Legislative Assembly of Ontario

The House resumed at 8 p.m.

UNIFIED FAMILY COURT AMENDMENT ACT

Mr. Grossman, on behalf of Hon. Mr. McMurtry, moved second reading of Bill 1, An Act to amend The Unified Family Court Act, 1976.

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

Mr. Grossman: This bill is necessary for two reasons. First is the delay in passing The Family Law Reform Act which, with the co-operation of our friends opposite, can -- it is hoped -- be remedied before the end of the year. Due to the fact that The Family Law Reform Act has not yet been passed, we must now act before July 1, 1977, to confer jurisdiction on the new unified family court.

The old provincial court family division ceases to exist in the judicial district of Hamilton-Wentworth on July 1, 1977. Therefore, it becomes necessary to provide a forum for those matters. That is the same date upon which the new unified family court comes into existence and it is appropriate and necessary to confer upon this court the necessary jurisdiction to handle cases that would otherwise be heard in the provincial court family division.

The approach we have taken is to permit all of the remedies under the old legislation to be received in the new unified family court and it confers jurisdiction to rehear applications under The Deserted Wives’ and Children’s Maintenance Act, even though, for example, the order was made by a judge of the provincial court.

This will operate in an interim fashion so that all those cases formerly heard in a provincial court will be heard in the unified family court, and this interim measure will become unnecessary as and when The Family Law Reform Act is passed.

This will explain the two schedules included in Bill 1 -- the first, which confers jurisdiction under those specific Acts, being repealed and therefore omitted from the second schedule contained in Bill 1; the first schedule also includes, of course, jurisdiction in respect of alimony actions.

The second reason for Bill 1 is to provide transitional rules for the movement from the provincial court family division into the new unified family court. These clauses would, in any event, be necessary in legislation because it is unable to provide these rules in any other fashion under The Unified Family Court Act and The Provincial Courts Act, so we do it in this statute.

The system is simple, in that it provides that where proceedings are commenced in the provincial court family division before the Act comes into force and no evidence has been introduced, with the exception of interim orders, then the proceeding is deemed to be a proceeding commenced in and shall be heard by the unified family court. So it’s a fairly simple procedure, and those matters will be transferred to the unified family court, subject, of course, to such directions as the court considers appropriate.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, you’ll see that Bill 1 amends The Unified Family Court Act to provide for the bill to be repealed July 1, 1980. This would permit a full three-year run of the unified family court from and after July 1, 1977.

Mr. S. Smith: On this particular matter, Mr. Speaker, I’ve had some considerable interest since, both as a professional who has testified many times in family matters and in family courts, and also as a representative of the Hamilton area, I’ve watched the experiment with great interest and I am familiar with the honourable judges who propose to do their work in the unified family court and who are working there.

I feel that although we are, of course, somewhat concerned about the family law reform generally and we would like to see that proceed as quickly as we can, we believe these transitional provisions are quite reasonable, and I think the experiment in Hamilton-Wentworth is one that’s worthy of being watched very closely by everyone in the province. We believe the precise suggestions made seem reasonable and we’re certainly prepared to support this so that in the interim, before we finally do get the family law reform eventually passed, at least the court authority will be clear and the unified family court can proceed with its work. So our party is prepared to support this bill and I wish the people in the unified family court very well. I think it’s an excellent experiment and one that deserves to be watched and, we hope, repeated elsewhere in the province.

Mr. Lawlor: Mr. Speaker, on the particular piece of legislation tonight, I’m very regretful that the Attorney General (Mr. McMurtry) is not conducting the debate. We’re not just at loggerheads but at such lengthy loggerheads now that whereas formerly we could combat eyeball to eyeball so to speak, now we’re removed at an amicable distance from one another and one really can’t say what he thinks. So I turn to the parliamentary assistant (Mr. Grossman) who is an amicable substitute in this particular regard. It is indeed a shame that he has to move legislation before this House of this particular kind because of ineptitude. Would one go that far?

Hon. Mr. Henderson: Don’t be mean, Pat.

Mr. Lawlor: Well, I have the long memory of the elongated elephant, you know, and as we sat through those hearings last fall, being the mere chairman at that time of the justice committee, my prognostications have proven -- well, it’s the first time in my life so I may as well mention it in this House -- completely valid and verified.

I said as we came into November that if we didn’t get that legislation through before Christmas we may see many moons and even Christmases pass and amendments to the unified family court legislation having to be moved many times before this House. Why, gentlemen and ladies, you know that our lives here today may be very tenuous indeed. The whole thing upon which this turns is being projected now over into next fall. Thank God, just between you and me, Mr. Speaker, that it is. August is not the time to deal with family reform, but there you are.

At that time I said if it wasn’t done that we would very likely come deep into the next following year before we had that legislation in place; and that wouldn’t it be wiser to push it through. We had heard many briefs. We had multitudes of individuals appear before us and pretty well had canvassed the issue. Still, I suppose, a certain prudence reigned in the particular context, and here we are today being forced to bring in emergency legislation, albeit of a housekeeping nature, in order to obviate what could very easily have been handled at an earlier time; either by handling it last fall -- we had three solid months of hard work on the thing at that time -- or by bringing this House into session at an earlier time; or, having brought the House into session among the latter-day saints, going forward with it, which we didn’t proceed to do, did we? The whole thing fell into abeyance and an election was called.

All perfectly predictable; you didn’t even need a horoscope to say that the ambience of this evening in the Legislature would be wholly in the cards, and the cards are being dealt as things presently stand.

I will not dwell upon the legislation at length. I would refer this House to the magnificent constitutional oration made by my friend from Riverdale (Mr. Renwick) on that particular occasion, where deep into the lore of our parliamentary institutions, about the parallel powers touching family law as between the federal government and our government, the kinds of accommodation, or better disaccommodation, that existed in trying to resurrect this legislation, was to some extent discussed. The mean jealousies of little men on all sides of the fence.

Who’s going to appoint the judges was the central theme. This really hung them up; the jealousy of the prerogative of the appointment. You know, you have to get your friends into office if you possibly can. The federal government had the central track with respect to the Supreme Court and county court judges. That’s a jealously guarded, perhaps the most singularly jealously guarded, prerogative of the federal government.

Over here, you know, we have the odd guy who wants to be a family court judge or provincial court judge, and they were being turfed out of their jobs because of certain blindfoldedness; and how on earth were you ever going to work out these difficulties?

They haven’t been worked out. They’ve only been partially worked out. Some kind of compromise agreement was reached whereby the federal minister, selecting among extant family court judges, would designate his boy or woman in this particular context and appoint them as the family court judge to exercise this very wide jurisdiction.

No one at any time, in the course of this House and through the hearings of the Law Reform Commission, has ever taken umbrage or exception with the concept itself. It is the way in which it is being implemented that somewhat sticks in the craw.

Since that particular time -- at the time when this debate came on previously I was laid up; oh don’t we wish we were horizontal tonight; but we’re not, we’re almost vertical. So I thought I would refer, just briefly, in order to get this Legislature off on the wrong foot, to the report on family law from the Law Reform Commission; Part V, Family Court, page 181, in which there is the quotation: “All of us would probably agree with these conclusions, that the family is a unit which should be dealt with as a whole and not piecemeal, and that to achieve this there must be a court with authority to deal with every legal problem which arises in the family; and that to prevent the parties themselves from dividing the matter among the several courts, access to the other courts must be restrained.”

[8:15]

It goes on in that particular vein. Then, making further reference to the Law Reform Commission report, arising out of the volumes and volumes of the report on family law, wherein part one of this particular reforming of the whole court structure which is going on at the present time -- and this is the initial step in that particular direction -- and I do take exception to this business of a pilot project, and the penchant of the present government for initiating pilot projects -- tentative, empirical, like some small insect out of a remote age, some crustacean with a tentacle -- he reaches out and feels around to see whether there is any form of enemy life in the breeze out there.

With this particular approach to reality they want to do everything by way of experiment and pilot projects. I would think this would be carried out somewhat more massively. You’ve got a three-year project here. Surely, the Attorney General says that he’s trusting, that it would be a lesser time that will have proved itself, but why couldn’t it have been in six, 10 or 12 areas of the province in the central zone where the same project is launched? We all know the intrinsic validity -- the Law Reform Commission of Canada, of Ontario, and the other provinces, have all come to an identical conclusion. There is a consensus on this particular thing. Yet, we get the Hamilton-Wentworth project as a testing ground. I hardly think that it’s necessary. We have that as a syndrome of the present approach to law reform in this province.

It is extremely interesting to see what the Law Reform Commission of Ontario had to say: “The most serious contributing factor of the present inadequacy of the provincial court family division is their extremely limited jurisdiction. There is little doubt that the present jurisdiction of the court is not adequate. Four different branches of the hierarchy -- supreme, county, surrogate and provincial -- all administer family law and this results in overlapping and competing jurisdiction, fragmented jurisdiction, conflicts in philosophy and approach to the same problems among the different courts.”

A little further down he points out: “The fact that four distinct branches in the judicial hierarchy in Ontario administer family law leads to some anomalous situations. The provincial court family division can take a child permanently from its natural parents and make it a ward of the Crown but has no jurisdiction to take a child from one parent and order custody in favour of another, except in very limited situations under The Deserted Wives’ and Children’s Maintenance Act. Custody is a matter for the Supreme Court or the surrogate court. Nor has the provincial court family division the power to make an adoption order.”

It goes all the way through with respect to maintenance, adoption, alimony, divorce, the whole thing. One of the primary ways, and I think we all agree, in which the court costs and the costs of legal aid and so forth can be very substantially reduced is by the unification concept. Yet, it’s placed in some kind of limbo -- and though I don’t want to be too theological, even in purgatory -- in terms of the way in which this present legislation is being sent forward.

Mr. Speaker, I trust that the legislation will go -- even though I have a few questions -- into committee. I assure you there will be no prolongation of the issue, but there are two or three questions that I would ask. I would ask to prevail upon the minister’s representative to permit that -- in the House of course -- and I think any difficulties that I have with the legislation can be obviated.

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Speaker, I want to address myself to this bill and I speak in sorrow that it’s before us at all. The reason is the laxness and delays of government and the lack of commitment to the family law reform legislation which ought to have been in place by this time. That is the reason why basically the amendment is before us.

I would also like to point out that this court will be dealing with The Child Welfare Act. I would like to recall the magnificent record of this government in the amendment to The Child Welfare Act which was brought forward by the government in its attempt to give equality to women, recognizing International Women’s Year. What was that amendment? The amendment was brought forward simply to clarify what someone might have deemed to be ambiguous, but I know of no one active in this field of law who felt it was ambiguous. That was to ensure that either parent would be equally responsible for the maintenance of children. Fine, I have no objection to that being clarified. But one of the dandy things the government didn’t do was it did not amend the legislation. What it did was say that either parent was equally responsible, only the father, whether or not he were maintaining the child, lad the right to determine the religion of the child. This is psyched into this legislation. So far as I’m concerned, there is no question that we need to have a Unified Family Court Act.

I agree with the member for Lakeshore. I see no reason why there shouldn’t be a greater commitment to the people of this province than simply to the people of the Hamilton-Wentworth area. Important as it obviously is, and particularly to the Liberal Party of Ontario, I would like to say to you, Mr. Speaker, that in Toronto and in other parts of the province inequities will continue. In Toronto a family court judge may be dealing with a matter under the child welfare legislation and find that there is an application in another court for custody and that application under child welfare will have to be set aside because of the overriding jurisdiction in this great metropolitan area. I think that is inequitable. I think it’s totally wrong and only a government lacking commitment would find itself in this position at this point in time.

The needs of people ought on some occasion to have some kind of priority in what happens in this Legislature. What we really do is consider the needs of bureaucracies and the way in which we can make things work without a commitment to the overriding needs of people. This concerns me because the philosophy is so very different from my philosophy and my consideration of the needs of people, particularly the needs of children. There shouldn’t be a confusion between wardship and custody in this day and age anywhere in the province.

Having said that, I recognize, as indeed I must, that undoubtedly this is something that has had to be negotiated with another level of government. I am very sad that the negotiations came forward on such a limited basis.

I don’t speak on behalf of judges in the courts, nor the hierarchy of the courts; I speak on behalf of the people who need to have a determination of their problems in a way which is meaningful. And, with the greatest respect, I don’t think that is confined to Hamilton-Wentworth, to Ottawa, to Thunder Bay or even to Toronto. But the problem is that we seem to have to work out mechanics before we commit ourselves to the philosophy of concern for needs of a family.

You can’t isolate these cases and put them in separate little compartments; these are overriding needs. Children are being hurt, and can continue to be hurt, because of this little-mindedness, possibly both at this level of government and at the federal level. I am quite prepared to accept the fact that the federal government undoubtedly can’t escape its own little-mindedness of purpose either, if that is the reason for this legislation.

There is nothing I can do other than to accept this bill, as my leader has indicated. But I protest the lack of real commitment to people that it represents, and it certainly embarrasses me to be a part of such a little-mindedness.

Mr. Renwick: I will be very laconic in my remarks, Mr. Speaker, because I am looking forward to the contributions of the members for Durham West (Mr. Ashe) and Durham East (Mr. Cureatz), for I know my former colleagues from those ridings most certainly would have been participating in a debate of such importance as this.

Hon. Mr. Henderson: Too bad they are not here.

Mr. Reid: If they had kept their mouths shut, they might have been here.

Mr. Renwick: Indeed, after that, I am most anxious to hear the contribution of the member for Fort William (Mr. Hennessy), the member for Peterborough (Mr. Turner), the member for Cochrane South (Mr. Pope) and the member for Timiskaming (Mr. Havrot). I say this because some of them came from the old time when they didn’t have to participate, and I just wanted to let the new members know that we look forward to and anticipate the contributions that they would make, because we would like to compare them with the contributions made by our former colleagues in this House from those ridings.

Mr. Havrot: That is not hard.

Mr. Lawlor: Let’s hear you.

Mr. Renwick: We’re really looking forward to the intense and deep social concern of the now member for Peterborough as compared with the former member for Peterborough on matters related to the unified family court.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: You sound a little hurt.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Sour grapes. The public recognized it.

Mr. Renwick: We particularly want the comments from the returned member for Timiskaming on matters related to family court matters as they relate to his part of the world.

Mr. Havrot: It’s not what you say, it’s what you do. Actions speak louder than words.

Mr. Speaker: Now could we get to Bill 1, please?

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Could we get to Bill 1?

Mr. Havrot: Actions, not words.

[8:30]

Mr. Renwick: I may say that in each of the bills that will come before the assembly we will be listening very closely to what the members from those particular ridings will be saying --

Mr. Havrot: You don’t have to listen. It is action that counts. It is not words.

Mr. Renwick: -- because they’re going to be here for such a short time that we want to understand clearly what their contribution may be --

Mr. Reid: You have a hard act to follow.

Mr. Renwick: -- on all of the matters of such fundamental importance that the government intends to bring before us.

Mr. Havrot: It isn’t what you say, it’s what you do.

Mr. Renwick: Perhaps I could address myself --

Mr. Speaker: Could we get some order, please? Would the hon. member get to the principle of Bill 1?

Mr. Sargent: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I thought the member for Riverdale was in favour of minority government.

Mr. Speaker: That’s not a point of order. If the hon. member for Riverdale will continue, we’ll get into the principle of Bill 1, please.

Mr. Lawlor: It depends on who is the minority.

Interjections.

Mr. Renwick: I wanted to address myself particularly to the parliamentary assistant to the Attorney General who is --

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

Mr. Renwick: -- piloting this bill, if I may say, through the assembly tonight. It’s certainly a bill that is a challenge to him, I know, because it embodies several very important principles, all of which are erroneous. I want the members particularly who have been returned from the seats of my former colleagues to understand the kind of gobbledegook that the government introduces to us as the first bill for us to consider in this first session of the 31st Parliament.

Mr. Havrot: Defeat is bitter, isn’t it? It is hard to swallow.

Mr. Renwick: I’m a relatively simple person on these matters but the explanatory note to sections 1 and 2 says the amendments result from the postponement of the passing of The Family Law Reform Act, 1977, as proposed in Bill 6. It doesn’t take a genius to know that Bill 6, which was introduced today, is The Ontario Unconditional Grants Act. There is no such thing as The Family Law Reform Act, 1977. It hasn’t seen the light of day. I agree with my colleague the member for St. George (Mrs. Campbell) that the government has shown its position quite clearly since last December, when we in good faith supported the postponement of those bills so that they could be heard in committee and dealt with; we now want evidence from the parliamentary assistant, and indeed from the government, that they are serious about the family law reform package which was so much a highlight of their 1975 election program.

We are being asked at this point in time to pass amendments to The Unified Family Court Act, which is a significant and important experiment in the problems of the family court resolution of marital problems of one kind or another, until such time that something called The Family Law Reform Act, 1977, which doesn’t exist, is passed. If the government is asking us in this first session of this Parliament to support these amendments, which of course we must support because they deal simply with the date as to when that court will come into operation, I think we are entitled in this assembly to a commitment from the government tonight on this bill that the package of bills referred to family law reform will be reintroduced, will be dealt with expeditiously in this assembly and that it is the intention of the government to introduce those bills in substantially the form in which we saw them last and then to permit an adequate and popular public debate about the contents of those bills.

Those bills are an integral part of the whole of the reform of the family law in the province of Ontario on which immense amounts of time and an immense amount of fanfare have been devoted over a period of time and on which many of us have spent many anguishing hours, including the parliamentary assistant, in committee.

What is the intention of the government with respect to that family law reform package? Is it, in fact, going to take place? Is there any motivation or intention by the government that those bills will be introduced during this summer part of this session? Will they be proceeded with next fall? Will there be committee hearings? Will there be an opportunity for persons to make presentations with respect to them, because it doesn’t take any genius to read the so-called explanatory notes to this bill to see that all of the amendments -- not all of them, but most of them -- relate, for practical purposes, to the so-called passing of The Family Law Reform Act, 1977? We are quite prepared; we are always co-operative. We co-operated in having the election. And we are prepared to co-operate further in passing this bill.

Mr. Lewis: And in having another one.

Mr. Renwick: But we want very much to have a commitment from the government about its intentions with respect to the package of bills known as family law reform, because those bills are essential in a modern Ontario. It is essential that we have the debate. It is essential that we continue the discussions, interrupted as they have been, so that in due course, before this session -- I don’t mean this summer, but this session of this Parliament -- is completed, those family law bills will have become part of the law of the province of Ontario.

With that reservation -- as my colleague, the member for Lakeshore, said -- we will support the bill. I look forward to contributions by the members who now occupy the seats formerly occupied by our respected colleagues in each of those six ridings.

Mr. Lawlor: We want Havrot.

Mr. Makarchuk: Let’s hear it.

Mr. Roy: I hate to let a bill as important as this one go by without saying a few words. I apologize for my late entry into this august chamber. I am told by the Clerk that I was the 125th to be sworn. I am glad to be back and wish to make a few comments on a bill that I consider of prime importance.

We in this party have for some time been talking about unified family courts. We felt for years that the system in which people with marital problems were really playing a sort of running bingo in the sense of knowing which --

Mr. Peterson: We are not all Catholic, Albert.

Mr. Roy: Well, it was extremely difficult for the ordinary lay person --

Interjections.

Mr. Roy: My God, my colleagues are talkative tonight.

In any event, we felt it was high time for this type of legislation, at least on an experimental basis -- whereby people with family law problems can address themselves to one court. We just thought it ludicrous over the years that people who had problems in family law, whether it was children or divorce, were in either provincial court family division, or were in county court where there was dispute over the children, or in Supreme Court where there was dispute over divorce, alimony and so on.

So I am pleased to say that we are very favourable to this type of experiment. I say this with a certain amount of caution because I haven’t heard what my colleagues had to say some time earlier, but I take it that if anything is consistent about this party it is that we follow a policy line all the way through.

One of the things I think I will enjoy in this House, as I get warmed up here a little bit, is that when we talk about the NDP they will, for a change, be to our left; and I think that is where they should be.

Mr. Havrot: Praise Timiskaming.

Hon. Mr. Welch: It is Bill 1, Albert.

Mr. Roy: Yes, as I look across I see some new faces

Hon. Mr. Welch: Nice to have you back.

Mr. Roy: Are you still House leader?

May I congratulate you, as well, Mr. Speaker, on your appointment? You don’t mind if I just dribble on like this, do you?

Mr. Speaker: Yes, I think we should kind of stick to the principle of Bill 1.

Mr. Roy: It’s comforting. I see so many new faces, both on our side and on the other side and I welcome these members.

Mr. MacDonald: Have you decided what you want to speak about?

Mr. Havrot: Look over on our side too, Albert.

Mr. Roy: Hopefully we will be able to work together on legislation as constructive as this bill here. I only hope, in supporting this type of legislation, that it does not just remain basically an experiment. I think the expansion of a unified family court across this province should be something that is done with the greatest of haste.

It’s very difficult for the public to understand that the reason we don’t have a unified family court is because there is a jurisdictional dispute between the federal government and the provincial government. I think the lay people are not too much interested in who’s fighting over what jurisdiction. Basically the courts are there to serve the public, but the courts in their present setup in family law are not serving the public.

I am pleased to say a few words on this legislation and listening to my colleague, the member for Riverdale, I sort of wonder, as he does, what has happened to all the other family law legislation. I think we have waited for too long. We delayed it once in committee, and I think that was worthwhile to get additional submissions to it, but why aren’t we seeing this type of legislation come forward along with this legislation as well? That is much-needed legislation and I would hope the parliamentary assistant over there will tell us when we can expect the other legislation dealing with property rights and children and so on.

So, Mr. Speaker, just very briefly, and I appreciate your patience with me, I hope this type of project will be successful. I am impressed by some of the people who are being named on this unified family court and I am convinced that the program will be a success --

Mr. Martel: What did you say so far?

Mr. Roy: What did I say?

Mr. Martel: How about the bill?

Mr. Warner: Get to the bill.

Mr. Roy: You fellows ought to be happy that I am not taking shots at you.

Mr. Speaker: I think if the hon. member would address himself through the Speaker it would be better.

Mr. Roy: I think also I should be modest and kind in my first altercations in the House. If the member for Sudbury East wants to get into a dispute I’d love it, but not tonight. This is a night when we are supportive. I see some colleagues out there who are going to provide some fun before this is all over.

Interjections.

Mr. Roy: The member for Timiskaming (Mr. Havrot) is back.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Would the hon. member stick to Bill 1, please?

Mr. Roy: In any event, Mr. Speaker, I am glad to support this legislation.

Mr. Speaker: Thank you. Do any other hon. members wish to speak to this bill? If not, the parliamentary assistant may sum up.

Mr. Grossman: Meanwhile, back at the principle of the bill, Mr. Speaker, the member for Lakeshore --

Mr. Peterson: What do you know about principles?

Mr. Lawlor: Havrot didn’t speak. That’s the only reason we came tonight.

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

Mr. Havrot: All you fellows know how to do is wag your tongues.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. member for Lakeshore has had his say. The hon. parliamentary assistant now.

Mr. Havrot: His tongue has wagged long enough. He has licked us.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The member for Timiskaming will please restrain himself.

Mr. Lewis: You thought this would take two weeks, did you?

Mr. Grossman: I offered them tickets to the baseball game tonight.

Interjections.

Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, the member for Lakeshore and others have expressed concern over the balance of the family law package and have commented upon what they feel is a lack of commitment to the family law legislation. May I say that all of those, without exception, who have spoken this evening must bear their portion of responsibility for the fact that The Family Law Reform Act is not law.

Mr. Warner: The first day he’s in here, already the member for Timiskaming should resign.

Mr. Lewis: The little homily from Larry.

Mr. Grossman: The last speaker, the member for Ottawa East, not having had the advantage of having heard the member for St. George, himself admitted -- and I use his words -- we delayed it in committee and it was worthwhile. Those were his words. He, as always, acknowledges his contribution and, as well, his portion of the responsibility for the fact that the bill was not read a third time last Christmas. Indeed, the then chairman of the committee, the member for Lakeshore, was present and he will recall that the Attorney General and myself both expressed some grave concern about the fact that we were delaying it.

[8:45]

However, some of the points that have been made at the justice committee by some of the members who have spoken this evening gave us cause for concern and some food for thought and as always, being the open-minded people that we were --

Mr. Lewis: “Cause for concern. Food for thought.” You are a charming phrasemonger.

Mr. Grossman: I’ve been watching the member for Scarborough West too much during the election.

We took it out and we withdrew the bill at the suggestion of and with the concurrence of all the members of the committee. We discussed it at length at that time and all the members were rather relieved at that time that in the absence of, for example, the submissions from the bar association we should not proceed into third reading of the bill. We wanted to hear that brief -- all members of the committee wanted to hear that brief -- and we stood the bill down. Again, all members of the justice committee concurred; not a murmur.

Mr. Lawlor: More or less.

Mr. Grossman: And again, it’s a pleasant change, that because we listened and heard what happened at the justice committee it’s nice to hear the members opposite acknowledge that we did listen and learn from the justice committee proceedings.

Mr. Martel: Nice to have a minority government.

Mr. Kerrio: You had no choice.

Mr. Grossman: We brought the bill back and we looked at it again.

Mr. Grossman: It was reintroduced with a large portion of the family law package in the last session of the 30th Parliament. It’s history now as to why that was not proceeded with, but the Throne Speech heard earlier today referred to the government’s continuing commitment to its entire legislative package as presented in the last session of the 30th Parliament.

Mr. Laughren: You are the epitome of the Peter principle.

Mr. Grossman: Hence a reaffirmation of our commitment to the entire family law package and the members will be seeing it again, in fact.

Some concern has been expressed by the member for Riverdale that we should not only reintroduce the package but assure the House that there will be adequate and popular public debate, in his words. I think our record on that count is pretty good. As the member for St. George would have it, perhaps too good, because we did hold it at committee stage and refused to take it to third reading, partly because of our concern that some persons who had been invited through advertisements in the press to make submissions to our committee were unable to do so last fall. That was part of the reason we held it over.

I find it an interesting comparison to note the remarks of the member for Riverdale, who wants assurance that there will be more public and popular debate on that bill, as against the comments of the member for Lakeshore who was complaining that Lord knows we have heard every aspect of the thing, we have dealt with it inside and out, top and bottom, heard everything there was to hear on the subject and we should have put it through.

Mr. Lawlor: Do you think we will go through next fall?

Mr. Grossman: There you have it. They agreed on the automobile insurance, but disagreed with Deans. Now they’re at odds this evening.

Mr. Lawlor: That’s a vile cavil; stick to the principle.

Mr. Grossman: But then again the member for St. George and the member for Ottawa East are at odds as well.

The members have expressed concern over the fact it is a pilot project only, and of course it’s a pilot project. This was well known and debated, both at the time of the family law reform bill, Bill 6, of the last session of the 30th Parliament and at the time of the passage of The Unified Family Court Act.

Just to remind those members who have just entered the chamber this evening and those who are returning here after a short absence from the assembly, the reason that it’s a pilot project is, notwithstanding the sentiments of the Liberal Party of Ontario, as the member for St. George would have it, the Liberal Party of Canada has decided in its own wisdom that it will go with only one pilot project per province.

There it is. That’s the reason it’s a pilot project; that’s their decision. We may or may not like the provisions of The British North America Act, section 96 and others, but they are there as well and we are caught with that jurisdictional problem. The federal government has proceeded as it sees fit and I’m not about to launch into a defence of its activities.

But I think it’s also fair to point out that notwithstanding their foot-dragging on the situation and the fact that they have decided, for whatever reasons, to go with only one pilot project per province, our province moved immediately, notwithstanding the difficulties that are present and inherent in the minority government situation, to bring forward the family law legislation --

Mr. Roy: As though we were opposing you.

Mr. Grossman: -- which was not done without a lot of careful thought and consideration, reflected both in the first piece of legislation presented and the second piece. So our commitment is there. We can do no more than the federal government permits us to do, and the members who do express some concern about the fact that it is a pilot project would do well to look at the remarks of the Attorney General --

Mr. Warner: Where is Bill?

Mr. Grossman: -- made during the debate on The Unified Family Court Act in this assembly, where he expressed the hope, the rather optimistic hope, that it would expand prior to the expiry of the three-year pilot project to other parts of the province, and his desire that it so do if at all possible.

Mr. Warner: Didn’t the Attorney General get any headlines out of this?

Mr. Grossman: Those who have concern should read that debate and as well should communicate with our friends in Ottawa and tell them one pilot project per province is not enough.

Finally, the member for Lakeshore (Mr. Lawlor) was expressing some concern that we’ll be back here time and again if the legislation does not pass later this year, which we hope it will, and we will be reading him the remarks of his colleagues and himself later in committee this year, I’m sure. I would like to point out to him that it is precisely to avoid having to reopen this bill, in the event that there is some difficulty later this year, that the bill is structured with two schedules and with, as it were, self-destruct provisions whereby we can repeal it by proclamation. So we won’t have to see this legislation or a similar piece of legislation of this type back in the assembly if, perchance -- and we hope it will not happen -- The Family Law Reform Act, 1977, whatever number it is, does not get passed by this Christmas. We fully expect it will.

Motion agreed to.

Ordered for committee of the whole House.

ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Kerr moved second reading of Bill 2, An Act to amend The Environmental Assessment Act.

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

Hon. Mr. Kerr: No, Mr. Speaker, I made my comments on first reading.

Mr. Roy: That is not like the minister.

Mr. Bolan: First, Mr. Speaker, let me congratulate you on your appointment. I might also say it certainly is a privilege for me to be in this House and to have the opportunity of addressing the House at such an early stage during my rookie year.

Mr. Conway: A great new member.

Mr. Bolan: I might also say it is my intention to be in this House for many years to come, contrary to the intentions and the wishes of the mayor of the city of North Bay.

Mr. Conway: Where is Merle anyway? Gone to pasture?

Mr. Martel: He’s still in jail, wearing his pinstripe suit in reverse.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: You’re lucky that statement is privileged.

Mr. Lewis: We have immunity in here.

Mr. Bolan: Dealing with this proposed legislation, on going through it I find it has both a ring of happiness and a ring of sadness. It has a ring of sadness because it’s an example of the lack of attention by the government to the people of northern Ontario over a number of years.

Mr. Peterson: Shame.

Mr. Bolan: As a northerner, I really have noticed the deterioration of our natural resources. I’ve seen our forests cut down and our streams fished out, and yet nothing is done to replace these natural resources which are so very difficult to replace.

There is happiness, though, because at last the government has recognized that there is an urgency and that something must be done to assist the people of northern Ontario in dealing with these problems.

The very fact that you do have this proposed legislation is an indictment against the past governments of this province, over the past 34 years, for failing to recognize the particular problems which exist in northern Ontario. Proof that these particular problems exist is demonstrated by the fact that there is before this House proposed legislation to create a Ministry of Northern Affairs. A Ministry of Northern Affairs is obviously being created because the government recognizes there are special problems in northern Ontario and that the government has failed to meet these problems.

Mr. Roy: Right.

Mr. Conway: Give Leo some employment.

Mr. Sargent: They’re going to give the minister a job.

Mr. Bolan: I might say, Mr. Speaker, that the inquiry will be a lengthy one. I have had occasion to go over the terms of reference, and I presume they are the same terms of reference which were filed with this House when the bill was introduced back on April 26. The terms of reference are quite broad and they empower Mr. Justice Hartt, who will be designated as the appointee, to delve into the many problems which have been created.

Incidentally, dealing with this inquiry, it is quite obvious that it only came about as a result of constant pressure and prodding applied by the opposition parties during the last session. Had it not been for this constant prodding, the agreement would have been entered into with the Reed Paper Company and we certainly would not have occasion now to launch an inquiry into the whole process.

Mr. Conway: The joys of minority government.

Mr. Bolan: I might also say that at one time, after the government announced that it would propose legislation with respect to an inquiry, the Reed Paper company came out with its own environmental assessment of the impact which this would have on the community and the environment. That is like hiring the wolf to guard the chicken coop against the fox.

In any event, Mr. Speaker, the inquiry will be a lengthy one and I would expect it will touch on many of the phases of development and of resources in northern Ontario. Because of the fact that it will be a lengthy one, I urge this government, and I urge this House, to look at it with caution and not use the length of the inquiry as a means of shirking its responsibilities for further development and growth of northern Ontario.

The problems which we are dealing with in this inquiry relate to our primary resource industry, but that does not mean to say there is no room in northern Ontario for secondary industry and development and growth other than in the primary resources. I would hope the government would pay attention to northern Ontario and would not hide behind this inquiry before coming out with sound legislation to assist the residents of northern Ontario.

Our party does accept this legislation, in spite of the fact that it is probably 10 or 15 years too late. Nevertheless, we feel some good can still come out of it and we hope it will benefit all of the parties. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

[9:00]

Ms. Bryden: This bill, Mr. Speaker, is a stage in a very long struggle; a struggle to bring under public control the granting of timber limits and licences in this province. The whole 34 years of Tory government has been a history of giving away fiefdoms to private companies, with very little control over the way they exploited the resources that were entrusted to them in very long-term leases, in licences which required very little input in the way of regeneration and preservation of our renewable resources.

Mr. Conway: Bryden for leader.

Ms. Bryden: Leases which also brought back to the real owners of these resources, the people, very little return in the way of the economic values which were generated by the exploitation of these resources. And so, Mr. Speaker, over the years we have continually asked that timber licences and timber limits must be brought under public control. But we were very concerned when, two years ago, rumours began to fly that the Conservative government was prepared to give away the biggest fiefdom in history, 19,000 square miles, to a company which had a record of being responsible for mercury pollution in the English-Wabigoon Rivers system; a company with a record of harvesting methods which resulted in very little regeneration, which made it more difficult to regenerate; a company which had exploited timber resources in other areas of the province and had not fulfilled its obligations to regenerate and to prevent pollution.

Mr. Reid: They are not responsible for regeneration, the government is.

Ms. Bryden: This particular proposal, which was rumoured for two years --

Mr. Reid: The NDP must have paid off all their research staff after the election.

Ms. Bryden: -- was kept very secret. We could not really find out what was going on. In the same period there were numerous reports coming out that our forest resources were in great danger, that we were not renewing as we should be.

For example, Mr. Jim Lockwood, head of the ministry’s forestry division, was reported to have said that our foresters tell us we should be planting 300,000 acres right now when we are only doing 160,000 -- this was in 1976 -- that the ministry was spending only $24 million annually and should be spending about three times that, close to three times that, in order to regenerate.

Other reports were saying that the days of the big timber licences were over. Professor Kenneth Armson of the University of Toronto said in a report: “We are coming to the end of the mature exploitable forests of Ontario.” He believed we must combine both government and industry in a silviculture programme which would ensure that our renewable resources were here for future generations; that if we did not we were likely to run out of timber in the next 20 or 30 years.

After all the rumours and the denials that anything was being contemplated of the size or the extent of the Reed Paper proposal, the very day that the Legislature convened, October 26, 1976, for the fall session, the government suddenly announced a memorandum of agreement with the Reed Paper company, granting this rumoured large tract but saying that the terms would be subject to review and would not be written until there had been an environmental review.

One wonders why it was signed in such a hurry, why the agreement could not have waited until the environmental impact was assessed, why it had to be done before the Legislature met and had a chance to discuss it; and actually what were the obligations of each party? There was public concern about whether native rights and claims would be protected, whether the commitment of the company to build a pulp mill would be binding, whether the contributions of the company to the costs which the government undertook for a forest inventory would cover the costs and whether the plan that the company was to produce for forest management would actually provide for proper renewal of our resources, for a development plan which would mean jobs not only for now but in the future.

So, after the public outcry, and a great deal of questioning, the government finally agreed to have an environmental assessment of this particular proposal. They seemed to be a bit confused as to whether the assessment should be under The Environmental Protection Act, which really was designed to look after quarries and landfill sites, but they finally discovered that perhaps The Environmental Assessment Act, which was broader, might apply. Of course, The Environmental Assessment Act did not apply to the private sector at that time. They had been confining it to the public sector ever since it was passed in 1975, because apparently they felt that we needed more experience in environmental assessment and that the private sector should be allowed to go ahead exploiting and polluting and developing without any requirement for environmental assessment until such time as the government chose to extend the Act to the private sector.

Finally, under pressure, they brought the Reed proposal under The Environmental Assessment Act as a special designation, by an order in council on December 10, 1976, but actually the extension of the Act to the private sector was not made until January 16, 1977. That little discrepancy, I am told, is permissible under the law. They bring it under, and then it becomes effective when the Act is extended to that particular sector. That seems a rather backward way of doing things.

After they had brought it under the Act, they then decided that perhaps The Environmental Assessment Act wasn’t the best vehicle for examining not just the impact from an environmental sense but the whole question of the impact of this proposal on northern development, on management of our resources, on jobs in the north and on our native people’s livelihood in the north.

So this is why we have this particular amendment. I presume that this is the motive. The government could have proceeded by way of a royal commission, or a particular inquiry into the Reed Paper proposal only by special legislation, but it apparently chose instead to bring in this sort of omnibus amendment to The Environmental Assessment Act, which gives it the power to appoint persons to study almost any question that could be considered related to the environment at the government’s request, and to have the full powers of a royal commissioner or a person acting under The Public Inquiries Act.

We had some reservations about whether this was the best way to deal with the Reed Paper inquiry, or whether we should have an Act which actually spelled out the terms of reference of the Reed Paper inquiry and which spelled out the kind of objectives we wanted for that inquiry and the kind of considerations that inquiry should take into account. However, we have decided to support the bill, but to regard it as an opportunity to indicate to the government and to Mr. Justice Patrick Hartt -- it is reported that he will be appointed to head up an inquiry under this amendment when it is passed -- what sort of questions the inquiry that is to be instigated -- presumably the first one under this amendment -- should consider and attempt to answer.

I’m not sure whether adding this rather broad section to the Act means there is less of a strict environmental assessment of any given project. I don’t think we want to let the government off the hook on that. The whole point of bringing in The Environmental Assessment Act in 1975 was to insist that no project should be initiated, expanded or altered without an environmental assessment, and that must be part of the Reed inquiry. But we recognize it is a much broader question; that the interaction of the Reed timber grant and the whole development of northern Ontario and of the northern Ontario economy is very important and cannot be considered in isolation.

We also feel that the legislation has limitations on what we as a Legislature can do to influence that inquiry. For instance, we do not have any control over the actual terms of reference, although the minister has supplied us with some draft terms. We do not have any control over the budget, which may be quite inadequate for the kind of study we want. We do not have any control over the degree of public participation which the terms of reference envisage will be funded. Certainly in an inquiry of this sort we do not want a David and Goliath situation, where the big companies with all the lawyers and the ability to charge their costs up to their income tax --

Mr. Conway: Now, now; easy, easy.

Ms. Bryden: -- are able to present briefs and presentations that go on --

Mr. Conway: What does the member for Riverdale (Mr. Renwick) think about that?

Ms. Bryden: -- for days and days, and have lawyers there at $1,000 a day for days and days. The people who are also affected, the people who live in the north, the people who make their livelihoods out of the north, cannot afford that kind of presentation. We must provide public funding to individuals and groups so there is an equality of presentation between the various interests. I think that is very important. The members of the government must assure us they are prepared to ensure through the budget that they provide for the funding of public participation.

We would hope, also, that under this legislation the government can refer different projects to any person who is appointed to conduct an inquiry under this section. We would hope that whenever it contemplates referring a specific project to the appointee that it would bring it to this Legislature for debate so that we can have some input regarding which projects should be referred to a particular appointee and what his terms of reference should be on that specific project. There is a danger that with that power under this legislation, the government will refer a great many projects to an appointee and he will not have time to do a proper job on each one. I would hope that for this particular inquiry the Reed Paper inquiry will be paramount, that we will have a great deal of attention paid to that very large proposal.

[9:15]

We are concerned about how this amendment will be used. Whether it will be a sort of basket in which the government puts hot potatoes; or whether it will actually be directed toward the development of an economic plan for northern Ontario -- a plan which will take into account the environmental impact of any project and the effect it will have on the residents of northern Ontario, including the native peoples; a plan which will ensure the preservation of our renewable resources; a plan which will ensure jobs, not only now from the immediate exploitation of our resources but for future generations, jobs which can be based on the exploitation -- in the finest sense of the word exploitation -- of our natural resources: our timber resources, our mineral resources, our water resources and our human resources in the north.

We must look at this legislation in the sense that we need it to provide the government not just with information but with a plan for northern development, a plan which will reconcile environmental concerns and economic and social concerns. Sometimes these are in conflict. You can’t always make the maximum number of dollars if you are going to preserve the environment or if you are going to preserve our resources for future generations. That reconciliation is, I think, the most important part of the job that Mr. Justice Hartt has been given, and I have confidence that he will address himself to that very important problem.

One final thing, Mr. Speaker: I would hope that the government in its terms of reference will propose that interim reports, with recommendations for legislation, should be brought in periodically during the course of the inquiry that is proposed and that the government will then proceed to act with promptness on such legislative proposals. The north cannot wait forever for economic development.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The member for Rainy River.

Mr. Reid: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. You look quite natural in that seat, if I may say so.

Having listened to the previous speaker it would appear that after the demise and decline of the NDP they must have had to lay off all their research staff and that there is no one left there to come up with any facts, figures, and even any historical background to the bill that we are debating. So just to fill you in, Mr. Speaker, I would like to straighten out the member who just spoke on some of the NDP positions, and some of the things they said in the last Legislature with regard to development in northern Ontario and timber limits and things like that

Mr. Mackenzie: We listened to the bull-roar before, but we will listen to some more.

Mr. Reid: The member was speaking about the fact that the government was giving away some 18,000 square miles of timber limits in northern Ontario, and what a terrible thing --

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Land; she said land.

Mr. Reid: Land? Well, her terminology left something to be desired as well. But, said the member, here was this government giving away 18,000 square miles of timber resources in northern Ontario, and what a terrible thing this was --

Mr. Philip: What would you give away?

Mr. Reid: What she didn’t tell us, Mr. Speaker, was that three or four years ago, in an NDP riding, the government gave a grant of some 6,000 square miles to Kimberly-Clark to proceed with their exploitation of northern Ontario --

Interjections.

Mr. Reid: -- to provide jobs in that particular NDP member’s riding. That particular NDP member got up at the opening of the plant in his riding and said what a great thing Kimberly-Clark was doing and what a great government it was to provide the resources so that this company could provide jobs.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: You are so right; you are right on.

Mr. Reid: Mr. Speaker, you can’t have it both ways. I suppose if the proposed Reed proposition had been in an NDP riding, my friends in the third party -- and I must admit to a certain satisfaction, Mr. Speaker; I was going to try and forego the pleasure but I can’t.

Interjection.

Mr. Reid: Were this proposal to be in an NDP riding perhaps their approach and attitude might have been a little different --

Interjection.

Mr. Reid: -- but I just want to set the record straight on that.

The other thing, Mr. Speaker, was that the hon. member who just spoke referred to funding so that people could come and make their opinions and points of view known to what I think we can safely refer to as the Hartt inquiry. Now I want to refer you, Mr. Speaker, to something that another NDP member said when the proposals came up to hold public hearings. The minister, now of northern affairs, said we should have a public hearing in Red Lake which is going to be directly affected by the Reed proposal. Now the response of this particular NDP member, from Sudbury East, to a public hearing in northern Ontario was, “Where the hell is Red Lake?”

Mr. Laughren: That’s really profound.

Mr. Reid: Now an NDP member from northern Ontario, supposedly concerned about northern Ontario, supposedly concerned that southern Ontario is always telling us what to do, a northern member and an NDP member says where the hell is Red Lake in northern Ontario.

Now what kind of hypocrisy is this? You can’t have it both ways.

Mr. Sargent: Where the hell is it?

[Laughter]

Mr. Reid: It’s always your friends, Mr. Speaker. It’s always your friends.

Mr. Lewis: About 11 miles this side of Chesley.

Interjections.

Mr. Reid: Mr. Speaker, on the principle of the bill --

An hon. member: Good idea.

Mr. Reid: -- section 24c of Bill 2 proceeds thusly: “The purpose of an inquiry and report under this part is to provide information and advice to the minister.” And basically I believe, Mr. Speaker, that this is all the Hartt inquiry is going to do.

The government found themselves in a bind. They found that the terms of reference for operating the province of Ontario had changed. They were forced by the combined opposition and public opinion to do something about development and the way development was proceeding in northern Ontario.

I am hoping, Mr. Speaker, that the one thing that will come out of Justice Hartt’s report is some guideline for development in northern Ontario, because time and time again people on both sides have asked in this House what are the guidelines for a development -- whether it’s forestry, whether it’s mining, whether it’s gas, whether it’s oil, whether it’s secondary industry -- what are the guidelines under which free enterprise capital operates in northern Ontario? Who pays for the social services like schools, hospitals, sewers and water and so on?

Mr. McClellan: The people.

Mr. Makarchuk: Maybe you should ask that question now.

Mr. Reid: Who provides all the hard and soft services that go with an industry?

Mr. Makarchuk: Are you asking that question now? Who the hell do you think does it?

An hon. member: What kind of language is that?

Interjections.

Mr. Reid: It’s interesting, Mr. Speaker, that the leadoff speaker for the NDP was from southern Ontario and the interjectionist is from southern Ontario. I don’t know where the rest have gone tonight but perhaps we’ll hear from them.

Mr. Conway: They’re having tea at Minaki.

Interjection.

Mr. Reid: Yes, they want the member for Scarborough West (Mr. Lewis) back after he resigns.

Mr. Lewis: In the dead of night I will return.

Mr. Reid: The primary result of the Hartt inquiry has to be to lay down guidelines for development in northern Ontario. The problem is, as with all of these things, that the bill does not require of course that the government accept any of the proposals or recommendations of the Hartt inquiry. As a matter of fact, if you look at page five of the bill, section 24(2) states: “A report under this part is not binding with respect to any decision or determination under this Act.”

I suppose we can understand that in the sense that the government has to have the authority to act in the best way it thinks possible. But time and again, in the House and in letters, the Treasurer (Mr. McKeough), who up to this point has had the responsibility for economic development, has stated in reply to questions: “We’re doing it on an ad hoc basis, so that neither the company that’s going in to operate, the people who live in the area, nor the government agencies themselves know who is going to be responsible for what, who is going to pay for what, who is going to be responsible when these one-industry towns phase out.” I hope, incidentally, that one aspect that Mr. Justice Hartt will spend a great deal of time on is the concept of one-industry towns in northern Ontario, because that is one of our major problems.

I don’t want to go on at great length. Mr. Speaker, except to say that we support the principle of the bill.

Mr. Conway: More, more.

Mr. Renwick: Please do.

Mr. Reid: We have some concerns about it. We have the concern, particularly, of time, because it’s quite conceivable that his bill and this inquiry could go on at great length. It’s quite conceivable that we could have another LaMarsh commission or a Berger commission that goes on for an extended period of time. The consequence of that very well could be that all development north of the 50th parallel will come to a stop and that nothing will take place that could be of great benefit to all the people who live in northern Ontario.

I would hope that Mr. Justice Hartt will be aware of the time constraints, that he will study development in the north, that we will have a report, as Mr. Justice Hartt has indicated possibly within three years -- I would hope sooner than that -- but that we will have guidelines so that all are cognizant of how development will take place in northern Ontario.

Mr. Laughren: Where are the facts and figures?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I recognize the member for Port Arthur.

Mr. Conway: Where the hell’s Port Arthur?

Mr. Foulds: The previous speaker said that he did not want to speak at great length, Mr. Speaker. I can only comment that his lack of length was matched by his lack of depth.

An hon. member: Right on.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: We have had better.

Mr. Foulds: I rise to support the bill, although I have a feeling it may have been preferable to have a commissioner examine the questions that Mr. Justice Patrick Hartt is going to examine; it might have been preferable to set the inquiry up under The Public Inquiries Act rather than through this method, through The Environmental Assessment Act. Nevertheless, I think the objective the government wishes to achieve is the one that we wish to achieve.

[9:30]

Mr. Justice Hartt is not going to have an easy job. It’s probably one of the most difficult jobs that has ever been taken on in this province -- perhaps even more difficult than the job that Thomas Berger took on in Canada; it’s an extremely complex, difficult job. There is a difficulty that faces us as legislators because we are dealing both with amendments to an Act when a separate Act may have been preferable, and we are also dealing at second remove with the terms of reference that have been made public but which this Legislature at this time has no direct authority over. I can only hope that the broad terms of reference that have been proposed will give Mr. Justice Hard the scope that is needed; and I can only pray that he will have the resources available to him to define his job clearly so that we can come up with a workable plan for cultural, social and economic development of the north.

These amendments, of course, although the amendments themselves have no direct reference to Reed Paper, have had their genesis in the Reed Paper memorandum of understanding. What a strange document that is. I really would like to know if the government has ever before signed a memorandum of understanding with any private corporate developer, because as we read that document it has all the earmarks of having been a memorandum of agreement that was hastily shifted in midstream. It certainly has all the earmarks of a solid contractual arrangement --

Mr. Laughren: If Leo had his way, it would have been.

Mr. Foulds: -- between the government and Reed Paper.

Mr. Laughren: That was Leo’s doing.

Mr. Foulds: The concern that arose, and I believe it arose in the north as strongly as it did in the rest of the province, was that the Reed project was so monumental in scope that if it was proceeded with immediately it would have precluded any rational planned development of the region, that by one stroke of the pen we would have been prevented from looking at the region as a whole and coming to a sane, rational conclusion about how it should be developed and what, in essence, should be developed in the area.

The reason it would have precluded any rational plan is because of the capital-intensive nature of the project, the huge amount of capital that would have gone into it. After all, $400 million is a very large investment, and for the creation of 1,200 jobs that means we would be investing a third of a million dollars to create every single job that the government said the project would create. That is a capital-intensive project.

Mr. McClellan: Money is no object, eh Leo?

Mr. Foulds: It would also, by the nature of the assignment of the tract of timber resources to one company, prevent alternate uses of that tract. For example, my colleague -- I won’t say friend -- my colleague from Rainy River made reference to the previous development, the 6,000 square miles to the Kimberly-Clark company.

Mr. Riddell: You don’t have many friends, do you?

Mr. Foulds: Not many, no. I point out that previous development had no settlements, native or otherwise, within the tract, that the tract itself was one-third the size of the single licence projected to be granted to Reed --

Mr. Reid: You are talking about the size of the timber limits. That is what you are talking about.

Mr. Foulds: -- and that Abitibi, interestingly, which supplies mine mills in the province, has seven licences and its total licensed area for those seven licences is 16,000 square miles, so the size of the tract of land would have precluded, as I say by giving it to one single company, any other possible alternative development.

What some of us found disturbing, too, last September was when the then Minister of Natural Resources was quoted in Thunder Bay as saying the north could never expect any large development of secondary industry -- that we had to depend upon resource exploitation and tourism for any development.

Mr. Laughren: Who said that?

Mr. Foulds: That was the former Minister of Natural Resources, the now almost Minister of Northern Affairs, the member for Kenora (Mr. Bernier).

Mr. Warner: He was a natural disaster.

Mr. Laughren: The Treasurer (Mr. McKeough) said it too.

Mr. Foulds: And what also was disturbing was that the then president of Reed Paper --

Mr. Laughren: The albatross of the north.

Mr. Foulds: -- R. W. Billingsley, said that the mill proposal --

Hon. Mr. Bernier: You lost three this time. Next time you will lose three more.

Mr. Makarchuk: For $3 million a seat we would have won the election, Leo. You can always fool the people some of the time, Leo. You’re past experts on it.

Mr. Havrot: For 34 years we’ve done it to you. Look what happened out in BC -- 36 months.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, please, The member for Fort William has the floor.

Mr. Foulds: No, the member for Port Arthur has the floor, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Port Arthur, sorry.

Mr. Havrot: He hasn’t come down to earth yet.

Mr. Laughren: It will be a while before the member for Fort William has the floor, I’ll bet you.

Mr. Foulds: What was also disturbing, Mr. Deputy Speaker, was that the then president of Reed Paper, R. W. Billingsley, was quoted in the Thunder Bay newspaper last fall as saying --

An hon. member: Where’s he now?

Mr. McClellan: The late Billingsley.

Mr. Foulds: -- that the mill project at Ear Falls, and I quote, “would provide raw kraft pulp to feed the jaws of the hungry mills of the United States.”

Mr. McClellan: Fabulous.

Mr. Laughren: Sounds like Mr. Bernier to me.

Mr. Foulds: So in economic terms --

Mr. Laughren: Did Mr. Bernier say that?

Mr. Foulds: No.

Mr. Warner: The same speech writer.

Mr. Foulds: So that in economic terms, one of the frustrations we in the north felt was that the project, while creating some jobs in the north, would permanently ship out even more jobs from the north. We had the feeling that the mill project must not be planned if it were to proceed in isolation, that we had to consider it as part of the economic strategy of northwestern Ontario. One of the dangers in northwestern Ontario is turning Thunder Bay into the Toronto of northwestern Ontario. We in Thunder Bay don’t want that and the people of northwestern Ontario don’t want that.

Mr. Renwick: Neither does Toronto.

Mr. Foulds: Industry and development must be planned so that it is diversified throughout the region. To ensure that diversification, we must insist that the many jobs already in existence in the Reed proposal area associated with trapping, fishing, small manufacturing of leather goods, and furs are not ploughed under by an overdevelopment of the forest industry.

For example, the Ministry of Natural Resources reports a total trapping income from the area of the Reed proposal of $500,000 alone in 1975; and $500,000 in annual income in an area like that is not to be sneezed at.

The major problem facing Mr. Justice Hartt will be that for 110 years the development of northern Ontario has been handled on an ad hoc basis. It has been developed, or one should say it has been exploited, not for its own benefit but for the benefit of the south, for the benefit, first, of Great Britain and Europe and more latterly for that of the United States, and presently for that of the metropolitan area of Ontario, the “golden horseshoe.” The social, cultural and economic needs of the north and the social, cultural and economic needs especially of northwestern Ontario have always, even in their own planning and development, taken second place to those of the south.

For example, the Hedlin-Menzies report of 1969 pointed out that of every 10 jobs created directly or indirectly by the forest industry, six of those jobs were in southern Ontario. The Reed proposal would have confirmed and accelerated that trend. The region of northwestern Ontario, that is, the districts of Thunder Bay, Rainy River, Kenora and the Patricia portion, contain 58.9 per cent of the land mass of this province. We have only 3.2 per cent of the population. What that indicates to us in northwestern Ontario is that some development can take place, but it must take place carefully and it must take place in a planned framework.

If, and I underline the if, Mr. Justice Patrick Hartt finds that the Reed project should proceed, then it clearly must be part of an integrated plan for the whole north. I would like him not to get bogged down in specific proposals referred to him by the government but to treat the Reed project symbolically. With the economic difficulties and the corporate difficulties that Reed presently finds itself in, it may very well turn out to be symbolic. I certainly hope -- well, I know -- that the inquiry will proceed whether or not Reed withdraws from its memorandum of understanding with the government.

Mr. Lewis: What is the status of the memorandum?

Mr. Foulds: What I am hoping is that Mr. Justice Hartt will come up with a blueprint for the proper and full use of human, natural, social and cultural, and economic resources of the north. I have a feeling if the job can be done well and properly -- and I am sure Mr. Hartt can do that job properly -- we can come up with a genuine plan for what at the turn of the century was called new Ontario. If we fail to come up with that plan, we will have failed future generations not only of the north but of this whole province. I would hope that the commissioner can come up with a plan that all provincial governments since Confederation in this province have failed to come up with.

After all, the much-touted Design for Development of the late sixties is clearly out of date. It clearly made a very bad mistake in emphasizing only resource development and tourism development. It itself has led to a distortion of the development of the economy of the northwest. As I say, Mr. Justice Patrick Hartt has a tall order because every government in this province from Confederation on has failed to come up with a coherent plan of development and land use in the north and northwest.

As I said previously, what the region needs is diversification. The one-industry towns must have their base broadened so that if one industry ceases to exist, the town does not go under and does not become a ghost town or merely a dormitory town, but that we continue to use the municipal infrastructure that those towns have, that we begin on day one, for example, of a mine opening anywhere in the north to develop alternative industry to pick up the slack as the employment in the mine declines and eventually ceases -- because the opening of a mine is the first stage in the death of a town that supports that mine.

[9:45]

We need to develop a plan so that we do not denude the region for the city of Thunder Bay because the city of Thunder Bay itself will benefit if the region is strong. Its social costs will be less if the region is strong. The city of Thunder Bay will be stronger if it has a strong hinterland, a region of which it is a primate centre.

I think the most moving experience I have had as a politician took place last November in Red Lake, when I spoke to a panel sponsored by the steel workers in Red Lake on November 19. One of the spokesmen for the native people got up and spoke very briefly but very movingly, and said, “We d0 not hate you. We love you people. Surely we can work this out together?” I thought to myself, on that platform in Red Lake, if despite what has happened to our native people in this province over the last century, a spokesman for them can still make a statement like that -- so simple and so direct and so moving, and so full of good will -- surely in the north we still have a chance to develop in a way where cultures will not clash, we will develop in a way where we can sort out some priorities, where we can preserve our environment, where we can preserve a sense of humanness. I firmly believe that if anybody can bring that kind of plan to the north, Mr. Justice Hartt has a duty and a responsibility to do so, and I say to him, Godspeed.

Mr. Hennessy: Mr. Speaker, generally I have to agree with the previous speaker. We are not enemies, we are friends. I do not take my politics to bed.

I think the city of Thunder Bay and the north will profit if Reed Paper does get the go-ahead and if this study is successful. I have been a northerner all my life, or the majority of it, and I think it will do much for the northern area. I think it is nice to have criticism, but I’ve never seen criticism provide any jobs. We can criticize all we want, but the longer we criticize the less we’re going to get done.

I think if the study proves to be satisfactory it will ensure employment in the north -- and if some of you gentlemen don’t know where the north is, there is a lot of seasonal unemployment there, a lot of people out of work in the wintertime, and things get very difficult, and it gets very, very cold. You people are very fortunate to live down here.

Mr. Roy: Is that why you came down here?

Mr. Hennessy: No, I came down to see you. The only thing is, I met you in the park, and I had a hotdog, and thanks very much.

I think in all due respect --

Mr. Conway: Is this a new coalition?

Mr. Hennessy: No, I think in all due respect, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Smith knows I shook hands with him in the park and he came over to my committee room. I appreciated shaking hands.

Mr. Lewis: You appreciate almost anything.

Mr. Hennessy: Why not, sir, why not?

Mr. Conway: A good Irishman at that.

Mr. Hennessy: Why not? There’s not many of us left.

In all due respect, I must say I hope all the parties can get together -- the first party, the second party, and the third party -- and come to some agreement that will ensure employment for the north. As a northerner, I fully support the plan.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. member for London Centre.

Mr. Peterson: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Lewis: Oh shame.

Mr. Maeck: Eddie was up first.

Mr. MacDonald: There are only two classes in here -- first class and second class.

Mr. Peterson: You’ve made me feel very bad, Mr. Speaker --

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Peterson: -- and had I known that he wanted to speak --

An hon. member: We knew, we were telling you.

Mr. Peterson: -- I would have gladly relinquished --

Mr. Sargent: We raised $10 for the spot.

Mr. Peterson: -- I would have gladly relinquished my space to him, Mr. Speaker.

An hon. member: Come on, why don’t you relinquish it?

Mr. Peterson: And in fairness, he being from Owen Sound, he is closer to the north and is probably a greater authority on it than I am.

I want to congratulate you on your appointment as Deputy Speaker. I think that’s a great appointment and we in this caucus are very proud of that. In fairness, I should tell the members of the House that at one time it was my great privilege to drop through the town of Mitchell, Ontario --

Hon. Mr. Welch: Is that where you bought that suit?

Mr. Peterson: -- and I met the local member. He very kindly invited me into his home for a drink. As I was sitting there, with my drink on the table, a chap walked into his house and took the table; he put it under his arm and walked out of the house. I assume it was the bailiff. Anyway, I just want you to know that I hope that doesn’t happen to the chair while you’re in it, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

I have two or three reactions, and I want to share these with the members tonight. I think it’s a testament to the fact that minority government works and, hopefully, gets better results that we are here tonight discussing this bill. I have no doubt whatsoever that had there not been minority government we would not be here; we would not be into the Hartt inquiry, and would not get the kind of results that we’re all expecting out of this.

This was an intense case of political pressure. I give a great deal of credit to the people of the third party -- and it’s so nice to say that, “the third party.” Even though I fundamentally disagreed with some of the approaches expressed by them at that time, as I disagree with many of them expressed now, I do feel that because they brought it to light and because we brought our position to light, we were able to apply that pressure which has had a healthy result to this point in time. I say to those cynics who state that minority government does not work, this is one example, among many, of why it does work.

Mr. Renwick: The cynics are all over there.

Mr. Conway: Those new Tories cost $5 million each.

Mr. Peterson: I have a couple of reactions --

Mr. Conway: My God, they’re an expensive lot over there. Hope we get some good out of you, Ed.

Mr. Peterson: Are you finished? Good man.

Mr. Conway: Six million dollars apiece. I don’t know if you’re worth it or not, Ed.

Hon. B. Stephenson: Well, you are not.

An hon. member: The six million dollar man.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Peterson: I am not particularly happy about the fact that we have broadened The Environmental Assessment Act in order to handle this inquiry. The proper place for this would have been a public inquiry. It seems to me it makes a mockery of The Environmental Assessment Act. We have broadened so substantially the meaning of the word “environment” that it loses almost all meaning in this context. We are looking at native rights, we’re looking at economics, we’re looking at all the broad sociological and economic implications of this particular project and it doesn’t, in my judgement, fit particularly within this Act.

We are going to support the Act because it’s better than nothing. But the whole thing -- the political aspect and then finally bringing it to the people of this province under this Act -- speaks to some very serious mismanagement and a great deal of superficial thinking on the part of the government. We are here only because the government was forced into it. They have to grant that.

Hon. B. Stephenson: Absolute hogwash.

Mr. Peterson: But had the government thought it out, I think it would have been far easier on their nerves and on our nerves --

Hon. Mr. Kerr: You didn’t give us time.

Mr. Peterson: -- and to the benefit of the people in the north if this thing could have been handled far better than it has been.

Mr. Laughren: Tell us how.

Mr. Peterson: I remember the debates, I remember the discussion. I remember that discussion over the so-called memorandum of understanding and I can tell the House it was one of the most disgraceful displays that I’ve seen by the government; there were several ministers involved.

I’m very happy about one thing. I’m very happy about the appointment of Mr. Justice Hartt. I have some experience with the gentleman through going to law school, through listening to him speak, through reading several things that he has written, and I am very much impressed with his sensitivity, with his intelligence. I can’t imagine a better commissioner in this particular instance. I feel very confident already, knowing he is there, that we will get the kind of result we will all be proud of. For that I compliment the government.

I wish it had happened a different way. It hasn’t. We will happily support it. We will live with it. I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, that all members of our caucus, particularly those of our people who are very well skilled in the problems of the north and know the problems, like my colleagues from Rainy River and from Nipissing and others -- and I thought that was a magnificent maiden speech of my colleague from Nipissing tonight and I was very proud of him -- I think all of those people will have an input into this. I hope the result is right for everyone.

Mr. Speaker: Any other hon. members wish to speak to this bill? The hon. member for Grey-Bruce.

Mr. Havrot: There is the Fonz, man.

Mr. Sargent: Quiet, Ed. Let him speak first, Mr. Speaker.

In line with the other experts here -- the members for Nipissing, Rainy River, Port Arthur and Fort William; I think that they have been most constructive in their presentation in support of or against this bill; sometimes it is hard to find out which way they are feeling, whether they are for or against it -- I have a few observations on my concern about who is running the store over there. We have the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Kerr) saying one thing and the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. F. S. Miller) saying another thing. And in these hands we have billions of dollars of natural resources ensconced. The fact is that it is of great concern to me that we have this political football, as the member from -- David Peterson said. I forgot where the hell they are from, these guys.

Mr. Foulds: The member from David Peterson?

Interjections.

Mr. Foulds: Where the hell is London South?

Mr. Sargent: Or Red Lake. The fact is that if it had not been for minority government this would never have come under the spotlight of public scrutiny.

Mr. Lewis: That is certainly true. What has happened to Reed Paper? What has happened to the memorandum? I will tell you about Billingsley in our conversation tomorrow.

Mr. Sargent: Good. That will be interesting, Stephen.

Mr. Lewis: Brighten things up a bit.

Mr. Sargent: We have section 24d in the legislation which says “The conduct of and the procedure to be followed on an inquiry, including at a hearing, is under the control and direction of the appointee,” Mr. Justice Hartt.

Mr. Lewis: He wants to be Minister of the Environment.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Oh, I don’t think so.

Mr. Sargent: Reed Paper were given, in effect, this contract; about 19,000 square miles or a country the size of Switzerland. A blank cheque. It is incredible that this thing would have gone on and been a fait accompli now if it had not been for minority government. There is no way we would be talking like this tonight if it had not been for the fact that the votes are on this side of the House.

Mr. Peterson: And the good guys too.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: That’s what the people thought, didn’t they?

Mr. Sargent: We do know that Reed Paper stock is in a nosedive. I understand the president, Mr. Billingsley, has either resigned or plans to resign.

Mr. Lewis: No, he is out.

An hon. member: He has been replaced.

Mr. Reid: That is why you are resigning.

Mr. Peterson: Stephen is a capitalist.

Mr. Sargent: This contract would have given them, prior to the workings of minority government, billions of dollars in inventory in perpetuity, or whatever.

Mr. Peterson: At least for a long time.

Mr. Sargent: And to show you, Mr. Speaker, the magnitude of what we are talking about, some years ago in the Legislature I was very concerned as a small-town politician about the millions of dollars given out to these timber interests in our contracts in the north. I asked a man I admire greatly, John Parmenter Robarts, a question in estimates about the mechanics of these contracts and the millions of dollars involved. He looked at me across the House -- I sat in the front row for a while there.

Mr. Maeck: Is that right?

[10:00]

Mr. Sargent: Yes, I was a wheel then. He looked across at me and said, “I’ll take you back a bit. Back in the days of the Hepburn government, there were deals going on then too.”

And I said, “How big?”

He said, “Well, they were pretty big.”

Mr. Conway: Was that you?

An hon. member: George Henry’s Abitibi scandal.

Mr. Sargent: He gave me the time and place from Hansard, and the pages. He said, “Hepburn gave a tax write-off of $148 million to a paper company.”

It was under a good Liberal government that that happened. If that could happen under a Liberal government, just think what is going on over there after 34 years.

Mr. MacDonald: Do you mean there are degrees?

Mr. Sargent: I don’t know, I’m just making an observation.

Mr. MacDonald: Besides, there was no Hansard back in Hepburn’s day.

Mr. Sargent: There wasn’t? You were in the House when he quoted those figures. Why didn’t you say so then?

Mr. MacDonald: He didn’t say it was in Hansard.

Mr. Sargent: He gave me the page and told me to look it up. I guess I was so naive I believed the guy. You ruined a good story.

But it shows the big dollars involved here. I suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, and to the Legislature, that this is defensive action, this bill here is strictly defensive action. It may be costly in terms of jobs. I don’t know what is involved in jobs. The members in the north are very concerned about this, and rightfully so. But the Hartt inquiry is going to keep a lot of lawyers in clover for a long time.

Mr. Roy: That’s important.

Mr. Sargent: I think it’s time we in this Legislature agreed that the lawyers have too much control of our economy and it’s time we put a tap on it.

Interjections.

An hon. member: Give it to the school teachers.

Mr. Sargent: Somewhere along the line we are going to get down to the fact that in this economy of ours we have to recognize that the lawyers who are sitting in this House make the legislation for themselves and everything in our lives is controlled by the lawyers. Some time along the line we have to do something about it.

Mr. MacDonald: Are you getting out of politics at the end of this term?

Mr. Sargent: I may be back. Maybe that will hold the member for Ottawa East quiet for a while.

Mr. Riddell: The odd seed merchant did all right too.

Mr. Sargent: Yes, he didn’t do bad; and the chairman of the racing commission. A millionaire on the minister’s salary, that’s not bad.

Mr. Conway: Poor Bill Stewart and Charlie MacNaughton were worn out from losing elections.

Mr. Sargent: A man I have great respect for is Norman Webster. He says in his column of February 16, 1977 --

Mr. Worton: That’s this year.

Mr. Sargent: You are getting sharper all the time; I’m glad I’m sitting beside you.

He said, “Pat Hartt doesn’t intend to fool around. The man who will hold the inquiry into Reed Paper’s development plans in northwestern Ontario is planning an odyssey of discovery that will make the Thomas Berger report on the Mackenzie Valley pipe line look like a freshman term paper.”

He goes on to say that the Berger report took three years, but Mr. Hartt plans to take at least two years first to examine the social consequences of the development on the population of the north, with special references to the native peoples. At that point, he will turn to the specific plans of Reed to log 19,000 square miles of bushland to supply a new pulp and paper mill. Then he will take delivery of the provincial government’s timber inventory of the area and Reed’s environmental impact assessment and set forth this time with other members of the board on formal hearings into the company plan. This should take another two years, he says. He says the inquiry could last a full five years.

Overall it’s mighty encouraging to see such a dramatic change in the way business is being done between big companies and big government. From now on, he says, it is going to be difficult for any project that affects a whole area and its population to go ahead simply because some executives and planners meeting behind closed doors thought it was a good idea. That is exactly what happened in this case.

He finalized by saying: “There is but one nagging question: Is it really necessary to take five years to poke and prod the Reed proposal before deciding whether it will be good for the north?”

The then president of Reed Paper, Mr. Billingsley, was telling the stockholders he could see the light at the end of the tunnel. One of his executives disagreed with him and said, “That’s not a light at the end of the tunnel; it’s a train coming.” That’s exactly what has happened to the Reed paper company because of the fact they were trying to deal under the table unknown to the opposition.

In finalizing, I say that if it’s good for Ontario, if it’s going to provide jobs, then let’s stop this charade of going through this nonsense of giving a bunch of lawyers five years to decide the future of the north country in terms of jobs and millions of dollars’ worth of natural resources.

Mr. MacDonald: Are you going to vote against it?

Mr. Sargent: Let’s give them a deadline and say: “Have that thing ready for us in 18 months or else.” If you can put a man on the moon, you can sure as hell find out what’s going on in the north country for timber. Who is kidding whom?

Mr. Warner: They never bothered before.

Mr. Sargent: Let’s stop putting lawyers to work and costing us millions of dollars for all this nonsense. It’s time we got back to running this province like a business.

Mr. Worton: So there.

Mr. McClellan: I’m very pleased to rise, Mr. Speaker --

Hon. Mr. Bernier: I thought it was my turn.

Mr. Foulds: He missed his turn.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: I thought it was my turn.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Bellwoods may continue.

Mr. McClellan: Thank you for ruling with your usual iron hand, Mr. Speaker. I’m very pleased to take part in this debate in support of the Act to amend The Environmental Assessment Act.

I think if my kids or my grandchildren ask me what I did in the 30th Parliament --

Mr. Conway: Socialists don’t reproduce.

Mr. McClellan: This one does.

Interjections.

Mr. McClellan: We reproduce and multiply. We go forth and multiply; and come the day, we will take over the earth.

Mr. S. Smith: You came third and multiplied.

An hon. member: Today Ontario, tomorrow the world.

Mr. McClellan: As I was saying, Mr. Speaker, if they ask me what we did in the 30th Parliament, I will say we stopped the Reed deal; and I will say that with a great deal of pride and satisfaction. Looking back on the last Parliament and the work that we did, I will say that today, I will say that tomorrow and I will say that as long as I live.

An hon. member: Would Iain Angus agree with that comment?

Mr. McClellan: I will say that we had a part in stopping that deal so the people of Ontario could take a clear look at it and we could assess just what kind of a society we want to create here in Ontario. Now we have The Environmental Assessment Act, and if the minister wants to say that he wants to go ahead with the Reed Paper deal regardless of The Environmental Assessment Act amendment and regardless of the Hartt inquiries, let him have the guts to stand up and say it, because that’s what he wants to do.

Mr. Lewis: That’s right; that’s what he wants to do.

Mr. McClellan: That’s what he runs around northern Ontario saying he wants to do, and yet he doesn’t have the courage to stand up in this House and say precisely what he wants to do and what his real intentions are.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: If the member will sit down, Mr. Speaker, I will be glad to put it on the record.

Mr. McClellan: I will sit down when I have finished.

Mr. Foulds: Are you going to vote against this Act?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: I will put it on the record.

Mr. McClellan: I’ll be pleased to sit down when I conclude my remarks, Mr. Speaker, and the minister will have full opportunity to present his position whether or not it is consistent with government policy.

Mr. Turner: You make a challenge and you won’t go ahead.

Mr. Havrot: How far north do you live?

Mr. McClellan: I said I’m pleased to speak on this bill, because I have a real association with northern Ontario, having lived --

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Southern Ontario again.

Mr. Lewis: We didn’t lose those seats because of the Minister of Northern Affairs. It won’t happen next time, now we know what he is.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: You got caught in your own trap.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The member for Bellwoods only has the floor.

Mr. Havrot: Bellwoods where? Kenora?

Mr. Speaker: Order. We cannot even hear the speaker; now let’s have fewer interjections. The hon. member for Bellwoods will continue, please.

Mr. Warner: Why don’t you resign?

Hon. B. Stephenson: Do you know any other words? Really, you have a one-track mind.

Mr. McClellan: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Interjection.

Mr. Warner: Why doesn’t the member for Timiskaming (Mr. Havrot) resign?

Mr. Conway: Either that or we’ll put him back in the warehouse.

Mr. McClellan: I do have an association with northern Ontario --

Mr. Havrot: Northeastern or northwestern?

Mr. McClellan: -- having worked in the community of Hearst and having lived in the community --

Interjections.

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

Mr. McClellan: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can’t understand why they’re being restless and cantankerous.

Mr. Speaker: Would you just continue please and stick to the principle of the bill?

Mr. McClellan: Yes, indeed I will.

Mr. Lewis: He has been on the principle of the bill.

Mr. Sargent: That’s the new Chicago gang over there.

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

Mr. Havrot: Northeastern or northwestern?

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. McClellan: I had, when I was going through my file, found some of the first instances of the coming of the Reed deal to our attention, a communication from Grand Council Treaty No. 9 back in January 1976, a communication to me from Dick Proctor, who was the assistant to the then Leader of the Opposition in February 1976, indicating the very first revelations of the size and scope and extent of the Reed Paper deal by Chief Rickard and other spokesmen from Grand Council Treaty No. 9, and we watched that seemingly insignificant issue develop like a snowball into an issue that caught the imagination of the people of Ontario and symbolized for them the very real crisis in northern development that faces us.

In the months that followed, in the months of debate and discussion, there were many different presentations and formulations of what was at stake and what was involved in the Reed Paper deal and in the memorandum of agreement and in the government’s zealous concern for the Reed Paper company. Nothing that I ever came across was as to the point and as moving as a very short statement that was put out in August 1976 by the chiefs of Treaty No. 9. It is short and I want to read it just to remind you, Mr. Speaker, and the members of the House what this is all about.

“We the chiefs of the Treaty 9 area of Ontario gathered together on August 12, 1976, hereby make the following declaration: Whereas the Cree-Ojibway people are the true owners of the land, its future is ours to determine; whereas the Cree-Ojibway people, the true owners of the land, will determine whether or not any development suggestions in northern Ontario are for the benefit of the Cree-Ojibway people, and whereas the proposed Reed expansion scheme, several proposed mining schemes and proposed hydro development seriously threaten the economic and community survival of the Cree-Ojibway people, we, the undersigned chiefs and councillors, hereby declare: (1) that our land is not for sale; (2) that the province of Ontario must immediately stop all negotiations with Reed; (3) the government of Ontario must immediately call an inquiry into resource development north of the 50th parallel, and (4) our full support for the president of Grand Council Treaty No. 9 in their efforts to protect the land from destruction.”

It’s signed by all of the chiefs from all of the bands in the Treaty No. 9 area, some of which I can read, some of which are in Cree syllabics and I cannot read.

We stand here today, some months later, with the amendment to The Environmental Assessment Act which fulfils demand number three of that statement in August 1976, that the government of Ontario must call an inquiry into resource development north of the 50th parallel, and I take a great deal of satisfaction that that has come about.

We can speculate on why the memorandum of understanding was signed at all. Not wishing to steal the thunder from my leader, but I would like to suggest that --

Mr. Conway: Big thunder. Big thunder.

Mr. McClellan: -- the Reed agreement was signed simply to open up a line of credit to the Reed Paper company in order to bail them out of a financial mess, and we now realize the extent of that financial mess, and we see now, through the dismissal of Mr. Billingsley and other officers of the corporation and the slump in the value of Reed’s stock, just how much trouble indeed that large multinational corporation was in, and we can speculate that the purpose of the memorandum of understanding in the first place was to bail out a company that was on somewhat shaky ground.

[10:15]

What a cost that bailing out represents. That memorandum of understanding makes no more sense to me today than when we first were aware of its contents. It represents a simple catastrophe, a catastrophe for the people of Treaty No. 9, the native people who would be living in the affected areas and adjacent to the affected areas. It represents a catastrophe for the people of northern Ontario and, indeed, for all of this province because it represents the final squandering of our once-abundant forest resource heritage.

When I suggested we should have a moratorium on development north of the 50th parallel, it drove Tory cabinet ministers into paroxysms of rage and displeasure.

Mr. Lewis: Leo Bernier was hospitalized.

Mr. McClellan: He was hospitalized with rage, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Havrot: Oh, you phoney do-gooders --

Mr. Foulds: And Havrot and Pope are going to be close behind him.

Mr. McClellan: The Minister of Housing was livid and incensed and travelled the length and breadth of northern Ontario denouncing the pernicious and hideous suggestion that there should be a moratorium. Yet, this is precisely what we have with this bill.

Mr. Havrot: Why don’t you move up to the north and see what it’s all about?

Mr. McClellan: This is precisely what the Hartt inquiry represents. It represents a moratorium. There will be close scrutiny. There will not be additional development --

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Let’s hope it doesn’t moratorium it to death.

Mr. McClellan: Sorry? Well, what are your hopes? What are your aspirations? I hope you will explain to us just precisely what it is you are proposing. Mr. Speaker, if I may suggest, the Tory cabinet ministers --

Mr. Havrot: That is the NDP. No desire for progress. That is what your philosophy is about.

Mr. McClellan: -- should stop talking out of both sides of their mouths. Either they want to take a calm and dispassionate look at the kind of development that we want in northern Ontario or they want the old kinds of destructive and exploitative development practices to continue, but they can’t have it both ways. Much as they would like to have the Hartt inquiry and the Reed Paper deal proceeding simultaneously, they simply can’t have it. That causes some to gnash their teeth, and we only can express our concern that the new Minister of Northern Affairs is not hospitalized again out of sheer rage and displeasure.

Mr. Havrot: That’s more than what you’ll ever know about the north.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. McClellan: We have a number of specific concerns about the Hartt inquiry that I’d like to touch upon. The Hartt inquiry is, as we had asked, very broad in scope. It is not limited to the specifics of the Reed Paper deal but calls for a broadly based inquiry into the whole gamut of development issues affecting the north. It is, indeed, so broad in scope that that can represent potentially a certain problem. There is clearly a need to delimit the breadth of the scope. It is clear that all of the potential issues that could be examined under the amendment and the proposed terms of reference could occupy commissioner Hartt for the rest of his life. That is without exaggeration, as I think the minister will agree.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: You had better speak to Chief Rickard if you want to change those.

Mr. McClellan: I said, in preface to these remarks, that we are very pleased that it is a broadly based inquiry not limited to the specifics of the Reed Paper deal, and that’s what I meant. It would be a very difficult thing for commissioner Hartt to look at the Reed Paper deal, the various mining schemes that are proposed, the potential polar gas activity in northwestern Ontario -- not to mention northeastern Ontario, not to mention the issue of the development of the James Bay lowland area, not to mention the possibilities of coastal development. One could enumerate for hours, literally, possible subjects of examination. I am simply saying what ought to be common sense -- that there is a need to delimit; and, as I understand it, the legislation empowers the commissioner to so delimit. I think it would be useful in this debate if those of us who are participating address ourselves to the need to delimit and to some things that the commissioner may wish to explore himself, because he will clearly have to be making a series of decisions and judgements around what he looks at, when and for how long.

I would like to suggest that of paramount concern to the commissioner and the inquiry must be the interests of the native people of the Treaty No. 9 area. I say this for two reasons. First, Ontario is a signatory to Treaty No. 9. That gives Ontario a unique relationship to the communities of Treaty No. 9, north of the 50th parallel. We are partners as a province to the treaty and in no other instance is this the case. This gives, it seems to me, a special responsibility to the government of Ontario and to this inquiry to focus upon the needs and interests and concerns of the native people.

Second, it is evidently and tragically clear that present development patterns, traditional development patterns, traditional ways of exploiting our resources and building economies in the north are clearly incompatible with traditional native communities. Traditional exploitation patterns are disruptive and destructive. They obliterate communities. They obliterate cultures. They destroy societies. They are the cause of social breakdown. They are the cause of community disarray. They are the cause of personal tragedy on an unparalleled scale.

It is our traditional interventions in isolated areas that precipitate the social and economic and cultural breakdowns that so sadly characterize many Indian communities. This is an utter tragedy. It is unnecessary. We have an opportunity north of the 50th parallel to prevent this kind of thing from happening again. The Hartt inquiry can focus on this tragic reality.

Commissioner Hartt has the power and the possibility and the opportunity to engage in a dialogue with the native communities north of the 50th parallel in the Treaty No. 9 area, to look at the devastating effect of current disruptive development, current projects that are already under way, the Umex mine, the St. Joe’s development. He has the opportunity to look at new modes of development which will --

Mr. Reid: What is at St. Joe’s?

Mr. Speaker: Would the hon. member just continue with his own speech?

Mr. McClellan: Yes, thank you. I didn’t understand the interjection.

Mr. Lewis: Lake St. Joseph.

Mr. McClellan: The commissioner has the opportunity to explore new modes of development that will benefit native people. The commissioner has the opportunity to look into the implications of Treaty No. 9 as it affects the communities north of the 50th parallel. Let him, therefore, determine the patterns and forms of development which will meet the unique needs of Ontario’s native people; which will enable them to create their own future and to achieve their own destiny and to come to terms with their own environment, their own history and their own traditions; and to create in their own time and in their own way -- free from outside pressures, free from the kinds of inevitably destructive and devastating economic development projects which distort and destroy communities and traditions -- their own economies and their own societies.

Let him look at the kinds of technical and financial assistance that the people of Treaty No. 9 need to create their own economy and their own communities. Let the commissioner define and delineate the proper role of the government of Ontario, as a signatory to Treaty No. 9, in supporting with technical and financial aid the development of an economy which will sustain new native people’s communities north of the 50th parallel. And let the commissioner outline clearly and unequivocally, with complete precision, the whole range of corporate interests that have designs on this vast area, to delineate what their current activities are, what their corporate profiles are, what their future intentions are. Let him delineate clearly and precisely how existing and future projects would impact on indigenous native development projects. It is important for us to know this so that we can understand how real and how immediate and how imminent is the threat to the potentiality of viable alternative forms of development for the native people of Treaty No. 9.

There is a real sense in which Treaty No. 9 represents one last chance to redeem the trust placed in this Crown, in our government and in our society by the Indian people. We have taken that trust as embodied in the treaty, a trust bestowed on us as recently as the early years of this century in the case of Treaty No. 9 -- in the case of the treaty which Ontario signed -- and we have taken that trust and we have trampled it in the dust.

I believe it is not too late, north of the 50th parallel, to repudiate the rapacity of the past and to say, “Halt; enough,” to the kind of greedy resource exploitation which has consumed whole societies and whole cultures as mindlessly and cruelly and greedily as it has despoiled the environment. It’s not too late, Mr. Speaker, to extend the hand of friendship and brotherhood to these Indian communities north of the 50th parallel and to support them in their struggle toward autonomous self-sufficiency and independence and dignity, and it’s my deepest hope that the Hartt inquiry may serve as the first step in this path. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker: Do any other hon. members wish to speak to this bill before the minister replies? The hon. member for Kenora.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, before --

Mr. Speaker: One minute left

Hon. Mr. Bernier: One minute? Very difficult. I had about a 20-minute response, Mr. Speaker, but I do want --

Mr. Lewis: Can’t you do that tomorrow?

Mr. Conway: Is it true Merle Dickerson is your executive assistant?

Mr. Speaker: Order, order; the time is just about finished.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: -- to make sure that it clearly shows that this member, this member for Kenora, in which riding the Reed Paper proposal is planned, is fully in support of the amendments in this particular bill.

I think many of the members here are not fully informed of all the facts. It is clear, as I sat here all evening and listened to the various presentations, that they don’t have a total grasp of the situation.

There will be two public hearings, one dealing with the overall resource development area north of the 50th parallel, which comes -- to some surprise, I am sure, of some members -- as low as the Sioux Lookout area, the main line of the CNR, which takes in a large number of white people as well as native peoples. The hearings will look at resource development in that massive area, be it Reed Paper, the Polar Gas line, the Onakawanna development, the nuclear plants or even dams that may be developed; as well as mining and other forest extraction industries that may be developed north of the 50th parallel.

The inquiry will look at how that will be developed in the best interest of that massive area, taking into full consideration the effect on our native peoples of course. I think if I can just put on the record the comments that were made at the Red Lake meeting, a public meeting, when Chief Tom Fiddler stood up in that hall that was jam-packed to hear the discussions on the Reed Paper issue, when he said to me, “Leo, all we want are the facts. Put all the cards on the table and get us involved.”

Mr. McClellan: You don’t understand what a devastating indictment that was.

Mr. Warner: You’d never done that before.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: This particular hearing will do more than that. It will get them involved to a depth that they’ve never known before. In addition to this, there will be, as the --

Mr. Lewis: That is not how you started. That is not how you began.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: -- memorandum of understanding clearly states, the approval of the Ministry of the Environment has to be obtained; The Environmental Assessment Act would have to be complied with before that proposal, so there’s a double protection in this particular case.

I just certainly want to add my compliments and my complete support to the selection of Chief Justice Patrick Hartt for this massive job. As one member said it will be a mammoth undertaking, there’s no question about it. It will take time, because it will have to be done in many parts of the province and in many languages -- in many parts of northern Ontario and northwestern Ontario particularly. So it’s going to take time. I estimate two years to two and a half years for Patrick Hartt. After that will be the forest resources inventory that will be taken by the Ministry of Natural Resources with regard to the Reed Paper proposal. So we’re looking to at least four to five years before even a recommendation can be made with regard to the Reed Paper proposal.

Let’s remember as we move ahead with The Environmental Assessment Act just what this means to northwestern Ontario.

Mr. Speaker: Does the hon. member have further remarks to make?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: There will be 1,200 new jobs --

Mr. Lewis: Can’t you speak tomorrow?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: No, I can’t.

There will be 3,000 to 4,000 spinoff jobs, there will be a massive economic benefit to that area which they’re looking for -- and it can be developed with proper guidelines and proper planning. I’m sure Chief Justice Patrick Hartt will come forward with the type of planning we need to develop in northwestern Ontario and provide those jobs that we need, and protect those resources.

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

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