Legislative Assembly of Ontario

The House resumed at 8 p.m.

THRONE SPEECH DEBATE (CONTINUED)

Mr. Speaker: When we rose at 6 o’clock, the hon. member for Haldimand-Norfolk had the floor. He may continue his dissertation.

Mr. G. I. Miller: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is certainly a pleasure to see the Minister of Housing (Mr. Rhodes) in the Legislature tonight, because I do now want to deal with housing, and the townsites, as it has and will affect my riding of Haldimand-Norfolk. First of all, I see we have some Girl Guides in the balcony, and I would like to welcome them to the Legislature.

When 6 o’clock rolled around, I was about to discuss environmental atmosphere and how it affects my riding also. In the past summer of 1976, the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Kerr) came to my area and the deep well disposal site was discussed. They were anticipating using this deep well disposal system in the Canborough area, and the farm organization banded together and was fortunate enough to force the withdrawal of the application.

The fact that we are trying to dispose of our industrial wastes by this method was pointed out during the investigation. It was shown that it was the wrong way to approach it. I think that it will have a considerable effect on how we deal with our industrial waste. It will perhaps be recycled; there will perhaps be other ways found to dispose of it; and I think this is a step in the right direction. Again, we can’t afford to jeopardize our fresh water system, such as our Great Lakes and our streams, one of the finest fresh water systems anywhere in the world.

I would also like to point out that between the Nanticoke generating station and the Stelco industrial park in my riding, there is a water intake with a capacity of something like 412 million gallons a day, a source of water supply that perhaps could eventually supply Brantford and Kitchener, as well as the developing region in the immediate area.

I’d like to point out, too, that we are now perhaps in one of the most difficult areas to get a good supply of water. We have plenty of water but it is of sulphur quality. In 1975 I believe there were 5,000 loads trucked by transport out of Port Dover alone, which has to be the most expensive way of putting water into a cistern-type holding tank. I think it is the natural right of everyone in Ontario to have a good source of drinking water.

I think one thing that should be considered when they’re expanding the water intake is the supplying of rural areas with plastic pipe that is available now. Smaller municipalities should be able to have that right of having a good water supply.

I would like to point out, too, that Texaco has already hooked into the water line at Nanticoke. They have a 17-inch line which runs two miles from the lake, which brings the water line within four miles of Jarvis and nine miles of Hagersville. I think Stelco’s industrial development is already hooked into the line with a 42-inch line. I think it’s been brought to the Minister of the Environment’s attention that Hagersville and Jarvis do need water, and it is within their reach now with some assistance from the ministry. I think the main trunk lines certainly should be put in by the Ministry of the Environment.

Also, there is a government property utilizing the line. The White Oaks Training School and the Sprucedale Training School are hooked on to the existing line, which has been in since World War I when Jarvis Bomb and Gunnery School was located where the Stelco property is at the present time.

So I think there has to be a priority on supplying good water for this particular area. There is a need there. As I pointed out before, transporting it at $15 per 1,000 or 1,800 gallons, depending on the size of the truckload, has to be the most expensive way of transporting water in this day and age.

I would like to point out, too, dealing with the Townsend townsite, which has been a very controversial issue, and the South Cayuga townsite -- giving a little history on the background how the townsite came about -- back before regional government came in, in 1973, a study group was formed of the former counties of Haldimand and Norfolk, and I think its recommendation at that time was that under the population predictions that were presented to it by various studies, there could be a possibility of a growth of 900,000. I think the study group was well aware that perhaps one townsite was needed and I think the Townsend townsite was the particular site that it chose as being necessary.

However, I think it was also pointed out at the time that the existing municipalities should be allowed to grow until there was enough pressure to warrant the need for a new city site. I think we have 10 municipalities in the region of Haldimand-Norfolk. I think the largest one is Simcoe, with a population of 10,000. There are Port Rowan, Delhi, Waterford -- which is in Bob Nixon’s riding; and Delhi is also in Bob Nixon’s riding, but it’s still within the regional boundaries -- Port Dover, Hagersville, Caledonia, Jarvis, Dunnville and Cayuga. I think, again, Simcoe is the largest municipality, with 10,000, and they went all the way down to 1,000 population.

Of course, to have a good business section and to have a viable community you need at least 10,000 people, perhaps. I think all these municipalities are capable of going up that high. The region at the present time is committed to $12 million to expand these water facilities and sewage facilities. I think again in the basic core -- the city of Nanticoke and the town of Haldimand -- in that basic area there is something like 5,700 lots now available to provide the housing needs. The municipality of Jarvis had a plan for 1967-1968 whereby they could expand to 20,000 people. I think these have been bypassed. We have to take a serious look at the situation and work along with the region, on their recommendation, to decide when the new townsite should be brought on stream.

The area has been basically a farming community. We are geared to deal with farming communities. We have the Norfolk Co-op in Jarvis, Simcoe and Waterford. The Haldimand Co-op is in Hagersville, Cayuga and Dunnville; plus some private enterprises like Masterfeed which are geared to deal with agricultural products in our area. It is very important to the economy of the existing people that the farming community is encouraged and promoted to continue. If there is a need for a city at any particular time in the future I think this should be utilized, but in the meantime the land should be utilized for agricultural purposes since the economy of the area depends on it so heavily.

Now when it comes to the South Cayuga site, the government may have to admit that it made a mistake. I really don’t know what the intentions are for that particular piece of property. There are 12,000 acres. There are many good woodlots on it. Perhaps, with the energy costs going the way they are, these woodlots should be developed and a product taken out and utilized for heating purposes. I think there is now a swing in that direction. Certainly, if we want renewable resources, these woodlots should be worked on now for future generations.

It is certainly a pleasure for me to participate in the Throne debate. There is perhaps one area that I have missed -- natural resources. The fishing industry in Lake Erie was a very controversial issue in 1976. Hopefully, they can look forward to a better year in 1977. But bringing down of the limit on fish size to eight inches created real hardship for the fishermen.

Many are well aware that Lake Erie produced 50 per cent of the freshwater fish in Canada -- a tremendous resource which has to be worked to the full. I know the fishermen want to protect it. On the other hand, when it was implemented -- the regulation had been on the books since 1960-something but it was enforced in 1976. It was a very difficult year for fishermen; the perch fishermen in particular.

There was a harvest of smelt obtained from Lake Erie but, unfortunately, there is only one processor of any magnitude -- that is Omsteads Food Limited at Wheatley. Consequently, Port Dover Fishermen had to truck their smelt to Wheatley, a distance of something like 170 miles. This seems to put too much dependence on one particular industry.

Omsteads are providing a good service, but when they get into the frozen fruit situation, with frozen food packing in the fall, the smelt fishermen are neglected. With a little prodding, perhaps we were successful. I noticed an article in this week’s Simcoe Reformer -- dated Thursday, April 7 -- an article written by Mr. G. G. Bramhill, an old farm reporter, who is, I think, in his 80s. He writes an article every week, and it’s very interesting. I would like to quote from his article:

“It looks like Port Dover fishermen may have discovered a bonanza in the demand for smelt from Japan. The Henry H. Misner Company has sent a large shipment of smelt to Japan. The amount was 17 metric tons. A special staff has been trained and new equipment installed to handle this new market outlet.

“According to the Port Dover Maple Leaf, each carton is labelled as Long Point brand and bears the Canadian flag. The shipment travels to Toronto, then via railway to Saint John, New Brunswick. The refrigerated container is then loaded on a freighter with the compass and charts set for Japan. It is expected to reach Japan on April 28. If this experiment works, a long-term contract is expected with Japan, a great boon to Lake Erie fishermen.”

[8:15]

So I think perhaps there is a little daylight now with the coming of an alternative market for smelt caught by the smelt fishermen of Port Dover. I certainly hope they have a better summer in 1977, and a better fishing season.

Again, there is one other area as far as the natural resources are concerned and that is the fact that we do have a Grand River which has been fairly well developed at the upper end of the Grand. It is under the direction of the Grand River Conservation Authority. The lower Grand River has potential. I think back in the 1800s they used it as a highway. They had a dam system set up and could travel all the way to Brantford.

I believe that potential still exists. With our technology now it would be a great boon for the area if it was developed as a transportation system and if it encouraged tourists. I think the potential there is great and I certainly hope the minister will look at it in this light. As we need jobs this could be one priority.

Another area which is a real concern to me is lake shore protection. Again, at Port Dover there are cottages on the verge of tipping into the lake from the fact of erosion. Some say it is impossible to cope with it but I think they have found in some specific areas that they can protect the lake shore, especially the built-up areas. Where we are going to lose valuable property is another area where we could have make-work programmes.

As far as energy is concerned, we do have the Nanticoke generating station in my particular riding. It is one of the largest fossil-fired stations in the world, if not the largest. It hasn’t been producing that much energy up to this point in time but I will admit that it is a new design. I would hope the company that is putting in the generators and the furnaces will support it because it has certainly cost a tremendous amount of money with very little return up to now.

It was pointed out in 1975 that we had gas being taken out of the ground in southern Ontario which was selling at 40 cents per 1,000. I don’t know if anyone can imagine that at this particular date and time and place or not, but that is what they were paying those producers; and they had opposition, they wanted more money because they couldn’t continue to search for new fields. With some finds they now have got the price up where it is feasible. I think we have some potential in gas of our own in southern Ontario. Given the opportunity and the financial security this could be developed. In a time of tremendously increasing energy prices, I think it is a must to have some competition.

I would just like to say it has been a pleasure for myself to participate in this debate at this time. As I pointed out in the very beginning, we want to be constructive. As a member of the Liberal caucus it is a pleasure for me to have participated.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Minister of Housing.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: First of all, I want to acknowledge the standing ovation I have received from the opposite side.

Mr. Breithaupt: You wouldn’t get it from your side: there aren’t enough there.

Mr. Nixon: There are just 14 Tories listening.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: I realize that you are only recognizing talent.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: If I can get you calmed down enough to listen to the words of wisdom, I will proceed with my remarks.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. Minister of Housing has the floor.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: I would assume that all of the hon. members opposite will have no more problems with their teeth. Obviously, they were talking to their various dentists prior to returning.

Mr. Nixon: It is your buddies who have flushed faces. Only two of them have made it. Wait until the rest of them get here.

Mr. Breithaupt: It’s the Tories who are opening their mouths and saying “Ah.”

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: I’m pleased to have the opportunity to take part in the reply to the Speech from the Throne. I’ve listened with a great deal of interest to much that has been said by members opposite. Much of it is very interesting.

Mr. Sweeney: You haven’t even been here.

Mr. Breithaupt: You have read carefully.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: That which I was not able to hear, in order to avoid some of the acting that might have gone on, I read with a great deal of interest in Hansard, of course.

Mr. Riddell: That’s not one of your better stories.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: I’d like to begin my remarks with reference to some of the remarks made by the hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Lewis) when he spoke here on April 4.

Mr. Sargent: Do you have to read that?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Quite frankly, it was not one of his better days and I think even his colleagues recognize that. I suggest he was having difficulty because, as he has basically admitted, the Speech from the Throne was an excellent speech. It was perhaps the best speech to be given in this Legislature in many days.

Mr. Haggerty: What a flip-flop.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: It was one that outlined a very progressive programme that the opposition parties have found they certainly can and will support.

Mr. Sweeney: That was said on Tuesday, not on Wednesday.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Since the member for Scarborough West likes to think of himself as a great orator many of us gathered here to hear his comments. I think it’s true that we found a certain amount of rigidity in many of his remarks, and certainly in his attitude.

Mr. Renwick: Who is rigid?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: He is basically unwilling, I suggest, to see all sides of the question or to face some of the facts that are not to one’s liking.

Mr. Nixon: He is not as flexible as you are. You have been on all sides of every question.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: There is no question that his prejudices come through. He is a socialist politician. Sooner or later they develop a certain rigidity that does not limit itself strictly to their own beliefs about their political opposition.

Mr. Sargent: You didn’t write that speech.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: As I look across the floor I see the hon. member for Grey-Bruce. I’m so pleased to see him in the House tonight. I trust someone sent him a notice that I was speaking and he came just to hear. I really appreciate that.

Mr. Breithaupt: No, he actually came in spite of the fact you were speaking.

Mr. Sargent: I hear all your speeches over here.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: The Leader of the Opposition has always had a problem. He is basically captivated by his own socialist rhetoric and he makes these speeches in the House criticizing a great deal of what we are trying to do --

Mr. Sargent: I am not.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: -- and criticizing the programmes even before they’ve had an opportunity to be put into place. I might remind him that he perhaps might have taken more time to check some of the statistics he used in his speech prior to coming into the House. I admit I was disappointed in some of his remarks, because I can recall the first day I sat in the House he spoke and I thought, well now, here is a man we should listen to with interest. But he really wasn’t up to his usual par.

Mr. Haggerty: Do you mean his research is wrong?

Mr. Sweeney: His researchers can’t be wrong.

Mr. Godfrey: Which side are you on then?

Mr. Reed: It is the brown envelope.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Of course, the Leader of the Opposition is unlike the leader of the Liberal Party in that at least he’s not a newcomer to this province. He has a pretty good idea of what’s going on here and one would expect he would have some feeling for reality.

Mr. Nixon: Talk about a speech that doesn’t come up to the mark, this is it.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: It’s quite apparent that both parties have one thing in common; they have very poor research talent.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. I think it would be a better evening in the eyes of the beholders who are in the galleries if we had fewer interruptions.

Mr. Nixon: Do you mean we should just sit back and listen to this baloney?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. We would ask that the hon. minister be allowed to complete his remarks without so many interjections.

Mrs. Campbell: He hasn’t said anything about the Throne Speech.

Mr. Sweeney: Start now; start over again.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. That remark is meant for everyone,

Mr. Godfrey: He is being petulant.

Mr. Sargent: That is the best speech we have heard. He hasn’t said anything.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As I was saying, both the parties opposite have found that their weakness perhaps is in their poor research. Some of the details that have been brought to our attention as supposedly well researched facts have proven to be less than that.

The situation first came out in a big way when the Leader of the Opposition got into the discussion about Confederation, and dropped a few numbers around. That was back on March 6. As I recall, one of the columnists in the Toronto Sun dealt rather clearly with the inaccuracies in that speech.

Mr. Nixon: It was just before he dealt with beer at the baseball games.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: But more recently, of course, the Leader of the Opposition, in his attempt to -- I suppose I could say “mislead,” but that would cause some problems, so I won’t say “mislead.”

Mr. Breithaupt: It certainly would.

Mr. Nixon: That’s right; withdraw.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: I’ll just say his inaccuracies in regard to the amount of socially-assisted housing in this province -- but I’d like to deal with that a little later.

Mrs. Campbell: Sure.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: But the misuse of facts, deliberately or otherwise, quite frankly is not new. In some of the statements that have been made in this House by the Leader of the Opposition and some of his colleagues, there are several examples of this that come forth.

Mr. Godfrey: Did you say “deliberately mislead”?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: I didn’t say “deliberate.” No, I would not say “deliberate.” I would not do that.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Would the hon. minister just continue and ignore the interjections. Thank you.

Mr. Eakins: He’s not in the House just now.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: In his reply to the Throne Speech, the Leader of the Opposition talked about freedom of information. That has been one of his topics for the last while back.

ln an exchange with the Premier (Mr. Davis) on that day, he said, and I’d like to quote: “I don’t know if there is a freedom of information Act in Manitoba and Saskatchewan.” Now surely, since we hear day in and day out all about the so-called great things being done by those socialist governments in those two provinces, it’s a little too much to expect that he’s not aware that Mr. Schreyer is personally against any such legislation in Manitoba and has fought strenuously against such legislation for eight years.

Mr. Nixon: Premiers always are.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Notwithstanding this, the same Manitoba NDP thought it was a good idea before they formed the government.

And what about good old Tommy Douglas, now the champion of freedom of information? He wasn’t very receptive to that idea when he was the Premier of Saskatchewan for all those years.

Mr. Eakins: Joe Clark does that now, John.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: I suggest that since the hon. member for Scarborough West seems to know all about those governments’ compulsory insurance programmes, mining taxes in the potash industry and so on out in the western provinces, I think it’s reasonable for us to expect that he did have some general idea of the position of the party in those provinces as it relates to freedom of information. But then I suppose he would also deny knowledge about Flyer Industries and Saunders Aircraft and so on, all of which have been disastrous government-run enterprises.

Mr. Moffatt: Oh, come on.

Mr. Makarchuk: Tell us about Bricklin; tell us about Bricklin.

An hon. member: Where did you come from?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Still, the same kind of economic theories and policies he and his party would put into effect in this province and put them then on to the backs of the Ontario taxpayers.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. We ask that there be fewer interjections and we request that you honour that.

Mr. Sargent: Why does he get special treatment? He needs all the help he can get.

An hon. member: “Before I was so rudely interrupted by the Speaker...”

Mr. Sargent: It’s the first time I heard him make a speech.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: All we know, really, from what the Leader of the Opposition said to us in his speech the other day, is that he is against stimulating job opportunities and increasing economic expansion through the assistance of the private sector. He’s opposed to that.

Mr. Moffatt: No, he’s not.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: We believe that is probably the most meaningful way to guarantee higher economic activity and increased opportunities for jobs for the people of this province.

Mr. Moffatt: That’s why the crisis.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: But his alternative, and it’s basically a pretty simple one, is for governments to spend more and more money.

An hon. member: Yeah.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: That also means higher and higher taxes, and somewhere along the line the members of his party are going to learn about that.

Mr. Breithaupt: That’s what you’re doing.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: The interesting part of it is that there are certain members in that caucus over there who really know what free enterprise is all about and they know what effect it can have on the community. Yet they’ll stand in this House and make some of the strangest statements about more government intervention into the lives of the general public. Surely we’re going to find out --

Mr. Mancini: Like regional government.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Surely we should try to find out that they tried all of that --

Mr. Moffatt: Who wrote this? You don’t believe this.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: They tried all this in Great Britain.

Mr. Renwick: This is nonsense.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: They’ve tried it all in Great Britain.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Renwick: You’ve been here for seven or eight years and you haven’t heard a thing we’ve said.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Warner: You never listen.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Many of these theories that I hear put forth by the hon. members opposite have been tried in Great Britain, and we all know what’s happened there. They’ve just been colossal failures.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Again, in both Manitoba and Saskatchewan -- and you’ve got to live with these things, my friend --

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: You’re going to have to live with them.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. I would suggest if the hon. members wish to remain in the chamber that they cease the interjections.

Mr. Shore: Clear the House.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: No; order, please. Will the hon. minister be allowed to continue? Would you continue, please?

Mr. Renwick: Why don’t you go and build some houses?

Mr. Sargent: The minister is inciting them.

Mr. Moffatt: He pre-dates the Neanderthals.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: The NDP has been living in sort of a strange world where its members really believe they can dip into the pockets of the taxpayers of the province for everything --

Mr. Warner: Why don’t you run in Oriole?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: -- that they can enlarge the civil service beyond all means.

Mr. Nixon: You’re the one with the $2-billion deficit.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Take both Manitoba and Saskatchewan --

Mr. Nixon: You’re paying $1 billion a year in interest.

Mr. Breithaupt: Sixty thousand in the civil service and another 18,000 on contract.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

[8:30]

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Anyway, I think it’s safe to say that I don’t believe the people of the province are ready to accept the sort of philosophy that’s being put forth by the New Democratic Party in this province. They’re not prepared to do it. They may try --

Mr. Swart: Try it.

Mr. Nixon: Right, they are trying for liberalism.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: While we’re on the subject of taxes, I don’t think we should forget that the Leader of the Opposition has just made some changes in some of his critics, one of which concerned the former critic of the finance portfolio; because quite frankly, that hon. member was doing a lot of talking about increasing taxes and more government spending. I think the Leader of the Opposition got just a little jittery with all that and he decided that perhaps he should really set that off to one side.

Mr. Moffatt: Just like John Smith getting into trouble too.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, the NDP in this House, while being a rather fascinating lot, are really not too different from those who have sat in this House for many, many years. Their public image is a little strange, just a little strange.

Mr. Sargent: They have always stayed NDP anyway.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Look, let me ask them this: In the agricultural portfolio --

Mr. Makarchuk: It’s better to be rather strange than senile.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: In agriculture, their spokesman is from Toronto.

Mr. Swart: Where do you fit in?

Mr. Germa: Should be from Middlesex South.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: In northern affairs, the spokesman is from Toronto; and then, as if to deny all the logic, the spokesman for beer at Toronto’s Exhibition Stadium is the member for Cornwall (Mr. Samis). I think that’s delightful; it’s really delightful.

Mr. Moffatt: The member for Sudbury East (Mr. Martel) is the critic for northern affairs.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: In land preservation, they all stand up in public supporting a no-growth policy, but I think I can show in writing the number of letters that I’ve received from some of their caucus wanting me to lift minister’s zoning orders, to amend minister’s zoning orders, to do this and to do that to provide for growth in the same areas that they’re telling me they want a firm hand placed upon the developers in these areas.

Mr. Warner: We would like to see more housing.

Mr. Nixon: Surely you don’t think minister’s orders replace planning?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: No.

Mr. Nixon: That is what you like. You like to control the planning in all those areas.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk and all other areas in the community has made the comment that I’m in favour of minister’s orders.

Mr. Nixon: You’ve got plenty of them.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: After listening to the very sage advice of the hon. member, I took those zoning orders off of his area, as a result of his pleading to hear his case.

Mr. Nixon: They’re not off yet.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: They’re there to be taken off as a result of what you said.

Mr. Nixon: They are there to be taken off? You’re the one who put them on.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: No, I’m not.

Mr. Nixon: The Minister of Housing did. Aren’t you the Minister of Housing?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, I still find it a little strange that, as the member for Cornwall stands up and makes his public pronouncements on the position that he has taken as it relates to the provision of beer in Exhibition Stadium here in Toronto, what is the position of that party? I haven’t heard any of the other members standing up and very loudly expounding that; not very loudly at all.

Mr. Nixon: Tell us about your position? Are you against beer?

Mr. Warner: Not one of them answered the question.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. I think that the hon. members can set a little better example for the young people in the galleries tonight, as well as showing some respect for whoever has the floor. The hon. minister has the floor.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. minister will continue.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: What I would like to find out next in the course of this sitting is what the real position is of the New Democratic Party on northern development. We had a policy put forth by one of their Toronto members and he said: “No further development until the mess in the south is cleaned up.” Yet I sat in the House here today and I listened to one of the members from the Thunder Bay area criticizing the Minister of Natural Resources because, he said, we’re importing logs and wood from the United States and we’re not cutting enough up in his area. Those two fellows want to sit down and get together on what their policy really is for northern development.

Mr. Moffatt: We are together.

Mr. Warner: It is easy on your side -- you don’t do anything.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: The other interesting point was that the Leader of the Opposition, in his rather lengthy speech in the Throne debate, did not once make reference to that northern development policy expounded by one member in this Legislature.

Mr. Warner: Oh, yes he did.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Warner: Re-read it.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: I’ve often asked myself, as I think most people in northern Ontario have, why is it that they have a southern member from Toronto, who probably hasn’t been much farther north than Highway 401 and Steeles, setting out the policy for northern development? I really believe that we want to know why it is that this sort of policy is being put forth, and yet no position has been firmly taken by the party to support that position which he has expounded.

Mr. Sargent: How many members have you got?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: I haven’t heard the northern members standing up and saying that this is the policy they support. I would invite them to do so. They have made a mistake and they are going to have to live with it.

Mr. Moffatt: No, we didn’t.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Someone mentioned the other day that what I should do, or someone should do, is send out one of these questionnaires that they are all so familiar with and they are all so in love with filling out; we should send them all one and ask them to fill it out as to just exactly what their positions are on these various things.

Mr. Nixon: The Minister of the Environment (Mr. Kerr) sent one out asking if his people wanted to have cans or bottles.

Mr. Breithaupt: After he had done it.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: This government believes in making sure that the people who understand the various regions and interests are appointed to look after the needs of the people in the respective areas. That’s why you will find a northerner in charge of northern affairs, Mr. Speaker --

Interjection.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: -- and you will find a rural person responsible for agricultural policy.

Interjection.

Mr. Nixon: I notice you didn’t say a farmer, just a rural person.

Mr. Hodgson: He was a farmer too.

Mr. Angus: Talk to George about pollution in the north.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: All that comes down right now is that the government is prepared to supply good government.

Mr. Nixon: The member for York North (Mr. Hodgson) is the only bona fide farmer you have got.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, I want to talk a little bit about --

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: -- some of the figures that were used in this Legislature as they relate to the development of housing in the province of Ontario.

Mr. Deans: Some of them.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Now we all know that you fellows can throw statistics around pretty good and you can throw out numbers too.

An hon. member: What housing?

Mr. Moffatt: List the housing.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: In both his statements and Speech from the Throne remarks, and as well in a prepared statement he released, the Leader of the Opposition went on to quote certain numbers and figures as to assisted housing starts in the province of Ontario. Well, even his own candidates refused to believe the figures, so they have used different figures in the course of discussing the question of development of assisted housing in Ontario.

Mr. Moffatt: Spend more time building houses than reading press releases.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: He will be familiar with the words of his own candidate who stood at a meeting not too long ago and quoted a number of figures which were certainly far different -- and much more accurate, I might add -- than those put forth by the Leader of the Opposition here in this House.

The Leader of the Opposition said that in 1974 the Ministry of Housing created 497 assisted housing units in the province, 474 in 1975 and 202 in 1976. That -- and he knows it -- is absolutely incorrect.

In 1974 the ministry started 4,192 assisted housing units --

Mr. Warner: Baloney.

Mr. Moffatt: Whose press release is that?

Hon. Ms. Rhodes: -- which is surely a far cry from the 497 that he credited us with. Let’s look at the real figures for 1975 and 1976.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: The member for Scarborough West states, absolutely incorrectly, 474 and 202 respectively. The simple fact of the matter is that in 1975 the Ministry of Housing was involved in 8,461 units --

Some hon. members: “Involved in.”

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: -- of assisted housing; and in 1976, 10,130 units.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Now, let me repeat -- let me put it to you this way. I am fully aware of your policy in that caucus, that housing in Ontario should be built by the government. That’s your position. You don’t believe that the private sector should build it.

Mr. Renwick: We want to build houses.

An hon. member: Rather than do nothing.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: You don’t believe that there should be integrated communities. You don’t believe that we should have a variety of housing in areas. What you want and your critic -- your former critic was the one who talked this way continually -- is large blocks of low rental housing --

Mr. Moffatt: That sounds sensible.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: -- no real social interchange between people. That’s what you want, You want it to be built by the government. You don’t recognize that the private sector can build assisted housing; and through our rent-supplement programmes, through co-operative housing, through community-integrated housing, we are supplying units here in this province for people to live in assisted rental housing, but you people insist that it has to be done by --

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I wish the hon. member for Sault Ste. Marie, the Minister of Housing, would speak to me.

Mr. Angus: He won’t believe you either.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, I would be more than pleased and delighted to speak to you, because I suggest that among your colleagues you are the only one who really has an ability to understand and listen, so I would be glad to speak to you, sir.

So, Mr. Speaker, as we ignore the other members opposite and we speak to you, I point out to you again that the figures used by the Leader of the Opposition as they relate to assisted housing in this province are totally wrong and they are not accurate at all.

Mr. Nixon: Who wrote that stuff, John?

Mr. Moffatt: Author.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: We had over 3,964 assisted housing units in 1975.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: We signed agreements for --

Interjections.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Will the member for Brantford (Mr. Makarchuk) try to restrain himself? He will have an opportunity later on in this debate.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, these units were under rent-geared-to-income accommodation, under the rent-supplement programme; and, as I said, the community-integrated programme and the limited-dividend and accelerated-rental programmes. Now if you see something wrong with those programmes, would you tell us? If they are providing units at lower rents for people to live in, what is wrong with them? Just because it isn’t being done the way you would like to see it done --

Mr. Moffatt: They are too slow.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, right now we have over 76,000 units in this province in the portfolio of the ministry. Allowing for normal rental turnover that will make available more than 7,000 units a year which can be re-rented.

The Leader of the Opposition’s statistics also ignore the fact that there are 4,625 senior citizen and family units now under construction --

Mr. Angus: How many on the waiting list?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: -- over the years the ministry has produced more than 12,200 units of housing for students, brought to market more than 25,100 fully-serviced lots and provided millions of dollars of mortgage financing to nearly 22,000 other units.

Mr. Sargent: It is all federal money that you are talking about.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: So you’re telling us that we’re not doing anything in housing?

Mr. Angus: How big is the waiting list?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. member for Fort William is becoming repetitive.

Mr. Angus: He is not answering the question.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: This is not the question period.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: The Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Speaker, is also trying to suggest that the province is getting out of programmes to build houses. This again, of course, is completely untrue; it is incorrect. As anyone who is familiar with our new programmes will recognize, we’ll be working even more closely with the municipalities in the future to meet their needs for assisted housing. All I ask of you is that if you want to be critical, which of course is your responsibility, please do so with some degree of accuracy, because up till now you’ve been missing the target by plenty; just get down to getting your research underway.

Mr. Makarchuk: Where is the housing?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: The housing is all over this province, and the hon. member knows it full well. That same hon. member, the member for Brantford, has in his own community the proof of the number of units that have been started in assisted housing; and he knows full well that that’s true.

He knows full well that when his community has asked for assisted housing those programmes have been delivered. He can’t stand in this House and say anything else and at the same time be honest to himself and the rest of his colleagues here.

Mr. Makarchuk: It was only because I did it myself, not because of you.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, I might read into the record the comments that were in the Realty Communication Newsletter of April 1977, and I quote as follows: “The best news for home builders these days is the increasing traffic around new subdivisions and a market increase in sales during the first quarter of this year as against last year.”

That was Murray Webber, the president of the Toronto Homebuilders Association, who called the increase “dramatic.” He also indicated that one of the reasons for this was the piggy-back arrangement between the federal and Ontario governments that we’ve put together, putting AHOP and Home Developments together. I know you’re going to say that comes from the Toronto Homebuilders Association, and it does; but after all they are the people who are doing the building.”

But while we we’re being critical of the programmes of providing housing in the province of Ontario let me read something else to you. It says here: “While Ontario built 77,601 units of public housing between 1964 and 1975 under the programme, Quebec built only 20,265. Ontario built 46,633 units of senior citizens’ housing under the programme, while Quebec built only 8,352.

Mr. Sargent: How many apartments have you built?

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: It doesn’t say anything? Do you know who was saying it?

Mr. Moffatt: Where did it start?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Do you know who was saying it? I’ll tell you who was saying it, and maybe you’re right, maybe it doesn’t say anything. It was said by Ed Broadbent, MP, leader of the New Democratic Party, in a discussion with Levesque in Quebec. Maybe you’re right, perhaps it doesn’t say anything --

Mr. Moffatt: Where did you start?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: -- come to think of it.

Mr. Moffatt: It is about time you thought of it.

Mr. Riddell: Who is Ed Broadbent?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, in my own riding of Sault Ste. Marie a $34,000 semi-detached unit, with estimated municipal taxes of $45-a-month, would generally require an annual income of $13,200 to make the monthly mortgage and tax payments; with the AHOP interest-reduction loan the minimum requirement is reduced to $10,880; and with maximum assistance, the loan and a $750 subsidy, the income is $8,380.

Mr. Makarchuk: Those are federal programmes you are talking about.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: If we go to a maximum programme involving the Ontario government in the programme that we’ve put together --

Mr. Makarchuk: You didn’t put anything together, you took advantage --

Mr. Ruston: The feds put up the wherewithal; you turned the key.

Mr. Nixon: The hon. John Rhodes comes to town.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: As long as they put it up, we’ll run the programme. We add on to that our $750 grant, and a person with an income of just about $6,000 a year can afford to buy the home.

[8:45]

I don’t think that sounds like we’re getting out of housing in Ontario. I recognize and I give full credit to the programmes that we have been able to work together on with the federal government. I’m not for one minute attempting to suggest that the federal government has not played its role in housing.

Mr. Haggerty: That’s a switch.

Mr. Nixon: They don’t need you at all at this stage.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: I have always said that. But I will say this as well: The federal government has been willing to work with us in the development of their programmes and ours so that we can make maximum use of the dollars, with a limited amount of administration --

Mrs. Campbell: They have always cooperated.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: -- which is something the hon. members on that side don’t know anything about; they’re all busy trying to enlarge the bureaucracy to run government programmes sponsored only by them. But I have no hesitation in recommending that.

Mr. Nixon: What does your superminister say about that?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: The Throne Speech also indicates that we have an intention to increase the amount of rental housing for senior citizen families with low income. We will do that. Again, that obviously does not make any kind of possible suggestion that we are getting out of the housing field. If the Leader of the Opposition continues to use his faulty figures, then I can only conclude one of two things: He’s either deliberately trying to avoid giving the exact figures or his research needs an awful lot of work to be done on it.

Mr. Moffatt: You know better than that.

Mr. Warner: You might try --

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Will the members for Scarborough-Ellesmere (Mr. Warner) and Durham East (Mr. Moffatt) keep quiet?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: I have mentioned the public position that the Leader of the Opposition and his colleagues like to take on land policy. But what of the private requests that more often than not greatly conflict with what they say in public? There’s a lack of consistency there.

I want to talk specifically about the area regarding land preservation policy; and this has to do, of course, with the antics of the member for Welland-Thorold (Mr. Swart). He has been very vocal about the government’s green paper on food land policy and Niagara regional boundaries. But when all is said and done, when one gets through all the press releases he has let out, I can only conclude that he is a member of the Legislature who really thinks the solution to this problem is to put it in the hands of the Ontario Municipal Board and let that become a political forum.

I don’t think that’s what the board is for, but he apparently sees that as a way of making some sort of political hay out of a very complex problem in that region. In suggesting that the OMB should decide the boundaries for the development of that area on agricultural land in the region, if that’s what he recommends, I might add that would diminish considerably the local autonomy. But then he has always said in this House and during consideration of my estimates, as I recall, he really felt the provincial government should come down hard on municipalities and make the decisions for them.

Maybe we can crystallize the member’s thinking of this. I’ll quote from a story in the Niagara Falls Review of March 11, 1977:

“‘I am sick and tired of hearing Swart on the subject he, an urban dweller, knows nothing about,’ Councillor Russell High of Lincoln said. ‘I am sure he has never been closer to the land in Lincoln than looking at an aerial map. He’s never walked over an inch of it. When agricultural land is mentioned, he immediately starts to talk and he doesn’t know what he is talking about.”

Mr. Nixon: The member for Lincoln (Mr. Hall) is the man who knows all about those lands.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: I suggest that that should suffice; it parallels my own feelings as far as his knowledge of that particular problem is concerned.

Mr. Riddell: The member for Welland-Thorold will have lots of time to walk over the land after the next election.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: I suggest that one should at least make some mention regarding the contribution that has been made to this debate by the Leader of the Opposition; and that is to say that, in fact, the Speech from the Throne was a good speech and one in which he found a great deal that he could support. But, of course, in a dying effort he had to come up with some sort of an amendment, knowing full well that amendment would never carry in this House.

I suggest that the Speech from the Throne deserves the support of the entire House --

Mr. Warner: You have got to be kidding. You are not really serious.

Mr. Cassidy: No wonder you backed away from half of it.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: -- and then the members of the opposition take a notion to look at what that amendment really is, they too will stand in support of the Speech from the Throne.

Mr. Burr: Inasmuch as the previous speaker’s political identification was called into question, Mr. Speaker, and at the time there were more former Liberals present on the Tory benches than there were genuine Tories, perhaps I should identify myself. I am a member of the New Democratic Party.

Mr. Maeck: Glad you told us.

Mr. Burr: But I must confess I have not always been a member of the New Democratic Party. For 22 years before I became a New Democrat I was a member of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation; that is, a dues-paying member.

Mr. Mancini: That’s when he ran in Essex North.

Mr. Nixon: That’s when he had a real party to support.

An hon. member: He’s just a born loser.

Mr. Burr: I should like to congratulate the member for Huron-Bruce (Mr. Gaunt) for speaking so well on the subject of nuclear and solar energy, thereby saving me the trouble of doing so. I should also like to thank the member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Laughren) for speaking on PCBs, which subject I was going to cover.

Mr. Nixon: Well, that’s that.

Mr. Burr: Oh, I have had a request from the member for Brantford-Norfolk-Oxford and Woodstock -- no, not Woodstock --

An hon. member: He would if he could.

Mr. Burr: -- to throw in a reference to -- is it beer?

Mr. Nixon: Any of those drinks. You know about them all.

Mr. Burr: Any of those drinks. I’ll try to work that in just to please this member, who’s a very nice fellow.

I should like to make some comments first of all on the subject of unemployment, a disease that bedevils most non-totalitarian countries. There are some differences between the depression of the 1930s and the present-day depression. For the benefit of those members who didn’t experience the last depression, I should like to give a very brief description.

In the 1930s there were no old-age pensions of any significance and they were not paid until the age of 70. There was no unemployment insurance, and there was very little help available in the form of welfare. Thousands of people lost their homes simply because they couldn’t pay their property taxes. The unemployed -- at least those who travelled from town to town looking for work -- were subject to frequent arrests and frequent warnings to get out of town to avoid arrest. These were the major obvious differences.

There were some similarities. In the United States there were nine million persons unemployed and in Canada almost a million, as I recall. Today’s statistics are not unlike those of the 1930s. The prospects for high school and university graduates were no better then than they are today.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Excuse me for a moment. Will the hon. members keep their voices down? I can hear three different conversations while I’m trying to listen to the hon. member for Windsor-Riverside.

Mr. Burr: Married women had virtually no chance of being hired as teachers, and single women teachers who married had little chance of remaining on staff.

I mention this simply because last week I received from a former constituent the first angry letter that I have received on the subject of unemployment. The theme of the letter was that married women whose husbands hold good jobs should not be employed until the present depression ends. Actually I’m surprised that I have not received such a letter before now, and I shall be even more surprised if I don’t receive many more in the weeks ahead.

Adolf Hitler destroyed and shortened the lives of millions of people. On the other hand, ironically, millions of North Americans were saved from lives of poverty, deprivation, misery and indignity because of Hitler. The war that he started gave meaning and dignity, and even brought happiness to millions of North America’s unemployed.

How will the present depression end? The depression of the 1930s lasted almost a decade and had not World War II put everyone to work, there is no certainty that it would not still be continuing today. Roosevelt’s public works programme merely alleviated the problem in the United States; it did not by any means solve it.

Inasmuch as totalitarian methods are anathema to most Canadians, we can safely ignore them as a solution.

We have seen what a national anti-inflation programme has caused: the widespread staff cutting and increased unemployment. I want to propose, and this is simply my own proposal, that we change our approach and start a full employment programme. To make it palatable to government we will even use the acronym FEP.

Let us assume that for every 100 persons now working full-time in Canada there are seven who can find no work at all. Let us assume, also, that inflation is continuing at an annual rate of seven per cent. Let us assume, also, that for most jobs and for most people the only justification for an annual increase in pay is the increase in the cost of living.

Based on those assumptions, in order to make our thinking specific let us consider a hospital that has 100 employees -- nurses, clerical, housekeeping, maintenance staff and so on. The total wage and salary budget for this hospital would be increased seven per cent this year to take care of inflation. But because of FEP, our full employment plan, the 100 employees would get no increase in pay, partly because their work hours would be reduced by approximately seven per cent and partly because there would be seven additional persons hired to maintain the quality of service the public needs.

How would this affect the public? How would it affect the employer, the 100 employees, the seven previously unemployed and the state? Since the number of work hours would be the same, the quality of service offered to the public should remain the same. The employer -- in this case the hospital board -- would be increasing its budget no more than the anticipated inflationary seven per cent. The 100 employees would receive no increase in total pay, but would be receiving an hourly rate increase of about seven per cent because their hours of work were being decreased about seven per cent. The seven jobless persons would of course be the main beneficiaries of FEP, for reasons that surely need not be elaborated; the restoration of dignity, restoration of income, and possibly salvation of a family life are among the most obvious benefits.

Imagine the FEP, the full employment programme, applied to 10 million jobs or positions in Canada and you can see that 700,000 unemployed persons could be restored to full citizenship. If the FEP were put into operation in every possible category of employment, governments would receive much more revenue from income tax, unemployment insurance payments would become minimal, welfare payments would be confined to the unemployable.

Consequently, there could be tax reductions at all three levels of government, sufficient perhaps to make up for the lack of a seven per cent cost-of-living wage increase that all employees would forgo in the first year of the FEP. It is possible that the tax reductions will offset the cost-of-living increase in its entirety.

The success of FEP would depend upon the compassion of governments -- in particular the federal government -- to initiate the programme in the first place, and the goodwill of all those now employed to make sure that it was implemented in the second place.

From answers to questionnaires that I have circulated in the riding of Windsor-Riverside, which I have the honour to represent, I know there would be great support and enthusiasm for a full employment plan. I commend it to the Premier (Mr. Davis) for his serious consideration, endorsation and presentation to the federal government.

[9:00]

For the Minister of Transportation and Communication (Mr. Snow), the Attorney General (Mr. McMurtry) and any other cabinet minister who is interested in the subject, I have a report from my constituents on the legal driving age they prefer in Ontario. The age of 16 is satisfactory to, or favoured by, 24.5 per cent; the age of 17 by 10 per cent, and the age of 18 as the legal driving age by 64 per cent. Only one per cent had no opinion on this subject.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I can hear the Minister of Transportation and Communications better than I can hear the person who has the floor.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Fred, speak up. Speak up. Fred. Turn on his microphone.

Hon. Mr. Snow: You only hear the important things, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Burr: I wonder if the minister heard my remarks or should I repeat them, Mr. Speaker?

An hon. member: Repeat them. Repeat them.

Mr. Nixon: He is not interested in full employment.

Mr. Burr: I’ll send them to him by mail -- by courier. The comments on the legal driving age included references to the obvious drinking and driving dangers, as well as ‘to the energy conservation aspect. The emotional immaturity of the average 16-year-old, compared with that of the average 18-year-old, was mentioned in some comments, especially in the case of a fatal accident. A youngster of 16 may be traumatically scarred for life, whereas two years later he might handle such a situation more successfully. I would like to tell the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk -- inasmuch as he is very interested in this subject -- and in particular give to you, Mr. Speaker, the results of the survey in my riding concerning the best legal age for the drinking of alcohol. I gave my constituents five choices; 18, 19, 20, 21, and over 21. The percentage of constituents favouring each was as follows; age of 18, 15.5 per cent; 19, 4.5 per cent; the age of 20, 18 per cent; the age of 21, 52 per cent; a higher age, nine per cent. One per cent offered no opinion.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Drinking or driving?

Mr. Burr: This was the drinking age. In other words, raising the age to only 19 does not satisfy 79 per cent of the constituents who answered the questions. At least 61 per cent favoured restoring the drinking age to 21.

I wish to register my dissatisfaction with some of the operations of the Workmen’s Compensation Board. We must have a better system of compensating injured persons, whether they are injured workmen or any other kind of injured citizen. The physical effects of an injury are the same whether it happens at work, at home or anywhere else. But the financial effects can be extremely different.

If an injury occurs at work, the injured workman or workperson has a fairly good chance of being compensated, especially if he has several witnesses and, preferably, a moving-picture-camera operator covering the accident. In those cases, he is fairly well off. But if he has the accident at home, he is financially out of luck, unless he is fortunate enough to be covered by a sickness and accident insurance policy of some kind. A better system must evolve, wherein there is no necessity to prove the injury is related to the work place. It is on this reef that the fates of thousands of injured workmen have foundered.

I have one current case history that I should like to share with the House, never having done so before. As I relate it, I ask members to keep in mind the number of persons whose time and talents are taken up with handling this one particular case, persons whose involvement would not be required at all if we had an all-embracing universal accident insurance plan.

At the end of October 1976 a constituent came to me for help. Normally his union would have looked after his case, but he was aware that his president was spending about 35 per cent of his time on Workmen’s Compensation Board problems and hoped I could speed up the resolution of his problem.

Mr. Ferrier: You can say all you want now, the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk is in the chair.

Mr. Burr: On November 1, I wrote to the chairman of the Workmen’s Compensation Board telling him the following story.

Mr. Davidson: Are you sure that’s King Robbie?

Mr. Burr: In the letter I mentioned names, but here in the House I shall not do so. I shall call my constituent “Ray,” although that is not his name.

“Dear Mr. Starr:

“At [a certain plant] on October 26, 1975, while Ray was pushing a 300-pound stock truck, the latter’s wheels caught in a crack in the floor causing Ray a piercing pain in his right shoulder. When this pain gradually extended to his neck, his family physician sent him to a doctor to be x-rayed. As a result of the x-ray findings he was sent to a physiotherapist. The diagnosis accompanying him was cervical and right shoulder suspensory pain.

“Between November 21, 1975, and May 13, 1976, Ray went on 97 separate days for therapy sessions, with good results for the shoulder. On May 17, he was called to the Downsview rehabilitation centre. The therapy there was strictly for the neck. On June 8, no further progress seemed likely and he was told that he was discharged. The rehabilitation officer said, ‘You can go back to work tomorrow, Ray.’

“When Ray told him that the doctor had said only for light work, the rehabilitation officer called the doctor and confirmed this. He then called the industrial relations manager at Ray’s plant, who informed him that with over 200 of the 300 employees on layoff there was no light duty work available, despite Ray’s 27 years of seniority.

“The rehabilitation officer then said to Ray, ‘I have bad news for you, Ray. You will be on WCB payments for some time yet. Your company has no light work.’ Ray returned to Windsor in June and his Workmen’s Compensation cheques continued until September 15, 1976, when suddenly he was cut off.

“Six weeks later a letter, dated October 25, arrived stating that ‘a routine review [of his claim] had revealed that the Workmen’s Compensation Board has evidently been paying benefits since June 8, 1976, for a non-work-related upper back injury.’ The letter ended by saying that he would be notified shortly of the exact amount of this overpayment.

“Since being cut off in mid-September Ray has exhausted his savings and has now $56 left in the bank. He has no wish to go on welfare. The suggestion that he has been overpaid and should return a couple of thousand dollars simply floors him. He’s had to borrow from his credit union in order to have enough money to make his November mortgage payment.

“From what he can gather, the Workmen’s Compensation Board is suggesting that his present cervical pains stem from a 1950 auto accident in which some ligaments torn in his right shoulder were repaired by transfer of ligaments from his right leg. In this accident, there was no injury whatsoever to his neck. In fact, he served in the army from May 1951 to January 1954 with the 48th Toronto Highlanders. He was A1 when he enlisted and he was A1 when he was discharged. As a leading infantryman, he carried heavy packs without any difficulty or discomfort throughout 32 months of service, most of that time in Germany.

“The doctor’s letter of February 20 refers quite clearly to the C5, C6 and C7 trouble as the cause of his taking the physiotherapy treatment. His family’s physician is so annoyed by WCB’s actions that he simply throws its registered letters into his wastepaper basket. The physiotherapist’s instructions were clear. He was to treat Ray for ‘cervical and right shoulder suspensory sprain.’ At Downsview, the treatment by the therapists was for the neck only, the shoulder trouble having virtually ended.

“Why suddenly does a ‘routine review of the claim’ turn a blind eye to the neck and assume that the compensable injury was restricted to the shoulder? I should appreciate your earliest possible consideration of this case, as Ray’s personal savings have been exhausted.”

Mr. Starr replied promptly on November 3 and set the wheels in motion, but it took until December 8, a good five weeks later and a very long time for a man harassed financially as well as physically, for Ray to receive word that he would not have to pay back the $2,000. However, the letter said the board’s medical advisers “said that the neck injury was a degenerative disc disease and that, although it could be aggravated by accident, it could not be aggravated by this type of accident.”

Mr. B. Newman: The old story.

Mr. Burr: You’ve heard that one?

Mr. B. Newman: Yes.

Mr. Burr: Of course, we appealed this decision and eventually on February 17 of this year had a hearing in Windsor -- a sympathetic hearing, I might add. Nevertheless, it took until March 11, almost four weeks, before Ray received a letter saying he must go to London to the examined by still another doctor on May 11 -- one long interval after another. After his examination on May 11, how much longer will he have to wait to hear the results of his February 17 appeal? Even the mailing of a letter takes the board such a long time.

Take these dates, for example: On March 2, Dr. Hopper of the WCB wrote the letter notifying Ray of his medical appointment in London. On March 3, a transportation warrant was issued, but it took until March 8 for the envelope to get postmarked and it took until March 11 for Ray to receive it in Windsor.

Since mid-September of 1976, Ray has received no compensation payments, although his local doctors have been visited by investigators, although he has had a myelogram, although he continues to wear the cervical collar provided by WCB, although he endures continuous pain, and although he has had a hearing on February 17. Still he has no prospect of hearing a decision before some time after this examination on May 11.

Mr. B. Newman: Shame.

Mr. Burr: It is this kind of delay that turns injured workmen into depressed, discouraged individuals and perhaps eventually into unemployables with functional overlays. When one adds to these delays the fact that Ray’s company is having economic troubles and may fold, leaving him at the age of 46 or so in the unenviable position of having to seek a new job with his recent WCB record, one can realize what his frustration and discouragement have been during these last several months.

[9:15]

We need a universal accident insurance scheme in which it is necessary only to prove that an injury has been suffered without any concern as to where, how or why. Ontario needs a better plan and hundreds of injured workmen need it now. In fact, if we had a universal sickness and accident insurance plan, the kind of speech given by the member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Laughren) concerning Aime Bertrand and the quibbling over the cause of his illness would be quite unnecessary. If a person is dying or disabled by cancer, society should have an insurance scheme to take care of his financial worries.

Despite the welcome change in rules restoring the question period to an hour, there are still often occasions on which it takes the member a long time to ask a question of the minister.

Mr. Samis: Especially the member for Oriole (Mr. Williams).

Mr. Burr: There is no certainty that he or she can be present during estimates during the particular vote under which certain concerns may be raised. For this reason I am raising the following environmental matter publicly and will follow it up personally with the minister -- although he is here now, almost the only minister who is, and he may be able to take note of it.

The Environmental Protection Agency in the United States has found that the practice of salting streets and highways during winter is not an unmixed blessing. In addition to the $200 million spent on the cost of salt itself and the cost of applying it to road surfaces in the American snow-belt states, there are environmental costs which are probably equal in dollar terms, although putting a precise dollar-and-cent value on damage to the environment is not possible.

Damage to highway surfaces, and especially to bridges, has been estimated at $500 million annually in the United States. Salt damage to vehicles has been estimated at 10 times the cost of the whole salting operation, namely, $2 billion. Even more serious than these property damages, however, is the damage to water supplies. In Massachusetts alone, 90 communities had sodium content greater than that allowed to persons on low-salt diets. Increased levels of sodium in water supplies increase the risk of hypertension, according to health authorities. In fact, the EPA reports that in some communities salt levels in drinking water now “exceed public health service safety standards set by leading researchers, heart specialists and the American Heart Association.” It is probably anti-climactic to add that damage to vegetation is estimated at $50 million annually.

My questions to the Minister of the Environment and to the Minister of Health are these:

1. What studies are being made of the environmental and health costs of the practice of salting roads in Ontario?

2. Is the situation any less serious in Ontario where use of salt is even higher than in the United States?

3. What measures are they planning to safeguard against further damage and risk, both to Ontario’s environment and to the health of Ontario citizens?

I have a brief comment to the Minister of Health (Mr. Timbrell): Dr. H. A. Heggtveit, professor of pathology at the University of Ottawa, has shown magnesium deficiency in the diet of rats rapidly damages heart muscle. He has found that human victims of fatal heart attacks have significantly less magnesium in heart muscle than is the case in individuals dying of other causes.

Dr. T. W. Anderson of the University of Toronto’s department of preventive medicine has found the protective factor in hard water, as far as the incidence of fatal heart attacks is concerned, is magnesium. He also points out that modern processes used in refining food reduce the level of magnesium left in our food. Depletion of magnesium in certain intensively-mined crop land has been observed in areas in which fatal heart attacks, certain types of cancer and leukemia and other diseases are increasing. Consequently, supplementary amounts of magnesium are recommended by some physicians for those diets may be deficient in magnesium.

It seems to me that disseminating information of this kind is a proper function of the Ministry of Health. At present, most of the ministry’s activities are such that the title of Ministry of Ill Health would be more understandable, if not more appropriate.

I now refer to one other topic. I should like to appeal to the Minister of Colleges and Universities (Mr. Parrott) to modify, if he will not rescind, his policy on a fee increase for foreign students. Iona College’s board of directors has recently approved a resolution to this effect. After pointing out that Canada has profited greatly by having generations of its students enjoying the benefits of education in various foreign countries, the directors point out we have an obligation to reciprocate. The directors suggest the very least the provincial government may do is to offer offsetting scholarships or bursaries to “students of proven need from the less- developed countries.” I commend this resolution to the Minister of Colleges and Universities for his serious consideration.

Mr. McKessock: Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege for me to participate in the Throne Speech debate here tonight and congratulate the government in the odd place, criticize it in a few areas and make a few recommendations.

It was encouraging to see in the Throne Speech a new nine per cent loan being made available to small business. I have been asking for something like this since I came in here. It came out in the paper, saying it was eight and a quarter; I had been saying we should have one at eight per cent. I thought it was getting close to what I wanted but when calling the ministry the next morning, I was told it was nine per cent and not eight.

I asked for the definition of “small business” and they said any employer with under 100 employees. I said: “Well, then, that’s fine. The farmer will come under that category.” The fellow on the other end of the line immediately started to laugh and assured me that this loan wasn’t going to be made available to farmers. I cannot see how farmers can be discriminated against in this way. It seems obvious to me that farmers need this nine per cent loan; they come under the category of small business.

There’s an Industry and Tourism office in Owen Sound and the ODC loans are not administered through this office. I think they should be; in the case of the small business loan they, especially, should be administered through the local offices to cut down the government and civil service red tape to a minimum. They should have the power to authorize these loans from local offices. They would be able to be administered within, say, a two- or three-week period whereas now it can take two or three months to get a loan approved.

What is the Ontario government doing for agriculture anyway? How can the young farmer, especially, get established in farming today? The only way I see it, unless he is born into a family that can set him up, he is going to have to start part-time, as a lot of the rest of us did. And in order to start part-time he has to have made available to him some small loan, such as this loan here that’s going to be made available. He may need $10,000 to $15,000 to $20,000. If he’s going to start full-time he’s going to need a loan for $150,000, which he can get through the Farm Credit Corporation. But the Farm Credit Corporation will not look at a person who wants a $10,000 loan.

A fellow came to me lust last weekend, and I’ve had a lot of them come to me in this category wanting to obtain a loan from $5,000 to $25,000 to start into farming part-time so that he can build up to be a full-time farmer at a future date. This doesn’t only just enable them to get into farming, but starting in a smaller way also takes a lot of the risk out of it for them.

I would like to see the government reconsider this small business loan and try to make it available to the farmers as well. Do they really want to keep the family farm or not? If they do, they’re going to have to do something more than what they have suggested -- that is paying their taxes for them iii the new assessment deal that is coming through. I haven’t talked to one farmer yet who wants his taxes paid for him. He wants to be able to pay his taxes the same as everybody else and he wants to run a viable business like everybody else, and he’s not looking for any charity.

We seem to be in a worse mess now than ever in starting the market value assessment and the commission on assessment. If we are not going to scrap the whole deal and keep putting it off, we’re going to have to do something to help counties such as Grey which are half on market value and half on the old assessment. It’s very unfair. The residential people are paying a lot more taxes than they were before the switch, because the whole programme hasn’t been worked out yet. It’s just questionable whether it ever is going to be worked out to anybody’s satisfaction.

Right now in Grey county industrial taxes have been cut away down and the residential taxes have been raised considerably. To show the unfairness here, the government is recommending that residences be taxed at 50 per cent of the market value assessment. Right now they are taxed at approximately 85 per cent of the assessment.

I’d like also to mention the Niagara Escarpment Commission. As far as I’m concerned, it should be scrapped. It never really should have come into existence in the first place. What would have made more sense would have been an agricultural land commission. This would have protected our farm land, would have made provision for hydro corridors going on land that isn’t viable farm land or at least keeping them to lot lines where it wouldn’t interfere with farming operations. It could have protected against the rampant building that’s going on now on farm land. What we are doing is protecting food land for the groundhogs and not considering anything about the people themselves.

How many people really know what is happening on the Niagara Escarpment that stretches from Niagara Falls to the tip of the Bruce Peninsula, with a width of 12 miles in some places? I would suggest if we are going to have to put up with this Niagara Escarpment ruling, the width of it is going to have to be cut down to somewhere around 300 feet on either side of the escarpment ridge instead of the 12 miles that it is right now. This land is poor land and it should be made available for building on, instead of the good farm land that we are building on today. Here it is, this land we can’t get permits to build on.

[9:30]

There are a lot of things that come up in the Niagara Escarpment rulings that are hard to understand. In the regulations you have to abide by certain colours on your buildings, and some people say this isn’t right. This is rumour, but it is right. There are a couple of cases that I know of for sure. One guy had to take the siding off his building because it wasn’t the right colour. Another guy had the siding bought and he had to return it and get the proper colour, because the Niagara Escarpment Commission had turned it down.

Another case concerned a doctor who came up from Toronto and built a home on a 15-acre parcel of land. The farmer next to him had a 15-acre parcel of land. He was born there and he was over 70 years old at this time, and he applied for a building permit for these 15 acres. The doctor next to him objected, and his application for a development permit was turned down. Here is a farmer who lived there all his life applying for a building permit. The doctor came from Toronto and he got a building permit, and what he was objecting to was exactly the same thing that he had done himself -- building a house on 15 acres of rough land. Yet when the farmer asked for this he objected and the farmer didn’t get it. It was turned down by the Ministry of Housing hearing.

The farmer came to me and asked what he should do, and I said to go back and start over again and do the same thing, because this is definitely unfair and somewhere along the line it has to be corrected. The trouble is, it cost him $50 to try again, but that’s what he did. The next time, with changing the house a few feet on the rough land and making a few minor adjustments, it went through. Of course, the hearing board can only be embarrassed so many times, and maybe it finally came to realize what is fair.

The Niagara Escarpment Commission also says it is passing 85 per cent of the applications that come to it. I wonder if they realize how many people are being turned off by the regulations and aren’t going through the procedure of applying. All the red tape, rules and regulations have just turned so many of these people off that they don’t even bother applying. Of course, this also goes for a lot of building today. You have to go through so many procedures before you get your house built it begins to make you wonder whether it’s worthwhile or not. Only those who are very persistent and stay with it for a long period of time and have a lot of money to spend are the ones who eventually get through to building a house.

I’d like to point out that having controls on this land also puts the price of building lots up. The government owns enough land right now that it doesn’t have to put restrictions on the Niagara Escarpment land. In Grey county alone, the government owns 1,106,000 acres of land. That’s 1,106,000 acres of land owned by the government through different ministries and the conservation authorities. In Bruce county, they own almost as much -- 773,000 acres. There is enough land, right here, for the people from the urban centres to come out and walk over and look at without tying our land up so that we can’t develop it or look after it the way we have for the past several generations.

Not only should these controls be removed, but we should also have legislation that would allow for no trespassers without written permission from the owner, and this should be enforceable by the game wardens. We who own the land, bought it and paid for it, shouldn’t have trespassers any more than the people down here in Toronto should have people coming in and using their swimming pool in their backyard. Neither should any more of our land in this day and age be used continually for landfill sites.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: What’s worse, development on the escarpment or filling in old gravel pits?

Mr. Gaunt: It’s nice of the minister to stick around.

Mr. McKessock: The money that has been spent in Toronto on the experimental recycling, et cetera, is questionable. There are companies right now which have incinerators of various sizes on the market --

Mr. Mancini: Why doesn’t the minister look them up?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: They won’t buy them up there.

Mr. McKessock: We would buy them, and I believe the government should provide 50 per cent grants to help these municipalities buy them. They would then need only 20 per cent of the land that they are using now for landfill sites.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: How about operating expenses? Fifty per cent of them too?

Mr. McKessock: The incinerators on the market today don’t even pollute the air. I don’t think a lot of people realize that they are new, modem incinerators. There is no smoke. They’re just like your self-cleaning ovens; you heat them up to a certain temperature, then you open the door and clean out the ash.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: And let out the smoke.

Mr. McKessock: I think we certainly should be moving ahead in that area and protecting our farm land in this way as well.

While I’m on the environment, I’d also like to mention again the five sewage projects in Grey riding that are held up for lack of funds -- Meaford, Thornbury, Neustadt, Flesherton and Hanover.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: What about the ones that are going ahead?

Mr. Sargent: It’s funny how things never change.

Mr. McKessock: They are going ahead too slowly for this day and age. There is sewage running down the streets. Six years ago, the Ontario Water Resources Commission told Neustadt if they didn’t clean up their act, they’d fine them $500 a day until they did. That was six years ago. Environment has now taken it over but, six years later, there are still no sewers. The local health authorities say it is a health hazard and they have sent letters to the town telling them that they must proceed with the sewer project. The Minister of the Environment told me today in question period that they don’t pay any attention to the local health authorities.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: I didn’t say that.

Mr. McKessock: They send their own men down to reassure the village that everything’s okay. Would this be allowed to go on in Toronto?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Yes.

Some hon. members: No.

Mr. McKessock: Sewage running down the street?

Mr. Hall: Or Burlington?

Mr. McKessock: The local health authorities are concerned because they are the people who are there. The ministry people only have to look at it once a year when they come up --

Mr. Sargent: Or a Tory riding.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: No, no. You live right in the riding.

Mr. Ferrier: Would you let it go on in Burlington?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Once in a while.

Mr. Sargent: The minister swims in the stuff, doesn’t he?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. member for Grey has the floor. Will he continue?

Mr. McKessock: Money is made available for many other things that I don’t believe have the priority. There is $67 million set aside in the Throne Speech for learning our second language and $5,000 for every municipality that would like to celebrate the Queen’s Jubilee. It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if the government would make money available for the restoration of the John Diefenbaker house in Neustadt before Neustadt gets sewers. It might be that Neustadt would be able to get enough money for this restoration programme of the John Diefenbaker house to put io their sewers as well.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: I think John can service his own home. Let John put sewers in his own home. Why should the province do that? He is an author; he made a lot of money from royalties.

Mr. McKessock: Good idea. I would appreciate if you would write him a letter to that effect.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. member for Grey is the only person who has the floor.

Mr. Riddell: He’s doing a good job, too.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Would he continue. please?

Mr. McKessock: While I am still on environment, I would like to say that we should be putting more research money into solar and wind energy, and methane gas.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Cut down on gas too.

Mr. McKessock: We could cut down on hydro a little and promote these other areas which involve continual natural, renewable resources.

Mr. Roy: What about hot air, George?

Mr. McKessock: And also hydro rates should be changed so that the user pays. It only encourages the misuse of hydro now when the more you use, the less you pay.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Are you going to circulate this speech all over your riding?

Mr. McKessock: Would you like a copy, George?

Mr. Speaker: Would the hon. Minister of the Environment kindly let the hon. member for Grey continue his speech uninterrupted?

Mr. McKessock: Also, the ones who are using the most hydro are the ones who are contributing to the capital cost. If we didn’t use so much we wouldn’t have to build so many nuclear plants and we wouldn’t need so much capital money spent. So it is only fair that the people who are using it are the ones that should have to pay the most money.

I would like now to switch a little to the welfare programme of the province. I think they should come forth with a programme where the people who are on welfare, those who are able to work, would be let out to any employer who would accept them, free of charge.

Mr. Angus: Sounds like slave labour to me.

Mr. Warner: It’s called slavery.

Mr. McKessock: I am quite in favour of welfare for those who are unable to work, but I do not believe in people being paid money if they are able to work.

Mr. McClellan: What about the workhouse? That should fit in the Liberal programme well.

Mr. McKessock: This programme could be very well implemented by local municipalities. They could be let out to the people to shovel their snow or to sweep the streets, or whatever.

Mr. McClellan: With a whip?

Mr. McKessock: Even if it cost a little more money it would be worthwhile because we are deteriorating our society --

Mr. Cassidy: You want all the deserted mothers out shovelling snow?

Mr. McKessock: -- by allowing people to accept money for no work.

An hon. member: Easy, kid, easy!

Mr. Cassidy: Do the kids have to shovel snow too? The six-year-olds?

Mr. Ferrier: Why don’t you create the jobs?

Mr. McKessock: And to make sure that this programme wasn’t misused, any employer who accepted one of these people on welfare could maybe only have him for three months and then he would have to go back to somebody else. So there are ways that it could be controlled.

Mr. Angus: Recycle them.

Mr. Cassidy: What about the people on compensation who can’t find light work?

Mr. McClellan: Why don’t you sell their children? Give the money to the welfare recipients.

Mr. McKessock: I can see when I start talking about welfare that the NDP pipes up, because if they had their way they would have everybody on welfare.

Some hon. members: Oh!

Mr. Warner: We’d have everybody working.

Mr. Ferrier: They would be working.

Interjections.

Mr. McKessock: Finally, I would like to congratulate the government on the decentralization of some of the ministries. It is good to see that some of these ministries are going to be moved out of Toronto. I wonder if maybe in the move they will lose a lot of the surplus civil servants in the shift. It may be a government plan to ditch a lot of them when they do move out.

Mr. Angus: Just reclassify them.

Mr. McKessock: Someone asked me the other day how the civil service got so large. I said, “It is impossible to fire them. If one doesn’t do his job, the government hires another one to see that he does.”

I would like to make the suggestion that if they would like to move the Ministry of Agriculture and Food out, maybe they would move it into the Dundalk, Harriston or Palmerston area. All these areas are good farming areas, and I think they would make an ideal spot for the Ministry of Agriculture and Food.

Mr. Speaker, it has been a pleasure to present some of my views and comments and I thank you for the opportunity.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Algoma-Manitoulin.

Mr. Reed: There is nobody on that side so we will give you a hand, John.

Mr. Lane: Thank you very much.

Mr. Reed: Your friends are over here.

An hon. member: John for minister.

Mr. Lane: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the Throne Speech debate of the fourth session of the 30th Parliament of the province of Ontario.

Mr. Roy: Make it good.

Mr. Lane: I think the Throne Speech was the best ever -- certainly the best in my years as a member of this government.

Mr. Mancini: That is what you said the last time.

[9:45]

Mr. Lane: Well, it is better this time.

Mr. Speaker, this is my first opportunity this session to express my appreciation to you and your assistants for the very fair and efficient way in which you run the business of this House on a day-to-day basis. Although your task is often very difficult, I have always known you to be very fair. I thank you for a job well done.

Many items in the Throne Speech are very important, especially in the troubled times we find ourselves living in today. Perhaps the most important item in the long term is the steps being taken to strengthen Confederation. I think the Forum on Canadian Destiny to be sponsored by this government in June of this year could indeed be the mechanism to weld this country together and do much to shape its future.

Each and every one of us must make a very strong commitment to our communities and to our country. We must be prepared to take a little and give a lot to build a strong nation. If we in Ontario, the greatest province within Confederation, set an example of fairness and stability, we can show other provinces within Confederation that in our province personal success is attainable for all those who are willing to make a fair contribution. We must be sure each citizen has an opportunity to participate fully in all the aspects of life in this province.

I believe that if our people attend the Forum on Canadian Destiny showing this type of an example and determination to have one nation, a strong and democratic society, this attitude and this type of leadership from this province can go a long way in solving the problem of separation and other major crises that face this country today.

Mr. Angus: You really don’t believe that, do you?

Mr. Lane: Unemployment is at a very high level today and we must do everything we can to get as many of our people off the unemployment lists as possible. However, we must remember there is a very fine line or a very fine balance between inflation and unemployment. If we are to help the unemployed without an increase in inflation, we must balance our economy on that very fine line.

The concern expressed in the Throne Speech about occupational health and safety of the working men and women of this province is a concern we all feel very deeply for. I am glad to see the mechanisms that are being developed to improve this situation.

I also think the provisionary period for new drivers of automobiles will save many lives and prevent much painful injury. I am sure when we see the final report from the select committee on highway safety there will be other recommendations to improve safety on the highways, because we all know there have been many needless deaths and much injury. I hope that in the future measures will be taken to prevent these tragedies and keep them to a minimum.

The concern expressed about the need for assistance to small business is very timely. Small business is having a very difficult time today competing with the giants in industry. The small businessman and the farmer have been the backbone of this country over the years. I am pleased to see special mention was made in the Throne Speech of both these very important groups of people.

I was glad to see the multicultural character of our province highlighted. Of course, my interest has increased, and it has always been a very special interest to me, by the reference to helping children with special needs and to benefits to improve the lot of our senior citizens. I think that the Throne Speech put special emphasis on these matters.

I could go on at great length about many interests to me and the people I represent. But I will be a bit selfish and discuss the one item which made this Throne Speech more important to me than any other Throne Speech since I’ve been a member of this government, and that is the portion dealing with the setting up of a new ministry for northern affairs.

Mr. Angus: Why don’t you leave that one alone?

Mr. Lane: Mr. Speaker, I am sure you and many others in this assembly will recall I spoke on several occasions in the past two years about the great need for a ministry to serve the sparsely populated areas of the north. During the past summer I conducted a survey and sent out over 300 letters to municipalities, Indian reserves and many other organizations in northern Ontario. The return from this effort was excellent. Over 75 per cent of the replies were in favour of a northern ministry. In addition to the survey, I spoke on several radio programmes, met and spoke with a large number of organizations across the north and wrote many columns for newspapers on the matter. The fact of the cabinet shuffle last February brought about the appointment of the member for Kenora (Mr. Bernier) as the first Minister of Northern Affairs.

Mr. Swart: That ought to kill it.

Mr. Lane: The Throne Speech sets out the reason why this new ministry is required and also confirms legislation for this ministry. It gives me a great deal of satisfaction, to say the least. I think this is an historic event for the people of the north and will at long last allow the people of the north an opportunity to really become involved in the political process and, hopefully, provide them with the same economic advantages as have been available to those living in other parts of this great province.

Mr. Makarchuk: Did you vote for Leo?

Mr. Lane: The Premier pointed out in a statement in the House on April 7, 1977, that the north comprised almost 90 per cent of the land area of this province and made a comparison that one could set France and Germany down in northern Ontario and still have room to spare.

Mr. Davidson: Page 4.

Mr. Lane: Many people in this province never have seriously thought about the great expanse of the country that northern Ontario includes and few realize that people living in Halifax are closer to Queen’s Park than many people living in parts of northern Ontario.

Mr. Angus: In more ways than one.

Mr. Lane: It gives me a great deal of pleasure to have been the member to have brought the need to the attention of the government, and I’m sure that as we watch the result of this Ministry of Northern Affairs unfold, we will see the great benefits it can and will provide. I’m sure in the years to come we will look back and ask why we waited so long to provide this much needed facility.

Mr. Angus: How many years, John, how many years?

Mr. Lane: I was very surprised recently to hear the hon. member for Renfrew North (Mr. Conway) -- he’s not here tonight -- say while participating in the Throne Speech debate that although a portion of his riding includes a part of Nipissing he did not want to receive any benefits from this new ministry. I find this statement very hard to understand, because I personally like this young man and I have a great deal of respect for him. I’m sure it can’t be a matter of party politics, because on May 11, 1976, which is just pretty near a year ago, the hon. member for Rainy River (Mr. Reid), while I was making a speech in the House and talking about the ministry, got into a conversation with me, and I’ll just read a little portion here:

“Mr. Lane: For this reason I projected the idea of a ministry of northern Ontario; something for those people in the north to relate to.”

“Mr. Reid: That’s a Liberal programme. You are stealing our programmes now.”

“Mr. Lane: The member can support me. I’ll be glad of his support. I think it’s a good idea.”

“Mr. Reid: We have been saying that for five or six years.”

“Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. member will continue without interruption.”

Mr. Samis: That is the best one.

Mr. Angus: That must be Jack Stokes.

Mr. Roy: Leave the Speaker out of this.

Mr. Lane: “Mr. Reid: I just want him to know someone is listening.” Well, I thought I had the support of the people in the third party.

Mr. Davidson: Why don’t you read the rest of it?

Mr. Angus: Not the Thunder Bay Chamber of Commerce, you didn’t.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: What would you know about Thunder Bay Chamber of Commerce?

Mr. Angus: They write me letters.

Mr. Lane: But listening to the member for Renfrew North the other morning I was really concerned to think that he didn’t really want his constituents who actually live in northern Ontario to receive any benefits from this ministry, and it’s difficult to understand this -- very difficult.

Mr. Roy: Are you happy with Leo Bernier as minister?

Mr. Lane: Sure, let’s see how he performs.

Mr. Roy: That is what you think of the north.

Mr. Lane: I did expect this type of response from some of the members of the opposition.

Mr. Angus: Send him up new pages, John.

Mr. Lane: In fact, the records have shown that on several occasions while speaking on this very important matter in the chamber the leader of the official opposition and other members of that caucus have taken issue with me on this matter in a very negative way.

I would add that if each and every member of this House representing a northern riding is truly honest with himself he will admit that the people of the north need and deserve a ministry to deal with the many problems that are peculiar to the north. Any member expressing otherwise would be indicating a greater interest in being re-elected than providing positive facilities for the benefit of the people he represents.

I think it is very unfortunate, and I was very unhappy tonight to hear the member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Laughren) condemning this new ministry without ever having had a chance for the ministry to try its wings and see what it can do for our people.

Mr. Germa: You know it is all politics.

Mr. Ferrier: Leo Bernier is in charge; that is enough.

Mr. Lane: I think it is unfortunate that the leader of the official opposition boasts about having nine ridings in northern Ontario, and yet there wasn’t any support at all, in any measure at all, to provide a very much needed facility for the people in the north to get involved in the political process and really have something to say about the future of this country. I think it’s most unfortunate.

Mr. Angus: How about appropriate government, John?

Mr. Lane: Mr. Speaker, I have spoken at some length about the very positive way matters of great importance have been dealt with in the Speech from the Throne. I will admit, however, that one item I hoped would be included, and a matter which I’ve promoted since I was first elected in 1971, was missing.

Mr. Angus: Nobody’s listening to you, John.

Mr. Lane: That’s an effort to equalize the price of gasoline and oil in the province of Ontario. Since it’s not included in the Throne Speech, I’m introducing in a few days a private member’s bill which I hope will receive the support of all members of this assembly.

Mr. Davidson: Sinking lower and lower, John.

Mr. Lane: We in this province are all Ontarians and we should all receive equal treatment and opportunity. Yet in many cases towns and villages in the north, as well as elsewhere in this province, are paying 15 cents more per gallon of gasoline and 10 cents more for fuel oil than other people in the large urban areas.

Mr. Davidson: That was told to you last fall.

Mr. Lane: A car is a necessity in the north because many of the smaller areas do not have a good public transportation system and one must travel greater distances to get from point A to point B. Therefore we must burn more fuel accordingly. To have to pay more per gallon than our friends in large urban areas is an insult and a matter that I feel must be corrected.

Mr. Makarchuk: Throw the rascals out.

Mr. Warner: You had 34 years to do it.

Mr. Lane: I’m told by those who should know that the oil companies are no longer making large profits.

Mr. Makarchuk: What? The Minister of Energy (Mr. Taylor) says they are.

Mr. Lane: Well, I’m told that they’re not.

Mr. Angus: Who told you? The oil companies?

Mr. Lane: Well, my heart doesn’t exactly bleed for those people --

Mr. Davidson: You said they should know.

Mr. Reed: Don’t pay attention to them, John.

Mr. Lane: -- but I have no quarrel with them making a reasonable profit.

Mr. Reed: They’re biased, John.

Mr. Davidson: Reasonable!

Mr. Lane: However, I do believe they should average out distribution and other costs and be required to provide the same product to all the retail outlets in this province at the same price.

Mr. Davidson: What do you consider reasonable?

Mr. Lane: This does not prevent one company from charging a different price than another, because we all know that efficiency and other factors can have an overall effect on cost. It does not take away from the private enterprise system because it still leaves competition between distributors and retailers. I may choose to pay a few cents more because I like a certain brand of fuel or I like the service I get at a certain --

Mr. Makarchuk: It all comes out of the same spout.

Mr. Lane: -- service station, but to pay 15 cents or more per gallon in some of these areas of the province over other areas is ridiculous. It’s not only that Ontarians are not being treated equally --

Mr. Davidson: Great.

Mr. Lane: -- but the tourist industry also suffers real damage. This industry could and should grow rapidly in the north. However, a would-be visitor to the north --

Mr. Davidson: Why do you support a two-price system then?

Mr. Lane: -- looks at the distance that he or she must travel and takes into account the tremendous increase in the cost of fuel over the other areas and the planned holiday is likely to be spent elsewhere. This we cannot afford.

Mr. Davidson: You support a two-price system.

Mr. Lane: Mr. Speaker, while I have been dealing with the price of gasoline, I want to point out that the same applies to the cost of oil to heat homes and to supply heat to industries in the north.

Mr. Davidson: You still support a two-price system.

Mr. Lane: Not only is the weather colder in the north and the heating season longer, but in many cases the cost of fuel oil is much higher than in the large urban areas. This means that the cost of living is much higher for some in this province than for others. I again want to point out that we are all Ontarians and we should all receive the same consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank you for this opportunity provided for taking part in this debate. Thank you.

Mr. Davidson: Say that to your own party.

Mr. Samis: Talk to Taylor, John.

Mr. McClellan: Thank you very much. Mr. Speaker, let me say how pleased I am that --

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Before you start, I hope that your colleagues in your own party will give you a better hearing than they gave the last speaker.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: I guarantee you we won’t.

Mr. McClellan: I was about to say, Mr. Speaker, how pleased I was that you were in the chair and how utterly and ruthlessly impartial you are and how much all of us on all sides of this House appreciate it.

Mr. Breithaupt: However.

Interjections.

Mr. McClellan: I want to speak in support of the amendment to the motion and I want, first of all, to spend a minute or two describing the riding that I represent, the riding of Bellwoods in the centre west end of downtown Toronto.

Bellwoods is the traditional reception area of Toronto. It’s the area where new Canadians have always come --

Mr. Reed: It’s the hot springs.

Mr. McClellan: -- to make their first home in this country. I think Bellwoods has been the traditional first home for new Canadians in Toronto for probably 70 or 80 years, and it remains the same today.

If there’s one thing that my constituents would want me to say and to argue for as vigorously as I can, it’s for government policies which create jobs and give work to people. Because the people who live in my riding came to this country to work. They came to this country from Europe and Asia to escape economies that were unable to provide them with jobs that would give them a decent standard of living for themselves and for their children more particularly. That’s why they came to this country; that’s why they work in the toughest jobs, the most dangerous jobs in construction; and in factories that, by and large, aren’t unionized, are rather dangerous places to work and don’t pay very well. But they came here to work and work is what they want. They don’t like being pawns to ideologues on the government benches testing out their new-found enthusiasm for obsolete economic theories.

[10:00]

Darcy McKeough’s newfound zeal for Milton Freedman’s economic theories are leading us headlong into a depression and my constituents don’t like being used as pawns in those kinds of foolish exercises. They expect government to stimulate the economy to provide jobs for people. They expect government to invest. They expect government, if necessary, to be an employer of first resort. They do not expect that a government will allow employment to reach the astronomical levels that it is approaching today. They don’t expect a fraudulent anti-inflation programme like the one we have been saddled with; like the one the government has so enthusiastically adopted despite the fact that in the last few mouths inflation is back up at the level of 10 per cent -- 10 per cent, Mr. Speaker -- and unemployment seems likely to match that hideous rate of inflation.

We are not prepared, in this caucus and in this party, to support a government that is willing to say to a budget as irrelevant as the federal budget of a few weeks ago -- willing to say, in the face of such massive unemployment and such real suffering in ridings such as mine where the unemployment rate among construction workers is approaching 30 per cent -- that this is “heavy medicine.” I believe that was the Treasurer’s phrase.

In the body of my speech, I wanted to address myself to a particular concern of mine and many of my colleagues. In December, 1976, I believe, on the last day of the last session, the Provincial Secretary for Social Development (Mrs. Birch) tabled the report of the interministerial committee on residential services. That report contained a condemnation of Ontario’s social service system more savage than anything one could imagine. Over the years we have not spared the resources of vituperation in describing the Ministry of Community and Social Services. Yet, I doubt that any of us, in our most truculent moments, have ever approached the kind of condemnation of Ontario’s social service system that was delivered up by the ministry’s own staff, by the deputy minister and by senior civil servants from a number of ministries.

The kind of chaos in Ontario’s social service system that the interministerial report revealed is almost unimaginable. In the field of child care, we are told that in any of a dozen residential programmes spread among three different ministries, where a kid goes is purely a matter of chance. Whether a kid goes into the child welfare system; whether a kid goes into the health system; whether the kid goes into the correctional system -- is purely a matter of chance. The family court in this province has, in the last year and a half, completely by-passed the existing social service system and has been placing children without reference to the existing social service system because of the degree of dislocation and dysfunction within the social service system.

The combined bureaucracy is simply grotesque: Some six ministries administering some 26 pieces of legislation over some 50 different bureaucracies producing almost, at random, 24 residential service programmes. The ministries combined spend some $600 million without the slightest idea of what it is they are purchasing or what benefit those dollar expenditures give to the people of this province, and the real harm is obviously spelled out in the report in terms of what happens to the recipients of service. I believe my colleague from Peterborough (Ms. Sandeman) will be addressing herself to the needs of senior citizens. I want to talk just for a few minutes about child care services in Ontario, because that was what was addressed in the Speech from the Throne.

We were offered in the Throne Speech what was purported to be a major reform in response to the revelations of the interministry report. We were offered thee components to that report -- the transfer of all child welfare services into one mini-ministry within Community and Social Services; something called local children’s services committees; and, somewhere in the dim distant future, a reform of legislation described as the omnibus children’s bill.

First, I want to express the most profound apprehensions about the prospect of transferring all services to children to the Ministry of Community and Social Services. There is virtually nothing in the rather wretched history of that ministry that gives us the slightest bit of confidence in its capacity to absorb so many vital child care services.

They have, in fact, done a rather disastrous job with what they have already. The mental retardation programme has not been a success. The attempts at normal community living for the retarded have not been a success, and there is no reason to believe that they have the slightest capacity as a ministry to deal with the introduction of all child welfare services. We are pleased with the appointment of Judge Thomson. We think he is a good choice, but we maintain those reservations and apprehensions about the capacity of the ministry to absorb so many services.

Aside from the question of the organizational transfer, the rest of the promises in the Throne Speech are remarkably vague. Not a shred of detail has been provided with respect to the omnibus children’s legislation, so we have absolutely no idea what it is that the government is proposing to do by way of rationalizing the 10 or 12 pieces of legislation that now govern the provision of services to children. And we don’t have a clue -- not a single, solitary clue -- as to what they are talking about when they use the phrase “local children’s services committees.” There is not a shred of description, not a glimmering of a clue what it is that they are talking about.

The reality is, Mr. Speaker, that they don’t know. They are flying by the seat of their pants. They are engaged in what is, I am sure, for them a very pleasant exercise in public relations. They have appointed, as a government, a new and rather plausible minister who has in turn appointed a young and rather plausible assistant deputy minister, and on the strength of that they have issued their April policy statement, as promised in the Throne Speech, saying that they are going to solve the chaos in child welfare services through the device of the omnibus children’s bill and the local children’s services committee without having the slightest clue what it is that they are talking about.

I am afraid that nothing short of a radical restructuring of Ontario’s social service system is going to address itself to the kinds of problems that the residential services report reveals. It is not going to be sufficient to tinker with bits and pieces. The organizational transfer itself simply offers the promise of warehousing all of the chaos in child welfare in one great, rather Kafka-esque, central bureaucracy. It does nothing about addressing itself to the real problem.

We should keep in mind what the object of the exercise is.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: The member for Kitchener is hired.

Mr. Foulds: What’s that, the odd couple over there?

Mr. Warner: Which one is Felix?

Mr. Reed: There is nothing like being here to listen to an orator.

Mr. McClellan: The object of the exercise is to make it possible to provide preventive social services at the community level. It’s not sufficient to deal as Ontario has been doing for as long as the ministry has existed. It’s not sufficient to deal with family breakdown once it’s occurred. We need to put in place a social service system that addresses itself to providing services to families and individuals before they break down, before their children come into care, and before senior citizens are forced to suffer the indignity of unnecessary institutional incarceration.

There are a number of options, a number of possibilities, a number of models, which have already been developed and tested in other jurisdictions, and even here in our own country. I wanted to spend a minute or two outlining to you, Mr. Speaker, what might have made sense by way of an alternative in the policy statement entitled, Special Services for Children.

In 1969, the Commission on Emotional and Learning Disorders in Children issued its report -- that is, some eight years ago. They presented to us a clear and detailed model of how a government might go about restructuring the social service system so that it was capable of providing preventive social services and so that it was capable of providing services to individuals and families before breakdown occurred. I want to remind the House of what was suggested eight long years ago.

The CELDIC report called for an absolutely fundamental reorganization of social service by locating the responsibility for planning and delivering social services at the local community level. They proposed that this would be done through the establishment of a community services board at the local level, which would promote, plan and develop in co-ordination the establishment of a comprehensive network of services at the local community level, which would establish priorities for the development of services and which would have the jurisdiction and authority over the distribution of public funds. Services under the CELDIC model would be delivered through community service centres. Such centres would be established in areas of between 25,000 and 50,000 population.

The community service centres would combine at the point of delivery at the local community level all of the essential services which are required in a modern society. These are services which must be provided not as philanthropic gestures but as matters of social rights and on the basis of being social utilities as essential to survival as roads or electricity or running water. Those services would include counselling for individuals, family counselling, addictions counselling, child protection, unmarried parent counselling, public health nursing, public health social action programmes, foster and adoption home-finding programmes, group home care, homemaker services, home nursing services and social services to the courts and to the schools and to hospitals and to the correctional system.

[10:15]

Through these community centres, they would provide personnel to maintain necessary social services to schools, hospitals, mental health facilities and family physicians. They would operate and supervise group homes, in-patient facilities for children and the aged, foster homes, boarding homes and day care. Instead of warehousing everything together at the centre in the way this government is seeming to do, the CELDIC report suggested that what makes sense is to integrate services at the local ‘community level, where people live; and bring them under the control of local communities and allow the local communities to participate in the planning of what’s needed in their own neighbourhood in the delivery of services.

Mrs. Campbell: But not the financing.

Mr. McClellan: I know the member for St. George agrees that makes a lot more sense than to lump everything together in one great chaotic mess. That’s a sensible alternative we had thought would be in the policy statement that was forthcoming. I can’t tell you, Mr. Speaker, how surprised and disappointed we were that after two years of work since the interministry report was produced in April 1975, we were given only some indescribable, indefinable and completely ephemeral entity called the local children’s service committee.

We conclude that the major thrust of the Throne Speech with respect to child care services is simple hunk. This government has no more idea of how to deal with the mess in children’s services today, in April 1977, than it did in April 1975 when it first received the interministry report. And as the minister said, most surprisingly of all, they are now entering a period of consultation with municipal governments, with social agencies and, I suppose, with whoever will tell them how they are to get out of the mess they are now in.

I have talked to people in the court, in the children’s aid societies and in municipal government, and not one of them has the slightest idea what it is that the government wants them to consult about. How can you consult about something which is not defined, which is not described, which is simply called a local children’s services committee and which somehow is going to be bounced out into the air like a basketball, without even the shape of a basketball?

It’s absolutely absurd, and yet the minister is saying that he is going to enter into a period of intense consultation, beginning almost immediately -- within the next week or two -- and the social service community is going to respond to this major initiative from the government in the Speech from the Throne, with respect to children’s services. It is such patent nonsense that it surprises me that there was an expectation that anybody at all would be deceived. Nobody is deceived. Nobody is fooled for a second that this government is any closer to a solution than it was two years ago.

We are disappointed that the government did not take a concrete option, such as that presented in the CELDIC report and put it forward as a sensible, coherent, workable, practical and plausible alternative to the mess that exists in social services today.

The CELDIC option is not the only option. The Seebohm committee in Britain in the late 1960s presented an alternative way of reorganizing social services so that they can be integrated at the local community level. The Seebohm option differs from the CELDIC option only in that the functions described as vested in the community services board, they vest in local government within a municipal social service department. That, too, is a valid option.

It makes sense to empower local government with the responsibility, and the resources, the capacity and the backup support and consultation, to provide a comprehensive system of social services. That, if I may say, is an option that I lean towards rather strongly myself. It makes a lot of sense to locate the responsibility for preventive and personal support services and family support services with municipal government.

Yet that option was not presented either, although there was some kind of a vague suggestion that the local children’s services committee will somehow, in some strange and mysterious and ephemeral way, have something to do with regional government. But we have no idea how.

Are they talking about a board of health-like structure, or are they talking about a committee of the municipal council, or are they talking about an advisory committee to regional government, or are they talking about a committee that is made up of municipal representatives and board of education representatives and social agency representatives, or are they talking about anything at all? We cannot tell. It’s a great shame, because the disruption of social services in this province is virtually complete. As I said before, it will not suffice simply to tinker with what now exists. It has to be transformed in a fundamental kind of way, and I doubt very much if this government will ever have the capacity to do that.

Let me conclude firstly by saying that we intend in this caucus to pursue these items as vigorously as we can when we are not quite so constrained by the clock, in the estimates and in the debates on the bill, because we are convinced that this major initiative in the Speech from the Throne is in fact very little indeed. And we intend to talk a great deal about it in this session.

Secondly, I would like, if I may, to make a few comments about the Workmen’s Compensation Board. No instrument or agency of government, Mr. Speaker, causes so much pain and so much distress to the constituents of the riding of Bellwoods as the Workmen’s Compensation Board. I said at the beginning that my constituents by and large worked in construction and by and large are new Canadians. They suffer a toll of industrial accidents that I doubt is equal in very many other ridings except perhaps those in the Sudbury basin. And I think it is fair and accurate to say that within the constituency of Bellwoods there is barely a family which has not had a close member or a close friend injured in an industrial accident and had some dealings, therefore, with the Workmen’s Compensation Board.

I don’t know if I can convey to you, Mr. Speaker, the kind of scandal that the Workmen’s Compensation Board represents, for example, in the Italian community in the west end of Metropolitan Toronto. It is a simple disgrace and there is no reason why anybody in the province of Ontario needs to tolerate that kind of arrogant and callous and brutal treatment from an agency of government.

I am not simply engaging in rhetoric, Mr. Speaker; I am speaking on the basis now of almost two years’ experience in my constituency office, day after day, week after week, with people coming in talking about being victimized by the Workmen’s Compensation Board. And I have enough material in my own case load that I can validate that charge to the satisfaction, I think, of anybody in this House. This is not simply a matter of partisan rhetoric.

Mr. Warner: All the minister does is defend them.

Mr. McClellan: It is a matter that conjures up the deepest anger and personal feeling.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: You are a free-loader.

Mr. McClellan: I could go on, Mr. Speaker, to describe case after case after case of injured workers who have been treated in the most shabby and unbelievable way by the Workmen’s Compensation Board. As with social services, I doubt that the tinkering is even worthwhile engaging in. As long as the adversary system of the Workmen’s Compensation Board exists employers will be pitted against employees, the board will be playing one off against the other. It is now two years since the rates were raised? Perhaps the member from Riverside can recall how long it has been?

Mr. Bounsall: June, 1975.

Mr. McClellan: Since June, 1975, the workmen’s compensation rates have not been raised. At the same time the board has an unfunded liability of some $400 million.

It is, in a sense, the other side of the same coin, because the board is unwilling to impose adequate rates on companies within this province; and that gets reflected in every single case that one takes to the board, that kind of mean and petty seeking to protect the rates for the corporations.

We are faced with a kind of administrative incompetence within the Workmen’s Compensation Board that is absolutely staggering. I had one constituent who, through a fault of the Workmen’s Compensation Board, received an overpayment, in January, 1976. In July, 1976, the Workmen’s Compensation Board decided to recover the overpayment, with no warning and no notice. This man was on temporary total disability; his cheque was suddenly cut off. He was then left to fend for himself, with no explanation and no notice and no warning, for a month.

We intervened and had his cheque restored. Then from the period of July, 1976, until January, 1977, his cheque was fouled up on every single pay period -- every single pay period. We intervened every single pay period, with officials from one end of the Workmen’s Compensation Board to the other; finally to the chairman ‘and finally to the Minister of Labour (B. Stephenson).

From July to January, every single pay period was fouled up. Finally the minister intervened and he was paid for two consecutive pay periods on time; and then it started again and it remains so to this day.

They are seemingly incapable of dealing with routine administrative matters. I see the member for Cochrane North (Mr. Brunelle) sitting opposite, who was the Minister of Community and Social Services. He will know that you do not recover an overpayment by docking somebody the entire amount of their social assistance cheque. He would never do that in the Ministry of Community and Social Services when he was minister, and he never did. It defies logic; it defies common sense; it defies humanity.

He also knows that it is not conceivable, even in the Ministry of Community and Social Services, for a payment on an individual constituent or client to remain fouled up for six, seven, eight consecutive months. Yet this is not unusual at the Workmen’s Compensation Board; this is not an untypical story. Every one of us in this House can give, probably dozens, dozens of examples of absolutely identical situations. It defies analysis; it defies understanding.

I see by the clock that I have run out of time. I just want to say that only a universal accident and illness insurance scheme, as has been advocated by this party, addresses itself to the problems of injured workers in this society and this community. We look for no hope of reforming the Workmen’s Compensation Board, other than through the introduction of universal accident and illness insurance.

Thank you for your indulgence, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Have you completed your remarks?

Mr. McClellan: I have completed my remarks.

On motion by Mr. Sargent, the debate was adjourned.

On motion by Hon. Mr. Kerr, the House adjourned at 10:30 p.m.