The House resumed at 8 p.m.

THRONE SPEECH DEBATE (CONCLUDED)

Mr. Breithaupt: As I gaze about this crowded chamber, Mr. Speaker, I certainly realize, of course, what art honour and privilege it is to wind up this Throne Speech debate on the part of the Liberal Party. I recognize that to a very great extent the contribution which I may make and that of my counterpart, the House leader for the New Democratic Party, the member for Wentworth (Mr. Deans), are likely to be regarded as little more than a prelude to the big event of the evening, namely the windup -- or should I call the wind up -- speech of the Premier (Mr. Davis). It will be interesting to see how Hansard delineates the difference between the two phrases.

One wonders, indeed, if there is some significance to the fact that the Premier has elected to be the grand finale, so to speak, of the debate on the Speech from the Throne. I am sure the three government members who are present will pass on to the Premier my views with respect to the contributions he has made in the past.

Mr. Eakins: Let’s put it on the record.

Hon. Mr. Welch: You can count on me, Jim; others wouldn’t.

Mr. Breithaupt: Now that we have had a member cross the floor, they are up to four, of course; but I presume that the benches may indeed be somewhat more crowded as the witching hour of 9:30 draws nigh.

Mr. Angus: Watch it; here comes the Minister of Housing.

Mr. Breithaupt: Last year, the Premier was content to make his contribution early in the debate but, of course, he was in a somewhat more cautious mood at that time.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Thanks to you guys.

Mr. Breithaupt: He was anxious not to be provocative; at least that was what he constantly assured us.

This year the situation is a little different, and I have the distinct feeling we can expect considerable provocation from the Premier later this evening -- a provocation which doubtless will be exacerbated by his colleague, the Treasurer (Mr. McKeough) tomorrow.

It is almost amusing to watch the manoeuvring that is going on. According to the political pundits, the Premier is being pressured to go to the electorate; and, of course, why not? The Gallup polls indicate, shall we say, a slight rise in Conservative popularity? All indications point, unfortunately, to the economy and unemployment situation being likely somewhat worse as the year moves on before it begins to improve.

Mr. Spence: It’s terrible.

Mr. Breithaupt: Also, the provincial government is finding it increasingly difficult to cope with the results of its own fiscal mismanagement.

Mr. Spence: I would think so.

Mr. Breithaupt: On the other hand, surveys show that for the most part the general public considers minority government is working well and that there is apparently no valid reason for an election at this time. Against this background, we have the Premier anxious not to be seen as pulling the plug to cause an election. We see the leader of the New Democratic Party, the leader of the official opposition (Mr. Lewis), saying of the Throne Speech: “This is great. Minority government is working and there’s not one thing in that document that inspires anger in my heart.” He undertakes that the official opposition would be positive models of cooperation, and I suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that we in the Liberal Party, of course, are being reasonable, responsible and constructive.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: And scared to death.

Mr. Breithaupt: The Premier, therefore, is on the horns of a dilemma: how to precipitate an election without appearing to do so. It will be fascinating to watch his endeavours to achieve them. Then, of course, the Premier’s unique brand of convolutions and contortions, both mental and verbal, are a never-ending source of fascination to us all.

Mr. Nixon: And amusement.

Mr. Breithaupt: However, perhaps he should bear in mind --

Interjection.

Mr. Breithaupt: -- the words of his colleague, the member for Wellington-Dufferin-Peel (Mr. Johnson) when that worthy gentleman seconded the Speech from the Throne. He exhorted us to remember, and I quote: “At a time of such economic uncertainty, a time when the definition of our nation is being questioned, we would serve our constituents best by solving problems, rather than engaging in political rhetoric or partisan grandstanding.”

Mr. Eakins: That’s right.

Mr. Breithaupt: The Throne Speech has been interpreted by many people as an indication that minority government is working and working well. It incorporated a response to almost every issue raised since the last election by opposition parties, maintaining that, and I quote: “With dependable legislative co-operation the government’s programme can be achieved by the end of the present year.” I might add, of course, an election notwithstanding.

If legislative co-operation is the only requirement, then that would be fine. However, as a Toronto Star editorial on March 30, pointed out, most of the problems to which the Throne Speech purports to offer solutions have been “with us throughout the 30 years Tory governments reigned supreme at Queen’s Park.”

Mr. Haggerty: Shame.

An hon. member: Bring them down.

Mr. Breithaupt: Promises to solve them all now invite a certain amount of scepticism.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Thank you for the big hand.

Mr. Eakins: You’re the only one here to receive them.

Mr. Breithaupt: The same editorial also stresses the fact that the Premier, and I quote, “even if he had a secure majority, couldn’t hope to get this amount of legislation through a full four-year term of office, let alone the single session the Throne Speech is supposed to deal with.”

Mr. Eakins: That’s right.

Mr. Breithaupt: Typical of Throne Speeches, this latest edition provides no specifics, only generalities. We need to know how the proposed measures are to be administered, what are the costs involved, and whether the government seriously intends to implement the proposals, or whether the whole speech is just so much pie in the sky -- a veritable election platform, in fact. As an unregenerate sceptic, I prefer to reserve judgement at least until tomorrow’s budget.

The final paragraphs of the Throne Speech show a remarkable degree of poetic licence. They spoke of” building a sense of promise and of national pride, of a fair and balanced society and of economic stability, of distributing economic opportunity fairly throughout Ontario.”

We were informed that the “government’s programme provides for every Ontarian the opportunity to live in freedom, work in peace and attain self-fulfilment and satisfaction. It assures our people that their Ontario, our Ontario, affords them the capacity to shape their own particular and unique part of the Canadian dream in confidence, security and freedom.”

I suggest the government tell that to the 300,000 men and women in Ontario who are unemployed, tell that to the overburdened taxpayers of this province, and tell it to the people struggling to meet rapidly rising energy costs from an already overstrained budget.

On the subject of current unemployment figures, the Ontario Economic Council has issued a stern warning that this province faces above-average unemployment through the next decade. Projections by the council for the next five years show an unemployment rate of 7.1 per cent on average from 1978 through 1982, compared with 4.2 per cent from 1968 to 1972 and only 3.6 per cent in 1966. The council has recommended tax cuts, especially personal tax cuts, and reductions in sales and excise taxes and more vigorous manpower policies to match people and jobs. Continued restraint in government spending is also recommended.

This serious unemployment situation has not come about overnight. Last December we all witnessed a good deal of publicity, pomp and circumstance in connection with the Treasurer’s so-called economic strategy statement. At that time, my colleague, the member for London Centre (Mr. Peterson), called upon the government to take into account Conference Board predictions that our unemployment problem in Ontario would be very serious for the coming year, that is, 1977. We stressed the fact that this province’s predicted increase in unemployment was higher than the national average and that we were already at that time running at 6.3 per cent compared with 5.8 per cent previously.

We asked at that time whatever had happened to those 116,000 new jobs that the Treasurer promised in his budget of April 1976. How does the Treasurer justify job vacancy rates for Ontario throughout the last half of last year which were not only lower than the national rate, but much less than half the rate of the prairie region -- that is, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta combined? Is the Treasurer prepared to permit Ontario to continue to lag behind the prairie provinces in job creation?

An hon. member: Yes.

Mr. Breithaupt: Does this government really have no concern over the eight per cent of our work force which is unemployed -- the 316,000 and more men and women who cannot find jobs in this province of opportunity? As George Radwanski of the Financial Times pointed out on March 28, this serious unemployment situation “carries a number of consequences. In the first place, it isolates one of the most basic objectives of a free, prosperous society to give every willing citizen the opportunity to pursue gainful employment commensurate with his abilities. Without that opportunity, many other freedoms mean little.”

Mr. Nixon: And the Tories don’t care. There’s just one cabinet minister present, and he’s on the way out.

Mr. Peterson: He’s a junior one anyway.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: And that is coming from a guy who knows what it’s like to go out.

Mr. Nixon: He’s even a retreaded Liberal.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. member for Kitchener has the floor.

Mr. Breithaupt: Our free enterprise system cannot exist without opportunities for individual initiative and achievement, opportunities that begin with a job. The average worker in Canada produces something like $19,000 annually in goods and services. With 316,000 and more unemployed, we in Ontario are losing more than $6 billion in badly needed economic growth this year. It is totally inconsistent in our democratic free-enterprise beliefs to suggest than an eight per cent unemployment rate is an acceptable price to pay in the fight against inflation. The Treasurer, it would seem, does not find this rate unacceptable.

Mr. Eakins: He doesn’t care.

Mr. Nixon: He’s not even here to listen.

Mr. Breithaupt: May I remind him of his 1972 budget statement when he told us: “Any unemployment figure in excess of three per cent is not acceptable to the Ontario government. We know from experience that the Ontario economy can operate successfully at that level.”

Mr. B. Newman: Who said that?

Mr. Peterson: Why, the member for Wentworth could employ three barbers himself.

Mr. Breithaupt: If the Ontario economy could work successfully at the level of three per cent, then it must be clear, to use the phrase of those bumper stickers, unemployment is not working, that the Ontario economy is being mismanaged.

Our young people are particularly hard hit by the unemployment situation. This province’s unemployment rate among workers under 25 years of age is 14.8 per cent. Among those under 20, it’s 19 per cent. There are 143,000 young Ontarians who cannot find work. As my leader pointed out in his contribution to the Throne Speech debate, this youth unemployment figure is equivalent to the combined populations of two communities close to the hearts of most Conservatives in this province, the two communities of Brampton and Chatham.

Mr. Nixon: Here’s the Minister of Lotteries. That’s the second minister.

Hon. Mr. Welch: I was here at 8 o’clock. Where were you?

Mr. Breithaupt: Statisticians tell us that young people will be coming into the work force faster than the economy expands until the mid-1980s.

Mr. Nixon: You don’t have much staying power.

Hon. Mr. Welch: I was just looking after my responsibilities.

Mr. Breithaupt: The Canadian Council for Social Development has warned that Canada could be faced with a politically and economically explosive situation if nothing is done to ease the severe rate of unemployment among our young people.

[8:15]

This council recently deplored the haphazard manner in which governments have dealt with the problem and the, “prevailing public attitude which ranges from one of indifference and apathy to blaming youth themselves.” We cannot write off these unemployed young people as the price of fighting inflation. We cannot abandon them. We cannot and we shall not do so.

Mr. Nixon: Trudeau has the answer to that.

Mr. Breithaupt: For young people, special measures and new approaches are required to create jobs.

As a recent Toronto Star article pointed out, and I quote: “Unemployment among our young people can no longer be regarded simply a part of a larger unemployment picture. It’s a new ailment, chronic and intransigent in nature, requiring special treatment.”

New and dramatic structural changes to our economy must be initiated in order to facilitate entry into the labour force of our young people. We propose the establishment of an Ontario youth service with the objective of generating employment for young people in both the public and private sectors. One proposal already mentioned by our leader is to supplement unemployment insurance benefits now received by unemployed youth.

The federal government has already shown interest in greater flexibility for UIC funds and is now participating in a job-creating programme in Newfoundland which Ontario would do well to study carefully. A supplement of $10 per week could create 100,000 jobs for the overall price of some $50 million. A home insulation programme would enable homeowners to insulate for the cost of materials only. The Ontario youth service, under proper direction, could provide some of that labour. By upgrading Ontario’s housing stock to 1975 federal standards, we could reduce consumers’ fuel bills by some 36 per cent and reduce our energy consumption for an annual saving of some $412 million at 1977 prices.

Provision of in-home services for elderly people in our society would enable them to continue living independent lives outside of institutions. The potential cost saving for government is enormous. The Ontario youth services would assist elderly residents with home maintenance, cleaning, meal preparation and shopping, at the same time providing companionship to many who are tragically lonely.

Mr. Nixon: It sounds good to me.

Mr. Breithaupt: To create jobs for our young people in the private sector, the Ontario youth service would pay a portion of the salaries for young people who are hired by industry as trainees or apprentices.

Hon. Mr. Welch: They could come and visit me.

Mr. Peterson: You’re going to need someone to visit you after the next election.

Hon. Mr. Welch: I’d be grateful.

Mr. Breithaupt: This measure would be of particular assistance to small businesses. Funds for such programmes are available from the federal government but we are now seeing that they are being channelled primarily into community colleges for institutional training.

Mr. Nixon: The federal government takes the lead again.

Mr. Breithaupt: The Ontario youth service would reorient our efforts to emphasize our on-the-job training in co-operation with Canada Manpower.

Mr. Hodgson: Somebody has got to take the lead, Bob.

Mr. Breithaupt: The Ontario youth service would also undertake to substantially upgrade the vocational counselling provided to students, particularly in high school. At present, students are provided with almost no information on trades in demand, rates of pay or methods of application. Despite the very clear predictions of our over supply several years ago, hundreds of students were steered into nursing schools and teachers’ colleges, and even worse, far more than could be employed were accepted, trained and graduated with unmarketable skills.

Mr. Nixon: Totally irresponsible.

Mr. Breithaupt: An overwhelming majority of our unemployed youth want to work. We must provide them with the job opportunities before their frustration erupts in violence or they turn on our economic system in a manner of a graduate --

Hon. Mr. Welch: What are you, the straight man over there Bob?

Mr. Breithaupt: -- from Carelton who said, and I quote: “For the first time in my life I’d be willing to go on unemployment insurance because I think this terrible situation is the government’s fault.”

Mr. Hodgson: Join the NDP tonight, Bob.

Mr. Breithaupt: The Liberal Party has long advocated increased assistance to the small business sector which is labour-intensive and can create new jobs more quickly and cheaply than capital-intensive industries. I’m sure that the 10 Conservative members who are here at the present time have spent some time considering the policy --

Hon. Mr. Welch: It is getting better.

Mr. Nixon: It is only eight.

Mr. Breithaupt: -- paper which we have issued outlining the position of our party in the field of small business, a sector which has been long neglected by the provincial government. The problems and needs of small and large businesses are clearly not the same. A small business is flexible, able to adapt quickly to --

Mr. Nixon: You’re a mobile cabinet minister.

Hon. Mr. Welch: Some of us count as two.

Mr. Breithaupt: -- changes in the market and possesses great potential for technological and other innovation, and it also employs between 50 and 60 per cent of all Canadians. We believe that a legislative commitment to small business should be undertaken, similarly to the American commitment entered into by the federal government of that nation.

Lack of managerial expertise and entrepreneurial spirit have had serious results to the viability of small business. We have proposed the establishment of entrepreneurial advisory centres to be funded by the government and administered by the private sector. Shortage of capital also severely restricts the start-up and expansion of small business. We propose allowance for a full tax deduction against other income for investment in venture capital for small business start-ups and expansion by both corporations and individuals and also for the provision of government services in sharing of losses actually experienced by the financial institutions on loans provided to small business.

Mr. Nixon: Here comes the Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. W. Newman), number three from the bottom.

Mr. Mancini: He was in my riding and he got seven people out to a meeting.

Mr. Ruston: Were there only seven people out to that meeting?

Mr. Nixon: Did he only get seven in Essex?

Mr. Breithaupt: I must say in response to that comment that I am not doing all that much better.

Mr. Nixon: Oh, yes, you are.

Mr. Breithaupt: At present, the burden of payroll taxes to pay the increasing costs of social welfare programmes falls most heavily on small firms. There are no income compensating public policies to offset this grave problem --

Mr. Nixon: None at all.

Mr. Breithaupt: -- which in turn restricts capital formation and therefore the ability to finance growth.

Mr. Nixon: They are pouring in. Here comes number four.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Kitchener has the floor only.

Mr. Breithaupt: We have proposed government payment of payroll taxes for each additional worker employed by a firm in a given year up to a net gain in manpower of 10 persons for a three-year period. Corporate tax costs of small businesses should be lowered to ensure their ability to develop internally generated sources of equity capital. A forgivable succession duty on small family business corporations could be extended to apply to businesses where shares are owned by more than one family. We also believe Ontario should undertake a preferential purchasing policy for small business. It should be possible to set a target of 40 per cent of all government contracts and sub-contracts to be awarded to small business within a three- year period. Another potential for job creation is the province’s mining industry which has suffered a serious decline under the short-sighted policies of this government.

Mr. Nixon: Ever since John White.

Mr. Breithaupt: We should be able to depend upon the mining industry to create new wealth and new jobs. However, as the Northern Miner noted recently, “Ontario mining is heading for an eventual decline unless there is a marked change in the province’s investment climate and policy towards high-risk exploration ventures.” The Ontario metal mining industry provides jobs for about 40,000 people directly and for many more indirectly, and produces directly about three to four per cent of the gross provincial product. But now, for the first time since World War II, no major new mines are under construction.

Mr. Nixon: Shame.

Mr. Breithaupt: There are no new mine openings scheduled for anywhere in Ontario in the foreseeable future.

Mr. Nixon: John White’s legacy.

Mr. Breithaupt: The present Minister of Northern Affairs (Mr. Bernier), formerly the Minister of Natural Disasters -- Natural Resources --

Mr. Peterson: That’s good-quality humour for a change.

Mr. Breithaupt: -- was of a view that the reason no mines are opening within the province of Ontario was because of the socialist hordes being at the gate. Perhaps in his new position he will have a chance to think that through again. Ontario’s mining industries are in the fifth year of a slump and, according to a report prepared by the mines division of the Ministry of Natural Resources, the industry is continuing to decline. That report found that an early warning indication of the health of the metal mining industry is the level of exploration activity. According to this indicator, Ontario can anticipate a continuing decline.

Mr. Nixon: Unless of course there is a change in government.

Mr. Breithaupt: That could be a possibility, of course. Exploration expenditures in Ontario during the 1972-1976 period were about $15 million per year, down substantially from the annual average of $23 million in the 1967 to 1971 period.

Interjections.

Mr. Breithaupt: I hope I am not keeping you from anything. No discovery leading to probable new mine construction has been made in Ontario since 1971.

Mr. Nixon: That was the last year of John Robarts.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Tell us about the last year of Mitch Hepburn.

Mr. Breithaupt: That’s correct. Many of the remedies for our ailing mining industry are within the jurisdiction of Ontario’s government.

Mr. Nixon: The Minister of Housing was still a Liberal.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: The member for St. George (Mrs. Campbell) was still a Tory.

Mr. Breithaupt: In order to restore health to this vital sector of our economy and to create jobs, the government should, first of all, revise its mining taxes to make the expected rate of return more attractive in relation to alternative investment opportunities. Ontario’s mining taxes and the revisions in 1974 resulted in more than a tripling of revenues from mines, even though profits from the industry dropped by about 40 per cent.

They should immediately modify the junior exploration company financing policy of the Ontario Securities Commission. The OSC policy, issued last April, has all but eliminated the raising of risk capital for mining exploration. Clearly, the restrictive regulations are causing more harm to legitimate operations and to our economy as a whole than they are to dishonest penny stock promoters.

Mr. Nixon: If only James Dunn were here.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Sir James Dunn. Show a little respect.

Mr. Breithaupt: The Liberal leader raised questions on the matter in this place last fall, and my colleague from Rainy River (Mr. Reid) expressed, as early as last May, his concern about the restrictive nature of this policy. Finally, the OSC says it is considering a policy change.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: He mentioned it to his brother, John.

Mr. Breithaupt: In response to the Minister of Housing, I’m sure his mentioning of that policy to his brother, the federal member for the riding, will have done a lot more than in fact any mention to this government would have done.

Mr. Nixon: Because this government doesn’t care about northern development. It’s going to be wiped out in the north.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. member for Kitchener can make his own speech, I think. You may continue.

Interjections.

Mr. Breithaupt: As the song says, Mr. Speaker, I always appreciate a little help from my friends.

Mr. Speaker: I’m not sure you’d call it help, but the hon. member has the floor.

An hon. member: Just waiting for the crowd to gather.

Mr. Breithaupt: The unemployment problem will clearly continue to worsen unless fast and effective action is taken to stimulate the economy. In this connection, I must confess I was quite disappointed in the federal budget. I agree with our leader’s view that the budget failed to meet the most important economic challenge in Canada and in Ontario -- the urgent need for job creation.

An hon. member: You’d make a good federalist.

Mr. Breithaupt: The provincial Treasurer may consider such a budget to be honest medicine, as he terms it. But I would venture to suggest that this country’s present, vast army of unemployed will find it a very unpalatable medicine, indeed. Doubtless, in an attempt to appear humane and concerned, he at least unbent sufficiently to say, and I quote, “These are not happy times for the economy. Some of our citizens are experiencing real hardship.” End of quote.

I suggest that was rather a masterpiece of understatement, but the Treasurer has praised the federal budget and indicated his own main objective was “to be supportive of overall federal leadership”. Well, I agree with the Toronto Star; it’s some change of attitude for the provincial Treasurer, who only a year ago was proudly recounting how he had acted to stimulate the Ontario economy against Ottawa’s inadequate budgets of 1974 and 1975. Now he tells us we cannot further increase aggregate spending without crowding capital pools, fuelling inflationary expectations and, of increasing importance, burdening the independence and incomes of future generations with massive debt. If there’s anyone who knows about massive debt, it’s surely the Premier and the Treasurer of this province.

Mr. Nixon: Disgraceful.

Mr. Breithaupt: Those who like to follow the provincial Treasurer’s activities have had considerable grist for their mills recently. I was interested to note that a month or so ago he told Ontario realtors that the province could soon be experiencing the biggest demand for housing in its history. Three main reasons that he cited were that housing prices had stopped outstripping gains in income, that mortgage rates have dropped, and that property taxes have been held down by municipal restraint and by generous provincial grants.

Mr. Nixon: Why is Darcy McKeough making all these speeches?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Why is the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk trying to make one?

Mr. Nixon: Will you stop interjecting, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Breithaupt: One wonders why this latter statement would seem to be a little unrealistic, to say the least. However, I won’t allow myself to be diverted at this point. I wish to concentrate upon the general statement that there will be an enormous demand for housing. The question is, of course -- is the demand going to be met by supply? I’m delighted that the Minister of Housing is among those present this evening.

Mr. Nixon: He was here from the start.

Mr. Breithaupt: For some time there has been a crying need for affordable housing in this province. A study of housing requirements for Ontario shows that demand for new housing will remain at high levels for the next 10 years, averaging some 88,000 units annually through 1981. Yet housing starts in Ontario have declined from 110,536 in 1973 to 79,968 in 1975. The preliminary statistics for 1976 indicate total housing starts in urban Ontario in 1976 increased by only four per cent over the previous year, while total housing starts in urban Canada as a whole increased by some 15 per cent.

[8:30]

Mr. Nixon: Another Ontario failure.

Mr. Eaton: How far were they behind us before that, though?

Mr. Breithaupt: In examining our housing needs, we must consider the age and other characteristics of our population. According to various population studies, the most significant factor causing an increase in the number of households will be the fact that the post-war baby boom generation will reach the prime ages of family formation between 1971 and 1986. Ontario government projections show there will be an increase of more than a million persons in the 25 to 44 age group in those years. Virtually everyone is aware of the tremendous rise in the cost of housing over the past few years. The price of housing has been rising more rapidly than personal disposable income or than the general price level.

Mr. Nixon: A tragedy.

Mr. Breithaupt: The cost of the average resale home in Ontario increased from $25,784 in 1970 to about $52,612 in 1976. In 1961, 69 per cent of all Ontario families could finance the purchase of the average Ontario resale home sold through a real estate broker and still spend less than the recommended one-quarter of their gross income for principal and interest payments. In 1971, 58 per cent of families could finance the average resale house. But by 1974, only 29 per cent of families could afford to do so.

We in the Liberal Party consider a situation where a substantial majority of the working citizens of this province are unable to purchase a home should they wish to do so, and where a substantial number of tenants are paying crushing rents, to be simply intolerable. The government’s record in either stimulating housing construction in the private sector or itself supplying government-assisted housing, is pitiable. Possibly the key to achievement of a reasonable price level for single-family lots is the establishment of a massive land-servicing programme in the environs of our cities, towns and villages. Instead of land-banking programmes, the government would be better advised to spend the same amount of money on the provision of water and sewage trunks and to streamline the subdivision approval process to encourage an oversupply of lots in the market.

In short, the provincial government would probably accomplish much more if it were to concentrate on the provision of more serviced land in co-operation with the municipalities, and reduce the red tape which slows down approvals and raises housing costs as developers hold land for an excessive length of time.

We must encourage reasonable expansion of communities which have already installed hard services and make adequate provision of soft services, instead of building new cities and towns. Standards should be made more flexible so that, for example, septic tanks can be used where conditions rule against sewers. Incentives should be provided to municipalities to encourage development of a variety of housing geared to the needs of poorer families and of senior citizens.

The Throne Speech promised to us that the government “will continue to increase the amount of rental housing for senior citizens and families of low income.” We can only hope that it will not continue this process at the same pace as it has attempted to meet the need in the past.

Mr. Nixon: Housing for the whole cabinet.

Mr. Breithaupt: The leader of the official opposition put it rather well, I thought, when he reminded the House that before the Ministry of Housing was formed, we were building low-income family units in Ontario -- socially assisted housing -- at somewhere between 2,000 and 8,000 units per year. Then we created the Ministry of Housing in October 1973.

Mr. Nixon: The member for Brock was the first minister.

Mr. Singer: He discovered the member for Sault Ste. Marie (Mr. Rhodes) at about that point.

Mr. Breithaupt: In 1974 we built 494 units of socially assisted family housing units --

Mr. Nixon: He ruined it.

Mr. Breithaupt: -- in 1975 we built 474 units, and in 1976 we built 202 units for all of Ontario.

Mr. Nixon: A disgrace.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Totally untrue.

Mr. Singer: Good for the Minister of Housing. He had one programme this afternoon.

Mr. Breithaupt: I am wondering if 1977 will see a continuing decline in this area.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Your research is as bad as theirs is; you depend on them. We know about your numbers.

Mr. Singer: Just for Metro.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: We know about your numbers. We heard them last election.

Mr. Breithaupt: If you will allow me, Mr. Speaker, at this point I would take this opportunity to draw your attention to the fact that a very senior member of our caucus has announced he will not be a candidate in the next general election. He has served the people of Kent and Elgin for 22 years --

Mr. Nixon: Very well.

Mr. Breithaupt: -- from the days when a very small opposition --

[Applause]

Mr. Nixon: And he’s going to change his mind.

Mr. Breithaupt: Well, Mr. Speaker, he has --

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Don’t go, Jack. Come on back with the other small opposition.

Mr. Nixon: Have to join the Tories to do that.

Mr. Breithaupt: He has served the people of Kent and Elgin for 22 years from the days of a very small opposition, which at that time had the total accommodation in the area which is now known as the west lobby. His counsel and knowledge are matched by only a handful in this House. He is known, of course, to you as the hon. member for Kent-Elgin (Mr. Spence), but to those of us in the Liberal caucus, particularly, he will always be affectionately known as Uncle Jack.

[Applause]

Hon. W. Newman: And over here too.

An hon. member: Clap a little harder and we’ll get him back.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: The hon. member of the drainage committee. That is how I remember him.

Mr. Breithaupt: Mr. Speaker, the membership of this House is currently divided into three parts, each of which represents a certain political party. There is, however, another division of members to which I would refer. There is the first group of 26 members who have been in the House since before 1967. There is a second group of some 19 who are in the class of that year. And finally, there is the group of 80 members who have come here in the years, really, since 1971.

Mr. Nixon: Johnny-come-latelys.

Mr. Breithaupt: The first group has had long and distinguished service dating back to 1948, as I see the dean of the House, the member for Ottawa West (Mr. Morrow) here tonight.

Mr. Nixon: I hear he’s announced his retirement for the fifth consecutive time.

Mr. Eaton: He is going to run again.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: And he will win for the sixth.

Mr. Nixon: They can’t find another live Tory down there.

Mr. Breithaupt: That’s somewhat like Enrico Caruso taking all those farewell tours, year after year. But it’s well received, I assure you.

That group numbers among its members, of course, the Premier and former leaders of both the New Democratic Party and of the Liberal Party. It includes many of the members of the cabinet and indeed includes the Speaker of the House. And that group remembers when this chamber was in use for only 10 or 12 weeks in each year in a short spring session. It remembers when being a member of the Ontario Legislature was very much a part-time occupation and a budget of less than $2 billion was dealt with.

The third group has come here within the lasts six years. In their interest and activity they represent a growing change in the style of political obligations for members in this province. They come from a much more mobile and demanding Ontario where each election is a new one, and where there are indeed very few safe seats.

Mr. Peterson: I don’t trust young people in politics.

Mr. Nixon: Anybody under 40.

Mr. Breithaupt: Those of us, Mr. Speaker, who are in the class of ‘67, have now completed almost 10 years in this Legislature.

Mr. Nixon: Forty-five?

Mr. Breithaupt: And I believe that this group, of which I’m pleased to be a member, has a great opportunity to encourage the development of the institution as a real Legislature.

Perhaps more than the other two groups we have seen the most change in our years as the operations moved from those of a sort of super county council, to the full-time demands of being a member, active both in the House and its committees, as well as being involved in all sorts of problems and interests of the citizens, the groups, and the municipal bodies which one represents.

The reports of the Camp commission have been before this House and many of the recommendations of the five volumes have been acted upon. Most particularly, I would refer to a major recommendation which has not been accepted as yet. It was stressed by the select committee which was under the effective chairmanship of the dean of the House, the member for Ottawa West, and it was this, referred to on page 3 of their report: “In the opinion of this committee, responsibility for the legislative building should be transferred to the Speaker. This would avoid the divided jurisdiction that currently creates problems, ensure that the legislative function has primacy in the building, and also ensure that future planning for the building will be carried out adequately, only under the direction of the Speaker. To avoid duplication, the Speaker should contract with the Ministry of Government Services for the operation and maintenance of the building; however, the direction of the building and the well-being of its employees and occupants must be the responsibility of the Speaker.”

Mr. Speaker, we have seen many changes of rules, adopted last December, and we are coping with a new committee structure and with a time division for estimates. We have seen the first of the private members’ balloted business moved to the committee stage. We also have a new method, through the Speaker’s panel, of getting the private bills sorted out and on their way.

But it is with respect to the control of this building that I see the whole thing coming together. If we are really to be a Legislature, then this building must be under the Speaker’s control. It must serve the members for office and library needs and it must be separate from the government of the day.

I have often wondered about the provincial government of this Ontario of ours over these past 34 years --

Mr. Conway: You are not alone in that.

Mr. Breithaupt: I have indeed pondered the reasons behind successive Conservative election victories since 1943 --

Mr. Nixon: Completely irrational.

Mr. Breithaupt: -- and I believe that I have found the secret. The secret came to me early this morning as I was putting out the garbage. I had one rather large blue bag --

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: A collection of old speeches by Stuart.

Mr. Breithaupt: -- which was filled with nourishing kitchen scraps, and indeed some contributions from our one-year-old daughter Jennifer Jane, which I will not further describe. There was, secondly, a large white bag that had in it certain government-vended non-refillable and non-returnable bottles. Since I had spent Saturday cleaning up the lawn there were in between 24 green bags full of leaves and twigs and other items that follow a long winter. It was the 24 bags that suddenly brought it all together.

Mr. Nixon: Poor bags.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: You should mulch it.

Mr. Breithaupt: Green bags; there they were, dull looking, round and full, mindless and without any comprehension of their world, and they were perfectly interchangeable; and I thought of the present cabinet.

Mr. Nixon: Bette, are you going to stand for that?

Mr. Breithaupt: Mr. Speaker, I thought on one hand of the Premier (Mr. Davis) --

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: You are the poor man’s Elmer Sopha.

Mr. Breithaupt: -- and on the other hand of the Chairman of Management Board (Mr. Auld), and I thought of the other 24 in between. How are they interchangeable? Well, they seem to be able, easily, to take and give bad advice, and they can certainly be moved around --

Mr. Singer: Interchangeably.

Mr. Breithaupt: -- from one position to another, as musical chairs, or shall I say as musical green bags, as the last cabinet shuffle in February shows.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: I didn’t get moved.

Mr. Breithaupt: The member for York East (Mr. Meen) learns more about Ronto than he perhaps wants to know and suddenly is moved from Revenue to Correctional Services.

Mr. Nixon: On his way out.

Mr. Breithaupt: The member for Hamilton Mountain (Mr. J. R. Smith) finds that the lack of Sunday school attendance may not be the only reason for criminal activities and is moved from Correctional Services to Government Services.

Mr. Nixon: Right. Talk about a lateral move.

Hon. J. R. Smith: Don’t knock it.

Mr. Breithaupt: The member for St. David (Mrs. Scrivener) looks for more civil servants to holler at and therefore is moved from Government Services to Revenue. Of course, if the Treasurer (Mr. McKeough) gets his way she will also be moved from Toronto to Oshawa, but that is another story.

So we have three interchangeable green bags. But then we have another foursome I should refer to. First of all we have the member for Prince Edward-Lennox (Mr. Taylor), showing his views of human needs and attitudes about welfare assistance were indeed suited to make him a member of the executive council; the only problem was that it was the executive council that advised Sir Francis Bond Head in 1937, to which his views would be more apt than they are in 1977. So he is moved from Community and Social Services to Energy.

Then the member for Don Mills (Mr. Timbrell) is suddenly stunned by the energy mess in Ontario, and the rise of costs and the lack of provincial planning for 34 years, and he is suddenly moved to Health.

The member for Muskoka (Mr. F. S. Miller) has had a hard time closing rural hospitals and trying to come to grips with a monstrous budget that uses a third of our provincial funds so he goes from Health to Natural Resources. And then the member for Kenora (Mr. Bernier).

Mr. Martel: What can be said?

Mr. Nixon: Whatever happened to him?

Mr. Breithaupt: For a man who should daily repent for the sins visited upon the native peoples in the English and Wabigoon River systems of this province he goes to a brand new ball game; he becomes the honorary acting deputy lieutenant governor for northern Ontario. I presume he will go into official residence in Minaki Lodge to bask in the reflected glory of all those millions of misspent tax dollars.

[8:45]

We also have the member for Kingston and the Islands (Mr. Norton), who at least had some kind words of encouragement from us as he took over his portfolio.

Mr. Haggerty: Mr. Gladbag.

Mr. Breithaupt: Indeed, with the added income I trust that he will be able to get, or at least rent, a second pair of shoes while his are being resoled. This will be, for him, a luxury which many of the people of this province on the welfare and assistance schemes he administers cannot presently enjoy.

Hon. Mr. Norton: My staff has already taken care of it actually.

Mr. Breithaupt: Mr. Speaker, there are 24 of them and the cost of all this together with the other two I have mentioned, is $1,037,500.

Mr. Nixon: What a waste.

Hon. Mr. Welch: Who is that with the glasses on?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Who is the masked man?

Mr. Breithaupt: Being a reasonably intelligent person I was able to multiply that out and add in a few items.

Mr. Grossman: Who is that man?

Mr. Breithaupt: We are paying more than a million dollars for the services of this cabinet and yet only six could be here for the start of the question period last Friday.

Mr. Nixon: Shame.

Mr. Singer: Shame.

Mr. Breithaupt: This game of musical chairs, or of musical or otherwise little green bags, has gone on for nearly 34 years in Ontario.

Mr. Nixon: Too long, too long.

Mr. Breithaupt: This is hopefully the last time we will see it.

Mr. Nixon: It’s the last.

Mr. Breithaupt: Because more and more of our Ontario residents are seeing through the laudatory articles pumped out by Canadian Press and the other news services.

Mr. Nixon: You are going to be pumped out.

Mr. Breithaupt: More and more are seeing through the big cars and the public relations and the executive assistants that on occasion can make the Minister of Industry and Tourism (Mr. Bennett) seem witty or, indeed, the Minister of Labour (B. Stephenson) appear to really care about injured workers. Indeed, these folk can even make the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. F. S. Miller) seem serious and the Minister of Transportation and Communications (Mr. Snow) appear to be awake.

Mr. Nixon: Incredible.

Mr. Breithaupt: Well then, why don’t we join with the member for Scarborough West, the hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Lewis) --

Mr. Grossman: Go ahead, why don’t you?

Mr. Breithaupt: -- and his socialist horde and throw the rascals out?

Hon. Mr. Norton: I told you, join with them.

Mr. Breithaupt: There are two reasons and I want to share them with you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Eaton: Beat the retreat, beat the retreat.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Breithaupt: The first reason is because this last cabinet shuffle, this last dance of the dinosaurs, has not as yet been fully publicized for what it is.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Now I know why you have the dark glasses on, Bob.

Mr. Breithaupt: The reason is taken from that violent and stimulating television programme that shows a real slice of the world as it is and describes the hopes and fears and expectations of people in this province -- it’s a programme called The Government We Deserve.

Mr. Nixon: Is that Judy’s programme?

Mr. Breithaupt: It’s a violent programme, of course, but in Ontario, after 34 years, that government still has a few more weeks, or months perhaps, and the people of the province will deal with it and see whether we really have the government we deserve.

Mr. Nixon: No more time.

Mr. Breithaupt: We will have that government until the people of this province finally see through the years of Conservative mismanagement. It will last until our citizens recognize the staggering deficits which the Davis years have built up in Ontario, which will be the real legacy of the government led by the member for Brampton (Mr. Davis).

Eventually the universe will no doubt unfold as it should, and that government will too be swept away --

Hon. Mr. Snow: Where have we heard that before?

Mr. Breithaupt: -- unloved, unmourned and unremembered. Tonight we are another day closer to that eventuality.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Here is your chance.

Mr. Breithaupt: The other reason we shall keep this government in power for a few more days at least is because we want to see the budget.

Mr. Grossman: Is that a promise?

Mr. Breithaupt: We want to have on the public record the actual plans --

Hon. W. Newman: Oh, now the truth comes out.

Mr. Nixon: How reasonable can we be?

Mr. Breithaupt: -- and the real programmes of this government, and not just hear on the hustings about all the wonderful things they were going to do if they had but had the chance.

The amendment to the resolution before us is there only for political posturing.

Mr. Nixon: Right.

Mr. Breithaupt: The Leader of the Opposition doesn’t really want to end this phoney war he’s got going with the Premier.

Mr. Nixon: He is not even present in the House.

Mr. Breithaupt: As the Leader of the opposition said last Friday, in his usual flowery way, these little delays and these little moments of controversy will not an election make, you will have to work a lot harder than that.

Mr. Nixon: Is that when they flip-flopped?

Mr. Breithaupt: That was not only good advice from him to the Premier, it is also my advice, and that of my Liberal colleagues, to him tonight.

[Applause]

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. member for Wentworth has the floor.

Mr. Peterson: Give ‘em hell, burrhead.

Mr. Deans: That certainly was a crushing speech. It’s a pleasure to have an opportunity to speak in this what will likely be the last Throne Speech debate of this particular Parliament.

Mr. Peterson: Are you not feeling well, Ian?

Mr. Gaunt: You are running for mayor this time, are you?

Mr. Deans: I expect that at some point the Liberals will take their courage in their hands and will in fact stand up for something.

Mr. Eakins: Flip-flop Ian.

Interjections.

Mr. Deans: Although, as my leader says, I ought not to count on it, given their past performance.

Mr. Eakins: Tell us why you reversed your vote on Friday.

Mr. Deans: Nevertheless I don’t intend to dwell on anything said by the Liberal House leader or on anything said by the Liberal Party. I remember comments made to me in the House some number of years ago by the then Premier John Robarts after a speech I had made, which followed a speech made by the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk (Mr. Nixon) when he was the leader of the official opposition in those bad old days. I can remember John Robarts looking at Bob Nixon and then looking at us and saying: “I know where the enemy is.” I’m going to tell you, Mr. Speaker, that as I listened to what was being said tonight I want to say to the Tories, they sure still know where the enemy is; it’s right over here and don’t forget. They’re your friends. Cuddle up to them; you need them.

Interjections.

Mr. Martel: Why don’t you find another Marvin somewhere?

Mr. Eakins: Where were you Friday?

Hon. Mr. Norton: The socialist hordes.

Mr. Deans: I also want to say to you, Mr. Speaker, that in thinking back on that day, it dawned on me as I looked at the sins of this government and I thought of the way it approached the many problems that confront the people of the province of Ontario, that I know where the blame lies; it lies right over there in the front benches on the other side of this House and the executive council of the province of Ontario, many of whom are missing.

Hon. Mr. Norton: Oh take it easy, Ian, take it easy.

Mr. Peterson: If you don’t like them, why did you borrow the Premier’s suit for your speech?

Mr. Deans: While I’m on my feet and talking about those who are missing, I think it reflects badly on the Legislature, and certainly badly on the government that they can’t muster but a few of their members to listen to the windup debate on the Throne Speech that they all thought was so important.

Mr. Cassidy: That’s right.

Mr. Deans: Last Friday morning I expected that few would be present, because on Fridays, for as long as I’ve been here, they seem to find other things that are much more important to do than the business of the province of Ontario here in the Legislature.

Mr. Cunningham: They go home on Fridays.

Mr. Deans: But I did expect, having looked back over the years to the days of John Robarts, that they might at least have extended to the speakers this evening the courtesy to attend, even though they weren’t interested, as they have never been, in the content or the thrust of what’s being said. They might at least have shown an interest in the business of the province of Ontario and come into the Legislature and spent but a few moments learning something about the views of other people, and not sitting simply listening to their own rhetoric, rumbling around in the cabinet rooms and the caucus rooms of the Conservative Party.

Mr. Germa: Arrogance, arrogance.

Hon. Mr. Norton: Such ranting and raving.

Mr. Kerrio: Move the adjournment.

Mr. Martel: With what’s his name, the other cabinet player.

Mr. Deans: In any event, the budget comes tomorrow.

Hon. Mr. Norton: Ian, quit the posturing.

Mr. Deans: And as the budget comes tomorrow there will --

Interjections.

Mr. Deans: It’s certainly nice to see the Premier (Mr. Davis) again.

As the budget will come tomorrow, I’m sure the government will be able to more clearly define much of what they’ve said in the Throne Speech. I hope the government will be able to put a little flesh on the bones that were scattered throughout the 60-odd recommendations that were made in the Throne Speech that was read to us not two weeks ago or three weeks ago.

Mr. Nixon: Oh, there won’t be time for that.

Mr. Hodgson: Promise?

Mr. Nixon: I hope not.

Hon. Mr. Norton: Such vanity.

Mr. Deans: At that time, tomorrow and in the days that follow, we’ll respond in a similar way, with appropriate and constructive suggestions, assuming of course that the Liberals stay with their ill-conceived views and remain the supporters of the government.

Mr. Breithaupt: We are just trying to help you out.

Mr. Deans: In any event, I want to take a moment or two to look at the government, because I wondered a little bit from time to time as to how they might be remembered after the next election. I looked at the cabinet one day last week. I was sitting here watching them -- one day when there were more than half a dozen present -- and I thought to myself, I wonder just what will be written about them after the next election and they’re all gone.

Mr. Grossman: That they won again.

Mr. Deans: I looked at the Minister of Transportation and Communications (Mr. Snow) and I can see it now: “Here lies Jim Snow, Greyhound and Gray Coach”. Or here’s the provincial Treasurer, may he rest in peace. He had the opportunity to develop a land-use policy for the province of Ontario for 10 long years --

Mr. Nixon: He’s down at the Albany Club.

Mr. Deans: -- but every time he had the opportunity, he reneged until he finally dismantled the entire planning branch of the ministry to ensure there would never be a land-use policy in Ontario.

Or the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Kerr). You can see him now -- he’s famous, world-famous, for Reed and Dow Chemical.

Or the Minister of Housing, famous in another portfolio for Krauss-Maffei, and famous in the one he’s in for dismantling it.

Or the Minister of Labour (B. Stephenson). And I thought a lot about the Ministry of Labour.

Mr. Nixon: Grand girl.

Mr. Conway: Lovely girl. Lovely girl.

Mr. Deans: I heard my colleague from Hamilton East (Mr. Mackenzie) --

Mr. Nixon: If she had played her cards right, she could have been a Liberal.

Mr. Deans: -- talking about the Ministry of Labour this afternoon and I thought to myself, now there was an opportunity, if ever there was one, for a minister to show what she was made of.

Mr. Nixon: Whatever happened to her?

Mr. Deans: We could have seen other initiatives in the area of good faith bargaining that would have brought to finality some of the difficulties that confront many people in the province of Ontario, but we didn’t. We might have seen some honest worker protection in the province of Ontario, but we don’t have it. We might even have seen a manpower policy in her capacity as the minister in charge of manpower, which she took over from the previous minister, which was taken over from the late -- not late in the sense that he’s now gone completely but --

Mr. Nixon: But not lamented.

Mr. Deans: -- late in the sense from the Legislature, the hon. member who was previously from Hamilton West, Jack McNie, who undertook the job of manpower policy. I remember -- the Premier will be interested -- Jack McNie telling me something as we were standing at a party. I said, “Jack, tell me the truth, what do you do?” He said, “Ian, I don’t know.” I said, “Jack, have you got a policy at all?” He said, “Ian, I haven’t.” I said, “Well, what in heaven’s name is your function?” He said, “I’m still waiting to hear.”

Mr. Nixon: He is not here to defend himself.

Mr. Deans: Then he announced his retirement.

Mr. Lewis: Well, why do you think he’s recounting the conversation?

Mr. Nixon: Precisely.

Mr. Deans: Or we could look at the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr. Handleman), a fine fellow -- the most anti-consumer individual I’ve ever met. In fact, I’m surprised he’s still here because I distinctly recall --

Mr. Nixon: He’s not here. He heard you were speaking.

Mr. Deans: -- he said he was going to resign if rent controls were continued in the province of Ontario.

Mr. Mancini: Let him resign.

Mr. Deans: I wonder why he hasn’t resigned yet? One would have thought that he might at least have lived up to that commitment if no other.

Mr. Conway: He read your speech on the EMO.

Mr. Deans: Or maybe we could consider the hon. Minister of Industry and Tourism (Mr. Bennett) -- he’ll go down in history. It will go opposite his name, Minaki Lodge. Was it $9 million or was in $20 million?

Mr. Eakins: Tell us about EMO.

An hon. Member: Twenty-six million dollars.

Mr. Deans: Or maybe even more. Perhaps the previous Minister of Energy -- now the Minister of Health (Mr. Timbrell) -- who refused in the face of mounting costs, or the problems being confronted by those on fixed incomes, whether aged or infirm --

Mr. Nixon: Here he comes. The next leader of the Tory party. Here he is.

Mr. Deans: -- to take any steps to relieve the burden of mounting hydro costs.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Nonsense.

Mr. Deans: Famous for saying “nonsense” to the people of the province of Ontario.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: No, just to you.

Mr. Deans: How about the current Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. F. S. Miller) in his previous capacity --

Mr. Nixon: Oh, let’s stick with Dennis.

Mr. Eakins: Yes. Let’s have more on Dennis.

Mr. Deans: -- as the Minister of Health?

Mr. Eakins: Tell us more.

Mr. Deans: When they write about him, they’re going to write about him in the terms that he was the man who decided to close hospitals, and he can’t even plant trees in his new portfolio.

One wonders about the competence of these people. The previous Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Taylor) -- like a bull in a china shop. He starts out screaming and ranting and raving about the cuts he’s going to make. He scares the people in the social services field half to death. He doesn’t care whether the Children’s Aid Societies are adequately funded or not. He cares not one whit about the incomes of people on low incomes. He doesn’t provide any form of assistance for them in spite of mounting costs and then they move him.

Mr. Eakins: Is that you, Jim? I can’t believe it.

Mr. Deans: And then my colleague, the House leader for the Liberal Party, made mention of the member for Hamilton Mountain (Mr. J. R. Smith). I don’t remember him for quite the same thing. My recollection is much kinder than that. All I can think about is that he’s the minister who had to have his speeches vetted by the Premier’s office.

Mr. Eakins: Is he teaching you in Sunday school, Ian?

Mr. Deans: And then we have the Solicitor General who stands in his place and defends a policy which says that the police should police the police -- that there ought not to be, or certainly there is no initiative to undertake, the placing of citizens --

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: Just defending the Ombudsman. Exactly what he recommended.

[9:00]

Mr. Deans: -- the placing of citizens on the boards of police commissions in order to ensure there is adequate protection, and that the investigations that have to be conducted from time to time are conducted impartially and with an understanding of the needs of the community. When one looks at them -- I’ll talk to the Premier in a moment -- when one looks at them one by one, and the things that they’re famous for, one has to ask oneself how it is that the Tories can stand on the hustings of the province of Ontario and talk about their competence and ability to manage and the feeling they have for the people of the province of Ontario and their understanding of the province’s problems. One has to ask oneself whether people who have those kinds of things written against their names can honestly say they understand one whit about the needs of the people who are supposedly under their jurisdiction.

Hon. Mr. Norton: The finest and most creative opposition I have heard yet.

Mr. Deans: I’m going to tell the House that there are many tens of thousands of people across this province who, if asked, would tell us today that they don’t have confidence in it because they have watched it operate. They’ve watched this government bungle one issue after another. They’ve watched this government which didn’t tell them, in 1975 when they were electioneering, about all the things they intended to do to them; they’ve watched this government which, in spite of mounting unemployment, in spite of housing shortages, in spite of all kinds of economic and social problems across this province, has failed to respond adequately, or even respond at all, to the majority.

I’m going to tell the House that if one could look outside that select little group which forms the cabinet and see, in the back benches of the government, people who could fill their shoes, then one might have some hope for the future. But the truth of the matter is that, at this point, the people at the back arc more tired than the ones at the front, which makes for a very difficult situation when the public of Ontario have to find someone suitable and adequate to deal with the problems that are mounting; the problems that this government --

Hon. Mr. Davis: I don’t want to interrupt, but don’t look behind you.

Mr. Deans: -- ought to have been able to solve; the problems that have been brought about by the mismanagement of this government; the problems that have been brought about over 34 years of Conservative rule. It must be hard to be the Premier of the province of Ontario in the Conservative Party at the moment because, unlike other Premiers and Prime Ministers and leaders in other countries and other jurisdictions, he can’t even blame anybody else for the misfortunes that are befalling the people of the province of Ontario. They’ve been brought about, one after the other, by mismanagement of Conservatives, one government after another for 34 consecutive years. It’s hard to believe. It’s hard to believe after 34 years of Conservative rule that an economy, so strong, based on natural resources, with an industrious and highly-skilled work force, could be so mismanaged that in 1977 we have a $2 billion deficit; --

Hon. W. Newman: And you want to increase it.

Mr. Deans: -- so mismanaged that we have 330,000 people unemployed in 1977; so mismanaged that we have an energetic, hardworking citizenry unable in 1977 to purchase a home of their own at a price they can afford. It’s hard to believe that after 34 years of consecutive government by the Conservative Party in the province of Ontario that we would have a policy that didn’t even recognize the need to develop secondary and tertiary industry for the benefits that would flow from it in northern and southern Ontario. It’s hard to believe that after 34 years in office and numerous warnings --

Mr. Nixon: Tom Kennedy, where are you when we need you?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Looking down.

Mr. Deans: -- given to you by all kinds of people ranging from people in this House, through all of the economic experts, through anyone you care to talk to, that we could be in the year 1977, knowing what we knew 10 years ago, and still have no manpower policy to deal with the unemployment that confronts so many people; a policy with no clear --

Mr. Nixon: It’s incredible.

Mr. Deans: -- and concise directions, either for retraining or for the evaluation of job opportunities. And to think the government has spent 34 years -- and the Premier says to me that he’s going to go to the people. I’m going to tell him, he’s going to go to the people --

Hon. Mr. Davis: I haven’t said that.

Mr. Deans: -- but when he goes to the people, he’s going to have to explain to them how it could be -- in recognition of all the problems that have confronted Ontario under his administration and under the administration of his predecessors -- that he was unable to come up with answers to the most fundamental problems confronting the majority of people. It’s hard to believe that we wouldn’t have developed methods to ease the burden of property tax after 34 years of Tory rule in Ontario. It’s hard for me to understand, in spite of the best efforts of many of my colleagues and many other people outside in society, how we wouldn’t have an energy policy in place by now.

Hon. B. Stephenson: Everything’s hard for you to understand, Ian.

Mr. Deans: It’s not only the existing energy sources, although that would be easy, but that co-ordinates all the new energy sources that have been brought to the government’s attention, that shows the kind of initiative that takes grasp of the potential and develops for the people of the province of Ontario an energy policy that one can be proud to call something that will meet the needs of the future.

Mr. Nixon: How about windmills?

Mr. Deans: Now, the Premier might say to me, “Well, it is too difficult.” And it is too difficult for a Tory government, because they are traditional. Because everything they do is based on what’s been done by somebody else some place else. There is absolutely nothing innovative about one single cabinet minister or about the government as a whole.

It is hard to understand how it could be, after 34 years in the province of Ontario under a Conservative administration, that we would still be debating the need to have adequate worker protection in the work place. It is hard to understand how it could be that people are still rising in their place and raising with the various ministries and the various ministers the problems that are confronting workers as they go to work in an attempt to earn a living to provide for their families and they find themselves working in conditions that are intolerable and unsafe and this government, no matter how hard it tries, can’t write legislation to protect them that can be understood by the people over whom it has jurisdiction.

It is difficult for me in 1977 to think that a government after 34 years could bring in a Throne Speech with an excess of 60 identifiable items needing to be resolved and how it could be proud of the fact that in the year 1977, 34 years later, there were still in excess of 60 items that the government hadn’t been able to deal with.

Mr. Nixon: You started out with 22.

Mr. Deans: I say to you that I don’t know how the Premier could be proud to be able to identify 60 things in the province of Ontario that after 34 years he and his government and the governments that preceded him, all Conservative, hadn’t been able to come to grips with.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I can think of several more we would like to add yet.

Mr. Deans: We are going to think of several more. I want to suggest to the Premier we are going to have several more. Do you know what it speaks to, Mr. Speaker -- the fact that this government could find in excess of 60 items, and, as the Premier says, several more that are needing to be done, desperately needing answers to be found for them in the province of Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Davis: You used the word “desperate.” I didn’t use the word “desperate.”

Mr. Speaker: Order please. Order.

Mr. Deans: It speaks to the inadequacy of this government for 34 years. It speaks to the inability of the Bill Davis regime for the last six or seven years. It speaks to the lack of sensitivity of the regime that preceded him. It talks directly to the inability of the Conservative Party in the province of Ontario to be able not only to understand what the problems are, which I doubt very much, but to formulate policies to react to the problems and to solve them in a way that would make sense.

I suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that what we are really speaking about isn’t whether the Davis government should be able to continue in office, it’s whether the Conservative Party hasn’t abdicated its responsibility to the public of Ontario and whether or not we should be looking to see whether there is some way that they can be removed from politics altogether, because they are corrupt in the sense that they have --

Hon. B. Stephenson: Shame.

Hon. Mr. Meen: Shame.

Mr. Deans: -- not sat down and dealt with problems of the people that they were responsible for.

[Applause]

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. I remind the hon. member that that is quite unparliamentary to accuse the government of being corrupt or anyone else -- order, please -- individually or collectively. I know you explained it, but would you please refrain from using such language?

Interjections.

Mr. Deans: I didn’t plan to use it again anyway so that’s fine.

An hon. member: He just got carried away.

An hon. member: He should be named.

An hon. member: They are bankrupt.

Mr. Deans: I want to suggest -- oh, no, they are not bankrupt. Bankrupt is another thing. We are bankrupt; they caused it.

I want to suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that it is difficult to imagine in 1977, after 34 years of Conservative government rule, that northern Ontario doesn’t yet have the kind of equalization of opportunity and cost that they have been asking for, pointing out was necessary, working towards achieving. They have sent representation after representation. They have sent representative after representative from the north to Queen’s Park to bring to the government’s attention that there are inequities in northern Ontario over and against southern Ontario that ought to be corrected and must be corrected. This government has failed at every single turn to crime to grips with these problems. This government turns around and instead of putting policy in place, it moves a tired minister to something called a new ministry for political purposes and no other reason.

Mr. Nixon: Nothing else.

Mr. Deans: I want to tell you more.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Are you going to vote against the bill?

Mr. Martel: Bring the bill in.

Mr. Deans: Over those self-same 34 years, the same kind of representation has been made to this government by numerous people from eastern Ontario and the same result has come forth: There has been absolute neglect on the part of the government in terms of trying to bring about policy that would resolve the difficulties that those people face.

When one looks at northern Ontario and at eastern Ontario, when one considers the inadequacies of the ministers, and when one looks at all 60 items that this government now feels it ought to do, I can’t help feeling that that alone, if nothing else, would be sufficient to vote no confidence. But there’s more. That only speaks to the 34 years the Tories have been in; it doesn’t even begin to talk directly to the problems that confront us as the result of the administration of Bill Davis and his government.

Does the Premier know that 15 years ago it was possible for the average wage earner on a single wage in the province of Ontario to purchase a home of his own? Does he know that today, in 1977, not only is that not possible, it isn’t even a dream of the average wage earner on a single wage. That’s not progress, and that happened for 15 years under Tory governments. That happened in spite of the fact that there were numerous representations made to this government over those 15 years, pointing out the difficulties and suggesting methods of resolving them. This government, because it’s in bed with the majority of developers, because it doesn’t give a damn for the majority of wage earners, couldn’t bring itself to initiate policies that would begin to speak to that particular problem.

For 15 years the government has had warning after warning of the profiteering and exorbitant price-costing that has been looming across the province of Ontario. What has the government done about it? Nothing. For 15 years it has had suggestion after suggestion of means to deal with increasing costs to consumers in the province of Ontario, but there hasn’t been a single policy initiative by this government to resolve that.

For at least 15 years it has been brought to the governments attention that the economic future of this province, lay almost entirely in our capacity to harness the natural resource potential of the province for the purpose of developing secondary and tertiary industry. For 15 years the government has had brought to its attention that if we were ever going to survive in the world marketplace, we had to be able to take advantage of the natural resources that we had that belong to all of the people of this province; we had to put an end to the taking of those resources out of this province in an unprocessed and semi-processed state. We said that if we were ever going to have economic stability in this province it could be developed only if we were to use those resources as the catalyst for the secondary and tertiary development. I tell you right now, Mr. Speaker, that has never sunk into the heads of the Conservative Party or the government of the province.

It is interesting to see what has happened since 1967 which is the year when I was first elected to the Legislature. In 1967 the budget of the province was $2.2 billion. From then to now, only 10 years later, the budget has gone up to $12.6 billion. I remember the campaign of 1971 and how we set out a programme for housing; how we set out a programme that would provide income stability; how we set out a programme for the preservation of land --

Mr. Nixon: How did they ever turn you down?

Mr. Deans: And the government costed it. In those days the government’s budget was just over $5 billion, and the answer was it would bankrupt the province of Ontario. Isn’t it funny how, in the intervening period of time, the government has been able to increase its expenditures from that $5 billion to more than $12 billion with a $2-billion deficit? The problems that we spoke of in 1971 -- the lack of adequate housing, the need for a farm income policy, the need for a land-use policy, the need for protection for low-income earners -- are still there in exactly the same way that they were there in 1971. The government didn’t do a single thing to resolve them, and during that period of time it still allowed the budget of the province to go up by $7 billion.

[9:15]

What did the government do with all the money? Take a look at the wages of the people of the province of Ontario. Is the Premier going to suggest to me that the earning capacity of the people in the province of Ontario kept pace with the expenditures of this government? Is he going to suggest to me, Mr. Speaker, that anywhere out there among the average working people of this province there are people who are now earning six times what they were earning in 1967? Is he suggesting to me that the people of the province of Ontario can afford to have the government spending at the level that it is currently spending?

I just think, as my colleague says and as was said by others, that maybe the people of the province of Ontario don’t realize yet just how mismanaged the economy of this province has been. Maybe they don’t yet understand just how badly this government has handled the fiscal affairs of the province of Ontario. Maybe they don’t yet understand just how inadequately this government has responded to the social problems of the province of Ontario. Maybe they haven’t yet been told clearly enough just how inadequately this government has responded to the housing needs and all of the other needs I have spoken about.

I want to tell you, Mr. Speaker, I’m going to do what I can to make sure that they hear that message, because that’s the message the next election will be fought on. It’s not going to be fought on some pie-in-the-sky thing dreamed up by the Premier. It’s going to be fought on the record of the Tory party for 34 years.

Mr. Warner: Why doesn’t the government just resign?

Mr. Deans: We have watched the government over the last 10 years, part of which is the direct responsibility of the current Premier who has been unable to recognize that during times of heavy private sector spending the government ought to be holding back on its expenditures.

I believe in counter-cyclical budgeting. I’ve always believed in that. In answer to what the Treasurer threw across the House one day a couple of weeks ago, I’ve always believed that the role of government was to allow the private sector to spend in times when the private sector was booming. I’ve also always believed that the responsibility of the government was to ensure the credit rating of the province and to ensure that there was money available for times such as these so that we can engage in the kind of expenditures that have to be undertaken in order to ensure that the peaks and the valleys of the economy, which flow naturally from the private sector development and economic programmes, are smoothed out; so that the people of the province benefit in a more stable way and so that they may look forward to a more reasonable degree of stability in their income and their economic well-being.

I suggest to the government that that was a responsibility it had and that the opportunities throughout the Fifties and Sixties were legion to undertake that kind of programming, that kind of fiscal responsibility and that kind of economic management. I tell you, Mr. Speaker, that this government has failed on those counts. This government has never managed this economy from one day to the next. This government doesn’t believe in management; this government hopes that the economy will be sufficiently strong to withstand their bungling. It hasn’t been, and that’s unfortunate for the majority of the people in the province of Ontario.

During my time in the Legislature, I can distinctly recall my colleague from Windsor-Riverside (Mr. Burr) raising with the government all kinds of alternative energy sources that might be reviewed and looked into for a new energy policy. I can distinctly remember my colleagues from Sudbury, Sudbury East, Nickel Belt, Port Arthur and others, raising with the government the problems of northern Ontario and placing before it policy initiatives that would have helped to resolve those problems. I can distinctly remember my colleague from York South (Mr. MacDonald) on numerous occasions placing before the government farm income policies, food pricing policies and land-use policies; and the government rejected every single one.

I can remember my colleagues from Riverdale (Mr. Renwick) and Lakeshore (Mr. Lawlor) raising in the Legislature the need for tenant protection. Where is it? Where is the standard lease form we were promised 10 years ago? Where is the protection for the tenants in the province of Ontario, in spite of the learned observations and the efforts of my colleagues from Lakeshore and Riverdale? I remember my colleague from Yorkview, for at least the period of time that I’ve been in the Legislature --

Mr. Breithaupt: He is a new boy.

Mr. Deans: -- raising with the government the difficulties that confront people in automobile safety and the problems of the need for auto insurance protection in the province of Ontario. What does the government do? Absolutely nothing.

I personally raised on numerous occasions over the 10-year period, and particularly four or five years ago, the urgent need to develop a manpower policy in the province of Ontario. Nothing’s forthcoming.

I remember my colleague from Ottawa Centre talking to the government week after week about the need for property tax reform in order to ease the burden of property tax on middle- and low-income people, on people who are on fixed incomes. Does the government move? No, it doesn’t.

I can remember the housing policy initiatives, the review board for price initiatives, the statements here by my colleague from Beaches-Woodbine on the need for action on interest rates to try to stabilize the cost factors that confront the majority of people. I’ve heard my colleague from High Park talk about the need for action in the field of small business to ensure an adequate opportunity for people in the small business field; and my colleague from Port Arthur, who acted as the education critic, expressing the frustration of teachers and parents and expressing the frustration of taxpayers over the high burden of cost that must befall those who have to pay the cost of education in the municipalities.

I could go on and on. There are so many different areas where policy initiatives have been placed before this government over the last 10 years and they’ve been neglected, and they’ve been neglected to the detriment of the people of the province of Ontario.

Mr. Speaker, lest you think that I’m perhaps exaggerating ever so slightly -- I’m sure you wouldn’t think that of me in any event -- let me just read to you what we said to the government in 1968 in the Throne Speech amendment, which shows a certain amount of clairvoyance, I suppose, in some way, about the way the economy was going. Let me read it. Mr. MacDonald moved the amendment and it goes as follows: “This House further regrets the government’s continued refusal to assist the Ontario people in coping with soaring costs of living, and specifically its failure to keep exorbitant price increases in check through the public mechanism of a prices review board; to raise northern family incomes by promoting economic development and to eliminate gross disparity between those prices charged for consumer products in the north and those in the rest of the province; to reduce the high cost and eliminate the other inequities of automobile insurance; to protect tenants from exorbitant rent increases; to increase the minimum wage; to adopt measures essential to closing the gap between the demand and supply for low-cost housing in Ontario; and to reduce the oppressive burden of the property tax.”

Mr. Nixon: All good stuff.

Mr. Deans: I suggest that in 1968 we were saying these were the problems that the people of the province of Ontario are facing, and I suggest that in 1977 these are the same identical problems that the people are facing and this government under Premier Davis has done nothing to stop them.

Mr. Martel: Put Leo Bernier in a new portfolio.

Mr. Deans: I go on. In 1969 we were asking them to affirm housing as a basic right. We were asking them to solve the problems in the tax system. In 1971, we were telling them that a house-building programme was essential, that municipal works acceleration was required, that a commitment to long-term full employment had to be made, and on and on.

Year after year, at least during my time here, we’ve been telling them that these are the problems that the people of Ontario are facing and are about to face and the government should have policy initiatives in place to resolve them. And year after year they brought in Throne Speeches not worth the paper they were written on, with promises that were never lived up to. They brought in Throne Speeches that didn’t address themselves to the problems that the people of Ontario were facing. Year after year we came back and we suggested new initiatives, different initiatives, pointed out the areas of greatest concern; and year after year this Conservative government of William Davis and those who preceded him have failed to come to grips with what it is that confronts the majority of average- and low-income earners in the province of Ontario.

Mr. Lewis: This year’s Throne Speech identified the problems.

Mr. Deans: This year, as my leader says, the Throne Speech identified the problems -- 10 years after the problems were first identified. If they had taken the initiative during that 10-year period we wouldn’t be faced with the kind of economic stagnation that we’re faced with; we wouldn’t have people who can’t afford to buy houses in the province of Ontario; we wouldn’t be faced with the difficulties that are currently confronting the majority of people.

Hon. B. Stephenson: Absolute balderdash.

Mr. Deans: I suggest they were derelict in their duty over those 10 years and they have no answer for it now.

In addition to that I want to suggest also to you, Mr. Speaker, that you can’t separate the benefits that flow from public spending over private spending if it is either in capital expenditure or in income maintenance. I don’t know how the Treasurer and the Premier and others are able to draw a distinction in terms of the benefit that flows from the building of a building, whether it be public or private, because the cement, the wood, the steel and everything that goes into the building comes from the private sector. Every single industry related to the construction industry in the province of Ontario benefits from it; the workers who build the building are exactly the same workers; and for someone to suddenly say that there is a distinction to be drawn, they just don’t understand the processes that are gone through.

I can’t believe for a moment that you believe it, Mr. Speaker. I don’t believe that you think that somehow or other there is something magical about some private developer building a building, or the government building a building, in terms of the economic benefits that flow to those people directly related to the construction industry.

I suggest to the government that if there are projects throughout the province of Ontario that are valuable and should be proceeded with sometime in the next two or three years that this is the time to commence. The need is greatest now. The benefits that will flow will in any event be flowing to the private industry which the government is so careful to protect. So therefore if the government members can draw themselves away from their dogma, and if they can see that they have a responsibility to the public of the province of Ontario in both private and public sectors, for heaven’s sake show some initiative.

I also suggest to the government that at a time when we should be looking carefully, there are benefits which flow from investment in the private sector, that that investment brings about profits, those profits bring about taxes, and we would benefit in terms of the cash flow of the province of Ontario and the tax dollars that are raised, both in terms of those who are working and in terms of those who manufacture the products to be used.

But the government’s answer to tax relief is $160 million in rebates for production machinery. I have said a lot about rebates for production machinery, and I want to just quickly go through what I think about them. I don’t think there is any reasonable, sensible person, who believes for one minute that the putting in place of new production machinery can do other than eliminate jobs. I don’t think there is anyone who believes it.

We are operating in the province of Ontario at considerably below productive capacity now with the machinery that is currently in place. To replace that machinery with new machinery that is more automated, that can produce at a far greater rate, when the marketplace can’t consume it, when there is no need for it, and to lay claim that what the government suggests is a fact, that this somehow or other creates employment in the province of Ontario --

Hon. Mr. McKeough: You just don’t understand.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order please.

Mr. Deans: -- is wrong --

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order please!

Mr. Deans: -- and I suggest to you, Mr. Speaker --

Mr. Martel: There are 316,000 people unemployed.

Mr. Speaker: Order. May I point out that the hon. member for Wentworth is the only one who has the floor. That goes for people on all sides.

Mr. Kerrio: Point that out to the Treasurer.

Mr. Speaker: Order please. I am pointing it out to everyone. The hon. member for Wentworth will continue.

Mr. Kerrio: Explain it to the Treasurer.

Mr. Deans: And all I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, is that the sad part of it is that we have a Treasurer in the province of Ontario who just doesn’t understand.

Mr. Nixon: And never has.

Mr. Conway: That will make him Premier.

Mr. Cunningham: And never will.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Karl Marx would be proud of you.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Lewis: And what about Harpo and Groucho and all the others? How would they feel at a time like this?

Mr. Breithaupt: Don’t forget Zeppo.

An hon. member: And Gummo. He is always the one who is left out.

An hon. member: Don’t forget Gummo!

Mr. Lewis: What an odd voice. Is there no end to the Treasurer’s silliness?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please; the hon. member for Wentworth.

Mr. Deans: I want also to say to you, Mr. Speaker, that while the Treasurer talks of my not understanding, there is one thing I do understand. I understand that there are already sufficient write-off provisions in the income tax and corporate tax Acts to allow the very companies which are getting the remission of the $160 million to write off those costs now. And for the Treasurer to take $160 million of the taxpayers’ money in the province of Ontario, which could be used directly to stimulate the market, which could be used to create jobs that are much needed and to give it to people who already can benefit now from the tax write-off provisions is wrong. It is an abdication of his responsibility. When he shakes his head in the affirmative, I can only assume, as he says himself, he just doesn’t understand.

[9:30]

In any event, the government of the province of Ontario has been faced over the years with a number of problems and one of them was the request for processing in the north. I can remember the great debate that went on in the Legislature about how we were going to have more processing done in the north. But the legislation and the initiatives were so fraught with loopholes and exemptions that there is, I suspect, less processing in northern Ontario today than there ever was.

That’s where the problem lies. In spite of what it might claim it is going to do, there is so little monitoring that the government doesn’t bring in programmes that meet the need.

Mr. Martel: How many exemptions were issued this year?

Mr. Deans: In the province of Ontario, Mr. Speaker, when you need nursing homes you get, as my colleague from Cambridge said, fancy jails. When you need rental accommodation, you get a $1.8 million a year expenditure by the Ministry of Housing -- that’s maximum -- which doesn’t flow to the need itself. When you recognize that the government programme has been in effect now for, I suspect, 10 years and that during that 10-year period it has had limited success, it is ludicrous for this government to think that the infusion of $600 per unit to a programme which even to this point doesn’t begin to speak to the needs of the province of Ontario will do, or to think that that answers the low-rental and rental-accommodation problems that confront everyone across the province.

We need middle-income housing. We get the abandonment by the Ministry of Housing of the only programme that provided anything resembling middle-income housing.

We need property tax relief. We get corporate tax relief.

We need employment policies. We get a whole range of empty promises, from summer jobs for students that will never materialize because they never have, to no jobs at all and no concern shown by the government.

We need long- and short-range planning and this government doesn’t seem capable of undertaking that kind of planning because their record over 34 years shows that there has been a steady deterioration of the capacity of the government to govern since it took office 34 years ago.

Mr. Conway: We have Wintario and the new jail.

Mr. Deans: We have had 34 years of out-of-date, inadequate non-policies, and we need a change.

Mr. Laughren: And they have the member for London North (Mr. Shore).

Mr. Deans: I want to suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that minority government in the province of Ontario has worked. It has worked because those of us on this side of the House have bent over backwards to make it work. We have done everything in our power to accommodate the government in trying to resolve what it saw as the difficulties that it had as the government of Ontario.

We have on numerous occasions softened our position in an effort to try to bring about a policy which might turn out to be better than the non-policy that was there before. But I want you to understand, Mr. Speaker, that the role of the opposition is not that of shoring up the government. The role of the opposition is surely that of providing the government with the kind of constructive criticism that this opposition party has provided that government with over the last one and a half to two years. I want to tell you there have been times when we have moved so far in our attempts to accommodate this government that it’s almost been embarrassing.

Mr. Conway: Friday morning was a good place to start.

Mr. Deans: But we are prepared to accommodate the government further. if it can change tomorrow, if it can bring in policies tomorrow that will somehow or other speak directly to the problems of unemployment, if it can bring in policies that speak directly to the housing need, if it can bring in policies that speak directly to the iniquitous tax burden carried by the majority of middle- and low-income people, if it can speak directly in its budget to the problems of safety in the work place, then I suppose --

Mr. Eakins: Have you changed your minds again?

Mr. Deans: -- with the Liberal support and with our constructive suggestions this government could go on for some long period of time even yet.

Mr. Cassidy: God save us!

Interjection.

Mr. Lewis: Why are you the only one applauding?

Mr. Deans: I want to tell the Premier that if it is his wish to have an election, I want to assure him that all of the things that I feel about the inadequacies of this government will be told to anyone who will listen. I am going to point out, to the best of my ability, how for 34 years this government has failed to produce policies --

Mr. Martel: Has the government got another $5 million in the slush fund?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Let’s have some order.

Mr. Deans: -- and this government has been primarily responsible for the decrease in employment opportunities, for the inability of people to buy houses and for the tax burden they must carry. This government is over- expended and over-borrowed and ought not to be governing the province of Ontario; and for that reason my leader moved an amendment, which I shall not read but which is on the record now. I want to suggest to the Premier that it would serve the people of the province of Ontario far better if the Premier and his cabinet showed some of the goodwill that we have shown in making minority government work and accepted the amendment.

Mr. Grossman: But not an election. Interjections.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. member for Brampton has the floor.

Mr. Conway: The ranks are thin.

Mr. Warner: Spare us the whole thing and tell us you will resign right now.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Will the member for Scarborough-Ellesmere come to order?

An hon. member: And, you might add, grow up.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I really won’t comment on the constructive suggestion from the member for Scarborough-Ellesmere, Mr. Speaker. I think I heard what he suggested. I really haven’t had an opportunity yet tonight to visit the Lieutenant Governor, although after listening to the contribution from the House leader of the New Democratic Party, I really feel I should rush down immediately to have a visit with her.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Ah, shut up.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I listened carefully to the member for Kitchener; believe it or not, I really did. I didn’t start listening until he reached that part of his address where he was in eastern Ontario, which is sort of a good place for the hon. member to be.

Mr. Nixon: What do you mean by that?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Well, it’s a good place for him to be.

Mr. Nixon: Sounds pejorative.

Mr. Conway: The Lutherans of Pembroke invite you any time.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I can only say to the former leader of the Liberal Party --

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Will the members for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk and Renfrew North remain silent?

Hon. Mr. Davis: I really have to start out my brief remarks, Mr. Speaker, by complimenting you, sir, on the way you keep everybody in this House in proper order most of the time.

Tonight it’s a privilege for me to summarize the arguments put forward by members of our government in support of the Throne Speech and in response to the no-confidence motion that has been ritualistically advanced by the Leader of the Opposition. Tomorrow, should the government survive the no-confidence motion tonight, the Treasurer will present to this House a budget which is really the second part of this government’s programme for 1977.

An hon. member: Disaster.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I’m sure that the Treasurer will find every opportunity in his remarks to be non-provocative and restrained; but, in the event that he should not, I thought that in the interest of balance and decency, I might go out of my way to be non-provocative and restrained tonight, as suggested by the member for Riverdale. Mind you, Mr. Speaker, it would not be totally frank of me to suggest that it is easy for me to be non-provocative. In listening to and reading through the comments made by both the Leader of the Opposition and the leader of the third party in this House, there is a fair amount that one could choose to be provocative about, I guess, without being at all partisan.

I wonder if I might begin tonight, Mr. Speaker, before dealing with the direction and the thrust of the Throne Speech, to respond in some brief fashion to some of the suggestions advanced by our two opposition leaders. I wonder if I might begin with the good and hon. member for Hamilton West and the leader of the third party. I don’t intend to reorganize his front benches tonight because, unlike our party here, there’s ample talent to reorganize it in any way that I might see fit. Those people are rather totally restricted.

Mr. Breithaupt: That went over like a lead balloon.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I have to say that in many respects his response to the Speech from the Throne --

Mr. Reid: You had better wake your colleagues up so they can get these lines.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- was indeed thoughtful and well-considered.

Mr. Reid: They don’t even understand what you’re saying.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Now, taking the good news first: I want, on behalf of the government to express my own sincere thanks --

An hon. member: Where did you come from?

Mr. S. Smith: In the chamber. He wasn’t here for my last speech.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- for the comments he made with respect to minority rights. We have not always agreed on the propriety of minority rights responses on the part of our government, and particularly our response to the challenge of providing French language services in Ontario. I sense -- and I may be wrong in this -- that in many respects there has been some lessening of partisan division on this issue -- between the leader of the third party and myself. And in that, I think he is making an important admission about Liberal policy to this point; even more importantly, a statement of faith about the type of commitment he wants us to make in the future.

I’m not even offended by the desire of the member for Hamilton West to take credit for all of the innovations and programmes in the Throne Speech. The leader of the Liberal Party is prone to associating himself with great people and with great ideas -- albeit after the fact. He has taken, I am told, to comparing himself with the Rt. Hon. John Robarts, former Premier of this province and a distinguished member of this Legislature for many years.

Hon. J. R. Smith: Never.

Mr. Nixon: We haven’t had a balanced budget since he left.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I don’t know what John Robarts ever did to him to deserve this. However, I’m sure that Mr. Robarts, being the kind of man he is, Mr. Speaker, is at least a little flattered. There are some who would suggest -- and I would not go on the record as suggesting that I might be one of them -- that other considerations might have influenced their general support for our programme; but that would be really very unfair and I have never wanted, in this House, to make any suggestion that could be construed as being unfair.

Mr. Nixon: You never even say anything.

Mr. Singer: Perish the thought.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Despite the new-found interest which the government appears to be garnering from the Liberal caucus, the address made in response to the Speech from the Throne by the leader still indicates that they are caught up -- and I guess we should have anticipated this -- in some of the bitter, self-defeating circular argumentation which so expertly destroyed their 1975 election campaign and which still hangs around as a cloud over their caucus.

Mr. Ruston: That cloud’s clearing, Bill.

Mr. Nixon: You mean we’re against you wasting money?

Mr. Good: You’re the one who lost the 20 seats.

Hon. Mr. Davis: You people lost the chance to form a government and you know it. You blew it. I see the member for Wilson Heights smiling. He knows that you blew it.

Mr. Peterson: We won’t blow it this time.

Mr. Gaunt: You’re still brooding over losing your majority.

Hon. Mr. Davis: For example, we have that age-old call for massive tax decreases right across the boards. You know, I’m always amazed and I’ve been here for a while --

Some hon. members: Too long.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Well, I would say to the hon. member who made that observation -- be very careful. Your tenure could be very, very brief. It could be very, very brief.

An hon. member: What’s the date?

Mr. Good: You told me that 10 years ago, too.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, please. I don’t want to hear the interjections repeated a second time. I don’t want to hear them the first time. If there’s anything that we prize in this Legislature, it’s freedom of speech. The hon. member for Kitchener was allowed to be heard. The hon. member for Wentworth was allowed to be heard. I wish you’d extend the same courtesy to the Premier. It might also be helpful if the Premier spoke through the Chair. It might be less provocative.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I will try to take that circuitous route through the Chair, but I’m just very anxious that they hear what I say.

An hon. member: Oh, we’ll hear you.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, you are such an intelligent, logical person; I have no need to persuade you with my argumentation. I worry more about your colleagues, and I’m really trying to get at them through you.

Mr. MacDonald: Flattery will get you nowhere with him.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Oh, I’m not so sure.

Mr. Lewis: Easy. Easy.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I’m always amazed, Mr. Speaker, through you to my colleagues opposite, by the degree to which people in opposition shamelessly call for tax decreases almost in a ritual self-affirmation that they are really in opposition. This sort of backwards-forwards approach to government always comes along with a strident attack on the deficit. I heard a bit of that tonight.

[9:45]

Let’s just pursue that for a moment because I know it touches on a strain of logic which is almost particular to the Liberal Party of this province. I have no illusions about the New Democratic Party being caught up in the same strain of logic.

Mr. Nixon: You’re big spenders too.

Hon. Mr. Davis: They want to lower taxes and they don’t care about raiding the Treasury at the taxpayers’ expense. They’re consistent, as always, in that old socialist inconsistency.

Mr. Nixon: You’re the expert on that.

Hon. Mr. Davis: But for the Liberals, it is one of the most confounding mysteries of their faith that they can call for changes in government spending from time to time, reduction of taxes Which has the same effect on the Treasury as increases in government spending, and then they call for a lower deficit. I don’t totally understand it but I’m sure, over the next period of months, they will try again to explain it.

Mr. Reid: It’s called deficiency in government.

Hon. Mr. Davis: How disappointed they must have been in last year’s budget where the government reduced its deficit markedly, and how frightened and uneasy they must be with respect to tomorrow night.

Mr. Singer: We sure look worried.

Hon. Mr. Davis: But I think, Mr. Speaker -- yes, you’re very worried about it, I say to the member for Wilson Heights.

Mr. Singer: It’s bad timing.

Hon. Mr. Davis: But I think it would be edifying for all members of the Legislature and for the province as a whole to note that the reasonableness and the faint glimmer of balance which sometimes invades the remarks of the leader of the third party in the House are totally devoid from what he is prepared to say about this government and about the province when touring on behalf of the political interests of his own political party.

Perhaps it is one of the real luxuries of a third party that one can say things in various places and not have them reported or held up to public scrutiny to the same extent the things said by a member of the government are held up to the public scrutiny, as they should be.

Mr. Nixon: Why is Darcy making all those speeches?

Hon. Mr. Davis: I understand that on March 16, at a nominating meeting in the riding of Middlesex, the Liberal leader made a very interesting speech --

Mr. Nixon: There were 900 at that nomination.

Mr. MacDonald: That’s all the vote you will get.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- a speech which perhaps spoke more eloquently than ever of the moral bankruptcy, the political opportunism and fundamental hypocrisy --

Mr. Nixon: We are going to pick that constituency up.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- that has now become part of the Liberal incantation across this province.

Mr. Breithaupt: This is all without being provocative.

Mr. Nixon: Who wrote that baloney for you?

Hon. Mr. Davis: I should point out that the member for Middlesex, and parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. Eaton) --

Mr. S. Smith: Why don’t you call me Spiro Agnew too?

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- had his political career greatly advanced by the type of cheap and dishonest politicking which the leader of the Liberal Party would consider carrying forward at that meeting.

Mr. Reid: You should have spent the evening playing tennis. You would have been better off if you had played tennis,

Mr. Nixon: That’s a fifth-rate comment.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I understand the Liberal leader made some absolutely amazing predictions in his speech. If he stands by those predictions, as I share them with you tonight, I’m sure he will want to say so at some point during the next few days. If, however, he thinks some of those predictions might be as excessive and outlandish as they sound, he might also want to take the opportunity of saying so during the next few days. I understand he believes we have made education in Ontario one large Grand Central Station, and that there is no testing in our school system, and that we have destroyed the initiative of our young people.

I understand he said this government is committed to taxing churches, Boy Scout groups and charities, and that if we were to get a majority we would ram an inequitable tax system down the throats of the people of this province.

Interjections.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, please. The hon. member for the Liberal Party has had an opportunity in this debate.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I am just stating the facts. I am not being provocative.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I understand he said this government is arrogant toward smaller communities and that there was something less than honest in the decision by the Highway Transport Board on the matter of Gray Coach and Greyhound. Sure, some of them applaud, certainly. That is what is going to destroy their party. I understand he said we did not as a government want to track down those people who may have been improper recipients of home buyer grants under the home buyer grant programme.

Mr. Good: You lost the 20 seats, we didn’t.

Mr. Nixon: Nine million dollars you gave away.

Mr. S. Smith: So far you are right on.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Yes, he said all of these things. I am glad he acknowledges it. I understand he said that a renewed mandate for this government would see the closing of 22 more hospitals in Ontario. I challenge him to tell us where and I challenge him to find that commitment in our programme.

Mr. S. Smith: No, I said it might.

Mr. Nixon: Fortunately the courts stopped you.

Mr. S. Smith: Get a new speechwriter.

Hon Mr. Davis: I understand he believes our House leader is a rather sneaky fellow, that he plays around with Wintario grant letters, th.at he doesn’t deal with them honestly or directly.

Mr. Lewis: Oh, the unkindest cut.

Hon. Mr. Welch: Did you say that about me?

Mr. Lewis: Oh, my God.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Yes, I tell you, it was one of the historical speeches in the history of this province.

Mr. S. Smith: Why don’t you say what I said, which is that he signs the winning ones and his deputy signs the losing ones?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, please. It is the prerogative of the Chair to recess this House and I will avail myself of that prerogative if you don’t straighten up.

Mr. Nixon: Oh, you don’t have to do that, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Will the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk try to restrain himself.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I make reference to these rather outlandish and sad statements in the House only because I think all of us in this --

Hon. Mr. McKeough: The leader of the third party should see a shrink. That’s what he should do.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Only because I think --

Mr. Breithaupt: So should the Treasurer.

Mr. S. Smith: Would the Treasurer recommend his?

Mr. Kerrio: Hand over your credit card, Darcy.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- that all of us in this Legislature should understand there is a level of criticism, a level of attack which helps to keep our system balanced and honest. I believe that, by and large, those levels are respected by all sides in this House in so far as debate in this Legislature is concerned.

Mr. Good: Not in the last 10 minutes.

Hon. Mr. Davis: But when people become cynical about our political system and ask why people lose faith in it, I have to believe that part of the answer lies with those who gladly participate in and encourage excess.

Mr. Breithaupt: Such as you.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I put these notions on the record only because I was so disturbed by the tenor, the cheapness and the rancour of the comments that were made.

Mr. S. Smith: What a cheap speech from the Premier of Ontario.

Hon. Mr. Davis: More important than that, because they weren’t honest and because they had no support in fact. It is a sad indication of just how prepared the third party will be to distort, misrepresent and weaken this government’s extensive programme, irrespective of how they may vote today and in the future.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Hear, hear.

Mr. Nixon: What programme? A deficit programme.

Mr. S. Smith: You need a new speech-writer.

Mr. Lewis: You already have all that Liberal vote. How much more do you want?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Quite a bit. You can never have too much.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The Leader of the Opposition has already participated in this debate.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, in dealing with the Leader of the Opposition, the question is not really one of distortion --

Mr. S. Smith: I hope you raise your level a little bit. What are you going to call him -- cheap, dishonest?

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- but merely one of the rather jaunty, rather imprecise ways that he tiptoes through the issues in order usually to make three or four points, which he did again seek to make rather ritualistically but so dependably in his response to the Speech from the Throne.

First, I think it is clear that when he talks about things like civilizing the Workmen’s Compensation Board and using other linguistic excesses, which I will make reference to in a moment --

Mr. Lewis: That is an excess? You should hear me when I am in full stride.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- oh, I have heard you for years -- he tries to establish that only one party in this province cares about people in this province. Once again, he implies we are perfectly prepared to let people suffer from occupational hazards and diseases, that we on this side seek no remedy for them, have no programmes in place to help them and that, in a sense, if there was a definition for modern callousness and lack of regard in today’s Ontario, that definition would be Progressive Conservative.

Mr. Reid: That’s a good line.

Hon. Mr. Davis: His self-righteous preening is more vexing, Mr. Speaker; it has become insulting.

Mr. S. Smith: Get a new speechwriter. This sounds like your Windsor speech.

Hon. Mr. Davis: It’s the old argument made in an old way by a Leader of the Opposition who is more a prisoner of the past than I think he would be prepared to admit. He took the time to stress his links with the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation in suggesting that he would offer co-operation.

Mr. Breithaupt: You knew Tom Kennedy. I mean, it’s not all bad.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I accept his offer of cooperation, Mr. Speaker, and I point out only in passing that the very same offer of cooperation preceded only by hours a motion of no confidence in this government which was very general. All that took place between his offer of co-operation and his motion of no confidence was the sound of his own voice. How easily he convinced himself and how easily he convinces himself when he talks to himself. His motion left almost no stone unturned. I read it carefully. It dealt with the property tax, Workmen’s Compensation Board, jobs, poor management of the economy, tax cuts dealing with natural resources and agricultural land and, God knows, everything else.

Mr. Breithaupt: There are a lot of things needed.

Hon. Mr. Davis: The Leader of the Opposition was caught in a rather difficult bind between the day that Her Honour read the Speech from the Throne and the day when he offered his eloquent, as usual, if somewhat archaic, response. Firstly, he could not restrain himself from saying that he liked the Speech from the Throne. I recall that being said.

Mr. Lewis: I said it in my reply.

Hon. Mr. Davis: God knows what he must have had to deal with in his caucus. The hard-liners must have been gnawing at their nails --

Hon. Mr. McKeough: The real Reds over there.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- as the Leader of the Opposition once again let his own innate honesty get in the way of old-time socialist dogma. But within a few days the transformation had occurred.

Mr. Lewis: It didn’t take long.

Hon. Mr. Davis: The fix was in place, and the new Stephen was once again the old Stephen, merely carrying forward a burden of dogmatic pursuit --

Mr. Lewis: It’s reassuring.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- which has weighed down so many leaders before him and will weigh down so many in the future, just as the dogma, the ritual, the self-righteousness and the --

Mr. Lewis: It is not Churchillian, I’ll tell you.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The Premier doesn’t need the help of the Leader of the Opposition.

Mr. Lewis: I’m not so sure.

Mr. Singer: Miller wrote better stuff than that. Miller was much better than Segal.

Hon. Mr. Davis: It really is the old question, Mr. Speaker -- you would understand it -- and this is one which has been dealt with by --

Mr. Singer: Miller was much better than that.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Nor the member for Wilson Heights.

Mr. Singer: I am sorry, sir. I just want you to know that Mr. Miller wrote better stuff than Mr. Segal does.

Hon. Mr. Davis: This is one which has been dealt with by many thoughtful historians and political scientists of whether or not the New Democratic Party is a party or whether it is a movement. I suspect that when they are in government they claim they are a party, and that when they are out of government they claim that they are a movement.

Mr. Lewis: I think that’s right.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Which has not been a clever rationale for explaining defeat upon defeat in election after election in this jurisdiction and some others from time to time.

Mr. Peterson: Calling them a movement is very unparliamentary.

Hon. Mr. Davis: But looking through and listening to the remarks of the Leader of the Opposition, it is clear that after almost a century of various socialist experiments in other places, and illustration upon illustration of the sheer functional failure of old-time, 19th century socialism, the particular proponents of socialism that the Leader of the Opposition has the privilege of leading here in Ontario haven’t learned one darned thing.

We have -- and it’s so simple, it’s so evident -- the old-time, bureaucratic faith-healers led by sell-proclaimed missionaries who want to help Ontario find salvation through bankruptcy. Mr. Speaker, God held Ontario. The Leader of the Opposition was a missionary in Africa once, I’m told.

Mr. Lewis: It’s very sophomoric writing, you know.

Mr. Breithaupt: It is soporific as well.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Their solution to the preservation of jobs and to the creation of more jobs is not support for the private sector --

Mr. Lewis: Oh, yes.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- or allowing people the freedom and the incentive to grow and to expand and to generate real private sector opportunities that will be there for generations to come.

[10:00]

Mr. Peterson: Why don’t you make the man who wrote this read it? That will pay him back.

Hon. Mr. Davis: But their solution is massive holdings of public equity by the people of this province.

Mr. Lewis: Nonsense.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Buy into this plant; open up this one here; have a Crown corporation doing this and doing that. We can determine after eight years of government in Manitoba that the costs of this particular outdated approach have become really very clear --

Mr. Singer: Came out against the government of Manitoba, yes. That’s a good one.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- and are an example of how the suggestions advanced by the Leader of the Opposition would cause sheer havoc and folly in the economy of this province, and cause an absolute nightmare for the taxpayers of this province.

You know, one person who has been observing the NDP in Manitoba --

Mr. Lewis: This isn’t Manitoba.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- was recently heard to say that giving the NDP a chance to run Ontario would be a little like sending a fox to watch a chicken coop.

Mr. Lewis: That’s an old Tommy Douglas line -- the fox among the chickens.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Well, listen, we learn something every day.

Interjections.

Mr. Ruston: No reading in the House, Bill.

Mr. Singer: You can do better than that.

Hon. Mr. Davis: It’s important for all of us to understand the code which the NDP uses. When they want massive government growth, massive raids on the Treasury, massive public ownership, and in some cases nationalization, they usually use the term, “social justice” as the cover.

Mr. Lewis: It’s not a bad cover.

Hon. Mr. Davis: It’s not a bad cover.

Mr. Lewis: Not bad at all.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Those are nice words, they’re warm words --

Mr. Lewis: Amiable friendly words.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- with which many of us choose to associate ourselves. Words which allow the masking of the old-time power-grabbing and manipulation --

Mr. Lewis: Absolutely.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- of the economy under the guise of reform. No question about it. It takes in some people in the media, it even takes in the member for Wilson Heights. It takes in some people in our society --

Mr. Lewis: I don’t believe this.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- but it is a con, and a serious, well thought out and often insincere con, which relates to a whole view of society --

Mr. Lewis: It is not so well thought out -- spontaneous, not well thought out.

Hon. Mr. Davis: It was thought out as early as the thirties.

Mr. Lewis: No, no. No, no.

Hon. Mr. Davis: It’s a view of society which is distorted and unfair, and in many respects very insensitive and highly monopolistic. If you look at Manitoba, Mr. Speaker --

Mr. Lewis: Manitoba?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Well, listen, it’s a great example of those people having responsibility.

Mr. Breithaupt: You could look at Newfoundland, if that’s the proper place.

Hon. B. Stephenson: Twenty years of Joe Smallwood.

Hon. Mr. Davis: And if you look at all this government ownership you will see an economic landscape cluttered with failed or failing government airplane factories, bus factories, and I am told even government Chinese food factories.

Interjections.

An hon. member: And the lowest unemployment rate in Canada.

Mr. Reid: They have all left.

Hon. Mr. Davis: It is interesting to point out that at a time when Ontario is seeking to reduce -- and has reduced -- its public service to cut back the burden which government can place on the people, the civil service in Manitoba has been increased in the past four years by some 60 per cent.

Mr. Lewis: You know, this --

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Would the Leader of the Opposition stop mumbling?

Mr. S. Smith: Say the interjections more distinctly.

Mr. Breithaupt: Speak more clearly.

Hon. Mr. Davis: The thing I find most frightening, and I say this in friendship to the Leader of the Opposition --

Mr. Lewis: I should think so!

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- is that the rigidity and the almost orthodox religious loyalty to outdated ideas and badly structured programmes really does affect what might otherwise be a rather bright intellect and precise political judgment.

Mr. S. Smith: Maybe you should write Darcy’s speeches.

Mr. Conway: I thought reading speeches was not allowed.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Oh, I’m just glancing at it.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The Premier will ignore the interjections.

Mr. S. Smith: He would do better to ignore the speech that was written for him.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I’d be delighted to, Mr. Speaker. I don’t find it easy to ignore them, but I’ll do my best.

Mr. Deans: You can’t even read it with a straight face.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I look at you and I have difficulty keeping a straight face. I did it well. All during your address you were smiling to yourself, and I didn’t say a word to the House. You were laughing at yourself.

Mr. Deans: I write my own drivel, I can’t afford to hire anybody.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I agree with the hon. member, it was drivel. It was drivel.

Mr. Lewis: This was supposed to be a blockbuster tonight.

Hon. Mr. Davis: No, it is a very thoughtful analysis of your party. Very thoughtful.

Mr. Lewis: It is wonderful.

Mr. Breithaupt: If that’s thoughtful we are all in trouble.

Mr. Martel: Some Boy Scout wrote it for you.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, or I’ll recess the House for 10 minutes.

Hon. Mr. Davis: The people of this province are given a daily diet, by the Leader of the Opposition, of criticisms and programmes which, as prophecy, offer every indication of an approach to government which is totally foreign to our people. It is so badly out of date as to be a denial of the progress and humanization we have achieved in our society over the last many decades. There are times when the Leader of the Opposition is not helped by his friends in other provinces --

Mr. Martel: Like Joe Who.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- who talk about various schemes for instant social justice and equity, such as the notion that no one should make more than two and a half times as much money as anyone else in society.

Mr. Lewis: This is reaching.

Hon. Mr. Davis: You know, I would point out to the Leader of the Opposition --

An hon. member: Great friend of yours.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- because I know he would want to point this out to his friend -- and I have respect for the Premier of Manitoba -- that in Cuba they’re allowed a ratio of four to one.

Mr. Lewis: Cuba?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Manitoba two and a half; Cuba four to one.

Mr. Lewis: Another province.

Hon. Mr. Davis: What have the poor people of Manitoba done and, indeed, what would the people of Ontario have to do to be faced with this same simplistic insensitivity?

Mr. Martel: You get carried away.

Hon. Mr. Davis: You see, Mr. Speaker, the difficulty is really one of principle, and that principle is profound.

Mr. Lewis: Believe me.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Yes it is. The Leader of the Opposition may attack the Workmen’s Compensation Board -- and I’ll get back to that shortly -- and he may make a speech or two about pollution, but when you come right down to it, the difference between us over here and those people over there, is not over these issues, but on the opposition’s subservience to the idol of total, dehumanizing, levelling, insensitive, and despairing equality, taken to the point where its advocates can no longer understand --

Mr. Breithaupt: What absolute tripe.

Mr. Lewis: Is this the campaign?

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- the aspirations of people for self-improvement, for excellence, prosperity and personal growth --

Mr. Breithaupt: Like the ones who want to own a home.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- which are part of the make-up of this province and the heritage of our people.

Mr. Peterson: Author, author, author.

Hon. Mr. Davis: What their lack of sensitivity has produced is a real inability to understand many issues and an almost insensible drive towards distortion and misunderstanding which do pose a threat to this province.

Mr. Lewis: This is too extreme, much too extreme to wash. Let’s have another line.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I’ve got to say to the Leader of the Opposition -- unlike him, I’m never extreme. I’m never extreme.

Mr. Lewis: Much too extreme.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Look at the agricultural stabilization and the whole agricultural land issue.

Mr. Lewis: You can’t fight a campaign on this.

Hon. Mr. Davis: What campaign? What campaign? I was pleased to see the leader of the Liberal Party admit in the House -- though I’m not sure that he would admit it elsewhere -- that we do not face a crisis on food land, and we do not face an immediate crisis on food supply. When you look at the agricultural land issue and the agricultural stabilization issue as it played itself out in this House, it is clear that the position of the official opposition was really that of trying to move us forward toward the same public equity position which they would like to see the government hold in all sectors of our economy --

Mr. S. Smith: He is attacking your green paper, Bill.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- a public equity position of impact and strength and importance, particularly in the farming community.

Mr. Lewis: This is not a credit to you.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, that kind of state farm programme, which would reduce --

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Davis: That’s what you want.

Mr. S. Smith: Allstate.

Mr. Breithaupt: You are in safe hands.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. Premier has the floor.

Hon. Mr. Davis: That kind of state farm programme which would reduce farmers to tenants, is precisely what has apparently taken place in Manitoba, with the purchase of some 179,000 acres of private farm land by the NDP in that province.

Mr. Lewis: How many?

Hon. Mr. Davis: One hundred and seventy-nine thousand.

Mr. Lewis: Which province is that, Cuba? Which one?

Hon. Mr. Davis: No, no. The one which you know even better, the one of Manitoba.

Mr. Lewis: Oh, I didn’t know.

Hon. Mr. Davis: It is unbelievable, that after so many decades --

Mr. Breithaupt: How are the Tories doing in New Brunswick?

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- the New Democratic Party would still believe that people want government to run and own farms and act as a landlord, with farmers as tenants; or to punish initiative, energy and achievement through the tax system; or run business and, basically, have the government be the absolute, total centre of society. That’s basically what you want.

Mr. Lewis: You are going to have to count on tomorrow night.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Firstly, in the case of the farming, that approach would destroy the farmers of this province. And, secondly, I disagree fundamentally, as do my colleagues on this side of the House, with that view of society.

Government is not the centre of society, as we see it. The individual and his or her striving for excellence and achievement and prosperity and security -- that is the centre of society as we see it.

Where we differ from the rather loose and laissez-faire somewhat haphazard philosophy of our friends in the Liberal Party is very clear. We have a philosophy. They don’t.

Mr. Breithaupt: Poppycock.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Liberalism, to paraphrase an expression of the Leader of the Opposition, is neither the art of the possible nor the art of the reasonable. It is not even an art.

Mr. Lewis: Oh, I don’t know. It is artful, I tell you.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I added that myself.

Mr. Reid: We knew things were going downhill.

Hon. Mr. Davis: It is the loose grab-bag of patch-quilt, contradictory policies which are put together generation after generation in some faint hope that the people of Ontario can be so driven to despair and utter desperation that some day the hollowness of that option might be attractive.

Mr. Conway: Jack Homer doesn’t think so. Jack Homer doesn’t believe you there, Bill.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I didn’t consult Jack Homer about this.

Mr. Peterson: Who did write your speech then?

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Lewis: You shouldn’t let them write your speeches for you, you are much better on your own.

Mr. S. Smith: Why don’t you attack Nova Scotia? It has a Liberal government.

Hon. Mr. Davis: That is not only underestimating the people of Ontario, but is also overestimating the power of despair.

Mr. Singer: To paraphrase again.

Mr. S. Smith: Try a précis instead of a paraphrase.

Hon. Mr. Davis: We believe there is a need for governments to begin now to rectify an imbalance. The dusty, old, tired radicals of the Regina Manifesto in the 1930s -- that’s where it all comes from.

Mr. Lewis: Oh, God!

Mr. Reid: I thought you were serious all the way through.

Mr. Lewis: It won’t work. Don’t you understand?

Mr. MacDonald: Lubor Zink wrote that.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Who? I don’t know him. At least not well.

Mr. Singer: That fellow Segal is good. He exceeds Miller beyond belief.

Mr. Breithaupt: Can’t you work the Winnipeg general strike into this as well?

Mr. Singer: It’s good that you are afraid of Miller with Segal.

Hon. Mr. Davis: What they don’t understand over there is that across this country we have seen governments’ share of total wealth climb and climb again --

Mr. Lewis: This is too much.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- until it has now reached the level of 45 per cent.

Mr. Peterson: Which ministry is that?

Hon. Mr. Davis: In 1962, the British government’s share of total wealth was 44 per cent --

Mr. Lewis: Oh, no!

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- and now, in 1977, their share is 62 per cent.

Mr. Peterson: Which ministry is Segal going to tomorrow?

Hon. Mr. Davis: It is in the hope of keeping us off that road that the balance must be rectified.

Mr. Singer: Segal says!

Mr. S. Smith: You are on your way to Margaret Scrivener.

Mr. Reid: Oshawa next stop.

An hon. member: Dispense.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I don’t want to answer the interjections, Mr. Speaker, but I am being tempted.

We think the people of Ontario want to have some of these questions asked. And they want to have a government which is prepared to guarantee economic and social security, because it is prepared to seek that balance --

Mr. Singer: And Segal has the answer. Yes, sir.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- and, when necessary, a mandate to steer our society away from those who would follow the old spending paths --

Mr. Lewis: Oh, come on. Oh, my goodness.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- the old devotion to massive public bureaucracy and massive public spending without question or doubt.

Mr. Breithaupt: How many civil servants do you have? Sixty thousand?

Mr. Lewis: Bring back John Miller.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I want to deal with the question of Quebec and Confederation --

Mr. Singer: What did Segal say about that?

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- as the Leader of the Opposition and the leader of the third party have done.

Mr. S. Smith: Ah, Spiro Agnew.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I want to take specific issue, if I may -- you can defend Marc Lalonde as much as you want; go right ahead.

Mr. S. Smith: You insult him as much as you like too.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I didn’t insult him.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. Premier has the floor. Will he speak through the Chair?

Hon. Mr. Davis: I want to take specific issue, if I may, with one statement, or perhaps more important, its form, which was attributed by Hansard to the Leader of the Opposition -- in his reply to the Speech from the Throne before I touch on Confederation briefly. It disturbed me, and I mention it.

Mr. Lewis: What’s that?

Hon. Mr. Davis: In dealing with the decision announced by the new Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Norton) with respect to residential services and troubled children, the Leader of the Opposition in expressing his concerns used the following expression: “I don’t know how the children will not be defiled by the inadequacy of the rest of the ministry.” I don’t know what the Leader of the Opposition meant to say, and I hope it is not what he did say.

The residential services programme, and the programmes which this government have supported and instituted to help troubled children in Ontario over the decades, rank amongst the most progressive, the most humane, the most well-funded and comprehensive of any jurisdiction in the free world or otherwise. Problems in those programmes and difficulties are things which a responsive and humane government must respond to. These are problems which we are responding to as best we can.

[10:15]

The Leader of the Opposition -- and this is proper -- may have criticisms of the Ministry of Community and Social Services, he may wish to direct these at many civil servants and others who work loyally within that context, and he may have criticisms which he would want to address to the new minister, or the previous minister, or to any member of this government --

Mr. Lewis: I think you are taking it out of context, do you know that, because I was pretty careful about that.

Hon. Mr. Davis: You read it.

Mr. Lewis: I will go back and read it.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Davis: But to suggest that children would be defiled by the inadequacies in the ministry --

Mr. Lewis: You know I don’t mean --

Mr. S. Smith: Oh, come on, don’t be ridiculous.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- is an excess of language, if not in intent, which casts very serious doubts upon the sincerity and balance of his comments in that area.

Mr. Lewis: That is not fair. I dealt with that pretty carefully.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Read it carefully, and if I am wrong I will apologize, because I was very disappointed in it.

An hon. member: Do it now.

Mr. Renwick: When the going gets tough --

Hon. Mr. Davis: I understand the opposition is now running a series of hearings across Ontario to hear those people with concerns to express about the Workmen’s Compensation Board. I want to make a prediction: There won’t be one person appear before any one of those partisan hearings who will have anything good to say about the board.

Mr. Breaugh: You are quite wrong. We had three last week.

Hon. Mr. Davis: No, I am just stating the obvious. Those members wouldn’t be going there if they thought the people were going to say something nice about the board.

Despite the fact that over 91 per cent of all of the claims which are handled to the common satisfaction of the board and the claimant, despite the clear position which our jurisdiction has as a leader in the area of workmen’s compensation -- and they can’t show us a better one -- in the area of rehabilitation and occupational health, it will be impossible for our friends opposite to find one person who has anything good to say about it.

Mr. Renwick: We are not preoccupied with statistics.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I guess this typifies more than anything else the opposition mentality and part of the old NDP con game that we have come to know and deal with here in Ontario -- if there is a human suffering or difficulty it can be exploited, and be made a political football, and can be used for one’s political purposes. That is exactly what they are doing it for.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Those hearings are nothing but pure partisan politics, pure partisan politics, and their leader knows it.

Mr. S. Smith: That’s cheap.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: What about Cassidy’s memo on rent review?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Oh, listen, I’ve even got some correspondence -- never mind --

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Only the Premier has the floor.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I am going to tell you right now this government will not step back from its support of our Minister of Labour, who is seeking to ensure the Workmen’s Compensation Board retains appropriate levels of benefits and maintains an actuarially sound financial position.

Mr. Lewis: Oh, yes.

Mr. Renwick: She isn’t interested in any of the actuarial nonsense.

Hon. Mr. Davis: We utterly reject the notion of some broad insurance scheme which could make workers who do not now pay for workmen’s compensation pay --

Mr. Laughren: That’s total crap.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- and which would have the same guarantee of viability and dependability as did the various auto insurance schemes which went absolutely bankrupt in other NDP jurisdictions.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Davis: We are not just going to let the workers of Ontario be subjected to that kind of risk.

Mr. Lewis: Nonsense.

Hon. Mr. Davis: It is sad that the Leader of the Opposition would be so unthinking and so callous. I believe that the programme put forward --

Mr. Lewis: Help, help. Go ahead.

Hon. Mr. Davis: That’s right. He ought to think it through very carefully.

Mr. Martel: You said that in Elliot Lake, too.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I believe that the programme put forward by this government represents a sane and responsible response to the problems that face Ontario and to the challenges which our people believe we can meet and overcome. It is a programme with five areas of priority: long-term job creation, overall economic growth and prosperity --

Mr. Lewis: Very long term.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- the control of government spending, which the parties opposite don’t agree with --

Mr. Deans: It’s a fraud, that’s what it is.

Hon. Mr. Davis: If the hon. member thinks the Throne Speech and programme is a fraud, so be it.

Mr. Deans: That’s what I think.

Hon. Mr. Davis: He knows what I think of his approach.

The continued protection of Ontarians from high rents, high prices and unfair wage demands. It is sad that this anti-inflation commitment, so important to our senior citizens and to the working men and women of Ontario who lost one-half the days to strikes in 1976 than they did in 1975, should be opposed by the parties opposite, but it remains part of our programme nevertheless, just as do commitments in environmental protection, French-language instruction, energy research arid conservation, increased agricultural production, court reform, and reforestation. It is not a document for those who are defeatist.

Mr. Lewis: It sounds like the Regina Manifesto.

Hon. Mr. Davis: It is not a document for those who peddle in the wares of gloom and doom. It provides for the economic and social stability in Ontario which is vital to the national unity of this country and vital to the well-being of Canadians everywhere.

Mr. Deans: After 34 years.

Hon. Mr. Davis: The Leader of the Opposition said in his closing remarks on the issue of Quebec in particular: “... when you’re talking about sovereignty with economic association, there is an increasing appeal to a lot of people in Quebec. That, I think, is why it is so desperately important that Ontario keep the option open -- keep the doors open …”

I think I quoted him accurately.

I want to point out that while our doors are open to Quebec and our lines of communication are good, they’re open and they’re frank. We do not maintain doors open to the option of independence for Quebec with continued economic union with Canada. I think the Leader of the Opposition and I differ on this as well.

Mr. Lewis: I think you are taking it out of context because I was pretty careful about that. I will go back and read it.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I believe that there is endless good faith, as do the Leader of the Opposition and the leader of the third party, as long as we are all working together as Canadians to build, to improve, to share and to understand. The minute the doors are closed by any partner to the debate it is naive and, I think, dangerous to hope that somehow there will be some solution thereafter which will make things almost as good as they were before.

POINT OF PRIVILEGE

Mr. Lewis: On a point of personal privilege, I consider this a very crucial matter. I don’t think anything I said about Quebec at any time during that speech implied any willingness to accept on my part or that of my party the prospect of independence with some kind of economic association. I eschewed that completely and it is unfair of the Premier to imply it.

Mr. Speaker: I think that was a point of order rather than a point of privilege.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I don’t want to get into a prolonged debate on the observations made about the election of the government in Quebec, which had as part of its stated objective --

Mr. Renwick: Withdraw the remarks.

Interjections.

Mr. Renwick: You are wrong and you know it. Don’t play that game because it will come back on you.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Renwick: That’s not worthy of you. The situation is rough enough without that.

Hon. Mr. Davis: You check it carefully.

Mr. Renwick: Don’t do that again in this House. That is rotten.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please, the hon. member for Riverdale. We’ve had a pretty good debate up to now tonight. Let’s continue.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Let’s get on with the last few minutes of the debate.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Davis: This party that I lead --

Mr. Martel: Will do anything.

Mr. MacDonald: Will use any tactic.

Mr. Deans: How can we believe the Premier?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please, the hon. member for York South.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- stands for one Canada that’s indivisible, united and absolutely committed to a balance between the federal and the provincial governments. It stands for an Ontario which provides a climate of economic opportunity for prosperity and well-being.

Mr. Peterson: Would you put that to music?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Above all, through our Throne Speech and through tomorrow night’s budget, we stand for an Ontario that is vibrant and strong and capable of meeting even the most serious economic challenges with confidence in ourselves, a rediscovery of self-reliance and a belief in our future. We offer a positive and extensive programme of government which should give every Ontarian reason to have confidence, to have hope and to have security. It is a programme that I am pleased to promote here in this Legislature and throughout the province when necessary.

Mr. Lewis: That was uncharacteristic of you. That was unnecessary.

Mr. Cassidy: And you always have one in every speech.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Interjections.

Mr. Lewis: The implication of that is really offensive.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The Throne Speech debate now being concluded, I shall call for the vote as follows:

Mr. Johnson moved, seconded by Mr. Shore, that a humble address be presented to the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor as follows:

“To the Honourable P. M. McGibbon, OC, BA, LLD, DU (Ottawa), BAA (Theatre), Lieutenant Governor of Ontario:

“May it please Your Honour:

“We, Her Majesty’s most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Legislative Assembly of the province of Ontario, now assembled, beg leave to thank Your Honour for the gracious speech Your Honour has addressed to us.”

Mr. Lewis then moved, seconded by Mr. Deans, that the motion for an address in reply to the speech of the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor at the opening of the session be amended by the addition of the following words:

“That while it is recognized that the concerns expressed in the Speech from the Throne, delivered by Her Honour, are genuine attempts to redress grievances resulting from many years of government mismanagement; and while it is recognized that those portions of Her Honour’s address which dealt with questions of national unity are eminently supportable; nonetheless we must insist that this Conservative government has once again failed to establish priorities and policies which would resolve the following major concerns in the province of Ontario:

“1. The failure to ensure employment, both short- and long-term, with particular emphasis on (a) direct government involvement in major long-term job-creating projects of wide diversity, public and private, across Ontario, (b) economic stimulation by the promise of substantial tax cuts, (c) major development and building of diversified housing for low- and middle-income citizens, (d) an intensive programme of secondary and tertiary manufacturing based on our resource sector;

“2. The failure to call for an early end to the AIB despite increasing public concern that controls are now hurting far more than they are working;

“3. The failure to moderate increases in the cost of living by refusing to recognize that (a) the present property tax formula places an unfair burden on middle-, low- and fixed-income families, (b) food prices, energy prices, land and housing costs are above the consumers’ reasonable capacity to pay;

4. The failure to protect adequately our natural-resource heritage, be it water, minerals, forests or agricultural land, compounded by the continued absence of a land-use plan for Ontario;

“5. The failure to call for a complete overhaul of the Workmen’s Compensation Board to civilize it, to humanize it, and to make it respond sensitively to many of the people it was created to serve;

“And for all the foregoing enumerated reasons this government no longer enjoys the confidence of this House.”

The House divided on the amendment by Mr. Lewis, which was negatived on the following vote:

Ayes

Nays

Angus Bain Bounsall Breaugh Bryden Burr Cassidy Davidson Davison Deans Di Santo Dukszta Ferrier Foulds Germa Grande Laughren Lawlor Lewis Lupusella MacDonald Mackenzie Makarchuk Martel McClellan Philip Renwick Samis Sandeman Swart Warner Wildman Young Ziemba--34

Auld Belanger Bennett Bernier Birch Breithaupt Brunelle Bullbrook Campbell Conway Cunningham Davis Drea Eakins Eaton Edighoffer Ferris Gaunt Good Gregory Grossman Haggerty Hall Handleman Henderson Hodgson Johnson Jones Kennedy Kerr Kerrio Lane Leluk MacBeth McEwen McKeough McMurtry McNeil Meen Miller, F.S. Miller, G.I. Morrow Newman, B. Newman, W. Nixon Norton O’Neil Parrot Peterson Reid Rhodes Ruston Scrivener Shore Singer Smith, J. R. Smith, R.S. Smith, S. Snow Spence Stephenson Taylor Timbrell Welch Wells Williams Worton Yakabuski--71.

Pair: Stokes and Smith, G. E.

Ayes 34; nays 71.

The House divided on the main motion by Mr. Johnson, which was approved on the same vote reversed.

Resolved: That a humble address be presented to the Honourable P. M. McGibbon, Lieutenant Governor of Ontario:

May it please Your Honour:

We, Her Majesty’s most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Legislative Assembly of the province of Ontario, now assembled, beg leave to thank Your Honour for the gracious speech which Your Honour has addressed to us.

PETITION

Hon. Mr. Welch: Before moving the adjournment of the House and with the permission of the House I would like to table the response to the petition filed by the member for Timiskaming (Mr. Bain).

Agreed.

On motion by Hon. Mr. Welch, the House adjourned at 10:32 p.m.