Legislative Assembly of Ontario

The House resumed at 8 p.m.

THIRD READING

The following bill was given third reading upon motion:

Bill 56, An Act to amend the Dead Animal Disposal Act.

Clerk of the House: The first order, resuming the adjourned debate on the amendment to the motion that this House approves in general the budgetary policy of the government.

BUDGET DEBATE (CONTINUED)

Hon. Mr. Parrott: First of all, Mr. Speaker, I want to make mention of the great event we left tonight to arrive here punctually at 8 o’clock. I had the great honour of having three whips accompanying me from the Ontario Dental Association’s annual dinner. I can’t think of having dinner with any finer people. Not only that, I have one representative from the county riding association -- that is, the dental association -- here in the gallery with me tonight.

Mr. Foulds: Going to talk about dental care tonight?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I didn’t think I would talk about dental care tonight. Somehow or other there is another subject on my mind.

Before I do make any remarks in that regard, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I haven’t had the opportunity in this session, as the either speakers prior to this occasion have had, to congratulate you and, through you, the hon. Speaker. I think we have been well served in this House not only by the Speaker but his deputies. We are indeed fortunate to have that kind of impartial decision-making.

I really want to give up most of the time I would normally use to talk about the great riding of Oxford to speak about a matter of great importance to myself. That is the industrial training council.

Before I make those remarks, I think I should say one or two things about Oxford county. We do have a few problems but I am sure that, by and large, they are very small. It is an excellent county. It probably represents, as well as any riding, the backbone of the history of this province. It has a great heritage in the agricultural community and I think it has justifiably earned that reputation over these many years. I think there is one area of the riding of Oxford which deserves a special mention and that is the town of Tillsonburg, primarily because it has a unique situation in that it borders four rulings and sits on the extremities of three counties. It makes a unique situation for an aggressive community and certainly Tillsonburg is just that.

Mr. Renwick: One of the members of our research staff comes from Tillsonburg, too.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Yes, there are some excellent people who come from Tillsonburg. There is one thing I hope this House and the appropriate minister might consider for that area and that is a co-ordinator of our social services. I think Tillsonburg does not have many of the services, on a direct basis, that other municipalities might have. I think it would be an ideal community in which to consider the appointment of a co-ordinator of social services. I won’t speak at any great length on that but I think it’s an opportunity to prove that perhaps what we need as much as anything is more adequate utilization of the services presently available in this province.

With those very few brief remarks, I would like, if I might, to address this assembly on a subject matter related to the industrial training council.

Several weeks ago I had the pleasure of announcing the creation of a new advisory body, a council which will have a major role to play in an area of post-secondary education. It is one which will have, in my opinion, much greater importance in the days that lie ahead for the people of this province.

The advisory body I refer to is the industrial training council and its jurisdiction in that field which, for the lack of a better term, is commonly designated industrial training. That this government believes in and supports industrial training is a point which should be stated from the very outset. The creation of the industrial training council is evidence of the recognition that is attached to business- and industry-based training exercises as a valid alternative to traditional institutionalized career education.

The industrial training council was not created merely to acknowledge the importance of industrial training. It has become evident to me, as the minister responsible for Ontario’s involvement in industrial training, that we require the counsel and advice of a senior level advisory body, one that has an honest feel for Ontario’s industrial training needs so that we can ensure that our future programmes and policies will recognize and meet these needs.

In the past, many people have shared the popular belief that on-the-job training is essentially a vehicle for the so-called blue collar occupations. This may have been so at one time but not today. While apprenticeships and other training schemes have long been employed with great success in areas traditionally associated with industrial training -- such as the construction and motor vehicle repair trades and the manufacturing industry -- on-the-job training now thrives in a wide variety of settings. Service, sales and clerical occupations, where occupational demand is growing rapidly, are well served by industrial training methodologies. Such training is, for instance, applied in areas ranging from photography, commercial art and floral design to other areas like social work, commercial flying and paramedical occupations.

Historically, people have looked to the provincial government to meet their needs in education. Provincial jurisdiction in this area is clearly established in section 93 of the British North America Act. Our role in the training of doctors, dentists and engineers has been taken for granted for years. Regrettably, less acceptance has existed in the past for our parallel responsibility to train people in the vocational skills that are increasing in demand today. Training for vocational skills is as important to the individual and to the province as is training for the so-called professions. The provincial government has a direct responsibility to ensure that vocational skill needs are met. I suggest that industrial training will be an increasingly important tool in our future efforts.

Mr. Renwick: We agree with the reassertion of provincial authority. At least I do.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Good. The acknowledged need of business and industry for people well versed in the skills required by ever-changing occupations and technologies certainly isn’t an overnight development. In the past, our Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology have played a pre-eminent role in meeting our skill training requirements through programmes that were largely institution-based. They are continuing to expand in the industrial training field and will certainly provide a major source of skilled individuals for Ontario’s work force in the future.

But a question we must now consider, in the light of current and social economic conditions, is whether there is a desirability of alternative training modes to complement our institutional offerings which we have relied upon previously as our principal focus for skill training. While our institutions will remain in the mainstream of things, I believe that the time has come for us to consider the alternatives. In this regard, the potential of a truly efficient and economical training alternative, such as business- and industry-based training, demands our attention at this time.

The forces that shaped the colleges in the first place, the so-called knowledge explosion, and the corresponding demands created by the development of new technologies, new industries and new services, are still very much with us today. Indeed, few would not be prepared to admit that today’s skills and techniques might very well be obsolete tomorrow. Change is the inscrutable X-factor that makes long-range educational planning so difficult and indeed, at times, so dangerous.

Some would say that we are already reaping the fruits of poor planning when we see that half of the unemployed in this country are young people between the ages of 15 and 24. Ontario community college graduates have been extraordinarily successful in finding employment, but what about those who leave school with skills that aren’t quite so immediately marketable? With the technologies of businesses and industry changing so rapidly, can any but the most well-endowed educational institutions honestly hope to provide actual job-rated experience within the school capable of matching that available in industry? Even now, is a purely institutional setting the best one for imparting technical skills, let alone the life skills so necessary for successful employment? And what about those who, for one reason or another, reject school entirely as being irrelevant to their personal needs and aspirations? Somewhere there seems to be a gap between school and work that isn’t being bridged as effectively as it might be. I suggest that in industrial training we have a tool capable of narrowing that gap considerably.

The rapid economic expansion that characterized the 1960s and the early 1970s in Canada, and in Ontario in particular, has presented us with other problems. The unprecedented growth of business and industry and the accompanying need for skilled individuals dried up much of the reservoir of skills that existed at one time in our work force. We are now confronted with the anomaly of high unemployment at a time when many employers are faced with dire shortages of skilled staff. It is no secret that many companies raid their competitors for the cream of their employees. People now change occupations with much greater frequency than in the past, as a multi-career philosophy becomes more necessary in the light of the changing structure of the labour market.

[8:15]

In addition, individual attitudes to work vary much more than, say, a decade ago. As a result of these changing conditions and attitudes, business and industry are often reluctant to do their own skill training. Unfortunately, they are not always able to obtain benefits from doing so that will offset the cost incurred. If an employer trains an employee who then leaves to work elsewhere, the training benefits go to new firms, not to the one bearing the direct cost. However, these benefits are not lost to the individual trained or to society as a whole. So it would seem that government has a legitimate role to play in fostering skill training that satisfies both the needs of the employers for capable, productive employees and of society in general for marketable skills that yield dividends in terms of job satisfaction, personal fulfilment and monetary rewards.

The value of industrial training cannot be challenged, nor can be denied the growing need for innovation and imagination in the application of this training concept. In the light of the changing circumstances in which we find ourselves today, these facts are self-evident. I do feel, however, that the rationale behind the establishment of the Industrial Training Council requires further elaboration.

The government has made an explicit commitment to the operation and maintenance of post-secondary educational institutions in Ontario. No one is about to deny the legitimacy of that commitment. The very name of my ministry, the Ministry of Colleges and Universities, is representative of the traditional emphasis afforded institutional education and training in this province. While the ministry includes a college affairs and manpower training division, its manpower and industrial training activities have been in many cases largely supportive of the significant federal thrust under the Adult Occupational Training Act. We have maintained, it is true, a legitimate leadership in the areas of curriculum design, training standards, training evaluation, and trainee certification in all sponsored industrial training conducted in Ontario.

Any in-school elements of the industrial training programmes are conducted through the Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology established and operated by this province. The administration of the Apprenticeship and Tradesmen’s Qualification Act and the registration, training and certification of Ontario’s 26,000 apprentices is a major function of our industrial training branch. The fact remains, however, that the federal presence in industrial training is indeed a major one. Industrial training in Ontario today is almost wholly funded by the federal government, and the training purchased is directed at meeting needs that are identified in large part by Ottawa.

While we certainly don’t question the legitimacy of these needs, other areas have been identified where very real training needs do exist. Because they don’t meet the eligibility criteria established for the federal programmes, these needs will not be met unless the province is prepared to step in with a response of its own. A recent example of such a response would be the Ontario career action programme, where we are taking positive action in an attempt to meet the career needs of unemployed youth. Through this programme, 1,050 unemployed young people are being taken into government and given relevant work skills and experience, so that they may be more successful in finding private sector employment. The preliminary results of this programme are encouraging, and we hope to extend such an internship scheme to business and industry --

Interjections.

Mr. Renwick: That’s only a stop-gap operation.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Makarchuk: What are you going to do with the 4,000 nurses that are coming on stream?

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Oxford will continue.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: -- to business and industry, if ultimately proved successful. Concerns expressed to this government by the Ontario Chamber of Commerce were responsible in large part for the inception of the career action programme.

It was the need for concerned, informed counsel such as this, from a provincial rather than a federal perspective, that prompted me late last year to commission a review of past and present advisory inputs to government on our institutional training needs. This review indicated that several significant and recurring areas of concern have been identified over the years in the industrial training field. Reports issued by the select committee on manpower training in 1963, the General Advisory Committee on Industrial Training in 1968, the Economic Council of Canada in 1971, the Commission on Post-Secondary Education in 1972, and the task force on industrial training in 1973, all pointed to certain potential deficiencies in Ontario’s post-secondary offerings.

The reports were unanimous in recommending that alternatives to formal, institutionalized education and training be expanded. The reports recommended the provision of innovative programmes designed to meet the needs of the community, particularly those of business and industry, and at the same time to meet the career needs of individuals. A need for better labour market information and analysis was identified for education planning and career counselling and better provincial co-ordination of the training activities was also recommended.

The major theme of the report on post-secondary education was the need for the development and recognition of education and training to have a diversified base. In terms of content, learning locale, learning goals and learning modes, the report noted that training in industry for industries’ own employees and for others, constitutes the major alternative to college and university-based post-secondary education.

Of equal importance was the recognition that the largest group in need of education through these alternative modes are early secondary school leavers and those who, after job experience, face a change in occupation through choice or circumstance. I accept and acknowledge these concerns.

Mr. Renwick: They should be related to colleges.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: And they will be. They will be.

Mr. Renwick: It is important.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: The report of the task force on industrial training, commonly referred to as the Dymond report, agreed in principle with the COPSE report in observing that:

“Undoubtedly, training-in-industry has a positive role to play in manpower programmes. There are many valuable occupational skills that could be developed effectively through in-industry training and at a lower cost than through institutional classroom training. For many occupations, a mix of in-industry and classroom training is the most effective and least costly method. Also, for many older workers, training in industry may be more effective than institutional training.”

One of the shortfalls of the industrial training described in the Dymond report is the capacity of employers to undertake the task of job analysis, curriculum design and the organization of training programmes. To overcome this, it recommended that government’s role in industrial training should focus on several factors, and I would like to list them.

Setting out public policy in developing programmes to aid and co-ordinate the efforts of employers and unions in training their own work forces. Promote training in industry as a means of learning occupational skills. Provide occupational guidance and placement services. Provide funds for employers and training allowances for employees when such support is clearly in the public interest. Providing technical aid for industry in training methods and techniques or in organizations, curriculum development and programme evaluation. Providing industry with an information service, such a service to include a manpower information component and an inventory of existing agencies and programmes related to training in industry. Providing a system for the accreditation of graduates of training-in-industry programmes. Providing standards for training in industry in instances where uniformity in skill and knowledge attainment is in the public interest. And, lastly. making college plants, facilities and staff available to employers and unions on a reasonable cost basis to the extent that these are required to supplement those available within industry.

Many of the specific recommendations of the Dymond report have been implemented and have proved beneficial in the context of our existing industrial training programmes. After soliciting and considering the views of business, industry and the public, I have decided that it would be inappropriate to implement other recommendations of a more controversial nature.

At the present time I have no intention of proposing the abolition of compulsory trade certification as the Dymond report recommended, unless the Industrial Training Council should very strongly recommend it to me.

Mr. Foulds: You are speaking as the minister now, not as the hon. member for Oxford.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: That’s true.

With regard to industrial training advisory services, the Dymond report proposed extensive changes to the existing structure of curriculum and to standard-oriented apprenticeship committees and to local training advisory groups. It is here that the creation of the Industrial Training Council responds specifically to the spirit and the intent of the Dymond report, and to that of the other reports which preceded it as they pertain to the future of industrial training in Ontario.

Each report had similar views on the nature of the problems to be faced. However, recommendations on their own resolutions were varied. All of the reports agreed on one step, though. They all documented the need for effective senior level advice to reflect the views and needs of the various economic and social sectors of the province which have a stake in industrial training.

At present our formal industrial training advisory network consists of 27 provincial advisory committees appointed under the Apprenticeship and Tradesmen’s Qualification Act. These committees are constrained by the Act to dealing with “the establishment and operation of apprentice training programmes and tradesmen’s qualifications.” They have played and will continue to play a very important role in the development and refinement of our apprenticeship activity. Prior to the Industrial Training Council, however, there has never been a senior coordinating body to advise on industrial training in its totality within the framework of an overall Ontario manpower policy.

After considering the Dymond report, I felt that the changes recommended with regard to our present advisory structure did not go far enough to meet today’s needs. Because the present structure is concerned solely with apprenticeship its scope is narrow and its impact limited. In the future, the Industrial Training Council will serve as my senior advisory body on industrial training and will be afforded the same consideration as the Council of Regents for the Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology and the Council on University Affairs in university matters. Within its own jurisdiction its mandate will be as broad as those of my other two principal advisory committees.

Mr. Renwick: Is the minister going to introduce legislation about this?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: We will not have legislation on it. The industrial council chairman has been named; the 14 members on the committee will be named, I hope, within two weeks.

Mr. Renwick: They won’t have the same status then.

Hon. Ms. Parrott: They will have the same status as an advisory body.

Mr. Renwick: Maybe to the minister but not to the public.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: That is correct in one instance, not correct in the other.

I am convinced that the creation of a body such as the Industrial Training Council has been long overdue. I am also convinced that this council, with its focus on a field which has a relatively untapped growth potential, has a very major role to play in shaping the future face of post-secondary education in Ontario. How should the council then acquit itself in this role?

[8:30]

Given that training in and for the labour market is a primary concern, I am asking the council to examine the various alternatives and complementary elements of industrial training -- co-operative training in the apprenticeship mould, on-the-job training, adult institutional training -- and to consider their present appropriateness in view of such factors as the structure of our work force, labour market demands, individual aspirations and the effects on training programmes and initiatives of such uncontrollables as labour agreements between employers and employees.

I ask the council to provide co-ordination and leadership for the many splintered inputs from various sources that reach government as mutually exclusive proposals.

I ask that the council provide advice and leadership regarding programmes and initiatives for the labour market adjustment of secondary school graduates, early school-leavers and others who continue to swell the ranks of the unemployed.

I ask the council for recommendations relative to industrial training, on geographic or community strategies and on the servicing of particular client groups with special needs.

Mr. Renwick: Does this help the trade union movement or destroy it?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Neither.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Neither is correct.

Mr. Renwick: Neither? Have you consulted with the trade union movement about it?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: At great length and, I would like to report, with a great deal of assistance from them and I think with a great deal of co-operation.

Mr. Renwick: I hope we hear more about it in the course of your address.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: The hon, member will hear more about it the day that council is appointed.

An hon. member: Keep them in suspense.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: All right. I ask the council to recommend new training legislation for Ontario in light of the widest inputs, ensuring that the public, industry and work force interests are represented.

I ask the council to examine information on future labour requirements provided by such agencies as the Federal-Provincial Manpower Needs Committee, the Ontario Ministry of Labour and the Ontario Manpower Co-ordinating Committee, and to advise on appropriate industrial training strategies.

I ask the council to determine standards for industrial training, where uniformity in skill and knowledge attainment is in the public interest.

I ask that the council make recommendations on the integration of federal and provincial industrial training activities under the Adult Occupational Training Act.

I ask the council to advise on the use of various training systems and delivery modes to ensure that industrial training is used dynamically in support of overall provincial manpower and employment objectives.

Finally, I ask the council to examine and make recommendations on the appropriateness of provincial government proposals on participation in job creation measures proposed by the federal government.

I am fully aware that the assignments I have assigned to the Industrial Training Council are formidable ones. Each is fraught with its own particular set of complex concerns, and will require much consultation, consideration and hard work if we are to ensure that our industrial training response meet the challenges now facing us.

As we continue to re-evaluate our educational priorities, we might do well to remember that change in democratic societies does not generally recognize the massive shifts of institutions and of organizations, but relies upon more modest adjustments. I see the Industrial Training Council as being a nucleus for such change, and I see a responsibility for this government to encourage its growth and development to afford it the strength it requires to move into new fields.

I have asked the Industrial Training Council to take the initiative in stimulating such growth and development in the areas I have outlined; I ask them now to be innovative and creative in their efforts. I have full confidence that they will be, and I can assure this House that this government will support the council in every way possible in its future efforts.

Mr. Mackenzie: First, I want to welcome the Premier into the House. I’m sure it was because he knew I was going to speak this evening.

Mr. Kennedy: For you to start or for you to finish?

Mr. Roy: That is very sneaky, making a point to recognize him.

Mr. Mackenzie: I want him to know before he does leave that I think it’s a lousy budget, and just about lousy enough to ensure Liberal support in this House.

Mr. Peterson: Sit down now and you’ll be all right.

Mr. Mackenzie: I’ll get back to that in just a few moments.

Interjections.

Mr. Mackenzie: I want to take just a moment to observe, I guess, some of the niceties and that’s also to add my congratulations, along with everyone else, to the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker.

Mr. Peterson: Don’t strain yourself to add niceties.

Hon. Mr. Davis: And the Treasurer (Mr. McKeough).

Mr. Mackenzie: Eisd do bhevl. I find their job is a difficult one and I appreciate what they’ve done with it. I think they’re doing a good job on it. This House is not always the easiest House to control, I can see that relatively early as a new member.

Mr. Roy: Speak for yourself. Speak for your own party.

Mr. Mackenzie: I also want to say that as a new member I entered this House with a little bit of concern and worry as to whether or not I could do the job that every member wants to do or tries to do for his constituents, and in terms of looking at the legislation that we have to deal with in the House. I don’t mind admitting that I worried a bit about it at first. I suppose you’ll always worry if you’re really honest about it, but let me tell you, the worry really ended the first or second day in the House after the first day’s formalities when we got into a little bit of hassling and I recognized once again who the good guys were and who the bad guys were, and it wasn’t too difficult from then on.

Hon. Mr. Davis: There’s a guy who really understands himself.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: He should be a leader.

Mr. Mackenzie: I want also to take just a moment to mention my predecessor and say one or two things about the riding. Many of you know Reg Gisborn, and most of you, I think, will be happy to know that, after I guess a total of eight or nine operations now since it started two years ago, Reg is finally coming around a little bit. Just yesterday I was talking to both Reg and May, and you know he’s getting a little bit better when some of that sarcasm of his comes back and he starts needling you a little bit about what you have done or haven’t done in his riding. Reg can now take everything, I guess, but a good steak or something that’s pretty heavy, down through his mouth and enjoys his food and is beginning to get his taste back, and his voice is coming around too.

Mr. Peterson: He better enjoy it now.

Mr. Mackenzie: He passes on his best wishes to the many people he served with for some 20 years in this House, and I’m now doing that. I’d like to mention just briefly my riding, Hamilton East, a riding that I’m proud of. It’s had a pretty good record. Mind you, our party is not that old a party in terms of the Canadian political tradition, but I’m proud of the fact that Reg held it for 20 years, that Joe Easton held it before that, that it was the first riding in the Province of Ontario to elect a CCF member in 1934, and that’s a pretty good tradition.

Mr. Peterson: Shame. Shame.

Mr. Mackenzie: It’s quite a tradition, and it’s had some representation that would be pretty hard for some of my Liberal friends to match.

Mr. Roy: Don’t you worry, you will break the tradition.

Mr. Mackenzie: It’s also a riding that is probably a microcosm of all of the ridings in this province. It’s a riding that is essentially working-class people; as a matter of fact, almost entirely. The ritzy areas of the riding are relatively few. It’s a riding of hard-working people who are pretty proud of the fact that they work and work hard, whether it be in the steel mills or the rubber plants or the glass plant in Hamilton in the east end.

Mr. Moffatt: Control the member for London Centre.

Mr. Samis: The rabble-rouser from London.

Mr. Mackenzie: It is a riding that recognizes the needs and the problems of working people. The riding, while it has a large area of highrises developing and a growing ethnic population, is still basically a riding of homeowners. That adds, I think, a little additional pride to these people, both in their jobs and in their homes. It’s a riding, therefore, that’s interested in what happens in this province in the field of labour, and I want to deal with that for a few moments. It comes from affiliation, from working since I was 15 in the labour movement, and not from being taught by anybody we have to hire in our caucus.

Mr. Renwick: Nice to see the member for St. Catharines (Mr. Johnston) here.

Mr. Moffatt: It’s an effort, Bob.

Mr. Makarchuk: Are you still strapping in the pumpkins?

Mr. Mackenzie: Labour is something that we are a little bit worried about right now. I want to talk as clearly as I can about a few things and I want to review some of my remarks. I also want to plagiarize a little bit and use some of the remarks that were made by Lynn Williams, the director of the steelworkers union, in a recent speech. I want to talk as clearly as I can on some of these issues. I think we are all aware of the confusion and controversy that surrounds the union-management relationships in the province right now. It is difficult to keep an open mind and maintain some real perspective in this area. In any relationship between individuals and between institutions, people sometimes regret some of the things that they say thoughtlessly. I want to use a couple of examples.

The Postmaster General declared his employees were not patriotic citizens for going on strike in this country last year. The Ontario member of the Anti-Inflation Board says that he doubts the leaders of the unions are in touch with their members.

I think we have seen in this province vicious and incessant attacks on various groups, and I am picking out particularly the Metro Toronto teachers, who are accused of being greedy and selfish.

Some of these attacks have been carried out by people, media people, business people --

Mr. Haggerty: Like David Lewis a couple of years ago.

Mr. Mackenzie: -- who in most cases are making one heck of a lot more than the teachers who are involved; sometimes several times the wages of the teachers.

I don’t think that the labour movement, not just the teachers, but the industrial unions, the service unions, can ever be accused of concealing their wants and their desires. In part, it’s because of the very process that we go through, and I have been through it a number of times, the collective bargaining process. It is one in which the communications are very open. When those in more fortunate positions than wage earners press their demands they do it a heck of a lot more quietly than the union member will do.

In the 18 months up until last August, the nickel corporations that the steelworkers negotiated with -- International Nickel, Sherritt Gordon, Falconbridge -- raised their prices five times for a total increase in world prices of 44 per cent; price increases which I think we all recognize will have serious impact as they work their way through the entire world economy.

Mr. Moffatt: Tell Jean-Luc Pepin about that.

Mr. Mackenzie: He knows about it, and a lot of other things that he doesn’t move on too, but that’s typical Liberal. Yet, these price increases, and this is the point I want to make, caused hardly any reproach or any reaction in our community at all.

Mrs. Campbell: He’s jealous.

Mr. Roy: You have got to have an open mind.

Mr. Moffatt: He does.

An hon. member: A hole in the head is what he has.

Mr. Mackenzie: It is very difficult, if you have gone through a few sets of negotiations with Ford or Stelco, to have an open mind. I would ask, how much reaction have we had to this kind of increase -- five times, 44 per cent in 18 months for International Nickel? Maybe it is because these particular corporations don’t have to bargain in public, set their demands out in public, and maybe they don’t throw picket lines around the union halls or a consumer association.

Hon. Mr. Davis: You are going to nationalize them.

Mr. Mackenzie: I don’t think it is necessary.

An hon. member: Look what you did to Hydro.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Davis: You are getting them well trained.

Mr. Mackenzie: If the Premier wanted to pursue that issue he would have no real problem with the workers, either at Stelco or International Nickel, in that particular area. But the workers there happen to be smart enough to know that that is not necessarily the route we have to take.

An hon. member: Tell us about Dofasco.

Mr. Mackenzie: It should be understood in these days of discussion --

Mr. Peterson: Well then, why don’t you pay some attention to it?

Mr. Foulds: Why don’t you?

Mr. Mackenzie: -- about big corporations and big unions, and I think this is an important point, Mr. Speaker, that the unions have no involvement in the establishment of prices.

[8:45]

Interjections.

Mr. Mackenzie: They have made some attempts over the years, but they have always been advised in no uncertain terms that prices aren’t the business of the workers who negotiate their contracts; that prices aren’t negotiated. Prices are demands that the corporations make on our society; they are not negotiated, but the people have to pay them.

When it comes to working Canadians and their income, the rules seem to change a little. Their needs or demands have got to be bargained, as I said earlier, in the public eye. I have no complaint about that. To me, it’s an essential part of the process, really what a democratic way of life is all about. But it is the kind of openness that should apply to the other sectors of society as well -- something my friends on the left and across the way always seem to have difficulty understanding --

Mr. Shore: We never have.

Mr. Roy: Explain it to us.

Mr. Mackenzie: -- as do these corporations that exercise a much more basic kind of power than does the labour movement. It’s part of what we mean when we talk about the need for some social responsibility in our community. What do we in the labour movement really mean or really want? Well, we want more; that’s obvious. Any worker worth his salt does. That implies to almost everyone else, I think.

Mr. Riddell: Even Elie wants more.

Mr. Mackenzie: Obviously, we want to get rid of this insane war on labour that’s going on right now -- a war that most of us who have been in the trade union movement feel very strongly is a real attack on the whole process of free collective bargaining. It is an attack on workers’ income, and if it is not stopped pretty soon, it is going to create real problems in our society.

Mr. Roy: You should talk to Ed Schreyer.

Mr. Mackenzie: But the fact that the war is on -- that the labour movement feels it is necessary to prepare itself for a struggle like none it has engaged in before, other than the struggle of its very creation -- underlines, I think, the concern that many people feel.

I wish that there was more attention paid by everyone to the benefits of collective bargaining between employees and employers - I wish there was more explanation provided by our news media about why employees organize and why in rare times it’s necessary that they withdraw their services. I wish there was greater understanding of the economic forces underlying the collective bargaining arena.

I have been in a position where I have had to help workers make this decision. I suppose it was my committee and my department that pulled out the Ford office workers in 1949 in the first office workers’ strike in this country. And if you think it’s easy to deal with office workers and to have them take that kind of a position, let me tell you they have got to be goaded by the slowness and the unfairness of the whole collective bargaining system before they will make such a move.

Instead of understanding what’s happening to workers in the plants, we have a declaration that collective bargaining is the culprit for the increases that we have had, and for the inflation -- and this is in spite of the fact that wage increases inevitably trail behind price increases. I have never known a set of negotiations yet where we have not been in a catch-up position or bargaining to catch up with an inflationary spiral in our country.

Mr. Peterson: What ever happened to productivity?

Mr. Mackenzie: Well, there’s an interesting point about productivity. The labour cost per ton of finished steel in the mills of Stelco has gone down for 11 consecutive years. But every time we have negotiated a contract in that mill, the argument of management has been that the increased cost of labour is the reason the company has got to go after increased prices. It is pretty difficult really to justify some of the statements.

Mr. Peterson: Nationalize them!

Mr. Mackenzie: Incidentally, I am glad there is a little more opposition around. It is much better than the temporary leader of the Liberal Party we have at the moment. Is that what he’s called?

Mr. Samis: The interim leader.

Mr. Mackenzie: I think he is undercutting his leader. He didn’t work out too well.

Mr. Foulds: Batman and Robin. “The Dynamic Duo.”

Mr. Mackenzie: In the two years, 1973 and 1974, average weekly wages and salaries paid in Canada rose 21.8 per cent but were overtaken by the cost of living, which went up 22.7 per cent. It meant in real dollars that the value of wages and salaries declined. While this was going on the slice of the economic pie going to wage earners was shrinking. The percentage of net income going to labour declined from 1971 to 1974 and although it recovered somewhat in 1975, it is today no higher, as a percentage, than it was in 1969. I don’t know how we relate that to the inflationary problem we have.

The inability of government and private industry to create more jobs only reinforces in the minds of working people the need to secure income now. The working Canadian can’t afford to wait for tomorrow; he can’t afford to bank on the government’s hopes for lower inflation rates next year or the year after. The car payment is due now. I understand it; I’m making one and I’m sure others are. The rents and the mortgage payments are due and the sons and the daughters want the opportunities to go to college and university.

Canada has one of the worst unemployment rates in the world among the industrial countries and this is one of the things that bothers me most about the budget -- the lack of any concrete action to try to deal with it. There is no right to a job in our province or our country --

Hon. Mr. Davis: It is so much better in the UK.

Mr. Mackenzie: The Premier could also use some other countries, maybe Sweden, as an example. We found less than two per cent unemployment there.

An hon. member: It’s a hell of a lot lower than this government’s.

Mr. Mackenzie: Also, I don’t believe that in the UK it’s above that of Canada. There are fewer than 100,000 job vacancies in this country.

Mr. Makarchuk: What’s the unemployment rate in Saskatchewan or Manitoba?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Very low.

Mr. Makarchuk: Yes, compared to Ontario.

Mr. Kennedy: It’s improving in British Columbia.

Mr. Mackenzie: Many of the vacancies are only for part-time work. We have something like seven times the number of people looking for work as there are jobs available, including part-time jobs, in our country. I might say the jobless statistics the government is juggling with don’t reveal the entire dimensions of the unemployment crisis. The statistics don’t say how many have given up looking for work; they don’t say how many are underemployed and who have taken jobs in which they cannot use their talents for the benefit of the economy. The unemployed statistics don’t even count the unemployed among our first citizens in this country, the Indians and the native people.

Most of our effective people working in the welfare departments will tell us -- the ones I’ve talked to at least, without exceptions -- that the problem certainly in the last year is not the bum on welfare; it’s the fact that there are not jobs to put the welfare recipients to work at.

Mr. Foulds: Create the jobs.

Mr. Mackenzie: Another little story that goes around sometimes when we’re trying to make a case for some of the changes we’d like to see --I’ve heard it in this House -- is that we’re in danger of pricing ourselves out of the world market.

Mr. Shore: You don’t believe it?

Mr. Mackenzie: I’ll tell you one thing -- if it were true it would obviously be reason for real concern but it’s not so.

Mr. Lewis: No, it’s utter nonsense. Liberal claptrap, that’s what it is. The mythologies that delude all of you.

Mr. Mackenzie: One of the reasons it’s not so is because the prices of our imports are rising faster than the prices we charge for our exports. When we preach public interest to employees and when those concerned are doing some of our society’s most unpleasant work, they have little choice but to conclude that their interests are the public interests, too. In exchange for taking essential jobs there should be some appropriate recognition in the pay cheques.

I saw an interesting comparison that the Canadian Union of Public Employees used when it was comparing the wages of zoo keepers with hospital orderlies. It pointed out that in many major cities the people who tend the animals earned more than the people who cared for people. It appears that that’s still accurate. Zoo keepers at the Metro Toronto Zoo are now earning $5.36 an hour and hospital workers at Toronto General are earning $4.59 an hour.

Mr. Shore: We should get a bigger pay because this is a big zoo right here.

Mr. Mackenzie: Yes, you can hear the baying quite often down at that end.

Mr. Mancini: Are you saying you want to take the wages from them?

Mr. Moffatt: And give it to the hospital workers?

Mr. Mackenzie: I don’t think there is any simple way of determining what a job is worth in our society. I served a brief period on the CWS committee and have some understanding of it. I know for more than two decades steelworkers have worked at developing a sophisticated and comprehensive job evaluation system called co-operative wage study, or CWS. The employees are full and equal partners with management -- something I think we need more of -- in revising job categories and evaluating the skill of the workers; responsibilities and other factors that determine the scale of jobs and co-operative wage study programmes. The job and not the job holder is evaluated, and there is no thence of discrimination -- or very little chance of discrimination. And the employees have a true voice in determining what their job is worth.

But when the government and the advocates of wage controls superimposed an unfair and discriminatory scheme on collective bargaining through the controls that we now have, it makes the whole business of evaluating jobs and working out an equitable job classification an exercise in futility.

Another thing that I am concerned with is the area of safety and health. I find it difficult to understand when we get a researcher of the superior calibre of Dr. Ronald Woulf at McMaster -- possibly one of the five top people trained in the world in the field of checking on and testing the lungs of workers in the steel mills -- that the federal government cops out. The federal Liberals have copped out of a lot of things in the last year or two.

But when they cop out of the funds for research and say “no more” and cut it off, and we ask in this House, this government, in that key area -- and we have had the experiences of the mines, the asbestos mines, Elliot Lake, and now the emerging problems in the steel mills -- and when we ask and ask, as I have of the acting Minister of Health (B. Stephenson) over the last month, to step in before it’s too late because this particular person is due to leave toward the end of May for the United States, we find that somehow or other we can’t find that kind of research funding. I might say it’s not a very heavy amount. We certainly should not be losing people of this calibre in the research field.

I find it difficult to understand why it took this government so long to move in the case of the Matachewan mine. I heard somebody yelling from across the way during one of the question periods. They said: “Oh, what are you going to do; the workers wouldn’t like it.” I took the trouble to call -- and I am sure our researchers and others did as well -- and let me tell you, the numbers that didn’t like it were minute compared to those who finally realized the danger they were in; the situation that wasn’t being cleaned up in that mine -- and the need to do something. But why does it always take us so long to move in these kinds of situations?

Another thing that is bothering me in my constituency -- and I suspect it’s a problem with most of the members in this House -- is the delays that force some people on to welfare while they are waiting for workmen’s compensation. I don’t know what’s happened to the Workmen’s Compensation Board procedures in the last year, and particularly in the last five or six months. It has lost people who used to be among its strongest defenders. I can think of somebody like John Lenny of Local 1005. He has probably done more for compensation work than anyone. Possibly one or two would compare with him in the Inco operation. But he has done more compensation work than anybody I know. If you tried to knock the Workmen’s Compensation Board with John up until the last few months you had a fight on your hands -- even if you could give him some examples or list some of the problems. But now he will tell you something is wrong. The delays are too long; it is too difficult to establish some of the cases that are obvious. Somewhere something has gone haywire in that department.

Mr. Haggerty: More interested in organization than anything.

[9:00]

Mr. Mackenzie: I want also to deal with some of the health care service cutbacks. This is another area where I just can’t understand the government of this province. I have heard most of the arguments now sitting in this House on both sides. But I share a concern that my predecessor, Reg Gisborn, had. I would suggest to the members on the government side of the House -- they may not want to accept it -- I would suggest to them it’s a fear that’s being held by a larger and larger number of people out in the constituencies. That is, just what is this government doing to the comprehensive health care system we have built up in this province? I know Reg has told me that if there’s one thing he was proud of in the 20 years he sat in this House it was the development of and the advances in the whole health care, hospitalization and OHIP field. He has a concern.

Mr. Hodgson: It’s not a bad programme.

Mr. Mackenzie: It’s not a bad programme except that we’re paying a lot more than we should in this province. It falls most unfairly on the poor and the low-income people. Are we dismantling this? Obviously the government is going to say no, but let me tell members it worries me; it worries a lot of people out there.

I can’t see the kind of cuts, $40 million or $50 million, which this government was talking about in hospitals and in public labs, when we take a look at what is available in the budget and some of the things we’re spending moneys on. I can’t for the life of me understand it. Of course, this is one of the things which does set us apart from the Liberals and the Conservatives -- why couldn’t the government use one per cent additional corporate tax in this province? When I take a look at 12 per cent as against 13 and 14 and, in the case of BC, 15 per cent provincial corporate tax; and when I see that one per cent would produce about $77½ million, there is the entire cost-cutting in the health field. To me, in terms of people, that would have made one hell of a lot more sense than what was done.

It’s like a broken record but some people need to learn a little bit of our history and the fight that went on for this kind of programme. I can’t understand why we’ve laid off 61 people at the Hamilton Psychiatric Hospital recently and why we’ve already hired 16 more registered nurses in the last five to six weeks in that operation. I’m wondering where the savings are that the government was talking about.

I can’t understand why they are still advertising in that particular hospital for registered nurses. I can’t understand the phoniness -- and I say that advisedly -- of a government’s position and a minister’s position who tells us in this House he would only wish that a health council would take hold of a problem -- I’m referring now to the Chedoke Hospital situation in Hamilton -- and would make positive recommendations to us.

Mr. Norton: If you communicated with your constituents and asked them, you might find the answer.

Mr. Mackenzie: They asked for that as well. They asked for it at the meeting we had in the minister’s office and I was there.

Mr. Foulds: As a guy who can’t even answer a question about his own legislation, I wouldn’t interrupt if I were you.

Mr. Norton: Come on, I will answer.

Mr. Mackenzie: Let me tell members when that health council does meet --

Mr. Lewis: You have been to a hair stylist, Keith. Is this the new Tory image?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The member for Hamilton East has the floor.

Mr. Mackenzie: There is one thing about the member for Kingston and the Islands, he’s a real Tory and we know it as soon as we start listening to him. At least, he’s not one of the most antagonistic ones on that bench.

Mr. Lewis: No, positively human.

Hon. Mr. Davis: None of us is antagonistic.

Mr. Mackenzie: As a matter of fact, I found it very difficult to follow the member for Oxford. I suppose I would have liked it a little better if he had been a little more controversial but he was so bland and quiet that it was almost impossible to follow.

Mr. Hodgson: He will find it difficult to follow you, too.

Mr. Lewis: Add a few more Nortons, you wouldn’t lose so many seats. Fortunately you don’t.

Mr. Mackenzie: I would much rather have a few of the Neanderthals over there or down to my left speaking ahead of me because then I can get riled a little bit.

Mr. Drea: Why don’t you do something about the hair styling of your deputy?

Mr. Lewis: Which one?

Mr. Mackenzie: I really wonder how we can have a minister tell us, “Let the health council make the decisions, do some cutting, and come back to us. That’s what we want.” The health council did precisely that and cut 37 beds and came back with the 150-bed count. After discussion with the other hospitals and unless the information I’ve got is wrong -- I’m sure all the other members in the Hamilton area are going through that hospital and talking to them -- they’re going to maintain that west end hospital and the services around the rehabilitation centre. That’s about what they need to maintain. Then to have the minister come in and say, “That wasn’t good enough. You’ve now got until June 1 to get it down to 100,” why in blazes do they ask the health council to make a recommendation in the first place? It doesn’t make sense and it makes about as much sense as many of the things I’ve seen this government do.

Interjections.

Mr. Mackenzie: Another thing that concerns me is that we have had a budget come down and I can see absolutely nothing that helps people in the area of housing.

Mr. Lewis: You are really hurting.

Mr. Mackenzie: Housing is a double-barrelled deal. Not only do I feel housing is a right for people and an obligation of government, but it is also something that produces jobs quicker than anything else you can do in our economy.

Hon. Mr. Davis: We said that last year and your colleagues didn’t agree with us.

Mr. Mackenzie: Ah, that is not quite true. It’s what you wanted to do and how you wanted to do it.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Oh, I remember well. You should have been here.

Interjections.

Mr. Makarchuk: Try building houses for a change.

Mr. Mackenzie: Let me give you an example of two or three of the cases that came across my desk today.

Interjections.

Mr. Mackenzie: This woman in one of the apartments on welfare in our community is drawing $197 alone, single. Her current rent of $130 is being increased to $145; she is appealing it. I don’t know how you get by on $55 or $60. When I started to do some checking, I found that the Moose Lodge had been delivering a basket or two of groceries about twice a month in that particular case. The person really is too proud to have made too much noise up until now. Let me tell you there is going to be a lot of noise made about some of these cases.

Another senior citizen whose income is $238 -- these are two cases today in my constituency office -- is paying $145 a month rent. She also pays her hydro and her phone and has about $60 a month left for food and other necessities of life.

I decided I would also call the Hamilton housing authority and find out just where we stood on housing. I am talking now about the people who need it the most and not a gap that is still considerable when you look at the number of people who will apply when there is an Ontario Housing or a HOME development opened up. And what do I find? I find that as of March 31 in my city of Hamilton there were 455 married couples and 819 single-parent families looking for family accommodation on their list, and that list is probably not complete. There are a number of people who have given up because there are still some people who have been as long as five years on that waiting list. I found in seniors accommodation -- they have done quite a bit in seniors in Hamilton and I will concede that -- as of March 31 we had 816 single people and 148 couples on the waiting list; 964 in that category. If a government stands indicted, this government does in the area of housing.

Mr. Drea: Why doesn’t the city of Hamilton do something?

Mr. Lupusella: You would never understand it. Why doesn’t your government do something about it?

Mr. Mackenzie: I don’t know whether or not this government realizes what is happening with people when they come in and talk to members in their offices and when they raise some of the problems they are having, whether it’s housing, whether it’s welfare, whether it’s workmen’s compensation, or whether it’s the increased cost of insurance. You tell them there is not much you can do about it. You get a little note that says: “With the same company for 20 years; 1974 Olds; no accidents in 10 years; my 1975 insurance was $212 and my 1976 insurance is $262.50” Or you get a small businessman who calls you and says: “I run three or four taxis in this town. Last year they charged me $4,700 for the insurance for four cars. My premium this year has jumped to $7,900. How do I stay in business?”

Mr. Gregory: Maybe we should do what they did in BC?

Mr. Mackenzie: I would rather do something than do nothing and that is the history of your government.

Mr. Gregory: Why don’t we do that? Go completely broke.

Mr. Hodgson: Tell us what you would like to do.

Mr. Foulds: We would start with you.

Mr. Hodgson: You are being negative up till now. Why don’t you be positive?

Mr. Mackenzie: You have 1,000 or 1,500 people coming in, and the one thing that hasn’t got through some of the thick skulls over on that side of the House --

Mr. Norton: Oh, don’t be insulting now.

Mr. Mackenzie: -- is just exactly what these people are saying.

Mr. Norton: You don’t resort to that kind of thing.

Mr. Mackenzie: Let me give you a little story that is typical of what is happening. I wish you people would start listening to people out there in the constituencies once again. I know you are playing for all of the right wing votes in the Liberal Party and you’ll probably get most of them.

Hon. Mr. Davis: We are interested in everybody.

Mr. Mackenzie: I don’t know how many of them will come back, but it’s time you quit playing to the right and started playing to people.

Mr. Makarchuk: Very few, hopefully.

Mr. Mackenzie: Quit playing to that far right wing, I tell the Premier; he’ll get their votes anyhow. Start dealing with people and earn some votes honestly.

Mr. Hodgson: Tell us what you are going to do.

Interjections.

Mr. Mackenzie: Earn some votes honestly. You haven’t got a chance.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: You would be too old.

Mr. Mackenzie: Let me just tell you some of the little things that are going on.

Interjections.

Mr. Mackenzie: I felt very good to get a call a couple of weeks ago.

Interjections.

Mr. Mackenzie: It was from an old couple who are very active in a hospital auxiliary and in their church. The call was nice because I had called on them three times; twice in two unsuccessful campaigns, I must admit, and once in this last campaign. And in every case, as some of the Tories are wont to be, they were very nice, very decent old people. They said they had no arguments with me; just: “I’m sorry, Mr. Mackenzie, but we happen to support the other party, the Conservative Party, and we have for a good many years.”

Mr. Foulds: This is the only chance government members are going to get to applaud this story.

Interjections.

Mr. Mackenzie: I want your clapping, because these two people also happen to be a couple of very active oldtimers in our community. I did get through to their son, though, and as a matter of fact he came out and was in charge of my sign campaign in the last election campaign. But even though he worked I couldn’t get his parents’ votes. They happen to live on Woodman Drive; they’d be happy to have one of you people call around and see them.

Mr. Norton: This speech is starting to sound like a “Who’s Who” of Hamilton.

Interjections.

Mr. Mackenzie: He brought his parents along one day to see what went on in this House. They were sitting up in the gallery about a month ago during one of our sessions.

Mr. Hodgson: Tell us something positive; it sounds like a fairy tale.

Mr. Mackenzie: I know the member will like this after his clapping; does he know what they said?

Mr. Deans: What happened to maiden speeches?

Mr. Hodgson: So much for the nice guy.

Mr. Mackenzie: What’s the matter, is it bothering the member and the other Tories a little bit? Let me tell them what she did when she phoned up less than two weeks ago.

Mr. Drea: I am frightened to ask.

Mr. Mackenzie: Her remark to me was: “Mr. Mackenzie, I think we must have worn blinkers for the last 42 years.” I’m not sure if the Premier will know a Mrs. Caneer, but certainly she had the ability to walk into the office of Leslie Frost, and into John Robarts’ office in this Legislature; and Reg Gisborn used to say to her that she was the battle axe and the war horse of the Tory party.

Hon. Mr. Davis: That’s not very nice.

Mr. Mackenzie: That’s right, but that was the kind of relationship that existed. Reg sent me up to see her during the last election campaign. She is not well, she’s had some heart problems recently, but I was up to see her again just two or three weeks ago.

Mr. Norton: And now she is going to head up your sign campaign next time out.

Interjections.

Mr. Mackenzie: And she said to me: “Mr. Mackenzie, you don’t know it, but you got my vote last time after Mr. Gisborn called. My party, as far as I’m concerned, has deserted me and you can make it public who I’m supporting this time around.” That’s a name well known in Tory circles in Hamilton.

Mr. Peterson: That accounts for two votes, where are the rest?

Mr. Good: The end is in sight.

Hon. Mr. Davis: We care about our people regardless of how they vote.

Mr. Mackenzie: I’m really only trying to help the Premier.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I appreciate that.

Mr. Mackenzie: If he doesn’t start waking up we are going to take over quicker than he thinks in this province.

Mr. Hodgson: Who is leader?

Mr. Drea: You have cleared the front row of your party, the whole front row.

Mr. Mackenzie: I also want to deal with the area of jobs, because obviously jobs is the area to which we are not responding.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. If the members of this assembly don’t want to hear the member for Hamilton East I’m sure some of our visitors in the galleries would like to hear him,

Mr. Peterson: That’s a reasonable deduction in the circumstances.

Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, before he drives you out --

Mr. Mancini: Keep it up; you’re creating insomnia in the back ranks there.

Mr. Mackenzie: They are a little livelier than they were earlier in the evening anyhow.

Interjections.

Mr. Drea: It’s fun to be here.

Mr. Mackenzie: Eisd do bhevl, Frank.

I want to say that the government action in cutting back in the public service area is fraught with a lot of dangers that I’m not sure they have really stopped to think out. I have in front of me a background paper by Mike Pennick, a research associate with the Social Planning and Research Council in Hamilton, which he submitted on March 8 of this year.

[9:15]

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: A very unbiased report.

Mr. Drea: He is reading, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Mackenzie: He’s got a couple of very important points which should be made here, I think.

Interjections.

Mr. Cunningham: Margaret, don’t sit in that chair.

Mr. Ferris: Any other chair.

Mr. Mackenzie: The purpose of this paper is a partial basis -- you’re really bothered, aren’t you, this evening?

Mr. Drea: He is reading.

Mr. Mackenzie: It’s a partial basis for predicting the effect of any government policies upon employment and opportunities within any given area. In this paper, public sector is defined in terms of the industrial categories and the national census. “Public sector industry will be defined as hospitals, welfare organizations, education services and public administration.”

The bulk of the paper deals with trends which occurred between 1961 and 1971.

Mr. Hodgson: You next, Mike?

Mr. Cassidy: Just wait.

Mr. Drea: Who is next?

Mr. Mackenzie: This period was chosen because 1961 and 1971 were the years of the last two major censuses and the census is the only major source of specific employment data. In 1961, 11.8 per cent of the labour force --

Interjection.

Mr. Mackenzie: It’s 11.18 per cent to be accurate -- this is in the Hamilton area -- was employed by the public sector. By 1971, this 11.18 per cent had increased to 16.54 per cent. I know that strikes fear in the hearts of Tories, this increase in the public sector.

Mr. Drea: He reads as well as Bill.

Mr. Mackenzie: Thus the share of the labour force employed by the public sector increased by 5.36 per cent during that period. During the same decade there was an expansion of 38,000 job in the area. Of those expanded jobs 14,000, or almost 38 per cent, were in the public sector.

Mr. Foulds: Don’t go, Bill.

Mr. Mackenzie: Manufacturers, for example, in the Hamilton area had 8,005 new jobs in that 10-year period. The public sector had 14,422 jobs in that period.

Mr. Thea: Teach him how to read, Jimmy.

Mr. Mackenzie: This little table, just to give members a couple of figures, shows in the public sector 19,900 employed, increased to 31,500 from 1961 to 1971; an 85.02 per cent increase. In the private sector 134,000 to 158,000; a 17.6 per cent increase.

Interjection.

Mr. Mackenzie: If the public sector had increased at the same rate as the private sector, which is one of the arguments I get from the government on cutting back government spending, there would have been a loss in the Hamilton area of 14,426 jobs in that 10-year period.

Mr. Norton: If the public sector hadn’t increased its spending, it might have had more money to increase the employment --

Mr. Mackenzie: I see; you want the old trickle down theory. You want to pass it on to the corporations as we’re now doing and hope it will produce jobs. What do the sales tax cuts do in the way of producing jobs?

Mr. Norton: In the labour unions --

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Drea: You’re dead on that one.

Mr. Mackenzie: Obviously, you can’t -- you will respond differently. That’s where there’s a basic difference in our parties and thank God there is that kind of a choice for people.

Mr. Norton: It produces cause and effect.

Mr. Makarchuk: Your cause and effect has been a miserable failure.

Mr. Lupusella: You’re losing credit now.

Mr. Norton: Come on.

Mr. Foulds: The only people you are keeping in business are the hair stylists.

Mr. Makarchuk: Yes, what caused that effect?

Mr. Mackenzie: If this trend continues -- I hope some of the members get the point I’m trying to make here -- if this trend continues to 1986 in our community, what will be its future effects on the composition of the labour force in Hamilton?

Mr. Drea: It will all be part of Toronto.

Mr. Mackenzie: The growth within the private sector was 1.76 per cent between 1961 and 1971 -- 17.6 per cent rather. This corresponds to a 15-year growth of 26.4 per cent. The corresponding 15-year growth period for the public sector is 137.5 per cent.

Mr. Drea: Bet you didn’t write that, did you?

Mr. Mackenzie: I’m not bucking for a cabinet position and you’re not going to get one, so you might as well quit. Your track record’s not very good as it is.

Mr. Drea: Bob, the last time I took advice from a pork chop, look where it got me.

Mr. Makarchuk: No more rooms at the Park Plaza for you.

Mr. Drea: I never had one.

Mr. Mackenzie: What really happens when we start cutting back on the public sector is we cut the one area where the growth in employment in our province and our country has been and where it’s likely to be in the future.

Interjections.

Mr. Mackenzie: The automation we are seeing in the industrial plants is not going to lead to a very big increase in the work force. The prospects for a quick buildup of our secondary industries, certainly with the government we have here -- even worse if we had the Liberals in -- are not likely to be accelerated very quickly.

The growth of jobs is going to be in the service industries whether the Tories like it or not and if we start cutting back on these jobs we are going to have a tremendous and terrible unemployment problem in this country.

Mr. Shore: The best thing that has been said today; right on.

Mr. Foulds: It certainly is. Not like you; when he says something in this Legislature he means it.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Phoney as a $9 bill.

Mr. Mackenzie: I want to make one or two points in closing.

Mr. Hodgson: It beats being a school teacher.

Mr. Drea: He never was a school teacher.

Mr. Mackenzie: Your intelligence is pretty good, let me tell you.

Mr. Makarchuk: You would never know the difference.

Interjections.

Mr. Makarchuk: Is that a Tory fact?

Mr. Hodgson: You are just on the payroll?

Mr. Makarchuk: You are learning something, are you?

Mr. Mackenzie: There is a very basic difference in approach --

Mr. Norton: There is a basic difference. It has an educative effect; keep it up.

Mr. Mackenzie: -- between our party and the other two parties in this House. Yes, we would change the way to do the taxing. Yes, we would go after housing in a massive way and create jobs with it. Yes, we would put public money in and build if we had to, although I think it can be done by the private sector. All of these options are there. Yes, we would see that there is a fair share of taxes paid in the resource industry and in the corporate world -- something we won’t get from either the Tory party or the Liberals, that’s obvious.

Mr. Norton: Put them out of business like they did in BC with their five per cent sales tax.

Mr. Mackenzie: The funny thing is none of them went out of business.

Mr. Norton: That’s not true.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Except for the NDP.

Mr. Mackenzie: I might give a few figures to hassle the private enterprisers. One of the problems going on right now in the Province of Saskatchewan is in the potash field. I wonder if some of the members are aware of how much, in its last year, the Liberal government in that province received in taxes and royalties from the six major potash mines in the Province of Saskatchewan.

Interjections.

Mr. Mackenzie: It is your people who had this giveaway. That is why I couldn’t help looking down there.

Interjection.

Mr. Mackenzie: Let me tell you what was received.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Tell us what those Liberals get.

Mr. Cassidy: They are very sensitive.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Mackenzie: It was $1.7 million.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Could we have the hon. member for Hamilton East complete his speech?

Mr. Mackenzie: Yes, $1.7 million.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Hamilton East only, thank you.

Mr. Mackenzie: You will get your chance later, I think, if they let you on.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Mackenzie: It was $1.7 million. What was received by the Province of Saskatchewan in the year 1974, the year prior to this most recent Saskatchewan election? It was $77 million. From $1.7 million -- the Liberal giveaway in 1971 -- to $77 million in 1974.

Interjections.

Mr. Mackenzie: Let me talk a little more about this situation.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Those figures are wrong.

Mr. Mackenzie: Let me tell members a little more. The companies decided they weren’t going to pay the taxes; they were going to fight it all the way down the line. Some of their arguments were that it would hurt the industry, it would lose jobs, it would cut their profits.

Mr. Makarchuk: They’ll take their potash and leave.

Mr. Mackenzie: The interesting thing --

Mr. Makarchuk: On their backs.

Mr. Mackenzie: -- in the Province of Saskatchewan is that in 1974 there were more people working, the industry was healthier, and the profits were larger in spite of that kind of a payout to the province.

Mr. Drea: That’s because they didn’t vote Liberal.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The member for Hamilton East.

Mr. Mackenzie: No, I would equate it with sound economic planning and a fair share which is all the people want -- something that is not understood by the other two parties on every occasion.

Interjections.

Mr. Lupusella: They will never understand that.

Mr. Drea: Now you have bankrupted BC.

Mr. Mackenzie: Let me tell --

Interjections.

Mr. Mackenzie: Let me tell members about --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. I would suggest that perhaps the hon. members might read tomorrow’s Hansard and reflect upon tonight. We will hear the hon. member for Hamilton East. Thank you.

Mr. Mackenzie: There is a difference, a very basic difference -- it is one that I am proud of -- between us and the members who sit across the way; not in a nasty personal way but in terms of policy and philosophy. To give most of the Conservatives credit, it is something, I think, that they understand. I think they know where we are at. They may not agree with us; they obviously don’t. They know where we are at. They know what we stand for, and they know we are for real. At least we start from that basis -- something that we really don’t understand or know about as far as I can tell from this party down at the left.

But I would like to close; I would like to close --

Interjection.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The member for Hamilton East is making the speech. Thank you.

Mr. Mackenzie: I would like to close --

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Mackenzie: -- by warning the party that has had a pretty long tradition in this province that people have really begun to wonder about it. I think that has really happened. They had better start listening to people and start looking at positive and progressive legislation; not the kind of right-wing backlash we are getting. There is a dry rot that has set in and it seems to have permeated the entire party, and it is going to be its downfall.

An hon. member: Starting right at the top.

Mr. Mackenzie: I am sure there are a few others who would like a chance tonight, and I will close with those remarks.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Frontenac-Addington wishes to speak. Thank you.

Mr. Drea: Now, this ought to be marvellous.

Mr. Mancini: Better than yours.

Mr. Lewis: Well for heaven’s sake; pound your desks for him. He is one of your members.

Mr. McEwen: It is not necessary.

Mr. Speaker, you know it’s an honour to be allowed to speak in your presence. I would like to congratulate you on your reappointment this year. I would also like to congratulate the Deputy Speaker and the chairman and vice-chairman for the wonderful job they have been doing conducting the business of this House. I would also like to bring you greetings from the riding of Frontenac-Addington, who some say hasn’t had a voice for four or five years.

Mr. Norton: It is right next to Kingston and the Islands.

Mr. Drea: Don’t get confused if you can’t read your ad libs.

Mr. McEwen: Oh, I tell you. I have learned not to be confused. Listening to the member for Scarborough Centre being confused has taught me a great deal and I thank you very much.

Mr. Drea: With your track record you can be confused on anything.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. member for Frontenac-Addington has the floor. Thank you.

Mr. Riddell: Why doesn’t the member for Scarborough Centre sit and listen for a change?

Mr. Speaker: The member for Frontenac-Addington. Order, please.

Mr. McEwen: I didn’t think the opportunity would ever arise when I would be given the opportunity to say a few words on a number of things that I have in mind, but fortunately we have the time to debate the budget. If I had to wait during the question period, I believe that I would have had a beard long enough to stretch out the front door. The time for speeches, 8 to 10:30 p.m., appears to me to be a terrible time to ask people to come in here and discuss business, to empty seats on the other side in particular --

Interjection.

Mr. McEwen: I would believe that --

Mr. Haggerty: Is the member for Scarborough Centre leaving?

Mr. McEwen: I believe consideration should be given so that members would have the opportunity of speaking at morning sessions. I would be certainly happy to attend morning sessions and have the opportunity of asking questions for my constituents.

Just to speak briefly on the question period, I have been sitting back as a newcomer and attempting to learn the ropes of this operation. I see members of the Liberal Party in particular popping up and down like Yo-Yos and not being recognized, and it is a clear indication of what I have previously stated, that it is almost impossible to make a comment during question period and to have the opportunity of asking a question. I am sure others find it very discouraging, as it certainly has been to me sitting here and listening to the replies given by some of the ministers. Either they don’t have the answers to the questions asked or they are reluctant to admit it, or they are clearly attempting to evade giving anyone any information.

[9:30]

Mr. Norton: Come on, let’s have some of that old fire, instead of apologizing.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. McEwen: Mr. Speaker, through you, I would like to welcome the member for Kingston and the Islands to the House. I would bring the ferry operation to his attention if he cares, but if he wishes, I’ll leave it alone for the time being.

Mr. Peterson: Don’t accuse him of anything you can’t prove now.

Mr. Riddell: It’s nice to have him around.

Mr. McEwen: Mr. Speaker, I was very pleased to receive a letter from you shortly after entering this House, welcoming me here and mentioning that this is a very exclusive club, the Legislature of Ontario. I would hope that the members on the other side of this club especially would pay more attention to the needs of our people; and not just at election time.

The short experience I’ve been fortunate in having as reeve of a quite successful municipality for more than 16 years does, I believe, give me some insight into the problems that municipalities encounter with the provincial government and the bureaucracy that appears to exist in some of the ministries. As I travel throughout the riding of Frontenac-Addington, which I am very fortunate to represent, and listen to the comments made by a good many people who are taxed beyond their means, I can only sincerely sympathize with them, since it is seldom that anyone in government bodies listens to their problems. For this, this government has earned the right to an election -- and the right to defeat.

Mr. Cassidy: We told you that a year and a half ago.

Mr. McEwen: These people are not complaining, as some would have us believe. They have problems, they are asking questions and they want a fair and reasonable answer.

Mr. Cassidy: Where were you two weeks ago? You had the chance to bring them down.

Mr. McEwen: They are only asking to be dealt with and recognized as human beings. Some of the things I have to say will relate to the needs of the people of the Province of Ontario and in particular throughout the riding of Frontenac-Addington.

Before I go on to the items I have to discuss, there’s one item that’s a little out of the field I was going to speak on hut I believe it’s very important, not only to the riding of Frontenac-Addington but to the province in general. This is directed, I believe, to the Ministry of Health.

In the north part of the riding of Frontenac-Addington, we have an ambulance service that’s manned by five men. The total budget for last year was $65,000, and that $65,000 involved the salaries for the five men, the repairs of -- Mr. Speaker, I’d like to read this letter that I sent to the Minister of Health. I didn’t receive an answer and, although he has been ill, I would expect the acting minister to act on something as important as this. This is the letter:

“Dear Frank:

“In Parham, in the centre of the county of Frontenac, there is an established Ministry of Health ambulance service with a complement of five full-time men. The manager’s salary is $4.08 per hour and the other four are paid at the rates of between $3.69 and $3.93 an hour. [It’s almost getting down to the minimum wage.] These men cover an area of 50 to 60 miles in all four directions, carrying out their duties; and at all times there are two men on duty, one at night stationed at headquarters and the other in his home; and the latter cannot leave his home at all while on duty.

“The entire cost of the operation last year was $65,964, and that includes the salaries of the five men, part-time employees for replacement during holidays and so on; $2,500 for repairs of a vehicle which had 130,000 miles on it when the ministry turned it over to them. The sum of $65,964 also included the expense for gas, etc. These men do a good many of the repairs on this vehicle by themselves and they run the headquarters, which is a beautiful bungalow they rent from the church at $100 per month. They have a telephone for their own use, and they pay for this by themselves; they don’t take it out of the budget. Last year they answered 352 calls; and this is the only ambulance service for all over that area of the north country.

“The co-ordinator, a Mr. Barr, visited the headquarters approximately 10 days ago and advised them that they would have to cut down to three full-time operators and obtain volunteers. It appears extremely unlikely that volunteers can be obtained, in which case this operation could very well find itself in the position of having only one man on duty, and it is virtually impossible for one person to lift someone sick on to a stretcher and place them in an ambulance. Therefore, the time wasted could very well mean the death of some people.

“Mr. Barr stated [and this is all verbal; there wasn’t any letter accompanying Mr. Barr to leave with the operators; this was all verbal] that instead of the eight per cent increase to the operation as set up in the guidelines, or even the 5.5 per cent, this branch will receive only $54,000 for 1976. So they are being asked to reduce their already low budget by $12,000.

“I wish to emphasize the low salaries these men are receiving and the invaluable service which they are giving to the north part of the country, and I am taking issue with the ministry with respect to it -- firstly, for the approach that was made, which was verbally dropping this into the lap of these dedicated servants of the public rather than sending out a positive directive; and secondly, because the people in my area are getting very tired of being mauled about in this and in other various matters.

“The areas being served by this operation are as follows: Bedford, Hinchinbrooke, Sheffield township, Camden, Kaladar, Kennebec, Oso, Olden, Palmerston, Clarendon and Miller, South and North Canonto, North Addington, Highway 41 through to Westport, Portland, and Loughborough.

“In the last four years the ministry has removed the medical centre from this area and deprived the residents of that facility. Now they are attempting to disband something which cannot be replaced. In my opinion, if the Ontario government takes a leaf out of the book of this operation, which is being run at a very reasonable cost, and applies it to other branches of government and operations, we would not have the problems of overspending.

“I am calling on the ministry to see that this operation is given encouragement to continue with its very valuable and much-needed service to an extensive area, rather than being discouraged from doing so.”

Mr. Speaker, I haven’t received a reply from the ministry. I received a letter from one of the high-paid, slightly elevated back-benchers to attend a meeting, but he didn’t indicate in the letter that I was to invite those who are operating this ambulance service. Considering the service they have rendered, I think it’s really in order that they should have been invited, and I am disappointed in the ministry. I am disappointed in the acting health minister in not replying to this very urgent need. I remember the minister, who is ill, stating that ambulance service would not be interfered with.

To reduce this service that costs only $65,000 for all of this area -- 50, 60, 75 square miles -- an ambulance service such as this that cannot be replaced by any type of tendering that has been suggested by the co-ordinators, I think is very unfair. I don’t think there has been any organization, there hasn’t been any study made, it’s just snap your finger and cut, cut, cut, regardless of where it is or what happens; just something like has happened to some of the hospitals that we have been referring to here for two, three, four weeks, or a month or so.

I wanted to bring that to the attention of the minister tonight. She is here; I don’t think she was listening all the time, because she was very busy discussing something else, but if she hasn’t got a copy I would be very happy to send it to her --

Hon. B. Stephenson: I heard you.

Mr. McEwen: -- and possibly we would get some action for these people.

I would like to continue. With the interest on the Davis debt now running at more than $2 million a day we are in trouble in Ontario. Much can be accomplished, however, simply through the introduction of sound business techniques and the managing and budgeting of government services. Ontario is in a critical position today because the provincial government has outgrown its proper place in the scheme of things. Gradually, in its 30-odd years, the Conservative administration has wormed itself into assuming the responsibilities of local government to erode them away. Unfortunately, this centralization of power has seldom turned out for the better. We all know what has happened to the government hospitals in the municipalities. Inevitably, this power grab has required rapid expansion of the provincial civil service and brought about a ridiculous duplication of functions and personnel.

Centralizing power in Queen’s Park has naturally robbed local administrations not only of control and authority but of pride in planning. The rentals that result from centralizing the operation in this city are very expensive and I’m sure that considerable funds could be found to reduce the financial problems that we have here.

A tragic example is what has happened to health services in the province, particularly in the Kingston, Napanee and Perth districts. Vastly increased administration costs have overloaded the health budget and made health care and patient service appear much more expensive than they really are. Professional health care experts estimate that a minimum of 30 per cent of the cost of the health scheme could be saved by sensible and efficient reorganization. Hospitals, for example, could be operated on a self-supporting basis under the right conditions, but the spirit is lacking when this system is so dwindled and obscured.

One remedy is to return management of hospitals to the boards of management and directors. Local autonomy is essential to restore the pride of ownership and the interest that built Ontario hospitals in the first place. Instead of being operated dictatorially from Toronto, hospitals should be set up as corporate structures and allowed to employ business practices of good management and private enterprise. I would say to the minister: Where did he learn about surgery?

Another case of destructive centralization is what has happened to municipalities in the process of planning and development. Since the Davis government has redoubled the red tape, it takes many years to bring an acceptable subdivision from the planning to the operative stage. The plans languish for years somewhere, and they could be over at Queen’s Park, while costs escalate annually by over 30 per cent; not only 30 per cent, but sometimes two or three times the original cost of a lot. When a project finally approaches completion there is little relationship between its original cost estimate and the final bill.

Mr. Cassidy: If he knows about it, then you fellows know about it too.

Mr. McEwen: The Premier (Mr. Davis) wonders why we have a housing shortage in Ontario or why we have a crisis in Ontario. There is a reason. We hear about the mill rate on a house assessed at $3,000 or $4,000 increasing taxes by $40, $50 or $60, but take a look at the assessment. They are not $3,000, $4,000 or $5,000. They are $10,000 or $12,000. I’ll just mention the new assessment system that was put into operation this year for county purposes -- not for municipal purposes, but for county purposes.

Mr. Norton: What about the service in Kingston township that you failed to provide?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Tell us about the servicing of that land in Kingston.

Mr. McEwen: I’ll attend to you later. One municipality in the north of our riding had an increase in assessment from $500,000. I said to the reeve who was in attendance at a meeting of the ministry “I don’t want to take anything away from your municipality because half of this is Crown land and the rest of it I like going to and visiting, and fishing and so on, but why the increase in assessment from $500,000 to $4 million. Are the huckleberries gold plated this year or what has happened?” This is what the assessment office is doing to these municipalities. The Conservative record is as bad in education as it is in housing and health.

Mr. Mancini: What has the Minister of Housing (Mr. Rhodes) got to say now?

Mr. McEwen: I’ll look after him, too, in a minute or two.

[9:45]

Mr. Roy: If you had any conscience you would know.

Mr. McEwen: In the 1960s the provincial government poured money down the drain on education and provincial officials climbed on the bandwagon of the Hall-Dennis report.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: I wouldn’t bother to ask you because you can’t answer.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The member for Frontenac-Addington only. Thank you.

Mr. McEwen: Mr. Speaker, I have asked the Minister of Housing is he really the Minister of Housing or is the Treasurer (Mr. McKeough) running the business like he used to?

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Frontenac-Addington.

Interjections.

Mr. McEwen: You like to interfere; and I will say for what you have done you deserve an election and you deserve to be defeated.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: You have experienced that, I haven’t.

Interjections.

An hon. member: That is exactly what you deserve.

Interjections.

Mr. McEwen: To go back, Mr. Speaker -- because I was so rudely interrupted -- in the 1960s the provincial government poured money down the drain in education. The provincial officials climbed on the bandwagon of the Hall-Dennis report. Then things really got out of hand. The method became more important than the product and the three Rs went out the window. Elementary schools pretended that every child was the same and made few distinctions in evaluation.

Interjections.

Mr. McEwen: High schools dismantled the curriculum and no longer required students to take the basic courses in math, history, English and so on. The basics were unfashionable at all levels. Finally we reached the stage today where the schools are attempting quietly, under the table, to reinstate the basics.

Interjections.

Mr. McEwen: But, Mr. Speaker, the damage has been done and the parents, who see the deficiencies in their children’s education wonder if they will qualify for decent jobs in the future.

Interjections.

Mr. McEwen: The school boards cannot be blamed for this deterioration because their hands have been tied by a series of restrictive regulations that put control on education solidly in Queen’s Park.

Interjections.

Mr. McEwen: Mr. Speaker, this provincial government has become like an untrained fruit tree growing wildly in all directions. The product could be better and bigger if some courageous pruning and cutting back were employed.

Interjections.

Mr. Roy: If you had any conscience you would all resign.

Mr. McEwen: We have heard -- I’m sorry that there’s only a few of you there, you don’t make enough noise.

Interjections.

Mr. McEwen: Mr. Speaker, I neglected one thing. I wanted to bring greetings from the Toronto District Young Liberal Association. They were here and they heard somebody and then they had to go out.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order! The hon. member for Frontenac-Addington only, thank you.

Interjections.

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

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Let’s have fewer interjections in the House. Only the hon. member has the floor. Thank you.

Mr. McEwen: I hope so. Mr. Speaker, the member for Kingston and the Islands (Mr. Norton) has continually tried to interrupt me --

Interjections.

Mr. Norton: No, never.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. I hear quite a few interruptions from all quarters. Will the hon. member please be allowed to have the floor?

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: No. Order, please!

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

Mr. Speaker: Your point of order.

An hon. member: You’ve got no point of order.

Mr. Roy: About the score of the hockey game.

Mr. Thea: Mr. Speaker, I want to draw your attention to --

Mr. Roy: Are you still packing a gun, Frank? Who are you going to arrest tonight?

Mr. Mancini: The score of the hockey game.

An hon. member: We didn’t interrupt you.

Mr. Drea: -- subsection 11, under standing order 16(a), about a member using abusive or insulting language of a nature likely to cause disorder. I wish you would draw the attention of the member to that.

Mr. Roy: You better sit down then, Frank.

Mr. Speaker: I must state that there were so many interjections I couldn’t even pick that out. The hon. member for Frontenac-Addington has the floor, please.

Mr. McEwen: Mr. Speaker, in that case I suggest that you tend to him.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member will continue his speech.

Mr. McEwen: But the member for Kingston and the Islands has continually attempted to interrupt me and, being the quiet, easygoing person that I am, I have put up with it so far.

Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, once again I draw your attention --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Will the hon. member remain seated? The hon. member for Frontenac-Addington only has the floor. Thank you.

Mr. McEwen: Mr. Speaker, in the district of Kingston, Frontenac-Addington, Wolfe Island, Howe Island and so on, for years and years -- and I’m quite sure you are familiar with that part of the country, because you appear to be a country-going person something like myself --

Interjection.

Mr. McEwen: -- for years we’ve tried to get a bridge to these islands and we were always blocked by the government party, which had a majority until it lost a third of its seats in the last election.

Hon. Mr. Taylor: That’s not right at all. Your federal counterparts in Ottawa wouldn’t concur.

Mr. McEwen: This year a ferry boat was brought into being, and the hon. Minister of Transportation and Communications was in attendance. I might say that this minister has been a gentleman, and I think some of the others could follow his example. Anyway, the member for Kingston and the Islands was on an open-line show and somebody asked him why this ferry was better than a bridge. His reply -- I remember it distinctly -- was that a bridge wasn’t as safe because it iced up in the winter. I would say that possibly the member for Kingston and the Islands, who has got a new haircut, prefers the ferry.

Mr. Norton: I’m sorry, I missed that.

Mr. McEwen: You didn’t miss it very much.

Interjection.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. McEwen: We have heard for the last few years that there is a need for more housing with government assistance. However, the government is critical --

Interjection.

Mr. Speaker: If the hon. member would maintain silence in his seat, I think there would be more order. The hon. member for Frontenac-Addington has the floor.

Mr. Roy: You didn’t get a haircut, Frank. Sit down.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. McEwen: Mr. Speaker, I’ll go back again to where I was so rudely interrupted. We have heard for the last few years that there is a need for more housing with government assistance. However, the government is critical of the municipalities and the federal government, and places the blame on everyone it possibly can, except itself.

Interjection.

Mr. McEwen: Mr. Speaker, when the Minister of Housing (Mr. Rhodes) was speaking earlier, I remember that this row was particularly interested in hearing what he had to say and we didn’t interrupt him. I would think the same thing should take place now.

Mr. Mancini: I agree.

Mr. McEwen: We have seen ministers come and go in this House --

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: You have been watching from that side for 30 years.

Mr. McEwen: -- and because the Minister of Housing was forced into the portfolio is not our fault. I thought the minister who is now Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations was going to be the one who would pull us out of the housing problem; at least he did speak out for the people, but apparently he became ill and was replaced. Then the government side, the party that lost a third of its seats from the last election, came along with what it thought was a ray of sunshine in the appointment of the member for Carleton-Grenville (Mr. Irvine) as Minister of Housing. I guess the government thought at that time that it had somebody responsible. It now appears that the government was wrong again, because he was shoved into another high-paying position far removed from the important post of Minister of Housing. He was going to do wonders, but no one needs to wonder any more; it appears that he really missed the whole issue.

Mr. Norton: Come on, be positive.

Mr. Drea: How long have you been a Liberal? Did they pay you or did you pay them?

Mr. McEwen: Let me say this: Possibly he didn’t miss the issue himself, but those in the ministry who really had more to say than he did quite possibly are the people who caused the problem. For this, the government deserves an election and deserves to be defeated.

Mr. Drea: Let’s have an election right now. Let’s have it.

Mr. Samis: You didn’t vote the way you said you would in the papers.

Mr. Drea: Stuart Smith didn’t write that for you.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. member for Frontenac-Addington has the floor.

Mr. Norton: We’ll take you on tomorrow.

Mr. Drea: Right now.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Your leader said that’s a no-no.

Mr. Drea: Do you want an election right now? Get your friends; they can all stand up.

An hon. member: Mr. Speaker, throw him out; he keeps on interrupting.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. McEwen: Mr. Speaker, he won’t leave me alone. Now we have another Minister of Housing, and I just question what his role is.

Mr. Mancini: What is your role, John?

Mr. McEwen: It may be that he has socialistic ideas and wants to produce free homes for everyone. If such is the case I cannot agree with that --

Mr. Drea: How did you ever discover this?

Mr. McEwen: -- although I believe it is necessary to assist those who are less fortunate than others.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Over how many years?

Mr. Roy: Since you have been minister. You are to blame.

Mr. McEwen: I think that there must be initiative shown by all of us doing something to help ourselves and I feel that it is more encouraging to assist those who are willing to help themselves and I’m sure that all of our people want to assist. They want to assist. Over the years this government and the Ministry of Housing has allowed land prices and the cost of materials to increase beyond the financial responsibility of those who would buy a home of their own and they have allowed interest rates to become so high it is just unreasonable --

Mr. Norton: Who profited from that?

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Order, please. Order. Order.

Mr. Drea: And how much?

Mr. McEwen: Jealousy will get you nowhere.

Mr. Samis: You were a Tory in those days, Earl, and you know it.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: You made a killing, Earl.

Mr. Norton: Who made a million dollars?

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Order, please.

Mr. Drea: He is yours. Not a word from all of you.

Mr. Roy: He is doing a good job.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Scarborough Centre. Order, please.

Mr. McEwen: Mr. Speaker, when I was doing it I was minding my own business and that’s more than some of the rest were doing.

Mr. Drea: How much, Earl?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Drea: How much?

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. member for Scarborough Centre.

Mr. McEwen: It would be my recommendation that interest rates be frozen at eight per cent --

Mr. Drea: Now that you are out of the business.

Mr. McEwen: -- since homes which at one time cost $21,000 are now mortgaged for $50,000 and I believe that eight per cent is sufficient profit for anyone investing in making a living from someone who must work --

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Did you speak to your friends in Ottawa?

Mr. McEwen: -- at, if not quite hard labour, almost hard labour, to acquire the funds to pay the mortgage interest --

Mr. Norton: That was back to 1965.

Mr. McEwen: -- and in most cases the husband and the wife both work and must work to put food on the table and to pay these high interest rates.

Mr. G. I. Miller: What happens to the kids? What happens to the kids when they’re working?

Mr. Samis: He is an ex-Tory now.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: An ex-independent too.

Mr. McEwen: Mr. Speaker, that man is the yappiest one that I’ve met for a long time. He has attempted to say more than anyone else and he has said nothing really.

Mr. Norton: That was back to 1968.

Mr. McEwen: You can go home any time you like, nobody’s bothered with you.

While I’m speaking about interest rates, I would draw your attention to the statement made by the Premier (Mr. Davis) on Dec. 3, 1975, and prior to that, that the Ontario government would consider mortgage interest subsidies to aid home buyers.

Hon. J. R. Smith: Great man.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Taylor: He considered it too.

Mr. McEwen: During the September election campaign, he made this promise to take action to aid mortgage interest rates --

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Read the rest of it, Earl.

Mr. McEwen: -- if the federal government did not act.

Mr. Roy: What happened to that promise?

Mr. McEwen: On March 17, 1976, he withdrew his election promise by stating that it is unlikely that Ontario will introduce mortgage interest rate subsidies to help home buyers. It certainly didn’t take him long to retract the promise which helped to get him elected.

Mr. Speaker, I ask this: How do they expect people on a low income or medium income to pay 12 and 15 per cent interest and to be continually gouged with mortgages of from $30,000 to $50,000 for 40 years? I don’t think anyone should be compelled to live in this situation.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Your money gouged eight per cent, Earl.

Mr. McEwen: It would appear that he and the Treasurer -- Treasurers, both past and present -- feel pretty secure in their positions of having led this province to financial chaos, and they are now endeavouring to straighten out this chaos by inflicting upon the people of Ontario intolerable restraints, particularly in the field of education --

Mr. Norton: Come on now, justify that statement.

Mr. McEwen: -- hospital services and Children’s Aid Societies, deserving and needy welfare cases and --

Mr. Norton: What is this chaos you are talking about?

Mr. McEwen: -- people in need of housing. I would say this, Mr. Speaker --

Mr. Norton: Things have never been better in Kingston township.

Mr. McEwen: -- that in the welfare cases, it is always possible for a man to get a job, to find a place to sleep, to get a meal, and to get enough to eat --

Interjections.

Mr. McEwen: -- but the mother and her children just cannot do that, and it is unfair to bring in that restraint that will deprive a mother and her children of a place to live, the clothes to wear and the food that they need to eat.

[10:00]

I could go on indefinitely as to the despair they are causing to the people of this province. I feel they deserve better treatment than that which is being dished out to them by this government. This government deserves an election and it deserves to be defeated. The situation is terrible.

Interjections.

Mr. McEwen: I read with interest in the Toronto Star in December, 1975, that the Minister of Housing was worried about Scarborough and he stated that the Ontario government was concerned about --

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Take over, Earl, and call that election. You’ve got to take over.

Mr. McEwen: -- any municipal action that might lead to a slowdown in home building.

Mr. Samis: They have got two leaders now.

Mr. McEwen: It is about time somebody took over over there.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Will the member for Kingston and the Islands try to contain himself?

Mr. McEwen: Mr. Speaker, I will take care of the member for Prince Edward-Lennox later too.

Hon. Mr. Taylor: You mean you will try; you will try.

Mr. McEwen: He is from the party that lost a third of the seats in the last election and was sure lucky to hang on to those that it did.

The Minister of Housing commented in the Legislature about the possibility that the borough of Scarborough may freeze development of housing subdivisions. He went on to say, “It is unfortunate that Scarborough has taken such a position, because housing is needed.” Everybody knows it is needed. That was a big statement, wasn’t it?

I agree with the minister and his comment that housing is needed. Is this more doubletalk? I leave it to the people for the time being.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: That was gorgeous.

Hon. Mr. Taylor: That is profound.

Mr. McEwen: I have to bring into being here now, when he is commenting about --

Mr. Samis: Sort of hangs in there, doesn’t it?

Mr. McEwen: -- being discouraged about a municipality not going for housing, I must speak about the separate issue here now. I question, who is the Minister of Housing? Is it the Treasurer? I have heard it rumoured that it is the first man --

Mr. Samis: In the absence of the Treasurer.

Mr. McEwen: -- him I call the grape stomper because he contributed $1,000 to the grape stompers’ club. The next man is the Premier and the next one, I have heard, is the Treasurer, and I have also heard he is the Prime Minister of Ontario. Is it the minister over there? Is he the Minister of Housing, or is it the Treasurer?

Mr. Roy: He keeps asking himself the same question.

Mr. McEwen: And he gets the same answer. But, Mr. Speaker --

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: I know.

Mr. Speaker: Order please, if the Minister of Community and Social Services wants to interject he should do it from his own seat.

Interjections.

Mr. Roy: That is a good place for you to be, up there, Frank.

An hon. member: Tell Frank Drea to get down from the press gallery.

An hon. member: Are you looking for a job, Frank?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

An hon. member: Who is the new reporter up there?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. McEwen: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Roy: It is against the principles of the House for members to bother the reporters.

Mr. McEwen: I bring to your attention tonight a plan for development in the north of the riding of Frontenac-Addington, in the area of Barrie township and Cloyne-Northbrook section. They plan a subdivision of 20 lots from three quarters of an acre to 1.5 acres. It was submitted to the planning branch last year, and after the September election, when the results came in and I was fortunate to be here, we were in attendance at a meeting with another ministry with some of the people in the north of the riding, and they asked if I would arrange a meeting with the planning branch. I called to ask if we could have a meeting to discuss this plan, and just to show you the arrogance, Mr. Speaker, the reply I received from a girl was that there wouldn’t be any meeting, and when I asked why not, she said, “We are not going to discuss the plan.” I said, “Why won’t you?” She said, “Well, just because we are not.” Mr. Speaker, I hope you will forgive me when I say this; I said to her, “Would you rather meet with us today or would you rather we discuss it in the House?” She said, “I will meet with you at 4 o’clock.”

That was a Miss Phillips. When we attended the meeting, a Mrs. Santo was there, and we got into a discussion. I was really friendly, but we got into a discussion and she said, “Well, there are 35 copies. This acknowledges 35 copies of the above draft plan for subdivision.” That’s what’s necessary, and it costs a lot of money to make these plans, to prepare them and have an engineer draw them and survey them out and so on.

Mrs. Santo said, “No, we are not considering the plan,” and so I asked, on behalf of the voters in the north of the riding, “Why not?” She said the ministry wasn’t allowing it, and I said, “Who in the ministry?” She said, “I am objecting. I am not going to send it out.” This employee of the Ontario government, in the planning branch, refused to distribute this plan to the agencies necessary. I think there are 31.

Mr. Shore: That’s a sign of leadership; that’s leadership.

Mr. McEwen: This is dictatorship.

Mr. Shore: Oh, is that what it is?

Mr. McEwen: She refused even to send it to the municipality, the council or the planning board of that council, the planning representatives.

Mr. Riddell: Look into that, John.

Mr. McEwen: I asked her, “Why don’t you do it?” She said, “Well, there’s no planning study. I visited the area, and the trees and the landscape are beautiful and we don’t want to disturb them.” The one point is this, we are looking for lots, we are looking for reasonably priced lots for people --

Mr. Norton: Is that an exact quote now?

Mr. McEwen: -- end these lots in that area were going to sell for about $3,000, and they are almost acre lots. Here was an opportunity for people to buy a lot and be able to build a home and live where they wanted, and yet a government body would not entertain even discussing it.

Mr. Roy: Shameful.

Mr. McEwen: Shame is right. Shame is right. This has been going on for a long time and this is one of the reasons for the expensive lots. This is one of the reasons for the shortage of homes. There aren’t enough people who can afford these $15,000 to $25,000 or $30,000 lots. In this area there are a good many teachers. There are Transportation and Communications employees. There are retired people who move in. They like it in that area, and they like a home and they want to live there, yet they are deprived of that opportunity.

Mr. Drea: Who sold them the house?

Mr. Cunningham: We’re going to put you in one of the homes, Frank.

Mr. McEwen: Mr. Speaker, I just want to read you this reply from the so-called Ministry of Housing:

“This application has been examined in relation to the item set out in section 33-4 of the Planning Act and after careful study it has been recommended that approval be withheld at this time. [It has been recommended by whom? By the employees of the people of the Province of Ontario.] The above application proposes a development of a permanent residential subdivision consisting of some 20 lots in the rural area of the township, unrelated to any existing hamlet or village. [What would it be if it wasn’t a permanent residential subdivision? Is there such a thing as a temporary one?]

“As you are aware, the township of Barrie has not yet embarked upon a planning programme to indicate how the growth of the township is to be encouraged and controlled and, in particular, how this development will fit into the overall strategy of the township. [Twenty lots is going to affect everything.] In the absence of such a formal planning programme, it is the policy of this ministry to discourage random residential development from locating throughout the rural area, and to encourage residential uses to locate in the existing communities.”

And, Mr. Speaker, we just heard last week that they’re going to decentralize housing from Toronto and areas such as this into other areas. We really have people who want to do something and they’re deprived of the opportunity; and here we have people who put it in writing that they are objecting.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I’m asking -- and it’s been the same thing for years -- when are we going to reorganize this planning branch? When are we going to get rid of this bureaucracy? When are we going to get rid of this dictatorship, if it exists there? The reasons for this policy are complex, but relate mainly to the need to preserve the rural character of the area; the beautiful trees and what have you. And it would be more beautiful if a few good houses were built along there too, along with the trees and so on. Locate new development where adequate municipal facilities are available, or can be economically provided.

Mr. Norton: What are you going to do about low-cost housing?

Mr. McEwen: For the above reasons we are not prepared to recommend that plan of subdivision for approval. What I say is that if there was something wrong with this planning branch the Ministry of Housing should have got the people in and discussed the plan with them. They refused even to meet with them.

Mr. Norton: If they didn’t plan, you would.

Mr. McEwen: These are the people who are getting paid by the Province of Ontario, and they refused to meet with them.

Interjections.

Mr. McEwen: In our area here I mentioned that they said there wasn’t a plan for the township of Barrie; and I will admit that readily. And the reason for it is that the Ministry of Housing has no intention of allowing municipalities to have a plan. That is the reason, and I bring it to your attention. This is correspondence from the county of Frontenac.

Interjection.

Mr. McEwen: It leaked. The member for Kingston and the Islands (Mr. Norton) is excited about the leak. If I could interrupt just for a minute, I wonder why that should be secret? Why should a letter be secret from the gentleman in the back of the minister over here; why should it be secret? The public should know what’s going on. Why should you have to be critical, Mr. Speaker, of someone knowing what’s going on?

Interjections.

Mr. McEwen: On June 3, 1971, there is a letter from the county of Frontenac to the hon. Dalton Bales, QC, Minister of Municipal Affairs; and it goes as follows:

“During the last year much discussion has taken place in Frontenac county relating to planning both at the county and township level of government. At the last regular meeting of Frontenac county council the following resolution was passed: It is endorsed and seconded that we request a meeting with the Minister of Municipal Affairs regarding planning in the county of Frontenac with all members being in attendance at the meeting. Could we please receive confirmation of a time when this can be convenient for you to visit our council to discuss the subject matter. J. E. Taylor, Clerk.”

That was June 3. On June 29, a letter from Mr. Bales:

“Dear Mr. Taylor:

“I understand from speaking to Mr. D. F. Taylor, a director of the community planning branch, that your council wishes to discuss with me certain problems they see in the establishment of a land division committee for the county. [We got to the point where this Taylor mentions a land division committee, not a plan.]

“I would be pleased to sit down with representatives of the county” --

Interjection.

Mr. McEwen: We’re going to put you in a cage.

An hon. member: Throw those two out.

Mr. McEwen: To continue:

“-- but I’m afraid it will be extremely difficult to find a suitable time prior to the end of the current session of the Legislature because of the schedule already committed. Would it be possible to hold off the meeting until after July 15? If this is not possible, we would be pleased to arrange a meeting.”

Interjections.

[10:15]

Mr. Riddell: Just because he is representing his people.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. McEwen: I received on July 6 another letter from the county to the minister, Mr. Bales:

“Thank you for your letter of June 20, 1971. Mr. Taylor, our clerk, asked me to write to you and whenever you can meet after July 15, we will be pleased to arrange a meeting.”

Aug. 30, 1971, another letter had to be written to Mr. Bales:

“With reference to your letter again of June 29, 1971, and a reply from this office on July 6, I now wish to advise that the next session of county council will be held in September, on the 21st. Our county council members are anxious to meet with you and I would appreciate learning if you could arrange to be present at the session at a time convenient for you. Will you be in attendance?”

It went on and on and it went through various government agencies here. It got to a Mr. Cornice. On May 15, 1972, Taylor wrote to Cornice.

“This is to advise that at a special meeting of the county planning committee it was decided not to meet with you at the present time, but to ask your department to act in the following, properly endorsed and seconded, that the planning branch of Ontario be requested to designate each municipality in Frontenac that had not already been designated as a planning area. . . .”

I am just pointing out why these municipalities don’t have a plan, if it’s necessary. I am going to point out why the land division committee is so almighty good that they can make decisions on severances anywhere for any type of business and yet there isn’t a plan in the area. When the municipality and the county ask for assistance, it isn’t forthcoming.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: The municipalities set up those committees, didn’t they?

Mr. McEwen: I want to go on further here -- and now we get into the meat of this. It’s very interesting, we get to the Treasurer (Mr. McKeough).

Hon. Mr. Kerr: That’s the problem. They should have an official plan.

Mr. Norton: Get into 1973; 1973 is a good year. That’s the year you refused to sit down and talk about it.

Mr. McEwen: This went on and on -- here is one from the member for Carleton-Grenville (Mr. Irvine).

Mr. Norton: Is there a letter there from 1972, the year you refused to talk?

Mr. McEwen: Mr. Taylor, designation of planning area, county --

Interjections.

Mr. McEwen: Do you know why the county didn’t want to get involved with the city? It was --

Mr. Norton: Because you told them not to.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. This is not a debate.

Mr. McEwen: You remember that, too.

Mr. Deans: It is a debate.

Mr. Speaker: It is not a debate in the sense that only one person has the floor at once. I must caution the member for Kingston and the Islands that if he wants to engage in this he’ll do it on his own time not the time of the member for Frontenac-Addington.

Mr. McEwen: Mr. Speaker, I would like to reply to the nasty remark made by the member for Kingston and the Islands in that I am the one responsible. I am proud to be named as one who stood up for the county of Frontenac for 16 or 18 years, compared to two years of his representation as an alderman.

If he wants some more of it he can have it. The reason the county didn’t want to go with the city is that it would put them back five or 10 years the same as it would if they joined the Province of Ontario.

Mr. Foulds: Where are they?

Mr. McEwen: That’s the reason. We get on to the letter from the member for Carleton-Grenville (Mr. Irvine) and this is to the county again in 1973:

“With reference to my meeting with the warden and members of county council, at which time the warden requested our favourable consideration of the above designation for planning purposes. I wish to advise it would be in order for the county to send a formal application to the Hon. John White.”

They had already sent them one before, so they sent one then to the Hon. John White. That word “honourable” bothers me too. On Sept. 25 they wrote:

“The county of Frontenac hereby makes application for your consideration of the designation of the county of Frontenac as a planning area.”

This, Mr. Speaker, has gone on until March, 1976. From 1971 to now the county of Frontenac -- all the municipalities -- felt that if they combined their resources they would be able to help the municipalities which didn’t have the finances necessary for a plan so that they could get on with any developments such as tourist areas, commercial, industrial, residential or whatever was proposed. But they had been denied the right to be established as a planning area and I question this, Mr. Speaker.

In reply to the member for Kingston and the Islands, through you, what effect would a municipality, 75 miles north of the city of Kingston, have on the city of Kingston’s plans?

Mr. Norton: How about Kingston township?

Mr. McEwen: I would say only delay for the municipality in the riding of Frontenac-Addington, that’s all. Why wouldn’t the government allow the county to proceed? The county did spend considerable sums of money on hiring consultants to prepare the necessary papers to present to the ministry. It was presented. I could read on and on, but I know it isn’t necessary to read it to you, Mr. Speaker. You understand, I repeat, the bureaucracy and the dictatorship which exist to deny a municipality and a county the right to be an established planning area.

Mr. Drea: Why don’t you tell us who the developer was?

Mr. McEwen: It’s wrong. It’s terribly wrong.

Mr. Drea: Who was the developer?

Mr. Norton: Who is the consultant?

Mr. McEwen: We’ll have the consultant as soon as the -- it was the planning consultant. I haven’t got it right here yet. In case the member who has interrupted so much tonight disagrees or something like that. I would certainly present to him the name of the planning consultant. It’s headed by a man by the name of Mr. Little.

Mr. Drea: Who was the developer and who was the sewer and watermains man?

Mr. McEwen: Now that I have been interrupted -- this isn’t in my speech -- I want to say in our experience, we have found that the developers in most cases where we’ve had any authority have signed a subdivision agreement which placed all of the services in the lots. The developer paid for them originally. The sewer, the water line, paved streets. curbs, storm sewers, sidewalks on one side of each street, varied hydro and telephone lines, etc.; were all incorporated in the cost of the lot.

The Minister of Housing has stated that he wants to see more reasonable housing and he wants to see cheaper type housing. He wants to deprive some of our people of the opportunity of living in a good home.

Mr. Norton: Land is such a big part of that cost.

Mr. McEwen: He wants to deprive some of them of the opportunity of having these sewer and water services and paved streets and so on. We have found, by letting the private operation, the developers, pay the costs that they do it far more reasonably than anyone else.

I sent you an example, Mr. Speaker. In one municipality I know of the government bought 300 lots for the HOME project for $4,900. They are now selling these lots for $11,000. I say that this is Ontario government gouging of people who want a house. They don’t have enough for a big down payment and the government is depriving them.

Ms. Drea: Who is the land speculator? If ever the kettle called the pot black. Who was the speculator in the case you are talking about?

Mr. McEwen: Also, Mr. Speaker --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. McEwen: -- it was brought to my attention -- I want to compare the cost of these lots -- that not very far from here there is a HOME project where the lots cost $8,200. They are valued at $33,000. The people are going to pay rent for 25 years and at the end of 25 years, they’re going to pay the balance between $8,200 and the $33,000. That will be $24,800 and they’re going to start paying a mortgage on that after 25 years. What I am saying is that these lots are becoming far too expensive for people with lower incomes.

I want to assure the member on the other side that he isn’t going to be shortchanged. With your permission, Mr. Speaker, as the time is getting on and I am sure that you want to adjourn, I want to come back and spend another hour or two or three with you and with the member.

Mr. Drea: No.

Mr. McEwen: I am sure that I would be disappointed if he wasn’t here to continually interrupt. That seems to be his role and possibly the reason he remains where he is is that he continues to do this.

Mr. Drea: I would still like to know who that speculator is.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. McEwen: I would like to have gone on and on and on. I would be glad of the opportunity to question the Minister of Housing as to whether he is really the Housing minister or whether it is the Treasurer (Mr. McKeough).

Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, there is a more profound question -- who is the land speculator?

Mr. McEwen: I just wonder whether the hon. minister left for the reason that he wants to go and find out. Possibly he has been sitting here with us for so long he really doesn’t know who the Minister of Housing is. I have not seen any letters signed by him in regard to the planning study recommended for the County of Frontenac. I have seen the name of the previous Treasurers. I have seen the name of the member for Carleton-Grenville (Mr. Irvine), the former Minister of Housing. I have seen the name of Mr. Bales, the former minister; but I have never seen the Minister of Housing’s name on any correspondence relating to this recommended planning study.

Rather than start into something new, if it is your wish to adjourn, Mr. Speaker, then I will come back.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: If the hon. member would move the adjournment of the debate, he may have the floor next time.

Mr. McEwen moved the adjournment of the debate.

Motion agreed to.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Mr. Speaker, before I move the adjournment of the House I would like to inform the House that the estimates of the Ministry of Revenue will begin in the afternoon on Thursday and continue into the evening. Also on Thursday, the miscellaneous estimates committee will meet to deal with estimates of the Office of the Assembly.

Hon. Mr. Parrott moved the adjournment of the House.

Motion agreed to.

The House adjourned at 10:30 p.m.