we have now included eastern Ontario.

The eastern Ontario designation will be an area south and southeast of Algonquin Park and the buffer zone adjacent to it. The area boundary follows the Ottawa River from Pembroke to Ottawa and includes Carleton Place, Smiths Falls, Brockville, Kingston, Tweed, Lakefield, Minden, Haliburton and Madawaska.

Since the programme was launched in the fiscal year of 1971 we have budgeted $4.1 million, of which $3,789,723 has been committed under contracts and to date more than $1.4 million paid out. It has been our experience that rarely more than one-half of the moneys contracted for are actually spent, due to lack of success in individual programmes resulting, in early termination. Our budget for 1975-1976 is $500,000, from which we hope to generate more than $1.5 million in new surface exploration.

It may prove helpful, Mr. Speaker, if I briefly explain how the mineral exploration assistance programme works and its objectives. Firstly, government participation is limited to one-third of the moneys actually expended, with the maximum government contribution to any one contract limited to $33,333 and payments to any individual or company to $50,000 during any fiscal year. In the event a producing mine is subsequently developed, all moneys contributed through the plan that’ll be returned to the Ontario government without interest.

The objectives of the programme are; 1. To assist the economy of Ontario by stimulating the exploration for minerals by resource products industries; 2. To stimulate local employment and the local demand for goods and services; 3. To stimulate exploration in resource dependent areas; 4. To assemble data on mineral resources for the improvement of mineral exploration and mineral resource management; 5. To assist in finding a mineral deposit that may become a producing mine.

All claims for exploration activities must be supported by the submission of reports and maps which are filed with the ministry and become available to the public through the assessment files research office in Toronto and the geological office of the region. Applications for assistance must be submitted before the work begins and reimbursement is made for the whole or any completed part of a programme upon submission of technical and financial reports.

In each of the designated areas, an individual or company may hold only one contract at a time and the property must consist of a group of contiguous claims. Agreements expire on Feb. 15, 1976. Previously existing contracts expired on Feb. 15, 1975 and submissions are now being received for work planned during the present fiscal year.

The number of agreements under this programme since its inception in 1971, Mr. Speaker, are as follows: Atikokan, 5; Geraldton-Beardmore, 53; Red Lake, 38; Cobalt-Gowganda, 88; Kirkland Lake, 72.

It is interesting to note, Mr. Speaker, that questionnaires returned to date for the fiscal year just ended indicate that for contracts where the government participated, two-thirds of the supplies were purchased locally and one-half of the wages paid were: also paid locally.

At two properties, ore located by work done under mineral exploration assistance was mined; at three other places, mineralization was located that appears to be of near economic size and grade.

I am sure that members will agree, Mr. Speaker, that the mineral exploration assistance programme is providing and will continue to provide a valuable contribution to the development of Ontario’s mining industry.

In 1975-1976, my ministry will be expanding its efforts in two directions. First, a joint federal-provincial airborne uranium reconnaissance programme will start this year by which we plan to cover most of Ontario. This programme will be funded on a 50-50 basis with the federal government over five years.

In 1975, the Ontario contribution will be $150,000, which will be used to cover an area including Lac Seul, Sioux Lookout, Dryden and Ignace.

Second the Ontario government will be granting to the Royal Ontario Museum $300,000 as a capital grant to establish at this institution the most advanced and precise laboratory for geochronological age dating anywhere in the world. This facility will be unique in Canada and will allow precise age dating of our Precambrian rocks in a capacity which we believe will provide a real stimulus to an understanding of why and how our mineral deposits were formed. This, we believe, Mr. Speaker, will make a significant contribution to mining discovery in Ontario in the future.

Mr. Speaker: Oral questions. The hon. member for York Centre.

ALUMINUM WIRING

Mr. D. M. Deacon (York Centre): Yes, a question of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations. Did the minister write the federal Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs asking for a moratorium to be placed on the sale of aluminum wire because of the danger that’s been discovered in the use of aluminum wire?

Hon. S. B. Handleman (Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations): Yes, Mr. Speaker, I have written to Mr. Ouellet, and I have suggested that as a possible means to give us some time to further investigate the possible hazards. At the moment, Mr. Ouellet has rejected that as a possible solution and we are now looking at our own building code to see whether or not there can be some way of dealing with the problem in that vehicle. It is my opinion that the national electrical code should be amended to provide for a temporary moratorium to enable the National Research Council, the Canadian Standards Association and Ontario Hydro to co-operate in the further study of the potential hazards.

Mr. Deacon: Supplementary: Did the minister ask his colleague, the Minister of Energy (Mr. Timbrell) to place a ban on the use of aluminum wiring by Ontario Hydro, in view of the fact that he is asking the federal government to introduce a moratorium on the sale to the public. Has the minister, in fact, recommended Ontario Hydro stop using it?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: No, Mr. Speaker. I have asked the Minister of Energy to discuss with Ontario Hydro the problems which are involved in the use of aluminum wiring; and Ontario Hydro has, in fact, carried out an examination. They have not recommended a moratorium, but they have pointed out there are certain problems which are inherent in the use of aluminum wiring and have suggested remedies which in their opinion are satisfactory.

Mr. Deacon: Wouldn’t the minister agree that this is rather in contradiction of the statement by the Minister of Energy recently that there is no danger in use of aluminum wiring? When did the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations find out there was danger; and how is it his colleague hasn’t been aware of this before?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, I am not aware of the fact that my colleague has said there is no danger. What they have said, and I think it is factually correct, is that there is not a single instance in Ontario where a fire can be solely attributed to the use of aluminum wiring. Ontario Hydro and the Ministry of Energy are fully aware of the problems which are inherent in its use, but they have not said that there is no danger whatsoever.

USE OF SEATBELTS

Mr. Deacon: I have a question of the Minister of Transportation and Communications. How long does the minister intend to carry out his propaganda campaign on seatbelts before he comes to the conclusion that it is not going to be a means of enforcing their use or bringing their use up from 6 per cent to a more sensible percentage of the population? How long is he going to carry this on?

Hon. J. R. Rhodes (Minister of Transportation and Communications): Mr. Speaker, I intend to see that the programme is carried out as we had planned to do over a period of time, until we can more properly assess what is happening. The hon. member is jumping to the conclusion that the programme is not successful. Based upon the initial surveys that were taken at the very beginning of the programme, I think he is out of line in so doing. We will complete the programme as we outlined it originally.

Mr. Deacon: Supplementary. How many months does that mean? Is it a matter of three months, two months or one month? How long does the minister expect it to take to get to a reasonable percentage of the population as a target percentage?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is referring to the initial survey that was taken as to the incidence of seatbelts being worn in various parts of the province. We now have those particular statistics and I would be the first to admit they are not very encouraging. However, that was at the outset of the programme. We needed those statistics for later on in the programme. I would say we are going to have to try to get through part of this summer in order to compare the figures to see whether or not we have had any degree of success in increasing the use of seatbelts.

Mr. Speaker: Supplementary, the member for Carleton East.

Mr. P. Taylor (Carleton East): With respect to the minister’s publicity and media campaign to buckle up, is the minister considering directing this programme more toward informing the public of the social benefits, the savings in hospital costs and property damage, rather than the obvious factor of the saving of personal injury? Is the minister considering redirecting the media campaign in those directions?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, that is part of the overall programme. The hon. member, I know, has seen a copy of the book we have put out entitled “The Human Collision”, which draws this conclusion very specifically, that there can be a saving to society in general through fewer accidents and fewer injuries. Part of our campaign will be aimed in that direction. The majority at the present time, quite frankly, has been an educational endeavour to have people start to wear their seatbelts. We are applying that campaign to various parts of society, primarily in the schools and directly in the communities. We have not been planning our campaign specifically to bring out the points the hon. member mentioned. It certainly could be part of it.

Mr. Speaker: Supplementary, the member for Ottawa Centre.

Mr. M. Cassidy (Ottawa Centre): Is the minister familiar with experience in other countries, where publicity campaigns have had only a very temporary and moderate effect in improving the number of people who buckled up; and that the effect chopped off very shortly after the campaigns ended? Can he promise any better results from the Ontario Campaign?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, I am not going to make any promises. I’ll leave that to others. I can simply say that I am well aware of the campaigns that were carried on; specially in two areas -- the United Kingdom and the United States. We are well aware of what those programmes were. They were very expensive programmes that dealt primarily with the very expensive mass media, namely television commercials which are very costly, particularly on network spots. We have not attempted to go into that type of campaign. Our efforts have been directed more into the communities, into schools, into associations; dealing with people on a one-on-one basis. I am not satisfied one can really do an awful lot trying to sell the wearing of seatbelts as one would sell soap.

Mr. Speaker: Any further questions from the member for York Centre?

SECURITY PASSES

Mr. Deacon: I have a question of the Minister of Government Services. Now that the minister has, through the administrative or legislative or whatever one calls that fancy office do at the foot of the stairs -- Mr. Fleming’s office -- issued passes to the press gallery, with their photographs, is the minister planning to do the same for members of the House or government employees? What is the reason for this sudden concern about passes for people to get into the government buildings?

Hon. J. W. Snow (Minister of Government Services): Mr. Speaker, I don’t know, really, to what the member is referring but I am sure that if members were to be issued with passes they would be issued by the office of the Legislature. It has nothing to do with me.

Mr. Deacon: Who do I ask? I thought the minister had something to do, indirectly, with this.

Mr. Lewis: The member should ask the Speaker.

Hon. A. Grossman (Provincial Secretary for Resources Development): First we give the member for High Park (Mr. Shulman) one.

Mr. Deacon: How do we ask the Speaker?

Mr. Speaker: I might just say it is part of the overall tightening up of security around the chamber and the building here; we have seen some evidence of this before.

Mr. Deacon: Mr. Speaker, is there some trend or has something happened recently that would cause a charge in the customs of this House, where these has been freedom and we haven’t felt we were in a police state? Surely we don’t have to go to the measures they have in the National Assembly in Quebec?

An hon. member: Just kicking me out, that’s all.

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Speaker doesn’t want to get into a debate or answer too many questions, but it has been pointed out on many occasions that perhaps we should pay a little more attention to the security around the building. I don’t care to say any more at this time. If the member wishes details they could be obtained privately.

Mr. Lewis: Just a minute. Before you get carried away and start running Geiger counters over people as they come through the door, was the intention of having the press issued with identification cards, which they have to show, dealt with at the Board of Internal Economy? Was that discussed by the representatives of the Legislature or was that simply a security officer’s spasm?

Mr. Speaker: As I say, I don’t want to get into answering questions -- it is improper here -- but certainly it has been considered. This comes under my responsibility. It has been done in complete co-operation and agreement with the press. Now there has been a certain change of opinion in the last four days, as you may or may not know, but really I thought there was general agreement. There had to be some changes in, shall we say our non-security relations. I think that is all I want to say at the present time.

Mr. Lewis: We are going to revoke it, I want you to know that. It wasn’t dealt with at the Board of Internal Economy?

Mr. Speaker: No, it has nothing to do with the economy of the assembly. It’s strictly another provision.

The member for York Centre.

Mr. Lewis: Just a little control.

KILLARNEY MOUNTAIN LODGE ADVERTISEMENT

Mr. Deacon: One brief question: Has the Minister of Natural Resources any comment on the advertisement placed in the papers recently by Killarney Mountain Lodge that it has been given a windfall of $156 a week by the Province of Ontario establishing Killarney Park for the use of Killarney’s patrons?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, I have not seen the ad and I will certainly make myself aware of it.

An hon. member: It is a very good ad.

Mr. Lewis: A supplementary: When is the minister going to bring down the decision on Fisher Harbour? Talking about the Georgian recreational reserve, when does that happen?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: There is nothing supplementary about that,

Mr. Lewis: That is totally supplementary; it has to do with the Georgian reserve and Killarney. When is the minister going to bring down that -- shortly?

Mr. Speaker: Has the member for York Centre any further questions?

An hon. member: That’s not a supplementary.

Mr. Lewis: I think it is a supplementary, and the Speaker does, I want the member to know.

Mr. Speaker: I am sorry, the Speaker didn’t hear the question; or the so-called supplementary.

Mr. Lewis: That is why it was a supplementary. Thank you very much.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Scarborough West may ask his questions.

FISHER HARBOUR

Mr. Lewis: Thank you very much. To the Provincial Secretary for Resources Development: When is the minister bringing down the decision on Fisher Harbour?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Shortly, I hope, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. J. A. Renwick (Riverdale): The provincial secretary got off easily just then.

Mr. Lewis: I would never ask him a supplementary.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I am learning.

EXPULSION OF JOURNALIST FROM MEETING

Mr. Lewis: A question of the Provincial Secretary of Social Development, if I may: Why did her deputy minister -- Doug Wright is her deputy minister? -- this morning throw Wendy Koenig, a journalist from the London Free Press, out of the meeting being held with the four major Indian organizations in Ontario, representatives of the government here and the government in Ottawa to discuss Indian policing on the reserves?

Mr. Cassidy: Is that right?

Mr. Lewis: I may say that by throwing out I mean requested vigorously that she leave.

Hon. M. Birch (Provincial Secretary for Social Development): Mr. Speaker, I was not in attendance at that meeting and I have no idea why this was requested.

Mr. Lewis: By way of supplementary, since at least Andrew Rickard, of Treaty 9 I guess, indicated at the meeting that he would like the meeting to be open, and since others among the Indian representatives affirmed that, what is behind this continuing pattern of insensitivity by excluding the press from meetings which deal with public money and public matters involving Indian people who themselves requested that they should be there?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Mr. Speaker, obviously I am not going to comment on that. I have no idea whether that is exactly what took place. I will discuss it with Dr. Wright. That’s the honourable --

Mr. Lewis: Well that’s what took place.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: That’s what --

Mr. Lewis: Rather high-handed, I understand.

Mr. Speaker: Any further questions?

Mr. Lewis: Not uncharacteristic.

BILL ON UNORGANIZED MUNICIPALITIES

Mr. Lewis: I have a question, if I may, of the provincial Treasurer. When does he think the former Bill 102 on unorganized municipalities will come back to the Legislature? And when it comes back, presuming rapid passage, when might the elected citizens’ councils become effective?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Not before the fall, Mr. Speaker, and I have no idea how long or otherwise the Legislature might wish to debate this; so I don’t know.

Mr. Lewis: Well by way --

Hon. Mr. McKeough: I heard a muttering over there: “It was promised a year ago.”

Mr. Lewis: Sorry.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: It was promised a year ago, that is quite correct, and we have been engaged in dialogue with the people affected. They have recently sent in a number of recommendations and until we have satisfied ourselves and they have satisfied themselves that the legislation is the right legislation, then we have no intention on rushing it through this House.

Mr. Lewis: Mr. Speaker, by way of a supplementary: Since there are a number of communities -- I was in two of them over the weekend, like Foleyet and Gogama -- which do not even have communal water supplies and are drinking water polluted with dangerous nitrates, is it not possible to bring the date forward into 1976, rather than, as an official of the Ministry of Housing suggested on Friday, not until 1977 at the earliest? These communities are very anxious about the implications of the delay.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: I am sure the legislation, if it is proceeded with at the fall session, which I would expect it would be, would then be effective during 1976.

Mr. Deacon: Supplementary: Would the minister not agree that a municipality the size of Moosonee should long ago have given their people the status whereby they can elect their own representatives, instead of having them continue to be appointed by the government here at Queen’s Park?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Mr. Speaker, that has nothing to do with the question that was asked previously; nothing whatsoever to do with it; but I will answer that question. As long as the taxpayers of this province are picking up a large percentage of the tab as we are at Moosonee, then we have some above-normal responsibility. When the people opposite make their wild promises --

Mr. Lewis: Careful.

Mr. J. F. Foulds (Port Arthur): That’s slanderous, calling the Liberals people.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: -- they might bear in mind, occasionally, the taxpayers of this province. Just once, think about the tax implications of some of those wild statements.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Deacon: Is the minister stating that Moosonee is the only municipality in this province --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Has the member for Scarborough West further questions?

Mr. Lewis: Well if the minister has finished attacking the community of Moosonee, we can get on.

ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT

Mr. Lewis: Could I ask the Minister of the Environment when he is bringing in his environmental assessment legislation? When will we debate it?

Hon. W. Newman (Minister of the Environment): Mr. Speaker, as far as the environmental assessment legislation is concerned, I have had two meetings with the Canadian Environmental Law Association. I have had meetings with other groups and I still have two meetings to go. I would hope that we could get on it very soon.

Mr. Lewis: Do I take it, then, that the minister will have the bill -- in whatever amended form -- for debate this month, that there is no question about that?

Hon. W. Newman: Mr. Speaker, I didn’t say that, I said I would hope so. I am still meeting with groups. A lot of interested groups have indicated they want to talk to me about the bill and their concerns about the bill -- all the good points, of course -- and I said I would meet these people. I have been meeting with them on a regular basis.

Mr. Renwick: The minister can do it just as well in committee.

Mr. Speaker: Any further questions?

Mr. Lewis: By way of supplementary: They are all making the same points. There is nothing mystifying about all of the submissions we are getting.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: The people over there have no respect for the democratic process.

Mr. Lewis: Just a second.

Mr. Renwick: Let’s do it in committee, open and above board.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Steamroll everything through, just steamroll everything through.

Mr. Renwick: Let’s do it in committee --

Mr. Lewis: The Treasurer drops in here once a week after a heavy lunch and look what happens. Now just relax. Just relax.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: They just walk over everybody, just like socialists; and he knows it.

Mr. Lewis: The Treasurer shouldn’t impose his postprandial nonsense on us.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Could we get back to an orderly question period. Any further questions?

Mr. Lewis: Just call him to order. Does the minister realize that in the process of his endless discussions -- all of which we approve of -- that seem to take three years before he gets the gestation period over, we’re not going to have in Ontario the kind of environmental assessment legislation which is required for all of the major projects, Hydro, Fisher Harbour, all of them that the government now has on the books? The question then becomes, can the minister give a guarantee that before the end of this month we will have some form of legislation before us?

Hon. W. Newman: All I can tell the member is this, Mr. Speaker, that first reading has been introduced to the House. I have had meetings with those who would like us to go further than we have in the legislation. I’ve had meetings with those who don’t want us to go as far.

Mr. Lewis: Do it in committee.

Mr. Deacon: Do it in committee.

Hon. W. Newman: Why doesn’t the member give me his thoughts on it before I bring it into the House so we don’t delay it in here?

Mr. Lewis: Because the minister is going to destroy the legislation, that’s why.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

HEALTH SURVEY OF ELLIOT LAKE MINERS

Mr. Lewis: One last question of the Minister of Health, if I may: Does the Minister of Health know that the material which he, along with the ministries of Natural Resources and Labour, sent to every household the Elliot Lake dealing with the eight important questions about the health hazards at Elliot Lake, was so self-serving and company-oriented that Rio Algom and Denison have paid to reproduce it in full-page ads which appeared this last Saturday across northern Ontario? Has the minister read the contents carefully himself and seen the kind of deception and near-fabrications which are contained in the stuff that he put out?

Hon. F. S. Miller (Minister of Health): The fact that a company chooses to reprint something like that does not, in my mind, mean it is anti-employee.

Mr. Lewis: It sure is.

Hon. Mr. Miller: Hopefully, we’re trying to resolve a problem with some of the questions and answers posed in that booklet.

Mr. Lewis: I’ll ask the minister one supplementary to give him the flavour. Does he think a question that says: “We even hear that some miners have come down with lung cancer. Are the rest of us in any danger?” and an answer whose first sentence reads: “There have been cases of lung cancer among uranium miners,” contain the kind of phrasing and use of language that serve the reality of Elliot Lake when between 50 and 60 miners at Elliot Lake are dead of lung cancer?

Hon. Mr. Miller: I’m going to Elliot Lake tomorrow, as the member may know --

Mr. Lewis: I didn’t, no.

Hon. Mr. Miller: -- in an attempt to talk to people directly on a face-to-face basis, along with two other ministers.

Mr. M. C. Germa (Sudbury): They’d better go in disguise.

Hon. Mr. Miller: I trust we’ll have an opportunity to phrase things properly.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Minister of Transportation and Communications has the answer to a previous question.

HIGHWAY 401 WORK

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was asked a question by the hon. member for Sandwich-Riverside (Mr. Burr) on June 4. He inquired as to why large amounts of dirt were being scraped away from around the pillars at several underpasses near miles 90 and 100 on the 401, and why two overpasses were being removed at mile 209.

In answer to the first point, London district at present is carrying out hazard protection work at several structures in this area. This work utilizes what is known as the Fitch inertial barrier as a means of providing protection against motorists striking fixed objects located adjacent to our highway system. In this particular situation the protection is being provided against striking the bridge piers located in the highway median.

I would be pleased to provide the hon. member with a short outline of what the Fitch barrier system is and how it works. In order to install the system, it is necessary to have a level, free-draining base on which to set the containers. Therefore, at the location in questions we are excavating the existing ditchline in the median adjacent to the piers, placing culverts for drainage and laying granular backfill which will provide a level base for the Fitch barriers to sit on.

In answer to the second part of the question, we have two contracts along this area of the 401 which are relevant to this question. The first is at Dixie Rd. A new structure has been built to replace the old structure which carried Dixie Rd. over Highway 401. It’s part of our widening and reconstruction programme on 401 west of Toronto. The structure being removed is the old structure that carried Dixie Rd. over Highway 401.

The second contract is at Heart Lake Rd. Originally Heart Lake Rd. passed over Highway 401. Under this contract, two new structures will be constructed to carry Highway 401 over Heart Lake Rd. Heart Lake Rd. is closed at present and will not be reopened until sometime next year when the construction in this area is completed. The existing structure carrying Heart Lake Rd. over 401 is being demolished at present to allow construction to start on the new structure. The traffic previously using Heart Lake Rd. would have to detour to the nearest crossing, which is the 1st Line about one-half mile west.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Carleton East.

OTTAWA-CARLETON DETENTION CENTRE

Mr. P. Taylor: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Now that the Minister of Correctional Services has made an on-site inspection of the Ottawa-Carleton Regional Detention Centre, can the minister give this House a report as to what went wrong last Thursday night and what new security measures will be taken to make sure it doesn’t happen again?

Hon. R. T. Potter (Minister of Correctional Services): Mr. Speaker, it’s a little too early for me to give the details of what actually went wrong. There were two things particularly. One was how two weapons were smuggled into the institution and, secondly, how the inmates got control of the control tower. All I can say is we have an investigation, which started immediately, going on into this matter.

I still haven’t determined how the weapons were smuggled in, but at the same time, it’s very evident that prescribed security procedures were not carried out. It’s the element of human error again. If they had been, the inmates would not have been able to get control of the control tower. I think the member is probably aware of the situation. It one looks at it one would think this is almost impossible to do, but the member has to remember there is the element of human error which enters into it, which did happen in this particular case, and that’s how they got control of the tower.

I can only assure the House the investigation is going on and every step possible is being taken to make sure that it doesn’t occur again.

Mr. P. Taylor: A supplementary.

Mr. Cassidy: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: A supplementary from the member for Carleton East first of all.

Mr. P. Taylor: Chief Duncan of Gloucester township police force is recognized as one of Canada’s outstanding policemen. He was extremely angry after this breakout because he said it was improper to keep such desperate criminals for so long in what really amounts to a minimum or perhaps a medium security institution. Would the minister agree that these men were able to break out because they were there long enough to study the operation of the institution and thereby effect an efficient breakout?

Hon. Mr. Potter: One of the problems we’re faced with, of course, Mr. Speaker, is that these institutions are there for inmates who in many cases are on remand awaiting trial. Others there have been sentenced and we’re required to keep them for the mandatory 30 days before they’re sent on to one of the federal institutions if they have committed serious crimes. I wouldn’t say it was minimum security. I would say it was very maximum security when one sees the security that’s there.

I can only agree that this is a problem which faces all of our regional detention centres and jails. I don’t think the public is aware of the nature and the type of individuals who frequent these institutions and this is one of the problems we’re faced with every day. It has been brought out in the inquiry into the Don Jail today. I think it’s safe to say that the Ottawa detention centre is probably second only to the Don Jail in regard to the type of inmates it has there.

It is a tremendous problem. For the member to suggest they shouldn’t be there, I can only ask him where he thinks they should be, because they can’t be sent to a penitentiary or a maximum security institution until they have been tried and sentenced.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Ottawa Centre has a supplementary.

Mr. Cassidy: Since the jail was inadequate from the day it was opened, because the longer-term needs were not anticipated, is the minister now prepared to find money in his budget in order to build facilities there which would make the longer stays more tolerable?

Hon. Mr. Potter: Mr. Speaker, I don’t know what the member is referring to. He says it was inadequate from the day it was built. I was there three or four weeks ago, at which time the superintendent pointed out to me several changes he wanted made to improve the security and he has been working on it. He said to me on Friday, “In another week we probably would have some of these measures instituted.”

As far as building a new facility in Ottawa at the present time is concerned, there are certainly no plans for that. We have been trying to work with Ottawa and with other members in the justice field in the province to determine if there isn’t some better way of handling at least our more or less minor cases rather than putting them in institutions such as this. They take up a lot of space.

One of the problems we’re faced with today in all of our jails and regional detention centres is the individuals who have been sentenced to intermittent sentences. They go in on Friday night and come out on Monday morning. I don’t know what purpose this serves society. I think there must be some better way of doing it. We have been working on this. Members may have noticed from an article in one of the papers recently that England has been working on a programme of having these individuals provide some kind of social work or community work instead of being committed to an institution.

These are programmes that we are looking at and hoping to develop. We’ve been working with some of the judges to see if we can get them to go along with it, because frankly if we can take the pressure off our institutions with these types of more or less minor cases, then we’d be in a much better position to look after the more severe cases we have.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Thunder Bay.

ONTARIO HYDRO WATER RENTALS

Mr. Stokes: I have a question of the Provincial Secretary for Resources Development. Does the minister recall about two years ago I asked the Premier (Mr. Davis) what he was going to do about making sure that some of the funds collected by the province through water rentals from Ontario Hydro be directed back to the area from whence they come to provide rehabilitation for a resource that is slowly deteriorating because of the fluctuation of water levels? Can the minister assure us that some of those funds will be directed back for that purpose, in the same way as it is done for the Niagara Parks Commission?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, first I would like to thank the hon. member for advising me -- I don’t recall whether it was on Thursday or Friday -- that he was going to ask this question. I directed the document which he gave me to the appropriate minister for a report. I will advise the member just as soon as we have something back,

Mr. Speaker: The member for Kent.

CANADIAN BOOK WHOLESALE CO.

Mr. J. P. Spence (Kent): Mr. Speaker, I’d like to ask a question of the Minister of Culture and Recreation. I believe on April 22 I asked him a question in regard to the Canadian Book Wholesale Co. and he indicated to me a few days ago he thought he had answered it. It’s unfortunate that I’m unable to find his answer. At the time I asked him the question in regard to the Canadian Book Wholesale Co. in the city of Toronto, there were 56 employees in that company. Now, as I understand it, there are only four left. It is a very sad situation. The minister carried out an investigation in regard to this and now they are down to four. It’s pathetic when he has carried out a survey or an investigation and now 52 Canadians have been laid off.

Hon. R. Welch (Minister of Culture and Recreation): Mr. Speaker, the hon. member did draw this to my attention for the second time a few days ago. I got the information just before I came into the House and I’ll have that available for the member tomorrow.

Mr. Speaker: A supplementary from the member for Port Arthur.

Mr. Foulds: After all the money the government spent on the royal commission on book publishing, what steps is the minister taking with regard to the preservation of the Canadian book publishing industry in Ontario? None of the minister’s speeches in the last few months --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The question has been asked.

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, obviously, the government didn’t wait for the creation of the new ministry before it took some action with respect to that royal commission. As the hon. member will know, in considering the estimates of the Ontario Arts Council a year ago there was a transfer of moneys there to assist individual publishers. The record of the Ontario Development Corp. with respect to specific companies is well known. I’d be quite prepared to put together some type of documentation for the hon. member if he’d like to have that in preparation for the consideration of my estimates.

Mr. Lewis: Oh, the minister is too much.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Cochrane South.

OPERATIONS AT REEVES MINE

Mr. W. Ferrier (Cochrane South): I have a question, Mr. Speaker, of the Minister of Natural Resources, arising out of the meeting that union officials had with him and his officials about the Reeves mine on April 1 in his office. Would the minister report on the meeting he said he was going to have with a senior official of the Canadian Johns-Manville Co. Ltd. and a senior official of the United Steelworkers of America? Secondly, concerning the commitment that he would have miners x-rayed who had worked in the Canadian Johns-Manville Reeves mine and, hopefully, in the Munro mine in Matheson, in view of the fact that the Munro-Matheson miners have not been able to be identified very well, would he also take steps to see that further work is done to try to identify them and have them receive medicals?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, following that meeting with the United Steelworkers and the hon. member for Cochrane South, I have contacted in writing the principals of the Johns-Manville plant in the United States, in Chicago I believe, and suggested to them that we do get together to discuss all aspects of the closing of the Reeves mine; be it for health reasons or be it for economic reasons, we would like to know. I have not had a response from them as yet. I am waiting for it at the moment.

With regard to the testing of the miners themselves, I think the member will agree that the miners from the Reeves mine were very carefully tested by the Ministry of Health; and the latter part of the question should be directed to my colleague, the Minister of Health, to follow up with further testing to additional areas.

Mr. Ferrier: As a supplementary, Mr. Speaker, will the minister make a follow-up effort to get the Johns-Manville people to meet with him to see what he can do about that situation? It seems as though they are thumbing their noses at him.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Yes, I will follow up, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: The Treasurer has the answer to a question asked previously.

PRESERVATION OF NIAGARA ESCARPMENT

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Mr. Speaker, last week the hon. member for Sandwich-Riverside asked a question of my colleague, the Minister of Natural Resources, concerning the building of an apartment on the Niagara Escarpment at Owen Sound, work on which had begun the day before.

I am informed that the building is not within the development control area of the escarpment commission. In fact, the building is being put on a plan approved some years ago. The area was approved for lots, which the developer is now using for the apartment building. The building will not be higher than the escarpment. This project has gone through the city of Owen Sound. They were apparently happy with the whole process; they issued the building permit. The zoning is there; it meets the local requirements.

There is no involvement on the part of the province.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Windsor-Walkerville.

HOME BUYER GRANT

Mr. B. Newman (Windsor-Walkerville): Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the provincial Treasurer. Can an American citizen purchase a home in Ontario under the first-time home buyer legislation and still receive the $1,500 grant?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: No, Mr. Speaker, because he is not a resident of Canada.

Mr. Speaker: Supplementary from the member for Huron-Bruce.

Mr. M. Gaunt (Huron-Bruce): Supplementary: In view of the answer and in view of the fact that the legislation was amended when it went through committee in this House, could the minister explain why the Ministry of Revenue officials are not paying any attention to that particular legislation and, in fact, granting grants to American citizens who buy homes in this province?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Mr. Speaker, I am not aware of that. No doubt if the question were directed to my colleague, the Minister of Revenue (Mr. Meen), who is administering the Act, a satisfactory response could be had.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Wentworth.

NEW HOME WARRANTY

Mr. I. Deans (Wentworth): Mr. Speaker, a question of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations: When does the minister intend to bring in a home buyers’ warranty?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, in the estimates which were heard last week, the matter was discussed at some length. It was pointed out to the estimates committee that it will take us a little while to develop a plan. There is no plan at the present time in Canada that meets the needs of Ontario. There is only one plan in place at the present time, and that is in Alberta, where it is a voluntary plan and many of the homes are not covered.

It has been said that we would have one in place by December of this year, and I told the estimates committee that I felt it could be developed faster than that. Other than that, I really can’t commit myself to a date.

Mr. Deans: Supplementary question: Can the minister explain why it has taken 2½ years and why the ministry hasn’t been able in that period of time to come down with a programme suitable to the needs of the Province of Ontario -- and how it could be that over a year ago the province was just simply waiting on the final word from Ottawa, and one year later was no further ahead?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, I think it shows one really shouldn’t rely too much on the federal government to take leadership in this, and that is exactly what was done by my predecessor. As a matter of fact, when I became minister I said the same thing -- that we would much prefer to have a national scheme than to have a proliferation of provincial schemes. Unfortunately, the last word that we had from Ottawa earlier this spring was that they were setting up another committee to study it. At that point I made the decision that Ontario would go it alone. We are really starting from scratch. But I think we can develop a plan a little bit faster than we had originally expected to.

Mr. Speaker: The Minister of Energy has an answer to a question asked previously.

LENNOX GENERATING STATION

Hon. D. R. Timbrell (Minister of Energy): Mr. Speaker, I believe the member for Sandwich-Riverside posed a question to me last week about the Lennox generating station. I would like to provide the following information:

The failure of the No. 2 boiler occurred only in the section of the boiler reheater containing stainless steel tubes. The cause of the failure has been established as intergranular cracking of some of the stainless steel tubes, which probably occurred because of entry of a corrosive material into the tubes. The source of entry of the corrosive material is still under investigation by Ontario Hydro and the boiler manufacturer.

At this time, there is no evidence available that improper materials were used or that the basic design of the boiler contributed to the failure.

The stainless steel section of the reheater comprises only a very small number of the tubes in the boiler. The damage was confined to some of the stainless steel tubes, as I mentioned before. The defective section has been removed and will be replaced from tubes available from the No. 4 boiler. It is expected that this boiler will be returned to service at the end of July of this year.

The materials used and the procedures followed in placing the Lennox boiler in service were identical to those followed at the Lambton generating station, which has been in service for up to six years. In addition, there are a large number of similar boilers in service in the United States that function very well. The cost of the repair will be approximately $700,000.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Nipissing.

TEMAGAMI MINE EXPANSION

Mr. R. S. Smith (Nipissing): I have a question of the Minister of Natural Resources. Is it the minister’s intention to allow the Sherman mine in Temagami to extend its third pit in spite of the environmental and other problems that may arise, almost into the centre of the old town of Temagami?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, this question from the member for Nipissing came to my attention. I have asked my staff for a full report, and when I have it in hand I would be only too pleased to report to the House.

Mr. R. S. Smith: Supplementary question, Mr. Speaker; just two things on that. Does the minister believe that he controls the mine through the Pits and Quarries Act and through the fact that Crown lands will have to be transferred in some method to the mine to allow it to continue?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, to regulate or to control an open pit operation under the Pits and Quarries Control Act, of course, that area would have to be designated, and that particular area is not designated under Bill 120.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Port Arthur.

PINE RIDGE TRAINING SCHOOL

Mr. Foulds: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a question of the Minister of Correctional Services. Has the minister yet received the report of the grand jury to Mr. Justice Edson Haines about the Pine Ridge training school in Bowmanville which described that institution as having “deplorable conditions needing immediate action” and that the offices and visitors’ rooms are extremely dirty and in need of general repair?

Hon. Mr. Potter: I haven’t seen it yet, Mr. Speaker, but I will; it will be referred to me.

Mr. Foulds: Another supplementary. Is there enough financial leeway in the minister’s budget to carry out improvements in that school if they are necessary, and does he feel comfortable when the grand jury can report “the grand jury was appalled by these deplorable conditions and failed to see how a child in this environment could develop self-discipline and respect for other persons or property”? Doesn’t the minister think those are conditions that need remedying?

Hon. Mr. Potter: I would not know, Mr. Speaker, how much money is involved until I see the report and look into it to see what is necessary. Certainly, when we get grand jury reports we usually take the reports and try to implement as many of the improvements as we possibly can and then make requisitions for tie others. I’ll certainly get back to the hon. member.

Mr. Foulds: One quick supplementary if I might: Seeing that the jury report was made public on April 24, why is it that it has not yet come to the minister’s attention?

Hon. Mr. Potter: There is nothing unusual about that, Mr. Speaker. I often find they are published in newspapers weeks before they send them on to me. They don’t send them to us in the first place, as the member is aware.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Carleton East.

CANCER TREATMENT AT OTTAWA CIVIC HOSPITAL

Mr. P. Taylor: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Is the Minister of Health aware of a copyrighted article in the Saturday, June 7, edition of the Ottawa Journal in which they describe a situation in Ottawa and particularly at the Civic Hospital where breast cancer radiotherapy treatment of a nature which has been described by the Mayo Clinic as “second class” is being given to patients in that area apparently as a result of a lack of co-operation by the ministry and a lack of space at the hospital?

Hon. Mr. Miller: No, I am not aware of the article, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. P. Taylor: Supplementary: Would the minister agree, since a tremendous amount of publicity has been directed toward advising women to have regular checkups to guard against breast cancer, the facilities to treat this particular disease should be upgraded in Ontario’s hospitals?

Hon. Mr. Miller: Mr. Speaker, there has been a tremendous surge in the demand for that particular service because of the publicity it received when the wives of the President of the United States and the Vice-president of the United States both underwent mastectomies recently. I think something like three or four times the usual number of women presented themselves for clinical observation. I would hesitate to say that our services aren’t good. In fact, I think if we compared them with these available in most other places, we’d be pretty proud of them. I am not going to get into technical details about that specific hospital because I don’t know. I’d be pleased to look into them and see what validity there is in the comment.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Windsor West.

STRIKE AT CARTER CARBURETOR DIVISION

Mr. E. J. Bounsall (Windsor West): I have a question of the Minister of Labour, Mr. Speaker. Is the minister not concerned about the strike, now in its third week by the International Association of Machinists against the Carter Carburetor Division of American Car and Foundry Ltd. in Bramalea, where the company has announced publicly that the entire production will be supplied from the Lafayette, Tenn., plant? Will the minister intervene personally to see that negotiations get started in this rather serious dispute?

Hon. J. P. MacBeth (Minister of Labour): Mr. Speaker, yes I am concerned. I won’t undertake to intervene personally, but I’ll follow up the matter immediately.

Mr. Speaker: The Minister of National Resources has the answer to a question asked previously.

HEALTH AND SAFETY STANDARDS AT ELLIOT LAKE

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, on June 3 the member for Scarborough West asked me a question as to whether or not I was aware that the workers in Denison Mines at Elliot Lake had been privately called in by management and asked what can be done about the fact that radiation exposure this year would exceed the levels allowed by law. I advised at that time that I would check into the matter and report back to the House. Mr. Speaker, this is my report.

1. My engineers are aware that the workers at Denison Mines had been called in. It was on their instructions that Denison should obtain agreement of the executive of the steelworkers union to their request for the suspension of item 2 of the code for radiation in Ontario mines, as amended July 1, 1974. Denison Mines requested on May 6 in their letter on pages 2 and 3 an exemption to the effect that five working-level months would be the norm for 1975. This will be calculated as an average between six working-level months for the first half of 1975 and four working-level months for the second half of the year. The regional and district engineers were instructed to have Denison Mines get concurrence from the work force to continue operating under those conditions and to make it a joint request. From the comment of the member for Scarborough West, they have obviously been talking to the men and requesting their concurrence.

2. The radiation exposure this year will not much exceed four working-level months. However, for 37 per cent of the work force, it could be between four and five working-level months based on their first-quarter exposure. When the new ventilation raise is completed on July 1 and put into operation the whole situation will change, and there is a good possibility that working levels could be kept well below the four working-level months for the balance of the year, thereby not requiring any extension on the 1974 exemption.

3. The only choices open to Denison at this point are (a) either to administer the amount of time a man spends in exposure so that he does not accumulate more than four working-level months; or (b) that he is given a respirator and required to wear it at all times in order to administer the amount of time he is exposed to either dust or radiation; or (c) to have men accept the conditions as they are and tough it out until the ventilation raises have been placed in service; and (d) if the men choose to recognize the acceptable levels of four working-level months per year or 120 per lifetime, and not accept these options, then they could withdraw from the area in question.

4. I expect to be looking into this matter, Mr. Speaker, when I visit Elliot Lake tomorrow afternoon.

Mr. Lewis: Is there a supplementary allowed, Mr. Speaker, since it’s right at the end of the question period?

Mr. Speaker: We are well past. We will allow one short supplementary.

Mr. Lewis: I appreciate that. I will just put a couple of questions to the minister quickly. Is he aware that the company’s efforts at the ventilating of the mine are in fact several months behind schedule and will not be met as implied? How is it possible for workers to work in an area of excessive radiation exposure in the light of all that has happened? Finally, how does he reconcile it with what his ministry has sent into every home in Elliot Lake and what the companies are reproducing, which says, “Today there are strict limits on the amount of radiation each miner can be exposed to. The limit is four working-level months a year,” and the minister has just indicated that level may be exceeded?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, I pointed out in the third part of my statement that there were a number of options that the men and the company could take. They could wear respirators or masks, or they could remove themselves from the working area. There are a number of ways they could compensate for the problem that exists, and it is for them to work it out. I intend to discuss this tomorrow afternoon when I am in the Elliot Lake area.

Mr. Speaker: The question period has expired.

Mr. M. Shulman (High Park): Mr. Speaker, on a point of order.

Mr. Speaker: The member for High Park.

Mr. Shulman: My point is in relation to the question period. As we all know, sir, the question period is set aside for members of this House to ask questions of the ministry. I would suggest to you that it is an abuse for the ministry to plant questions.

At the end of last week the Minister of Transportation and Communications approached members of this patty asking them specifically to ask a question of him in relation to Mr. Trudeau and his helicopter. When we refused, he then went to the member for Renfrew South (Mr. Yakabuski) and asked him to place the question. Surely this is an abuse of the question period --

An hon. member: Is the member sure?

Hon. Mr. Winkler: He is the last guy to speak about abusing the question period --

Mr. Shulman: If the minister wishes to make a statement --

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The question period is open to all members of the House, irrespective of party.

Mr. Lewis: Actually, we didn’t refuse. We just couldn’t work it into our rotation.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: First of all, I recognize the member for Thunder Bay, who has an announcement to make.

Mr. Stokes: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have in the east gallery 19 grade 7 and 8 students from the R.R. Steel Public School in Nakina under the direction of Mrs. Swanson and Mrs. Allan. Would the members please welcome them to the House?

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Mr. Speaker, before the business of the House proceeds, I think this is a day of sufficient significance that I should bring it to the notice of the Legislature and those who are with us otherwise. Today is the 20th anniversary of the election to this Legislature of a number of members, most of whom are in their seats; I think this is worthy of mention. They are the members for St. Andrew-St. Patrick (Mr. Grossman), York South (Mr. MacDonald), Kent (Mr. Spence), Hamilton East (Mr. Gisborn), Ontario (Mr. Dymond) and Wellington South (Mr. Worton).

Mr. D. C. MacDonald (York South): And furthermore, some of us are going to survive.

Mr. Lewis: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order --

Mr. D. A. Evans (Simcoe Centre): Mr. Speaker, I would like to draw to your attention and to the members of the Legislature --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. We have two people here speaking. I recognize the member for Simcoe Centre.

Mr. Evans: Does the member for Scarborough West want the floor?

Mr. Lewis: Yes. I would just like to say that the member for York South is being re-nominated yet again tonight and the entire House is welcome to attend.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Simcoe Centre.

Mr. Evans: Mr. Speaker, I would like to introduce to you, and through you to the members of the Legislature, 85 students from the William Osler Public School in Bradford. They are accompanied by their principal, Mr. Breen, and by their vice-principal, Mr. Walmsley. I hope you will join me in extending them a very warm welcome.

Mr. Speaker: Petitions.

Presenting reports.

Motions.

Introduction of bills.

Orders of the day.

Clerk of the House: The 21st order, House in committee of supply.

ESTIMATES, MINISTRY OF HEALTH

On vote 2901. (continued)

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

Mr. B. Newman (Windsor-Walkerville): Mr. Chairman, when the House rose on Friday, I had been attempting to point out to the minister the faults in his proposed recommendations for a rationalization of health services in the fine city of Windsor. I was at the point where I was trying to convince the minister that the closing of Riverview Hospital and the transfer of the patients to four hospitals in the community was not a proper approach toward the delivery of health services, especially for the chronically ill.

I had concluded by reading a letter from a nurse, by the name of Mrs. Halonen, a letter that I would have hoped that the minister and his officials had a chance to read in Hansard as I had to speed the reading of the letter itself in order to get it all in within the 1 o’clock deadline period. I hope that the ministry does look into the comments of the nurse, who has worked in both types of facilities, the regular hospital and the chronic care hospital, and in her opinion believes the mixing of the two is not the proper approach to a good delivery of services, especially to the chronically ill.

Of the four recommendations of the ministry, one of them was for the elimination of psychiatric services and obstetrical services at Metropolitan Hospital. The minister is aware -- and I am sure he is; if not, his officials are -- the Met hospital is at the extreme east end of the community. Residents from the eastern part of the county would naturally tend to gravitate to the closest hospital and this would be the Met hospital. By transporting them to any one of the other hospitals, one would have to go 2% to three miles through fairly heavily trafficked portions of the community to bring that patient to Hotel Dieu and still further to Grace Hospital. Then one would go to the extreme west end of the community were one to bring that patient to the Hospital Centre -- or the hospital that is known as IODE. The minister as well as the Premier (Mr. Davis) and all of the members from the Windsor area got innumerable letters from constituents, pointing out that the proposed changes were not in the best interests of those who need the services as well as to the parents themselves.

I don’t intend to continue the rending of letters but I do intend to attempt to convince the minister that the removal of the obstetrical services from Metropolitan and also the elimination of the psychiatric services are not in the best interests of the patients. I hope, before I conclude, that he will see the point of view that I am expressing, which is also a point of view held by many of the constituents in the Windsor area and that the proposed changes remain just proposed changes up until the time his officials can study the concerns of the people and in that way modify or even completely change his original position.

One of the other hospitals that was going to have changes prescribed under the recommendations or under the proposals was Grace Hospital. The minister knows that Grace Hospital is the Salvation Army hospital in the community. It has performed outstanding service to the community. He is also aware, I would assume, that the obstetrical unit, according to information provided me, is the busiest of all the obstetrical units in the community. What you are doing is taking the best-seller, so to speak, the best-provided service, and you’re going to eliminate it from that hospital and transfer it to another hospital in the community.

The chief of staff at Grace Hospital, Dr. Sacharoff, made the following comments in an article in December, 1974. He said that births at Grace Hospital had gone up from 1,237 in 1969 to 1,643 in 1974, and that the projection for this coming year is 1,728. So you can see that there is a substantial increase when you consider that the population of the area has not increased as substantially as other parts of the province.

The quote attributed to him in the paper is:

“The quality of patient care in this unit [the Grace Hospital unit] is considered to be the best available in the city, both by the public and the majority of physicians, not only in respect of safety for a mother and baby, but also with proper regard for the feelings and sensitivities of the patients.”

You can see from that that the chief of staff of the hospital speaks extremely highly of the services in the hospital. Mr. Minister, you may reply, “Well, what would you expect the chief of staff to say concerning his own facility?” I don’t think that Dr. Sacharoff is anything but objective when he makes that kind of a statement.

The women’s auxiliary of the hospital, in a letter directed to the Premier, with copies seat to you, to myself and to other interested people in the community, including all of the members from the Windsor area, has the following paragraph that I would like to bring to your attention, I know your officials have read it, and you may have too, Mr. Minister, but I think it’s noteworthy for your people to take this into consideration before the decision is made. I’m reading from a letter from the women’s auxiliary of the hospital:

“We would also like to point out that our obstetrical unit was completely renovated in 1972 -- ”

Mr. J. F. Foulds (Port Arthur): On a point of order, Mr. Chairman. With great regret, with only three government members in their seats, I think you should call a quorum.

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

Mr. Chairman: We now have a quorum. The member for Windsor-Walkerville will continue.

Mr. B. Newman: Mr. Chairman, before the quorum was called I had been pointing out to the minister the comments made by the president of the Grace Hospital women’s auxiliary. To get the thought straight again I’ll repeat one sentence.

Hon. A. Grossman (Provincial Secretary for Resources Development): Where is the member for Port Arthur going? He just called a quorum. Why is he leaving?

Mr. Chairman: Order, please. The member for Windsor-Walkerville has the floor.

Mr. B. Newman: I’ll repeat the one sentence, Mr. Chairman, “We would like to point out that our obstetrical unit was completely renovated in 1972 and it is considered the most up-to-date in the city of Windsor.”

There you have a unit which was completely updated in 1972 and by one fell swoop of someone’s decision could be completely eliminated and transferred to one of the other hospitals. We hope that you take those comments into consideration before any final decision is made concerning the elimination of obstetrical care at Grace Hospital.

In the local paper’s “Letter Box”, there was a fairly significant article written by Lois Fairley, a registered nurse and the Ontario Nurses’ Association’s Region 1 representative. I will read portions of the letter, Mr. Chairman, so we can at least see another individual’s point of view.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Let it be shown that 60 seconds after the member for Port Arthur called a quorum he left. There is one member of the NDP present.

Mr. Chairman: Order, please. The hon. member.

Mr. M. Cassidy (Ottawa Centre): He had to go to committee.

Mr. Chairman: Order, please.

Mr. B. Newman: Mr. Chairman, regardless of whether or not members are here I think as long as the minister is here and I’m attempting to point out some suggestions to him --

Mr. J. R. Smith (Hamilton Mountain): That’s no reflection on his part.

Mr. B. Newman: -- I’m quite satisfied. I know his officials are going to weigh these comments and I hope they come through with the right decision; the decision for the betterment of health delivery services in the community.

The heading of the article is “Health Care Service goes Beyond Costs.” This is a letter in the “Letter Box”, “Sir, As a nurse and as a concerned citizen I feel I must express my dismay and disbelief over the proposed changes in hospital services as suggested by the Ministry of Health.” She goes into quite a substantial argument for a reconsideration of the changes.

Jean Neuert, who is on the obstetrical staff at Grace Hospital, likewise makes a very significant contribution by way of a letter to the “Letter Box” and makes the following one sentence comment which I’m going to read: “The government is proposing centralization of some services and decentralization of others such as chronic care.”

In her instance, I would assume she is commenting on your wishing to centralize obstetrical care and, at the same time, decentralizing one of the most important cares -- that is, chronic care -- by the distribution of these patients among the remaining four hospitals in the community.

There has been a petition of well over 8,000 signatures which has asked the ministry to reconsider the decision. This is as of April 23 and I would assume that since then the list of names would have substantially increased. I know when we attempted to have a heart-lung machine in the community there were presented to the minister and his staff in their offices some 43 signatures of individuals expressing dissatisfaction with the decision of the ministry in not permitting a heart-lung pump. We hope we are not as unsuccessful this time as we were the previous time.

On May 31 in the editorial in the Windsor paper -- the minister has brought the editorials to our attention in the past and I thought I should likewise bring to his attention other editorials which have appeared in the paper -- the latest one I have on the local situation is May 31 of this year. It is entitled “The Only Option.” Portions of it refer to the transferral of the obstetrical unit from Grace to the Hospital Centre in the community, the IODE hospital. It reads:

“The alarming increase in the number of therapeutic abortions at Hospital Centre is indeed alarming, not however because of the number of abortions but because of the attitude expressed in the board of governors’ resolution. Abortions at Hospital Centre are up 37 per cent this year with 104 abortions. The board is justifiably concerned that if, as the provincial government proposes, the obstetrical unit at Grace Hospital is closed, Hospital Centre will develop a reputation as an abortion mill. Such a reputation might harm the hospital in its efforts to provide a full programme of medical services.”

The article closes with stating the understandable fear of Hospital Centre being branded an abortion mill provides a compelling argument for the continuation of Grace Hospital’s obstetrical unit.

In that one editorial you can see how they editorialize against the elimination of the obstetrical services at Grace Hospital from another point of view, that you may be branding the IODE or the Hospital Centre unnecessarily and unfavourably.

On May 31 the comments made in the press read as follows:

“Prof. Wilson, who is the Hospital Centre’s board chairman, said that the proposals to close the obstetrical unit at Grace isn’t realistic if the proposal is designed solely to make way for chronic care. ‘It doesn’t make much sense to us to close that simply to make place for chronic care,’ he said.

“He also described as ‘not an honest claim’ the ministry’s position on how much would be saved by implementing the proposals. Prof. Wilson warned of the enormous social costs in adopting the proposals. The decision made now could influence the health care delivery in this area ‘for generations and I think everyone is sobered by that.’

“Board member Mike Sumner [who I originally mentioned in the very first comments I made in this discussion] said: ‘The proposal to have all the psychiatric services at Hospital Centre could have a very negative effect on the institution.’ It would have the effect of keeping people from coming here for the rounded-out treatment we provide,’ he warned.”

You can see that official after official, individual after individual, has commented unfavourably on the proposals presented by your ministry. An article referring to the Hospital Centre on March 27 this year had headlines: “Children’s Centre Workload Pressing.”

“Requests for services at the regional children’s centre are increasing, with the staff at times unable to cope with the volume of referrals, Hospital Centre executive director Dr. David R. Brown told the hospital’s board of governors Tuesday night. Although emergencies are handled within 24 hours, there is a four-month waiting period for appointments for direct referrals and psychological assessment. Waiting period for neuro-psychological evaluation is six months.”

Surely, if you are going to have a waiting period of that length of time that doesn’t deliver good health services in the community. The doctor is quoted as saying:

“This is a very disturbing feature indeed. The only ways to cope with the situation are by increasing staff, which is virtually impossible because of the limited budget, and by the establishment of a satellite programme with separate staff or, particularly, by more thorough screening by the board of education personnel.”

He does give you some alternatives but you can see that still isn’t even the answer.

“There is one other concern which should always be expressed when there is the rationalization of services in a community and that is the loss of employment to many, both professional and other hospital staff. The union, which represents persons in the various non-medical services in the hospital, the caretaking and other services, is very much concerned that there may be approximately 300 jobs lost as a result of the proposals of the ministry.”

I think the minister did reply to me at one time that there would not be the loss of a single job because over a period of time any dismissals would only be as a result -- or there would be no dismissals but the reduction in staff would be as a result of retirements or people leaving the staff. I hope there won’t be any need for that because in your re-evaluation of your proposals you will come up with something which will satisfy all concerned. As recently as last week, the officials at the IODE hospital did come up with an alternative. I would like this to be put in the record so that you could read this and consider it.

The headline is: “Alternative Cited for Keeping Open Psychiatric Units.”

“The proposed closing of psychiatric units at Metropolitan and Hotel Dieu Hospitals represents a return to the more ‘primitive’ days of care, a spokesman for the Windsor Academy of Psychiatry said today, while Dr. Cassidy said that the transfer of all psychiatric beds to Hospital Centre-IODE unit would lead to increased pressure on the psychiatric staff and ‘possibly strain it beyond its capacity to cope effectively for some considerable period of time.’ As a side effect of moving into one large mental hospital could be the return of the stigma that people feel ‘they have to be crazy to seek help.’”

I hope we never arrive at that type of an attitude. When people need help, I hope we don’t immediately assume, simply because they need mental help, that they are, in the term mentioned here, crazy. Dr. Cassidy explained that with one hospital singled out as a psychiatric hospital, anyone going there might have a stigma attached. I note, Mr. Minister, that in certain other areas there is a stigma attached especially when a youngster doesn’t go into a secondary school; they immediately sort of brand him as being one who isn’t mentally capable of absorbing secondary education. So there is a stigma attached if one hospital in the community has to take all psychiatric patients. It becomes a derogatory term and something we don’t want to see used concerning any of our hospitals in any community in the province.

I won’t be much longer, Mr. Chairman, but I do want to read parts of an article that has appeared in the Windsor Star. It appeared in a section of the paper where they allow members of their staff to write on topics of local concern. This is generally probably one of the more widely read features; it isn’t editorial policy, but rather it expresses the concern of the individual writing the article. It’s quite often referred to as “the sixth column.”

The article is entitled, “Time for a Stand on Health Care Needs.” I am going to read paragraphs in the article and not the complete article.

“An interesting aspect of the predominantly negative reaction to the proposals [referring to the minister’s proposals] is that there has been a uniting of informed people, both medical and non-medical. The vast majority of both medical and non-medical persons are vehemently opposed to the proposals as they stand and are eager to the point of agitation that good alternatives replace them as soon as possible.

“The proposal that Hospital Centre’s Riverview unit be closed and that the chronic care patients be scattered to the other four hospitals is not feasible. The biggest losers would be the chronic care patients themselves. The care provided by the staff of Riverview unit, which has performed so remarkably well for so long under such adverse circumstances, could not be matched by the staffs of other hospitals. Geriatrics is a specialization requiring decades of orientation. In addition, chronic care patients are not wanted at other hospitals. Can you imagine what kind of a welcome they’d receive?”

These are all quotes from the article by Susan Van Kuren, a reporter for the Windsor Star. Returning to the article: “Riverview unit was previously promised new facilities by the ministry.”

Referring to another hospital, in this case the IODE hospital -- I am skipping paragraphs so that I won’t take up too much of the time of the House -- the article says:

“Close to $1 million has already been spent planning this proposed facility [referring to IODE or the Hospital Centre]. An architect worked two years on the plan [to have all the chronic care patients in that one hospital].”

Now, having spent two years and close to $1 million, the proposed recommendations mean we are almost abandoning the scheme.

Referring to Grace Hospital, she says:

“The cost of renovating the hospital’s obstetrical floor to meet the needs of chronic care patients seems to be astronomical.”

You can see that, in her opinion, taking the obstetrical unit out of Grace and having those beds made available for chronic care patients or changing them over to some other care is an unneeded expenditure of funds.

Returning to her article again:

“Another proposal -- to close the obstetrical unit of Grace Hospital -- is also unwise. Obstetrics is so close to the heart of the Salvation Army Grace Hospital staff that a legacy of bitterness would be left behind.

“More babies were born at Grace Hospital last year than at either of the other two hospitals in the city with OB units. I feel Grace has the most up-to-date equipment, methods and attitudes.

“The proposal to close psychiatric services at Hotel Dieu and Metropolitan hospitals shows a total lack of insight into the trends of psychiatric care. Many psychiatric patients require anonymity and to peg one facility as ‘the one’ would label anyone being treated there. In addition, a great many psychiatric patients land in the emergency wards of the other hospitals, Metropolitan and Hotel Dieu. Many need immediate care and admission for medical and psychiatric problems. It would convenience the doctors to have them in the facility where rounds are normally made. Can anyone imagine them being brought to an emergency where the self-inflicted injuries are treated and discovered to be psychotic, then subjected to transfer, further upset and total inconvenience?

“The fact is every active treatment hospital needs a psychiatric department, no matter how small. Many leading North American psychologists and psychiatrists insist this is the case.

“To close paediatrics at Metropolitan Hospital is another unrealistic proposal. Why take the children away from the burn unit and the cancer clinic on the grounds? Some of the children have burns; some of them have leukaemia. They require these services which are on the premises at Met.

“The Essex county planning council must convince the ministry to drop these unrealistic proposals and they must suggest better ones more suited to solving our particular problems. It is not only highly unlikely that a group of five Torontonians on a one-day visit to Windsor could adequately assess our needs, It is well-nigh impossible.”

Mr. Chairman, the comments I have read from the various articles in the press, from various individuals in the community, I hope will convince the minister that he has to reassess his position.

If he is looking from a dollar and cents standpoint and nothing else, he should look at the heart-lung machines and pumps and the cardiovascular surgical units available in the Province of Ontario. We fought in our community for the heart-lung pump, not for the whole cardiovascular surgical unit. Then we look at Toronto and see Toronto General Hospital, Toronto Western Hospital, Hospital for Sick Children, Wellesley Hospital, St. Michael’s Hospital, Sunnybrook Hospital -- six facilities in the city of Toronto with complete cardiovascular units -- surely there is duplication of services? I don’t begrudge them having all of these facilities --

An hon. member: I do.

Mr. B. Newman: -- because we want to see them having facilities such as that but likewise we want facilities maintained in other parts of the province, in other hospital centres. If it is too expensive to put one in a small community -- and I don’t consider the city of Windsor too small -- happy birthday to you, Mr. Grossman.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Will you turn the lights out so I can blow out my candle?

Mr. S. Lewis (Scarborough West): Mr. Chairman, are you going to put up with this?

Mr. Foulds: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman. Has the member introduced a dangerous weapon into the Legislature?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I’ll leave that to the NDP, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Foulds: That’s lit. The member for High Park (Mr. Shulman) was carrying a dud weapon.

Mr. Chairman: Before the member continues --

Mr. B. Newman: Mr. Chairman, I want to complete my comments.

Mr. Chairman: Order. Before the member continues perhaps the Chair might recognize the fact that the member for St. Andrew-St. Patrick wishes to share his good fortune with the other members and will be passing morsels to the members.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: This is on behalf of the other five members.

Mr. Lewis: Good. Can you blow, please?

Mr. Chairman: We’ll pause a moment while the member blows out his candle. Will the member for Windsor-Walkerville continue?

Mr. B. Newman: Mr. Chairman, I want to complete my comments by suggesting to the minister that he reconsider our proposals; that he take into consideration the various comments I have read into the record; and that he likewise take into consideration the comment he made in a letter to a constituent of mine by the name of Mrs. Eileen Shafer, who is very, very much involved with Riverview Hospital. Your letter states, Mr. Minister: “I am hopeful that through the discussions we have initiated we will be able to arrive at a conclusion which will prove satisfactory to all concerned.”

We hope, Mr. Minister, that is not only your comment in the letter but is the actual way we will resolve the problem in the city of Windsor.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman: The hon. minister.

Hon. F. S. Miller (Minister of Health): Perhaps there are other speakers to this particular vote, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman: Does the member for Scarborough West wish to speak on vote 2901?

Mr. Lewis: Yes, I wanted to speak on this vote but not on this subject and I suspect my colleague from Sandwich-Riverside has something to say.

Mr. Chairman: The member for Sandwich-Riverside.

Mr. F. A. Burr (Sandwich-Riverside): Mr. Chairman, there is no point in my putting on the record what the member for Windsor-Walkerville has just presented. The minister is aware that I have been pouring on to him all the criticisms and objections and suggestions I have received from citizens on this matter. It is rather strange, though, that the citizens of Windsor bought their own heart-lung pump and have not been able to get it into use. I wonder how many of the Toronto hospitals actually bought their own?

We also have in Windsor the burn unit which the citizens of Essex county have bought and we are having some difficulties getting that into full operation. I wonder whether this minister has ever heard of the expression about looking gift horses in the mouth. Perhaps he doesn’t appreciate the public’s efforts in providing these forms of equipment which, in other places, are probably provided at the expense of all the taxpayers.

The member for St. George (Mrs. Campbell) referred to megavitamin treatment, the orthomolecular theories and mentioned wheat in particular. It has been known for a long time that wheat -- or perhaps it’s the gluten in the wheat -- cannot be tolerated by some people. What the percentage is I have no idea but 2,000 years ago Lucretius, one of those famous Romans, observed -- and I don’t suppose it was just his own observation -- that one man’s meat is another man’s poison.

It seems to me that not enough attention is being givers to this fact, that everybody’s body chemistry is different from everyone else’s. Not so long ago there was a CBC programme -- I would say a few months ago -- in which an English doctor was being interviewed because of the great success he has had in treating people with various mental or emotional troubles. I think he said that one-third -- if it wasn’t one-third it was one-half or two-thirds; it was a very high percentage, we’ll say one-third to be on the conservative side and I know that will please the minister --

Mr. R. D. Kennedy (Peel South): You’re on the right side.

Mr. Burr: -- of the people who are hospitalized or who come to physicians with mental problems have a nutritional or, perhaps, I should say a diet cause for their illnesses. He described, in the short time he had available on the telephone interview, how he took various patients, gave them a two or three-day fast and then had them eat or drink one of their common everyday foods. If the symptoms of their mental disorders, their emotional disorders came on, then that indicated that particular drink or food. And they were very simple ones -- coffee, tea, cocoa, potatoes, bacon -- the very common foods that people make great use of.

By this process of finding out which individual food had the unfortunate effect on the individual, the interviewer was able to get a list and then the patient was able to eliminate those particular foods from his diet and the patient became normal.

The interviewer asked him whether he met with opposition among his colleagues, and he said: “Well, not that you would notice. They are all sending me their patients.”

I thought of this when the member for St. George was speaking, because I have been hearing and reading a great deal in the last two or three years about the orthomolecular theories. Linus Pauling is one of the advocates. I don’t think he got his Nobel prize for that, but he is very interested in that field.

As I understand it, in very simple layman’s terms, some doctors have had great success with this method, and others have had virtually none. As far as I can make out, those who are successful are the ones who realize that everybody is different and who make a kind of body chemistry assessment. I don’t know the technical terms or the jargon, but they make an assessment of the person’s chemistry. They then prescribe various vitamins in very large doses, according to the assessment that they have made. Periodically they check the patients and, if necessary, modify their prescriptions.

It seems to me that because of the great complexity of the human body and of the nerve system and of the human brain, and because of the great variety of differences between humans, even in members of the same family, there may be many successful combinations of methods for treating mental or emotional disturbances or illnesses. Surely, it is logical to suppose that there is a definite cause, albeit as yet unknown, for all di- cause, albeit as yet unknown, for all diseases. Research has determined that lack of vitamin C caused scurvy back in the Middle Ages when the sailors were at sea without sources of vitamin C. But one point that was overlooked by modern doctors who know of this story, of course, only some of the sailors died; some were ill with scurvy, and some were not ill. The reason I think is that some of them didn’t have the same need as others for vitamin C, or that some had a greater need for it than others whose chemistry was a little bit different.

So I feel that the ministry, instead of being so bogged down with financial considerations all the time, should spend a little of its energies in encouraging those people who are not really out in left field, as the minister said the other day, but out around third base or short stop.

I have spoken to the minister and written to him on various occasions about the fine work that one of our citizens in Windsor -- Mrs. Helen Goyeau, I believe -- has been doing in our city on behalf of mentally and emotionally disturbed people who have not been responding to orthodox treatment. She has been finding them a qualified physician or psychiatrist in other cities who would be willing to assess and diagnose their particular body chemistry and prescribe megavitamin treatment for each individual on the basis of the examination.

Mrs. Goyeau and her friends, both in Windsor and in other cities in Ontario, spend a great deal of time, effort and money drawing to the attention of as many physicians and psychiatrists as they can articles that are appearing in medical literature -- articles that you would think psychiatrists and physicians who come into contact with mentally disturbed people would be reading for themselves. And she spends a great deal of time persuading some of these physicians and psychiatrists to talk to, to consult, or even to go to a meeting where one of these successful doctors is speaking.

Throughout Canada there are a few doctors using this treatment, but most of them are doing it in a surreptitious manner. This is apparently because they haven’t heard of the minister’s open-minded attitude on the subject or perhaps because they are too well acquainted with the close-minded attitude of many of their colleagues. If the minister could open up this field, encourage these treatments, I think he would be doing something that could have some very good results.

Mrs. Goyeau at the present time is trying to find temporary quarters for various persons who are not quite ill enough to be hospitalized, or to be kept in hospitals after they have gone there, and yet too ill for their own families to cope with. She has been able to find, through her fantastic efforts, some rest home operators who would be willing through compassion and understanding, not through the profit motive, to provide this temporary care that many of these persons need while they are learning how to handle the megavitamin diet. But the catch is these operators wouldn’t want to do it unless a qualified physician or psychiatrist were periodically supervising the patient. This doesn’t mean daily supervision, it means whatever the particular patient required. It could be as rarely as monthly.

So there is an obvious financial saving for taxpayers in the long term, a saving in hospital and medical care, if these mentally or emotionally disturbed persons can be treated successfully and kept out of institutionalized care.

I have some other points that are under vote 1, but the member for Scarborough West has rather urgent business elsewhere. With your permission, Mr. Chairman, I’ll defer to him and get back when I can get my turn again.

Mr. Chairman: Does the hon. minister wish to comment briefly on the points raised with regard to the Windsor situation?

Hon. Mr. Miller: I’d like to clarify -- did that vote 1 ever pass, Mr. Chairman? I thought at one point it had.

Mr. Chairman: Perhaps I might indicate that actually items 1 and 2 did pass. Then the chairman the other evening indicated he would consider any subject under vote 2901 so I gather it was reopened.

Hon. Mr. Miller: Fair enough. I would just as soon wait until the Windsor issue is over to comment on the Windsor issue at all.

Mr. Burr: The member for Windsor West (Mr. Bounsall) wants to make some comments on the Windsor issue so it might be as well to delay your remarks.

Mr. Chairman: Perhaps the member for Scarborough West might like to comment, then.

Mr. Lewis: The member for Windsor West isn’t here; perhaps you can pursue it again this evening. I wanted to speak about something quite markedly unrelated to the Windsor hospital situation. The member for Windsor-Walkerville and the member for Sandwich-Riverside have made their representations but maybe you can pull it all together again this evening. I know my colleague from Windsor West does want to speak.

I must say to the chairman -- I suspect I might mirror the minister’s feeling -- the way in which vote 1 is being handled is most peculiar, Mr. Chairman. We are virtually encompassing the entire estimates within the first vote, making it very neat for the opposition to return forever under subsequent votes to similar objects, knowing we’ll not be meeting again in the fall so we might as well spend the rest of June on Health, giving to the minister all of the pleasures and generosities that bestows. On the other hand it doesn’t entirely introduce into the estimates the discipline that might be beneficial.

I say that in a self-conscious way because I want to deal with a subject now that does fit within the fiat vote in the sense of the outline given to us by the minister -- item 2, health standards. The community health standards division includes the occupational health protection branch and I want to say something about that. I suppose it could equally come within vote 2. I’ll deal with it now. Probably that is all I will deal with which will be a great relief for the minister, and then come back to it later on if necessary. That may not be possible.

There were a number of things in the field of occupational and environmental health that I wanted to speak to in these estimates if time permitted. The question I asked in question period today is at the moment uppermost in my mind. Because it struck me very forcibly on the weekend I wondered whether I could deal with it now with the minister and use it as a kind of symbol of some of the things I think might be corrected in occupational health and environmental health in the province. Perhaps as I finish some remarks, I will allude to two or three other situations beyond Elliot Lake, which have application.

It is sometimes difficult with this minister, mostly because I have always sensed and continue to sense his very real personal concern about the environmental health quandary or problem. I am never sure in my own mind who’s calling the shots in this field and how it is that his own views, so frequently enlightened, seem so separated from those of some of his colleague’s. I never quite know how it is that his own views, so often progressive, seem so much further ahead than those who work for him in the civil service which he administers. In other words, I have a genuine confession in my mind, in dealing with the Ministry of Health, in understanding how the whole occupational area -- the hazards and dangers to the health and life of workers -- is ever going to be brought visibly under control.

Three or four weeks ago, after the Minister of Health had tabled this report in the Legislature on April 28 -- the survey of the health conditions in Denison and Rio Algom -- the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Natural Resources and the Workmen’s Compensation Board sent a pamphlet -- in a normal No. 10 envelope, I guess it was, on a sheet of paper, 8½ by 11 in. I guess it is -- to all of the homes in Elliot Lake, giving eight important questions and eight answers to those questions as seen by the government as it related to the Elliot Lake uranium industry.

I saw that pamphlet when it emerged and I felt it was kind of gross. I discussed it at the time with my colleagues from Nickel Belt (Mr. Laughren), Sudbury (Mr. Germa) and Sudbury East (Mr. Martel), and asked them: “How do you deal with this type of thing? Obviously, it’s very difficult to deal with it in question period because it requires some analysis and some enlargement, rather than simply raising it in a question with the minister, and maybe I should save it for the occupational health branch?” They agreed. That was two or three weeks ago.

This last weekend, on the various wanderings about Ontario, I found myself on Friday in Chapleau, and on Saturday in Foleyet, Gogama, Chelmsford and Sudbury. Through the entire 24 hours -- and apparently for two or three days before it -- the radio stations, in a staccato, repetitive rhythm, had broadcast advertisements, from Denison Mines in particular and Rio Algom as well, saying: “Read the truth about Elliot Lake on Saturday.” They spent a great deal of money on persuading the population that in the Sudbury Star and, I believe, in the Sault Daily Star, and I know in certain of the northern weeklies, there was to appear a full-page ad, and the mining companies told us to keep our eyes open for that page and make sure it was carefully read because all of the misconceptions about Elliot Lake would be cleared up.

So it was with some anticipation, when I finally got to Sudbury late Saturday afternoon, that I grabbed the Star, turned to page 7 and found this advertisement -- which the minister may or may not have seen -- which is entitled “Some Straight Talk About Elliot Lake”. And then it says: “Answers to eight important questions as presented by the Ontario government.”

To the uninitiated it’s as though the advertisements were bought and paid for by the Ontario government. But at the bottom right-hand corner in a very small box, with a deference uncharacteristic of mining companies, it says in, I judge, two point type: “This advertisement co-sponsored by Denison Mines Ltd. and Rio Algom Ltd.” That’s really interesting.

Mr. Burr: It comes out of their tax.

Mr. Lewis: It speaks volumes about the inability of the government to come to grips with Elliot Lake or with any or many of the other occupational health hazards in Ontario.

You see, Mr. Chairman, if I may put it to the minister through you, any straight talk about Elliot Lake, past or present, could not possibly be construed as propaganda for the companies unless it wasn’t straight talk at all, unless it was a tissue of carefully selected material, leaving out what was embarrassing or uncomfortable, and including certain things that gave a distorted picture of reality and were often, in themselves, simply half-truths.

Mr. Chairman, that bothers me a lot. As a matter of fact, I tell the minister that it really angered me on Saturday when I saw how the companies were using the ministry’s material. It angered me because the ministry’s material lends itself to that use, and because the companies couldn’t have done it better themselves if they’d written the answers in the fashion which they are dealt with in the pamphlets which went to the people of Elliot Lake and to the readers of northern newspapers.

There’s a tendency in the ministry -- not so much to say mea culpa, and it will never happen again -- there’s a tendency in the ministries involved -- and health has to be seen as central to it -- to try to gloss over what has happened. They pretend they’re suddenly invested with hindsight, the revelations incurred in 1974-1975, and they will then exonerate themselves by writing the kind of carefully modulated rhetoric which serves to deceive rather than to illumine.

Let me tell you about the questions and answers in this ad, taken directly from the pamphlet called: “These Are The Answers To Eight Important Questions That People In Elliot Lake Have Been Asking.” And it says:

“Reprinted below is the full text of the eight questions and answers which it is believed will be of interest to all mining people in Canada:

“1. ‘We hear a lot of miners here have silicosis. Just how bad is it?’”

Let me read selectively from the answer, but with accurate reflection:

“The Ministry of Health held a special clinic here last year. The doctors examined 973 miners. They found 23 who had silicosis. That works out to less than 2.5 per cent of the miners examined.

“And all 23 of the men with silicosis started work here before 1960.

“The doctors also found 47 miners with ‘dust effects’. If these men keep working in the mines for very much longer, they stand a pretty good chance of getting silicosis too.

“There have been a number of cases of silicosis at Elliot Lake over the years, but we think the results of this special clinic are a pretty good indication of the way things stand now.”

Let me tell you something about your report. Your report did not show only 23 cases of silicosis and 47 cases of dust effects. Your report showed 36 cases of silicosis and 53 cases of dust effects, when you include those men working in the mines who were missed in the surveys.

Let me tell you something else about the point at which Dr. Cowle made his first submission and the point at which the x-rays were reviewed by Dr. Stewart, there were 88 additional cases of workers who lay somewhere between pre-silicosis and obvious dust evident in the x-rays. These 88 additional cases were discovered, which were not in the original document -- not this document, but the original document.

More important than that, what this report shows is not that there are 23 cases of silicosis and 47 cases of dust effects, but that you have managed to find, over the life of the Elliot Lake mines, 446 men infected with silicosis or pre-silicotic conditions; 446 among those you’ve been able to trace.

There is something unbearably sanguine about an advertisement which pretends that the situation today is bearable, without dealing with the overall reality. There is a flip reference to 160, but no reference to the fact that the silicosis now documented in Elliot Lake took 23 years to develop and that your own report indicates, quite explicitly, that it will be 1983 before you can make a check in terms of the future silicosis. None of this is in the material. It’s just a kind of neat and manipulated reassurance, which is not the way you deal with public anxiety. All you do in a situation like that is heighten public anxiety.

I find it personally offensive, and I know that my colleagues did likewise. The figures are wrong and the story is only half-told, and it shouldn’t be dealt with in that fashion. It’s just too damned serious to deal with as though it were a public relations effort. This is the next question: “2. ‘Just what exactly is silicosis, anyway?’”

And they give a perfectly legitimate clinical definition that silicosis is scarring of the lungs, and explain it. Now, I want to read you the second paragraph under that.

“That’s why there’s been a law in Ontario since 1925 that says that every miner who works in mines like the ones at Elliot Lake, where there’s free silica in the dust, has to have an x-ray every year. The x-rays let the doctors see the early signs of silicosis long before a miner himself would notice anything at all.”

That’s a very interesting conclusion -- quite accurate -- about the miner himself noticing anything at all. The miner would never notice anything at all because the miners never saw the x-rays. More important, from about 1925 to 1970 the doctors didn’t even consider it important to share the x-ray information with the men who had silicosis.

Mr. Chairman, I just want to put on the record something here that has bothered me more about this than anything else. I don’t know what is wrong with the medical profession, who worked all those years in Elliot Lake and who read all those x-rays, but they don’t understand the meaning of medical ethics if life depended on it, and life did depend on it.

In innumerable cases the men in Elliot Lake took their chest x-rays and were never told that they had dust effects. As a matter of fact, this is the first time in the history of the Elliot Lake miners that men are starting to be told well in advance of the hazards they face. The men knew it and the doctors knew it and the companies knew it.

It’s like the asbestosis controversy. The material from the x-rays in Johns-Manville was never shored with the workers. The doctors for some incredible reason felt that people in a pre-asbestosis or pre-silicotic condition could be returned to the areas which damaged their health and that there was no moral obligation on the part of the doctor to tell the men.

But none of that is included in this advertisement. It’s as though, since 1925, we have had some legitimate kind of diagnostic facility identifying the people who were ill. Nuts! We had some kind of medical experimentation worthy of charlatans who never really levelled with the men about the condition of their own health. And to this day there is a misconception about what human beings are entitled to.

Dr. Joseph Cowle, to whom I bear not an ounce of malice, gave to the doctor at Rio Algom a few weeks ago the results of the x-rays which were taken in this survey. Did he give it to the men? No. And there is forever this specious stuff about the men being overly concerned, not understanding, perhaps a little panicky about the results of their own x-rays. There is no sense of moral obligation on the part of this government, none at all, or on the part of the medical profession. Better the men might have been panicked a little, or allowed to be concerned. Where there were no family doctors none of the information was even given. How come your advertisement reprinted by the companies doesn’t indicate that? The medical profession has a lot to account for.

If you will allow me a digression, I was told by one of the reporters on the Peterborough Examiner that he had phoned someone in your ministry and asked for the medical x-ray records of those who had contracted asbestosis in the Raybestos-Manhattan plant in Peterborough. The ministry apparently has those x-rays on file. He was told that, of course, those x-rays couldn’t be released. Mind you, all the men are now dead; it isn’t exactly a violation of confidentiality.

I would give anything, Mr. Chairman, to see the past x-rays of those who have died of silicosis or asbestosis or lung cancer from either source in this province. As I stand here, I’ll tell you what they’d show. They’d show that five, four three, two years -- however many years -- in advance of the men being informed that they had the disease, the dust effects were clear on the x-rays, and the medical profession and the companies suppressed the information. That’s what they’d show. If you want to prove me wrong, take a random sample and have the x-rays read by Dr. Charles Stewart or somebody else in a neutral setting and I’ll retract.

Hon. Mr. Miller: He’s not neutral.

Mr. Lewis: I consider Stewart neutral, all right?

Hon. Mr. Miller: I don’t.

Mr. Lewis: Well, okay, you don’t. You choose.

There is a splendid doctor in Hamilton, Dr. Michael Newhouse, head of the respiratory research group in McMaster, a man who has done the environmental pollution stuff in Hamilton. Give it to him to read or give it to Charles Bryant, head of the respiratory division at Sick Children’s Hospital, who offered to your occupational health branch to do certain studies on the asbestos workers, which offer has yet to be taken up by the Ministry of Health. Give it to any of those independent, clinically efficient people across Ontario.

Boy, I would like to see what those x-rays in the 1960s and the 1970s really showed about those workers and how the information was never communicated to them. What a pleasure that would be, just to show the collusion that occurred through the years!

The said point 2 goes on to say:

“And it also means you had better change jobs. If you keep on working where there is lots of silica dust your condition will probably get worse.

“That’s why we advise anyone who has silicosis to get out of a dusty environment to let their condition stabilize.

“And the doctors say silicosis has absolutely nothing to do with lung cancer.”

Well, that’s certainly a medically debatable point, as I have since learned. But, leaving that aside, I quite agree, or I want to be fair about it and I want to acknowledge that occasional recognitions of hazards are included in the advertisements although well down in the copy, not at the top of the copy. No. 3 says:

“Does that mean that, sooner or later, all the rest of us will get silicosis, too?

“No.”

Categorically.

They point out that the counts in the mines used to be very high, which accounts for the silicosis. They say:

“But with better ventilation and dust control, the mines are getting a lot cleaner now, and the less dust, the less chance of getting silicosis.

“Miners don’t have to get silicosis, and with cleaner mines and better health programmes, no miner should.”

I guess the question that arises from this kind of material is why has any miner in Ontario in the uranium industry contracted silicosis at all? Why have any men died of lung cancer?

This gives me the opportunity to put to you what some of us have been feeling for a very long time. It was in 1926 in South Africa and Czechoslovakia, 50 years ago, that the first incidence of lung cancer related to silica was discovered and documented. It was in the 1920s in Ontario when the Workmen’s Compensation Board acknowledged silicosis as a compensable item. You’ve had all of the experiences of South Africa, Germany, Czechoslovakia, United States, Kirkland Lake, Timmins, Cobalt, Haileybury -- you name it.

It isn’t some revelation that men get silicosis and lung cancer from being exposed to silica dust and the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Bernier) goes before the Ham commission and utters some falderal about hindsight giving them insight into what might have been prevented.

Everybody knew from the moment the uranium mines opened with the silica dust content that silicosis and lung cancer was a hazard and not a soul did a blessed thing about it. Oh, yes, there were a few letters sent back and forth encouraging them to put the brakes on and to control it. There were some radiation levels reduced and there were some dust levels reduced, but nobody took it very seriously until the explosion of the Eight Mile Lake, in the 1960s and early 1970s, all of which is chronicled in your report.

I must say that I have never been able to understand it. I find it unbearable. You can cope with it. They’re your colleagues. The companies and the government simply watched the men contract the disease and die. It’s about time it was said. You understood it, everybody knew it and nobody raised a finger. It’s about time that was said. Don’t give me the vision of hindsight. There might have been the vision of foresight because you all knew it was coming. I’m sorry to say to the minister that you all knew. He obviously didn’t know; he has just inherited the portfolio. But everybody knew of the dangers in what was likely to occur.

There’s something damnably phoney about literature sent to the homes which pretends that because the dust levels might be coming down now, somehow people will no longer contract disease in the future. That’s just not true. It is entirely possible that 10, 15 and 20 years from now miners will still be contracting serious silicosis because the levels of this year were not observed but no one seems to be willing to come to grips with that.

It’s the historical perspective that my colleague from Riverdale (Mr. Renwick) always talks about. For the Ministries of Natural Resources and Health and the Workmen’s Compensation Board everything is historical perspective. You will analyse in the 1980s whether what you were doing in the 1970s was right. That’s what makes these advertisements so misleading.

“4. ‘We even hear that some miners have come down with lung cancer. Are the rest of us in any danger?’

“There have been cases of lung cancer among uranium miners and it looks like the very high levels of radiation they were exposed to in the late 1950s and early 1960s helped cause it. But those high radiation exposures are a thing of the past.”

I want to speak to you about this, Mr. Minister. This is called the quantum theory of human life. It’s like saying that 2.5 per cent of the miners in your survey contracted silicosis. This is looking at individual human beings in a quantitative view. It is depreciating human life. That’s what it is and the people who write this tripe should be told that.

Anyone reading it who read, “We even hear that some miners have come down with lung cancer” would assume that maybe there were five, six, eight, 10 perhaps. There are well over 50; we don’t know how many. The Ministry of Natural Resources now indicates there will be many more come to light in the next few years. It acknowledges it in its brief to the Ham commission.

You don’t deal with it this way. You level with the community. Straight talk means candour; that’s what it means, not duplicity; not using the English language as though it was an endless source of manipulation. You talk straight. You tell them what has happened. You tell them what to expect and then you tell them what you’re going to do about it.

This copy under question 4 goes on to read:

“But today there are strict limits on the amount of radiation each miner can be exposed to. The limit is four working level months a year.”

That is not true. There are no strict limits. There are negotiable limits. You have set four working level months as a limit. I remind you that the Atomic Energy Commission went before the Ham commission last week and said it had indicated in 1959 that five working level months must be the absolute maximum. In 1974 we finally reached four working level months. In 1975 the Minister of Natural Resources still isn’t sure if he can maintain that. The Minister of Natural Resources is a man who can say almost anything anywhere. He went before the Ham commission last week and said:

“The adversary system of labour-management relations in this field cannot be tolerated. Health and safety are not negotiable questions. They are not fringe benefits. They cannot be traded for longer vacations, more generous pensions or bigger pay cheques.”

What are you doing when you call workers in from Denison Mines to find out whether, if they wear a mask, they don’t mind the extra radiation exposure?

What are you doing if you call them in and ask, “Can you go a little above four this year?” You’re negotiating with human life, that’s what you’re doing and the mines shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it.

What is the reverence for Denison Mines? Do they not make a sufficient profit? Have they not made the profit out of the work and the lives of the miners? Why should they be given one twitch of further government generosity? What are you afraid of? What is the clout of these corporate giants? When will it end? I walk into the Legislature every day of my adult life now and I say to myself, “This day they’re going to dig in their heels and say no more’.” The Minister of Labour (Mr. MacBeth) won’t stand and say to me, “It’s only 2.9 fibres per cubic centimetre in Raybestos instead of two.” And the Minister of Natural Resources won’t stand and say to me that it’s only 200 to 300 -- fibres per million it is, isn’t it, and it’s parts per cubic centimetre in silica emissions? He won’t say to me, “It’s only so much above the levels.” Today somebody is going to say, “We are enforcing the standards.” But no one says it. So you get this kind of poppycock rendered in public. I don’t know how you get away with it. I don’t know how you have the chutzpah to write it.

Question 5:

“‘What is the government going to do about it?’

“The radiation standards we are using in the mines now are based on years of research all over the world. [and, I should say, 17 years later] But setting standards for silica dust is a little tougher. There are too many things we simply don’t know. The standard we are already using at Elliot Lake is one of the toughest dust standards in the world, but right now we are thinking of making it even tougher.”

You think forever about making it even tougher. What the ad doesn’t say, what your pamphlet doesn’t say is that a majority of the working areas in Denison and Rio Algom exceed the dust levels recommended by the government, month after month, even now.

The Ministry of Notional Resources recommends 200 parts per cubic centimetre. The Ministry of Health recommends 176 parts per cubic centimetre, based on a formula acceptable to the occupational health people in the United States. But in Rio Algom and Denison the dust counts are regularly above 200, above 300, above 500.

You certainly are an extraordinary group, because it is entirely possible that 10 or 15 years from now we will have the same pattern of silicosis based on the dust exposure which is evidenced now, but you don’t admit it. You don’t say that you exceed the standards you have set. You don’t mention that in the ad. In that sense the ad is misleading, deceptive and irresponsible. Straight talk indeed. It isn’t straight talk. In its own way it is malicious, because you shouldn’t deal with matters of this kind in a fashion so reckless.

I don’t really know what to say about those dust standards. For some reason the occupational health people in your ministry and you yourself haven’t been willing to set a standard that is enforced by law. I don’t understand that. I know you will tell me about the very difficult problem of calculating quite what’s right. I know you will tell me there is scientific dispute. I know the Ministry of Natural Resources, in its own self-serving way, went before the Ham commission and tried to pretend, as Peter McCrodan, the director of the mines engineering branch did, that there is some controversy over the levels.

As you are sitting there, you know the level of safety for the men, and no one will enforce it. Peter McCrodan went to the commission and said -- and I quote: “Denison Mines have not yet come anywhere near reaching a target standard for dust levels that was set by the ministry.” Do you hear that? In the advertisement, they talk about them as the toughest standards in the world. They don’t say they are nowhere near reaching the standards. That is dishonest.

Point No. 6:

“It doesn’t make much sense to tell a man to get out of the mines unless he can afford to. What about the compensations?”

Well, they say how tough it is for the families, so they are changing the compensation rules.

“From now on, we are going to have compensation based on the difference between how much a man earns as a miner and how much he can earn in another job. The compensation will help make up the difference.”

What would that say to any reasonable person reading it? It would say that the government will pay the difference between what a man is earning on the job in the mines and what he would earn at a lesser income somewhere else if he has to move.

But that’s not what the government announced. The government announced that they would pay 75 per cent of the difference. Why isn’t that in print? Why is a fabrication in print?

Why don’t you say that the 75 per cent will continue to allow for a sufficient loss of income, that it may be difficult for men to move out of the mines and into another job? Why don’t you say that you are denying them at least a quarter of the difference? Oh, no, here it is quite categorical because --

Mr. Burr: “Basis” is a weasel word.

Mr. Lewis: Yes, because on the basis of this kind of stuff your intention -- not your intention explicitly, but the intention of the ministry that sent it out, Natural Resources, and the companies who reproduced it -- is to mislead.

“7. ‘What are the companies going to do about it? It’s their responsibility to run mines that are safe to work in.’”

And here the copy is pretty tough. It says that the companies are going to have to do a, b, c and so on, but the most important change is that companies are going to have to work more closely with the miners and the unions to solve health and safety problems; from now on mining companies won’t just be responsible to the government for health and safety, they’ll have to answer to the workers, and the government will make sure they do. In the long run, we think that will be better for the miners, the companies and better for Ontario.

Well, listen to what the Ministry of Natural Resources said to the Ham commission last week, and I quote from page 5 of their brief: “We believe that the basic self-regulating system we have developed here in Ontario is a good and workable system to ensure the health and safety of the miners’ working environment.”

They believe in the basic self-regulating system; they will believe in it until they atrophy as a ministry -- may it happen soon. But here they write that “we are going to make things get better and talk tough to the company,” when on the other hand they go to the commission and say the basic self-regulating system is workable. Workable? With 466 cases of silicosis and pre-silicosis and 50 to 60 men dead of lung cancer. Workable? But in the copy that went to every household in Elliot Lake you’d think the ministry and the government were serious. They are not serious. Only Frank Miller is serious. And that case of isolation will mean nothing in a hospital ward where contagion swirls all around you.

“8. ‘What can I do about it?’” “If you smoke, quit,” is one of the answers. Fair enough. Who may dispute it? That’s obviously important. Then it ends up by saying:

“And if you think there’s anything in your mine that’s a threat to your health or safety, report it; report it to the company, to your union and to the district mining engineer.”

They have been reporting it to the company in all the years since the Elliot Lake mines have been open. They’ve been reporting it to the government in all the years since the mines have been open. They have been reporting it to their union, which got nowhere with the company and nowhere with the government, in all the years since the mines have been opened. They ran off and saw the Sudbury members of the Legislature in order to make a public fuss about it finally, in a stage of desperation.

What kind of advice is this? I suppose when there is nowhere else you can do it, but the implication is that something will happen. Nothing has happened up until now.

Do you know that as we sit and debate this whole question, to this day the radiation levels of Denison Mines and Rio Algom are not posted for the workers? Can you tell me why that is? You stood in the House earlier this week and you said, in response to questions about posting the results of the testing you do in places like Raybestos, that what is required is more information, that’s what is lacking, and that you agreed it should be posted. And to this day, after all of this stuff goes out, the radiation levels are still not known to the workers; they still don’t know what parts of the mine are safe and what pasts of the mine are hazardous. There is a gap of credibility between promise and performance, between intent and reality, that is never bridged; never bridged.

I want to tell you, on behalf of my colleagues in this caucus, and particularly the Sudbury members and the Elliot Lake miners, that all of us were really offended by this PR effort, and it is an expression of the inability of government to understand how you deal with a question like this. It is that expression which is so disheartening.

I honestly believe, and I want the minister to know I believe, that you can talk straight to the families of Elliot Lake. You can lay out for them, if you want to, what has really happened. Admit that there was a failure to monitor and to respond and say what you intend to do about it. But to put out this kind of material designed to reassure in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, and then so self-serving that the companies can use it in full page advertisements, that should make you pause. Let me tell the minister, the steelworkers’ onion couldn’t use it because it doesn’t tell the truth. It tells only half the truth, and that is not what ministries of the government should be engaged in.

I repeat my conundrum. I stand here opposite the one minister to whom it is possible to speak with the feeling of respect for his recognition of the problem -- and even though he is -- you are a Tory and will therefore defend the Tories and the government -- fighting as you are to restore your political souls -- I believe that beneath it all you really do understand what is wrong and how wrong all of this is.

I don’t know whether we can break through with the minister or not and have him deal with Natural Resources and the Workmen’s Compensation Board in a way which is so tough that they also get the message. Leo Bernier is so busy running end-runs around the Ham commission and falling all over himself and his ministry to try to persuade people that he is doing something, it is probably more irritating to the chief commissioner than it is reassuring.

The other ministries with which the minister is associated with in all of the simply don’t understand the gravity of it all. I don’t think the government understands the gravity generally. I will come back to Elliot Lake in a minute, but let me just make these intervening points.

I don’t understand how the minister allows certain levels of contamination in asbestos, in lead, in petrochemicals, in the rubber industry, to be allowed to continue.

I happened to meet today, by great good fortune, with Tony Mazzocchi who is the occupational health man for the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers in the United States and who associates with Selikoff and with some of the key people in the unions who deal in this area of occupational-environmental health. You know what they are calling it now? They are calling it the “Cancer a Week” programme. In the last four weeks they have discovered an additional cancer a week related to one of the chemicals introduced into the environment in the industries with which they are associated. They can’t believe what is happening in occupational health terms. There is always a simple time lag between the States and Canada, but it is a very serious matter.

When the minister went to the Ham commission -- I can’t seem to lay my hands on it -- he said that there was available to him as a minister the right to monitor or to examine all of the chemicals being introduced into the working environment. I haven’t seen any monitoring of the chemicals that are going to be used in the Petrosar Sarnia complex. But many of the chemicals there -- from benzene to God knows what -- are demonstrably carcinogenic agents. Nobody is monitoring them in advance; nobody is approving the use of the chemicals. When they are introduced into the workplace and they are being used then the minister will suddenly decide that there will have to be some occupational controls after we start counting the bodies. It is the old historical approach.

I register with the minister again, and we will keep registering with him again and again, that this whole issue is something that must be taken far more seriously than it’s being taken even now. It is not recognized by the people of the province that with all the contamination levels which you set, they are all targets. They are not enforceable, they are not enshrined in regulation and they are not in law. And you’re setting yourself up an occupational advisory council to find out what the levels should be. Nuts!

You should go to the National Institute of Occupational Health in the United States which has done all the studying -- it’s studied it to death. You take their levels and you enforce them in Ontario. If you want to study them further and reduce them, then do so. But you don’t play with it now; you don’t wait, wait, wait. For the Tories it’s always tomorrow. For the workers tomorrow never comes -- tomorrow is too late. That’s the problem with the social philosophy.

I know the minister should have a right to respond if he wishes to, but it’s just a very peculiar syndrome and I find it so frustrating I could gnash my teeth -- I just can’t deal with it. In a sense, I can’t deal with you -- with that kind of reassuring appearance, the reasonable man, the reformer, the tough decision-maker. But when I look around me it’s not changing. When I look around me the inherent deceit that speaks to a breath of medical ethics and to the depravity of companies, that kind of deceit continues. It continues in the leaflets you send out, it continues in the advertisements which you printed.

You can stand and say “But we’re a hell of a lot better than other jurisdictions and we are making progress.” And I say yes, you are making progress. I concede it and I applaud it. But one thing hasn’t happened; the attitude hasn’t changed.

There’s an attitude about occupational health which still sees the worker as expendable. There’s an attitude about occupational health which says we can deal with the problem in some slick fashion. There’s an attitude about occupational health which fails to recognize the danger and treats it as a political issue rather than a human reality. That I don’t understand. I understand resistance to legislative change. I understand the wish to say, “We were not responsible. Others made errors; we never knew.” How many times “we never knew” has echoed through history.

But the one thing I don’t understand is the blessed attitude -- the attitude which is at once so sanguine, insensitive and self-serving. God, it’s objectionable. And this piece of tripe is objectionable because it’s not straight talk at all. It’s a kind of mockery of the people who worked in the mines and the people who lost their life in the mines, and the widows and children who now live on Workmen’s Compensation pensions of $260 a month, after 30 years of employ at Denison and Rio Algom. There should be more respect for those people than this kind of information demonstrates.

I have nothing further to say at this point, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman: The hon. minister.

Hon. Mr. Miller: Mr. Chairman, I have never been, nor will I be, able to equal the eloquence of the member. I hope, though, that I can reflect and give him some degree of confidence in my willingness and serious approach to the problems. It is easy to criticize. I often wish I were in that position, rather than bearing the responsibility for action.

Mr. Lewis: I believe that. You may get that wish, some day.

Hon. Mr. Miller: I may get that wish?

Mr. Kennedy: You’re not going to change parties, are you?

Hon. Mr. Miller: It’s almost a --

Mr. P. D. Lawlor (Lakeshore): A death wish.

Hon. Mr. Miller: The fact remains, though, that I have detected the change in government that you claim does not exist.

Mr. Lewis: The attitude?

Hon. Mr. Miller: The attitude. I have detected that change in the willingness of other ministers and ministries to give up some of the freedom of operation that traditionally has been theirs. The freedom of operation that admittedly has made it difficult for my ministry to do any more than advise on things in the past. With the changes we stated a month ago has come the realization that one minister and one ministry must become responsible for certain actions in the occupational and environmental health field.

The advisory committee is not an attempt to start studying things more often. I think we’ll be very prepared to accept the known and workable standards of other jurisdictions and simply study those which are still in doubt; to make standards known to the three parties who at least will make up the advisory committee -- labour, management and, hopefully, ministry technical people or advisers -- and give them an opportunity to review those areas which are in doubt.

I recognize that a year from now I’ll be in a much more difficult position than I am today because I’ve just recently been given this new responsibility. I recognize how difficult it may be to fulfil the expectations you and people in the mines properly will have in these changes. I can tell you, though, that my staff, far from being against such authority, far from trying to cover up, have been doing their best to make me aware and I’m sure will continue to make me aware of the dangers in all of these areas.

We’ve recognized their physical inability to cover all fronts by trying to beef up that section of the ministry at a time when, generally speaking, government is reducing complements. I think you’ll find we are increasing complements throughout the occupational and environmental health sections of the ministry, and reorganizing in an attempt to meet the responsibilities we are assuming.

There is no use me making tough statements that I will close this or I will close that. I’m going to do my best to make sure the standards are maintained and I hope that when there are reasons for not maintaining them which are acceptable, we’ll find other ways of protecting the men. I’m convinced that the steps we’ve made -- albeit I don’t agree with your interpretation about the wording of question 6 “compensation based on”; I don’t think that was a deliberate attempt to mislead men --

Mr. Lewis: You don’t?

Hon. Mr. Miller: No, I don’t really. Three ministries had their names on that particular brochure as you know. I believe it was prepared around the time -- and in a very short time-frame, incidentally. It was a very short time-frame -- a time-frame of about a day and a half --

Mr. Lewis: What, the leaflet?

Hon. Mr. Miller: Yes.

Mr. Lewis: Why did you rush it through in a day and a half?

Hon. Mr. Miller: It was felt necessary to have a leaflet ready for distribution in the community when the ministers were making their comments in the House. It was done in that short time and I will admit to wincing a bit as you put your interpretation. But, you know, just as it is my duty to defend, it’s your duty to oppose. I suggest we have to look beyond our party duties to defend and oppose --

Mr. Lewis: Absolutely.

Hon. Mr. Miller: -- and look at, in effect, what we say to the men in terms of credibility. I recognize you have more credibility with the miners and unions than I have. I recognize that.

Mr. Lewis: Maybe.

Hon. Mr. Miller: Sure you do. By nature. I’m trying to get credibility because it’s an essential part of this process. I do not want to be labelled as being on the side of management or on the side of the unions. I want to find a method of working together so that I can bring two normally distrusting groups together in a mutual approach which will solve the problems.

Mr. Lewis: The pamphlet wasn’t a means of achieving credibility. It was a means of making them anxious again about your intentions.

Hon. Mr. Miller: It was not aimed at doing that.

Mr. Lewis: I understand it wasn’t; that’s the matter of attitudes.

Hon. Mr. Miller: Sure. I think you will see over the next few months, as we regroup and get our capabilities to act in place, we will be serious. I think you’ll find the other ministers who are most directly concerned -- Labour and Environment, at least, and Natural Resources -- are quite prepared to see us co-operate. The ministers certainly are. I trust their staffs are and I trust we will get the working co-operation we need. That is not always easy between ministries in government. I’m sure you know that. It’s not a function of the party. It’s a function of the division into special sections and special interests.

Mr. D. C. MacDonald (York South): It’s a function of the Premier to knock heads together when necessary.

Hon. Mr. Miller: Sure it is, and we are doing that right now. I would say this is one of the things we did in the intervening period which, between your commenting on the deficiencies of the report you were aware of prior to our release of it, and the actual issuance of that report. I intend to keep on doing that.

Mr. Lewis: Yes, you did. I agree; I admit that. That’s why you gave me a frail glimmer of hope.

Hon. Mr. Miller: I may be as disappointed as you in the results of that frail glimmer of hope but I am sincerely going to try and that’s all I can tell you I can do.

In the case of Petrosar, I am not going to make a long rebuttal because while I made copious notes as you went on I don’t know that I would be able to say anything intelligent about them. In the case of Petrosar, I am satisfied we are working in advance to prevent trouble, in the stages which are going on now. I trust and hope we will see that our preliminary work with them results in a safer environment.

Hindsight is great. It is fine to say, “You should have known,” but I can recall working in fluorides, as I mentioned earlier, with concentrations which are unbelievable and totally unaware of them as an engineer. No one told me; no one told the workers. Yet now fluoride would be one of the concentrations in the working environment we are very concerned about, as you know. When I worked for Alcan there were days, as I have mentioned, when a simple walk through the plant I worked in would leave me with etched glasses. Would you believe that? A simple walk through the plant. It’s hard to believe the concentrations were of that order, but they were.

Mr. MacDonald: What happened to the lungs?

Hon. Mr. Miller: I used to carry a respirator with me all the time, not because I needed it for safety, in my opinion, but because I couldn’t breathe without it on a good many days when I was going down the pot lines.

I am aware of the unawareness -- if that was the word -- of many people who were working in the industries. It was not deliberate, really, it wasn’t deliberate. Perhaps there were people like the member for Sandwich-Riverside saying in the background that the problems exist. Those voices were not getting through to us and perhaps it is because of my personal experience and my personal suspicion that my one-time serious illness was a result of an occupational hazard that I am keenly aware of the need to do our best to help the men. That is what I am going to try to do.

Mr. Lewis: I’ll leave it at that for the moment, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman: The member for Windsor West.

Mr. Lewis: Why don’t you call the private members’ hour?

Mr. E. J. Bounsall (Windsor West): Mr. Chairman, it is close to the private members’ hour.

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.

PRIVATE MEMBERS’ HOUR:

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT

Mr. MacDonald moves second reading of Bill 97, an Act to provide for Freedom of Information.

Mr. D. C. MacDonald (York South): The purpose of this Act, Mr. Speaker, is quite simple. It’s spelled out in the explanatory note that it is to provide the public access to government documents without cost.

Let me begin by addressing myself to the need for such an Act in this jurisdiction because, as I shall indicate, it does exist in many other jurisdictions across the world. I think if members of the Legislature, particularly those who have been here for a number of years, will recall, our operations here are punctuated by events when the opposition or somebody in the public seeks to get what they deem to be legitimate public information from the government and it is refused for a variety of reasons: It is an interdepartmental memo; it’s confidential; it’s not in the public interest; if the information is made available the public will be unduly alarmed; so on and on.

I was rather interested just a short time ago to read an article by Hugh Windsor in the March 26, 1975, issue of the Globe and Mail, commenting on a study being made in Ottawa of their efforts to establish greater freedom of public information there. Just let me read the opening two paragraphs. I think they are rather interesting:

“The federal government conducts too much of its business behind an unnecessary curtain of secrecy, a high-level group studying the question has concluded. Security provisions designed to protect Canada from foreign threats of subversion are widely misused for the internal convenience of the government.

“The group studying government secrecy included several members of parliament, academics, cabinet ministers, and senior bureaucrats.”

In the same context, it was interesting that Hugh Windsor also had a story on March 26 of a study done by a parliamentary committee. In it, a Conservative from Saskatoon-Biggar said that in implementing the guidelines which the government had established for their freedom of information legislation, they confused two things: the security of the government and the security of the state. In short, it was a political decision that it wasn’t in the best interests of the government that the public should have what they were entitled to.

Let me retreat from a discussion of national security, which is not our consideration in this jurisdiction, to the comments of the committee on government productivity in their interim report No. 7. When they were attempting to come to grips with the whole problem of communication, particularly between government and citizens, they note that one of the strong traditions of the system of British parliamentary government and administration is a system of administrative secrecy. They go on, on page 11, to say this:

“There is a generally accepted view within Canada that all administrative activities and documents of government are communicated to the public if, as and when the government wishes to do so.”

I want to add this so that we keep it as fair and unexaggerated as possible:

“In fact, that view exaggerates the true state of affairs. Governments in Canada today -- federal, provincial and municipal -- are much more open and responsive to the informational needs and desires of their citizens than they were even 10 years ago.”

But while that’s true I think it is still true that they are unnecessarily secretive. We weren’t discussing documents, but this very day in this House a question was put to the government as to why the deputy secretary of social services has forbidden the press becoming part of a conference that was being held involving Indians and government officials and agencies. Even though the Indian organizations had no objection to the press being there, the press were forbidden to become part of the hearings. Why? One can only come to the conclusion that here, as in Ottawa, it was the security of the government, not the security of the state, that was being protected. Those citizens involved in the discussions had no objection to the public hearing what was going on.

I think quite frankly that our own Premier, (Mr. Davis) is quoted in this seventh report of COGP in a fashion that I am willing to accept as a model, as an objective. He is quoted on page 12 as saying this:

“I am determined to improve communications between the elected members of the government and the Legislature and the general public whom they serve. I believe people have the right to direct and personal access to government sources of information and assistance. That right must not only exist, but every citizen must know that it exists.”

Okay, the aim of this piece of legislation is to enthrone that noble objective in somewhat more effective fashion than has been the case.

The traditional attitude is that public affairs are the personal property of those who happen to hold an office at any given time, whether it be an elected office or a bureaucratic position within the civil service. It’s a fascinating study, the extent to which people, when they get into a public office, very quickly begin to assume a proprietary interest and approach to whatever they are doing. They think it is their business, and anybody who intervenes is really sticking his nose in so to speak.

I want to suggest, Mr. Speaker, that our objective can be rather simply stated: Now, everything is secret unless there happens to be good reason, in the view of the government, to make it public; what the approach in fact should be, is that everything should be public unless there happens to be good reason for it being kept secret.

The whole purpose of this piece of legislation is to try to spell out procedures whereby we can come to grips with this in terms of guidelines that will indicate when a piece of information or an official document is legitimately a public document and can be sought by anybody at any time.

Let me remind the House, Mr. Speaker, that there are a number of jurisdictions which have pioneered and have had a great deal of experience in this particular field. The leading one is Sweden. As long as 150 to 200 years ago they attempted to introduce, and did put in, statutes covering freedom of information as far as the press was concerned. As far back as 1949 they passed a piece of legislation which in effect makes all documents, with the exception of those that are exempted in the Act, public and immediately available. Any that are not exempted a member of the public is entitled to see and peruse; for whatever reason, it’s no business of the government what the motive and reason of the individual happens to be.

In the United States back in 1966 and 1967 the government under the then president, Lyndon Johnson, passed a bill, and in introducing it President Johnson made this comment:

“This legislation springs from one of our most essential principles, a democracy works best when the people have all the information that the security of the nation permits. No one should be able to pull curtains of secrecy around decisions which can be revealed without injury to the public interest.”

I won’t take the time to go into it, because I’d like to leave as much time as possible for others to participate in this debate, including some of my own colleagues in the New Democratic Party, but there is available a model bill which is being worked out by a number of states in the United States. It is not very dissimilar to the kind of legislation that is here. There are certain aspects of it about which one might quibble and argue, but I think there is going to be, before very long, the passage of such a bill in most of the states of the United States.

Having spelled out in short and as succinct terms as possible the objectives of the bill, let me deal with a number of the problems. Objectives again are rather noble in most instances, but if one can’t grapple with the problem in their implementation it’s all a rather useless exercise.

The real problem in this kind of bill is what should legitimately be exempted from automatic public disclosure when anyone makes an approach to seek a document, either for copying or for study. Section 3 of the bill spells out the exemptions. I’ll be very frank, Mr. Speaker; the more I think about some of them the more I have doubts.

I had the privilege -- and the education, that was part of the experience -- of working with the legislative counsel in trying to draft this bill for our jurisdiction. There were a number of exemptions I just couldn’t live with from the word go; so they went out because it was my bill. There are others it was felt should be in. As I look at them I continue to wonder. I would sincerely ask hon. members of the House and the public who are interested in it to take a look at this so that in future years, if the government doesn’t respond immediately, we can perhaps came up with a greater consensus.

For example, the first exemption is that of legal opinions or advice provided for the use of the government of Ontario. I don’t know; the more I think about that I’m inclined to the view that if the government gets legal advice from somebody and it pays good money, as it usually does if it is getting legal advice, and it uses that advice to take some action; why, after the action has been taken, is the House and the public not entitled to the advice it got so they can come to their conclusions as to whether or not the government acted wisely?

If I may just jump ahead in the exemptions to Nos. 8 and 9, I would draw your attention to another area which is a difficult one but I think in Sweden they have grappled with it fairly effectively, Mr. Speaker.

For example, exemption No. 8 is: Documents relating to negotiations leading up to a contract, until the contract has been executed or the negotiations have been concluded. In other words, until a decision has been made these relevant documents legitimately can be withheld from the public, but once a decision has been made the public, including members of the Legislature, are entitled to have access to those documents to come to their own assessment as to the wisdom of the government’s decision.

Even more important, I think, is exemption No. 9: Documents relating to a policy decision under consideration but not yet finalized.

How many times in this House have we heard somebody in the front benches on the other side say: “That’s an inter-departmental memo;” or “This was a document prepared for the advice of the minister and therefore it cannot be made public.” The interpretation here is that if the government has not made a decision with regard to that policy, fair enough, it should withhold from the public all of the advice it had. But once it has made a decision, once again, the public are entitled to have those documents. That kind of an approach has been operative in the public information acts in Sweden.

Most of the rest of them, I would suggest, I have no particular qualms about. Documents, the release of which would be detrimental to the security of Canada; who can quarrel with that? Documents dealing with international relations, the release of which might be detrimental to the future conduct of Canada’s foreign relations. Maybe that doesn’t have too much application to Ontario; conceivably it can on certain occasions.

Documents, the release of which would be detrimental to the future conduct of federal-provincial relations or the provinces one with another. I have some modicum of doubt about that one. As a matter of fact, let me cite an example to members. I tried for years to get John Robarts to table the five reports of the task force which he appointed the day the B and B report came out calling for implementation of their recommendations in the Province of Ontario in five different areas: the Legislature, the courts, municipal affairs, statutes and so on. I was never able to get those task force reports for reasons which I still think are not only mystifying but indefensible. If public money was spent to implement a document which was going to become a national blueprint for dealing with bilingualism and biculturalism in Canada, and Ontario had made a study as to what it could or shouldn’t do in the Province of Ontario, surely the Legislature was entitled to have the benefits of those studies?

Documents, the release of which would result in direct personal financial gain or loss by a person or group of persons. Again, fair enough. Documents reflecting on the personal competence or character of an individual. Normally I would say fair enough. I can think of the odd occasion when inevitably documents which reflected on the competence of individuals came out; sometimes the government was the one most anxious to get them out. Perhaps I will leave the illustrations for the imagination of members.

Documents, the release of which would be personally embarrassing to Her Majesty or the royal family. Again, no argument.

Documents that are excluded from disclosure by the statutes. Now we come to the approach of the government. If this kind of legislation were passed in this Legislature and the government’s will to implement it were strong, I don’t think there would be any games played by putting unnecessary clauses in statutes to say that documents shouldn’t be made public. On the other hand that might be a back-door loophole, so to speak, for frustrating the revelation of legitimate information.

Any matter which may be exempted by the regulations. One rather thoughtful person who has taken a look at this bill is quite worried about that. He thinks that might well be the kind of moves a government would resort to; simply pass a regulation and suddenly the whole purpose of this legislation could be frustrated in any given instance.

I repeat: These are a result of considerable thought by legislative counsel, by myself, by some of my colleagues and by people outside the House. But I’m being quite frank in stating to you, Mr. Speaker, that I am not absolutely certain whether I agree with all of them. This is the real problem in this kind of a bill, and I trust that the government will give some thought to it, at least in terms of a start.

Two final points: One, if you have a list of exemptions, hopefully accepted generally by everybody in government and in the public, how are you going to cope with appeals if at any time the government, for one reason or another, says that a certain exemption applies to an application for a specific document? There are two procedures for this, Mr. Speaker, and this bill opts for one. I will draw to your attention its merits and its demerits.

What I have opted for in the bill is that we should then call into the picture our newly appointed Ombudsman, personally because he is universally acclaimed as a person who is likely to do a pretty good job in that field, and even more important, because this is the approach in Sweden, which has had the longest experience. There, if a citizen goes to a certain department and asks for a document, and the department uses one or another exemptions as an excuse for not giving it, the citizen then goes to the Ombudsman, who examines the circumstances and makes a public statement. Presumably his public statement will have a great deal of moral suasion; and if he says the department is not acting as it should, that the citizen is entitled to that information hopefully the department will respond. But I don’t think there’s any legal obligation for them to respond.

In contrast to that kind of approach, in the United States you appeal to the courts under the law that I referred to earlier, passed under President Johnson. You appeal to the courts and the courts come to a decision as to whether the refusal to make the document available is a valid one. And if they don’t think it is valid, they issue an order and it must be obeyed.

In one sense that’s better, because at least there’s something final about it. There’s going to be no opportunity for playing games and not responding to the moral suasion of the Ombudsman’s adverse report. On the other hand, I think it’s more cumbersome and conceivably it will be costly. But I again have placed the merits and demerits of these two approaches.

My final comment before I sit down, Mr. Speaker, is that much as I would like to see this legislation passed immediately -- indeed I feel it should have been passed five or 10 years ago, if not 25 years ago -- my purpose in introducing the bill this year, because I know it can’t be passed since we don’t have votes on private bills, is to initiate a public discussion or at least a discussion among members of this House. Hopefully representatives of the media and other individuals in organizations and in the public, will begin to discuss this.

I am convinced that what the government has got to have -- and when I say government I don’t necessarily mean this government particularly; I mean any government -- is protection against itself. The instinctive reaction of a person who’s presiding over a ministry or who may become the focal point of criticism is to withhold the information so that criticism and the attack cannot be made.

In a democracy, as was spelled out in the comments I quoted from the Premier and from Lyndon Johnson, the public is entitled to that information. As far as the statute is concerned, there should be a bar to the minister, the elected representative, or the civil servant, assuming that this public business is his private property and his private decision as to whether the public should learn anything about it. I think we would all be the better for it; democracy would be a healthier and a more thriving kind of process if that were the case. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Peel South.

Mr. R. D. Kennedy (Peel South): Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate for a few minutes in the discussion of this very interesting bill. I think the member who sponsored it stated himself it wasn’t the most dominant issue before the Legislature, yet it is important. I haven’t been aware of any particular suppression of information, if that’s the right term, but I suppose it does flare up now and then.

Mr. M. Cassidy (Ottawa Centre): It sure does!

Mr. Kennedy: By and large, I favour very much the availability of information and the free movement of documents; their accessibility and this type of thing.

My experience in municipal life was that there were really only two areas where we had any great concern. One was -- as the member has mentioned in one instance; in both, I guess -- where it might reflect on an individual’s status. For instance, something that would be detrimental to him and of no benefit to the public.

The other area used to be in land negotiations, where the public body was negotiating for land. That was done in some confidence, because it was in the public interest that it be so.

By and large, though, I go along with the member’s intentions in this. We could quibble and do a little nit-picking on the exemptions, starting with section 1, the definition of a document, including any opinion. I wonder how far this takes us into the grey area where there are letters from individuals. Would this be deemed to be a document, an official document? I would think not, yet it would tie in to that area as part of the total package. For instance, a letter from an individual, perhaps on a personal matter or his relationship with a department, letters such as we all get. It seems to me this is a document that is between the individual and the member, rather than falling into the category described here.

In exemption 4 under section 3, there is reference to federal-provincial relations; I suppose we could add municipal to that. I am not sure when such an occasion would be applicable. There are very few confidential documents that I am aware of between the levels of government; though I suppose in certain areas of security there are, and properly so.

Exemption 6 is the reference to documents reflecting on personal competence or character of an individual. Earlier, when we were discussing health estimates, we determined we wouldn’t want a bill that enabled someone to obtain certain health or medical records that would adversely affect an individual. In this respect, I suppose, it would have to be very carefully developed so that we wouldn’t find we had missed some section, unintentionally, so that a person could find they had that right to find out certain things they shouldn’t find out.

If anything, I would suggest the member’s bill goes the other way in being very liberal -- small “l” liberal. For instance, in 9; as the member mentioned, documents relating to policy decisions; quite right, that’s very important as policy is being developed.

I presume there comes a time when the crunch comes and the people in charge have to make a decision. Input is one thing, but I believe, by and large, policy is being developed on a very reasonable basis, with adequate public input or at least adequate awareness of the public position before this decision is finally taken.

Mr. Cassidy: The member is saying it would be wrong for the people to be involved.

Mr. Kennedy: No, I am not; I am saying just the opposite. But I think, too, there would have to be some provisions to cover frivolous requests. It’s probably an expensive process. If there are 30,000 demonstrators out front and everyone wants to see a copy of some document, obviously there has to be reasonableness.

I wanted to make those few comments. There is another thing that happens with staff reports that are generated. In the public mind they become government policy. I don’t say that only of this government, it happens at all levels. In the final analysis there is nothing wrong with that except it can excite people and create some upset until it’s clarified and put into its proper perspective.

With those few remarks, if a bill were to come forward from the government in this regard, I would certainly not feel any reason not to support it.

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

Mr. P. Taylor (Carleton East): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would first like to commend the hon. member for York South for introducing what I think is a good bill. I think there is an old expression that goes something like: “What we don’t know won’t hurt us.” I think in this context it could be aptly rephrased: “What we don’t know won’t help us.” I speak as a member of a party that fully expects to be in charge of these so-called secret documents before the end of the year, and I would like to think that --

Mr. P. D. Lawlor (Lakeshore): Dispense with the propaganda.

Mr. P. Taylor: -- we would reach new levels of disclosure as the government in Ontario. I find it very interesting that just last week that incredible and extraordinary American, Ralph Nader, was in Ottawa, and he made the statement: “There is altogether too much secrecy in Ottawa”.

An hon. member: That could apply here too.

Mr. R. G. Hodgson (Victoria-Haliburton): He should stay home.

Mr. P. Taylor: He referred to the Official Secrets Act: “The Official Secrets Act, which gives governments the power to decide what information shall be made public, was one of the worst inheritances that you” -- meaning Canadians -- “ever derived from Great Britain.” I think he certainly has a point there.

I speak to you also today, Mr. Speaker, as one who has spent a great number of years on Parliament Hill as a member of the parliamentary press gallery. I can tell long tales about the ridiculous extremes to which the public service, and particularly the political arm of the government, go in order to keep documents out of the hands of the media and the public and the politicians on the other side of the House. This is still going on, there is no doubt about it, despite the fact the present Prime Minister of Canada came to office in early 1968 proclaiming a great interest in participatory democracy and greater access to information. I think what he has found is that disclosure is a lot like motherhood; we all support it but we are not all able to provide it.

I think my colleague, the member for Windsor-Walkerville (Mr. B. Newman) made a very interesting observation a few moments ago when we were discussing this bill. He observed that reporters probably have greater access to public information than do members of parliaments. There is a very simple reason for that; it’s the element of fear. The people holding the information, when approached by a reporter, are more likely to give it to a reporter than just any member of the public or any member of a political party, because they fear what that reporter will do if he doesn’t get it from that particular source. I think Bill 97, as printed and as described by the hon. member for York South, is very interesting. I empathize very much with the hon. member for York South when he, in effect, apologizes for all the exemptions -- 13 of them altogether. I would like to think that documents relating to property transactions, personnel matters in the public service and virtually any documents with respect to pending decisions would be classified as not available to those outside the public service. But once those matters had been dealt with, and perhaps in the case of a personnel matter it might be after that person has left the public service, they should certainly be made available a lot sooner than they are.

There is a federal statute, and I’m not sure what it is called, that deals with state documents. They become available through the national library and public archives, I think 30 years after the period they are related to. I’ve asked the Clerk if such a statute exists in Ontario but his staff weren’t able to give me an immediate reply. I would like to think there is something along that line; at least it would be a step in the right direction.

What we’re dealing with here is not so much related to deputy ministers, assistant deputy ministers and middle-level management, but to a very large extent we’re dealing with the people called information officers of the various government ministries. A lot of my former journalistic colleagues are information officers in other jurisdictions. I don’t want to be unkind, but I think they are caught up in a system which amounts to calling them officers of non-information. In many cases, their jobs amount to advising ministries and ministers on how to conceal information, how to keep the lid on in a sense and how to enhance the reputation and image of the ministry.

I think this bill is very relevant because of a number of recent events. Just about the time I became a member, the Provincial Secretary for Social Development (Mrs. Birch) was acting on a study she had commissioned on day care. That study resulted in her sending out new regulations with respect to the operation of daycare centres. Those regulations became very controversial in a very short period of time. But to this day, this Legislature, the daycare people all over Ontario and the public of Ontario do not know what that study said -- and do not know the rationale behind the new regulations that were put into effect and which have caused this government nothing but trouble.

Why, for instance, are the minutes of the meeting of the board of directors of the Ontario Housing Corp. not made public? Again, those minutes may pertain to transactions. Well, delete those portions of the minutes that relate to transactions. But what discussions take place among the members of the board of the Ontario Housing Corp. with respect to policy and how do they arrive at the decisions they’ve been making in recent years? The Minister of Housing (Mr. Irvine) consistently refuses to provide any explanation for some of the outrageous land transactions that have taken place.

The same, to perhaps a lesser extent, can be said about the meetings of the board of directors of the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission and all the other hundreds -- I dare say there may be thousands -- of boards and commissions all across Ontario. There has been proliferation of these in recent years and all it means is there is a proliferation of secrecy.

The former Deputy Minister of Education, Dr. McCarthy, was assigned to a study of education costs in 1971. He submitted his final report months ago. I wonder if we will ever see that one, because we certainly would like to know more about education costs, the rationale behind them and the decisions being made.

I would just like to wind up this discussion today by pointing out that Ontario is Canada’s second largest government and it’s in a position to show some real leadership in this area. I am very much aware how difficult it would be for this particular government to show leadership in this area because it has so much to hide.

What we are really talking about, with respect to Bill 97, is a measure to improve public understanding of our actions and our decisions, because the actions of this Legislature and the decisions of this Legislature are based on the information this government chooses to make available to us. As a new member here, I have no hesitation in saying that the amount and quality of information we are given in this House is in many ways reflected in the kind of legislation and in the kind of procedures which govern this House.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The member’s time has expired.

Mr. P. Taylor: Mr. Speaker, I would like to wind up by saying I found it very interesting that the member for Peel South, speaking for the government, was in support of this bill.

Mr. D. M. Deacon (York Centre): Cautiously.

Mr. P. Taylor: Cautiously in support of the bill. I really wish there had been a minister here today --

Mr. Kennedy: Don’t put words in my part of Hansard.

Mr. P. Taylor: I really wish there was a minister here today to justify why the government needs to be so secretive. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Riverdale.

Mr. J. A. Renwick (Riverdale): Mr. Speaker, I rise, of course, to support Bill 97 introduced by my colleague, the member for York South. I want to try, in the brief time available to me, to see whether or not it is possible to provide some assistance for public discussion of the very need we have for such a bill and to see if I can, in scene way, shed some light on the problems involved in stating the general principle as it is stated in section 2 of the bill -- that all documents will be made available subject to the exceptions. I am worried about the exemptions because it may well be there is very little left of the general principle when we give such a lengthy list of exemptions. My colleague, the member for York South, has stated that he recognizes and realizes this is the nub of the problems which relate to the bill; and indeed on the other hand is the reason he introduced it, in order that it might very well promote some public debate.

Let me very briefly, perhaps from a constitutional sense, perhaps from a legal sense, endeavour on my part to shed some light on what the distinguishing characteristic must be if we are to have such a bill and I will refer to four or five propositions which I jotted down, with which I don’t think anyone in the Legislature would disagree. Then I will deal with what the courts in England have said in cases of private litigation when the executive branch of the government has stated it will not provide the disclosure of particular public documents.

The five propositions I want to put simply on the record are to show the line by which the executive authority of the government of the Province of Ontario is distinct from the executive authority under the constitution of the United States, I happen to believe that if we are going to find a satisfactory solution to this problem of the right of the public to know we must do so consistent with the tradition from which the majority of our institutions have been derived.

First, the Crown is the supreme executive authority in the state.

Two, all executive acts are done in the name of the Crown by virtue of the prerogative or by virtue of statutory powers conferred by the Crown; or are carried out by ministers of the Crown by virtue of statutory powers conferred upon them in their capacity as ministers.

Three, executive acts are concerned either with the administration of parliamentary enactments and the subordinate legislation made thereunder, or with the exercise of the discretionary authority which is placed in the hands of the Crown by virtue of the common law without any expressed parliamentary sanction or supervision.

Four, there is no act of the executive for which some officer or minister of the Crown is not responsible and for which he may not be liable either to punishment or to censure or loss of office.

The fifth is the decisions of the Crown in executive matters are made known by means of various documents such as orders in council, proclamations and other documents published either by virtue of the prerogative as the method of conveying to the public the decisions of the executive, or by reason of the requirements of certain statutes passed by the assembly which require such production.

Having said that, let me try, if I may, to deal with the two leading cases in the United Kingdom which attempted to come to grips with the problem in respect of private litigation, not only for the purpose of illustrating the kinds of concerns, but the course which the House of Lords in England took in dealing with those two cases.

It was significant that in some 25 years they made a substantial change to the law in England relating to the claim of privilege from disclosure of documents by ministers of the Crown in the one case and by a police tribunal, or a police commissioner body, in a second case.

The first case is the case of Duncan vs Cammell Laird and Co. Ltd., and it arose out of the sinking of the submarine Thetis in which a large number of men lost their lives. In litigation the first Lord of the Admiralty claimed privilege for certain documents relating to the construction of that submarine. The court at that time -- the House of Lords -- strangely enough said the judge could not see the documents. It was his decision to make, but he couldn’t see the documents and, therefore, in a very real sense he was bound by the privilege claimed by the First Lord of the Admiralty.

Let me quote, if I may, from some illuminating remarks which Lord Simon made at that time, not so much on that point about whether the judge should or should not see the documents, but as to the kind of consideration which should be taken into account. I quote from what Lord Simon said:

“The rule that the interest of the state must not be put in jeopardy by producing documents which would injure it is a principle to be observed in administering justice quite unconnected with the interest or claims of the particular parties in litigation and, indeed, is a rule upon which the judge should, if necessary, insist even though no objection is taken. Although an objection validly taken to production on the ground that this would be injurious to the public interest is conclusive, it is important to remember that the decision ruling out such documents is the decision of the judge.

“Thus in the present case the objection raised in the respondent’s affidavit is properly expressed to be an objection to produce, except under the order of this honourable court. It is the judge who is in control of the trial, not the executive, but the proper ruling for the judge to give is as above expressed.

“In this connection, I do not think it is out of place to indicate the sort of grounds which would not afford to the minister adequate justification for objecting to production.

“It is not a sufficient ground that the documents are state documents or official documents or are marked confidential. It would not be a good ground that if they were produced the consequences might involve the department or the government in parliamentary discussion or in public criticism or might necessitate the attendance as witnesses or otherwise of officials who have pressing duties elsewhere. Neither would it be a good ground that production might tend to expose a want of efficiency in the administration or tend to lay the department open to claims for compensation.

“In a word, it is not enough that the minister or the department does not want to have the documents produced. The minister, in deciding whether it is his duty to object, should bear these considerations in mind, for he ought not to take the responsibility of withholding production except in cases where the public interest would otherwise be damnified; for example, where disclosure would be injurious to national defence or to good diplomatic relations or where the practice of keeping a class of documents secret is necessary for the proper functioning of the public service.”

If I may pause at that point, because that’s the last part of the quotation I want to make --

Mr. Speaker: The member has 30 seconds left.

Mr. Renwick: I will not only pause, I will end my remarks at that point. I just wanted to complete the thought I was expressing at that time, which is that the fundamental criterion in the Province of Ontario, where we are not dealing with diplomatic relations, except on occasion, or with national defence, is the test that the practice of keeping a class of documents secret is necessary For the proper functioning of the public service. I would submit that should be the principle. I am sorry I haven’t got time to complete my remarks, but I never do have.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Scarborough Centre.

Mr. F. Drea (Scarborough Centre): Mr. Speaker, despite some concern by some other members here today about the quality, quantity and the extent or lack of extent of the exemptions, I am going to come down foursquare on the side of the author of this legislation.

I suppose I could devote some bit of time to the fact that I don’t really think had I been drafting such legislation I would have gone to the extent he did in the exemptions, but at this particular point that is a relatively minor matter. Of course if such a bill come to fruition in the future, some of those 13 exemptions may turn out to be rather major matters, at least for consideration.

Frankly, I believe there is a need for this. I don’t believe in the security of the state. I wouldn’t go so far as to question either the Official Secrets Act in Ottawa or indeed some of their other special statutes, because they do have particular problems that arise on a very sudden basis and because the federal government must deal with other governments on the basis of some very clearly understood ground flies; and some of those ground rules do include the fact there is an Official Secrets Act. I am rather afraid that moving in that direction might very well impede the international relations of this country.

However, when it comes to a provincial government I really don’t believe there is any need for security of state. First of all, I think it would have a very considerable impact upon the efficiency of the civil service were it known that every document and every memorandum that was sent might, provided there was a request, be released as a public document. I think that would accomplish two things. One, there would be far fewer of them written, which would be a saving for the taxpayer.

I think, and perhaps with his long years here the member for York South might follow my line of thought, that we are deluged with documents here every day; our offices are deluged with them. I have threatened upon occasion to bring a wheelbarrow in here just to tote in the daily toll and ask: “Was it really worth it?” Most of them are useless, silly, expensive and fulfil very little function except the gratification of the particular people who turn them out. In terms of either illuminating the public or being the basis for a record in the future they are absolutely useless. As a matter of fact, unless we are deliberately subsidizing to a massive extent the paper recycling industry of this province, there really is no reason for most of those reports at all.

Secondly, perhaps this is a little bit close to me because as a parliamentary assistant I am now faced with a deluge of interoffice memoranda, and so on, all marked “confidential,” all supposedly part of policy stimulus, policy development, policy foreclosure or what have you; I would suggest to you the authors of most of those memorandums are not only wasteful of paper as a resource, but are virtually bankrupt intellectually; the stuff is useless.

If a person were to be judged by the fact that the public could ask just what went into the development of a particular policy or of a particular programme, and these things were revealed to them, I think there would be a sudden lapse in the great avalanche of paper that seems to appear from all forms of consultants, task force devotees, people who prepare these silly things on the one pro and one con basis -- and if we look at the first pro it is the second con, and the first con is the second pro. I think it would have a very salutary effect, because if they could be released to the public the public could make a judgement as to the quality of the person who is preparing them; and also, quite frankly I think the public would give many of us on this side a great round of applause for disregarding most of it. I think it would be the equivalent of passing a very high IQ test.

On a more serious note, Mr. Speaker, the public has some very grave concerns these days, and I talk about government with a small “g.” They are concerned about the ability of their municipal government, through rezoning, through planning, through redevelopment, through a number of things to very directly affect their quality of life with the stroke of a pen.

When a man’s home can be taken away from him with a stroke of a pen, when his neighbourhood can be changed in such a way that it can never be reinstated back to what it was; then indeed the public should have the right of access to the information and to the documentation that went into preparing a decision that has such drastic impact upon them. In a great many cases this information isn’t available -- not because the bureaucracy wants to hide it, but more because the bureaucracy is unable to ever comprehend where one policy decision ends and where an ancillary one begins. Quite frequently the excuse is given: “Oh yes, I suppose we could release the information on how that decision was made, but unfortunately that same information is part of this decision, which is an ongoing one.” As long as we have that kind of system, there is very little stimulus to having clear-cut documentation as to why decisions are reached.

Secondly, at the provincial level and at the federal level, it may be true that we are out of the bedrooms of the nation, but we are certainly in every other room of the house. We are in almost every aspect of daily life. Again, although great steps are taken to prevent it -- and in some cases it is done with all the well-meaningness that an impersonal bureaucracy can achieve -- there are decisions that are made with a stroke of a pen that do affect people and affect them quite drastically; not just in terms of their quality of life, but on terms of their occupation or of the type of endeavours they might want to be in and so on and so forth. Again, this type of information should be available.

It strikes me as rather paradoxical, however, that the member for Carleton East would talk about this government wanting to hide anything. I can tell him that in this ministry there is no such thing as an information officer who wants to conceal. I can say, quite categorically and without any fear of contradiction, that this has not been the policy in my time in the Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations. As a matter of fact, I can go much further, I can say that has not, either consciously or unconsciously, been present in the entire justice policy field, which takes in, as we know, the Attorney General, the Solicitor General, correctional institutions and the provincial secretary, as well as the Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations.

I also find it quite paradoxical that the official apologist of the Liberal Party secrecy, who is the member for Carleton East -- he is the author of the immortal quote: “We have lots of policies. We are not yet sure how many apply to Ontario.” -- is the one who is saying this government has something to hide. I also find it rather intriguing that on the basis of the Liberal Party’s official position that the public will find out in the fullness of time, if they ever need to know, they -- in their half-hearted and usual listless manner -- are pointing a finger at this government as somehow, over the years, managing to hide anything.

Mr. Speaker, I have given, I think, a number of reasons why I support the principle of this bill and I think this is all the member is asking for today. I would point out, too, as somebody who was around the communications industry a long time, and as someone who did deal with this government, that I was never refused the documentation or anything else I asked for, if it was a very reasonable request.

I think it is a valid observation that it is the substantial growth of government in the last decade that has led to a great many of the fears about the suppression of information. Whether those fears are real or imagined, to me makes very little difference. I think legislation like this would clear the record and reassure the public about the function and the day-to-day nature of government. I think it would have a very salutary impact upon our style.

Mr. Speaker: Order please. The hon. member’s time has expired.

Mr. Drea: Thirty more seconds, Mr. Speaker. The last thing that I wanted to say was that I would hope the member would bring in a balancing statute, one that would provide for very harsh penalties for those who would defy the confidentiality of government documents. There are those which shouldn’t be released. There are those people who have peddled documents -- either for partisan or for money reasons -- to people who shouldn’t see them.

I would hope there would be a statute coming in that would provide up to two years of imprisonment, plus a mandatory disclosure of how the documents were obtained. I think that these two things go hand in hand if we are to have an open society when it comes to government. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Huron-Bruce.

Mr. M. Gaunt (Huron-Bruce): Mr. Speaker, the need for this particular legislation I think is obvious. It has been outlined in some detail by the member for York South and has been supported by other members who have spoken so far in this particular debate.

The fact that this kind of legislation works effectively in countries like Sweden and the United States, the latter having had this kind of legislation since 1966, I think is an indication that those jurisdictions met the need for an openness and a candour in their system -- which we don’t have here and which I think we should have.

I understand the legislation in the United States is such that the coasts can rule that information not vital to the nation’s security must be available to anyone requesting it. That seems to be the only caveat in their legislation. Anything that has to do with their national security cannot be released to the general public or to people requesting it, and for obvious reasons. Certainly that is one area where this kind of information should be properly withheld.

I have some qualms about two particular exemptions. The member for York South dealt with them and other members made reference to them. But with exemptions 10 and 13, I must say personally I would certainly take those two out. I feel those particular exemptions could be used to violate the intent of the Act. I think everything would turn on the commitment of the government to this kind of legislation. In fact, if the government didn’t have a very enthusiastic commitment for this kind of legislation, they could really use the two exemptions to which I made reference to completely violate the intent and the thrust of the entire Act. Documents that are excluded from disclosure by statute and any matter which may be exempted by regulations, I feel should come out of what I consider to be a very good bill.

There is no reason in my mind, Mr. Speaker, why the minutes of meetings of the Ontario Northland Railway Commission, the Ontario Housing Corp., the Liquor Licence Board, the Liquor Control Board, the Ontario crop commission -- the myriad boards and commissions that we have -- there is no reason why those minutes couldn’t be made public on request.

Under the terms of this legislation they would be made public on request. I think it would have saved the government some embarrassment and redounded to the benefit of all had this legislation been in place when the Ontario Housing Corp. was undertaking and finalizing some of its deals. They have come back to haunt them in recent weeks, those deals that certainly in our view were not in the best interests of the public and of this government.

Mr. Deacon: They certainly weren’t.

Mr. Gaunt: In short, I think that all members, if they stop to think about it, would support this kind of legislation. In view of the fact government members have indicated that support, I would suggest that next session round, if the government is still of the same mind --

Hon. E. A. Winkler (Chairman, Management Board of Cabinet): We will be, we will; don’t worry.

Mr. Gaunt: -- it will implement this kind of legislation.

Mr. MacDonald: They will? Assuming they are elected, they will.

Mr. Speaker: This order of business is discharged from the paper.

Clerk of the House: The 21st order, House in committee of supply.

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