Legislative Assembly of Ontario

The House met at 2 o’clock, p.m.

Prayers.

Mr. T. P. Reid (Rainy River): Mr. Speaker, I would ask you and the other members to join with me in welcoming some 80 students from St. Mary’s School in Fort Frances, Ont., under the direction of their teacher, Mr. Joseph Myslicki, and two chaperons. They have come some 1,200 miles to attend the Legislature, amongst other things. I would ask you and the members to join me in welcoming them here. They are in the east gallery.

Hon. J. R. Rhodes (Minister of Transportation and Communications): Mr. Speaker, I would ask you and members of the Legislature to join with me in welcoming a group of students from Holy Family Separate School in Sault Ste. Marie, under the direction of Mr. Steve Butland, who are here as a result of the Young Travellers programme in Ontario and visiting our Legislature.

Mr. Speaker: Statements by the ministry. The hon. Minister of Agriculture and Food.

INTERPROVINCIAL SALE OF MEAT

Hon. W. A. Stewart (Minister of Agriculture and Food): Mr. Speaker, yesterday in Ottawa I discussed with the Minister of Agriculture for Quebec, the Hon. Normand Toupin, the exchange of information on the interprovincial movement of meat from licensed dead animal receiving plants and dead animal meat brokers in Ontario and Quebec.

The Quebec government is drafting new regulations relative to dead or incurable animals and meat inspection which become effective June 15 of this year. These new regulations are being forwarded to my office for information, for review and for comment. Both provinces will submit the names of companies or individuals handling meat from dead animals, the volume, the buyers of the meat, the carriers involved and the dates of shipments which have crossed provincial boundaries. This mutual exchange of information will assist investigators in both provinces to monitor the flow of meat from one province to another.

I understand that the Quebec Minister of Agriculture is making a similar announcement in the Quebec legislature this afternoon.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Minister of Education.

METRO TORONTO SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHERS’ NEGOTIATIONS

Hon. T. L. Wells (Minister of Education): Mr. Speaker, I would like to inform the House that this afternoon, at the request of both parties, I have appointed Mr. Stanley H. Hartt of Montreal, a lawyer and mediator, to assist in the salary negotiations between the Metropolitan Toronto school boards and their secondary school teachers.

ASBESTOS FIBRE TESTING IN LAKE SUPERIOR

Hon. W. Newman (Minister of the Environment): Mr. Speaker, during recent weeks considerable public interest and concern has been expressed regarding asbestos levels found in Lake Superior water, particularly in the Thunder Bay area.

The most recent expression of concern occurred last Sunday night during the telecast of the W5 programme on the CTV television network. This special programme dealt with pollution across Canada and specifically with the quality of our Great Lakes water.

Although the programme was complimentary to the Ontario Ministry of Environment, to Environment Canada, and to our joint achievements in monitoring and improving water quality in the Great Lakes, certain allegations were made pertinent to steps the provincial government is taking to determine the asbestos fibre content in Lake Superior water.

Although current medical research has produced no evidence that the ingestion of asbestos in water presents a hazard to health --

Mr. M. Shulman (High Park): That isn’t true and the minister knows it. That just isn’t so.

Hon. W. Newman: -- my ministry has proceeded with comprehensive testing programmes to determine what the asbestos content is in our water supplies and how best to remove those fibres from our water prior to consumption.

However, there has been a noted variance in the asbestos fibre counts produced by several laboratories. This has caused some confusion, with the result that concern has been expressed in various quarters about the reliability of such counts. On the W5 programme on Sunday night, similar concern was expressed and statements made, which I would like to discuss today.

Dr. R. A. Ross, dean of science at Lakehead University, was interviewed on the programme and questioned the motives of my ministry.

Mr. Shulman: With reason.

Hon. N. Newman: He said that a fibre count carried out by his laboratory was 150 times greater than a similar count carried out by the Ontario Research Foundation on behalf of my ministry. He further stated that my ministry had failed to provide any financial assistance to Lakehead University in order that his laboratory could continue its water-testing programme.

Although Dr. Ross’s statement regarding the discrepancy in test results is essentially accurate, his assertion that my ministry has not offered financial assistance to Lakehead University to support the university’s water-testing programme is totally untrue.

The Ontario Research Foundation has been conducting tests on Lake Superior water to determine asbestos fibre counts on behalf of my ministry. Results of tests taken several week ago conflict with tests taken independently by Lakehead University.

Mr. J. F. Foulds (Port Arthur): And by McMaster University.

Hon. W. Newman: In order to determine the reason for this discrepancy, and to obtain accurate data in future, my ministry asked four Ontario laboratories -- McMaster University, the Canada Centre for Inland Waters, the Ontario Research Foundation and Lakehead University -- to form a scientific consortium for the purpose of taking counts of asbestos fibres in Lake Superior, and especially in the Thunder Bay area.

On May 22, 1975, Dr. Ross wrote to my ministry expressing disappointment because he would be unable to participate in testing to be undertaken by this consortium due to the fact, as he explained, that he plans a sabbatical and will be out of the country until next summer. I should add that prior to receiving Dr. Ross’s letter, my ministry granted $10,416 to Lakehead University in order to fund its research into asbestos in water.

In his letter, Dr. Ross asked that while Lakehead University would have to opt out of the test programme we permit these funds which we had granted for asbestos research to be used for another programme at Lakehead University. This grant was made prior to the formation of the consortium of laboratories.

These facts are not precisely consistent with the position taken by Dr. Ross in his criticism of my ministry on the W5 TV show on Sunday.

The three remaining laboratories are conducting tests, and I must report that the resultant data of the initial tests has failed to clear up the earlier obvious discrepancy. The results show a wide variance still exists in the count and that a further test programme must be carried out. Both the Canadian Centre for Inland Waters and Ontario Research Foundation laboratories found relatively lower levels of from 0.01 to 1.0 million fibres per litre, with McMaster University reporting comparatively higher results of from 6.5 to 29 million fibres per litre.

A second phase of this study is now under way which should reveal the reason for such a wide variance in results. This includes the exchange of electron microscope grids between the participating laboratories to check on the fibre identification technique of the individual analysts. A distinct possibility exists that some laboratories are counting particles which are not asbestos. The results of this second phase should be made available to this House within three to four weeks, at which time I shall report to members.

Beyond this, the test programme now under way by the scientific consortium will provide fruitful research on the difficult task of counting asbestos fibres accurately, which will be applied to tests of this type everywhere.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, I again invite Dr. Ross and Lakehead University to participate in this research programme and to become a member of the consortium.

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

ASBESTOS FIBRE TESTING IN LAKE SUPERIOR

Mr. R. F. Nixon (Leader of the Opposition): Further to the statement just given to us by the Minister of the Environment, can he tell the House if, in spite of this programme for a consortium to determine the asbestos pollution in the waters of Lake Superior, any plans are under way to assist the Thunder Bay area to establish a proper filtration plant for the north end of the city?

Hon. W. Newman: Mr. Speaker, there are two routes that a municipality can go. They can either go their own route to build a filtration plant or they can ask the Ministry of the Environment to build one. Either route can be followed. At this point in time, the city has a consulting engineering firm working on it and is doing it on its own.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Supplementary: Will the minister agree that whatever the results he finally comes up with as far as this pollution is concerned, everyone is concerned about the appearance of asbestos fibres in the waters and that a filtration plant is obviously going to be the only answer as far as we are concerned?

Hon. W. Newman: Mr. Speaker, I think the municipality is working on it now and our people are working with the municipality to discuss various aspects of it.

Mr. Foulds: Supplementary: Has the minister given any consideration to a solution to the difficulty that he outlines -- that is the discrepancy in testing -- similar to the solution devised by pollution control agencies in the United States, in Duluth, where they have each sample tested by five different laboratories and take the mean as the figure to evaluate the danger on a particular day? Doesn’t that seem to the minister to be a sensible way to proceed in view of the fact there is controversy in the academic and scientific community about the counting anyway?

Hon. W. Newman: Mr. Speaker, when the scientists can’t agree, it’s very difficult for me to say how they should agree. Let me say that in the next set of tests, when the water sample has been taken the slides that are set up by each laboratory will be transferred from one laboratory to another for counting purposes. When ORF gets finished its count, ORF slides will go to McMaster and McMaster slides will go to ORF; and the same with the Canadian Centre for Inland Waters.

Mr. Foulds: Supplementary: Isn’t it true that the discrepancy does not arise simply because of the counting of the number of the slides but because of the three different scientific methods of preparing the sample? Isn’t that one reason for the discrepancy? Secondly, in reference to the minister’s statement, isn’t it true that in the Centre for Inland Waters’ report to the Great Lakes water levels board of the International Joint Commission it clearly indicated there is scientific evidence that ingested asbestos causes cancer in rats and baboons?

Mr. Shulman: And in humans.

Mr. Foulds: Isn’t it logical to assume that with that evidence, there is grave danger to the health of human beings?

Hon. W. Newman: Mr. Speaker, the member would have to ask the Minister of Health (Mr. Miller) about part of that question. As far as we’re concerned in the Ministry of the Environment, we have been working very closely with the city of Thunder Bay. As far as the counts are concerned, it is of great concern to us also; but when the scientific community can’t agree it’s very difficult for me to speculate on exactly what the problem is. There is some question raised about the counting, whether they are counting asbestos fibres or other particulate matter on the slides, thus the interchange of slides has been arranged.

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

Mr. Shulman: Isn’t it really a complete irrelevance as to which one is giving the correct count? Should the ministry not stop wasting its energy in this area and instead put its energy into putting in a proper filtration system? Even if the lowest count is accurate, what difference does it make?

Hon. W. Newman: Mr. Speaker, we have included all four reports in our considerations, as I have said. Generally speaking, most reports we have have indicated the ingestion of asbestos fibres is not a major health problem. All I can say is that the city of Thunder Bay at this point in time has consultants with whom they are working.

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

Mr. Foulds: Supplementary?

Mr. Speaker: The member has had about three or four supplementaries at least. Perhaps you could work it into a new question later. The Leader of the Opposition.

UNEMPLOYMENT

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I would like to put a question to the Premier, Mr. Speaker, having to do with the recently announced Statistics Canada information regarding the unemployment levels.

Has he consulted with his colleagues or is he prepared to make any statement to the Legislature, based on the rather disappointing performance of Ontario, indicating that our unemployment figure is up again this month -- it is now at 6.3 per cent -- while it has gone down across Canada and has remained fairly static, for example in Quebec and BC? In view of the fact that our unemployment level is now as high as at any time since 1960, is there some programme that can be more effective than what has been done to reverse this trend in this period of time when our position should be improving and not deteriorating?

Hon. W. G. Davis (Premier): Mr. Speaker, we are conscious of this and keeping a very careful eye on it. As I explained to the Leader of the Opposition, and I believe the leader of the New Democrats, part of that percentage does relate to the automotive industry, which is still in some difficulty because of the market in the United States. We anticipate that the federal budget will have some relevance for the Province of Ontario and we are eagerly looking forward to that at this moment. We are keeping a very careful eye on it, and if there are further suggestions to make they will be announced here in the House.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Supplementary: Since the Treasurer (Mr. McKeough) predicted at the time of his budget there would be, if not an economic resurgence, a recovery in the latter segment of 1975, is there any new thinking on the part of the economists or those people who are concerned on a professional basis and are advising the government in this connection?

Hon. Mr. Davis: I think, Mr. Speaker, that question should be referred to the Treasurer.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I would like to do so, with your permission, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. I. Deans (Wentworth): May I ask a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker?

Mr. Speaker: The member for Wentworth with a supplementary question first.

Mr. Deans: Could the Premier identify for the House one single programme brought in by this government that has produced new jobs in the Province of Ontario and that was aimed specifically at trying to reduce what we all recognize as a spiralling unemployment rate?

Mr. Shulman: He hired 100 people in his office.

Hon. Mr. Davis: No, they’re down. I would say, Mr. Speaker, I can’t. The Treasurer might be able to.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: The Premier looked after Judy and several others at $250 a day.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I know the Leader of the Opposition is still upset about that.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: What about the helicopter pilots used for that picnic excursion?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Listen, the Leader of the Opposition provided some employment last Saturday. Has he got his farm cleaned up yet?

Mr. R. F. Ruston (Essex-Kent): We sold 12,000 hot dogs.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Does he want us all to go and clean up the farm for him?

Mr. Speaker: Order. Let’s get on with the question period.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: I didn’t see the lips of the member for Carleton East bruised in the kissing booth.

Mr. P. Taylor (Carleton East): On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Point of order.

Mr. R. G. Eaton (Middlesex South): Give him a kiss.

Mr. P. Taylor: Jealousy will get the Premier nowhere. I asked the Premier to tell this House how many times he was kissed last weekend.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Kiss me, I’m a Liberal; oh boy.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Is the answer to the member’s question completed?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Kiss me, I’m a Liberal.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I have to say this, Mr. Speaker, it’s really the best part of their platform so far. There’s no question about that, no question whatsoever.

Mr. R. Gisborn (Hamilton East): Kissing is the name of the game.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I have to say this, because the member for Carleton East really thought I had made those remarks about being in the booth or something. I have to say to the member, Mr. Speaker, I couldn’t even picture him in the booth, let alone make any remarks about him.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. P. Taylor: Jealousy will get the Premier nowhere.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Listen, I have no such problems.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: He doesn’t need to, I can tell him that.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I don’t even try.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Meanwhile, back to the question period.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Yes, back to the question period.

Hon. A. Grossman (Provincial Secretary for Resources Development): The endurance of the Liberal Party.

Mr. J. E. Stokes (Thunder Bay): The question came from over there.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I would think I might give, as it relates to one programme in particular, some personal thoughts which would relate to the first-time buyer grant for housing. I don’t think there is any question that this has stimulated the housing market. I don’t think there is any question that with the housing market stimulated, there are more people building houses.

To give specific numbers I would have to leave that to the Treasurer or the Minister of Revenue (Mr. Meen).

Mr. Shulman: That isn’t so.

Mr. Speaker: Further questions, the Leader of the Opposition?

Mr. Deans: A supplementary question: Since the minister chose to use as an example the $1,500 first-time homeowner grant --

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Just $1,000 will be given --

Mr. Deans: -- could he explain why there is yet a decrease in the numbers of housing starts this month over the same month last year?

Mr. Shulman: That is a Conservative increase.

An hon. member: The government gives it away and they are still not buying.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I think that should be properly directed to the Minister of Housing (Mr. Irvine).

Mr. D. C. MacDonald (York South): To anyone but the Premier.

Mr. Ruston: If he doesn’t know the answers, he gives the questions to someone else.

Mr. M. Cassidy (Ottawa Centre): He wants the credit but he wants them to take the blame.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I would say this whether there is a decrease or not, the fact remains more houses are moving because of that particular grant. There is no question this is stimulating the industry; none whatsoever.

Mr. MacDonald: They are being shuffled around.

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

Hon. W. D. McKeough (Treasurer, Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): Mr. Speaker, I might reply to the question which was asked by the Leader of the Opposition, who asked what are the current beliefs of the economists.

Mr. Speaker: I think it was being referred to the minister anyway.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: I would say on balance it has not changed all that much since early April or for that matter since March.

I think there are certain indications that certain segments of the North American economy are stronger than some people anticipated. When Secretary Simon was here several weeks ago he indicated in a speech downtown and in conversations with the Premier and myself that his economists and his people, Mr. Greenspan, were of the opinion that the American economy had, in fact, bottomed and that there would be a substantial upturn in the third quarter of the year, as opposed to the fourth quarter of the year. I think there are some indications that is taking place.

As I say, on balance I would say the picture is about the same as it was at the time of the budget. There are some encouraging signs which would lead one to believe the recovery or the upturn may come sooner; and there are some signs to the contrary. I think, expressing an opinion, the recovery to full employment, whatever the definition of that may be at this point in time, may take somewhat longer. I would still be very much of the view that we can look forward to a good second half and a substantial recovery during the third quarter.

I do not say this in a partisan way, but there is no question that some of the stimulation which was given in our budget -- and we said this at the time -- has been reduced somewhat by the uncertainty over Mr. Turner’s budget, which is now expected in two weeks’ time.

As members will recall, originally he was to bring down a budget before the end of May and the Premier urged him to do so quickly. There is uncertainty, and there has been uncertainty since he announced there would be a budget. I think this is having an effect on certain parts of the economy.

Mr. J. E. Bullbrook (Sarnia): He’s trying to repair the damage the minister’s Ontario budget did.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Mr. Turner announced a budget coincident with recognizing that the economy needed stimulation.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Bullbrook: If it is a question of shouting, I can outshout the minister.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: All right.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Mr. Turner did more than anyone to undercut the feeble criticism of the Liberal critics and their leaders, and they are still smarting. Why didn’t the Liberal leader invite him to the picnic? He didn’t dare come to the picnic.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: It was a great success. The Treasurer should have been there.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Can we get on with the proper question period?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: I would say to the member for Wentworth that I would agree completely with what the Premier has said --

Mr. R. F. Nixon: That’s strange.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: -- in terms of stimulation brought about in the budget by the homeowner grants. There has been a substantial reduction in housing inventory --

Mrs. M. Campbell (St. George): Yes, sir!

Hon. Mr. McKeough: It is pretty basic economics that when inventories are high, we are not going to have starts; we are not going to have acceleration in the automobile industry, in the parts industry and the durables industry.

What has happened since the budget, and not just coincident with the budget, is that there has been a substantial decline in inventories both of unsold housing and of certain consumer durables, and to some extent in the automobile industry; and as inventories drop, undoubtedly production will come back on stream in all segments of the economy. But there bad to be a substantial reduction in inventories, both in the United States and Canada, before we could see a real stimulus to production.

The route we chose -- the member says: “Show us how many jobs have been created by this programme or that programme” --

Mr. Deans: Any programme!

Hon. Mr. McKeough: I want to make it very clear that the philosophy of this party, is that we believe in leaving money in the hands of the people to stimulate the economy and not in going out on some socialist binge of spending money on make-work projects.

Mr. E. J. Bounsall (Windsor West): But the government doesn’t believe in making money available for the hands of the people.

Mr. P. D. Lawlor (Lakeshore): What people?

Mr. Cassidy: What is this?

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: We reject that approach. It won’t work and you know it won’t work!

Mr. G. Nixon (Dovercourt): Fair enough!

Mr. Cassidy: That is baseless rhetoric.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. This is becoming a debate. Does the hon. Leader of the Opposition have any further questions?

Mr. Bullbrook: On a point of order.

Mr. Speaker: Yes.

Mr. Bullbrook: Mr. Speaker, would you consider undertaking a request on our part to have the commission on violence do a review of these responses during the question period?

Mr. Eaton: Like fellows that take on hockey players, eh?

Hon. Mr. Davis: In hockey games we might be prepared to do it.

Mr. Bullbrook: That is a worthy response as the leader of the government.

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

EDUCATIONAL STANDARDS

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I would simply like to ask the Minister of Education if he has heard or read a report of the view, expressed by the president of the University of Waterloo having to do with the inadequate standards and the lack of consistency in the educational accomplishments of graduates from secondary schools, and calling for some sort of external examination or review of these values in order to assist the universities in the selection of students. Has he read that and is he concerned about it, as we are?

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, I haven’t read the clipping the hon. member has been talking about, but I think that on that very subject several things should be said. One is that a simplistic return to some form of examination doesn’t solve anybody’s problem.

Another thing is that the universities are perfectly free to offer admission examinations if they wish. Indeed, they were given the opportunity a few years ago of partaking in the SACU tests in order to give them some way of measuring for their own purposes the level of achievement of those students who might wish to enter their universities. They rejected that and didn’t wish to take part. In fact, when we turned it over to them and said: “You can carry this ahead now and run it as your own,” their only response was to charge students for the test; and it is a charge to the students without any assurance that the test will even mean anything in governing whether they get into university or not.

Universities are still free on many occasions: There are certainly lots of university professors and university types who are making statements about the educational system of this province --

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Many people are.

Hon. Mr. Wells: They are making statements based on isolated instances. When you get in and you start questioning them, they are the first to admit that they are usually talking about a specific one-third of the people who come into university, the lower one-third who were just not getting into university 10 to 15 years ago, who were squeezed out of universities in those years. I challenge my hon. friend to ask the universities what standards freshmen are achieving when they complete their year. There are more people getting honours in first year university than ever have been getting honours before in universities.

Mr. Speaker: Any further questions?

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Since President Matthews used the phrase “permissiveness of our high school programmes,” we thought perhaps it might at least attract the attention of the Minister of Education, since it is surely his direct responsibility, not the university’s, to see there are overall standards.

Wouldn’t he agree that it is irresponsible for the minister to say that it is the university’s responsibility, when we are charged under the British North America Act with this responsibility as members of this House, and the minister is specifically responsible for the whole matter of standards? Is the minister satisfied?

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, I am never satisfied with anything. To rest on our laurels and say we are satisfied would be completely wrong. But first of all, I think my hon. friend doesn’t even know what’s going on. He is preaching about wanting some kind of a core curriculum. English is a mandatory subject in this province, Canadian studies is a mandatory subject; why doesn’t the member quit going around making speeches saying he would like to put those into the curriculum.

Mr. Speaker: Any further questions?

Mr. A. J. Roy (Ottawa East): Did the minister change his mind on that?

Mr. R. F. Nixon: The minister said to get back to the three Rs.

Mr. Roy: The minister keeps changing his mind.

Hon. E. A. Winkler (Chairman, Management Board of Cabinet): Better than having no policy.

Hon. Mr. Wells: One knows that you can go anywhere in this province and you can get a university president or a university professor who is willing to criticize the secondary school system. In criticizing the secondary school system, my hon. friend may think he is criticizing our standards, then all right, so be it; but he is also criticizing every one of the 34,000 secondary teachers of this province, and let that be remembered.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

There have been 20 minutes of the question period used up, I would ask you to bear that in mind. Does the member have a necessary supplementary?

Mr. D. M. Deacon (York Centre): Does the minister not consider that the increase in the variety of standards which has occurred in the last few years is probably a reason for the universities becoming increasingly aware of the need for some sort of overall standard? The fact there are some variations in English courses is the reason the core subjects are now more necessary.

Hon. Mr. Wells: All I can point out to my friend is that only about 15 per cent of high school people go on to university. The high school system doesn’t exist only for the universities.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Nobody is satisfied with the system.

Hon. Mr. Wells: If the universities want to complain about the standards for the people they take in, then let the universities set some kind of entrance test. The high schools are charged with a responsibility of educating all the young people --

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: The system graduated the Leader of the Opposition, and that was an error.

Hon. Mr. Wells: -- for various careers and for various purposes. And as far as I am concerned, they are doing a darn good job.

Mr. Speaker: Any further questions?

Mr. J. R. Breithaupt (Kitchener): Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Would the minister not agree that one of the reasons the universities have not proceeded to set severe standards is because of their desperate need for increased student enrolment in order to become financially sustainable?

Hon. Mr. Wells: It is a pretty silly question. If that’s what the universities do -- and if my hon. friend really thinks they are doing it -- then I think they are pretty silly to criticize the people they get in if all they want are the bodies.

Mr. Bullbrook: It is called the Davis formula of study. He started that a decade ago and it has gone downhill ever since.

Mr. Speaker: Any further questions? The member for Wentworth.

INTERPROVINCIAL SALE OF MEAT

Mr. Deans: Given the import of the statement today with regard to the decision of the Quebec Minister of Agriculture, has the Minister of Agriculture and Food had an opportunity to review the report of the medical officer of health in eastern Ontario who last week seized meat that came out of Quebec; and has that report indicated whether that meat was edible or otherwise?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Mr. Speaker, I have not seen the report, but I have asked for the results of the survey that was done on the meat that was seized. I am told it was absolutely 100 per cent top quality meat -- no problem with it whatsoever for human consumption.

Mr. Deans: Supplementary question: Has the minister an indication as to the source of the meat from Quebec, where the meat actually came from?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: No, Mr. Speaker, I haven’t.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Mr. Speaker, a supplementary: The meat was seized only because it was in Ontario with a Quebec stamp, right?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Yes, that’s the problem. Meat from an inspected plant in Ontario could go into Quebec and could be seized for the same purpose because it is not recognized in the other province -- that is the provincial stamp.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: They weren’t the hot dogs at the barbecue of the hon. Leader of the Opposition, were they?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: If they didn’t get sick from the kissing, they wouldn’t have to worry about the meat.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I was at the minister’s party; why wasn’t he at mine?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Talk about a sexist picnic! The member for York-Forest Hill should have been there. He is kissable.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The member for Wentworth. Valuable time is flitting away.

Mr. Deans: I hope that is the last of the picnic.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: It won’t be.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: If the member for York-Forest Hill had been there they would have had some kosher meat at least.

MINOR HOCKEY CONTRACTS

Mr. Deans: May I ask the Attorney General a question? Has the Attorney General had the opportunity to review the contracts sent out by the Ontario Minor Hockey Association to determine whether or not it is reasonable in the Province of Ontario to tie a child of 10 years of age down to a six-year or longer contract with one organization?

Hon. J. T. Clement (Provincial Secretary for Justice): No, I have not received a report from my staff on that. The member mentioned it some weeks ago and I directed it to their attention. I will request it and get back to him; I remember the conversation very well.

Mr. Deans: A supplementary question: Will the minister do this now since they are already in the process of signing children to those contracts and it’s obvious, to me at least, that we ought to outlaw that kind of contract in this province?

Hon. Mr. Clement: I will.

Mr. Reid: A supplementary, if I may: Will the Attorney General give some consideration to the recommendation in the McMurtry report that an Ontario hockey council be set up under the auspices of the province to deal with exactly these kinds of things which are going on in the hockey world at the minor, semi-pro and professional levels?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Yes, we’ll take a look at that, Mr. Speaker. It might well be that there may be an agency already in existence which could have something like that added to its responsibility. I am talking off the top of my head but I am thinking of the office of the Athletic Commissioner.

UNEMPLOYMENT

Mr. Deans: A question of the Treasurer: Since the Treasurer indicates that part of the difficulty with unemployment in the province is a reduction of inventories, can he indicate now the degree to which inventories have been reduced in the Province of Ontario during the six-month period ending this month?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: I don’t have those figures.

Mr. Deans: Since that’s the claim he makes when he stands up and answers the questions, will he get the replies to those kinds of questions?

How much has the inventory in the Province of Ontario been reduced, in any given sector, and what effect has that had on employment? What effect can we expect to see in the three-month period starting July with regard to new employment? Lastly and, I think, probably as important, where do people go in the Province of Ontario -- whether they be adults seeking employment or students coming out of universities looking for summer employment, given the highest rate of unemployment in the province since 1960 -- to seek employment in order that they can carry on with their lives?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Mr. Speaker, I will be glad to assemble that data for the member. It is available from Statistics Canada and a number of other places. Obviously it isn’t something that I carry around in my head or bring with me to the House.

I would say to the House leader of the New Democratic Party, who among others in his party -- and our Grit friends -- complained about the size of the deficit on April 7 and April 8, that he is now saying that this province needed the kind of stimulation which was produced in that budget. They are eating crow over there every day.

Mr. Stokes: The member for Wentworth caught the Treasurer up and he knows it.

Mr. Deans: What right does he have, as Treasurer of Ontario, to claim it is the result of the decreasing of inventories when he doesn’t have a single statistic anywhere to back him up?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Mr. Speaker, we don’t come equipped to this House with reams of figures and the member knows it.

Mr. Deans: The minister doesn’t come equipped with anything.

Mr. Stokes: The minister said it. He’s right.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: I would say this to my friend, that he can pick up any paper or any magazine and he will see the problems of inventory accumulation.

Mr. J. A. Renwick (Riverdale): Louder, louder.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: He will see the problems which are associated with the inventory reduction which has been taking place across this country, this province, the United States and, indeed, the world.

Mr. Lawlor: The minister won’t get to be the Premier this way.

Mr. Cassidy: He gets too agitated about this mailer.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Any thinking person knows the fact that when inventories get too high, production slows down; any thinking person knows that.

Mr. Stokes: Give us the statistics.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: That obviously leaves the socialists out, because they don’t think and they don’t understand simple economies and they never will.

Mr. Deans: I have a supplementary.

Mr. Stokes: The minister is talking through his hat.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: What the NDP needs is Cliff Pilkey back in that party, but he went and ran that store and then he got in trouble with the unions.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Stokes: Cliff Pilkey can outshout the minister, I can tell him that.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Could we have some questions asking for information, rather than debating questions?

Mr. Deans: Can I ask one supplementary question? If inventories in the housing field were the reason for the decrease in the numbers of starts, how can it then be -- as it was claimed some months ago by this selfsame government -- that the reason for the increase in prices was because there weren’t enough houses on the market?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Mr. Speaker, we’re talking about a situation which existed about a year ago when there were not enough houses on the market. We’re talking about a situation which developed over the winter months when people who build houses did have a very high inventory of unsold houses, and prices, as we’re well aware, stood still for the better part of 12 months, despite the fact that we were getting higher and higher rates of inflation.

Mr. Renwick: The minister doesn’t understand what inventory means.

Mr. Deans: Does he know what inventory means?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: I guess the members in the NDP don’t understand this.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: If a big builder or a little builder has 20 unsold houses on his hands, he doesn’t go out and start 20 more until he has sold some of the ones that he already has on his hands. That is simple economics. The members over there don’t understand it.

Mr. Deans: Or until the government can extort from the public the exorbitant rates --

Hon. Mr. McKeough: They just don’t understand simple economics. Ask the member for High Park. He’ll explain it to the members.

Mr. Shulman: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Stokes: Why doesn’t the minister let the member for High Park ask him?

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Does the hon. member for Ottawa East have a supplementary on this question? The member for High Park.

Mr. Shulman: Yes, mine is a supplementary. Is it not a fact that inventories in this last six months have not been going down but, overall, have been going up and, in fact, we now have a glut because of the many orders that were placed a year ago --

Mr. Speaker: What is the question?

Mr. Shulman: -- which are passed out to the public?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Does the member want the original inventory?

Mr. Shulman: We have a glut of inventory at the present time.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Inventories for the last several months have, in fact, been declining.

Mr. Shulman: That is wrong.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Does the member for High Park want me to read his prediction?

Mr. Speaker: Are there any further questions? The member for Sarnia wishes to ask a question.

Mr. Bullbrook: I wanted to ask the Premier a question, in the absence of the Minister of Labour (Mr. MacBeth), but perhaps I can hold off until he returns, or I may be given the opportunity of directing it to the Provincial Secretary for Resources Development.

Mr. Roy: That might be a long time.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Ottawa East.

LICENSING OF MASSAGE PARLOURS

Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Attorney General. It deals with the discussion we’ve been having recently about municipalities wanting legislation to have some form of control over body-rub parlours, such as those on Yonge St. and in other municipalities in this province. Has he, as chief law officer of the Crown, advised municipalities that presently they do have jurisdiction to have that type of regulation under part of the Municipal Act, section 242? If I might just read the section, it states in part:

“Every council may pass such bylaws and make such regulations for the health, safety, morality and welfare of the inhabitants of the municipality in matters not specifically provided for by this Act.”

Has the minister never advised municipalities that they do, in fact, have jurisdiction at present to make regulations to have some form of control, without procrastinating and waiting to give them something else when they have it now?

Hon. Mr. Clement: No, I don’t recall ever telling any municipality specifically that municipalities have authority to regulate under that section, because it’s our opinion that they don’t, under that particular section. There is no question that they can legislate through bylaws as to certain aspects of activities, but they don’t have the rights of entry or of obtaining warrants under that section if they are refused entry. Therefore, in our opinion they would need a specific reference directed to that type of activity in the Municipal Act, so that they could reflect it in the bylaws subsequently enacted.

Mr. Roy: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: As Attorney General and chief law officer, can the minister advise whether this section in fact has ever been used? Secondly, has it ever been challenged? What does it say, when it says the minister can pass regulations for safety, morality and welfare of the inhabitants? Does that mean what it says, or doesn’t it?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Certainly it means what it says, but one can’t obtain a warrant under that section.

Mr. Speaker: The member for York South.

FARM STABILIZATION PROGRAMME

Mr. MacDonald: A question of the Minister of Agriculture, Mr. Speaker. The outlines under the minister’s picture in the current issue of the Farm and Country, in reference to his comments on the income stabilization plan in British Columbia, state: “He asserts BC plan will bankrupt province, which already has low rating on the New York money market.” Was the minister referring to the bankrupting of BC, or that style of programme bankrupting Ontario if it were applied here -- which?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: I was simply referring to the fact that according to all the information we are getting from BC, the plan is too rich for their blood. It’s as simple as that.

Mr. MacDonald: Supplementary question: What information has he got from BC that suggested it is going to bankrupt that province, when the cabinet has authorized $27 million for the income stabilization programme, and it has passed. It is not going to bankrupt the province. What is the evidence for this repeated assertion by the minister across the province?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: There is a $44-million deficit under Barrett’s rule.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Very simply, I have to go by the reports of the minister and his deputy at the meetings which I attend. It’s as simple as that -- BC demanding that the federal government get them out of the position they are in. It’s as simple as that.

Mr. MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, the minister made that statement during the estimates; and I denied it. I have a letter from the Minister of Agriculture in BC denying that he suggested that it was going to bankrupt the province, or that they wanted to be bailed out. Will the minister quit repeating that lie? Will he quit repeating that because --

Mr. Eaton: The BC minister said it.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: He said it and he is afraid of it.

An hon. member: No, the Minister of Agriculture won’t give up.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. I think the hon. member should not accuse another hon. member of telling a lie in this House. It’s been a standard practice --

Mr. MacDonald: Mr. Speaker --

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: I would ask the hon. member to moderate his words, please.

Mr. MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, I have indicated to you that I informed the minister that he was misrepresenting the situation. He continues to go around the province repeating it, because he’s being backed into the corner on this issue. To continue to repeat this is a misrepresentation that amounts to a lie. I reassure him --

Mr. Eaton: He said it in front of nine other ministers.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Throw him out.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. We have a firm rule around here that we do not accuse another person of lying. I would ask the hon. member, without any further delay, to change his wording -- in other words to withdraw that statement.

Mr. MacDonald: I said it was a misrepresentation that amounts to a lie, and I repeat it.

Mr. Speaker: I don’t distinguish the difference. I would ask the hon. member to please moderate his language properly. He’s been around here quite a while; I think he should do this.

Mr. MacDonald: Right. I have said that it was a misrepresentation that amounts to a lie, and I have no intention, Mr. Speaker, of changing that.

Mr. Deans: The minister had better be careful.

Mr. Speaker: Order please, I would ask the member once more to withdraw that charge. There is a difference, as I point out, between information -- or wrong information. I don’t want to define this for you; but there is a difference between deliberately telling a lie, and a matter of wrong information. So I would ask the hon. member, for the last time, to please withdraw that statement.

Mr. MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, I cannot withdraw what is a fact. I’ve informed the minister that he is misrepresenting the situation, and it’s a misrepresentation that amounts to a lie if he continues to repeat it. Now, if you think that is an error, take such a course as you wish, sir.

Mr. G. Nixon: Throw him out.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please, I’m afraid the hon. member leaves me no alternative. I very regretfully say that I’ll have to name the hon. member if he will not withdraw that statement.

Mr. Deans: Why? For doing what?

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Cassidy: The minister has to withdraw.

Mr. MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, the minister should produce the evidence to indicate that what he says is the case -- or my statement, that it is a misrepresentation that amounts to a lie, stands as a statement of fact.

Mr. Speaker: No, that is not what the order is about.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: The Speaker is on his feet.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. No, I have to name the hon. member and ask him to leave please.

Mr. Shulman: This is bad justice; all bad justice. A bad day for the Tory party.

Mr. Stokes: What is worse -- telling a lie or accusing a member of lying?

Mr. Speaker: I ask the hon. member to withdraw. Order, please.

Mr. Shulman: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, what is worse -- telling a lie or announcing that it is a lie? He has announced a lie, he has told a lie and the proof is there. And you are going to put out our member. That is ridiculous.

Mr. Speaker: I ask the hon. member to withdraw from the chamber. Would he please do so?

Interjections by hon. Members.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. I would ask the hon. member for York South, since he refused to obey my proper request, that he withdraw from the chamber.

Mr. MacDonald: Your request wasn’t a proper one.

Mr. Shulman: It was an improper request.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. I would ask the attendant to escort the member out.

Mr. Shulman: Is it all right to tell a lie in here yet it is not all right to point it out?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Lawlor: The rule is misapplied.

Mr. Deans: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, please?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. There cannot be a point of order at this point. I would ask the attendant to escort the hon. member for York South from the chamber at this time.

Mr. Lawlor: He won’t go without a sword.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Deans: I rise on a point of order.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please, the attendant is the acting Sergeant-at-Arms this afternoon.

Mr. G. Samis (Stormont): You should be ashamed of yourself.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Interjection by hon. members.

Mr. Deans: What about the point of order? There is a matter before us.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: There is no point of order with the Speaker on his feet.

Mr. Deans: How can the minister tell?

Mr. Speaker: There is no time for a point of order right at the moment. There will be in a moment.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. I have given a legitimate ruling.

Mr. Shulman: You don’t have a Sergeant-at-Arms.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The Speaker has made a ruling. I would ask again that the hon. member for York South accompany the attendant from the chamber. Thank you.

Mr. R. M. Johnston (St. Catharines): Goodbye. It’s been a pleasure knowing him.

Mr. MacDonald: I am sorry, Mr. Speaker but you are suddenly becoming very restrictive.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. MacDonald: We will go out to the hustings and fight it.

Mr. Cassidy: The minister refused to bring that in for the farmers.

Mr. W. Ferrier (Cochrane South): He should be ashamed of himself.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Could we have order?

Mr. Cassidy: I hope he feels good now.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Could we get back to order, please?

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Did the hon. member still have a point of order?

Mr. Deans: Yes, Mr. Speaker, my point of order is that before you come to such a conclusion I think it incumbent upon you to explain to the House the reason why you have decided to enforce that rule in this instance. The member for York South did not accuse the minister of lying in the House, but rather said that he had had brought to his attention the fact that what he was say in was untrue and he repeated it.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: It’s the language he used in the House.

Mr. Deans: I am now asking under which rule you have decided to impose the decision that he be taken from the House.

Mr. Speaker: It can be found very quickly.

Mr. Deans: I would like to know what rule you used.

Mr. Speaker: It is on page 4 in our standing orders No. 16(a), subsection 10, when a member charges another member with uttering a deliberate falsehood. That’s my interpretation of exactly what was said. I did it with great sorrow, I might say.

The question period has a few more minutes to go.

SARNIA CONSTRUCTION WORKERS’ STRIKE

Mr. Bullbrook: May I, after that awkward situation for all of us, direct a question to the Provincial Secretary for Resources Development in the absence of the Minister of Labour, whose ministry I understand comes within his policy purview? In view of the fact that the labourers have now gone on strike in the city of Sarnia, grinding to a halt about $2 billion worth of construction, would he please entertain along with his cabinet colleague the possibility of immediate mediation in connection with that strike, which will strangle the economy not only of our area but much of the petrochemical situation in this province?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, I will draw that to the attention of my colleague just as soon as I leave the chamber.

Mr. Speaker: The member for High Park.

HAMILTON HARBOUR INVESTIGATION

Mr. Shulman: I have a question of the Attorney General, Mr. Speaker. In view of the fact that the Minister of Labour for this country, one John Munro, made a statement in front of at least one member of the jury in the Hamilton harbour scandal, praising two of the commissioners, Lanza and Hickey, is he going to move for a mistrial? And part 2 of the question: What were the names of the two men the Attorney General said had not been charged “up to now” but were the subjects of his announcement shortly before the preliminaries began that there were two further men to be charged? Were they not in fact Lanza and Hickey?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Speaker, there is a rule as old as this House, if not older, that one cannot comment -- be he the Attorney General or anyone else -- on any matter which is presently before the court. I think it would be most inappropriate for me to make any response to that question.

Mr. Shulman: Fine.

Mr. Speaker: The member for York Centre.

ALUMINUM WIRING

Mr. Deacon: I have a question of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations. Does the minister not have power to impose a moratorium on the use of aluminum wire?

Hon. S. B. Handleman (Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations): Mr. Speaker, if the building code were to be proclaimed, we would be able to write into the building code a moratorium, but under no other circumstances do I have that authority, to the best of my knowledge. The building code is now being discussed with municipal building inspectors across the province and is simply not in a state where we can proclaim it with any certainty at this time.

Mr. Deacon: A supplementary: In view of the fact that it is some months since we passed that bill -- it’s some years since we first discussed that bill -- when does the minister expect to get that building code in shape so he can do something underneath it?

Mr. Lawlor: That has all been discussed, time after time.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, I think it is desirable procedure to discuss this type of thing with the people who are going to have to administer it and those are the building inspectors in the municipalities. That process is going on now; there are meetings taking place right across the province with the building inspectors so that they understand the code. I’ve met with some of them myself. They have told me it’s a very complex code. They want to have a chance to study it and to make comment and we’re going to give them that opportunity.

Mr. Lawlor: The government had 2½ to three years’ discussion before it was brought here.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Wentworth with a supplementary.

Mr. Deans: A supplementary question: In the event the minister bans the use of aluminum wiring in the province -- or, for that matter, makes it illegal to use it with copper type fixtures -- who will then be responsible for the cost of replacing it in all the homes and buildings it is currently being used in?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, there has been no suggestion of any ban on the use of aluminum wiring. I have made the suggestion of a temporary moratorium so that the National Research Council, Ontario Hydro, the Ministry of Energy and, perhaps, the Ministry of Housing can look at it and determine whether or not it should be banned.

Mr. Deans: If it should be banned, what happens?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: There has been no suggestion of a ban, and if there were a ban, I think it would be premature at this time to say the ban would be retroactive. I think that would be almost a physical impossibility.

Mr. Roy: Of course not.

Mr. Deans: What would be the point, then? What about the people who have it installed?

Mr. Speaker: A supplementary? The member for Ottawa East.

Mr. Roy: I would like to ask the minister, if he is considering a ban, would he keep in mind that there are thousands of homes and apartments with aluminum wiring and would he have a plan for them about what to do if there is any problem with aluminum wiring? Secondly, would he get together with the Minister of Energy (Mr. Timbrell) and try to have concerted and cohesive approach? The Minister of Energy said last week there was no problem and secondly, in Ottawa he said the problem was there was too much pressure at the connection. It’s the other way around -- not enough. Would the minister tell him that?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, first of all I think the member is the last person to talk about having cohesive policies.

An hon. member: What about denticare?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: I can assure the member and the other members of the House that I have with me right now a very large file of correspondence and memos between me and the Ministry of Energy. We have been working together on this.

Mr. Roy: They are not saying the same thing.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: I’ll tell the member that Hydro has told people what to do if they’re concerned about it. I think there is a problem, Mr. Speaker, of creating unnecessary panic. Ontario Hydro has issued a series of instructions to people if they’re concerned. There has been no provable case of aluminum wiring directly causing a fire in this province. I believe the constant discussion of it as a very serious hazard is one which could create unnecessary panic and I would ask the members of this House to pay some attention to it.

Mr. Speaker: The oral question period has expired. I will recognize the member for Haldimand-Norfolk.

Mr. J. N. Allan (Haldimand-Norfolk): Mr. Speaker, I would appreciate the members of the House welcoming a group from St. Joseph’s School in Simcoe with their teacher, Mr. Casey, in the west gallery.

Mr. Speaker: Petitions.

Presenting reports.

Motions.

Introduction of bills.

PUBLIC SERVICE SUPERANNUATION AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Snow moves first reading of bill intituled, An Act to amend the Public Service Superannuation Act.

Motion agreed to; first reading of the bill.

Hon. J. W. Snow (Minister of Government Services): Mr. Speaker, this bill is largely a housekeeping measure required to clarify the intent of earlier legislation. However, it does contain one or two substantive changes to which I would like to draw the attention of the members.

For example, section 4 of this bill provides for optional, rather than mandatory, contributions in respect of periods of leave of absence and leaves this option open until the person ceases to be a contributor. The bill also provides the statutory authority for continued but optional membership in the plan and with the employer paying all the contributions when the contributor is disabled and in receipt of long-term income protection benefits. Mr. Speaker, this implements, retroactively, to the beginning of this calendar year, a benefit awarded during last year’s arbitration on fringe benefits.

The other provision to which I want to draw attention at this time is section 14 of the bill which is the outcome of the study I committed to undertake about a year ago and which extends the privileges regarding war service credits to people who had active war service in the Canadian and British Merchant Marine and in allied forces designated by the Lieutenant Governor in Council.

PREGNANT MARE URINE FARMS ACT

Hon. Mr. Stewart moves first reading of bill intituled, An Act to amend the Pregnant Mare Urine Farms Act.

Motion agreed to; first reading of the bill.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Mr. Speaker, the amendment simply repeals the section that no member of the review board can hold office for more than five years.

Mr. Bullbrook: Before the orders of the day I would like to rise, not to continue the awkward situation that prevailed a few moments ago when you felt it necessary to ask the member for York South to leave his place in this assembly -- had I understood that you had defined the length of his absence?

Mr. Speaker: It is automatic for the rest of this day’s sitting.

Mr. Bullbrook: As I read the rules -- and I bow of course to your superior knowledge of same -- there is a discretion to be exercised on your part as to the matter of whether the question is of minor or major seriousness, in your opinion.

Mr. Speaker: In my opinion, it was a minor matter which calls for the member’s absence for just the balance of this day’s sitting.

Orders of the day.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Before I call the first order, Mr. Speaker, I would like to inform the House that should the estimates of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications conclude in committee, we would proceed with the estimates of Consumer and Commercial Relations. The first item will be item No. 9.

MECHANICS’ LIEN AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Clement moves second reading of Bill 92, An Act to amend the Mechanics’ Lien Act.

Mr. Speaker: Shall this motion carry?

The member for Lakeshore.

Mr. P. D. Lawlor (Lakeshore): Mr. Speaker, the next three bills I think by common accord very easily could be argued together. Each one is reformatory of the others, sorting out jurisdictions and areas of competence, particularly for the Ministry of Transportation and Communications.

The minister made an unusually intelligent introductory statement on May 29 of this year, no doubt written by his chief under-deputy. It is a very lucid statement of what is sought to be achieved in this regard.

I don’t quite understand why the Ministry of Transportation and Communications modes of procedure, except they have become customary, should take precedence over or are in any way more beneficial, more efficient, more sensible than what is being proposed here in the amendment to the Mechanics’ Lien Act with respect to the obligations of the Crown to people who are contractors or subcontractors to provide work or to bring on goods or services with respect to lands over which the Crown has its sovereign rights.

Why that division, that bifurcation, should take place in the legislation, as I say, somewhat -- not notoriously -- puzzles me. The legislation nevertheless is an advance on what previously obtained with respect to the prerogatives to the Crown. The moves of recent years with respect to the Proceedings Against the Crown Act of 1962-1963 opened up in this province a new doctrine against the hereditary, almost sacred, privileges and immunities claimed by the Queen, and by the Queen in the right of the province, and by the Queen in all her manifold diversifications, but particularly as it affected this particular jurisdiction.

It said that whereas previously the Crown could do no wrong under the Tory administration of the Province of Ontario -- it was supported by the Attorney General of that day who couldn’t do anything right -- that being the case they felt that a little exculpation might be necessary so that the average citizen would have some route of access whereby to directly try to get redress for his injuries against that Crown when it inflicted that injury upon him without necessarily going through a fiat process. This was a process where you had to go -- on bended knee I take it, tremulously and truckling -- to the chief law officer of that Crown, whose job is primarily to protect that Crown in all of its manifestations. The petitioning citizen would come to this individual and ask him, “Please sir, let me sue you.” Without reasons -- quite arbitrarily, offering no form of assuagement -- the Attorney General could just close his eyes and, like Robespierre, say, “Go eat grass.”

That is normally what they did say; they said that for centuries and they said it in Ontario right down until 1962. Once in a while, as a piece of lingua franca on the part of the government, as a sovereign gesture of the imperial hand, they said, “Oh no, you can’t sue me. But within these conditions, or on terms, or whatever it might be, we will go to court with you.”

That was changed and what this present legislation comes to is an extension of the area. Within those areas there were still reserved portions, still places, and despite this Act there still remain areas where you may not sue the Crown without some kind of special permission -- or I would go further than that; where you arbitrarily couldn’t sue the Crown whether you liked to at all, under any circumstances.

So in ordinary customary commercial dealings, in contractual relations, in the private law area, as subject to his sovereign, it was granted and vouchsafed, but not in the area of public works, not in the area of supplying goods or services to those works, and the amendment here today makes it possible. In the interim there was another piece of legislation, highly intricate in its workings, that hasn’t been found workable in this context.

So, for the benefit of the legal profession and the increasing complexities therein and for Crowns seeking some kind of parity with their citizens in matters which directly afflict or affect them both, it is though wise to give this right of suit. It is not the full panoply of the right, by any means. Perhaps it’s a more sensible procedure.

Whereas in the ordinary mechanics’ lien legislation I believe you must slap the lien on the property within 37 days of the time that the last work was done and sometimes credit is given, in this particular context, no land is encumbered by the action on the lien. A simple notice, subject to affidavit, is filed with the minister in question. The holdback procedure, I take it, becomes effective and a 15 per cent basic holdback goes into place. This money is available then to be distinguished as pro tanto among the creditors should they not be paid by that contractor or subcontractor operating under the general suzerainty of the Crown.

It is curious indeed that as between the legislation that we have in front of us and the next bill, No. 93, that this one provides a certain 90-day provision, whereas the Ministry of Transportation and Communications Creditors’ Payment Act, 1975, sets up a period of 120 days. I suppose 120 days is retained because to alter that would be mischievous with respect to the commercial community, which has prevailed upon the minister to leave the legislation stand as it is. But why not have in both of them the same tenure, the same length of running time, so that it would be in the mind of all and sundry that a uniform rule prevails, which makes things rather easier?

I think the first bill at least should go into committee. There are a number of questions to ask -- I won’t say they are terribly penetrating or obnoxious, but there are a few -- and I don’t think it would take very long.

Those are my basic comments on the legislation. We approve it in principle and as to its ramifications. I find some elements in it curious; but, apart from that I think it’s good legislation.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Kitchener.

Mr. J. R. Breithaupt (Kitchener): Mr. Speaker, I won’t repeat the historical development that the member for Lakeshore has given to us, outlining the basis upon which these various items of legislation are now before us and their predecessor Acts.

I am pleased to see that the government is now moved to bring all of the other general procedures for claims against the Crown under the Mechanics’ Lien Act through the amendments contained in Bill 92. The exception in the subsequent Act, I presume, exists because of the difficulty in a highway contractor knowing exactly what township he is in or what the adjoining property may be, or indeed even what county he may be in, as work on a highway done in various areas could be done along a great number of miles of highway extension.

If my presumption as to the reason for this one exception from the apparently now ordinary approach to making claims is correct, perhaps the minister could advise us in his reply. If on the other hand, there is some other reason for developing this separate statute, as is set out in Bill 93, perhaps it would be a convenience to the House if the minister could advise us what that reason may be when he responds in a few moments to the comments on Bill 92. I don’t think it will be necessary, if the assumptions I have made are correct, for there to be very much discussion in the House on second reading of either Bills 93 or 94.

I would suggest, Mr. Speaker, that if the minister is prepared to move the bill into committee, it could probably be dealt with quite promptly to resolve certain particular points, as the member for Lakeshore has suggested, and the other two bills will quite likely proceed very promptly into legislation.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Riverdale.

Mr. J. A. Renwick (Riverdale): Mr. Speaker, the aspect of this bill, Bill 92, which concerns me -- I join with my colleague for Lakeshore in not being expressly concerned about Bills 93 and 94 which are in a very real sense companion bills to this bill -- is the difficulty with which a person providing goods or services or work is faced because of this bill.

At least if he has placed the materials or done the work on a specific piece of ground he can, assuming the registry office is functioning properly, find out where that property is registered, in whose name it is registered, the particulars of that piece of property and he can register his lien against it. It seems to me that when we apply that to a public street or highway owned by a municipality, there is no problem in giving the kind of notice for which provision is made in a later part of the bill. Provision is specifically made that the notice provided in clause 9 of the bill will be given to the clerk of the municipality in that case.

When it comes to the Crown, it seems to me the minister creates an immense difficulty for the person who wants to assert his lien or the claim in lieu of the lien which he otherwise would have because of the minister’s desire to exclude Crown property from being subject to any lien in the registry office. In that case, in respect of a public work as it’s defined -- that is Crown property -- the notice shall be given to the ministry or Crown agency for whom the work is done or the materials are placed or furnished. I go back to the provision at the beginning of the Act which defines Crown to include Crown agencies to which the Crown Agency Act applies. Then, of course, I look at the Crown Agency Act and find this rather ominous and omnibus definition of Crown agency.

The Crown Agency Act is chapter 100 of the Revised Statutes of Ontario, 1970, and it states that Crown agency means:

“ ... a board, commission, railway, public utility, university, manufactory, company or agency owned, controlled or operated by Her Majesty in right of Ontario, or by the government of Ontario or under the authority of the Legislature or the Lieutenant Governor in Council.”

It goes on to state that such a Crown agency is for all purposes an agent of Her Majesty and its powers may be exercised only as an agent of Her Majesty and, of course, specifically exempts the Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario from its ambit.

When one looks at a complete list, if it is possible to get it, of all the boards, commissions, committees and so on of the government of the Province of Ontario, of one kind or another --

Mr. Lawlor: They have lost track.

Mr. Breithaupt: Even McRuer couldn’t find that.

Mr. Renwick: -- to try to ascertain which are the Crown agencies at this time of the Province of Ontario and where one would then find any particular one of them within the time limit for filing the notice, it would seem to me the minister places quite a heavy burden on a person who is doing work for a particular Crown agency or a particular ministry.

In many cases probably it doesn’t matter but, as is so often the case, it would appear to me that this bill would be vastly improved if there were provision, where work is being done for the Crown or for the Crown agency in its very broad context, that there be a specific minister of the Crown or ministry of the Crown, or office of the Crown, where notice would be given in all cases. Then, a person would be in a position to give his notice with that sense of certainty that he had the right place, given the notice to the right person, and that he would be protected in the proceedings for which he has had to assert his claim.

It may well be that the Attorney General (Mr. Clement) himself is the proper office to which such notice should be given. It may be that his colleague, the Minister of Government Services (Mr. Snow), should be the proper minister to whom it should be given.

It may be that under the Ministry of Government Services the government should establish a separate office so that people would then know, when they’re doing work, that if they file a notice there, or give the notice there, that their position is protected. Because once you move away from land as the place of the lien of the workman, or the supplier of goods or materials, once you move away from that as the criterion and the place where he can assert his claim, because of the proliferation of the Crown in recent years and under the Crown Agency Act I think you leave him in a rather uncertain state as to whether or not he’s found the correct and proper place to file that notice.

It may well be that if there were some simpler method of doing it for all liens, so that there was no problem with respect to the place where you gave the notice rather than file the lien, you could move away from the lien attaching to the land. I’m kind of inclined to think that in moving away from it and protecting the Crown against the lien attaching to their lands, the minister has compounded the difficulty for the person in many of the cases in which he might provide the work or supply the materials.

I just rather think that the bill would be immensely improved if, between now and the time it were dealt with in the committee, some consideration might be given to naming, perhaps not necessarily an all-inclusive place, but an alternative in the statute that it could be given to the Crown agency for whom the work is being done and the material is being supplied. Or it could be filed by deposit with the Attorney General, or in some other suitable method.

Mr. Lawlor: Yes.

Hon. J. T. Clement (Provincial Secretary for Justice): Take a look at section 14 of this bill.

Mr. Speaker: Does any other hon. member wish to speak to this bill? Perhaps the member for Riverdale is finished.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Perhaps the member for Riverdale might want to modify his comments, or add to them, Mr. Speaker. I’ve just directed his attention to section 14 which, we hope, will look after the matters posed.

Mr. Renwick: We can discuss it in committee.

Mr. Speaker: Does any other member wish to speak to this bill, then? If not, the hon. minister.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Speaker, the information which I have to date is that the method of payment which has been followed by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications has worked exceedingly well since 1962. The road-building industry is cognizant of the type of payment, the method of payment, the way of giving notice, and there really has been little or no difficulty in the industry being acquainted with the procedure for claiming moneys payable on road-building contracts.

Mr. Lawlor: If it works so well, why doesn’t the minister leave it alone -- I mean right across the board?

Hon. Mr. Clement: No, in effect, my comments only pertain to the construction of highways and roads.

The member for Lakeshore in making his observations as to time limits, Mr. Speaker, suggested the same time limits -- be it 37 days or 120 days or 90 days, have it the same in both statutes. The reason for the difference with the liens pertaining to the construction of highways is that apparently there is some difficulty, and some delay, in the measurement and the method of measurement with respect to work done in the construction of highways, which is not a problem encountered in other areas of construction.

Mr. Breithaupt: You also don’t have the financing dusts in highways, perhaps, Mr. Speaker.

Hon. Mr. Clement: That may well be the case. What I’m really saying is that the Ministry of Transportation and Communications and the industry with which it deals have worked well. Since 1962 there have been no moneys lost by any subcontractor or labourer for failure to give proper notice or for any technical reasons whatsoever pertaining to that particular ministry. I think that is a credit to the legislation and to the ministry and to the road-building industry itself. After all, that is what the legislation is all about, to protect those who involve themselves in the building of roads.

With the road-building contracts, too, Mr. Speaker, I should point out the very obvious matter to the member for Lakeshore that you don’t have the number of subcontractors on highway construction that you would, for example, on the construction of a multi-storied office building where you have a number of sub-trades on the job. That just doesn’t apply in the road-building business for very obvious reasons.

The member for Riverdale spoke at some length on his concerns as to notice -- where do you place the notice and to whom do you write to direct such notice in the event that you do have a claim. I directed the hon. member’s attention to section 14 of the bill which provides for the making of regulations to indicate items (b) and (c) in that section 14 of the present bill before the House:

“(b) providing for and requiring the posting of notices on building sites;

“(c) prescribing the appropriate offices of the Crown to which notice of a claim for lien must be sent.”

It will, therefore, be incumbent upon the Crown to post right on the site a notice in a form prescribed by the regulations to the effect: “Take notice that everybody working on this project who has claim for a lien will send same to Mr. So-and-So or the ministry of such-and-such,” and an address will be provided. That is the reason for section 14 in the Act.

I agree there should be something to draw to the workers’ attention and to the subcontractors’ attention where notice can be sent. We may know our way around government here but the average person may not. Therefore, the site will have that information posted right on it in accordance with the regulations under section 14, which really enacts a new section 49 of the Mechanics’ Lien Act.

I really have nothing further to add, Mr. Speaker. I would like the matter to proceed to committee of the House. With reference to this bill and the other two bills which follow, perhaps we can deal generally with all of them at the same time. Those will be Bills 93 and 94.

Mr. A. J. Roy (Ottawa East): Mr. Speaker, if I might ask the minister a point of information here, does he plan to go into committee now for this legislation?

Hon. Mr. Clement: I would if the House so consented. I am prepared to go to committee today if the House so agrees.

Motion agreed to; second reading of the bill.

Mr. Speaker: I understand this is to go to committee of the whole House.

Mr. Breithaupt: Mr. Speaker, we could proceed with the other two bills on second reading now, if my colleagues agree, and then just spend our time in committee.

MINISTRY OF TRANSPORTATION AND COMMUNICATIONS CREDITORS PAYMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Clement moves second reading of Bill 93, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications Creditors Payment Act, 1975.

Mr. Lawlor: Simply for the record, Mr. Speaker, the comments which we made with respect to the previous bill, which is directly tied in with this one, stand for this one too.

Mr. Speaker: Are there any further comments on this by any member or the minister?

Motion agreed to; second reading of the bill.

Mr. Speaker: I understand this is to go to committee of the whole House as well.

Hon. Mr. Clement: That is correct, Mr. Speaker.

PUBLIC WORKS CREDITORS PAYMENT REPEAL ACT

Hon. Mr. Clement moves second reading of Bill 94, An Act to repeal the Public Works Creditors Act.

Mr. T. P. Reid (Rainy River): I would just like to ask if the minister could explain a little more fully the purpose of the bill. Is this to avoid difficulties encountered by Village Square and that sort of thing under this Act? What is the exact purpose -- I am a little vague as to the purpose of Bill 94.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Speaker, we have presently, of course, the Public Works Creditors Payment Act. What we are intending to do is put everything under the Mechanics’ Lien Act, save and except contracts pertaining to road building. Therefore, when Bills 92 and 93 become effective, Bill 94 would repeal the previous legislation, except it still applies to those contracts which are in force right now or on whatever day the bill becomes effective.

Mr. Reid: May I ask, by way of clarification, whether the minister is aware of the situation regarding Village Square which is building houses under contract to the Ontario Housing Corp. in northwestern Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Clement: No, I --

Mr. Reid: If I may explain the circumstances very briefly. I would like to know if the two other Acts will apply in this respect. What happened was they were under contract to Ontario Housing. They went into receivership and there was some dispute over whether or not the creditors would receive funds under the Public Works Creditors Payment Act. Not being a lawyer, I am still a little curious as to whether now, under Bills 92 and 93, those people who were creditors of Village Square would be receiving payments?

Hon. Mr. Clement: No, Mr. Speaker. If the member for Rainy River would take a look at Bill 94, section 2, subsection 2, it reads as follows:

“Notwithstanding subsection 1 which deals with the proclamation date the Public Works Creditors Payment Act continues to apply in respect of work done or materials supplied or furnished under a contract entered into before this Act comes into force and under any subcontract entered into directly or indirectly under such a contract.”

Therefore, those people, those creditors, would be bound, to use the vernacular, under the old rules.

Mr. Reid: Fine, thank you.

Motion agreed to; second reading of the bill.

Mr. Speaker: Shall this be ordered for third reading? Or does this go to committee as well?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Yes, we can go to third reading, Mr. Speaker. I guess it comes with proclamation. I sure wouldn’t want to see this become effective before the others go through.

Mr. Renwick: They are all going to come into force on the same date, aren’t they?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Yes.

Mr. Speaker: Ordered for third reading.

THIRD READING

The following bill was given third reading upon motion:

Bill 94, An Act to repeal the Public Works Creditors Payment Act.

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

MECHANICS’ LIEN AMENDMENT ACT

House in committee on Bill 92, An Act to amend the Mechanics’ Lien Act.

Mr. P. D. Lawlor (Lakeshore): My first remarks are on section 4.

Mr. Chairman: Does any other member have any remarks before section 4?

Mr. A. J. Roy (Ottawa East): Mr. Chairman, I have remarks on section 4 as well.

Mr. J. A. Renwick (Riverdale): Mr. Chairman, my first comment is on section 1.

Mr. Chairman: The member for Riverdale. On section 1:

Mr. Renwick: The section makes reference to the Crown Agency Act. I assume that the minister or his advisers were well aware of the language of that Act. It does seem somewhat antiquated when you have a definition that says: “‘Crown agency’ means a board, commission, railway” -- I don’t know whether that includes the Ontario Northland Railway; I assume it does -- “public utility,” other than the Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario; whatever that may be, it certainly isn’t property over which the Minister of Transportation and Communications has to deal. I don’t know the significance of the word “university.” I don’t know the significance of the word “manufactory.” It also refers to a “company or agency owned, controlled or operated by Her Majesty in right of Ontario, or by the government of Ontario, or under the authority of the Legislature or the Lieutenant Governor in Council.”

Those words really tend, at this particular point in time, to be relatively meaningless.

I would ask two questions. One, is the minister satisfied with the definition of Crown agency as set out in the Crown Agency Act? Two, would it be conceivably possible that his ministry could furnish us here with a complete list of the bodies which are included within that definition of the term “Crown agency,” not because we would be filing very many liens or giving notices in lieu of liens, but because for a long time now we have been trying to get a complete and up-to-date list of all of the Crown agencies.

Hon. J. T. Clement (Provincial Secretary for Justice): I am advised, Mr. Chairman, that the definition of the bill which is before the House right now brings in all of the Crown agencies that are presently exempt under the Mechanics’ Lien Act. We are satisfied that all of the boards, commissions and ministries will be included, of course, save and except the reference to the Ministry of Transportation and Communications.

Mr. Lawlor: And the Hydro-Electric Power Commission.

Hon. Mr. Clement: And the Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario.

Insofar as undertaking to provide a list of all the agencies, I don’t have that available. I can tell you the ones that I have available in my ministries --

Mr. Renwick: I know that

Hon. Mr. Clement: -- but, for instance, I don’t know what the Ministry of the Environment has available. I keep hearing new names each day. I know my own agencies, I think, but I don’t know the other fellows’. Perhaps the member can get an undertaking from my colleagues to provide that material to the House. I’ll certainly provide to the member, should he so desire, a list of all of our agencies and various boards and commissions. That is no problem at all.

Mr. Renwick: Are there any universities owned, controlled or operated by Her Majesty in the right of Ontario, and are there any manufactories owned, controlled or operated by Her Majesty in right of the Province of Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Clement: I don’t know of any universities owned and operated by Her Majesty in right of Ontario.

Mr. Renwick: My only concern is that I think that, at some convenient point in time, part of my confusion about what you’re doing to the Mechanics’ Lien Act would be eliminated if the definition of Crown agency in the Crown Agency Act were more relevant and up to date with respect to what is covered by it.

In fact, I would think we should get away from attempting in omnibus words to define what is covered in the Crown Agency Act, except in very general terms. Rather, you should be required by law to go to a schedule so that persons in the Province of Ontario would know what our Crown agencies are when they look at the Act. Or you should provide, by regulation under the Crown Agency Act, for regulations to be passed designating Crown agencies from time to time, so that a person would have an up-to-date and complete list.

There is very little point in our having a list from you because I don’t think anywhere in the government at this time is there a consolidation which will show us all of the Crown agencies of the government of the Province of Ontario within the framework being used in this bill. That was my only point -- to have it looked at and some revision of that Act brought before the House at some point in time.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Chairman, I can’t ignore that observation. I’m speaking here subject to conferring with my people, I think I would prefer, if I were a practising solicitor, to have the Crown Agencies Act looked at and amended, perhaps, to give an up-to-date list by way of regulations so that the practitioner or the individual can look and see if an agency is a Crown agency. If so, registration is not necessary. That is the crux of the whole thing and we can appreciate that because if you miss registration and it is not a Crown agency, you will be calling up your insurer, I would suspect. I will take that under advisement. I can appreciate the point the member makes.

Mr. Chairman: Does section 1 carry?

Sections 1 to 3, inclusive, agreed to.

Mr. Chairman: Section 4, the member for Ottawa East.

On section 4:

Mr. Roy: Mr. Chairman, I would like some clarification of that section from the minister. I don’t fully understand it. I have some limited knowledge, I suppose, of mechanics’ liens and I would like the minister to clarify certain things.

If I might make what might be called a gratuitous comment in relation to the Mechanics’ Lien Act, seeing that we are talking about it, I think there should be an amendment. This is free advice -- no charge -- and if you accept my advice you’ll likely become Premier of the province, it’s such good advice.

Mr. Lawlor: Maybe something else would happen.

Mr. Roy: There is a phrase in the Mechanics’ Lien Act presently called substantial completion and I am sure you have had feedback about that phrase and about its interpretation. Judges have been running around in circles, trying to find what that really means and it really causes problems. I would suggest you look at that with a view to changing it.

There are definitions of what substantial completion is in the Act but then you start talking about percentages and it really gets complicated for us poor, ignorant, dumb lawyers in the backwoods out there, in our small offices; we can’t read. I really thought, Mr. Chairman, I was one of the few who didn’t understand it but I went to see some expert on it, Macklem, and the guys practising in Toronto, and they’ve had problems and judges have had problems interpreting that. I think it should be looked at. That’s free advice.

Hon. Mr. Clement: What would you put in in place of the wording substantial completion? Could you give me the gist of the wording you’d like to see in there?

Mr. Roy: That’s the problem, of course, and that’s why you are getting smart with me now.

Hon. Mr. Clement: It sure is.

Mr. Roy: If I were given some time to think about it -- maybe a few of your advisers under the gallery could do it. I see your deputy smiling; surely, shaving one morning, he must have thought of some word which amounts to something different from substantial completion after he had cut himself or shaved half his face.

Really, you have to come up with something else, a more workable formula. In some ways I am not sure whether the old Act, when it came to interpreting when the 37 days started running, might not have been easier. This is something I thought about while I was sitting here because I recalled discussing this with some judges in Ottawa and they had some alternatives; I’ll go back to them. One of the judges in Ottawa, Judge Honeywell, who has tried to interpret substantial completion and who hears a lot of these lien actions, is very helpful. He’s got a lot of experience and I want to talk to him about it and maybe get back to you because I think he had some suggestions about some alternatives to the words substantial completion and the interpretation. On large projects, where you have a whole series of subs it really becomes difficult to determine, when you start getting into the percentages, what substantial completion really means.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate your discretion in allowing me to continue on this. In relation to section 4, maybe you could explain to me exactly how that works. As I read it, it states that the lien does not in any event attach to such land but in fact is a form of a notice. I am reading here from section 4, subsection 2. After clauses (a) and (b) it then says: “ ... does not in any event attach it the idea that you give a notice instead constitute a charge....” You might have given us some explanation while I was out of the House, but what does that mean? Is it the idea that you give a notice instead of a lien? If that’s what it means, do you have to follow the limitation or the time period set out in the Mechanics’ Lien Act, in other words, do it within the 37 days?

If that’s the case, if you have an action -- and maybe this is academic -- but miss out on the 37 days, I suppose then you are into a situation where you have to start an ordinary action against the contractor and you have no charge against the Crown lands. Would you then go under the Public Works Creditors Payment Act, the Act that we are presently repealing, if you missed out on the limitation of 37 days?

The other question that comes to mind is that the effectiveness of the lien is that you register the thing. You find, especially in condominiums, if you have some builders who are trying to cut corners and trying to put the squeeze on their subs, that there is nothing like registering a lien. It ties up the mortgages and you start getting action.

I am just wondering, where you just give a notice third parties or other people might not be aware of the notice. Does it state here to whom the notice must go, to the mortgagees, mortgagors or whatever you call them?

Hon. Mr. Clement: We don’t have mortgagees in the province. In ordinary commercial activity, the idea of the lien is to secure the indebtedness of the supplier of work materials and/or labour on the land. If the owner doesn’t pay in accordance with the Act, you can compel the sale of the realty involved.

Mr. Roy: That’s right.

Hon. Mr. Clement: And we find it very, very helpful, as you have indicated, to put a lien on property if there is some delay in payment because it upsets the apple cart and the mortgagee becomes involved and everybody is then seeking you out With a provincial governmental activity, a construction project brought up by this government, you are not going to find any mortgagee or delay the mortgage payment because we have no mortgages on our properties.

Mr. Roy: Okay.

Hon. Mr. Clement: That’s No. 1. What happens here is that under the present legislation, under subsection 2 of section 5 of the Act, a lien doesn’t attach to a public street or a highway. We are just extending it here into a public work for the definition earlier on in the Act.

If you will just turn over and take a look at section 14 of the Act you will see that it provides for the posting of notice on the project and the name of the person to whom the notice should be directed. Later on in the Act you will see cases of it being done by personal service or prepaid registered post and so on. The workman or supplier of goods and materials can take a look at the notice, if he is going to be late. What he is doing is really attaching the holdback. Instead of having his claim on the land, he is attaching or putting a notice to the government or the ministry or the agency or whatever it is on the balance of the moneys, or sufficient of them to pay off his claim, assuming it’s good.

The rest of it is all the same as the ordinary mechanics’ lien action. He must give that notice within the 37-day period. He must commence his action within the 90-day period. Everything else is the same. Rather than running down to the registry office and placing his notice against title, what he is doing is really giving notice to the agency or ministry involved per the method which the regulations will prescribe as to the posting of the notice. If he is doing work for the Ministry of the Attorney General, presumably there would be a notice there on the site saying: “To workmen, suppliers of goods and materials, any notices of liens should be mailed to or served on Mr. So-and-So at such-and-such an address, Ministry of the Attorney General.” That’s it. So they are fixed with notice as to the target recipient of that notice of claim.

When he does that within the 37 days, if he hears nothing, he had better get his action started within the 90-day period. The action carries right through in the same way as though it was in the commercial or private sector.

Mr. Roy: I see. Just so that I understand this, does section 4 apply to municipal land as well as provincial -- the municipality as well as the government -- or is it at present under the Act that one can attach a lien if, let’s say, one is doing work for the city of Ottawa, does that --

Hon. Mr. Clement: You cannot today put a lien on a street, because of subsection 2. You can’t have a lien on a street in Ottawa today.

Mr. Roy: I understand that. With this Act now, could one put a lien on a building being built for the city of Ottawa?

Hon. Mr. Clement: No, the city of Ottawa is not a Crown agency.

Mr. Roy: That’s what I want to know.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Well, the member is supposed to be giving me the advice. The city of Ottawa is not a Crown agency. It must come within the definition of the Crown Agency Act, per the discussion we just had. The member may have been absent from the House, but the member for Riverdale and I were discussing this.

Mr. Roy: That’s a point of clarification I wanted.

Hon. Mr. Clement: It is not a public work. If we look earlier on in the Act, we see the definition of a public work. Okay? If it doesn’t come within a public work, it means land and property of the Crown, and includes “land in which the Crown has an estate or interest” and then it goes on and on and on.

It is not a Crown agency within the meaning of the Crown Agency Act, I would presume -- I mean I presume that; I am probably wrong but I would presume that.

Mr. Roy: But can you help me? Under the Act at present, you can’t have a lien against property owned by a city, can you?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Sure you can, but not the road.

Mr. Roy: Not the road; now I understand.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Not the road, because of that subsection 2 of section 5.

Mr. Roy: Okay.

Hon. Mr. Clement: That is not changed; that stays the same. You still can’t have it against a municipal road, but if the city hall had some construction done on it, or alterations in the city of Ottawa, I don’t see where -- oh, somebody has sent me a memo; it is already under the Mechanics’ Lien Act anyway.

Mr. Roy: It is? That is what I wasn’t sure about. Okay. As I understand it, once you give your notice to the appropriate officials then, under further sections of this Act, the Crown agency or whatever shall retain funds to protect this notice, or this notice in lieu of a lien, as I understand it. I am glad to see that in the Act, because presently under the Act there is another section I have never understood, and that’s the section which creates a trust fund. We have discussed that on many occasions with different individuals and I never could understand it, because it seems to be a duty under that Act that moneys shall become a trust fund. I have never read too much law on it to find out whether it is, in fact, a protection or what it is doing in the Act, in view of the provisions of the liens.

Mr. Renwick: It is extremely clear.

Mr. Roy: It is? Well possibly it is, but those of us who practise in the lower court sometimes have difficulty understanding some of these ramifications.

Mr. Renwick: The Attorney General and myself had no trouble with that concept at all.

Mr. Roy: The other point I would like the minister to answer is, will there be any protection, let’s say, for sheltering under these provisions? You know what I mean, sometimes one lien is sheltered under the certificate of action of another lien. I’m asking whether the notice here will be sort of like the lien itself and whether you will be able to shelter or protect under somebody else who might have a lien on there and it might have been too late. Would the sheltering provisions of the Act apply to this notice?

Hon. Mr. Clement: The member is as bad as I am, because I didn’t know and I just turned to my officials and they said the last time the Mechanics’ Lien Act was amended -- and I take it that it was within the last two or three years -- the theory of sheltering was expressly done away with.

Mr. Roy: That’s what I thought too --

Hon. Mr. Clement: I didn’t know it, so I can’t look down my nose at you.

Mr. Roy: -- but I had correspondence which indicated --

Hon. Mr. Clement: I wasn’t aware that it had been dealt with under the last series of amendments to the Mechanics’ Lien Act. So it being destroyed on that occasion, it certainly would not apply here.

Mr. Roy: Maybe your officials could tell you. I appreciate that there were some changes covered, but can you not still shelter tinder a certificate of action? For instance, if there is a series of liens that have been registered in time, but only one starts an action after the 90 days, and the others don’t, can they not shelter under the --

Mr. Lawlor: No, the umbrella has been wiped out.

Mr. Roy: Has that been wiped out too?

Mr. Renwick: It used to be a shelter -- now it is just a lean-to.

Mr. Roy: You are really on the ball. You should come around the House more often. You can make some contributions. So that has been wiped out as well, has it?

Hon. Mr. Clement: It’s all gone, yes.

Mr. Roy: Okay.

Mr. Chairman: The member for Lakeshore.

Mr. Lawlor: Well, as a matter of fact, that is what I wanted to talk about -- the umbrella. It was one of the most regrettable incidents in my life, the day that umbrella was closed.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Made us all work.

Mr. Lawlor: I would have thought that in this particular legislation, where you don’t place something very tangible upon land, which you can go and look at -- I regret it being taken off that particular area.

It protected the workman, which is the whole point about the Mechanics’ Lien Act. When you destroy the umbrella, he misses his day. He has to come into a civil suit at greater cost and enormously longer periods of time consumed in the regular courts.

The whole point in the Mechanics’ Lien Act is its expeditious and cheap procedure. A master of the Supreme Court, appointed to this capacity to carry out these lien hearings, acquires a modicum of expertise over a period of time. There are seven, eight or nine masters of the Supreme Court at Osgoode Hall in Toronto, several of whom at least perform these functions every day of the week.

All right, now you send it in to the minister. Why wouldn’t you get an umbrella? Why wouldn’t the first fellow to send it in be a sort of triggering device, to show that there may be a number of other working men or suppliers who are not being covered? That’s my question.

Mr. Chairman: That’s your question? Have you got another one there?

Mr. Lawlor: The minister is over there -- the minister has disappeared behind a veil.

Mr. Chairman: I have a hard time keeping track of him.

Mr. Lawlor: I will tell you, Mr. Chairman, when he disappears. He is about to reappear. He’s coming out of the gloom. Ah, here he is.

Mr. W. Ferrier (Cochrane South): He has a weighty document in his hand now.

Mr. Lawlor: I was asking you --

Hon. Mr. Clement: I was listening, Mr. Chairman. I am sorry, I was to address myself to a --

Mr. Lawlor: I am glad you were, because I can’t remember what I was asking.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I thought I spotted something in the proposed amendment here that might be a response to the member’s questions, but it turned out I was wrong, as usual.

Mr. Lawlor: Let me continue it here. Really, the question is going to be directed to the next bill, and with a little indulgence we may as well get this point settled. When you come to that next bill, you are outside mechanics’ lien legislation entirely. You are dealing with highways -- you’ve prepared a highway -- and if you miss your 120 days, you are dead. What do you do then?

And in a lesser degree, and perhaps not so formidably, if you miss your time limitation -- the 90-day period in this legislation -- you don’t come under somebody else’s umbrella. The fact that you’ve got 400 claims sitting on your desk and some fellow out here has been ill or through inadvertence hasn’t filed, he is left just out of court. He’s left dangling. He has no redress.

I suppose he has to go back to another form of procedure, to the petition of right procedure, perhaps, and get permission to sue -- despite that and apart from the regular mechanics’ lien thing. In any event, at that stage he would be outside the holdback. If the holdback has been all dispersed among creditors, he is just dead out of luck. All because of a fairly constricted time limitation.

You can’t do this here, because that type of umbrella clause is a very special type of clause, but I would ask that you give some consideration since you’re not giving the right to slap a notification on a title; you want to preserve your lands free of those matters, and really it’s not very efficacious to put some kind of blot on the escutcheon of the Crown. What really is the likelihood of the Crown selling the land? It has been pointed out in your opening statement that the Crown will always stand behind its obligations, which is not necessarily true in the private sector; that obviates the necessity for this kind of registration. Nevertheless, someone who has done work for the Crown ought not to be mulcted simply by the lapse of a period of 90 days in this regard.

I would have thought that receiving a notice, or maybe a few notices -- say four or five -- would be a triggering mechanism or some kind of signal to you that that particular contractor whom you had employed was in trouble and that his subtrades, his labourers and others might not be well looked after. At that stage, I would think, you would want to cover the waterfront and protect all the people who were going to be hurt by the failure of this particular contractor, over against the holdbacks that you would have under the regular mechanics’ lien.

True, I suppose you or one of your agents could go to the site and inform them that the avalanche had started, to forewarn them not to dally with it and to get that notice in to you. But if a working man should fail, or if a supplier for any reason is unable to do so, I think he’s had pot luck as this statute stands.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Chairman, I really don’t think there would be much problem of the working man being harmed by this legislation. I’ll tell you why I’ve come to that conclusion, I find it somewhat unrealistic to assume that a working man, say a labourer, would work for 37 days without any pay in this day and age when people are used to weekly or bi-monthly payments of salary or wages; and particularly as it relates to the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, where I believe the period is 150 days, which would mean in effect 30 weeks without payment.

Mr. Lawlor: Bear with me. You misconstrue the whole thing, as I hear you.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Oh, I’m sorry.

Mr. Lawlor: It’s not a question of working for 37 days without payment. You have your lien time -- 37 days after the last work is done -- and you’re sitting there waiting. No doubt the working man was there the first day after, saying, “I want my pay,” and the fellow said: “No, no, no.” Then he comes back, again and again -- and he’s put off, while the other fellow is dickering with his creditors and sifting out money here and there.

Certainly he’s liable to an appearance before the provincial court judge should the workman so lay the thing, but that’s another route. We want to protect him without having to go to court in this regard.

What I mean is that if the 37 days come and go, he’s out of luck; moneys have been owed to him all this time and he’s scampering around. He may have other modes of redress, but this is the mode of redress which I think is the most efficacious, the closest to him and the one by which you have an obligation, as the Crown, to protect him in a direct way. He’s not well protected, I put it to you, as things stand.

Hon. Mr. Clement: All I can say is I am not aware of many workmen -- I’m not talking now about suppliers and subcontractors -- I am not aware of many workmen in this day and age being harmed under the provisions of the Mechanics’ Lien Act in terms of not being paid in 37 days. I mean, this doesn’t change it as far as the private sector is concerned right now.

Mr. Lawlor: No, but he doesn’t use the Mechanics’ Lien Act. He goes somewhere else.

Hon. Mr. Clement: That’s right, and he invariably obtains the remedy he seeks. In my experience, brief though it has been, I cannot ever recall having a workman come forward instructing me to bring a lien action for his wages, his hourly rate, because, m you have said, he seeks his remedy somewhere else. He goes to the provincial court under the Master and Servant Act, or better still --

Mr. Lawlor: I’ve had them come to me and, because their time had run out, I’ve had to send them to a small claims court.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Yes, there are these other remedies, the small claims court or the Master and Servant Act. What I am trying to say is this legislation is not going to prejudice that individual workman because it isn’t changing anything insofar as he is concerned from what it is right now.

Mr. Lawlor: No, I’m only trying to improve the legislation.

Hon. Mr. Clement: What you are really saying, as I see it, is that either the time should be extended for all mechanics’ liens, for notice of the lien, or that --

Mr. Lawlor: The first notice covers the works.

Hon. Mr. Clement: -- the umbrella principle comes back into being. That’s as I read it.

Mr. Lawlor: I like the umbrella principle.

Mr. Roy: Mr. Chairman, may I make one comment on the minister’s comments that he’s not aware of any workmen not having alternative remedies or waiting 37 days before taking some action. I’ve had occasion when a contractor has effectively stalled workmen past the 37 days so that their right of action or right of a lien had expired. He’d received his holdback and then went under, went bankrupt. In that particular situation, you have workmen who would have their right of action I against the contractor but he’s gone under and you’re throwing good money after bad at that point.

I’ve seen situations in which people have been hurt that way and I have some sympathy with the member for Lakeshore’s comments about the umbrella provisions as far as workmen are concerned. I’m not sure that the umbrella provisions of the Act should not be continued in relation to what we call wages on salary as opposed to services, supply of goods and this type of thing. Usually a subcontractor or supplier of goods who’s been in business a while knows the law and is usually very leery of letting a period of time go by without receiving some money.

I think he makes a good point and I don’t see really that when it involves the Crown there should not be more leniency. I appreciate your comment that this Act, in relation to workmen, doesn’t take away or add anything which is not already under the Act, but here you’re dealing with the government and, as a policy matter, a government protecting especially wages, salaries and that. I don’t know really how you do it if you pay the contractor after the 37 days and a series of workmen come over and say to the Crown, “Our time has run out but this character hasn’t paid us.” Is it fair you should be paying twice and then trying to get this fellow back?

I think the only way to do it is to give some consideration to the umbrella approach in relation to wages and salaries -- just for that, not for the other liens. When it comes to the question of wages we have a principle under the Act right now that they have priority anyway; we have accepted that this is a priority matter. I think maybe we should go further.

I personally have seen situations in which workmen were left out in the cold because of a slick operator. If the contractor says “No, I’m not going to pay you after the fifth or sixth day,” usually they don’t wait 37 days to be paid. “Come back and I’ll give you your cheque tomorrow.” Or after 15 days, he gives them a cheque, it bounces and he says, “God, I made a mistake; it’s the wrong account.” Some of these guys have been in business a while and have a way of stalling people.

I’m saying I think the member’s comment is a good one and should be given some consideration.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Chairman, I say this in conclusion -- the principle adopted by the Legislature, certainly prior to my being here, that the sheltering principle no longer applies must be accepted, I think, and I cannot at this time revert back to that particular principle. I would like to look at the debates and see what transpired at that particular time. There was obviously good reason in taking that view in amending the legislation. When you had the sheltering principle, it was easy to determine if a lien action had started, because you could look at the title of the property and see that an action had been started. There would be the notice of the lien and there would be the statement of claim or a certificate of action on the title. This says you don’t have to register; so I don’t know how the workmen would find; out if anybody had in fact started an action. I suppose he would have to go and search in the local registrar’s office. My God, it could be in six different centres. It could be in the hometown of the company, where the action was started or it could be where the contract was being worked. There is no way by this legislation, by not having to register against the title, that the person knows that he can go in and check the title and see if an action has been started as under the old registration -- the thing for the private sector. I don’t think the workman is deprived of anything under this legislation which we are debating here today.

Mr. Roy: I am not saying he is deprived.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I’m not suggesting that you do. But I’ll tell you if you want workmen to be delayed in their payments, extend that 37-day lien period on all liens to 60 or 70 days and see how they are going to be deprived. I suggest that would be a regressive step because that would just delay it that much more. The holdback then is going to be held back for that long a period of time and it would work a greater hardship on the worker and the supplier of goods and services.

Mr. Lawlor: This is building a straw man.

Sections 4 to 8, inclusive, agreed to.

Mr. Chairman: Any further comment on any other section of the bill? If so, which one?

Mr. Renwick: Section 9.

Mr. Chairman: The hon. member for Riverdale.

On section 9:

Mr. Renwick: I wanted just to deal with the point that I raised on second reading about subsection 4 of section 21(a) in clause 9 of this bill, providing for notice to be given to the ministry or Crown agency for whom the work is done or the materials are placed or furnished. The minister pointed then to clause 14 and the provision with respect to (b) and (c) providing for and requiring the posting of notices on building sites; prescribing the appropriate offices of the Crown to which notice of a claim for lien must be sent.

I was aware of those provisions being in the bill but I didn’t tie them into the problem to which I was referring, unless of course you join (b) and (c) in section 49, run them together, so that the provision is providing for and requiring the posting of notices on building sites prescribing the appropriate office of the Crown to which notices of a claim for lien must be sent.

I didn’t know what was to be in the notice on the building site and I don’t know whether or not that is the best way to deal with it. Would it not be more appropriate simply to provide, since you have so little to do in that ministry, that the notice be given to the Attorney General, in prescribing the office to which it will be sent in the regulations and providing for posting of that notice on the building site?

I give you two sort of alternatives: name yourself or join (b) and (c) of section 49 of clause 14 or reword them in such a way that the notice on the site will state the office of the Crown to which the notice of the claim for lien must be sent.

I’m always worried when that is the case because if you are going to do it by way of posting of notice on the building site, you never know whether the notice is going to remain on the building site for a very long period. Is the person who wants to give the notice then stuck with whatever the regulation prescribes by way of the agency to which notice is to be given, because he may find that the notice is no longer on the building site? Would it not be better in the statute specifically to provide a clear method by which notice could be given? All I’m saying is I don’t think that subsection 4 of clause 9 makes it easy and I don’t think that necessarily the regulatory power in (b) and (c) of section 49 of clause 14 makes it any easier either.

Mr. Lawlor: May I speak on this too, Mr. Chairman?

Mr. Chairman: The hon. member for Lakeshore.

Mr. Lawlor: Mr. Chairman, to back my colleague in respect of his argument, surely it has good sense because of the enormous array and diversity of Crown agencies. Even if that was segregated and placed in regulations, to what extent would that come to the attention of the people most affected, much less to members of this House -- who receive the Gazette -- with respect to Crown agencies.

The next step, the business of posting on the premises would have to be a very exact definition of where you set it. I concede your argument is fairly strong at that point, if that’s well displayed, easily accessible, and the working man, the fellow driving the truck who speaks very little English, etc., is aware this is where he goes to find out.

But would it hurt you, I suppose it comes to that, to give a kind of option, several choices, instead of always having one fixed choice? Operating out of a Niagara Falls law office you know as well as I do that the fellow who let it go and the last few days are running out with respect to his lien, doesn’t want to badger the guy because he may get future work.

Secondly, he’s hesitant about launching legal proceedings when that very easily may be obviated by simple payment. So, on the last afternoon he steams into your office, giving off beads of sweat. You head for the registry office to try to find the lot and plan numbers and all the procedure, to see if you can ferret it out -- and that’s a real headache too, particularly under pressure of time elapsing -- taking along a blank form which you are going to fill in. But it can’t be blank, he has to swear an affidavit.

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. Lawlor: You take the whole clientele with you. The whole firm comes to the registry office to look up the title, you copy out a description, you swear the affidavit, and you slap it on. In this particular context, it would do precious little harm and probably a great deal of good for the lawyer in that office -- without scurrying around and trying to find out what the blazes that agency might happen to be, so he is not wrong and doesn’t lose his client’s rights by mere failure to name it specifically, or to get the proper one designated -- if he is in that fix to know that he has an alternative.

He’d send it regularly, I would take it, to the agency in question. He’d have the contract in front of him, see the designated name and send it on. But in these crunch situations where he finds that very difficult, or he is really in doubt, why not just send it out to your department and then you can send it on. At least he’s met the terms of the statute.

You are pretty well protected on land situations because you are not describing any specific person necessarily. You describe land and it sits there, and even if you put it on the wrong land, as you well know, it still sits there until somebody moves to take it off. That’s not the kind of protection they have in this liquid situation. Therefore, I would suggest you designate your department as one of the possible repositories of this kind of documentation.

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

Mr. Roy: Just before the minister replies on that, I suppose some of the questions raised by the member for Lakeshore and the member for Riverdale are answered in section 14, where it states that the notice on the site should state which Crown agency the notice must be sent to --

Mr. Lawlor: That’s what we’re talking about.

Mr. Renwick: The two things. We don’t think they’re adequate.

Mr. Roy: You don’t think the notice posted at the site is adequate? I can see the point they’re making, but the other matter I wondered about is that in the notice that is required under section 9, does that really require that you give a description of the lands involved in that particular notice. I look at the items which must be in the notice and it states the address or a description of the location of the land. Does that involve giving the actual description of the land you have in your registry office? The member for Lakeshore was talking about scurrying down to the office and getting the proper description of the land. I suppose in this notice you are sending out to the appropriate agency, the street address will be sufficient, if not, I think it should be spelled out clearly in the legislation exactly what that means -- the description of the location of the land -- and if it is the case that you have to give a description of the land involved.

Mr. B. Newman (Windsor-Walkerville): It says the description of the location.

Mr. Roy: The description of the location of the land. Yes.

Mr. Renwick: I don’t think that is the description of the land.

Mr. Roy: That’s what I am not sure about, exactly what that means. If it means that is a description of land, surely the notice posted on the site about prescribing appropriate officers of the Crown should have the description of the land as well. Then matters such as those which have been raised, the concern about scurrying around at the last minute, can be corrected by rushing down, I suppose, to the site and seeing from the notice which Crown agency is involved and, secondly, what is the description of the land.

I take it that as far as the time period is concerned, subsection 6 says it may be sent by registered mail, in which case the date of mailing shall be deemed to be the date on which the notice was given, I think that’s a good idea in the sense that before, at least, you were rushing down to the registry office and registering your lien. If you were trying to avoid a limitation period or the 37 days you could get there in time but if you have to wait or rely on the mails to put in your notice I could see that could be a real problem. I take it then at the last minute you’d be rushing to the post office to have them put the stamp on for that particular day and then you’d be protected on the limitation period at that point.

Mr. Chairman: The hon. minister.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Chairman, we are contemplating in the regulations setting up a central repository where all notices should be sent, probably as an alternative to a particular repository for a particular ministry. Most of these contracts are done under the supervision of the Ministry of Government Services and I would presume that is the ministry which would be the recipient of all such notices as we are now discussing. I can visualize that the notice on the site might say, “Any notice for claims for lien should be sent to Mr. John Smith, Ministry of the Attorney General, 18 King St.” or “Ministry of Government Services, Queen’s Park, Toronto, attention John Blow.”

I think if we all know and the public gets to know and the industry involved gets to know that you can always send notice of a lien claim to the Ministry of Government Services, attention John Blow or Fred Emke -- just think of the name of that man who has been identified with elevators for a number of years. If there is someone like that, whom you know, this is really all we are saying. You can get your notice off and you know it’s going registered post, it’s going to find its target, and you are protected. This is really all we are concerned about. This is what we are contemplating in the regulations which we hope to bring in under the legislation -- a central repository always and probably an additional individual if a ministry or Crown agency is involved.

Mr. Lawlor: It is a shame you contemplate that within the regulations and don’t embody it in the statute. If it’s as simple as that, why not have it in black and white where one first looks? Regulations, I put it to you, are fairly recondite things. You may say that once it becomes common knowledge in the profession and among people who are supplying goods and services the matter will take care of itself. I say, in order to get to that stage where it becomes the customary usage in all these trades and the legal profession recognizes it, too, you can obviate the need for a regulation which is a remote entity over against the statute which is an immediate and well used one. That’s the only point -- why not put it in?

Hon. Mr. Clement: The reason I don’t want to put it in, Mr. Chairman, is because at this particular time it may seem that the Ministry of Government Services is the rightful ministry to receive it. This time a year from now it might well be that the legal officer in the Ministry of the Attorney General might well be the one who should receive it.

I don’t want to constantly have to come back to amend the legislation. It can be done by regulation; perhaps greater variety can be done by regulation. Also, at this particular moment, I want to know what the administrative complexities are going to be in terms of cost, delay, and so on if you have the central repository type of situation. I visualize a dual situation -- always a central repository in addition to a board or whatever agency happens to be involved.

Mr. Lawlor: Right.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I appreciate the value of the argument or the debate that is being put forward. You want the people to know so that they are not going to be hung up in diverting it to the wrong recipient.

Mr. Lawlor: Exactly.

Mr. Renwick: Mr. Chairman, on section 9, I still think that if you go that route there should be a cross reference in subsection 4 to the regulations. But I bow to the difficulty we are having of convincing you because it must be to the ministry or Crown agency at the address or place specified in the regulations. There should be something to show the person so that when he looks at the statute and doesn’t have the regulations which have been published last week, he knows he must go to the regulations to see where this place is that he is to go.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Chairman, I am sorry I overlooked mentioning that. I am advised that there are many types of notices which can be posted on the site on any building site, not only notices under this particular statute. Therefore, that is why we didn’t or the draftsmen didn’t join up (c) to (b).

Mr. Renwick: I am still on section 9, subsection 4.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I am sorry, I am relating my comments now to your comments dealing with section 14 of this bill, and we have had some discussions as to subsections (b) and (c). You suggested in your earlier comments that perhaps we could delete the semicolon at (b) and add, “and prescribing the appropriate offices.” My staff has advised me there are various types of notices that are mandatory on construction projects and that by leaving it this way -- (a), (b) and (c) -- it would look after those other types of notices, as well as notices under (c) for the name and address of the person to whom the notice of lien should be sent.

There is a suggestion here that may be of some value so we can resolve this. I wonder what the members opposite would feel, Mr. Chairman, if we amended subsection 4, section 9 -- it is really 21(a), subsection 4 -- by adding to the end after the word “furnished,” the words, “or to such office as is prescribed by the regulations.”

Mr. Renwick: Thank you, I would be delighted.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Would that make you happy?

Mr. Renwick: That would make me happy.

Hon. Mr. Clement: What about the member for Lakeshore? Would he be happy?

Mr. Lawlor: You did it.

Hon. Mr. Clement: The member for Lakeshore never has any difficulty in debating with me; he knows that.

Mr. Lawlor: The minister is more obtuse today than normal. It took him at least 20 minutes to come to that.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I was waiting for my draftsman, who was brought in from the Niagara area to put that together.

Mr. Lawlor: Okay.

Mr. Renwick: What was he doing, trying to find the minister’s office?

Mr. Chairman: Will the minister re-read the wording of the amendment?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Yes, I have it right here.

Mr. Renwick: I would be glad to move that for the sake of the record.

Hon. Mr. Clement: The member for Riverdale always gets me into trouble when he moves things. Your colleague for Lakeshore nearly cost us $100,000.

Mr. Lawlor: I want to make a disclosure. I am going to bare my breast to this legislature.

Mr. Roy: Save him the embarrassment.

Mr. Lawlor: I bet him half an hour ago he wouldn’t get that section amended today. The member for Riverdale always adds an iota. The day he stands up --

Hon. Mr. Clement: Would the member for Riverdale take me into his confidence?

Mr. Lawlor: He says, “I want to insert a comma at the end.”

Hon. Mr. Clement moves that section 21(a), subsection 4, be amended by adding after “furnished,” the words, “or to such office as is prescribed by the regulations.”

Motion agreed to.

Section 9, as amended, agreed to.

Mr. Chairman: Any further comment on any other section of the bill?

Mr. Renwick: I only have a query about the wording of section 13. I am not proposing an amendment. I just want to ask whether my understanding is correct.

Mr. Chairman: I gather there is no comment before section 13? The hon. member for Riverdale.

Sections 10 to 12, inclusive, agreed to.

On section 13:

Mr. Renwick: Mr. Chairman, my question to the minister is: Does section 23(a) mean every lien for which notice has been given as required by section 21(a), and which by virtue of section 5(2) does not attach to the land, ceases to exist on the expiration of 90 days? In other words, is it a dichotomy between section 23(a) and section 22(a) -- that is, the one in section 22(a) where the notice has not been given, the one in 23(a) where the notice has been given? In the one case it expires on the last day for giving the notice, and in the other case it expires 90 days after the situation is set out in those clauses. I assume that is what it means.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Section 23(a) merely says the words, “every lien which by virtue of subsection 2 of section 5 does not attach to the land.” That is just to identify the type of lien we are talking about. The lien affecting government work or public work ceases to exist after the 90 days.

Mr. Renwick: That is if you give the proper notice.

Hon. Mr. Clement: If you give the notice and you don’t start an action within the 90 days, then it ceases to exist.

Mr. Renwick: It only applies then if you have also given the notice.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Oh yes, because if you haven’t given the notice, it’s terminated at the end of the 37 days.

Mr. Renwick: Thank you.

Mr. Lawlor: Let me be clear about that, because I have something written down on here and I want to clarify it. Giving the notice isn’t starting the action, eh?

Hon. Mr. Clement: No.

Mr. Chairman: Shall section 13 carry?

Mr. Lawlor: I have one question -- I am sure the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Ontario is going to ask that question too someday.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I assume you are aware that you don’t start your action in a mechanic’s lien until you issue your statement of claim and get your certificate of action. In these public works things, the things we are talking about here today, you don’t get a certificate of action because I don’t know what you would do with it. You start your action on the issuance of your statement of claim. It doesn’t require a writ, as the member well knows.

So you are quite right. You give your 37 days to put on your notice of lien. Then you must start your action by issuing your statement of claim in the office of the local registrar within 90 days or you are out of luck.

Section 13 agreed to.

Sections 14 to 16, inclusive, agreed to.

Bill 92, as amended, reported.

MINISTRY OF TRANSPORTATION AND COMMUNICATIONS CREDITORS PAYMENT ACT

House in committee on Bill 93, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications Creditors Payment Act, 1975.

Mr. Chairman: Bill 93, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications Creditors Payment Act. Are there any questions, comments or amendments to any section, and if so, to which one?

Mr. Lawlor: Section 2. Section 1 agreed to.

On section 2:

Mr. Lawlor: Section 2, the first part, says that you have this 120-day business. I think that has been satisfactorily explained. Then, “The minister may, after notice in writing to the contractor and surety, if any, pay the claimant the amount settled upon and deduct the amount” etc. That is the wording of the clause that I am interested in, I am still hung up on the supplier, even the workman, who omits to send in a notice to the minister. What happens to him?

Hon. Mr. Clement: What happens to him? It is the same as what happens in anything else. If he doesn’t send his notice in within the time limit prescribed, he may be out of luck -- I would say he is -- to avail himself of the provisions of this statute. He is not precluded by that oversight or delay or negligence from seeking such other regress as he sees fit.

You mentioned in your earlier comments that he may have to obtain permission to bring an action against Her Majesty and so on. That would only be required if, in fact, the contractor for whom he was working, if he was a subcontractor, was somewhat insolvent. If it was a solvent contractor, I suppose he would issue his written statement of claim in a straight contract action for moneys owed and remaining unpaid.

Mr. Lawlor: Why doesn’t the last date to which credit has been extended apply here as it did in the previous legislation?

Hon. Mr. Clement: I would think, subject to advice from staff, that it’s trite to say that the sub-contracting concept in the construction of highways is certainly minimal compared to general construction practices. I would think that with a period of time of 150 days --

Mr. Lawlor: One hundred and twenty.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Pardon me, 120 days -- that it is very unrealistic to give an extension of credit much beyond that point. I think the cost of renting money today is far too expensive. When you get into the 37-day period, you’re talking of a much shorter term.

Section 2 agreed to.

Mr. Chairman: Is there any further comment on any other section?

Mr. Renwick: I just have a comment on Section 7.

Mr. Chairman: The hon. member for Riverdale.

Sections 3 to 6, inclusive, agreed to.

On section 7:

Mr. Renwick: The minister did state across the floor that these three Acts that we are considering -- Bills 92, 93 and 94 -- will come into force on the same day by proclamation. Perhaps the minister should say that for the record.

I take it that subsection 2 of section 7 of Bills 93 dovetails with subsection 2 of section 2 of Bill 94, so that the persons to whom the new Act does not apply -- that’s Bill 93 -- are protected by the provisions of Bill 94, the saving clause in Bill 94. Have I made myself clear?

Hon. Mr. Clement: I wonder if the member could say that again. I want to follow him through on this.

Mr. Renwick: If the minister would direct his attention to subsection 2 of section 7 of Bill 93, which is the bill which we’re dealing with, he will see that this new Act does not apply in respect of contracts entered into before this Act comes into force, or to sub-contracts entered into directly or indirectly under such contracts. Therefore they’re not going to have the benefit of the provisions of the new Act I take it that the intention of subsection 2 of section 2 of Bill 94, the saving clause in the Act repealing the Public Works Creditors Payment Act, will protect persons having claims under such contracts.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Yes. I would like to make it clear just so it is on the record that the intention is and the undertaking is to have all three bills come into being on proclamation on the same date. I think it’s important that we have that.

Sections 7 and 8 agreed to.

Bill 93 reported.

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

Motion agreed to.

The House resumed, Mr. Speaker in the chair.

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

Report agreed to.

THIRD READINGS

The following bills were given third reading upon motion:

Bill 92, An Act to amend the Mechanics’ Lien Act.

Bill 93, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications Creditors Payment Act, 1975.

OMBUDSMAN ACT

Hon. Mr. Clement moves second reading of Bill 86, An Act to provide for an Ombudsman to investigate Administrative Decisions and Acts of Officials of the Government of Ontario and its Agencies.

Mr. A. J. Roy (Ottawa East): Mr. Speaker, not having had an opportunity to prepare on this short notice, we are going to have to get some people come in and talk about the bill.

I think it should be pointed out that this legislation we are discussing this afternoon is certainly due in great measure to my colleague from Downsview (Mr. Singer). I think it is important to point out, Mr. Speaker, that he, over the past six or seven years, presented legislation asking for an Ombudsman in this province. I think it is certainly to his credit and through his persistence that the government finally not only saw the wisdom of his legislation, but saw that it was a politically attractive measure as well. I think he deserves a lot of credit and that should be pointed out.

I am sure the Attorney General will appreciate that. Although the government tried to say that the origin of this policy probably emanated from the other side when, in fact, the only really positive policy that existed in the Throne Speech was that measure. But it emanated from this side of the House and a lot of credit should go to the member for Downsview.

Some of my colleagues will undoubtedly have comments on this. But I thought that as an opening matter, and seeing he was not here, something had to be said. I am sure he would have had some comments to say about this legislation. I think it’s fortunate that he is not available, that he is indisposed. I think he has just left the hospital, and I sure he would want to be here. I think it is unfortunate that the legislation should be called when he is not around here to be able to make some contribution to the debate and maybe to propose some amendments to the legislation, because he had proposed it over a number of years.

He, from our party, certainly was as familiar as anyone with this office, with what the role of the Ombudsman might be, and how this individual should operate. I think it’s unfortunate that the legislation should be called at this time when he is not available. I don’t know how much warning we received that this legislation was going to be called. When did you tell us?

Hon. E. A. Winkler (Chairman, Management Board of Cabinet): Oh, several days ago.

Mr. W. Ferrier (Cochrane South): Tell us about the bill.

Mr. Roy: What do you mean, “tell us”? Haven’t you read it? Read the bill and then you tell me about the bill.

Mr. M. Cassidy (Ottawa Centre): Have you read it?

Mr. Roy: You bet, we’ve read the bill.

Mr. Ferrier: You are the speaker for your party.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Roy: The other point I would like to make, Mr. Speaker, is that the discussion of the bill itself becomes a lot easier when you see the individual who has been chosen Ombudsman. We have applauded the choice of Mr. Maloney. He is an individual who is familiar to many of us. Many of us know him personally, know his capability. It makes it a lot easier for us to approve the measures taken by the government when we see the individual who has been appointed. The legislation itself, Mr. Speaker, really becomes secondary when you consider the quality and the capability of the individual operating within it.

As far as the legislation is concerned, Mr. Speaker, we agree that the ultimate responsibility must lie with the cabinet and with the government. I think it’s important that be said, because after all they are the ones who are responsible to the public through the electoral process and are the last resort. I think we have to admit that this type of measure should be retained in the legislation, and I think we will have some comments to make as we proceed through clause by clause reading of this. I take it that the legislation will go into committee and that we will have an opportunity to discuss the legislation clause by clause.

Mr. Speaker: Yes. The member for Lakeshore.

Mr. P. D. Lawlor (Lakeshore): Mr. Speaker, I agree with the member for Ottawa East. In a way it’s a shame we in the opposition haven’t had a little more time to give an in-depth consideration. We just came out of a series of judicial matters and so on; however, I trust it will go into committee and that we will be able to peruse it. I would ask further on this that it not be sent into committee today, so that we will have a further chance of perusing the bill.

Initially I want to give commendation to the member for Downsview for the fight, virtually amounting to a crusade, he has conducted in this House for a number of years now in order to bring this legislation, or similar legislation, before us. It is one of those things that happen once in a while so that after many years as a member, one can be gratified to have been in the House. You can see some signal, some emblem, of what you wanted to do, and realize that the work was all worthwhile and not just a vacuity of breath. The member for Downsview has been able to achieve that with this legislation and I think on all sides of the House we should give due recognition to it. In his absence, which I know is unavoidable in this case, I think that recognition and commendation should be forthcoming.

Mr. J. A. Renwick (Riverdale): He will be back on Thursday. We might deal it until 10:30 tonight.

Mr. Lawlor: The first thing of importance in the legislation is that this Ombudsman, this commissioner, whatever you may call him, is a creature of this assembly. He’s our boy or she’s our girl, or whatever it may be, and is beholden to us, appointed through us, not a creature of the executive. The executive is precisely that element and degree, the echelon of government, that the Ombudsman is designed to safeguard us against, to act as a bulwark for us in defence of the fundamental liberties. We seek to do so, but the extensive powers of investigation, access to documents, inspections and whatnot provided in the legislation makes his capability of performing this function far more voracious and valuable than anything we find we can do.

I am not going to become ecstatic about the legislation that has been handed down to us here. The first task that it has to do is steer between the Scylla of the courts and the judicial system and the Charybdis of the executive branch. That’s a nice piece of steering as Ulysses one day found, and you can easily get lost on these rocks.

The jurisdiction of New Zealand is the one I think we should zero in on more than any other. The legislation of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and now ours today, is somewhat behind the tribes of Israel.

Ontario’s ombudsman bill was formed and modelled basically on the New Zealand system, not on the British system from which it differs very considerably; the salient difference obviously being that everything in the British system is funnelled through the member of Parliament.

We are going to make some strong representations to the minister on this legislation that while not everything ought to be funnelled through the MPP, we should play a far more considerable role in the operations of the Ombudsman’s office in conjunction and in relationship with him. We feel that perhaps the legislative function is being downgraded or may become less effective and less efficacious than it presently is with the appointment.

That could be very easily safeguarded against. The British system was wrong because the MP was the only conduit pipe through which the messages would be relayed, and secondly the report of the ombudsman came back to the MP in the British Parliament and was then relayed to the complainant. In other words the parliamentarians stood as a bulwark and very often their intervention too was an aggravation to the person out there who was complaining because he didn’t necessarily want to go through his MP. He may have found a political partisanship of one kind or another that could warp a view that he was presenting. He may not have had any personal liking or capability of getting along with his so-called parliamentary representative, and therefore shied away. Therefore an option should be left in this context.

The MPP, if the constituent wishes or the complainant wishes to come to see him, should be given a role that he, on behalf of the constituent, can address the remonstrances, the complaints or grievances to the Ombudsman; or should he not wish to do that, he can do it on his own hook. That’s fine. I don’t care.

When the report comes back, it can go directly through to the complainant if he so wishes it, whether he proceeded by the route through the MPP or not, or it can come back through the MPP to be relayed on in consultation with his constituent, or whoever the complainant may be that he is representing in this cause. That is no minor deficiency in the legislation as it stands.

As I say, we are up against the Charybdis of the executive. The whole force and tenure of the legislation is to bring the officers of the Crown under review in their executive acts.

And what do governments all over the world do? They respond defensively. And this government, I put it to the minister, in this legislation has built a Chinese wall to some degree around itself to forfend in advance the full efficacies, the weight and the benefits that can be brought about by the ombudsman system. The government has taken it upon itself in this legislation, which is rather different than others, to have the final veto power. If the government says one will not enter that building, that’s it, the government brings the axe down.

And another section -- I think section 21, I won’t look it up at the moment -- again gives the government plenary discretionary power over the Ombudsman so that whenever it suits its purposes, whenever the rub gets too close to the groin, at that particular point the government departs the fold, saying no, so far and no further, sir. And it doesn’t have to give any apologia for that.

In some jurisdictions, the minister performs that function, it is necessarily part of the Ombudsman’s report to this assembly that he has so done: “That on certain such occasions for such and such reasons the Attorney General saw fit to intervene and to impinge upon my responsibilities in this particular regard. He stopped me cold in my tracks.” When the minister does that, we can only interpret it as being some kind of malice of motive, some kind of running sore which is the very thing the Ombudsman came into being, not to prevent, that can’t be prevented, but to heal the wounds of such government action. It is not for the Attorney General to allow putrefaction to take place under an arbitrary mandate. That’s one of the things which can be exercised in the course of it. He constricts his Ombudsman; he doesn’t give him all the elbow room which he may need.

In another area, some jurisdictions have said that if there was any other route of redress the Ombudsman was ipso facto excluded, he would take himself out of the play. The minister doesn’t go that far and that’s good. I would, in a way, address my voice to Mr. Maloney, an old and dear friend of mine; we have raised cups together somewhat in the past --

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. Lawlor: Stirrup cups. I suppose now that he is this lofty thing those days are gone forever. However, we may get together some day reviewing his portfolio.

He is given an option under the legislation that he may, even if other routes are available, nevertheless move in and obviate whatever the harm may be without driving the individual out to seek redress by that route. I hope he takes it seriously. I hope he exercises that “may” in the Act and doesn’t say, “to be.” What they do in New Zealand -- I think there’s a clause in the legislation but I haven’t had a chance to check this out -- is if it represents an unconscionable weight on the individual in terms of money or in terms of what his capabilities are or his time or detraction from his job or what not, the Ombudsman will take over the burden. He will act, just as we tried to do in an earlier piece of legislation when this minister was Minister of Consumer and Commercial Affairs, and carry forward consumers’ complaints on behalf of the consuming public in test cases. This minister didn’t; he got sick. It’s not in the legislation. He came close to saying he was prepared to do that, to have a kind of an ombudsman on a small scale within the consumer dimension. Certainly this Ombudsman is not given power of that particular kind.

Again, he is constricted. I don’t see him given power to publish documents or to disseminate information. He is not given that kind of office.

Another area in which there is a deficiency and maybe the minister’s answer would be he will make rectification as the testing period goes on, the Ombudsman is not given powers over local government, as I read the thing. It is the agencies of the Ontario provincial government he is concerned with. This has been a cause of quarrel in other jurisdictions -- in Britain, again; and even in Sweden -- as to what the amplitude of those powers was. They did extend the legislation in both instances to the wider dimension.

The minister will remember McRuer, in his monumental report, made various recommendations about what the role and function of an ombudsman ought to be in this province. He went precisely to the local scene and had local ombudsmen, thinking that there was not much merit in appointing an overall ombudsman as we have arrived at it today; and I believe for all of us, on all sides of the House, there is good merit for so appointing.

But, in doing one, the minister doesn’t do the other. What McRuer rejected, in his legislation the minister accepts; and what he accepted, the minister rejects. I would like to know the reasons for this particular constriction; again in terms of jurisdiction and power. Because if the Ombudsman has no power or his power is shackled then his worthwhileness becomes irrelevant.

It is going to cost a substantial sum of money to run this office, beginning with the Ombudsman himself and with the various types of experts he will require.

Look at the ombudsman’s office in British Columbia and the ombudsman’s office in Sweden. There are three ombudsmen in Sweden, or at least two. There is one on the civil jurisdiction and there is a military ombudsman to handle other areas. They work in some kind of conjunction, but they are massive affairs. They also have powers of investigation.

Under this legislation, our Ombudsman cannot reverse a decision. He can only recommend to the minister, who has already affirmed that decision, that it should be looked at again. He has no powers of granting compensation. He cannot say that a wrong has been done in a particular case from which certain damages flow and say that this fellow must be paid.

The government’s criminal injuries compensation is, I think the minister will agree with me, neither here nor there in what I am talking about. These are civil wrongs of which I speak, inflicted by governmental agencies and individuals. There are no modes of redress insofar as the legislation goes. Why can’t we short-circuit a court proceeding? Why can’t we have the Ombudsman perform a function of that kind? Give him some kind of power and authority which makes his job one of plenitude, one of real worth.

My final comment -- well suppose I am going to end up with a question. A question was asked earlier today which I think the minister should answer, although you sloughed it off at an earlier time. If he is the lord of high Pooh-Bah of all agencies and institutes under this government, what are those agencies and institutes? Precisely, what is his job?

It is this minister’s job, as Attorney General and Provincial Secretary for Justice, or a super-minister or whatever he happens to be, to provide a list to this legislature, not just to his own ministry, because this bill comes under his auspices, under his wings; and under his wings will be this vast hierarchy of agencies that have spumed out there over many years.

I have little doubt that the minister would be enormously embarrassed by the longitude and the latitude of the list as the agencies come through. I was reading in one piece here that there were 41 agencies, I think again in New Zealand, that fell under the ombudsman’s responsibility. I would be willing to bet you, Mr. Speaker, there are 441 agencies in the Province of Ontario, agencies we never dreamed existed. Nor do the ministers, in whose charge they are supposed to be, have the smallest reconnoitering of a cognizance they exist. I am positive that this situation exists. The government has them all over the place. Nevertheless, this is the Ombudsman’s job; and it is our job to be aware of who these people happen to be.

Mr. J. E. Bullbrook (Sarnia): Has the member for Lakeshore expressed concern before I came as to what an agency is? I take it he has.

Mr. Lawlor: No, I have not just yet; but I think it is a good point. I also want to know what an officer of the Crown is? Precisely who is he?

Mr. Renwick: We touched upon it in the bill preceding this.

Mr. Lawlor: All right, no one can possibly vote against virtue, except sometimes I think it might have some shock effect to make people more virtuous if you voted against it.

Leaving verities aside, the legislation has to be supported, however deficit in may be in many respects. It has its ingrown inadequacies. It has been designed specifically to protect the government’s fortress against what this government would consider too great an incursion. We over here, in line with the right-to-know legislation introduced yesterday afternoon in this House by the member for York South (Mr. MacDonald) would think that complete disclosure was only the beginning of good government.

This government has been in power too long. Thirty-three years does constitute a self-enclosing propensity that kind of cuts one off from the realities of everyday life and the new modalities of government that have been engendered in the world since this group in power first took over. This kind of blindness has to end. The government has written some of this purblindness into the statute. It is most regrettable the minister saw fit to do so. It is enormous, this ultra-hypersensitivity; it’s a kind of fear which breeds shying off. When the government comes to the area where the shying-off ends, with an Ombudsman, with disclosure really taking place -- true the Ombudsman operates in private, but imagine him having to go cavorting back to a minister every time he finds something wrong to receive the accolades and imprimatur of that minister before he can do anything.

Really, the government has circumscribed his role, short-circuited him at the pass. Quite a brilliant piece of work; the governments gets all the credit in the world for introducing this Ombudsman legislation before the election -- all members have to do is point to it on the platform -- but what it contains in terms of circumscriptions is another matter.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Sarnia.

Mr. Bullbrook: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will be brief because I unfortunately was absent during the opening remarks of my colleague, the member for Ottawa East --

Mr. Cassidy: Let me tell the member he didn’t miss much.

Mr. Bullbrook: -- and the beginning of the remarks of my colleague, the member for Lakeshore. I believe we in this party would accept the principle of the legislation without reservation and therefore that would cut down a significant amount of the debate.

It would be less than appropriate if a member of the Liberal opposition didn’t rise and with some sense of pride pay tribute to one of our absent colleagues. I think the Attorney General would recognize, although he has only been subject to it for the last three or four years, that our colleague and friend, the member for Downsview, has regarded this as a cornerstone for what he considered the appropriate operation of government organization in this province for many years. In his absence, we convey therefore a sense of appreciation for the fact that the government has come to the conclusion that the member for Downsview, notwithstanding the repetition, was right.

The concept as enunciated in the legislation, from my point of view at least, is acceptable. I stand to be corrected, but I understand that my colleague from Lakeshore felt it didn’t go far enough, because of its inability to intrude upon government at its highest level. I don’t agree with that. I agree with the government’s position in this respect. No person --

Mr. Lawlor: All I can tell the member is that his colleague, the member for Downsview, wouldn’t agree with him.

Mr. Bullbrook: That might well be. I want to say in response to that, there would be nothing novel in that respect. We have disagreed many times over the years and I imagine we’ll continue to disagree many times in subsequent years.

Mr. Cassidy: Are members of the Liberal Party divided again?

Mr. Bullbrook: We have always found, frankly, that a degree of disagreement was healthy for the welfare of both a political organism such as ours and the individuals who compose it.

Mr. Cassidy: But members of the official opposition carry it to ridiculous extremes.

Mr. Bullbrook: We also recognize that in disagreement lies a breadth of spirit that is unique to us.

In any event, getting back and attempting not to be dissuaded by those comments to the left, from my colleague from Ottawa Centre, I believe.

Mr. Cassidy: How does the member do it? Are they compelled to disagree about everything?

Mr. Bullbrook: In any event, I think it is important to say, from at least my point of view, that I would not want to support any legislation that gave to any appointed person, no matter how just, able and intelligent, or what integrity of purpose he had, individually the right to interfere with the function of government.

The function of government is to govern; that’s what its members are elected to do. The people who make the judgement as to whether they govern properly or not are the electorate, not the Ombudsman. If there is a digression from or a misunderstanding of the position taken by my colleague from Lakeshore, I wish he would correct me now. If that is the position of the New Democratic Party, I say, I think for my colleague, that it isn’t the position of the official opposition.

Mr. Lawlor: I think we are a little off.

Mr. Bullbrook: Maybe we are.

Mr. Lawlor: I don’t think we disagree. I think we are talking at a little cross-purposes, but I don’t think --

Mr. Bullbrook: Suffice it to say, therefore, that there is almost unanimity on this side of the House, along with government, that the function of the Ombudsman is not to interfere with the Lieutenant Governor in Council.

However, I want to say this to you, Mr. Speaker, and I think this is an important feature, the Ombudsman should be regarded as a creature of the assembly and, in effect, its servant for the purposes of his administration. I think it is very important that, as you note in this particular statute, the Ombudsman’s report goes to you, sir. It doesn’t go to a minister of government. That is proper. You lay that report before us and that is proper.

There is a deficiency in the statute in that the report should be laid by you forthwith before us. That’s a word I think we will want to add to that particular section so that you, sir, will undertake your responsibilities immediately because you are, in essence, only a conduit to us as the arbiter of our rights. You are only a conduit to us and so it is essential that that report be laid forthwith before the Legislature, or as the section goes on, “immediately upon its returning to session.”

I think it is very important that we recognize in this connection the responsibilities of the Ombudsman as they relate only to an extension of what are fundamentally our responsibilities. To some extent at least, the Ombudsman in particular situations is going to relieve each and every one of us of a responsibility we should have -- and I think we have -- conscientiously undertaken as individual members.

Therefore as an extension of us, the Ombudsman should have nothing to do with the Lieutenant Governor in Council, in my respectful submission. The Ombudsman should not be funded by the Lieutenant Governor in Council. That section should be changed. The approval of expenditures by the Ombudsman, all his other activities, sir, should not be subject to the Lieutenant Governor in Council but should be -- you look with some query, sir, and I want to refer you to the section I relate to, if I may. I believe that section to be --

Mr. T. P. Reid (Rainy River): Section 7.

Mr. Bullbrook: No, give me a moment, if you would because I think this -- that does give some example of what I am talking about, the salary has now been fixed, and my colleague from Rainy River points out that particular section. It’s the other section, section 8. If you would relate to that section, Mr. Speaker -- and if the Attorney General would be so kind to do so -- you will see it says: “Subject to the approval of the Lieutenant Governor in Council, the Ombudsman may employ such officers....” That extends through the legislation, the actual ability he has to hire staff to carry out his duties.

The remuneration, as my colleague from Rainy River points out, is fixed by Lieutenant Governor in Council, but the understanding of the government, when we get to section 12, for example, is that the report is laid before us. It is laid not before the Lieutenant Governor nor any minister of the Crown but is laid before the assembly; and that is the way it should be. I regard this function as a separate function, almost equal in stature, if I may say with respect to the function that you, sir, fulfil.

In other words, you are not responsible to any minister of the Crown -- and thank God for that -- and it will continue as a tradition that you never will be because you are the servant of this House: I hope the Ombudsman would be regarded as the servant of this House, because it gives him that objectivity of enterprise, it gives him that ability to operate no matter who is on that side. I want to say to the minister that we realize we are going to be on that side in another four months --

Mr. Cassidy: He’d better not hold his breath.

Mr. Bullbrook: So I speak not against the administration. As a matter of fact, I have high hopes of being the Minister of Agriculture and Food. But that’s up to my leader; he will choose my talents as he sees fit -- and I don’t want any response to that.

In any event, I want to say to you, sir, I think this is fundamental to the principle of this statute. The government has almost played blacks and whites with this statute. They have recognized somewhat that the Ombudsman is the servant of the Legislature but they retain -- did I tickle the Attorney General’s fancy for a moment?

Hon. J. T. Clement (Provincial Secretary for Justice): Yes.

Mr. Bullbrook: It was my comment about becoming the Minister of Agriculture and Food that got him, was it? Well, I must say to the minister, that I think there would be something therapeutic in administering the Pregnant Mare Urine Advisory Board. I have always wanted to have something to do with that.

Hon. Mr. Clement: If you were in the cabinet, you would be on the P and P board.

Mr. Bullbrook: In any event, I am going to wind up in a moment.

The essential principle I want to convey, and I hope we might be able to have the government recognize that we must carry it through in this statute as best we can, is the fact that the Ombudsman will be the servant of the Legislature. As we go through the bill, section by section, we are going to allude to some failures of a specific nature, as we see them in this statute, related to like statutes now operating in the other provinces of Canada.

If I might be permitted to personalize for a moment, I have known for many years the gentleman who has been designated to undertake the first responsibility. I want to say to you, sir, he is a man of outstanding ability -- we all know that -- possessing great common sense and the type of individual who would not only bring grace to the position but would undertake it to its fulfilment. Those are generally the remarks I wanted to make. If I may, I would like to close by saying that I think the Ombudsman has been given too much power in one section here --

Mr. Cassidy: Too much power?

Mr. Bullbrook: I beg pardon?

Mr. Cassidy: That is extraordinary. This is as weak a bill as one could imagine.

Mr. Bullbrook: I realize the member for Ottawa Centre is clairvoyant, but I haven’t even said where I think he has too much power. And to begin with, I said, “I think he has too much power.” I have always operated on the basis that I could well be wrong. When I say I think something, it doesn’t make it ex cathedra. Maybe it isn’t too much power.

Mr. Cassidy: The Liberals are so wishy-washy, even about this bill.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Bullbrook: Well, I think it is only fair to recognize that I said I think he has too much power. It might well be that the hon. member can convince me that the Ombudsman doesn’t have too much power.

If I may, I want to relate to section 8(2) and point out that I read this to mean that the Ombudsman tinder that section can delegate powers and duties of a minister or deputy minister. In my respectful opinion it goes quite far enough that he can delegate powers of a deputy minister. Nowhere should an appointed official be able to delegate the powers of a minister of the Crown.

The powers of a minister of the Crown come from his elected position. There are discretions to be exercised by a minister of the Crown. I am sure my colleague, the Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. Stewart) in some of the statutes that he overviews, has discretionary power to exercise. Those powers are placed in him because he is elected by the people of Middlesex North; he is then chosen by the Premier of the province to join the cabinet and exercise those discretionary powers, recognizing that he does so on his own peril, being responsible to the legislative assembly.

The Ombudsman should not be in a position to appoint anybody; nor should he be able himself to ever exercise powers of that nature. That’s the essence of the parliamentary process, and I am going to ask the Attorney General when that section comes up to consider that particular --

Mr. Cassidy: The member for Sarnia is incredible.

Mr. Bullbrook: Incredible?

Mr. Cassidy: Yes, how the member could sit next to the member for Downsview all those years and yet disagree so fundamentally with him --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. member may make his contribution after, if he wishes.

Mr. Roy: The member for Ottawa Centre really wouldn’t understand --

Mr. Bullbrook: Mr. Speaker, I would like the member for Ottawa Centre to recognize that as the years go by, we have almost congealed. We were so far apart when we first started that I didn’t know who he was.

But those things happen in this assembly. There is nothing wrong with that. The first time I came in I snapped my finger at my colleague from Rainy River. I thought he was a page.

Mr. Cassidy: He should have been.

Mr. Bullbrook: We try to develop some type of rapport; that has been the effort of this opposition. While we watch the NDP fracture there -- and the member is the instrument of the fracturing, may I say -- we have attempted to congeal.

But in any event, I say that I think this is very important, it is basically a good bill in principle, and we compliment you in that respect. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Riverdale.

Mr. J. R. Breithaupt (Kitchener): Now we will have the party line.

Mr. Renwick: They won’t have the party line at all. We never have any difficulty in this party.

Mr. Speaker, I have a sensation, but I can’t be certain of it, that I want to speak at some length about the bill, because of an extreme interest in it and also because of a deep concern which I have about it.

We in this caucus are going to support the bill. I think that during the course of the remarks which we will make, both on second reading and in committee of the whole House -- where I assume this bill will go, rather than outside -- the Attorney General will be aware of our concerns.

First of all, let me say, as my colleague, the member for Lakeshore said, and the member for Sarnia and the member for Ottawa East, that we all recognize the contribution which the member for Downsview has made in introducing annually over the years a bill dealing with the appointment of a parliamentary commissioner, as the term is in the United Kingdom.

I was pleased to know that the member for Downsview may be back in his seat later on this week. I am sure he would have liked to have debated the bill. It may just be possible, if my inclination holds, that he may have that opportunity.

Let me also say that if one were to search in Ontario to select a person to perform the role of ombudsman, Arthur Maloney, whose appointment was announced on May 22 when the Premier (Mr. Davis) spoke in this assembly, is a fine appointment. We are not in any argument on those scores. I am sure the member for Downsview would acknowledge that while he has each year persistently and annually drawn to the attention of the assembly the need for a parliamentary commissioner or an ombudsman, I think he would be the first to agree that a number of members of the assembly over the years have discussed, either in the estimates committee of the various Attorneys General, or latterly of the Provincial Secretary for Justice, sometimes in addresses in the House and on other occasions, the need for such a role in the province as that to be performed by an ombudsman.

Let me say at the outset that what I believe the government is doing in this bill is creating a new institution of government, and I am surprised that it has been so constricted in its response to what the need may be. I think the need and the area and ambit of operation of an ombudsman is somewhat difficult to grasp and certainly difficult to foresee in its evolution. But I don’t happen to be one who believes that once this office is created we are likely to see, for a long time, any change in the legislation creating the office. I think it is the nature of this kind of legislation that once it is in place it is likely to remain there for a considerable period of time. I, therefore, must head off any argument or suggestion that over the years we are going to see any substantial amendments to the provisions of this bill.

I suppose what I want to do, Mr. Speaker, is to go back to the basic principles of the system under which we are operating in order to indicate why I believe that this bill is creating a new institution of government. The government is not just creating another appointment; it is not just saying there is a small area of concern which we have about people in the province and their relationship with the government which of necessity has become so intrusive on everyone’s affairs. The government is really stating that there is a need for such an institution and that institution is going to be personified in the person of the first appointee. But that appointee, for so long as he holds the office, will be succeeded by others who will also hold that office.

Therefore, I think we have got to say to ourselves if we are creating an institution of government, what are its relationships to the other institutions of government?

What is its relationship, for example, to the legislative assembly? What is its relationship with respect to the courts? What is its relationship with respect to the Lieutenant Governor in Council or the executive council or the cabinet or whatever one wants to choose to speak about?

What is its relationship going to be with the other bodies which are conclusively or inclusively described as Crown agencies of one kind or another? To what extent is the Ombudsman going to have a role to play that will fulfil the traditional sense of a vacuum in the institutions of government? I am suggesting that the bill is defective in not having any grasp of what that vacuum is which required to be filled and no real understanding of what the role of the Ombudsman must be.

First of all, let me deal with what the government is creating in relation to those various bodies to which I referred. I think, if you examine the bill, Mr. Speaker, that the relationship of the Ombudsman to this assembly will be but a formal one. I think that’s wrong. I don’t think it’s real. I don’t think it’s what is supposed to be. I think the bill cries for amendment and I’m not so --

Mr. Lawlor: Sanguine.

Mr. Renwick: No. I am not so unbelieving that in the course of a debate on a bill such as this that it may not be possible to extract from an enlightened minister of the Crown, and one who is concerned about these matters, some of the amendments to which we may want to have his assent.

Let me say I consider it to be a formality, an important formality, but a formality that the Ombudsman is going to be appointed by the Lieutenant Governor on the address of the assembly. Let me say that I consider it to be but a formality that when he takes office he is going to be in front of this assembly and swearing an oath to be administered by the Speaker pursuant to the statutory authority which is going to be contained in the bill. Let me say that I think it is a formality if in fact, as this bill states, he will report to the assembly annually about his office, because we know of all of the reports which come before the assembly that it’s a very necessary democratic safeguard, but it is a formality.

Let me say, in addition, so far as one can tell by the bill and the nodding acquaintance given to it, the general rules of procedure which are to be set out by this assembly have a very scanty place to play in the operations of the office of the Ombudsman. I would expect and anticipate and hope that there may very well be some clear statement by the minister at some point in time in this debate about what the general rules for the guidance of the Ombudsman will be in the exercise of his functions under this Act and how the assembly will make those rules in order that they will be of the kind of guidance to which the bill appears to pay lip service.

Now why do I say that those appear to me to be but mere formalities? The additional formality, of course -- and if I may just add to my comments about the formalities -- is that he will appear in the estimates and the appropriation for his office will be voted. I assume that the appropriation will be included in the estimates of the Speaker of the assembly.

So far as I am aware, the Speaker does not go into estimates committee or into a seat in this House to discuss his estimates, so we will be discussing the appropriation and we will presumably have an opportunity to discuss the estimates for the office of the Ombudsman either in his chamber or perhaps out in some committee where we may be able to exchange views annually with the Ombudsman, knowing full well there will be no change. This is the case with estimates. Never in my time have I seen a dollar of the estimates change.

But regardless of what we say, we are not going to have any influence on the continued existence of the office or of the nature of the kind of reporting operation which he must do to this assembly if he is to have any meaning.

In my judgement, those are formalities. We have seen them many times and we know exactly what they mean. I think the bill’s basic law, within the ambit that we are going to vote for the bill and support it on principle, is to find that right from his inception in office his scope will be so curtailed and limited by the very statute that we are passing and the oath which he will be taking, that we in this assembly will have little, if any, opportunity to question him about any matters.

I refer to that section of the bill which deals with his oath of office. It’s to be administered by the Speaker of the assembly, with all of the pomp and ceremony no doubt that the government of the Province of Ontario can bring to bear on such occasions as inheritors of the family compact in this province. He will faithfully and impartially exercise the functions of his office; no one would disagree with that. And he will not, except in accordance with subsection 2, disclose any information received by him as Ombudsman. So that the only information we will be able to get as members of the assembly -- of which he is to be an officer -- will be what is set out in subsection 2, and that will be enshrined in the very nature of the oath of office. Subsection 2 says:

“The Ombudsman may disclose in any report made by him under this Act such matters as in his opinion ought to be disclosed in order to establish grounds for his conclusions and recommendations.”

That is an exception to his oath of office. In no sense can he depart one iota from the minimum requirements of supporting whatever his conclusions and recommendations may be.

So let us suggest for a moment that we are in an estimates committee; the estimate of the Ombudsman comes before the assembly and we want to discuss with him what he has been doing in performing the functions of his office. He will say: “What I have been doing has already been stated, because I am allowed to disclose such matters as, in my opinion, might to be disclosed in order to establish grounds for my conclusions and recommendations which I have given, and I can only disclose so much of the background as will support them -- and I have already done that.”

I think that is an extreme limitation by the government on the office of the Ombudsman. It is so extreme, that I feel somewhat pot upon that we in this assembly are going to be the ones who impose that limitation through the oath of office which is going to be given by the Speaker of the assembly. At some point in time, is the minister prepared to be able to say to me that “No, there is going to be a standing committee of this Legislature to which the Ombudsman will report, when, as and if he, the Ombudsman, wants to report to it, or a select committee of the assembly.”

I bow to those who have better knowledge of the assembly than I have. As I understand it, a select committee can be appointed as a continuing body during each Parliament and that it’s not a question of whether or not the Legislature is in session or not in session. That happened to become some sort of mythology because it was bound up with the question of the per diem allowance which was granted. In the United Kingdom, as I understand -- and I can’t say that I am all that knowledgeable about it but I have some knowledge over a period of time and I’m sure that other members of the House have some over a period of time -- there is a select committee of the House of Commons to whom the ombudsman or the parliamentary commissioner as he is known reports.

If I may, I would refer to quite a fascinating debate which took place a year ago in the estimates of the then Provincial Secretary for Justice when we discussed his particular type of problem. I believe my information to be correct, as I stated at that time, that if one looks at the reports of the parliamentary commissioner in Great Britain and looks at the work of the select committee of the House of Commons to which the parliamentary commissioner reports and the work of the select committee of the House of Commons dealing with it, one will see very clearly that not only does the select committee examine the parliamentary commissioner on his report, they examine the very departments that he criticizes or the very departments in which the particular issues arise which have led him to categorize it as maladministration.

If the Ombudsman is to have any role to play in the Province of Ontario, it is as an officer of this assembly reporting to a select committee of this assembly and the select committee picks up where the Ombudsman leaves off and carries through on the criticism of whatever departments of government or whatever agencies of government deserve that criticism for maladministration. That’s the next point that I wanted to make.

I want to move on into another area of the bill where I consider it to be substantially defective.

The bill poses a vacuum at the end of the road because if, having in all secrecy -- and I’ll come back to that matter in a little while -- conducted his investigation, because the purpose of having the Ombudsman is to conduct investigations, he comes to certain conclusions that a matter should be referred to the appropriate authority for further consideration; that the omission should be rectified; that the decision should be cancelled or varied; that any practice on which the decision, recommendation, act or omission was based should be altered; that any law on which the decision, recommendation, act of omission was based should be reconsidered; that reasons should have been given for the decision; or that any other step should be taken, then he makes his report. He can specify that he expects action within a given period of time and he can send his report to various people. That is all set out in the bill.

If no action is taken which is appropriate to the recommendations which the Ombudsman has made, what can he do? He can send a copy of the report and recommendations to the Premier and he may thereafter make such reports to the assembly on the matter as he thinks fit. There is nothing in the bill which indicates what this assembly can do about the matter.

There is nothing to say that the recommendations of the Ombudsman will appear as an order on the order paper or as a motion on the order paper for a debate. There is nothing to say that the report of the Ombudsman in such a situation on that specific matter on which there has been no action by the government; or on which action has been inadequate by the government in relation to the maladministration which has caused a sense of grievance in the citizen who has filed a complaint with the Ombudsman; there is nothing which then says “and that report shall automatically be referred to the select committee of this assembly in order that the matter can be further investigated by that select committee.” Or, “after motion and debate, will be referred.”

That’s what it’s all about. It has to do with something called the executive government operating in a way which can be characterized as maladministration. Most people seem to think we’re talking about something called administrative law. We’re not really talking about administrative law; we’re talking about maladministration, and all sorts of failures which may occur in the course of the decision-making processes of government.

With the member for Sarnia I share the concern that we are not engaged in creating an institution of government which is to interfere with the proper functioning of government, with the due and proper functioning of government. That is not why we have an ombudsman. It is to ensure that functioning will be due and proper in situations where, because of the proliferation of government in all its agencies and emanations, maladministration can and does occur which affects people who are involved with it.

I say that in a very real sense the relationship of the Ombudsman to this assembly will be but a formal one. We will have no real sensation, because of the nature of this bill and because of the way in which it was drafted, that the relationship of the Ombudsman to the assembly will be the kind of relationship which is essential when we are creating this particular institution of government.

Do not think for one moment that I’m saying he must be of necessity, therefore, non-independent in his status and a creature of the assembly. That is not so. We want to create an independent person and the bill, in many of its respects so far as the tenure of office and that aspect of the appointment are concerned, is satisfactory to us in that regard. There are certain problems we have with those aspects of it. Nor are we saying that he must have no relationship with the executive, the cabinet, the executive council -- whatever you want to call it -- the Lieutenant Governor in Council, we’re not saying that.

We are saying he must have a role which is a distinguishable role and not one which will be downgraded in the sense this government has downgraded that office because of the way it has conceived the role which is to be played by the Ombudsman.

I don’t think it was ever intended -- and I’m quite certain the first person to be appointed to this office, Mr. Arthur Maloney, does not assume office on the basis that somehow or other be has some special personal characteristics which will enable him to resolve problems of maladministration. He is the first occupant of an office which will continue for a long time. We want a man of integrity. We want a man of independence. We want a man of probity. We want a man of experience. We want a man of acumen, of judgement. But that will not provide the kind of operation for the office of Ombudsman that we conceive it to be unless the statute which clothes him with the functions of his office and the way in which he can perform it, is an adequate statute.

All right. That is the first area of concern which I have about the nature of the institution of government that this present government is providing for in introducing Bill 86 into the assembly.

The next relationship that I wanted to talk about is the relationship of the complainant -- the citizen of the Province of Ontario or the person from outside the Province of Ontario who may have been affected by something within the Province of Ontario and how he will be dealt with and how he will deal with the Ombudsman.

I happen to believe that if a citizen is aggrieved -- it may sound somewhat old-fashioned but I think it is the appropriate term to use -- by maladministration in the government of the Province of Ontario, the first thing one must recognize is that there is an element of comedy in that person taking on the government of the Province of Ontario by himself.

If the point is reached at which he has been aggrieved, he will have already had such contact with the government of Ontario that he may be reluctant to face the problem of even laying a complaint in writing with the Ombudsman for the investigation to take place in the impartial way in which the Ombudsman is configured in this statute.

At least in the United Kingdom they recognized that there was an additional role to be played by the members of the House of Commons. So, they provided in their original bill -- and I am grateful to the member for Lakeshore in indicating that they then amended it to provide an alternative method -- that the only complaints which could go forward to the parliamentary commissioner were those which were channelled through or originated with the member of the House of Commons. That is, originated in the sense of the physical complaint in writing going forward from the member of the House of Commons to the parliamentary commissioner.

Mr. Lawlor: I don’t know if they did that, really. I am not sure they amended it that way.

Hon. Mr. Clement: They did.

Mr. Renwick: All right. I am going to assume for the moment that in the course of time they amended it to provide the alternative that a citizen of the United Kingdom could, if he wished to do, go directly to the ombudsman or the parliamentary commissioner with a complaint in writing, but that there was always available to him, if he chose to do so, the right to go through the member of the House of Commons.

I know enough about the role of a member of the provincial Legislature of the Province of Ontario that both members of the back-bench, private members of the assembly sitting for the government party, private members of the assembly sitting for the opposition parties, all have a degree of leverage on the government. It depends on a number of things but every one of us knows that we have some influence on government. We may think at times it is minuscule; we may think that it is all that it should he.

But, I can assure you that it would be most helpful to a citizen of this province, rather than going directly to the Ombudsman himself by way of complaint, if he chose to consult with the member of the assembly either who represented him or who had a special interest in the area of concern because I don’t think it is a matter to be tied to a constituency basis at all. He should have the opportunity to say he wants this complaint to go forward under the auspices of a member of the assembly.

The response of the Ombudsman in a situation such as that would be such that -- and I am not taking away at all from the question of the integrity of the Ombudsman when I say it -- it would mean he would be in a position where he had to deal effectively with the complaint, where it may be that he would be able to raise questions and so state the complaint in a way that it would be more clearly understood by the Ombudsman and, if the Ombudsman had any problems in relation to it, he would have to deal, of necessity if the complainant goes that route, through the member of the assembly.

I want to say to the minister that if he is trying to solve the problem by the creation of this institution of government in a way that will protect the ordinary citizen against the maladministration of the executive branch of government, then it seems to me that the result can only be achieved by the method which has been created if that alternative is provided in the legislation. I think it should be provided. I urge the ministry to consider that particular amendment in due course to the provisions of this bill.

May I say by way of an aside, because when we get into committee perhaps these matters can be dealt with, there are two or three things that bother me about the bill in relation to the complainant in a very technical sense. Does it cover people outside the province? Is there any residence requirement? Is there any citizenship of landed immigrant status? Is it restricted to residents of Ontario?

Another technical problem, because there is no point in raising it in committee if the ministry can’t answer it easily at that time: Does the right of complaint survive the death of the complainant and, if so, in what circumstances? Does it carry on to his legal personal representatives so that if a complaint has been lodged it will be continued upon the death of the complainant and, if so, in what situations?

Is it only complaints which exist from the date the bill comes into force or which arise after the bill comes into force that are to be dealt with by the Ombudsman, or is there a period of time, now extant, during which complaints which have arisen in the past can be dealt with by the Ombudsman or, if so, what is the delimiting area of those particular considerations?

Let me now move to the real problem as I see it, or the third phase of the real problem in connection with the bill as I understand it. I guess I must be a little bit elementary about it, not for the purposes of the members of the assembly, but to clarify my own thinking as I talk about a topic which is extremely difficult to be clear about.

Our theory of government is that the executive is the Crown. The Crown operates through the ministers of the Crown, and the ministers of the Crown operate either by the common law through the prerogative or by statutory powers conferred upon them. I simply refer, Mr. Speaker, to the Executive Council Act:

“The executive council shall be composed of such persons as the Lieutenant Governor from time to time appoints, and all executive councillors so appointed are ministers of the Crown.”

Then it goes on to say:

“No deed or contract in respect of any matter under the control or direction of a minister is binding on Her Majesty, or shall be deemed to be the act of such minister unless it is signed by him or is approved by the Lieutenant Governor in Council.”

For whatever that’s worth, I think it supports the proposition which I placed before the assembly yesterday when I was engaged in supporting my colleague, the member for York South, who is unavoidably absent from the House at the present time. I stated five propositions and I’m not going to repeat the five. I’m quite certain that all of us will be reading them tonight because of their extreme interest in what I said yesterday.

The third and fourth ones were an expression by me that 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 express parliamentary sanction or supervision. And 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 made liable either to punishment or to censure or loss of office.

If that is our theory of government in a nutshell, or at least in a form which indicates where the executive branches off from the assembly, and has its responsibility to the assembly then all of the acts of that executive are the very acts which, over the course of time, may create the kind of bad decisions throughout the extensive branches of the ministry, throughout the powers of delegation, which over the years we have begun to provide in the statutes with respect to the powers of minister to delegate particular aspects of their work to other members, other persons in the ministries. So it is the executive in its broad sense including, in the definition of this bill, the references which are made to a “ministry, commission, board or other administrative unit of the government of Ontario, and including any agency thereof.”

I allude to that, because it is I my understanding that every board and commission set up by this assembly by statute, at some point -- I need some clarification and help on this -- has a minister who reports for it to this assembly. He may not be responsible for it, as in some instances he is responsible. But there is no board, agency or commission of the government of the Province of Ontario set up by a statute for which some minister doesn’t have some responsibility.

We all know that there are such a multitude of agencies and commissions it is hard to be dichotomous about it. But I suppose two good examples would be that the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr. Handleman) is responsible for, subject to the terms of the statute creating it, the Ontario Securities Commission, in the sense of a parliamentary democracy. But he is not responsible for the Liquor Control Board of the Province of Ontario, even though he reports to the assembly about it. He is not responsible in the sense that he is responsible in a like sense for the Ontario Securities Commission.

So what I am saying is that an immense number of decisions have to be made every day by government in the wide amplitude of the powers which have been given to the executive branch of government under the statutes of the assembly, under the authority to pass subordinated legislation, or legislation subordinated in the sense of being by way of regulation. Under the decisions which are made by order in council, or the confirmation of decisions which are made by way of order in council, or any number of any other decisions which are made day to day, you cannot help but touch upon the people in the Province of Ontario, because it is their government, even though our convention is that it is the government of the Crown.

Therefore, I am concerned when I find it in the bill before us without any clear sense of the meaning of the term, that the function of the Ombudsman in section 15 of the bill is to investigate any decision or recommendation made or any act done or omitted in the course of the administration of a governmental organization -- which is the government in its executive sense, including all of its commissions, boards and agencies -- and affecting any person or body of persons in his or its personal capacity.

I am always concerned, of course, whenever the question of standing arises. The word “affect” is a word which, in law, has a limited sense and I would certainly like to have some generalized statement by the minister at the point in time when it is necessary for him to comment on this bill on second reading or in the committee of what does the word “affect” mean in this context. Who does have the standing? Am I, as a citizen of the Province of Ontario, affected by the decision of the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Bernier) to deal with the company at the sand dunes --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Would this be an appropriate place to break your remarks?

Mr. Renwick: In one-half second, Mr. Speaker, if I may. The company at the sand dunes -- would I have any standing in that matter when another citizen of the Province of Ontario, before a judge of the Supreme Court of Ontario, was held not to have any standing? Am I affected if I think the government of the Province of Ontario has unwisely got rid of a particular natural asset? Mr. Speaker, as it is 6 o’clock --

Mr. Speaker: I presume the member has further remarks to make?

Mr. Renwick: Yes, I do.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Mr. Speaker, maybe I might be allowed to say that as previously announced, following second reading of this bill, I understand the minister wishes to carry it over into committee on Thursday which, I believe, would be agreeable to the House. I would proceed then with the other two bills as I call them, items 12 and 13 on the order paper.

Inasmuch as there is some change in the order, I would anticipate, if the other bills were dealt with quickly, that I might consider calling item 17 or government notice of motion No. 5, for the information of members. However, if this is undesirable, it wouldn’t --

Mr. Renwick: Are we not going to proceed with this bill tonight?

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Yes, we are.

Mr. Renwick: We are going to proceed?

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Yes, to the conclusion of second reading.

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