Legislative Assembly of Ontario

The House met at 10 a.m.

Prayers.

Mr. Speaker: Orders of the day.

Clerk of the House: The fifth order, resuming the adjourned debate on the amendment to the motion for an address in reply to the speech of the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor at the opening of the session.

THRONE SPEECH DEBATE (CONTINUED)

Mr. Speaker: The member for High Park-Swansea, I believe, had the floor when we were last on this order of business. Would he continue?

Mr. Ziemba: With respect, Mr. Speaker, I have terminated my speech.

Mr. Speaker: You have terminated it? The next speaker I have down here is the member for Halton-Burlington.

Mr. Reed: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. In the interests of time and knowing that there are a good many more speakers who would like to reply to the Speech from the Throne, I have greatly condensed my speech and what originally was an epic to rival War and Peace has turned out to be a 15-minute short.

Hon. Mr. Welch: Try 10.

Mr. Reed: Mr. Speaker, I would like you to know that it is a particular privilege for me to address this House since I am a brand-new member representing a brand-new riding. It is interesting too to note that Halton-Burlington, with its particular geographic situation, stands in the forefront of the change and evolution of this great province. As such, it is probably more sensitive to the policies of government than most other areas.

May I say that the government policies on land use, for instance, the parkway belt, the Niagara Escarpment, presented as they were, devoid of imagination and vision, probably contributed as much to my strong rural support as any other single thing. I believe that a programme of land-use planning, necessary as it is, must also be accompanied by a programme of compensation to those farmers and land owners whose lifestyles have been upset by government policy.

The Niagara Escarpment, which runs the length of my riding, poses one of the more difficult problems for this government.

Mr. Sargent: Do you hear this, George?

Mr. Reed: On it, we find farmers, homeowners and industrialists, who all use the assets of the Escarpment in one way or another. As well, there are environmentalists and naturalists, who see the Escarpment as a place of natural beauty close to a large metropolitan area.

The creation of the Niagara Escarpment Commission, which was formed to preserve the natural state of this land formation, is laudable in its intent; however, its application leaves much to be desired, since the regulations imposed have been so strict as to be unreasonable at times. If steps are not taken immediately to correct this situation, those land owners and farmers who live on the Escarpment, and who could be its biggest boosters, will be alienated for years to come. I call upon this government to act now to ensure that the regulations imposed on these people are fair and contain the elements of justice which will make a friend rather than an enemy.

The problems of the parkway belt parallel the Escarpment problems insofar as they represent government interference in the life-styles of those people unfortunate enough to be caught because of geographic location.

Mr. Sargent: That’s for sure.

Mr. Reed: The subject of energy is also of great interest to my riding, not only from the traditional point of view of the rise in prices of fossil fuels but more importantly as a result of the expansion plans of Ontario Hydro -- plans which will set the course towards the development destiny of this province for the next 50 years.

Many of my constituents are concerned about the now infamous Bradley-Georgetown hydro corridor, a corridor not yet built but planned to carry 500-kV power from the Bruce nuclear generating station into the southern part of this province. The government has been asked to provide an independent study to determine the feasibility of this corridor, and I am pleased to say that after a direct confrontation during the election campaign between a constituent of mine and the Premier of this province, (Mr. Davis), the Premier made a commitment to provide an impartial and independent look at this difficult problem. I will be following with great interest the developments that occur the Premier keeps his word to the people of my constituency.

This controversy, however serious in its own right, is only a symptom of things to come if we allow Ontario Hydro to continue its incredible plans for the future. I seriously question the management of an organization that has not taken all possible steps towards the wise use of the product it produces and towards a pricing and servicing policy that will help to level out the highs and lows of the demand curve. I question the plunge into nuclear power that carries with it so many unanswered questions, not the least of which is the storage of plutonium-containing waste, which mounts in increments each year. Plutonium, with a half-life of 24,000 years, will be contaminating the environment of our children’s children and their children’s children for hundreds of thousands of years. Is it a question which Ontario Hydro is really dealing with or is it a question to which Ontario Hydro does not know the answer and would sooner avoid?

I question the management of a corporation which, in the name of economy and efficiency, would close power sources of the non-polluting and renewable type when the engineering staffs know full well that we now have the technology which will allow these stations to run on remote control and compete successfully with other forms of power generation.

I question the management of an organization which has committed itself so blindly to one form of production of its product that it cannot seriously consider the alternatives which are so easily available to it. One such alternative would be allowing private generation of in-phase synchronized power by industry during peak periods.

If we in this province are ever going to get out from under the weight of imported energy -- that weight which will press upon us more heavily as the years roll on -- we must start now, already a decade behind, to develop those energy sources which we have available to us in this province. It is interesting to note that last year the Ministry of Energy in Ontario spent a grand total of $50,000 on the development of solar power.

The direct use of solar power is the ultimate power on this planet and we might as well face the fact that in Ontario we do not have an abundant supply of traditional forms. We might as well face the fact that our system of nuclear power generation, while it is bound to be with us for many years to come, is not the final answer.

I challenge the Minister of Energy (Mr. Timbrell) to remove his rose-coloured glasses and develop a vision of the future in this province based on the ideal of non-polluting renewable resources and the practice of sensible conservation. Let us put an end once and for all to this concept that nuclear power is the only power and that nuclear power will save us -- because it simply won’t.

I would like to address the subject of education for a few minutes since education was one of the major issues in the election campaign so recently fought and, for me, so recently won. I am not an educator and I am not qualified to speak as one but I am a parent and I represent in my riding many parents who look upon the recent thrusts of education with much reserve.

I refer to the loosening of standards in Ontario and the failure of the Ministry of Education to provide standards of achievement at all levels. It is my feeling and the feeling of my constituents that students across this province at the present time are being handicapped because they are graduating from high school with differing sets of standards in those subjects we considered to be core subjects.

I would be the last person to urge any return to the elitist system but I would like the minister to know that my constituents support provincial standards of achievement in those core subjects such as English, mathematics and history. We do not understand the bureaucratic double-talk which continually tries to sell us on the idea that we have a core curriculum at the present time. What we have is a hodgepodge of achievement standards applied differently from school to school and from region to region. We are deeply concerned that students from different parts of the province will enter the same class in the same university, one being improperly prepared in one core subject and another being improperly prepared in another core subject.

[10:15]

My riding is also blessed with that questionable imposition called regional government. Regional government, we were told, would provide economies and efficiencies which could not be achieved in any other way. Yet in reading the most recent financial statement of the region which my riding serves, we see the necessity for a continuing increase in the amount of provincial government participation in the financial affairs of the Halton region. Is the government simply trying to bail out a system that is not working well? I call on the government of this province to take stops immediately to reform the regional system, continuing to utilize those areas of regional government which are practical, efficient and economically sound, but to turn back to the municipalities those areas of jurisdiction which the municipalities can handle in a superior manner.

It is interesting to note that, this very morning, municipal workers in the town of Acton drove nine miles to the town of Georgetown to punch in and then drove nine miles back to Acton to begin their day’s work, all in the name of regional efficiency.

Mr. Ruston: Terrible.

Mr. Gaunt: Are they paid mileage?

Mr. Reed: When our region was formed, each of the municipalities, whether they were rural or town, had their own body politic. They had their own pride. They had their own sense of community and that sense of identity.

It may not seem important to a big government ostensibly dealing with big problems, but people are still individuals, people still relate to communities and the interest in community and the sense of community has not altered in size. It would be well for the government, when attempting reforms of this nature, that they consider that people are individuals and that they live in communities and that practical politics should relate directly to those communities.

I stand 100 per cent behind the concept of local autonomy for local decisions, but the regional system is not an application of local autonomy. The regional system is simply the creation of a mini-province, and people cannot relate to that.

I’m very proud to say that I come from a small community, the village of Norval, located in the Credit River valley on the east side of the riding of Halton-Burlington. It is a community that is closely knit and contains many families who have lived in the valley for generations. I suppose it was one of those communities the Premier referred to -- and I must say that I’m sorry the Premier is not here this morning to hear this --

Mr. Sargent: There are only six of them there. For the record, there are only six members of the government in the House.

Mr. Yakabuski: You should talk!

Mr. Reed: No, seven -- one more just came in.

Mr. Sargent: Oh, seven.

Hon. J. R. Smith: Count again.

Mr. Sargent: I’m always here.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Sargent: Merry Christmas.

Hon. J. R. Smith: Humbug!

Mr. Yakabuski: Eddie, you’re getting to be a Pharisee.

Mr. Reed: It was one of those small communities that the Premier referred to in a speech in 1971, in Kapuskasing, when he said: “If I become the leader of the Conservative Party, I will see to it that small communities in Ontario remain small and vital.” That was the same year his beloved regional school system undertook to close the school in our small and vital community on no more profound an argument than department policy. The words of his speech have a cavernous and hollow ring.

An hon. member: They disappeared.

Mr. Mancini: Hollow words.

Mr. Reed: Words must be backed by the depth of commitment.

I was elected to a riding area that has been traditionally Conservative for over 30 years. Surely the mere fact of my election should tell this government that their thrust has been badly misdirected at the very least and that the time has come for a government not perhaps so arrogant, but creative, strong and responsible, to lead the people of Ontario into the future.

Mr. Eaton: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to rise and say a few words in the Throne Speech debate. First of all, I would like to compliment you, sir, on being returned as Speaker of this House. Certainly you have had much patience with us as members of this House and I think you do an excellent job. Unfortunately, I guess it’s the behaviour of many people in this House that makes that job difficult.

Mr. Warner: That’s a confession.

Mr. Sargent: You don’t help very much.

Interjections.

Mr. Eaton: Perhaps it shows a lack at this present time in our not taking a look at the institution we have established to use as a forum, some of the background of that institution and of taking some more pride in it. If each and every one of us as members would take a little closer look at that, we would see the conduct of this House carried on in a much better manner.

Interjections.

Mr. Eaton: Each and every one of us may laugh from time to time, but each and every one of us is responsible for the throwing of jabs back and forth across the floor. At the same time, I think we do have to take a little more responsibility.

In saying a few words I want to refer mostly to price and wage controls. Despite the stand that has been taken by the third party in their motion, I think the support of our government of the price and wage controls is a good stand in this time and that the stand not to try and place a second body in the form of a provincial price and wage review board is a sound stand.

Mr. Sargent: They are bailing you out.

Mr. Eaton: When you look at the fact that we are dealing with a crisis across this country and we have the federal government placing those guidelines, then they certainly should be the ones to make a decision whether prices and wages fall within those guidelines. It would be great for some of our provincial bodies to be able to come to a local provincial board and say: “We think we should have a better deal in this province than what the feds are going to give us.” But that is inconsistent with having a strong national position.

Therefore, I think the resolution that has been brought forth by the leader of the third party shows that he misses out on the point of national unity in dealing with national problems on a national basis. I think he is trying to ride the fence, and that isn’t unusual for him. He showed it very clearly in the last election.

Mr. Riddell: Are you afraid of the Liberals?

Interjections.

Mr. Nixon: We are snapping at your heels. Tell us how you are going to freeze taxes.

Mr. Eaton: In fact, I think it showed at the local level that they had people who were fence-sitters. In the last election the Liberal candidate threw around figures just like his leader did. They were out 150 per cent, out 200 per cent, and completely misleading.

Mr. Drea: No, they were out by $10 billion.

Mr. Eaton: He comes along during the campaign and he starts to complain about Highway 402 through our area.

Interjections.

Mr. Eaton: There wasn’t one meeting where he would stand up and say he was for or against it.

Mr. Yakabuski: Oh, no!

Mr. Eaton: That’s the usual way. They just won’t take a stand on that side.

Mr. Yakabuski: Oh, no, I don’t believe that!

Mr. Eaton: They may be blowing their horn because their candidate came within 800 votes in my riding, and certainly I felt it on election night.

Mr. Ruston: There will be a 400-change next time.

Mr. Gaunt: We have those 400 people lined up.

Mr. Reid: This is his last speech.

Mr. Nixon: I thought it was his first.

Mr. Eaton: Well, we will see about that.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Interjections.

Mr. Eaton: But when we looked back the next day it wasn’t all that bad, because we increased the percentage of the popular vote in our riding, despite the increases the Liberal Party had --

Mr. Roy: How much money did you spend on that?

Mr. Eaton: -- and there are not too many of you who can say the same thing.

Mr. Nixon: If you are relying on the popular vote, I am telling you from experience it doesn’t cut any ice. That’s an interesting part which comes back and you wonder what happens over a period of time. When I ran in 1971, the NDP held that riding and this time they dropped from 24 per cent of the vote in the new area to 14.

Mr. Yakabuski: It will be four next time.

Mr. Warner: It’s a fascinating subject.

Mr. Yakabuski: People are through with the left.

Mr. Eaton: I don’t know what happened there but I have an idea that it was because of some of the stands they took on local issues in that riding over the past four years.

Mr. Nixon: They thought you made a mess of that park business.

Mr. Yakabuski: Did a good job we’re told.

Mr. Nixon: Are you promising it again this year?

Mr. Eaton: I want to dwell on this specific subject in regard to the price and income freeze. I want to talk about strikes.

Mr. Nixon: Freezing taxes, that’s a good idea.

Mr. Eaton: I’ll talk about that too.

Mr. Roy: Let me check our figures.

Mr. Reed: Speak from the diagram.

Mr. Eaton: I want to talk about the price and income review board in relation to strikes. I expressed at a meeting about three weeks ago that I felt that when the federal government brought in its price and income freeze, it should also have banned strikes for the period of that freeze. I think in a way the federal Liberals have rendered ineffective some of the collective bargaining processes in this country.

Mr. Foulds: You just want to castigate.

Mr. Eaton: -- and I think it’s kind of ironic to see people striking for eight or 10 weeks, then going to the federal Anti-Inflation Board and having their settlements ruled out. There has been a loss on all sides. There has been a loss by the workers in the period of time they’ve been off; there has been a loss by the company in its output; and, in turn, a loss to the country in its output at a time when we should be thinking about that output in relation to our world markets and our competitive position in world markets.

I think that would have been an opportune trial, to try to have strikes outlawed for a period of time. Let them sit down and make some settlements and present them to the Anti-Inflation Board. Let the Anti-Inflation Board rule on them and if it said, “No, that settlement is not fair enough,” let the board act as arbitrator for that period of time.

Mr. Nixon: Just as long as somebody else does it, and this government doesn’t do it.

Mr. Eaton: I think I bring this about because of a particular instance we went through last summer in the fruit and vegetable industry, when we saw a third party being the one to suffer. I would like to read a paragraph from a letter from the Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers Marketing Board:

“The first step would be a better understanding of the unfair situation created by strikes where the producers suffered while the union members in that situation secured other employment and the processors lost some of their pack for the season.”

They still had all the other commodities which they process at different times to go on, so the main sufferer in a situation like that is the third party.

I suggested to the fruit and vegetable growers at that time that perhaps they should amend their marketing legislation so that if strikers were still going to continue in the fruit and vegetable industry or in agriculture industries related to our fruit market, settlement should be made before those companies are allowed to give out contracts to growers to grow.

Mr. Mancini: Your leader promised to bring in legislation and he hasn’t done it. It happened right in my riding.

Mr. Eaton: I beg your pardon? Here’s a case where the marketing board could come forth with that legislation, with the proposal for change in their marketing plan. Certainly they’re interested in that regard. I think that when we look around us and see the need in the world for food, we certainly shouldn’t be seeing it lost through strikes in this country. I just submit that would have been the opportune way to give it a trial for the price and incomes board to be ruling on situations in regard to settlements and acting as an arbitrator in that period of time and banning strikes.

[10:30]

Food is certainly one of the subjects that’s come under criticism for increases in prices but when we look back over the last 10 years we see that there has been an increase of 100 per cent in the cost of food; that certainly appears to be a very dramatic increase. But at the same time if we look at the wage situation in that period of time, we see an increase of 141 per cent; so the buying power of the consumer has increased faster than the price of food.

This leads me to comment on the stabilization programme introduced by our government. At the time it was introduced, there was much criticism in this House and many calls for 70- or 75-cent support of the beef industry, as they told us they were doing in British Columbia at 77 cents. Well, we all know what a fraud that has turned out to be.

Mr. McEwen: You know what happened to British Columbia.

Mr. Eaton: The people in British Columbia knew they had been defrauded by that government, and they threw them out.

Mr. McKessock: And the farmers were happy, my friend.

Interjections.

Mr. Eaton: In their beef marketing plan, they guaranteed 77 cents, and my friends know quite well -- their researchers have gone through the facts -- that that 77 cents in British Columbia returns to the producer the same amount as our 50-cents guarantee on a 50-cow herd here in Ontario.

Mr. Yakabuski: And you know it.

Mr. Eaton: My friends opposite can’t deny that fact; their researchers have searched it out very well.

Mr. Foulds: Are you a convert to Social Credit? That sounds like “Wacky” Bennett’s funny money programme.

Mr. Bain: Since when has 50 cents become as good at 77 cents?

Interjections.

Mr. Eaton: I can only tell the hon. members opposite that if somebody is saying they’re guaranteeing 77 cents and the amount of money returned to the producers in that province isn’t any more than our guarantee of 50 cents, then that’s nothing more than fraud -- and the people have said that.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Could we have fewer interruptions? Thank you.

Mr. Warner: He is being provocative.

Mr. Eaton: My friend from the north raised the question about the --

Mr. McKessock: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: What is the point of order?

Mr. McKessock: Regarding the statement about the BC plan’s return, it is $500 more per farmer in the BC plan.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. This is a debate; it is not a point of order.

Mr. Sargent: Change the subject. Start something else.

Interjections.

Mr. Eaton: The hon. member can throw around any kind of figures he wants to, but we gave our figures to the researchers and I can stand right here and show them to him. The difference on a 50-cow herd works out at $4.

Mr. Martel: There goes your credibility.

Mr. Yakabuski: They didn’t fool the BC farmers last week.

Mr. Grossman: They just made the figures up this morning; they must be right.

Mr. Sargent: Have you got another subject?

Mr. Ruston: How about the highway now?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Could we have fewer interruptions? There is limited time this morning.

Mr. Eaton: I want to make reference to the question raised by my friend from the north, because the member from Manitoulin --

Mr. Eakins: That’s better than agriculture.

Mr. Eaton: -- advocated very strongly a difference in the support level for the beef producers in northern Ontario. As it turned out, when we got the results, the average price paid to producers in northern Ontario was higher.

Mr. Wildman: They are still starving!

Mr. Eaton: I think it’s a credit to the quality of the producers and the marketing by the producers in that area.

Mr. Ferrier: It’s no credit to your government.

Mr. Eaton: But certainly it has worked out so that they are receiving more, and I think it’s a credit to them for their production.

Mr. Wildman: They sure don’t.

Mr. Eaton: I do want to make reference to the bill that I introduced yesterday. You know, some hon. members on the other side laughed --

Mr. Nixon: No, it was the Treasurer (Mr. McKeough) who laughed.

Mr. Eaton: We all know that a private member’s bill is not going to go though.

Mr. Eakins: You don’t want it to go through.

Mr. Eaton: We all know that a private member’s bill is not going to go through; and that’s not going to be directly imposed on any municipality.

Mr. Eakins: What did you present it for?

Mr. Eaton: But it’s drawing attention to a fact that I think a lot of the member’s opposite have missed.

Mr. Eakins: You presented it because you knew it wouldn’t go though.

Mr. Warner: Just the difficult members.

An hon. member: No one missed your flimflam.

Mr. Eaton: I think we are missing the fact that there are a lot of people in this province who are working hard to own their own homes.

Mr. Eakins: We told Darcy.

Mr. Eaton: And we’ve gone overboard in saying let’s control the rents.

Mr. Sargent: That’s why you are on the wrong side of the House. Come on over here.

Mr. Eaton: Let’s look at those people who are faced with increases in energy costs -- and probably big increases in municipal taxes.

Mr. Ferrier: Your government.

Mr. Eaton: And I think it is about time that some of us stood up for those people who are working hard for what they want in this province.

Mr. Ruston: Just tell the Treasurer that. Just pass that on to the Treasurer.

Mr. Eakins: We forgive you for the beef prices.

Interjections.

Mr. Eaton: Are the beef producers in the member’s area really complaining about what they got?

Mr. Speaker, I guess I have taken about long enough.

Mr. Reid: Too long, Bob, too long.

Mr. Kennedy: Doesn’t take long to get the message across how wrong the opposition is.

Mr. Eaton: Maybe I should keep going a little longer.

An hon. member: Encore.

Mr. Eaton: I wasn’t going to, but I want to talk for a minute about a meeting I had with some unions in London about two weeks ago.

Mr. Mancini: Did you tell them about your party? Did you tell them about it?

Mr. Eaton: Yes, I don’t hesitate to take a stand, whatever it might be.

Mr. Yakabuski: He is not a Liberal.

Mr. Eaton: I don’t try and ride the fence like some of the members opposite do all the time. They hop from one side of one thing to the other.

The Liberal leader has been the greatest example of that. You know, I had quite a bit of respect for him when I first came into this House, but certainly in the last year Bob has undermined that respect considerably.

Mr. Speaker: Order please. Refer to a member by his riding, not his name; thank you.

Mr. Nixon: You are breaking my heart.

Mr. Eaton: I would like to refer to some of the things that the labour union raised.

Mr. Eakins: We heard your speech last Friday.

Mr. Eaton: There were points raised to combat inflation, and certainly they put some thought into it. A major step would be to improve the supply of housing.

Mr. Foulds: That is the Ontario Federation of Labour you are talking about?

Mr. Eaton: That’s right.

Mr. Foulds: I thought you said the labour unions. There is a little difference, you know.

Mr. Eaton: This has deteriorated over the last years -- and it’s a combination of things. The government is trying to support increased housing through programmes of public housing. Sometimes I think these things are lacking, and we can always improve and we try to improve. I think one of the major things has been the interest rates -- and that is something that the federal government could have taken some action on when they brought in price and wage controls. In that regard they have failed. There has been some indication that the provincial government will take some action in this regard -- in my discussion with the unions, I supported that -- we haven’t seen that, and I certainly hope that our government will take action where the feds have failed, They also refer to the curbing of rent controls.

Mr. Foulds: Curbing the rent controls?

Mr. Eaton: Excuse me -- rent controls and curbing gouging.

Mr. Wildman: Your amendment curbed rent controls.

Mr. Eaton: They were supportive of the bill that we were bringing forth. And I think in the long run the bill has probably worked out to the best. There are going to be opportunities on both sides for reviews, and an opportunity to see what costs are involved in operating apartments and the smaller houses that are being rented. I think it may open a lot of eyes. There are so many who will come along and say, “Look, the landlord is gouging.” Well, there may be the odd one. We get that in all situations. We have to bring in legislation to apply to the two or three per cent of the people who are stepping out of line.

Mr. Nixon: Just six months ago you were against rent control. I thought you never changed your opinion.

Mr. Eaton: They also referred to an active programme to curb land speculation. Of course, members recall we brought in the speculation tax. I can’t help but remember the last election, because the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk was the fellow who went around the province talking about land use saying, “Take off the speculation tax.”

Mr. Nixon: That’s right.

Mr. Sargent: You should too.

Mr. Nixon: It’s a stupid tax.

An hon. member: Are you in bed with the speculators?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Eaton: Your man in the back row was just talking about land use and land use control.

Mr. Sargent: You have rocks in your head for that one.

Mr. Eaton: Yet you’re still saying; “Take off the speculation tax.” It has done something to curb land use.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Will the hon. member address the Chair rather than individual members, please?

Mr. Nixon: That’s right. What it has done is raise prices, and you know it.

Mr. Eaton: They also mentioned regulations for the control of oil and gas prices. As members know, our government did bring in those for a period of time. Once again it’s a national issue. When those prices were being increased the opposition, at that time, was supporting it. Once again it was a case of jumping back and forth from one thing to the other.

Mr. Eakins: Like the Spadina Expressway.

Mr. Eaton: They talked about full employment policies to abolish the high rate of joblessness in this country.

Mr. Sargent: Who does?

Mr. Eaton: Once again it has to be at the national level. I think our province has been a leader in this because we have seen the greatest reduction of unemployment of any place in this province in the past year and it has been because of positive action by our government.

There are a number of other things on here but I won’t go into all of them. I just want to say that the Throne Speech that was presented at this session was short and it was precise.

Mr. Reid: Thank you.

Mr. Eaton: Those things that were made in there as commitments of this government have been carried out.

Mr. Conway: For example?

Mr. Eaton: I say to you, Mr. Speaker, this government will continue to carry out its commitments now, in the next session and in many more sessions to come.

Mr. Sargent: Mr. Speaker, if I may, I would like to introduce to the House a former member, Ross Whicher, the brilliant debater from Grey-Bruce years back. He is under the Speaker’s gallery.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Timiskaming.

Mr. Bain: The speech that I will deliver will be as non-partisan as possible in tone. I’m sure I won’t have to try too hard to be less partisan than the previous speaker.

Mr. Ferrier: You will probably say more though.

Mr. Eaton: That is what the game is all about, my friend.

Mr. Bain: At some point in time I would hope you could rise above your partisan politics and do something good for the people of this province.

Mr. Eaton: When you have done a few things better than we have done in the last four years, you will have something to blow about.

Mr. Bain: The riding I am privileged to represent is Timiskaming. As many of you are aware, Timiskaming is in northern Ontario and is blessed with a unique variety of landscapes, both physical and cultural.

Mr. Givens: How is Havrot doing?

Mr. Bain: We have not only the Precambrian Shield with untold mineral wealth but also the Little Clay Belt which makes us one of the best farming areas in the province. At the rate that farmland is being paved over in southern Ontario we may be one of the only farm areas in the province in the near future.

Ethnically the riding has a great deal of diversity, which is the source of strength for the communities in the area. We’re proud to have every ethnic group represented in the riding and we’re also proud to live in an area where it doesn’t matter what your ethnic origin is or your religion or your colour. It matters only what you are as a person. It doesn’t matter what these other variables may be.

[10:45]

Mr. Wildman: The former member found that out.

Mr. Bain: For my riding and for this province there are a number of areas that I believe are crucial. The government has failed to address itself to these problems over the years and, of course, this accounts in large part for the government’s dwindling ranks.

A most severe area for me and for the people of Timiskaming is agriculture. I am sure that the farmers who sit in this Legislature will agree with me that for a farmer to be expected to have at least $200,000 to $500,000 invested in a viable farm operation, and to make less than he would make if that money was invested in the bank and collecting bank interest, is a deplorable situation that cannot continue to exist if we expect people in this province to stay on the land.

Recently a farmer mentioned to me that during the Second World War he was paying about 15 cents for a gallon of gas and getting about 45 cents a pound for his beef. Today the gas is up to 85 to 90 cents a gallon, yet on the average he is getting less than 30 cents a pound for his beef. How long do you expect that farmer will be able to stay on the land?

The statistics for Timiskaming are the same basic statistics for the whole province. I will just mention the ones for Timiskaming since I am most familiar with those. In 1951 there were 1,806 farmers in the area; by 1961 this had become 1,092 and by 1971 it had become 712. Inside of 20 years the number of farmers had dropped by more than half. The farm population in total is also dwindling, as is the actual acreage that is being farmed. And these statistics are reflected across the whole province.

When the farmers leave the land, not only do we have a potential shortage of food; we also have the erosion and eventual destruction of many rural communities; and, for me, the rural communities are part of the life blood of this province. When you have country schools being closed, when you have small stores in rural communities closing up shop because they no longer have enough customers, when you have churches closing in rural communities, you are witnessing the death knell of an important way of life in this province.

The farmers have hung on for too long at a very low income. In most cases, farmers are not even meeting their costs, and in my riding it is extremely common now for the farmer actually to have a full-time job off the farm in order to keep the farm going. That has to stop. The only way that it will be stopped is if there is a price stabilization programme that is entered into quickly. It has to be a programme that is fair. The farm organizations must be able to negotiate with the government to ensure that the farmers get a fair price for what they are producing.

The time has long since passed when the government should sit on high and dictate to the farmers what they are going to get. The government allows farm organizations to come to it and present their case, and then the government says, “Well, it was nice of you to come. We will let you know what we decide.” Farmers have a right in this province to get a decent income, and the only way that will be achieved is if we have a price stabilization programme.

In my riding, we are also blessed with many other natural resources in addition to our good agricultural land. Of course, everybody has heard of Cobalt; it was an early community in the silver rush. What I would like to mention today about Cobalt I think will illustrate the situation that is in evidence in most of northern Ontario where we have mining communities.

There is a plaque in the centre of Cobalt in a small park that mentions that over $265 million was taken out of Cobalt during the silver rush. I ask the government how much of that money was left in Cobalt? How much is left in any of the mining communities? Very little. That has to change.

Regionalization has become a scourge over most of this province. Many examples have been cited by other members -- and I would just like to bring up two examples that illustrate for me the drawbacks of regionalization.

A few years ago there was a tax assessment office in New Liskeard; and New Liskeard is one of the communities in the Tri-Town and is the centre of the farming area. This tax assessment office assessed the value of farms, but the government decided that it had to be regionalized, so that office was closed and the employees were moved to Kirkland Lake.

Recently, the office in Kirkland Lake was downgraded to five people and most of the people from Kirkland were moved to Timmins, the new regional office. Now, in order for people to assess farms, they go from the Timmins office down to the New Liskeard area. There is the added expense of motel accommodation, meals, travel expenses, etc. to assess the farms in the New Liskeard and Englehart area -- and then they go back up to Timmins. It would have made a great deal of sense to leave the tax assessment office in New Liskeard, and not downgrade the one in Kirkland Lake. But it had to be regionalized, so it was regionalized at a great deal of cost to the taxpayer and a great deal of inefficiency.

The other item that I would like to mention has to do with regionalization of the school system. Recently, I was in a community where the public school was closed because the students were to be bused. The school’s enrolment had dropped below the magic level of 100 students. I went into that school, and to this day the people have not accepted the decision. The school still exists as it did the day that it was closed. The desks are all there, the teacher’s desk is there, the blackboards are there -- and in some rooms there are even displays on the bulletin board, and the books are still in the room. Those people deserve a right to that school and they could have easily supported it, but it had to be regionalized. They were told that they would get better services if their students were bused, and for fully two years after those students were bused, they didn’t even have a proper lunch area to eat in. Now, that is not a benefit of regionalization; that is the scourge of regionalization as far as I am concerned.

Another very severe problem in the north and in Timiskaming is that people are forced to leave the area to seek employment. Since 1941, the population in Timiskaming has remained at about 50,000 -- actually the 1971 census showed it to be below 50,000. This is true of the vast majority of ridings in northern Ontario. Young people seeking employment are forced to look to the south, because jobs are not available in the north. These young people want to remain in the north, but everything is centralized around the greater Toronto area.

Suffice to say, that is not healthy for the Toronto-centred region. If it continues, the Toronto-centred region will go the way of Greater New York with its congestion and fleeing industries. There has to be reasonable planning and there has to be planning that will ensure that there are jobs available in all parts of this province -- northern Ontario, eastern Ontario -- as well as the Toronto-centred region.

Mr. Laughren: The Tories don’t believe in planning; never have.

Mr. Bain: The province needs a clearly defined industrial strategy. This government has not fully utilized the Northern Ontario Development Corp. or the Eastern Ontario Development Corp. These two corporations operate essentially in a vacuum.

There can be two very simple things done to encourage industry in northern Ontario. There needs to be an investment fund set up; the money for this fund would come from 50 per cent of the tax revenue from the mining profits. The money that is now channelled to southern Ontario would be put into an investment fund, and this money would be used to encourage secondary industry, especially in the mining communities of the north, because when those mines are closed there is nothing left for the people of those areas. There should also be an industrial location board in this province and that industrial location board would operate much the same as the setup which exists for obtaining a building permit when one wishes to build one’s own home. I know building one’s own home is unrealistic in southern Ontario but that’s still one of the advantages we have in northern Ontario -- one can build one’s own home.

This industrial location board would function on the basis that any industry or industrial plant which wanted to expand or any company which wanted to establish a new plant would apply to this industrial location board for a permit. Of course, this board would take into consideration many factors -- whether this particular industry was desirable in the area it wanted to locate in; whether there was too much industry in that area already; and whether this factory might be more profitably located in some other part of the province.

If the company said, “We are going to locate in the Toronto-centred region or we are not going to locate” the industrial location board could say, “Okay, that’s fine. If you don’t wish to locate in the area that we suggest, you won’t be able to establish your plant.” I am sure you would find very quickly that industry would begin to look elsewhere.

One of the problems I find with industry and manufacturers is that they are very traditional. They don’t look elsewhere. They always locate where they have located in the past and where similar endeavours have located.

I am sure that with a little encouragement they would be more than happy to locate in other areas of the province. If there was a problem in terms of transportation, the government could subsidize transportation. It could do the reverse of what it is doing with the Ontario Northland Railway right now. The Ontario Northland Railway is subsidizing the movement of natural resources from the north. It’s time that the reverse was true and we started to subsidize the establishment of industry all across this province.

Another area of concern within the riding is mercury pollution in Lake Timiskaming. We discovered this only recently and the government, after a study, finally admitted that this did exist. Everyone in the area is very hopeful that the government will get into a programme of cleaning up the pollution in Lake Timiskaming. It is a very severe problem in many areas of the province -- much more severe than it is in Lake Timiskaming -- and the time has long since passed when the government should take mercury pollution seriously and begin to do some research in an attempt to find a means of cleaning it up.

I would like to conclude by saying that the people of Timiskaming and the people of this province deserve much better than they have been getting from the present government, especially in the last four years.

There are problems of pollution. There’s the situation -- a very severe situation -- that farmers find themselves in in not being able to make a decent income. There’s the scourge of regionalization and there’s the need on the part of the government to make a commitment to develop secondary industry all across this province.

It’s time that the government realized that the province is not made up solely of the large urban centres and that the foundation of this province is rural Ontario and the small communities of this province. This province’s economy is based on natural resources of the north and not on the secondary industry. It’s time that the government looked a little further afield than the borders of Metro Toronto and looked to the rest of the province and addressed itself to some of the real needs which are faced in our rural and small communities all across this province.

[11:00]

Mr. Stong: Mr. Speaker, when I was nominated to represent my party in the riding of York Centre, I enthusiastically sought to win against overwhelming odds. After those same constituents afforded me the opportunity to represent them --

Mr. Gaunt: There was never any question in our minds.

Mr. Stong: -- it was with a feeling of gratitude and, at the same time, a feeling of tremendous responsibility that I attended this House on Oct. 28. Of the 125 seats in this House, I was quick to find myself occupying the 125th and that leaves me no place to go in this House but up. I would like to say I have my sights set on No. 6, diagonally across the House from me.

Mr. Eaton: Is that a declaration for leadership?

Mr. Stong: No, I don’t want that read into that, actually. For the first time in 32 years the Conservative government in Ontario is in a minority situation. Nevertheless, history has proved that minority governments frequently have very good legislative records.

Mr. Renwick: That’s what we need in Ottawa.

Mr. Stong: We would hope that this government will now respond more sensitively to the needs of the people of this province.

We have just completed consideration of Bill 20, which is an Act designed to review rents for residential premises. The Liberal Party, throughout the entire discussion of that bill, showed deep concern not only for the tenant, the person who is most vulnerable -- the unorganized person and the person who can be so easily discriminated against -- but at the same time we fought for and were successful in achieving a level of legislation which is fair to everyone and discriminates against no one. While the intrinsic right of the individual has been protected, the basic wisdom of the elective judgement of the people has been demonstrated.

The motivation of an individual’s achievements and the accomplishment of one’s individuality is best achieved in a free enterprise system. It is a system which asserts that not all people are equal but which, at the same time, defends the proposition that all people must have equal opportunity.

Each and every one of us is charged to accept our responsibility and where this responsibility is not accepted obviously the government must take appropriate action. The health of our economy rests upon the productivity of the individual, not on government giveaway programmes. People have come to depend upon the institutions of government for more and more of the things they used to do for themselves. We have achieved a great measure of social progress but it has not been without cost.

We pay taxes to send people to institutions for the aged, chronically sick or mentally retarded. We go to hospitals for the things we were once treated for at home. We rely upon unemployment insurance rather than personal savings. We send our children to school to learn a trade rather than have them learn on the job. Now we find that we can no longer pay the bill and it has shocked us into an even greater government intervention in our economy.

As the government has continued to provide, people have exerted less personal effort. Therefore, greed has become a significant reality in our economic life, so much so that the only way to cope with it is to introduce legislation in the form of wage and price controls in an effort to bring our economy back to some semblance of normality.

We all know that the world is in difficult times; crime is on the increase and violence has become more a part of our daily lives, even to the extent that we fight for our right to watch violence in our sports spectaculars. Violence directly affects the weak who cannot protect themselves and so government intervention is necessary but even that intervention is insufficient.

Violence and crime can only be controlled and eventually eliminated through the strengthening of the individual family unit. We must begin to place our relationships with people before our acquisition of material wealth. That is why, as legislators, we must make ourselves aware of and act upon the need for legislation and policy which will improve the quality of family life.

As I campaigned throughout the riding of York Centre in the last election, this concern was brought to my attention incessantly. My riding is composed of a mixture of urban, rural and vacational interests, and contains 55,000 voters. It has its own particular concerns and issues, besides those of a provincial nature.

I have mentioned in the House before that one of the most important issues raised in the last campaign was that of the obliteration of the Langstaff community, which is situated on the south side of old No. 7 highway, between Yonge St. and Bayview Ave. The very existence of this community is threatened, by the imposition of a hydro line that could just as easily be installed on the north side of No. 7 highway on vacant lands already owned by the city of Toronto.

That 84 homes, and 120 businesses which employ over 800 people in my riding, would be endangered in such circumstances, is ludicrous beyond comprehension. For the last 2½ years a freeze has been placed on these dwellings and businesses and the 223 permanent residents cannot sell on the open market, expand, or otherwise deal with their homes. Severe hardship is being perpetrated on these people and the Conservative government to date has been unresponsive to their plight. As a result of the insensitivity of this government, a family whose numbers have increased is unable to provide for itself proper accommodation, and is being oppressed by the inactivity of this irresponsible government.

Another issue which affects the enjoyment by owners of their homes in the riding of York Centre is that of the expansion of the Buttonville airport. The town of Markham in my riding refused to grant an application by the owners of the Buttonville airport to rezone the land surrounding the airport to permit the sought-after extension of runways. The purpose of the extension is simply to allow larger aircraft, especially the noisier jet aircraft, to use this airport. Consequent upon the refusal of the elected representatives of the community to rezone the lands, the owners of Buttonville airport then appealed to the Ontario Municipal Board, a body whose members are appointed by the government, not elected. This board overruled the wishes of the people, as expressed through their elected representatives, and the matter now rests with the cabinet, upon the appeal of the town of Markham. In this instance, we urge the Conservative cabinet to be more sensitive to the wishes of the people than it has demonstrated itself to be in the past.

Another issue which was of vital concern to the constituents in York Centre during the past campaign was the matter of regional government. In 1970, York county expenditures, combined with the municipal expenditures of the 14 municipalities of which it is composed, were $20,996,000. In 1971, the Conservative government imposed regional government upon York county. The total municipal expenditures in that first year of regional government, covering the same area, were $31,698,000, an increase of almost $11 million in one year.

Such a substantial increase in expenditure meant an increase in taxes, yet no one in York has noticed any particular improvement in services. We are now told that the Conservative government is going to reduce the grants to the region, thereby causing taxes to be increased again.

Mr. Sargent: Right.

Mr. Stong: In addition to the imposition of regional government, the Conservative government imposed an even greater injustice on the homeowners in York Centre, and that occurred when it took over assessment The effort by that government was so dreadful that four years ago it had to pass special legislation to authorize some municipalities to establish individual taxing formulae in order to remedy its own incompetence. Then the Conservative government decided to freeze the assessment until it could understand what it had done itself. This four-year-old freeze has resulted in a far greater disparity between assessment and market values than ever had existed when assessment was handled locally.

During the course of the most recent campaign, my own research staff obtained information from the registry office and recorded numerous sales throughout the riding of York Centre. These sales occurred over the past two years. In the town of Richmond Hill, single-family dwellings are assessed at 35 per cent of the market value but the assessment on land held for speculative interest is 9.4 per cent of the market value. In the case of the homeowner, whether she be a widow living on a fixed income trying to cope with rising costs or a young family trying to establish itself in the new home or indeed an established family trying to cope with the inflationary trends in our society, all of these people are subsidizing and underwriting speculators.

My figures are founded on the average of 34 sales of land and this does not include farm sales, as they are specifically exempt from market values by regulations under the Assessment Act. Of the 34 sales of speculative land in York Centre, the total amount of the sales was $19 million while the total assessment for that same land was $1.8 million. A rough estimate would indicate that the average homeowner in my riding is paying as much as one-third more taxes than he should. This fact is deserving of more study and immediate action. The rent review bill, of which I spoke earlier and which has just been completed in this House, results from a lack of housing in this province.

While rent controls have been introduced to protect tenants from unfair rent increases, these controls do nothing to encourage the construction of new houses that people can afford to buy or rent. Much of this shortage is concentrated in Ontario’s major cities, including Metro. To get more housing built, this government must show some leadership and must be prepared to overrule local mayors and councils who have accepted the policies of slow growth or no growth and require them to accept more housing.

Other areas of concern where costs have increased so rapidly that they threaten the very fibre of family existence are health and education. Health and education take 55 cents out of every provincial spending dollar of a budget now running to more than $10 billion a year. Without strict controls on health and educating spending, the provincial taxpayer will soon be driven beyond distraction. Yet teachers and doctors want more money. Hospitals want more equipment. Students oppose higher university fees, while basic costs rise and the public demands efficient services.

The government must take a searching look at medical fees and seek a solution that would deal with increased costs without hearing unfairly on the needy.

Mr. Sargent: The Tories have got things into one hell of a mess all over.

Mr. Stong: The government must control education spending and teachers’ salaries. Perhaps the government should consider the concept of the non-stoppage strike which would permit the teachers to work to rule or work with a skeleton staff or double up on teaching assignments without allowing them to walk out of the classroom, and this would be done not at the expense of the student.

As critic for the Liberal Party on correctional and reform institutions, I was intrigued by the most recent pronouncement by the minister, who indicated that parents of juveniles ought to be lined if they know not of their whereabouts. This may help the situation but it certainly will not eliminate the unmanageable child.

Mr. Sargent: He is a bachelor. How would he know?

Mr. Stong: I have asked the government what plans it has in view of the repeal of the Juvenile Delinquents Act, and, more specifically, in view of its repeal of section 8 of the Ontario Training Schools Act. Up to now, acting under the authority given him by section 8, a juvenile court judge, upon the application of the parents, could find a juvenile to be unmanageable and have him placed in a more structured setting where discipline could influence his behaviour to a greater extent.

[11:15]

With the abolition of section 8 of the Ontario Training Schools Act, the unmanageable child does not disappear. He is still here to be dealt with, and parents of those children are left without assistance. The government must consider this with a sufficient degree of urgency to meet the situation.

Mr. McKessock: More discipline in the public schools.

Mr. Stong: With the abolition of section 8, unmanageable children can no longer be sent to training schools, but to ask the child caring system developed through Health and Community and Social Services to absorb this population without additional funds and programmes is to force an increase in the crisis intervention services, and, therefore, cut back family services and preventive services again. This defeats the purpose of abolishing section 8 and does nothing for the real problem, namely, a control relationship.

So the government, which is being relied upon to show leadership, is left with unanswered questions; namely, what alternative programme to the training school has been developed? Have additional family support programmes been developed? At present, funding incentives favour programmes designed around family support and the control relationship, so is the government prepared to transfer the necessary funds to permit recognition of the need of that control relationship? What is the government going to do before it is too late?

I believe the basic challenge of this present government is to encourage the private sector of the free enterprise system to develop alternatives to government programmes. The government must encourage businessmen and women to look to their community to identify what services can be provided more efficiently and cheaply than by the government, and let that be known throughout the community.

For example, reliable systems to handle crosswalks, group homes for juveniles, playground supervision, care for the elderly, job training for the retarded and day care for the working single parent are just a few of the examples of the way the private sector in our free enterprise system can be encouraged to help lower government spending by providing alternatives to government activities and thereby improve the quality of family life. It is only when this government recognizes, endorses and acts upon policies designed to strengthen the family unit, that society can return to some semblance of the peace and harmony that this season represents and that we all seek.

Mr. Lane: Mr. Speaker, I’d like to take this opportunity to congratulate you on your reappointment to your position, and also on the appointment of the Deputy Speaker. I realize you fellows have a very difficult time, sometimes more difficult than others, but I’d like to take this opportunity to wish you both every success.

In speaking in the Throne debate, I support the contents of the Throne Speech; however due to a very limited time left in the debate, I will briefly mention several matters that are of great concern to me.

At this time the fight on inflation must come to the fore, because inflation could bring us to the very brink of a depression, and those of us who are old enough to remember the depression of the 1930s would sooner forget it. I personally regret that these controls are necessary, but they are necessary if we are to avoid a repeat of the 1930s. I also regret that the Prime Minister of this country was so late in bringing in the federal ant inflation programme, which to my mind should have been all-encompassing.

I feel strongly that the price aspect of the programme must be made to work and work effectively. I do not think any government can reasonably expect salary and wage controls to be acceptable without strong assurance that prices and profits will be subject to similar controls. We in the provincial government have expressed our concerns and made recommendations to the federal government in this regard.

However, if the anti-inflation programme is to work -- and I am sure we all want it to -- we must make a commitment to it, whether we agree with it in total or not, I think we all agree that somehow we must curb the inflationary situation which we in this country and many other countries are faced with at this time. I realize by making a commitment to fight inflation we are also making a commitment to curb spending, which means that some of the projects I have been pressing for must be delayed for a period of time. I’m sure that other members have the same concern.

However, if we allow our country to slip into a depression, all projects and programmes will be delayed for an even longer period of time. So I accept the lesser of two evils. I hope my constituents and those of other members will understand the position in which we, their elected representatives, find ourselves and bear with us as we endeavour to use good judgement as to where we can best cut spending and which programmes or projects must be interrupted or delayed.

I was pleased the Throne Speech made reference to the amendments to the Ontario Development Corp. Act which provides some financial assistance to municipalities to develop industrial parks. In my riding, two areas are greatly in need of industrial park development. One area is Espanola which is a one-industry town. Now that the pulp and paper workers are on strike, the need for secondary industry is even more apparent. In order to get secondary industry, we must have industrial parks with the required services where such industry could locate.

The other area within the riding of Algoma-Manitoulin that needs another industrial park is Elliot Lake. Once again we must expand the secondary industry already located in Elliot Lake and we must attract more secondary industry to the area, not only to give it more long-term stability, but also because we have a number of miners in Elliot Lake who for health reasons must have jobs on the surface. Many of these men have bought and paid for their homes and their families do not want to leave Elliot Lake. I am determined that they will not have to leave; so we must have another industrial park in that area to continue to expand and attract industry.

I made my maiden speech in this House on March 13, 1972, and many of our proposals at that time have since been accomplished. One was to improve the transportation system throughout the riding of Algoma-Manitoulin. I am happy to say that both the road and ferry systems have been greatly improved and we are about to have a scheduled air service to Elliot Lake.

The other major item that has been dealt with in a very satisfactory manner was my plea for more rent-geared-to-income units for senior citizens. I am happy to say we have developed many units at various locations in the riding and many more towns and villages are now conducting studies to determine the need.

For these accomplishments, I thank the government. However, one major issue in my maiden speech dealt with the great difference in the basic cost of commodities in the north as compared to the southern part of the province. I am not referring to luxury items but to the basics such as food and fuel, and so on.

At that time I compared the prices in Elliot Lake to prices in Toronto and there was then and is now a substantial difference. I will quote just one short paragraph from that speech:

“I could continue along this line of comparison, but I do not wish to bore my colleagues. I simply wish to make the point. I would suggest that there be an equalization of prices of basic commodities across the province. I do not mean that we should take the competition out of trade, but I do feel that if the price of beer can be equalized so can the prices of the more needful commodities.”

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

Mr. Lane: Four years ago.

Mr. Sargent: It is in Hansard. Take it as read.

Mr. Lane: I regret that the government did not come to grips with this very serious problem, although I have continued to raise these suggestions several times since I have been the member for Algoma-Manitoulin.

Mr. Sargent: Tell them about the boat you stole on us.

Mr. Lane: Perhaps one reason for this delay was that, although all the ministries have a responsibility to problems in the north, they are also very busy with problems that relate to the entire province, and there is no ministry that has complete responsibility for the problems peculiar to the north. For these reasons, I’m now trying to persuade the government to bring in a Ministry of Northern Ontario. Such a ministry would have full responsibilities for the problems as they relate to the north, not only for the things that I have mentioned -- such as providing information and the mechanism to bring about the equalization of prices of basic commodities across this province -- but dealing with the many problems that our native peoples of the north are faced with.

Great areas of the north are unorganized and have no local government. They have a need for many services. I feel a Ministry of Northern Ontario could be of great assistance in this field and on matters related to our resources of the north and the many problems which our government has been unable to come to grips with in the past.

I feel that our northern affairs officers, who are doing such a great job, could become a part of such a ministry. These people make thousands of contacts each year in the various areas of the north where they are located and I feel that by integrating them into the Ministry of Northern Ontario, should it be established, these northern affairs officers could gather a great deal of information as well as provide the services that they are now providing -- and this would keep the cost of establishing a Ministry of Northern Ontario at a very low cost.

I shall continue to urge the government to consider the establishment of this very needful ministry so that the people in my riding, and other tidings in northern Ontario, can have the best that is possible.

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

Mr. Sargent: And away we go.

Mr. Martel: Is the member for Grey-Bruce here? I can hear him grunting.

Just about four years ago, Mr. Speaker, I spoke in this Legislature on the housing problems in the Sudbury area. At that time I made a number of recommendations as to what the government should be doing to alleviate the problems we were confronted with. Some of those were that we should be actually training building inspectors to ensure or guarantee that the work that the municipality expects from builders is being carried out. You will recall, Mr. Speaker -- you were here then -- that out of that I was served with a writ and there was a $100,000 law suit, as I opposed Cambrian Real Estate.

Some four years later, the government of Ontario has done little to introduce that programme into what I suggested -- the community college. I’m glad to see the minister is here and is going to take notes. We must introduce some type of course into the community college which will provide qualified building inspectors.

I rise to speak exclusively on this today. Despite one area after another -- my colleagues have raised it over the years; those projects built by Ontario Housing; the projects being built by individual contractors -- we still find people being ripped off, left, right and centre by contracting firms.

There are houses in a virtual state of decay within years after having been constructed. There is virtually no recourse for the person who has purchased the home -- and frequently that includes Ontario Housing. This has occurred in Sudbury over the last year. I was able to get them quietly to go in and clean up a whole subdivision.

The point is that when we hire building inspectors -- and the various financial agencies have inspectors to guarantee their income -- surely the public then should be protected. Unfortunately, it doesn’t occur.

[11:30]

In a new section of the city of Sudbury that I represent, a subdivision was started in late 1969-1970 -- and they just did an investigation some months ago on 17 of the houses. They didn’t bother doing the whole area. Some 17 of the houses are in an absolute state of decay. This confidential memo, or report which I have, is known as the Kettle report. It deals with 17 houses in Donwood Park in New Sudbury. Let me read just a couple of extracts to show what is happening. I can start just about anywhere. If you look at the shingles, they are not nailed properly. They are literally flying off the roofs. I quote:

“On three of the houses, the aluminum siding was bent down over the shingles to form a flashing. [One wonders where the building inspector was.] Many of the bungalows with attached garages show water stains on the interior dry wall and exterior brick work as a result of improperly flashed intersections between roofing and siding.

“Roof sheathing: Since no edge support was provided, the thickness should have been 1½ in. in accordance with the National Building Code. In fact, here it was less than three-eighths.

“Roof trusses: Fifteen of the 17 houses inspected utilized lumber trusses for sun -- port of ceilings and roofs. There trusses were presumably fabricated by the builder using two by fours spruce cord and web members. Workmanship in the fabrication and installation of trusses ranged from poor to extremely bad.”

The building inspectors were there. Why wasn’t the project halted? I will go over this theme over and over again, because we have Hydro inspectors who were there and who passed had hydro features where the wiring was done improperly. The report continues:

“It is our opinion that none of the more than 350 trusses inspected would meet the above test requirements.

“Firewall: All of the basement firewalls were concrete block construction and the construction drawing inspected indicates that these walls are 8 in. thick accordingly. No such insulation or surface finishes were observed.”

I am told that, according to Table 1(a) of the National Building Code, an 8-in.-thick stone concrete block wall does not provide a one-hour fire resistance rating unless filled with insulation or covered with additional surface finish. No such insulation and surface finish was observed.

By the way, I am talking about houses valued at $45,000 in Sudbury. These aren’t the average home. These are fairly substantial homes which people have invested their life’s earnings in. I’ll go on:

“Attic ventilation: In all houses inspected, less ventilation than is required by the National Building Code has been provided by the builder. Soffit vents have been installed but few gable or roof vents had been provided.

“Insulation and vapour barrier: Ceiling insulation was partially missing.”

One asks, where were the inspectors, the people who are paid by the municipality, the people CMHC has hired to go out and investigate these conditions? Where were these jokers? The people buy the houses in good faith. They look good on the exterior. They look good if one looks at the paint on the walls, but live in them for a year and they are in a state of decay. The report says:

“Ceiling insulation was partially missing Land ceiling vapour barrier was partially or completely missing in five of the houses inspected. Wall vapour barriers were partially or completely missing in at least two of the houses inspected. And the attic hatch cover insulation was missing in at least five houses.”

Go on to subflooring, and the subflooring was bad. Go on to the floor joists, and the floor joists were bad. Go on to the footing -- interestingly enough, some of them don’t have proper footings, and they back-filled with clay. We know what happens when clay freezes. It sort of causes things to contract. In the winter the houses literally lift, and in the spring they ease down. Look at the outside of the house and start at one corner and just follow the step work up the brick to the roof, and then start down the other side; it is a very nice set of steps. The houses are actually, in less than five years, in a complete state of destruction. Listen to what the Kettle report says:

“The house on Josephine S. is the oldest one inspected [about four years old] and is in an advanced stage of destruction. The others will be in the same condition in several years unless rectified soon.”

Who is responsible? The Kettle report was received by the city of Sudbury and they had long, anguishing debates over who should do what; they wouldn’t give permits to the building contractor for a little while but he has got thesis again. Here are people with their life investments -- I have been in to see five or six of these homes and it is a disgrace.

In addition to all the things I have mentioned so far, by the way, they say there are other minor defects. Just listen to them:

“Interior wall and ceiling finishes have been damaged from water leaks caused by defective roofing and flashing and melting of frost on the underside of the roof surface. Exterior brick and stone masonry has been stained, cracked, discoloured, spalled from excess water in walls, which is probably due to the discontinuance or non-existence of a system of vapour and air barriers. Resilient floors are being cracked as a result of improperly supported subflooring edge joints. Garage floors are disintegrating from the use of improper co crate mix.”

I say to you, Mr. Speaker, who is responsible? The city of Sudbury shrugs its shoulders. The building contractor now has permits to continue. The citizens in these homes are out of pocket; I have suggested to them that their best bet is simply to walk out and leave the house, but they have got $8,000 or $9,000 invested. What do they do?

At the one house I went to see the other day, the contractor said, “I will dig it all up for you, put in a footing and we will backfill it properly, and I will only charge you another $3,000 more.” No one has the courage to say to him, “Look, buster, in you go and you make all the repairs.”

I have been through this. In my municipality the Tory candidate in the last election had some of these in his area a number of years ago. I finally managed to get the Valley East council to say that this building contractor couldn’t build any longer. They passed a motion, and he didn’t try for three years. Then regional government came along; the builder went to the regional government, which is responsible for planning. The council had said, “You don’t get one building permit until you repair the 45 houses.” But regional government came in and gave him a permit to go back into that municipality, despite the local council’s objection.

The mayor -- my Tory opponent last time -- wrote the following letter; it’s a beautiful little letter he wrote to regional council. He said:

“This letter was brought to council meeting on Jan. 7 and reference was made to a former resolution to discontinue issuing permits unless all repairs were complied with by the construction company. But time has elapsed since then, and apparently Mr. Shouldice has complied with the necessary requirements.”

Does the name Shouldice ring a bell?

Mr. Laughren: Shouldice?

Mr. Kennedy: Yes, he does operations.

Mr. Martel: The letter says, “apparently Mr. Shouldice has complied with the necessary requirements.” That’s a bare-faced lie. The man didn’t go back and make one repair.

Mr. Laughren: He’s a Tory too.

Mr. Martel: He wasn’t forced too. I begged this government then --

Mr. Kennedy: Don’t get excited.

Mr. Martel: -- to force that clown to go back and make the necessary repairs.

Mr. Philip: You don’t get excited, do you?

Mr. Laughren: You never get excited about people’s problems.

Mr. Martel: As a result of the failure of this government to respond, we have a whole subdivision in a total state of decay.

Mr. Makarchuk: He sounds like a moving disaster area.

Mr. Martel: What I am reading is not something I made up; it is a confidential report prepared by a consulting firm. Who is going to go in and make the necessary repairs for these people? I suspect they will lose their shirts.

Interestingly enough, this document was sent to the Ministry of Housing. Do you know the answer that came back? They didn’t say, “We will go in and clean it up”; they said, “We will never hire that particular contractor for an Ontario Housing project.” But what will they do to protect the people who were in the homes? Nothing, they just won’t hire that fellow.

Mr. Laughren: No consumer protection.

Mr. Martel: Isn’t that great? I see the parliamentary assistant -- I hope he is taking it in; I am going to send the report to the minister responsible for consumer protection in the next day or two --

Mr. Laughren: Corporate protection.

Mr. Martel: -- to see if we can have the whole thing investigated and some government action to force this particular building firm to go back and make those repairs on behalf of those constituents who deserve it.

Mr. Laughren: Unless they are Tories, of course.

Mr. Martel: Well, even the Tories would go along with it. There is an interesting sidelight to this. The contractor in question is a real gentleman. He really is. I am going to read three funny incidents that occurred and you will find they are not so funny. The contractor is one Mr. Nikolic. They were trying to serve some papers on him just about a year ago.

The fellow who serves the papers went out and very quickly came back and said: “I can’t. The guy’s too wild.” So they sent a couple of policemen out with him. They were trying to serve these papers while he was up on one of these machines. They used to call them steam shovels or it was some type of electric shovel. He turned the boom on them and was trying to hit them with the boom with the police there with drawn pistols. That’s how petrified they were of this man, and that’s one of the reasons nobody has acted. This actually happened last August.

Mr. Laughren: Construction cowboys.

Mr. Drea: I don’t suppose you would go out and see him, would you?

Mr. Martel: No, I don’t. I stay as far away from him as I can.

Mr. Drea: That’s why you want me to go, isn’t it?

Mr. Martel: It might as well be you. But maybe we could take a couple of policemen with us and go together.

Interestingly enough, the city put up a couple of signs on a sidewalk near some of his construction. He tore one down one day and they sent the police out to investigate. The bylaw enforcement officer, a Mr. Carter, went out. Mr. Carter had open-heart surgery about a year ago and when he went to find out about it and take pictures of it, Mr. Nikolic came tearing out and hammered the guy. He’s a wonderful citizen.

Poor Mr. Carter, a former RCMP officer, could have handled the situation if he hadn’t had open-heart surgery, but Mr. Nikolic got away with that too. The bylaw enforcement officer and the people from the Crown who try to serve summonses have to go with police with drawn pistols to serve a summons on him or he turns the machine on them.

Then there was a little natural gas explosion and the natural gas company advised Mr. Nikolic to have all his men leave the area because there was a danger they could have had further explosions and someone would get killed. Mr. Nikolic told the men; “If you attempt to leave, you are out of job.” He’s a compassionate sort of fellow too. He’s just a magnificent man, this fellow Nikolic. And it goes on.

One man in Sudbury had enough courage to write an article about Mr. Nikolic. It was called: “The Dream House Coming Apart at the Seams,” and was written by a councillor in the city of Sudbury, one Jim Gordon, whom some of you Tories might know. Jim has found out, as I did, that it is very dangerous taking on these fellows because the second you start commenting about them or the second you start writing about them, you are faced with a lawsuit.

Mr. Gordon is now faced with a law suit. We have a little immunity in here. I didn’t, when I made my statement because I made them publicly and I had a $100,000-lawsuit. Mr. Gordon is now faced with the lawsuit. I realize that maybe I am speaking out of turn by speaking to this issue while the suit is pending. But I think it’s so serious when this man at least had the courage to go and see it and to write about it that he now finds himself confronted with a lawsuit.

Mr. Laughren: Unusual for a Tory.

Mr. Martel: How do you expect people to take these sorts of situations seriously and to try to bring about change, when each time at the end of the road someone is faced with a lawsuit if he makes too much noise about it? My experience is when you are served with a $100,000 suit, it’s kind of frightening -- not that they could get much from me but it’s just the prospect.

Mr. Deans: Oh, come on! You could pay it out of your pocket.

[11:45]

Mr. Martel: Anyway it is kind of a frightening experience, but it comes back to the whole thing I started with. All during this, there were building inspectors. There were the city building inspectors, there were the Hydro inspectors and there were the inspectors for the financial institutions like Central Mortgage and so on who were there to protect their money. How do they get away with it? How do you allow house after house after house to be constructed, and to see notices filed that these violations were going on and it doesn’t come to a stop? It remains for me a mystery how those things can be tolerated in our society.

It seems that everyone is helpless against this sort of situation. All of us know, even my friends across the way, that they face it in Ontario Housing projects that are built by the taxpayers’ money. I’m told, by the way, there’s one Mousseau Construction up in Hearst that Ontario Housing is into a dandy with right now. It just goes on.

Surely the government itself must be interested enough in the projects it pays the shot for to guarantee they’re properly done. The government has been talking about a uniform building code -- for how long? They keep prattling about it but nothing comes.

Mr. Laughren: Tories make bad builders.

Mr. Martel: They talk about consumer protection and very little comes. I want to see what’s going to come of this and, as I say, I’m glad the parliamentary assistant is here because I intend to submit this report to him. I intend to see something done.

I firmly hope that the government will do several things: first of all, bring in a uniform building code; secondly, through the Minister of Colleges and Universities (Mr. Parrott), introduce some type of training for building inspectors; and thirdly, find some means, whether through bending or some way that when these shyster outfits take people to the cleaners there’s some recourse for the people to seek redress.

If we don’t do those things, what will continue is what I spoke on four or five years ago and what I’ve spent a few brief minutes here today speaking to. I hope the government acts.

Mr. G. I. Miller: Mr. Speaker, first of all, I’d like to extend through you to Mr. Speaker Rowe my congratulations on being re-elected Speaker for this session. I consider it an honour and a privilege to represent the riding of Haldimand-Norfolk as a member of the Ontario Legislature, the first Liberal to represent this riding in 30 years.

I notice by the comments of the Premier of this government of this good province of ours (Mr. Davis), that I don’t think he exactly likes the democratic system and the way it worked, particularly in this last election. I would like to assure the government on the other side of the House that in a democratic system you have to earn the right to represent, and as a Liberal I feel we are going to earn the right to represent in the days ahead.

As far as the NDP are concerned, they are giving these give-away programmes from the cradle to the grave. I think again we have to get back to the free-enterprise system.

An hon. member: Build some more houses.

Mr. Deans: Would you like to tell us what you would cut out?

Mr. G. I. Miller: That is how this great country of ours was developed -- by the free-enterprise system. I feel this is the way we still should go.

Mr. Deans: Would you like to tell us what you would cut out?

Mr. Riddell: You!

Mr. Deans: That’s very funny. Would you like to tell us which programmes you would cut out? What would you do away with?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. G. I. Miller: I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the former member for the riding, Jim Allan, and to express the gratitude of the people of Haldimand-Norfolk for the contribution which he has made and the service he has given to the riding and the Province of Ontario over the past 24 years. I realize only too well that I have tremendous shoes to fill. I consider this something of a personal challenge to spare no effort to represent the people of Haldimand-Norfolk to the best of my ability.

Until comparatively recently, the riding was essentially agricultural and rural, but this is now rapidly changing and there is considerable industrial and urban development in the area. I would like to give you a little background on what is taking place, Mr. Speaker.

There is a 750-acre Nanticoke generating station which was started in the late 1960s, and it is now nearing completion. It consists of eight units of 535 megawatts each at full capacity, and the net output will be 4,000 megawatts at full capacity. East of the generating station is a 1,300-acre site, at which Texaco Canada Ltd. is building a refinery with a capacity of 95,000 barrels per day. It will be in production by 1977, and the plant will process western crude oil supplied by the Interprovincial Pipe Line Ltd. and will produce a variety of fuels including motor gasoline, aviation jet fuels, and so on.

The Steel Co. of Canada has an industrial park in the steel complex of 6,500 acres lying to the west, and this steel complex is unfolding now and it could be producing steel in 1977. I think the figures show that for every one million tons of iron produced they will employ 1,000 people, and I think at the final stages -- it is working in four stages -- it will be producing 12 million tons of steel. So we can see it is going to have a considerable effect on this particular area of Ontario.

Two new satellite cities are planned for Haldimand-Norfolk, South Cayuga and Townsend, each covering approximately 13,000 acres. Yet the existing municipalities in the area have tremendous potential for growth, which should surely be developed before the arbitrary establishment of these new town-sites. The 10 existing municipalities have populations ranging from 1,000 people in Port Rowan and Cayuga, to approximately 12,000 people in Simcoe. It had been recommended by the Haldimand-Norfolk study, before the regional government was imposed, that the existing communities be developed to a size to be decided upon by their own local representatives.

Already a considerable amount of money has been spent by these existing municipalities on sewerage and water supply systems, and payments for these improved facilities have created higher taxation for the people of the area. The ratepayers must be protected from over-taxation and some financial assistance is going to be necessary.

There is also a water intake at the Nanticoke generating site and it is nearing completion. It has a capacity of 400 million gallons per day. That’s a tremendous amount of water. Texaco and Stelco are being connected at the present time and should receive water to their sites in 1976. The centre region of my riding is in short supply of water, particularly Jarvis and Cayuga, and the quality of water in Hagersville is very poor. This is certainly an area where assistance is needed from the province. There is no other way that they can finance it except through a central pipeline system.

The establishment of new towns or cities would seem to be an excellent solution to the problems of expanding population, in theory at least. However, we have to give priority to planning for people, and I think that’s really what planning is all about. These people living in the area now, as well as making long-range plans for the future, the development of new towns should be delayed until increased population demands are such that existing communities cannot absorb the increase by reasonable and controlled expansion. I might point out again that these smaller communities with 1,000 population don’t have the viability to provide a good business section; they have to have some growth in order to stay alive. I think this is very important as we plan these new cities for Ontario.

The arbitrary implementation of provincial land-use regulations is causing very real problems and has also aggravated the rural-urban prices, because too many restrictions in rural areas are forcing people to locate in built-up areas. This dislocation of people from rural backgrounds can have a very serious consequence. They frequently find it extremely difficult to adapt to an urban way of living. Their skills are essentially in agriculture work and they are often forced to accept government assistance rather than being self-reliant.

We live in a democracy and the government has absolutely no right to dictate to people in this way. There should be more cooperation between local officials and Queen’s Park as to the size and nature of each municipality and the local development regulations, such as severances for residential purposes. Many people in our rural areas are becoming increasingly bitter as they see their rights as individuals being eroded in this way.

Of course, as a farmer myself, agriculture comes very high on my list of priorities. We must strengthen our rural communities by preserving prime agricultural land for farming and making every effort to encourage our young people to remain in the smaller communities, rather than gravitating to the large urban areas.

I can only think, as I come into Toronto, that the high-rises which have been provided and the amount of people they are sucking into the centre of the city are one cause of the shortage of living accommodation and making rent controls necessary at this particular time. When we get so many in the centre, they have to have some place to live and the buildings have to go up.

This cannot be done as long as government continues to ignore the basic reasons behind the rate at which agricultural land is going out of production. This has been quite an issue, especially in the last election. I would suggest that although it’s going to development, that is not necessarily why it’s going out of production -- it is because the farmer can’t make a living from it. It’s not profitable and, of course, the land just sits around.

I think there are many thousands of acres of land sitting around Ontario not being worked because the farmers don’t have a market for their products. Find them a market and I think the farmers would produce the food at a reasonable price. I would like to point out, too, that in the overall budget of Ontario, I think 1.4 per cent goes toward agriculture but with what it contributes back to the province, that is not really a fair assessment. I think there should be more money directed to the agriculture field so that there is a fair return to the farmer.

Some form of voluntary farm income protection plan would guarantee a viable income to full-time farmers who wish to participate in such a plan and contribute premiums. Wide-ranging legislative measures should be undertaken to encourage farmers to remain in business and to continue operations of the family farm. There is no more efficient operation anywhere in the world than a family farm unit. I think the record speaks for that.

Fluctuation of financial returns to the farmers must be controlled if farmers are to be able to stabilize their prices. If farmers are able to stabilize their prices consumer prices can be stabilized also and this would be a real boon to the consumer. Any measures which assist the agriculture industry in a meaningful way would inevitably have a beneficial effect on the consumer market also.

Obviously, if the agricultural industry of the province is maintained at a successful level more food will be produced for the domestic market which will reduce the necessity of importing food supplies on a grand scale, I don’t think there is any need for anybody to go hungry in Canada or Ontario with the resources we have. We only have to manipulate them properly. I think again that it should be turned back to the free enterprise system with some assistance from the government but I think the potential is there; we just have to develop it.

With regard to the preservation of agricultural land, here again, increased co-operation between local municipalities and Queen’s Park is vital. Planning comes into the picture once again because no one knows better than the local people the difference between class 1, 2 and 3 farmland.

Finally, I would like to say a word or two about housing in the province. The new Ministry of Housing was established in 1973 and since that time we have had a number of Ministers of Housing and several much publicized housing programmes. What we haven’t had is any real progress in solving the housing shortage.

Was the Housing portfolio passed from one minister to the other because each one found it was too hot to handle? Were, the housing programmes brought forward in an effort to cover up the fact that the government virtually had no idea of how to cope with the problem? We were told that in 1974 provincial housing programmes would facilitate 31,100 housing starts. In reality, they produced only 15,000 houses.

One Housing minister stated that adequate housing at affordable prices is a basic right of all residents of Ontario and I think this is very true. I had the right to build my own home and I think our young people should have that same right.

Is this yet another basic right which has been lost in the shuffle of government bureaucracy? In spite of the government’s programmes to assist home ownership, in practice houses are simply not being built in sufficient numbers to alleviate the housing shortage at a price the people can afford. I think, again, it’s very obvious that young people have a very difficult time getting their own homes and I still ask why.

There is no shortage of land in Ontario. There is no real shortage of building materials either. The construction labour force is under-employed. We have everything available to facilitate the building of much-needed houses; everything except leadership from the provincial government. All that is needed is to concentrate on the basic job of getting houses built rather than empty promises and publicity programmes to persuade the people of Ontario that the province is coming to grips with the problem; whereas in actual fact, the situation is becoming progressively more out of hand.

[12:00]

Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, first of all, let me compliment you on the way you have carried out your duties during this session. I must say, having served with you before on committees, I was well aware of your iron discipline, your friendly compassion, your zeal for hard work --

Mr. Laughren: Pretty hard on his friends, too.

Mr. Thea: -- but I am very glad that this House, and indeed the world, has now had the opportunity to see you in action as a very distinguished parliamentarian.

Mr. Martel: We have to live with him.

Mr. Drea: Well, I’m looking for some new jewellery. In the same spirit, I would like to talk about a public servant who shortly will be leaving government, and tint is the present chairman of the Liquor Licence Board, Mr. Mackey. For a number of years, Mr. Mackey has --

Mr. Germa: How many pensions has he got already?

Mr. Drea: Do you really care? I have never asked the man how many pensions he has, nor do I care.

Mr. Germa: I do.

Mr. Laughren: The member for Scarborough Centre should. It comes out of the public purse.

Mr. Germa: How many bites out of the public purse is anyone allotted?

Mr. Drea: Well, in your case it will be extremely few, I can assure you of that. To come back to Mr. Mackey, for many years he carried a bit of a burden in that, unfortunately, the image was created that Mr. Mackey personally drafted, personally supervised and personally controlled the drinking habits of this province. As a matter of fact, in one of the newspaper articles, when it became known that he was leaving, one of the newspapers even put that in the headline; that he controlled the drinking habits. Mr. Mackey did not control the drinking habits.

Mr. Roy: That is not because he didn’t try.

Mr. Drea: As I have said many times, it is in this Legislature that the liquor Acts are made. It is in debate in this assembly where liquor policy is evolved, and, however conveniently, somehow over the years the responsibility for that policy and for the very many and numerous licensing regulations and the standard of quality in licensed establishments, indeed the retail sale of beverage alcohol, has somehow been thrust upon the shoulders of whoever happened to be the chairman of the Liquor Licence Board.

I noticed in the Sun a very touching column by the former member for High Park, Mr. Shulman. He has made his peace with Mr. Mackey and I’m very glad to see that.

I think that when someone has done an outstanding job, has shouldered his task very manfully, has never pointed the finger at us -- although we certainly hid behind him as often as possible -- who carried out his day-to-day duties with not only dedication but the kind of integrity that is almost going out of style, I would just like it recorded, as we come to the end of this session, that we do recognize the work that Mr. Mackey did over the years, and while we all may not have agreed with him, nonetheless he does deserve the commendation of this assembly.

Because of the lateness of the hour I will be very brief because I know there are some other people who want to discuss the Throne Speech. I think the Speech from the Throne and this session have really revolved around one issue. That is the issue of inflation or the cost of living, the standard of living, the quality of living -- all of the things which so suddenly have become so important and of such concern to so many people.

Mr. Renwick: All caused by a spendthrift government.

Mr. Drea: In Ottawa, yes.

Mr. Renwick: No sense of the value of the dollar.

Mr. Laughren: If it is all caused in Ottawa, why are the Tories so concerned about restraints in Ontario?

Mr. Kennedy: We worry about everybody.

Interjections.

Mr. Drea: In terms of inflation, I find it very difficult to understand why those who are constantly preaching government thrift; who are talking about cutting out programmes -- even though they can never list a programme to be cut out -- want us to duplicate a bureaucracy which is already growing quite steadily and quite quickly in Ottawa.

Mr. Martel: You put all yours on contract and you hid them. Civil servants are hired by contract; nine-month contracts.

Mr. Laughren: Most of them in the Premier’s office.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. There isn’t much time left for this debate.

Mr. Renwick: That is spendthrift government.

Mr. Laughren: Don’t be provocative, Frank.

Mr. Drea: I am not; I am being very peaceful today. It is Christmas.

Mr. Roy: Who is suggesting that?

Mr. Eaton: Your leader.

Mr. Drea: Just to come back for a few moments to inflation. To duplicate the federal Anti-Inflation Board provincially it seems to me --

Mr. Roy: It is not duplication.

Mr. Drea: Not duplication? What are you going to have two for?

Mr. Roy: Don’t be silly, as the Premier would say.

Mr. Drea: Don’t be silly? You are going to have an Anti-Inflation Board in Ottawa; you are going to have an Anti-Inflation Board, if you have your way, in Queen’s Park.

Mr. Roy: It is to be complementary, not a duplication of it.

Mr. Sweeney: In place of.

Mr. Drea: They are both going to do the same thing. That’s your duplication. It’s that simple and if you don’t understand that, don’t you be silly.

Mr. Ruston: There are 200 applications waiting for decisions in Ottawa now.

Hon. Mr. Welch: What’s one plus one?

Mr. Drea: As I say, it seems very peculiar to me that the very people who speak of thrift out of one side of their mouths want us to duplicate what is already, at least on the surface, appearing to be a very major burden --

Mr. Roy: You don’t understand.

Mr. Drea: -- being thrust upon the unfortunate taxpayers of Canada -- and that is the federal Anti-Inflation Board.

Mr. Roy: You are just so happy to pass the buck that is all.

Mr. Sweeney: It is the taxpayer of Ontario who is unfortunate.

Mr. Drea: Really?

Mr. Sweeney: Yes. Two-billion-dollar deficit.

Mr. Drea: Two-billion-dollar deficit?

Mr. Sweeney: That is in one year.

Mr. Drea: There may be a $2 billion deficit in this province but maybe someone who has just gone through a month on the $2 billion deficit should say what it is there for. Most of it, my friend, happens to come from the very necessary expansion of essential services such as hydro; such as many of the programmes this government has put in in the last two years to help those who are unable to protect themselves against inflation -- the older people, the disabled.

Mr. Roy: Building Hydro buildings.

Mr. Drea: Free drugs, the things like that. We couldn’t cope with inflation; we couldn’t put the money they were losing back in the hands of the senior citizens but we did ease their burden.

Mr. Roy: Superministries. Krauss-Maffei.

Mr. Drea: If you want a balanced budget, if the price of having a balanced budget is that you are going to cut out the free drugs and stop Ontario Housing and the programmes for the single parent, it is about time you stood up and said so.

Mr. Sweeney: Anybody can provide programmes if there is no limit on expenditures. The trick is to do it within your income.

Mr. Roy: You should make the ultimate sacrifice and resign.

Mr. Drea: I want to touch upon only one more matter.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Peterson: Give him a chance; it is his maiden speech.

Mr. Drea: I’m trying to be non-partisan in this. It seems to me that in the community -- and I don’t care whether it’s in a place as cosmopolitan and as large as Metropolitan Toronto or in the smaller rural communities of this province -- there is an overriding concern today on the use of alcohol by younger people.

I don’t think there is a member in this House who isn’t receiving mail, who isn’t receiving the concerns of parents, the concerns of educators, the concerns of the police in regard to this matter.

I will be quite candid with you, Mr. Speaker, I supported the legislation to reduce the drinking age to 18. I think the only thing we were guilty of, by doing it, is that we did it at the wrong time. I think, unfortunately, when that decision was made it was made at a time when society and its values were changing drastically. With the demise of the family unit and with the inroads that were made upon the conventional society, I think we have unleashed a whirlwind and we are starting to pick up the pieces.

I am not terribly interested in the statistics about the drinking and driving by young people or the consumption, or the court appearances or what have you, but I am deeply concerned because, quite frankly, the parents are concerned and, in a great many ways, the parents are to blame; because of what mommy and daddy are doing it shouldn’t come as any surprise when their children reach the age of 18 and start doing it as well.

I would hope that in the next session the drinking age would be raised to at least 20 years of age.

Mr. Martel: You’re better off with prohibition.

Mr. Drea: First of all I think that it is --

Mr. Grossman: Are you against it, Elie?

Mr. Martel: Maybe we would be better off with prohibition.

Mr. Drea: The mayor of the borough where I live made what he thought was a joke on this when they asked him: “Should the age be 18?” He said: “No, it should be 81.” I think if it were physically possible all of us would agree it should be 81 and we might all be a lot better off. However, it is not. It is something we have to live with in society.

But I would hope that in the next session the drinking age is raised to at least 20 years of age and, in addition, that there be automatic cancellations of licences in licensed premises for the sale to a minor, and anyone who appears to be under 20 years of age must produce a photographic identification. As a matter of fact, in the liquor stores this Christmas it will be the toughest Christmas ever for anybody who appears to be under 21 years of age, because they are going to have to produce something with photographic evidence on it or the product is not going to be sold to them. It is that simple.

I suggest it is the measure of a Legislature that when it has done something in good faith and then finds out that, despite the best of intentions, there are other circumstances beyond anyone’s control or forecast and it is time for a change, it makes a change. I would certainly hope that in the Throne Speech for the next session the drinking is raised to at least 20. I think we will have the applause of the population. I think that we might, and probably will, have to take a fair amount of abuse or a fair amount of criticism.

Mr. Ruston: You caused it; now you have to stop it.

Mr. Drea: I suggest that is the price of being a legislator; that you have to do what you know to be, or at least think to be right, regardless of whether people applaud or heckle.

Mr. Roy: You have done that in the past.

Mr. Eaton: What’s your stand? Are you going to take a stand?

Mr. Roy: Why don’t you save the province some money?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Drea: The member for Ottawa -- is it still Ottawa East?

Mr. Roy: Right.

Mr. Givens: Be brief, come on.

Mr. Drea: I will just conclude. I will not be provoked today.

Mr. Ruston: Quit while you’re ahead.

Mr. Drea: I appreciate the opportunity there has been to participate in this debate. At the conclusion of my remarks I want to compliment the very many new members of this House, regardless of party, because I think in this Throne debate, and I certainly haven’t been here every day, but I have heard a number of the speeches, and I think the calibre of them indicates that the people who were elected will play a very significant role in the development of this province through the laws and the procedures of this assembly.

[12:15]

Mr. Laughren: Mr. Speaker, I shall attempt not to be provocative in my remarks, and I shall attempt to be brief.

Mr. Yakabuski: That is a switch.

Mr. Laughren: It is a little difficult to be brief when one is used to making long, rambling Throne debate speeches in years gone

Mr. Yakabuski: Tell us about Gogama.

Mr. Laughren: But I must say that in the last four years one thing struck me as a member, and that was the number of people who had problems coping with government and government agencies and ministries. I would be remiss if I didn’t say in this Throne debate what some of the things are that bothered me a great deal, and the Throne Speech had nothing in it which would alleviate the problems.

Mr. Yakabuski: I thought you said you were going to be kind.

Mr. Laughren: The problem I that is closest to me and to other members in the Sudbury region is the whole question of workmen’s compensation, and while I won’t give a detailed analysis of the problems, they are severe. The problems of the WCB are the results of the kind of system of compensation we have in Ontario. The day is long gone when an agency such as the board can cope with the problems of injured workers in Ontario. It’s a combination of administrative bungling, of bureaucracy and red tape at the board. More important than that, it’s the question of an adversary system of compensation for injured workers.

That simply cannot work anymore. We can’t continue to put the injured worker in a position of being against the compensation board and fighting the compensation board for that which he is entitled to as a right in the Province of Ontario. There really is only one choice, there is only one thing to do with the Workmen’s Compensation Board, and that is abolish it. It simply must be abolished.

Mr. Yakabuski: It is a model for the world, for God’s sake.

Mr. Laughren: It is not a model for the world. I’ll say this, though, there is a model of compensation and it is in New Zealand. It is not in Ontario.

Mr. Yakabuski: Every nation sends delegates here to pattern their own programme after ours

Mr. Laughren: Perhaps the members opposite who are trumpeting the cause of the Workmen’s Compensation Board in Ontario could ask the workers at Elliot Lake or at the Reeves mine or at the underground installations in the Sudbury area what they think of the Workmen’s Compensation Board in Ontario.

Mr. Bain: At any mine in Ontario -- ask them.

Mr. Laughren: It is a disgrace. What is required is a universal, comprehensive social insurance scheme that would insure people, no matter where they are injured and regardless of fault. That is the system we must have. Employers would still pay their assessment based on their injury rate, so employers would continue to pay the proper assessment.

Another area that has bothered me a great deal is the whole question of the unorganized community in northern Ontario, and Nickel Belt has many such unorganized communities. They have been faced with two years of broken promises by the Treasurer of Ontario (Mr. McKeough). Two years ago the Treasurer introduced a bill, Bill 102, the Northern Communities Act, and said, “Here, you people in northern Ontario, is a bill that is going to at least partly solve your problem. It will provide grants to the unorganized communities so that you can have some of the services that the organized communities have.”

It should be kept in mind that the people in those communities pay the same OHIP premiums, the same sales taxes, the same income tax, the same gasoline tax as people everywhere else in Ontario. For the Treasurer to hold out a promise to those people that there was going to be an improvement in the near future -- he held public meetings across northern Ontario -- and then to pull the rug on them and say, “No, we are not even going to reintroduce the bill” is simply not fair. It is time this government realized that there are about 100,000 people in those unorganized communities in northern Ontario.

I know, Mr. Speaker, that you yourself are familiar with the problems, and I suspect that if you weren’t burdened with the extreme responsibility of chairing this chamber, you would leap to your feet and participate in this particular debate when one talks about unorganized communities.

I would like to comment on one particular community that some members of this chamber have heard me talk about before; it is called Gogama. The present Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. W. Newman), who was then the Minister of the Environment, did something for the people in Gogama that I suspect hasn’t been done for very many communities in North America; he established a community tap for the people in Gogama because their water table was polluted. Can you imagine a community tap in a town of 500 or 600 people in 1975?

Mr. Bain: So generous.

Mr. Laughren: As I would say, it was unbelievably generous. They have put a tap in rather than put in a proper water supply system.

You know what else they didn’t do? They didn’t even erect a statue of Bill Newman beside the tap. Why wouldn’t they at least have put a plaque at the bottom of it? As a matter of fact, I can think of all sorts of interesting ways the water could have come out of the statute, Mr. Speaker --

Mr. Warner: Describe them.

Mr. Laughren: And that would have been a tourist attraction in northern Ontario.

Mr. Kennedy: We will advocate it.

Mr. Laughren: I think also it is surprising that the government didn’t even have a grand opening for the water tap; not even a simple ribbon cutting with gold scissors, nothing. They just furtively turned the water on one day.

The thing is, Mr. Speaker, you would think they would do it up as they do Sudbury when they open a new water treatment plant or savage system. A minister, a senior official or deputy minister comes up and there is a big ceremony. All the Tory hacks come to it and they eat off the public purse at noon. Not so in Gogama. A ministry official just comes in, turns on the tap and suddenly they have water.

Mr. Warner: He couldn’t find the tap.

Mr. Laughren: So I would urge you, Mr. Speaker, to use your good offices to convince them it is still not too late to have an official opening of the water tap in Gogama.

Mr. Warner: Do you still favour putting up a statue?

Mr. Laughren: As a matter of fact, it would be interesting to have them organize the grand opening of a tap which was in the form of a statue of Bill Newman. That really would be interesting.

There is one other community I would mention briefly and that’s the town of Sultan, which is about 150 miles north of Sudbury. Sultan is about 50 miles south of Chapleau and 150 miles north of Sudbury. A private road controlled by Eddy Forest Products runs between Highway 144 and Sultan. Now because Eddy Forest Products has shut down its operations for the winter they have decided they are not going to keep the road that runs between Sultan and Highway 144 open. So what you have in effect are 500 or 600 people in Sultan, who instead of driving 150 miles to Sudbury to go south are going to have to go about 300 miles around, the long way, up through Chapleau to get to Sudbury.

It just strikes me that the arrogance of the resource corporations in this province is mind-boggling indeed. When it suits their purpose they will keep that road open; when it doesn’t suit their purpose, despite the fact the resources belong to the people, they don’t keep the road open.

I think my colleague the member for Welland (Mr. Swart) had the answer about the timber companies in his remarks yesterday in this chamber. It is not just the unorganized communities that are facing problems in northern Ontario. As a matter of fact in your own area, Mr. Speaker, the communities of Ignace and Sioux Lookout, even though they are organized, have been put under trusteeship by the Ontario Municipal Board because of severe financial problems. The town of Chapleau in Nickel Belt has just been removed from trusteeship by the OMB.

Sudbury is in a situation whereby they have reached a ceiling on their borrowing. They don’t have the level of services other communities have and yet they have already reached the ceiling. How are they going to continue to provide those services?

That is simply not fair. Think of this figure, if you will, Mr. Speaker: In this century there have been 20 billion pounds of nickel extracted from the Sudbury basin; 20 billion pounds. If 10 cents a pound had been left in the Sudbury basin it would be a model community for a resource-centred city. Yet it is not. It’s an example of a community that hasn’t received the proper revenues from the resources and this just doesn’t make sense. As a matter of fact, if there is one area in which this government stands condemned, and which historians will look back at and condemn this government for, it is that in the last 30 some years they have had no resource management policy whatsoever. They have merely let the private sector extract the ores and do with them as they wanted to do.

What could be more grotesque at this time than Falconbridge Nickel Mines extracting the ore in the Sudbury basin, smelting it there, which is the dirty part of the operation, and shipping it to Norway to be refined, which is the dirty part of the operation? It really does take one’s breath away that that’s what’s considered resource management by this government. It is not resource management. It is plain and simple resource exploitation, nothing more.

At the same time as we have Falconbridge doing this, as though to add insult to injury they are announcing layoffs because it suits their purposes to concentrate their growth elsewhere. Simultaneously we have a six per cent growth rate in the industry, we have Falconbridge expanding their operations in Norway and the Dominican Republic and laying off in the Sudbury area. That is not good resource management.

If one considers the profits that have come out of the Sudbury basin; if one considers the pollution problems of the area; if one considers the safety and health problems we have had with the mining companies; if one considers the number of jobs that are lost because resources are shipped out rather than processed there; if one considers the unrenewable aspect of those resources -- once they are gone that’s it -- and the lack of taxes from those companies to support the communities where the miners work and the fact that they are multinational corporations which will use the Sudbury ore bodies like pawns in a chess game, there really is only one inescapable conclusion that we must come to when we talk about resource management, Mr. Speaker. That, very simply, is the public ownership of our non-renewable natural resources -- and I can’t think of a better point on which to close my remarks.

Mr. Speaker: I think by general agreement we were to terminate this portion of the debate at 12:30 and if the member would move the adjournment of the debate, we could have the windup at about 4:30.

Mr. Laughren moved the adjournment of the debate.

Motion agreed to.

The House recessed at 12:30 p.m.