The House met at 10 a.m.

Prayers.

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

PLANT CLOSURES AND TERMINATION ENTITLEMENTS

Hon. Mr. Elgie: Mr. Speaker, this morning I shall be introducing for first reading An Act to amend the Employment Standards Act

In my statement on plant closures and layoffs on October 14, I announced the government’s intention to amend this legislation to provide for employer participation in adjustment committees and for the protection of employees’ fringe benefits. While joint labour-management adjustment committees in most cases have proven successful in assisting displaced employees find employment, some employers have refused to participate in them. A further problem is the fact that employees affected by plant closures can lose fringe benefits if an employer elects to close operations without giving the required notice and pays wages in lieu of notice.

The bill contains three substantive elements in response to these concerns. First, it empowers the minister to require employers to participate in and contribute to the fund in of committees to facilitate the employment of employees who are being terminated.

Second, it clarifies that employers’ contribution to benefit plans must be maintained during the notice period.

Third, it requires that employers who terminate employees without notice must continue to make contributions to benefit plans during the period for which notice should have been given. It also provides that employee are deemed to have worked during the period for which notice should have been given to ensure they will be entitled to the benefits.

I believe these amendments provide more equitable treatment and effective adjustment provisions for workers affected by plant closures.

ACID RAIN

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Today, Mr. Speaker, the honourable members will find in their post boxes copies of the Ministry of the Environment’s new publication, The Case Against Acid Rain.

This is a report on acid rain which clearly summarizes and describes (1) the nature and magnitude of acidic precipitation in North America, (2) the extent to which we know Ontario is affected, (3) the programs we now have in place to meet the challenge and (4) most important, the commitment to action which will be required both here and in the United States to curb acidic rain pollution in our countries.

This new, graphically illustrated booklet is intended to meet the high demand for information about acid rain. My ministry is distributing this report widely without charge to anglers’, hunters’ and cottagers’ associations, to conservation groups, to the business and manufacturing sectors, to scientists, schools and universities and to news media throughout Canada and in many areas of the United States as well.

HIGHWAY TRAFFIC LEGISLATION

Hon. Mr. Snow: Mr. Speaker, I have three statements I would like to make this morning.

First, I would like to take some time to outline several amendments to the Highway Traffic Act and the regulations I will be introducing in a bill later this morning. While a number are basically housekeeping items, three are rather important, and I would like to describe them in more detail. Specifically, they cover medical standards, registration reciprocity and the regulation of safety equipment on vehicles carrying physically disabled persons.

Let me begin with the amendments that will allow a degree of flexibility in applying medical standards to classified drivers’ licences. As the members are aware, my ministry has been approached by a number of individuals and organizations concerning the existing medical standards for drivers under the classified driver licensing system.

In a number of instances, the ministry has been criticized because it is felt our standards cause undue hardship to certain individuals, or deny drivers the right to appeal when a licence is downgraded for medical reasons. In most cases, the arguments focus on the inflexibility of current regulations which prevent any consideration for professional drivers who have ceased to meet the medical standards, forcing them to look for other means of employment, despite good driving records.

Currently, classified driver licensing systems are used in eight of the 10 provinces. Like theirs, our system was devised with the intent to maintain a high level of driver skill and safety.

Medical standards were based on the guidelines published by the Canadian Medical Association, and were part and parcel of the package. With minor variations in procedure, all provinces adhere closely to these medical standards.

When classified driver licences were introduced in 1977, a grandfather provision was included to permit many individuals who did not meet the medical standards to continue driving provided their condition did not deteriorate further. That was regulation 906/76, section 12(2).

The medical standards were not meant to cause undue hardship, and I believe they have been applied by my officials in a fair and equitable manner. But, as I noted a few moments ago, my ministry has been approached by various individuals, as well as interested organizations, primarily on the basis of economic hardship.

Honourable members will appreciate that the standards intended to ensure the safety of our highways cannot directly take into account loss of livelihood to individual drivers. However, I can appreciate the potential need for some greater flexibility in individual cases where it can be demonstrated the medical condition is stable and does not constitute a hazard to the public.

10:10 a.m.

I would agree in principle that there are experienced drivers in the higher licence classification -- drivers whose licences have been downgraded because they no longer meet all the medical standards who should have an opportunity to make representations to the registrar of motor vehicles and, if necessary, to have a hearing before the Licence Suspension Appeal Board.

Nevertheless, I continue to have reservations about any system that would allow the waiving of existing medical standards for drivers directly responsible for the carriage of school children or the general public in large or small buses.

In some cases, however, the needs of these drivers may be met by continuing to allow them to drive trucks where these vehicles were included in their previous licences. As a result, I intend to introduce amendments that will provide for a degree of flexibility to the medical standards for classified drivers without affecting existing standards.

What we have in mind includes amendments that will allow the ministry to waive any medical standard excepting vision, in licence classes A and D for drivers who (a) hold or have held a valid A, B, C or D driver’s licence, (b) first submit a certificate from a medical specialist to the effect that their medical condition is stable and compatible with professional driving duties and (c) satisfy the registrar as to their fitness with regard to driving experience, medical risk, personal insight and responsibility in adapting to their medical condition.

The Highway Traffic Act will also be amended to allow the Licence Suspension Appeal Board to hear appeals arising out of medical downgrading decisions by the registrar. May I note that, if the House sees fit to pass this amendment during this fall session, I anticipate the necessary regulatory and administrative changes can be made in time to introduce the new procedures very early in 1981.

Mr. Foulds: Bring in the bill today.

Hon. Mr. Snow: I will. It is here.

Mr. Foulds: Terrific.

Hon. Mr. Snow: Just wait a minute; I have said that. Listen.

Mr. Speaker, I believe these changes will give my ministry the flexibility to respond to improvements in medical diagnosis, treatment and technology consistent with the basic Canada-wide medical standards.

I would like to mention the amendments necessary for us to administer the Canadian Agreement of Vehicle Registration, known as CAVR, an agreement signed at the October 2 meeting of the Council of Ministers responsible for Transportation and Highway Safety.

As you, sir, and the members are aware, Ontario has been committed to this reciprocity agreement since receiving the recommendations of the select committee of the Ontario Legislature on the highway transportation of goods in 1977. Ontario and the other provinces have been working on this agreement for the past three years. Six provinces, including Ontario, have now committed themselves to trying to meet the target implementation date of April 1, 1981. Therefore, I am now introducing the necessary amendments to make it possible to administer this agreement here in Ontario.

By way of partial explanation, the CAVR will make it possible for a trucker or bus operator to travel from coast to coast on one licence plate and, in most cases, be assessed fees on the mileages travelled in member provinces. Mileage prorated vehicles will require a registration plate from only one jurisdiction and can travel though other jurisdictions on the basis of a “CAVR cab card.” The amendments will cover the implementation and regulation of the CAVR cab cards and provide the necessary means of ensuring us of the accuracy of the mileage records. They are essential if we are to meet our commitment to this agreement.

I am sure this reciprocity agreement will be highly effective if we are to promote the smooth and efficient movement of people and goods across provincial boundaries.

Finally, I would like to mention another amendment, which will enable us to prescribe the use of safety devices, particularly on vehicles carrying physically disabled passengers, thus enabling us to enhance the safest possible operation of these vehicles.

Applause.

Hon. Mr. Snow: I get very nervous when I get applause from that corner of the House.

TRANSPORTATION OF DANGEROUS GOODS

Hon. Ms. Snow: Mr. Speaker, as you may note, the federal government has enacted legislation to cover the movement and handling of dangerous goods in Canada. Entitled the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act, it applies to all federally regulated modes of transport, including railways, airlines, ships, interprovincial trucking, manufacturers of dangerous goods, shippers, consignees, warehousemen and so on.

The federal legislation is not intended, however, to provide for the regulation of intraprovincial highway transport, a well-established area of provincial jurisdiction falling within the purview of my ministry. I am therefore pleased to announce today the introduction of a bill designed to promote the safe transportation of dangerous goods in all vehicles using all provincial highways.

In drafting the Dangerous Goods Transportation Act we have taken great pains to ensure it is consistent with federal legislation governing the transportation of dangerous goods to maintain uniformity right across this country. Briefly stated, the bill prohibits the transportation of dangerous materials on provincial highways in any vehicle that does not comply with the prescribed safety regulations outlined in the federal law, including the regulations regarding the packaging and placarding of vehicles.

Once enacted, this provincial legislation will be strictly enforced by duly authorized highway carrier inspectors of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, doubtlessly with the support and co-operation of the Ontario Provincial Police. To ensure compliance, we have set some pretty hefty fines for carriers who break the law. Every person who contravenes the act will he liable to a fine of up to $50,000 for a first offence and to a fine of up to $100,000 for each subsequent offence. In this way our legislation will provide for the safe and efficient movement of dangerous goods, regardless of origin, on all provincial highways in the interests of Ontario residents.

UTDC LEGISLATION

Hon. Mr. Snow: Mr. Speaker, members of this House are no doubt aware of the success that the Urban Transportation Development Corporation has recently had in developing, at its new test track and research facility near Kingston, one of the most advanced intermediate capacity transit systems in North America, if not in the world.

Mr. Nixon: I thought Kraus-Maffei was the best in the world.

Hon. Mr. Davis: It is high-technology Ontario industry.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Snow: Mr. Speaker, if the Premier and the former Leader of the Opposition would carry on their conversation some place else, I could get on with the statement.

I anticipate that UTDC will have the opportunity within the next year to bid on the construction of similar ICT systems in one or more of the major centres of the United States and Canada. The short bill I will be introducing later this morning is intended to deal with two technical difficulties which must be addressed prior to any bidding. The first, in section 2 of this bill, makes it clear that UTDC is not an agent of Her Majesty at common law, nor a crown agency within the meaning of the Crown Agency Act. This intention was originally expressed by the Legislature in similar language contained in the Ontario Transportation Development Corporation Act. It was not carried over when the business and affairs of that corporation were assumed by UTDC, a company incorporated under the Canada Business Corporations Act.

The second provision authorizes the province to guarantee the performance of the Urban Transportation Development Corporation in complying with the terms of any contract of indemnity given by UTDC in obtaining bonding in connection with a bid, performance contract or warranty of the corporation. Without this assurance by the province, the corporation would be unable to obtain bonding and therefore would not be able to bid on any major transit contracts.

Given the very significant industrial and economic benefits that success on such major bids will have for Ontario, I am sure all members will join in support of this bill.

10:20 a.m.

TVONTARIO ANNIVERSARY

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, later this morning I will join with you and other members of the Legislature at a ceremony in the St. Lawrence lounge to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Ontario Educational Communications Authority.

I am sure the acting leader of the Liberal Party will be the first one over there today, knowing his traditional enthusiastic support for that great organization.

Mr. Nixon: I regret to say that was my idea. You take a good idea and wreck it every time.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I will give the member credit for a lot of things which these days he wants to ignore. I am delighted to do that, I have always been generous.

Mr. Nixon: I was even the father of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Sure, I will give him credit for that too. I will give him credit for that and the Peterborough manifesto.

Mr. Foulds: Why do you interrupt yourself so often?

Hon. Mr. Davis: I do not know. I learned that from the member.

Some members will recall that while I was Minister of Education I introduced a bill that took educational television from the Department of Education and placed it in an arm’s-length position within an autonomous corporation, which was supported incidentally by all members at the time.

Within its purposely broad terms of reference, TVOntario’s educational programs in English and French extend beyond the classroom into the home. Working within the curriculum guidelines of the Ministry of Education, TVOntario presents programs used by most of our schools. The success of programs for preschoolers is well known, and evening programs now draw an unduplicated audience of 1.75 million each week.

Because it is a mass medium, educational television is relatively inexpensive. Our educational television service -- the entire operation of TVOntario -- consumes about one quarter of one per cent of Ontario’s public education dollar. I am able to say that, through its sales and co-production activities, TVOntario increasingly supplements its budget. This year it expects to sell about $2 million worth of programs in Canada, to the United States, and to other parts of the world.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Why don’t you cover northern Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Oh, it is coming.

Mr. T. P. Reid: It’s coming. It’s a second coming.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I am delighted to know the member is interested in having it. Some of his colleagues are interested and some are not. He should get his brother off --

Mr. T. P. Reid: It’s not my brother’s fault; it’s the Premier’s fault.

Hon. Mr. Davis: They do not have it at all in Hawaii. When the member was in Hawaii, did he see how much TV they had for educational purposes? None.

TVOntario has a greater sales volume of television programs than has the CBC. TV-Ontario sells more to obtain revenue than that great public network owned by the taxpayers of Canada.

There were some concerns when educational television broadcasting began in Ontario just 10 years ago. Now we are moving into a new era of educational technology which is creating new concerns -- a technology that incorporates satellite transmission, teletext systems, mini-computers, videodisc. Ironically, but perhaps not surprisingly, our children often feel more at ease with these developments than many of their teachers do. TVOntario, through its own experiments and work with the new technologies, as well as through its description programs, continues to be innovative in its presentation of learning opportunities.

Those members who watch TVOntario’s programs will appreciate the breadth of interests that are covered: programs to help us understand differences -- different ethnic origins, different intelligences, different backgrounds and families, different ages -- programs that have to do with the arts as well as the sciences and technologies.

A synopsis of 10 years of these programs presented in 10 minutes -- to expedite the activities of members of the House -- will be featured at the event in the St. Lawrence lounge. Some of TVOntario’s personalities will be pleased to welcome them, including Ran Ide, to whom I wish to pay tribute for his work as OECA’s first chairman. I know the member for Fort William will be delighted to share in that, knowing full well where Mr. Ide gained a great deal of his experience. I hope on this occasion we may all feel proud of the success of this educational enterprise.

TORONTO DISTRICT HEATING CORPORATION LEGISLATION

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, I have a couple of statements in regard to bills I will be introducing. The first concerns the Toronto District Heating Corporation Act.

I am pleased to be able to tell the House that a consensus has been reached by all parties involved in the Toronto steam heating system, and it is my privilege to introduce today the Toronto District Heating Corporation Act. The proposed legislation enables the participants to make contractual arrangements which will allow the integration of the heating systems of Queen’s Park, the University of Toronto, the Hospital Steam Corporation and the Toronto Hydro Electric Commission’s steam division.

The integration of these four existing steam systems, which was initiated by the city of Toronto, will have the following beneficial results: It will improve air quality by significantly reducing the operations of the Toronto Hydro-Electric System’s Pearl Street plant, which has an environmental control order against it for not complying with air pollution regulations pursuant to the Environmental Protection Act.

It will improve the security of supply for customers, including hospitals and the commercial users because, if one plant breaks down, the others can pick up the shortfall. It will allow more flexibility in using cheaper or more available fuel, for example, coal, gas, oil or garbage.

It will create a sufficient load demand to justify the economics of a refuse-fired steam plant. The plant will reduce the amount of gas and fuel oil currently being consumed by the four heating plants by about 40 per cent. The burning of garbage could save 418,000 barrels of oil per year -- enough energy to heat 1,400 homes.

The refuse-fired plant could dispose of 25 per cent of Metropolitan Toronto’s municipally collected garbage; 490,000 metric tons of garbage could be burned at the Hearn plant, for instance, or 380,000 metric tons per year at the proposed Cherry Street plant. The Hearn plant could also generate electricity as well as heat in a process called cogeneration.

Mr. J. Reed: You discovered that too. It is done everywhere else on the face of the earth.

Hon. Mr. Wells: We are doing it. This legislation is a credit to all those who have participated in the consultation process over the years. To give members some idea of the breadth and comprehensiveness of this consultation, let me briefly list the players who have been a party to this bill: Four hospital boards of governors, the Canadian Union of Operating Engineers, the University of Toronto, the Toronto Hydro-Electric Commissioners representing 36 downtown customers, the International Union of Operating Engineers, the Canadian Union of Public Employees, the Ontario government ministries of Government Services, Revenue, Treasury, Health, Energy, Environment, Attorney General and Intergovernmental Affairs, the city of Toronto, Metropolitan Toronto and Consumers’ Gas Company.

Consultations with the unions have resulted in revisions to this legislation which will allow for the continuation of three separate collective agreements. This will ensure that no employee is in a worse position because of the integration of the steam systems. Let me emphasize that many have set aside their own program and policy interests so that the greater provincial good, which shall be afforded by integration, might be achieved. I thank all the parties for their great sacrifices of time and effort, which are today making the introduction of this legislation possible.

MUNICIPAL LEGISLATION

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, I will also be introducing today amendments to the Municipal Act.

This bill, which will amend the Municipal Act, will do so by adding a number of new powers, by removing many archaic bylaw provisions, by substituting a few general provisions for many very specific ones, by removing status distinctions in passing bylaws and by relocating a number of sections.

Among the new provisions is a change to the provisions for filling vacancies on local councils. When a vacancy occurs after March 31 in an election year and at least 45 days before nomination day, a council will be required to fill the vacancy by appointment within 45 days.

An example of a power which the bill would remove on the ground’s that it is archaic is that which allows a mayor to commit habitual drunkards to an institution for their reclamation and cure with or without hard labour.

10:30 a.m.

The main new general power proposed in the bill is an expansion of the existing grants provisions to allow municipalities to provide grants in aid for any purpose considered by the council to be in the interests of the municipality. This would replace many specific grants-in-aid provisions now in the act.

A number of changes in the bill will allow all local municipalities to have the powers that now are available to municipalities of particular status or population. An example of this type of change is to allow all local municipalities to establish taxi stands. At present townships do not have this power.

The bill also proposes to relocate a number of provisions to place them with or near to similar provisions in the present act.

ACCESS TO LEGISLATIVE BUILDING

Mr. Speaker: Yesterday the member for Hamilton Centre (Mr. M. N. Davison) rose on a point of privilege with respect to an incident which took place when he was questioned by a member of the Ontario Government Protective Service as he entered the Legislative Building.

For the information of all members, section 93(2) of the Legislative Assembly Act provides that the Speaker shall establish guidelines for the security of the legislative chamber and other parts of the Legislative Building that are under his control.

These guidelines, which were established in December 1975 by my predecessor and have been reviewed from time to time by the Board of Internal Economy, authorize the protective service to request identification from any individual seeking access to the building and to examine any parcels, briefcases, et cetera. For the information of the House, I am advised that it has been necessary in recent months for the protective service to recruit a number of new personnel to replace those who have left to seek employment elsewhere.

Under these circumstances, I think it is understandable that a recently appointed officer might not yet recognize every member. I have, however, written to the superintendent of the Ontario Provincial Police in the security branch, who administers the protective service. I have requested that he ensure that, in addition to being vigilant, members of the protective service should exercise wise judgement in pursuing their duties and refrain from making personal comments which can only serve to further complicate delicate relationships.

I would also request that all honourable members appreciate some of the real difficulties which confront members of the Ontario Government Protective Service in carrying out their duties and assist wherever possible to make their jobs a little hit easier.

ORAL QUESTIONS

RURAL ELECTRICAL RATES

Mr. Nixon: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Treasurer relating to the part of his statement last night that was supposed to fulfil the commitment made by the Premier (Mr. Davis) to equalize rural and urban hydro rates.

Will the Treasurer explain why it was not the policy of the government to stop the 11.2 per cent increase that is going to be imposed on the rural hydro ratepayers as of January 1, particularly since that 11.2 per cent will raise the rural rates by something more than $57 million? Will he compare that increase, which is to take place in January, with the $20 million he is indicating will begin to be paid after April 1981, and agree with me that he is not moving towards changing the inequities, but is allowing them to continue?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, the setting of the rates in Ontario Hydro has always been on the basis of Hydro’s recovering its costs, as I understand. We are not interfering with that basic procedure, but we did say that by 1982 they should resolve this complex problem. It is complex. The $20 million we have allocated to reduce the differential is for an immediate start on that process while the rate structures are worked out by Hydro and the Ministry of Energy. I think the Minister of Energy (Mr. Welch), when he returns, would be best able to explain the current rate figures.

Mr. Nixon: Since we as farmers in Ontario now pay the highest rates in Canada west of New Brunswick, where they make their electricity out of oil, and we see other jurisdictions where equality has been achieved and in this jurisdiction the friend and former campaign manager of the Premier is running the corporation, why cannot the three of them get together and solve this problem without making it simply a political football, as they intend to do?

The minister announced it seven months ago and he announced it again last night. We are not going to get any money until April, and he will announce it again in the budget in the spring if we have one. Why can he not accomplish equity in this instance simply by passing a law that is going to require Ontario Hydro to do this for the benefit of the farmers in this province?

Hon. F. S. Miller: There are many ways in which we try to help the farmers of this province apart from this specific one. I hope the honourable member will agree with that. We have instructed Hydro to have that inequitable rate differential solved by 1982.

If one starts looking at the various rates charged in rural sections of the province, they vary considerably. Therefore, we have to look at the problem in some detail, and that is being tackled.

Mr. MacDonald: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker, I will put my question to the Treasurer, but I hope the Premier will listen. When he made the request last April or May that we should move to investigate this thing, the differential amounted to $32 million. That is the old differential. Hydro’s proposed reform of its rate structure, on which I put questions to the Premier and the Minister of Energy a week or so ago, proposes to add another $24 million to that differential.

How does the Treasurer think that $20 million is going to cope with an old differential of $32 million and Hydro’s proposed additional differential of $24 million added to the rural costs?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I still argue that $20 million credited directly to the rural residential users will be a very useful assistance program while the details are worked out.

Mr. Nixon: Mr. Speaker, since the credit the minister is talking about, if it is divided among the 770,000 rural customers, will amount to about $25 a family for the year, it is certainly something that is welcome as far as a Christmas gift is concerned, except that people will have to wait to get it in the year following April 1981, how can the government establish a policy by edict of the Premier and permit an 11.2 per cent increase to come on January 1 which is going to further exacerbate the inequity?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, the honourable member knows that the hydroelectric power content in Ontario is about 30 per cent of the total amount we make and the balance is made from fuel plants. The costs of these fuels are changing very dramatically because of forces beyond our control.

Hydro has continued to maintain a policy of breaking even. Therefore, there have been requirements to adjust rates on an annual basis.

Mr. McKessock: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: In view of the fact that Ontario Hydro feels the extra cost charged to rural customers is for distribution costs, does the minister not feel that if these high power lines that go from the Bruce plant down to the cities were charged as distribution costs for urban dwellers instead of as capital costs, there would be no difference in the distribution costs between urban and rural residents?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, it is very much like trying to apportion the cost of snowploughing a road. The honourable member and I live in a part of the province where there are often two or three homes per mile of road. Therefore, the cost of ploughing the road is high. In Toronto and most urban municipalities there are many users per mile of line, and the costs for maintenance of those lines are very high. As we have absorbed the more developed parts of some communities into the urban structure, it has left even more load on the rural structures. We have said the time has come to equalize that and we are doing it.

10:40 a.m.

ENERGY TAX REBATES

Mr. Nixon: Mr. Speaker, I would like to put another question to the Treasurer on another section of his statement last night on page 20, under the heading “Relief for Home Heating Costs.” Actually, what drew it to my attention was his gratuitous comment about another government which “is insensitive to the impact of rising energy prices on people with fixed and low incomes.” The question has to do with the sensitivity of the minister to those people with fixed and low incomes.

Why is his announced program to assist in heating costs going to begin its payout in the spring of 1982? What is the point of announcing that in a special budget last night when it is going to be of no significance to the people he is referring to, those with fixed and low incomes, until the spring of 1982, even though energy costs have already gone up well beyond the ability of these people on low and fixed incomes to pay?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I sense that the member’s many years in this House are making him cynical. I just have that feeling.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Does the Treasurer have a response?

Hon. F. S. Miller: You notice I have been standing by very quietly, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: I want you to say something. I don’t want you just to stand there.

Hon. F. S. Miller: They do, too, Mr. Speaker.

The issue is twofold. First, we feel that federal, provincial and national co-operation is needed for a program that is affordable and fairly apportioned to governments. Do not forget, a great chunk of the increase in the costs of home heating oil, the great part of it, will now be going to governments. They should use that, first and foremost, to cushion the shock of the price increases which become greater and greater for the home owner in the next three years, as my friend Mr. Crosbie did last year. I recommended him for it at the time.

First of all, we will be talking to Mr. MacEachen and our fellow finance ministers, hoping to gain their support for a national program. Second, it needs to be income tested and, therefore, is best put on the income tax form. The earliest possible time to have that done is for the spring of 1982.

Mr. Nixon: Returning again to the minister’s concern for people on fixed and low incomes, why is it he could not bring himself to adjust the inequity he introduced in his previous budget, giving the grant to the 95,000 senior citizen pensioners who had their tax grant assistance removed from them to the extent of $110 each? How can he criticize one government for insensitivity to the old and people on fixed incomes when, with the other hand, he has taken $110 away from each one of 95,000 pensioners?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Again, my honourable friend is not totally accurate with his figures. He conveniently forgets we increased Gains for a number of those 95,000. That was $120 a year. The fact is we targeted our program for need. Those who had income needs got it; those who had tax needs got it. It was much more precise than our previous program, something I believe the member has even criticized me for in the past. “Make it more specific,” he said. I did.

Mr. Cassidy: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Can the minister tell the House whether he has a group of people working in his ministry devising promises that can be put into future budget statements with reference to years in the distant future?

Can he explain why people on low incomes are promised jam yesterday, jam tomorrow but never jam today, or more specifically, why this energy tax rebate promised by the minister is a vague, shadowy kind of promise not to take place until 1982, if the government is still around, but to provide no relief right now? Will the minister explain why the entire budget has that same shadowy kind of consistency where promises are made as far as five years in the future, but delivery right now in terms of jobs or relief for people on law incomes is inadequate?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I disagree that it is shadowy. I think we were very specific. I find the honourable member’s ability to criticize me when I project five years into the future quite inconsistent, because he has been criticizing me for not projecting five years into the future. We are now doing it; we are giving the honourable members some figures; we are co-ordinating our economic thrusts; we are putting them into a committee chaired by the Treasurer, bringing together many of the programs of economic development in the province totalling about $2 billion a year. We are going to be reviewing our tax expenditures; we are going to make a better use of our dollars. Then the honourable member tells me I am not doing the right thing.

Mr. J. Reed: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: The Treasurer has chosen to turn most of the carriages into pumpkins on July 1 of next year and he extends the home heating program to people On fixed and low incomes for three years and proposes to terminate it after three years. Is the minister not aware that the projected increases in the cost of heating oil will continue beyond the three-year period? What happens at the end of three years when this program of largess, designed for whatever it is supposed to be designed for, comes to an end?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, one of the things we point out is that we are trying to cushion the shock to allow people to have time to adjust. I have great confidence in the managerial ability of the average Canadian family, given time to adjust to new conditions. When you suddenly dump a new cost on a family already spending all its income, you have left no place for it to get money except by getting into debt. We therefore suggest they need an adjustment period and during that adjustment period, I would suggest, they will reorder their priorities in many cases so that at the end of that period of time they will have an adjusted family budget.

Mr. Laughren: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Why did the Treasurer take the approach of reducing the sales tax on specific sectors? While it does put more money into the economy in terms of people’s discretionary income, at the same time, if someone is going to save $35 on the purchase of a $500 refrigerator, for example, they obviously must have that $500 to start with to make the original purchase. Why did the Treasurer not take an approach that would put some money directly into the hands of low-income families in this province, for example, by a reduction in OHIP premiums or an increase in the Gains allowance?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, my honourable colleague would have to admit that low-income people do not pay OHIP premiums under our system. The most effective mechanism for short-term stimulus has been proven to be the sales tax route where the savings elements are high.

Mr. Peterson: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: On the matter of relief of home heating costs, the Treasurer says in his statement, “I will be making specific proposals to the Minister of Finance.” What are those specific proposals?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, as I said in my comment, I will be making them to the Minister of Finance.

10:50 a.m.

STRATFORD FESTIVAL

Mr. Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, I have a new question for the Premier. The bungling of the Stratford Festival board of directors has precipitated not only an artistic crisis in the festival but also an economic crisis. It is going to cost about $30 million in revenues and 500 or 600 jobs in the Stratford area this summer if the boycott of Equity which has been precipitated by the board is carried through. In view of this, would the Premier say what steps the government now intends to take in order to seek to resolve this crisis which is both artistic and economic?

Mr. Peterson: Would the Premier consider Frank as our artistic director of the Stratford Festival?

Hon. F. S. Miller: I am a choreographer by nature.

Hon. Mr. Davis: No, but I think it might be a great spot for the member. That would save him having to make a decision.

Mr. Speaker, I would be delighted to answer that question but I think the minister responsible for art, culture, recreation and many things in this province might more appropriately answer it for the leader of the New Democratic Party. The minister is in his seat. I am sure he would be delighted to answer that question.

Hon. Mr. Baetz: Mr. Speaker, I believe that question is entirely premature. Negotiations are just starting today, not only with the Ontario Arts Council and with Stratford but also with the Canadian Actors’ Equity Association and so forth. So for us now to draw conclusions implicitly to questions like that I think is entirely too premature. But as the member for Ottawa Centre has indicated, this is a question that has not only artistic but also economic implications. We will keep an eye on it and keep reporting to this House. It is too premature to try to answer to anything today.

Mr. Cassidy: Could the minister not have a greater sense of urgency about what is happening there and what that means, not just for the economy of an important region in southwestern Ontario, but for the whole province? The Stratford Festival has been a premier tourist attraction for people from the United States and as far away as Europe and Japan.

Is the minister not aware that the boycott by Equity, precipitated by the Stratford Festival board, is in force immediately? That means the actors and other theatre people affected are immediately going to be looking for other engagements and making other commitments which will keep them out of Stratford if a resolution is arrived at in a month or two.

Is the minister also aware that the Canada Council is now not in a position to consider Stratford’s application for funding for the 1981 year because the signatures on the submission that was made last month by the four artistic directors can no longer be considered to be valid because those artistic directors are no longer with Stratford? Their position is in doubt because of the hiring of Mr. Dexter and because of the fact that severance terms are being offered to those four artistic directors.

Mr. Speaker: The question has been asked.

Mr. Cassidy: Could the minister not take this as a matter of greater urgency? What is he going to do before the entire Stratford Festival, which has been an important part of our lives for 28 years, descends into a shambles?

Hon. Mr. Baetz: As I indicated earlier, these questions are, at this moment, still premature. The Ontario Arts Council, which is our agency working with Stratford in this, is very concerned about the situation. They issued a statement today and, Mr. Speaker, with your permission I will read one paragraph:

“The Ontario Arts Council initiated inquiries on Tuesday, November 11, the minute they knew about it, within hours of the announcement of the dismissal of the Canadian director, and the appointment of Mr. John Dexter. After numerous informal contacts and discussions, the Ontario Arts Council requested that representatives of the Stratford Festival board meet with the executive committee of the Ontario Arts Council on Wednesday, November 19, at which time it is expected that answers to a number of pressing questions will be forthcoming.

“In addition, the Ontario Arts Council was in communication with Equity in light of their recent announcement of a boycott at Stratford by the Canadian actors.”

So I feel the Ontario Arts Council, the Canada Council, my counterpart in Ottawa and my ministry are all aware this is a serious situation. But we must simply take this step by step. It is urgent and we are going to treat it as such.

Mr. Cassidy: The issue which has precipitated the crisis at Stratford is the decision of the board to once again pass over Canadian talent in the artistic direction of the festival. The Stratford Festival board has, for almost all of its 20 years, hired foreigners as the artistic directors of the festival. In view of this, will the government insist at least this time that artistic direction be in the hands of Canadians, since that is also a means by which this dispute, this crisis, can be resolved very quickly?

Hon. Mr. Baetz: Mr. Speaker, again I must say it would be premature for me to stand here in this place at this hour and say we are going to insist on specific situations such as this. Let us give both the Canada Council and the Ontario Arts Council and Stratford and the Equity people some time to negotiate and then we will see where we need to go from there. We will do what needs to be done when the time comes to do it.

AUTO INDUSTRY LAYOFFS

Mr. Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, I have a new question I would like to direct to the Premier about the layoffs in the auto industry that are recurring now in Windsor.

This week 6,000 workers at Chrysler are told they are going on layoff next week because the production of those gas guzzlers they make down there is exceeding the demand for them. There are also indications that Chrysler intends to expand its K car production in the United States at its St Louis plant and to transfer production of the larger cars that are now made in St. Louis to Windsor, instead of expanding K car production in Canada.

Since the Premier said in June he was optimistic the Big Four auto makers would give Canada a fair share of production of the new fuel-efficient cars, can the Premier say what he now intends to do in order to ensure that Chrysler builds K cars in Canada rather than building cars for which there is obviously a very declining market?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, of course there is a concern here with respect to Chrysler and the other auto companies in terms of the market conditions this year. From my perspective I think it is rather premature to be determining, in fact, what the market conditions are going to be --

Mr. Cassidy: Everything is premature.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Listen, I know exactly what is happening in Windsor. I think it is fair to state that the government, through the Ministry of Industry and Tourism, communicated last June, and has since, the desire on the part of this government -- and I would hope the government of Canada -- to have a growing percentage of the more fuel-efficient vehicles in this country.

For instance, my recollection is that GM has made a commitment that some of that production will, in fact, take place in Oshawa. The member for Oshawa (Mr. Breaugh) is nodding his head, and it is great to have him in agreement on a Friday morning. The situation with Chrysler is not as final or committed as it is with GM. We intend, I hope along with the government of Canada, to be pursuing it with them.

Mr. Cassidy: Since the Premier said in June he was optimistic that we would get a fair share of these cars, is the Premier aware that the other problem with Chrysler Canada is the fact the company has an inadequate sourcing of parts and production of parts here in Canada? I have here the invoices that document the systematic stripping of the Chrysler engine plant which was closed in August and where the equipment and machinery is now being shipped out to the United States and to the Chrysler subsidiary in Mexico.

Since this disposal of the equipment in a plant which we were told was going to be mothballed endangered the perspective use of the plant for either a V6 engine or for a diesel facility such as the one Massey-Ferguson has been discussing with the Ministry of Industry and Tourism, will the government step in and make Chrysler stop stripping the assets from that engine plant in Windsor until a future use can be found for the plant here in Canada that would create jobs for Canadians?

Hon. Mr. Davis: I think the term “stripping the assets” is not totally accurate. It is my understanding, and it is only an understanding, that certain equipment was being moved out of that particular plant, and this was known to the members.

Interjection.

Hon. Mr. Davis: That is not news. Some of the NDP members asked us about that last June. That is not new information. We knew this was in the process of taking place.

Mr. Mancini: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker -- and I want to assure the Premier that I drive a Chrysler, not a Peugeot --

Mr. Cassidy: On a point of order, I don’t know who drives a Peugeot. I drive a Chrysler.

Mr. Mancini: We wish to welcome the leader of the third party to the Chrysler drivers.

Mr. Cassidy: And the model is called the Premier.

11 a.m.

Mr. Mancini: I would like to ask the Premier if he is going to involve himself with the federal Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce in the renegotiation of some parts of the auto pact to ensure that Windsor gets a fair share of automobile production in many sectors of the industry and not only in the large car sector.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, the government will be involved, and has been. I think that will be very evident to the honourable member when he sees what has been accomplished. Certainly there are discussions with the federal minister, Mr. Gray. Of course, the member is much closer to him than I am, geographically and philosophically, and I assume he is making his views known as well.

I can say to the honourable member, not only is Windsor of concern and of interest, but any alteration of the auto pact must, of course, take into account the needs of American Motors in the great city of Brampton.

Mr. Bounsall: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Has the Premier or the Minister of Industry and Tourism (Mr. Grossman) had any talks at all with Chrysler about producing in Canada -- and making it an international vehicle -- their very good safety car, which they have had on the books for six or seven years, as a means of getting fully into the production of a car in Ontario and in Canada that would really have a sales market?

Secondly, as the Premier has stated he knows so much about the Windsor situation, he must know last night’s budget with its $700 maximum rebate for a van purchase is not really going to materially help the employment situation in Windsor. What will the Premier do for Windsor in terms of meaningful public works programs this winter and support for all those social service agencies whose needs have gone up tremendously and whose budgets have to be cut?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I think the first part of the supplementary was in fact a supplementary. The second part of the question was really a new question.

In answer to the first part of the question, there have been rather wide-ranging discussions with Chrysler, in which I have not taken part, related to this “safety car.” In answer to the second part of the question, this government has always assisted those people who have genuine needs and will continue to do so.

Mr. Ruston: Mr. Speaker, I would like to advise the leader of the New Democratic Party that the Chrysler car is not a gas guzzler and, according to all statistics, it is equal to, if not better than, all other makes.

I have a supplementary to the Premier: Is the Premier aware that Chrysler produces two-door models in Canada, and since family cars have a tendency to be four-door models and station wagons, we should stress to the company they should be making a family car?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to hear the honourable member support Chrysler products. I have been driving one for more years than the leader of the New Democratic Party, who has become a recent convert.

Mr. Nixon: When was the last time you bought one?

Hon. Mr. Davis: As a matter of fact, my wife has, but I have not. I will make the point to Chrysler that the honourable member suggests families find it easier to get into four-door cars than two-door cars.

Mr. Peterson: Particularly if they have a weight problem.

Hon. Mr. Davis: On a point of personal privilege, I want to say that I have never felt the member for Essex North has had a weight, problem. The member for London Centre may think so, but I do not.

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, a question to the Treasurer: Now that he has had at least 12 hours to reflect on the statement he read last night, is the Treasurer prepared to stand up and admit his commitment to so-called structural reform or structural investment in the economy is less than it was under the old employment development fund program? In that he budgeted $300 million over two years, averaging $150 million a year, yet the extent of his commitment to the end of 1982, according to his own figures, is only $100 million, of which $20 million is going to equalize rural hydro rates. So his only real commitment in terms of structural reform is about. $80 million, substantially less than he was spending in the last two years.

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I tried to explain, even on the radio program the member and I shared this morning, that certain elements of the employment development fund that were becoming programmatic as time went on were being incorporated into the budgets of ministries. These programs have been quite successful. They no longer needed the individual decision-making approach of the employment development board.

They were better handled by a program within a ministry of government, such as the Ministry of Industry and Tourism, the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations. We have a small business development corporation handled by the Ministry of Revenue. We have the program for mineral resource exploration handled by Natural Resources. We have the tourism redevelopment program handled by Industry and Tourism. They are now becoming parts of programs and those moneys continue to flow.

Mr. Peterson: Given the carryover of some of these programs, the new initiatives in new investment in productive capacity in this province is less than it was under the old program. Even though the board has been renamed the Board of Industrial Leadership and Development, BILD or bust or whatever, as opposed to EDF, it is less and there is no substantial change of any type whatsoever in this specious document that was presented last night, is there not?

Hon. F. S. Miller: I think an important factor has been missed and that is the review of the moneys already being spent in the co-ordination of activities. A lot of people have criticized -- I believe the member has when he has talked about it -- Treasury’s role in these matters. What I am saying is the Treasury role as a co-ordinator of economic activity with the power to look at existing programs was strengthened in the board called BILD. We had a different name for it earlier. It was going to be called BRED but we did not think that one would work out so well.

Mr. T. P. Reid: When the minister looked in the mirror he knew that was impossible too.

Hon. F. S. Miller: I do not spell quite the same way as the member does. The fact remains, I would argue we are going to be making much more efficient use of some of the $2 billion currently being spent by ministries that are economically related, as well as adding more moneys to the program.

Mr. Laughren: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: In reference to the BILD program which the Treasurer is so proud of, perhaps the Treasurer could tell us why he needed that delaying tactic called BILD, which really puts off any decisions on rebuilding key sectors until another year at least and he may not even be there to make those decisions?

Perhaps the Treasurer could tell us why he needs that kind of delay, that kind of time, to understand that a key sector such as mining machinery needs to be rebuilt? We have all the information there. Statistics Canada provides us with information monthly on how bad it is.

Does the Treasurer not agree it would be better to look at a sector such as mining machinery where imports are high, where there is a large deficit, where jobs are skilled and where there is a high component of regional development, in the development of the mining machinery complex in northern Ontario?

Why did the Treasurer not take a sector and make a firm commitment to put a substantial amount of investment into that sector to rebuild it so we can have key sectors rebuilt for the future?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, that is exactly the kind of thing we expect to do. I do not know where the member gets the idea of a delay of a year. That is precisely one of the sectors I am going to look at.

HOSPITAL EMERGENCY SERVICES

Mr. Mackenzie: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Health. In view of the minister’s often strident defence of his responsibility to health care in Ontario, will be explain to this House the inadequacy of the treatment afforded one Mary Ann Thomson, 22 years of age, in my riding, who on October 15 had part of her right thumb sliced off in a meat slicing machine in the establishment where she worked? She had her hand bandaged, the piece of thumb was packed on ice and she was sent to Hamilton General Hospital where they took details of the accident.

She was left on a stretcher from 2:20 p.m. to 4:40 p.m. before she was finally moved to a surgical room. At 5:45 p.m. they finally had a doctor there who ordered the piece of the thumb thrown out because it should have been packed in salt on arrival at the hospital. They did not have adequate surgical supplies and they draped her hand in a doctor’s green gown when they were cleaning it up before the operation. A number of other pieces of equipment were inadequate for the operation.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, I am not familiar with the individual case nor with the other quarter of a million a day that go through the health care system. I will have to have my staff contact Dr. Noonan, the executive director of the hospital, to ascertain any further facts in the case and get an answer to the honourable member’s question. That is all I can do at this time.

11:10 a.m.

Mr. Mackenzie: Can I also ask the minister whether or not he will take the responsibility in this House for the inadequacy of the treatment that his policies are causing for people in this province?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: With respect, if the honourable member is prepared to give me the personal credit for every miracle which is performed on a daily basis in the health care system, then I might entertain his question. It is a stupid question.

DREE ASSISTANCE

Mr. G. E. Smith: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Treasurer. As a result of the recent meetings with the federal officials, can the Treasurer indicate any progress in having the benefits for regional development under the Department of Regional Economic Expansion program extended to include the northern part of Simcoe county, the district of Muskoka and the northern parts of, I understand, Grey county as, well?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, the honourable member mentioned one area that certainly attracted my attention in his comments when he got to Muskoka. On Wednesday night, I believe it was, several ministers from Ontario met with several federal ministers under the chairmanship of Mr. De Bane to discuss DREE programs. I was not present for a number of reasons. I think the Minister of Northern Affairs (Mr. Bernier) was there, and I believe the Provincial Secretary for Resources Development (Mr. Brunelle) was there also, so they could probably bring the member more up to date on the actual events. I understood it was a good meeting but that any attempt by us to have these counties included that was felt were in some trouble still fell on deaf ears.

One of the reasons I brought in the rural Ontario program was just that. We made several pleas to DREE to include counties such as Grey, Bruce, Simcoe North, Haliburton, Victoria, Muskoka in the kind of assistance programs that were available through DREE for eastern Ontario. When we failed, we thought the second-best approach was to have Ontario design a program for those counties and that is what I announced in the budget.

Mr. G. E. Smith: Will there be any further meetings with the federal ministries for ongoing negotiations to attempt to bring this about?

Hon. F. S. Miller: We will continue to meet with the federal ministers because we do that at least once a year, and recently it has been twice in the last three or four months. I am not optimistic that they are willing to concede there was a need to help those areas. I think we had a fair amount of support from both sides of the House on our representations for those counties but it did not seem to succeed.

SUSPENSION OF DOCTOR

Mr. Conway: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Health. It concerns the latest report of the discipline committee of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario and in particular the judgement against Dr. Eric August Deernsted of the Ottawa area.

The discipline committee found the said doctor guilty of two counts of professional misconduct. The first was that he falsified a record in respect to the examination or treatment of his patient in a discharge summary which portrayed a completely misleading picture of the patient’s clinical condition. The second professional misconduct involved sexual impropriety in that this doctor began a course of conduct with a married, ill, female patient which culminated in an intimate sexual relationship. I believe those to be very serious violations of professional conduct

Is the minister aware that the college, through the discipline committee, meted out the penalty of 30 days’ suspension? Would the minister, having regard to his responsibility to protect the public interest in so far as the health discipline legislation is concerned, not agree with me that this is a pitifully inadequate response by this self-governing regulator with respect to the charges involved?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, first of all, just to complete the record -- so it does not sound too much like As the World Turns -- the doctor in question married the lady in question, just to complete the member’s description of events.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Is that new health policy? Called preventive medicine is it?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: No. If the member would like me to counsel him on that at some point in time, I would be glad to, or maybe the member for Renfrew North.

Mr. Speaker, first of all, a 30-day suspension is not an inconsiderable penalty in terms of the maintenance of a practice of medicine and the maintenance of a reputation. In fact, even the very finding of guilt by the discipline committee and the publication of that, I suggest to the member, is a serious matter in the maintenance of an ongoing career in medicine.

Second, there was a lay person -- my understanding is there always is a lay person appointed by the government sitting on the discipline committee -- who was involved in this particular decision.

Third, the government does not have the authority under the legislation to intervene in a particular judgement. From time to time I do take up with the college some of its decisions, and I must say I find on the whole the college is very thorough in its investigations and goes to a great deal of difficulty to attempt to arrive at just decisions.

One of the aspects of this case that does concern me is this question of the falsification of hospital records, and I have directed my staff to look into the matter to see if further action on our part with respect to the Public Hospitals Act is warranted.

Mr. Conway: I could not disagree more with what I think is a perfectly outrageous beginning to the minister’s answer. The fact that this particular doctor married this particular patient after these violations is of no real consequence to me at all, and I think it is just a totally unacceptable response from the minister.

Is the minister aware, given what he said at the end of his answer about the falsification of medical records, that the involved third party, the Queensway-Carleton Hospital, and in particular the director of the medical staff there, is not yet aware of precisely what transpired at that hearing that had such a direct effect on his hospital? Does the minister not think the time has come that some formal mechanism be struck for the College of Physicians and Surgeons to directly involve third parties like hospitals so that they will not be left, as the Queensway-Carleton is in this instance, completely in the dark as to why this particular doctor’s licence is being suspended and how they might be on guard to monitor the kind of outrageous conduct that led to the suspension in the first place?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, I could be wrong and I will check this, but I believe that either of the parties to a disciplinary matter has the right to call before the disciplinary committee, to offer their advice and/or information, whomsoever they please, so the involvement of third parties -- and again I will confirm this -- is part of the process.

Secondly, I did not start my answer to be good, but rather to complete the background which the member was giving. I think we are dealing with some very complicated interpersonal relationships. I want to put those in perspective. I want to deal with the professional question and I want to deal with the hospital question.

LIQUID INDUSTRIAL WASTE

Mr. Isaacs: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of the Environment. Will the minister advise the House and the people of Ontario today that South Cayuga is no longer under consideration as a possible site for a liquid industrial waste disposal facility?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: No, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Isaacs: Does the minister not recall that he asked James F. MacLaren Limited, an independent consultant, to identify the best possible areas for locating these facilities? Given that MacLaren reported very specifically that South Cayuga was not even minimally acceptable, does the minister not agree that his intervention and direction to MacLaren to study South Cayuga and other sites that are politically embarrassing to that government has seriously jeopardized the independence, the impartiality and the public trust in the MacLaren study? Will the minister withdraw his political interference today so that public trust in the independence of MacLaren can be restored before he makes his announcement on November 25?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: There are about four answers of no to that, but I would only add that I think it is of paramount importance that the ministry, and myself as well, should ask the MacLaren people -- it is a very comprehensive study -- to look at land that is owned by the government. I am sure if we did not do so we would be criticized. I have no intention of taking the advice of the member opposite.

11:20 a.m.

Mr. G. I. Miller: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Could the minister indicate to this House the cost of the study that is taking place at the present time?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: About $425,000.

LAND SEVERANCE

Hon. Mr. Henderson: Mr. Speaker, yesterday the member for Huron-Middlesex asked me a question: “Can the minister explain why an order in council was issued on his advice on July 31, 1980, to grant a severance on agricultural land in Vespra township?” He went on in his statement to ask, “If the minister felt so compelled to support this severance, why did he not do so at the hearing before the Ontario Municipal Board?” I note the honourable member is here now and I do have the order in council here.

On the severance in question, Mr. Gordon Atkinson operates a large dairy farm in Vespra township with several full-time farm helpers. Mr. Atkinson applied to the Vespra committee of adjustment for a severance for farm help. The committee approved the severance. The township council appealed this to the OMB.

To accommodate his hired workers, the petitioner proposed to construct two dwellings and to hire someone, perhaps the wife of one of the workers, to provide the services his wife at present provides. For this purpose, Mr. Atkinson needs to sever a parcel of land having a 100-foot frontage and a 200-foot depth from a total parcel of 45 acres. The lot to be severed fronts on a township road and is adjacent to the community of Crown Hill in the township of Vespra.

The committee of adjustment of the township of Vespra granted the petitioner’s application for severance. I have a copy of this decision if the member wishes it. There was no opposition placed before the committee of adjustment. No written submissions were received by the committee in opposition to Mr. Atkinson’s severance.

The following persons and agencies received notice of Mr. Atkinson’s application: (a) the clerk of the township of Vespra; (b) the issuer of building permits for the township; (c) the secretary of the Vespra Planning Board; (d) the clerk of the county of Simcoe, and (e) the Simcoe County Health Unit. None of these persons or agencies appeared or gave any written submission of any nature whatsoever. There was no opposition.

Some time later an appeal was taken by the township of Vespra against the decision of the committee granting Mr. Atkinson’s severance. The township gave no reason for this appeal. At the OMB hearing, the only grounds for the appeal advanced by the township were that Mr. Atkinson’s proposal did not fall within one of the specific exemptions enumerated in the official plan.

The uncontradicted evidence of the OMB hearing was that the subject lands are the poorest of the lands owned by Mr. Atkinson. The lands are generally wet, and attempts to tile-drain the lands have been unsuccessful. After several unsuccessful attempts to grow crops, Mr. Atkinson allowed the lands to revert to pasture. This evidence as to the agricultural capability of the land was uncontradicted at the hearing of the OMB and no argument was placed against it.

The evidence before the board was that the lot the petitioner proposes to sever is located just west of Highway 93, fronting on a township road known as Side Road 15. There are a number of residences, and I will get that, Mr. Speaker, because I did mention that earlier in my remarks.

The evidence again was uncontradicted that the proposed lot would fall within the community of Crown Hill. Again if there is a request for it, I will give the plan. The official plan for the Vespra planning area referred to above provides that wherever farm animal operations are to be carried out, the agricultural code of practice and the food land guidelines should be followed.

Mr. Dale Toombs, government representative and Simcoe county field officer with the food land development branch of the ministry, applied minimum distance separation formula number one to the subject lands and found that the proposed lot met the minimum distance separation criteria established by the code. He found the distance between the proposed lot and the closest livestock operation was more than adequate to avoid any potential environmental conflict between the two.

Mr. Toombs’ evidence was uncontradicted. He stated the prevailing government policy in respect to the petitioner’s application is found in the food land guidelines. He stated the particular policies enunciated in the guidelines and applicable to the subject land were as follows --

Mr. Cassidy: Is this important?

Hon. Mr. Henderson: Mr. Speaker, it is important that the honourable members --

Mr. Cassidy: It is an abuse of the private members’ time.

Mr. Speaker: Order. It is important. The honourable minister has taken six minutes and 30 seconds, which I am going to add to the question period. It is just a question of how long the minister persists because I intend to add to the question period. I would suggest that in future if the minister organizes his material a little better, it would allow for a supplementary.

Hon. Mr. Henderson: Mr. Speaker, I thank you, but this is pertinent information. The honourable member made serious charges about my staff. They should be answered in an appropriate way.

To continue: The general policy relating to the preservation of good agricultural land subject to some exceptions; the provision of severances for the establishment of accommodation for full-time farm help.

Mr. Toombs stated that in this instance the prevailing policy, that is the policy of greatest relevance, is found in section 4A.20 of the guidelines. This section relates to farm-related severances. The relevant subsection of section 4A.20 -- I could read that, but I will not at this time.

The only thing I add is that this operation milks about 80 cows. They ship thoroughbred stock all over the world. There is a farmer and two sons with six full-time helpers. The farmer’s wife provides lodging and boarding for this help, but her health has got to the point that they decided they would have to contract this work out to the wife of one of the employees of the farm. That is the reason for the severance.

I have no problems and no reservations with the decision of cabinet. Our action was in keeping with all the policies and for the good of the farm people of this province.

Mr. Speaker: The answer took eight minutes, so we will add another five to the question period.

Mr. Riddell: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Would the Minister of Agriculture and Food ask the Premier (Mr. Davis) for a copy of the letter that was sent to him by the clerk-treasurer of Vespra township? It would indicate that what he has told us this morning is rubbish. Would the Minister of Agriculture and Food not also agree that the granting of that severance was in contravention of the township official plan and the zoning bylaw and that it flies in the face of his own food land guidelines? What is the purpose of a municipality going to the trouble of drawing up official plans and zoning bylaws to meet the requirements laid down by this government if cabinet can overturn them all?

11:30 a.m.

Hon. Mr. Henderson: Mr. Speaker, I have certainly read the letter to our Premier, a letter that our Premier will respond to. Early in my statement I responded that the official plan did carry a clause that farm-related severances should be in keeping with our code of practice and food land guidelines. This severance is certainly in keeping with them all the way.

Mr. Riddell: Read the letter.

Hon. Mr. Davis: The member should go up and have a look at it.

Mr. Riddell: I have the letter. I want the minister to read it, There was never any stronger language than that laid out to him in that letter.

NIAGARA RIVER POLLUTION

Mr. Kerrio: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of the Environment. Will the minister comment on the statement by the United States chairman of the International Joint Commission who stated he does not know how government can allow SCA Chemical Services Limited to put more waste in the Niagara River when there are apparent violations there now? Is this not a concern the Deputy Premier (Mr. Welch) stated months ago when he told a private citizens’ meeting in Niagara Falls, New York, that not another drop should go into that river? Now, in this morning’s paper, we have the chairman of the IJC making those comments. How does the minister react to that?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Mr. Speaker, I think I have reacted, not only this morning but some time ago. I went to see the governor. He was unable to see me. Therefore, I saw the commissioner of New York state. We had a very long visit in the capital of New York, Albany. There is no doubt in his mind about my concern about the Niagara River.

I am not going to be a phoney in this situation and start to make idle comments. I will not do that. I think the honourable member knows me well enough to know I will not do that. The member knows my concern, and it is as genuine as it can possibly be. But I do not think the story ends with just saying, “We do not want another drop to go in there.” We do have an industry that needs treatment facilities.

I will tell the member this, there has never been a commitment more dear to me. When we have the facilities we are going to have in this province, the best in the world, and we now have the best waybill system on the continent --

Interjection.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Yes, that is true -- then we will scream from the highest mountain, “You follow our lead.” We are going to be in that position, there is no doubt about it. I want to scream loud and clear, but I want to do it from a position where there is clear leadership. That will be established in this province in 1982.

Mr. Kerrio: Supplementary: Will the minister accelerate the testing at Walker Brothers now to be certain as to what is in those drums so we can clear the air? My concern is that if we do not clean up that matter immediately, I want some reassurance from the minister that those liquid wastes will not go into the river. I am very concerned that the solidification process should go into place, and I would like the minister to take the initiative now and not just wait. Let us clear up that matter at Walker Brothers. Will he accelerate that process?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I am sorry to say the member is way behind. We have done that.

Mr. Kerrio: We do not have the evidence yet.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Whoa, whoa, whoa. I must tell the member we have done that. We do not have the results. I told the House yesterday we are taking all those and sampling them. We happen to have the best lab facilities in North America to be able to do it. Think about that for a moment. No one can test the drums as thoroughly as we can here in this province.

Mr. Kerrio: When do you get the results?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: We said we would do it.

Mr. Swart: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: How can the minister say he is accelerating the testing in Walker Brothers Quarries when he knows there are hundreds of drums and to date he has unearthed only nine of them? That is going to take three or four years at that rate.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I am sorry to say the member is absolutely incorrect. Again that is not true.

AID TO PENSIONERS

Ms. Bryden: Mr. Speaker, I have a two-part question of the Minister of Revenue. Does he know that his ad informing seniors that the ministry’s office is located at 77 Bloor Street West instead of Queen’s Park appeared on the business page of the Toronto Star on November 1? Does he think a majority of seniors are likely to read the business page?

Secondly, has he checked the reception desk downstairs since the ad appeared to see how many seniors are still coming to Queen’s Park for information and is there any service at the reception desk to provide them with phone calls to the ministry or application forms?

Hon. Mr. Maeck: Mr. Speaker, I have no control over the newspapers as to where they are going to put the ads when we ask them to advertise. I would agree with the member that if it were on the financial page, perhaps some of the senior citizens would not see it. I do not have control over the Globe and Mail or the Toronto Star to tell them where they are going to put ads. I have to accept that when an ad is placed, they decide the layout of the paper, not I.

As far as the desk downstairs is concerned, it is my understanding the people at the desk do call the ministry office if someone appears there, so I think that is being looked after.

Ms. Bryden: Supplementary: I am sure the minister is aware one can ask for the section of the paper where one wants the ad put but that appears not to have been done. I would like to ask the minister, since there are 820,000 old age pensioners who received application forms and, according to his figures, only 540,000 have sent in application forms and only 54,000 are in nursing homes and so on, is he following up on the more than 200,000 seniors who have not responded and who may lose out on this tax relief simply because they cannot understand the forms or cannot get through on the telephone for assistance?

Hon. Mr. Maeck: The figure of 820,000 is the total number of seniors in Ontario. Not all of them were mailed application forms. A family received one application form, not two. That is taken from the old age supplement files. The 820,000 figure comes from the fact we sent out a retail sales tax grant of $50. Each senior citizen received that without application.

There were, in effect, 540,000 applications sent out. Those were the ones dealing with families. In other words, if there were a man and wife living together, they got one application. That is why it was reduced from 820,000 to 540,000. All the people eligible for the property tax grants whom we are aware of have received the applications, with the exception of those who may be landed immigrants, who must come to us if we do not have a file on them. All the rest of them have received their applications.

Mr. Cunningham: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Would the minister be surprised that the reason for the ad appearing in the business section of the Globe and Mail would be that this has the highest line rate in the Globe and Mail, thereby enabling the ad agency to make an even greater commission?

Hon. Mr. Maeck: The last ad put in was not a planned ad, as was the rest of the program. It was an addition to the advertising program at the request, as a matter of fact, of some members of the NDP. We had to accept the space we could get on such short notice. I wanted to get the ads in to explain some of the difficulties the ministry was having and to get in the address requested, so people would be able to get to the proper office rather than the Queen’s Park address. It was an additional ad to the regular advertising program and we had to accept the space available to us on short notice.

LIQUID INDUSTRIAL WASTE

Mr. Swart: Mr. Speaker, on November 6 I asked a question of the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Parrott). He stated he would reply on November 7. He did not reply that day. I raised a question of privilege and he gave a commitment to this House that he would reply shortly. This issue is distinct from what we are discussing this week because it concerns another property, but it is a revelation of ministry negligence and Walker’s violation, once again, of environmental law. Would you bring to the attention of the minister that his answer is long overdue?

Mr. Speaker: I am sure he heard that

11:40 a.m.

ACCESS TO LEGISLATIVE BUILDING

Mr. M. N. Davison: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of privilege to thank you for your prompt response to the point I raised yesterday. I very much appreciate your having written to the superintendent of the Ontario Provincial Police securities branch, which administers the Ontario Government Protective Service.

However, I remain quite concerned about what I view to be the patently ludicrous interpretation placed on your security guidelines by Acting Senior Supervisor Watts yesterday. I would ask that you refer this matter to the standing committee on procedural affairs for consideration and advice.

Mr. Speaker: No. It is really not a concern of the procedural affairs committee. It is the responsibility of the Speaker and the Board of Internal Economy.

Mr. M. N. Davison: I think we ought to do something about that.

Mr. Speaker: We are monitoring it and I am quite sure things are proceeding as they should.

IDENTIFICATION OF MEMBER

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Mr. Speaker, I rise to correct the record and it is a breach of my privilege as well, in a sense -- the problem of names and party affiliations. On November 6 I made a speech in the constitution debate in which I attacked the Premier savagely from time to time. Yet in the “Speakers in this Issue” record at the end of it, I am put down as “Johnston, R. F., Scarborough West, PC.” That hurts a good deal, Mr. Speaker, and it has happened several times. I have to rise to say, please do not confuse me. There is no Progressive Conservative who spoke out against the Premier as I did that night.

Mr. Speaker: I can see the editor of debates got that comment. It will be corrected.

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

HIGHWAY TRAFFIC AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Snow moved first reading of Bill 188, An Act to amend the Highway Traffic Act.

Motion agreed to.

DANGEROUS GOODS TRANSPORTATION ACT

Hon. Mr. Snow moved first reading of Bill 189, The Dangerous Goods Transportation Act.

Motion agreed to.

URBAN TRANSPORTATION DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION LIMITED ACT

Hon. Mr. Snow moved first reading of Bill 190, An Act respecting Urban Transportation Development Corporation Limited.

Motion agreed to.

EMPLOYMENT STANDARDS AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Elgie moved first reading of Bill 191, An Act to amend the Employment Standards Act, 1974.

Motion agreed to.

TORONTO DISTRICT HEATING CORPORATION ACT

Hon. Mr. Wells moved first reading of Bill 192, An Act to revise the Toronto Hospitals Steam Corporation Act, 1968-69.

Motion agreed to.

MUNICIPAL AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Wells moved first reading of Bill 193, An Act to amend the Municipal Act.

Motion agreed to.

RESIDENTIAL TENANCIES AMENDMENT ACT

Mr. Philip moved first reading of Bill 194, An Act to amend the Residential Tenancies Act, 1979.

Motion agreed to.

Mr. Philip: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of this bill is to authorize the residential tenancy commissioner to order payment of a tenant’s costs when the commission has determined that the tenant paid rent in excess of the amount permitted by the act.

RESIDENTIAL TENANCIES AMENDMENT ACT

Mr. Philip moved first reading of Bill 195, An Act to amend the Residential Tenancies Act, 1979.

Motion agreed to.

Mr. Philip: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of this bill is too require a landlord, upon the request of a tenant, to file certain receipts for expenditures made by the landlord with the residential tenancy commission.

Motion agreed to.

ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS ON NOTICE PAPER

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, before the orders of the day, I wish to table the answer to question 380 and the interim answer to question 348 standing on the Notice Paper. (See appendix page 4815).

ORDERS OF THE DAY

THIRD READINGS

The following bills were given third reading on motion:

Bill 59, An Act to amend the Game and Fish Act;

Bill 139, An Act to amend the Shoreline

Property Assistance Act, 1973;

Bill 152, An Act to amend the Beef Cattle Marketing Act;

Bill 153, An Act to repeal the Warble Fly Control Act;

Bill 164, An Act to amend the Insurance Act;

Bill 165, An Act to amend the Motor Vehicle Accident Claims Act;

Bill 170, An Act to erect the Township of Gloucester into a City Municipality.

Bill 171, An Act to provide for the Validation of Certain Adoption Orders made under the Child Welfare Act, 1978.

Bill 175, An Act to provide for Municipal Hydroelectric Service in the City of Sudbury.

11:50 a.m.

TORONTO ISLANDS ACT

Hon. Mr. Wells moved second reading of Bill 181, An Act to stay the Execution of Certain Writs of Possession issued in respect of Certain Premises on Toronto Islands.

Mr. Speaker: Does the minister have an opening comment?

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, I think I made the comments that were necessary yesterday. I would just like to reiterate to the House that the necessity of this bill was caused by the fact that the Ontario Court of Appeal found on October 27 that the writs of possession which Metropolitan Toronto had asked for against the residents on Toronto Island were valid and servable and the sheriff has taken steps to serve those writs. In fact, he would be enforcing them on November 17.

In the interval, as I stated yesterday and as members of this House knew, we did appoint, under the authority of the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto Act, a one-man commissioner, Barry Swadron, QC, who has been holding a very full, thorough and, I think, very good inquiry into this whole matter. He has had a number of presentations. They tell me well over 100 presentations have been made to him. He has listened to many of the experts in both --

Mr. Nixon: Is that necessarily a good thing?

Hon. Mr. Wells: Certainly it is a good thing. He has moved around and held his hearings both in the suburbs and in downtown Toronto and has listened to the concerns of people all over this area in regard to what the future uses of Ward’s and Algonquin islands should be.

He has just about finished the formal part of his work and he has to sit down and write his report. It will probably be available some time in December. Therefore, it would be ludicrous to think that some action should be taken in so far as these warrants are concerned at this time when this very full report and its recommendations will be available to all of us, and I hope will form the basis for a permanent solution to this very pressing matter.

I fully acknowledge the sheriff had no other choice because the writs were asked for by Metropolitan Toronto. We asked Metropolitan Toronto not to have those writs enforced and they could have relieved us of the necessity of passing this bill by saying they would not ask the sheriff to enforce the writs. Of course, that would have enabled him to hold up any action. That was not forthcoming, so we are asked to take this kind of action.

The date that was picked is -- I think I used the words -- stupid and inhumane. I regret that many people thought -- and have spoken to me since about this -- I was referring to them when I used those remarks. Actually I was referring to the date. It was a stupid and inhumane date.

To suggest that people should be evicted in the cold weather, six weeks before Christmas, certainly would not be the kind of thing that any member of this Legislature would believe should happen. I would hope it is not the kind of thing that any member of council of the municipality of Metropolitan Toronto would really expect should happen, regardless of their feelings on this matter. To think that people should be evicted on that particular date, I think, is ludicrous. Anyway, one can even argue on humanitarian grounds that something should be done to make sure there are no evictions at this particular time.

It has also been suggested to me from time to time that we are meddling in an area where we should not be meddling. I would suggest to the House that the mass eviction of anywhere from 250 to 500 people in any community in any part of this province would necessitate this Legislature somehow being involved. I really answer that charge that is made to us by saying that if this kind of mass eviction were to occur anywhere in the province, I am sure we would somehow be involved in it.

I do not in any way countenance the fact or the argument, or give any credence to the argument, that we should not be involved in this, because I think we are involved in many areas, particularly when the whole resolution of this problem concerns an act of this Legislature which could or would have to be amended. Therefore, of necessity we must be involved in the problem and, in fact, by amendment in 1956 we started the whole trend towards having the island as a Metro park, so we were involved back then and we are legitimately involved now.

Mr. Nixon: The government? Or Scarborough?

Hon. Mr. Wells: No, the government. The government in 1956 amended the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto Act at the request of Metro and the city of Toronto to change the ownership of the island from Toronto to Metro for the purpose of creating a park, so at that particular time the Legislature was involved and had to be involved. That section is the one that is in there and that is the section that still provides that the island should become a Metro park. The only way that can be changed is by us changing that section.

Since it is an act of this Legislature, we properly are involved. That is why I really reject the idea that somehow we should never be involved in this at all, because we were involved and we probably will continue to be involved.

I do not want to take any more time on my opening statement, other than to say that the events surrounding this are well known. What we have here today is a simple bill to stay the execution of the writs until next July, which will allow the Swadron commission to report and will allow all of us to study that report. It is hoped that out of that report will come some resolution to the problem.

I would say at this time I hope that all who receive the report will read it, and not reject it out of hand without reading it. I hope the members of the Metropolitan Toronto council will read that report and will read it with an open mind rather than, as I have heard some of them do already, predeciding what is going to be in there and prejudging the report. That would be a tragedy, because I think Mr. Swadron is taking a lot of time, based on the evidence presented to him, to come up with some solutions and to give some historic background that perhaps has not been presented before. I hope that report will be considered on its merits and the only way it can be considered on its merits is for us not to interfere with anybody at this time. That is what this bill does.

I might also say, for those who are concerned that it might somehow cause more legal battles concerning the writs, that the law officers of the crown inform us it is not interfering with the writs, in that the writs will still be valid after July 1, 1981. We are not setting up a process whereby more legal manoeuvres can occur after that. It is merely stalling the execution of those writs for the reasons we have just stated. I would hope it will be supported by all members of this House.

12 noon.

Mr. Nixon: Mr. Speaker, the minister has been guilty of a certain degree of brinkmanship in bringing forward this bill. It has been obvious for three weeks that the bill would be necessary, and here it is before the House for three readings on the very day before the execution of the writs. I know the minister has had a certain amount of difficulty, perhaps with his own colleagues, in this connection because I think it has been made clear in public statements that both the Liberals and the New Democrats not only have been expecting the bill, but in fact have been demanding it.

We would agree with the statement, if not the tone of the minister’s comments, that it would be a ridiculous thing indeed if the island residents were dispossessed in the middle of November. We are also aware that this matter has gone on for many months -- in fact years -- and whether we like it or not the final decision of what is going to happen on the island is going to be made in this House.

I sense the minister, in his emphasis on the importance of the Swadron commission and the investigation coming under the direction of Barry Swadron, has made his own decision and that is that he will do whatever the commissioner recommends. He is advising us so sincerely -- and he does that very well -- not to prejudge the commissioner’s report, but I suppose the fate of the island community has already been judged by almost all members of this House.

We have listened to the argument put forward by the member for St. Andrew-St. Patrick (Mr. Grossman) in a most impassioned way. As a matter of fact, he has convinced me of the correctness of his position. I do not expect to see the House or the government itself move in a way to allow the dispossession of the present residents on the island

I visited the island in the presence of many thousands of Torontonians at the great CHIN picnic. It is always representative of at least three political parties and a couple of others that are not really there except in spirit. It is always a great event. I remember even as a boy going to Centre Island, riding the merry-go-round and grabbing the brass ring. That is something all of us have heard of, but I think I am the only one who ever did it. It was the last piece of good luck I ever had. After having had such a long ride, I think I was then promptly sick, but that is another matter.

I do believe, however, that parks on the island are a great thing and necessary for the metropolitan area. I do believe that in the areas that are available for them, the metropolitan area has an extensive area for recreation, yacht clubs and other facilities. I think it is a marvellous thing for the benefit of this community, something that would lead me to think even more highly of Metropolitan Toronto as a place to live than I do now. I most sincerely love this city.

I do not, however, feel it is necessary to kick everybody off the two islands, Ward’s and Algonquin. If the Legislature votes to do that eventually, I will be very surprised.

The minister has gone to some lengths in his opening remarks to fend off any criticism of interference in local affairs, indicating it was an amendment by this House that established the concept of a park in the first instance. I suppose we are all very sensitive about this intrusion into local affairs but, in spite of that sensitivity, I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, the final decision on what happens on the island is going to be made in this House and not elsewhere.

I know the minister feels he has a special persuasive power in dealing with the chairman of Metropolitan Toronto, but for some reason that well-known persuasiveness is not effective with the present chairman. The chairman is adamant that the decisions of Metro must stand and any interference from outside is unwarranted and to be opposed at all costs. He was even prepared to instruct the sheriff to go forward with the dispossession.

I presume since the minister was criticized for using immoderate language with regard to the sheriff -- and he says he was not referring to the sheriff as being stupid and inhumane -- then he must apply that criticism to the chairman of Metropolitan Toronto. I see the minister shaking his head. He does not want to call anybody stupid and inhumane. I know what a kind man the minister is and how unflappable he is. We can only assume then that some of his advisers have put these adjectives in his mind and in his mouth and probably he has discussed this matter with them already.

I suppose a person in politics who, like the minister is upwardly mobile, must be very careful indeed as to what sort of advice he gets from those people who are thinking only of his own benefit. They want to be helpful, but sometimes in their very helpfulness they can be injurious. It is a lesson I learned myself far too late, but perhaps the minister with his well-known moderation and good humour, which I have seen break down only on rare occasions and then perhaps only by misunderstanding, still has time. He must be careful to see that in the months that lie ahead he is not led into this ridiculous trap whereby upwardly mobile politicians fall into the hands of managers who can do nothing but harm them.

I could embark on a longer treatise on this, but I know the minister was very embarrassed. In using the words “stupid” and “inhumane” he certainly got our attention, but he has been busy ever since denying they apply to anybody. As a matter of fact, he said they applied to the day, that it was a stupid and inhumane day, so I suppose that is all right. We know he really meant the chairman of the council of Metropolitan Toronto, because he is the person who has been intransigent in this matter.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I have been looking for some answers like that. I need some answers to teach me some moderation.

Mr. Nixon: You have ripped off the Treasury. Why don’t you look at the Ministry of Intergovernmental Affairs? There are a couple of good plums sitting there who are looking for a winner.

Mr. Speaker, I will accept your instruction to proceed. I simply say it is unpalatable for us in this House to he dealing with matters which, by our previous action, we have given to the municipalities -- the lower-tier municipalities have been involved to some degree -- especially the municipality of Metropolitan Toronto. Now that we do not like its actions, we are prepared to draw back and instruct it otherwise.

I am glad the minister has abandoned the concepts of Bill 5. I guess it was a week or 10 days ago when there was a mild little flurry from the minister, once again considerably out of character. He got up and harangued the people in the opposition for their bad judgement in not supporting the principle of Bill 5. If Bill 5 comes forward in any other form, even as a recommendation from Barry Swadron, it will not be supported on this side either.

We do not want to prejudge what Mr. Swadron recommends, but if his recommendation is to take each property as the owner or occupant moves away or dies and have it transferred to the jurisdiction of Metropolitan Toronto to be torn down, which is the minister’s solution to this, we will not support it whether it comes from Swadron, John Robarts or any of the other Tory gurus who are going to be involved in this solution. The Tories can’t agree among themselves, either on the front bench or involving the lesser Tories who get more money working in unelected capacities in the Metro government.

We really cannot help the members opposite to come to a conclusion among themselves. In the past we have suggested they retire to one of those back rooms at the Albany Club and come to some solution that would be, I should not say saleable, but acceptable, and they have failed miserably.

Bill 5 is not the solution now and it never will be. I hope the minister is listening to me as he peruses that piece of paper so carefully, because I hope the last we will hear of Bill 5 was that little flurry he gave us in the House 10 days ago.

This bill puts the whole thing on ice until next July. We know that is a good date. The provincial election will be over and the new government -- it may be a new government made up of new Tories, although I predict and expect otherwise -- can look at it. Certainly we feel on this side that the island community should be maintained, and if it requires an amendment to the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto Act, so be it.

Unpalatable though we may think this is, the disposition of this matter lies in this House. Even in July, supposing there isn’t an election and we are here in our same situation, God forbid, it will once again be debated here and the government of the day, finally, when pushed to extremes -- if it is Tory -- will move another bill that will postpone it again.

12:10 p.m.

I sincerely hope the Swadron report will be a moderate report. I presume it will be moderate, knowing Mr. Swadron’s reputation, but will allow for a continuation of the island community. I have been consistent in my support of that concept.

That was why, when the Minister of Industry and Tourism made a strong statement in his more callow years about playing hardball in this connection -- being fresh from saving Doctors Hospital from extermination -- and undertook to sway the views of cabinet in support of the island community, frankly, I admired what he did. I thought probably the salvation of the Doctors Hospital was sort of an inside drop ball, but this one seems really to be a battle.

The fact that this bill is so late in coming forward means the minister and the administration of Ontario have had difficulties we do not understand. Presumably they have been able to walk over the chairman of Metropolitan Toronto because he likes his job. He may have even threatened not to run for the Legislature, or to run for the Liberals or something like that, unless the government did what he wanted, but the minister has even been able to overcome threats like that.

I feel the problems the minister has may be in cabinet council or with caucus at large. Frankly, I resent a little bit the way he has left the House hanging on the introduction of this bill. He was critical of our attitude on Bill 5, but he had no reasonable alternative until Bill 181, a Band-Aid measure, was presented to us today for three readings and royal assent all at once.

Mr. Rotenberg: We had one reading yesterday.

Mr. Nixon: Two readings and royal assent or, let us say, three references in this chamber. I have no hesitation in supporting it and I express to you, Mr. Speaker, my view that in the long run the chamber will vote to maintain the island community.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Mr. Speaker, I rise to fondly give the speech I was going to give every time the other bill kept coming up, but I am not going to give it because it was at least an hour and a half in length and gave the full history of the island.

I think this Bill 181 should be described as the better-late-than-never bill. I come at it with mixed emotions as much as did the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk who just spoke. I am pleased to see it has come through. Obviously we are in favour of it and obviously we are going to support it, because it never needed to be done in the way it has been done. There is a certain amount of anger in me that it has come up in the way it has.

It is brinkmanship, waiting until the future of the island is hanging over the cliff and then the government seems to pluck it out and save it in the Perils of Pauline style with a train coming down the track. In point of fact, this government has been an accomplice in tying the islanders down on that track, and it controls the purse strings of the engineer who is bringing the train down the track.

The government had the ability to stop this thing long ago and did not have to try to build an unnatural and unfair suspense about the fate of these islanders as has been done. It is a singular sign of the failure of power on those front benches of the Attorney General (Mr. McMurtry), the Minister of Industry and Tourism and the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs that they had all this problem in getting this thing together and getting it before us at this date. The problems in the government caucus must be extreme, I would say.

I would have thought it would have been far better from the beginning to have come forward with a bill that was not Bill 5 after the minister saw it was unacceptable to us. Many months ago, when he set up the Swadron commission, it would have been better to have done that with an act, and to have said in that act he was setting up this commission which would report back to this House because we are involved and it is our responsibility. We would then debate it and make a decision on it. That would have been far better than the kind of approach the minister has taken to this date.

I am not going to go into the reasons we support the islanders. They have laid out that case well and we have laid out that case well; there is no need to do that again. I want to raise two items. One is that anybody in this Legislature who would not say we have an obligation to protect that community with its history, a community with roots, a community that does not need to be taken over for park land, is crazy and is out of step with the people of Metropolitan Toronto. The other is that those people who claim they cannot interfere in municipal business because Metro council brought forward the suggestion are also working on a fallacious interpretation.

Surely what we have is a community of 650,000 -- or whatever the city of Toronto is now -- very strongly wanting to preserve one of its communities, and, in my view, an indirectly elected, unaccountable council overriding those wishes and being supported by this government. If this is not enough reason for the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs to change the format of election of Metro council, I do not know what is.

I appeared before the good Tory lawyer, Mr. Swadron; I do not know whether any of the rest of the members did. I did not see too many names I recognized on the list of people who had appeared. I was pleased with the hearing he gave me. I am convinced the report he is going to come forward with is going to have some interesting recommendations we should all look at. I would like to have a commitment from the minister today, in view of the fact that I am going to support unequivocally what he is bringing forward, that we will have a chance to discuss this in the Legislature when it comes forward.

I would like to hear the minister, when he wraps up, indicate whether we are going to have a chance to talk about Swadron here in the Legislature, because I feel we should. We are in the ball game; it is in our court. He has taken that on today, he has accepted that responsibility; now let him bring in the Legislature to discuss the results.

I would just say that the timing of the bill, the date for the end of June, was an interesting one. It seems to tie into the budget timetable of the Minister of Industry and Tourism (Mr. Grossman). I guess we know that ties in not just with good weather and the humanity of not evicting the people at this point, but also with the timing of a prospective election. No doubt one of the things going on in the minds of caucus members over there is that, by passing this bill, the minister is not going to have to deal with the solution to the Swadron suggestions, when they come forward, until after an election.

I am giving the minister notice we are going to expect him to come through with his recommendations to do with Swadron well before an election. We will give the minister a month or month and a half to look over Swadron. But by goodness, in January, February or whenever this House comes back -- immediately this House comes back -- we want the minister’s recommendations on what is going to happen to the islanders. Do not leave it until June 30; do not play with those people again.

The minister has given himself enough time to come through with his recommendations, bring them before this House, have us debate them and pass through a long-term solution for those people. I place squarely on the shoulders of the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs the mess we are in now in terms of passing this thing in one day.

I believe his speech 10 days ago, or whenever it was, when he talked about there being three options, was a false political speech which used these people unfairly. When one speaks of inhumanity, I feel that was inherent in what he was doing. Those first two options were not options. Metro could not move. There was not going to be another Metro council meeting. The Metro chairman could not act unilaterally and the minister knew that.

Option one had no relevance at all and yet he threw it out again as one of the possibilities and played games with it. Then the minister came back with Bill 5. He knew it was not acceptable to the opposition here; he knew it was not acceptable to the islanders. It was not even acceptable to Robert Bundy of Metro Parks and Property who made a presentation to the Swadron commission saying that any kind of attrition or slow death bill was unacceptable. The minister knew that was not an option, so why did he play politics with it and then get the rednecks in his caucus, whom he was having trouble controlling, inflamed? That is what happened; that is why they got their backs up and why he had trouble getting this thing through. It was totally unnecessary to mess around with them in that way.

I want the minister to tell us today whether he is going to ask the Attorney General (Mr. McMurtry) to look into the sheriff’s office in terms of what it tried to do with Toronto Hydro and Consumers’ Gas. I understand the sheriff’s office had to act in sending out the eviction notices, which it had obviously sent out before, but did it have to go to Toronto Hydro and say: “We want you to participate with us. We want you to drive your truck in behind us and as we close down the house we are going to ask you to shut the ‘hydro off. Then we will have the parks truck in right after that and they will hammer the place up and it will be closed”? Surely that was going further than the sheriff’s office had to go. Asking for confidential lists of people who were receiving services from Consumers’ Gas and Toronto Hydro was unnecessary.

12:20 p.m.

I think the Attorney General should look into that as it was a totally unnecessary kind of provocative act by the sheriff’s office. If the sheriff’s office is under the control of the Ministry of the Attorney General, I see no reason why he could not have at least slapped their wrists for that kind of action.

There are a few things I would like to say to the minister before I can support the bill. I want to assure him we will not support Bill 5 if it comes back, and I don’t expect it will come back. I expect the Swadron commission report to contain a number of items the islanders have already asked for. I expect him to say the land should be left in public ownership. I expect him to say something about a 25-year lease, much as they have given to the yacht club on the islands. I will be very surprised if he does not come through with a review of that. I do not doubt that he will say those buildings have to be raised to a certain standard. That is totally acceptable to the islanders and totally acceptable to any rational person on this side of the House as well, and there are many of us.

The final item on the islanders’ position which I spoke about when I spoke with Swadron is that the homes and leases should be done on a nonprofit basis. If it can be done on a co-operative basis, even better. I think you are going to see suggestions like that come through from Swadron. An attrition type of bill is not going to be acceptable to us at all.

I also want to be sure we have a debate in the House on the Swadron commission report and I want assurance from the minister that he is not going to wait until June 30 to bring forward a solution to the island problems for the long term. I would like to hear from the minister on those three things before the debate is concluded. Thank you.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, I am not going to take the time of the House to repeat the kinds of messages I have given in this House previously, nor to repeat the message I delivered in my presentation to the Swadron commission. Suffice to say something members opposite want to forget, I am gratified that all members of this House are supportive of the proposition that the islands matter should be referred to an impartial, careful study which is being conducted by Mr. Swadron. Like other members who have spoken, I am quite satisfied the Swadron commission is being conducted in that kind of sensible and impartial fashion and I look forward to a balanced recommendation flowing from it.

The kind of balanced recommendation I think anyone looking at it objectively will present is well known to members of this House because my position has been as clear and as historical as anyone else in the assembly can claim. I want to make the point that my colleagues who have joined in our attempts to prevent too expeditious and too hasty action being taken on this matter are all concerned about being sure there is fairness adopted in whatever stance we take.

It is a little harder to deal with when we have two councils with some claim to authority dramatically disagreeing on what should happen there. My goal has always been to accomplish one simple thing. I cannot pretend it is not a goal to retain a community there. It is a goal I am proud of and one for which I have always fought.

Secondly, I have always believed an impartial, fair hearing, devoid of the kind of political posturing that frankly city council has seen and frankly Metro council has seen and frankly this assembly has seen, is what is necessary to get a sensible resolution to the matter. I think that is what we are going to see coming out of the Swadron commission and to that end I take some pride in the fact that as a member for a particular and unique community I am able to stand here as part of a government that has taken steps to ensure a fair hearing of those issues.

I must be honest and say that I take some personal pride in the fact I have carried this fight forward on behalf of a particular neighbourhood and community in my riding that has never voted for me nor, as I indicated to the Swadron commission, do I expect ever will vote for me. Those who attest political motives to me should have a look at the results of the polls over on the islands. That is not going to change, regardless of the outcome of the Swadron commission, though I certainly wish it would. It happens to be something I believe in in terms of the principle.

I am also, as one of those charged with executive duties in the government of Ontario, concerned about and have to be aware of the responsibilities we bear to the councils involved and those who have been given certain responsibilities by us to manage over the past 20 or 25 years. It is a little harder to work out the solutions in government and a little easier to posture when one is not. It is a little harder to work out a solution and fight for a principle when those who will benefit from the principle I am fighting for in this case will continue to provide no support and, in fact, vote against me.

None the less, I take some pride, as I guess I have in other matters in my riding that I have fought for, in the fact that we are able to stand here today and see the islanders still there and in place two years after the courts have ruled that the writs are valid and that they could be evicted.

With those short remarks, I am hoping the House will join us in at least giving the Swadron commission the opportunity to complete its hearings and all of us a chance to read that impartial and objective analysis and act upon it. I am pleased to join our House leader and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs in supporting this legislation.

Mr. Epp: Mr. Speaker, I want to speak just briefly to this particular bill and indicate that we are going to support the bill, as our House leader indicated earlier.

Obviously, it is long overdue and there was no need to have to wait until the eleventh hour to bring in this bill to stay the various writs. It is shown or seen as a death-bed repentance on behalf of the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs who has in the final hours been able to convince some of his colleagues in the cabinet that they should at least do something before those writs are issued on Monday.

I think it is quite clear to everyone in Metropolitan Toronto, if not in Ontario, that there is overwhelming support for the community to be retained on the islands. A survey done some short time ago by some very able people from Ryerson Polytechnical Institute, called Attitude Of Metropolitan Toronto Residents Towards the Toronto Island Community, reveals that about 78 per cent of Metro residents support the retention of the island community. Only six per cent of Metro residents feel the community should be removed.

In other words, there are a number of people there who do not have any strong opinion on it, but an overwhelming support, 78 per cent as shown in that survey, indicates that it wants to retain the island community as it is at present. They do not want this inch-by-inch decaying or inch-by-inch taking down of that particular community, as was recommended in Bill 5, which obviously the government will have to withdraw once the Swadron report is introduced in the Legislature.

I want to comment briefly on the meddling that this Legislature is accused of by interfering with the island community. As we know, when various organizations or various groups or municipalities get grants from the province they do not accuse the province of meddling in their affairs. They are always anxious to have those particular grants and do not feel it is meddling when they accept money from the provincial government for various purposes. However, the government is sometimes accused of meddling in those affairs when it passes legislation that whatever that organization is does not agree with.

It reminds me of the case where I met with a number of people. I suppose they could be classified as small-c conservatives. They said: “Look, we do not want any more government regulations. We have too much government now and we do not want any more government” The second item of that agenda was, “Yes, we need higher tariffs to protect our manufacturing goods.” They did not want any more government, yet they wanted more government interference in the protection of manufactured goods in the province and the country. It depends on which side of the issue one is on and what serves one’s purposes at the time.

12:30 p.m.

I think the province is on the tight track by bringing in Bill 181 to stay the various writs. It would be my hope, and I am sure the hope of all members of this Legislature, that when the Swadron report does come in it is going to recommend the continuation of that community to give them a long lease on life.

Mr. Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, I wanted to participate in this debate because the brinkmanship of the government has brought us to a kind of latter-day Perils of Pauline four days prior to the eviction being exercised by the writs of possession. That is far too close. I do not like that kind of brinkmanship which has characterized the government’s handling of the island issue for far too long. None the less, we welcome the fact that the government has agreed to have a stay of execution by means of this legislation until the Swadron report can be published and, I hope, debated in the Legislature and action taken.

I hope very much, as my colleague from Scarborough West has already indicated, the action that will be taken by the government will be public and will be in place prior to the election taking place -- if it takes place in the spring, as now seems likely. I do not think this should be used as a political football any more. The future of the island community should be guaranteed. Whatever workable kinds of solutions are proposed by the Swadron report, or can be developed on the basis of it, should be in place. We should no longer have empty promises from the Minister of Industry and Tourism (Mr. Grossman), and we should no longer have politicians having to fight over that issue.

One reason I say that is that New Democrats would be fighting for a community like the island anywhere in the province. We have shown that by the kind of actions we have taken in the past with respect to other communities as well. Whether it is the miners up in Atikokan, the people affected by the closing of the Moose Mountain mine in Capreol, the auto workers in Windsor, the people in Mechanicsville and Centretown in my riding of Ottawa Centre, or the workers in small bush communities who worked in the woods for Boise Cascade until they were affected by that company’s unfair labour practices, we have fought for people across the province and we are fighting for people on the island as well.

The second thing is that the island is a symbolic issue about the kind of communities we are going to have, not just in Toronto but everywhere across the province. I speak as a former islander. Some people know that in 1973 and 1974 I brought my family down here and we lived on Toronto Island for a year. It was one of the happiest years we have spent as a family in my entire married life. It was and is a community that is warm, friendly, co-operative and outgoing, a community that believes in self-help, a community that has demonstrated by the determination and doggedness of their fight for survival the kinds of resources there are in a small group of people when they have created that kind of community entity.

I asked myself, is that not the kind of community life I would like to have here, living in Toronto or in my home in Ottawa? Is that not the kind of life we all look for? Do we not all have a bit of a hankering for the village and small-town life that some of us experienced as youngsters and perhaps do not have right now? I’m thinking of places where there was an intimate relationship, where you knew the person who ran the shop or where your great-aunt lived down the street or where you were involved with other people in that community. Is this not what planners have been getting at for the last 35 years -- the creation of urban villages where people would be able to interrelate on a face-to-face basis and not just he faceless and nameless blobs who pass like ships in the night?

Is not the existence of the island community -- perhaps this is where the symbolism comes in -- kind of an affront to those forces in our society which support the Conservative Party, those forces in business and commerce which would like everybody to be atomized, to be living in a little box, in a little shell, in a little apartment, to have no interrelationship with people up and down the hail or the street or around the corner, to have no interrelationship with their fellow workers on the job, and therefore to be powerless against the forces of big business, of multinational corporations, against the forces of advertising and other people who try to make everything in human life something where you consume, you buy, buy, buy and you work, work, work, rather than ever having a community life where you can simply enjoy, savour and take pleasure in the growth of children, as I still do in the case of the young children who were born five and six years ago when I lived on Toronto Island, and take pleasure in contact with people of different generations, as people do on the island where people from eight months to 80 years live side by side and interrelate together?

Is a community like the island not worth preserving as well, when we consider that if Hydro were intending to put a dam in Ontario and the Friends of the Earth pointed out that the dam was going to flood a unique ecological area with some unique flora or fauna that were not duplicated elsewhere in the province, the chances are everybody’s hearts would go out and we would say, “No, that has got to be preserved; do the dam in a different way”?

When we have a unique piece of human ecology, a community like no other community in all of Canada and probably like no other community in all of North America, and when Conservatives like Paul Godfrey and his buddies on Metro council come along and ruthlessly move to stamp that out, then I think something unique like that should be preserved.

At a time when we are increasingly confronting the problems of the energy crisis, should we not have some lessons to learn from a community that has no cars and survives without them? Should we not have some lessons to learn from a community where people live cheek by jowl on lots 40 or 50 feet by 40 or 50 feet at a density that is almost unheard of in most of our urbanized areas with low-rise housing, and yet manage to survive as well as the islanders do? Are there not a lot of lessons there?

I am glad the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs agrees with me, that his colleagues in the Conservative caucus have been brought to agree with him as well, and that this particular bill is now in place. It is still only temporary and we need a long-term solution. I am very concerned over the fact that this whole episode would not have had to occur if, on the one hand, we had not had the machinations of Paul Godfrey and his friends and if, on the other hand, we had not had a structure of two-tier government in Metropolitan Toronto which so inadequately responds to the very clear, determined and declared will, not just of the people of Toronto, but of the vast majority of people in Metropolitan Toronto as well.

This government has delayed for so long on the restructuring of Metro government that it has helped to create the problem. The two-tier structure where Metro had control over the parks was an inadequate one when it was the people of Toronto, first and foremost, who wanted to preserve the island community. If Paul Godfrey had to be elected somewhere within Metropolitan Toronto to qualify for nomination to the post of Metro chairman, then the islanders and the people who feel with them would have been able to go out and talk face to face to the constituents of Paul Godfrey and seek their support. I predict that, if the municipality of Metropolitan Toronto six or eight years ago had had a chairman who was an elected official and not just an appointed official, we would not have had this island problem we have today.

Mr. Rotenberg: That is total nonsense.

Mr. Cassidy: It is not total nonsense. The member for Wilson Heights says it is total nonsense. He should know perfectly well that, if Paul Godfrey had come under scrutiny of the people of Metropolitan Toronto in any corner of this area, the island matter would not have continued to be what amounted to a vendetta against the islanders. I say as well that, if Paul Godfrey and his Conservative friends had any commitment to preserving communities the way we have in the New Democratic Party, this would not have been an issue and a long-term solution to the island matter would have been found long before now.

What Godfrey and his friends seem to be saying is that because the decision was made back in the 1950s we have to continue with blinkers as though nothing has changed and as though people’s perceptions of how communities should exist and how the city should exist have not changed at all.

12:40 p.m.

We have thrown out the idea of blockbusting. We have thrown out the idea of massive skyscrapers to house everybody in Metropolitan Toronto, Ottawa or our other cities. We have changed our views about the way a community like that on the island could interrelate when it is in a park-like setting. We have grown to appreciate that, if it were not for the islanders, the Toronto Island would probably be closed to the public for six, seven or even eight months of the year and would be totally inaccessible. That would be done by Paul Godfrey in the name of economy or something like that.

I want to close by reiterating what my colleague from Scarborough West has said. When the Swadron report comes down, it must be available for debate in this House. There must be a commitment from the government to consult with the islanders, the city, Metro and other interested parties. There must be a commitment to have a resolution that will ensure the long-term survival of the island community and to have that resolution in place before we go into a provincial election campaign.

If we do not have it, we will know this bill was just another in a series of sham actions by this government and was not really dedicated to protecting the island community. It will be an election issue. I pray to God the government will accept that it should not be an election issue and that the islanders’ future should be sorted out and guaranteed before the election campaign comes.

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, just to conclude this debate quickly, there is no sham intended, nor can that charge be made against this piece of legislation. I outlined exactly why it is being introduced.

Mr. Cassidy: Nor against the minister; I quite acknowledge that.

Hon. Mr. Wells: All right. The Swadron report will be brought in and discussed. We will have to decide how it will be discussed when we have the report. It is not normal for this House to debate reports made by royal commissions except when, on various occasions, we put it on the Order Paper and call it for discussion. I think we should wait and see the report before deciding if that is the vehicle we want to take. If it is necessary, it can be discussed, but I think we should wait and see the report. Of course, this House will have ample opportunity to discuss the report in the estimates of the Ministry of Intergovernmental Affairs as it always discusses many things.

The kinds of remarks that were attributed to the three options I put forward a few weeks ago, remarks that these were strictly a political smokescreen et cetera, I feel were completely unfounded. All the options have within them a degree of achievability and they cannot be ruled out of hand immediately. The suggestion that they were strictly a political smokescreen should not have been put forward. It is not a viable thing.

Bill 5 is still a piece of legislation that is supported by a number of people.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: The islanders don’t support it.

Hon. Mr. Wells: The New Democratic Party and the Liberal Party do not support it. Some of the islanders do not support it; some do. As I recall, the Toronto Star suggests that it is the solution to the island situation. That is one group of people -- I will still use the term “group” -- who feel that is an option. What I recall saying then was that if the House wished to pass that bill it would be one way of stopping the writs from being served immediately.

It was also within the power of the chairman of Metropolitan Toronto to call Metro council together if he wished, or if a number of people on Metro council wished, and to ask that the writs not be served. It cannot be said that was a frivolous suggestion.

The third suggestion is the one we are acting upon today. We had three alternatives, all of which could have prevented the islanders from being evicted at this time. We have now opted for the third one, but I resent the fact that people said the others were some kind of shim-sham or political opportunism that really had no validity to them. I submit to you, Mr. Speaker, they all have validity to them, and it just happens the third one is now the practical one we can put into effect.

We can now pass this bill, I hope, since all parties in this House have indicated support. We can pass the bill and then await the Swadron commission report, and all of us can look at that. I hope from it will come the basis for a permanent solution.

Motion agreed to.

Third reading also agreed to on motion.

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, I am informed that His Honour is awaiting a call to come into the House.

12:50 p.m.

The Honourable the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario entered the chamber of the Legislative Assembly and took his seat upon the throne.

ROYAL ASSENT

Hon. Mr. Aird: Pray be seated.

The Deputy Speaker: May it please Your Honour, the Legislative Assembly of the province has, at its present sitting thereof, passed certain bills to which, in the name of and on behalf of the said Legislative Assembly, I respectfully request Your Honour’s assent.

First Clerk Assistant: The following are the titles of the bills to which Your Honour’s assent is prayed:

Bill 85, An Act to revise the Limited Partnerships Act.

Bill 136, An Act to amend the Land Titles Act.

Bill 137, An Act to amend the Registry Act

Bill 138, An Act to revise the Boundaries Act.

Bill Pr21, An Act respecting the City of London.

Bill Pr28, An Act respecting the City of Sault Ste. Marie.

Bill Pr30, An Act respecting the City of Hamilton.

Bill Pr32, An Act respecting the City of Mississauga.

Bill Pr33, An Act respecting the Estate of Mary Agnes Shuter.

Bill Pr34, An Act to revive Theatre Passe Muraille.

Bill Pr35, An Act to revive Gould’s Drug Store Limited.

Bill Pr37, An Act respecting the City of North York.

Bill Pr38, An Act respecting the Borough of Etobicoke.

Bill Pr39, An Act respecting the City of Ottawa.

Bill 59, An Act to amend the Game and Fish Act.

Bill 139, An Act to amend the Shoreline Property Assistance Act, 1973.

Bill 152, An Act to amend the Beef Cattle Marketing Act.

Bill 153, An Act to repeal the Warble Fly Control Act.

Bill 164, An Act to amend the Insurance Act.

Bill 165, An Act to amend the Motor Vehicle Accident Claims Act.

Bill 170, An Act to erect the Township of Gloucester into a City Municipality.

Bill 171, An Act to provide for the Validation of Certain Adoption Orders made under the Child Welfare Act, 1978.

Bill 175, An Act to provide for Municipal Hydro-Electric Service in the City of Sudbury.

Bill 181, An Act to stay the Execution of Certain Writs of Possession issued in respect of Certain Premises on Toronto Islands.

Clerk of the House: In Her Majesty’s name, the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor doth assent to these bills.

The Honourable the Lieutenant Governor was pleased to retire from the chamber.

The House adjourned at 12:53 p.m.