Legislative Assembly of Ontario

The House met at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

RESIGNATION OF MEMBER FOR SCARBOROUGH WEST

Mr. Speaker: I beg to inform the House that a vacancy has occurred in the membership of the House by reason of the resignation of Stephen Lewis, Esquire, as member for the electoral district of Scarborough West.

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

UNITED WAY CAMPAIGN

Hon. Mr. McCague: I would like to take this opportunity to bring to the attention of the House the outstanding contribution made by the public servants of this province to the United Way campaign in Metropolitan Toronto. I am sure every member of this House shared with me a sense of pride in our public servants when the United Way Metro chairman, Jed Purcell, last week said, “The efforts of the public servants were a significant factor in the campaign’s exceeding its goal for the first time in 10 years.”

As members are aware, the Metro goal was $16.7 million and this has been exceeded by $54,000. I’m equally sure members will join with me in extending our gratitude and congratulations to each and every employee who contributed to the campaign and to all those who under the able leadership of Brian Riddell, the crown campaign coordinator, worked so hard to make this achievement possible.

The Ontario public servants set a campaign goal of $390,000. There is every expectation, once all the reports are in, that this goal will be exceeded. This amount compares to the 1977 goal of $315,000 which, it also pleases me to say, was exceeded by $38,000. This kind of success speaks highly of the commitment and concern the public servants of this province have towards their community and their neighbours. The same may be said of the community at large and its role in exceeding the goal set for the campaign.

I think this year’s success reflects the growing awareness at all levels of society that governments can’t and shouldn’t provide all the services rendered in a community. It reflects an awareness of the need for individuals and groups to become involved in a direct way with social concerns in order for the community to be truly healthy and truly compassionate.

I am gratified in these times of restraints that the employees of the Ontario government have recognized that need and responded in such a generous manner. On behalf of all members of this House, therefore, I extend to them our very sincere congratulations and gratitude.

LUNG CANCER CASES

Hon. Mr. Elgie: Mr. Speaker, last week the member for Hamilton East (Mr. Mackenzie) and the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. S. Smith) raised questions concerning a study by Dr. E. S. Gibson, director of occupational and environmental health at the Dominion Foundry and Steel Company Limited in Hamilton.

That study was released in the summer of 1977. It was entitled, Lung Cancer Mortality in a Steel Foundry. More specifically it related to the apparent increase in the incidence of lung cancer in workers in Dofasco’s own foundry and the study indeed was instigated by that foundry.

The question raised by honourable members concerned a number of claims made on behalf of employees of Dofasco who are said to have been affected by exposure to some as yet unidentified carcinogen or carcinogens. I have now had an opportunity to review the entire matter with senior officials of both the Workmen’s Compensation Board and those of the occupational health and safety division of my ministry in order to determine why the claims in question have not been dealt with.

I have ascertained that Dr. Gibson’s study was received by the Workmen’s Compensation Board in July 1977 and was then transmitted to the occupational health and safety division of my ministry for evaluation. Regrettably, it now appears the responsible officials within my ministry did not appreciate that the adjudication of these claims was awaiting the receipt of the evaluation requested by the Workmen’s Compensation Board.

In reviewing the correspondence I must say in all candour that in retrospect the breakdown in communications is difficult to understand. Nevertheless, this misunderstanding did arise and was not brought to my attention until I commenced my investigation late last week.

I must also say I share the concerns expressed by members last week that as a result valuable time has been lost in providing material and data to the Workmen’s Compensation Board in order to enable the board to develop appropriate criteria upon which these claims can be expeditiously assessed.

Mr. Mackenzie: Approve the claims now.

Mr. McClellan: Approve the claims.

Mr. Cassidy: Approve the claims.

Hon. Mr. Elgie: I want to assure members that as a result of this incident I have directed that the entire communications system between the board and my ministry be reviewed in order to ensure there will be no recurrence of this unfortunate and frankly unacceptable course of events.

In his question on November 10 the member for Hamilton East asked specifically that I table with the House any information forwarded by the ministry to the board in response to their request. I will be tabling later today a letter dated June 20 from Dr. Muller, chief of health studies and services, to Dr. McCracken, executive director of rehabilitation services, Workmen’s Compensation Board, attaching comments prepared by Ms. Diane Crocker, a member of the ministry’s special studies and services groups, as well as material obtained from world literature dealing with the subject-matter in question. In Dr. McCracken’s view this material is not sufficient to enable the board to act upon outstanding claims. I think all members will agree that the immediate concern must be to ensure that no further unnecessary delays occur in the resolution of this matter.

In the light of Dr. Gibson’s study it appears clear that a senior epidemiologist must review this study and obtain whatever other information exists in the world literature as well.

The person commissioned to prepare this report will also be requested to express his professional judgement as to whether a causal relationship has been established between the working conditions in the Dofasco foundry and the findings in the Gibson study concerning the incidence of lung cancer among workers in that foundry. While he will be asked to determine that specific question as a first priority he will also be asked to examine the more general and important question concerning the incidence of lung cancer among foundry workers in general.

In the meantime, I have been assured by the Workmen’s Compensation Board that pending the receipt of the epidemiologist’s review the board has directed a complete and detailed inquiry be immediately undertaken with respect to the individuals previously identified.

Mr. Cassidy: Some of them are dead.

Mr. Mackenzie: Heads should roll over that.

Mr. McClellan: Heads should roll, he said.

Mr. Germa: Your head.

ORAL QUESTIONS

TTC GRANTS

Mr. S. Smith: I have a question for the Premier (Mr. Davis). He may be here later, so I’ll ask a question of the Minister of Transportation and Communications. In view of the fact that the Toronto Transit Commission was one of the main issues in yesterday’s municipal elections, as there seems to be great concern over fares, is the government willing now to accept the suggestions we offered in October 1977, namely, that it deconditionalizes the grants which go to the TTC so they can decide themselves how much of their grants should go to operating and how much to capital expenses? Why will the government not give them one lump sum grant from the two present votes which are made to them and allow them to decide how best to use the money?

Hon. Mr. Snow: No.

Mr. S. Smith: Can the minister explain to the House, in view of the usual shibboleths which this government is willing to clothe itself in regarding municipal autonomy and local decision-making, why it is that it refuses to permit the TTC to make this kind of judgement to decide for itself how best to operate an efficient and useful transit system with regard to keeping up its ridership? Why does the province have to make those decisions for the TTC, and why does it not allow the TTC to decide its balance between capital and operating expenditures?

Hon. Mr. Snow: The two votes in my ministry’s estimates relating to municipal transit are for distinctly different programs. One is for an operating subsidy which is an ongoing program from year to year. The other vote is for a capital program whereby my ministry subsidizes approved capital programs. When I say approved, I mean approved both by the municipality and by the ministry. These capital programs vary greatly from year to year. One year a municipality may be building a new bus garage, for instance, or may have some other major capital expenditure. It may be buying 10 new buses this year and none next year.

Our capital program is something totally separate. We don’t have a level program for each municipality on capital. Consequently, in my ministry’s vote we have a surface capital program and for Metro Toronto we have a separate program for subways and major construction of this type.

From year to year that program has considerable peaks. In a year when we may be spending less on subways in Toronto, we may be spending more on bus garages in Timmins or Sault Ste. Marie or on buses for Thunder Bay. That balances out each year. It’s not a simple case of deciding what is subsidy for maintenance and what is subsidy for capital. The capital has to be adjusted throughout the province to try to best meet the needs of the 50-odd provincial transit systems of which the TTC is one.

Mr. Warner: Supplementary: Does the minister realize that by not relenting on the strings-attached process and also by not increasing the amount of money under operating expenses from the lowly 13.75 per cent that’s now offered he is ensuring a TTC fare increase next year for transit riders in Metro Toronto? Is he aware that that’s what he is doing? Doesn’t he feel a little bit irresponsible in this whole business?

Hon. Mr. Snow: Not at all.

Mr. Warner: Is he not aware of that? He should be aware of it.

Hon. Mr. Snow: I just have to say with regard to the municipality of Metropolitan Toronto and its 13.75 per cent -- and I’m glad the member this time and this day has the percentage right because it’s the first time I’ve heard him quote the right percentage --

[2:15]

Mr. Warner: On a point of privilege, Mr. Speaker: The item was raised earlier, and I certainly would concede that there was an error of 0.25 per cent. I apologize for the error.

Some hon. members: Resign.

Mr. Warner: I wish the minister could respond by correcting the amount of money he makes available to Toronto.

Mr. Speaker: That’s really not a point of privilege. It’s an opportunity to apologize.

Hon. Mr. Snow: Mr. Speaker, I would point out that the error in the previous discussion we had was 0.5 per cent, not 0.25 per cent.

Mr. S. Smith: What’s a million?

Hon. Mr. Snow: I would have to say that all transit systems in the province, or certainly the vast majority of them, are faced with the same problem as that of the Toronto Transit Commission. As the Minister of Transportation and Communications, I have to exercise my responsibilities responsibly in dealing with all municipalities. Other municipalities are faced with the same problems as those of the TTC as far as increased fares and increased costs are concerned. The ratio percentage of our subsidy has remained the same; but, of course, as costs go up, our subsidy goes up in proportion to that. In most cases, I think we are dealing very responsibly in meeting a larger share of transit operating costs than perhaps is any other provincial government.

Mr. Warner: Take the strings off. Let them have the money.

Mr. Grande: You are increasing the fares.

Mr. S. Smith: Supplementary: Given that there seem to be at least two philosophies as to how to manage the TTC, the one by means of capital expenditures to add new bus routes in outlying parts of the area, the other by means of operating subsidy to reduce the transit fares in the central part of the area; given that those are two separate philosophies, and leaving aside the rights and wrongs of the two, why not leave it to the TTC to make its own judgement as to which philosophy it wishes to follow? Does the minister not understand that he could do that simply by making sure it has its own choice as to whether to use its money for capital for new bus routes or to subsidize transit in the central part of the city to encourage ridership? Why doesn’t the minister leave it to them?

Mr. Speaker: It seems to me that was your initial question.

Mr. S. Smith: You’re absolutely right, Mr. Speaker. If only the minister had your perceptiveness.

Hon. Mr. Snow: With all due respect, Mr. Speaker, I think that was the original question and it was totally answered.

Mr. Kerrio: We didn’t get an answer; we’re waiting.

Mr. Bradley: We got an unsatisfactory answer.

NATURAL GAS SUPPLIES

Mr. S. Smith: Mr. Speaker, I would direct this question to the Premier or the Minister of Energy (Mr. Auld) but, since neither is here, I will direct it to the Deputy Premier.

Given the fact that we in Ontario have been paying quite heavily for natural gas, the additional burden being a stimulus to encourage the finding of new supplies and to discourage a switch into natural gas from other products; and, given the fact that this strategy worked and we have found enormous new amounts of natural gas in Alberta, is this government standing up to the government of Alberta and publicly making clear that we will not tolerate additional exports of this newly-found gas over and above present export contracts, and that we insist that the people of Ontario, who largely paid for the finding of this additional gas, be the main beneficiaries of this gas and that it be used to benefit industrial and domestic users of gas in Ontario?

Mr. Makarchuk: Bring in Alastair.

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Energy is away this week. I think he is attending a meeting of Ministers of Energy from throughout the country in Quebec. No doubt on his return he will be able to address himself to the question of the Leader of the Opposition.

Mr. S. Smith: By way of supplementary: Can the Deputy Premier tell us whether this has been a main thrust of the Premier and himself in discussions with other government leaders, and whether the Premier, at a recent meeting with Premier Lougheed, made very clear Ontario’s opposition to additional exports of natural gas? Or are we content to send some legalistic brief to an energy board and not arouse the public opinion as, in my view, it should be? How important an issue is this to the government of Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, obviously it is an important issue. It would be presumptuous on my part to report on conversations between the Premier and any of his colleagues or between the Minister of Energy and his colleagues. They will be in a position to do that on their own when they return to the House.

LUNG CANCER CASES

Mr. Cassidy: I have a question for the Minister of Labour arising out of the incomprehensible and quite unjustified delay in getting Dr. Gibson’s report through to the Workmen’s Compensation Board and having the WCB act on it.

In view of the fact that 22 out of the 439 foundry workers who were surveyed over the 10-year period up to 1977 had died of lung cancer, and in view of the fact that even the company’s expert has recommended that there be compensation for the families and next of kin of those victims, will the minister undertake now to order the WCB to pay the claims those families have lost for compensation because of those deaths?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: First of all, let’s be very clear that I share the member’s deep concern over the delay that took place. I tried to make that very clear in my statement. I agreed with him and, as I said, the delay was unacceptable.

I have instructed the board to commence their investigation of the individual claims immediately and they have agreed to do so. We determined the name of an appropriate epidemiologist to deal with the overall problem of cancer as a consequence of working in a foundry, other than a coke oven site.

I don’t believe I can do more than that at this particular time.

Mr. Bounsall: What steps has the minister now taken within his ministry and with the Workmen’s Compensation Board to ensure that Dr. McCracken properly asks -- with some degree of urgency bearing in mind the seriousness of these lung cancer illnesses -- the occupational health and safety branch for the information needed to make those key decisions? What steps has the minister taken to ensure that when that is received from the Workmen’s Compensation Board by Dr. May, he responds quickly with some sort of a recommendation?

Mr. S. Smith: That’s what he said. He just answered it.

Hon. Mr. Elgie: I can only reiterate that I have met with the chairman of the board, with Dr. McCracken, with Mr. MacDonald and in the presence of the director of my own occupational health services division and the deputy, and have outlined clearly that I want a protocol set up so a situation like this can never happen again. I find it totally unacceptable, as does the member.

I thanked the member for Hamilton East for bringing it to my attention on Tuesday.

Mr. Cassidy: How long will these epidemiological studies take? What compensation or financial support, if any, will be provided to next of kin and people who have lodged claims on an interim basis? What heads are going to roll? What disciplinary action does the minister intend to take within the WCB and the ministry as a result of this incompetence?

Mr. S. Smith: Michael has some knitting to do.

Hon. Mr. Elgie: I don’t want to reiterate that I am just as concerned as the member about what happened.

Mr. Bounsall: Pay them now then.

Hon. Mr. Elgie: But whether or not heads should roll is an issue I don’t want to get into today because the people involved are extremely competent people.

Mr. Germa: Why not?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: But I am just as disturbed, nevertheless, that an unacceptable event occurred. Beyond that I can give the member no other assurances at the moment than those that have been outlined in my statement or in my previous answer.

Mr. Bounsall: Put those left living at least on compensation.

PCB SPILLS

Mr. Cassidy: I have a question for the Minister of the Environment arising out of the train wreck in Dowling, Ontario, five years ago when PCBs were spilled --

Mr. Havrot: How about 50 years ago?

Mr. Cassidy: -- contaminating or threatening to contaminate the water supply of that community of northern Ontario. Can the minister tell the House when the ministry plans to complete the cleanup of soil at Dowling which five years later is still contaminated by PCBs?

Mr. Havrot: How do you know? Did you taste it?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I think a good deal of the material was cleared from the area at that time, but certainly there is still contaminated soil there. I guess it was about 10 days ago I had a briefing from staff and I find it is not only an ongoing problem, but it is going to be very expensive to look after.

Mr. Martel: And getting more costly all the time.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: We have agreed to insist that the rail lines take their full share of the responsibility and I think we will have more to say on that in the very near future.

I’m impressed with the technical difficulties of cleaning up that area. It’s extremely expensive and extremely difficult, but we are going to continue to work with CP to make sure that it’s done.

Mr. Cassidy: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: In view of the fact that the cleanup would have cost only $200,000 if it had been undertaken promptly but will now cost more than $1 million according to the estimates of the people doing the work, can the minister say how much of that cost will be borne by CP and how much will be a charge on the taxpayers of the province of Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I can’t say at this time. There has been a good deal of money spent and I think the leader would accept it is a more difficult problem technically than might appear on the surface. When I heard the report I couldn’t believe we would spend that much money investigating it, but after a lot of questions on my part I was assured that it was that tough to solve technically and we have not determined yet the ratio of costs between CP and ourselves. That is continuing right now and I can’t give the member that information today.

Mr. S. Smith: By way of supplementary: It wasn’t clear from the minister’s answer if he is aware that the price for the cleanup has virtually doubled as of the end of this year, and that being the case --

Mr. Cassidy: It has quintupled.

Mr. S. Smith: -- that’s precisely the thrust of the leader of the third party’s question. If the price has doubled in the last couple of months, was the minister aware that the price was doubling and if so, why did he tolerate the delays?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I don’t think it’s quite fair to suggest that I tolerated the delays. As the leader said, it was a spill of five years ago or something like that.

Mr. Breithaupt: Five minutes ago.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I don’t think it’s a question of why I tolerated that delay. Most of it was cleaned up at the time. Most of it was removed at the time --

Mr. S. Smith: Your predecessor? You can’t keep shifting it.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: -- and the problem developed because to finish the job completely at that time would have caused destruction of the rail line and that created some real problems. It did not take on a very characteristic spill consideration because the migration was different to what one would normally expect. It has proven to be a technically difficult thing to do because of the proximity to the rail line.

The monitoring has assured us that there is no danger at this time to the water supply but that doesn’t give us licence not to continue with the cleanup of the spill. A huge amount of land has to be removed or treated.

Ms. Bryden: I would like to ask the minister how he can say that there is no danger at the moment to the water supply when the report dated August 28, 1978, that was sent to me by the consultant firm which he hired to find the answer to this problem shows that at least three water samples are two and three times above the three parts per million which is considered at the moment possibly an acceptable level of PCBs, and there is one soil sample which shows 43,100 parts per million of PCBs? In the light of those facts, how can the minister put off any longer the cleanup measures which must be instituted, particularly in view of the fact that the US border may be closed to contaminated soil at the first of the year and we may have no place to put this soil?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I doubt very much if it will be possible to move that much soil to the US. It’s a possibility. Perhaps I might elaborate further.

If I said there is no danger, I meant that there is no immediate danger. There is a hazard there, there’s no question about that, and we are not putting off the cleaning up of that area. It will be done. I was only aware of it about 10 days ago. We are now very actively pursuing it with the rail company and will continue to do so. We are determined that it will be treated. We do recognize that in the long term it must be contained and put in such condition that there will be no long-term danger to the water supply.

[2:30]

WORKMEN’S COMPENSATION

Mr. Haggerty: I would like to direct a question to the Minister of Labour. The present examination of the operations of the Workmen’s Compensation Board is a two-part study: the review of the board and its operation. I guess the first part of the study is called the Wyatt report. When can the minister table the second report dealing with the review of the benefit levels available and the suggested alternatives? The present examination is being conducted by a joint consultative committee appointed in January 1976. When can we expect that report to be tabled in the House?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: The Wyatt report, as the member knows, has been available for some time. The previous minister and I have concurred with it and established a joint inter-ministerial task force to review the recommendations of the Wyatt report, in order of priority. I have met with that committee and they are conducting that investigation. When I have further information available as a result of that task force report, I will be glad to communicate it to the House.

Mr. Haggerty: Mr. Speaker, perhaps the minister misinterpreted my question. There are two parts to this study: one was a joint consultative committee appointed to review the payments to the injured workers in the province, and the second was to study alternatives to assist in maintaining the present living standard in Ontario.

Hon. Mr. Elgie: The joint consultative committee is presently a committee that reports to the Workmen’s Compensation Board. It was that committee that reported to the board with certain recommendations about payments. it was as the combined result of that report and of the Wyatt report that legislation was introduced last June. The consultative report that the member is inquiring about is from the committee that reports to the Workmen’s Compensation Board. It has nothing to do with the Wyatt report per se.

Mr. Bounsall: Supplementary to the minister: Does he anticipate that the committee reporting to the WCB now on what should be done with benefits will take over a year, as did the Wyatt report, to come down with their recommendations? How soon may we expect this?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: I wish I could give the answer a specific time determination in terms of months or weeks. All I can tell the member is that I met with that committee some two or three weeks ago. I indicated to them that there was some merit in proceeding with due haste and pointed out areas of priority. All I can tell the member is that they are endeavouring to accomplish the task in as short a time as is reasonably possible.

CHRONIC HOME-CARE PROGRAM

Mr. Breaugh: I have a question for the Minister of Health. On October 28 the minister appeared on the CBC television program, The Ombudsman, to deal with the case of Mrs. Gladys Spenler who requires oxygen as part of chronic home-care treatment. In reply to the question of why she and that family should have to pay upwards of $200 a month for that out of their own pocket -- I can’t match the minister’s eloquence, so I will read from the transcript -- the minister replied: “Well, that, uh, I am going to check further because that is, uh, not, uh, uh, you know, somebody in Community and Social Services, or somewhere has, uh, got to get up to date on some of the figures, but -- ”

Did he now find out, uh, if that, uh, somebody, uh, somewhere, uh, has got up to date?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: I must commend the member on the lessons he has taken between sessions.

I have had the figures checked. I have been given some figures which disagreed with those the gentleman in question had in his possession. I would have to say that on checking those figures with the individual from whom they came, in another ministry, I find that the figures I was given were wrong and that, in fact, the figures that were in the possession of that gentleman, Mr. Cooper, were correct.

Mr. Breaugh: Supplementary: Since the government is saving in that instance roughly $37,000 a year by having the care provided in the home as opposed to in the hospital, is the minister now prepared to change the OHIP regulations to have that kind of chronic home care provided for under OHIP coverage?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: The honourable member will know that in my time as minister I have expanded the chronic home-care program in a number of areas of the province, including that represented by the member to his left. The program will start in the Ottawa-Carleton area on January 1, as it will in Haliburton. It started in Peterborough on October 1 and it started in Sault Ste. Marie-Algoma on October 1.

Mr. Warner: Answer the question.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: In point of fact, the chronic home-care programs are not paid for out of OHIP. They come out of the ministry budget.

Mr. Breaugh: That’s right.

Mr. McClellan: We know that. Deal with the question.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Let’s clear that misunderstanding up to start with.

Mr. Bradley: Check your facts.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: The second basic misunderstanding is the notion that somehow this saves money. The hospitals in that particular area, as in every part of the province, get a global budget at the beginning of the fiscal year. As the member will know as Health critic, they do not bill the ministry on a per diem basis for every patient who occupies a hospital. They start out with a budget and they live with that budget during the fiscal year.

Unless one closes that hospital or closes those facilities, a chronic home-care program is not a saving. A chronic home-care program is an added cost to the health-care system. As I said, we have expanded it in certain parts of the province. We will continue to expand it. Our goal is to have the chronic home-care program in all parts of the province eventually, as we can afford it.

Mr. Breaugh: One final supplementary: Could the minister justify in this House how he purports to have a universal medical-care system that in this specific instance applies in some areas of the province and not in others? How does he get away with that one?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: The fact of the matter is that the facilities are there in that particular municipality to serve that individual.

Mr. Breaugh: That’s not what the minister said. It’s directly contrary to what he said.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: They happen to be available in a hospital.

Mr. Warner: You’re changing your story now.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: As the member will know, repeatedly I have indicated it is the goal of the government to change the mix of services so as not to have such a heavy dependence on institutional care.

Mr. Cassidy: Why don’t you get started? Do it.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: The fact of the matter is that to expand chronic home care to every part of the province at one stroke would cost $35 million. We simply don’t have an additional $35 million right now to add to the cost of health care.

Mr. Warner: When are you going to do it? When will it be done?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: The services are there. There’s no question that we want to see chronic home care expanded to the whole of the province, but it will be done on a timetable which we can afford.

RETAIL STORE HOURS

Mr. Williams: I have a question for the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations. In recent weeks in Metropolitan Toronto a number of the large food retail stores as well as the convenience food stores, such as Becker’s and Mac’s Milk, have embarked upon a new trend of operating their stores 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Has this particular problem been brought to the attention of the ministry? If so, what studies are being done to consider the advisability of permitting this trend to continue?

Mr. Kerrio: This is absolutely ridiculous.

Mr. Williams: Would the minister consider the advisability of perhaps imposing controls to curtail this type of extended retail operation?

An hon. member: What’s the problem with the convenience stores being open 24 hours a day?

Mr. Roy: That’s not even in the minister’s jurisdiction. That comes under the Solicitor General (Mr. McMurtry), the Lord’s Day Act.

Hon. Mr. Drea: Thank you very much. I appreciate the member’s getting me off the hook. No, I didn’t know about it; yes, I’ll look into it. If the member for Ottawa East is correct, the Solicitor General will answer in due course.

RONDEAU PROVINCIAL PARK

Mr. McGuigan: In the absence of the Minister of Natural Resources, my question is to the Provincial Secretary for Resources Development. Would he ask the minister to review the decision regarding the options that are being offered to leaseholders at Rondeau Park? Would the minister offer these leaseholders a chance to include their children in the leases that run to 1996? I rather fear that in the absence of this option the community will be destroyed and will become an aging population, hardly able to maintain itself as a community. This is somewhat the same problem as exists on Toronto Island. I would ask the minister to review this situation.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: I would be pleased either to answer myself or have the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Auld) answer in the near future.

TUITION FEES

Mr. Cooke: I have a question for the Minister of Colleges and Universities. I’d like to ask the minister if she agrees with the recommendation that apparently forms part of the P. S. Ross study on tuitions, namely, the unpegging of tuitions. If she does agree with this recommendation, could she say whether that is in line with her policy? Does she feel that universities are overly financially dependent on the government, and is this the way she expects universities to pick up more financial resources to overcome the underfunding problem they’re now experiencing?

Hon. Miss Stephenson: In my initial meeting with the representatives of P. S. Ross Consultants, I was informed the information which had been developed was entirely factual and that there would be no recommendations. I don’t think there is a recommendation in the report.

Mr. Bounsall: What do you recommend?

Mr. Cooke: Supplementary: Apparently, there are some references in the report to the unpegging of tuitions. I would like to ask the minister, if she doesn’t want to comment on the P. S. Ross study specifically, would she state whether she agrees with unpegging of tuitions? Does she not understand the effects that unpegging tuitions would have on accessibility and that competition would result between institutions and therefore lead to the destruction of the small universities in this province?

Hon. Miss Stephenson: The release of universities from the constraint of a tuition fee imposed or established by government is a matter which has been raised, I believe, with some frequency over the last decade. It is one which must be reviewed with some regularity. That’s precisely what I intend to do. All of the implications thereof will be examined carefully.

Mr. McClellan: You should be research instituted.

REGIONAL GOVERNMENT

Mr. Epp: I had a question that concerns the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs (Mr. Wells).

Mr. Wildman: He’s not here.

Mr. Epp: In his absence, I was going to ask the Premier (Mr. Davis). As he’s absent too, since the parliamentary assistant gets $5,000 for the job, maybe I should ask him.

Mr. Cassidy: You probably won’t get an answer.

Mr. Turner: Question.

Mr. Epp: Yesterday we had a number of municipal elections.

Hon. Mr. Welch: On a point of order Mr. Speaker: A question can’t be directed to a parliamentary assistant.

Mr. Nixon: Tell him to hand in his $5,000.

Mr. Cassidy: You should put some ministers in the House.

Mr. Deans: He hasn’t refused permission.

Mr. Nixon: The House leader should be aware that it can, with permission.

Mr. Epp: I thought he was the minister.

Hon. Mr. Welch: No, I’m the Deputy Premier, but the Premier is not in the Legislature. I hope that the House understands that the Minister for Intergovernmental Affairs is not here today because his father passed away, and this is the day of the funeral. According to the rules, the House leader for the official opposition is quite correct. With the consent of the minister involved, the question could be directed to his parliamentary assistant. I think it would be proper if it’s important to have the question in Hansard today. If the member puts the question to me, I’ll be glad to take it as notice. The Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs can answer the question on his return to the House.

Mr. Epp: I’ll direct it to the Deputy Premier, if I may. Given that we had municipal elections yesterday and a number of referendums; given that a number of these referendums dealt with regional government and the citizenry’s reaction to it, and given that in Cambridge yesterday there was a referendum which by a vote of 5 to 1 indicated that people indicated great disfavour with regional government, I wonder whether the government will pay heed to the wishes of the people of Cambridge and permit them to opt out of regional government as they so indicated yesterday.

Mr. Deans: Answer yes.

Hon. Mr. Welch: I would be very happy to take that question as notice.

Mr. M. Davidson: I have a further question.

Mr. Speaker: A new question?

Mr. M. Davidson: No, a supplementary question. While the Deputy Premier is taking that into consideration, would he also take into consideration that in Cambridge we are not necessarily counting on the vote held last night to get us out of regional government? Would he ask the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, based on that vote, whether he would be prepared to conduct a provincial referendum in the city of Cambridge or any other municipality that cares to hold one to opt out of regional government?

Mr. Bradley: That sounds familiar.

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, I would be very glad to add that particular question to the question already asked for the consideration of the minister.

[2:45]

WASTE DISPOSAL

Ms. Bryden: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of the Environment. Now that the minister has ordered the Smithville waste transfer station to accept liquid polychlorinated biphenyls only in emergencies and only with the approval of the ministry; and since, according to a Globe and Mail story of November 8, he has indicated that those liquid PCBs still on the site will be removed as soon as another site is available for either storage or destruction of PCBs, can the minister tell us what steps he is taking to find an alternative site or disposal method and what opportunity the residents close to any such facility will have to be consulted before it is approved?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would draw to the honourable member’s attention that the conditions we have suggested to the municipality and for that site are not finalized. The mayor of the municipality wished to have another opportunity to discuss those conditions. It does not essentially change the situation, but I think it is only fair to put that on public record.

On Monday or Tuesday of next week I hope to make some kind of statement with reference to the question on other sites. But in the interim let me assure the honourable member that the public will have a good deal of opportunity to have input into those hearings, and perhaps even to the degree that they will have some input into hearings not necessarily related to site but to the concepts that are necessary for the treatment of liquid industrial wastes all over the province.

Ms. Bryden: Supplementary: Is the minister planning to have further public meetings with the Smithville people regarding the conditions that he is adding to the present approval?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I am prepared to meet again with the mayor. I visited Smithville on Sunday to see the site in person. I believe, now that the municipal elections are completed, we will be able to meet with the mayor in the very near future.

Mr. Hall: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: In connection with the one condition having to do with no PCB material coming to Smithville except under emergency conditions and with the approval of the ministry, how high up in the ministry will the decision with regard to any emergency situation be made? Will it be the minister himself?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I would think it would be best done at the director’s level in each of our regions. I would expect to be notified on any and all occasions.

Mr. Hall: A further supplementary: Since the whole incident in Smithville is a result of decisions that were made at the director’s level, I don’t feel for one moment that the people in the municipality will accept that level of authority any longer. I put it to the minister that he can’t continue to do it.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I said, and I think it’s a fairly strong commitment, that I would expect to know on all occasions. I think it would be rather disastrous, if it were left to me alone to make such a determination, in the event that I were not readily available. These crises do happen. We hope and expect they will be very infrequent. I am not suggesting that I will not know on all occasions and be held accountable on all occasions. But I think it is important that someone is able to make the decision very quickly. The number of these occasions is very few, and it’s to be hoped they will always be very few in nature.

I want to assure the honourable member that I will accept the full responsibility for that; either I or my deputy will be notified instantly and likely will be asked for approval. But I thought the question was directed to who would be contacted immediately. I think that has to be the regional director, who would make a commitment then and there and subsequently have the authority of the minister or the deputy.

SOUTHERN ONTARIO PASSENGER STUDY

Hon. Ms. Snow: I believe in my absence on Friday last the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. S. Smith) inquired of my colleague, the Chairman of Management Board of Cabinet, with regard to the present status of the multi-modal passenger transportation study for southern Ontario.

I’m pleased to advise the honourable member that the present status of this study is that the technical results of the study, with options and pros and cons but with no recommendations, is to be presented to my deputy minister and the Deputy Minister of Transport, Canada, hopefully by mid-January of 1979. This is somewhat later than we had hoped for but the delay has been because of a great deal more emphasis that’s been placed on studying ways to get the maximum capacity out of existing facilities.

I heard via channel 11, Hamilton -- which must be right, I’m sure -- last night that there is some major announcement to be made on the Hamilton airport by the local member tomorrow. I’m anxiously waiting to see what that is going to be. I would point out that in a press release dated August 11 from the Honourable Otto Lang, Minister of Transport, Canada, Mr. Lang noted that “both he and the Ontario minister, James Snow, had agreed that all options must be examined and the result in benefits or disadvantages carefully documented. He stressed, however, that no decisions on major improvements will be made until after both governments had had the opportunity to review the demand for air travel, the role of Toronto in the national transportation system and the acceptability of the options studied. Mr. Lang indicated that he expected a joint federal-provincial report on those endeavours would be available early next year.”

I expect this technical report will be presented to our deputy minister in mid-January and, hopefully, not too long after that the federal minister, Mr. Lang, or whoever it may be at that time, and I will have an opportunity to meet.

SMALL BUSINESS

Mr. Eakins: I have a question of the Minister of Industry and Tourism. In view of the minister’s statement at the federal-provincial conference regarding the importance of research and development and of encouraging the Shop Canadian Program, can I now assume that he will shortly call before a committee my private member’s bill entitled A Small Business Act for Ontario which was endorsed on second reading on October 20, 1977, and thereby set an example for the government in dealing with private members’ bills?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: One of the points all the ministers agreed on at that meeting last week was the extensive problem that small business faces with overregulation by government. In studying the bill, as I have, just in my early days in the ministry, I have noted the extensive degree of government bureaucracy and red tape that would be involved in that bill.

Mr. S. Smith: Nonsense.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Obviously I have made extensive support of small business one of my priorities. I want to make it clear that rather than take the bill in its bureaucratic form, I would like some time to look at it, quite openly, look at it and see what changes can be made. I’ll be consulting the member for Victoria-Haliburton later with regard to some changes we might be considering in it.

In fact, I would like to take the opportunity of that bill, or a bill the government might later introduce, to deal with the whole matter in a wider fashion, but a more direct fashion. That’s about all I can add at the present time.

Mr. Eakins: Supplementary: Has the minister read the amendments which I presented to the bill? Is he aware also that his late predecessor encouraged that this bill would be brought before the House this fall?

Is he aware, through his ministry officials, of the meeting which was held in the ministry’s offices with the Canadian Manufacturers’ Association, the Canadian Federation of Independent Businessmen, the Retail Merchants Association of Canada and the Ontario Chamber of Commerce, all of whom basically agreed that it was a good bill and did not contain the bureaucracy of which the minister speaks?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I suppose the member’s opinion of what constitutes a lot of bureaucracy and what our party views as a lot of bureaucracy may vary quite substantially.

Mr. Eakins: All it constitutes is further delays.

Mr. S. Smith: You’re out to lunch. You just wanted to introduce the ideas yourself; that’s all.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: In any case, I am aware of those meetings. The fact is, I have not come in and simply picked up the papers that were lying there and decided to go forward without further study. I am a new minister. I have decided to study everything afresh, including the bill and the representations made. I will have a more complete and, I think, a new and different response to make at a later time.

Mr. Speaker: The honourable minister has the answer to another question.

Mr. S. Smith: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker?

Mr. Speaker: Briefly.

Mr. S. Smith: Can the minister explain why he should have to study this bill himself to decide whether or not it can come forward when it passed in this House on second reading?

Mr. Yakabuski: He shouldn’t have to. It’s very obvious.

Mr. S. Smith: Surely the minister understands that the entire process of private members’ bills is rapidly becoming a farce unless he permits the kind of study we are talking about to happen in the Legislature, by the members of the Legislature -- and not just by him and his bureaucracy -- before he allows us a proper vote and a proper attempt to discuss the matter in public.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: That’s a terrific temper tantrum, but it would be more appropriately reserved for the member’s House leader as he discusses with House leaders the process with private members’ bills and what happens from here. There’s nothing new in that. In fact, the members sitting to both right and left of the member were part of the agreements made with regard to private members’ bills.

I think if the member studied my answer carefully, I did not deal with whether or not the bill presented by the member for Victoria-Haliburton should be brought forward; I was dealing with my particular response, in view of my ministerial capacity, in terms of what I thought of the bill and whether I was prepared to make recommendations that it go forward or whether I was coming forward with some new initiatives. I was responding simply to that.

If the member wants to throw a temper tantrum about the private members’ hour, let him save it for some other time.

Mr. Speaker: A new question; the member for Oakwood.

Mr. Samis: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: There were three members speaking on that side of the House in answer to that question.

LOTTERY GRANTS

Mr. Grande: Mr. Speaker, my question is of the Minister of Culture and Recreation. Given the fact that his ministry has made major changes to the Wintario grants guidelines three times in only one year, the last change as of August 1, 1978; and given the fact that the August 1 changes were established unilaterally without any input from the nonprofit organizations or the municipalities which are being told to commit five per cent of the funds to any given capital projects, will the minister reassess the August 1 guidelines after having actively sought input from the nonprofit organizations and municipalities in this province?

Hon. Mr. Baetz: Mr. Speaker, as I indicated about a week ago, I plan to bring a report to this House, not only on Wintario, but also on the other lotteries that now are under the responsibility of my ministry. At that time I think the question that has been raised here will be answered.

Mr. Grande: A supplementary: Could the minister tell the House, or me in particular, why he is forcing the municipalities to pay five per cent? What power does the minister have to do that? Thirdly, is it the minister’s intention to totally curb Wintario capital grants in this province?

[3:00]

Hon. Mr. Baetz: This question is still under review, but I think I can assure the member opposite that in no way will we set up criteria governing grants for Wintario or the other lotteries that would give a de facto veto power to the municipalities, thereby giving them control over grants going to nongovernmental organizations. I will report much more fully on this. I had hoped to be ready to give this report this week. It will not be possible, but I am still hopeful it will be next week. I am sensitive to and aware of the question which I know the speaker has on his mind and that is that the municipality should in no way stand in the way of Wintario grants going to non-governmental organizations. I am fully aware of and sensitive to that particular danger and that hazard and it is one that I personally will try to protect.

KITCHENER LANDFILL SITE

Mr. Sweeney: A question of the Minister of the Environment: Given that a previous minister advised the city of Kitchener that they should not proceed with a building project on a former landfill site and given that there is no record in the minister’s ministry of compliance with section 46 of the act, does he have the authority to require the city to explain why they would issue a building permit for that site?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: The answer to that question is yes. As the member knows, we have had a fair amount of discussion of this rather difficult problem and I appreciate those discussions. I will give him the commitment that we will ask the city why they did not comply.

Mr. Sweeney: Supplementary: A serious methane gas problem exists on that site and people are abandoning their homes. What is the minister going to do about it?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: At this moment, I can’t say what we will do about it. We should have discussions with the city and then proceed from there. It is quite difficult at this time to suggest what we would do. I’m not sure there is an involvement for the ministry and I think it would require the discussions to proceed first and the decisions to be made subsequently.

Mr. Speaker: The honourable member for Cornwall.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Mr. Speaker, if that is the conclusion of that supplementary question, I have an answer to a question asked by the member for Sudbury East.

Mr. Speaker: I will take the member for Cornwall first.

ONTARIO-QUEBEC INSURANCE ACREEMENT

Mr. Samis: A question for the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations. Could the minister inform the House as to the status of negotiations between his ministry and his Quebec colleagues regarding the problem of insurance coverage for Ontario drivers in Quebec? Could he also outline where the main problem lies in reaching agreement at the present time? And could he tell the House what he is doing to expedite an agreement in the matter, especially since agreement in principle was announced four months ago and nothing has happened in concrete form since then?

Hon. Mr. Drea: Agreement in principle was reached some months ago, four or five months ago -- it doesn’t matter. Until the other day.

Mr. Foulds: It does matter.

Hon. Mr. Drea: No, it doesn’t. Until the other day, there weren’t any specific proposals from the province of Quebec to the superintendent of insurance of Ontario. Those proposals arrived last week. They appear on first analysis to be counter to the agreement reached in principle. There are further proposals going from the province of Ontario to the province of Quebec today in an effort to put it back on the rails at the administrative level. If that proves not to happen, we will have to go back to the ministerial and deputy ministerial levels in the province of Quebec. This time we will have to take along the administrative people so whatever is agreed to in principle will be agreed to in specifics before the end of this year, because it is very unfair when people are buying policies or renewing them to run into a situation where there might be a surcharge in the middle of their policy in order to protect them or that their policy might have to be altered.

I would hope the member would accept that general answer as an omnibus answer. I will keep the House informed as it goes along.

Mr. Samis: Supplementary: I appreciate the point made by the minister. Could I also ask him if his position on any agreement is any different from that taken by his predecessor; one which was described in the press, the Globe and Mail in particular, and by industry spokesmen as intransigent and stiff-necked? Could he also tell us whether or not he is giving serious consideration to the type of agreement already worked out between Quebec and Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and I believe British Columbia as well.

Hon. Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, I take that criticism of my predecessor as unfair, and unjust.

Mr. Martel: Oh no, don’t spoil it, Frank.

Hon. Mr. Drea: I want to assure the House I would like to get this matter settled as expeditiously as possible before December 31 to provide adequate compensation for Ontario motorists who have the unfortunate happening of having an accident in the province of Quebec -- and, quite frankly, vice versa for the motorist from Quebec who happens to be involved in an accident -- through no fault of their own.

I don’t regard the border of Quebec as any more than the border between Ontario and Manitoba, or from county to county. I am quite sure almost all motorists in this province, with the exception of the ones in the member’s area and the ones in Ottawa who may be familiar with the problem, will drive quite innocently into the province of Quebec not really knowing their insurance coverage is not as valid there as it is here and vice versa on their side.

I will do everything humanly possible to have a fair, just and equitable, reciprocal agreement arranged on behalf of the people who are going to be directly involved, which is the Ontario motorist and the Quebec motorist, prior to the end of this calendar year.

Ms. Gigantes: How come the other provinces can do it?

PCB SPILLS

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I have the answer to a question asked by the member for Sudbury East on November 3, Mr. Speaker.

There are about 450 barrels with a very high concentration of PCBs. The range is from 450 to 2,250 parts per million. I can assure the member that under no circumstances will the material be allowed to be moved from that site. It will not go into the tailings area. The material itself is, of course, the responsibility of the company, in this case Falconbridge, and they will submit to us any plans for how it is going to be treated.

I would hope and expect that, from my statement in the House on Thursday, we are not going to allow another episode to occur where it is transported without our knowledge. I think the company will be well served to pay full attention to that. It is in very secure drums now; I don’t think there is any problem with how it is presently stored. it will not be moved unless the specific plans are agreed to by our ministry.

I don’t know whether that fully answers the question that was asked of the provincial secretary or not.

Mr. Martel: Supplementary: Would the minister give the company a deadline by when it would present its proposals to him, in view of the fact that the first spill occurred about 18 months ago and the second one seven or eight months ago? They’ve had ample opportunity to present a proposal to the minister for the disposal of those PCBs.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Yes, I think it is reasonable to request that they would come to us with a proposal in the near future. I think it only heightens the need and the importance of finding adequate sites in Ontario. This has been, as we saw in the committee, a very significant problem with no easy solutions. I do agree with the member’s request and will notify him personally when we’ve set that deadline.

TAX-FREE PURCHASES

Hon. Mr. Grossman: A very short answer, Mr. Speaker. I do have an answer to a question asked by the member for Victoria-Haliburton (Mr. Eakins) on October 27 regarding provincial regulations which provide relief from Ontario’s retail sales tax for visitors from outside the province. It is, of course, accurate to point out tax relief provisions are available for goods bought here and shipped out, as well as for goods bought here and then taken out within 30 days.

We point out these regulations apparently are well known to Ontario businesses and are frequently used by visitors to the province. In the past six months there have been 3,000 rebates to visitors, the equivalent of $16 million worth of sales on an annual basis. Add to this the estimated value of goods shipped out of Ontario and the sales volume on which visitors receive tax relief then exceeds $30 million.

I do agree with the honourable member that these provisions have to be more widely known. I understand from talking to my colleague, the Minister of Revenue (Mr. Maeck), that his ministry is very close to completing a special pamphlet which will emphasize these tax exemptions. We will be working with them to distribute them as widely as possible throughout the tourism industry and the public at large.

REDIRECTION OF BILL 142

Mr. Speaker: I have an answer to a problem that was raised by the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk.

On Thursday last, the government House leader asked unanimous consent to hold Bill 142 from the royal assent schedule for that afternoon. The House leader of the official opposition raised the question as to whether the government did not have the authority to determine which bills should be presented to Her Honour for assent, as the members of the executive council are the chief advisers to Her Honour.

I point out that it is not a question of advising Her Honour, as it is not Her Honour’s decision which is being sought. If it were, the complex procedure for reserving a bill by Her Honour would be invoked.

The problem is simply that the House has expressed its intention by the passage of a bill and when arrangements are made for royal assent to be given, the Speaker has no authority, unless instructed by the House, to withhold any bill which the House has passed.

This is a problem which need not arise. If it is desired to delay the coming into force of a bill for an indefinite period pending some other event -- such as in the present case, the passage of Bill 166 -- the bill should provide that it will come into force on proclamation. Had this been done in the present instance, assent could have been given on Thursday but the bill would not be brought into force until proclaimed, when Bill 166 is passed. If by an oversight provision is not made for proclamation, the simple method is to withhold the bill from third reading until the companion bill has reached that stage, or as the case may be.

Mr. Nixon: So glad I asked. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Very helpful.

Mr. S. Smith: Everything you wanted to know about royal assent but were afraid to ask.

An hon. member: A very important precedent.

MOTION

COMMITTEE SUBSTITUTIONS

Hon. Mr. Welch moved that the following substitutions be made: on the procedural affairs committee, Mr. Rowe for Mrs. Scrivener, Mr. Rotenberg for Mr. J. A. Taylor, Mr. M. Davidson for Mr. Grande; on the statutory instruments committee, Mr. J. A. Taylor for Mr. Rotenberg.

Motion agreed to.

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

INSURED HEALTH SERVICES ACT

Mr. Martel moved first reading of Bill 174, An Act respecting Insurance Services under the Ontario Health Insurance Plan.

Motion agreed to.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of the bill is to declare that surgical procedures for breast reconstruction are insured services under the Ontario Health Insurance Plan.

[3:15]

HIGHWAY TRAFFIC AMENDMENT ACT

Mr. Swart moved first reading of Bill 175, An Act to amend the Highway Traffic Act.

Motion agreed to.

Mr. Swart: The purpose of this bill is to require that all school buses in Ontario be equipped with seatbelts. The bill contains an amendment to the Highway Traffic Act stating that any school bus used for the purpose of transporting children to or from school must be equipped with a seatbelt assembly for each passenger seat.

The bill also contains an amendment to clarify that it is the responsibility of the driver of a school bus to ensure that the seatbelt for each child is fastened before driving the bus on a highway.

ANSWER TO QUESTION ON NOTICE PAPER

Hon. Mr. Welch: I wish to table the answer to question 134 standing on the Notice Paper.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

RESIDENTIAL TENANCIES ACT

Hon. Mr. Drea moved second reading of Bill 163, An Act to reform the Law respecting Residential Tenancies.

Mr. Speaker: Do you have an opening comment?

Hon. Mr. Drea: No, Mr. Speaker, I will not have. I think the statement on introduction will be sufficient.

Mr. Breithaupt: I am pleased to rise in support of Bill 163. The bill comes before this Legislature as a response to many of the recommendations of the standing general government committee, which studied the subject of rent review and other landlord and tenant matters for some weeks this past spring.

The member for Armourdale (Mr. McCaffrey) was the chairman of that committee and I think this would be an opportune time to commend that member for the work he did and the guidance which was given to the committee as we went through a very difficult period in attempting to hear all the persons who had comments on these particular subjects.

Many of the basic recommendations of that committee report have now been included in Bill 163. The inclusion of those items should go a long way to resolve a great variety of concerns which bother both landlords and tenants. This bill will, of course, commit our province to a continuation of rent review to the end of 1980. In addition, substantial changes will now occur in the whole landlord and tenant relationship as the Residential Tenancy Commission begins to operate.

There are four particular points in the bill upon which I would comment. First of all, the matter of the two per cent increase for hardship situations. This appears to be generally reasonable to me and follows a number of suggestions which the standing committee had received. It will be interesting to hear the justification and the detail of this particular point at the committee stage of the bill.

The second matter to which I would refer briefly are the two exceptions which have been brought into the bill. These are the matter of the $500 per unit and the sixplex situation. I had asked a question of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations on October 31 with respect to the details of these items and I thank him for the information which I have received.

I cannot, of course, comment on the second exemption because I happen to be the owner of a home which has four apartments in it. However, since neither of these new exemptions was included in the committee report, it will be interesting for the other members in committee to have discussions on these two particular new exemptions.

As we are aware, the legislation continues with all the present exemptions for new construction and otherwise, and we are, of course, in favour of these continuations. The report in the Toronto Star last week seemed incorrectly to indicate otherwise in comments referring to my interview with that reporter. I would of course wish to correct and clarify that mailer for all concerned. The exemptions, particularly for new buildings, and the continuation of the variety of exemptions in the previous legislation has our full support.

The third item of particular concern is the matter of the Residential Tenancy Commission. This is going to be a concept which hopefully will unite the various jurisdictions which now deal with landlord and tenant concerns. The small claims court, the county courts as well and the present rent review offices all have a variety of input which hopefully will be amalgamated under this new program. It will be staffed by persons who will I hope be well trained and able to deal with the variety of concerns which landlords and tenants will face together long after rent review may be extant in this province.

Fourthly, the matter of economically-depressed areas is one which is of interest. It allows for a rent reduction and a 12-month return to increased areas of rent after the economic depression within an area can be resolved.

The whole matter of continuation of rent review and of a variety of the exemptions may well be discussed as the Residential Tenancy Commission begins its work. It may be that the exemptions, using the word “luxury” or considering a certain percentage of units within an area, may be able to be developed independently by the residential tenancy commissioners in the future based upon their own experience. In their experience, they may be prepared to recommend other exemptions which are suitable to their own areas. If this expertise does develop and if as a result the continuation of rent review in certain areas is no longer required, then hopefully that experience will allow the Legislature to deal with those particular areas directly.

A number of groups which have contacted me and other members of the Legislature are concerned about having a part in the committee stage of this bill. When this legislation was introduced, both the minister and the Premier (Mr. Davis) had commented that it was their expectation the committee stage of this bill would be dealt with in the House. I understand, however, that the House leaders have agreed that the bill will be going to the social development committee, which apparently has time available in its schedule to deal with this bill.

Since the bill will be going out of the chamber, I expect those groups to which I have referred and others will take the opportunity of appearing before the committee. The Federation of Metro Tenants Associations, the Urban Development Institute, the Social Planning Council of Metropolitan Toronto and the Ontario Real Estate Association are only four of those interested groups which happen to have contacted me in this regard. Since groups of this stature and other groups are concerned to improve the bill with their comments and suggestions, I welcome the opportunity of their input. In addition, I expect a number of individuals will want to come before the committee with their suggestions.

It is clear that better legislation will result from this input, although the time available will have to be carefully used in order to have the legislation well in place by November 30. A particular concern a number of persons have shared with me is that all the necessary printed forms may not be available for use before November 30 if the bill is unnecessarily delayed. If that does prove to be the case, it may be, as was commented upon by members of the third party, that some extension of the present legislation for a month or two may have to be considered to avoid any gaps in coverage for both landlords and tenants. I would seriously hope that is not the case and that co-operation on all sides of the House will be able to avoid this problem.

Since there will be the opportunity to discuss the various clauses of the bill in detail, I will not take the time of the House to make an unnecessarily lengthy speech on the points that have been referred to in the report and which the minister has, in the main, adopted in detail within this bill. The Liberal caucus will support the bill on second reading.

Mr. Cassidy: I’m glad to rise to speak to Bill 163. Three years ago, as critic for Housing, I got up in this House not only to make the argument for rent review, but also to recommend very strongly to the government, as our party has done for a great number of years, that the administration of rent review and the administration of landlord and tenant problems be brought together in one tribunal, rather than in two or three, in order to provide effective protection for tenants on the one hand, while providing an efficient means of resolving landlord-tenant matters for the benefit of tenants and landlords on the other hand.

We have argued that for a long time. But we have some grave reservations from our past experience about the way the landlord and tenant law is administered by a Conservative government. We are particularly concerned because of the vague wording and the pro-landlord bias which has been injected into this piece of legislation by the government. My experience over the early years of the rent review bill and the way it was administered by the government lends fuel to that concern.

We will have promises from this minister and we will welcome all the assurances he can give us. But the fact is, when you get down to the nitty-gritty there were enormous problems for the people who had to deal with rent review because of the lackadaisical manner in which it was administered by the government, because of their failure to allow tenants to be true participants in the process, and because the quality of the commitment to tenant protection, to put it mildly, was equivocal and incomplete.

The basic principles of the bill are to extend rent review and to provide for the creation of a landlord-tenant tribunal or a residential tenancies commission. It is because those basic principles are in the bill that we intend to support it on second reading. However, the bill is almost fatally flawed by the manner in which it is put together. We are very concerned about a large number of aspects of the bill which go far beyond the details you clean up in committee -- they go right to the heart of the bill.

In its essence, this bill purports to continue rent review, although the minister says it is only until termination in 1980. In fact, it weakens rent review. It purports to give tenants and landlords more effective remedies and improve landlord-tenant law. In fact, in a large number of very significant respects, it weakens tenant protection and it weakens security of tenure. It may also weaken the effective access to remedies for tenants through the new Residential Tenancy Commission.

In other words, we fear that far more may have been taken away from tenants in the fine print than has been given to them through the proposed creation of the Residential Tenancy Commission. We are also concerned that the government is trying to ram this piece of major legislation through in two weeks without providing for adequate public participation by tenant and landlord groups, especially those groups outside Toronto which have not been able to obtain copies of the proposed legislation from the government.

Back in the summer the then minister, the member for St. Andrew-St. Patrick (Mr. Grossman), said he would bring down a paper or a statement of policy in September which would allow tenant and landlord groups to make a judgement about the legislation and have some time to discuss it before the House resumed sitting in October. That was not done. Then there was a promise by the then minister that his bill would come forward on October 24, prior to the annual convention of the Federation of Metro Tenants Associations. That was not done. Then there was a commitment by the former minister that he would appear before the federation and speak to their annual meeting. That invitation was declined and the new minister did not take up the engagement. He did not accept the opportunity to bring a major group of tenants into his confidence as to what were the government’s intentions.

Hon. Mr. Drea: The truth of the matter is that the convention was cancelled. That’s why I couldn’t be there. It was cancelled.

Mr. Cassidy: I had the chance yesterday to speak to tenant representatives and people on the social planning council in Ottawa who are very concerned with matters of housing. They are very concerned about the way they are being manipulated and manhandled by the ministry as far as consultation about this particular bill goes.

[3:30]

We asked the minister on November 3 what he was doing to make sure that groups outside Toronto had access to the bill. He said: “We’ve advised everyone or almost everyone.” He said that he’d given his own copy of the bill to the Metro tenants. “The rest of them,” he said, “are available in the Ontario government bookstore.”

Yesterday, when I spoke to the representative of the social planning council in Ottawa, she said, “I phoned the bookstore. They said, ‘Write me a letter’.” She said: “I tried to get copies sent up. The only ones I could get were through the NDP research.” As of today, she has not yet had enough copies of the bill so she can actually distribute it to members of the housing committee of our social planning council in Ottawa, a major group that wishes to make an informed input on this particular piece of legislation.

I think the minister should indicate who in fact was advised and why copies of the bill were not sent out immediately, at least to every group that has made submissions to the general government committee over the course of the spring when that committee was holding hearings on rent review and on the question of landlord-tenant relations.

The minister has been trying to claim that since everything has come from the committee there is no particular need for further public hearings about the bill. I want to suggest that that’s just a bunch of balderdash. In the first place, when the committee came to landlord-tenant law, it recommended a series of principles but not a specific set of legislation. Those principles have been translated to a greater or lesser extent into a specific bill. But now that the specifics have been laid down, clearly we need to allow people from outside to comment on those specifics and not to let this major reform in landlord-tenant law simply go by the boards.

I would remind the House that about 60 pages of this particular bill are devoted to landlord-tenant matters and only four pages are devoted to the question of rent review. To suggest that this is just a minor technical bill continuing rent review is to be quite misleading. We believe that the bill is sufficiently important that the government should not try to ram the thing through at red-hot speed, but instead it should come forward, as everybody in the field is prepared to accept, and bring about a short extension of the rent review bill up until the spring of next year in order that this particular piece of legislation can go before a committee in January and February, so that there can be a reasonable process of consultation, the necessary amendments can be considered with dispatch, but in a cool manner, and the bill, suitably perfected and changed, can then come back to the Legislature when we resume in March.

Having been through the original rent review committee in the fall of 1975, I have to say I would not wish to see that kind of experience repeated. But that will be the inevitable result of trying to push this legislation through in 16 or 20 hours in the standing social development committee.

It’s also notable that the social development committee has not been seized of this bill before. They’re going to be considering it from scratch because, as it happens, the general government committee which looked at the matter over the course of the spring is not available to consider the bill.

We have a number of specific concerns which I’m suggesting are very major and which we want to see corrected over the course of the consideration in committee. As I say, we hope that that would take place in January and not be rammed through now.

Third, the bill significantly weakens the security of tenure that tenants now enjoy because of the way in which it has extended the provisions respecting evictions to the point where they can be called upon by a landlord for far more reasons than under the present bill today. These include the question of house rules, for example, which can be imposed after a lease is entered into and then can be used to justify an eviction; the question of interference, a very vague definition, which can justify eviction; and the question of damages, which is no longer as well defined as in the old act and which can justify an eviction.

There are broader powers in terms of non-payment of rent. Previously, there was a specific code of procedure so that a tenant and landlord knew what the rules of the game were. The rules of the game have been thrown out this time. Instead of having rules of the game, we have arbitrary power with the Residential Tenancy Commission to order eviction. At times, that’s possible without any hearing whatsoever. There has been no right written into the law to allow a tenant who, for example, may not have paid his rent once through some fault or perhaps no fault of his own, to make redress, to remedy the cause for eviction and therefore to be enabled to stay on in his apartment.

The weakening of security of tenure is an absolutely vital problem or failing in this particular bill, and it’s something which we will do everything in our power to correct when we get to the specific consideration of this bill on a clause-by-clause basis.

Second, we’re concerned with the fact that the government is seeking approval of this bill without publishing the standard lease which it has now finally got around to promising, and which in our opinion is a fundamental part of the new landlord and tenant package. That’s going to come through by regulations, according to what the government has got to say.

In our opinion, the proposed standard lease should be published now in the same way that we got a number of forms that were connected with rent review to be published when we considered that bill back in 1975. I want to know whether the proposed standard lease is going to be a means by which landlords can impose their desire and their will on tenants, or whether it will be, as in the province of Quebec, a document which puts out clearly, concisely, and explicitly what are the rights and obligations of both landlord and tenant.

That step of putting those rights and obligations out in a way that both landlords and tenants have constant access to them is one of the major means by which we see that landlords and tenants can be enabled to resolve their differences privately without recourse to the proposed commission and in a manner which is fair to both sides.

What the minister seems to be talking about, though, is that those invidious pro-landlord leases that one can get through the legal printing houses downtown and which are sold to every legal supply house in Ontario will be extended to include a space where the landlord can write in house rules and then be given to tenants, and that will be the proposed standard lease. We’re particularly concerned because the idea of house rules suggests that conditions that have never before been imposed on tenants will suddenly become part of a lease.

I remember once looking for an apartment in London, England, and being told by the landlord that I had to agree to wear slippers after 10:30 in the evening if I wanted to take that particular apartment. Is that a reasonable set of house rules or not? I thought it was not and I didn’t take the apartment.

Hon. Mr. Drea: It depends what you’re doing after 10:30.

Mr. Renwick: I would think it quite reasonable, eminently reasonable.

Mr. Cassidy: A house rule could say no pets, not even goldfish, and that might be judged to be reasonable. A house rule could say no children, not even little ones, and that could be deemed to be reasonable. As far as our party is concerned that’s a totally unacceptable rule in any rented accommodation in Ontario. A house rule could define noise in ways which simply interfere grossly with the right to quiet enjoyment and quiet use of the premises, which any tenant should enjoy.

As far as we’re concerned, when a tenant has access to a premise, when he rents an apartment, he or she should not have to cope with a whole bunch of nitpicking rules that may be imposed by some landlord who is trying to suit his own convenience, or trying to anticipate what Mrs. Grundy down the hall is going to say.

The kinds of rules that existed in the old law, which said that you don’t grow marijuana and you don’t run a brothel and you don’t have counterfeit money in the basement and you don’t interfere with other people through excessive noise and so on, those rules make sense, but to have house rules that can be defined by every landlord does not, in our opinion, make sense.

The minister has stated that this bill should go sailing through the Legislature because it implements in every respect the report of the standing general government committee. In one major respect that is simply not so. The committee recommended a central registry of rents in addition to the registry of rents which would be maintained by each individual landlord, but that has been rejected by the government. We disagree fundamentally with that.

There have been suggestions from the government itself that as many as 15 per cent of the rents being charged across the province right now are, in fact, illegal under rent review. It seems to us that the government should be prepared to take the necessary action to ensure that landlords tell honestly what the situation is. The only way to ensure that is that in addition to the register that the landlord may keep of what rents are, there is also the obligation to inform the local Residential Tenancy Commission office. There in the files if, on a rent review application, somebody wants to check, or if a tenant gets suspicious and wants to check, then the material will be available and they will be able to tell whether the landlord is telling a straight story or not.

We’re concerned as well about the powers of the proposed Residential Tenancy Commission. These powers are so vague and so discretionary there is a real danger that tenants will not obtain fair hearings. I say that in particular because of the experience we had under rent review. Rent review officers came along and said to the tenant, “Go away; this is a matter between us and the landlord and you have no right to make representations.”

We fought and fought and fought for tenants to get the right of access to the information filed by landlords, and to make copies of it. The right to copy the information filed by the landlord is still not contained in the law and the experience in the past has been so negative it seems to me it probably will have to be put into the law in order to be made a reality.

The fact that the commission will not be able to deal with cases where more than $1,000 is involved means that tenants will often still be compelled to go to the courts to enforce their rights on reluctant landlords.

The suggestion that this bill is written in layman’s language which everybody can understand is nonsense, and the minister knows it. The only real improvement is that there has been an attempt to codify rights and obligations; and, wonder of wonders, the bill has actually got an index, so people will know where the various sections of it ought to be.

The minister said in introducing the bill late last month that lawyers would not be required in order to handle hearings before the Residential Tenancy Commission; but in the same breath he said the residential tenancy commissioners were going to have to be either lawyers or people trained in the law. There is a real danger there because he hasn’t made it clear which way he’s jumping.

The idea of informal hearings, it seems to us, has overtaken the need for accessible hearings. We want to see a body which acts expeditiously and is accessible to tenants as well as landlords.

We’re very concerned that a residential tenancy commissioner will pick up the phone, will scribble some notes on the back of an envelope and will make a judgement on the basis of those notes and on telephone inquiries, quite possibly without having a bearing at all.

We are concerned over the idea that a commissioner who mediates a dispute may then turn around the next day and say, “You guys are obviously not going to come to a solution to this, therefore I’ll put on my robes, I’ll call an official hearing and I am now going to adjudicate the dispute.” What happens if he happens to have taken a dislike to a tenant or a landlord in a particular dispute because of the difficulties in dealing with them in the process of mediation? That is quite understandable, but that personal like or dislike taken for one or other of the parties should not interfere with the actual adjudication of a dispute between landlords and tenants.

We notice the hearings are going to take place under the provisions of the Statutory Powers Procedure Act and that means there will be a certain amount of notice given to the tenants and to the landlords. But it’s all very vague. A bill meant to be self-contained and which is meant to tell the tenants what really is going to happen, obviously is not doing so when they have to thread their way through that piece of legislation.

We think the guidelines in this bill could have been far more explicit than they actually are. We are gravely worried over the fact the penalties under the bill are gravely biased against tenants and in favour of landlords. I’d like the minister to talk about that when he comes to conclude this debate.

Tenants who violate the act are liable to eviction, but the maximum penalty for landlords in most cases is that they will temporarily not receive their rent. Where rent is paid out of the commission it will have to be reviewed every month because the commission in effect is being told, “Do your best to get that rent back into the hands of the landlord.”

If the government was really concerned about ensuring tenants and landlords resolve their disputes without the need for constantly going to this commission, tenants should continue to have the right they enjoy now to withhold their rent and to have a rent strike in order to bring the landlord to his or her senses and come to a satisfactory resolution. Only if that process doesn’t work should the tenants be required to put the withheld rent into the commission on the application of a landlord.

[3:45]

We’re concerned that in order to get a landlord fined under this particular bill a tenant is going to have to go up to the courts again. There is no power to fine the landlord in the hands of the Residential Tenancy Commission and yet this same commission has the power to evict a tenant, with all of the consequences that entails. I’ve talked for 10 or 12 minutes on landlord and tenant questions. I now want to talk for a minute about rent review.

This bill undermines rent review in a number of important respects. It allows landlords to pass on the financing costs of speculative transactions in rental properties. It allows landlords to gain rent increases that are not based on their own costs but are based on rent levels in surrounding buildings. It widens the exemptions that are now under the act to include so-called luxury apartments and to allow landlords in small buildings to intimidate tenants into accepting rent increases that exceed the six per cent level.

It gravely weakens the symmetry of power and responsibility, the balance of rights and responsibilities that exist under the present Rent Review Act between tenants and landlords. Under the present act, the six per cent guideline is just that, it’s a guideline, and if the landlord wants more he’s got to apply and if a tenant thinks he should pay less he is entitled to apply.

The right of a tenant to protest a rent increase of less than six per cent has effectively been eliminated totally from this particular bill. The minister shakes his head, but I want to say to him that I have looked and read the bill with great care. In sections 60, 123 and 128, I believe it is, which are the governing sections, what it says is very basically this: If a tenant wishes to appeal a rent increase of less than six per cent he cannot go to the board or the commission and say, “This rent increase is not justified by rising costs.” All he can do is say, “My rent shouldn’t go up so much because my neighbour’s rent didn’t go up,” or say, “My rent shouldn’t go up so much because the level of rents in this area is lower;” or say, “The standard of maintenance in this place is rotten and, therefore, my rent should not go up as much.”

There is no way that the tenant can make the landlord justify a rent increase of less than six per cent, even if the tenant has ironclad evidence that the landlord’s costs have gone up by far less than six per cent. All the tenant can do is threaten to terminate, file a notice to say he’s getting out, and at that point they’re in a kind of free market bargaining situation which has nothing to do with rent review at all.

This is an important point, Mr. Speaker, because what has happened effectively is that the six per cent that was a guideline under our proposals of three years ago, and which was accepted as a guideline under the legislation that this House adopted three years ago, has now changed into a guideline which is also a floor. I want to suggest to the minister and the government that that is an inflationary move by the government of Ontario to do so and it runs directly counter to the minority report of the member for London South (Mr. Walker) who said that there should be no guideline at all because the guideline was in danger of becoming a floor.

The way this has been done by the minister that guideline will become a floor, because any landlord in the province can just simply shake his head and laugh whenever a tenant tries to say that he should raise the rent by less than six per cent. That is a very serious weakness in this particular bill.

I want to suggest that the requirement of the landlord to justify any increases in rent when he gives a rent increase notice has been removed. The very idea that the landlord even has to justify an increase on the basis of increased costs, in my reading of the bill, has been removed.

Hon. Mr. Drea: No, it was put back.

Mr. Cassidy: The minister says no, but he should read the bill.

Hon. Mr. Drea: I have read it. I put it back, so at least be accurate.

Mr. Cassidy: I want him to tell me where that comes in in the particular bill.

Mr. McClellan: You must have read it over the weekend, Frank.

Mr. Cassidy: The principle of rent review has been further weakened by saying that if the landlord hasn’t got enough by every other standard the tribunal can discover then they can give him a two per cent bonus on top of the operating costs. Against that, we have the fact that there will be whole-building review and this is something that we have called for for some time and that we are prepared to welcome.

Just to resume, we have a bill which implements principles that we have been seeking for some time but in which the minister says that he intends to terminate rent review, not at the time when it’s no longer required but in 1980. I’m sure he would like to have it even sooner if the political circumstances didn’t require him to go along with that commitment that was made back in the spring.

Now if that is done in 1980, Mr. Speaker, you and I know exactly what is going to happen. In our opinion, security of tenure does not survive without rent review and rent review has to depend on security of tenure. Both of those principles are being weakened with this particular bill. If rent review is removed in 1980, then the principle of security of tenure will go down very soon thereafter.

We believe that rent review should continue in Ontario until there is an adequate supply of affordable housing. We see tenant protection as part of an overall housing policy to make sure every Ontario family has access to decent housing at a price they can afford. The New Democratic Party believes the proposed two-year extension of rent review to the end of 1980 will not be adequate unless specific action is taken in the meantime to improve the housing market.

Specifically, we regret the government is turning its back on co-operative, on nonprofit and on public housing for people on modest incomes. The experience of the last decade shows developers on their own either will not or cannot meet the public’s needs for affordable housing for all income groups. The achievement of the goal of affordable housing for every family in Ontario depends on a combination of policies to protect tenants, to curb land speculation and to provide rental housing through non-profit channels as well as through the private market.

Our effort within the NDP will be to see not just that rent review is continued; not just that tenant protection is continued; not just that we maintain an adequate framework of landlord-tenant law; not just to make sure that the Residential Tenancy Commission does work effectively, but that the necessary measures are taken in Ontario to ensure that Ontario builds or sees the private sector and the co-operative and nonprofit sectors build an adequate supply of affordable housing for every Ontario tenant and for every Ontario home owner.

Hon. Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, before we go forward: the leader of the New Democratic Party said we had not put in, in any section, the reason for a rent increase by a landlord. I draw his attention to section 122, subsection 3. I specifically had it put in there.

Mr. Renwick: You are out of order.

Hon. Mr. Drea: Whatever you want.

Mr. Renwick: Totally out of order, strike it from the record.

Mrs. Campbell: I will be brief. As to the philosophy of the bill, and as to the bill itself, my colleague has indicated our support. One of the very strong reasons for our support in principle is we have always felt there ought to be a tribunal which can look at rent review, but which at the same time is able to look at matters such as maintenance and the whole picture. This is something which we welcome in this bill.

Certainly, the extension of rent review, for example, for an area such as Metropolitan Toronto is absolutely essential. I am sure there are other areas which are equally under pressure. It has been drawn to our attention and I say it now, there are areas which seem to have a rather high vacancy rate. If we do want to encourage building I wonder if we shouldn’t be at least looking at those areas where in some form or another people have actually over-built.

I am advised that in some areas properties are being held off the market for rental purposes simply because with rent review in place people do not want to reduce rents and then find themselves in this unfortunate position.

From my point of view, I think I have always tried to view this matter from both sides. My own bill, which was introduced into the House, attempted to give some balance because there are people in this province who do own property which they have struggled to obtain and wish to have as their retirement fund. I understand that. I have to say that I lived under a regime of strict rent control which was a rent freeze. I saw, and myself suffered from, the inequities of that situation.

Basically, I have some concerns with the bill. I indicated one of them in the $500 rental approach as a luxury apartment. Again, I too appreciate the minister’s information, but I still have some very deep problems. I have problems so far as the sixplexes are concerned. I recognize that we had many people making representations to us that their whole plan for their own retirement was in jeopardy. I would draw to the attention of the minister, in the event that he is not familiar with it as a new minister, the provisions which are contained in the landlord and tenant amendments in the British Columbia legislation in 1974, where they do seem to provide for exemptions where there are two units, one of which is in the occupation of a landlord. I draw that to the minister’s attention, if he isn’t familiar with it.

One of the things that is happening in Toronto which bothers me considerably is that we now see almost a legislative act which may well preclude any kind of legal remedy by way of breach of contract. That is in the withdrawal of services. A withdrawal of services is not, as I see it, really something which should require an abatement of rent, but rather it should be regarded, as the British Columbia act regards it, as an increase in rent which is forbidden.

There is a different implication to it, even though it seems a little bit as though I were splitting hairs. People enter into a rental agreement and the services are spelled out, although often not reduced to writing. For example, in my riding we have a building where they have had 24-hour security service. They have now removed that service. The people in the building are not interested in an abatement of rent; they want the services continued. I’m not too sure, in a situation where one gets this kind of provision in a bill, what their contractual capabilities are to enforce a contract in the courts, as we did before, which says, “This was part of my lease arrangement. Why can’t I sue?”

I also take an interest in the matter of the $1,000, because in a case of that kind I’m not too sure just how a commission would deal with it. I suppose that over a period of a year or more this might amount to a good deal of money in a claim.

[4:00]

Hon. Mr. Drea: It is not in aggregate.

Mrs. Campbell: All right, it isn’t; but let’s just look at it. Again, as I have said, the British Columbia act says that if the landlord discontinues a service or a facility and such discontinuance results in a substantial reduction of a tenant’s use and enjoyment of residential premises or the service or facility, such charge or the value of such discontinued service or facility shall be deemed to be a rent increase. I just draw it to the minister’s attention.

One of the things that bothers me when we have a provision for automatic increases, as they have been in the old legislation and as I see them continuing in the new legislation, is that there are people or groups or organizations, such as colleges and universities and others, owning property on which no taxes are paid and they have been in the same position of having automatic increases; there is no justification, certainly in so far as increased taxation is concerned, and yet they have taken advantage of this particular situation. I deplore that, loudly and clearly.

Under this bill, since there doesn’t seem to be a definition of agencies, I don’t know what their position is. I would have assumed that they are not agencies for this purpose, but I would like to be very much assured.

Student housing is one of the things that is desperately in need of being addressed. It is not addressed in this bill, in my view.

Mention was made of the provision for regulations. That is terribly interesting to me, because in the days when I was practising law I recall that we had those regulations attached to the lease as part of the lease. I must say that most of them spelled out rather reasonable regulations, but there was a catchall clause at the end which reserved to the landlord the right to make such other and further regulations as he deemed fit. I fought that, and successfully, but I am not sure what happens if you have these sorts of provisions. Like others, I would like to see the regulations spelled out in some form.

I also draw to the attention of the minister a practice which is going on now in the city of Toronto and which disturbs me greatly. It may not be a matter strictly within this legislation but certainly it seems to be a matter which falls within the general jurisdiction of the minister, as he is in the justice field. I refer to the growing requirement, of the larger landlords in any event, to insist upon full disclosure by proposed tenants of their income, their assets and various information of this kind.

I would have thought that somewhere there ought to be a little privacy left to a tenant in a time when the housing situation continues to be a very difficult one in a municipality such as ours. It’s a rotten thing to have this ongoing. Surely we have to stop it.

As I say, I don’t know whether this is the vehicle or whether there is another vehicle to ensure that this does not continue. The larger landlords with whom I have had occasion to mention it when they were before the committee tend to justify it on the basis of the fact that they have had difficulty with evictions. It seems to me that they no longer have any such difficulty, and I would trust that the minister would give thought to whether or not this act can cover some of these breaches of privacy or whether other legislation could effect that particular prohibition.

I believe that this bill, in going to committee, in all honesty must have very serious deliberation. I don’t want to see it unduly delayed, because it has been before several committees and I appreciate the minister’s feeling that there’s no end to the discussion, but there are some matters here which were discussed in the committee and which were not pursued. Mention has been made of them and I don’t intend to go further into them.

I, too, have some concerns about the bill going to the committee unless there can be provision for appropriate substitution, because I think it would be very difficult if we had a brand new bill as a result of a brand new look at the matter of landlords and tenants. However, sometimes a brand new look can be useful. I just feel, though, that if people have not sat through the wearying process, through the long hours of the morning, the afternoon and, indeed, the night, trying to evaluate the various briefs before them perhaps something is lost in translation.

In any event, Mr. Speaker, I am happy to join with my colleague in stating that the principle of the bill is supportable, and trust that there may be adequate time to allow us to produce in this bill a very fine piece of legislation which will give security of tenure to tenants and which will take into consideration the problems of landlords. I must say that one of the things I feel is important is that now it would appear that a landlord does have an opportunity to rid himself of vandals. This has been an important matter and it has concerned me because I have never supported the long delays in such circumstances. I welcome it, as I am sure everyone in this House does.

One of the things that I would trust we might also look at is the matter of the tenant’s role in complaining about another tenant. It does seem to me that a landlord must be the one to carry this through and that it should not have one tenant really required in the absence of any action by a landlord to take action himself or herself against a fellow tenant. The landlord is really in the best position to deal with that matter, and the relationship in a building is terribly important. I find it disruptive; I am concerned about it. I recognize if the landlord doesn’t do anything the tenant is desperate; but I think the landlord must be required, on sufficient evidence, to take the action himself or herself and not force a tenant in an adjoining apartment to take that kind of action.

I think you can get into problems. I can recall, again when we had rent control before, we had associations of landlords and some tenants who were favoured tenants, and the game was played. I don’t want that game to be played again. I recognize a tenant may play the game in any event, but let’s keep it at the landlord level and not have us back into those times when we had that real game at a time when people were suffering because of a lack of accommodation. This is the nub of it, the lack of affordable accommodation.

I will leave it on that note. I trust when we get into committee we may indeed improve the bill to the point where there is justice for both elements in the relationship. I trust the commission may be in a position to assist in the improvement of these relationships as they are permitted to do, or as they are responsible to do under the bill. I think that is important.

On the question of lawyers -- I know being a lawyer is really being the bottom of the barrel in this community sometimes --

Hon. Mr. Drea: I never said that.

Mrs. Campbell: No, you didn’t say it.

Hon. Mr. Drea: I have never even thought it.

Mrs. Campbell: I wasn’t ascribing it to the minister.

It did seem to me one did need lawyers if one were to interpret landlord and tenant matters. However, I would also like to see some kind of relationship which would also deal with the problems on a practical basis in the rent review section -- advisers or whatever. I haven’t thought that through the way I would like to have done, but I can’t fault anyone for wanting to have someone dealing with landlord and tenant matters who really understands the law of landlord and tenant.

In any event, I am sure that, too, will be clarified. I am pleased to have been accorded the opportunity of speaking to this bill.

Mr. Warner: I appreciate this opportunity. I must say quite candidly that I am very disappointed and rather frustrated with the exercise we are going to have to go through, both here today and later in committee. I remind the House of the dissenting opinion filed by this party at the time of the committee hearings, in which we disagreed with three points: The termination date, where we said we didn’t believe the rent review program should end in two years -- although that was the position of the government and the Liberal Party. We commented on financing cost pass-through, where there was a major loophole in the present program. We didn’t feel the committee’s position was adequate to close it. Also, we felt that new buildings should be covered under a special fair-rent proposal which would allow owners of new buildings a fair return on the capital they had invested.

Putting all of that into perspective we said: “These reservations notwithstanding, we are encouraged by the fact that the committee has been able to reach a substantial degree of agreement on the issues of tenant protection and we look forward to seeing the government’s response.” That was in June.

The government had several months to pore over the document, to consider it carefully. They announced in the House, with a great fanfare, that they were now bringing into play a bill which would protect tenants, which would protect the levels of rent and that all would be well for tenants and landlords in the province of Ontario.

The minister is guilty of some “Drea-dreaming”; that hasn’t happened at all. In fact, some of the proposals of the committee have been emasculated.

At times like this I have a memory which may be painful for the government, but I recall a public meeting in the Town Centre of Scarborough where the present minister spoke to a group of tenants and tenant organizations. He talked in great, grand terms about a tenant bill of rights.

Hon. Mr. Drea: We’ve got it right here, and better than the member ever thought about doing.

Mr. Warner: The minister probably doesn’t wish to be reminded of his words --

Hon. Mr. Drea: I do, thank you.

Mr. Warner: -- but I recall them; vividly, I was there.

Hon. Mr. Drea: So was I.

Mr. Warner: I know; he may wish he hadn’t been.

Hon. Mr. Drea: Never did an opposition member flub the event as the member did that night, so I want to be reminded about that one.

Mr. Warner: At that time the minister said -- he wasn’t a minister then, actually -- that if he had his way there would be a tenant bill of rights.

Hon. Mr. Drea: The member for Carleton (Mr. Handleman) was the minister.

Mr. Warner: It must be a sad day for him when instead of a tenant bill of rights he introduces the “house rules,” an item which was never discussed by the committee. Where it came from I don’t know. Perhaps Mr. Speaker knows, perhaps the minister can tell us.

Mr. McClellan: He probably does.

Mr. Warner: Perhaps we should indicate for Hansard who the Speaker is at this point in time. The Speaker is the member for Armourdale. No?

Hon. Mr. Drea: You don’t even know who the Speaker is.

Mr. Warner: Wilson Heights, sorry. The member for Wilson Heights (Mr. Rotenberg) is the Speaker at this point in the debate.

Hon. Mr. Drea: One of the bright ones over there. He doesn’t even know who the Speaker is; a real bright one.

Mr. Warner: The member for Wilson Heights perhaps knows. I don’t know where they came from. This is why I accused the minister of “Drea-dreaming,” because they came from out of the blue; house rules.

I can just envisage it. We’re all going to hear about it. I hope the minister hears about it. He should receive letters at some point in time. If he’s successful with this arbitrary measure, from elderly ladies in the city of Toronto who have pet cats and a superintendent who doesn’t like cats and decides that the house rules will not include cats. I just shudder to think of the consequences. That’s just one example, and there are a thousand more.

The minister knows them as well as I do. Where on earth this whole nonsense about house rules came from I don’t know, but it should be taken out of the document.

If the minister was concerned about a tenant bill of rights a few months ago or a year ago --

Hon. Mr. Drea: Two years ago.

Mr. Warner: -- whatever happened to the right to tenancy? That’s not in this bill. There’s no right to tenancy in this bill. I assumed that would be the first article of faith of a tenant bill of rights.

If the minister is concerned about a tenant bill of rights, then why is it that he again includes something which the committee never discussed or never agreed to: that is removing the right to appeal a rent increase of less than six per cent? When we get to clause by clause, obviously the minister would want to discuss section 123(1), because that’s the section which takes away the tenants right to appeal rent increases of less than six per cent.

I’m not going to suggest the minister doesn’t understand his own legislation.

Hon. Mr. Drea: Not true. Don’t get trapped into that. The honourable member should talk to the member for Port Arthur (Mr. Foulds) and get the particulars before he goes on with that one.

Mr. Warner: Mr. Speaker, the minister may have been saddled with some unfinished work from his predecessor, but I can read legislation. I’ve read it and I know full well that a tenant who receives a rent increase of less than six per cent cannot challenge it, according to section 123(1) of the bill.

Keeping in mind all of these three essential items -- the rent increase of less than six per cent; that there isn’t an inclusion of the right to tenancy; and the imposition of these house rules as a weapon for the landlord -- how on earth can the minister stand in his place and still claim he’s advocating a tenant bill of rights? The minister, I say, is guilty of “Drea-dreaming” again.

We’ve got problems with this. They’re not insolvable, the committee went through it. Mr. Speaker, I’ll remind you and the minister we made the comment in good faith, that we are encouraged by the fact that the committee has been able to reach a substantial degree of agreement on the issues of tenant protection. This was a three-party agreement. Why on earth couldn’t the minister have taken this document and turned it into a bill and brought it here? Why did he have to drag some silly notions out of the air about house rules and, not applying on a less than a six per cent increase?

You will recall, Mr. Speaker, that the minister made some suggestion earlier that we really shouldn’t go out to committee with this thing because that would be dragging the process down, it would be obstruction.

Hon. Mr. Drea: I never said that. Quote me correctly or not at all. I never said that and the member knows it.

Mr. Warner: Who was it over there who suggested obstruction?

Hon. Mr. Drea: Never.

Mr. Warner: I’ll tell the minister what obstruction is: obstruction is when a committee comes up with an agreement among three parties and then the government turns around and dreams up something that wasn’t even in the committee report, that’s obstruction!

The government has had this report since June. If the government was so interested in coming up with new-fangled ideas, why didn’t it do so during the summertime? Why wait until now, until the eleventh hour, knowing full well we have to pass this. We have to get some sort of agreement before the end of the year, and some new legislation.

Hon. Mr. Drea: That’s not what the member’s leader said.

Mr. Warner: I’m telling you, Mr. Speaker, this party, as always, wants to do everything absolutely possible to guarantee the rights of tenants; because, Mr. Speaker, if this party doesn’t do it, no one will.

Mr. T. P. Reid: What a bunch of pious garbage.

Mr. Warner: You know that as well as I do, Mr. Speaker.

I must remind the member for Rainy River (Mr. T. P. Reid), who is now consciously with us, of the fiasco in that committee when three members of the committee wanted to dump their party’s position and scurry for their own corner. I recall that full well. I recall that if it hadn’t been for some opportunistic reporting, the rights of tenants would have been scuttled in this province by the Liberal Party. I recall that full well to the now conscious member for Rainy River.

Mr. Breithaupt: By an opportunistic member.

Mr. T. P. Reid: On a matter of privilege: I realize the member hasn’t been here all that long and doesn’t appreciate the rules of debate in this House and still needs a little education in that, but I don’t think the kind of language he’s using, and certainly the words that he attributed to me, is quite parliamentary. I would suggest be try to stay on the facts and observe some measure of decorum and politeness in the chamber.

Mr. McClellan: Using you as a model.

Mr. Warner: It would never be my intent to be other than courteous to each member of the assembly. I will certainly continue to relay the facts about the Liberal Party in a courteous manner.

Mr. Handleman: Be reasonable; you can only ask so much of a guy like that.

Mr. McClellan: They don’t want a public committee, that’s all.

Mr. Warner: I’ll say in closing that I am really quite disappointed that the minister couldn’t have simply taken the report, which was agreed to by all three parties, and brought in the legislation. If he was concerned about matters which the committee did not discuss, he had the opportunity, for several months, to bring that to the attention of the Legislature instead of simply surprising everyone with what I can’t describe as anything more than nonsense over the business about the house rules.

I welcome this opportunity; I hope the minister’s earlier comments are being altered and that he’s not going to block the effort by this party to send the legislation to committee.

Hon. Mr. Drea: What effort? I never said I would.

Mr. Warner: If it’s not clear to the minister and to the government, I will reiterate once more that this party will do everything absolutely possible to expedite the business of this House, but we are not going to jeopardize the rights of tenants in this province. We are going to do everything we can to protect those rights. We will, for example, try to remove the business of the house rules. We will try to change the section in the bill so that rent increases of less than six per cent can be appealed, as has been the practice until now and which the government wishes to remove.

I look forward to the committee work. Perhaps since the meetings will all be in public we will have a consistent position from the Liberal Party.

Mr. McClellan: That will be a miracle of miracles.

Mr. Bounsall: I won’t be very lengthy in my comments because the comments I would like to make really deal in very great detail with sections of the bill which concern me which can best be dealt with at the committee stage. I certainly would hope that this bill goes outside to committee. I very much regret we don’t have this arranged in such a way that the public can become fully aware of this bill and be prepared to come in and give its input to us in some reasonable time period.

I gather from the minister’s reaction to the last speaker, the member for Scarborough-Ellesmere, that it is the minister’s intent to send it outside the House to committee. Is that right?

Hon. Mr. Drea: You’ve got an agreement, what are you asking me for? It was announced here today. Cut out the comedy.

Mr. Bounsall: I wasn’t able to be in attendance throughout the whole of the day and maybe missed an announcement.

Hon. Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, if this will clarify it, everybody in this entire assembly knows that upon the completion of second reading it is being referred to the committee on social development, everybody knows that.

Mr. Bounsall: That wasn’t clear earlier this morning.

Hon. Mr. Drea: You should be here. Even your own leader knew it.

Mr. Bounsall: As the minister well knows, there are times at which every member needs to be absent from the House because of his other obligations and I wasn’t here for that announcement.

Hon. Mr. Drea: On a point of privilege, I don’t want the member who is speaking and who wasn’t here, to think that I’m raising any issue with him. This has gone on for quite some time even among people who were here.

Mr. Bounsall: It’s a minor point, even given the time spent on it; I wasn’t making a major point out of it.

Mr. Foulds: This is the first time it has been publicly stated in the House that it was going to the social development committee.

Hon. Mr. Drea: Ever since 3 o’clock.

Mr. Speaker: Back to the principle of the bill.

Mr. Bounsall: The minister has said it is going to be sent to committee and that was an agreement reached among all the members of the House. Did he announce that in the House?

Hon. Mr. Drea: It has been said over and over again here. Everybody knows about it. It was agreed to by the House leaders.

Mr. Makarchuk: There was some argument whether it was going to go to committee or not.

Hon. Mr. Drea: There is no argument about it.

[4:30]

Mr. Bounsall: That’s fine then. I’m glad it’s clear. Not everyone heard the minister’s clear cut announcement in that regard, but it’s a minor point. What concerns me very much is that there be sufficient time for the members of the public to have real input into this bill.

Over the weekend I had three calls. One of them was from a tenants’ group and two were from landlords, all requesting copies of the bill. This was their first attempt to get copies of the bill; we were appalled to find that second reading debate was already upon us and they would not be able to get the bill in time to properly address the committee in the fashion a thorough study of the bill would allow them to do.

The thing which bothers me most about this act, as compared with the Residential Premises Rent Review Act and the Landlord and Tenant Act, is the imprecise language we find in this act. In some respects, it may be cleared up by the committee, but it is much less precise than I’ve seen in the other acts.

I could go into great deal on some of the other positions and points which quite validly should be left to clause by clause in committee, but we’re under this rather severe time frame. As I see it, the best solution to the situation would be to extend rent review in a small bill and give us the period between sessions of this House to study thoroughly all the other ramifications of this act.

Hon. Mr. Drea: You’d better talk to the last speaker because he didn’t want to do that, notwithstanding the fact your leader does.

Mr. Speaker: Order. This is second reading.

Mr. Bounsall: This is the way I feel it should be done; but in any event, time has to be found for the public and the members of this Legislature to mull over thoroughly what is going to be a very important act for everybody in the province of Ontario. I do not see that emerging under the schedule which the government has set up.

I want to speak at some length to one particular portion of the act which affects my riding, and that is the removal from the act of rent review on student and educational staff housing. This was added to the previous act or was within one of the previous acts and then was deleted.

The University of Windsor is in my riding, and back in the late 1960s when a large expansion of university building needs was anticipated the university bought up several streets of single-family housing around the vicinity of the university. Students reside in some of those houses, faculty members reside in some of those houses and the university has rented some of those houses to other members of the public. They rent them out, and have been right along, at a normal rental rate, and therefore those people occupying that single-family housing, be they students, be they faculty members or be they members of the public, should all be under the rent review legislation of this province. It doesn’t appear to me, even in the way the act is written, that tenants in that single-family housing owned by the university would be covered by rent review. This will emerge clearly at the committee stage, but there is no way I can see that this housing should be treated any differently than any other housing. Has the minister a response to that?

Mr. Speaker: Not on second reading.

Hon. Mr. Drea: I have, but I will talk to you after.

Mr. Speaker: When all members have spoken the minister will wind up the debate.

Mr. Bounsall: I could go on at some length on other points. What we need is a rent review bill and a landlord and tenancy bill that applies to residential accommodation, a simple way that both landlord and tenant can address their grievances.

On the one hand, although we have a Residential Tenancy Commission outlined in the act before us, which is one type of suggestion which we have put forward in the past as a quick means of doing it, it looks to me as if in some cases we are setting up a faster, workable means than dealing through the court process. While that is an advantage, on the other hand it is a means by which landlords and tenants are going to get tied up with this commission in a way in which they shouldn’t necessarily need to. I don’t know quite how one gets around it, but these are problems which should be ironed out and thrashed out in the committee.

There are other things that could be mentioned. The landlords under their obligations are obliged not to withhold vital services, but in those vital services one does not include things like hot water; that needs to be cleared up. I would say that I look forward to the clause-by-clause debate. The bill needs thorough discussion. I’m quite concerned over the imprecision of some of the parts of the act before us, in particular about the time frame in which we have to discuss it and the time frame in which the public will have to make their input.

Mr. Makarchuk: I would like to briefly discuss the matter of the bill and the fact that the intention of the government is to terminate rent review, according to this bill, by December 31, 1980. It seems to me that the government is either living in fantasy land or it just totally refuses to recognize some of the matters or some of the facts that were brought to the attention of the committee that sat last summer.

The facts were that although there are a considerable number of houses available and there is a considerable amount of rental space available, the major concern of most of the tenants’ representatives who attended those meetings was that there are not affordable rents. Rents are going up and they can only afford a certain amount for rent, particularly the senior citizens.

The ones who were most concerned were people on fixed incomes. As an example, there were people there -- people in the comfortable middle-class, I may add -- who thought they had enough money saved and set aside to be able to provide for their old age in comfort and to be able to pay for their food and the things they need, as well as being able to pay the rent. They are finding that is not the case. Right now they are faced with some rather serious problems and they are concerned about the future.

What this government assumes, and the Liberal Party for that matter -- and this was brought out in the committee -- is that somewhere, sometime, if rent controls were removed, there will be established this mythological situation that market forces will come into play and everybody will go out and build apartment buildings; rents will drop and everybody will be happy. It’s mythology, but the unfortunate part about that mythology is that they really believe in it; the government people over there and the Liberals over here really believe that that is the case.

Mr. T. P. Reid: It has already been proven everywhere else.

Mr. Makarchuk: Somehow they forget to recognize the hard economic facts of life. They are the ones who remind us that they know how to run the store and that they know everything about business. The facts are that they don’t. There is really nothing to indicate that they know how to mind the store. If one looks at the way the store is being minded in the so-called private enterprise economy, one finds they are undermining it.

Mr. McClellan: They are undermining it.

Mr. Makarchuk: They are dangerous to the economy. However, I wish to get back to the principle of the bill.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: Good idea.

Mr. Makarchuk: The point is that if an entrepreneur tries to build today he has to provide in his construction costs payment for the land costs. The land in and around Toronto is basically tied up by a few major corporations. In most of the communities in Ontario it is the same situation, it is tied up by a few major land-holding companies. They control the supply of developable land that is available for new residential construction for either single-family homes or multi-family dwellings and so on. As a result, what they have done is increased the cost of land to the extent that even if the builder as an individual wishes to go into new rental construction he finds it impossible for him to construct. This is for the simple reason that by the time he puts the cost of the land and the construction cost, and of course the interest costs and financing costs, et cetera, to each unit, he would have to charge a rent which most people in Toronto and in many other communities could not afford, or they would find very difficult to pay.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: There is too much government control.

Mr. Makarchuk: The figures were provided at the hearings to indicate how much disposable income is going into rent. You find the percentage is increasing almost on a daily basis. About 10 to 12 per cent of the people are finding it almost impossible at this time to afford to pay rent, in a country which is wealthy in land and resources and in the materials needed to build apartments and houses and so on. This again says something about the management we have experienced in this country.

In effect, there is no way anybody can put up an apartment building today and be able to pay the costs associated with that building and be able to provide units at affordable rents, rents the greatest percentage of people can afford. The only way this problem can and will be overcome is for the government to get involved in the building of apartments if necessary. They don’t necessarily have to do it themselves, but the point is they have to provide land for the building of apartments at a cost which makes those apartments viable. This would have to be true either for the individual who wishes to build them, or the government which puts the buildings up and then rents them or whatever it does.

There are various ways available: you could do it through co-op housing, you could do it through non-profit housing, you could do it in association with private enterprise. The point is the only way you can do it now is for the government to develop some of the land banks it holds now and to acquire land banks in municipalities -- like Toronto if necessary -- to ensure that you can put up a building at a price that people can afford.

I realize the government is not prepared to buy this. There was an expression used, the “scrawniness of imagination.” That was referring to the previous Treasurer (Mr. McKeough), but it applies right across those ranks. They are scrawny in their imagination. They are a bunch of economic illiterates, if I may put it that way. That is about the closest way I can describe the economic thinking on that side.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: That’s heresy.

Mr. Makarchuk: They are not prepared to recognize the economic facts of life as they exist today. Therefore, this bill becomes very necessary to protect the tenants in Ontario. I’m glad it’s going out to committee, as the minister has said, because then we will be able to deal with it on a clause-by-clause basis to ensure that the tenants get the kind of protection they deserve.

Further, it will dispel this myth that somewhere in the very near future or in two years we are not going to need rent controls. Let’s recognize it. Let’s stop playing games with everybody -- with the tenants, with the business people, with the developers and so on. Let’s admit the fact that rent controls are here, and they’re going to stay for a heck of a long time. Let’s acknowledge that and let’s deal with it on a very realistic basis. Hopefully in committee we’ll be able to do that.

Mr. M. N. Davison: Mr. Speaker, the New Democratic Party’s position has been put fairly clearly today in this debate and I don’t mean to reiterate the points that have been brought up by my colleagues. I would like to mention a couple that stand out to me, though, and which I find fairly difficult to comprehend in terms of this legislation.

[4:45]

The first aspect is the central rent registry. I am having a great deal of difficulty, as are tenants in my riding, trying to figure out why the government would totally ignore the need for such a registry. When we get into committee debate on this, I trust that the minister will be prepared to answer that question, not only as it will be put by the New Democratic Party, but also as it will be put by tenants across the province.

The other aspect is the standard lease. As I understand it, the ministry has this alleged document in its possession in some kind of draft form.

Hon. Mr. Drea: No.

Mr. M. N. Davison: The ministry doesn’t have it even in draft form?

Hon. Mr. Drea: Not in --

Mr. M. N. Davison: That is even more inexcusable.

Hon. Mr. Drea: Just a moment; it’s in conceptual draft form but not in draft form as the member would envision it.

Mr. M. N. Davison: In conceptual draft form but not in draft form? I see.

Hon. Mr. Drea: The member will like it when he sees it.

Mr. M. N. Davison: Mr. Speaker, this is very central to the bill, because much depends on this standard lease. I would have thought that the government certainly would be in a position by now to put forward this document.

Hon. Mr. Drea: It goes to committee. That is when the member is going to look at it.

Mr. M. N. Davison: I trust that the government will move quickly from the conceptual draft stage to the draft stage to some kind of reality as far as the document is concerned, so that we will have it very quickly.

Hon. Mr. Drea: Before a committee.

Mr. M. N. Davison: I thank the minister.

The other aspect I want to touch on is the question of the commission. The commission is a very good and very sensible idea, and it shows that the government has paid some attention to the need to streamline the process. But I am afraid that the government, as frequently happens in these matters, has not gone far enough and hasn’t listened very well to the tenants’ associations that have made representations to it. That is another area where I hope the government, during the committee stage, will be prepared not only to explain its position but also to listen again to what tenants have to say about this. Perhaps it will not be terribly rigid, inflexible and dogmatic about it, and it’s to be hoped that it can make some adjustments that will provide better protection to the tenants.

Finally, the one aspect of this bill that troubles me most is the question of timing. It appears that the government is quite deliberately attempting to shut out tenants and their spokesmen from participating in the debate to arrive at some new form of landlord and tenant law in this province. I object to that quite strongly.

This bill was read for the first time only two weeks ago. At that time, or shortly after, we were informed -- let me quote what the minister said when my colleague from Parkdale asked about the distribution of the proposed bill; the minister said, “Quite frankly, we have advised everyone.”

I have met with three or four tenants’ groups and advocates in my riding in the last week, and they weren’t informed by the ministry. They weren’t given copies of the bill by the ministry. I had to give them copies of the legislation.

Hon. Mr. Drea: Great. Just as I did.

Mr. M. N. Davison: No, it is not great --

Hon. Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, on a matter of privilege: This ministry advised the government printing office, through the clerk, that there would be an extraordinary demand for these bills; they were to print 4,000 copies of them. It is my understanding they have been in the bookstore since day two -- not day one, since you can hardly have them available for sale before they are introduced in the House, unless you want to violate every known rule here. They are available; we have made it known, in telephone calls and through tenants’ groups and everywhere else, where the bookstore is and how you can obtain them. I know of nothing more that we could do.

Mr. M. N. Davison: I know many more things the minister could do. I would be very happy to see a list of organizations and individuals in Hamilton that received copies of the bill from the minister; I would be quite pleased to have that from the minister.

At any rate, I had to supply copies of the bill to the three or four groups I met with last week.

Mr. Breithaupt: That’s part of the job.

Mr. M. N. Davison: They are simply not in a position to make the kinds of representations they would like to make.

Understanding that problem, as the minister surely does understand these things, what does he do? He insists on going into second reading today. That is all right. That takes place in this chamber, and members having had the bill for a couple of weeks are quite capable of entering this debate today. That does not impose a very large problem, although it would have been better, I suspect, if we had had more time, another week or two, to engage in further dialogue with tenants’ groups in our riding.

The minister’s next step is the step that I find most unacceptable. That is the contention that we go into committee with this in the next two weeks and pass this bill by the end of the month. That just does not allow time for any kind of complete and thoughtful participation on the part of tenants. It’s absolutely wrong for the minister to be doing this.

The committee that it’s going to -- the social development committee I understand, a fine committee -- meets Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, all in the afternoon. What does that mean? It means that tenants have got to take time off from their jobs to trudge down here to the Legislature at their own expense to make some kind of a presentation they have had only a short time to work on. We are not going to get the kind of response we should be getting from tenants on this bill.

The sensible thing to do would have been for the minister to have brought in a fairly simple, short piece of legislation that would have extended the current rent review program for a number of months. We could have had second reading at this time, and then the tenants’ organizations would have had time over the Christmas break to work on their position. They could then have gone to a committee outside of the House in January or early February, a committee that could have sat fairly intensively, and certainly in the evenings. Perhaps we could even have travelled outside of Toronto, sent a couple of members to Ottawa or to London --

Mr. Speaker: That’s not really a principle in this bill.

Mr. M. N. Davison: It certainly is, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: It is not; it is not even mentioned.

Mr. M. N. Davison: It’s a principle by its absence. I think the government has taken absolutely the wrong approach with this bill, and I think that’s regrettable. I think the minister still has time to change his position and allow some suitable amount of time so tenants can have a chance to have the proper input into this bill, which I think may clear up some of the fuzziness in the minister’s bill.

Mr. Roy: I would like to make a few brief comments on this legislation. I may state that some of my comments possibly will not be in accord with some of the comments that have been made, either by my colleagues or other members in this Legislature. I make these comments on the basis of my personal concern about this type of legislation.

I am not sure, Mr. Speaker, that all members, and in fact all people involved in the process, be it landlords or tenants’ associations, fully realize all of the implications of this bill. It is in fact precedent setting, this legislation. I can understand the trend, the movement that has taken place in the process of landlord and tenant relationship, especially when there has been the added factor of rent control. When people look at their landlord and tenant situation and say look, we have a situation now whereby we have a board or a commission that looks at the question of controls, wouldn’t it be more logical, then, if we proceeded from that and said we should have this commission look at the whole question of problems of tenancy, period; including things that are traditional. Hundreds of years of tradition have been established by way of common law principles, jurisprudence, and all have been within the jurisdiction of the courts. It looks good in theory, and it looks good on paper, but as one member who has always taken a keen interest in legislation passed here, I look further down the line at the ramifications of this type of process we have embarked on today.

It would not be the first time, if I may say with respect Mr. Speaker, that all of us here, we collectively, have as our motivation a desire to help certain people, and with that intent move to pass certain legislation. Despite our motivation, the right motives and the right reasons, we have sometimes ended up with legislation that in practice is no better, or even worse, than what we had before.

My comments are basically directed to what is established under part VIII of the bill, the Residential Tenancy commission. This is where I have some concern about the process we have embarked on this afternoon in second reading of the bill. If I may refer briefly to rent control and some of the aspects of the bill, I see an attempt by the government, and a sincere attempt by the minister, to try to take a more practical approach to rent control. I have some sympathy with that. Once the bill goes to committee and once we have proper statistics, we are in a position to judge whether in fact an apartment house with six units should be excluded from this, whether apartments in the $500 range should be excluded and whether in fact there are some areas of the province where rent control should not apply at all.

Mr. Speaker, you will recall during the 1975 election the great guffaw that was raised and the great success of the leader of the NDP at that time in raising problems that were more apropos to Toronto than to any other area of the province. Because of these special problems, the pressure of the Toronto situation, we ended up with rent control right across the province.

There was some logic to the process. The federal government were coming in with controls of their own. It seemed reasonable at that point, if we were talking about controlling wages and if we were controlling profits and a number of other factors, rents should also be controlled. One of the basic needs in a country like Canada, because of the weather conditions, is housing. There are very few things that are more important, apart from food, than proper habitation. So rents became very important and there was some logic in following that process and getting involved in controls.

I would point out, however, we are no longer in a control situation at the federal level. These controls have been removed. We should give some consideration to slowly and logically looking at the province to see whether in fact controls are not counterproductive. That is of some concern.

Some people say that for short-term gains, short-term politics, you can’t remove controls. We are really looking at the interests of tenants in the long term. We have seen controls in other jurisdictions and we have seen the long-term effect and vicious cycle that we can be involved. The more controls you have, the fewer units you have. The fewer units you have, the more you need controls. So you are into that vicious cycle.

I understand we should be looking in this bill to see if there are not some areas where we should be giving serious consideration to getting out, if in fact there are not some areas of the province where we should not be involved in controls at all. If we really believe in the best interests of tenants, some of us have to take positions which, hopefully, in the long term are in the best interests of tenants, although it might appear in the short term not to be in the best interests of tenants.

[5:00]

I’m prepared to look at that and speak candidly about the problem. I’m prepared not only to look at the problems of tenants but small landlords as well, for they are also involved in this process and they have been greatly affected.

I think we should give some consideration to the possibility that if the tenants do have problems, and if governments want to get involved in the process of helping tenants, should it be landlords who pay the piper? Maybe some landlords can afford to subsidize some of the tenants; but some of these small landlords, and I have many of them in my riding, are expressing great concern about the fact that they can’t live with some of the controls that have been imposed. As one member, I’m prepared to look candidly at the process and see if there are situations where controls are counter-productive.

I think my colleagues who’ve spoken, at least from this party, are prepared to look at some of these factors. Having established the commission some two or three years ago to look at the question of controls, we move on to say that the commission will now have extended powers and we call it under this bill the Residential Tenancy Commission. Again that’s based on the logic that tenants are saying: “Why should we have a commission looking at the question of controls, then on the question of tenancy agreements under the Landlord and Tenant Act we have to go to the county court for relief?”

They said: “It would be more logical if we had a commission to look at the whole aspect of tenancy, including provision for rights and obligations under the Landlord and Tenant Act, as well as controls.”

I’ve got to say again that on paper, in theory, it may make sense. I’ve listened to other members who’ve spoken here. Apparently tenancy groups have been asking for this. I’ve listened to the leader of the NDP, who’s mentioned that this is something his party has been calling for, for some time. I’ve listened to other members, and to comments made earlier by the minister’s predecessor that this was a logical progression.

As one member, I want to express some concern about taking away the basic right of tenants; a right on which jurisprudence has been built for centuries, where the courts have been the protector or the enforcer, depending on which side of the coin you’re on. As a tenant, if I’m looking at a basic right as important as accommodation, the right to have a roof over my head in good condition, in terms of protecting myself I would rather have that in the hands of the courts than in the hands of a tenancy commission. I express that concern.

I’m not without knowing, for instance, that the Ontario Law Reform Commission has looked at all aspects of law and jurisprudence in this province. At no time has the law reform commission ever recommended that these rights, that the Landlord and Tenant Act be taken away from the courts and given to a commission. I don’t think that is the recommendation. I don’t recall, possibly the minister or somebody can bring it to my attention if in fact they have done this.

What is the other reason? I mean we’ve heard the reasons that it would be more logical for the tenants; and I don’t know, maybe landlords feel the same way. I’m not without knowing that a commission has looked at this and that these are some of the recommendations of an all-party committee, but as one elected representative I am prepared --

Mr. Ziemba: And as a lawyer.

Mr. Roy: What’s that?

Ms. Ziemba: And as a lawyer.

Mr. Roy: There is no money for the legal profession in representing people before the county court on these applications. My experience has been, and I want to put this on the record, that by and large people go by themselves before the county court for relief and are not represented by counsel.

There is the cynical view on the part of certain members that every time one of us gets up here and talks about fundamental rights, and when we are changing law affecting fundamental rights, that we are concerned about lawyers losing some business.

I say to my colleague, look we’ve made enough gifts to lawyers with the Family Law Reform Act, we don’t need any more for the next while from this Legislature.

My argument is not based at all on trying to keep the lawyer’s nose in the process. In fact, is there anything under this act that prohibits lawyers from representing clients in front of the commission? If that is the member’s argument, that I’m arguing for the rights of lawyers, or trying to keep them in business, I see nothing in this legislation which would prevent counsel from representing either party in front of the commission. So the dollars are still there.

I say to the member for High Park-Swansea (Mr. Ziemba) I’m looking at basic rights, I’m not trying to grind business here, or trying to keep lawyers’ hands in the process. That isn’t affected by the legislation.

What I am saying is that tenancy disputes have traditionally and for centuries been a preserve of our courts and that the courts by and large have preserved or enforced the laws. Some people will say the courts in the past were not favourable enough to tenants; or were not favourable enough to landlords.

Well the courts don’t make the laws. We make the laws here and we change the laws accordingly. We’ve made some major changes in the Landlord and Tenant Act, at least since 1971 in the time that I’ve been here. The courts basically interpret the law.

By and large, the relief sought from the rights and obligations of tenants and landlords has been before the courts. That has existed for centuries. There has been jurisprudence that has accumulated and that has been set up and that is assisting the courts in interpreting and deciding on the rights and obligations of tenants and landlords.

I’m concerned that what we’re doing is transferring this jurisprudence to a commission. I ask why; whose interests are we trying to protect, whose interests are we trying to enhance by so doing? People will say they think it’s the tenants or the tenants’ association who feel they would prefer this avenue or this tribunal to the courts. I say to them, have tenants’ associations or tenants in general really looked at this?

As one tenant I’ve got to say this: In my experience with commissions -- and I don’t have to start naming whether we’re talking about the Workmen’s Compensation Board or others who are appointed by the government, like this commission which is in fact appointed for a term not to exceed five years, and then supervised by a board of directors who will be involved in certain regions of the province; they are short-term appointments, responsible to a board of directors -- I don’t see in the appointment of this commission the protection and the independence that is afforded, for instance by a county court judge who is appointed for life and who is not answerable.

He’s not answerable to a board of directors and he’s not answerable to a government; he’s answerable to his conscience, and to the high principles of interpreting the law according to either jurisprudence or what he feels is in the best interests, or what he feels is in fact the best equity of the situation.

This commission, in my personal experience with commissions, does not afford them that kind of independence. If my rights as a tenant or as a landlord are going to be decided, as they have traditionally been decided by the courts for centuries, I would prefer to leave it with the courts rather than get involved with the Residential Tenancy Commission.

I have some concern. I look at a number of commissions that have been established -- for instance the Workmen’s Compensation Board, and I look at a number of other commissions -- and I say to you, without being unduly harsh on any of these commissions, that they are far more subject to the government in power or with whatever trend may be happening, or political pressures or whatever, than traditionally has been the case with our courts.

With respect I say to the minister and to the tenants’ association and to the landlords of this province, is this really what we want, especially when we’re in a situation where we’re talking about cutting down the bureaucracy? When we’re talking about cutting down the bureaucracy we’re going to establish a new bureaucracy here; for what? Are we going to save money? Is that going to save money, taking this process away from the courts?

There have been statistics compiled in London and in Windsor which clearly indicate that it doesn’t cost anything for the administration of justice for Ontario to take these landlord and tenant applications before our county court judges. The filing fee, the cost of putting the thing in pays for the process, pays for the limited bureaucracy which handles these things. It doesn’t pay the salary of the judge because he’s paid by the federal government. I’m talking about the cost to the province. I’m saying there are statistics on this and I’m convinced that we’re not going to be saving any money by doing it through a commission.

Let’s look at the other aspect. Is it going to be more expeditious? I’m told in speaking with various offices across the province that by and large the rule is it takes 10 or 15 days before the court. I must admit I’m not familiar with the process in Toronto, whether or not it takes longer than that, but the fact is that in most areas of the province these are expedited through the process in a period of 10 to 15 days.

On that basis, I can hardly see a commission -- if I look at some of the commissions we’re dealing with in other areas, they have not had a reputation for proceeding any more expeditiously than that. I ask the minister is it time we’re trying to save? Is it more expeditious to proceed in that fashion?

I’m trying to understand what the motivation is, what the idea is. What are we trying to do? If we’re going to take a basic right, such as landlord and tenant obligations, away from the courts and give it to a commission, what are we trying to accomplish? I can’t see it on the basis of cost. I can hardly see it on the basis of expediency or of having a due process accomplished in a more limited time.

When talking about civil rights as important as the right of tenants or the rights of landlords -- the landlords re their property; and the rights of tenants in a rental agreement to have proper accommodation and have rules and regulations enforced so that one can have quiet enjoyment of one’s premises -- I express a concern, and I have yet to hear compelling reasons why this should be taken away from the court and given to this Residential Tenancy Commission.

[5:15]

I have to express my concern. I’m not unaware that all members who have spoken on this have said it would appear to have been the consensus of this select committee. Most members seem to feel that is the logical evolution of the process that has taken place, but I say to the minister -- and I put this on the record -- tenants in the long term may live to regret this decision if, at some time, they feel that the Residential Tenancy Commission is not responding to their needs or to their rights with the same type of jurisprudence or equity that the courts have traditionally rendered.

Again, I stand to be corrected, but have there been major complaints on the part of tenants’ groups that the courts are not responding to their needs, or that the decisions as handed down by the courts do not reflect the spirit of the law? I haven’t heard any. Have there been such complaints on the part of landlords? Is it the landlords who say that the process is too cumbersome and not expeditious enough? Is that who we’re trying to satisfy?

I see the minister is sort of nodding at me; maybe the landlords have something to say. If that is the case, then I would feel some trepidation on behalf of tenants. I would have some apprehension if the landlords want to get out of the court process. On many occasions, in my experience in chambers, there are long lists of tenants who come up before the courts and personally explain their grievances. Most judges I have seen involved in this process have been extremely sympathetic to tenants; they have bent over backwards to make sure that the rights and obligations of the tenants are respected by the landlord and that the law is enforced with some measure of flexibility and equity.

Looking at the whole setup of the Residential Tenancy Commission, and the fact that it’s going to be governed by a board of directors made up of people who are going to be named for five years, I wonder whether we are going to be able to attract the calibre of people who will reflect the traditional rights and obligations of landlords and tenants as the courts have done.

The process is not even completely logical. It’s going to be a split jurisdiction, as I read the legislation. For instance, section 81 of the legislation talks about the exclusive jurisdiction of the commission. But then it goes on to say that when an amount of more than $1,000 is involved, then that’s beyond the jurisdiction of the commission, then you’ve got to go to a court of competent jurisdiction anyway; so you’re not going to have exclusive jurisdiction. I ask my colleagues here, and I ask the minister, is this what we want, this type of split process.

I have some concern as well about the fact that this is going to be established by way of regions. Is it going to mean that people in certain regions of the province are going to have to travel because their region is not encompassed by the commission? Is the commission, by establishing regions, going to be able to give the service that traditionally our courts have given in every region of this province? I really wonder about this.

I wonder as well about the right of appeal. Just reading briefly about the right of appeal, I wonder whether this is something that is in keeping with what I consider to be very nearly a sacred civil right of tenants to receive proper adjudication before the courts.

Hon. Mr. Drea: Judicial review on matters of law is automatic.

Mr. M. N. Davison: Why doesn’t the member stick with his own party’s position?

Mr. Roy: I’m an independent individual here, and I speak my own position. I express concerns, and just as some of my friend’s colleagues, who have a bit more guts than he has, express their concerns. I refer to my friend’s colleague from Cornwall, for instance --

Mr. Handleman: And the member for Brantford (Mr. Makarchuk).

Mr. Roy: -- and the member for Brantford as well.

Mr. M. N. Davison: How many policies does my friend’s party have?

Mr. Roy: I can’t prophesy the future and, unlike some members in this Legislature, I don’t pretend to have all the answers. All I know is that I am one member who has had some experience with the law in this area, and I am expressing some concern about this piece of legislation. I express some concern because I think none of us, however well motivated we may be, can say that this is going to be in the best long-term interests of tenants. I have yet to be convinced that it is going to be the case.

Mr. M. N. Davison: Your party has a different position.

Mr. Roy: I hear my colleagues on my left barking. If I have ever seen a misguided bunch at times, it’s been that crew in their supposed attempt to try to find the perfect solution for a problem. In fact they compound a problem and in attempting to help people hurt them more than ever by not having a proper perspective on what life in the real world is all about out there.

Mr. M. N. Davison: If you speak for reality, spare us.

Mr. Roy: So I say, as one who has been involved in the process, I don’t have the answers and I don’t pretend to have all the answers like some of the colleagues to my left.

Mr. Dukszta: Then sit down.

Mr. Makarchuk: The marketplace will take care of it, Albert, the marketplace.

Mr. Roy: But as one member who has interest in landlord and tenant relationships I think I can express my point of view. I think the electors of my riding have elected me for that purpose. I will continue to express these views as long as I feel concern with this act or any other legislation.

In closing, I want to say to you, Mr. Speaker, that I as one member have yet to be convinced that on a long-term basis, we are in fact doing the right thing for landlords and tenants, who have traditionally and for centuries had disputes before the courts. The courts rely on jurisprudence and otherwise to make such determination. Overnight we take away this jurisdiction, establish a commission, and in so doing I have yet to be convinced that we are doing it for the best interests of either tenants or landlords in this province. I have yet to be convinced of that, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Dukszta: The recognition that good affordable housing is a basic social right of everyone has been long coming in Ontario. The right to good, affordable housing is as fundamental as the right to education and health. The 1975 election became a watershed in that prolonged fight to have tenants’ apartments recognized as homes. In that election rent controls and tenants’ rights became a major issue.

Housing and land have traditionally in Canada and in North America been exploited as a field for investment and for fast profit. The developers and major private interests built apartment buildings in which property interest was paramount and the interest of tenants was secondary. Rental homes provided good profit for investors, but left the tenants without any real right of protection.

The fact that an apartment is also a home and not just a convenient machine for making profits was not recognized by propertied interests who owned land and buildings. “You can leave it if you don’t like it,” was the oft-repeated statement from owners who saw the issue only a return on capital. With the vacancy rate in 1975 in Toronto less than one per cent, to say to tenants they could leave was cruelly laughable and didn’t recognize the fact that one must have shelter as much as food to live.

The captive market was milked by monopolistic owners for all it was worth. The rents in some apartment buildings in my riding of Parkdale and other Toronto areas went up as much as 40 per cent in a year. There was no rent control and landlords’ decisions to throw out tenants if they could not pay arbitrary increases were supported by legal sanctions. There was nothing one could do except pay more and more; the percentage of incomes spent on houses by average people expanded dramatically.

At the same time, rent increases increased dramatically and land prices exploded astronomically. The knowledge that exorbitant profits and fortunes could be made in land and in apartment buildings in what was virtually a free market for those with money, pushed the rents and land values concurrently in a closely-related spiral and profit increased.

Greenspan, in his report Down to Earth, the report of the federal-provincial task force on the Supply and Price of Serviced Residential Land, demonstrates that phenomenon. To quote: “In the boom of 1972-75” -- I have to put the word “boom” in quotation marks for Mr. Greenspan, because what was a boom for developers and property owners was a bust for tenants -- “on average, in 25 urban areas across the country lot prices increased at a rate over 40 per cent greater than the general rate of inflation.” Greenspan calls the whole process “asset revaluation.” Indeed, that is exactly what the process was. The apartment buildings and the land became more valuable by transferring directly by way of an increased portion of tenants’ income into the pockets of the landlords. From a moral perspective I would call that barefaced robbery, albeit legalized.

The political watershed in Ontario occurred in 1975 because there was a recognition that the governing party was in cahoots with the landed interest and the social control of the housing sector could only be introduced by the NDP. The result of this tenant revolt was the first minority government. The minority government introduced rent control of sorts for two years and amended the Landlord and Tenant Act which recognized legally the moral right of a tenant to his home.

The struggle is not over, for any recognition of the rights of tenants to their homes involves the counter-reactions of the propertied interests. Two typical reactions have surfaced: One, Ontario doesn’t need rent control for there is only a small number of people who really cannot afford to pay rent and, consequently, that problem can be dealt with by increasing the number of people who need rent supplement; two, that we solve the “housing crisis” by making the building of more housing attractive to the private sector by ensuring an “adequate return,” which, translated, means we once more must allow landlords to fleece tenants.

Increasing the number of people on some kind of a rent supplement is equally important, because there are now over 13,000 people on the waiting list of Ontario Housing Corporation. It is additionally significant as an important way of modifying the glaring discrepancy in incomes between the working people and the upper class. But merely extending welfare handouts will not do.

Amsterdam’s experience in that field is paradigmatic and can be quoted usefully here. “The system of individual rent [tenant] subsidy [abbreviated IRS] was introduced in Amsterdam on July 1, 1970, as an additional rent subsidy system and has been improved considerably since July 1, 1975. The aim of the IRS is to provide individual rent subsidies to those who, in spite of the already existing government subsidies on house-building in general, pay too high a rent in proportion to their income (more than 11 per cent to 17 per cent of annual taxable income).” This is ironic when we consider that in our province 25 per cent of a tenant’s income is a reasonable percentage of income to spend on rent. In Amsterdam and in Holland it is considered excessive.

“Subsidy will be granted only when the rent forms too large a part of taxable income, according to certain set standards.” I would repeat, a household has to pay at least 11.3 per cent to 17.3 per cent of income before any subsidy will be given. A single person would have to pay a little more.

What is important about the Dutch society is the acceptance, by all levels in that society, that housing is a social right. This conviction instrumentally has been translated into: (1) rent control generally; (2) rent subsidy; (3) general housebuilding government subsidy; (4) intensive government building programs; (5) control of land by the community -- 70 per cent of all land in Amsterdam is controlled by the government; (6) comprehensive landlord-tenant legislation which protects tenants’ basic social right to their homes.

[5:30]

The present bill which we are now discussing, Bill 163, pretends to deal with some of the questions, but close examination of the bill suggests that the government’s pretension that this bill is a panacea for housing problems is truly false. The bill extends minimal rent control for a further two years. In that period, two years’ grace is better than nothing.

I assure you, Mr. Speaker, that rent control is a right that must become permanent, as permanent as the need for housing. I have no doubt that in two years’ time the fight will begin again between tenants demanding their rights, and the propertied interests and their desire to maximize the profits, supported by the present Conservative government.

Rent control as a permanent feature of Ontario is an essential part of social rights of the people of Ontario. The underlying issue of our debate, already discussed by the member for Brantford, is land ownership. It is recognized that the ownership of land allows the community to set detailed goals and objectives for each development which benefit all the community, not just landed interests.

Let me tell you what should be done, Mr. Speaker. We should commit ourselves to a large and extensive program of land banking, starting with land not directly in the path of development and leading in the long term to the point at which most of the land for development passes through public hands. All non-urban land would be frozen in its present use, whether speculatively held or not, no rezoning being allowed unless the government has had the option to acquire it with the price being set by its present, rather than its future use.

It may be possible to extend such a policy to urban rezoning. However, this is more complicated and will require further analysis.

Large development holdings which have already been rezoned would escape, but the bottom would drop out of the huge, speculatively held, rural landbank market.

This policy would remove the super profits made through land development from the private individual to the community. The value is created through the growth of a community over time and the investment of tax dollars on infrastructures such as roads, transit, school systems, et cetera. The individual land owner does almost nothing to create that value.

A further reason for such a policy is that it would enable various levels of government to implement their planning. Land development could flow from a co-ordinated growth strategy. Such a growth strategy implies that we would produce a meaningful provincial plan which for the first time co-ordinates functions such as transportation and land use on the one hand, and energy and food production on the other. This would also give municipalities a sound basis for establishing their own plans.

At the present time implementation depends on the whim of the private owners and the resultant development on its profitability. We would restore to land development the rationale that the economic and social benefit to the community should be the sole criterion for development.

The sleeper part of the bill is the part dealing with landlord-tenant relations. The previous act enshrined some of the basic rights of tenants. This bill significantly weakens some of these rights. It is for this reason that we have insisted that the bill must be referred to the committee so both members and the public can have a direct input into the bill’s provisions.

I want to stress again the NDP’s position on Bill 163. We support this bill on certain conditions. We support the rent control, even if it is only for two years, for it is our party’s position that rent control must be a permanent feature of the rights of the tenants of Ontario.

Let me repeat the reasons for our three-point dissent from the 1978 report of the standing general government committee on policy paper number 13.

Point number one was that we believed the tenants of Ontario should be entitled to continuing protection against unjustified rent increases as a right of tenancy. For that reason we dissented from the majority opinion.

Point two was the financing cost pass-through. Point number 6B(vii) in the report allows the pass-through of financing cost increases -- so does the bill, by the way -- that result from the sale of property. In our position we argued that the rent review program should be neutral with respect to the way a building is financed. The inclusion of financing costs for pass-through is a major loophole in the present program and we do not feel the committee’s position is adequate to close it. We have not changed our opinion on that major point and that applies even more so to the bill.

The third point on which we dissented from the majority opinion was on the new building exemptions. Point number nine in the report continues all exemptions allowed under the current program. In our position we argue that new buildings should be covered and a special fair-rent proposal which would allow owners of a new building a fair return of the capital they have invested. I want to stress again that in the bill more exemptions have been instituted with which we disagree.

The fourth dissenting point would be the fact that the present bill seriously dilutes tenants’ rights. On this point I want to stress again that our support of the bill on second reading is conditional on a significant improvement on a number of clauses which would strengthen tenants’ rights. Those were already reviewed by my leader. Let me add some concluding details under several headings:

1. Coverage: Additional types of residences are exempted from the act and rent review by section 4(h) and 4(l). Student residences, graduate students’ apartments and accommodation for staff of educational institutions are no longer covered. Also persons who receive their accommodation or a rent reduction in exchange for performing custodial or other duties for the landlord have no security of tenure if they leave the employ of the landlord.

The bill decreases the notice period for rent increases from 90 days to 60 and does not allow a tenant to appeal an increase of less than six per cent. The bill would assure landlords that gross revenue will exceed their costs by two per cent. This provision may encourage landlords to inflate certain costs. To those units already exempted from guidelines, the bill adds, at the minister’s discretion, units renting at over $500, units in depressed areas where rents are lowered for a period of one year and upon agreement of the tenants, complexes of less than six units.

Contrary to the committee’s recommendations, the commission will not set up a registry of rents charged in the province. The bill makes the keeping of records for individual units the responsibility of the landlord.

2. Leases: As we have demanded, a standard form lease will be developed. There are two problems with it. The minister will prescribe the document after the bill is passed. Secondly, landlords at any time may add “house rules.” If the commission decides those house rules are reasonable, an infraction becomes grounds for eviction. Formerly, house rules could he established but eviction could only result if the tenants’ actions caused danger or interfered with other tenants’ quiet enjoyment of their premises.

3. Security of tenure: Because so much discretionary power falls into the hands of the commission, it is very difficult to evaluate exactly what it does to security of tenure. It is clear, however, that the bill lessens the security of tenure presently enjoyed.

There are many new grounds for eviction, in fact too many. Perhaps the major change, however, is that there is no longer any orderly manner whereby eviction takes place. There is no specified time limit between the breach of the tenancy agreement and the time of actual eviction. The time of eviction is either “a date specified by the commission” or “the earliest possible date.”

There are grounds to believe that the commission will be staffed by the present rent review officers, and I think it would be unwise to let them determine the dates of eviction. It would seem preferable to specify short periods of time for serious offenders and longer periods of time for other breaches, rather than leave everything in the hands of civil servants.

This new approach to security of tenure is the most objectionable feature of the bill because in the long run security of tenure will be more important to tenants than rent control.

4. The Residential Tenancy Commission: This is a concept which we supported, but the loose language of the act will mean that we will have to propose and fight for careful amendments if we hope to get a body that will protect tenants.

The commission will administer the act, but will not deal with sums of money exceeding $1,000. Its offices will be throughout the province in accessible places and will be open evenings, Saturdays and Sundays, when necessary. But in effect by limiting it to $1,000, they limit the full functioning of the commission.

The commission on application will settle matters by whatever means it considers necessary. The commission may hold a hearing when it deems it necessary. The hearing will be under the Statutory Powers Procedure Act. The commission conducts the hearings and questions all parties. Upon reaching a decision the commission makes orders. Tenants can be ordered to vacate or to make remedy according to the decision of the commission. In cases where the landlord is at fault, the commission may make an order that the landlord repair the breach.

The commission may order that the rent be paid to the commission until the landlord complies with the order. The act does not propose any fines or penalties for repeated breaches by landlords. On the other hand, repeated breaches by tenants constitute grounds for eviction. I do think that the extent of the rights of the commission, by the very vagueness of the wording, will dilute the rights of the tenant.

In concluding, Mr. Speaker, it is essential that these weaknesses of the act must be corrected so that the tenants can enjoy their full rights as citizens of Ontario. That is why our support of the bill is conditional on what happens with the committee.

Mr. Ruston: Twenty minutes, Frank.

Mr. Grande: If only.

Hon. Mr. Drea: Fourteen? Mr. Speaker, first of all I would like to deal with some of the philosophical matters raised by the member for Ottawa East. The reason I choose to deal with these matters first rather than in order of the speakers is that the concerns that he raised affect very fundamentally the question of whether indeed a bill like this should go forward at this stage.

I would point out to him that eight out of the other 10 provinces have tribunals such as this adjudicating in the field of landlord and tenant. Mind you, in fairness, I must say that they probably do not go as far in some regards, but the principle is the same. Only Ontario and Alberta -- and with the passage of this law it will be only Alberta -- will have neither a tribunal nor a rentalsman system. In other words, something outside of the courts.

Obviously it is not just a response to a Toronto or a Metro problem, although it has been difficult and time-consuming in that area. It has been expensive and inconvenient in terms of a man or woman having to lose a day’s pay over the constant remands and so forth. None of them is prima facie evidence that the county court should not go on handling the matter as it has, but rather we are facing up to the new dimension, and that new dimension is that tenants themselves are now growing in numbers. The tradition upon which landlord and tenant matters originally evolved, which was that the majority owned and a very few rented, is disappearing. It is quite true, no matter how willing the court is to try to protect rights in areas like this, that it is really an adversarial system.

In this the thrust is to try to eliminate as much of the adversarial system as is humanly possible, while recognizing that there will be a time when the adversarial system will have to be used, because that is where the decision will be made.

I also point out to the member for Ottawa East that there are appeals to the courts. One is the system of judicial review; secondly, there is the built-in appeal in matters of law. So it is not a question of taking this entirely out of the courts, rather it is taking the part out of the formal court system which can work better on the basis of the tribunal or commission, or whatever you want to call it, reserving to the court the things that are important to the courts and the things they do best, which is a final adjudication indeed, if there really is a dispute.

[5:45]

Having dealt with that, I would first of all like to deal with the suggestion that these reasonable rules are some kind of game or some kind of nonsense, as was put forward by the member for Scarborough-Ellesmere. I don’t happen to think that a rule that says “Don’t fool around with the smoke detector” is unreasonable. Where a municipality requires smoke detectors --

Mr. Makarchuk: You use them in your jails all the time, and they work.

Hon. Mr. Drea: Far too well in the case of Brantford, as my friends know.

That surely is a reasonable rule. There is also the reasonable rule that will be put forward, “Don’t throw objects off your balcony.” I think that is a rule that, above all, all of us want respected. I don’t think it’s unreasonable for a landlord to put that there. Somebody may throw fruit or something off a balcony, doing some injury to a tenant of the building or someone else, and then say, “But I had no idea.” That’s a reasonable rule.

There’s also the question of pets. I thought that was very interesting. What if the building rules say “No pets,” which is defined as cats, dogs, et cetera?

Mr. Foulds: Budgies and cockroaches.

Hon. Mr. Drea: If you go in there and deliberately introduce a pet into the building, what about the other neighbours?

Mr. di Santo: Why should they be set by the landlords?

Mr. Charlton: Exactly.

Hon. Mr. Drea: No, they’re not going to be set by the landlords. First of all, for the first time there won’t be all of that fine print on the back of the thing. You are going to have a checklist of what the landlord is providing you. There won’t be an argument at the end of tenancy or when you want to move about whether there was ever a rug there.

There have to be reasonable rules. There are rules in this chamber. All we’re saying, in terms of the reasonable rules, is that --

Mr. Makarchuk: You can’t evict anybody.

Hon. Mr. Drea: You cannot evict, by the way, on the first violation of a rule; it’s only on repeated violations.

One of the other interesting facts about the rules is that for the first time we’re talking about boarding and rooming houses, and there are going to have to be some reasonable rules there. In other words, where there’s a communal bathroom, people will have to take individual responsibility for keeping it clean. Where there is only one phone, people will have to take responsibility for seeing that calls do not last more than 10 or 15 minutes. Those are very reasonable rules.

If the landlord wants to change, bear in mind that the commission decides whether a rule is reasonable. It is not as simple a thing as the landlord looking around and saying, “I’m going to introduce a new element today,” because that new element doesn’t exist until it is filed with the commission and the commission accepts it as reasonable. I don’t think that’s nonsense.

Mr. M. N. Davison: Define reasonable.

Hon. Mr. Drea: Reasonable is what the commission accepts.

Mr. MacBeth: Anybody who doesn’t act like an NDPer.

Mr. Warner: Yes, Tory real estate agents.

Hon. Mr. Drea: The interesting fact is that, without that clause, landlords and tenants would never be able to change their conditions. We’re not dealing with the old days when there were one- or two-year leases; there are very few of those around any more. Because of the introduction of the original landlord and tenant legislation, everybody is virtually on a month-to-month basis.

What happens to a landlord when a municipality comes in and says: “You can no longer carry out that practice. There is now a bylaw that says your tenants must do this” and the tenants refuse to do it? The landlord has no authority to compel them to do it. Who suffers? It’s the landlord. None of us wants that. If the municipality has passed a bylaw to which tenants must conform, the landlord is held responsible for them conforming. That’s all we’re doing in here.

Another suggestion was that tenants will not be allowed to appeal any increase that is less than the six per cent. Mr. Speaker, I direct your attention to section 123 -- and we’ll debate it very fully in committee where we will be doing whole-building review under the new act. Whole-building review, incidentally, is something suggested by the New Democratic Party on innumerable occasions since the introduction of rent control in 1975.

All it says is at the time that the whole-building review is being done, even though your lease isn’t up, you have the right to appeal any increase. It cannot be done once the whole-building review has been done, for rather obvious reasons, unless the members want to fragment it all the way back, into individual unit-by-unit appeal. One has one opportunity to appeal; that is the time of the whole-building review. One does not have subsequent times to appeal. Therefore the tenant has more opportunity than ever to appeal. At the time of the whole-building review, you can have comparative rents. So, the person who wasn’t able to take advantage of rent control by virtue of the fact that he or she signed a lease prior to the rollback in 1975, can now argue that “My unit is artificially priced higher than the one across the hall because of the time I signed my lease and the arbitrary date upon which rent control came in, so I now have an opportunity under the whole-building review to appeal it.”

If the members want to go back to individual unit-by-unit types of rent review, now is their time to speak up. If they want whole-building review -- and it’s my understanding that is what the committee wanted and what the members want -- then surely a whole-building review means one review. It means that four or five months later when the tenant’s actual lease comes up, he does not come back and say, “Notwithstanding the fact there was a whole-building review three months ago. and this increase was passed out throughout the whole building rather than on an individual unit, I now want it reviewed.” It’s impossible. It’s very, very clearly set out in section 123.

Another matter which concerns me a great deal is the allegation by the leader of the New Democratic Party that orders, particularly eviction orders, can be made without a hearing by this commission. Mr. Speaker, I’m advised that sections 95, 99, and 100 preclude that. Really, there is nowhere in the act that an order can be made without a hearing when somebody wants a hearing. Obviously if the landlord does not want a hearing then at some time the order has to be given either for tenants to pay their rents to the commission, or for other things. If a tenant does not want a hearing and says, “Of course I haven’t paid, I’m leaving,” how can one get an order on that when someone doesn’t want it? But I again direct to the members’ attention, sections 95, 99, and 100.

I would also like to direct to the leader of the NDP this question: Why don’t we allow rent strikes before the commission takes the money into trust?

Mr. Warner: Does the member for Carleton support this legislation?

Hon. Mr. Drea: I don’t know whether the member has ever been involved in a rent strike, but one of the concerns about tenants who engaged in them --

Mr. M. N. Davison: He knows a lot more about tenant problems than you.

Hon. Mr. Drea: Just a moment, will you. Yes, he must, I just directed 95, 99, and 100 to him. He obviously knows more about tenant problems than I do.

One of the concerns in a rent strike has been the fact that tenants were supposed to put their funds into trust, pending the final determination of that dispute. In other words, it was to force the landlord to make repairs. A great many tenants did this. But human nature being what it is, some withholding of rents went on for some time, and tenants had trouble policing other tenants who were moving out and saying, “Look, the strike isn’t over, I’m taking my money and leaving.” The remaining tenants then found themselves in a very dubious legal position.

Under this act this will not happen because the commission will be directing payment of rents to the commission. The commission will hold them in trust. If there is ever a fight about the trust money then it is litigation against the commission; it has nothing whatsoever to do with the tenant. I suggest to the member, that will be a far more successful procedure against a recalcitrant, belligerent, or defaulting landlord, than saying to tenants, if indeed he believes that the tenant feels psychologically somewhat at the mercy of the landlord, “Why don’t you go out and strike him, withhold the money?” They’ve never wanted to do that. They had some very, very grave concerns about that. Okay, under the procedure with the commission, that money will he collected; that money will be withheld by the commission.

Mr. Warner: Does the member for Carleton support this legislation? That’s what I want to know.

Hon. Mr. Drea: Of course he does.

Mr. Handleman: Sure. It doesn’t go far enough but I support it.

Hon. Mr. Drea: I notice the honourable member is supporting it now since I’ve directed certain sections to his attention. He was up here not too long ago, didn’t know it was going to committee, flailing all over the place, didn’t know what section --

Mr. Warner: You’ve changed your mind.

Hon. Mr. Drea: I have never changed my mind. As a matter of fact, on Friday everybody knew this was going to committee --

Mr. Warner: Recalcitrant cabinet members.

Hon. Mr. Drea: I do believe it was on Friday. I’m looking at the member’s House leader. He certainly knew --

Mr. Martel: Thursday.

Hon. Mr. Drea: -- Thursday, was it? Thursday. Doesn’t the member ever talk to him?

Mr. Warner: All the time.

Hon. Mr. Drea: All the time.

Mr. Martel: It’s just that you change your mind so much.

Mr. Warner: Somebody talked to you obviously. You changed your mind.

Hon. Mr. Drea: In the last moment I want to turn to an observation made by the members for Kitchener and Ottawa East, and put in rather conceptual terms by the member for St. George. This was about the possibility of further exemptions on an area basis.

I think that may indeed be an extremely practical route in terms of where this is going in committee. I’m certainly prepared to look at any specifics either the members as individuals or collectively might want to put forward as to what they think about the time frame or what the practicality of it may be at this time.

One point I wanted to discuss was that made by the member for St. George. She was talking about the question of withdrawal of services -- not essential services or vital services as now described in the act but ones that people accepted as a condition of their occupancy of the building, such as all-night security.

I’m somewhat sympathetic to her observations and we want to look further as to what would be the appropriate place to put in something like that. I agree with her. The people don’t want an abatement of rent, they want a continuance of the service.

Again, she posed the question of the growing requirements of large landlords particularly to have abnormally full disclosure of income and assets of prospective tenants. I think “abnormally full” would describe what she was saying.

I am not altogether sure the present legislation we are considering is the place for that. But I will direct it to the Provincial Secretary for Justice (Mr. Welch) and to the Attorney General (Mr. McMurtry). As she suggests, it is within the framework of Justice policy. I think perhaps that is something we should be looking at now.

The question was raised by the member for Windsor-Sandwich (Mr. Bounsall) whether, in terms of university-owned homes, if it is the public, they’re now under rent review. He raised the point that they weren’t. It’s my understanding they will continue to be. I can recall him discussing it many months ago. It was the first time I ever knew that university-owned homes where faculty lived -- at the time we were taking out those things -- it seemed to me it was by pretty common consent of the Legislature that university-owned homes, whether for faculty or for students, were to be removed from the process.

I could be wrong and I’m willing to take a look at it in committee. If I recall correctly, the member for Kitchener-Wilmot (Mr. Sweeney) moved an amendment in previous attempts at this and it was taken out. But I will check on that and we can certainly discuss it in committee.

The final thing I want to say is there have been some concerns expressed about why this legislation does not employ a central registry of rents, but rather says the landlord will maintain it on the premises. We feel, quite frankly, the central registry would be a duplication. We feel the proper place for one to be able to look at your rent schedules and so forth is in one’s own building. We think that is the proper place. Bear in mind that because a landlord must now supply the previous rent on an accurate basis to someone coming in to take occupancy, the commission does have the right to act if those rent documents are faked or what have you.

Finally, the last point -- and I don’t know how it’s missed. The member says there are no fines for landlords. Section 119 denotes offences; if he looks at the offences section, there are not only fines, but there are other sanctions for them. It’s all covered in section 119.

Mr. Ziemba: How many have been fined this morning?

Hon. Mr. Drea: I’m looking forward to the contributions of all members of the House during committee, also of those of the public who wish to make further input. I think everybody has already made awesome amounts of input, but I realize that people still want to be reassured and so forth.

I’m looking forward to it. I think we have plenty of time and I would wholeheartedly ask the House for unanimous passage of this legislation in principle at this time.

Mr. M. N. Davison: You are pushing out the tenants.

Mr. Handleman: It’s not enough.

Mr. Warner: We’ll fix it up for you.

Motion agreed to.

Ordered for standing social development committee.

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, just before we rise for the supper break, may I indicate, in support of my colleague, that this bill stands now referred to the standing committee on social development. I would just like to speak very quickly on the two concerns expressed during the course of this debate.

Of course, there is an opportunity for substitution on that committee which speaks to the point raised by the member for St. George and the committee itself can address the concerns expressed by the member for Hamilton Centre with respect to their schedule. I hope that that point could be discussed. In anticipation of this committee getting on with its work quickly so that it can report back to the House in order to have this legislation in place by the end of November, the committee did start some advertising in order to start some hearings at the first of the week. Hopefully, the committee itself can give some consideration to the problem raised by the member for Hamilton Centre

The House recessed at 6 p.m.