Legislative Assembly of Ontario

THRONE SPEECH DEBATE (CONTINUED)

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The House resumed at 8 p.m.

THRONE SPEECH DEBATE (CONTINUED)

Resuming the debate on the amendment to the amendment to the motion for an address in reply to the speech of the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor at the opening of the session.

Mr. Samis: Mr. Speaker, I would like to continue my speech from before the supper hour.

You may recall I left off talking about some of the things about contemporary politics in Ontario that I accept as part of the game. In this part of the speech I would like to talk about some of the things I definitely did not like about the recent campaign and that I personally take affront at and resent rather strongly.

First, I want to talk about what I consider to be the anti-French appeal used by the Conservative Party in this campaign. It was all focused on section 133. To me, it was a golden opportunity for the Premier (Mr. Davis) to back up his contention that he is a Canadian first and Ontarian second by proving that he would accept section 133 and its application to the people of this province. But what did he do? He refused the pleas of the Premier of New Brunswick, the leader of the Conservative Party in New Brunswick, the leader of the federal Conservative Party, the Leader of the Opposition in Quebec, the Prime Minister of Canada and the potential future leader of the federal Conservative Party and member for Rosedale.

Both opposition parties said they would agree to it, and yet the Premier refused to accept it. We both appealed to his sense of patriotism, national unity and brotherhood and said no one would make any issue out of it in this Legislature if he applied it to Ontario. One has to ask oneself why would he not do so. He had the appeal here in the Legislature. He had broad appeal across the country. It would be seen as a statesmanlike gesture, the extending of hands of brotherhood to Quebec and the rest of the country, but he refused.

I don't always like the use of the word, but I think Allan Fotheringham summed it up rather well on February 16 when he described the campaign orchestrated and conducted by the leader of the Conservative Party as sleazy in this matter. I would like to quote rather extensively from the article because I think it was awfully apropos.

"Expediency is the grease of all politics. Politicians love to call it practical or pragmatic or durable -- the current buzzword -- but what they mean is acting in a way that would get them votes, no matter how lofty the principle they invoke. Expediency is one thing. Sleaziness, that unseemly word, is another. But that seems the only charitable definition of the decision by Premier Bill Davis of Ontario to call an election during the coldest winter of this century.

"Is there a burning issue? Is there a governmental crisis? Yes, one could say. The burning issue is that the minority Conservative government has been told by its pollsters it can snatch a majority on the winds of racism, on the anti-frog vote. Bill Davis, that pink-cheeked, pipe-smoking exemplar of Brampton churchgoing, is the most expedient politician in Canada. Peter Lougheed is single-minded to the point of inflexibility. Pierre Trudeau is a prisoner of his own ego. René Lévesque is obsessed with giving his people equality with the lordly Anglos. But Bill Davis, smiling Bill Davis, is superior to all of them in his religiosity, his worshipping before the shrine of power -- and what he will do to retain it. What he will do is not pleasant."

"To keep these burghers happy", Fotheringham goes on to say later in the article, "Bill Davis ensures that sophisticated Toronto is the only city in major league baseball where you are not allowed to buy a cup of beer. To keep these burghers happy, Bill Davis allows his film censors to ban Gunther Grass's The Tin Drum, a film that has won the Cannes Film Festival and an Academy award. To keep these burghers happy, Bill Davis is playing on the anti-French vote so as to win a majority in the March 19 election which will be played out in the winter slush, snow and sleaziness.

"In his expediency blueprint, Bill Davis has made a sotto voce deal with his political opposite, Liberal Pierre Trudeau," and he goes on to describe the extent of that -- getting in bed with Pierre Trudeau.

"Even better, Bill Davis supports Trudeau on the constitution. In return, Ottawa's Liberal-controlled constitutional committee last week approved a resolution allowing Ontario to wiggle out of section 133 guarantees. So Pierre Trudeau, who fought valiantly against René Lévesque's Bill 101, insisting that Quebec's anglophone minority retain their rights, refuses to insist that Bill Davis extend the same rights to his francophone minority. It is wheel and deal with principles. It is political Wintario. Bill Davis knows he has the last remnants of the Orange bigots. Ontario is one of the last places where they still have King Billy parades. It is all demeaning. It is -- I don't like to use the word -- sleazy."

I could not agree more heartily with what Fotheringham said. What I really resent about the campaign was that it was based on a calculated effort to appeal to the dark side of Ontario politics.

Mr. Rotenberg: Why does the member not say it himself. He is hiding behind Fotheringham.

Mr. Samis: I agree with everything Fotheringham said if that sets the record straight for the honourable member across.

The Premier got up and raised the spectre of institutionalized bilingualism. What a phoney gesture that was. All 133 meant was putting in the constitution what he has already done in terms of the courts, in terms of language services and in terms of a variety of other things. It does not bring anything really new to the equation; it just puts it in the constitution as a fundamental guarantee. Why does he not have the guts to preach what he practises? When he goes and faces those Tory audiences why does he not have the guts to say, "This is what we have done in the last four years in terms of minority rights in Ontario?" No, sir. He gets up and raises the spectre of institutionalized bilingualism. What a fraud; what hypocrisy.

I want to quote from a journalist who attended the same college I did in Montreal, a journalist whom I respect, Ian MacDonald. He wrote two articles on the topic at the time of the controversy. One is called, "History Will Judge Davis's Stubbornness On Language." The other is entitled, "History Is Likely To Find Ontario's Davis Is Wanting."

I just want to quote a few paragraphs from each column because I really think they are pertinent. He says: "The acceptance of section 133 by Ontario would not have infringed upon the rights of the province's English-speaking majority nor even inconvenienced them in any way. But Davis has made no attempt to explain this; no attempt to get in front of the issue; no attempt to provide moral leadership -- no, sir. He was going to see that Ontarians didn't have French shoved down their throats. Give the man a box of unilingual corn flakes."

He goes on to say in the article: "Davis is prepared to accept minority language educational guarantees in the new constitution. In fact, he was in the forefront of those urging entrenchment. If he will buy that, why could he not accept the same guarantees for the courts and the Legislature when he was nearly up to full speed on the provision of services? The answer appears to be politics as usual. Better to provide services, he has argued, than to admit to a symbol, a symbol which would be a cause for rejoicing among both communities in Quebec, but cause for a backlash in the redneck communities of Ontario. The pity is the issue could have been won if it had been explained in terms which any thinking citizen could understand.

"David Crombie, the federal Conservative member from Toronto, who was an advocate of extending section 133, had a nice turn of phrase about Davis the other day, saying that the Ontario Premier wouldn't preach what he practised. In other words, Davis lacks the conviction of his courage, but he has won the day, and for that we are lesser people in a lesser land."

I also cite from MacDonald's second article. "You all remember Bill Davis. He came to Montreal during the referendum campaign and pranced around in the cloak of a statesman. On referendum night he was the first leader to make a televised statement minutes after the results had been indicated, expressing his willingness to go anywhere, anytime, with anyone to discuss constitutional reform. He did not even have the decency that night to wait for statements of the principals in the campaign."

As recently as last fall, a select committee of the Ontario Legislature came out in favour of section 133. Having been a member of that committee, I am rather proud of that recommendation and rather sorry of the performance of certain members opposite who refused to accept it.

The article goes on to say: "But the Ontario Premier worries about the backlash. For Davis it comes down to a simple question of moral leadership. His present posture may be advisable according to the polls, but intellectually it is fraudulent, morally untenable and potentially tragic, not just for the country but for Davis himself in the eyes of history.

"Of those who would be statesmen, statesmanship is required. Premier Davis can look up some examples of that if he cared to in the experience of the Baldwin-Lafontaine ministry."

8:10 p.m.

I could not agree more heartily with what my friend Ian MacDonald has said about the Premier of this province. Even Rene Brunelle has criticized the Premier for his linguistic policy. I can respect legitimate differences of opinion, especially on a strongly felt issue like this, but I would contend the Premier of this province deliberately abdicated the leadership mantle of the province, catered to the baser instincts of the people of Ontario and subtly and cleverly exploited this issue for the sake of partisan gain. As a politician, as a citizen, as a member of this Legislature and as a Canadian, I resent those practices in an election campaign.

I want to speak about a second issue that offends me as a resident, as a politician and as a Canadian. It is a very controversial issue, I know. It is the homosexual issue. Let me state I have intense personal ambivalence about the whole question. I realize it is a very difficult, sensitive question.

When I read in the papers -- I am not a Toronto member -- about those raids on the bath houses in Toronto, the first thing that hit my curiosity and bugged me as well was the timing of them. I said: "Is it really a coincidence those bath house raids all took place during an election campaign when in this Legislature we all knew that was one of the most crucial issues underneath the surface of Ontario politics? Was it a coincidence the raids took place in the city of Toronto where it is an extremely emotional issue?"

It really struck home when someone said that was the largest single roundup and series of arrests of Canadians since the War Measures Act in 1970. I really asked myself, "Was it all a coincidence it was done in the first or second week of this election campaign?" When I came back here after the election I talked to some of my Toronto colleagues about the campaign. We shared our experiences, and they started talking about some of the tactics that were used against them, especially in ridings like Riverdale, Beaches-Woodbine and some of the Scarborough ridings. Some of the tactics, in my book anyway, were nothing more than despicable, crude and deceitful in nature and content.

I emphasize it is a difficult, sensitive issue. I respect there are legitimate differences of opinion on it, probably legitimate fears on both sides of the issue. But I really feel, looking back on the campaign and having talked to some of my colleagues, that this government deliberately exploited the issue and catered to people's fears, rather than make any attempt whatsoever to deal with it sensitively or dispassionately.

A third aspect of the campaign that bothers me is what I thought was passé in Ontario, if not Canadian politics. I ascribed it to the dark, dirty days of the McCarthy era and to some remnants running around this province in certain selected ridings. But when I came back after the campaign and talked to a few of our people -- and I emphasize that -- and when in certain isolated ridings I heard that certain of our candidates had to put up with red scare McCarthy-type tactics, all I could think of was gutter politics, that any party in 1981 would have to resort to that kind of politicking. We are the most obvious candidates if they are going to do it, but even if they had done it to the Liberal Party or any independent candidate, I still think it is reprehensible, repugnant, repulsive, unacceptable politics in 1981.

Another aspect of the campaign that bothered me, not as badly as the others because it was more respectable, was that somehow they tried to convey --

Mr. Rotenberg: If I ever heard of McCarthyism, slamming everybody.

Mr. Samis: I will give my friend two ridings where it was used, Brantford and Algoma. Talk to our candidates and come back and tell me it was not used. I challenge the member to do that. He hasn't got the guts to do it.

Interjections.

The Deputy Speaker: Mr. Samis has the floor.

Mr. Samis: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Somehow the way the leader of the Conservative Party tries to identify --

Interjections.

The Deputy Speaker: Mr. Samis, we may have a point of privilege here. Would you be so kind as to listen to the point of privilege?

Mr. Gillies: I think there is a point of privilege, Mr. Speaker. I heard something said about my riding. I am afraid I didn't quite catch it, but I am sure that it was very unfortunate in tone and I would not mind hearing it repeated.

The Deputy Speaker: I don't find that that is a point of privilege.

Mr. Samis: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Let me just say for the benefit of the new member for Brantford that I in no way ascribe this to the candidates in the two ridings I mentioned. But I do tell him, having talked to the two members for those two ridings, that they were on the receiving end. Neither one of them has alleged it had anything to do with the candidates, but certain people in the opposition did resort to certain tactics of that nature against them.

Mr. Gillies: A point of privilege, Mr. Speaker. In that the honourable member is referring to my riding and that there is certainly some insinuation that I or my campaign had something to do with that, I would ask him to withdraw the remark.

The Deputy Speaker: Mr. Gillies, I don't find any reference to you personally in terms of your carrying on the campaign.

Mr. Samis: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If I can get back to the fourth point and continue, I resent the way the Premier of this province tries -- and he does it very cleverly, very subtly and, I have to confess, very effectively -- to identify the concept of monarchy, of deity, of country and of family as somehow being synonymous with a particular party in this province to the exclusion of the other parties.

It is nice to put on the drapes, the trappings or the robes of God or Queen or family or Canada or whatever one wants, but I just think somehow the way it is being used at election time is cheapening, brazen and shameless. I really think our political process would be better if all parties were to cease and desist from donning those mantles because I tend to think we are all good, decent Canadians, and none of us has to resort to that to try to emphasize our patriotism or our loyalty.

I emphasize that when I talk about those four issues. I don't say it as a case of sour grapes. I would emphasize that I have participated now as a candidate in four general elections since I entered political life. Based on that experience, plus one by-election, I have to look back at this campaign as the sleaziest of all four and say that I really resent some of that tactics that were used.

I accept the fact the government won its majority. I accept the fact the electorate decided 44 per cent that it wanted that particular party in power. But I just say that while the government did win, I don't think it won with any dignity or any class when it resorted to some of those tactics. The Parti Québecois won a majority in Québec, but I would point out it didn't have to resort to any of those tawdry tactics.

There are certain tactics, as I said before supper, that are acceptable and legitimate in the political process, but the four I referred to this evening I regard as repulsive. I sometimes wonder why people are cynical about politics, politicians and electoral processes, but after this campaign I think some of it is richly deserved.

Turning to the contents of the throne speech -- and I want to go through it fairly quickly -- I think the Board of Industrial Leadership and Development program within the substance of the throne speech was essentially just a rehash. To me, the BILD program was an election program rather than an economic program. I suspect it originated more in the minds and hearts of people like Eddie Goodman, Hugh Segal and American Research Company than in those of any civil servant, any economist or any group of consultants. I ask myself, "If this is the economic strategy for the 1980s, why was it revealed about 10 days prior to the election campaign?"

I notice even the Globe and Mail said, "It was a case of classical impudence, with a sad disregard for the intelligence of the voters." If one looks at the Hollywood-style setting, it seems as if the thing should have been done in Pasadena or some other place, the Royal Alex or the O'Keefe Centre, not here at Queen's Park. It is rather hard to take it seriously when one sees it announced in such circumstances in such a setting.

Essentially it is a grab bag. It offers some new hardware and some recycled promises from the past. When we hear talk of an auto parts centre being promised in either Niagara Falls or Chatham, or a microelectronics centre in either Cambridge or Ottawa, we have to ask ourselves what kind of economic planning is that to say either in X or Y, either in A or B, when we all know the real reason is that it depends on the election results. It is all cleverly designed to suit that.

8:20 p.m.

With regard to most of the promises, especially about the railways, the highways, the ferries, as an eastern Ontario member I noticed the vast bulk of the goodies went to the Toronto region. Eastern Ontario just got the crumbs from the table. We are already a slow growth region, but sometimes I wonder -- we are mainly Tory with some exceptions in eastern Ontario -- whether the government assumes because we are politically safe it does not have to give us anything. For example, I notice in my own riding the BILD program amounted to a promise for a $1-million amusement park. I heard the Minister of Correctional Services (Mr. Leluk) tell me today, "We cannot replace your outdated, overcrowded jail because we do not have the money." Yet six weeks ago they were saying in my riding, "Put us in and we will guarantee you an amusement park."

Then I have to confess my Liberal candidate said that the PC candidate in Leeds had been quoted in the Brockville paper as saying he was going to have an amusement park in his riding. Then the PC candidate in my riding backed off and said, "It is going to be somewhere between the Quebec border and Brockville. I cannot promise you where, just somewhere in between." That is what the BILD program meant in our riding.

One of the pertinent features in regard to the BILD program in the throne speech is what was not contained in it. If we look in the papers today or talk to people, one of the most pressing concerns and issues is the whole question of interest rates and mortgages. There is no real help in the BILD program for small business, which is suffering terribly from the high interest rates. There is no real help or initiatives for agriculture even though we have a 77 per cent increase in bankruptcies among our farmers in the first three months of 1981.

I look at what Quebec was doing prior to its election. I see they offered to sweeten the pot in terms of low-interest loans by offering substantial loans for new farmers and existing farmers. They have a $3-billion deficit and they can still do it. Here in Ontario we are supposed to be a wealthy province compared to Quebec but we cannot do it. Somehow we just do not seem to be interested enough to do it.

Then we look at the problem of the home buyers. Last year we came out with a program. My colleague the member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Laughren) outlined a reasonable, moderate economic plan to aid home buyers, especially for people with incomes under $25,000; yet we see no initiative on that side. The prime rate, I understand, is at 19 per cent in the USA today. Mortgage rates are now up to 17.5 per cent for five-year rates. Bank profits are up 60 per cent in the first quarter of this year. Trust company profits are up 90 per cent in the first quarter of this year. I notice in the Financial Post of last week talk about prime of upwards of 21 per cent in the USA.

I quote from Henry Kauffman, general partner of the US investment house of Salomon Brothers, who repeated his long-held solemn view that both the US prime and bond rates would be higher than last year. If he is correct, as he often is, the US prime will be above 21.5 per cent, while top quality corporations borrowing money through bonds will have to pay about 16 per cent for the privilege.

Albert Singlinger, economic consultant and publisher of the Pennsylvania-based Singlinger Letter, says, "We are on the way to new records because we are in an era of hyperinflation." Singlinger has described his track record as "almost so accurate it scares me." He says the US prime will rise to 21 to 22 per cent, stay flat for a month or so, then take a sharp increase to 28 to 30 per cent towards the end of this year. It is now, as I say, approaching 19 per cent.

How does that augur for the future of Ontario for home buyers, for small business, for people just trying to struggle with increased costs of living? Tight money means to the average man in the street simple things: bankruptcy, economic recession, layoffs and hardship, frequently for the people least able to endure these hardships. The province is not helpless. I will admit sometimes these are bromides and sometimes they are short term, but the Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. Henderson) could be doing something to help farmers if he wanted to. He could be doing what they do in Quebec, in Saskatchewan or in Alberta to help farmers caught in the squeeze between rising costs and the cost of money in our society, but he does not.

We could be doing something for small business. One of the arguments used against this is that there is no money available, that there is only so much money to go around. People in my riding look at it and ask: "No money? Where did the money come from for the Premier's $275 million in promises in the recent election campaign? Where did the $250 million come from in the fall mini-budget with all those goodies? Where did the $11 million come from for the Minaki lodge disaster project? Where did the $14 million come from for the 'preserve it, conserve it' Tory re-election campaign on TV? Where did the money come from for the $100 million giveaway to the pulp and paper companies?" It is nonsense. The money is there. It is a question of priorities. Who gets it? Who does the government want to help -- the big industries, the big corporations or the ordinary people of this province?

The throne speech and the Board of Industrial Leadership and Development program really did not specify where half of the $1.5 billion is really going to come from. Obviously, the province only puts up $750 million over five years. There is no guarantee at all that the feds, the private sector or the municipalities would put up the rest.

Take something like railways, for example. They talk about electrification and improving the track beds. Railways are essentially federal. When we talk about the Quebec to Windsor corridor, it is totally federal. It is nice for the government to have a back-bencher come out with a report advocating electrification. It is nice for the BILD program to advocate it. But the fact is it is a federal jurisdiction in the first place.

They talk about shipyards, allotting, I think, $50 million for the shipbuilding program in Ontario. How much does the government of Ontario pay? It pays $12.5 million. Where does the rest come from? It comes from the private sector and the feds. And so it goes. How much credibility can one attach to such a program? What consultation was there with the private sector or with the feds? Can one take a program like this seriously?

One of the key issues in my campaign in our riding was the whole question of the priorities of this government, especially as related to health services. In the throne speech there was virtually no mention of reversing the priorities about cutbacks. In our riding we have had 200 beds cut back, staff reduced and service reduced. Yet they keep telling us, "There is no money. We have to go ahead and do this."

The people in my riding want a stop put to that. They feel the cutbacks have gone too far. They feel people matter more. Health received a very low priority in the throne speech, and there is no indication of any change in those priorities. There are more giveaways to the corporate sector but more cutbacks and more squeezes for the ordinary people of this province.

BILD does not deal with the problem of foreign ownership. It does not deal with the structural problems of our economy. It does not deal with the question of import replacement. It perpetuates the idea of global product mandating so passionately embraced by the Minister of Industry and Tourism (Mr. Grossman). It does not come to terms with the scandalous problem of our shortage of skilled workers.

It continues corporate giveaways. It perpetuates the idea of centring development in the Golden Horseshoe. It displays no meaningful regional economic initiatives for eastern or northern Ontario. Essentially, it is a slick, brassy, flashy, brazen attempt to win votes and to give the appearance of a true economic program. I suspect it will be as quickly forgotten as the Brampton charter of the last election campaign with its plethora of half-fulfilled and forgotten promises.

In the meantime, the people of this province had better be prepared for the government's real policy which will be disclosed on May 19. Inevitably, for the average person in this province that will involve higher taxes, higher OHIP premiums and higher service charges because that is the real Tory policy and the real Tory program.

In conclusion, the BILD program was conceived more out of electoral expediency and slick merchandizing than sound, detailed economic planning. It is a program that does not merit public support. I look forward to seeing the government's real economic program on May 19. It is in the budget, not the throne speech or any election manifesto, where we will discover the government's real priorities and policies.

8:30 p.m.

Mr. Dean: Mr. Speaker, as one of the new members of this distinguished Legislature, and representing the riding of Wentworth, it is an honour and a privilege for me to address the assembly. May I join my colleagues in congratulating the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker on their appointments and in assuring them of my full co-operation in any measures they may take to improve the conduct and effectiveness of this House.

First of all, I would like to extend my greatest appreciation both to my constituents, who had confidence in my ability to represent them positively at Queen's Park, and to the people of Ontario as a whole for giving our party a clear mandate to lead this province to realizing its economic potential in the 1980s. The riding of Wentworth has been an NDP stronghold since 1967. No, let me rephrase that; that is too positive a description. My riding has suffered through NDP representation since 1967.

I am pleased now that the people of this great riding chose our Progressive Conservative Party and our proposals to lead them into the next decade. Having been involved in municipal politics in Stoney Creek for many years, I have been a strong advocate of responsible government, local autonomy for our communities and regional growth. These goals will continue to guide my performance at Queen's Park.

I am proud to be here today. I am proud to be part of this government and to support fully the proposals of the Board of Industrial Leadership and Development program as outlined by His Honour the Lieutenant Governor in the speech from the throne. I believe that Ontario has a great future. This government has a program of positive economic and social benefit for all the people of Ontario. We have a challenge to meet in the 1980s, a challenge to confront the problems of a modern industrialized society.

The BILD program is a sound economic package that is capable of addressing our economic needs and stimulating our economic growth rate. The BILD program reaffirms our commitment to the economic and social progress of all the people of Ontario. I am strongly confident that the BILD proposals will launch Ontario upon a massive industrial program that will create new jobs, reduce the effect of inflation, increase trade and improve productivity.

Business and industry are rapidly moving into a new technological era. Our government through BILD is providing the incentive for an aggressive research and development program so that Ontario can compete more effectively in an increasingly competitive environment. Similarly, the other sectors of the economy -- agriculture, tourism and transportation, to mention only a few -- will equally benefit from the BILD proposals.

BILD is a comprehensive and essential program because it encompasses all the vital sectors of the economy and allows all the areas of the province to reach their economic potential. I am convinced that my region, Hamilton-Wentworth, as well as the other regions of the province will benefit from the BILD program.

Mr. Riddell: The guy that is talking does not know whether he is a Liberal or a Tory. Back in 1967 he was a Liberal.

The Deputy Speaker: Mr. Riddell, Mr. Dean has the floor. I would remind you -- Mr. Nixon reminded us -- that you gave us your load last week. Mr. Dean, please continue with the debate.

Mr. Dean: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is true, as the self-appointed expediter in the front row over there says, that at one time I had some inclination towards being a Liberal, but I soon saw the light.

The Hamilton-Wentworth region is the single largest demographic and economic unit in southwestern Ontario with a population in the area of 500,000. Centrally located, the region is at the hub of the road, rail, air and water transportation network which serves North America's economic heartland. Is that news to some of the honourable members? I am not surprised if it is, for in the past our contingent of negative MPPs from the Hamilton-Wentworth area have rarely had anything positive to say about their own home region. They have only managed to create a negative morale for my people.

Mr. Wildman: The member is so graceful in victory.

Mr. Dean: The member should see me when I am not.

Our local economy is spearheaded by its manufacturing sector, followed closely by the service industries. Led by the two largest steel- making complexes in Canada, the manufacturing industries have shown sustained growth in employment, in technological upgrading and improvement of productivity. The steel industry in particular has shown an impressive record of success. It is even more evident when compared with the dismal record of the United States steel firms and when one considers the intense competition in international markets. It is a much-envied fact that Stelco is the most efficient steel producer in the world.

Although manufacturing is the largest employer in my area, employing 32 per cent of the total work force, the service industries, public administration, transportation and trade industries have grown rapidly, providing diversification. This diversified structure constitutes the base for future economic expansion in the Hamilton-Wentworth region.

Statistics indicate the economy of this region is going to do better than the Ontario economy on the average. For example, in 1979 manufacturing employment alone grew by 6.2 per cent, creating an addition of close to 4,500 jobs. This growth is largely attributed to the industrial base of the region, plus anticipated strengths in the retail and construction sectors, as well as growth in the output of the steel, metal-fabricating and machinery industries.

The city of Hamilton is by far the largest section of the region in terms of population and industrial concentration. Divided into two levels by the Niagara Escarpment, the lower level borders on Lake Ontario and Burlington Bay and contains much of the heavy industry, commerce, office and residential development. The upper portion, referred to as Hamilton Mountain, is mostly a residential area.

Both Hamilton's downtown and mountain have been undergoing a process of rapid transformation in recent years. The downtown core has seen the construction of the Lloyd D. Jackson Square, a modern shopping centre with adjacent office towers. Limeridge Mall, one of the largest shopping centres in Canada, totalling about one million square feet of retail space, is opening this year on Hamilton Mountain. It is in my riding of Wentworth. Estimated to cost $6 million, Limeridge Mall will have a significant impact on the retail industry of the region, creating 2,500 new jobs.

Located in the heart of the city is Hamilton Place, a world-renowned theatre auditorium attracting such stars as Liberace, Tom Jones, Harry Belafonte, our own Anne Murray and hundreds of others. The most recent additions to the city include the magnificently designed art gallery, central library and the new convention centre.

The five other municipalities in our region -- Ancaster, Dundas, Flamborough, Glanbrook and Stoney Creek -- add significantly to the diversity of the region. My own riding of Wentworth encompasses the mountain section of Hamilton and the municipalities of Stoney Creek and Glanbrook.

Having been born and raised in Stoney Creek, I am particularly proud of this beautiful lakeside community with its unusual melding of urban and rural atmospheres. Sliced into two vertical sections by the Niagara Escarpment, the town has concentrated virtually all of the industry and much of the housing on the lower plain, while agriculture still remains a significant activity above the escarpment. I especially remember the tranquillity and beauty of the area's fruit orchards and its beaches and the escarpment when I am fighting the traffic of Toronto.

Stoney Creek's historic past acts as a cohesive force within the community and is a source of pride to all our residents. Stoney Creek was a key battleground in the War of 1812 and a decisive turning point for the British forces. Had the outcome of the Battle of Stoney Creek been different, we might be delegates to Washington rather than Toronto but, on the other hand, we might not have had a third party.

8:40 p.m.

A towering stone monument commemorating this decisive battle sits atop a high elevation in Battlefield Park in Stoney Creek to honour those of both sides who died in the battle. This acknowledges the peace and goodwill that have existed between Canada and the United States of America for almost 170 years.

Stoney Creek as a modern community is the fastest growing district of Hamilton-Wentworth region with its unique blend of business, light industry, housing and shopping centres. Its attractiveness to industry is demonstrated by the presence of numerous manufacturing and allied industries, covering the spectrum from textiles to steel. The area can also accommodate new demands for industrial lands. For example, the 1,000-acre, fully-serviced corridor south of the Queen Elizabeth Way is zoned as an industrial park.

To provide housing accommodation for the present and future industrial potential of this area, the municipalities of my riding, Stoney Creek, Glanbrook and Hamilton, have taken advantage of public and private initiatives to encourage the development of prime residential areas. I am particularly pleased with the Heritage Green project of the Ontario Land Corporation. On April 14 the Ontario Land Corporation unveiled this exciting concept for developing its lands in the town of Stoney Creek. The proposal calls for the creation of a leisure-oriented community, to be called Heritage Green, which will integrate lower-density housing into an extensive open-space system.

The 1,600-acre site will provide land uses for employment opportunities as well as other uses and provide a focus for the community. The emphasis will be on creating a viable and diversified community, offering existing and new residents a wider range of urban facilities. One of these is a community commercial shopping area, another an 18-hole golf course as a complement to the major community recreational complex already proposed by the town of Stoney Creek and scheduled to be ready for use in 1982. Provision is also made in the development concept for business, office and industrial park development along the west and south sides of the new community in association with similar development in the city of Hamilton and the township of Glanbrook. I just state those things to demonstrate how co-operation between agencies of the provincial government and municipalities can produce beneficial results.

Glanbrook, the other section of the riding, is largely a rural district with many fine dairy and mixed farms. This community offers opportunities for housing and beginning industries, while safeguarding unspoiled conservation areas and some of Ontario's most productive farm land. The future of Glanbrook includes the proposed $100-million expansion of Hamilton Civic Airport. This expansion, to be staged over a number of years, will have a substantial impact on Glanbrook as businesses are generated by the presence of the new facilities.

The commitment of the federal government to expand this airport was announced July 31, 1980, finally, by the Honourable Jean-Luc Pepin. Major elements of the expansion program include a new 8,000 by 200-foot runway with taxiway and aprons, a new instrument landing system and associated runway approach lighting, an expanded air terminal building and associated facilities, a new airport electrical centre and a new traffic control tower.

The area is richly endowed in many ways, as I have pointed out. Economically the region can expect to experience steady growth and expansion. Culturally, the area has buried its lunchbucket image. Hamilton-Wentworth region will continue to grow and prosper and the BILD program will greatly enhance the economic growth of my riding and our region.

In the evening session of the Legislature on Thursday, April 30, my colleague the member for Hamilton Centre (Ms. Copps) argued that the BILD program offered only petty promises to the Hamilton-Wentworth region. If I may, I would like to show the real facts by briefly commenting on some of the advantages of the BILD proposals in stimulating the existing economic potential of this region.

The government plans to allocate $400 million for new initiatives in transportation. Part of this package includes support for the $90-million intermediate capacity transit system in Hamilton-Wentworth which will connect Hamilton's downtown area with the residential district of Hamilton Mountain. This more efficient and rapid urban commuter system will accommodate the expected increase in transit use as well as prompt less use of the private automobile, thereby saving much very precious fuel. Discussion is under way in the region regarding the impact of this system in the Hamilton area. Before any plans are launched, I intend to recommend that the government undertake a comprehensive study into the implications for the community to ensure minimum adverse impact on the residents.

The government's commitment in transportation does not end here. The people of Hamilton-Wentworth, as well as all Ontarians, will benefit from the financial incentives to encourage transition to new and more abundant motor fuels and long-term investment of radial road improvements on such highways as 403, 407 and 410. In my own riding the government has already initiated the twinning of the Burlington Bay Skyway bridge in order to eliminate the troublesome bottleneck on the Queen Elizabeth Way and improve freight and passenger travel.

I hardly need point out the long-term stimulus these projects will have on the construction industry and the affiliated supplier industries. The Urban Transportation Development Corporation's current project alone will generate 3,500 man-years of work in Ontario and 5,000 to 6,000 man-years of work in Canada. The proposed rail improvements will create jobs in construction, primary and fabricated metals, electrical machinery and concrete products.

In the resource sector the government's goal is to assure long-term supplies and thus maximize the economic benefit from its resource base. To this end, the province plans to invest in development projects totalling $400 million in the agriculture, forestry and mining sectors.

Ontario can strengthen its agricultural base through the BILD proposals. Over the past years Ontario fruit and vegetable farmers have had to face serious competition from imported produce. The BILD program will give our farmers a fighting chance to replace a significant portion of the more than $600 million of fruit and vegetables imported into the province annually.

This government is committed to three key initiatives in the agricultural sector: investments in food processing, expansion of storage facilities and the upgrading of farm land. Hamilton-Wentworth, among others, will greatly benefit from expanded food processing facilities. I strongly favour the government's proposal to co-invest in new enterprises to stimulate the necessary capital expansion in products such as canned fruit, tomato paste and specialty meat products.

One of my closest neighbours in the community where I live is E. D. Smith and Sons, an all-Canadian company with a solid record of 99 years in business in the Wentworth community. This firm has welcomed the proposals in the BILD program and has already made inquiries as to how it can co-operate with BILD. The company has annual sales of $60 million and employs 350 people, a figure which expands to almost double that number in the summer months.

This company is representative of the food processing industry in the Niagara fruit belt area. High inflationary rates, compounded with high interest rates, are creating economic strains on many of these companies. Government assistance through BILD is essential if this sector is to experience continued growth. I could say more about BILD and the fruit and vegetable industry, but my colleague the member for Lincoln (Mr. Andrewes) will be speaking in more detail about how this program will benefit the agricultural industry, especially in relation to fruit production. By extending the effective marketing period for Ontario produce and by expanding the storage facilities for perishable crops, a significant proportion of imported crops can be replaced by domestically grown produce.

During the recent election campaign many of us heard a great deal about the virtues of local cabbage versus imported cabbage. I wouldn't want in the slightest way to detract from the message that cabbage is very important, but the only thing that happens when cabbage spoils is one gets sauerkraut. While I love sauerkraut, I think I would prefer to save the grapes, the apples, the peaches, the pears and things like that which, if they are allowed to spoil in a certain way, produce much more beneficial results than sauerkraut. I believe these proposals would greatly enhance the government's goal of agricultural self-sufficiency.

8:50 p.m.

The Ontario government is also committed to expanding its investment in our greatest resource -- people. Ontario's industrial future depends on the proper management of our human resources. As we move through the 1980s, the nature of our work force will change. Statistical trends show the average age of workers will increase and women will take a more prominent position in our work force. These changes will be accompanied by fundamental economic shifts. As our economy adapts to higher prices, to the challenge of alternative energy sources, to competitive international markets and to revolutionary technological changes, our labour force must also adapt.

New occupational requirements and new skill opportunities are necessary if Ontario is to continue to grow. This government has pledged $200 million over the next five years for long-term manpower initiatives to enhance the skills of our people. These initiatives will be aimed at developing skills, retraining existing manpower to adapt to changing technology and establishing closer links between educational institutions and the work place.

There is no doubt an expanded skills training program is essential to enhance economic growth. Ontario is currently experiencing shortages in key skills such as machinists, tool and die makers, millwrights and machinery repair mechanics. These industrial skills must be learned on the job under apprenticeship to existing trained workers. Our government intends to meet on a one-to-one basis with the 50 largest employers, who do not currently train to self-sufficiency requirements, in order to establish industrial training programs.

If industry fails to undertake the necessary on-the-job training, this government will propose that the federal government make it mandatory for industry to invest in apprenticeship training. The annual budget of the existing training in business and industry program, TIBI for short, is expanded under the BILD program from $3.5 million to $8.5 million, a cost-sharing program developed over the past years as a co-operative, involving employers, employees and the province. TIBI is a highly successful program which enables firms to retrain employees where skills have been made redundant by changes in technology. I am proud that this government is prepared to take such initiatives in improving the contribution of our educational institutions in skills development and industrial research.

My own alma mater McMaster University has gained a reputation in nuclear research, engineering and health sciences and will consequently benefit from any proposals aimed at improving its research facilities. Similarly, apprenticeship programs at Mohawk College of Applied Arts and Technology will benefit equally. These manpower initiatives by this government will complement and improve the already established network of co-operation in the Hamilton-Wentworth area among local industry, labour, government and the academic institutions.

HITAC, which means Hamilton Industrial Training Advisory Committee -- it should really be called WHITAC because Wentworth should be in there too -- will play a vital role in encouraging and co-ordinating present and future industrial training programs and resources to benefit industry and labour in my riding and in the entire Hamilton-Wentworth area.

This initiative, originally from businessmen and educators in the Hamilton-Wentworth area, has been fully supported by our government, another example that we listen to what people are saying and respond positively.

Communities under the BILD program will further be assisted in their efforts to attract new economic development and to create new job opportunities by strengthening local development capacities and upgrading existing infrastructure. Altogether, the province proposes $200 million of community initiatives over the next five years.

To increase business-related tourism, the government is helping to finance convention centres in Toronto, Ottawa and Hamilton. The short-term economic benefits from construction of convention centres include not only direct construction jobs, but also spinoffs in hotel construction and commercial development. The long-term benefits include a strengthening of the hospitality industry in Ontario and a decrease in our tourism deficit. For example, the Hamilton Convention Centre will not only provide facilities for major conventions and expositions, but will generate employment opportunities and stimulate the tourism and hospitality industries in the region.

Before concluding my remarks on the proposals in the throne speech, I would like to address the issue of health care in Wentworth riding. In order to meet the demands of health care in this rapidly growing area, I have been working for many years with local community groups to secure the construction of adequate hospital facilities in Stoney Creek and east Hamilton. A hospital within the borders of the riding of Wentworth is needed to provide the necessary emergency care, acute care and convalescent care for our citizens.

I recognize and I applaud the government's commitment to providing strong support for health care. I also strongly believe that the Ontario health care system is second to none and I am committed to ensuring that its benefits are extended in full measure to the residents of the riding of Wentworth. In this same vein, the Ministry of Health is constantly improving efficiency in health facilities by increased local planning through district health councils.

The Hamilton-Wentworth District Health Council, for example, is an umbrella organization under which all the health care facilities of the region are sheltered. Its aims are to identify health needs, to correlate programs to fill those needs and to co-ordinate existing and future care programs to ensure effective, balanced and economical services. Provincial funding for health care facilities results from the recommendations of this district health council. It is one of my top priorities to ensure that its recommendations include not only the best health care facilities for Stoney Creek and east Hamilton, but also adequate land for future expansion of such facilities.

The township of Glanbrook is in a somewhat different position. The residents in this area have access now to excellent treatment, rehabilitation and convalescent facilities at Chedoke Hospital. Currently, the district health council is reviewing the redevelopment of this fine institution as part of the Chedoke-McMaster unit. In order that the residents of Glanbrook will keep their familiar and highly regarded active treatment centre at Chedoke, I intend to push for the retention of that facility.

In conclusion, I believe, as I said before, that Ontario has a great future. I believe that the life of each Ontarian can be positively enhanced and developed. Contrary to the allegations of some of the prophets of doom and gloom that we have a sluggish economy, we have a sound economic base in Ontario that we can further develop.

I must admit, however, that I have grown weary in the past days of debate as I have listened to honourable members of the opposition purveying their pious platitudes on what they perceive as their monopoly on human justice and social betterment. That holier-than-thou assumption that nobody other than themselves is sensitive to the needs and concerns of the people of Ontario is arrogance of the worst kind. By contrast, the government of this province, led by the Premier (Mr. Davis), is sensitive to the needs of its citizens and does provide effective social policies.

I would have thought that even the members of the opposition would have accepted the solid endorsement of this government's programs from the people of Ontario on March 19. Is it possible that many of those members are still dazed by their dismal showing and are only dimly aware of what is going on? In order to have these effective social programs, we need adequate funding, which requires balancing the economics of the province. I am convinced it is not this government, but the opposition that is insensitive to the complexities of raising funds so that we can make realities of good social programs.

A motion of no confidence is before the members of this assembly. I urge all the members to reject such an untimely motion and to accept the proposals of the throne speech and the BILD initiatives as a comprehensive and sound package in stimulating economic growth in all sectors of the economy in all the regions of Ontario.

9 p.m.

Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity of saying a few brief words in these circumstances, although I am a bit disappointed when I look at the back row of the Tory benches. The attendance was much better in the earlier days of this session and I am somewhat disappointed that the members have already found that the admonitions of the whip, who is now a minister, of course, have been dulled. I am somewhat disappointed that his effectiveness is weakening. He is going to have to get tougher with that crew.

I am glad the Minister of Industry and Tourism (Mr. Grossman) is here this evening, because obviously we are going to get a few words from him. How laughable to think he has leadership aspirations. There is hope for all of them in the back bench. Just look at the front row and look at the Minister of Industry and Tourism. They must think to themselves that there is hope for all of them. Larry, what does the survey say?

Interjections.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Cousens): Order, we are responding to the speech from the throne, Mr. Roy. Would you please continue your speech.

Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, my first words of gratitude, obviously, are to the people in my riding. You realize of course, Mr. Speaker, that when I stand here in the House I don't have to be ashamed, I don't have to be bashful, because 70 per cent of the people of Ottawa East have sent me back to this place. That is a mandate in the face of a sleazy campaign, as the member for Cornwall (Mr. Samis) called it, and the comment is not without some merit.

I intend to say a few brief words about Omer, our friend the opposition, the man the Conservatives bought for this last election, their candidate in Ottawa East. I want to express my gratitude to the voters of Ottawa East in the face of overwhelming advertising, money, a cynical campaign or, as my colleague said, a sleazy campaign, distorting the issues. The Conservatives tried to buy the election, Mr. Speaker -- and I don't want to offend you because you seem a pleasant enough individual. As I said on the night the campaign was over, I respect the voters; the Conservatives bought it fair and square.

In spite of this, the people of Ottawa East and the people who assisted me in this campaign were not taken in by the advertisement, the jingle, "Let's keep the promise." I must admit it was so effective that when I would get home, even my daughter was singing that thing, "Let's keep the promise."

The Tories sold the Premier (Mr. Davis) like ketchup. I want to say to the minister who thinks he has such potential, they sold Richard Nixon in the US. If one has sufficient money, one can sell anything.

Interjections.

Mr. Roy: I say to the Minister of Industry and Tourism, any time he wants to go for the leadership, if he will let me know I will be his first supporter. That is the best thing that could happen to those of us on this side, that he should run for the leadership.

Having thanked the voters of Ottawa East, I say to them they will continue to get the effective and aggressive representation that is needed in the face of this arrogant bunch across the way. They will get it. We won't back off. We will continue to fight and we won't apologize for anything. I can say to them that the representation will continue and I am extremely grateful for the opportunity.

Mr. Speaker, I should traditionally congratulate you on your election as Speaker of this House, but before I proceed I must say that I was disappointed by the Premier and the people on the other side that they did not see fit to keep the member for Lake Nipigon (Mr. Stokes) as Speaker. I have watched a number of Speakers, his predecessors; I have watched the office change and become more relevant, and the fact is the member for Lake Nipigon, and I do not want to spend too much time on this, saw to it that he gave the office a stature it had never before attained, at least during my period here.

I think it is important that this stature be maintained, and I think it would have been a gesture that would have given far more relevance to the process in this place had the Premier and the party on the other side seen fit to keep that Speaker. But the Premier having made this decision to ask you, Mr. Speaker, to accept this very difficult task, I must say to you it will not be easy. First of all you are facing a majority government, and you are facing a government that will at times, and we are seeing it now, attempt in some ways to intimidate you.

Mr. Speaker, effective Speakers, whether in the federal House or in other legislatures or in other assemblies, are by and large those who are not well liked by the government. That is a fact. One only has to look to the federal House to see, for instance, that Michener, who was a very good and effective Speaker, was not exactly in Diefenbaker's good books, and that Lamoureux, who was extremely effective as well, was not exactly in Pearson's and the Liberal administration's good books.

The fact is that if continuity is going to be given to this office, if the effectiveness and the respect the chair deserves are going to be continued in this place, you are going to have to understand that you must not be intimidated, that your independence is sacred, and that you must show fairness and objectivity towards all members in this House.

I quite appreciate that those of us on this side attempt by way of points of order, points of privilege and so on sometimes to abuse the rules of the House. But the fact is that I think we will be prepared to abide by your admonition if we see there is fairness in the process, that when ministers get up -- and the Minister of Industry and Tourism is probably the main offender; especially if he hears music in the background he can go on forever; he thinks he is still on radio and he goes on. Even the member for Ottawa South (Mr. Bennett) gets voluble when he is talking about government, and another one is the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr. Walker).

So, Mr. Speaker, you will see that in the federal House when the Prime Minister takes too much time on a question or responds to whatever interjections might take place he is cut off by the Speaker, and you are going to have to do the same thing in this place. You will earn not only the respect of the members on this side, but the respect of the members on the other side. I invite you to accept this responsibility, and if you take this attitude you will get the full support of the members on this side.

9:10 p.m.

I am sure, Mr. Speaker, you would not want me to spend an undue amount of time in a speech without saying a few words in French to the electorate and to the people of Ontario who have been so generous and to some of my colleagues across the way.

Je voudrais premièrement, Monsieur l'Orateur, remercier les électeurs du comté d'Ottawa Est. Encore une fois, j'ai reçu un mandat, Monsieur l'Orateur, qui me donne un enthousiasme fantastique et, avec ce genre d'appui-là, on revient ici à Queen's Park, même si à différentes reprises on n'est pas tellement heureux d'être du côté de l'opposition, mais tout de même c'est le mandat qu'on a reçu. Et avec le mandat que je reçois du comté d'Ottawa Est, je ne me gène pas de dire que je n'ai pas besoin de faire d'excuses à personne.

Les gens du comté qui m'ont donné ce genre de mandat peuvent être assurés encore une fois d'une représentation efficace et agressive souvent en face d'un gouvernement qui ne comprend pas ou ne veut pas comprendre les problèmes de notre communauté ou de la communauté franco-ontarienne.

Je dois vous dire, Monsieur l'Orateur, que je suis extrêmement heureux de voir an sein de notre caucus, le caucus libéral, un nouveau député qui représente, lui aussi, un autre comté qui est 75 pour cent francophone, mon collègue M. Boudria du comté de Prescott-Russell. Je pense que mes collègues ici sont d'accord que c'était une élection qui vaut la peine d'être soulignée. Et c'est un collègue qui va m'épauler tout au long de notre lutte ici et qui va lutter pour l'épanouissement de la communauté franco-ontarienne.

Mr. Speaker, after having thanked the voters of Ottawa East and congratulated you, I suppose I should congratulate all my colleagues who managed to be re-elected and my colleagues in the NDP caucus.

Some of the people here had said at different times that I was sometimes more aggressive towards my colleagues to the left. I do not know if it was because it was more fun or because it was the member for Ottawa Centre (Mr. Cassidy). Somehow he made it easy. In any event, I want to say to my colleagues in the NDP that somehow after this election I feel more affinity with them. I hope I will not reserve my best shots for my colleagues in the NDP. Do not think I am prepared to slip over to that side, God help me. I do not know if this affinity is in the face of defeat or in the face of the overwhelming odds on that side, but somehow there is more community of purpose after this election than there is at other times.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Are you wrapping up?

Mr. Roy: No, I am not wrapping up at all.

I say to the NDP -- and my colleague from Brant-Oxford-Norfolk (Mr. Nixon) will understand this -- we should have been discussing coalition at some time; maybe we should have. If we got sucked in on anything in this process, it was that those birds on that side on different occasions convinced us the best elbows were to our left and not across the way. There is a strange process here in Ontario. It is the fact that the people of Ontario, having seen minority government work so well, rewarded those birds on that side with majority government. Isn't that a ridiculous process?

For the next while, in any event, I do not seem to have the enthusiasm to attack my colleagues on the left as vigorously and as cynically as I did in the past. I am not saying it may not come, given the proper stimulation. But I hope that if one can be aggressive, one can be more aggressive to those across the way.

What an impressive sight that was, the first day, to walk in here and see all these new faces across the way. I congratulate all the new members. I see that some of them, as I mentioned earlier, are already getting tired of the process. They should not despair. I keep getting these comments from the Minister of Industry and Tourism and it is so interesting. The minister is another example of one who was up and then came down, so there is hope for all of them. They should not despair. They should keep up their attendance. Let them listen to the whip and things will improve.

If some of them think they have more talent than others, they should be patient. Some of them come from different areas where they have a better chance than others. Geography is an important criterion.

Mr. Bradley: You have to laugh at the Premier's jokes. The member for Brantford (Mr. Gillies) is good at that; he falls out of his chair when the Premier tells a joke.

Mr. Roy: That's right. When they get the signal from the opposition, they should all get up and applaud and not be seen to be too independent. They should be seen to be toeing the party line and, given all those circumstances, in a little while some of them will start coming down the row and become members of the glorious and industrious cabinet.

In my case, this was the fourth election. I have watched and seen the style change from one election to the next. I can recall the 1971 election. How many will remember that theme? That was a great selling job, there is just no doubt about that. People were saying the Premier had a tough time. The Premier had just won the leadership at that time. He was still wearing the flare pants, the baggy suits and the long hair. He had not yet started walking on the beach with the dog, and all that. They took him and they shaped him up. They shaped up the product and they sold him.

Actually, in some measure the 1971 selling job was a job that was sold with a certain amount of honour. There was, as my colleague from Cornwall has said, less cynicism. There were certain issues such as the Spadina Expressway and the separate school question.

Then there were the 1975 and 1977 elections which were the "bash Trudeau" episode. But this one was a masterful exercise in buying an election and using every means possible to win it. Once he has it won, he can sit there smugly and say to himself as he looks over the troops: "It was worth it all. I am the Premier. I have the majority. It was worth it all."

A lot of the things I am going to say have been said before and, in the scheme of things, a lot of it may well be irrelevant.

[Applause.]

Mr. Roy: They can applaud if they like. I do not kid myself about my role in life, or in history or whatever. I accept the decision of the electorate, but I do not have to stand here and applaud what those people pulled off on March 19. I do not have to do that. If nothing else, there will be this therapeutic exercise of saying, "These beggars have gone through this." I object to this type of approach.

I have here the article from our friend Fotheringham, who talked about King Billy and his Orangemen. It is the article he wrote just prior to or at the time of the election. If they think I am exaggerating, well, Fotheringham said it all when he talked about sleaziness.

The first thing I want to condemn is an approach taken by a government, a leader and a party in the most important province in this Confederation at a time when we are fighting for the very survival of the country. He has a pamphlet out called Building Canada. How cynical and how ironic that is. That pamphlet was used in the Carleton by-election and subsequently in a number of other ridings during the general election of March. It was used only in the English-speaking ridings though; it was not used where there were any francophones or other minorities.

The pamphlet talks about building Canada. There are pictures of the Premier here and there. The Ontario logo is all over it. It talks about some of the processes at the national level. It says: "Protecting the parents' right to decide: English-speaking Canadians moving to Quebec today do not have, as French-speaking Ontarians do, the right to send their children to schools in their own language for as long as they wish. That right, where numbers warrant, must be protected in the constitution."

9:20 p.m.

First of all, it is cynical and it is patently distorting the issue even to compare the protection the francophones get in the field of education with what the anglophones get in Quebec. I ask members over there, how many French-speaking universities are there in Ontario; how many French-speaking community colleges; how many separate schools; how many secondary schools? The numbers just do not compare.

The other cynical approach is avoiding another federal bilingual mistake. That is in the pamphlet called Building Canada. It says, "The Ontario Progressive Conservative government worked hard and negotiated hard to keep a revised section 133 that would make Ontario bilingual, what the federal and provincial Liberals and New Democrats want." That is an outright distortion. That was not our policy in the last election.

Then it goes on to say: "out of the new constitution, the success in so doing is due largely to the perseverance and hard work of the Ontario Premier." He makes it sound as though section 133 was the plague; "We kept those frogs out of here." It is going to be a plague on all of us if we should accept this. It is one thing in principle to say we are against it, but then to take it a step further and try to make political mileage out of it is something else.

Those of my colleagues who sat on the constitutional committee with me saw the process happening. All summer long we were in a constitutional committee trying to arrive at a consensus to make a contribution at the national level from Ontario. Then all at once in the fall we saw polarization. We saw the Conservative members on the committee trying to make an issue of section 133.

Mr. Sweeney: The last days.

Mr. Roy: The last days of the committee, as my colleague says. The whole process was frustrated, and the work of the committee that could have been positive, that could have been effective and that would have kept the commitment to Quebec we had made in May 1980, was frustrated. The majority in Quebec saw that even in this province we could not reach an agreement.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: The whip was cracked.

Mr. Roy: I hear the Minister of Industry and Tourism. He had the nerve to go around and tell the anglophones of this country or this province that the francophones have better treatment here than in Quebec. When he tries to tell us that, he has a nerve. He has the guts and the nerve to try to mislead even the francophones. He should know better than to try to take an approach like that.

This is going on in the English-speaking ridings. Meantime, in the French-speaking ridings --

Mr. Piché: Cochrane North.

Mr. Roy: Yes, my colleague from Cochrane North is right. They spent a quarter of a million dollars trying to tell the francophones how easy it is to get French-speaking services. This was government-paid advertising going on during the election campaign. They were telling the people, "C'est facile" -- it is easy. In other words, one pamphlet for the anglophones is telling them, "We are keeping this stuff out of Ontario," and for the francophones they were spending another quarter of a million dollars telling them how easy it is to get the services. I ask you, Mr. Speaker, is that sleaziness or is that not sleaziness? Is that distortion or is that cynicism?

I suppose each and every member here can talk about his own personal campaign and some of the things that were done in his riding as to what was happening, the types of distortions of issues, the type of campaign that was conducted. Even at the level of Ottawa East I can imagine, in a riding like mine where the chances of success are somewhat limited, the type of campaign they conducted.

First of all they get a candidate who had some credibility in a Franco-Ontarian community, Omer. There is the new boss right there. Even in my own riding they came along with Omer and everybody was wondering, "What is Omer doing here? What is he doing running in Ottawa East? If he really wants to do something for the Franco-Ontarians, there are other ridings." For instance, the member for Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry (Mr. Villeneuve) has wanted to retire for some time. I don't blame him. He has said so in the last two or three campaigns. Omer could have run there. In Cochrane North, the new member could have stayed up there. What was he before, mayor? Was Mr. Piché mayor before? We could have sent Omer up there, he could have gone up there; but no.

So everybody is wondering, "What is Omer coming to do in the riding?" He tried to conduct this type of distortion as well. One of his better ads I thought was this one. It is in red -- there is no blue on this and there is no "PC" at all on this. Somebody mentioned "the Davis candidate." In Ottawa East you don't mention a Davis candidate. You don't do that at all, and you don't mention "PC".

So you have an ad that is black and red. Can the members imagine that? That is the ad in red. It states here: "A minister in Queen's Park. Why not?" The people in the back rows over there have a lot of ambition but they don't match Omer; he was a minister even before the election. They just don't touch him. "A minister in Queen's Park," all in red. Nothing about "PC" here, nothing about "the Davis candidate" or anything of that nature.

Omer promises all sorts of things -- a Franco-Ontarian village promised in my riding.

Mr. Boudria: And in mine.

Mr. Roy: It was promised in Prescott-Russell too. When we mentioned that to Omer, "Omer, why would you promise it in two places?" he said, "We are promising an urban and a rural village -- Prescott-Russell the rural village and Ottawa East the urban village." And it goes on.

Omer had another letter to all the important people in the riding in Vanier saying, "If you vote for me, I'm going to get some money." He said, "Une important subventionne." That is an important grant. Une important subventionne, Omer said, to study Vanier. You see, Vanier is going to study what its destiny is, its future and whatever. Omer comes to the rescue. "If you vote for me there will be an important grant," and he sends personal letters to everybody. I could go on.

One of the funniest things in Omer's literature -- and maybe I can find it here; yes, Omer had a pamphlet. He had lots of pamphlets. Even in an impossible riding such as Ottawa East, money is no problem. It would be very good for the local economy, trying to hire my workers at $5 an hour; good for the local economy.

9:30 p.m.

Part of the pamphlet has editorial on it, which is always important; it impresses people. It says, "Il nous faut Deslauriers; in other words, "We need Deslauriers." That's the editorial. Unfortunately, the editorial that he is talking about was an editorial in the riding of Prescott-Russell The people wanted him in Prescott-Russell, not in Ottawa East. What can one expect when his chief organizer was Fernand Grenier, a well-known Union Nationale organizer, member and so on?

Those are some of the things that were going on in the riding and yet people were asking, "Has Omer knocked on doors?" As I pointed out today, he diverged somewhat from the Premier's view towards Franco-Ontarians. One of the views was when he said to Hugh Winsor of the Globe and Mail: "The Indians have their rights. I don't see why Franco-Ontarians shouldn't have some too. After all, we have been here 200 years." That was pretty strong stuff. For a fellow who was going to be a cabinet minister going to Queen's Park, his views were somewhat divergent.

They were asking, "What is Omer going to get for this?" We are starting to see it now. He has got himself a job. He has got himself a job with the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs (Mr. Wells).

Mr. Ruston: He is going to Paris.

Mr. Roy: Yes, he is going to Paris later on. But for the time being it is a three-month or four- month contract, just to carry him over until Brussels and Paris shape up.

When he was interviewed by Le Devoir, they asked him, "Omer, don't you feel somewhat guilty about the job?" Omer said, "No, I don't. Roch LaSalle, the leader of the Union Nationale," who is a good friend of Omer's, "has got himself a job after the Quebec election." But Roch LaSalle's job is with private enterprise. It is much different. It is with Roderique Pageot. He is head of a PR firm and he gave Roch a job. Omer compares his situation.

He said to Le Devoir, "I have only got a contract for three or four months." The rumours that were flying around about his going to Brussels or Paris are still on. I am sure Omer is off to greater and better things. Part of the package was that Omer's wife has got a good job too with the government. It is called nepotism or the family compact.

When the Premier was telling Omer to run in Ottawa East, one could see the process. Omer is in his office and doesn't look forward to that process very much. He says, "Roy has a majority of 10,000 to 12,000, Mr. Premier, and they like him down there. Things do not look good for me. I have got a good job here."

The Premier says, "Omer, do you want a better job?" He says, "Omer, your wife Nora has got a job too in the government." So one could see part of the package. Those of us who were feeling sorry for Omer in the last 44 days realize that he could take this abuse for a period of time because Omer has got a good job and the potential for something much better, his wife has still got her job and the former secretary is in the ministry too. What the Conservatives are trying to do is make sure nobody is missed in the process and everybody has a job. It is like that game where nobody loses.

The part that is unfortunate about this is that their qualifications for the job are questionable. They are working in the French translation service, and it is important when you are translating laws, statutes and so on that you have competent people. I am suggesting that the former secretary who is running the office does not have the competency for that. I am saying that the wife who is revising translation and texts does not have the competency for that.

Translating our statutes is an important function that people have to perform; it is a challenge, and we should have competent people to do that. I am saying that unfortunately the appointments will undermine the effectiveness, the efficiency and the overall survival of that translation service.

I want to say in closing about this particular episode that when the Premier talks about keeping the promise, he certainly kept it with Omer. There is no doubt about that. Omer will have no trouble whistling that tune for the next while.

There are a number of other things, and I am afraid that I am running out of voice.

Hon. Mr. Wells: Good. You haven't said anything significant yet.

Mr. Roy: Oh, no? The minister does not consider that significant? He does not consider it significant, I suppose, to get an individual to swallow his principles.

Hon. Mr. Wells: It's a sore loser's speech, that's what it is.

Mr. Roy: A sore loser's speech? Well, I will tell the minister what the Tories found out. They may have been able to buy Omer, but they cannot buy the riding of Ottawa East. Just because the Tories say the feds do it. Let the Tories keep their promise to their candidates, and we will keep our promise to our electorate.

Hon. Mr. Wells: I didn't say that.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: You said that. We didn't say that.

Mr. Roy: I woke him up.

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: Can I ask my friend a question? Did the candidate who ran against him work for the provincial government before?

Mr. Wildman: This isn't question period.

Hon. Mr. Wells: It is perfectly in order to ask a question if the member will receive a question. I asked him if the candidate who ran against him worked for the provincial government before he ran as a candidate.

Mr. Roy: He was working for the Council for Franco-Ontarian Affairs. He was the president of le Conseil des affaires franco-ontariennes.

Hon. Mr. Wells: He was paid by the provincial government.

Mr. Roy: Well, yes. How does that absolve the Tories?

Hon. Mr. Wells: He has his job back.

Mr. Roy: The minister has made my point.

Hon. Mr. Wells: He has his job back just like everybody else. David Warner has his job back; he has gone back to teaching.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Mr. Roy, will you continue with your speech, please? Just ignore the interjections, please.

Hon. Mr. Wells: The member would do well to learn a little about principles and loyalty.

Mr. Roy: The minister can go on dispensing his patronage but he is not going to get away with it.

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Roy, will you please return to your speech?

Hon. Mr. Wells: You should learn a little about loyalty over there. You haven't got any.

Mr. Roy: Loyalty?

Mr. Riddell: But we have some principles, some honesty, some integrity. We have all kinds of stuff that you people don't have.

9:40 p.m.

Mr. Roy: I know we have hit a raw nerve when we wake up the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs. I just want to tell him that when he goes around the province as he did again last week and tries to tell the people the Franco-Ontarians are better treated by his government than the anglophones in Quebec by that government, that does not square with Omer. That does not square with his adviser.

Hon. Mr. Wells: It squares with me because it is true.

Mr. Roy: I challenge the minister. How many French-speaking universities are there in Ontario? How many community colleges?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: You outspeech your own caucus.

Mr. Roy: Keep looking over your shoulder. You have got a potential leadership candidate -- that small fellow right there.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: There are none over there, Albert.

Mr. Roy: No. We don't have to worry about you.

Mr. Speaker: Never mind the interjections. Just address your remarks to the chair.

Mr. Roy: I could talk about the sleaziness of the government's advertising campaign, the $4.7 billion they spent on that energy ad, "Preserve it, conserve it." That is an abuse of the process. In fact, they carried on the ad right through the election campaign. They did not even respect the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission rules.

There is the question of buying the electorate with promises, there is the question of their ads, and I want to talk about something that my colleague from Cornwall mentioned. I consider the government's gay-bashing experience, the raid in Toronto, part of that cynical process as well. I don't think they should be very proud of that experience at all. I hope the timing had nothing to do with the election, but after 10 years of watching those people I suspect that somehow it had a lot to do with the election, that it was part of a process of catering to the right wing. They bash the gays, they give more money to the police, they promise bulletproof vests to the police. It is all part of that process.

The government has managed to get its majority now, and it would appear that given this majority it is going to embark on another arrogant four years. Instead of using the majority -- and I say this to the Premier -- instead of using his majority to show some form of greatness --

Hon. Mr. Wells: You are the guys Ken Campbell supported, not us.

Mr. Roy: What is the minister talking about now?

I think this leader and this government would have an opportunity at this time with their majority to live up to their pamphlet which they call Building Canada. I think this would be an opportunity to try to give leadership in the field of energy to the other provinces. I have not heard a word. It would be an opportunity for them to show some measure of largess towards their minority, at least to have some credibility with the majority in the province of Quebec, to fulfil the commitment of May last year. But it is not forthcoming.

My friend from Renfrew North and I were talking the other day -- was it Lloyd George who said this? -- we do not see on the other side what is called the generosity of greatness. Their success at this time may be very flattering. They can look across the way and say, "We are over here, and you are over there, and we are calling the shots."

I think they are given an opportunity to do more than that at this difficult time in our history, but unfortunately they are not doing it. I say to the Premier, I think history will be harsh, and unless we see in the next four years a change from what we have seen in the past and during this election, those who now make up the government will be judged as a party and will be judged to have a leader who is narrow, who is parochial, instead of showing greatness at a time of need.

Interjections.

Mr. Roy: Smug, yes. I just listened to the new member for Brantford, and I listened to the new member for High Park-Swansea (Mr. Shymko), another one who has been chasing every Conservative vehicle at every level, whether it is provincial or federal. They can be smug and sit back there, but their greatness or the leadership they could have given is going to be wasted, because we see no evidence they are going to change.

Obviously those of us who are considered to by crying in the wind, or blowing in the wind, at least will have our chance to say what we think we don't have to accept, which is the type of campaign we saw on the last occasion. I can't go into detail but the fact remains that we do not have to accept it, and I think history will show that at a time of need, a time of leadership, it was not forthcoming from that leader and that party.

Mr. Laughren: I don't want any heckling tonight. For all members know, I might be a block parent, so let them leave me alone.

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to congratulate you on the elevation to your present position. I can only say that as long as you fill the role as well as your predecessor, there will be no complaints from either side of this Legislature. I have seldom seen someone who could call people to order so toughly and so persistently and maintain the respect of the very people he was calling to order as could our colleague the member for Lake Nipigon (Mr. Stokes). I hope that four or five years from now, when one of our members is in that chair with a majority government, we will be saying the same thing about you, Mr. Speaker. Time will tell.

During this throne speech debate, I have noticed there is a very good turnout of the back-bench Conservatives -- the back row in particular, all those new members. It was drawn to my attention that we should not be so impressed with that back row, that the government has only one more member on that back row than we have on our caucus. That is not such an impressive array.

I would say there are some ambitious people in that back row, and those of us in northern Ontario are doing a lot of speculating. A lot of the voters in northern Ontario are saying, "What is going to happen? Here we have in the cabinet, from northeastern Ontario alone, Mr. Ramsay from Sault Ste. Marie and Mr. Pope from Sault Ste. Marie" --

Interjections.

Mr. Laughren: I'm sorry, from Timmins; the minister without a food terminal.

They have elected this time some very ambitious new members: the member for Sudbury (Mr. Gordon), the member for Nipissing (Mr. Harris), the member for Cochrane North (Mr. Piché) -- all very ambitious young men. I am wondering what is going to happen to their ambitions over that four years. I suspect there is going to be some bitterness in the back rows of that Tory caucus before we head to the next election. It is going to be very interesting to see.

When the Tory members up north were running for election -- I don't want to rehash the election, I don't intend to -- the theme that was used by all the Conservative members, because the polls were obviously in their favour, was that you must elect a government member in order to get adequate service for your riding. That was the theme that ran throughout all of northern Ontario and I suspect other parts of Ontario as well. On top of that was the possibility that not only might you have a government member, you might have a cabinet minister.

9:50 p.m.

In the Sudbury basin people virtually drooled at the thought of having a federal cabinet minister -- the mineless minister, as we call her, Judy Erola -- and that they might have a cabinet minister from the Sudbury basin provincially too. It didn't matter, did it, that he was a Johnny-come-lately to the Conservative ranks. As a matter of fact he was a very recent -- I should not say "reject" because I think he rejected the other opposition party and not it him; nevertheless he won the Conservative nomination in Sudbury, under a very low-lying cloud, I might add, according to the rules of that organization.

So there is going to be a lot of biting and scratching and agonizing in the back rows over there, but we will see what happens in the next four years.

I must say that part of my remarks tonight will deal with the policy in which the new member for Sudbury believes: namely what should we do with our resources and what should we do about our mining-machinery complex in the Sudbury basin? The minister shouldn't clap his hands; we are not talking about an advisory board, we are talking about a mining-machinery complex. A mining machinery advisory board is about as close to an industry that creates jobs as a menu is to a meal. That is about where the relationship ends. We will see, my friend.

Mr. Martel: Wait until you hear about Jim Gordon. He is the guy who would not run with a Tory logo.

Mr. Laughren: The people in Sudbury knew what Bud Germa stood for. They sure don't know what Jim Gordon stands for. They never have and they never will.

Interjections.

Mr. Laughren: I thought the speech by my colleague the member for Cornwall (Mr. Samis) said virtually everything I would like to have said about the election campaign we have just been through, and I am not going to repeat any of it. I thought it was one of the best throne speech debate speeches I have heard in this chamber, and I commend him for that.

Let us not kid ourselves in this chamber. Maybe the jingles and so forth can kid people, but let us not kid ourselves as to what the real issues in Ontario are. The real issues in Ontario are much bigger than where an industrial waste-disposal unit goes -- the Cayuga site -- much greater even than insecticide spraying or greater than the cost of housing in Ontario. The issues in Ontario are not unlike the issues south of the border and elsewhere in this country: the extent to which we are going to have public poverty in this province at the expense of private prosperity. That is really what it is coming down to.

We see it very clearly in the United States, and we are going to see it now, because, let's face it, it is not possible to maintain the status quo in a shrinking economy. We all accept that, I believe. The only thing is that the government disguises that message much more subtly than it does in the United States. In Ontario they give the impression we are not going to do anything, we are not going to cut back services, there is not going to be any reduction in any kind of services; instead we are going to give more to the private sector, we are going to raise Ontario health insurance plan premiums, we are going to do all these kinds of things that cost people more.

I can hardly wait for the budget on May 19. I know what is going to be in it. I can see the user fees building up now. Whether it is a deterrent for medical care, whether it is a deductible for medical care or whether it is provincial park fees -- you name it, it is going to be there, and it will all be disguised as being necessary for fiscal responsibility in Ontario. But we understand very clearly that when it comes to making those choices, this government is clearly on the side of cutting back those social services.

I know the rationale. The rationale, presumably, as it is in the United States, is that if only we could unfetter the private sector they would be more competitive, they would create more jobs; profits would be higher, yes, but those profits would be channelled into investments which would create new jobs, and everyone would be better off. If only we could free up the private sector -- "free enterprise," as they say. That is the theory behind it. But the trouble is that in order to get there, there is a great deal of agony and a great deal of pain. I think the Conservatives on the other side have heard the expression about short-term pain for long-term gain, but that really is the theory behind it.

It is very strange that the radical party in Ontario now is the Conservatives. It is not the New Democrats. The New Democrats have said: "No, we are not going to buy that kind of radical approach to restructuring the economy. We refuse to do that. We refuse to tolerate the layoffs and the cutbacks in social, health and educational services." We say there is a more humane way, a more rational way. We start, surely, with a better economic structuring of Ontario. We have laid out our plans before the government. I am not going to repeat them here tonight, but certainly they involve the replacing of imports and less domination of the economy by outsiders. Only then are we going to be able to have any kind of control.

I have to laugh at all the thunder by the Ontario Liberals about interest rates and inflation. My goodness, it is the federal Liberals who have allowed our economy to get into the shape it is in. I am not so innocent that I think we live in isolation from other countries and that we can build up walls around our borders, but I would feel a lot better if we were trying to do something about inflation. I see us doing absolutely nothing about it.

We are going to be fighting very hard in this chamber over the next four years to make sure it is not the underprivileged who pay any more than they are paying now. It is time the "uptrodden" in this society paid their fair share. As well, it is time we shifted the balance of power to Canadian firms, to Canadian people, the people who make decisions that affect the rest of us in the province, and that is not what is happening now.

The New Democrats will still end up with a mixed economy, just as the government is going to end up with a mixed economy. It is talking increasingly about a different kind of mix out there in the economy. I happen to believe we would have a better mix, we would have a fairer mix. We would have more of our resources processed here, we would have fair taxation and we would make Ontario a more exciting and a better place to live for everyone.

The government's throne speech makes a mockery of planning in order to rebuild the economy. It is not a document of hope and it is not a document of action. It is a document that threatens to maintain the status quo or even worse. What nonsense in Ontario, with almost 300,000 people unemployed, to have the kind of imports we have, imports of goods that we could be producing here. How outrageous that we continue to export our resources elsewhere for refining.

We have the worst economic discrimination record against women in the western world. We have an incredible hotchpotch of income security and pension schemes that allows people to be degraded because they have no income protection or pensions except welfare to fall back on. We have a medicare scheme that is under siege by doctors opting out and by regressive premiums. We have, to this day, one-industry towns scattered all over northern Ontario and no government policy whatsoever to deal with those one-industry communities. There is not one single government policy that deals with one-industry communities all across northern Ontario. They have simply been abandoned to sink or swim.

This is not the kind of government that deserves the kind of support it got; nevertheless, it got it. We are going to use the next four years to be very constructive and lay out before the people of Ontario and members of the chamber what we think is a constructive course of action. That is our job. I believe that we have in our caucus 21 experienced members; no rookies at all. It is reminiscent of 1971-75. We had 21 members then too. Is there any doubt as to who was the unofficial opposition between 1971 and 1975? No doubt whatsoever it was the New Democrats and we will emerge in that role again in the next few years.

We have an advantage over our opponents because we are not afraid of very fundamental structural changes in the Ontario economy. Our opponents do not have that advantage. Our opponents cannot call for the resources of this province to be brought into the public sector for further processing and to create new wealth. They cannot do that; their friends would not allow them to do it. Our opponents cannot advocate a decent public pension scheme in Ontario; their friends would not allow them to do that either. Our opponents cannot advocate a decent minimum wage for people in the province; their friends would not allow them to do it.

They can promise to create mining machinery, but they are not doing it. They are fudging it all. They are promising an advisory board and they will not do it. They cannot even advocate a fair taxation system in the province because their friends will not allow them to do that either.

10 p.m.

When I say New Democrats have an advantage in this chamber, I mean it very seriously. We are the party that can advocate fundamental and structural changes to the economy, social and economic changes in Ontario, and that is what we will be doing. They cannot do that. They can only tamper with the system. I consider that to be not a disadvantage, not a liability, but an opportunity.

Only New Democrats can lead the battle for a different kind of economy, one that is owned and operated by Canadians, one in which the surplus generated by people in the economy is used to provide the kind of social, health and educational services to which we think people have a right. We do not think that is a privilege.

One of the ways in which we would do it is on the whole question of resources. As New Democrats, we know we cannot provide a lot of the services we promise without the money to do so. We know that. In years gone by we have tended to concentrate a lot on the provision of services rather than on the creation of wealth and on how we would create the money to provide those services. There is an awareness among New Democrats that we have to broaden that debate. One way of doing that is to take a look at a part of the economy where we are not realizing our potential. There are several, but probably the number one area is the whole resources question.

I have a passion for resources. It is partly because of the community in which I live, but it is also because of the economic facts of what is happening to our resources in this province. I am glad the Provincial Secretary for Resources Development (Mr. Ramsay) is here this evening. We think we can get our economy back on track again. When I look at our nonrenewable resources, I do not understand how the government can allow them to stay in the private sector.

There is a number of reasons why I say that. It is not a simple knee-jerk ideological response on my part. Mr. Speaker, think about it: They are nonrenewable; they will never be there again. Think of the linkages we could establish between the resources and further processing, the forward linkages and then the backward linkages of the machinery we would build to extract and exploit those resources.

Think of the rate of return Saskatchewan gets on its resources compared to what Ontario gets. It is something like six times the rate of return. I am talking about mineral reserves, not oil and gas. Think about the potential for regional development if we owned our resources and did something sensible with them. There is enormous potential for regional development. We are not doing it. We are not using our resources in the north to create a more diversified economy.

I think of the whole question of processing. In Sudbury there are two big mining companies, Inco and Falconbridge. Falconbridge has been there almost 50 years. To this day, every pound of ore that is taken out of the ground by Falconbridge is shipped to Norway for refining. Do the members really think that is right? For almost 50 years; that is simply outrageous. This is not a struggling young enterprise. It is part of the huge Superior Oil empire. It is a huge corporation. But the members should hear what the government says when it talks about Falconbridge: It really believes it cannot do it itself.

There is a section 113 of the Mining Act that says they must process here, but the government gives exemptions. There are 23 exemptions under the act now which allow these companies to ship ores out for refining. This is the reason for the exemption in Falconbridge: "The capacity of existing refining facilities in Canada is inadequate to refine the applicant's nickel copper mat and the construction of a new facility by the applicant is presently economically unfeasible." Amen.

That is the reason this government gives for Falconbridge being allowed to ship its nickel to Norway. For 50 years they have not been required to build a refinery. Can the government tell me how it justifies that? I would like to hear a Conservative member stand up and explain how he or she justifies shipping ore to Norway for refining.

It is because Falconbridge does not want build a refinery here. Is that not too bad? Those people get down on their knees and say, "Fine, we will do as you tell us." That is really where it begins and where it ends. Not only that, they can ship the ore to Norway and then -- this is the insult added to the injury -- they can write off their processing costs in Norway against their Ontario profits. How does the House like that? That is what is allowed in Ontario and they wonder why we say, "It is time to take the resources under public control, under public ownership." Of course it is time. Those are just some of the reasons we must do that.

I can remember, in Sault Ste. Marie, the member's ad campaign when he was first elected said New Democrats would bring resources into the public sector. He asked, "Do you want to face those bureaucrats in Toronto running our resources?" To which, of course, I would reply, "Would you rather have someone in Texas running them?" That is what is happening now -- Superior Oil in Texas.

I would like to hear the Provincial Secretary for Resources Development tell me whether he is really happy with the Superior Oil people in Houston, Texas, making decisions on the refining of oil in Norway, or whether he would rather have somebody in Toronto, even better in Sudbury, making that decision. He need not bother replying. He made his point during his campaign and I hope he is happy. It is a bankrupt policy and he knows it. It is costing jobs in Ontario, and I hope he is satisfied with his incredibly bankrupt policy on resources. He has no policy on resources.

That is minerals. I look at forestry and it is just as bad. Does the government know what the state of a yield means? I do not think they even know what the word means. They are the only people I know who could turn a renewable resource into an unrenewable one. They would turn forestry into a mineral. That takes a lot of skill. I do not know how they did it but they have had lots of practice.

When I think of forestry, I think of reports. The number of reports that have been made on the forestry industry is absolutely incredible. Let me quote from the 1947 royal commission on forestry, Mr. Speaker. This is what was said 34 years ago: "If Ontario is to remain one of Canada's major timber-producing provinces this trend" -- the trend being cutting more than they are reforesting -- "must be checked and practices developed and enforced which would guarantee a future crop, preferably better than, but at least as good as, the one harvested."

That was in 1947. What is the government doing now? It is running around panic-stricken over what is happening to the reforestation program in Ontario, because it was too silly to follow the recommendations back 34 years ago, which happens to be not quite as long as the Conservatives have governed in Ontario. It really is remarkable. The former minister, the Honourable James Auld, admitted that still only about 70 per cent of it was getting the attention it deserved. It seems as though the Tory party just rolls on and some of the things it has done to our economy do not seem to matter.

When the forest industry gets in trouble because it has not been told how to manage the resource, what does the government do? It bails them out. Not only does it bail them out, it bails them out when it is not even necessary. Boy, they must be glad to see government people come in the door of the plant. They must say, "They are not here to inspect our pollution equipment; they are here to give us a grant."

I can hear it now. Despite the report that was made by the Royal Commission on the Northern Environment last year which said -- listen to this, Mr. Speaker, this is a beautiful quote, and the government is still going to give them $20 million more: "The significant margin between operating costs and projected prices for newsprint, together with a favourable rate of return analysis and new capacity, strongly suggests that this sector is capable of undertaking modernization in northern Ontario on a profitable basis without the support of taxpayers, in the form of the recent modernization grants offered jointly by the provincial and federal governments."

There we go. There are the experts telling us that we should not do it, that they did not need it, and the government can hardly wait to give them more. Even more recent information says they should not get any more and the government is still rushing there to give them a further $20 million.

Mr. Martel: They shove the cheque in their pocket.

Mr. Laughren: As my friend said, we have run out of resources to give them, now we have to give them money to keep them happy. It is a very strange economic policy. We have given them $98-point-something million. That is what the government has given the forestry industry. It is not as though they did not have profits. They have had profits over the years. The problem is they did not put them back into modernization and the government knows it. Instead of saying to them, "That is your problem," the government throws money at them to solve the problem. Why should they ever be responsible in their investment policies if they know the government is going to be there to bail them out?

The New Democrats have been saying for a long time that the harvest must be on a sustainable yield in the province. My colleague the member for Port Arthur (Mr. Foulds) introduced a private member's bill today that had that expression in it, that included that right in it. It should be the law of the province.

10:10 p.m.

Mr. Martel: The Premier (Mr. Davis) promised two trees for one.

Mr. Laughren: Yes, we are only asking for one tree for one; the Premier called for two. We think there should be an increased emphasis on professional foresters. In the rest of the world the average is one forester for every 30,000 acres of forest land. In the United States it is one forester for every 20,000 acres of forest land. In Ontario it is one forester for every 100,000 acres of forest land. Is it any wonder the government is not supervising the forest properly? That is why. They need to make a commitment to professional forestry.

We also need an immediate crash program of reforesting cut-over and burnt-out areas. Finally, we need to cut down on the waste that occurs when the trees are being cut. I get phone calls all the time from constituents who say, "Have you seen that area where So-and-so is cutting? The waste in there is unbelievable." There needs to be a tightening up on that. More professional foresters could be part of that supervision and it would be a very positive move.

Finally, we should be insisting that forestry machinery be made and purchased in this country, not just in Ontario. That is not being done at all. As a matter of fact, I guess we should not expect too much from the private sector in our forests. Maybe members know who Mr. Hearnden is. He is a professional forester and former dean of Lakehead School of Forestry. This is what he had to say:

"Any expectation that the forestry industry or its captains will be suddenly beneficially influenced by appeals for active participation in forest extension for the benefit of future generations is doomed at the outset under existing corporate structures."

How many messages does the government need? I have only included from 1947 up to 1981. I am sure I could go back further and I am sure I could project into the future and it still would not be getting the message because there is no evidence of it at all.

I wish I had more time this evening. There are a couple of issues I want to talk about. One is the whole question of compensation for people in the province who are either hurt or ill. I am talking about a sickness and accident scheme. The present system is really incredible. The members opposite may find it surprising how often the Workmen's Compensation Board is at issue in this chamber. I have only been here about 10 years but every year it is a major issue. We have had task forces, royal commissions, agonizing debates in here and nothing ever changes.

I should not say nothing ever changes; the chairman of it changes occasionally. That does not solve the problem. He is working with an impossible system. The government just switches Tories at the top and thinks something is going to change.

When one thinks about what it is we have for protection of people who get injured or who are sick in the province, it is an incredible hotchpotch of things. There is the compensation board; there is criminal injuries compensation; there are the Canada Pension Plan disability, unemployment insurance, the illness benefits, veterans' pensions and allowances, private automobile insurance, family benefits, private sick leave plans, disability pensions and private pension plans, private sickness and accident insurance -- I could go on. It is a hotchpotch; there is no coherence, no focus to any of it.

New Democrats have been saying for some time now that what we need in the province is the New Zealand model in which people are compensated when they are hurt, regardless of where the accident occurs and irrespective of fault. The members should think about it for a moment. Does it make any sense at all to penalize people who are injured? People do not deliberately injure themselves. They get injured by happenstance. We have somehow established a system whereby if you get hurt at work you are covered; if you get hurt when you are not at work you are not covered. That is a very strange policy.

I don't know how you define accidents and illness any more. I defy the members opposite to tell me when you get into the whole question of cancer where the cancer originated, what was the cause? They don't know; no one knows. Yet we make these incredibly arbitrary rules saying if you get ill or you are hurt on the job you are covered by compensation.

They had hearings in New Zealand on their plan. Before the group was a woman who had been quadriplegic since birth. This is what she said, and it really struck a responsive chord in me: "The government" -- she is talking about the New Zealand government -- "has got the priorities wrong by using loose and ambiguous language. Their perception of accident is a physical impact concept that ignores most victims of accidents in a moral sense of that word.

"If a drunken driver injures himself by hitting a telegraph pole, they call that an accident. I call it a self-inflicted injury. If a rugby player becomes a paraplegic from impact in the scrum, they call that an accident. I call it a planned risk. If a small child runs into the street because there is no fence to stop him and is hit by a car, they call it an accident. I call it a predictable consequence. If someone is crippled by multiple sclerosis, there is nothing he could possibly have done to prevent that. We don't know what causes it; so he could not possibly have avoided it. I call that a true accident, but they say he is not covered."

When one thinks about it, it makes a lot of sense. In Ontario we have all sorts of people who are falling between the stools when they get hurt or become ill. In a common sense of justice how does one justify that? Why do we have so much of a problem with the compensation board? If we brought in this system, we would still have an assessment against employers and still have people covered for injuries on the road, paid for out of a driver scheme, and we would have the missing part, people who suffer illness or accident at home or elsewhere --

Mr. McLean: That is what happened to the NDP.

Mr. Laughren: The member can say what he likes. That is not a very witty observation, but keep on making them. In Ontario it is time we took a look at a new scheme and stopped living with the problems of the compensation board. We don't have to live with all those problems. They cause the government a lot of problems too, and I think it is incumbent upon them to look at that program seriously. My suspicion is that Paul Weiler, who is looking at the whole question of compensation, is going to end up coming to that conclusion.

I sat on a select committee in the longest running crap game in the world called the select committee on company law. We have been looking at sickness and accident insurance. As the months go by and we hear all the conflicting evidence, it becomes almost inescapable that one will come to the conclusion that that is what we need in Ontario. That is the way they are moving in Saskatchewan and that is the way they are going to move in Manitoba too. It is when one doesn't know all the ramifications that one sticks with the status quo. I ask members to think about it and to look into it, and they will find too that it makes a great deal of sense.

I couldn't sit down without talking a little bit about northern Ontario. They are flirting with separation, despite the results of the last election. I have mentioned resources briefly, but resources aren't just a northern Ontario problem. It is a province-wide problem. We have talked about a tomorrow fund which would use revenue from resources to diversify the small communities up north and to give us a different kind of future.

When I look at some of the problems in northern Ontario, I think to myself, is it as bad as New Democrats sometimes say or are we being too negative? We get the impression from the government that we are being negative when we talk about problems in northern Ontario. I don't know how else to bring the problems to their attention without mentioning them. I looked at some migration figures, people who leave northern Ontario. It seems to me that is not a bad way to judge whether or not people are happy with the community in which they live, namely, do they stay there or do they leave? In northern Ontario the migration figures are disturbing.

Between 1961 and 1976 in northeastern Ontario we had an outmigration of 70,000 people; in northwestern Ontario almost 25,000 people; and in all of northern Ontario more than 95,000 people, net, migrated. In Ontario during that time we had an increase, a plus migration, of 841,000. If things are as great in northern Ontario as the Tories would have us believe, why are people leaving?

10:20 p.m.

Let me give one reason why they are leaving. It is the participation rate of women in the work force up there. It is much less than it is in the rest of Ontario. We don't provide the opportunities for people in northern Ontario, so they have to leave. A lot of these are potentially the most productive people -- young people, for example, who graduate from high schools, colleges and universities and have to leave to get a job.

In northeastern Ontario the labour force participation rate for women is 39.3 per cent; in northwestern Ontario it is 43.3 per cent; and in all of northern Ontario it is 40.4 per cent. In the province it is 48 per cent. That is why we have the migration out of northern Ontario. We are not going to get people to stay there if we don't provide the employment opportunities for them.

Whenever I hear we are being negative, I ask: What about those people who spoke much more forcefully than I and much more meaningfully? They left; that is the greatest message we could get, it seems to me. I look at the number of doctors in northern Ontario. There is one specialist in Toronto for every 911 people. In northern Ontario it is one for every 2,611 people. That is the difference, a big difference. That is why we have to fly people down here to get medical services too.

I would like to take members very briefly to a community that is in my riding. It is a little community called Sultan, about 40 miles south of Chapleau. That community has been on a yo-yo because of this government for the last 10 years. I know some would like to say it is because of the representation there in the last 10 years, but I would like to say it is because of the policies of this government.

It is a little town of about 500 people. I was complaining because there was no public housing in there. So what does the government do? It goes in and builds 10 public housing units. The people say, "Good heavens, we are going to survive. We have public housing here. It is an act of faith in the community." The next thing the government does is come in and say, "We are not going to provide you with any more road maintenance. You have to provide your own road maintenance." They said, "Oh, that's not very fair."

They had a Ministry of Natural Resources office there, a headquarters. They closed the whole thing down completely and moved to Chapleau. They bulldozed the empty Natural Resources headquarters. I think they set fire to it, as a matter of fact, and destroyed it. They also have a small school there, about a five-room schoolhouse. This year the Ontario government, through the Ministry of Education, said to the chairman of the school board, "If you will close that school down, we will provide a Greyhound bus to transport your children the 40 miles to Chapleau." A real act of faith in that community, isn't it? Put your kids on a bus for at least an hour in the morning and at least an hour at night and ship them out of your community.

Then Ontario Hydro comes in and says: "Oh, we think this would be a good community for a pilot project. You have been getting your power from a Delco diesel unit for too long." They build a beautiful pilot project of a hydraulic dam. They dammed up a little creek there and they are going to have electric power. A beautiful alternative energy source, it beats nuclear. The people said, "Aha, an act of faith." So it is up and down. One minute it is an act of faith in the community and the next minute they are taking something away from them.

Then they let the neighbouring community of Kormak be shut down by the private sector which just walked away from it. A lot of the people who live in Sultan work in Kormak. Then what do they do? Another ministry of the government offers them a fire truck and says, "Here is a fire truck to put out fires." But the fellow from the volunteer fire organization says, "We are a mile from water." "That doesn't matter. Take the water pack." He takes the water pack, and I won't tell members the way in which he described the force coming out of the hose. When he put it into the water and ran the 900-foot hose out, he said he had seen more pressure coming out of a hose in small rooms. He wouldn't be more explicit than that.

The point is that there is no commitment to the small communities in northern Ontario at all, no commitment to provide them with a minimum level of health care, a minimum level of fire protection or a guarantee of good, clean drinking water. There has never been a commitment from this government on those three basic essentials for people living in small communities in northern Ontario. We have a Minister of Northern Affairs (Mr. Bernier) who doesn't know how to do anything but hand out grants, and he does not even do that very subtly.

We are going to see what happens in the Sudbury basin by having a government member in the community and to what extent the community benefits from that. We are waiting with bated breath. We want to work with the local member. We want to encourage him to get as much economic development as possible. I only say to him to make sure that what comes to Sudbury is true economic development and not just grants because any community will take the grants it can get. We are talking about real economic development in the form of some diversified industry in the Sudbury basin and not simply about handouts from the provincial government.

Finally, I am very serious about the NDP being an effective voice in Ontario politics over the next four years and beyond.

Interjections.

Mr. Laughren: Mr. Speaker, Perhaps I might be allowed to finish. While our numbers have been reduced, and it is a very unpleasant experience to lose as many friends as we have, we can be here only as a credible alternative, to offer what we think are alternatives to the smash-and-grab politics of the Davis government. That is all we can be here as, an alternative, and we hope we can be a credible one.

I want to be able to say years from now, whether it is 10, 20 or 30 years, that at least I fought for a different kind of tax system; that I stood up for the civil liberties of minority groups, gays being just one of them; that I fought for equality of women in the work place and elsewhere; that I fought for some resource development and a better return to our people from our nonrenewable resources; and that I fought for an energy policy that gave people an alternative to the madness of nuclear.

I also want to be able to say that I fought for the kind of regional development that encouraged growth in the north and in the eastern part of Ontario in particular and put limits on the congestion of southern Ontario; that I fought for an economy that was controlled by and for Canadians; that I fought for labour and health and safety legislation that was civilized and increasingly recognized working people as the true source of our wealth; and that I fought for a society that cared for and looked after handicapped people and the elderly in a dignified way.

Whether we have 21, one or 101 members, I hope we will always be that alternative in Ontario and that we will not allow the development of a society that is for the young and the swift, whether we are talking physically or mentally. That is the direction in which I fear this government is taking us. The young and the swift, mentally and physically, will cope extremely well in the kind of society they are building, but the ones who are not so young and not so swift increasingly will have difficulty in Ontario. That worries us a great deal.

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

The House adjourned at 10:30 p.m.