Legislative Assembly of Ontario

The House resumed at 8 p.m.

EXTENSION OF INTERIM SUPPLY

Resumption of the adjourned debate on resolution 8, that the authority of the Treasurer of Ontario granted on March 29, 1979, to pay the salaries of the civil servants and other necessary payments pending the voting of supply for the period commencing April 1, 1979, be extended to March 31, 1980, such payments to be charged to the proper appropriation following the voting of supply.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I recognize the member for Kent-Elgin.

Mr. McGuigan: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was all prepared to compliment and thank the Treasurer (Mr. F. S. Miller) for coming this evening under the circumstances of a bad bout of the flu, which I think every member can appreciate; no doubt he will be here in a minute or two, so I think those remarks are in order.

I would like to continue the debate on the motion of supply, where I left off by expressing my opposition to the high interest rates which appear to be supported by this government and by their friends in Ottawa, the Tory government of Canada. I just want to point out that Canada does not have the problems that the Americans are facing with their inflation rate. We don’t have the consequences of the guns-and-butter policy for which they are today belatedly reaping the results -- the Vietnam war, as well as all their global commitments, which they conducted without having made any adjustment in their economy; they followed a gun-and-butter program.

We don’t import 50 to 55 per cent of our oil from offshore countries as does the United States. We do import about 30 per cent of our oil but we have a great many resources here; far more, relatively speaking than do the Americans because ours have not been developed as much as theirs, therefore, those resources attract capital to our country.

I would once more suggest that the remedies they have taken are not appropriate for Canada.

Mr. Nixon: Too bad the Treasurer missed it.

Mr. Kerrio: Start all over again.

Mr. McGuigan: I am glad to see the Treasurer come in. My colleagues have asked me to start all over again, but because of the minister’s concern with his health, as he shared with us earlier tonight, I will thank him for having come in. As I know every member can appreciate, when he is not feeling well is perhaps not the greatest time to debate, especially a subject like our economy; but if we are really concerned about the economy and making corrections in that economy, then it seems to me that in Canada the more appropriate route is to do selective things rather than have the across-the-board bludgeoning of the economy that is being put on us.

If the government is concerned about people borrowing money to use that money to speculate in the stock markets or commodity markets, it can affect that situation by changing the margin rates. If it is concerned about consumer credit, it can affect that by regulating the down payment and the terms of payment, the length of payment. There are selective measures that are open to the government.

I think probably its real concern about raising interest rates is to prevent the fall of the dollar. I don’t think it is going to fall as much as the government would have us believe, but if the dollar did fall a point or two, it would certainly dramatize the position that this government’s overspending of the last 10 or 12 years has put the country in. A lower dollar would really provide problems for the government. Instead of shouldering that responsibility it is pushing that problem off on to the small businessman, the farmer and the consumer.

I would like to speak a word or two on behalf of farmers and small businessmen from the great riding of Kent-Elgin, who predominate the economy and I speak not only on their behalf but on behalf of all small businessmen, farmers and consumers in Ontario.

One of the answers that has come from the government’s side of the House is that if we have problems with the 16 per cent interest rate we should go to our friendly banker and tell him, or I guess beg him would be a more appropriate word, to forget about a payment for a period of time. We call that bankruptcy in the farm community. When a farmer can’t pay his bills or he can’t meet his loan he considers himself bankrupt. That is an untenable position. It is an insult to every farmer and every small businessman in this province.

I will tell you what they will do about that, Mr. Speaker. The farmer will seek an off-farm job. He is going to hang on to the farm family and the farm life as much as he can. He is going to seek an off-farm job. He will send his wife out to work, if she isn’t already out working, to help make the payments. He will put pressure on the children in the family to help more with farm chores.

In the private entrepreneurial farm family we are not held by hours of work. We don’t have minimum hours of work for the farm family itself and we don’t have minimum wages. The cost of that will be borne by the farm family itself, and it is a self-destructive cost. It is one that the farmers have not earned, because if any group of people in this province has carried the ball for the last number of years, has increased its productivity in each and every year and has produced cheap food to cushion the economy of this country, it is the farm community and those small businesses that support it.

I tell you with all the sincerity that I can, Mr. Speaker, the answer this government gives is not an acceptable answer to that farm community and small business community, and the government does itself a great disservice even to suggest that is an answer. I would think that if the government doesn’t have a better answer than that none at all would be more appropriate.

In summary, I just suggest that the measures that have been adopted here in Ontario and in Canada are not appropriate to our economic conditions and the measures that are offered to farmers and small businessmen are really insulting.

Mr. Renwick: Mr. Speaker, on October 23 the Treasurer responded to some questions put to him by the leader of this party with respect to the profits of the oil companies doing business in Canada. The Treasurer made a comment and I want to use that for the purpose of developing the theme that I will make to the Treasurer in the course of this short time in the debate.

The Treasurer responded, “I don’t think I have to.” That’s not relevant. “First, Ontario has very few oil-producing companies within it. If one looks at the structure through the favourable corporate tax structure of Alberta, we’ve lost them all. They are all domiciled there.”

My concern, Mr. Speaker, is not to attack the oil companies at this particular point in time, although they may very well deserve it and in the minds of a lot of people they do deserve it.

Mr. Kerrio: Take a run at them; Petrocan will protect them.

Mr. Renwick: My purpose, also, is not to urge on the Treasurer anything which is beyond his power to accomplish; I want to deal with it in what to me are fundamental terms, and I think terms which will relate to what the Treasurer has been saying in a number of speeches and in this House.

What we are talking about is the division of revenue. How are the revenues of the various provinces of Canada and the federal government to be allocated? That’s the fundamental question.

It happens at the present time that one of the major funnels -- or pipelines, if it’s more appropriate -- through which revenues pass to various governments is through the oil companies. I am not interested and I want to repeat I am not interested, in engaging the Treasurer in discussion about whether profits are good or bad or whether it’s a good word or bad word. That’s not the point I want to make; or say that what he is engaged in and the Premier is engaged in is trying to alter the way in which the revenues of government are distributed across the country in the light of the changing situation brought about by the increased price of crude oil.

Also, Mr. Speaker, I am not interested in anything called the niceties or sophistications of constitutional law at all. The only point I am interested in, in a constitutional way, is what to me are the constitutional facts of life.

One of the constitutional facts of life under our form of federalism is that the allocation of the financial resources of the governments is a matter, and has always been a matter, of negotiation; and it finally has to be settled by way of negotiation. There is no way in which that political negotiating process can be passed over to anyone else to settle.

That’s a very tough negotiating game; the Treasurer knows that. All I want to do is to make certain that as we approach the point in time where the players sit down at the table, the Treasurer has available to him the best hand which he can have. What concerned me and why I wanted to participate tonight in this debate is the suggestion, inherent perhaps in what the Treasurer said, that somehow or other he has no leverage with respect to what I have called the funnel or pipeline through which these revenues pass from the consumers across the country with respect to the profits of the oil companies, whether those profits go to the federal government, the Alberta government, the Saskatchewan government or this government. Whatever government these profits go to, the oil companies, for the purpose of the case I am putting to the Treasurer tonight, are nothing but a fund, and I am completely neutral in attitude towards that fund. All of the moneys do come that way, the question is who gets them?

[8:15]

I think the Treasurer very clearly put his position in an address which I understand he gave to the Canadian Bar Association, in which he appeared, and I say the Premier’s (Mr. Davis) statement in August and all subsequent statements made by this government, appeared to leave this government in the position of a supplicant to the federal government to intervene in this question of what Alberta may or may not do. All sorts of language is being used about the escalation of that fight. He is not particularly interested in seeing it escalated into a slam-bang fight because the realities ultimately will come through.

What the Treasurer said is: “If the federal government and Alberta choose to increase oil prices substantially, then Ontario insists that a new method of reinvesting the money be put in place immediately. That would require strong federal leadership. We are not arguing for an extension of the federal jurisdiction; but we do believe that the federal government has the authority, and more important the responsibility, to protect those national interests it has been charged to serve by the electorate across Canada.

“In our opinion, the past policy has failed. In the medium term, if no one yields this country is headed for bad news. We shall have very unpleasant tension between regions.”

What my colleague, the leader of this party, touched upon was whether or not the Treasurer would intervene at the federal level or try to influence the federal level in some decisions which it may or may not make. I am going to ask the Treasurer whether or not he will consider putting before this assembly a bill which would provide him, when he goes to the negotiating table, with the kind of leverage or the kind of cards in the game that is going to be played -- and I mean that seriously, not in any particularly joking sense -- so he does have some leverage on those revenues.

I am going to suggest it is absolutely essential that the government have in place before it approaches that bargaining table a statute of this province which will tax, if brought into force, the moneys which arise in the province of Ontario and which flow to the oil companies.

I want to touch on this only very briefly, because the minister has his advisers, and he has under the gallery this evening a particular adviser whom I respect, who can well look at what I am talking about.

It is trite but fundamental law in our country, decided as far back as 1887, that a province has the ability to tax an organization which is operating for the purpose of making profits within its jurisdiction. “But the tax now in question is demanded directly of the bank” -- it was the banks at that time; I substitute oil companies -- “apparently for the reasonable purpose of getting contributions for provincial purposes from those who are making profits by provincial business.”

The Treasurer knows there is absolutely no question that the corporation income tax of this province is valid legislation within the jurisdiction of this province; that it can be specifically directed to a particular segment of industry in a way that differentiates from other segments; that it can deal with something called the profits from the sale of petroleum products in the province of Ontario; and that the permanent establishment are here on the basis of which that jurisdiction can be asserted. As the Treasurer said in his response to my colleague: “Representing 40 per cent of this country’s people, and a lot more than 40 per cent of the seats the federal government holds, we are telling them that this is in the interests not only of this province, but all the consumers of Canada. We are fighting hard on this.”

I say to the Treasurer that in the competition for the revenues which are finding their way to the governments in Canada in disproportionate ways, including the federal government, this Treasurer must have in place his lever on those funds. He must be able to say, “I too have a statutory authority to tax the revenues that are coming through the oil companies;” just the same as the Alberta government would be deriving revenues, by whatever name, from those oil companies; and just the same as the federal government, by whatever name, is deriving revenues from those same oil companies.

What we’re talking about is the global pot and how it is to be divided. I would be very concerned if this government were to go to that Ottawa meeting without having -- just as the federal government and the Alberta government and any other interested government is in a position to have -- if I may use the term, the best bargaining counters in its arsenal so that when the time comes we can be seen to be seriously involved in it.

We don’t have to talk about the kinds of dollars; they’re not different, we can be neutral about it. We’re simply talking about dollars which originate in the province of Ontario and are part of the global pool that goes into the funnel called the oil companies, and which ultimately find their way in varying proportions to the other governments.

The fact that we have no oil and the fact that we can’t levy excise taxes are not factors which should interfere with this province using its legitimate taxing authority to put in place a tax which says that if we can’t get it by recycling, that is of moneys which originate here which form part of the profits of the overall funnel of moneys going through the oil companies to the government, we want the federal government to know that while we do not want to do it under any co-operative negotiating system, we will not stand idly by to see that number of dollars diverted from this economy to another economy or to the federal government, and rely on some agreement over which we have no control in order to make certain that in some way those moneys are going to come back here to us so that we can cushion people against the net impact which is required, and so that we can finance in a very real way the necessary changes in the balances of the energy system of this province in order to move towards something called a balance which is less dependent upon crude oil, which is the stated aim of the government.

I’m talking in a neutral sense about the dollars involved, but I want to say to the government, in order to illustrate what I am saying, that the numbers of dollars available to this province on a 40 per cent basis, to use the Treasurer’s percentage -- and I’ll allow him to make it -- are available. Someone is going to have to sort it out, but we must have the authority to tax our share here in this province on a standby basis if we can’t get a deal any other way. I take it away from no one, and I support entirely what the Premier and the Treasurer are saying, and I’m sure what the Minister of Energy (Mr. Welch) is saying. We want a negotiated settlement that’s fair to all Canadians.

I don’t take away any part of that concern, but if this government is engaged in the tough game which is obviously being played at the present time, it has got to have its counter available. The toughness of the game, to my mind, is no threat to the unity of the country. The toughness of the game and the capacity of the players will determine the unity of the country; it’s only when any player is playing weak and doesn’t understand his strengths that in a very real sense it has a bad effect on the goal of maintaining the unity of the country.

People can calculate the percentages and some of the dollar amounts any way they want. I’m going to talk in millions of dollars and I’m going to round off the figures, and I’m going to use four companies which do business in this province and derive a substantial part -- let us say 40 per cent -- of their profits, which are available to this government for tax.

Shell Oil: $69 million in 1972; in 1978, $151 million; in the first nine months of 1978, $105 million; in the first nine months of 1979, $174 million.

The Gulf Oil Company: in 1972, $66 million; in 1978, $183 million; --

Mr. Kerrio: Tax them; they’re windfall taxes, Frank.

Mr. Renwick: -- the first nine months of 1978, $126 million and the first nine months of 1979, $192 million.

Imperial Oil: $151 million in 1972; $314 million in 1978; in the first nine months of 1978, $224 million; in the first nine months of 1979, $309 million.

Texaco: $42 million in 1972; $148 million in 1978; in the first nine months of 1978, $109 million; and in the first nine months of 1979, $169 million.

Regardless of how one looks at those figures, the fact is those dollars are generated in this province and it is essential that this government has in place the authority to tax those profits made in this province as part of the revenues which are in dispute as to their reallocation.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Come on, that’s impossible.

Mr. Renwick: My friend on the right belongs to a party which illustrated this afternoon they know as little about collective bargaining at the national and interprovincial level as they know about collective bargaining in the private sector or in the public sector in matters of labour relations.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Don’t be biased. What the member is saying is absolute nonsense. He knows it’s nonsense.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.

Mr Renwick: There is no simplistic answer to this question.

Mr. T. P. Reid: That one the member offered.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Why doesn’t the member speak to the Treasurer? He realizes the truth.

Mr. Renwick: I am speaking to the Treasurer, I am not speaking to my simplistic friends on the right. I’m saying to the Treasurer that whatever devices the government of Saskatchewan uses --

Mr. T. P. Reid: You talked about constitutionality this afternoon and you obviously know nothing about it.

Mr. Renwick: -- to attract revenue from the funnel of the oil companies --

Mr. T. P. Reid: Tax the profits of the oil companies in Ontario; it’s ridiculous.

Mr. Renwick: -- whatever devices the federal government uses to attract their share or some proportion of those revenues, I want Ontario to have available to it its particular method of extracting its share of those revenues. In that way, when you go and sit at the table you are able to say, “We want a negotiated settlement.” That’s the way financial matters are settled in this country. We want to negotiate it in a fair way, but we want to have the counter which is available to us to counteract --

[8:30]

Mr. T. P. Reid: I think the member is taking leave of his senses.

Mr. Renwick: -- the argument which is being put so forcibly by the Alberta government, the argument which is being used in Ottawa against this province, if it is successful to avoid a group decision with respect to how those resources are to be allocated.

Mr. T. P. Reid: This is absolutely preposterous.

Interjections.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Talk about changing the rules of Confederation.

Mr. Renwick: I want to reiterate, if I may, what I fried to interject in that strange question and answer period this afternoon, the very fundamental fact of life under our federal system, and that is that having regard to the end result of the legal division of powers and to the disparate economic strength of the various provinces amongst themselves, it is understandable why the financial relations of dominion and provinces have become a central issue in Canadian federalism, an issue in which the strict legal position is of secondary importance.

My plea to the Treasurer is to have in place the kind of law which he can use, if it is necessary to do so, in order to ensure that rather than recycle on an equitable basis by negotiated settlement, that if that route is denied to him he will have the ability to move directly within his jurisdiction to ensure there will not be that outflow of dollars from this province in a way which goes beyond our authority to control it.

Mr. T. P. Reid: How can you do that to companies not domiciled in Ontario?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. This isn’t question period.

Mr. Renwick: I suppose that’s why I don’t like to go back to what I call the constitutional facts of life. We tax, on the basis of permanent establishment under the Corporation Tax Act of the province of Ontario, the profits of the oil companies as they arise in this province. The taxes under the Corporation Tax Act, I think, if I can recall the language, are “the profits attributable to that permanent establishment.” We tax those profits because they’re earned here.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Right, so the point is they don’t have to sell us any oil.

Hon. F. S. Miller: It’s not that simple.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Isn’t that what Lougheed said last night?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.

Mr. Renwick: Let me perhaps say that particular dimension of the problem had escaped even my imagination, fertile as it is on many occasions.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Only in some of your fantasies.

Mr. Renwick: The likelihood of Imperial Oil or Texaco or Shell deciding they won’t sell us any oil will produce the kind of situation in this country which will be so revolutionary there will be no place left on the political scene for a party which subscribes to the kind of misbegotten political philosophy of the party on the right.

Mr. T. P. Reid: The fact remains we’re here and you’re there because this kind of philosophical rambling doesn’t mean anything.

Mr. Renwick: I’m interested in talking to the tough poker player from Muskoka. He will understand he’s got to have something more than rhetoric in his pocket when he goes to meet the other Premiers, and I hope the Prime Minister of Canada, to settle this question.

I urge upon my friends on the right that if anybody wants to have the source of any comments of my view with respect to the constitutional powers of this province, with respect to the thesis I put forward on a very neutral basis, then I would suggest that perhaps they go to what is well known to those who know me, Laskin’s Constitutional Law of Canada, chapter 10, Taxing Powers, and take it home and read it some time. It is not difficult. It is known as the facts of life when one lives under a federal system in Canada.

My question to the Treasurer is, is he going to go naked to the conference table or is he going to go fully clothed?

Mr. Hennessy: He will get arrested if he does.

An hon. member: Wearing the emperor’s clothes.

Mr. Laughren: Wearing the emperor’s jewels.

Mr. Hennessy: It wouldn’t make any difference.

Mr. Renwick: All I can say is I am pleased that in a supply motion I have had the opportunity to put before the Treasurer a matter which I would be glad to pursue privately with him on any other occasion. I wanted to put before this House my concern that the Treasurer may well be overlooking a fundamental constitutional strength which he has within the federal system as one of the facts of life under which we live.

I want to urge upon him that he cannot ever place this province in the position of not acting. If necessary in the long run, he can protect this province constitutionally by taxes from a substantial part of that very outflow of money, which is at the core of the concern of the major statement made in August by the Premier of the province, and supported ever since by the various statements of the leading ministers of this government.

I urge his consideration of that proposition and I await his response to it.

Mr. Bolan: I would like to address myself to a topic which has been raised and spoken to quite eloquently by my colleague the member for Kent-Elgin (Mr. McGuigan), that is the question of high interest rates in the country.

I can understand in a sense the position of the governor of the Bank of Canada. I can understand what he is trying to do. He is trying to get the dollars which the American banks are getting by remaining reasonably competitive for the dollars which they are attracting. I can understand also what would most likely happen in the event this policy were not pursued. That is one side of the interest story, if we can call it that.

I would like to pose a question to the Treasurer, which I presume he would be able to answer. In spite of the fact that many of the demand loans which were floating around the country today, many of them in the province of Ontario, were taken out at a certain interest rate when the interest rate was eight or nine per cent, the traditional answer of the banks when they raised their interest rates after the Bank of Canada raised its interest rate was “Well the Bank of Canada has raised the interest rate; therefore, we have to raise our interest rate.”

The money which was lent to these small businesses at eight or nine per cent is now being lent to them at 12 or 13 or 14 per cent or whatever the new rate of interest may be. The traditional answer one gets from bankers is “The Bank of Canada has raised the interest rate; therefore, we have to raise the interest rate as well.” The question I pose is when was the last time any chartered bank in this country borrowed money from the Bank of Canada?

I am given various stories on this. I am told the last bank to borrow any money from the Bank of Canada was the Toronto-Dominion Bank 15 years ago. Others tell me 1953 or 1954 was the last time anybody borrowed any money from the Bank of Canada.

Why is it the lending institutions today are allowing the rate of interest to the businessman to rise based on the fact that the Bank of Canada interest rate has gone up? I could understand the situation if I was to walk into a bank today and the bank could legitimately say, “We have had to borrow the money from the lending people at 13 per cent, therefore we are going to lend it to you at 15 or 16 per cent.” I could understand that. But I cannot understand the position they take about money which was borrowed at seven or eight per cent, let’s say two years ago when the interest rates were substantially lower, and that money is now being repaid on a demand note at 15 or 16 per cent. Why is it the banks are using as their excuse or their reason for increasing the rate of interest on demand loans the fact that the Bank of Canada rate has gone up?

If they went out, as I said, and borrowed the money to make that loan --

Interjection.

Mr. Bolan: The member for Lakeshore will have a chance too. Don’t worry about that. We love to hear from him.

Mr. Lawlor: You’re right, you’re right; I told you that.

Mr. Bolan: Absolutely I’m right, I know that; but I really am waiting for an answer on this, because as I say no matter which banker you ask, you get that answer. “Oh my goodness, the Bank of Canada has raised its interest rate therefore we must bow to the Bank of Canada and we, too, must raise our interest rates.” Raise the interest rates on money that was loaned to the banks themselves some time ago at a lower interest rate in order for them to get the money to put out to the consumer.

I would hope the Treasurer of Ontario, when he sits down with his friends in Ottawa, would ask these fundamental questions as to just what is going on in the banking community.

Mr. Mancini: Tory times are hard times.

Mr. Bolan: Is there in fact a windfall profit which is being made by the banks at the expense, eventually, of the consumer? Because one can rest assured that the high interest rates are being passed on to the consumer. There lies one of the biggest problems which we have right now.

I would hope that a person of the stature of the Treasurer of a province which once was the wealthiest but which now stands in second place, but which certainly has the highest population and the largest number of consumers in the country, would be able to go to his friends in Ottawa and say to them, “Let’s get some explanation for this.”

In a sense I really am inviting the banks to take some initiative on their own and to say that even though the Bank of Canada is going to raise its rates again, which is going to happen within the next two weeks, they are not going to raise theirs.

But I suppose the bottom line of it is this: it is an axiom of Canadian politics that Tory times are hard times.

I think it can safely be said in this House, or it can safely be said on the street --

Mr. Ashe: That’s why there are so many Liberal governments left in this country.

Mr. Bolan: -- or it can safely be said in any place in this country, that we have the proof positive that Tory times are hard times.

Interjections.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.

Mr. Bolan: And, we are seeing mismanagement today in all walks of Canadian life.

Mr. Isaacs: It is a pleasure and a privilege for me to rise and support the remarks made earlier by my colleague, the member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Laughren), the next Treasurer of Ontario, and to amplify, in one specific area the comments that he made.

I am sure the Treasurer is aware that the main difference between members of this party and members of his own party relates to priorities and to an approach to the social order.

The debate we are involved in today relates to economic priorities and those, at the present time, are very close to the hearts of most citizens of this province. I would add that I am not sure the members of the official opposition have an approach to either economic priorities or the social order. I think that’s why they remain where they are and will not succeed in the future.

[8:45]

The member for Rainy River (Mr. T. P. Reid) earlier this afternoon heaped accolades on the past Treasurer.

Mr. T. P. Reid: I what?

Mr. Bolan: He would never do anything indecent, would he?

Mr. Isaacs: Mr. Speaker, I suggest that it’s the past Treasurer, because of his approach to taxation and because of his approach to the raising of revenue, who is responsible for many of the problems we have in this province today.

I want to refer specifically to property taxes. The Treasurer has left us for a few moments. I am sure he will return, and I am sure he has his opinion as to the part that property taxes are supposed to play in this province.

It seems to me there are two theories for property tax. The old one, if you like, is that it’s a tax on users of real estate, on users and renters of homes and other property. The new one, I think, is that it’s a tax on capital which is supposed to be in an indirect way a tax on wealth. It seems to me that’s the argument we have heard in the past three or four years, from the Treasurer’s predecessor especially and from time to time from the present Treasurer.

The Ontario Economic Council, which is a body I neither support nor oppose, but it’s there -- and I suggest we should use it because it’s there, despite the problems of its membership -- commissioned a research study in 1978 that was conducted by some experts who were far more knowledgeable about property taxes than anyone in the official opposition.

Mr. Kerrio: Tell us how they did things in England with their socialist governments. Explain that. Explain what Margaret Thatcher is trying to do now.

Mr. Isaacs: That study indicated property taxes are regressive in their incidence in the case of households which have incomes, in 1969 dollars, of less than $10,000 a year. Ten thousand dollars a year in 1969 translates into slightly more than twice that in 1979. That study, a 1978 study, indicated very clearly the regressivity of property taxes in this province.

In 1974, Statistics Canada concluded essentially the same thing, that property taxes are regressive for home owners, especially in the case of low-income home owners, even after the application of the Ontario property tax credit. We hear much from the other side about how the Ontario property tax credit solves all the problems. I want to suggest to the Treasurer that it really doesn’t help at all and that property taxes are still a very major problem in this province and one that needs looking at very seriously. That problem arose because of the Treasurer’s predecessor and his approach to local government; and the present Treasurer and his colleagues have done nothing to solve the problems we face in that area.

Mr. Speaker, you may well be aware that property taxes in Ontario provide a greater amount of total provincial and local government revenue than in any other province in Canada. We rely more on property taxes than does any other province. I want to suggest that it’s an indication of how bankrupt this government is in terms of ideas for raising revenue when we have to turn to such a regressive form of tax to provide the supply that the minister is seeking today.

Mr. J. Johnson: Where do you want to get the money?

Mr. Isaacs: The converse is also true, that Ontario derives a smaller portion of its total provincial and municipal revenues from income taxes, both personal and corporate income taxes. I suspect the Treasurer would agree, whatever the argument about other forms of taxes, that income tax is almost by definition the most progressive form of tax we have.

Mr. Ashe: They really found that in England under your system, didn’t they? Why didn’t you stay over in that country with its high income tax? They had a really progressive income tax there.

Mr. Isaacs: I want to suggest to the Treasurer that his government should be giving much more consideration to raising the money it needs from those who are able to pay rather than from those who are already suffering under the high mortgage rates, the high property taxes and the expenses of running a home, as are so many in this great province. It is the economic policy, the budgetary policy and the revenue policy of this government that I totally reject.

I want also to use one example of the kind of problems that are being caused by the transfer of responsibility from the provincial government to local government. That is in regard to the matter of waste disposal. The municipal governments in this province have been handed holus-bolus the responsibility for waste disposal, and they have been asked to fund that responsibility from the only source of income available to them outside of provincial transfers, the property taxes.

I want to suggest to the Treasurer that decentralization of this kind leads to inefficiency in research and management of waste disposal facilities. It leads to an inability to plan for the future. It avoids the issue of job creation, which is so important to us in Ontario at this time. Instead we allow local government to take the easy way out, the route which is cheapest in the short term and which does nothing to help our economy, which does everything to destroy our future.

That’s the problem with the kind of transfer of responsibility we are seeking and with the kind of economic policy we face.

Hon. Mr. Gregory: And in conclusion.

Mr. Isaacs: I want to ask the Treasurer where is our long-range planning; where is our dream of the Ontario tomorrow? I submit that dream has gone down the long Ontario Tory economic tube. It is sad; but fortunately there is a light at the end, a light that I believe will come sooner rather than later. The people of this province will be able to decide whether they want to build for tomorrow or whether they want to fight the fires of today in a way that destroys our future.

Mr. MacDonald: In the best of parliamentary traditions, it is the right of the commoner to seek redress of his grievances before he votes supply for the financing of the realm.

I have a number of grievances, more than I would dare to deal with tonight, but there is one I want to focus on and it is centred -- if it doesn’t disturb the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Energy -- in an editorial in this morning’s Globe and Mail.

Mr. Ashe: That was good.

Mr. MacDonald: Did he think it was good?

Mr. Ashe: Did you read it?

Mr. MacDonald: It disagreed with a good deal of what he said in the committee.

Mr. Nixon: I thought it was seriously unfair.

Mr. MacDonald: Let me quote from the editorial. In its initial --

Mr. Nixon: No, don’t quote it.

Mr. MacDonald: I will eliminate the most embarrassing paragraph. In its initial paragraph it says: “Ontario is in danger of being pushed into the chasm of energy shortage by a legislative committee that does not even recognize the chasm is there.”

Mr. Ruston: You are chairman of it.

Mr. MacDonald: “One of the silliest remarks made by a group of remarkably unrealistic politicians ... ” it says en route, and then finally: “Yet there sits a committee of the Ontario Legislature blandly considering cutting off our sole indigenous source of immediate energy.” I welcome public debate on an issue as important as electrical energy in this province, and particularly nuclear electrical energy. What disturbs me about what appears to be the pattern and thrust of editorials in the Globe and Mail is a total ignoring of the basic realities of the situation.

Hon. Mr. Gregory: They normally speak well of you.

Mr. MacDonald: Just listen. There is no chasm of energy shortage in the province of Ontario on the electrical front at the present time. There is no prospect of a chasm, none at all.

Mr. Ashe: That’s your opinion.

Mr. MacDonald: As a matter of fact, our problem is we have an embarrassing --

Mr. Acting Speaker: The member for Carleton-Grenville.

Mr. Sterling: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I would like the present number to outline exactly what this has to do with this present motion before the House.

Mr. Bolan: Why don’t you sit down?

Mr. Acting Speaker: I believe the member for York South said he was outlining his grievances on this motion and I believe he's endeavouring to explain those grievances.

Mr. Mancini: Trying to censor the House, shame on you.

Mr. Martel: How long have you been around here?

An hon. member: Too long.

Mr. MacDonald: Obviously not long enough.

Mr. Martel: You might study the rule book.

Mr. Acting Speaker: The member for York South has the floor and the chair would like to hear from him.

Mr MacDonald: As I was saying before I was rudely interrupted, there is no chasm of energy shortage in the province of Ontario as far as electricity is concerned. Our problem is the reverse -- an embarrassment of abundance.

At the present time, and I won’t go into the details because in an energy debate --

Hon. Mr. Gregory: Envy of the world.

Mr. MacDonald: Just listen and you might learn something. In an energy debate a week or so ago I put most of this detail on the record, Mr. Speaker, but let me try to summarize it.

We have at the present time, in addition to the 25 per cent reserve generating capacity which Ontario Hydro deems to be necessary for planned and unplanned outages, we have some 20 per cent or 4,000 megawatts of surplus capacity -- $4 billion have been spent for this surplus capacity. Because it sits there idle and is factored into our rate structure, we are carrying the burden of that excess capacity every day.

Mr. Ashe: Put the whole thing on the record.

Mr. MacDonald: I will, just wait.

Interjections.

Mr. Acting Speaker: Order.

Mr. MacDonald: Hydro’s reaction to this embarrassing surplus is rather interesting. In terms of its existing generating capacity, it has stopped and stored Wesleyville, on which it has spent $300 million and which will remain stopped and stored until the 1990s; it has mothballed Keith, the plant down in Windsor, after spending $36 million on its rehabilitation.

It has stopped and stored half of a heavy water plant which provides the necessary ingredients for its nuclear components. It is completing the second half, and when it is completed it has every prospect and the assurance of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited there will be no need for the product from Ontario, and therefore it will have to mothball that $300 million or more kind of establishment.

In terms of its new generation which is under construction, it has extended the construction of the Atikokan coal-fired plant. It is extending the construction of Bruce B and Darlington. In short, the major construction programs at the present time, in order to cope with this embarrassing surplus of generating capacity, are being extended further years to try to absorb that capacity.

Let me illustrate that extension. I illustrate it in the context of the preoccupation of the Globe and Mail editorial this morning, namely with regard to Darlington.

[9:00]

In 1977 this government rushed in prematurely on the contention that if we didn’t build another nuclear station we would be faced with the prospect of brownouts in the mid-1980s. We rushed to launch the building of Darlington, which was to be completed between the years 1984 and 1987. Because of the extension, Darlington today is scheduled for completion between 1988 and 1990. On the basis of the evidence we got from all reliable sources at the select committee, the requirement for the Darlington power is going to come into the picture at the earliest about 1992, and it won’t need to be completed until 1996.

So you have a 12-year postponement on the basis of the select committee’s calculation, and at least a four, five or six-year postponement --

Hon. Mr. Gregory: That’s where you get into trouble right there.

Mr. MacDonald: -- on the basis of Hydro’s calculations, because of a drop in the need for electricity in the province.

Hon. Mr. Gregory: That’s where it is -- in the select committee.

Mr. MacDonald: The interesting thing is this -- and I trust the government whip will just listen, he can’t listen while he is making so much noise.

Mr. Mackenzie: If he did listen he wouldn’t understand.

Mr. MacDonald: The select committee has come to the conclusion the prospective growth in power in Ontario is going to be between two and three per cent. May I draw to the attention of the whole House that the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Energy agreed, on the basis of the evidence which had come to the committee from all the reliable sources which have studied this, that two to three per cent was a fair and accurate assessment.

Mr. Ashe: What about the other things I said?

Mr. MacDonald: Not only do members of the Liberal and New Democratic Parties, but the members of the Conservative Party with their leading spokesman, the parliamentary assistant, agree that two to three per cent, on the basis of the evidence we have is a fair assessment at this stage of the prospective growth in electrical energy.

The interesting thing is that some of the critics, and members saw it magnificently illustrated in the Globe and Mail editorial this morning, are questioning this two to three per cent. They lament that the committee in the eight months or so since they looked at this issue first back in January and February have reduced the likely drop from two to four per cent down to two to three per cent.

Again, before I get an interjection from the other side of the House, may I remind the members over there that the projection of the Ministry of Energy economic model through to the end of the century is an annual growth of 2.2 per cent. So let’s not dismiss this as being some airy-fairy, unsubstantiated sort of figure.

The kind of argument put forward in the Globe and Mail editorial this morning claims there may be changes in the requirements for electricity in the future; there may be larger forecasts, there may be larger needs because there may be a stepping up in economic development and activity in Ontario. That’s true, nobody denies that; but may I remind the House we have got 4,000 megawatts of generating capacity sitting there idle waiting to fill the gap when and if the gap ever occurs.

We have an extended construction program that can be dis-extended, or whatever the appropriate word is; one can remove the extension of a construction program if and when it is needed. In short, there is plenty of capacity to cope with any unforeseen increase in the forecast of the electrical needs of Ontario.

Another great preoccupation with which the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Energy has become obsessed, and it is reflected in the Globe and Mail editorial, is that there are technological changes which may result in a greater use of electricity, particularly in the transportation field. We may have, as we are now told by the visionaries of this period, a time when we are all running around in electric cars. Mr. Speaker, it may be true, but may I just remind members the extent to which we bring electrical transportation into the field, particularly cars, is not going to require an enlarged generating system because for the most part the recharging of the batteries of the electrical cars will take place at night, which is the off-peak period when there is plenty of generating capacity normally idle.

Mr. J. Johnson: We should all have our batteries recharged once in a while.

Mr. MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, there are other technical changes that tend to be ignored on the other side of the sphere. For example, there are now some new innovations coming in with regard to motors which will require only 65 per cent of the electricity which they’ve used in the past. Fantastic amounts of electricity are used in motors, generally in industry and elsewhere in the province of Ontario. We have new electric lightbulbs which can operate on some 50 per cent of the capacity that has been traditional in the past.

If you’re going to take a look at technological changes which will potentially increase the electric load in the future, you must also look at technological changes which are going to reduce that electric load in the future.

I repeat, as this load tends to build -- and it will, undoubtedly, by a small proportion each year, two or three per cent -- if we find ourselves caught with an unforeseen increase in the load, we have these 4,000 megawatts of power and this extended construction program that can be brought on at a faster rate in order to bridge the gap.

In fact the interesting thing is this: For those members who have read -- and if they haven’t, they should to see how sometimes basic facts can be ignored -- the editorial in today’s Globe and Mail, they will note how out of step it is with the latest statement that has come from this government, from the Minister of Energy (Mr. Welch) on October 1.

In the Minister of Energy’s forecast for what should be done in the next 15 years, to 1995, may I remind Mr. Speaker and everybody else who is interested in this topic, the minister indicated all his projections for the next 15 years did not envisage any expansion of the current nuclear component in the Hydro generating system; none at all up to 1995, even though Hydro at the moment is planning on the basis of completing Darlington by 1990.

Instead they are suggesting we can develop some 2,000 megawatts of new hydraulic power from some 17 sites across the province of Ontario. They are suggesting -- I dare to warn you perhaps a little prematurely -- there are 1,000 megawatts of power that can be generated from the lignite coal sites at Onakawana, in northern Ontario. Most important of all, whereas a year ago this government was saying the increase in the input province of Ontario over the next 20 years would only be two per cent -- energy from non-conventional renewables, such as wind and solar and biomass and waste materials -- in the new projections of the Minister of Energy as of October 1, it is a minimum of five per cent in the next 15 years. New hydraulic energy capacity, the possibility of Onakawana and the lignite fields, a significant, indeed almost a 600 per cent increase in the projections of power we can get from non-conventional renewables over the period, an increase over the period of the last year, is where the ministry views the prospect of being able to meet any unforeseen increase in our load during the remainder of this century.

In short, let me sum it up: We are protected with all of this reserve and all of these new and alternative sources of energy against the prospect of a chasm in energy shortage in the electrical field.

It raises a point that I want to leave with the members to think about rather seriously, that is, if we have 4,000 unused megawatts of power at the present time and if we have all of these alternative sources of energy that the minister himself has designated as the areas of priority for the next 15 years, will the minister explain to me why one should contemplate, as the Globe editorial suggested this morning, the building of more nuclear plants which we simply don’t need? What is the government going to build them for? Is it going to build them to add to the surplus capacity and to add to the idle generating facilities which are factored into the rate structure which the minister and I are paying for while they’re sitting there idle?

Don’t be distracted by saying we’re going to have profits from exports. We have a measure of profits from exports. But let me remind the minister that at the present time the latest figures indicate that exports of Ontario Hydro to the United States range between 400 megawatts and 1,000 megawatts out of an unused capacity of 4,000, in other words, from 10 to 25 per cent. The rest of it is a dead weight for which the bond issues have been sold and for which he and I are paying.

In short, the proposition that we should continue to build new generating facilities, nuclear or any other kind, when we have no foreseeable or assured use of them is surely nonsense. If there is some spectacular kind of development, which one would almost get the impression the parliamentary assistant now envisages, an overnight electrification of a significant proportion of transportation, cars, for example, I suggest upon mature consideration that the lead time for that kind of revolution in transportation is going to be as long, if not longer, than the lead time to build new generating facilities.

All that we’ve got now protects us from the chasm of shortage. That’s something I would like the members of the House and the government to contemplate, and I just have the faint hope that it might seep into the editorial back rooms of the Globe and Mail too.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The member for Durham West.

Hon. F. S. Miller: You don’t have to.

Mr. Ashe: Yes, I do.

Mr. Kerrio: Listen to your boss.

Mr. Breithaupt: That’s why he’s the assistant.

Mr. T. P. Reid: He will always be a parliamentary assistant.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.

Mr. Ashe: It would appear to me that we already have resolved from the members opposite that they’re going to put in the time tonight. I think if we’re going to talk about the relevance --

An hon. member: You’ll be making an Ashe of yourself again.

Mr. Ashe: -- or irrelevance of the last speaker in terms of the budget policy and in terms of interim supply for this government, then we should at least have the record in balance and straight.

If there was one thing that came out of the rhetoric of the last speaker, the chairman of the select committee on Ontario Hydro affairs, it was the socialist philosophy that portrays that particular institution on that far right side. Sometimes it’s unbelievable when one hears some of the rhetoric that goes on over there as just espoused by the chairman of the select committee.

First of all, it’s amazing how he can take certain things out of context and portray them as being policy --

Mr. T. P. Reid: He has had lots of practice at that. He’s been practising for 25 years.

Mr. Ashe: -- and as being statements. Of course, that’s not so at all, even what he said relating to items that I personally as a member of that committee talked about on the growth rate which, no doubt, has a direct and indirect implication to the fiscal policy of this government, to Ontario Hydro and, in one way or another, to the pocketbooks of the taxpayers and hydro users in this province.

The things he did not say were other things that I put on the record as to why the committee should not, based on the information it has, make the decision it did to lower to the two to three per cent growth rate. I did acknowledge and I do acknowledge that, but based on the information that they only wanted to consider, I can see why they came to that conclusion of the three per cent.

I did put on the record many of the other issues that are very important in the next decade and in the next 15 years in this province, such as why that figure may very well prove to be incorrect; why that figure may very well end up being inaccurate and low and that the consumers in this province would not be very well served in this instance in using a conservative figure. There are many times when the conservative approach, particularly from this side of the House, is the right one; but I don’t think that one was the right one.

[9:15]

Mr. Nixon: You never said so in the committee.

Mr. Ashe: The member should read back in the record, that last day.

Mr. Nixon: I read your speeches every night before I go to bed.

Mr. Ashe: I’m glad to hear it. It’s good bedtime reading.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.

Mr. Breithaupt: Better than Sominex.

Mr. Ruston: Quit sending your speeches to the House, George. I don’t need them there and here both.

Mr. Ashe: I’ll even send the member a pair of scissors so he can cut them up and use them accordingly.

Mr. Ruston: Save the postage and quit sending them to the House.

Mr. Breithaupt: Talk about a waste of public funds.

Mr. T. P. Reid: That note says, “Shut up and sit down.”

Mr. Ashe: There was one very interesting half-analogy, I think, that came from the previous speaker. I say half because the second half will never come to fruition. May I put that into context?

Last Saturday I had the privilege and pleasure to be up at La Grande in the province of Quebec at the startup of the Hydro Quebec project known as James Bay. It was very interesting to hear -- being fluently bilingual I was able to translate as I went along -- the Honourable Mr. Levesque, the Premier of that province, espousing this great project that was now coming to fruition.

I’m not belittling that -- to the contrary. It is a great engineering feat. It is awesome to see the magnitude of LG-2 and the dam, to see the great waterfall which really is a great comparison to Niagara Falls, only on 10 levels. It really is a magnificent engineering feat.

Mr. Kerrio: It doesn’t have the romantic touch.

Mr. T. P. Reid: It loses something in the translation.

Mr. Ashe: There’s one slight difference. That’s the kind of rhetoric we’ve just heard from the previous speaker. The one difference is, the speaker we heard last Saturday said somewhat the same things as the honourable member opposite said some seven or eight or nine years ago. He was talking about how crazy was the then government of the day -- I might say, a Liberal government -- in going along a path that was doomed. They were saying they were oversupplying the necessities and the electrical needs for Hydro Quebec for the years, the decades and the generations ahead; that it was economic folly and fallacy to be going that route. It’s amazing how as of last Saturday it became a great -- and it was great -- accomplishment.

As I say, half of that analogy is true. The only difference in the criticism opposite is that the honourable member over on that side will never have to worry about pushing the button 10 or 20 years from now on the government side of the House. That’s where the analogy finishes. There’s no doubt that with what is espoused over there, the economic future of this province would be nil. The flexibility to adjust to change that this government and, I think, Ontario Hydro have indicated over the years would no longer be available. Before they would be able to react to anything the lights would be off, industry would go down to a close, the motors and engines would stop, our industrial capacity would be nil. That’s what would happen over there.

One of the other differences I tried to convey to the select committee just last week was how fast things change in this province. As late as last winter we were not including -- I say “we” and I’ll even include in that the Ministry of Energy -- in our projections any great change in the demand for electricity for interfuel substitutions, particularly replacing crude oil, fuel oil, ultimately gasoline, both in the passenger car sector as well as possibly the electric train area.

That in itself shows how fast things can change when we recognize that the nuclear capacity and the nuclear process in this province takes anywhere from eight to 10 to 12 to 14 years to come to fruition. That’s why I think flexibility is necessary.

Mr. Nixon: I am looking forward to the next Hydro meeting to see what your position is then.

Mr. Ashe: We’ll see. I think I have already indicated what it will be. That just gives a little indication, without taking any more time of the House, of why the flexibility has to be there, both for the Treasurer and his economic policies, as well as Ontario Hydro and its policies for the future.

At this moment I think it is the genuine feeling of most of the people in this province, obviously properly identified by the editorial policy of the Globe and Mail, that it is better to have a little too much than to be stuck with the problems of having just a little too little.

Mr. Foulds: Twenty-five per cent is too little.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The member for Essex North.

Mr. Ruston: Mr. Speaker, there have been many words of wisdom spoken in this debate, and since it costs $50 for each page of Hansard, I will sit down and not speak.

Hon. F. S. Miller: In the interest of my voice, Mr. Speaker, I will get close to the mike, as I have all day. That is the only thing I dare get close to today.

An hon. member: You’ve been on your knees all day, anyway.

Hon. F. S. Miller: I’m on my knees even now.

An hon. member: You should be.

Mr. Peterson: You look like you are wearing Frank Drea’s shirt.

Hon. F. S. Miller: It feels very much like he lent it to me.

It is eight years and eight days, I think, since I got elected to this place.

An hon. member: It’s too long.

Hon. F. S. Miller: I guess those who are yelling it is too long should also recall it is five years, six months and four days since I became a minister.

Mr. Nixon: Time for a change.

Mr. Peterson: You’ve really got to be an egotist to think that anybody here is interested at all. I’ve heard about the Peter Principle, but I’m not interested in your career. Why don’t you tell us about the economy.

Hon. F. S. Miller: I can only say, compared to some of the things I have listened to in the last six hours, that is scintillating dialogue.

What I wanted to say is simply this: I learned over those years to have an affection for some of the members opposite.

Mr. Peterson: Did you bring those guys in the other day?

Hon. F. S. Miller: No, David, but why don’t you come and sit beside me?

Mr. Ashe: Your colleague did.

Hon. F. S. Miller: I have even learned, when I look at the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk (Mr. Nixon) --

Mr. Peterson: Great member.

Hon. F. S. Miller: -- to respect his love of the place and his knowledge of the procedures. I will never have that skill.

Mr. Peterson: He’s got nowhere else to go.

Hon. F. S. Miller: I look to the member for Riverdale (Mr. Renwick), who is not here at the moment, and realize his analytical, icy approach to the technicalities of the law always should be listened to.

Mr. Kerrio: He was the one who insisted you stay here.

Hon. F. S. Miller: I rather enjoy the member for Rainy River (Mr. T. P. Reid). Even though he seldom adds the same kind of dimension as the other two, he always adds a human dimension, and a lot of the rest of you.

There are some I have some trouble warming up to, but I guess I shouldn’t talk about them.

Mr. Laughren: Name one.

Hon. F. S. Miller: No. You are not one of them. I have learned I disagree with some, but I have learned something from almost all of them.

I have tried to listen tonight. I listened to the member for Riverdale talk about the division of revenues in his comments. He was perhaps talking about one of the most fundamental problems our government has tried to face in the last few months. His approach to it and ours may well differ in principle, but I would tell him I will look at his suggestions.

Mr. Peterson: The principle is no problem. Fifteen per cent is the problem.

Hon. F. S. Miller: The objective isn’t that far different. He talks about a funnelling of money to other places and asks how we tap that funnel. That has really been the subject of Ontario’s paper on the petroleum issue, a way and means of getting a fair share of revenues, not just company revenues as he talks about, but revenues in general, flowing to the provinces, the federal government and the companies.

The idea that we can tax corporations not domiciled here may have merit, although I’ve not heard of that yet. I would only say that in today’s age, where companies can be easily separated so that the earning company is in one jurisdiction and the non-earning company is in another, that’s very hard to do. That, of course, is one of the reasons we have things like sales taxes, capital taxes and other forms of taxes apart from income taxes; we have the right, I think, to share in the revenues and the moneys taken from one jurisdiction if they are going to another for tax purposes.

Without making any commitment to accept anything he said, I can safely say that Ontario is arguing -- and, as he said he called me the tough poker player from Muskoka -- with more than a couple of deuces in our hand for those issues.

I would suggest to the member for Nipissing (Mr. Bolan), a man for whom I generally have a high respect, that when he talks about banks, he makes a good lawyer.

Mr. Nixon: I that an insult?

Hon. F. S. Miller: I would only suggest to him that if he can he should show me where banks are lending money today at 14 per cent that they may have borrowed five years ago at seven per cent; the odd bit may be around, but most of them are dealing in a current market for borrowings. Also, the central bank’s effectiveness and role are much greater than he portrayed.

Mr. Nixon: An apologist for the status quo.

Hon. F. S. Miller: I’m afraid I am not being an apologist; I am being a realist, and the honourable member knows it. I would like to point out just the opposite. I wonder how many of the members are like me. I have a mortgage on my home.

Mr. Nixon: The Premier (Mr. Davis) has never paid a nickel of interest in his life. He got everything from Daddy.

Hon. F. S. Miller: I pay the outstanding interest rate of 7.75 per cent on my mortgage --

Mr. Bolan: Stop bragging.

Hon. F. S. Miller: -- borrowed in 1967 from the bank, for 30 years at a fixed rate.

Mr. Nixon: It was to set up your used-car lot.

Mr. Foulds: You run the Treasury out of a cigar box.

Hon. F. S. Miller: All I would say is, I bet they are losing money on me. I think there are a lot of other people like me with whom the banks or other lending institutions like the trust companies made deals in good faith some while ago when moneys were somewhat below that rate, and they are losing. I think some of the members know the trust companies are in trouble, because they work on spreads.

Mr. MacDonald: You are the people who proposed mortgage deductions.

Hon. F. S. Miller: It wasn’t the Royal Bank. I won’t reveal the bank; I don’t want a run on its stock.

Mr. Speaker, we have listened to a lot of discussion today, most of it on topics that were --

Mr. Peterson: Totally irrelevant.

Hon. F. S. Miller: Not totally irrelevant, because I think most of them were relevant but probably to a discussion of another type. I guess one of the things I would hope we would have sorted out before another of these discussions would be a clarification of that which really is substance before the supply motion and that which is not.

Mr. MacDonald: Redressing grievances.

Hon. F. S. Miller: The member for York South is one of those I have always enjoyed: an unrepentant CCF socialist. I respect him for it.

Mr. MacDonald: An unrepentant CCF socialist? I don’t know whether that is a compliment or an insult.

Hon. F. S. Miller: I respect him because I understand what he stands for, and it hasn’t changed much through the years. At least I know he is motivated by his principles; that’s something that’s not true of a lot of people in this life.

Mr. Kerrio: I can respect him for it as long as he stays in the third place.

Hon. Mr. Drea: With friends like that, you don’t need a biographer.

Hon. F. S. Miller: I really had so much material thrown at me, Mr. Speaker, that I have difficulty answering it all.

Mr. Peterson: Maybe you can respond to that nonsense of the member for Durham West (Mr. Ashe).

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Don’t forget what you were going to say about the member for Wentworth (Mr. Isaacs).

Hon. F. S. Miller: I’m thinking it over.

Mr. Nixon: Why doesn’t the minister sit down and let’s vote for it?

Hon. F. S. Miller: I am going to do that. Why didn’t the members over there sit down?

Mr. Ruston: Answer my speech, Frank.

Hon. Mr. Drea: If they had behaved themselves six hours ago, we’d all be home.

Hon. F. S. Miller: We have gone through a change in the date of the supply motion. When we suggested March 31, to begin with, it was simply because we thought of that as being the practice of this House to put the supply through till March 31. That is why it was there.

Mr. Kerrio: We’re not going to be finished the debate by December 31.

[9:30]

Hon. F. S. Miller: I am quite satisfied that we will finish the estimates by December 31 and we will then be able to put our supply bill. I would like to point out that at this time this year we have very few more hours of estimates left than we had a year ago at the same time. I would also point out that probably, had the committees been on estimates as much as they could have been, we would have been well down the line in the meantime.

I am glad that I sense a degree of support from the opposite side, because I have to point out that none of us is served well by any contrived delay of supply. It is a confidence question; I think that’s one thing we have to recognize. It’s not something I am throwing up as a confidence question; by tradition it would have been. None of us wishes to have an election on an issue of this nature, when we are doing the routine business of the House, because we don’t want an election on something that’s mechanical; if we have an election, we want it on a principle that’s easily understood.

Mr. Peterson: Like rent controls; don’t give me this BS.

Interjections.

Hon. F. S. Miller: I have taken some. The member for London Centre luckily came in for only the last three minutes --

Interjections.

Hon. F. S. Miller: -- and I hope he had a good supper at Winston’s. I hope his personal chauffeur, with his round cap -- the same one that Vince talks about -- was off hours and looked after --

Interjections.

Hon. F. S. Miller: I am just jealous, I walk home.

In any case, Mr. Speaker, I think I have said enough. My voice has run out. I hope my motion will be passed.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Hon. Mr. Miller has moved government resolution 8, and also has moved an amendment that the words “March 31, 1980” in the motion be deleted and the following substituted therefor: “December 31, 1979.”

The question before the House is, shall the amendment carry?

All those in favour will say “aye.”

All those opposed will say “nay.”

The amendment is carried.

The question before the House now is, shall the resolution, as amended, carry?

Carried.

Resolution, as amended, concurred in.

LOCAL SERVICES BOARDS

Resumption of the adjourned debate on the motion for second reading of Bill 122, An Act to provide for the establishment of Local Services Boards.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The member for Sudbury East.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: I thought we would hear from a southern Ontario member.

Mr. Martel: Well, if you want, I can sit down and allow my colleague to continue.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: A great idea.

Mr. Martel: Look, Dr. B.S. -- that’s quite a nickname the press has given you, Dr. B.S. That isn’t the road apples that we used to play hockey with that we are talking about.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The business before the House is Bill 122.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, I didn’t ask her to interject. She volunteered that on her own.

Mr. Speaker, I want to go back, when we discuss this bill, to about July 1977; at that time we were debating a bill creating the Ministry of Northern Affairs. The minister recalls it well, that on that occasion I moved an amendment to that particular bill calling for the introduction of community councils formulated in a fashion very similar to this, in fact almost identical.

I well recall both my friends to the right and my friends across the way in fact opposing that amendment, opposing the whole concept of community councils. I want to tell the minister that we over here, who are progressive and not negative always, couldn’t get the government of the day to support the concept. I am glad to see that after a couple of more years of floundering around the minister has seen fit to bring forth this particular piece of legislation.

I have, however, some misgivings. There are a number of things in the bill that appear to be contradictory. I would ask the minister if he could explain those to us before we give second reading to the bill.

At last, if this bill is passed, we are going to have a method of funding the unorganized municipalities, rather meager as that might be. When I look at that and I look at local roads boards, who get two to one, I kind of shudder that we wouldn’t have the same formula in place from the beginning.

When one looks at the tax base of most of those unorganized municipalities and how they are going to be able to derive revenue, the amount of money most of them are going to be able to raise is going to be rather small. If we were matching 2:1 as opposed to 1:1, then those unorganized municipalities might be able to afford more than a light standard. But I am afraid with the formula -- and I am going to go through the things that bother me with the minister -- I am not sure we are going to be able to afford more than a light standard.

Right at the beginning of the bill it says: “The bill empowers the Minister of Northern Affairs upon the recommendations of the inhabitants of a community located in territory without municipal organization, to establish and incorporate a board to exercise some or all of the powers set out in the schedule to the bill.”

When I look at the schedule to the bill it talks about such things as “the board may, by bylaw -- ” It talks about water supplies, fire protection, garbage collection, sewage, street or area lighting and recreation. That looks good except when one starts to recognize the cost inherent in establishing any of those programs. For some of the small unorganized municipalities I represent, the cost would be prohibitive. For example, in a place like Alban, to put sewers and water on their tax base using your one to one grant -- possibly the province might proceed to build it on its own -- I am not sure where the municipality is going to get the funds to pay for any portion of it. They are that small.

I am going to come back to the monetary thing, but I want to tie it together because of what this bill allows. On page three, section 5, the bill allows for the introduction of a board which will stay in power for one year. Then if one turns to page 10, there is the possibility of dissolution, and that is very possible. So you can have power for one year and at the end of the one year it can terminate.

But it is when we come to the funding that I want the minister to clarify it. Item 23 says: “In preparing the estimates the board shall take into account any surplus from the previous year that will be available in the current year, any operating deficit from the previous year and any debt owing to the crown payable in the current year.”

Getting back to the bill, if one looks at section 23(2) it says:

“ ... the board shall take into account any surplus” -- the surplus isn’t bad, although I can’t see any coming -- “any operating deficit from the previous year ... ” If I turn over the page and look at section 28 it says, “A board shall not incur any debt except a debt owed to the crown in right of Ontario, the payment of which extends beyond the term of office of the board.”

If I interpret this correctly, on page seven it says you can have a debt, and yet on page nine it says it can only be “a debt owed to the crown in right of Ontario.” If we look at the second part of 23(2) it says, “any operating deficit from the previous year and any debt owing to the crown payable in the current year.”

I understand if the crown in either instance is responsible, you pay the crown. What about the other debt? What debt is the minister talking about? If you read section 28 it says you can’t, in fact, “incur any debt, except a debt owed to the crown in right of Ontario ... ” It can only be for a year or during the life of the board.

I say to the minister, if the board is only empowered to remain one year and they’re not allowed to carry forward another debt -- any debt -- then how are the unorganized municipalities going to do anything that appears in the schedule outside of, as I said earlier, street lighting?

There seems to be a real conflict. Possibly the minister can explain it to me. On one hand it says you cannot carry a debt for more than the year the board is in office, and that is only debt owed to the crown in right of Ontario. On the previous page it’s talking about any operating deficit from the previous year, which I don’t see is covered under the bill.

The second part of that covers the part “owing to the crown.” It doesn’t clear up the debt that might be incurred and how it could be incurred. Section 28 says the only debt that can be incurred is “a debt owed to the crown in right of Ontario ... ”

The second part of course is a very serious problem, “beyond the term of office of the board.” If a debt can’t be carried for more than a year then it is reducing the number of things which the local services board is capable of undertaking.

I have a fear about that last clause that talks about dissolution because I know my friend has been involved, as I have, in some of the baffles in some of the small organized municipalities. Having come through several of them in the last couple of years, the bitterness which occurs in those small municipalities is something to behold. I know in both instances the province had to get directly involved.

I worry about the simplicity with which dissolution could occur. I’m not sure there shouldn’t be a time factor included -- something which says there should be no dissolution for the first three or four or five years until the board gets going and starts to operate smoothly in any one of these municipalities. There should be at least a five-year period before dissolution could be considered, because people are going to be frustrated --

[9:45]

Interjection.

Mr. Martel: Well, they will be. I suggest the Treasurer turns to his colleague to his left, the minister responsible for Intergovernmental Affairs. He knows the number of problems we had with respect to the municipality of Ratter and Dunnet and with respect to the municipality of Appleby, Casimir and Jennings, where bitterness is much greater than occurs in a large municipality where not everybody is involved. In a smaller municipality or community everyone is involved and people take sides.

I worry about that and I suggest the minister should too. Before he says no, that he doesn’t think there might be a two, three or four-year period where they couldn’t decide to dissolve once they got going, he should give it time to develop so that they simply can’t say at the first impasse: “To hell with it, we’re going to cut the umbilical cord,” and thereby throw the baby out with the bathwater. I think we should put that limit in there and say to them: “For three or four years, once you have got going, you are going to have to work out your differences. We will monitor them, but we want you to look at it carefully and give it time to develop.” We should do that before one group says, “To heck with it, we’re finished.”

If we don’t do that, it is going to come back to haunt us. I’m not pointing any finger at any group or individual in any of the unorganized municipalities at the present time. I’m just saying that’s one of the realities of life and it’s one of the things we might consider. I realize it is permissive, but once we got it going I would hope that to overcome some of the problems which will occur -- and we all understand they are going to occur at the beginning -- we might say: “Once you’re in, we think you can’t back out the easy way in two, three or four years. We want to see you work it out with the assistance of the various ministries that might be necessary.”

I just caution the minister to consider that aspect -- he might not want to answer yes or no tonight -- because I think it would do the boards, once they are established, service. They would know they would have to sit down and work it out; they would have to negotiate it. They couldn’t get one group of residents who might say, “There are 10 of us and we’re opposed to it, because the tax bill is a little higher than we had anticipated.”

That’s going to be a problem in those new boards. Some people are going to be getting a tax bill.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: They’re going to get help from the province.

Mr. Martel: They are going to pay tax, no matter how one cuts it, whether they get money from the province or not.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: You’ve missed the point of the whole bill.

Mr. Martel: No, I haven’t missed the point of the bill. In the final analysis, there is only one person who pays. No matter how it is paid, it still comes from the same taxpayer.

Mr. Kerrio: That’s not parliamentary procedure.

Mr. Martel: You can say it isn’t. In the final analysis, there is only one taxpayer. We are going to see differences of opinion arise. I would just caution the minister that if he wants to ensure a strong foundation, we should make it such that they have to watch it develop for three or four years. I think in the long run it would do us all a service.

I represent a number of unorganized municipalities. I don’t say this frivolously because I have four or five. In fact, at one time I think I had the largest unorganized municipality in terms of population in the province in Broder and Dill where there were 4,000 or 5,000 people.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: I live in one.

Mr. Martel: Has the minister got 5,000 people?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: I said I live in one.

Mr. Martel: He lives in an unorganized community.

Mr. T. P. Reid: He owns the waterworks; he supplies the fertilizer.

Mr. Martel: The minister knows what the problems are like. I represented an area that had over 4,000 people in one unorganized municipality. I know the problems there. I lived in one for 14 years, so I know the problems from that point of view as well.

I would hope we would take a very serious look at the latter point I presented, just to give it a chance to work, because the dissolution could come too easily.

Mr. T. P. Reid: I’m going to be very brief, which should lead to a great sigh of relief and great applause.

I want to commend, not the minister but UCANO East and UCANO West for the work they have put into this bill. Largely this bill is before us because of the work the executives of those two organizations have done over the years. It only took the minister five or six years, but I think, basically, the bill is a good one.

I have some strong reservations about sections 23 and 24. I don’t like the discretion the minister has and we all know how this particular minister operates.

Mr. Breithaupt: He’s discreet.

Mr. T. P. Reid: But I think, basically, it’s a good bill and I’ll tell you why, Mr. Speaker. I think it goes back to the fundamentals of democracy and those good old days that perhaps never existed, in which we all think of townhall meetings where the inhabitants got together in one relatively small enclosed space and decided on their priorities and what they wanted to do in their own area.

There are a lot of good things in here. Although I’m concerned about the discretion, I think it’s a relatively good bill. There are some problems with it. It would be easy to say this is a good first step, except we had a step about five years ago and it’s taken this long for the child to be born. But then the minister himself obviously, by the size of him, was a long time in gestation, so perhaps we can’t expect too much more.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: I say good things about the member.

Mr. T. P. Reid: I was premature.

I also have a couple of concerns, as did the former speaker, about the schedule of matters that can be dealt with. Obviously this is a first bill -- a second time around perhaps, but a much fuller bill. But it is going to require amendments, as the people in these areas learn more of how to operate their own affairs, what their priorities are and the way they want to operate. That’s what this Legislature is for, to expand the legislation or if necessary, contract it if it isn’t suiting the purpose.

I have a concern about the depth of a problem that has been pointed out already. I’m not sure that this is going to be the best possible solution for some of the unorganized territories or the people who will be operating under local service boards. If we get into such things as recreational facilities, as such; if we get into fire protection as such, with fire trucks, places to store them and so on, it may be very difficult under some circumstances, particularly if the minister decides he doesn’t want to provide the funds for these matters completely, for these local service boards to operate.

There are a lot of people in the unorganized territories in northern Ontario who have been waiting for this bill for a long time. I intend to support it and I hope that now it will get speedy passage so those people who would like some control over their own lives and over their own affairs and who are prepared to accept the responsibility should have that right to do so.

With that I say I will vote in support of the bill and hope it will get a speedy passage through the House.

Mr. Laughren: Mr. Speaker, I recall last spring the minister wrote to the members -- I gather in all three parties -- and asked them for their views on the bill, I wrote a very brief reply to the minister, a polite reply -- they’re not all polite -- in which I said there were three specific recommendations I would make: One, change the provincial government’s support to a two to one ratio -- for every dollar the community raises the Ministry of Northern Affairs would match it with $2.

Two, provide a special fund for communal drinking water systems to supplement any programs available under the Ministry of the Environment. I suspect the level of support should be in the neighbourhood of 90 per cent.

Three, establish as a commitment in principle the right of a community to have healthy drinking water, fire protection and health care.

Those were, I thought, three very specific suggestions, none of which any organized municipality in the province would have regarded as exorbitant or outrageous. The minister, in his reply, indicated he appreciated my comments but suggested I not hold my breath. The bill reflects those comments.

What bothers me a great deal about the bill is that there is no statement of principle in the preamble. There is nothing in this legislation that says to the unorganized communities of the north, “We believe, as a government, you have a right to fire protection; you have a right to healthy drinking water; and you have a right to at least some level of health services.”

That’s not even considered a right by this government for the people in the small communities. Nobody is asking the government for a hospital in a community of 200 people, or 500 people; but there should be a commitment on its part to provide, for example, nurse practitioners in the small communities. As a matter of fact, if the government is really serious about it it would build a medical school in the city of Sudbury and use that as the base from which to supply nurse practitioners all across northern Ontario.

I won’t dwell on that because Sudbury is not an unorganized community. But that’s the kind of commitment we were looking for in this. There is no commitment at all, and it would not have extracted too much from the government to have included that in the bill -- except it would then have had to justify the lack of those services in most unorganized communities across northern Ontario. I guess it was not prepared to do that.

That’s why we’re going to support the bill, but we have some very grave concerns about it. Quite a number of the communities are unorganized, and the problems they face are numerous.

The condition I’m going to mention is not something I’m raising because Gerry Violette happens to be in the gallery. The whole problem of the water supply in Gogama is an issue I’ve raised with the minister many times. It really is outrageous that for years he has allowed those people to live with a polluted water supply. There are nitrates in the water supply and we know the potential dangers there. There are chemical pollutants in the water and who knows what the dangers of those are? The minister and his cohorts have done nothing in that community except put in a community tap. I won’t go into my fantasies about how the tap should be constructed but when that community eventually gets its communal water supply, despite the obstructions of this minister and others, I hope there is a plaque struck and that it mentions what the community went through in order to get that communal water supply.

Mr. Hodgson: Does the member want his name on the plaque?

Mr. Laughren: No, I do not. I don’t want anybody to ever associate me with the grief the people of Gogama have had with their water supply over the years. Never.

I hate to repeat myself, but whenever I come from small communities like Biscotasing, Shining Tree, Foleyet, all those communities that are lacking in the services as they do, and I drive down to Toronto, I drive down Avenue Road and I come under that bypass right around Davenport I guess it is --

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Dupont.

Mr. Laughren: -- Dupont, there are the sides of the underpass in baby blue bathroom tile.

Mr. Hodgson: It’s darker blue.

Mr. Laughren: No, it’s not, it’s a lighter blue than that. I’m going to say that hurts. I come from communities lacking in essential services to a city where they can lay on the ceramic bathroom tile on the walls of their underpasses.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: It’s in Margaret’s riding in St. George.

[10:00]

Mr. Laughren: Isn’t that nice. Isn’t that delivering services equally across the province of Ontario? They ought to be ashamed of themselves.

Interjections.

Mr. Laughren: Is that in the riding of St. Andrew-St. Patrick?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: St. George riding.

Interjections.

Mr. Acting Speaker: Order.

Mr. Hodgson: How about the $10 licence plates? You never mentioned that.

Mr. Martel: We’ll talk about the gas prices.

Mr. Laughren: As a matter of fact, I’m glad the member mentioned that. I was up in the northern part of my riding about two weeks ago. I spent the whole weekend there; it was a delightful weekend. When I filled my car with gasoline it cost me $24.

An hon. member: You’ve only got a Volkswagen.

Mr. Laughren: No, I drive a Plymouth.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: You’re driving that Mercedes, are you?

Mr. Acting Speaker: Order, please. Would the honourable member please disregard the interjections?

Mr. Laughren: Mr. Speaker, could I talk to you? You have more sensitivity. The point is the $10 licence fee, while welcome, as is anything this government does for northern Ontario, little as it is, doesn’t start to compensate for the difference in gasoline price they pay in those unorganized communities.

Mr. Martel: They pay $1.20 a gallon.

Mr. Laughren: I don’t have to reiterate to the Minister of Northern Affairs the fact the people in those communities -- he lives in an unorganized community, for heaven’s sake -- pay the same sales tax, the same OHIP premiums and the same gasoline tax as people in downtown Toronto who enjoy the baby blue bathroom tiles on the walls of their underpasses.

Mr. Kerrio: A chicken in every pot.

Mr. Laughren: Yes, that’s right. When the member for Sudbury (Mr. Germa) was speaking on this bill a week or so ago, I thought he described the scene beautifully. The Minister of Northern Affairs would come lurching out of the bush with his hard hat and his fire pack on, with the siren blowing to announce Leo the Great was in town and should be presented with something as a token of esteem.

I was in Gogama when they got their fire truck, The minister couldn’t be there, but there was the member for Algoma-Manitoulin (Mr. Lane), parliamentary assistant to the minister. It was like it was out of a story book. The fire truck came into town with the siren going and there was John sitting there. He didn’t have his hat at that point. He got his hat later.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: On a point of order, I think the record should show that when that fire truck was driven into Gogama, the local member was very close to my parliamentary assistant. When the cameras were clicking and the pictures were being taken, he was there to take all the glory he could. The record should show that.

Mr. Breithaupt: It was either give him a bit more hose or stand closer to the fire.

Mr. Acting Speaker: The honourable member may continue.

Mr. Laughren: Somebody has to keep an eye on them when they’re in those communities.

Interjections.

Mr. Kerrio: Len, would you send him a box of blue tiles?

Mr. Laughren: I’d take it. I would say the inconsistencies of the government when they deal with the northern communities is awe-inspiring indeed.

They talk about helping a community develop with the local services board and so forth. About two or three years ago the same community of Gogama had an opportunity to grow and to have a whole new development of I’d say about 25 or 30 trailers for people who worked in a bush operation called Morin to live in. This government refused permission for those trailers to be located in Gogama where existing services were already located. In other words, there was an infrastructure there with tourism and stores and so forth. Where did they put them? They put them right smack dab in the middle of the bush -- literally in the middle of the bush. They created a new community where before there was none, when they had an opportunity to build on to an existing community.

Those are the kinds of inconsistencies that make no sense whatsoever. Mr. Speaker, you and I know Emerson said, “Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds.” Nevertheless, when you’re talking about a community like that, which really needed that kind of impetus to the local economy, they really should have thought about it more seriously than they did. That should have happened.

The other inconsistency is that the minister sits there smiling as though he were the great benefactor for the small communities in the north. Who was it that closed out the natural resources bases in those small communities? Who was it?

Mr. Martel: Leo.

Mr. Laughren: It was when he was the Minister of National Resources; that’s when it all began. He’s really proud of that, isn’t he? He has done a lot for the small communities by pulling out the natural resources bases there.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Too much government.

Mr. Laughren: Too much government! He didn’t cut down on government at all; he just moved them to bigger communities. He didn’t cut down on it at all. Then he sits there saying he is doing things for the small communities. It is a sham and a delusion -- a snare and a delusion, as they say.

The other thing that bothers me is the whole question of the drinking-water supplies. The funding in this bill simply is not adequate to allow communities to put in a communal water supply, and the minister is going to have to deal with that.

I know there is funding for individual wells. There is a form of funding, if you can get it, but people are not getting it. Those who apply for it are not all getting it. That is the kind of thing the minister should look at.

I still don’t believe he is dealing seriously with the whole question of drinking water supplies for communities. That is my big, big problem with this bill. It is not the kind of bill we are going to oppose, because it is permissive legislation; the unorganized communities don’t have to plug into it, but if they don’t they are left as they were before, with virtually no access at all to public funds.

I can see the minister then saying, “If you want the money, form a local services board.” That is exactly what he will say. I can hear him now. The minister is going to have to show his goodwill in a way he hasn’t done to date and say to those communities, “We are serious about providing an improved level of services to you; you need only apply and we will give it serious consideration.”

I really urge him to think about a different way of providing water services, and occasionally in the larger ones perhaps even a communal sewage disposal service to those communities, because this bill is inadequate in that respect.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Are there any other members wishing to participate?

Mr. Swart: Mr. Speaker --

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I think the member for Welland-Thorold did participate.

Mr. Swart: In fact, I did not. I moved the adjournment of the debate at the last session. I did not actually participate in the debate at all. I didn’t want to interfere in any way with the northern members who take part in this but who perhaps would let me now take part.

I have to tell you, Mr. Speaker, that as a mere southerner, I hesitated to rise to speak in this debate, and I think I am perhaps the first person from the south to take part in this debate. But I am bold enough to do it, partly because in the gallery we have Kathy Davis, who actually came from down my way in the Niagara Peninsula; therefore, I feel some association with the north in that respect.

I want to put a few views as a southerner and compare the kinds of financial assistance and the kind of municipality here being created by the local services board.

The first thing I want to say to the minister, and perhaps to the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs (Mr. Wells), is that although I realize this is an entirely different kind of structure from that of the municipalities in the south, this bill puts even less faith in the municipal people in the north than the Municipal Act does for the municipalities in the south.

Although I have no doubt there was a great deal of consultation and the people in the north generally support many of the provisions of this bill, the fact that the minister only permits a one-year term of office when it is compulsory to have a two-year term of office in the south somehow or other gives a little less credibility to the operations of the people in the north.

The fact too that the minister permits no remuneration to be paid to the members of the services boards is contradictory to the principles we have established in the south. For years we fought and battled for each municipality to have the power to determine on its own how much its remuneration should be. It is all set down in a very hard and fast way.

Mr. T. P. Reid: That’s a southerner talking. He is embarrassing his colleagues.

Mr. Swart: Although there probably is a feeling among the local services boards and the people with whom the minister consulted in the north that they don’t particularly want any remuneration, the fact that it is not permitted or that they can even consider it for perhaps the chairman or members of a services board who may be doing an exceptional job takes away some autonomy and some rights which they should have.

I am a little bit puzzled by the need for section 18 where the chairman has the power to expel or exclude from any meeting any person, including a board member, for improper conduct at the meeting. In the municipal organizations in southern Ontario, in the Municipal Act we don’t have any such clause. There is the right, of course, at any time to have people ejected under certain circumstances, but to put it specially in the bill seems to me to be somewhat unnecessary.

The fact that a local board may incur no debt which may be repayable in a subsequent year really restricts the operation of the services boards in the many fields in which they could operate much more efficiently, if they were given the power to do this.

I realize that the services boards are not municipalities under the act, but I wonder if we could have the assurance, however, from the Minister of Northern Affairs or the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs that the property tax credit will apply, even though they are not municipalities in exactly the same way, on their payments there as it applies to people in the south, so there will be no loss in that regard.

I wonder too about the power we should have to create perhaps areas within the services board area rather than having two. It seems to me there may be certain services like water, which would be restricted to only part of the services board area where perhaps they should have the power to pass bylaws to create those services, and that should be incorporated in the act. I know the minister has power to do these things, if a decision is made. Perhaps there should be certain sections of the Municipal Act which do apply to the services boards.

I would like to ask the minister to explain how the schedule of the various services which they can perform can be carried out without their having the right to borrow money and incur long-term debts. If I could have the attention of the minister, might I ask him if it is his intention that the crown will be providing long-term funding? The bill does provide that they may incur a debt owed to the crown. Is he intending to provide the capital for their services which will certainly require some long-term funding?

If we are looking at this bill, we are talking about water supply and perhaps fire protection and garbage collection but certainly sewerage, street or area lighting and even recreation. If they are going to provide these facilities to these people, all of them or most of them require some long-term funding. Is the minister going to provide the capital for this?

[10:15]

It’s only a very minor thing but I am also a little concerned with section 33 where it says, “The minister may by order prescribe a French language version of any form that is prescribed by this act and provide for its use.” That seems to be a sort of appendage. Certainly I would prefer to have the section worded to the effect the minister may prescribe that forms be in either French or English or in both so we put them exactly on the same footing rather than French just being an appendage; perhaps he would consider that change. The end result might be the same but the French and English would be on the same footing.

The final comment I want to make, Mr. Speaker, is on the financial assistance which is provided under this act, which as has been stated by many members from the north, may be very inadequate and in fact substantially less than that provided to comparable municipalities in southern Ontario. I think we have to recognize that the per capita cost of many of these services obviously is going to be greater in these communities than it is in any of the small communities in the south. There is no question about that. The per capita cost is going to be substantially higher.

We also recognize that there are going to be no regions to help share the cost of these services. Sure, one may say that in the regions they have to pay the regional tax and therefore they contribute towards them, but, in fact in a community like Virgil, for instance and the member for Niagara Falls (Mr. Kerrio) will know this, where they have sewers installed --

Mr. T. P. Reid: Really interesting, for northern Ontario.

Mr. Swart: -- at least a third was paid by the region, another third was paid by the province and the net cost to the community was only one third for the installation of those sewers.

Mr. Breithaupt: Who paid for the region?

Mr. Swart: They did, but proportionately. In that small community what they paid in sewer charges for the whole region was only a fraction of what they would have had to pay if they had paid the whole cost themselves. I am familiar with this and I assure the member that that is right. It was only a very small fraction of what they would have had to pay. As you would expect, Mr. Speaker, I am not here advocating regional government.

Mr. Ashe: Sure you are, always have been.

Mr. Swart: I am simply pointing out that a small community within a regional government may find themselves in a much better position to get a service which they couldn’t afford otherwise. In the north, this will not be the case and they will in that respect be at a disadvantage to some of the smaller communities in the south. I am not sure that the northern municipalities will be eligible --

Mr. T. P. Reid: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Your point of order?

Mr. T. P. Reid: My point of order is that, among other things, the member doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He is also talking about southern Ontario. The bill has to do with local services boards in northern Ontario, not with regional government in southern Ontario and he’s away off the subject.

Mr. Martel: What’s his point of order, Mr. Speaker?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The honourable member will continue.

Mr. Swart: I abide by your ruling, Mr. Speaker, with regard to the point of order. I would suggest that when we are saying that the net cost to the people of providing the services to these small northern Ontario communities may be much greater than they would be in similar communities in southern Ontario, that comment is perfectly in order and arguments in support of that comment certainly are in order.

The small municipalities in the north may not be eligible for the up-front grants, which go up to a maximum of 75 per cent, if they are going to have a services board to provide the services in that area. In fact, some of the boards there may be taking over services which now are funded on a more generous basis than will be the case when the services boards are in operation.

So I say to you, Mr. Speaker, that the funding proposal is not adequate for the northern communities and not adequate in comparison to that for communities in the southern part of this province.

I would urge the minister to give further consideration to some form of financial assistance to these communities which will enable them to provide the same kind of services that similar communities have in southern Ontario.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Are there any other members wishing to participate in the debate? If not, the honourable minister.

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

May I first express my appreciation to the members who have contributed very extensively to what I think is a very important debate on the unorganized communities in northern Ontario. I think the contribution from all sides of the House has been extremely helpful.

There are some members who have missed the thrust of the bill, as the honourable member who has just finished speaking has. I am sure he is aware what we are proposing here is not a form of municipal government. I want to make that very clear. It is not a township, it is not a village, it is not a hamlet, as we know them in southern Ontario. It is a special piece of legislation to provide a very simple structure, something the unorganized communities of northern Ontario have devised themselves, with the co-operation and the assistance of the UCANO groups from the east and the west.

Bill 102, two or three years, and not five years ago, as the member for Rainy River has suggested --

Mr. T. P. Reid: It just seems that long.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Not five years ago, three or four years ago maybe, when that bill --

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: It was hailed then as the structure we should have for the unorganized areas; there was a feeling in southern Ontario that bill was something the unorganized communities in northern Ontario wanted. We members from northern Ontario know the unorganized communities wanted something, but they didn’t want a formal structure. They turned their backs on Bill 102 very strongly, from North Bay clean to the Manitoba border.

That gave rise to UCANO East and UCANO West and they are sitting in the gallery this evening. They were here last Tuesday. They have come as far as 1,200 miles. They are sitting in the Speaker’s gallery. They have shown an interest in this bill. They have walked this bill right across northern Ontario themselves They came down last Tuesday; spent their own money. They came 1,200 miles, were here for a couple of days and listened to the debates in the hope that this Legislature would give speedy approval to this desired piece of legislation.

Mr. Laughren: Are you going to answer the questions that were put to you?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Yes, I will.

Mr. Laughren: You are filibustering.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: No, I’m not. We will get to them. I will answer every one of them. I intend to take as much time as opposition members did to criticize the bill, because I think it is important that all those criticisms be answered.

I want to express my appreciation to both sides of the House for in essence approving what I hope is a good bill. As the member for Rainy River said, it is a good bill. Maybe it was a little long in coming, I will agree, but when you believe in participatory democracy --

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: -- when you believe that the proof is in the pudding --

Mr. T. P. Reid: You have five minutes, Leo.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: -- and the pudding is right in this bill. There is the bill. There is the result right there; Bill 122, the result of a good two years of hard work, not only by UCANO East and UCANO West but by the staff and the Ministry of Northern Affairs. They went around to 30-odd communities and talked to representatives of each one of them. They heard and listened and then applied into a piece of legislation what those people actually wanted, item by item.

I make no bones about it, I give the member for Sudbury East (Mr. Martel) some credit; not totally, but he raised the issue when the bill that brought the Ministry of Northern Affairs into being was under debate. He made some very constructive comments. We looked at those comments, but there were many points that he missed.

Mr. Foulds: He’s good but not perfect.

Mr. Martel: Or you wouldn’t be minister.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Just a little bit of credit. I think one of the most important things was the funding aspect that he didn’t touch on at that particular time, and the permissiveness of a piece of legislation.

It’s unusual that in this Legislature, as the member for Port Arthur (Mr. Foulds) would point out, that we would have a piece of legislation that would allow the local people to make their decisions within a framework which they think they want to operate under; they can opt in and opt out. That is the very important segment of the bill; it’s very important.

As I said earlier it is not a form of municipal government. One doesn’t have to be worried about regional government taking over, sharing the costs, providing all those basic services to which the member for -- for where?

Mr. Foulds: Welland-Thorold.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: To which the member for Welland-Thorold (Mr. Swart) referred. I think he missed the point totally, because there is no fear or danger, and there never will be, of regional government in the unorganized areas of Northern Ontario. There is no question about that in my mind and I know that there are no questions in the minds of the northern members from all political parties of this House; there is just no question. I say to the member with all respect, he missed the point totally.

On another point, I want to say to him there is no provincial tax rebate on those taxes because they are not taxes. I want to make that point very clear. They are service fees; a fee for service that the local services board will provide to a given area, within a boundary that will be established by the local people. They will establish the area that they will provide that service in; they will set the charge, a fee for service, be it for street lighting, be it for garbage collection or be it for sewer and water service.

I intend to introduce an amendment following this very healthy debate which will allow those local services boards to set different rates within their boundaries. There may very well be, as the member for Algoma (Mr. Wildman) pointed out, a specific area within their internal boundaries where they want to assess for street lighting here and maybe not over there.

We will allow them to set different rates within their various boundaries and I will be introducing that particular amendment.

Mr. Martel: We’ll call it the Wildman amendment.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: The Wildman, right; it’s a bit wild but we will accept it.

I think, Mr. Speaker, what we have to --

Interjections.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: I think what we have to accept is that this particular bill is a simple bill, it’s not elaborate. The reading is very simple, straightforward and easy to understand. That was one of the faults of Bill 102. I think everyone will agree with that.

This particular bill gives the unorganized communities the opportunity for representation and to focus on what they need to improve the quality life within their own boundaries. Believe me, I can speak from authority because I live in an unorganized area. Members opposite represent them, I live there; it’s a big difference. I know the whole bag. I know the issues from A to Z. There’s no question about that. It gives accountability. Most important, it gives accountability to those people who will be obtaining the services and, of course, paying for them. It gives accountability in a fairly formal way.

Mr. Martel: They’ll pay all right -- a tax.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: It is not a tax; it’s a fee for service.

Above all, of course, it will give a unified financial base that is evenly distributed across the entire boundaries of that particular local services board area, where each and every one of them will share equally in the services they obtain.

[10:30]

My friend and I know, living in unorganized areas --

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Does the honourable minister have many more comments? It is now 10:30 p.m.

Mr. Nixon: Let’s adjourn this and do it again next Tuesday.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Yes, I will be back next Tuesday, Mr. Speaker.

On motion by Hon. Mr. Bernier, the debate was adjourned.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Pursuant to standing order 28, the member for Dovercourt has given notice of his dissatisfaction with the answer given to his question by the Solicitor General (Mr. McMurtry).

Mr. Havrot: Mama mia.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The member for Dovercourt has up to five minutes.

Mr. Havrot: You can eat an awful lot of pizza in five minutes if you’re good at it.

COMPLAINTS AGAINST POLICE

Mr. Lupusella: Mr. Speaker, I welcome this opportunity to raise an important issue in relation to the question I asked today during question period. It is really a disgrace for a minister of the crown not to be here to listen to the comments I am going to make, because I believe the position he has taken today doesn’t really reflect the particular concern of the public as a whole in relation to the activities carried on by the police forces in Ontario and in particular in Metropolitan Toronto.

Mr. Havrot: Mama mia.

Mr. Lupusella: I raised the issue of the Carter report, which cries out for immediate response because it reconfirms the findings of Morand, Maloney and Pitman.

Mr. Havrot: Maloney?

Mr. Lupusella: But, more importantly, it shows that real problems do exist in terms of civilian complaints against the police and the problem of racism in Toronto.

Mr. Havrot: Capicollo.

Mr. Lupusella: Cardinal Carter makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of the problem and makes positive recommendations on which the government can and should act immediately.

An hon. member: Is this the late show?

Mr. Havrot: Absolutely not. It's the wop show.

Mr. Lupusella: It is imperative that the Solicitor General commit himself to immediate action. By his continued refusal to take action, he allows this very serious problem to become worse.

Cardinal Carter made it clear that he was reporting nothing particularly new in this report. He was essentially supporting what had already been recommended to the government. On page five, he says: “I must confess to a certain sense of déjà vu in this operation. The field has been covered with extraordinary thoroughness by three major reports which have been prepared since 1974. I refer to the royal commission under Mr. Justice Morand and the outstandingly full and cogent reports of Mr. Arthur Maloney and Mr. Walter Pitman. The existence and efficiency of these reports tend to emphasize the ad hoc nature of my assignment.”

Mr. Havrot: Thatsa my boy.

Mr. Lupusella: The Solicitor General should also have a sense of déjà vu and move quickly to respond.

Mr. Havrot: Capicollo.

Mr. Lupusella: Cardinal Carter states unequivocally that racism is a serious problem in Metropolitan Toronto: “That racism exists in Toronto is beyond a doubt. This opinion is based on my observations and the intensive education which I have undergone in the past two months.”

There are many causes of racism. However, there are also many positive steps which can be taken and for which the Solicitor General is responsible, namely (1) better training for police officers, (2) recruitment of police force members from visible minorities and (3) proper discipline of the few officers who are overtly racist.

Why has the Solicitor General again refused to show leadership in this area? Cardinal Carter underlines in compelling terms that the delay in establishing a means for dealing with police complaints has reached the point where public trust in the police is undermined.

On page 16 of his report Cardinal Carter states: “Perhaps nothing in all of my research was more universal than a sense of frustration about real or fancied injustice or harassment at the hands of police officers. I listened to one horror story after another in which the recurrent theme was always that there was no mechanism by which a complaint could be properly placed and a fair hearing ensured. Indeed, it seemed to be a fairly general opinion that not only was there no possibility of seeking recourse in this matter, but it was even dangerous to do so. Retaliation by police officers or the fear of such retaliation is widespread.”

The Solicitor General’s refusal to act with due speed in this matter does nothing to alleviate the situation. He’s playing with fire. The Solicitor General must take the cardinal’s advice.

The answer given to my question this afternoon showed that the Solicitor General --

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The honourable member’s time has expired.

Ms. Lupusella: I want to conclude. The Solicitor General attaches no sense of urgency to this matter. His repetition of old arguments contributes nothing to the resolution of the most serious problem of policing in Ontario today.

Mr. Havrot: Atsa nice. Good for Benito Mussolini.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Does any minister wish to reply on behalf of the Solicitor General?

Mr. Havrot: It’s a waste of time.

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, I would like to offer a few comments on behalf of my colleague, the Solicitor General. I think my friend is completely and unequivocally unfair in his criticism of the Solicitor General.

First let me say my colleague, the Solicitor General, and I view the report of Cardinal Carter as an excellent report. I think it’s balanced --

Mr. Foulds: Why didn’t he say that this afternoon?

Mr. Lupusella: Instead of the hypocritical position which he gave this afternoon during question period.

Hon. Mr. Wells: -- that it presents in an excellent manner and in a very balanced manner something which my friends on the other side of the House rarely do when talking about these particular matters --

Mr. Havrot: If you don’t like it, go back.

Hon. Mr. Wells: -- it presents in a balanced manner the situation and some of the remedies needed in Metropolitan Toronto. I commend the cardinal for the work he’s done, for the manner in which he approached this particular task, and for the great presence of authority he has brought to it. I think it is going to help to bring some light at the end of the tunnel, as I heard someone in this House say tonight, in this particular matter.

Mr. Lupusella: The government is not interested.

Hon. Mr. Wells: Before this report was issued my colleague, the Solicitor General, indicated he would be bringing in legislation concerning the matter of police complaints in Metropolitan Toronto during this session of the Legislature and before we prorogue in December. I think he was very clear on that. He made that statement before this report was issued and he still stands by that statement. I read his comments again this afternoon, and I’m sure you will be seeing legislation to this effect before we prorogue for the Christmas break, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Foulds: Why didn’t he say that this afternoon?

Hon. Mr. Wells: I think the comments of the member are not well taken. I hope he will be here to vote enthusiastically for what my colleague will be introducing very shortly.

Interjections.

Mr. Warner: Let’s see what there is.

Point of order: I wonder if I could draw your attention to rule 28(b) and ask whether it would be your understanding, from the section which says --

Mr. Havrot: You guys go back home and find out what it’s all about and see whether you get democracy. You don’t know what democracy is.

An hon. member: Why don’t you tell me then?

Mr. Warner: May I proceed, Mr. Speaker?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.

Mr. Warner: It’s the animated rock, over there, who is causing problems.

Interjections.

Mr. Warner: It’s the section which reads that five minutes are to be allowed to --

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

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The member for Scarborough-Ellesmere was on a point of order.

Mr. Havrot: What point of order?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The member for Scarborough-Ellesmere on a point of order.

Mr. Warner: Yes. Rule 28(b) mentions that the matter in question may be debated for not more than 10 minutes, five minutes to be allowed to the member raising the matter and five minutes to the minister or to his parliamentary assistant to reply if he so wishes. Would it be your understanding that the intent of that rule is that it is to be the minister to whom the question was first raised in the question period and not some other minister as designated?

Mr. Foulds: The parliamentary assistant was here.

Hon. Mr. Wells: On the point of order, Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary assistant who is here is the parliamentary assistant to the Attorney General and not the Solicitor General.

Mr. Breithaupt: Mr. Speaker, speaking to the point of order, I can only presume that since the minister did not choose to be present and reply, and since his parliamentary assistant did not choose to be present and reply, we should be thankful for what we have, which is at least a gratuitous intervention by the government House leader.

Mr. Lupusella: On a point of personal privilege, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Is it on the same point of order?

Mr. Lupusella: No.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: In reply to the honourable member’s point of order, I looked carefully at the standing order and appreciate that it does say, “minister or parliamentary assistant.” However, looking at the Executive Council Act, I notice that it does state that it is possible to transfer the duties of one member of the executive council to another. Under that act I have taken the liberty of asking if another minister would care to reply.

Mr. McClellan: On a point of privilege, Mr. Speaker, throughout the contribution of my colleague, the member for Dovercourt, we have been subjected to --

Mr. Havrot: Oh, you poor baby.

Mr. McClellan: -- interjections of a totally objectionable and racist nature by the member for Timiskaming.

Mr. Havrot: Racist, my foot; the member doesn’t know what racist means, you idiot.

Mr. McClellan: I want to ask you, Mr. Speaker, if you will obtain a copy of the Hansard transcription of the interjections --

Mr. Havrot: It won’t be recorded anyway. There won’t be any.

Mr. McClellan: -- during the contribution from the member for Dovercourt and if you would be so kind as to examine the transcript --

Mr. Havrot: Oh, the member is a bleeding heart.

Mr. McClellan: -- and make a determination --

Mr. Lupusella: The member for Timiskaming should be ashamed of himself.

Mr. Havrot: The whole bunch of you are phoneys.

Mr. McClellan: -- as to whether there were violations of privilege on the part of the member for Timiskaming.

Mr. Havrot: You can’t stand the truth, can you?

Mr. Warner: You’re objectionable even when you’re sober.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.

Mr. Warner: Throw him out.

Mr. McClellan: What I cannot stand is comments against my colleague such as, “Why don’t you go back where you came from?”

Mr. Havrot: Sure, I would too if I had made those remarks.

Mr. McClellan: What I can’t stand is swearing in the Italian language in this Legislature.

Mr. Havrot: I happen to be born in Europe too.

Mr. McClellan: What I can’t stand from the member for Timiskaming --

Mr. Havrot: Make it loud.

Mr. McClellan: -- are racist, slurry interjections.

Mr. Havrot: Oh, oh.

Mr. McClellan: I don’t have to put up with them and neither do my colleagues.

Mr. Havrot: I don’t have to put up with you either, and your nonsense.

Mr. Lupusella: On the same point of privilege. I am really offended by the remarks which were raised by the member for Timiskaming.

Mr. Havrot: Yes, I’m sure you’re crying.

Mr. Lupusella: I would like to draw to your attention, Mr. Speaker, first of all that he should give me an apology.

Second, I am urging him to read the answers of today’s question period in reply to the statement which was delivered by the Solicitor General. During my remarks, the reason I felt in some way compelled to raise this particular issue is the Solicitor General --

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I think the honourable member is extending his comments on the point of privilege which we were discussing.

[10:45]

Mr. Lupusella: I’m going to complete my remarks. That’s what the Solicitor General didn’t understand today. I raised the particular issue that he is not particularly concerned about this important issue. He agreed -- and I’m just quoting from his remarks -- at the request of the mayors of Metropolitan Toronto and the Metropolitan Toronto police commission to introduce legislation.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.

Mr. Lupusella: He didn’t feel compelled to act upon --

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order, would the honourable member take his seat?

Mr. Lupusella: -- the problems which are affecting people in Metropolitan Toronto.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: On the point of privilege raised by the member for Bellwoods, I will undertake to look at what was said. I did not hear what was said.

Mr. Grande: Maybe you could start by getting him to resign.

Mr. Havrot: You’d love that, wouldn’t you?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The member for Downsview has given notice of his dissatisfaction with the answer given by the Premier (Mr. Davis) to his question. The member has up to five minutes.

DE HAVILLAND AIRCRAFT COMPANY

Mr. di Santo: The Premier informed me that he could not be present tonight because he’s in Orillia and I thank him for giving me advance notice.

The question I asked the Premier and for which I filed dissatisfaction is related to de Havilland. As you know, Mr. Speaker, we have been raising this question repeatedly in this House because there is a serious concern on this side of the House among New Democrats because the federal government has announced that de Havilland will be one of the companies which will be privatized. We think if that happens it will be against the interests of the province of Ontario and the workers of de Havilland.

In his remarks in answering our questions, the Premier said he will make sure the company remains in Ontario, but he also said on October 26 that he doesn’t know by which means and how the company will remain in the province. When I asked the Premier if he thought that this provincial government should make any presentation to the federal government to ensure that de Havilland remains in the province of Ontario, the Premier didn’t know how to answer.

It’s that lack of commitment that really worries us. We know that de Havilland has gone through the same process in the last several years. In 1974, the federal government was forced to buy de Havilland from the English owners, Hawker Siddeley, because that company was unable to keep the plant in Downsview viable for Canada and the economy of Ontario. Now the federal government is doing that again. It has already decided to sell the company back to the private sector. We think that’s a mistake and that’s disgraceful. It is not, as the Premier said on October 18, because we are wedded to the concept that only government can do things, nor is that, as he said, we are so short-sighted we have no understanding of the political problems inherent in that sort of approach.

It’s quite the opposite. We are not here supporting de Havilland as a public company because it is a public company. We are supporting de Havilland in its present condition because we know that the aerospace industry around the world, except in the United States, is government-owned or government-supported -- in England, West Germany, Italy and all over. Only in the United States are there big companies. There is no way that de Havilland can compete on the world market as a private company.

Also, we think the financial commitment requested at this point can come only through companies who are either foreign-owned or, as it has been suggested, by interests which reside outside the province. One of the names which has been mentioned is the heritage fund in Alberta.

The Premier of this province doesn’t understand if that happened it is very likely the company can move outside the province. The aerospace industry does not have to be located close to a market like other manufacturing industries -- like the automobile industry for example. If that happens, we are going to lose a very viable industry in the manufacturing sector in this province -- an industry which uses Canadian technology, which exports 80 per cent of its product and which is a leader in developing STOL aircraft.

We think a commitment from this province is necessary and we regret this government doesn’t want to make that commitment.

Mr. Havrot: Mr. Speaker, on a point of personal privilege, I have just been accused by the member for Bellwoods that I was a racist. That is not true. I was born in Europe and have faced many racist attacks.

If any of the members for Oakwood or Bellwoods or Dovercourt felt they have been offended by my casual remarks over the speakers who were speaking, I wish to apologize and I will withdraw. I am man enough to admit that, because I have lived with this all my life.

Thank you very much.

Mr. Breithaupt: On the point of privilege to which the member for Timiskaming has addressed himself, on behalf of our party I welcome his comment. The reference that was made was a most unfortunate one and I appreciate that he has reconsidered and dealt with the matter promptly this evening.

An hon. member: You are not alone, Havrot.

Interjections.

The House adjourned at 10:55 p.m.