The House met at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

INFLUENCE ON DAYCARE PROGRAMME

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of personal privilege with regard to statements made yesterday during the estimates of the Secretariat for Social Development by the member for Bellwoods (Mr. McClellan).

The member suggested that I listened to representatives of Great-West Life Assurance Co. before introducing new proposals for day care in June, 1974. There is not one whit of truth in this, and I believe the member should apologize for his unwarranted attack on my integrity as a minister of this government.

Mr. McClellan: On the point of privilege, it was my understanding from newspaper reports that Mr. Christianson had had input into the decision the minister made. I was going on the basis of public newspaper reports when I made those comments.

Hon. Mr. Davis: That’s not always a wise thing to do.

Mr. Lewis: Did the minister meet with anyone from Mini-Skools?

Mr. Deans: Did anyone meet with them?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. minister has laid her grievance before the House. This is an event which happened in the committee of supply. I shall look into the matter and if there is any action deemed necessary I shall take it; but at the moment the matter rests.

Mr. Deans: What is being asked?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. minister objected to an accusation that was apparently raised last night, as I understand it.

Mr. Deans: On a point of order, is it not the case that during a debate in the House in committee, if one member says something and the other member is present and able to answer, the matter must be dealt with then or else is passed? The minister could have answered at the time, if she didn’t like what was being said.

Mr. Speaker: This is why the Speaker is doing nothing about it at the present time.

Mr. O’Neil: I would like to introduce to members of the House a group of young Liberals from the Quinte area, from the city of Belleville and the town of Trenton. Will members please recognize them?

Mr. Nixon: Even the mayor is among them.

Mr. Sargent: They are a fine looking group.

Mr. G. I. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I would like to present to the House 37 senior citizens from the New Horizon Club in Simcoe.

I would just like to say a couple of more words. Simcoe is the largest town in my riding and the home of the Christmas light-up ceremony, the biggest Christmas lighting display in Ontario.

Mr. Speaker: Thank you. The Legislature is always very happy to welcome guests, but I think we should leave it at that; just the introduction.

Mr. Kennedy: Mr. Speaker, would members join with me in welcoming 20 students from Port Credit Secondary School, together with their teacher, Mr. Sniderman, in the west gallery.

Mr. Stong: There are seated in the gallery 55 students from grade 8 from James Robinson Public School in Markham, in the riding of York Centre. I would ask the members of the House to welcome them with me.

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, I would ask the House to welcome nine parliamentary interns, university graduate students from Ontario and six other provinces, who are in the gallery and are visiting Queen’s Park today as part of their learning-by-working experience with members of the House of Commons.

Mr. Speaker: Statements by the ministry.

Mr. Lewis: I’m very sceptical about question period today.

Mr. Sargent: There are 300 people from Chesley who are outside and couldn’t get in the House today.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Nixon: They don’t want their hospital closed.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Is there a point of privilege? Are you serious?

Mr. Lewis: I told the parliamentary interns this morning, Mr. Speaker, that they have seen nothing until they have seen the member for Grey-Bruce (Mr. Sargent) in question period and I trust he will oblige. I promised them that this morning.

Mr. Speaker: I think we will get on with the regular business.

EXTENSION FOR RETURN OF ASSESSMENT ROLLS

Hon. Mr. Meen: As a result of the postal strike, I have found it necessary to extend the date for return of assessment rolls in municipalities and localities across Ontario from Dec. 16, 1975, to Jan. 21 1976.

In order to give people adequate opportunity to review their assessment notices, I have also decided to extend the dates for delivering the notices and lodging complaints to assessment review courts, as provided under section 46(2) of the Assessment Act. Also, as required under the Act, a public notice of these extensions is being placed this week in daily and weekly newspapers across the province.

It should be noted that these extensions do not apply to the corporation of the township of Wicksteed in the district of Algoma, where the post office has been in continuous operation throughout the mail strike. In the few instances where property in Wicksteed may be owned by people living outside this municipality, my ministry will deliver notices if owners live in Ontario, or if they live abroad, these people will receive their notices by mail.

Each member has been given an information package consisting of a letter to all heads of council, the public notice and a letter to members explaining the extension in more complete detail.

CREDIT RULES FOR WOMEN

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, on Sept. 4 of this year the Premier (Mr. Davis) released a statement in which he asked that I undertake to develop guidelines to ensure that women in Ontario have the same access to credit as do men.

Today, I am pleased to table equal credit opportunity guidelines which have been endorsed by the Ontario credit granting industry for use in their consideration of credit applications.

The guidelines are extremely important, since they ensure that women will have equality of access to credit. They were developed in close consultation with the credit grantors, who were able to make their contribution through practical input so as to make the guidelines realistically effective. The application of the guidelines will allow all women to take full advantage of their economic status in the marketplace of this province.

Two major guidelines are set out for consideration of an individual’s credit application.

1. A married woman shall be granted credit in her own name if her credit qualifications, including her earnings or her separate property are such that a man possessing the same credit qualifications and property or earnings would receive credit.

2. An unmarried woman shall be granted credit if her credit qualifications, property and earnings are such that a man possessing the same credit qualifications, property or earnings would receive credit.

Mr. Speaker, these guidelines are intended to clarify the credit granting procedures used in the marketplace. I would like to make it quite clear that we are not asking for any kind of special consideration for any group; we are saying that everyone, regardless of sex or marital status, shall halve the same equality of access to credit and have the same standards applied to his or her application.

In our discussion with the credit grantors, we started with the basic assumption that although access to credit is not a right but a privilege, equality of access to credit is a right. There is no reason why different criteria should be used to judge the credit worthiness of women.

The development of these guidelines was undertaken by my ministry as our International Women’s Year project. I would like to note that the project and discussions were directed by two senior women within my ministry, Mrs. Dagmar Stafl, our staff economist, and Ms. Barbara Moffat, our ministry’s women’s adviser.

After very constructive discussions with the credit grantors, our people were able to draw up a detailed 12-point list of principles which guide the credit grantors in the conduct of their business. Copies will be distributed to all members of the House.

I would like to emphasize once more that we regard these guidelines as very important. We are determined to make them fully effective and operative. We appreciate the support and co-operation obtained from the credit-granting industry, and are truly pleased with the assistance that the industry has volunteered in order to implement them.

We have not approached this topic lightly. Clearly a co-operative approach to the industry is in the best interests of all concerned. We have considered a legislative approach and have rejected it for two reasons: new legislation brings new bureaucracy, and also, it is difficult to legislate equality. It is preferable to convince the industry to live up to the spirit of these guidelines, and by its endorsation we have been given assurances that it intends to do so.

However, my ministry will keep a close watch on the implementation of the guidelines. We will ensure that women know whom to contact if they feel that they are not dealt with in the spirit of the guidelines. In our discussions with the industry, we requested that they undertake the responsibility to assure that all personnel processing applications for credit are made fully aware of the guidelines. If it becomes evident that women continue to be denied total equality of access to credit, then clearly we will have to consider the legislative alternative.

Hon. members will note that a list of credit-granting associations and companies that so far have endorsed these guidelines is being distributed to the House. I fully expect the list to be enlarged over the next few days.

I would like to emphasize that while these guidelines have the endorsation of all major credit grantors in the province, I assure the members that my ministry will closely monitor their adoption and application. If modifications are called for, they most certainly will be made.

I am pleased that we have been able to develop the guidelines and I’m sure they will be supported by all members of the House.

Mr. Cassidy: Ms. Sandeman wins again.

EGG MARKETING BOARD QUOTAS

Hon. W. Newman: Mr. Speaker, recent reports in the media regarding the directors of the Ontario Egg Producers’ Marketing Board have led to a great deal of discussion and controversy. As a result, the Farm Products Marketing Board met with the directors of the Ontario Egg Producers’ Marketing Board on Friday, Nov. 21, 1975, to discuss certain allegations raised both in the press and subsequently by certain Ontario egg producers.

The Farm Products Marketing Board sent its recommendations to me yesterday on the matter. I would like to report to the House that the Farm Products Marketing Board is itself investigating the facts related to the allegations that certain members of the Ontario Egg Producers’ Marketing Board were in violation of the Ontario egg producers’ marketing plan.

Once the results of that investigation are known, I will report back to the House on the matter.

Mr. Speaker: Oral questions.

PAPERWORKERS’ STRIKE

Mr. Lewis: May I ask the Premier whether he can report to the House his feelings as a result of the meeting I believe he had today, with various of the municipal representatives of the communities involved, over the lengthy strike in the woods industries? Did he meet with them today?

Hon. Mr. Davis: No.

Mr. Lewis: May I then redirect to the Minister of Labour? I had the impression that the Premier was there; obviously I was wrong. Has the minister met lately, perhaps even today, with the municipal representatives of the communities whose livelihoods are affected by the prolonged strike in the woods industries? Can she give the House some sense of her impression or intended action?

Hon. B. Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, yes, we met this morning. My impression is one of great sympathy for the residents of those communities who are obviously being severely limited in their living programme as a result of this prolonged strike. We are considering, very seriously, concerted action in this area.

[2:15]

Mr. Lewis: By way of supplementary, if I may: Might part of that concerted action -- since I think the minister indicated publicly yesterday that she didn’t like the adversary system in labour relations and the way it worked -- be a request on her part to Abitibi and the other major companies to come back to the bargaining table and make a good-faith offer which might be the basis for a negotiated settlement, rather than the continuing adversary division which exists?

Hon. B. Stephenson: It might be.

Mr. Nixon: Supplementary: Did the minister receive a request from the delegation that consideration be given to a legislated end to the strike which began, at least for Abitibi, in early July and which has disrupted so many of these communities for so long?

Hon. B. Stephenson: Yes.

Mr. Nixon: Supplementary: Did the minister make a response?

An hon. member: Yes.

Hon. B. Stephenson: Of course.

Mr. Nixon: I wonder then if she would inform the House as to the feelings of the government and the possibility of a legislated end of this strike?

Mr. Yakabuski: Don’t be too tough on Abitibi.

Hon. B. Stephenson: I’m sorry, Mr. Speaker, that I can’t give the feelings of the government at the moment, since cabinet and caucus have not discussed this at great length.

Mr. Nixon: How about the feelings of the minister?

Hon. B. Stephenson: The feelings of the minister, as I said, are in great sympathy with the officials of those towns, and I think that any action which can be taken should be seriously considered at this point. I have already discussed it with one or two of my cabinet colleagues, particularly with the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Bernier).

Mr. Riddell: Sympathy is just a word found in the dictionary.

Hon. B. Stephenson: I’m sorry; I know, and if the member wants to look it up, he can look it up under “symp.”

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Swart: Is the minister aware that the federal Minister of Labour has now indicated that the parties should negotiate almost without regard for the federal price lines in this instance, and does that cause her to be willing to bring any additional pressure to bear on the companies -- particularly Abitibi, which has not made an offer up to the guidelines -- to bring them back to the bargaining table?

Hon. B. Stephenson: In effect and in fact, the offer which Abitibi put on the table approximately two weeks ago is exactly at the level of the guidelines; with a slight sweetener, I suppose I should say, within the first year. It is a small amount, but it is not below the guidelines at all.

Interjections.

Hon. B. Stephenson: It is not.

Mr. Lewis: The minister is learning the lingo.

Mr. R. S. Smith: Even Abitibi admits it’s below the guidelines.

Mr. Speaker: Further questions? The Leader of the Opposition. We’ll move on and come back to the question later on if there’s an opportunity.

SALARY INCREASES BY EDUCATION BOARDS

Mr. Lewis: May I ask if it had been brought to the Minister of Education’s attention the extraordinary salary hikes for the top members of the educational bureaucracy in the Northumberland-Newcastle area, and did he make any comment on what the board had granted in light of the feelings around negotiations and the guidelines?

Hon. Mr. Wells: Yes, Mr. Speaker, these increases were brought to my attention. I looked at them. I can’t remember the exact amounts; they were something in the range of $5,000 as I recall. As I say, I am aware of them and all I can tell the member is that I asked my deputy minister to address the Association of Educational Supervisory Officers and tell them they should live within the guidelines and certainly adhere to the $2,400 maximum on increases under the guidelines.

That’s the action that will be taken in the future. I can’t recall exactly when these raises were put into effect, or if they were done before the guidelines were announced.

Mr. Lewis: They take effect after the guidelines.

May I ask, by way of supplementary: I think some of the money has been returned, but if the federal Anti-Inflation Board rules, as I believe they have or Mr. Pepin has indicated they will, that raises that range from $5,200 to $9,500 -- bringing the administrator to a level of $47,500 -- if raises of this kind can be justified, on averaging of all the employees of a board of education in a given area does the minister not see trouble implicit in that and might he not perhaps notify or instruct the boards that it is his request that the guidelines be observed at this point?

Hon. Mr. Wells: I think we would be willing to do that. Certainly we have told the boards the guidelines should be adhered to both in spirit and in principle. I think they should be.

There is going to have to be some breaking-in period, I suppose, for some of those people who are operating in areas where boards had settled before the guidelines came into effect and where people suddenly find their salary is lower than the group they are supervising; perhaps they will be entitled to some increase in that regard. Otherwise I believe the guidelines should be adhered to and abnormal increases should not be practised in those areas.

I might just ask my friend if he saw the ad that was in one of the papers this morning. Some of the increases in the board’s offer in Metropolitan Toronto come to between $5,000 and $9,000 over two years.

Mr. Lewis: They don’t end at 40 per cent.

TRANSFER PAYMENTS FROM CANADA ASSISTANCE PLANS

Mr. Lewis: A question, if I may, of the provincial Treasurer. Can he solve the confusion that may exist in my mind, and the minds of others, about the transfer payments from the Canada Assistance Plan?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: The confusion was in my mind. The money in fact has been received for two years or a year and a half or up to date. It’s my understanding that the undertaking was made by the government that these moneys would be used to enhance existing programmes in the mental retardation area and that is happening.

The money is not segregated on the books. It goes into the consolidated revenue fund and an informal accounting is kept. I’m told that over a four or five-year period the moneys will be used for enhancement purposes, but it has not yet all happened in terms of the amount of money we have received. For the details you would have to ask the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Taylor).

Mr. Lewis: I’ve learned enough from the Minister of Community and Social Services, thank you. I would like to pursue this with the Treasurer. As I understand it, the government has already received some $48 million with more forthcoming this fiscal year. What does the Treasurer mean by an accounting in an informal sense? Where does this money turn up? If this government only spends $15 million of it in this fiscal year does it spend the rest of the money it receives from the federal government this year under the mental retardation cost-sharing? And if it does use it, what does it use it for?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: It goes into the consolidated revenue fund. It could be used for any number of purposes, in an informal sense; and in more than a formal sense -- we were at it this morning -- the Minister of Community and Social Services has reminded us that he is carrying forward a credit.

Mr. Lewis: By way of supplementary then: The money received this year, earmarked for mental retardation, could be used for anything, as I said yesterday -- I thought perhaps light-heartedly -- from the paving of highways in southern Ontario to Andy StuParick’s salary. In fact that is true; it goes into the consolidated revenue fund and could be used for anything and, hopefully, is compensated for at some future date.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: It might even be used to raise members’ salaries, I suppose, or to pay members’ salaries. The actual fact is, if I can just correct one thing the Leader of Opposition has said, no funds which come into the government and into the consolidated revenue fund are earmarked. That’s something we don’t do.

Mr. Lewis: Yes, I understand.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: They are not earmarked.

Mr. Nixon: Supplementary: Surely if those funds were payable by the government of Canada as its share of the programme in support of the mentally retarded facilities and staff that we have, how can the minister suggest that those moneys could be spent on anything but those facilities, because they came from the government of Canada on the basis of that shared-cost programme?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: The fact is that because of the switch from ministries, we started to recover from the government of Canada moneys, which in our view, quite frankly, we should have recovered sooner. The same amount of moneys are being spent, plus an enhanced portion. We were under no obligation to do that. The Premier undertook, as those moneys came in, that we would be able to enrich our programme. As I recall the figures I looked at this morning, we are spending something like $160 million in the mental retardation area.

Mr. Lewis: Yes, but it has been --

Hon. Mr. McKeough: We are under no obligation to spend any more. We don’t spend money which is received on behalf of the Ministry of Health in that way. That simply goes into the pot as well. It is all shown together as receipts from the government of Canada. It isn’t earmarked in any specific way.

Mr. Lewis: Yes, in a sense it’s money received under false pretences, isn’t it?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Lewis: It’s given to the government for mental retardation.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: There’s no such thing going on in this government and the member knows it.

[Applause.]

Mr. Lewis: As a matter of fact --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Can we get on with the questions, please? Are there any further questions?

Interjections.

Mr. Lewis: Have you read --

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. Leader of the Opposition has a further question, I believe.

Mr. Lewis: No, I wanted to refer to what Henderson said about the Canada Assistance Plan money but my colleague is still looking for it.

May I ask the Premier one last question and take my seat?

OPERATIONS OF MEDIA OFFICE

Mr. Lewis: Does the Premier intend, in the light of matters discussed, debated and written of, to adjust the anomaly in the way in which the media studio and the media officer operate in this Legislature and bring it under the Board of Internal Economy, as my colleague the member for Wentworth (Mr. Deans) suggested?

Hon. Mr. Davis: I must be frank and say that I haven’t given this matter my most serious consideration at the moment. I’ll be discussing it with the Minister of Government Services (Mrs. Scrivener) and either she or I will have some information for the members of the House a little later on this week.

PAYMENT OF FUNDS TO MUNICIPALITIES

Mr. Shore: I would like to address a question to the Treasurer. Can the minister explain how he expects municipalities and boards to properly plan and be accountable when he overpays under the provincial revenue sharing plan one year and underpays in the next; and particularly when these pronouncements are usually made at a time of their budget deliberations and very often during them?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: I suppose what the member is saying is that we don’t specifically earmark funds out of a budget of $11 billion. There are often variations as the year progresses; particularly in terms of the Edmonton commitment there are two large variables. First of all, the amount of revenues which we, in fact, receive; their percentage of that is fixed but the revenues vary during the course of the year. Then, within the ministry programmes, there are a number of open-ended programmes and the actual amounts to be paid out are not, in fact, fully known until they are paid out during the course of the year.

Therefore there are two variables during the course of the year and it so happened in 1974 there was a substantial underpayment during the course of the year. In 1975 there is going to be somewhat of an overpayment.

Mr. Shore: I have a supplementary, Mr. Speaker. I really haven’t had an answer as to how he expects the municipalities to do their planning under those conditions?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Mr. Speaker, we’re looking at variables of about $50 million in each year -- it might be something more than that this year -- out of total municipal revenues of, as I recall, something approaching $3 billion. I don’t think the success or otherwise of the municipal budget depends on that small fraction of it, quite frankly.

Mr. Shore: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker, please.

By restricting these transfer payments to five or six per cent -- and, incidentally, I would advise the minister that it was upwards of 20 per cent last year, so it isn’t a small variance -- is it the Treasurer’s intention to shift the tax burden substantially back to the regressive municipal property tax base --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please, I think the question has been asked.

Mr. Shore: -- or is it his intention for municipalities to get further into debt?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Mr. Speaker, the last thing that would be my intention is for the municipalities of Ontario to go into debt. They have a very excellent record at this moment in time; the credit rating of the municipalities is strong and, I trust, will remain strong.

Mr. Sargent: It’s a lot better than the minister’s.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: The fact is there has to be some accountability. The fact is that during the last five years the government has raised the sales tax; has raised the mining tax; has raised the corporations tax; has raised the cigarette tax; the liquor tax; and the logging tax, during which time municipal mill rates went up about three per cent a year.

Mr. Cassidy: That was a matter of government policy. It was meant to be a shift.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: It seems to us that perhaps some of the strain should be put on the municipal side. I completely reject the notion that the property tax is the kind of regressive tax which the member is looking at.

Mr. Shore: The minister said it himself.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: The fact is that under the tax credit system brought about by this government the regressivity has been taken out of the property tax and if people like the members opposite have to pay the full amount, so be it. There are a lot of people who don’t.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Davis: And the members opposite can afford it.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

[2:30]

Mr. Cassidy: Supplementary: Will the Treasurer table in this House next week a full statement about the revenues paid by the province to municipalities in order that we can have the information to judge his claim that there was an overpayment last year; and is he prepared also to ensure the municipalities receive the amounts that were not paid to them in 1974, when he says there was an underpayment?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Mr. Speaker, the municipalities have received those amounts. There is a calculation in last year’s budget, and if the member would be good enough to look at it he would find that they did receive the underpayment of 1974 in 1975. In terms of tabling in this House those calculations, all those things will be done either coincident with, or preparatory to, or immediately following, the 1976-1977 provincial budget.

Mr. Cassidy: That’s too late.

Mr. Good: Supplementary: Relating to the answer and the Edmonton agreement, since the minister concedes the transfer payments are directly related to provincial income under the Edmonton agreement, how then can he penalize the municipalities next year when the provincial income was directly lowered by action of this government?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. We are debating the matter now. We allowed the question; if there is an answer, fine.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Mr. Speaker, we are not penalizing them next year for something which happened this year. The payments which were made to them this year included their share, if I can put it that way, of the reduction of the sales tax.

Mr. Good: That is what you say.

Mr. Sweeney: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: This will be the last supplementary.

Mr. Sweeney: Is the minister aware that last fiscal year upwards of 30 per cent increases were granted to school boards, and on the basis of that they negotiated salary agreements --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Sweeney: -- and this year --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. That’s not really supplementary to the original question. That is a question to ask later.

Mr. Sweeney: Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The member will take his seat.

Mr. Shore: What provision is the Treasurer making, if any, to accommodate the inflationary, arbitrary settlements such as those for firemen in North York, Kapuskasing, end so on; which are being imposed upon municipal governments?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Mr. Speaker, I would have to say none.

Mr. Shore: Supplementary: Does the minister agree that, as a result of his inadequate planning, the municipal property taxes will increase by upwards of 25 per cent in some localities this year?

Mr. Nixon: Sure he will agree.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Mr. Speaker, no I would not agree with that. But I would agree that if there are inflationary settlements with firemen in North York, and elsewhere, or as a result of arbitration with teachers and board-teacher disputes and strikes, I think it is nothing more than a symptom of the inflationary times in which we are living. That’s why we on this side of the House are giving our full support to the national anti-inflation fight; and we urge the members opposite to get off, stop riding both horses and get with it.

Mr. Sweeney: That is not fair.

Mr. Nixon: Whenever the Treasurer’s point is weak he starts yelling, so he must be in trouble.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Roy: Blame it on the Davis government of 1971; blame it on the Premier -- it’s his fault.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Yakabuski: You can’t govern and not govern at the same time.

Mr. Bullbrook: I have a supplementary to the question previously put, and the shouted response of the hon. Treasurer: In connection with his collateral responsibility relative to intergovernmental affairs, and supplementary to my colleague’s question, what advice has the Treasurer given to the city council of the city of Sarnia, who are now subjected to an arbitrator’s award with respect to their firemen that says that the award is exempt from AIP? The city council says it is not exempt from AIP; and in the light of the Treasurer’s sincere, unequivocal and unilateral commitment to the federal guidelines, could he tell us what he is doing?

Mr. Speaker: Does the Treasurer have a brief answer?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Yes, Mr. Speaker, if the city of Sarnia would like to get in touch with me, I would be glad to chat with them.

Mr. Roy: Don’t go shouting.

Mr. Bullbrook: When the Treasurer has a toughy he cannot answer it. He never does.

Mr. Speaker: All right. Does the hon. member for London North have a further question?

Interjections.

Mr. Shore: To what extent does the minister expect municipal taxes will have to increase to meet these conditions?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Mr. Speaker, I can’t give an answer to that question. That depends on a great number of factors and obviously it is much too early to make that kind of prediction.

Mr. Good: You shouldn’t shout so much.

Interjections.

CANADIAN OF THE YEAR

Mr. Yakabuski: I have a question of the Premier.

Mr. Cassidy: Do you know I used to do your job for you?

Mr. Yakabuski: In view of the fact that the Hon. Bryce Mackasey is the first popular politician to demonstrate that he possesses a commodity commonly known as guts --

Some hon. members: Question.

Mr. Reid: You are demonstrating --

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Will the hon. member get on with his question, please? I would like to hear the hon. member.

Mr. Yakabuski: -- does the Premier feel like a growing number of Canadians --

Mr. Ferrier: Order.

Mr. MacDonald: The Speaker is on his feet. Sit down.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. We are just wasting the valuable time of the question period with the interruptions. Will the hon. member proceed with his question please?

Mr. Yakabuski: Does the Premier feel, like a growing number of Canadians, that this man should be the unanimous choice as Canadian of the year?

Mr. Gaunt: That is urgent public business.

Mr. Ruston: Who did you ask that of?

Mr. Speaker: Order! I am not sure that is urgent public importance. I don’t know what it is about.

Mr. R. S. Smith: Throw him out.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I must confess I really have never been involved in the choice of the Canadian man of the year and I would be the last one to comment on the amount of intestinal fortitude exhibited by that particular individual.

Interjection.

Hon. Mr. Davis: It is delightful to have the thoughts of the hon. member for Renfrew South and I am sure that if he makes his point to those who are responsible the hon. gentleman will be given serious consideration. I will play no part in it myself.

ARMSTRONG ASSISTANCE PROGRAMME

Mr. Stokes: I have a question of the Provincial Secretary for Resources Development. Does the minister recall his predecessor saying in the House he had a commitment from the federal government that before the Armstrong radar base would be sold to private interests the primary concern would be the interests of the local people in Armstrong? Will the present minister look into the possibility of the federal government having undercut the chances for economic development in the town of Armstrong as a result of the disposal of the base, which was outside the terms of reference and guarantees to the provincial government and the people of Armstrong?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Speaker, first of all I would like to express my thanks to the hon. member for bringing his concerns to my attention yesterday. He allowed me to investigate the matter. Certainly I am aware of my predecessor having intervened on behalf of the people of Armstrong to ensure that the economic prosperity of Armstrong would not be harmed if the radar base was sold, as was indicated by the federal government in 1973.

There were conditions attached at the insistence of my predecessor and the conditions were to provide industrial jobs over a period of two years. Our investigations so far have indicated that what has gone on in the base -- on the base I should say -- has been with the knowledge or support of the federal government. It has not, in my opinion, produced the result which my predecessor and the member wanted to happen, and that was jobs for the community.

There would appear to be no legal violation of what was signed by the federal government and the private company in regard to the contract and the disposition of certain goods. However, I can assure the hon. member I would be happy to assist him and assist the federal government in making sure that the economy of Armstrong is not lowered as was indicated some months ago.

Mr. Stokes: As a brief supplementary: Will the minister consult with his counterpart in Ottawa, the Hon. Robert Andras, to see that the intent, as expressed mutually by the federal and the provincial governments about a year ago, will be followed through so that any development will be in the best interests of the people who live in Armstrong?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Yes, certainly, Mr. Speaker. I’ve already done that, as a matter of fact. I have given Mr. Andras’ office all the details as I understand them at the present time. I’m awaiting word from Mr. Andras as to what he intends to do. When I have that word, I’ll certainly convey to the member their expectations.

DISCRIMINATION IN CFL

Mr. Roy: A question of the Minister of Labour. [Applause.] Mr. Speaker, please try to control their enthusiasm. I have not been able to.

An hon. member: When’s the announcement?

Mr. Roy: I would like to ask the minister what she is going to do to stop the discriminatory practice of the Canadian Football League which makes it virtually impossible for a Canadian to become a quarterback in that league?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Particularly women.

Mr. Roy: I’m serious about this.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Ever heard of Russ Jackson?

Mr. Yakabuski: A very important question.

Mr. Roy: Would the minister consider moving under section 4 of the Human Rights Code?

Hon. B. Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased that my colleague across the floor did not ask me what I was going to do about the Canadian Football League’s discriminatory practice against women playing football.

Mr. Roy: That was the next question.

Hon. B. Stephenson: However, since the Canadian Football League obviously operates under federal jurisdiction, the only thing that I can do -- yes, it does -- the only thing that I can do --

Mr. Yakabuski: The member will have to go and see Lalonde.

Hon. B. Stephenson: -- is to speak to the minister responsible at the federal level regarding this matter and hope that it will be improved.

An hon. member: He happens to be in Ottawa.

Mr. Roy: Supplementary: Would the minister consider talking to her colleague the Attorney General (Mr. McMurtry), and would the minister consider reviewing section 9 of the by-laws of the Canadian Football League and section 4 of the Ontario Human Rights Code? I understand we have jurisdiction in that field in this province.

Mr. Yakabuski: Lalonde took over.

Mr. Roy: We’ll send that to the minister.

BOOK PUBLISHING BY CENTENNIAL COLLEGE

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Mr. Speaker, on Thursday, Nov. 20, the member for Rainy River (Mr. Reid) asked whether I thought it appropriate that a community college, in that case Centennial, should be competing with the private book publishing companies in Ontario by publishing textbooks and other books in direct competition with those firms. I answered in a supplementary statement at that time that it was a policy consideration.

So far, Centennial Press, as it is called, has produced four textbooks for college use as a practical part of the publishing course offered at that college. The numbers hardly constitute competition with private publishing companies, which in fact welcome and accept students as visitors so they can view the business on a first-hand basis. Surely no college would expand such activities to the point of providing competition, since it would not be in the best interests of their graduates, who are themselves seeking employment in that same industry.

Mr. Reid: Supplementary: Can the minister indicate how many textbooks were published by Centennial? Does he not feel, after what his government has done to bolster the private publishing industry in Ontario, that to allow Centennial College to operate in direct competition is not in the best interests of the publishing companies?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I know the acoustics are rather poor, but I indicated there were four such books and surely that does not constitute competition.

Mr. Reid: Do they intend to publish more? Are they going to publish more?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: If one is more, then perhaps the answer is yes.

PSEUDO LEASING PRACTICES

Mr. Young: Mr. Speaker, a question of the hon. Minister of Transportation and Communications, arising out of the statement at yesterday’s Ontario truckers’ convention that pseudo leasing is again rampant on our highways: I wonder if the minister would tell us what plans he has to deal with this illegal use of our highways by the pseudo leasing people we thought had been eliminated two ministries ago?

[2:45]

Hon. Mr. Snow: Mr. Speaker, I am concerned regarding problems of the abuse of the leasing systems in the automotive trucking industry. I’m not concerned with the actual lease situations where trucks are leased for a reasonable period of time; but I am concerned where almost a common carrier type of service is carried out under the guise of truck leasing. Just in the past few weeks, since taking over as Minister of Transportation and Communications, I have had discussions with my senior staff, I’ve had meetings with representatives of the industry and we have received suggestions from the industry. There are resolutions, I know, before the Ontario Trucking Association today. This matter has also been of concern to public vehicle operators as well -- that is, the leasing of buses has got to some degree into the same type of business -- and we intend to enforce the laws of the province and try to prevent this.

HOME BUYER GRANT

Mr. B. Newman: I have a question of the Minister of Revenue. Is the minister considering an extension of the first-time home buyer grant to those who have signed contracts with builders to enable them to occupy the home before the deadline date, but who, because of any number of reasons, such as material shortages, work stoppages, inclement weather and so forth, are prevented from occupying the home within the deadline?

Hon. Mr. Meen: I recognize the problem the hon. member is raising. My ministry does have that question under study, but it’s got broader implications than that because, of course, of the fiscal side of it. The Treasurer (Mr. McKeough) indicated the other day that the whole question of the home buyer grant programme in all its facets was under study by his ministry, and I expect also by the Ministry of Housing.

Mr. Ruston: Supplementary: Could I ask the minister what criteria he uses in the plan, since if a person builds a home himself he must be in by Dec. 31, but if he buys a home he doesn’t have to be in until June 30?

Hon. Mr. Meen: The criteria were developed in the Ministry of Treasury, Economics and Intergovernmental Affairs, and I can’t answer with any kind of authority as to the reason for the six-month spread.

PAYMENTS FOR COW-CALF PROGRAMME

Mr. Wiseman: A question of the Minister of Agriculture and Food: Could the minister inform the House what the average price has been on heavy calves, heifers and steers to date in regard to our cow-calf programme? Many farmers in my area have been asking me this question.

Hon. W. Newman: As far as I know, as close as I can come, it’s somewhere between 33 and 34 cents at this point in time. Our final calculations won’t be done until next week.

Mr. Wiseman: Supplementary: Could the farmers expect a cheque before the end of the year, or could the minister inform us when a cheque might go out for the balance?

Mr. Reid: Right before the next election.

Mr. Samis: Ask the member for Middlesex (Mr. Eaton).

Hon. W. Newman: I am well aware of the concerns of the farmers of this province and how they would like to have it before the end of the year; we are going to do our utmost at least to have it dated and in the mail. It will depend on the circumstances whether they will have them at that point in time, but we anticipate we will have them done by the end of the year.

Mr. Ruston: Lorne’s not here or he would deliver them today.

WATER POLLUTION

Mr. Wildman: I have a question of the Minister of the Environment. Could the minister describe what steps his ministry is taking to implement the recommendations put forth last week by the Algoma Health Unit that the provincial government should immediately ascertain who legally owns the Hayden Park City mobile home park north of Sault Ste. Marie, and then order the owners to move the 10 mobile homes which are polluting the creek to another site --

Mr. Mancini: Why don’t you move?

Mr. Wildman: -- to install a water filtration system and to desist from reoccupying vacated sites?

Mr. Speaker: I think the hon. member has asked his question.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: As the hon. member knows, this is located in an unorganized territory. I am aware of the communique that the hon. member mentioned. I am discussing it with the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Bernier) and the Minister of Housing (Mr. Rhodes) and hopefully we will have some solution as to that whole area and the mobile home park in that particular area.

USE OF FUNDS BY RYERSON

Mr. Sweeney: A question to the Minister of Colleges and Universities: Based on a report in today’s press, would the minister advise us what action his ministry is going to take with respect to Ryerson Polytechnical Institute for diverting $235,000 of government grants intended for academic purposes into non-academic purposes?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I am aware of the article. We have contacted the chairman of the board and that’s all the comment I have to make at this time.

Mr. Sweeney: Supplementary question: I understand that Ryerson has had to cut back on some of the staffing and equipment --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Is there a supplementary question? Ask a supplementary, if you have one.

Mr. Sweeney: Is the minister aware of the fact that the implication is that some academic programmes have been cut back because of shortage of funds, when in fact the funds were there?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I am not going to comment on that question at this time. I will report to the House later.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Oriole.

Mr. Morrow: I have a question, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Oriole, first of all, please.

Mr. Reid: How soon they forget!

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please, we are wasting time here. The member for Oriole.

UNIFORM BUILDING CODE

Mr. Williams: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations. This government in the last session of the House introduced uniform building code legislation as one means of facilitating and expediting housing starts in the Province of Ontario. Can the minister advise this House when the uniform building code legislation, which I understand is under the jurisdiction of his ministry, will become operative?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: The regulations are now in the final draft stage. I expect they will be proclaimed very shortly. I certainly concur with the hon. member’s conclusions in that the industry is eagerly awaiting the proclamation of those regulations.

We have had an education programme with the municipal officials since the code will be administered by the municipalities and they still have some outstanding questions which have to be answered. If I may just say, I hope to have them proclaimed very shortly.

Mr. Nixon: You said that last March.

LABOUR RELATIONS AMENDMENT ACT

Mr. Bounsall: A question of the Minister of Labour: As one week has now elapsed since she met with the Ontario Trucking Association and the Ontario Haulers Association, what is her decision regarding whether the haulers will be classified as dependent contractors; and when may we expect the dependent contractors section of the amendments to the Labour Relations Act made last July to be proclaimed?

Hon. B. Stephenson: There is yet one delegation to hear. When that is done, the decision will be made and shortly thereafter this House will be informed about action regarding that section of Bill 111.

Mr. Bounsall: Supplementary question: Could I ask the minister what that delegation is?

Hon. B. Stephenson: The Aggregate Producers Association of Ontario.

MINIMUM WAGE

Mr. Riddell: A question to the Minister of Labour: In sympathy with those persons who are trying to plan their businesses next year, would she indicate what the minimum wage will be in Ontario, or when we might find out what that minimum wage might be?

Hon. B. Stephenson: About Dec. 1, I am sure we shall be able to announce precisely the staging which is being proposed, and the level.

Mr. Roy: The staging?

DEATH OF INMATE AT OTTAWA-CARLETON DETENTION CENTRE

Mr. Morrow: A question for the Minister of Correctional Services: Is the minister aware of the apparently unusual circumstances surrounding the death of an inmate at the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre last evening, and if so, what steps is his ministry taking to investigate the matter?

Hon. J. R. Smith: I regret to inform the hon. member that shortly after midnight Sunday last an inmate by the name of Julius Zimmerling was discovered dead in his cell. At present there is a police investigation under way surrounding the death. There is also an internal investigation taking place to ascertain if there was any breach of security.

Mr. Roy: A supplementary: Does the minister plan to hold a coroner’s inquest into that?

Hon. J. R. Smith: There will automatically be an inquest in the death of a person in an institution.

MERCURY LAMP HAZARDS

Mr. Burr: A question for the Minister of Health concerning the United States Food and Drug Administration’s recent warning to United States doctors to watch for patients with skin burns and eye burns caused by faulty high intensity mercury vapour lamps which are used in school gymnasia, arenas, parking lots, commercial establishments and industrial facilities: Has the minister ascertained whether there are similar hazards in Ontario?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I haven’t. I haven’t even been advised of the likelihood of these dangers. I will try to find out if there is any study going on.

COW-CALF PROGRAMME

Mr. McKessock: I have a question for the Minister of Agriculture and Food: There are several cow-calf farmers who did not enlist in the cow-calf programme for various reasons -- some of them were leery of the programme and others were part-time farmers who weren’t home enough to take a look at this thing -- is there any way we can bring in some of these applications now and get them into this programme, seeing that no money has changed hands anyway and they still want to get in the programme?

Hon. W. Newman: No, Mr. Speaker, but let me explain why. It ran out at the end of August or around that time -- I have forgotten the exact date -- and there was an extension at that time. It got a fair amount of wide publicity and we had to set a cut-off date. I think it was Sept. 10; I have forgotten the exact date now but we are living to that cut-off date. They would be welcomed into the programme next year.

Mr. McKessock: Supplementary: Seeing that no money has changed hands -- this year is a little different; the premium doesn’t have to be paid ahead of time -- if we did enter these people now, they would be no different from the others. If the others had paid the premium --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. member is debating the point, I believe. Is there a question?

Mr. McKessock: Would the minister consider making an exception for those we have --

Mr. Speaker: I think the minister answered that question.

PETERBOROUGH JAIL

Mrs. Sandeman: A question of the Minister of Correctional Services: In view of the intermittent extreme overcrowding and the age of the Peterborough jail, would the minister please tell me when that institution is to be replaced?

Hon. J. R. Smith: Mr. Speaker, I regret to inform the hon. member there are no immediate plans for replacement of that institution.

Mr. Reid: Right after you build a new one in Fort Frances.

COMMENTS BY MEMBER FOR ST. CATHARINES

Mr. S. Smith: A question for the Premier in the absence of the Attorney General: Can he tell us what action he intends to take about the hon. member for St. Catharines (Mr. Johnston) who was heard on the radio today counselling civil disobedience to the law in Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, that’s a question which I am sure the Attorney General would be delighted to answer and I understand he is on his way here.

Some hon. members: Here he comes.

Mr. S. Smith: May I repeat it for the benefit --

Mr. Speaker: Do you wish to refer the question quickly to the hon. minister?

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: Oral question period has expired.

Mr. S. Smith: The question to the Attorney General is: What action is planned in view of the statement this morning on the radio by the hon. member for St. Catharines counselling civil disobedience in the event of certain laws being passed by the Ontario Legislature?

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: Mr. Speaker, I am sure the report my friend heard on the radio is not entirely correct.

Mr. Nixon: It was his own words.

Mr. Lewis: There is nothing ambiguous about Bob Johnston, let me tell you.

Mr. Good: He was misquoting himself.

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: Having come to know the hon. member, I find it difficult to accept the fact that he would counsel civil disobedience with respect to --

Mr. Good: It is the first we have heard from him in eight years.

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: -- legislation emanating from this chamber. I can assure my friend I will discuss the matter with the hon. member.

Mr. S. Smith: Supplementary question: Is the minister aware --

[3:00]

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. I was in error. The question period has really expired, but I was in error in not recognizing the member for Middlesex before. I will recognize him now.

WINTARIO FUNDS

Mr. Eaton: A question of the Minister of Culture and Recreation: Could the minister indicate the profits which have been made to date on Wintario and what percentage of those profits has been committed for projects?

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, Wintario is so successful that I don’t have an up-to-date statement with respect to the profits. As the hon. member knows, about 40 per cent of the gross goes in prizes and we have made certain commitments with respect to that. I will be glad to get more detailed information for the hon. member.

Mr. Speaker: The oral questions period has expired.

Petitions.

Presenting reports.

Motions.

Introduction of bills.

Orders of the day.

LANDLORD AND TENANT AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. McMurtry moves second reading of Bill 26, An Act to amend the Landlord and Tenant Act.

Mr. Speaker: Does the hon. minister have a leadoff statement?

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: No, I don’t, Mr. Speaker. I made a fairly extensive statement to this Legislature on Nov. 6 of this year with respect to the principle features of the legislation. My hon. colleagues in the Legislature have had an opportunity, I’m sure, to read the draft legislation which has been distributed. I can only say at this time that I am, of course, anticipating with great interest the remarks of my hon. colleagues in relation to the proposed legislation.

Mr. Lawlor: Mr. Speaker, the --

Mr. Lewis: Hold on a moment, we’d like to pound our desks.

Mr. Lawlor: The revisions in the landlord and tenant legislation, on a fairly massive scale, took place in the latter part of the 1960s. At that time a whole host of archaic documents, doctrines in the law, interessi termini, the use of distress were knocked out of the law which had descended for about 400 years as it stood at that time.

In 1972 again there were fairly substantial amendments to the legislation, and we come to a landmark position, as I see it today, in this new legislation before us, granting security of tenure. I would have the House reminded that security of tenure, on two points, is quite different from Bill 20, which has to do with the rental matter.

One, it’s of an indefinite duration. It will last into the future; it will be embedded in our law, and as I see it, there isn’t any danger that it will run like water into the ground as the other legislation will do. The other thing is that it has wider application than the other legislation and special provisions have to be made for those individuals and that type of tenancy and that range of accommodation which fall within Bill 20 and have contradistinction to all other types of residential accommodation within the definition of the section.

Those two features are to be commended and the legislation, in its basic principle, is acceptable and, again, welcome. It’s been long sought. It acts as an adjunct to the other legislation and I trust in my initial remarks the minister will agree that it will be sent of the House to the same sitting committee of this House as will peruse and look at the previous piece of legislation, Bill 20.

As I say, it’s a companion piece in certain of its dimensions but not in the fullness of the legislation. I don’t think it’s going to take all that time outside the House in its dissection, although I think members of the House who are acquainted with it will find it’s quite complex legislation. It has all kinds of ramifications and to give it a thorough going over could take a little more time perhaps than I have anticipated.

What it basically does is supply security of tenure to a very wide range of residential accommodation indeed. It operates basically within five categories, the five traditional categories of the law, having to do with weekly tenants, monthly tenants, tenants on a fixed term less than a year, tenants on a fixed term greater than a year, and a fixed term of year to year.

In each one of these instances, different times are given with respect to the notice of termination and, in certain circumstances and overall, as a general principle. They’re not able to increase the rents or to bring about the termination of the tenancy without having very good reason so to do.

The situation, for instance, on the weekly tenancy is a 28-day period, whereas those month to month are not all that different from the present law, which requires you to give a notice prior to the first day of the month to terminate as of the last day of that month. And so the differentiation there isn’t all that great. But it’s the weekly tenants who are benefiting most from the notice of termination features of this legislation.

As I read them, there are five major exemptions written into the legislation. They have to do, first of all, with the landlord wishing to take possession of the premises basically for the purposes of his family and within a certain range of relationship. On that score if he decides to do that, he has to give a 60-day notice. If he doesn’t give the notice within that time or within that 15-day period thereafter on which the matter is set down for court hearing, then it’s taken that he has simply recognized the ongoing tenancy situation.

The next one has to do with demolitions. We would like to have a fairly thorough discussion with the minister when the time comes on the aspects of demolition -- just how it may be misused or abused as a way of circumventing your legislation. We’re wondering if it’s all cases of demolition; whether it’s a demolition done under certain types of permits given recognition by municipalities; or might it be used in circumstances as a subterfuge to escape the legislation?

Another small area within the second one is the conversion or use for purposes other than rental. Of course, we take it to mean that if they convert to condominium, that would be a case in point which would escape the purpose of the legislation. I think that should be scouted and looked at fairly carefully.

The massive conversions of apartment buildings to condominium now taking place may not all be all that socially beneficial as things presently stand. After all, condominium means by definition that they have to have a down payment and they have to find the wherewithal in order to continue to inhabit the premises. There is a wide range of people who are not in possession of initial moneys or in a position to carry ongoing costs of mortgages, tax payments and other things like that, who are in vital need of apartments. And so, on that sociological note, I think we should have some fairly searching discussion as to the cost-benefit ratios involved in that particular proposition.

The third one has to do with repairs and renovations so extensive as to require vacant possession. I think when the hon. minister initiated this legislation he must have spent a few moments sometime worrying about that -- just how nice that wording was, how close it was to the bone, and whether it lent itself to circumvention; or whether again the thing ought not to be qualified somewhat; that the repairs or renovations perhaps should be done under the terms or mandates of the building codes or local bylaws, or involving the restructuring of premises which aren’t in good condition. Surely, it would be a most difficult thing to draw the lines and to find the demarcation points where these repairs or renovations are of a magnitude that brings the landlord outside the legislation as it now stands.

There is a series of other grounds, but before I get to those, of course, the obvious ground of termination is failure to pay rent. I think there is adequate provision made for that, and commendable provision, because if the tenant fails behind and he receives notice of termination he is given an opportunity of redress and given an opportunity to appear before court on seven days’ notice.

First of all, he can pay the rent within the seven-day period and nullify any proceedings that have been commenced. If proceedings have been commenced but the judgement not finally obtained then he has, by way of an ex parte motion, the right to have it set aside and a hearing on the merits gone forward with in order to determine his position. In other words, the legislation under this head is well drafted and takes into cognizance a very wide range of personal peril indeed. With that in mind, I can only give my accolades on that particular count.

Oh, by the way, in the drafting of the statute, I think that parliamentary draftsmen and those interested in these matters would agree that the denotating of everything by a, b, c, d and e is most confusing. I would have hoped that a better method of designating sections of the statutes by cardinal numbers and letting it go at that would have been arrived at. I think the legal profession would find the construction and utilization of the statute much assisted if such was the mode of adoption.

On the other side, the parliamentary draftsmen I think should be congratulated in this legislation as in a previous piece. They have initiated a new policy, which is new to this House at least -- not so in other jurisdictions; in the House of Commons in London or up in Ottawa -- of writing in the legislation the clauses from the previous legislation that are being appealed or amended in substance. To set that forth is a great time saver and has at our fingertips the necessary requisite wording on which to base one’s perusal and analysis of the legislation. So I take away with my left hand and I give with my right.

Within the five areas of exemption, under the fourth head there are five set up -- 103f, subsection 1, going on down through a, b, c, d and e -- in which each of these things again must undergo considerable scrutiny. The first one, having to do with undue damage, is palatable and well worth having. The second one, having to do with the tenants being kicked out on the basis of any noxious, offensive or illegal act, trade, business, occupation or calling, is again moot, nebulous, difficult to construe and you are throwing an emblazoned rock at the courts in order to construe that. What is noxious, I pray to know? Since a great deal of time was spent by the Attorney General on this legislation, I would ask him to give me a further inkling of what it possibly means? What is offensive? Well, lord, what’s offensive to me might be totally gratifying to you. That’s the way life is.

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: And vice versa.

Mr. Lawlor: If these are adequate then you are beginning to wheel a coach and four through the barriers of your legislation, and cutting back and rendering the thing up to a point somewhat nugatory.

[3:15]

The third one has to do with conduct which substantially interferes with reasonable enjoyment of the premises. Again, I’m not going to take too much issue with that one. That’s fairly acceptable legal wording. It’s in many forms of statutes and I would give the judges credit enough to be able to construe what reasonable enjoyment would mean in any particular context.

The fourth one has to do with the safety or other bona fide lawful right, privilege or interest of any other tenant on the premises.

The fifth has to do with the number of persons when health and contravention of health or safety standards are involved. I cannot nor will not take any exception to that particular setup. It comes down to this: That there are about eight grounds upon which writs of possession can be obtained in our courts, which is quite an expansion over against the previous law. In a sense, it is not so much an expansion but a putting your finger on or a designation of the specific grounds upon which it can be done whereas, previously, it was quite amorphous and there was very little definition written into the law.

One is the payment of rent or the family situation to gain possession. Another count which hasn’t been mentioned yet is the persistent failure on the part of the tenant to pay his rent. There is the business of employee relations when an employee is occupying premises and the employment ceases.

We finally come to the business of material breach. Again, while there is an enormous body of jurisprudence on materiality and the terms of contracts, I would turn to the Attorney General and to the law officers of the Crown in order to determine what they mean. Had they any specific meaning in mind when they brought the legislation in or are they simply relying upon the present body of law to determine what may or may not be material breach? I think it’s fairly agreed that this parsing is not all that well established. It allows an enormous amount of discretion on the part of the judiciary and the possibility of some play inside the legislation which is not altogether designed to forward its purposes.

In the area of the purely legal, so to speak, or court procedural matters, the legislation has introduced several new features which will be, and in time to come will prove to be, beneficial. The first bleating, whimsying recognition of something called a class action by the government over there, after all the years I’ve been in this House, has come to the fore in this particular legislation.

In every other area of law, in environmental law and in the law of contracts and in areas with respect to suits before the Ontario Municipal Board, the concept of a class action or a representative action has been thrown out, discouraged. Previous Attorneys General of this province have turned thumbs down in instance after instance, despite our pleas and despite the numerous briefs and hearings we’ve had in these diverse fields of law with respect to this kind of procedure, which is well accepted pretty well throughout the English-speaking world in an evolving concept.

We get the glimmerings. We get the beginnings of a new concept in representative action and we welcome it. It doesn’t say very much and just what it means in terms of having a sameness of purpose or an identity of clause, again, I would ask the Attorney General to set forth for me, to describe and to tell me how he thinks that clause is going to operate on the basis of a common interest.

If one person’s rent is $275 and another one’s is $210, is that a common interest? Is the common interest in respect to the amenities? Suppose there is a differentiation between one tenant and another in a great apartment complex? Where does the common interest cease and where does it have continuity? When may they join forces? The reason for doing so, obviously is expedition, time-saving. If there are going to be 500 cases tried from a particular complex of buildings, then it is a darn sight more sensible to have all those cases tried on a single occasion and determine the issue once and for all.

In this business -- and this is not uncommon in certain kinds of courts at some levels -- the appearance of an agent is to be commended too. Many of the people who are going to be most afflicted under the terms of this legislation, seeking redress, say, for repairs not done by landlords under section 96 of the Landlord and Tenant Act, could use a knowledgeable friend rather than having to employ legal counsel to appear in those cases. I don’t think legal counsel, first of all, are all that anxious to get involved in the proceedings arising out of landlord and tenant applications, from the way most lawyers, particularly those who are very highly trained in litigation matters, treat the family courts of the province.

The landlord on application doesn’t pay enough money in most instances to encourage the appearance of high-priced counsel on these matters. There is a provision, therefore, to have a friend who is knowledgeable. There is also provision made under the legislation that anyone who is obnoxious in effect, doesn’t seem to understand the rules and gives the judge a bad time is going to get tossed out. The legislation is so minutely drafted as to take that particular contingency into account and seek to wipe it out.

In two areas of the rules of evidence, there is a break with tradition in the past. The parole evidence rule is excluded. People may give oral evidence. Secondly, they may give photostats by permission of the judge in certain circumstances. These various moves are made with respect to lifting the weight of those long accumulated and terribly barnacled rules of evidence which make everything so difficult for everybody and getting down to the meat of the matter, where a judge can well sift the quality of the witnesses before him and decide as to the merit of their statements. At least I think most of them gain this capability after a few years on the bench. Winnowing out the chaff, he can come to the substance without arbitrarily excluding very vital documents and things that, from the point of view of the layman at least, may be the very substance of his case and which if he has stamped on before he begins the case, he comes to have a very poor conception of what to do in the courts and what the thing is all about at all.

May I say at this stage I still hold that the courts are not the proper tribunal for the hearing of these matters. In the first instance, they could be and should be heard at a considerable saving to the public realm by officers who would get some kind of training in this particular area. Certainly I would always argue that the courts must be the last realm of resort, and that the divisional court would be the court of appeal. If the individuals giving these rulings were ill-equipped or mistaken or obtuse or any other thing and natural justice didn’t apply, or they misconstrued the statute -- and it isn’t all that difficult that a fairly intelligent layman couldn’t administer that statute okay -- then, of course, as the final mode of redress and to forfend against that possibility the courts could have their jurisdiction and sway.

I would welcome that, but that is not the way the Attorney General seeks to have it done. What he is going to have to do in the county of York alone, it seems to me, is to appoint three or four more judges in order to handle this thing. Judges’ salaries are quite high these days and administrators will have to surround them. In one instance, where there is no dispute filed the bill does make provision that the clerk of the court may issue the writ of possession, etc., under these terms, subject always to the ex parte hearing. That seems to me a recognition of the density and weight that presently fall on the county court level of court adjudication.

If he ever goes into the office down there, the Attorney General will find they have cards. I was in there the other day and the card was number 60. I laid it on the counter and disappeared. I noticed a lot of fellow lawyers were doing the same thing. They can’t stand around while the other 35 are being serviced up in front of them. They might be there for several weeks.

This is the kind of difficulty that the minister is involved with as a purely administrative matter in trying to make this statute work. I don’t envy him. I think he made the wrong move in that particular regard by not taking the line, or our nostrums, to heart as to the tribunals themselves. But that is the way it is. Working within the legislation, I don’t find it all that offensive; I just think it is a mistaken gesture on the minister’s part.

There seem to me to be a couple of defects in the legislation apart from what I have discussed thus far. Wouldn’t it be better to have a definition of rent in the legislation -- a definition in line with that which is contained in Bill 20? Curiously enough, in the Landlord and Tenant Act, as far as I know, there is no definition of rent. Under this legislation there is no mention of the extra embroideries or amenities worked into the picture of the tenant, such as what services he may avail himself of and whether they fall within the terms of the tenancy or not. Ought these things not to be caught up in some kind of definition?

Secondly, I notice that the minister worked in the business of regulations again. That sends a chill up my spine every time I see the term. The minister can carve out exemptions holus-bolus in any way he pleases as to how this particular legislation is to apply, after the event and wholly within his discretion, subject only to the high degree of attentiveness that we pay to the official Gazette of the Province of Ontario, which no one, just no one, ever in the history of mankind, has read. So the minister leaves himself a fair amount of elbow room to do pretty well what he pleases. However we may debate and at whatever length we may debate the legislation in front of us, it comes back to the minister’s hands as a final esoteric and secretive determination as to what may or may not be done.

The legislation for the first time contains clauses -- which would be 111 to 114 -- with respect to mobile homes. I will not on this particular occasion go into the interstices of that particular area; that can be perused in committee. It is valuable, it is worthwhile, it is a good move and we give the minister credit for it on that score.

Tacked on at the end of the legislation, section 115(1) deals with the notice of rental increases, as to the times at which this may be given and the times at which the tenant may give notice to quit on such notice. In other words, the basic weight of the legislation falls at its nether end. But it is clear, and I don’t think it requires any severe alteration. As I see it, it is basically beneficial to the people of this province.

Therefore, in winding up, simply let me say that I trust the matter will go out to committee. There are quite a number of niggling points which need perusal -- not insignificant, but not enough to upset the basic tenor of the legislation.

[3:30]

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Speaker, I have difficulty with this bill. That doesn’t mean that we are not prepared to support its principle. But I would like to address myself in the first instance to what seems to me to be a very unworkable dichotomy between the two pieces of legislation which, like the member for Lakeshore, I regard as companion pieces.

I agree with what he has said, but I do not see that the proper procedures under the legislation for security of tenure should continue to lie directly with the courts.

I was interested that the Attorney General, I think at the time of introducing his statement with reference to this bill, talked about meeting with the senior judge of the court to ascertain whether he felt satisfied that the court could handle this particular volume which one might contemplate. I did not notice the Attorney General indicating that perhaps he had taken the federal government into his confidence although I would have thought that would be his move as presumably it is still appointing the judges who will be handling this kind of legislation.

The American experience, may I point out, has indicated that continuing the use of the courts in these matters is not that satisfactory. When we have set up in the companion piece a completely different form of procedure, I would have hoped that the Attorney General -- who has been so forthright in bringing forward legislation pertaining to hockey violence and things of that nature -- might have come into the 20th century with this particular piece of legislation so that we might have a separate means of determining the problems between landlord and tenant.

Another thing really bothers me and since ministers seem to be having some very tender or sensitive problems as they relate to statements made by members of the opposition, I shall try to frame my problem in terms which will not offend the Attorney General when I refer to section 103d. I am very puzzled as to why he particularly would introduce this particular section.

During the campaign recently passed, he was made very much aware by one of the aldermen of the ward of a problem at Nos. 1 and 23 Oriole Rd. I’m advised that he expressed concern for what was happening here. God forbid that I would suggest that because one of those owners was a former Tory candidate this particular section is in but let me tell members --

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: Now, come on. Let’s remain on the high plane at which you started.

Mrs. Campbell: I am just saying what I believe and I know the Attorney General will be able to articulate his own response.

Here is a case where there were two apartments. People have been living in those apartments for some time. In advance of this legislation, the owners started giving notices to vacate. It caused tremendous concern in the city. The mayor of the city was directed to take the matter up with the Premier (Mr. Davis) because of the unconscionable action in this case. The excuses were that they were going to do renovations but what would appear to be the case was that they were going to turn these apartments into furnished apartments. That has not been actually verified, but this would appear to be what was going on.

There was, in effect, a harassment of these people, in that they were advised that the repairs were going to be such that they hoped the people would not be too upset; but when the apartments themselves were vacant, not all that much repair went on. We found people painting and tiling in the place, presumably in advance of any proposed plumbing changes, which is a remarkable way to proceed.

In any event, I have grave concerns about this particular section, because I can see it being used, and used very broadly, to affect security of tenure, and in this particular case many of these people, as I believe the Attorney General knows, were older people who had been there for some time and who were really very frightened about what was going on.

So I really do feel very strongly that this provision should not continue in the legislation. If you had not experienced it, I could see that one would simply question it -- as I believe the member for Lakeshore did -- but when you see it in action, you have to take another look at that type of provision.

Then we come over to those provisions under 103f which have been pointed out by the member for Lakeshore. I would like to hear from the Attorney General as to how he would define “noxious.” Would this include noxious odours? Presumably it covers noxious weeds, but what else are we talking about when we use the term noxious?

Hon. J. R. Smith: Ragweed.

Mrs. Campbell: If one thinks in terms of cooking odours, believe me I have had complaints in my riding about people who use different kinds or herbs and so on to cook with and other people don’t like it. What does it really mean? It’s noxious in the eyes of -- you can’t say the beholder --

Mr. Givens: The smeller.

Hon. J. R. Smith: Smeller; sniffer.

Mrs. Campbell: -- the person with a nose.

Mr. Givens: The sniffer, not the Smither.

Mrs. Campbell: Are we going to say to somebody who likes to cook in a certain fashion, “If you promise that you will give up this kind of cooking, you can stay.” Where are we and where are we going?

Another thing that is bothersome to me is when we look at the number of persons occupying the residential premises on a continuing basis; ideally I can accept that kind of provision, but for the immediate present I am concerned with it, because in my riding there is a great doubling up because people have not been able to afford the rents which have been charged. I would like very much to see something to temper that particular clause, at least at this time and until such time as we find a government which is going forward to build housing, to make available those units which are needed, so that people can occupy units on a healthy basis, if you like.

I don’t think that it really behoves me at this point in time to go into any kind of clause by clause discussion of the bill. That will come, hopefully, as the bill proceeds through the committee dealing with Bill 20. I think it is sufficient for me to say at the moment that I find that it is a very complex piece of legislation. I do commend the Attorney General for coming forward with something which is at least an attempt to give security of tenure. I wonder why we have dichotomies between the two bills on the matter of who shall have security of tenure without rent control, and I hope we can get some answers to that.

I am concerned about any suggestion that someone may be evicted from premises because his or her conduct creates a nuisance to other people in the building -- and I will tell you why. When I was drafting the piece of legislation which I had, there were many representations made to me that we should provide that anyone who created a nuisance to the other tenants in the building should not be permitted to remain. If you know anything about what happened during the war years, when things such as housing units were in short supply, you realise great pressures can be put on tenants by landlords if they want to get somebody out. I just draw it to the attention of the Attorney General for his consideration and remarks.

In conclusion, this party will support the principle of the bill, but we do have serious questions for discussion in committee.

Mr. Wildman: I want to echo the comments of my colleague in commending the Attorney General for introducing this legislation. I want to speak in support of the principle of the bill in regard to the particular sections of the bill which deal with tenants of mobile homes. The bringing of mobile home tenants under the purview of the Landlord and Tenant Act is a great step forward, and I sincerely commend the minister for doing that.

This has been long overdue, because for a long time this tenant group of our population in this province has been treated as second-class citizens. They have been very vulnerable to arbitrary rules, rent increases, charges for other services, and summary evictions -- in some cases, at least, almost without apparent reason.

The reason I am very concerned with this matter is because my riding has one of the highest concentrations of mobile home owners in the province. I can point to a number of reasons why the provisions of this bill are very necessary.

Just to give a recent example, there is a woman in my riding who was evicted from a mobile home park -- and her family along with her -- apparently because she supported and campaigned for a party in the election campaign -- and the owner of the park did not support that party. I would hope that that isn’t the reason, but it is unfortunate that she, of course, was not given any reason. She is now having to look for other accommodation. Hopefully this bill will prevent that sort of thing from happening.

[3:45]

Of course, there are other examples. There is the infamous example of early last summer when the entire group of tenants in a mobile home park in southwestern Ontario was evicted mainly because the ownership of the park had changed; a new owner had bought the park. One of those tenants had been in the park only for eight days. Hopefully this sort of thing will end.

I would also point to the provision of this bill which makes it impossible for a person to be evicted if he has appealed to a government authority or a government agency which is his legal right to do. I have an example in my riding of a tenant and his family who were evicted apparently because he appealed to the health authorities and requested, on a number of occasions, that the water in the mobile home park where he lived be checked. He then tried to persuade a number of other tenants to co-operate with him to persuade the owner of the park to clean up the water. This bill and the provisions dealing specifically with mobile home parks should stop that.

I would agree with my colleagues in their questioning of the problem of having to appeal to the courts. Many people -- although not all, of course -- living in mobile home parks are not in a position to afford expensive legal advice. Perhaps a tribunal which could judge these matters as a first resort would be much more useful than having to appeal directly to the courts.

I do support the provision which gives the tenants the right to appeal to the courts to ensure that services they have been promised as part of their renting of a lot in a mobile home park will be provided. There are many cases in my riding of parks where roads have never been graded -- I shouldn’t say have never been graded but have been graded very infrequently. Being in the north, we have now had our first winter snowfall. It’s been on the ground for three days and the roads have yet to be ploughed in some of the parks.

Most important, I think, is the fact that it will be necessary now for the landlord to provide adequate water and sewage facilities. This is a terrible problem in some of the parks. It speaks to the question I asked the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Kerr). There are parks in my area where the water is of questionable quality and others where the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Ministry of the Environment have had to move in and order filtration systems and so on.

I would hope that in areas where municipalities can govern the setting up of mobile home parks there will be some provision governing lot sizes. In my area of course, it’s a little different in that most of the parks are located in unorganized territories and so they are under the control of the Ministry of Natural Resources.

I have only a couple of questions on the bill and the provisions regarding mobile home parks. The first is the definition of what a mobile home is in section 2. It seems to me that in the bill the minister is basically saying a mobile home is different from a trailer, which I would agree with. I don’t think he has adequately defined what a mobile home is or what a trailer is. I think that is something which should be looked at and which should be dealt with in committee.

Also I feel the provision in section 9 which says that a tenancy agreement may provide for the right of the tenant to sell, lease and otherwise part with possession of his mobile home and so on is a good thing. In many cases mobile home park owners have charged extensive entrance fees and exit fees and in many cases made it almost impossible for people to sell their mobile homes when they wanted to leave, unless they sold them back to the owner of the park, which they did at a loss in many cases.

The fact is that it says “may.” I understand the reason for that in subsection 3 of section 9, but the problem with it is that as long as there’s a shortage of lots on which to locate mobile homes then it becomes necessary for tenants to locate in parks whether or not they like the agreement. All that has to happen now is for landlords to continue to refuse to have that provision in their agreements and tenants will still have to locate in those parks, and thus not be protected by the provision which is intended by the minister, I’m sure, in bringing that in. If possible, I would like that tightened up some way.

In general, as I said before, I support the bill. I think it’s a great step forward for people, especially those in the north who many times have to move into mobile homes because there just are not enough apartment facilities available and housing is very expensive. I commend him for introducing it and hope that those two or three things that I mentioned can be tightened up when it’s dealt with in committee.

Mr. Sweeney: Mr. Speaker, I would ask the minister if in making his response he would explain the unusual comparison between section 103b and section 103d? In 103d, it would appear as if a landlord wishing to demolish his building can give notice at any time; not at the end of the tenancy but at any time. It says, “The landlord may at any time,” and he has 120 days to effect that termination.

Going back to 103b, if the landlord wishes to use the building for his own purposes or those of his family, he must not only wait until the end of the tenancy, he must then give 60 days’ notice, which is even more than other sections of the Act call for if it was, for example, on a monthly tenancy. It seems unusual that if he wants to tear the building down he can do it at any time, but if he wants to use it for his own purposes he has a much longer waiting time.

The second question I’d like the minister to address himself to comes under section 3, subsection 2, where it says that the tenant may terminate “where the tenant alleges an act or omission on the part of the landlord that constitutes grounds for such termination.” Are there going to be any kinds of regulations or guidelines that would define what the tenant may allege to? Or does it include anything?

Those are two points where I think further definition and clarification would appear to be necessary.

Mr. Warner: First, because this is a reading dealing with the principle, I agree with the principle of the bill. I’m particularly concerned about some of the clauses that are in here and with one in particular. Since, as was pointed out, the numbering system leaves something to be desired, I shall refer to the page numbers.

It’s found on page 5 of the bill. It’s the section dealing with “where the landlord requires possession of residential premises for the purposes of,” and it lists three particular items, including, “conversion to use for a purpose other than rental residential premises, or repairs or renovations so extensive as to require vacant possession of the premises.” I would like some response from the minister as to how that could be interpreted in the case of Nos. 1 and 23 Oriole Rd., a situation of which the minister is well aware and a situation to which the Premier of the province was asked to respond and to which there was no response. In those two particular buildings, there is at present a move to remove all of the tenants of the building so that the owner can turn that building into what could be loosely called apartment hotel accommodations, without so specifying, because that kind of specification requires approval by the city of Toronto. It would be done in such a way as to accomplish the fact and thereby double or even triple the rents and provide a special kind of gouging. And that is being proposed for the high-priced executive talent from St. Clair. Ave.

The whole business itself is damaging. It is obviously damaging to the tenants. It should be pointed out, as I know the minister is aware from the briefs he has received, that there are tenants who have been in that building for 15 years and more. There are tenants in the building who are senior citizens. The worst thing that could happen is to tell these people they must now get out and must now go somewhere -- where we don’t know, but they must now go somewhere.

I am disturbed because I was under the impression there had not been a response from the government because the legislation that was being brought in would cover this very matter and the tenants could then rest easy that they all weren’t going to be turfed out into the street. If I have misread those particular sections, I stand corrected and my mind will rest easy and so will the minds of those citizens who now are under harassment by the owner. I would very much appreciate a comment from the minister as to his interpretation of those two sections. If the sections are vague enough to allow the kind of treatment that these people are now receiving, then it is quite obvious the bill needs to be tightened up in that area. Under no circumstances should an owner be allowed to perpetrate that kind of social crime upon people who have been tenants in those two buildings, and good tenants, for so many years in those two buildings. I rest my comments at this in anticipation of a response from the hon. minister.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Before the next speaker continues, the Chair would like to draw to the attention of the hon. members that the debate is to be on the principle of the bill rather than clause by clause which can be dealt with in the committee of the whole or in the standing committee. I would ask you to keep your comments to the principle, unless there is a comment on a point of clarification which more or less refers to the principle of the bill.

Mr. Ruston: Very briefly on this bill, the one part of it I would address myself to would be with regard to mobile homes since we have about three large mobile home parks in our riding.

There has been some problems with them in the past as to how they pay rents for the property. Now that they are assessed as a residence, one of the problems is dealt with by another department. In the past year the taxes on their property were assessed directly to the owner of the park and not to each individual mobile home owner, which created some problems as to the exact amount that they were being charged for their rent, plus services other than their taxes.

Then there is the description of what a mobile home means and the interpretation of what it is. Some people may call these modular homes since they are homes that have all the wheels taken off and are closed in around the base and so forth and fastened down quite permanently. In the description of what a mobile home is, it might be worth considering whether there should be a minimum size for a mobile home. I give that point to the minister; perhaps he might consider that necessary. What that size would be, of course, could vary. I would assume that somewhere about 500 sq. ft. would be about the minimum. In other words that’s 10 ft by 50 ft; most of them, of course, are 12 ft by 60 ft or much larger. That may be one way to preclude other smaller units which we actually classify as travel trailers.

[4:00]

There have been some problems with regard to when someone wants to move from a mobile home park and the selling of the mobile home. We have had some problems previously with regard to whether or not they have to sell them to the park owner or an agency. I believe now we have that covered under section 9 subsection 5 of the bill. The way I understand it, that section will probably clarify that.

I feel good that the minister has included these in this Act and I’m looking forward to the clause by clause discussions in the committee.

Mr. Angus: I, too, would like to address my comments in support of the bill and hopefully as much as possible within the principle and not clause by clause.

I think it’s about time we had this kind of legislation in Ontario. It’s probably past the time. Too many people have been unfairly treated by landlords and I think at times landlords have been unfairly treated by tenants. What I see this bill doing is making the situation much more equal, with landlord and tenant on a more even-Steven basis than they ever have been in the past. I truly support that concept.

The length of notice is fair in my estimation. The inclusion of the mobile home tenants is an important step as my two colleagues have just mentioned. I won’t dwell on that; they’ve done adequate jobs on that.

The bill seems to be firm but provides a certain amount of flexibility which is necessary for good human relationships. I think that’s important, too. We can’t legislate equality as has been mentioned earlier today.

There is one drawback that I can see and it seems to me that it does speak to the principle of the bill. In Bill 20 there is provision for rent review officers but in this bill the initial authority is the judicial system in Ontario. I would be much happier with this bill if it would consider the same type of approach as Bill 20. A rent review officer or a tenant-landlord officer -- whatever we would like to call him -- could be instituted to deal with the problems between the landlord and tenant.

We’ve seen the situation in municipalities where they have some type of landlord-tenant bureau. If this Act were changed to reflect that concept so that our courts -- I think the minister would be one of the first to agree that our courts need some reduction in the workload they have -- if these cases, these problems relating to this bill and tenants’ rights were to go to some type of government officer who could adjudicate the complaints on a one-to-one basis or a one-to-two basis I think we will provide for a smoother operation in terms of implementing this bill.

That was a short form of my comments. I think a lot of what has been expressed by my colleagues in the NDP caucus is important and should be considered in the clause by clause debate.

Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, just a few comments on the legislation itself and on the legislation protecting tenants generally. I find it exceedingly difficult now to understand why the government, having set up a Ministry of Housing, especially going into the field of tenancy where we get involved with the previous bill, the bill on rent control -- Bill 20, I think -- why the tenant when seeking some form of security of tenure or when seeking some relief in relation to his apartment and his rent, would have to make a two-pronged attack.

For instance, if his rent is affected, Mr. Speaker, in accordance with the guidelines that we’ve agreed to or in legislation in this House under Bill 20, he would go before a rent review board or a rent review officer acting under the Act, Of course, that Act is being administered by the Minister of Housing. But if tenant should receive a notice that his lease is terminated, and not be given sufficient reasons by the landlord for the termination, then he is involved under the Landlord and Tenant Act and with the ministry of the Attorney-General and he has to go in the courts in a different form.

I really want to emphasize that point. It seems to me that in our haste to enact all sorts of social legislation which we as the elected representatives feel is necessary, we are confusing the individuals who we are trying to protect under the legislation.

I can cite examples of this in the various programmes that we’ve enacted in this province. The individual who is supposed to be protected has a series of doors to enter, and it’s extremely confusing when he doesn’t know exactly which door to open. If hr enters the wrong door, we must say: “No, no, your protection comes under the Landlord and Tenant Act, not under rent review. Therefore, you’ve got to go under the Attorney General and you’ve got to end up in court.”

I can’t understand a government which prides itself on being responsive and responsible to the public not understanding that. Very often it is the essentials of legislation designed to protect the tenant that you can’t get through to him because of the confusion of jurisdictions and the confusion of ministries. He really doesn’t know where his relief is. Half his efforts are spent sometimes in finding out exactly under what statute, under what ministry he is to get relief.

It seems to me we have clear evidence here of a government which has failed to respond to the needs of 1975. I make this point because it was raised, for instance, in the latest report that we’ve obtained from the former Auditor General, Maxwell Henderson. He talked about duplication of ministry programmes and duplication of work done by ministries. I suggest to the minister that this is clearly the case.

I’m sure the minister has a deep understanding of the problems. He worries, for instance, about violence in the hockey rinks and he is concerned, as I am, about the rights of young Canadian quarterbacks to play professional football. These are all matters the minister should think about.

I suggest the government should give consideration in putting the Landlord and Tenant Act under the Ministry of Housing. If you have a Ministry of Housing --

Mr. Cassidy: You don’t have to talk about football to get this one’s attention.

Mr. Roy: No, no. He’s with it. He’s with it and I am sure he understands the point I’m trying to make -- that having established a Ministry of Housing and having enacted certain legislation to protect the tenant, the rent control Act, Bill 20, why would we have legislation now, the Landlord and Tenant Act under the Attorney General. I know there’s a long tradition for this; it’s always been under the Attorney General.

You will agree with me that at the time we first started talking about this legislation, we didn’t have a Ministry of Housing. But we have one now, and surely we’re rendering service to the taxpayer of this province when we give him protection in a particular field under one roof -- that he is not chasing over a series of ministries or a series of jurisdictions, or institutions, to get some recourse when he feels he has been wronged by certain individuals.

That’s what concerns me about the legislation. It concerns me that the Premier of this province has not seen this. Why would it be difficult to say that we’re going to transfer all matters under the Landlord and Tenant Act into the Ministry of Housing? Why hasn’t that been done?

Some members have pointed out, for instance, the problem with the statute as it now exists is that recourse has to be obtained from the courts. The courts are not the easiest, the most accessible institution we have in this province for the taxpayers. Very often, for taxpayers who cannot afford to have counsel, it gets to be exceedingly difficult with the rigid procedures or ways to get into the courts. If the taxpayer doesn’t follow particular steps he has to wait an extra week to have his motion heard and this goes on and on. Besides I don’t think the court or the judges are always the best people to be deciding exactly what’s in the best interests of a landlord or tenant or whatever.

I’m suggesting that serious consideration be given by this minister and by the Premier of the province to having the rights of tenants -- if they are going to talk housing surely they are encompassing tenants -- all under one roof, under the administration of the Ministry of Housing and not the Attorney General.

The other point I would I like to make on this bill -- and I mentioned it briefly earlier -- is that under this statute recourse again has to be obtained in the courts. It seems to me -- and the Attorney General would be the first to agree with me -- that the court process in this province has been neglected since 1971. It is not the most accessible nor the most expedient way to get recourse.

If the tenant is going to seek recourse, for instance, under Bill 20 he goes to see his rent review officer or the rent review board. Why could we not have that sort of board regulating or making decisions under the Landlord and Tenant Act?

I understand the problems because there has been long jurisprudence, I suppose, enacted under the Landlord and Tenant Act over a number of years. Slowly but surely legislation is taking over from jurisprudence and we are setting the guidelines. For instance, an open contract entered into by a landlord and a tenant is hardly valid at all under this legislation. We are going further, I suppose, than has been contemplated by anyone who supports the free enterprise system when you tell an individual: “If you are going to tell somebody to get out of your property, your apartment, you are going to have to tell them why.”

This is something which was unthinkable, I would think, five years ago but we are doing it now. The tenant’s protection and even the landlord’s protection is pretty well guided by legislation and the jurisprudence becomes of less importance.

I say to the minister, surely on the long term, if we are talking about an efficient administration which is catering to the taxpayers of 1975, he should try to be cohesive and not try to make it so difficult on the individual be is trying to protect. Surely this type of legislation or the approach taken by a tenant or a landlord should be under a common board, the review board, under the Ministry of Housing.

Mr. Moffatt: I wanted to deal briefly with a couple of points with regard to the legislation in connection with the mobile home parks and the effects this particular legislation should have, I think, and probably won’t have.

In various parts of the province, mobile home parks have become somewhat of an answer to the problem of a housing shortage. I suspect that all members would agree they are at least a partial answer and, dealt with in the appropriate fashion, could pose some solution.

What happens currently is that people who own mobile homes or purchase them in order to enter a mobile home park are caught in a kind of lock-step arrangement. What happens is that when one purchases a mobile home, one buys it from a person who, in most cases, owns the park in which that home will be located. It is located by the landlord and one is assigned a lot and various amenities and attachments to that lot in the context of the entire park.

That seems to work reasonably well except that for a variety of reasons people from time to time have to move from one park to another. What happens is if one owns a mobile home one is denied entrance to a particular park. Unless one wholesales the particular unit back to the person from whom it was bought and then purchases a new mobile home in the new park one is denied admission.

I discussed this briefly, privately, with the Attorney General the day after the bill was introduced. I think he agreed with me that it was somewhat of a problem. I wonder if, in the sort of general discussion which will take place on third reading, we could come to some kind of agreement whereby there will be a formula or some method by which people who have to buy a mobile home in order to gain entrance to a park will at least have their rights protected.

[4:15]

I’m aware that the minister says, and I at first thought, that an amendment would be suitable, suggesting that the possession or ownership of a mobile home would not be any reason to discriminate against a person so as to prevent entry into a park. That might have been a workable solution, but on second thoughts, and after discussion, it seems to be an unworkable solution.

I submit to the minister that unless something is done within the context of this bill to protect those people, we are indeed going to be faced with that problem more and more. I can document the problem in specific terms to some extent.

I can cite an instance where a person paid $22,000 for a double-wide mobile home in 1972, and in 1973 was posted to Vancouver and had to get rid of that particular home and had to sell it back to the owner at a price of $9,000. Now that, I would suggest, is a significant rip-off. I think that that kind of thing should somehow be taken into consideration.

People might argue that the original buyer had a right to sell the home to whomever he chose, but in fact that’s not correct, because he had no right to sell it to anybody other than people who were going to live in that particular park. So that becomes a kind of discriminatory lock-step arrangement.

I would suggest to the minister that this kind of thing needs to be dealt with in the context of the bill and I hope that we’ll be able to deal with that during third reading.

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

Mr. Laughren: Nickel Belt, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Speaker: Nickel Belt.

An hon. member: Same area.

Mr. Laughren: Was that a fellow northern member who said it was the same area? They’re just mad because studded tires aren’t being included with the amendments to the seatbelt Act.

Mr. Moffatt: Studded tires on mobile homes.

Mr. Laughren: I don’t understand my colleague from Durham East’s comment that we couldn’t legislate prevention of the kind of rip-off that he talks about. I know of a situation in which the mobile home park operator requires that the mobile home be bought from a certain distributor -- it’s not even himself, but from another distributor.

I know of one case where the person moved the mobile home a considerable distance at considerable expense only to be told, when he got there, that he couldn’t come into the mobile home park. And it was the only mobile home park in the entire area, it seems to me that legislation could very well be introduced, which would prevent the ownership of a mobile home having anything whatsoever to do with admittance into a mobile home park.

I think it should be kept in mind as well that there are areas in the province where there is no competition among mobile home park operators; there is only one in the community and, therefore, whatever that mobile home park operator says, goes. There is no choice whatsoever,

You can imagine the consternation of the person who owns the mobile home, when he is transferred -- for example the Ministry of Natural Resources might transfer one of their employees into a northern community -- and then is told that he can’t bring his mobile home into that particular park. And there’s absolutely no competition, no alternative for that person.

I’d like to hear also from the Attorney General, why such an amendment could not have been included in this bill.

Mr. Cassidy: I want to say first to the minister, that it’s a pleasure to debate this particular bill, and it’s a pleasure to debate this kind of legislation. I would hope that these moments came more frequently in the life of the Legislature, or had come more frequently in the life of the Legislature over the past four years, because it might have been more pleasant being here over that period of time.

The second thing I would say to him is that honeymoons like this don’t last forever; so take your rosebuds while you may because we may become a bit more contumacious in a few months’ time.

The bill makes a fundamental change to the way in which landlords and tenants have got along in North America and, I believe, under English common law, over a very long period of time. It’s a pretty fundamental change and I would suggest, on the ideological plane, a very welcome change as well.

It’s a change in relationship which also reflects a change in the tenure of many of the people who are living in our major cities in Ontario. In the past, tenancy was for many people a relatively impermanent or temporary kind of thing. People were tenants for a period of time while they piled up capital and until they were able to have a house of their own. In times that were demographically stable, when there was not that rapid urban expansion we have right now, that was a possible thing to do.

People who were tenants, who were working-class people, did at least tend to enjoy a more stable relationship with their landlord. In conditions of fairly adequate supply of housing, even if they moved around from time to time -- because they couldn’t pay the rent or for other reasons -- they would probably stay in very much the same district. The area of Cabbagetown is a very good example.

If the minister has read “Working People” by James Lorimer, which I recommend to him, that book documents the last years of the working-class culture of Cabbagetown before it was decimated by urban growth and white painting and other factors like that. There were many people who had been tenants all their lives yet had lived within one extended community with friends and relatives close at hand and enjoying a fairly stable and decent relationship with their landlords. All sorts of reasons, including the greed of landlords, have brought that to an end. Now it has become necessary to legislate in order to give tenants the kind of security they previously enjoyed, both because of the market situation and perhaps because of a rather more benign attitude on the part of landlords, who tended to have a personal rather than an impersonal relationship with their tenants.

As our society changes in major cities, there is the prospect of more and more people being tenants for life. Unfortunately, I have to say this, to be a tenant has been to be considered second-class. Working-class people might have a stable kind of community in parts of our major cities but they were looked down upon by the people who lived in Deer Park, Forest Hill, Rosedale, and the posher sections of other cities. They were considered as being spendthrift; they were considered as not contributing in the same way to the community; they were denied the vote for very many years. They were given only a qualified right to vote in the municipal franchise and generally they were thought to be will-o’-the-wisps and people who caused social problems rather than helped to cure them.

Of course, that was to some extent a self-fulfilling prophecy. If tenants didn’t have the right to vote, tenants would feel less involved in their communities. If tenants were subject to eviction or to intimidation by their landlords, they were less likely to play a part in their particular community. The roles of helper, volunteer, provider, home and school parent and that kind of thing in a community would therefore tend to gravitate to the people who were resident homeowners rather than to those who were tenants.

It has come to the point where to be a tenant is to be someone who is very transitory. Large landlords with no compunctions have been evicting or have been refusing to renew leases. This has affected families in particular which, for various reasons, are being harassed and discriminated against; and there has been no respite until now.

Now, however, we have legislation which amends the Landlord and Tenant Act and which will provide security of tenure. It seems to me this bill cuts two ways because it talks of both rights and responsibilities both for tenants and for landlords.

On the one hand, landlords are bound against arbitrary and irrational evictions or refusals to renew a lease. When they take a tenant, it is a relationship which is liable to be fairly permanent; they therefore may have to consider more carefully, when they accept a tenant, if that tenant is going to be a decent tenant. They also have to relate to that tenant, bearing in mind that they may have the tenant for a very long period of time.

On the other hand, the obligations of tenancy, which were spelled out to some extent in the Act before now have now been spelled out in more detail, because there are court-ordered sanctions and reasons or justifications for which a tenant can be evicted. The tenant has therefore certain obligations to which he must live up if he is to continue in a position of tenancy.

We would hope that the protections of tenant organizations that are provided for in this bill and which are valuable will encourage or permit tenants to get together and to begin dealing with the landlords in a group rather than singly. In cases where there are large buildings of 100, 200 or 300 suites, it doesn’t make sense for an individual tenant to deal with the rental agent or the superintendent, or whoever happens to be the landlord’s representative. However, it’s very difficult for the landlord, or the manager of the landlord’s company, to meet with each tenant individually. The tenant should be able to get through to the responsible people to make decisions, however, and they can only do so in a group.

I believe, personally, that the form of association will be fairly flexible for the time being. In a middle-class kind of apartment building, it may be a very loose-knit association or a kind of group that emerges of 10 or 12 tenants who tend to work together and who have the confidence of the rest of the building. In a more working-class apartment in Scarborough, or in parts of my riding, it might take the form of a more formal association which holds meetings and decides what its requests and demands are going to be and then arranges for meetings with the landlord. In some other cases, the tenants may be relatively happy, and the fact that they have the right to associate may be sufficient to enforce reasonable behaviour on the part of their landlord.

There are several points I want to raise about the bill and about the inconsistencies between this bill and Bill 20, which is the rent control bill. One has already been brought to the attention of the House. It’s serious. If we’re making a fundamental change in landlord-tenant relationships through the security of tenure provision, if we’re making it on an indefinite basis and if, as seems probable, the government intends that this be permanent, then why doesn’t the government shore it up with an indefinite kind of basis for rent control or rent review?

The dangers of eviction by arbitrary or very high increases in rent are well known to the minister. They mean, if there is no rent control after the middle of 1977, that a landlord who is enjoined from evicting a tenant who has fulfilled his obligations because of Bill 26, will be able to turn around and force that tenant to leave by a rent increase of $100 or $150 a month and there will be no recourse for the tenant.

Some landlords have suggested that an anti-discriminatory clause, to ensure that no tenant receives a rent increase of more than the average for the building, might be a means of providing security of tenure without rent control. Frankly, I don’t think that’s possible. I think it’s an awkward and unhappy way to proceed.

Roomers are covered in this bill but are not under rent control. That is an inconsistency. It means that when these bills are proclaimed, let’s say Jan. 1, 1976, roomers with whom the landlord is unhappy but who are protected from eviction because of the security of tenure bill, will be forced to leave because of arbitrary and very big increases in their rents. That’s a problem that I think the minister has to contend with.

There is a problem which may emerge with apartment hotels, and particularly there is a problem that could emerge with the attempts by certain landlords to find a vehicle by which they can convert apartments into some kind of property which is exempt. We have, thank God, not tried to make an exemption for furnished properties as was done in Britain. The result of that, many years ago, was that a landlord would buy a few sucks of furniture, call his property furnished and evade the post-war rent controls and other security of tenure provisions that existed under that law.

[4:30]

There are in my riding, however, a large number of apartment hotels, and it could be that that euphemism will be used, as the member for Scarborough-Ellesmere (Mr. Warner) was saying, in order to hide an intent to evade the Act.

There may be a need for the prohibition of evictions and refusals to renew leases to be made retroactive, as the member for Scarborough-Ellesmere has talked about, in order to prevent the injustices of bringing in a bill now after landlords have had ample notice and after some of them have clearly been taking advantage of the time between promise by the government and the actual fulfilment of that particular promise.

As the member for Lakeshore (Mr. Lawlor) said, we are concerned about the demolition, conversion and renovation sections. We question letting these evictions happen in the middle of the lease. When the tenant signs on for quiet enjoyment for one or two years, he should surely be protected against an eviction because the landlord decides to redevelop the property.

If the landlord is intending to develop the property, then the normal thing for him to do is to put his tenants under a month-to-month lease at the time that the leases expire, and at that point he would then be able to evict in order to demolish with 120 days’ notice. The 120 days could possibly be reasonable notice in all cases, including those where a lease is about to expire. We felt that this should be left open for discussion during the committee stage of the bill. We are worried that repairs and renovations could be used as a loophole to evade the Act, as a number of members have set forth.

We were pleased that the reasons for evictions that were set out in the minister’s statement have been narrowed, but we still feel that the question of illegal activity should be taken out. An illegal activity that annoys or disrupts safety, or which annoys the other people in the building, will be covered under that particular section. But an illegal activity that does not annoy or disrupt or in any way interfere with the rest of the tenants in the building, is surely not a matter for the Landlord and Tenant Act to cover. It opens a tenant to a form of double jeopardy.

For example, suppose that he is convicted for possession of marijuana or for smoking hashish in his apartment. That is an illegal activity with an noxious weed, but it is not an activity which will have affected anybody else in the building, unless the floors are not tight against smoke. The sentence in the courts, given the tenor of the courts these days, might be probation for three or six months -- might even be whatever it is that you get when you don’t get any sentence at all on your first offence. But the landlord could look at the fact that there had been a conviction for the possession of pot and say, “You have been convicted of an illegal activity in this building, and therefore I will go to the courts and seek to have you evicted.”

There is a kind of double jeopardy there. The courts could say that that is unfair and that the eviction on grounds of the pot charge was an unreasonable kind of use of the law, but nevertheless it doesn’t seem reasonable that the landlord could even have a leg to stand on, on going to the courts.

We are concerned about the question of musical mothers-in-law. That means revolving mothers-in-law, who go from apartment to apartment at the behest of their beloved sons-in-law, who are landlords trying to clear out unwanted tenants. The right of a landlord to evict a tenant in order to take over the apartment for a member of his family should be restricted in some way so that if there is any evidence that this is being used on a consistent basis as a technique of property management and not as a compassionate gesture towards one’s kith and kin, that the courts would have the power to prevent those kind of evictions.

At one point, when we were developing our bill, we suggested that this right on the behalf of the landlord and his family might be open to the landlord only once every year, or every two years, or every five years. There is some possibility of that. Certainly it should not be a right that is open to corporate landlords.

We felt that the question of the material covenants being breached was ambiguous. The lawyers in our caucus suggested that this could enhance the tenant’s protection, because the breach of a non-material covenant in a lease would then not be enough for a landlord to justify terminating the lease.

The counter-argument is that this bill effectively takes over from the lease as the basic document governing the tenant’s tenure and continued tenure, so that he can’t be kicked out unless he breaches this law and, therefore, that any breach of the lease is not subject for eviction unless it is also a breach of the law. In that case, the reference to a breach of a material covenant in the lease expands the powers of the landlord to evict a tenant rather than restricting the power of the landlord to evict the tenant and there’s clearly some legal opinion that may be needed there as to whether this enhances or reduces the protections given to the tenant.

I want to say a word on behalf of landlords. The minister looks up in some surprise.

Mr. Sargent: I would hope he’s surprised.

Mr. Cassidy: And so does the Liberal Party obviously.

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: No.

Mr. Sargent: That’s the same speech you made last year.

Mr. Cassidy: There is a very practical question which a number of landlords have come to me with over a period of years which reflects their frustrations with the courts as a means of enforcing their rights vis-à-vis the tenants.

Many of our people have spoken about the need to take these matters outside of the courts and to put them into one common administration. I think both in British Columbia and in Quebec the complaint of people enforcing the rent control bills is the fact that there are two, three or even four legal authorities which all have a piece of landlord-tenant relations. It would surely make much more sense for the first avenue under any circumstance where there was a landlord-tenant dispute to be the rent review officer or a landlord-tenant officer or someone like that who provides flexible, quick kinds of decisions which then in certain cases can be appealed either to the courts or to the rent review tribunal.

What the landlords have complained about in particular and where I think I have some sympathy for them is the losses they incur if they have a tenant who isn’t paying his rent and decides to bull it out.

Under the present law, they first have to establish that the tenant is trying to evade the rent. It often takes a month or more before they wake up to the fact that this time it wasn’t that the money was coming on the 15th of the month, it was that the tenant was trying to play games for serious. Secondly, they have to notify the tenant; they have to take him into court; they have to wait for a date; and they have to get their court order, a process which can take anywhere from three weeks to eight weeks. Thirdly, if they have a court order, there is the problem of enforcing the order.

In Quebec, and I think possibly in this province, it may be that the court order to evict for non-payment of rent has got to be accompanied by a small claims court order to collect the rent, and even there they may have difficulty making the tenant pay up, particularly since he may do a midnight flit when he realizes that the game is up and not leave any forwarding address.

Under the bill that’s proposed here, the landlord has first to establish that the tenant is not paying the rent. That’s a process that may take, if he’s really tough, one or two days, but normally it’s going to take a week or two. Then he has to give 20 days’ notice which gets us up to, let’s say, day 35 from the date that the rent was due. The tenant has seven days in which to comply, and then the landlord has to go to the court. That means, as the timetable works, it takes roughly the same time as it does now to get to the court, possibly a bit longer, because it may be 40 or 45 days before the landlord can have his application into the court for an eviction or for the payment of rent.

I don’t think it’s clear from the bill whether the court could order the payment of rent, in addition to agreeing to an eviction for the non-payment. If it continues to take three to eight weeks to get the order to evict, you’re in a situation where it may take as much as two, 2½ or three months before the landlord has the right to kick out the recalcitrant tenant. Since the tenant, almost by definition under these cases, is probably not paying rent, then that may mean three months of lost rent on behalf of the landlord.

I don’t say this purely because my heart weeps for landlords. I say it also because of the fact that that non-payment of rent by a tenant who is irresponsible will be reflected in the rents that are paid by other tenants. The landlord will do his best to pass that unpaid rent on to other tenants and, I would suspect, the rent review officers under rent control will allow the non-payment of rent to be a cost that can be passed on to other tenants.

I just sort of suggest ideas. I hope they can be discussed in the committee. One is that if the landlord goes through that 20 days plus seven days plus going through the court routine and then the tenant pays and settles his affairs on the second round, if the tenant does it again, then it would seem to me that the process should be short-circuited so that the landlord could go directly to the court in the same way as he is allowed to go directly to the court where a tenant overcrowds the apartment for the second lime, or starts to tear down the walls, and the landlord goes after him for the second time.

I hesitate to suggest that persistent failure to pay rent on time could be cause for an eviction during the course of a lease. That’s rather more draconian, but we might come to that as some kind of a balance to the fact that in general, and quite rightly so, we are giving rights to tenants and making the balance between tenants and landlords more even than it has been in the past.

So much for the tenants. I’d like to say a word about the giving of notice. Since, for a while, leases of one year or two years will continue to be the order of the day, although in time they may begin to disappear under rent control and security of tenure, I think that the proposed notice should be looked at a bit more closely. For one thing, the minister has changed the date for the giving of notice from the last day of the previous month to 30 days. That 30 days can range from Jan. 28 for an end of February eviction to the second of the month in a month that has 31 days. If one wants to change it, possibly it might make more sense to have it the first day of the month in which the termination is to take place.

Second, in general the pattern in the legislation proposed, the package in Bill 20 and Bill 26, has been to extend the advance notice for various actions to be taken. If a landlord wants his family to move in he has got to give 60 days’ notice, even if it’s a monthly tenancy. If he wants to demolish, it is 120 days’ notice, although in effect that’s a shortening of a notice where there is a yearly lease in force. If the landlord wants to raise the rent, he has to give 90 days’ notice. But we’re still stumbling along with a proposed 30 days in the case of a month-to-month tenancy.

If month-to-month tenancies become more common, as they are liable to because the tenant doesn’t have to have a lease to prevent being kicked out the day that his kids are going to go back to school, then it would seem to me that that period of notice ought to be extended, probably to at least 60 days, which in effect might mean the first day of the previous month, in line with the comments I just made about a simple notice period. So 60 days or 61, whatever it might happen to be, might be more reasonable.

That would mean, in turn, that there would be a fairly clear pattern that would take place in terms of rent increases and the tenant reaction thereto. If a landlord gave notice 90 days before the effective date of an increase in rent, and the tenant had 30 days before deciding whether or not to get out because he didn’t like the increase, then the landlord would get more reasonable kind of notice of what the tenant’s intentions were.

It is possible that the notice to be given by tenants need not be as prolonged as the notice to be given by landlords, because it is easier to rent a building or an apartment within 30 days than it is to find a suitable building or apartment within 30 days. It’s pretty tough to do it in that period of time, and to arrange for moving and so on, whereas in rentals you put an ad in the paper and you probably have people knocking on the door within a very short period of time.

I would also like to suggest this, that where the landlord intends to evict for cause, it is desirable for a number of reasons that any court proceedings that take place, or, we would hope, any proceedings that take place before a rent review officer, should happen before the effective date of termination and not afterwards. If you have a 30-day notice period, and given the fact that the courts are not particularly speedy, then most of the cases surrounding evictions where the landlord is seeking to show cause, will take place after the 30 days has expired.

Then the question will be raised: If the tenant loses, do you then give him two days, seven days, or a month from the court order justifying the eviction before he actually has to get out? That’s a question which the minister should consider too. That becomes less of a question, however, if you go to the courts, let’s say around about 20 days before the termination is due to take place, which would happen if there were a 60-day notice on the landlord rather than a 30-day notice. I suggest that the minister look to that fairly seriously.

[4:45]

The final point I want to raise is that this bill does not enjoin against adult-only buildings. It seems to me that is the one major area of landlord-tenant law which demands action right now before the Law Reform Commission comes forward with its report.

In the Quebec civil code it says quite bluntly one can’t discriminate against people because they have kids unless they are going to overcrowd the place. We have covered crowding and we should follow the example of the Quebec civil code. In European jurisdictions, such as West Germany, which we have looked at, they don’t even understand what is meant by an adult-only building. They don’t exist over there and they do exist here in Toronto.

The Ministry of Housing recently made a study -- it was over the summer -- of 800 apartments in Toronto which found that one-third of those apartments were in adult-only buildings. This was a random sample taken through the pages of the telephone hook. One-third were in adult-only buildings and our observation of the advertisements in the Toronto Star is that a much higher proportion of apartments on the market is directed only to adults.

I would ask the minister to consider seriously adding this to the bill and bringing in a provision which, among other things, would protect landlords as well as tenants. It would protect landlords because right now, because of the additional profit to be made from adult-only buildings, landlords may feel they can’t continue to accept families. They may feel they will lose potential tenants who will go to the building down the road where they don’t have such a soft heart and where they will not accept people with kids.

The landlords need to be protected against themselves and the place to do it is here in this Legislature. I think it would be sufficiently within the principle of the bill that the minister could bring in that amendment whether or not it will be open to members of the opposition parties. The question of adult-only buildings is important perhaps, too, because of the fact that this bill effectively prevents the eviction of a family with kids simply because they have children.

I don’t think the courts will say it is a material covenant in a lease that people not have children. I really can’t see the courts saying that. Unless the children are holy terrors, there is nothing else in the bill to permit the eviction from an adult-only building of a young couple who have a kid because they happened to have the kid. There is a law being created here which benefits people who are existing tenants even if they happen to be in buildings which are adult-only and which also benefits tenants who are in existing buildings where the policy on new rentals is changing to adult-only. They can’t continue to clean out buildings in the way it is being done in Don Mills and gradually turf out the families; at least, I hope that’s the effect of the bill.

Why shouldn’t that apply to people who are becoming families as well? Why shouldn’t that apply to all the special circumstances of people who need to rent and who are in very peculiar circumstances which may require them to have, say, a suite in a downtown apartment building? One of the people working here in Hansard, for example, may have a young child and may find that the schedule of working from 2 p.m. until 10 p.m. fits in with the day care and allows them to spend the mornings with their young child if they have an apartment which is within telephone reach and easy access of the Legislature. They could not do so if they were separated by eight or 10 miles and a long transit trip from their particular family.

They should have access to a building here in central Toronto whether or not in the past that building has been designated for adults only. They are the best judge of that, not a landlord who will inevitably rule for profit; nor a bunch of fellow tenants who, I am afraid, will rule on the basis of discrimination against children in a way that the law would prevent them from doing if it happened to be an attempt to discriminate against people of another race, colour, creed or religion.

With those comments, we commend this piece of legislation the minister is bringing in and look forward with pleasure to the clause by clause study.

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: First of all, I should say I am very grateful for the contribution of my colleagues to this debate which I understand is restricted to the principle of the legislation that has been introduced. I very much appreciate the fact that most, if not all, of the members seem to be in favour of the principle of the legislation and that matters that will be developed or discussed in committee are really the best method for attaining the principles of the legislation which seem to be adopted on all sides of the House.

As my colleagues have recognized, the legislation does represent a very serious departure from existing law because it does in effect create a situation which may well be to leave in practice leases in perpetuity insofar as tenants and landlords act reasonably. I would suggest with respect that the importance of that principle not be lost sight of when we come to discuss this matter in committee. As some of my colleagues have observed and as I would like to repeat, we know the Ontario Law Reform Commission will soon report to us on the analysis of the landlord and tenant relationship.

I want to make it clear that this is not intended to be the last word on landlord and tenant legislation as far as this province is concerned in the immediate future. At tile same time, we recognize the importance of the legislation and the fact that we welcome and await with interest the report of the Law Reform Commission. However, I did not want to indicate that this in any way undermined what we consider to be the very essential importance of this legislation because of the precedent that has been set in relation to the very basic landlord-tenant relationship.

In introducing this legislation, I would like to indicate to the hon. members of the Legislature that considerable thought was given to whether or not legislation would be introduced as amendments to the Landlord and Tenant Act or whether or not a bill which might have been called a security of tenure Act might be introduced -- or indeed, a whole new residential tenancies Act. As I think most of my colleagues are aware, the existing landlord and tenant legislation is really quite extensive and fairly complex. In order to provide the security of tenure that I believe all members of the House desire at an early time to be undertaken by this government, the best method to obtain this end was to amend the existing Landlord and Tenant Act.

In relation to the forum in which these matters will be dealt with in the event of a dispute, again I would like to assure the members of the House that very careful consideration was given at this time as to what would be the appropriate form to determine any disputes which might arise. Certainly one of the underlying principles of legislation such as this should be related to the accessibility by both the landlord and the tenant to the forum which is going to have the ultimate or, for practical purposes, the real determination of their respective rights.

In choosing the county courts as the forum that has been provided for by the amendments, I want to make it clear first that we do not rule out the possibility that a new forum or court structure may be necessary in the future in order to deal with the landlord and tenant relationship, which is of course so fundamental to our society. What we were most concerned about was to provide a forum that was going to be accessible to tenants and landlords at an early date; and, of course, with the county court structure well in place, this was a consideration.

Secondly, there is a matter of constitutionality which I did not wish to discuss at length at this particular point in time, because constitutionally writs of possession have always been dealt with by courts constituted of federally appointed judges. This is a matter that has given us some concern, notwithstanding the fact that we are aware that other provinces have not -- I don’t say they have ignored the constitutional issue, but they have not been dissuaded by it from setting up special landlord and tenant courts.

More important than either of these matters, I think, should be the recognition of the very important legal relationship that exists between a landlord and tenant and, as I’m sure was well known by all the members of the Legislature, there is a very large body of jurisprudence already in existence in relation to the landlord and tenant relationship. Not just because of that, but considering the very special legal relationship that will continue regardless of any legislation that is passed by this Legislature or any Legislature in the future, it’s our very strongly held belief that such a forum should be provided and staffed by people who do have some special understanding of this legal relationship.

When it is suggested, for example, that a forum to consider rent review may be the appropriate forum for landlord and tenant matters or for the determination of disputes or issues under the Landlord and Tenant Act, I would like to point out that the issues involved in a landlord and tenant relationship on the one hand, in relation to the amendments that are before this House, and the issues related to the rent review, in my respectful submission, are very different issues and may very well require a different type of forum in order to arrive at the best justice that can be reasonably be made available. I just want the members to consider that as this matter has been developed and as this matter is debated.

Most important of all at this particular time, again emphasizing the fact that we are not ruling out the thought of providing special courts down the road, we do want to provide a forum that is now in place and that will be available as soon as this legislation has been passed, assuming that it’s going to be passed. It’s a matter that I have also discussed with the chief judge of the county court in relation to the number of judges that will be available in order to make the county courts accessible to applications under the Landlord and Tenant Act on a reasonable basis.

It is my understanding that while it will undoubtedly require the appointment of additional county court judges, it does not require a large number of additional county court judges.

My hon. friend, the member for St. George (Mrs. Campbell), earlier wondered why we would not consult directly with our federal friends to assist or obtain information with respect to what county court judges might be appointed or whether they would be prepared to appoint the additional county court judges. I should like to assure the Legislature that the federal government traditionally has always acceded to the wishes or the requests of the Attorney General of the Province of Ontario when it comes to the appointment of additional judges.

The federal government has recognized the fact that the individual provinces are the best people to determine when additional judges are needed and traditionally do provide those appointments upon request. It is our understanding and our belief that under the county court system as presently established and functioning in the province, that these courts will be available if and when this legislation is passed.

Mr. Cassidy: The only problem is that they discriminate against tenants.

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: I just cannot accept the statement by my hon. friend that the courts of this province discriminate against any individual coming before them. There are on occasion individual judges who may be possessed of human frailty, as I am sure we all are, but to suggest that the courts of this province discriminate against any class of person I just simply state is a very unfair comment, and I can assure the Legislature that it is really quite unfounded.

In relation to the legislation, I think it has been recognized by my hon. colleagues that it is our desire to deal with the landlords and the tenants in as even-handed manner as possible, because of the very importance of the relationship to the community. If landlords feel that they are without basic fundamental rights, then it goes without saying that the availability of rental accommodation is going to diminish -- and only to the detriment of the tenants of this province.

I am very grateful to learn that my friends in the official opposition are receiving briefs from landlords and that they have come to the recognition that all landlords are not tycoons. Indeed, the great majority of landlords in this province are people like the rest of us, who are struggling to get by, to support families, and to meet the demands of a very difficult economy.

Mr. Cassidy: Do you struggle? Do you struggle?

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: If we were to pass legislation which would be seen by the landlords of this province as something less than even-handed, then I am sure that we all would agree that ultimately it would be the tenants of the province who would suffer.

For a few moments I will deal with respect to some of the observations made by certain of the hon. members. I should state at the outset that certainly I welcome any suggestions or proposals that have been made or will be made by the hon. members that will assist us in achieving the very important principles of this legislation, the virtues of which are apparently accepted and recognized on all sides of the House.

We of course are very concerned for example, as my friend the hon. member for Lakeshore (Mr. Lawlor) has posed, about the danger that some of the sections of the legislation will be open to abuse; that demolition, for example, or extensive repairs or renovations will be used or that these sections will be abused or will be vulnerable to subterfuge in order to get rid of tenants who are, generally speaking, law abiding tenants and responsible tenants. We are very concerned about this.

We believe the legislation has been drafted carefully and really avoids the possibility of this subterfuge, but if my friends have any specific amendments in order to tighten up these, or any other sections which have been drafted, in order to achieve the principles about which we have spoken, then of course they will be welcome.

Several of the hon. members have made reference to a situation that exists at, I believe Nos. 1 and 20 or 23, Oriole Rd., in the city of Toronto and one of the colleagues made the suggestion that this section of the Act was drafted in such a way as to assist the landlord who “was known to have been a Tory candidate.” I hasten to suggest that I don’t believe for one moment that the hon. member from St. George (Mrs. Campbell) was serious because if she was serious, I can only state to the Legislature, Mr. Speaker, that I consider the suggestion most offensive and even in the context of partisan politics, totally unwarranted.

The truth of the situation is that the legislation was drafted with that particular incident in mind. As a matter of fact, two of my staff, who are in the Legislature this afternoon, have worked very hard in the preparation of this legislation. They attended a meeting in the mayor’s office dealing with the situation at 1 and 23 Oriole Rd. and in drafting the legislation, that unfortunate situation has been or was, very much in mind.

Now I don’t pretend to know all the details of what occurred there but it’s my understanding and belief that this situation could not have occurred if the legislation that is now before the Legislature was in fact in farce. The situation at 1 and 23 Oriole Rd. was this. First of all there was no demolition permit. Secondly, it was my understanding that it was not a conversion to a different purpose; and thirdly, my information and belief is that the repairs on those premises were not so extensive as to require vacant possession. Indeed if this legislation had been in force, the tenants at 1 and 23 Oriole Rd. would not in fact be faced with the very tragic situation with which they are now faced.

Mr. Warner: Those aren’t escape clauses --

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: And if any of the members of the House have any suggestions with respect to how any of these provisions can be further tightened, I repeat that certainly I will welcome such suggestions.

I hope there will be full time, of course, to debate this matter and improve the legislation, where possible, on a clause-by-clause basis in committee. I can only state that I look forward to working with the members of the committee in that respect in order that we may produce the best legislation which can be made available to us, or can be made available to the public of this province.

A number of items were raised by the various members of the House. We have made note of them and it will not be necessary and, as I understand it, not appropriate for me to deal with them on a clause-by-clause basis as this is not the purpose of second reading.

My hon. friend from Lakeshore (Mr. Lawlor), in his own very articulate and persuasive fashion, has made some suggestions with respect to further consideration to be given to terms such as noxious and offensive. There is a fair amount of jurisprudence in relation to those terms but again it is the intention to protect not just the landlord but other tenants by adopting these terms in relation to prohibiting activity which is only going to be to the detriment of other tenants who are enjoying the premises.

Mr. Cassidy: That’s covered in other sections.

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: I’d like to comment briefly on some of the comments of the hon. member for Durham East (Mr. Moffatt) in relation to mobile home parks. We have discussed this problem and again are very concerned about the difficulty some mobile home owners may have in gaining entry to parks, particularly when there is a shortage of parks. I think all members of the House would agree that the only real solution to a problem such as this is to make more mobile home sites available.

In the meantime, and again this is a matter which will be discussed in committee, I think the best answer to my friend’s concern -- and it is a very legitimate concern -- is the remark made by the hon. member for Ottawa Centre (Mr. Cassidy). During his remarks he stated -- I don’t pretend this is totally accurate quote -- he made an observation which I would like to adopt. I believe it is relevant.

That is, the landlord must decide, or be very careful in making the determination at the beginning of any tenancy agreement, whether or not the individual is going to be a decent tenant because of the possible permanency of the relationship. I think that’s a very valid observation. Again, it presents difficulties, in my view, with respect to forcing mobile home park owners to accept any tenant who comes along.

In view of the importance of the initial relationship which is established, one must be aware of those considerations. Again, this gives me some difficulty in relation to making these mobile homes or parks accessible or available to any tenant who comes along, regardless of many other circumstances which I think a mobile home park owner must weigh carefully and fairly and legitimately in order to protect his own interests on the rights of other tenants, insofar as who he accepts as a tenant.

[5:15]

Again, we are very concerned that the legislation be framed in such a way as to ensure that landlords -- and indeed tenants, but particularly landlords -- act in a bona fide manner at all times with relation to any changes in the tenancy agreement, particularly with respect to evictions. Referring to my friend from Ottawa Centre and his reference to revolving mothers-in-law, again, we welcome any suggestion for changes in order to ensure the bona fides of any evictions in that particular context.

In the matter of obtaining flexible or quick relief for a landlord who is not being paid rent, I don’t want to enter into a quarrel with my friend’s reading of the sections at this particular time. As I read the sections, my arithmetic comes out a little differently, but I have never pretended to be a particular expert at arithmetic and this is something that we should deal with at the committee stage.

I do want to say that I subscribe to the concern of the members of the Legislature with respect to not only making the forum readily accessible to landlords or tenants when disputes do arise, but attempting to provide some forum where these disputes can be resolved without a long drawn out legal battle. I can say that in relation to the landlord and tenant courts, if I may put it that way, I intend to explore the possible use of mediators who might be able to assist the parties to reconcile their differences short of a formal court hearing, in order to achieve the ends that both my friend and I and indeed all members of the House wish to achieve.

Mr. Cassidy: That could be the rent review officers who could do that job.

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: Possibly, it is a matter that certainly merits some consideration.

I don’t think that there is anything further that I wish to state at this particular time, other than to state again that I appreciate the observations of the hon. members and look forward to working with the members in committee.

Motion agreed to; second reading of the bill.

Mr. Speaker: I understand it is to go to committee.

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, that will go to the select committee considering Bill 20, so that will now be the select committee reviewing Bills 20 and 26.

Agreed.

HIGHWAY TRAFFIC AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Snow moved second reading of Bill 27, An Act to amend the Highway Traffic Act.

Mr. Speaker: Does the hon. minister have an opening statement?

Hon. Mr. Snow: No.

An hon. member: Why not?

Mr. Deans: It depends on how you bang your nose on the windshield.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Yorkview.

Mr. Young: Let me say first of all, as I begin this presentation, that this party, while not entirely happy with the bill and with the general concept, will support the principle of Bill 27.

Hon. Mr. Henderson: Poor leadership.

Mr. Samis: At least we are going to obey the law.

Hon. Mr. Henderson: The member for Wentworth will never make a leader.

Mr. Deans: You win some, you lose some.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please, let’s give the hon. member for Yorkview the opportunity to make his comments.

Mr. Young: Mr. Speaker, you and I can look back over some years of struggle in this field of automobile safety. In the early part of this century as the automobile developed, the automobile companies’ general idea was transportation and sales. The design of motor cars was built up with these questions asked: Can we transport people from place to place, and will our particular brand name, Ford, General Motors or call it what you will, sell to the public at large? Sales appeal became the criterion very often of the motor car.

Over the years we saw cars built with sharp points inside and out, cookie cutters on the dashboard, pointed gear shift levers and cranks on the doors, the outside with the points and ragged edges and handles on the doors which caught and tore and destroyed pedestrians. The driver and the pedestrian more and more were being smashed up in collisions because of the configuration of the motor car itself.

Down in New York State in the late 1950s, a group of legislators there, headed by the late Sen. Edward Speno, began to ask what could be done to change this situation. First of all, they came up with the concept that if we could apply to motor cars the same idea of seatbelts that we have in aircraft perhaps we would keep people belted in and the so-called second collision after a car meets an obstacle and then the passenger or the driver moves forward and hits the interior of the car could be avoided.

Speno and his associates in New York began to advocate that seatbelts be installed in motor cars. They had a tough struggle. The motor car industry then and since fought the concept and fought it at every level.

This group did finally succeed, and in New York state legislation was passed installing lapbelts in motor cars sold within that jurisdiction. From that legislation other states, California, for example, decided they wanted it as well. Then the motor car industry decided that they had to look after the needs of these two very large states it might be wiser, easier and simpler to install these lapbelts in all cars sold in the United States. Washington moved in and that legislation came to pass. Canada followed later on. As we have always done when it comes to car safety, we have followed blindly the lead of the United States. Sometimes that was good and sometimes that was insufficient.

Along with this concept of belts within the cars, there began to emerge the idea that the interior of a car should be modified. Then the lapbelt was not enough. In collisions the anchors were pulled out of the floors, and so standards had to be written to put in more secure anchors. Then the shoulder belt came in and the legislation was fought at every step by the industry.

I recall, and, Mr. Speaker, perhaps you do too, that New York then began to build what they called a safety car which would incorporate not only the belts but a smoothing out of the interior and exterior of the car to build the kind of package which would make it safe for people to ride. And so the safety car was designed.

At one point, Sen. Speno came to this Legislature and spoke to us trying to get our co-operation in financing and in building the safety car. Incorporated in and fundamental to that was the whole concept of the restraint system. Sen. Speno later went to Washington in an advisory capacity and passed away some years ago, and with him the whole concept of a safety car was destroyed with the active co-operation of the Nixon administration down there. It has been shattered and just now is beginning to emerge once more.

One thing I think we saw in those days was that damage to human beings was being needlessly done in situations of collisions and overturns. It was, as I say, needless damage. People were being killed, injured, wounded or crippled for life because of the failure of the motor car industry to incorporate the proper designs.

So we began to think in terms of the seatbelts and forcing people in some way to fasten them up. For a while we thought that once they were installed, people would use them; but that just didn’t happen. Fifteen per cent -- up to 25 per cent in some jurisdictions, we were told -- were using them. One figure I saw was 33, 34 or 35 per cent, but that was too high.

Mr. Martel: That was on Highway 401 in Metro Toronto.

Mr. Young: I guess that was shown in a survey up there. But the fact is that, by and large, the average citizen sat on the seatbelts or found some way to avoid using them, and he kept smashing himself up. Even though cars became safer as far as the interiors were concerned -- the padding, the smoothing out of the dash, then the collapsible steering columns that prevented the spearing of people in the chest, which had happened up to that point -- all these things came and, along with that, the hope that seatbelts would solve the problem. But again, people didn’t use them. We put buzzers on them, we linked them up to the ignition system, we did all the things we could think of to sort of force people to use them and to remind them that it was not safe to drive without them, but in spite of that people insisted that they were going to have the freedom to decide whether they should use them or not, whether they should die or not and perhaps leave their families helpless, or maim and cripple other passengers in their cars at will.

Finally, we had certain jurisdictions in this world thinking in terms of legislation, saying that people should buckle up; a lot of propaganda or education was carried on. But then the State of Victoria in Australia mandated seatbelts; and since that time other jurisdictions have done the same. In 1971, the year after the State of Victoria had instituted the legislation, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety funded a survey in that Dominion in which they compared the results of the use of seatbelts in Victoria with the rest of the nation. It was a comparison that was clear-cut and easily demonstrable as to results.

Just to give a quick résumé of what they found: Two Australian researchers compared the experience of the State of Victoria, which as I have said passed the first Australian mandatory safety belt use law in 1970, to the rest of Australia before it had passed such laws, I am quoting now:

“The researchers found that the law resulted in a 21 per cent decrease in highway fatalities in metropolitan areas and a 10 per cent decrease in non-metropolitan areas. The corresponding decreases in injuries were 13 per cent in metropolitan areas, and 11 per cent in non-metropolitan areas.”

This research was the first scientific evaluation of this law.

Then we had the University of Southern California instituting a pretty thorough-going study -- and I am only going to mention these two; perhaps some others will want to talk other ones, because many studies have been done. The University of North Carolina completed a study in December, 1974, just last year; they pointed out that in single-vehicle crashes, drivers had 66 per cent fewer serious and fatal crashes at medium speeds, and 53 per cent fewer crashes in the higher speeds. In all crashes at all speeds, results showed that 43 per cent fewer drivers were affected -- that is, by death and serious injury.

And 37 per cent fewer front seat passengers -- the death seat, so-called -- were affected. That’s a rather conclusive figure and something which should make us pause and think about this situation.

[5:30]

The Ontario Safety League in a study points out that in 1972 1,934 people were led in highway collisions while another 189,492 were injured. And they applied costs. They said:

“If we apply the National Safety Council’s figures to our own provincial statistics, we find that accident costs in Ontario are a staggering $671,069,318.50.”

Now, that’s getting it down to some degree accuracy but, of course, in that there is great leeway for error. But they go on to say, “And that comes out of our pocketbooks.”

Their study points out that at collision speeds of up to 60 miles per hour, belted motorists come out alive. Unbelted motorists started receiving fatal injuries at speeds as low as 12 miles per hour. Those figures, again, are startling. The minister tells us at he’s going to limit the top speed on our major highways to 60, and on the other highways to 55 and 50. Putting those figures with this other one, we may well find that the wearing of seatbelts will guarantee that very few drivers or passengers who are belted will be killed in Ontario in the future, providing the speed is observed and that people are buckled up.

One of the reasons that we’re not entirely happy with this legislation --

Hon. Mr. Snow: I thought you were.

Mr. Young: -- is that we realize it’s only temporary legislation. Coming over the horizon w are the passive restraint systems. There are air bags which will deploy in front of the drivers and the passengers and cushion impact. We will be more efficiently restrained than with seatbelts. However, many experts say that if you have both the belts and the passive restraints then, of course, your chances of survival are much higher.

I don’t want today to spend too much time on the passive restraint system which we see coming up, but I do think that it’s pertinent to this bill. Right now there are cars travelling the highways in North America equipped with the passive restraint systems. We are told these cars have travelled about 100 million miles and have been involved in about 1,000 crashes, most of them at low speeds which do not trigger the device. But with those devices that were triggered, the experts tell us that the passive restraint system was more effective in saving lives than seatbelts.

In the Province of Quebec, an automobile equipped with air bags saved the lives of the occupants, an entire family. Without the air bag restraints they might have all died. They felt that their lives had been saved by the device.

As far as the passive constraints are concerned we have not yet had quite enough research, perhaps largely because the motor car industry has refused to carry out the kind of research which ought to have been done and should have been done; but it’s happening. General Motors, which equipped the cars which are now on the road and has been monitoring them rather carefully, now announces it is going to draw back from supplying them, even as optional devices, over the next few years and have another go at the research end of it.

If I could ask the minister perhaps he’ll give us some information: I know that research in the passive restraint situation has been going on in the ministry itself. The University of Toronto department of engineering has been looking into air bags mounted on the steering wheels, I think, and they have come to the place where they are now extremely efficient for small cars. This is the information I have. Yet that research has been short-circuited and it has now ceased and perhaps the minister can tell us why this is so.

This kind of research, it seems to me, is important and it may be that this ministry should be carrying it on in co-operation with other jurisdictions across this country and across the world.

The cost of restraint systems, the automobile industry says, is still fairly high but the DeLorean Corp. which is working in this field, has told us that right now these passive restraint systems can be made for about $139, although other estimates from the industry itself run much higher than that. DeLorean is convinced that the air cushion systems will cost substantially less than $100 in volume production when the research is finished. Sen. Vance Hartke of Indiana, chairman of the Senate surface transportation subcommittee in Washington said this, “Any increase in the price of new motor vehicles attributable to the promulgation of a passive restraint standard would be more than offset by the savings in materials costs due to the shift towards smaller and lighter cars.”

He’s pointing out something that I think we all ought to face. We are right now undertaking the design of smaller and more efficient cars -- more efficient in the sense of packaging the passengers; more efficient in fuel; more efficient in total operation. As those new cars are being designed, there is no reason why, in that design right now, the air bag should not have a place.

It seems to me we have an opportunity now, if we insist upon it, here in this jurisdiction, to say to the auto makers: “We expect you in your designing of these new and better and smaller cars to build in the feasibility of passive restraint systems, not only the front passive restraints but lateral passive restraints so that lateral damage can be minimized.”

Again, we are told that this would be costly but one figure which is rather interesting and which I have here if I can find it -- General Motors Corp, claims that air bags would cause modifications costing $30 which would not otherwise be required. In other words, while other people were saying it wouldn’t cost much, General Motors says the figure’s around $30 for the kind of modification to its design which would provide for the air bags. This situation, it seems to me is one which we ought to look at very closely, and while legislation is now being passed to make the use of seatbelts mandatory, we should be looking ahead to the new design of the new cars which would not only make the seatbelts mandatory but which would incorporate the idea of passive restraint systems for the cars.

As far as weight is concerned in the passive restraint system, Volvo tells us that 30 lb seems to be the maximum weight that it is necessary to add to the cars, and while some of the companies are saying this is going to mean more gasoline to carry them around and all the rest of it, 30 lb is neither here nor there in the total weight of a car.

Again, one of the things that we are a bit concerned about is that this legislation be now looked upon as a complete package. I mentioned the passive restraint system which we think should be part of the total overall package. There is also the idea of better belts. I think of what has happened up this point without the real co-operation the industry.

The car which I drive, for example, has a belt which comes apart very easily in the centre; it’s not the kind that many other cars have because it comes apart and is a nuisance that way. Also, the car manufacturer has put a little slot in the carpet to my left so that I can tuck the end of the seatbelt in and stop the buzzer. Why that was ever allowed I’m not sure, but it’s there, not only on my side but on my wife’s side.

That’s the kind of co-operation which the industry gave, I suppose to the people who didn’t want to use seatbelts. They were circumventing the whole philosophy of the seatbelt idea. We have to get better standards for seatbelts so that efficient seatbelts are easily fastened and are in one piece, over the shoulder and around the waist, and are efficient, effective and easy to handle.

Then there is the whole matter of driver training and licensing of drivers which I think we must look at. I’m not going to spend any time on it today, but that is part of it. The regular inspection of cars, which I mentioned in the introduction of my bill yesterday to this effect -- all these things are part of the total package which must come and which must supplement the wearing seatbelts.

We hear objections to this whole concept, such as the matter of personal freedom. I’m not too concerned about this objection, because all around me I see the gradual abridgement of personal freedom in the interest of society at large. I suppose the person who is a real free enterpriser would say, “I want the right to drive a Sherman tank down the highway and drive when I want go and at the speed I want to go and no regulations for me.” Society long ago gave up that concept, and so we have rules and regulations of all kinds. In connection with the motor car industry and the transportation industry, we demand all sorts of things which do limit human freedom and we even ask for licences and for tests, these things which just said should be more effective, but we demand them and will curtail personal freedom in a thousand ways and again I’m not going to elaborate on this. Perhaps others will want to.

Then we have this argument that seatbelts will confine people to cars. They can’t get out easily. In case of a fire or a serious accident, they can’t jump out. That’s the whole point of the thing. Again I will quote, if I can find the quotation, from one of the ministry’s own publications, “The Human Collision,” which I suppose all of you have received. The studies in Sweden are quoted as well as others. It says:

“Various studies have investigated whether it is better to be thrown clear, as some people claim. The risk of death or serious injury is many times greater if the person is thrown out of the car. About one-quarter of all passenger and driver deaths result from being thrown out.”

This is a fact which has been known: When people are thrown clear of a car they hit their heads, or another car hits them or they roll over on the pavement or in the ditch and they are destroyed.

[5:45]

One study estimates that about 80 per cent of those deaths could have been prevented if the person had stayed in the car. I remember one rather graphic incident of an accident in Britain when people were burned because they just couldn’t get out of that car quickly enough. Whether or not they would have unbuckled the belts and got out is a moot question but they sued on that basis -- at least the relatives did. Again, experience has shown that when a person is not restrained inside the car in an accident situation he may be thrown out the window, out the back or out the side as the doors spring open and he dies on the road because of that ejection. Whereas if he’d been restrained and kept inside, he would have lived to walk away. I have very little patience with the arguments about being confined to the cars or the curtailment of freedom; because in the interests of society we have to face these things.

The person who wants his own freedom to do these kind of things forgets that if he’s killed because he doesn’t wear the seatbelt his family is left for society to look after. His relatives have sorrow and suffering. Of course, the cost to society, as I’ve already pointed out, is very great because of our failure to wear the seatbelts in Ontario and across the world.

I think there are two or three other things we have to face. One, is that there is fear that the legislation may give insurance companies the chance to assess damages under negligence; that because a person is not wearing a seatbelt, the company is not responsible.

Already our courts are taking this into consideration and whether or not a person is wearing a seatbelt is weighed in the final verdict in our courts today. While this may give the insurance companies a bit more leverage, I think the minister has to face up to the fact that, in co-operation with the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations, legislation must come in to make certain the insurance companies can’t use this to their advantage. I think that should be a companion piece of legislation and the minister should think seriously about it.

On the matter of children, if they are very young children they should not wear seatbelts. We are told they should not be worn under four years of age or under 40 lb.; and that under 55 ins, no shoulder belts should be used. But there are devices now on the market; some are rather good ones but some should be banned from our stores. Three, at least, are outstanding and will save lives if the children are properly put into them and properly buckled up. The children have the right, the same as the adults, to safety inside; and I would hope that this will be considered very seriously, not only by the minister but by all parents who take their children in motor cars.

There is just one other thing which I think the minister ought to look at in the clause by clause reading. That’s clause 1 subsection (2) which says,

“No person shall drive on a highway a motor vehicle in which a seatbelt assembly, required under the provisions of the Motor Vehicle Safety Act, Canada, at the time that the vehicle was manufactured or imported into Canada, has been removed, modified or rendered partly or wholly inoperative.”

I think the meaning there should be “modified to render it partly or wholly inoperative.” Many people who have lapbelts may want to add the shoulderbelt or may want to modify the belt in order to make it more effective and more efficient. Perhaps the minister could consider an amendment to this. If he doesn’t consider it of course we will offer one, but I think certainly he sees the sense of that and would be willing to get a form of words which would indicate that modification downward not be allowed but modification upward to make more safety might well be in order.

I think that is all I have to put before the House in connection with this bill. We are pleased that it is being brought forward. We think it is an interim measure and certain considerations should be taken into account, because it is only a partial answer to the whole problem. We hope the minister will take a careful look at the things I have brought before him this afternoon and that together, as a Legislature, we can work out the kind of transportation safety and the kind of more efficient motor cars which the people of this province deserve.

Mr. Reid: Mr. Speaker, I will try to confine my remarks primarily to the principle of the bill in standing as the official spokesman for the Liberal Party and for the Liberal-Labour Party --

Mr. Bain: That’s an anachronism. You’re the only spokesman.

Hon. J. R. Smith: Take me to your leader.

Mr. Roy: He’s the leader of that party.

Hon. Mr. Snow: He’s the leader of the Liberal Party.

Mr. Reid: -- to tell you that we will support the bill.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Reid: I don’t know why some of us are pussy-footing around this particular bill, because I think as legislators in the Province of Ontario we have a clear and present duty to pass this legislation and to have it operable as soon as possible.

I think that we shirked our duty last year when the government backed down, under what they saw as public pressure, from bringing in such legislation. My friend and colleague who just spoke has referred to a number of studies. I will refer to a number more.

We can look at the glossy offerings of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, which they put out instead of bringing in the legislation. We can read their report, “Motor Vehicle Collision Facts 1974.”

The evidence is obvious; there is no question about it. There have been studies done all over the world and they all come to the same conclusion: The use of seatbelts cuts down on the number of deaths on highways and on the number of serious injuries in automobiles on the roads.

That fact is obvious, and for some hon. members to stand in this chamber, and maybe outside, and say they are not going to support this legislation, perhaps because they think it is against civil liberties or because some of their constituents feel that it is an imposition on them. I think is an abnegation of the responsibility that all of us have. I don’t think there is anyone here who is convinced otherwise --

Mr. Moffatt: You are skirting the principle of the bill.

Mr. Samis: Standing one way or the other, that’s not abrogation.

Mr. Reid: -- that seatbelts are going to save lives. That’s the principle of the bill. The second principle is that we have a responsibility to the entire community of Ontario to support legislation such as this.

Mr. Samis: The leader of the Liberal-Labour Party.

Mr. Reid: Mr. Speaker, it is rather interesting that a year ago we had a situation in Brampton, I believe, where a young man walked into a school with a rifle and killed two or three people; and the papers were full of nothing else. Every day on our highways, and in the streets of Toronto and in every community, there are lives lost by car accidents that could be saved by the use of seatbelts. Perhaps the use of seatbelts isn’t quite as dramatic as somebody taking a rifle and shooting somebody. But the end result is exactly the same, except the horror and the loss are multiplied a thousand times.

There is no question that we need this legislation. There is no question that we should have had the intestinal fortitude to bring it in before.

I am a licensed pilot and I can tell you, as a pilot, that the first thing you do when you get in your airplane is do up your seatbelt. In my years of flying, I have yet to see any pilot, or even people who ride in airplanes, who do not do up their seatbelts automatically. It becomes a habit; you realize that it is necessary and there is really no problem with it at all. The result of this legislation is going to be that within a very few months people are going to be in the same position. When you get on an airplane, a commercial airliner, you do up your seatbelt. If you don’t, they throw you off the airplane. And there is a reason for that, because it could save your life if something happens. So, obviously, this legislation is going to do the same thing.

The previous speaker was quoting some statistics from the Ontario Safety League. He was recounting just how much accidents cost the people of Ontario. If we abstract from the loss of human life and the trauma of it, obviously it’s costing the taxpayers a great deal of money for accidents in the province -- and it varies, depending on whose statistics you read. In the Special Programme Review Committee booklet we just received, they estimate the universal usage of seatbelts would reduce injuries and deaths by 20 per cent, and effect cost savings of $35 million in health care.

Usually the figure we hear quoted for the savings is something like $50 million. But, obviously, the main reason is for the lives that it’s going to save.

I would like to quote some of the reports on research that has been done around the world. The Cornell automotive crash injury research programme established there were 50 per cent fewer dangerous and fatal injuries to the seatbelt wearer, compared to experience of those who do not use seatbelts.

Their most recent study indicates that the failure to use seatbelts increases the risk of instant death or severe injury by at least 100 per cent, and of less severe injury by at least 40 per cent.

I would like to quote from another study, because we had a member here who objected to seatbelts in the last session. He had been in an accident and had been thrown clear of the automobile. He felt, therefore, that the non-use of the belt had saved his life. A paper put out by gentlemen by the name of Pilkey, Sherman and O’Day -- all good Irishmen -- came to this conclusion;

“Not only are injuries produced by the direct impact of one occupant on another, but often such contact forces an occupant into or against some interior car structure. Such occupant-to-occupant contact may cause an injury that would not have been sustained, or produces a more serious injury that would not have been incurred had such contact been prevented.”

Mr. Speaker: I would draw to the hon. member’s attention that it is time to conclude and perhaps he might reach a convenient spot to adjourn the debate.

Mr. Reid: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I would just like to refer very briefly to a Dutch study that proved that the use of seatbelts kept people in the car and that, in effect, this was what should happen to save lives and avoid injuries.

A lot of people say: “Well, if you go into the water, into a lake, and you have your seatbelt on, it will constrict you so you can’t get out.” The report showed that in those cases, if a car went over a cliff or into water, usually the occupants were knocked out and were unconscious and so would not have been able to get out of the cars. With seatbelts on, obviously, they didn’t bang their heads against anything, weren’t unconscious, and so were able to survive.

Mr. Speaker, there are others who are interested in this bill. I would like to reiterate that this party will support the bill. I would suggest to all members that it’s their responsibility to support this kind of legislation.

Mr. Speaker: The Chair will recognize the hon. member for Mississauga South at 8 o’clock.

Mr. Kennedy moved the adjournment of the debate.

Motion agreed to.

The House recessed at 6 p.m.