Legislative Assembly of Ontario

The House resumed at 8 p.m.

STANDING RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE

Motion for adoption of parts three and four of the final report of the standing resources development committee on acidic precipitation, abatement of emissions from the International Nickel Company operations at Sudbury, pollution control in the pulp and paper industry and pollution abatement at the Reed Paper mill in Dryden.

Hon. Mr. Gregory: Mr. Speaker, may I advise the House of an agreement which the House leaders would propose for the conduct of the debate this evening? If it is agreeable to the House, sir, I would ask that this be made an order of the House for this evening.

The time between the start of the debate and 10:15 is to be divided equally between the three parties in the House. The clerk shall keep a record of the time used, and at the conclusion of each party’s time the Speaker will no longer recognize members from that caucus.

At 10:15 the debate will end and the question will be put.

May I ask if there is unanimous consent for this arrangement?

Some hon. members: Agreed.

Mr. Lane: Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a few brief remarks about what the committee found out as a result of the study of the Reed situation in Dryden and about the pulp and paper industry in general. I think it was a real learning experience for the members of the committee who were able to make the trip to Dryden. I know it was for me. I noticed when we came back that the committee members had a different type of feeling for the one-industry towns in northern Ontario than had been shown before we went to inspect the situation in Dryden. So I think the trip to Dryden for the committee members was really a very important part of that study.

We learned a few interesting facts in looking at the pulp and paper industry across the province. Apparently there are 31 pulp and paper mills discharging waste directly into Ontario waters. That’s a pretty large number.

Yet if we look a little further down the line, we find Ontario pulp and paper companies have spent $202 million in pollution abatement and related modernization efforts in the last 10 years. That’s a fair bit of cash in anybody’s language.

We also found that abatement and modernization do not always require repeat investments. In other words, we often find that by modernizing a paper mill we have solved the pollution problem. This is good to hear, because many of our paper mills are outdated; if we bring them up to date, we are going to get rid of the pollution causing the problems throughout the province today.

It is interesting to note that in 1978 a report from the Ministry of Natural Resources stated about half of the pollution abatement investment yielded modernization and productivity and, as a result, environmental benefits. This proves what I was saying. It also goes on to say that in the next five years there is going to be a requirement for $1.2 billion to be spent in that industry to update and modernize it.

The government policy towards the pulp and paper industry, as stated by the Ministry of Environment, is that this industry must treat the environment so its operations no longer cause damage, nuisance or loss of amenities to the neighbouring communities.

The Environmental Protection Act states clearly that no person shall deposit any contaminant into a natural environment that causes or is likely to cause impairment of that environment The Ontario Water Resources Act states that any person who deposits any material in any place that may impair the quality of the water is guilty of an offence. Unfortunately, this law and policy has proven difficult to enforce in respect of the pulp and paper industry because of the fear of economic repercussions if the companies choose to close down their operations rather than put in the required pollution abatement controls. So it has been a little difficult to enforce this particular part of the Environmental Protection Act.

This latter problem was addressed by the new assistance program announced by the Treasurer of Ontario (Mr. F. S. Miller). The new grant program is known sometimes as the Miller plan or the Employment Development Fund. Over the next five years, this financial assistance to the pulp and paper industry will be pretty extensive. The money is to modernize and for pollution abatement methods that will improve the viability and quality of life in northern Ontario communities.

I would just like to take this opportunity to congratulate the Ontario government, of which I am very proud to be a member. This is a program that was needed. It is a good program, and if it is properly applied I think it will really help solve our pollution problems throughout Ontario and continue to keep people employed in areas. One-industry towns like Dryden would be ghost towns if that industry were closed down.

At this time I would like to make reference to a dialogue in the House on Friday, November 30. The Minister of Industry and Tourism (Mr. Grossman) said -- I’m quoting from Hansard:

“In Espanola, on Wednesday of this week, I officially presented E. B. Eddy Company with a cheque for $16,667,000, drawn from the Employment Development Fund allocation as an incentive towards the company’s expenditures of $225 million on its facilities at Espanola and Ottawa over the next five years.”

Hansard goes on to record that the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. S. Smith) said, “As an award for their excellent performance.”

The minister replied: “Maybe the Leader of the Opposition wouldn’t have helped the company. We thought Espanola was good enough to save; he did not. I’m glad the Leader of the Opposition got it on the record that he wouldn’t have helped the company.

“Mr. S. Smith: Absolutely right. Their record doesn’t deserve it, and you know it.”

I am glad we live in a country where we have the right to think and say what we want to say and think what we want to think. Certainly the Leader of the Opposition had the right to say what he thought about E. B. Eddy and all the good people of Espanola or the town of Espanola. But I think, in all fairness, he should have had some knowledge of the situation of which he spoke.

In the eight years that I have represented the great riding of Algoma-Manitoulin, I worked very closely with the company and the town officials to make sure Espanola didn’t become another one of those ghost towns we know so much about in northern Ontario. Apparently this possibility doesn’t cause the Leader of the Opposition any concern,

I would point out that E. B. Eddy is and has been a good citizen of this province and of the town of Espanola. I would point out that the plant in Espanola is a very old plant; it was run into the ground by two previous owners. Since E. B. Eddy acquired that plant, it has done a good job, not only of controlling today’s pollution, but also of cleaning up the mess left by the former owners of the plant. It has really gone down the road a long way in cleaning up the mess left by the former owners.

I strongly disagree with the Leader of the Opposition. I think E. B. Eddy has been able to show, in no uncertain terms, that it does qualify for the Employment Development Fund grant it received on November 28. As a result of that grant and the $200 million being put up by the company, the good people of Espanola can now be assured and have the peace of mind that their jobs are secure for a good many years to come and that the town can and will continue to grow.

I just don’t understand why the Leader of the Opposition wished to put a smear against the company and the town on the official record. I really can’t understand that, Mr. Speaker, but that’s his privilege and I just want to clear the record.

Mr. Gaunt: Mr. Speaker, I want to make a few comments with respect to this report. I want to tell you, sir, I’m not going to be dealing with Reed, because I think that part of the report is really redundant. After all, Reed now has been sold to Great Lakes, and we have an entirely different situation up at Dryden. I don’t want to spend any time discussing that particular matter, because I don’t think the situations described in the report now apply.

I’m going to deal in general terms with the pulp and paper industry as such and once again set out the government’s lack of success in controlling pollution in terms of its total pollution abatement programs as they relate to the pulp and paper industry over the years. Since about 1965 the government has had almost a total failure in many respects with regard to controlling pollution in the pulp and paper industry.

Pollution abatement objectives relating to the pulp and paper industry were set by the province in 1965. The objectives, which were to protect potable water supplies, recreational uses, aquatic life and aesthetics, were to be met in 1969. In 1976, the authors of a major Ministry of the Environment study on the pulp and paper pollution abatement program reported that only six of the 31 mills had reduced their pollutant discharges sufficiently to meet the objective for the maximum suspended solids, and only three complied with the objective concerning biological oxygen demand.

Between 1970 and 1978, for the industry as a whole, suspended solid discharges were reduced by 64 per cent and BOD by 38 per cent. By comparison, United States mills in the Great Lakes basin reduced their suspended solid discharges by 82 per cent and BOD by 84 per cent between 1967 and 1977. In comparative terms, our record during that particular period was not so good.

Six Ontario mills now discharge higher BOD levels than they did in 1970: Abitibi in Fort William and Sturgeon Falls, American Can in Marathon, Kimberly-Clark at Terrace Bay, Boise Cascade in Fort Frances, and what was Reed Paper in Dryden.

Three mills were discharging more suspended solids in 1978 than in 1970: Canadian International Paper in Hawkesbury, Kimberly-Clark in Terrace Bay, and Boise Cascade in Fort Frances. Despite some improvements, five mills still emit more than 45 tons per day of BOD into their watercourses.

Over the years, the Ministry of the Environment has failed badly in terms of abating pollution in the pulp and paper industry generally. It seems to me that in many respects the Ministry of the Environment, particularly from 1970 on, could be called, as it applies to the pulp and paper industry, the Ministry of Pollution, because it hasn’t had any great success in cleaning up pollution in that industry.

When one comes to the matter of enforcement and the ministry’s success with regard to prosecutions, perhaps this points up why the ministry hasn’t had the kind of success in abating pollution in the pulp and paper industry which one would expect over the course of about 18 years.

[8:15]

In the last five years, the ministry has won four convictions on pollution offences by the pulp and paper industry. Canadian International Paper Company was convicted in November 1974 and fined $2,000. The Ontario-Minnesota Pulp and Paper Company Limited was convicted and fined $2,000 in 1974. American Can of Canada Limited, which interestingly enough was charged under federal legislation -- there has been more success under federal legislation -- was convicted on a number of counts in April 1977 and fined $64,000. Reed Paper Limited was convicted on a number of counts and fined $5,000 in 1977.

The ministry has had some difficulty with its prosecutions. Over the years the ministry has tended to look at prosecutions as a last resort, not only in the pulp and paper industry but also generally. They would try to negotiate, to work it out, to push, pull and tug to get industry to comply in one fashion or another. When everything else failed, the ministry would take them to court. For that reason, the ministry has had limited success in this respect. For some reason or other, they feel a little squeamish about taking companies to court, and they haven’t met with any great success in this area.

There are a number of things the ministry can do with respect to cleaning up this industry. I acknowledge that my friend for Algoma-Manitoulin made a point in discussing the Treasurer’s Employment Development Fund, how it will apply to the pulp and paper industry and what it will do for that industry in terms of modernization and abatement equipment.

Mr. Eakins: But none for the small industries.

Mr. Gaunt: With none for the small industries, as my friend for Victoria-Haliburton has suggested. That’s true. The money is being made available to the larger companies. I suppose one can argue they are the bigger polluters, and that’s true. None the less, the program is there; it is available to the pulp and paper companies, and I am sure they will make use of it. I think several companies already have.

One thing concerns me. We have talked about it many times, and I am going to mention it again tonight. A speech with respect to the pulp and paper industry wouldn’t be complete without mentioning some serious concerns about the flexible guideline approach the ministry takes in its enforcement policy.

I understand we are going to have a complete statement from the minister some time in the near future concerning that enforcement policy. But it has come under a lot of scrutiny and, in some cases, attack. In many respects, it hasn’t served us well in cleaning up the pollution in the pulp and paper and other industries.

The minister has argued in defence of that particular approach that the ministry has to have flexibility or some room to manoeuvre in terms of trying to tailor its approach to the varying circumstances of varying industries across this province. For that reason it needs a flexible guideline approach, rather than coming in with mandatory standards, which the ministry argues would reduce its flexibility in environmental protection efforts.

I’m not so sure that’s true. It may have been valid at one time, but I think we have now reached the point of some maturity in terms of setting standards for various industries. We have more knowledge. We have more experience. We have more background to deal with these problems. That being the case, I suggest it’s time we took a very serious look at setting mandatory standards in terms of what is allowed as a minimum level of water quality within a river as a whole or within a water body as a whole.

I know the International Joint Commission has expressed a similar view. They have indicated that in their opinion the adoption of ambient water quality standards would be the route to go at this time, because it gives an enforcement body a better handle on cleaning up and dealing with a particular polluter emitting a particular kind of pollutant into a river or water body. The ministry should take a look at that.

I think I’m safe in saying that, in the United States, most of the jurisdictions adopt the ambient water quality standards rather than the guideline approach. I think I’m right in stating that. They’ve had better success than we’ve had, particularly in the pulp and paper industry, in cleaning up some of their watercourses.

We’re at a point now where we are in a position to adopt this route and go with this method in coping with our environmental pollution problems in so far as the pulp and paper industry and a number of other industries are concerned.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Do you think we should riddle our program with exemptions?

Mr. Gaunt: No, I don’t think we should riddle our program with exemptions.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: They do.

Mr. Gaunt: They do. Yes, that’s true. The minister is correct. There are certain exemptions built into some of their programs in the United States. But one has to look at the overall record of achievement in this industry. We’re talking about this industry tonight. We can talk about the others at some other time.

In so far as the pulp and paper industry is concerned, the United States has, on paper, a better record in cleanup than we do.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: We’re better in others.

Mr. Gaunt: I’ll give the minister some credit in that. In some respects Ontario is better. But I don’t see why Ontario, the leader in everything, should be satisfied with a mediocre performance. We could move in and do a good job in both aspects of pollution control, not only in air pollution, but also in water pollution. The minister should consider this. I know he has given it some thought. He is a thoughtful chap when he’s standing by the chair doing a little drilling. I’m prepared to accept that he thinks these things through in a very deliberate way.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: On a point of privilege or order, Mr. Speaker --

Mr. Eakins: Did he hit a nerve?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: What in the world could be out of order?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: May I put the case? I have given up drilling for twisting. It’s wirebending. I want the record to be clear on that.

Mr. Gaunt: I’m glad the minister put that on the record, so we can be assured that his total and full effort is devoted to the cleanup of this province in one way or another.

In concluding, I want to say that the committee has made a number of good recommendations. I know the minister has taken the work of the committee seriously. I know he realizes the committee put a lot of thought, work and deliberation into its hearings and the writing of the report. I hope we can all better ourselves and our positions in terms of pollution abatement in this province because of it.

Ms. Bryden: Mr. Speaker, when the Minister of the Environment referred the question of pollution control measures imposed on the pulp and paper industry to the resources development committee a year ago, we were not sure whether he was trying to avoid embarrassing questions in the House about the enforcement of control orders on this industry; whether he was planning to throw, to the committee, the hot potato of a new control order on the notorious Reed operation at Dryden and escape his responsibilities for dealing with that long-delayed cleanup; or whether he wanted some advice on policy direction.

At any rate, the committee took the latter as its mandate and did a very thorough study of the control order process. It tried also to find out who was responsible for the very dismal record in reducing pollution from the pulp and paper industry.

As my colleague from Huron-Bruce (Mr. Gaunt) has mentioned, in 1965 the government set pollution abatement objectives for the industry, to be attained by 1969. However, a 1976 report of the ministry showed that only three of 31 mills had met the suspended solid standards, and only six had met the biological oxygen demand objectives. Since 1976, some mills have actually increased their loadings.

If we compare 1978 figures with the average figures for the first 10 months of 1979, we find that nine of 31 mills had significantly increased their BOD loadings and six had higher suspended solids in 1979.

The industry remains the largest polluter in the province. Even the present Minister of the Environment (Mr. Parrott) admitted to the committee that “this industry has, in general, done less than any other major industry in the province to control the pollution it inflicts on the environment.”

[8:30]

The recent report of the International Joint Commission entitled Major Municipal and Industrial Point Source Dischargers in the Great Lakes, a report which was issued in July 1979, showed that in 1978 Ontario was way behind the United States in cleaning up industrial pollution.

Almost half of the 96 Ontario industries studied were not in compliance with pollution abatement requirements. On the US side, only 24 per cent of industrial companies studied were not in compliance. Among the plants failing to meet requirements were a considerable number of pulp and paper mills: American Can at Marathon; Great Lakes Paper at Thunder Bay; Abitibi at Sault Ste. Marie, Thorold and Thunder Bay; Eddy Forest Products at Espanola; and Ontario Paper at St. Catharines.

Whose fault is this failure to clean up our lakes? We seem to have had what might be described as a long love affair between the pulp and paper industry and the Ministry of the Environment over the past decade and a half. The principle that the polluter must pay has been largely ignored. The public has paid with the degradation of its environment.

Weak control orders were placed on the mills, or control orders were not enforced. The industry enjoyed immunity from prosecution as long as a control order or program approval for abatement was in place.

The governments of both Ontario and Canada offered a package of both positive and negative abatement incentives for pollution abatement, but the package does not seem to have been effective in making the companies choose abatement investments over other investments.

The resources development committee examined the whole process of setting control orders to see how the standards and deadlines were arrived at. It made a considerable number of recommendations for changing the policies for setting standards and deadlines and for enforcement. Among these proposals were a large number of suggestions for opening up the system to permit public input into the setting of standards and deadlines.

I am glad to say the minister has accepted a few of these proposals. He has been won over to the importance of public input on extensions of control orders. But why limit it to extensions? Why not have public input on all notices of intent, certificates of approval and program proposals?

The Conservative members on the committee dissented from the committee’s recommendation that all these instruments should be subject to public input and possible public hearings. Perhaps this is why the minister is only going part way on this recommendation. But if the members on the opposite side vote for the report tonight, they are, in effect, repudiating their dissent.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: That doesn’t work.

Ms. Bryden: The minister can vote either “yes” or “no.” He can’t vote “yes, partly” or “no, partly.”

Mr. Lane: That is all you have been doing all the time in here.

Ms. Bryden: As I have said many times, public input will not be balanced unless there is some public funding to ensure that all points of view are adequately presented.

Once again, there was a Conservative dissent on the recommendation of the committee that there should be some public support or consideration of public funding. In June 1978, I moved a motion in the House calling for public funding on all environmental hearings under any environmental act, and this motion was not voted on because the Conservatives blocked it. Perhaps that is why we are not making any progress in that field.

The company also sought to end what appears to be a rather cosy relationship between the ministry and the companies when they negotiate a control order and the standards and deadlines in the order. The committee suggested there should be independent evaluation of the cost estimates put out and the technological proposals of the companies. The failure of the ministry to do this for Reed Paper left the committee with no means to sort out the conflicting assertions of Reed and the ministry on realizable deadlines.

There are technical experts who have told me the whole abatement approach of the Reed company and of other companies in the province should be questioned. Are they following the best technology for reduction of effluents and reduction of pollutants? These experts have told me it is more sensible to try to reduce the amount of the effluent at source by developing closed-cycle operations rather than trying to remove the suspended solids and other pollutants from a large volume of effluent at the end of the pipe. The ministry should be studying this criticism of the technology in use and hiring independent experts to develop the best technology for pollution abatement.

Perhaps the only way to force the ministry to look at the alternatives is to make it possible for groups to take companies to court on the effects of their effluents on our common environment since, under the present law, the companies are immune from prosecution while they are carrying out what they consider to be the best technology for producing abatement.

I should report, the committee recommended that the immunity clauses in both the Environmental Protection Act and in the Ontario Water Resources Act should be removed so companies could be prosecuted for degrading the environment while a control order was going on. I am sure a judge would not carry out a conviction if they were in a process and appeared to be unable to move any faster. But it is quite conceivable they are not actually carrying that out and are just waiting for the control order deadline to expire. This is a recommendation the committee passed but, again, there was a Conservative dissent on removing that immunity. I don’t know how they are going to handle this if they vote for the report tonight, because the committee did recommend the immunity clauses be struck out.

Not only have we seen very little movement on the recommendation for independent evaluation of company claims, but also the ministry has tossed out a very useful tool for evaluating such claims. The ministry had developed a computer program for a rapid comparison of the cost-benefit effectiveness of alternative abatement options for pulp and paper mills but, with the restraint program, that went down the drain -- or, should I say, down the river. I suggest this is pound-foolishness. The committee saw that this might be a profit-making operation, since the computer technique possibly could be sold to other provinces and countries which wished to evaluate abatement programs.

The committee noted enforcement had been very weak and fines had been low. It asked for a beefing-up of the law in these areas. It also asked the minister to produce a statement of enforcement policy as part of his presentation to the resources development committee at the opening of the Ministry of the Environment estimates review.

I do not recall such a statement being presented to us this year, and the estimates were up since the committee reported. I am still looking for such a statement; it would be very useful as an indication of whether we do need legislative changes to improve enforcement practices. I am sure members on this side of the House would be very glad to vote for such legislation as soon as it was introduced.

The committee also dealt with the question of financial aid to the pulp and paper industry, which one of my colleagues will be discussing at more length. They did recommend that, if financial aid is given to assist a company with installing pollution control equipment, there must be a return on the investment to the people of Ontario.

We know that the Employment Development Fund, set up this year, has already handed out more than $100 million to the pulp and paper industry. We have yet to see anything that could be called return on investment in the terms of the agreement.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: It’s not like making coffee. You don’t have an instant response to it; it takes more than a day or two.

Ms. Bryden: I agree, but I could see it if the agreements had said there would be a percentage of the shares provided in return for the investment. That is the sort of return that should be considered. When we asked the Minister of Industry and Tourism (Mr. Grossman) about this, he simply produced some dreamed-up figures on the total potential taxes from potential new employees and from potential new business -- it’s all very potential.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: A lot of benefits for people working.

Ms. Bryden: I’d like to move on to the question of the Reed mill at Dryden and the abatement control there.

First, I would like to say that I think the minister abused the committee system by asking the committee to make recommendations on the details and dealings in a proposed control order on Reed. As our group in the committee stated, we feel the role of the committee is to discuss and advise on general policy on control orders, but not on individual orders. For one thing, there are far too many orders to refer all of them to a standing committee of the Legislature.

I should also point out that a standing committee, such as the resources development committee, consists of 16 members and does not have research staff, legal counsel or technical staff; nor does it have the time to go into all the details of each control order, or to hold prolonged sittings in the community concerned. It cannot evaluate conflicting claims from the company and from the ministry officials without having staff, experts, time and the opportunity to hear what the various points of view about the issue are in the community.

If the minister thinks that throwing the proposed Reed control order in the lap of the committee is a means of increasing public input -- which I and my colleagues have been asking for -- he is gravely mistaken as to what constitutes public input.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I promise not to do it again.

[8:45]

Ms. Bryden: Public input to me means hearings by an independent board such as a panel of the Environmental Assessment Board held in the community concerned and open to individual citizens, organized groups, trade unions, companies -- anybody who wishes to comment on the proposal. Of course there must be adequate public funding, as I mentioned, for public interest groups so it is not a David-and-Goliath encounter and all viewpoints are adequately represented.

I hope the minister will make it possible for proper public hearings to be held on all proposed control orders in the future, as well as on extensions he is now holding public meetings on. I don’t know whether the public meetings could be considered full public hearings, because they are usually sort of a one-evening affair. But we should be considering the possibility of full public hearings on all environmental instruments, including the setting of standards.

As the member for Huron-Bruce (Mr. Gaunt) mentioned, events have nullified the work of the committee over the last six months on the Reed control order. It is unfortunate we spent that much time and then the company was sold. However, the sale of the Dryden plant to Great Lakes Forest Products last month has not removed the need for cleaning up the English-Wabigoon river system.

We will be expecting the minister to impose a new control order on Great Lakes Paper with a tight timetable and a deadline we hope will be earlier than the deadline Reed Paper was asking for of 1985. Perhaps this time the minister will ask a panel of the Environmental Assessment Board to hold hearings on the matter in Dryden before he places the order. Then we will be sure, not only that the order is based on the best available technology and information, but also that all parts of the equation are taken into consideration.

There are three essential factors in determining the proper abatement program for any given mill. First, the environmental cleanup and prevention of further degradation; second, the future of the industry, particularly the future of one-industry towns such as Dryden; and third, the necessary economic and social changes needed to ensure the communities and the industry continue as viable operations and produce sufficient revenue to pay for the abatement. Those three factors must all be considered. What the committee was asked to do, in looking only at the control order and the details of it on the Reed mill, meant it was only looking at one third of the problem. That is why we felt we should have an Environmental Assessment Board panel look at all three aspects and work out a plan that would ensure the future of the community of Dryden, the future of the pulp and paper operation in Dryden and the cleanup of the environment.

I note the Treasurer (Mr. F. S. Miller) in his statement about the sale of the Reed mill to Great Lakes said it would meet all environmental standards. He didn’t specify what that very vague phrase meant: whether it was the same standards being asked of Reed, or better ones. He also said they would spend $40 million on environmental improvement, but again he didn’t say over what period.

I think we are still waiting for the answers to these questions on Great Lakes Forest Products. There is another question we would like an answer on and which is also part of the equation, and it is the missing piece in the jigsaw puzzle; namely, how much of the timber limits granted to Reed under the memorandum of understanding have been given to Great Lakes Forest Products? This will affect their ability to carry out environmental improvement and the speed with which they can do it.

The government doesn’t seem to have been able to find the answer to that question as to how much of the timber limits were included in the sale. They don’t seem to know how much they have given away to Reed in the past and, therefore, they don’t know how much has been passed on. This is a piece in the jigsaw puzzle that must be found.

I would like simply to say that the resources development committee produced a number of very valuable recommendations, but we are beginning to wonder whether they will be left on the shelf to gather dust or whether we can expect to see them implemented and how soon.

Mr. T. P. Reid: As usual, Mr. Speaker, it is a little disappointing to speak to a House with less than a quorum, although I will not call for one.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: The important ones are here.

Mr. T. P. Reid: The minister points out that the important ones are here, and he may well be right. But it is probably symptomatic of the importance that the members -- and probably the press in particular, but others as well -- place upon our deliberations in this House.

I want to speak to this problem for a number of reasons. One is the Reed Paper mill in Dryden is in my political area. Many of the surrounding communities are dormitory towns for the Reed Paper plant. The government, in its wisdom, has decided to build a hydroelectric plant fuelled by low-sulphur coal in Atikokan, which is also in my riding. I also want to speak on it, because this is probably the most important pollution problem we face, particularly at the moment, and probably for the next five to 10 years.

It is interesting. I recall when I first was elected in 1967, the words “ecology” or “environment” didn’t mean anything to anybody in Ontario, including my friend who just spoke and most of us in the Legislature. They weren’t terms that meant very much to anybody.

About 1969 it became the focus of political attention, not only in this jurisdiction, but also in others. It became, if I may put it this way, the fad of the day. It was the latest cause that people should be concerned and aroused about, should march in the streets, should wave placards, should write their members of the Ontario Legislature and the federal House of Commons and their municipal representatives, and hold great meetings, in whatever public halls there were, to decry the great problems of pollution and all the bad things to come from this fouling of our environment.

It is interesting that 99 per cent of those people -- but not all of them -- are no longer with us. They have gone on to other things; they are not demonstrating about the Ayatollah Khomaini, either for or against, or saying we should have three chickens in every pot or whatever the latest fad should be.

Environment and ecology seem to have lost fashion, if I may say that, with the public. It’s not that sort of upfront, real thing that people are concerned about today. There are a number of reasons for that. One is that a lot of people fasten on to fads and fashions; they give it their best shot and then go on to the next. I guess it also has something to do with the economic situation. The government has been most successful in this province in convincing people it’s a case of either the environment or the economy. In other words, either it’s clean air and clean water or it’s jobs.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: You never heard me say that.

Mr. T. P. Reid: No. I must say, in all due respect to the minister, I would have thought he might have been a little more aggressive in pushing his point.

There are rumours that on occasion the minister has pounded the table and said: “If you don’t do this to this company or that company, I’m going to resign. I’m not going to be the minister unless you allow me to run my department and you allow me to be tough with these people.”

This is nothing personal about the present minister. He’s probably been as aggressive as most of his predecessors, one of whom I remember quite well. The member for Burlington South (Mr. Kerr) stood in this place, on one of the most impassioned, highly charged evenings I have seen in this place in 12 years. We were talking about the Dow Chemical pollution of the St. Clair River.

Mr. Gaunt: The polluter must pay, he said.

Mr. T. P. Reid: My friends are stealing my lines as usual, and I hope they get their names in the paper. But I remember that night well when the minister’s predecessor got up in a fit of passion. One could say it was due to other influences and I don’t know what they were -- but he stood in his place, pounded the table and said, “The polluter will pay.” Some of us who were very naive, young and inexperienced in this place said:

“My God, we’ve found our white knight. We’ve found somebody who is concerned about the environment we live in.”

With all due respect, I say to the present minister, we believed him. We believed be was going to go out to Dow Chemical in Sarnia and all the other people who had by this time been warned there were problems with the environment and the ecology in Ontario, and he was going to clean it up and fix it.

I confess my naivety. I’d only been here three or four years. I was a simple country boy from the north, from Rainy River, who didn’t understand these kinds of things. I appreciate I’m a slow learner, but I learned very quickly after that. I don’t think there was a person who didn’t hear that speech that night in this Legislature, because in those days, Mr. Speaker -- it was before your time; you’re just a young man -- if somebody was making a speech in this assembly, the place was packed. I must say, I thank my colleagues for staying. They usually leave, just like everybody else.

[9:00]

We believed, because of the passion in the then minister’s voice, he was going to do something. Those were the heady days when we thought these problems could be dealt with -- maybe in too simplistic a manner, I admit. But we thought those things were going to be fixed up. We found that didn’t happen. The government, following the tradition and pattern of 36 years in power, would make the deals under the table. Whether it was separate schools, hospitals or anything you want to care about, including pollution of the environment, the government would deal under the table and make its negotiations and settlements, and the problems would be solved. Nobody would be happy, but everybody would feel something had been done.

We have a problem that I, coming from northern Ontario, feel particularly involved in and concerned about. Before I talk about the specific problem of acid rain as it affects the northern area of the province, I want to set a scenario for members on all sides who have been kind enough to support the building of a hydroelectric plant in Atikokan. I give credit to the government for making that decision, reiterating that decision and going ahead with that 400-megawatt plant which will supply the needed power to northwestern Ontario.

I see my friend from Beaches-Woodbine (Ms. Bryden), who spoke to the NDP annual meeting in my riding two or three weeks ago and who doesn’t really believe that plant should be built. I remember the former NDP candidate got up in every other place but Atikokan, where the plant and the jobs are needed, and said: “I’m against the building of the plant. I don’t think we should have this hydroelectric plant built at Atikokan.”

Then the candidate got to Atikokan at the all-candidates meeting and said: “Well, if you people really want the plant, I guess I can’t tell you you shouldn’t have the plant. If you want to build it, that’s fine. I should point out there are certain dangers but, if you want the plant, that’s fine with me.” That was the same person who had been all over the rest of the riding -- and, as you know, Mr. Speaker, my riding is something like 20,000 square miles and the communications are not that great -- going from one place to the other, saying, “I’m against it,” until he got to the place where it was being built; he then said, “Well, I’m not really against it.”

Ms. Bryden: On a point of privilege, Mr. Speaker: When I was in Fort Frances, I did not say the plant should or should not be built. I said there should have been an environmental assessment on it so the public could have decided or could have had their input. A decision could have been made with all the essential public input.

Mr. Acting Speaker: The member’s point is on the record.

Mr. T. P. Reid: I just wanted to see if anybody was listening, other than my colleagues. I am certainly glad to see somebody is.

My problem is, I read that account in the Fort Frances Times. They went from being most extreme Conservative to most extreme NDP. As one can’t believe either side, I didn’t know exactly where the truth lay. I would say the member who just spoke is right and, if I misrepresented her remarks, I apologize. According to the newspaper account, she did say she thought the environmental assessment should have gone on.

I am not totally averse to that, except I find myself in that box where I am trying to ensure the viability of a community and northwestern Ontario; so I think that plant should be built. If the Conservative government of 36 years had done their planning and carried out their operations, as basically and importantly as they should have, we wouldn’t have been in this situation.

I want to spend a few minutes on talking about the plant at Atikokan, because I’m concerned about it. I’m concerned about the fact that northwestern Ontario does not have a secure supply of energy. We have been importing energy through a tie line from Manitoba. That agreement runs out in 1980-81. The Manitobans have preferred to say they are going to export their power to the United States, where presumably they have shorter transmission lines and can make a bigger dollar.

The problem arises -- it’s touched upon in the report we’re dealing with tonight and in other reports in the press -- about the fact that when the Atikokan plant is operational, it will cause acid rain that is going to affect the Quetico Provincial Park, which is a large park in my riding and of which we in northwestern Ontario are very proud. If I may take 30 seconds to give you a commercial, it’s probably the finest canoeing area in all of Canada. I would say to my friend from Durham East (Mr. Cureatz), who is nodding to me very wisely, it’s not a place where he should go without a lot of help. He should not be allowed in the wilderness on his own; he has trouble finding his way here in the morning -- even after a couple of years.

The problem arose in regard to acid precipitation and the Atikokan hydro plant and the fact that a lot of American politicians got on the bandwagon and started to raise a lot of hell -- if you’ll pardon the French, which I’m sure you will; I hope that’s not racist -- about the fact that the plant in Atikokan was going to cause acid precipitation over the Quetico park but, more important, as far as they were concerned, on the boundary waters canoe area in northern Minnesota, which adjoins Quetico park.

I must say -- and I pay tribute to the present Treasurer, who was then the Minister of Natural Resources --

Mr. Hennessy: That’s not fair. You can’t say that.

Ms. T. P. Reid: It’s not fair? You can’t win in this place, Mr. Speaker. Here I am, trying to pay a compliment to the present Treasurer, and the member for Fort William (Mr. Hennessy) says that’s not fair. I don’t know what else I could do, other than contribute to his campaign, which I’m not prepared to do.

The Americans got on the bandwagon and were raising all kinds of problems with both Ontario Hydro and members of the Legislature. They wrote directly to the Premier. They went to Ottawa. They went through their federal state department and raised hell as well with the federal government. The fact that this plant was going to cause acid precipitation on the border waters boundary area, which is in northern Minnesota. That area being adjacent to Quetico park in Ontario, they get a lot of enjoyment out of it; they get a lot of people going to that area, because it is beside the best canoeing area in the world which, as I said, is Quetico park.

The hypocrisy of those people is beyond belief. Even the Premier of this province, when he gets up in his place and tries to answer me and others about the question of making public the public opinion polls in the province, does not reach the hypocrisy of those American politicians in complaining about acid rain on the border waters canoe area.

I have statistics here that indicate 70 per cent of any of the acid rain that is infecting this area comes from the power plants in northern Minnesota. Roughly 30 per cent -- and I think it’s a smaller proportion -- comes from Ontario and, in some cases, Manitoba: from a plant in Thunder Bay, perhaps from a plant in Atikokan when it’s built, and from two plants producing electricity in Winnipeg.

It’s interesting to see the difference I have noted, because I’m very close to Minnesota -- fairly close to the border -- to me, the difference between our political system and theirs is like the difference between night and day. I’ve been in this Legislature for 12 years, and I say to you, Mr. Speaker -- I’m sure you would agree, and I notice you’re sort of nodding -- that this government --

Mr. Acting Speaker: I didn’t agree with what you’re going to say, because I haven’t heard what you’re going to say. If I was nodding, it was for another reason.

Mr. T. P. Reid: The member for Durham East is nodding, and that bothers me.

This government, in my 12 years in the Legislature, has run this province by headlines. They have made statements in this Legislature and have always failed to enforce the tough stances they are going to take on, whether it be pollution or violence in hockey. By God, I’ve never been so impressed as I was when I saw the Attorney General (Mr. McMurtry) stand in his place and say, “We’re going to do away with violence in hockey.” My God, that was really impressive.

Mr. Ruston: He said he was going to hire 150 policemen.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Whatever happened to that, we don’t know.

Mr. Ruston: Where did all the police go that he was going to hire?

Mr. T. P. Reid: The Attorney General said, “We’re going to hire 150 OPP, and we’re going to have law and order in this province.” I could go all through those kinds of things. But the only difference between the Attorney General and the present Minister of the Environment is that the present Minister of the Environment dresses better, because he can do up his jacket and the Attorney General can’t. But because the member is not on the front benches of that party, his statements don’t get the same kind of recognition that his statements do. But his are not far behind. I remind the minister of the statements his predecessor made about how we were going to sue Dow Chemical and the polluter would pay. That’s how the Tories have run this province for the 12 years I’ve been here. I’m sorry that the press gallery never catches on to that, but I suppose their immediate concern is a headline and they don’t care about results.

But to go on, even better than the present Attorney General and the Minister of the Environment, who make all these great statements about what they’re going to do, with no action to back it up --

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Just tell me one --

Mr. T. P. Reid: Oh, let’s talk. We could talk about Dryden if the minister wants to talk about something. We could talk about Inco. Let’s talk about Inco, for instance --

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Tell me one -- just one.

Mr. T. P. Reid: One? I told the minister about two, but let’s talk about moo for a minute.

I’ve been here for 12 years. I’ve heard about environment, pollution and ecology for 10 of those years. I admit, when I first came in, I didn’t know any more about it than anyone else. But I’m still waiting for Inco to be cleaned up.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: You were going to tell me about it.

Mr. T. P. Reid: I haven’t heard the minister say anything about the 750,000 tons of emissions that have been going on. I’ve listened to my friends who live in Sudbury talk about it. I’ve heard the minister say, “We’re going to do this and we’re going to do that.” I’ve read the papers the next day and it says, “Harry Parrott, the minister says...”

Mr. Warner: He gets tough.

Mr. T. P. Reid: -- but I don’t see any reduction.

Mr. Warner: He’ll get tough when Inco lets him.

[9:15]

Mr. T. P. Reid: I don’t see any reduction in the 750 tons of emissions from Inco. Don’t divert me. I am trying to help you out here. If the minister would listen, I am trying to help him out, because there are people on the North American continent who make him look like a piker, and they are the American system of government. I stand in my place and say, without fear of equivocation, that they are the experts at ruling by headlines.

Even the member for Durham East realizes what they are doing. If he knows how blatant and obvious it is, then everybody must know how blatant and obvious it is.

These American politicians primarily were writing letters, making speeches in the Minnesota Legislature, and were going to their federal representatives, who were going to the federal House of Commons and complaining about the possibility of acid rain coming from this plant in Atikokan.

The hypocrisy of it is beyond me, Mr. Speaker, and I will tell you why: 70 per cent of the acid rain in this area is coming from --

Mr. Hennessy: Minnesota.

Mr. T. P. Reid: The member for Fort William has said the first intelligent thing he said tonight. It is coming from Minnesota and those electric power plants there. They are producing 70 per cent, or better, of the acid rain in that area, and they have the nerve to write the Premier of the province, to write to me, to write to the Minister of the Environment and say: “We are not going to put up with this. This is completely unsatisfactory. We don’t do it.”

It is incredible. They have more nerve than the Ontario Conservative government, and I know my colleagues won’t believe that. They won’t believe that, but that is the case.

It bothers me, Mr. Speaker. I understand my time is running out, is it?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: You have about 45 seconds.

Mr. T. P. Reid: I want to refer to page 24 of the report -- something referred to by my colleague who spoke before me -- and that is the process of reaching an international accord to secure abatement of the emissions contributing to acidic precipitation.

I am concerned about this. I am concerned about it for the very reasons I have put, because our American friends are exactly the same way but more expert than the Ontario Conservative government. They would rather talk about it than do it. They will get a headline in the papers --

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

Mr. T. P. Reid: Thank you, Mr. Speaker; I will wind up. I say to the Minister of the Environment, if I may in winding up, Mr. Speaker, I have a resolution on the Order Paper. It is imperative that Ontario have a working agreement with the states bordering the province. I realize there is a longer range with the weather system and everything else, but we cannot rely on the federal government to deal with these matters. There should be a working relationship between Ontario and those states bordering along the Ontario border to deal with these kinds of problems.

Mr. Charlton: Mr. Speaker, I didn’t get to sit on the committee for very long, but I did sit on the committee for a few days when we were dealing with Reed, Dryden. I would like to pass a few comments on to the minister about some of the feelings I and other members of the committee developed when we were confronted with the kinds of technical presentations the company was making about its proposal and to some degree even the technical nature of looking at your proposals as well. Quite a number of us found it very difficult to effectively determine what exactly was the truth, not in terms of anything other than was the economic tag they hung on their approach to cleaning up the pollution a realistic tag, or could it be improved? We just didn’t have the expertise on the committee to do that effectively, to refute easily the position the company was taking on its economic situation. A number of us found that quite difficult and we didn’t feel, in terms of the future, in looking at control orders and so on, that the legislative committee was the proper place to do it.

In spite of some of the technical problems and technical hang-ups the members of the committee had, there are a number of good recommendations in the report. I won’t read through all the recommendations because I would think the minister has had a very careful look at them already, but I would like to talk about enforcement.

The one thing that comes out fairly clearly in the section on enforcement is toughness. The committee believes enforcement procedures should be strengthened. All the way through these recommendations there is a significant feeling by all the members of the committee -- and I understand the government members dissented on a couple of points, but they didn’t dissent on this -- that there needed to be much, much stronger enforcement of orders by the Ministry of the Environment. I suppose it has been said in this House 10,000 times as well.

The minister responds, “Don’t totally hang the past on us. We are going to do it better in the future,” but in most cases we haven’t seen that, at least in the biggest instances this Legislature has been confronted with over the last three or four years. Reed is obviously one of the most serious among them. We certainly don’t want to see the sale of the company win any changes for anybody in the strategy which presently is being taken. We would like to see it completed.

Repeatedly, all through these recommendations there is the feeling shared by everyone on the committee that there has been a real lack of strength in enforcement, that the will just wasn’t there. That has to change.

The next area I would like to talk about briefly is the whole question of pollution control and pollution abatement costing jobs. This is a thing that quite often gets hurled at those who are most vocal about cleaning up the environment. The ministry has done some studies in the area. One I have here is entitled The Pollution Control Equipment Industry in Ontario: Historical Performance and Potential and the Possibility of Import Substitution. There are some significant findings in that report and some potentially good ideas, so I think the minister is well aware that all that can happen when we are dealing with pollution control is not necessarily downward, not necessarily loss of jobs. There is a huge potential in the pollution-abatement equipment industry if it is properly encouraged and fostered in this province. There is a lot of potential there.

One looks at things like the English-Wabigoon river system, which has now been closed as a tourist area for a couple of years. When one looks at something like that, one thinks and one understands that there are a lot of other job potentials, both recreational and tourist in nature. The minister knows that is already one of the most important industries in the north. We have had the recent reports on acid rain and so on, which indicate we have to start looking at the real damage to vegetation as a result of all of these kinds of things we have allowed to go on for much too long.

All of those are going to start having a negative effect on jobs, as opposed to the cleanup which is always labelled the bogy man, the job killer. I think we should all clearly understand that’s just not an acceptable thing to be saying anymore at all.

The committee recommended a number of things about pollution abatement and employment. I think they are all reasonably useful directions in which to be heading. One recommendation is about a senior economist from the ministry undertaking an explicit study of employment effects of the abatement program on the pulp and paper industry.

We are going to continue to get the bogy men that really aren’t acceptable in dealing with pollution-abatement programs, if we don’t do the studies, if we don’t have the facts. In effect, we don’t know what we are talking about. These kinds of recommendations are useful and they will point us in the direction where we can get by the clique words and buzz words that keep putting a stall in the process.

There are a number of things in the whole approach the committee took to the Reed situation that distressed me somewhat, one of which, as I suggested at the outset, was the very fact we didn’t have the expertise to determine what was feasible and what wasn’t. I think this is reflected in the way the committee has continually reported that the ministry should do a study of this and do a study of that, because we just don’t really know the answers. Some of the answers are more obvious than others, but I think it’s just about time something was done.

We talked about pollution-abatement programs at Reed in Dryden or at Inco. Wherever we are talking about enforcing cleanup orders, we have to know in a factual way what kind of enforcement we can apply. We haven’t effectively known that in the past and as a result we haven’t got anywhere in understanding why we haven’t accomplished what we set out to accomplish. The only understanding that comes out of it is we didn’t do it.

Those are the two major areas I wanted to speak to this evening. I am getting a signal that perhaps I haven’t used up as much time as I --

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Don’t worry about it.

Mr. Charlton: At any rate, there are a number of other things discussed under enforcement --

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Adjourn early.

Mr. Charlton: We may well do that yet, Mr. Minister.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I will, if you will.

[9:30]

Mr. Charlton: There were a number of other things mentioned under enforcement in the way of application of fines. Although in at least one or two of the recommendations some of the government members dissented, there were a couple of suggestions that were particularly useful at which the minister should have a careful look.

It is suggested, first of all -- I think everybody felt this to the greatest degree -- the maximum fine should be increased so we reach a more effective level in terms of dealing a real penalty. The committee also recommended in the same section that we should have a look at minimum fines, so we don’t get into the situation of some of the fines being so low, for whatever reason, that others can feel hard done by. We have to have a situation where there is an almost automatic minimum penalty.

It is true the government members dissented on that point, but I think it’s something in terms of effective enforcement the minister can seriously consider.

The committee also recommended there was a need for an analysis of the ministry’s abilities to prosecute and issue automatic penalties against Kimberly-Clark and Boise Cascade. In some instances, it seems to us particularly reasonable that automatic fines could be the most effective way of dealing with the biggest offenders.

We also have some concerns about the whole question of funding for modernization programs and abatement programs. Not everybody is convinced the modernization and abatement program should be paid for out of a grant structure. It would seem reasonable, and I think it’s noticeable that it has been stated several times throughout the report, that we like the concept of polluter pays. We also like the concept that if the public is going to put money in, there should be some kind of return on that money. There are all kinds of options in there and the minister knows well what they are. It could be anything from a loan on up, but there should be a return for the taxpayers of Ontario.

Let’s face it, the industry itself -- although it is probably true it won’t last forever -- has made some substantial gains in profits over the last year or year and a half. The modernization, at least theoretically, is going to provide them with additional profits. That’s what the modernization is all about, making them competitive again. It seems to us if we are going to put public money into that process, the public should be guaranteed some return on that.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I believe the Liberal Party has used up its time; the New Democratic Party has about four minutes left.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: Are we agreed there are no other speakers for the other two parties and we will not have a vote at 10:15?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I don’t know whether it’s possible to agree there are no other speakers. I think the New Democratic Party has four minutes left and I have recognized you.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I appreciate that and I didn’t wish to be recognized until after the last speaker, if it is possible. I would like, if I could, to wind up the debate. Perhaps the member for Beaches-Woodbine (Ms. Bryden) would like to give her four minutes to the member for Haldimand-Norfolk (Mr. G. I. Miller) and then I would conclude.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I think the member for Beaches-Woodbine has already spoken.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I know, but that party may wish to give the four minutes to the member. I am only trying to get a ruling, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: It was agreed before the discussion started that the members would split the time and I don’t think it is up to the chair to say which party should go first. It is entirely up to the members and up to the chair to recognize the member who is standing. So if somebody wants to stand, I will recognize them.

Interjections.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I must remind the members that it was agreed earlier that each party would have an equal amount of time. The Liberal Party’s time has expired.

All right, the honourable member for Oxford.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I will assume then, Mr. Speaker, that no other member wishes to speak.

Quite frankly, I don’t wish to take 35 minutes and I don’t want to prolong the debate for the sheer purpose of prolonging the debate. Since we are not calling for a vote and I understand the other parties also are not calling for a vote, I thought we might be able to make the assumption that we had each had our full opportunity to discuss this important committee report and adjourn the House.

I hear no dissenting comments on that, Mr. Speaker. I think that is a reasonable position to put.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: That’s a suggestion.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: There are a few comments I would like to make this evening relating, first of all, to the very long discussions we had in our committee, not only on the Reed Paper order but all control orders on acid rain and many other subjects. By and large, those hearings, I think, were well worth the effort. Certainly I thought the members of the committee were making a very conscientious effort on all occasions; no doubt about that. The attendance was excellent and by and large the continuity of the debate was extremely worthwhile, so I would say to the committee I found the assistance they gave me helpful and it was appreciated.

Rather than spend a lot of time on a policy statement which could be a reasonable approach to tonight’s debate here in the House I will respond to a few of the suggestions made by the previous speakers. I do that simply because so much time has been spent in committee, perhaps more than has been spent ever before, on matters of the environment. Therefore I had lots of opportunity to make policy statements and quite a few were made during that time.

The first question I would like to address is perhaps to the member for Huron-Bruce (Mr. Gaunt), who talked about the fines not being sufficient. I know he has made that case several times and I must say to him I am beginning to accept his position on that more and more.

I think there is something that must come before that, and it is just this simple: There is absolutely no value in the Minister of the Environment asking this Legislature to apply stiffer fines until we have in place an obvious enforcement policy. Why ask for high fines if we are not going to enforce? That seems very logical.

Mr. Speaker, if I could, I would suggest to this House, through you, sir, that indeed there has been a real change -- perhaps too subtle to appreciate but a very real change -- in the enforcement attitudes of this ministry in the last while. I tell you I shied away from enforcement in the early days -- and I say days, not even months -- of my term of office. I don’t think anyone appreciates laying a heavy hand on individuals. It seems easy when you’re in opposition to make the suggestion that it’s only big companies which need enforcement. I tell you, Mr. Speaker, it is not only large companies; it is sometimes also a single individual who needs a heavy enforcement policy. So let’s not kid ourselves --

Mr. Warner: It’s easier to get tough with a single individual.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: If the member for Scarborough-Ellesmere would be quiet for just a second and try to get the continuity of this, he might see an emerging pattern that’s extremely important in this province.

We do have a large number of enforcements now proceeding through the courts -- a large number. That’s the way it should be. I discussed this very issue with my deputy today and he tells me the fines being levied of recent days are increasing in their magnitude. He tells me, as well, this trend is one that’s easily documented. I’d be glad to do it for this House.

More particularly, I say to you, Mr. Speaker, if we are not successful in the lower courts, we are appealing and taking it to the higher courts -- and I can document this. That, I think, is getting out very clearly the message that the Ministry of the Environment is determined to enforce those orders they have put into our society. That happens to be absolutely true.

Mr. Warner: Hollow words. Inco is quaking in its boots.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Any time the member wants he can take our control orders and see how they’ve been enforced. If he’d come to committee he would have had a one-by-one recording of how we are enforcing our control orders and will continue to do so.

I make no bones about it, enforcement is the key and that change is perhaps subtle. I believe it’s now less than subtle. It’s becoming fairly obvious and will be more and more obvious as times goes on. In response to the member for Beaches-Woodbine, I think she made a case that our amount of total suspended solids has not lessened in the years between 1978 and 1979, nor has the biological oxygen content. That’s not quite all that should be said on that subject. They’re marginally reduced but, more particularly, production is up.

In other words, the challenge that faces our industry is larger because of the increased production. We would expect, therefore, to see a correspondingly larger amount of both of those items I mentioned, but we’ve seen marginal decreases. Therefore, I think the relative position is a significant decrease in our loading, if we make the comparison between the production and the actual loading going into the environment.

She also suggested we needed a little different approach on the public input, and that it didn’t work in the committee. I totally agree with her. At the end of the discussions on Reed Paper I did not think the process had worked well. I think it did bring to the public a good deal more information than they had ever been given before.

The member for Hamilton Mountain suggested it was too technical. Yes, that was one of the flaws we saw in that approach. It’s hardly appropriate to put all that technical information in front of a committee not trained, nor with the expertise to make judgements.

On the other hand, it did give our ministry staff a very clear opportunity to display their considerable talents and knowledge of the technical requirements of a ministry as complex as my own. I guess that brought into clear focus that many of the environment issues of today are difficult to deal with simply because they’re so complex and yet so frequently emotional. It makes it very difficult to arrive at a balanced judgement.

[9:45]

On that basis, I would be more than ready to agree that the approach taken by referring a control order to a committee of this Legislature is not a successful way of handling it. It was an excellent experiment; I think it was the right thing to do at that particular time. We learned a great deal from that experiment; one of things we learned was not to repeat it.

I say to the member we are coming in with a much better idea on how to deal with control orders in the public forum. I am committed to the concept of dealing with control orders in a public way. In the near future we will put on the record -- perhaps not in the House; I hope it will be before the next time we meet in this Legislature in the new session next spring -- a formal statement on our abatement policy. As a matter of fact I have already seen the first draft of that policy. I have made a few changes in it, but I think it is close to being ready to be put on the record for all to see.

I think this is a welcome addition to the policy of our ministry. It is something that will, I think, help the members to understand where we are going, what we are doing and the approach we take to control orders; and that will be valuable.

I was pleased the member suggested that the Environmental Assessment Board was a competent body to hear this case. I am not sure we are going to accept her advice to go to an environmental board hearing on control orders in the future, but I was pleased to know she recognized that body was such a fine, independent body we could trust it with making the decisions on the cases we referred to it so frequently.

The member also wanted to talk a little bit about whether Great Lakes Forest Products Limited would have orders similar to those issued to Reed Paper Limited. I am prepared to say to her this evening that we will be arranging for a new control order on that company in the not-too-distant future, I suspect. It is our intention to set up a public meeting in Dryden where the company can put forth its intentions regarding environmental matters.

We will not be dealing with this in committee, as we did with Reed Paper Limited; we will not be doing it before the Environmental Assessment Board; but we will be doing it in public and we will be doing it in the community of Dryden. Indeed, that perhaps is something that is also starting to become very clear, that we think the place to hear these discussions on our control orders is not always here at Queen’s Park in Toronto, but in the communities where the residents, the company employees and the company officials have a chance to make a case; in other words, where there is a very wide opportunity for the fullest participation in the discussions that could logically centre around a control order. Perhaps before many weeks pass a formal statement of our policy will be put forward.

I shared with the House the pleasure of listening to the member for Rainy River. (Mr. T. P. Reid). He was in extremely fine fettle tonight. I sent him a short note saying that to the best of my knowledge Elmer Sopha would have been very proud of him. He really put on a stellar performance for us, Mr. Speaker. I think he would have been second only to the fine congressman from Minnesota and he as much as said Minnesota has excellent politicians.

I thought the gentleman who was here at our recent acid rain conference was one of the best delegates one could possibly have. He was engaging, charming and fluently bilingual, if members can imagine that. I am sure the honourable member would have been impressed. There was only one problem with his presentation. He talked about the problem of acid rain better than anyone else I heard at the conference, but the bottom line was he was not able, even with all his brilliance, and he was brilliant, to persuade Congress to increase their activity against acid rain. Indeed, he shared with me his great disappointment that they had cut the budget while, at the same time, we in Ontario had markedly increased our budget to deal with that most important of subjects: acid rain.

Although I don’t claim to have his great eloquence; I don’t even claim to have the great headlines, as the member for Rainy River suggests --

Mr. Gaunt: You get your share.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I get my share -- some good; some bad. What we are doing is taking a very workmanlike approach to dealing with a very complex item.

In conclusion, I seem to hear from so many members that there is no enforcement. Perhaps if I could put on the record tonight only one thing, and I could rest my case with that, it would be the tremendous number of cases that now are in court. As a matter of fact, I would underline that by saying I personally took a new approach, and one that surprised a fair number of people, in that I went into the court personally to try, to the very best of my ability, to make the court realize how serious we are about enforcement.

The member for Scarborough-Ellesmere wouldn’t ask me the right questions at the right time. I suspect he would have said, with sarcasm, “What little person did you attack?” It was not a little person. It was the second or third largest paper company in Canada. I went there to say, as forcefully as I could, to the officer of the court, “We are dead serious about enforcing this control order.”

Mr. Warner: Did you win?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: It so happens the case has not yet been decided. But if we lose --

Mr. Warner: Your track record --

Hon. Mr. Parrott: We’ve done very well in our track record this last year and a half -- very well indeed.

Mr. Warner: Tell that to the people in the Sudbury basin.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: If the member wants to go case by case, I’ll be glad to debate it any time. We’ve lost a few, but we’ve won many. That’s the point. The member does not give us credit for the many times we win, and that disappoints me. I understand the logic of the position the member takes, but some day he is going to have to accept what reality is: We win far more than we lose.

Mr. Warner: That’s nonsense, and the minister knows it.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: It is not nonsense. The trouble is, the member keeps making those kinds of interjections about “nonsense.” I’ve heard him say it a million times in this House. He never backs it up with fact. Let him get the record out and show me where I am wrong. The member cannot show me where I am wrong in that regard.

I think there is another part of enforcement. I wish the House were filled or that I had the gift to make this case as well as it should be made. I conclude on this point: Yes, there is an important aspect of enforcement that can only be done in the courts. But there’s another important aspect that’s worrying me even more.

As we come up with ideas on how to treat the problems of environmental concerns in this province -- with ideas that could be put into place; not things we need to go to court on, but facilities, methods and concepts -- and as we try to put those in place, we find invariably when we go into a locality, they say one simple thing, “That’s a good idea -- but not here.”

That may take a little too much personal challenge for the member who sneers across the aisle. It might take too much of a challenge for him to bite that one. I don’t know where we need more help in this province than for all of us to stand, look at the severity of the problem and realize that, unless slowly but surely we individually take our responsibilities, we’ll go down the drain in the truest sense of the word, saying, “It’s a good idea -- but not here.”

I was in a riding last night. It was a very difficult meeting. I thought I was putting on a proposal for a much-improved liquid-waste facility. I was really disturbed -- I was really sorry -- to hear the people of that area say to me, as all other areas say to me, “We would sooner live with untreated waste being dumped we don’t know where than take a treatment facility that we can be sure of in our riding.”

It’s partly because we haven’t put the case well enough. I’ll take my share of that responsibility.

Ms. Gigantes: Because people don’t trust you.

Mr. Warner: With good reason.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: That could very well be my fault, but there comes a point in time when the kind of comment just hurled across the House will destroy this province. We will have a silent spring.

I said to that person last night -- I said to that crowded room last night -- “If you don’t trust me, here’s what I will do. I will put on duty, 24 hours a day, a person who will police, who will test, who will guard what is going on in this facility. Not only that, I will give you, the local people, the opportunity to veto that person’s name. If you don’t believe me, if you don’t trust me, you can veto it and we’ll put another person forward until we find a person you can trust.”

Even with the unconditional commitment on my part that we will put on that site a policeman they could trust, they still said to me, “It’s a good idea -- but not here.”

Mr. Warner: Where was this, Harry?

Mr. Conway: Where was this?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: There is no problem in telling the members where it was and it is happening all over our province. It’s happening in my riding. It’s happening in the members’ ridings.

Mr. Warner: Where was this last night?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: The meeting last night was in Harwich township, down near Blenheim. But I’m not picking on those people. That’s not my point at all.

I’m saying to the House it is typical of the approach of the people of this province that we take, understandably so, a very narrow view. But that very narrow view is perhaps going to establish some Love Canals in this province unless the Ministry of the Environment is given the opportunity to put some facilities in place.

It’s not going to be easy to do that. We’ve tried to open up the process as much as we can. We’ll put information services in. We’ll hold open houses in schools. We’ll do whatever the members ask. We’ll give the kind of guarantee we gave last night. But I ask the members of this House to stop saying they can’t trust us. It’s an easy, rhetorical statement, but if we continue to take that irresponsible approach I am very concerned about the welfare of the total province.

We must solve our liquid-waste problems. We must solve our industrial-polluting problems and we must do that by enforcement -- yes, of course we must. But after we have demonstrated leadership in enforcement -- and I say to you, Mr. Speaker, in a year and four or five months I’ve tried to do that -- I think the time has come for all of us in Ontario to bite the bullet a little bit and say there are some things we must do as responsible citizens, as responsible members, as responsible persons so we don’t pass on a heritage that’s so damaged it might not be viable.

I can’t share with you enough of my emotion on how serious these kinds of problems are, Mr. Speaker. I hope before it is too late all of us will understand that if we want to play in the world of the environment the short-term, good political approach, the long term will be the destruction of our society.

[10:00]

As I said to the people of that particular community last night, if I am not permitted to do some of the things we are trying to do, when the day comes, when the silent spring is here, I will not be able to answer. I will leave it on the conscience of those who said, “We can’t trust you; you are being too soft.”

Mr. Speaker, it is easy to throw those things across this House. What worries me so much is short-term, myopic, political judgements may destroy the finest community God gave anyone and that is called the province of Ontario.

I challenge the members of this House to look anew at their individual responsibilities and accept them, because we can’t do it by ourselves within this ministry. We need such things as a change in attitude towards lifestyle that has been, perhaps, a little too lazy. All of us have squandered some of our resources. All of us are to blame and I think we could all improve. It is time all of us took a long, hard look at our lifestyles and tried to conserve and tried to stop some of the obvious things that are destroying our environment.

I plead, as hard as it is possible for me to plead, that we take our individual responsibilities to protect our environment far more than we have in the past. If we don’t, I don’t care how well the ministry functions, there will not be success.

Mr. Speaker: It is my understanding there are four minutes left. I will hear the member for Windsor-Sandwich.

Mr. Bounsall: Four minutes, Mr. Speaker, is a virtually impossible restriction to put on an ex-university professor, who doesn’t get warmed up shy of 50 minutes.

Let me say on a personal basis there is no minister in this House I would rather believe in, who has sincerity, who is one I can trust, than this particular minister occupying that particular portfolio. One point he made in the exchange that occurred while the minister was speaking was he mentioned winning more than losing in the last year and a half, and he asked us to inspect the record.

The minister has the record. Rather than our going through the exercise of putting on the Order Paper a question that asks precisely that, will he table for this House the number of enforcements he has tried to make in the last year and a half, which are successes and which are failures and the status of each one of them? Moreover will he tell us not just what is achieved through the court in the way of fines but what has been achieved in terms of the environment in each of those individual cases of which he has spoken?

What environmental advancement has been made in terms of either the air or their industrial liquid pollutants? Can I ask the minister to do that as a partial restoration of our trust, in our continuing trust?

The minister made allusions in his comments to the way in which this open committee of the Legislature, the standing committee, dealt with the pollution control order as it applied to Reed. May I remind the minister of the first time my trust in him was severely shaken? At the beginning of those hearings, out of the blue with no warning whatsoever, with no discussion with either of the two opposition parties, with no discussion with anyone. It did not emerge clearly for two days what kind of game the minister was up to -- it was disclosed that somehow this committee, with no preparation and no warning, was going to decide what was going to happen at Reed.

That is no way for the minister, to behave, in order to continue to have, or to gain, the trust of members of this House. I might say it was partially that feeling of mistrust and of having been put into a can’t-win situation on the part of each member of that committee which caused that committee to be as fractious as it was for so long. If the minister wants our trust, he should not play games with committees of this House as he did last January, because that is what happened right at the beginning of referral to our committee. It really took us a couple of days to find out that was what he was up to, and that certainly did not help the committee to settle down and come to a consensus. I hope the minister has learned from that and does not go through that procedure again.

Secondly, on that committee -- it occurred about 10:28 one evening on, I think, the last day of those hearings -- I said to the minister and to the committee -- I did not put it in a motion -- there was no way the committee could come to grips with what should be done with Reed in the absence of that committee being provided with a financial analyst and one who was expert in the technical side of the pulp and paper. If that committee had had that assistance it could have come to grips with the problem and provided an answer.

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

Mr. Bounsall: One last sentence, Mr. Speaker. That is what is going to have to be provided to the citizens in their involvement in any pollution control order if they are going to understand just exactly what is involved. The minister should face that and be prepared to pay for that kind of expert help to the community groups.

STANDING RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Villeneuve has moved the motion for the adoption of parts 3 and 4 of the final report of the standing resources development committee.

Motion agreed to.

REGIONAL MUNICIPALITY OF PEEL AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Wells moved that the order for second reading of Bill 158, An Act to amend the Regional Municipality of Peel Act, 1973, be withdrawn and the bill be discharged.

Motion agreed to.

THIRD READING

The following bills were given third reading on motion:

Bill 149, An Act to amend the Land Titles Act;

Bill 150, An Act to amend the Registry Act;

Bill 159, An Act to amend the Family Law Reform Act, 1978;

Bill 161, An Act to amend the Public Commercial Vehicles Act;

Bill 162, An Act to amend the Child Welfare Act, 1978;

Bill 170, An Act to amend the Education Act, 1974;

Bill 171, An Act to amend the Ontario Municipal Improvement Corporation Act;

Bill 175, An Act to amend the Highway Traffic Act;

Bill 177, An Act to amend the Compensation for Victims of Crime Act, 1971;

Bill 178, An Act to provide for the Enforcement of Interprovincial Subpoenas;

Bill 179, The Powers of Attorney Act, 1979;

Bill 181, An Act to provide for the Consolidation and Revision of the Statutes;

Bill 182, An Act to provide for the Consolidation and Revision of the Regulations.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to standing order 13, I’d like to indicate to the House the business for tomorrow and next week.

Tomorrow, the House will be in committee of supply to consider the estimates of the Treasurer (Mr. F. S. Miller).

On Monday, December 10, in the afternoon the House will again, in committee of supply, consider the estimates of the Treasurer. In the evening in committee it will consider Bills 77, 176, 180 and 173, and then, if time permits, there will be second reading and committee stage as required on Bills 1, 174, and 154.

On Tuesday, December 11, in the afternoon the House will consider legislation; third reading of Bill 24 and second reading of Bill 127 until 6 p.m. In the evening we will consider Bills 194 and 195, followed by legislation that was not completed on Monday evening.

On Wednesday, December 12, the justice, general government and resources development committees may meet in the morning.

On Thursday, December 13, the House will meet in the morning to do the following concurrences, possibly subject to change as the week progresses. As of now, the list is Transportation and Communications, Consumer and Commercial Relations, Community and Social Services, and Education. The regular question period and opening business of the House will be in the afternoon as usual and the House will consider ballot items 11 and 12. In the evening the House will debate the motion for adoption of the first and second readings of the standing statutory instruments committee, followed, if time permits, by budget debate.

On Friday, December 14, the House will continue the estimates of the Treasurer in committee of supply.

ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS ON NOTICE PAPER

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the interim answers to questions 358 and 365 standing on the Notice Paper.

The House adjourned at 10:15 p.m.