ONTARIO UNCONDITIONAL GRANTS AMENDMENT ACT (CONCLUDED)
DISTRICT MUNICIPALITY OF MUSKOKA AMENDMENT ACT
The House resumed at 8 p.m.
ONTARIO UNCONDITIONAL GRANTS AMENDMENT ACT (CONCLUDED)
Resuming the adjourned debate on the motion for second reading of Bill 28, An Act to amend the Ontario Unconditional Grants Act.
Mr. Rotenberg: Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank all the honourable members who commented on this bill last night, and in the next few minutes I would like to attempt to reply to some of the comments that were raised. It is to be hoped that the members opposite will support this bill that is going to give a lot of money to the municipalities of Ontario which are anxiously waiting for their cheques.
In our economy today, of course, everybody wants more than he is getting. That is probably the way it should be but, in these times of budgetary restraints on all sides and at all levels of government, everybody cannot get as much as he wants from every level of government.
The total increase of the package of unconditional grants from the province to the municipalities of Ontario is approximately 10.5 per cent overall. Some get a little more and some get a little less, but the overall increase is 10.5 per cent.
Much of the debate last night revolved around what are called the police grants. The police grants, although they are marked as police grants, are really unconditional grants. Unlike the health grants, welfare grants or educational grants, the police grants do not necessarily have to be spent for police purposes; they are given to the municipalities to spend for whatever purpose they want.
Let us understand first, Mr. Speaker, that out of the 830-odd municipalities in this province some 600 municipalities are policed by the Ontario Provincial Police. They do not get police grants; all their police costs are paid by this government. We are not talking about all the policing in the province; we are simply talking about the 230 or 240 other municipalities that have their own police forces.
The question has been raised, why do regions get $17 per capita for so-called police grants while other municipalities get only $12 per 1,000 of population? The reason is that the regions have to police both urban and rural areas. Whereas on a square mile basis the rural areas perhaps do not cost all that much to police, on a per capita basis the rural areas cost far more to police than do the urban areas.
The member for Ottawa East (Mr. Roy) has raised this again as he did last year and as he probably will for years to come. Ottawa-Carleton is a regional government that does not have regional police forces. Some of the municipalities in Ottawa-Carleton have their own police forces. Some of them use the Ontario Provincial Police.
If one combines all the money contributed by this government to Ottawa-Carleton for police purposes at $12 per 1,000 of population to those municipalities that have their own police forces, and the total cost for those municipalities that are policed by the OPP, by a strange coincidence, and it is a coincidence, we pay to Ottawa-Carleton exactly $17 per capita for police purposes.
Let us take Essex county, because the members from Windsor also raised it. If Essex county were a region consisting of the city of Windsor plus the suburban municipalities, and one took all the money we have spent in Essex county for police purposes, it would come out to $16 per capita.
Getting up to Algoma region, because the member for Algoma (Mr. Wildman) mentioned it, if one includes Sault Ste. Marie, Michipicoten and all the surrounding territory, we spend $18 per capita in Algoma region for police purposes.
It is not because we are discriminating. It is not because we are trying to get anybody forced in or out of regional governments. It is simply a recognition that regional governments combine urban and rural areas and, if it were not for the regional governments, the OPP would have to spend a lot of money for those areas. As a government, we recognize this and pay the regional governments which have to police rural areas as well as urban areas sufficient to cover the cost of the rural areas.
The member for Oshawa (Mr. Breaugh) criticized us because, he said, the unconditional grants were conditional. This is really stretching a point. The unconditional grants are unconditional. The only so-called condition the member for Oshawa pointed to was simply that when we give grants to regional governments we have to put in a formula as to how the regional governments apportion them down to the local level. There is no condition on how they spend them, but there has to be a regulation as to how the grants are apportioned down -- it simply comes off the top -- so that every person in the municipality gets credit for the regional grant.
If that is the only criticism the member for Oshawa has of this bill, I think he should support it. This is not a conditional grant as it is in education or health or welfare, where it is earmarked for specific purposes.
Mr. Breaugh: Which is it? Pick one and stick with it if you want it to be unconditional.
Mr. Rotenberg: These are totally unconditional grants. The police grant does not have to be paid on conditions.
The member for Algoma quite rightly raised the question of the additional cost for policing in his district. He is correct, there is additional cost. But I point out to him and to other members opposite that this unconditional grant has to be taken as a total package, really. One cannot pick and choose a certain thing and say one is getting the short end of it.
For example, for one of the grants we give six per cent of the levy to every municipality in southern Ontario and an additional 18 per cent to every municipality in northern Ontario. Northern Ontario receives extra grants on a percentage basis. Northern Ontario, because of its particular problems, does receive extra grants. It does not show up in the police grant but in the northern resource grant, which compensates for the problem that northern Ontario has. Whereas the grants to the province as a whole are up 10.5 per cent, the grants to northern Ontario are up 14.6 per cent.
The member for Windsor-Walkerville (Mr. Newman) and the member for Windsor-Sandwich (Mr. Wrye) claim that Windsor over the years was not getting its fair share of grants and so on. But over the years Windsor got the amount that was thrown up by the resource equalization grants, and that is where they feel that they got the short end.
As members know, we have changed some of the basis and some of the formula; and whereas this year, as I say, the average is up 10.5 per cent, the grant to Windsor is up $2.1 million or 16.7 per cent. So Windsor is in a catch-up situation.
Mr. Wrye: Forty million dollars later.
Mr. Rotenberg: Maybe it is a little later, but they are getting considerably more than the average. Windsor this year certainly is doing well, because it is getting in excess of 50 per cent more increase than the average.
The member for Huron-Middlesex (Mr. Riddell) said the rural municipalities are getting the short end. I would point out that the general per capita grants, which last year ranged from $7 per capita to all those municipalities of less than 5,000 population to $10 per capita for the regional governments, have all gone up to $11. So Metropolitan Toronto, etc., got a $1-on-$10 increase, or a 10 per cent increase in its per capita grant. The smaller municipalities in the member's riding, and throughout the province, went from $7 to $11, for a 57 per cent increase in their per capita grant.
I would point to some of the municipalities in Huron-Middlesex: the town of Clinton, for example, whose total unconditional grants are up 17 per cent this year; Bayfield village, up 18.5 per cent; Goderich township, up 11.7 per cent; and Grey township, up 15.5 per cent. The grants this year to Adelaide township, which I believe is in the member's riding, are going up 37.4 per cent.
Mr. Wrye: Lucky township.
Mr. Rotenberg: Yes, lucky township. I suggest that the rural townships, the rural ridings, are doing reasonably well this year in grants.
Mr. Riddell: What about Exeter?
Mr. Rotenberg: Exeter is a very peculiar situation. Part of the grants are based on need, which is the way it should be. Exeter's budget this year went up the grand total of two per cent; that is, the total amount they need is two per cent more than last year. So Exeter is getting only a 4.9 per cent increase in its grants, because they have not demonstrated a need for more. Maybe it is because of good budgeting, good management or good luck.
8:10 p.m.
Mr. Wildman: So you are penalizing good management.
Mr. Wrye: That's because they do not understand good management.
Mr. Rotenberg: No. Their budget is up two per cent, and we are increasing their grants almost five per cent.
I stress the fact that although some members have suggested the regions are doing better on the police grant, and we have not equalized that this year. there may be a time in the future -- and I stress the word "may" -- when there will be a different way of calculating all the unconditional grants, certainly the per capita grants.
In the per capita grants we have standardized everybody at $11 so that the very small municipalities, those up to 5,000 of population, have gone from $7 to $11; those around 25,000 have gone from $8 to $11: and the big municipalities have gone from $10 to $11. So in that situation I think we have done well by the smaller municipalities in this province.
I end where I began. Of course, every municipality in this province wants more, and we would be delighted if things were so much better and the economy were growing and we could give them more. But in the present situation we are giving them a reasonable amount in these grants. We would like to have this bill passed so we can send out the cheques. Therefore, I ask that Bill 28 be given second reading so we can get on with the job.
Mr. Speaker: All those in favour of the motion will please say "aye."
All those opposed will please say "nay."
In my opinion the ayes have it.
Motion agreed to.
Mr. Speaker: Shall the bill be ordered for third reading?
Mr. Nixon: I would like it to go to standing committee, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: Which committee?
An hon. member: Any one you want.
Mr. Speaker: That is not for me to say, with all respect.
An hon. member: A standing committee?
Mr. Speaker: Standing committee, yes.
Interjection.
Mr. Speaker: Now just a minute. We do not know which one.
Mr. Wildman: General government.
Mr. Nixon: Wherever there is room.
Hon. Mr. Gregory: We determine that at the House leaders' meeting, Mr. Speaker, do we not?
Mr. Speaker: All right. It is up to you, apparently. It is not for the House leaders to say.
Hon. Mr. Gregory: Mr. Speaker, I believe that with proper consultation one of the committees will be named.
Mr. Speaker: I am advised that is out of order.
Mr. Breaugh: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: Is it not correct that the member who rose and caused the bill to go to committee is the member who would designate which committee and that he should do it now?
Mr. Speaker: No.
Hon. Miss Stephenson: That's not so.
Mr. Nixon: On the point of order. Mr. Speaker: Might I suggest that the acting government House leader could recommend that it go to the standing committee on general government and that if it turns out that committee is overloaded we could have a motion in a few days to change that designation.
Hon. Mr. Gregory: Mr. Speaker, I am happy to go along with that recommendation.
Mr. Speaker: Thank you.
Ordered for standing committee on general government.
House in committee of the whole.
DISTRICT MUNICIPALITY OF MUSKOKA AMENDMENT ACT
Consideration of Bill 9, An Act to amend the District Municipality of Muskoka Act.
Sections 1 and 2 agreed to.
On section 3:
The Deputy Chairman: Mr. Epp moves that section 6 of the act, as set out in section 3 of the bill, be amended by striking out "23 members composed of a chairman and" in the second and third lines thereof.
Mr. Epp: Mr. Chairman, as I pointed out last night, in Muskoka and the other regional municipalities as well as in Metropolitan Toronto, the chairman is chosen from among the members elected to the metropolitan, regional or district councils.
Although the chairman might not be elected at large -- it would be cumbersome, expensive and difficult to elect him on that basis -- we on this side of the House feel strongly that he should have his seat on a local basis. Therefore, we put forward this amendment, which we think is a practical and important amendment, whereby the chairman would be elected on a ward or municipal basis.
For instance, we can suggest the example of the Premier (Mr. Davis), who, as head of the executive council, first minister of the province and so forth, still has a seat as for which he is responsible. He represents Brampton riding and has the responsibilities that go along with that position.
We feel the chairman of a municipality, be it a district or whatever, also should have a seat where he is elected locally. Therefore, we are putting forward this amendment whereby the chairman would have an opportunity to represent a local constituency. In a sense it would strengthen his position, because people would not feel he is somewhat impotent by not having been elected on a local basis.
You know what happens, Mr. Chairman. The first chairmen of regions and districts who took office were appointed by the provincial government and some of them never held elected office. Currently, many of them turn out to be people who hold an elected position, and they may have been re-elected on a number of occasions; but when they are named as chairmen of districts or regions they stop running for office among the people. We feel they should continue to hold a seat on a local basis, and that is why we are putting forward this amendment.
Mr. Breaugh: Mr. Chairman, I personally would be an advocate that people who are in a position of this authority ought to be clearly and directly elected to that position. In several of our areas we now have as a failback position the concept that at the very least somebody ought to be elected to something, somewhere in that area.
Most notably and commonly, and as put forward in this amendment, a person at least ought to be a member of a council in some form prior to being chosen as probably the most important local politician. I have no difficulty in saying that the caucus of the New Democratic Party would be supportive of the amendment as now proposed.
Mr. Bradley: Mr. Chairman, I speak in agreement with the motion put forward by my friend the member for Waterloo North (Mr. Epp). It appears that in Muskoka we have a situation where we have regional government by the back door. It is called district government in this case, but it has all the characteristics of regional government.
A referendum or a plebiscite -- I cannot recall which -- was held a few years ago in Muskoka where the people overwhelmingly rejected regional government, but they have regional government. Since they do have it -- district government or regional government, call it what one will -- the suggestion is that the person who would hold office as head of this large municipality would be an elected person.
I understand what my colleague is suggesting is not that this person should be elected region-wide as a district chairman but that he or she be a person elected by some people in a ward or a portion of that municipality. I think there is a lot of sense in that motion. If elected, a person then has the confidence of at least a certain portion of a municipality. I think this would be a good principle to extend to other municipalities.
At present, as you are aware, Mr. Chairman, there are municipalities around this province where that is not the case, where the person who holds that office has never been, at least by virtue of holding that office, an elected person. Therefore, he has not had the kind of accountability that many of us have had as elected individuals at the municipal level.
I think the suggestion put forward in the form of an amendment by the member for Waterloo North makes, as they say in the labour union movement, eminent good sense and therefore should receive the support of all members of this House.
8:20 p.m.
Mr. Cassidy: Mr. Chairman, when you get down to it, the reason the government has consistently refused this amendment when it has been put forward many times in the past, both by the New Democrats and by the Liberals from time to time, has been the fact that the Conservatives have found from experience that this undemocratic practice of having regional and district chairmen appointed and not required to pass the test of election at any time helps them.
When it comes down to a choice between democratic representation and ensuring the people who do the public's business are elected on the one hand, and political advantage for the Conservatives and their friends at the local level on the other hand, it is clear that expediency wins out over democracy. If the government resists this amendment tonight, it will be yet another example of Conservative expediency winning out over democracy.
Mr. Roy: Mr. Chairman, as is my habit in this assembly, I am always very cautious in getting on my feet. As is my practice, I ponder each word very delicately. But on this amendment the members will understand that it is not difficult to make a very quick decision, because the amendment as proposed by my colleague is so sensible. I am sure that if all members were left to make their own personal decision, they would support this amendment.
I even hazard to think that if the Minister of Education (Miss Stephenson) were freed from --
Mr. Nixon: The whip.
Mr. Roy: If she were freed from the whip, who is reviewing and keeping an eye on the activities of all members of this assembly in a very strict fashion, if she were relieved from this bondage --
Mr. Bradley: How can you use the terms "whip" and "bondage" at the same time?
Hon. Miss Stephenson: He's into S and M. That's the problem.
Mr. Cassidy: Is that Stephenson and Miller?
Mr. Roy: -- she would feel that this amendment would --
The Deputy Chairman: Very delicately chosen words.
Mr. Roy: Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to ask all members present, even all members in the gallery here: Does it not make eminent good sense when one is establishing, as my colleague has just said, a regional government by the back door -- he has been wanting to say that phrase all evening, and he has said it -- that one wants to be sure the chairman is at least accountable to somebody, to a group of citizens within that area?
In 1982, and I am sure the Chairman will agree, it does not make sense that an individual should wield such power as chairman of this area without at some time being accountable to a group of the electorate.
The parliamentary assistant on this issue is extremely hard-headed, if I may use that expression. He is inflexible. For years now we have been saying to this parliamentary assistant that this makes good sense, but we cannot seem to get the message across. Like the member for Ottawa Centre (Mr. Cassidy), I cannot understand the explanation other than to think that the Conservatives somehow feel they have better control over the chairman if he is not elected by a group of the electorate; they have better control in the original designation when the government picks one of its own. But even after the original chairman has been replaced, they must still have that feeling.
That is the way it works. When I look at different regional governments, I get the impression that most regional chairmen somehow end up being Tories. I do not know why that is. Given that fact, I do not see why, with the government's acquiescence and with the lack of proper legislation, these people are avoiding going back to the people and being accountable to a selected group of people.
I plead with the parliamentary assistant, even if he has to --
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Don't humble yourself.
Mr. Roy: I am sorry. I get carried away on these bills.
Even if the parliamentary assistant somehow has to argue with his minister, to go contrary to ministerial discretion, he should say, "As parliamentary assistant, with my wide experience in municipal government, I feel the chairman should be elected, so accept my colleague's amendment." The parliamentary assistant should show some independence over there. He should show the stuff he is made of, show them he is earning that extra money. How much is the extra money, $8,800?
Mr. Bradley: It is at least $7,200, one third tax-free.
Mr. Roy: I say, show some independence; accept a reasonable amendment and show some leadership in Ontario. If I do not succeed in convincing him with this, I do not know what the heck else I can do.
Mr. McClellan: Mr. Chairman, my colleague the member for Oshawa (Mr. Breaugh) said --
Mr. Bradley: They are still speculating about you running for mayor.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: I am going to clear that up. I'll get on the list.
Mr. McClellan: There is no need to run for office if one is a regional chairman, which is the point of this debate. One does not have to run for office. One is not accountable to anybody, except to the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario.
If the government is determined to oppose this amendment, why does it not just bring in its own amendment to make the position of regional chairman a position within the civil service of Ontario? The job could be posted outside in the lobby. The only qualification for it would be to have a little blue card of membership in the Progressive Conservative Party.
The only purpose in the government refusing year after year the thoroughly sensible and democratic proposal that a chairman of a regional municipality should be either a member of the elected council or, even better, directly elected by the people within the regional municipality, is that it wants to be able to anoint and appoint its own chosen faithful stewards to make sure the Conservative Party's interests are maintained, protected and kept well at the municipal level.
Hon. Mr. Gregory: It's a noble cause.
Mr. McClellan: It is true. The chief government whip says it is not true.
Hon. Miss Stephenson: That isn't what he said.
Mr. McClellan: I am sorry. I did not hear what he said.
Mr. Bradley: He is admitting his guilt.
Mr. McClellan: What did he say? Speak up.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: He is such a shy and retiring fellow.
Hon. Mr. Gregory: I said it was a noble cause.
Mr. McClellan: He said it was a noble cause. My goodness, I am shocked.
Interjections.
The Deputy Chairman: Order.
Mr. McClellan: That is really appalling, Mr. Chairman. Even you should be embarrassed; but, of course, I am not permitted to bring you into the debate.
The Deputy Chairman: No; but you do have the floor and we want to hear every word.
Mr. McClellan: It is absolutely shocking and disgraceful that in 1982 the provincial government continues to treat regional municipalities as though they are some kind of administrative apparatus of the Conservative government, as though they owe their lifeblood to the Tories here at Queen's Park, as though they are so stupid, immature, childish and juvenile that they are incapable of appointing their own administrative and political heads.
The regional chairman of any municipality is the most powerful elected official within the municipality. He or she controls the entire apparatus of the municipal regional civil servants. Yet this government refuses to allow even a shred of democracy to permeate this little closed circle, this little Tory club. Here in Metropolitan Toronto we have been saddled, since the days of our first czar, Big Daddy Gardiner, with one Conservative chairman after another who has entirely controlled the apparatus of the regional civil service, which job is solely to implement provincial policy at the municipal level.
It is unfair. It is undemocratic. It is a travesty of popular government and it defies me to understand how a government going into the last part of the 20th century can continue to perpetuate this kind of paternalistic, authoritarian nonsense.
8:30 p.m.
This is a very moderate amendment. It does not call for direct election. It simply requires that the chairman be an elected member. How would we like it if our Premier was not required to have a seat in the assembly? Some of us would like it just fine, but not all of us.
Mr. Rotenberg: Your leader doesn't have to.
Mr. Nixon: He is not even a dentist.
Mr. McClellan: Not even a dentist.
Mr. Philip: He will have a lot more success than some of yours have had.
Mr. McClellan: Just to recapitulate, we would prefer direct election but we are prepared to support this watered-down compromise.
Hon. Mr. Gregory: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman: I wanted to mention something that had been discussed between the House leaders. Any divisions in committee on any of the next three bills will be stacked until 10:15.
Agreed.
Mr. Ruprecht: Mr. Chairman, I am going to contain my remarks to a very few statements. I want to ask when anyone in this chamber has ever heard the regional chairman be critical of this government? Has that been answered substantially? I think that is why we should be critical of these specific sections in the bill.
When we look around the Metropolitan area, we can see what has transpired. I think the whole question of democracy is at stake and that is why we should be in favour of elections, either direct or otherwise. Elections are essential to bring some democracy back into the system.
The essential point I wanted to raise was that criticism is very important and there ought to be some balance of power. There is balance in this chamber. In most governments there is balance. But when a regional chairman makes most decisions without checking with anyone, without having a responsible body looking over his shoulder, then I think that is a bit of a travesty.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Mr. Chairman, I feel constrained to rise and speak --
Mr. Nixon: Tell us about the dentists.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: -- not of the dentists but of the regional chairman. I am not clear as to the reason I am being asked by the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk (Mr. Nixon) to talk about the dentists. Maybe he is aware of regional chairmen who are dentists.
Mr. Nixon: Are you not in charge of their lobby?
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Certainly not, no. Tonight I would like to speak in support of the rather watered-down version of what I would prefer --
Mr. Nixon: Namby-pamby.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Namby-pamby is a good word.
Mr. Nixon: Wishy-washy.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: -- or wishy-washy amendment that has been placed by the member for the Liberal Party.
Mr. Nixon: Which you are supporting.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: -- which I will support wholeheartedly, as I do all amendments of that type. I want to make it very clear tonight that I was not running for regional chairman of Metro Toronto because that was not an elected position. Notes were passed between the Premier, the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs (Mr. Wells) and myself and they assured me there was no chance of my being appointed to that august position that chairman Paul has held for the last number of eons. So I decided that was totally out of the question.
Mr. Nixon: I hear Sewell is going to be a Liberal candidate down in that riding.
Mr. McClellan: We hope so.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Is that a provincial Liberal candidate or a federal Liberal candidate?
Mr. Nixon: Whatever comes first.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: I see.
Mr. Philip: You guys will take anybody, won't you?
The Deputy Chairman: The member for Scarborough West should have the full attention of all honourable members.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: He should have, but he has so much trouble maintaining it, Mr. Chairman.
I hope that in the response to the amendment by the parliamentary assistant we will have some explication of just why one of the most fundamental principles upon which this House is based, upon which our whole system of government is based, is not to pertain to the position of the regional chairman of this particular district or, for that matter, of the area of Metropolitan Toronto.
Mr. Cassidy: The reason is Tory power.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Why is it all right for us to have an elected Premier and to expect him not only to be elected among yourselves as the majority, regrettably, in this House but also to hold a seat, as all the other common mortals in this chamber do; yet in a regional municipality to which you have given some importance over the last number of years in your planning of municipal affairs in the province, you do not feel it is necessary for the head of that municipality to be elected either directly -- which is what I would prefer and to which end, as you know, I have brought forward resolutions in this House pertaining to Metropolitan Toronto -- or at least among his peers on the council?
It seems unthinkable to me that you would want to step back from this principle unless you felt there was an overriding principle, which is that democratic rule should not apply at the municipal level, that the municipal level should be fundamentally only an administrative wing of the provincial level. If that is the case, that surely puts the lie to the whole question of decentralization that the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Drea) and the heads of other wings of government speak about. Why bother decentralizing if these bodies are not going to have real power and if you just want them to be an administrative wing that you can manipulate from the provincial end of things, for political reasons?
If municipal politics are important, and as a past municipal politician the parliamentary assistant believes they are important, then surely one should expect that those and all other positions would be elected, especially the most important ones. Yet in all regional municipalities across this province there is no provision for the direct election of municipal chairmen or even for the watered-down version, which I am supporting tonight, of being elected by the council. Why is that? What principles do you think come first? Is it Tory power at the provincial end of things and the real, centralized control of all aspects of the affairs of the province in all municipalities that is paramount in your view? Or is it the principle that local electors who are electing their councils should have the right to have some say in the election of the chief administrator of their region that should take paramountcy?
If you are to vote against this motion as it has been brought forward, if it was not just an oversight that you did not put it into this bill, if it did not somehow just slip your mind, as I presume it must have, then I would really like a very full explanation of why the people of this regional municipality should not have the right to elect their regional chairmen.
Why is it that you do not feel they are mature enough politically? Why you feel it is important for you at this level to control the affairs of the municipal level in such a way that you will not allow them to have a say? If they are capable of having a say in the election of the Premier of the province and the members of this House, surely they are capable as well of deciding who should be their regional chairman and of having some kind of accountability.
Surely it is one of the fundamentally regrettable and regressive things about municipal governments at the moment that the regional chairman is not accountable to the electorate, that with all the power that somebody like a Paul Godfrey, or -- dare I say it -- a Phil Givens might have --
Mr. Rotenberg: He never ran for the job.
8:40 p.m.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: It was suggested by the member for Oshawa (Mr. Breaugh) that he might have been appointed to that august position if that had been necessary in order to secure the seat for other people at the provincial level. Was that not what came up?
Mr. Breaugh: That was a rumour.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: That was just a rumour. I am sorry, I did not mean to suggest it was true. This is not a rebirth of the --
Hon. Miss Stephenson: The world's biggest gossip.
Mr. Samis: He is on top of things.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: That's right.
What kind of accountability is expected from people at the municipal level? Should they not be accountable for decisions made? Should they not have to take those decisions back to the people for their reaffirmation or condemnation in an election as we have to? We lay ourselves and our political lives on the line on a regular basis. Why should they not have to answer for their decisions or elaborate on their positions when elections come up? I would remind the parliamentary assistant this is not just every two years, but every three years now. Why is this most important position not covered?
I and the members of my caucus support the amendment that has been put forward. We expect to see members on the other side rise from their seats en masse to join us in this request, in support of this great principle of democracy in which we all believe. That is why we are here today. In fact, I have noticed the Chairman is having difficulty constraining himself to sit in the chair and not leave it so he can speak to this issue as it affects the region of Durham. As the sense of this and the rationality of this strikes all of us in the House, I hope the Provincial Secretary for Social Development (Mrs. Birch) will leap from her chair in a ladylike fashion to join in this debate and throw her support behind this rather wishy-washy, mealy-mouthed amendment and say this principle of democracy is one we all support.
Although I feel as though I could go on forever -- and my colleagues are afraid I will -- at this point I will sit down, convinced, as I see the beatific smile creeping across the face of the parliamentary assistant, that the point has been made.
The member for Brantford (Mr. Gillies) is about to join in the fray and this will probably cap the arguments that have been made to this point. The wonderful speech by the member for Ottawa East (Mr. Roy) uplifted me and will obviously have the same effect on all members. Unanimous assent, as we had last night, will be given to this amendment and this new principle of actual democracy at the local level will be accepted by the government.
Mr. Chairman: We are dealing with Bill 9, An Act to amend the District Municipality of Muskoka Act. Just to refresh my memory and everyone else's, and for the benefit of the guests in the gallery, we are discussing section 3 and the proposed amendment by the member for Waterloo North. I now recognize the member for Erie.
Mr. Haggerty: I want to support my colleague, the member for Waterloo North, on his amendment to have the chairman of the district council elected from among its members. It has always been a good practice in past local governments. Government reform goes back as far as 1837 and lead to the Baldwin Act of 1849. There was great movement in local government reform.
I cannot understand why the parliamentary assistant would not accept the amendment. I know the difficulties my colleague the member for Welland-Thorold (Mr. Swart) had in being elected chairman in the county of Welland. I believe he was finally elected -- in 1962 was it?
Mr. Swart: In 1961.
Mr. Haggerty: He was an excellent chairman of the county council. I suggest that no harm came to the county of Welland through the capable leadership of the member for Welland-Thorold.
I think of the Regional Municipality of Niagara Act that was introduced in the Legislature in 1968. One of the comments from this Liberal Party then was that the chairman should be elected from amongst the members elected at the local level of municipal government.
If the government had picked up that suggestion or amendment at that particular time, perhaps there would not have been the difficulty over the past number of years in that municipalities will not accept regional government. If the chairman was elected from among its members, it would be more acceptable to all the local municipalities.
I believe there is one regional municipality -- would it be Haldimand-Norfolk --
Mr. Nixon: What about it?
Mr. Haggerty: Is not their chairman now being elected from amongst the members of council?
Mr. Nixon: Yes.
Mr. Haggerty: That is right. So one could change that, in municipalities, from chairmen appointed by the government to chairmen elected from among the members of local government. I am sure that --
Mr. Nixon: A very fine chairman they have, too.
Mr. Haggerty: That is right. The right move for the government was to say they were wrong and that they would come forward with some reasonable approach to regional government or reorganization of a county form of government. I am sure there are a number of areas that would readily have a county form of government reorganization where the chairman is chosen by the elected officials of that council.
It is a reasonable amendment. It should be accepted. It would be a great step forward in letting local autonomy have the say in administration of local government and regional organized counties and county governments. This is a district, and a district to me is no different than a county council. It is group of municipalities that are working together to provide better roads, a better system of government, providing the areas of services that are required for a hamlet, village, township or town to expand certain services. Sometimes it can only be done through some form of regional government or county government so that boundaries seem to be deleted from the views of local members.
I support the amendment put forward; it is time the government members started looking at some good changes in local government and this is one way to go about it.
Mr. Swart: I had not intended to speak on this amendment, Mr. Chairman, but I became aware of the fact that it may be a similar situation to this that is preventing the people of Metropolitan Toronto from having the best Metro chairman that they have ever had or could have because the member for Scarborough West (Mr. R. F. Johnston) told me that he would not accept that position unless he was elected to it by the people of Metropolitan Toronto.
I thought I should get up and add my support to the amendment which we have before us. At least --
Mr. Nixon: Whose seat is Bob Rae going to get? He doesn't want to drive in from Oshawa, does he?
Mr. Swart: I am being interrupted by the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk (Mr. Nixon). I wonder if you would call him to order, Mr. Chairman.
It seems to me we could establish a principle on this bill that could carry through to the other bills. We have been trying to do this for many months and many years in this House. Our party moved an amendment, as long as five years ago, to have the regional chairman either elected from the sitting members of council or elected from the region as a whole, but we have not been successful yet on this. It is partly because when we did move the amendment, the party on the right, and it probably regrets it now, did not support us at the time. When we could have got it through, they did not support us and the member for Erie (Mr. Haggerty) will remember when we moved it.
Mr. Philip: It is a little like rent review, is it not?
Mr. Swart: Yes. So we could have had this in some of these locations now, but we still do not have it.
Interjections.
8:50 p.m.
Mr. Swart: Perhaps you would call some of the members in my party to order too, Mr. Chairman.
Having a regional chairman who is not elected is really the most unforgivable of all circumstances that you can have.
Mr. Bradley: Tell them about Niagara.
Mr. Swart: I am going to in just a minute, yes.
Mr. Breaugh: No coaching.
Mr. Swart: It is really the most unforgivable of circumstances for any of the offices that you can have. First of all, theoretically at least, there is no political party. In many areas in Europe, for example in England, the head of a municipality can be a nonelected person, and frequently is. But there they run on a political party basis, so that person is accountable back to the political party. The mayors of our municipalities here are not accountable to any political party, but they are elected by the public.
So generally, in the democracies, all of the people who are heads of municipalities, with the exception of regional chairmen here, are very fundamentally accountable to a very large segment of the community. But here you have regional chairmen who are accountable to nobody except their own regional council, and in some instances not even accountable to them.
I prefer a system where all people in public office are elected by the public. That is really the only satisfactory solution.
The member for Erie mentioned that I was on county council for a great many years, but unable to become warden of the county. Do you know why that was? Because when I was elected a member of county council -- I know members would want to know this -- it had a Liberal caucus and a Conservative caucus. The member will recall this.
Mr. Chairman: Stick to municipal government.
Mr. Swart: The warden moved year by year from the Liberal caucus to the Conservative caucus. It is very unfair in many ways. Sometimes there would be only seven members --
Mr. Cooke: How could you tell the difference?
Mr. Swart: They worked out a nice agreement. So it worked out fine.
But then, lo and behold, a Co-operative Commonwealth Federation member got elected to that county council, and to his credit he refused to join either the Liberal or the Conservative caucus. So he was kept on the outside for 10 or 15 years, whatever it was. But eventually he did become warden of that county. That demonstrates, I think, the irrationality of having heads of important municipal bodies not accountable to the public and only accountable to the other members of council.
There are all kinds of factors that enter into the selection that have nothing to do with the person's ability to fill the job. I recall all the log-rolling -- and my friend from Erie will remember all of this -- that took place. If you wanted to be warden of the county you had to promise a road in this particular area or support somebody else for the road committee. It is just a despicable type of operation --
Mr. Breaugh: Sounds like a provincial election.
Mr. Swart: Yes; it is mostly the same people doing these things, and in many ways carrying on in that outdated manner and with the same outdated views they had back in those days. There, like here, the New Democratic Party has managed to push them a little bit in a progressive manner.
It is very important that we have these people elected. These people lose their accountability to the public. I am sure the member for Erie knows, and the member for St. Catharines (Mr. Bradley) too, that when the Niagara region was formed the regional chairman was appointed by the Conservative government of Ontario and was a loyal Conservative. Although he had been an elected member of council he came to this appointed position, and it was not too long until he had an unlisted phone.
The chairman of a municipality with 250,000 people decided once he is appointed he does not have to be bothered with that hassle of the public trying to get in touch with him all the time.
Mr. Nixon: Did he move to Niagara-on-the-Lake too?
Mr. Swart: He came from there in the first place. There are enough Conservatives in that area to keep on electing them whether it is to municipal council or to the provincial Legislature. But some day there will be a change towards a more progressive movement.
For these reasons it is important that this amendment be passed. I think it is a real discredit to our democratic process that people in such senior positions as the chairman of Metro Toronto or the chairmen of 11 other regional governments in this province, covering two thirds of the population, are not elected to that position and are not accountable to those people they are supposed to be serving.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Andy Brandt believes in this amendment; Andy Brandt wishes to speak.
Mr. Swart: I would think the government across the way would let this amendment through. Before the parliamentary assistant was elected to this House, he felt that all people in these positions should be elected. I would think the government would in this one instance let this amendment pass so that we would have at least one pilot project in Ontario. From that we could see if it just really does not work and if the people will not like it.
In all seriousness, if they pass legislation to permit the heads of regional councils to be elected they will never ever be able to change it back again. It will be like the public auto insurance in Manitoba, in Saskatchewan and in British Columbia. All the Liberals and the Tories fought against it but once the NDP governments put it in, all the Liberals and Tories do not dare throw it out. Even the crazy Social Crediters are afraid to throw it out because they know how popular it is. It will be so popular they will not be able to turn the clock back.
Let us make this one move. Let us pass this amendment here tonight. Let the parliamentary assistant call his whip off and with the numbers that we have here in the NDP and in the Liberal Party we will get it passed. In another year or two the government will be delighted this thing happened here tonight.
Mr. Brandt: It's a trap, David; don't do it.
Mr. Rotenberg: Mr. Chairman, we are dealing with the amendment to section 3. The amendments to sections 4 and 5 really are on the same subject. If the --
Mr. Di Santo: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman: I meant to speak on the amendment.
Mr. Chairman: That is all right. We are just going in rotation. The parliamentary assistant is not summing up. He is just having his say.
Mr. Rotenberg: We are in committee of the whole House and I am not the last speaker, as I would be on second reading. Certainly the member for Downsview and anyone else who wishes can speak afterwards.
Interjections.
Mr. Chairman: This is just to recap some of the remarks already made.
Mr. Rotenberg: Mr. Speaker, as I was saying, the amendments to sections 3, 4 and 5 all deal with the same basic problems so I hope we can really --
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Oh, it is a problem, is it?
Mr. McClellan: So you can see it is an issue.
Mr. Rotenberg: -- deal with the same issue.
Mr. Chairman, I have listened very carefully to the remarks of many members opposite from both parties and they have made some very interesting points. I was almost persuaded but not quite. I would indicate at the outset that I will not be supporting the amendment put forward by the member for Waterloo North.
Mr. Cassidy: Come on Andy, don't be a puppet. I'm listening.
Mr. Rotenberg: The member for Ottawa Centre (Mr. Cassidy) just has his knee-jerk reaction, yap-yap-yap-yap. I did not interrupt him. He asked a bunch of questions; he asked if I would justify my position. I wonder if he might, just for once, sit quietly and listen. He might learn something, although I doubt it.
Mr. Chairman: Would the member sit quietly for once?
9 p.m.
Mr. Rotenberg: As I said, we have a two-tier municipal system in Ontario, which pioneered the two-tier municipal system, certainly in North America. In my opinion it has been very successful and very much admired throughout the world. There is no question that municipal governments and national governments which control municipal governments come from all over the world to look at the system. This is particularly so in Metropolitan Toronto, and in other regional governments in Ontario which they regard as examples of how well a regional area can be governed.
It is a unique system. It is somewhat different from a unitary system, such as a parliamentary system or a municipal system, because it is a two-tier system and there have to be some differences in how a two-tier system operates.
Every member of a regional council really holds two jobs. He is a member of the regional council and he is a member of his local council. These two jobs are related and I think it is to the advantage of the two-tier system that the members of the regional council also sit on their local council; it gives them integration. If we remember the old Winnipeg metro system, where the members of the regional council were separate and distinct and did not serve on local council, it just did not work. It collapsed and, of course, was abandoned.
So each member of the regional council has two jobs. Really, what is being proposed is that the regional chairman have those two jobs plus a third job; as well as being a member of his local council and regional council he also would be the chairman of council.
Aside from all other considerations, which are many -- and I will deal with them -- it is really physically and mentally impossible for a person to have all the responsibilities of a chairman, plus all the responsibilities of a regional council and of a local council. It certainly would be very difficult for a person to handle all those jobs.
It is the nature of a regional chairman that he is presiding over a unique type of council which has representatives from many municipal councils. A regional chairman should be somewhat impartial in presiding over the representatives of many municipalities. He should not be in the position of being parochial or of favouring one municipality over another.
Mr. Swart: Wasn't Big George the original chairman?
Interjections.
Mr. Rotenberg: Members opposite have a strange notion that somehow or other we on this side of the House have some control over who gets elected to be regional chairman, and I use the word "elected" advisedly. The regional chairmen are elected by the regional councillors. We as a government do not participate in that election.
Yes, we did appoint the original regional chairmen, and of those original regional chairmen I believe there are only two who are still chairmen of their regional municipalities. Different people have since been elected by the regional councils. So we do not at the present time, in any way, control who gets chosen as regional chairman. They are chosen by their own local councils, and they are accountable to their electorate, which is the members of council.
As probably the only member of this House who has run in an election for regional chairman, which I did some years ago, I can tell members that it is a tough election. The late Albert Campbell defeated me for regional chairman for Metropolitan Toronto in 1969. It is tough to face an election by one's peers; sometimes it is easier to be elected by the public. Because it is an election by one's peers, as regional chairman one is accountable to one's peers.
Mr. Jones: And one's peers, in turn, are elected.
Mr. Rotenberg: Of course; they are elected people as well.
The person who holds the seat of chairman has been compared to the Premier of this province. There is some similarity, but also some difference in that the Premier holds his seat in one Legislature only, not in two. But he is chosen. Our parliamentary system is in the British tradition that the public choose the legislators and the legislators choose the leader. In this case this parliament, or a majority of it, chooses who the Premier shall be; and the regional councils choose their leader in the same way.
It is interesting that the member for Waterloo North, the former mayor of Waterloo, has brought this forward. His own regional council, in a letter signed by the chairman dated April 20, 1982, said to our minister: "Because of the Palmer review" -- that is the review of the Waterloo regional council several years ago -- "the council in this region was forced to consider a number of possible methods for the election of chairman, including election at large, retaining local council seat, requiring election to regional council each term, etc., and after lengthy discussions it was agreed the present legislation is by far the best available."
The following resolution was passed by Waterloo regional council in September 1980, "That where the regional chairman is a member of regional council he should not keep his seat on local council." That was the decision of the regional council of Waterloo.
The regional council of Muskoka, the one we are dealing with, has not in any way requested a change in the selection of its chairman and there has been no ground swell throughout the area, except from the opposition parties in one of the newspapers, to have the regional chairman selected in any different way. We do not have any series of resolutions coming from regional councils or local councils saying, "Hey, change the system."
Mr. Cassidy: Of course not; they are controlled by the regional chairman.
Mr. Rotenberg: Oh, come on; the regional chairman only has a vote in a tie-breaking situation and he certainly does not control them.
There are 12 regions where 12 original chairmen were appointed by this government. Of those 12, 11 were then sitting members of the regional council or one of the local councils.
Mr. Jones: Oh, they got elected.
Mr. Rotenberg: They had been elected to a council when they were first appointed. Of the 16 subsequent chairmen who were not appointed by this government, and who were elected by the regional council, each and every one of those 16 at the time of his election was an elected member of council.
The member for Welland-Thorold (Mr. Swart) said that if we ever went to the other system we would never change back. I would point out that originally the system was that the person elected from council to be regional chairman did not have to resign his seat and could have held both jobs.
When I ran for Metro chairman I had the option, had I been elected, to retain my seat on the city of Toronto council.
Mr. Breaugh: You never had a serious option.
Mr. Rotenberg: If it was not a serious option then, it certainly is not a serious option now. The member who was elected had the option of retaining or not retaining his local seat. Every one of those who got elected under the previous legislation chose to resign his seat on local and regional council and not hold both jobs when he had the option. Partially because of that, the province changed the rules and regulations.
Some of the newer regions never had that option, but certainly Metropolitan Toronto and some of the older regions did. That option was available and was taken away.
Mr. Swart: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman: I think the parliamentary assistant is inadvertently misleading the House because all of the regional chairmen were originally appointed by the government.
Mr. Chairman: I am sure he would not do that.
Mr. Rotenberg: Mr. Chairman, I certainly in no way said anything different. I said those who were subsequently elected by their councils -- not the originals but those who were subsequently elected by their councils, such as Bill Allen was in Metropolitan Toronto, and as Albert Campbell and others were after him -- were then elected members of the regional council and had the option to retain their local seats and did not. The point of the member for Welland-Thorold is not well taken.
As in this Parliament where we choose our leader -- yes, who is elected to a seat -- the regional council also chooses its leader. To say that we are not supporting this or are politically motivated because somehow we control the election of chairmen is sheer and utter nonsense.
Mr. Breaugh: What?
Mr. Rotenberg: It is just sheer and utter nonsense. If that is the best argument the opposition has, it is not true to the theme of its normal arguments.
Someone on that side of the House asked, "How often do the regional chairmen criticize this government?" I would suggest it is not more than once a day. The regional chairmen are always after us, are always criticizing us and asking for different things from us.
I would suggest that although this is for the region of Muskoka, the region of Muskoka has not asked for it. It is happy with the system. The system will work well and it is working well for the regions of this province, where the chairman is able to devote his full time and energy to the job of regional chairman and does not have to be parochial by having to be a member of a local council as well.
The system is working well and I think we should keep it. Therefore, despite all the wonderfully persuasive arguments of the members opposite who very sincerely, I know, hold those views, I must say I will not support the amendment.
9:10 p.m.
Mr. Di Santo: Mr. Chairman, I was going to support the amendment introduced by the member for Waterloo North in principle only, but after listening to the parliamentary assistant I must say I am more convinced than ever that the amendment is not only valid but should be supported.
We listened carefully to the points made by the member for Wilson Heights (Mr. Rotenberg). He started by saying that because we are discussing the question of the chairman of the district council being an elected member of the council that it is a problem. Then we realize that we are faced with a valid question. If it is a problem, that means that it is not a straightforward situation that can be dismissed lightheartedly.
In fact, it is a problem because the present system where the chairman is appointed does not allow us to have a fully democratic system where the person who is elected is accountable. I think that is what is missed and what the member for Wilson Heights does not understand. He says that if a chairman is also elected then that chairman is parochial. I think the parliamentary assistant should try to review his ideas.
To be parochial is not a result of the fact that one is elected in one constituency. In that case, the member for Wilson Heights is parochial because he is elected in Wilson Heights, or the member for Brampton (Mr. Davis) is parochial because he is elected in Brampton.
I remember when we were at a state dinner with the President of France I had the vivid sensation that the Premier was addressing a Brampton service club. It was just unbelievable. All the Tory hacks were there, such as the chairman of Metropolitan Toronto, Dolan and the chief of the Ontario Provincial Police.
While the President of France made a speech on what they were doing in France and on the relationship between Canada and France, two different countries, and the common goals we have, the Premier addressed his constituency. If one is elected in a given constituency that does not necessarily make one parochial. It is the fact that one has a certain culture, a certain understanding of the reality, a certain vision of the society which makes one parochial. I understand that because of his being in his caucus and dealing with his colleagues, of course, he feels every day that parochialism is at work, but that is not a consequence of being elected in a constituency.
On the contrary, if the chairman of the district council is elected, then it makes him more --
Hon. G. W. Taylor: Mr. Chairman, on a point of order: I was sitting here listening and thought the member was misleading the House in the long list of individuals he described as Tory hacks. Included in that was the commissioner of the Ontario Provincial Police. Of course, I would totally not accept that comment about the commissioner of the Ontario Provincial Police.
Mr. Di Santo: Mr. Chairman, that --
The Deputy Chairman: It shows that someone was listening.
Mr. Di Santo: That is a legitimate point of view, but if the Solicitor General reads Hansard, I said that all the Tory hacks were there, and the chief of police -- in addition, even though we know the chief of police is not appointed by the Liberal opposition or by the NDP opposition.
Going back to the amendment, which is a very important amendment from my point of view, I agree wholeheartedly with the member for Waterloo North.
The Deputy Chairman: I can't hear the member for Downsview with all the conversations going on. I would ask the members to pay more attention to his presentation.
Mr. Di Santo: We agree that accountability is fundamental. The member for Wilson Heights, in referring to us on the other side of the House, said "someone over there." That is a result of the arrogance of power when accountability is ignored. When government members know they have the numbers to vote down any motion the opposition introduces, then they can refer to us as "someone over there." Hansard will show that.
Mr. Rotenberg: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman: When I referred to "someone over there," it was simply because I had not written down in my notes the name of the person who had made the remark. I was in no way trying to be derogatory to the members. I respect the opinions of every member across the aisle. I simply did not have the member's name written down. That is why I said "someone over there." I was not trying to be insulting to anyone.
Mr. Di Santo: I accept what the member for Wilson Heights has said. It is true that if he had more humility he would have tried to understand better which member of the opposition the remarks came from and would have addressed the New Democrat member by name or by constituency as is the tradition of this House.
Mr. Jones: We are sensitive to being called arrogant, because we are basically humble.
Mr. Philip: I don't know what your objection is.
Mr. Di Santo: This is an important amendment. It is rather difficult for me to talk through all these conversations. I would appreciate --
The Deputy Chairman: You do have the floor and I have asked the members to give you their attention. I will ask it again. The member for Downsview does have the floor.
Mr. Di Santo: The member for Wilson Heights inadvertently told us that the 12 regional chairmen were appointed by the government. That defeats the whole argument that he was trying to labour. He was not quite successful, because he said, "At the outset, I will say we will not accept the amendment." If he had made along, reasoning preamble, had given a rationale and explained to us why he is against the election of district chairmen, I could have also been convinced. But at the outset he said, "I will not accept it." He said, "We have a two-tier system and it is a superior system because it is a two-tier system."
I want to bring to your attention, Mr. Chairman, that there are many other jurisdictions in the world. The first that comes to my mind is quite abhorrent, but I want to mention it anyway. If one looks at the Soviets --
Mr. Rotenberg: You are a democrat.
Mr. Di Santo: That is exactly what I was going to say. The Soviets in Russia are not elected by the people. It is a two-tier system where all the people congregate and run their elections the same way the member for Wilson Heights ran his election. The member said, "When I ran for chairman of Metropolitan Toronto; that was a very cosy campaign," I can almost visualize him contacting all the Tory members on the council, having tea parties with them or meeting them in restaurants and trying to convince them that they should vote for him instead of another Tory.
That is what happens in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The soviets meet and then from the two-tier system emerges the chief; and, of course, that chief is not accountable to the people. Perhaps this is not the best comparison, but I said this because I want to convince the member for Wilson Heights that a two-tier system is not necessarily the best system.
9:20 p.m.
I can give the honourable member another example. In Switzerland, which is a country comparative in size to Ontario, not only do they have direct elections but they also have referenda on almost every imaginable issue. I do not think the member for Wilson Heights could convince me that democracy in Switzerland does not work because they do not have a two-tier system.
Mr. Chairman, I think this amendment really goes to the heart of what democracy is. For the government to refuse to accept it means exactly that they want to perpetuate a system they have created and which places them at the centre of a power structure they think will last forever. But as the member for Welland-Thorold said --
Mr. Kerr: Power, that's the secret word.
Mr. Di Santo: Power, yes. I want to congratulate the former Solicitor General. That is the real reason the parliamentary assistant does not accept this amendment. "Power" is the secret word, and the member for Wilson Heights must admit that he is quite peripheral to the real power structure.
Interjections.
Mr. Di Santo: No. That is too personal.
Not only that, but human events are so changeable that you never know what is going to happen. Look at our friends in Saskatchewan. Two months ago they were entrenched in power --
Mr. Kerr: Oh, you are mentioning Saskatchewan.
An hon. member: And Manitoba, George.
Mr. Di Santo: We are quite frank and honest. Look what happened to them. Two months ago they were entrenched in power: nobody thought they could lose power, but they lost. Look what happened to --
Mr. Kerr: You forgot to have a poll.
An hon. member: No, they did not forget.
Mr. Kerr: They ignored the poll.
Interjections.
The Deputy Chairman: Order. The member for Downsview will continue.
Mr. Di Santo: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I really appreciate your efforts.
I mentioned Saskatchewan, but, of course, I also could have mentioned Manitoba. I am bringing up these examples because I want to say that what happened elsewhere can happen even in Ontario. In 1975 members know what happened, and the next time that happens it will be the last time for you as a member of the governing party.
So all members should have an interest, regardless of the political parties we belong to, in creating a democratic system that is workable, viable and -- I have to use the words of the Liberal Party -- "a vibrant democracy."
The member for Oshawa reminds me that I made a very convincing argument. I hope I change the views of the members of the Conservative Party. I hope that, even belatedly, they will change their minds and accept the timely amendment which has so intelligently been introduced by the member for Waterloo North.
Mr. Cassidy: My colleagues have urged me not to speak, Mr. Chairman, but I just want to say this to the parliamentary assistant. He has two jobs: he is an MPP representing an area and he also does a job in the government. When he says that regional chairmen cannot hold down two jobs at a time, in a way he is saying they cannot walk and chew gum at the same time. He demeans the people who hold those jobs. The member for Mississauga South (Mr. Kennedy) has an insurance business on the side in addition to his responsibilities here.
The mayors of Ottawa, Toronto and North York all have many responsibilities within their municipalities, including sitting on the executive committee of the regional or metropolitan municipality in each particular case. They are able to carry out those varied and diverse responsibilities. Therefore I do not see how you can argue that a regional chairman somehow has to be set above or to one side, particularly when the democratic principle is very much at stake.
Surely the member knows enough about how Metropolitan Toronto and the other regions work to realize that the creation of unelected chairmen has given those officers tremendous power. They use that power to manipulate those councils, and they dominate them in a way that is undemocratic. You have created a level of government that is unresponsive to ordinary citizens and in the end is extremely frustrating in any sense of belief in democracy.
If you want evidence, look at the proportion of people who vote in municipal elections in the major municipalities. Surely the cynicism reflected in the nonparticipation of citizens in municipal elections is partly owing to the system you have created, where the guy at the top never has to meet the electorate.
The Deputy Chairman: All those in favour of Mr. Epp's motion will please say "aye."
All those opposed will please say "nay."
In my opinion the nays have it.
Motion negatived.
Section 3 agreed to.
On section 4:
The Deputy Chairman: Mr. Epp moves that the bill be amended by adding thereto the following section:
"4(1) Subsection 7(1) of the said act is amended by striking out 'or other person' in the fourth line;
"(2) Subsection 7(2) of the said act is repealed;
"(3) Subsection 7(3) of the said act is amended by inserting, after 'chairman' in the sixth line, 'from among the members of the district council.' "
Mr. Epp further moves that sections 4 to 14 of the bill as printed be renumbered accordingly.
9:30 p.m.
Mr. Epp: Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity of putting forth my second amendment. If you will permit me, I want to make a few short observations.
First, honourable members will appreciate the fact that this is substantially the same as an earlier amendment I moved which, unfortunately, did not receive the concurrence of this House. I might add that I was somewhat surprised. I thought it was a very reasonable amendment. I appreciate the support I received on that amendment from this side of the House -- there must have been about 10 or 15 different members who spoke in support of that amendment -- and I regret the fact that the government did not see fit to accept that amendment.
I want to make a further observation that on the government side of the House there was not a single member, outside the parliamentary assistant, who spoke in opposition to my amendment or who spoke in support of the parliamentary assistant. I leave the thought with you, Mr. Chairman, that the whips have been hard at work with respect to trying to get the members on the government side of the House to support this amendment.
I challenge the parliamentary assistant to say unequivocally that everybody on the government side of the House is in support of his position and opposed to the position that we have taken on this side of the House for the position of an elected regional chairman. I am speaking basically of the principle now. The regional chairman in Muskoka, which is a region through the back door because it is known as a district, or in Waterloo or wherever, should be elected from a ward or from some larger area than the 15, 20 or 25 people.
Mr. Jones: You weren't listening. We all voted against it with the parliamentary assistant.
Mr. Epp: I know. I appreciate the comment from the member for Mississauga North.
The parliamentary assistant mentioned that the Premier (Mr. Davis) was chosen from amongst this august body, that 125 people here voted to make him Premier. I submit that he was chosen by the Conservative convention back in 1971, in case the parliamentary assistant does not remember that.
Mr. Rotenberg: I was there.
Mr. Epp: Having been selected by the convention of 1,500 to 2,000 people who used those Liberal-manned machines -- I remember the convention was held up for a considerably long time before they got the results in -- he then became the Premier of the province after Mr. Robarts, who was then Premier, decided to step down. That happened a week or two after the actual convention. The Premier was not chosen by this body at all; he was chosen by the Conservative convention.
The parliamentary assistant also mentioned that Mr. Gray, who is the chairman chosen by the elected members in Waterloo region, is very much in favour of the present selection. I imagine he is in favour of it. If it were changed, he would have had to run in the last election at a local level. Maybe the parliamentary assistant does not know, but everybody else knows, that he is a card-carrying, staunch Conservative. Nobody argues with his ability. I say that of a person who is a friend of mine and who I meet on a very pleasant basis from time to time. I saw him again last Thursday at Waterloo's 125th anniversary. He is a card-carrying Conservative.
Mr. Bradley: Who is that?
Mr. Epp: Mr. James Gray. Everybody recognizes that. That he sends a letter in support of the government's position does not particularly surprise me, and should not surprise the members of this assembly.
The assembly has another opportunity to recoup its losses and support my amendment. I ask for the support not only of members of my own party and the New Democratic Party members here but also of members on the government side of the House.
The parliamentary assistant has an opportunity to write a new chapter in the annals of this great province by saying to his colleagues: "Look, go ahead and vote the way you like. I am going to vote the way my heart would like me to vote, and that is in favour of this amendment. It makes good sense. It certainly restores democracy to where it should be, and we cannot argue with having the chairman elected from the people of a particular area within a municipality."
Mr. Breaugh: Mr. Chairman, I rise to express my party's support for the amendment. It seems to me a most reasonable way for us to proceed. We have had an opportunity, on a minor amendment proposed prior to this one, to initiate the discussion.
I am somewhat confused as to why the government persists in rejecting what would appear to me to be nothing more than a basic democratic notion that someone who would hold the position of chairman of a district, such as the one being discussed in this bill, at least should be an elected person. It strikes me that there is not much of an argument on the other side of the coin.
I want to point out to the honourable members that, in the course of the previous debate, a number of speakers on the opposition benches spoke about the matter of some form of democratic process prevailing. Many in my own party expressed, as I did, some reservations that this is perhaps not the purest form of democracy but that it is a reasoned compromise related to what would be the pure democratic ideal for someone who is the most important political person, either the head of a regional municipality or in this instance the head of a district that is a region by another name.
It is simply taking the position that the person who is kind of the chief representative of the people ought to be just that; the person ought to represent some constituency within that district. By our definition, "some constituency" does not mean that he belongs to or has given reasonable political service to one of the political parties in Ontario. It is a relatively simple argument that the people who are going to run our municipalities ought to be elected people rather than appointed people.
As long as I have studied, looked at or been a participant in our parliamentary system, it has run counter to the ancient parliamentary system which had rotten boroughs in which certain prominent citizens were appointed to the parliament or to a council. In the Canadian experience, when one talks about a municipal, provincial or federal democratic process, we never really talked about that, save I suppose for the Canadian Senate, which is slightly different from any kind of democratic process.
There is not much of an argument in opposition to the concept of this amendment, which is simply that one ought to be elected if one is going to head up a municipal form of government.
Although I would not want to interrupt the conversation which the parliamentary assistant is having and I would not want to be so outrageous as to demand that the minister be present while we discuss the minister's legislation, I would like to point out that I did not hear a reasoned argument from anyone on the government side.
I am now going to beg them to participate in the process. If we on the opposition benches in some way have come to a wrong conclusion, the conclusion that if one is going to head up a municipal government one ought to be elected rather than appointed, and that democracy in its purest form functions in some other manner, I want to hear the arguments from the government side. So far I have heard the parliamentary assistant, and no other member on the government side, speak to the government's position.
9:40 p.m.
Again, I do not want to interrupt the parliamentary assistant in his valued conversations or any other members over there who are studying legislation in various publications not related to this bill, and I would not care to wake them up, but I wonder whether one other honourable member on the government side could put forward a reasonable argument to support the government's case.
Mr. McClellan: Terry Jones would, but he is not allowed to speak.
Mr. Breaugh: Mr. Chairman, I believe there are some members opposite who have the ability to speak and who do have some experience on regional government. I would be prepared to yield the floor to hear another member of the government party put forward the position of the government which says that we should not have the person who would be the chairman of a district such as Muskoka elected in some form.
I await the opportunity to hear some member of the government party other than the parliamentary assistant, who did not really do a very convincing job on that matter.
Mr. Jones: I thought he did very well.
Mr. Breaugh: I would like to hear the argument from the other side. I would yield to the member for Mississauga North (Mr. Jones) if he would care to put that argument. Would he care to do that? I would be pleased to yield the floor to the member.
Mr. Jones: With appreciation to the member --
The Deputy Chairman: Excuse me. Is this a point of privilege, a point of order or --
Mr. Jones: No. Rotation, sir.
Mr. Breaugh: If I might just explain the process to you, Mr. Chairman, it is quite traditional -- and I am sure you saw it when you were at Westminster -- that honourable members who have the floor may from time to time yield the floor so that other honourable members may say a word or two in the debate.
The Deputy Chairman: That is fine.
Mr. Jones: Mr. Chairman, I will be brief, because the history in Peel, my region, is rather short and extremely successful. We had regional government come to Peel in the early 1970s and we had, as has been pointed out earlier in the debate, the appointment of a very able chairman. We had, as the parliamentary assistant described and as was the case of so many of the other 16 chairmen, an elected person who then took on the reins of regional government as chairman in the new area of Peel.
I can describe for the members our extensive growth in Peel. We have small communities, municipalities such as Streetsville, where I reside, Brampton, Caledon and Port Credit, as the member for Mississauga South (Mr. Kennedy) is well aware, combined with a two-tier level of government. That was launched very successfully under the able stewardship of a man by the name of Mr. Parsons, who was appointed as chairman of the region of Peel. That man had been an elected person in that early stage before his appointment. He was subsequently elected by his peers, who in turn were elected officials. We had regional government going forward with all the challenges of the growth and the new communities being drawn together --
Mr. McClellan: Was he elected or appointed?
The Deputy Chairman: Order.
Mr. Jones: He was appointed, but he had been an elected person prior to being appointed in that first instance. He has since been elected by his peers in the regional council, which is drawn from the three respective municipalities. He was considered to have done an excellent job, I always recall.
As I visited our sister region of Halton, I heard described to me that regional government's success would be a matter of how determined were the members, be they elected or appointed, in making that process of government work.
There were, as the parliamentary assistant has described, those people who were subsequently elected. Since then another man, current chairman Frank Bean, was elected in turn by duly elected people from across Peel region.
We are finding that despite all the growth and challenges of that level of government, we are being well served in the county of Peel. The people of Mississauga North, Mississauga South, Brampton -- all those municipalities -- have again confirmed in their elections, when we have had the Liberal Party in particular point out that regional government would not work and that there was some lack of democracy, that that is not so. In fact, five members of this government who were involved in an initial appointment were re-elected through three elections.
I would have to say that the people indeed had a chance to express their confidence in that system of democracy that saw our present chairmen, under the present system, come to the chair and do the duties they so well serve. I thank the member for Oshawa for the opportunity to have the floor.
Mr. Chairman: I thank the member for Mississauga North. Do we have the member for Oshawa again? I just heard you on my speaker. You are back.
Mr. Breaugh: Mr. Chairman, as I pointed out to the person who previously occupied your chair -- and, as a further thought on the bill, I want to point out that both of you are elected to this House: however much any of us on this side of the House might have regretted both elections, we do admit that you did get elected --
Mr. Chairman: I am going to distribute that Hansard out in Oshawa.
Mr. Breaugh: -- the technique we are using here this evening is one that is not often used in this House but one that some of us saw used at Westminster, including yourself, I am sure, sir. You noticed that on occasion honourable members yielded the floor to other members to allow them to participate briefly in the debate and then the original member had the opportunity to continue with the debate.
I found the brief intervention interesting, because it goes back to an argument often used that these people who are appointed to chair regions and districts are decent, honourable, good citizens all around. I grant that. I do not have any problem with that. In my instance, in the regional municipality of Durham, the first regional chairman was a gentleman by the name of Walter Beath. He was an excellent gentlemen; there is no question about that. He was a fine man and a great Tory, which I think limits his qualification as to why he got the job. He did an excellent job.
I would not make an argument that any of these people are inefficient, horrendous or not doing a public service. I am simply saying it is not democratic. That is all I am asking for, simple democracy. I did not hear the honourable member make an argument about why the government was so strongly in support of an anti-democratic notion like an appointment. It strikes me that somewhere over there, lurking in the minds of some members, is that argument.
Once again, I want to tell any member on the government side who does not wish to discuss tonight the various personalities who might have been appointed from time to time, and whether they were good or bad or anything else, that I am anxious to hear from the members of the government party the rationale behind the government's position. Why is it afraid of democracy? Why does it have no argument to support its stand that it must continue to appoint, anoint, put forward those people in the first instance.
Mr. Jones: We don't appoint any more.
Mr. Laughren: Oh, nonsense.
Mr. Jones: Not in Peel.
Mr. Chairman: Order, please. I must allow my neighbour and colleague the member for Oshawa to continue. Let it be said that I have been totally nonpartisan in this.
Mr. Breaugh: I await the argument that says appointing people in the first instance is a sensible, rational thing to do. Second, to take what the member for Mississauga North said as a slight extrapolation of that, the case might be made in certain instances, and I think of the tradition of the British colonies where the first government of the colony was always appointed and subsequently, usually two or three centuries later, somebody got elected to head up that local government.
It is an old parliamentary tradition that in the first instance there has to be an appointment because there is no government there. That is really an extrapolation of what has been done with regions and districts around Ontario. After the municipal government is established, why is the government so hesitant to allow the person who heads up the district or region to be someone who has his own constituency? What is wrong with that?
9:50 p.m.
Mr. Jones: But he does. He has all those duly elected councillors.
Mr. Breaugh: I would be prepared to yield the floor again and let the member for Mississauga North (Mr. Jones) speak.
Mr. Chairman: I think that is very noble of the member for Oshawa, now that the member for Mississauga North has volunteered to add a few more comments.
Mr. Jones: Mr. Chairman, I will be brief. I was only trying to convey to the member for Oshawa that the chairman, as in the Peel example we are now talking about, does indeed have that democratic base. The individuals who elect him are themselves elected by the people across the whole great region of Peel. They send in their choices, and in turn those men and women choose and are accountable for the regional chairman they choose.
Mr. Chairman: So there!
Mr. Breaugh: I do appreciate that, and I recognize that, for example, the electoral college in the United States uses a technique that is akin to that. Political conventions in the Canadian experience also use something akin to that. But I want to go back to the original point that is in the amendment.
Why is it such a disturbing notion that people who would chair the district of Muskoka could have an elected position unto themselves, as each and every member in this Legislative Assembly has? Why is this a notion that the government not only gives us a reasoned argument about but also apparently rejects out of hand? Why is it not possible for us to have a discussion? So far, two members of the government party have put forward a position, and both have meticulously avoided answering that one question.
What does the government find so offensive in having somebody elected, let us say, directly as chairman of a region? Aside from all the practical arguments -- for instance, that it is too far, even though they are the size of many of our constituencies and much smaller than many others, certainly much smaller than many of our federal constituencies, so that as a practical problem it seems to me that the problem has been licked -- what is wrong with having the person who would fulfil this important job directly elected, not by the members of the council but by the citizens at large? Why can that not be tested and accomplished?
Mr. Kerr: Run in a ward.
Mr. Breaugh: I search the government benches for someone who wants to respond to that.
An hon. member: Yield to the member for Burlington South (Mr. Kerr).
Mr. Breaugh: The member for Burlington South appears to have a comment or two that he would like to offer, and I am prepared to yield the floor to him.
Mr. Kerr: Mr. Chairman, instead of electing them at large, which would be prohibitive from a cost point of view, have them run in a ward, just as the Premier (Mr. Davis) does in Brampton.
Mr. Boudria: That's exactly what the amendment said.
Mr. Chairman: Well, at 10 o'clock this evening we seem to be making some headway.
Mr. Jones: It's a thought for the future.
Mr. Chairman: That is one out of 70.
Mr. Breaugh: Mr. Chairman, I find that to be a perfectly acceptable and rational position for the honourable member to take. As a matter of fact, I find it so rational and so acceptable that it strikes me that it is indeed in support of the amendment that is currently before the House and says precisely that.
Mr. Chairman: Do you want me to amend the amendment?
Mr. Breaugh: The member for Waterloo North (Mr. Epp) has moved that the bill be amended by adding thereto the following section:
"4(1) Subsection (7)(1) of the said act is amended by striking out 'or other person' in the fourth line;
"(2) Subsection (7)(2) of the said act is repealed and the following substituted therefor:
" '(2) Where a member of a council of an area municipality becomes chairman he shall not be deemed to have resigned as a member of such council.' "
He has further moved that sections 4 to 14 of the bill as printed be renumbered accordingly.
I am sure, Mr. Chairman, you see that what the member for Burlington South just proposed is in effect exactly what would happen under this amendment. If some citizen at large were elected to represent a ward, the people at large, the electorate, would have elected somebody. Then, of course, under the amendment we are currently discussing, this person may well become the regional chairman, but it is not necessary for him or her to resign his or her original elected position. This, of course, is precisely the amendment that has been offered by the member for Waterloo North and now is supported by the member for Burlington South.
That is precisely the discussion I wanted the members to get into. I think there is a calm, rational and reasoned approach for various government members to take which does approach this amendment or variations thereof.
Mr. Jones: May I ask a question?
Mr. Breaugh: Yes, I would be prepared to yield to the member for Mississauga North.
Mr. Chairman: The member for Mississauga North; we are having quite a debate here.
Mr. Jones: On the proposal of somebody being elected from just a ward, would it not follow that person might come to the job as chairman with an extra special weight of parochialism of the much larger jurisdiction and constituency he serves? Is it not better, as we commented earlier, it be by the peers of those people elected from a diverse cross-section of the whole of the area, in this case the Muskoka region? They would then be more responsive to the whole of the constituency, rather than -- with all due respect to the member for Burlington South -- just the parochial interest from which they are drawn in one safe corner of Muskoka.
Mr. Chairman: The member for Downsview (Mr. Di Santo) has indicated he would like to interject something to the member for Oshawa. Would the member for Oshawa and the member for Downsview please discuss who has the floor in this matter.
Mr. Breaugh: There is no question about that. I have the floor.
Mr. Jones: How parochial are you feeling?
Mr. Breaugh: I will respond to the member's question, which I think is an extremely legitimate one. To make the case that I believe it is possible for human beings to do that, the member for Brampton (Mr. Davis) does serve in a capacity other than as a local member. Mr. Chairman, because I know you feel a little lonely sometimes, I might ask you. You are this evening serving in the capacity of chairman of the committee of the whole House and you also represent a constituency; unfortunately, the riding of Durham East.
Mr. Chairman: And do a fine job of both; I know you will admit that.
Mr. Breaugh: I think in the case in point there is living proof sitting before the honourable members this evening -- perhaps not quite so living but virtually living proof -- that it can be done; perhaps not well but it can be done. An individual can represent a constituency and still chair the level of government which is there. Without stretching the point further --
Interjections.
Mr. Mancini: Mr. Chairman, on a point of order: I think this is unfair criticism of the Chairman.
Mr. Breaugh: I apologize if I offended the member for Essex South (Mr. Mancini). It was my opinion it was fair criticism of the Chairman.
As to the point the member was making, he has sitting in front of him now an example of a person who is elected to represent, in our case, a constituency or a riding. In the case of the bill currently before the House, it would most likely be a ward or it might be the mayor of a municipality. I believe it can be done.
The member for Burlington South, for example, like a number of other members in this Legislative Assembly, conducts more than one role. He chairs the most august standing committee on procedural affairs, which up until a brief time ago was one of the outstanding examples of parliamentary democracy in the western world, without question.
Mr. Chairman: We are not alluding to exaggeration.
Mr. Breaugh: I yield to the member for Burlington South who wants to speak on that.
Mr. Kerr: No; too humble.
Mr. Breaugh: The point that was raised by the member for Mississauga North before this assembly this evening and on several other occasions has been rather vividly illustrated. There is an opportunity. It can be done. In our case, members are elected to serve a constituency and, in the case of the bill before the House now for which we are discussing an amendment, it would be a ward, by a district councillor or the mayor of a municipality. It can be done.
10 p.m.
The people who serve in that capacity can also represent their constituents in another capacity if the two jobs are not in direct contradiction to one another. We do it in this assembly all the time. It seems to me that in our regional governments and in our district governments such as the district of Muskoka, it could also be done. If we can do it, certainly many other human beings can do it as well.
We have had a small amount of debate on this and I am asking this evening that the government members do something which is perhaps a little bit unusual but certainly is parliamentary. If it is not we will set a precedent for it. It is to provide some input as to the position which is being put by the government against electing people to hold this kind of position.
That is what we do in virtually all other levels of municipal government. Why can it not happen wherever the government feels it is necessary to put in place a regional form of government, which in this instance is referred to as a district form of municipal government? Why can we not have a reasoned and rational argument that discusses the pros and cons of direct election, of choosing people who have at least a constituency of their own whatever it might be? As the member for Mississauga North has pointed out, it is done now; in some quarters there is some form of actually having people elected by real citizens with a direct electorate connection, not by politicians.
Why can those people not chair the regions and the districts? I would be prepared to yield the floor to any member on the government side who wishes to speak to that. If not, I am sure there are members on this side of the House who wish to speak to the amendment, which has already been discussed in principle. We are now in second reading of the amendment.
Mr. Chairman: It is very noble of you to ask if any other person wants to participate in this debate. I see that the member for Prescott-Russell wishes to do so.
[Applause]
Mr. Boudria: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I notice all the NDP members are applauding. That does not happen very often so I take special notice of that event.
I represent a part of the regional municipality of Ottawa-Carleton and the united counties of Prescott-Russell entirely. In the eastern part of my constituency, which is the united counties of Prescott-Russell, the warden of the united counties has a seat for the area of the united counties which he represents. He is one of the reeves or deputy reeves elected by his peers and therefore becomes the warden of the county.
I notice the parliamentary assistant is paying great attention to our discussion. There is so much noise we can hardly understand each other. Perhaps now that calm has returned to the Legislature, I can continue.
Those who are wardens in a county situation represent a given area and I feel that they do their job properly. For government members to tell us it is impossible to represent part of a municipal area and be chairman, is telling us that wardens of counties are unable to do their jobs the way their mandate is now set up. I do not feel that is correct. In all areas where we have county structures, I feel that setup works quite well.
The western part of my constituency is the regional municipality of Ottawa-Carleton. In that area the chief official is not the warden but the chairman. The chairman of a regional municipality in this situation has been discussed tonight, and the same holds in all areas, including Ottawa-Carleton. The chairman does not represent any given area. As a matter of fact, he has to resign from the area he represents in order to become chairman.
The member for Mississauga North has said that it would be very difficult for the chairman to fulfil his mandate without being partisan. I see in front of me the Minister of Education (Miss Stephenson). I would suggest to the member for Mississauga North that she does not build schools only in her riding; she certainly builds them all over the place. In fact, she is going to build a nice French school in Orleans, for which we are very grateful.
Hon. Miss Stephenson: That's nice for a change.
Mr. Boudria: Oh no. I am going to cross the floor, Madam Minister, and express to you how grateful I am for that school.
Hon. Miss Stephenson: Only temporarily.
Mr. Boudria: Very temporarily, yes. I did bow before I went across the floor. I want you to know that, Mr. Chairman. I had the full intention of returning to this side once I had paid --
Mr. Chairman: Let the record show that he had the full intention of returning to the other side.
Mr. Boudria: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I recognize that I do put the emphasis on the wrong syllable every now and then, and that tends to confuse what I am trying to say, but I hope you appreciate my position. I will continue to express myself in that way because even though my English is not all that great it is better than the French of most of the other honourable members. So I will continue with what I was saying.
I am very glad to see that the member for Burlington South supports the amendment by the member for Waterloo North. We really appreciate that. It will make for a very interesting vote later. I certainly hope the member for Burlington South succeeds in convincing the other members, possibly the member sitting right beside him, to whom he is talking right now. I suppose it has probably convinced him to vote in support of our amendment, and perhaps even the two members in front of him.
I notice now they seem to be reading the same newspaper as the member for Burlington South. I want the record to show that if they are all reading the same newspaper they are probably coming to a consensus; at least, one would assume that. They seem to share the same interests. Why else would they all read the Toronto Sun in the Legislature? I recognize, of course, that reading that newspaper is very important, and I would not want to take away from the importance of doing that and waste their time in discussing this legislation, which is, after all, what we were elected to do.
Mr. Chairman: Back to the amendment.
Mr. Boudria: I was just doing that. I was tying that in, Mr. Chairman, and I am sure you were just beginning to detect that was happening.
The very areas where we have these regional governments and where the chairman cannot represent a given area of that same region have, at the same time, school boards that operate in exactly the opposite way. In other words, the chairman of the Carleton Roman Catholic Separate School Board represents an area in the Ottawa-Carleton region. So there are two almost parallel systems of government in that area. It seems to be acceptable that one of them has a chairman who represents a given area, yet, for some reason that I absolutely do not understand, the government is quite reluctant to give the same kind of mandate to the chairman of a regional municipality.
I suggest there is another side effect from all of this that you may forget: There are many qualified people on municipal council who perhaps never run for chairmenships of areas because they would have to resign their seats in order to become chairmen. If somebody were to tell the member for Mississauga North that, in order to become a cabinet minister for a short while -- let us say the term accepted was only one or two years -- he would have to resign his seat and then run again two years down the road in order to get another one, there would perhaps be a reluctance on his part to go for that type of setup, and he would question the logic of having this kind of system. If he does not want this kind of system for himself, why does he think it is good for anybody else? Can he follow the parallel I am trying to derive here?
Mr. Jones: No, I cannot.
Mr. Boudria: The honourable member does not understand the parallel situation here.
10:10 p.m.
Mr. Jones: It is like drawing a parallel with the Speaker, for example. He has a riding.
Mr. Boudria: We did discuss the example of the Speaker earlier. I am certainly not going to repeat everything the member for Oshawa said so eloquently. That is very true. You could go even further and talk of the executive council. There is nothing that precludes the Premier from representing an area and being Premier simultaneously.
I can see there may be some problems with electing a chairman throughout the whole of a district or region. Having to run in a very large area would almost be American in philosophy; something like the President, who runs in an area and serves a constituency that is so large. I do not think we would advocate that. Certainly there would be nothing wrong, as a matter of fact it would be a very good idea, to have somebody as chairman who is actually a representative of the people, duly elected by them.
In the regional municipality of Ottawa-Carleton, the original chairman was Mr. Dennis Coolican, a very capable person. He was chosen to become the chairman by the Lieutenant Governor in Council, at the inception of the regional municipality. He remained there for something like 10 years. For 10 years, the regional municipality of Ottawa-Carleton never had a chairman who was really selected by the people in any way, shape or form. The original chairman was not even one of the municipal councillors. It was 10 years before a person was actually chosen by the people to become the chairman of that regional municipality.
The new chairman is Mr. Andrew Haydon, another very capable person. If he is not chosen chairman next fall, and by that time the municipal elections are over, he will be left without a seat to represent. I would suggest that Mr. Haydon took a very big gamble in not running again in order to become chairman of the regional municipality. It would have been a great loss for everyone in Ottawa-Carleton had he not succeeded in attaining the chairmanship of the region. It would have been very unfortunate.
Another very capable gentleman did the same thing. He resigned as mayor of the city of Vanier to run for the chairmanship against Mr. Haydon. Unfortunately, this gentleman, who was also very qualified, did not make it. That was Mr. Ben Grandmaitre; just by coincidence, he was our candidate in Carleton East in the last provincial election and ran against the honourable member I see in the back row.
Those were two very qualified gentlemen. Both had to resign their seats on municipal council in order to run against each other.
Mr. Rotenberg: He did not have to resign.
Mr. Boudria: Of course he had to. He could have run again. Technically, I guess the parliamentary assistant is correct. I would suggest when a person campaigns to become the regional chairman and, at the same time, campaigns for a municipal council seat, at one point people will begin to ask if he is in fact running to resign.
If a person was elected municipally and then at the first meeting of the regional council, which is usually a week after the election, was chosen the chairman of the region, he would be elected in one week and would resign the next. Anybody in that situation would be most uncomfortable being a candidate. The parliamentary assistant must surely recognize that with his long experience in municipal office. Amongst other things, that setup is illogical.
I am in full support of the amendment moved by my colleague, the member for Waterloo North, and in full support of the member for Burlington South.
Mr. Chairman: The member for Downsview.
Mr. Di Santo: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. J. M. Johnson: Not again, we heard him once tonight.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: New information, hot off the press.
Mr. Chairman: What happened? Oh, the member for Wellington-Dufferin-Peel.
Mr. J. M. Johnson: I will be glad to get up and speak.
Mr. Chairman: Well, back to the member for Downsview.
Mr. Nixon: Remember "animo non astutia."
Mr. Di Santo: The member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk (Mr. Nixon) reminds me that after 40 years in power the Tories have forgotten also what is inscribed in the chamber. In fact, it is right beside me --
Mr. Chairman: This is on the amendment I am sure.
Mr. Di Santo: It all comes down to this amendment. It means that one does things with strength but with rectitude. Animo non astutia means do that with heart not with smartness. What the Tories are trying to do tonight by not accepting this important amendment introduced by the member for Waterloo North is trying to be smart. They would like us to believe --
Mr. Chairman: I think the Minister of Education wants to know what you are talking about and so do I.
Mr. Di Santo: I am really shocked that the Minister of Education, being responsible for the educational system of the province, does not even understand such elementary Latin phrases that at one time were the basics of education throughout the western world.
Hon. Miss Stephenson: Since I studied Latin for five years, I have some vague knowledge and I don't understand what you are talking about.
Mr. Di Santo: Five years is a long time, but seven years in this chamber as the Minister of Education has led the minister to forget completely what she has learned in the schools of the province. Perhaps that is one reason why she cannot handle the problems of the education system in Ontario as she should.
I would like to go back to the amendment. As the member for Oshawa said, the previous amendment on which we had a lively debate was an important amendment, but this is central. The member for Mississauga North said before that the regional governments in Ontario, even though they have been short, have been successful.
I tried to figure out if, when he said short, he had in mind himself, perhaps the member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Laughren) and the member for --
Mr. Samis: Downsview.
Mr. Di Santo: -- Wellington-Dufferin-Peel (Mr. J. M. Johnson), and if the association between short and successful was hyphenated. I tried to figure out if it was a sort of logical conjunction that he brings with himself like my colleague the member for Nickel Belt and the member for Wellington-Dufferin-Peel, not to mention the member for St. Andrew-St. Patrick (Mr. Grossman), the Premier in waiting. We saw him today in operation flitting all over the place on the other side of the House.
What interests me is that the member for Mississauga North took a pragmatic approach, which is typical of the people sitting on the other side of the House. I can understand this. Ever since I was elected to this Legislature, I have never expected the members on the other side of the House to take a position of principle or because of an ideal, which is an outmoded word. It is not fashionable any more, especially for Tories, to talk about ideals. It is something in the past. They take a pragmatic approach and I fully understand that.
But by taking a pragmatic approach one can come to totally different conclusions. In fact, the member for Mississauga North wanted us to believe that, because of the statesmanship of Mr. Parsons, who was appointed the first regional chairman of Mississauga, it had the best possible regional government and the best chairman.
10:20 p.m.
Mr. Jones: Good judgement by the government.
Mr. Di Santo: He wanted us to believe that was only because he was appointed. I do not dispute whether he was a good chairman. Actually I do not know him and it is quite irrelevant to this debate. He probably was a good chairman. But if the member for Mississauga North thinks we should be convinced he was a good chairman only because he was appointed, then I think he is wrong.
Of course, the appointment of a chairman does not necessarily qualify that person. Mr. Chairman, you know very well the member for Oshawa mentioned the position you are holding in such a dignified and efficient way tonight and every time you sit in your chair.
Mr. Chairman: Let the record stand that all members in the chamber applauded that comment.
Mr. Di Santo: Mr. Chairman, if you have read The Parliamentarian, that very learned publication of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, you also know there has been a lengthy and very interesting debate on the question of whether the Speaker should be appointed, elected or made permanent. Of course we know that sometimes the Speaker is partisan, because by our nature we are partisan and we tend to take a part reflecting our own convictions.
But generally speaking we know the system works pretty well, and the Speaker who sits in that chair on most occasions is able not only to reflect the wishes of all the members but is able to conduct the business of this Legislature in a way that is acceptable to everybody. If the Speaker of this House, in that delicate position, is able to represent, in the present case the riding for Peterborough, in the previous case the riding for Lake Nipigon -- and I have no doubt they do an excellent job in representing their constituents, but at the same time they represent all the members of the Legislature -- I do not see why the chairman of a regional government, as in the amendment introduced by the member for Waterloo North, cannot perform the same duties with impartiality.
Impartiality is also an element introduced by both the member for Wilson Heights and the member for Mississauga North, even though somebody could object that a person who is elected does not necessarily have to be impartial. We can go back to the age of enlightenment in the 18th century, when the division of powers was worked out before the French revolution and before the American revolution.
Mr. Chairman: American revolution? Now come on.
Mr. Samis: There was one.
Mr. Di Santo: If the chairman must be impartial -- and, if you read the Hansard, that was a concept introduced by the parliamentary assistant and by the member for Mississauga North -- then I should like to object to that, because I do not think the chairman should be impartial. The chairman should be accountable. That is the key concept, not impartiality. In the French revolution when the division of powers was worked out, there was the legislative assembly, the executive and the judiciary. The judiciary was that part of the power that was supposed to be impartial, not the legislative assembly or the executive.
The chairman of a regional council, the chairman of a municipality, belongs to the executive. He should not be partial; he should be accountable. That is what we are supporting. Accountability means that in a democratic system each person who is in a position of power -- whether he is a member of a municipal council, a board of education, a provincial assembly or federal House -- should be accountable to the people.
Interjection.
Mr. Di Santo: Mr. Chairman, the member for Scarborough West (Mr. R. F. Johnston) is asking a question. I would like to yield the floor to him.
Mr. Chairman: I am sorry. I have missed this whole routine here -- just the last few minutes. Have you got a point of order?
Mr. R. F. Johnston: No. The floor was yielded to me because I had a question. I still have not quite understood what these principles have to do with the matter at hand. I wondered if he could come back --
Mr. Chairman: No. I was hoping that he would not.
Mr. Di Santo: Mr. Chairman, if you will allow me just briefly. I can understand that --
Mr. Chairman: Order. I would like to point out to the member for Downsview where the big hand is on the clock.
Mr. Di Santo: I will go back to the amendment because this amendment is important. We have commended the member for Waterloo North -- and the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk agreed with us even though he made reference to the inscription --
Mr. Watson: He should come back to the motion.
Mr. Di Santo: I should say as an aside, for the members of the government caucus, that the question of the member for Scarborough West raises a more serious question -- the necessity of a researcher for each member, a researcher with a background in languages other than English and French.
I reiterate the importance of the amendment and invite all members -- some are looking astonished and I do not understand why. I appeal to you to talk to the members for Burlington South and to support this amendment.
On motion by Mr. Di Santo, the debate was adjourned.
On motion by Hon. Mr. Gregory, the committee reported progress.
WATERMAIN CONSTRUCTION GRANT
Mr. Speaker: We have the --
Mr. Swart: Late show.
Mr. Speaker: I do not think it is called the late show.
Pursuant to standing order 28(b), the member for Essex North has expressed dissatisfaction with an answer given to him by the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Norton).
Mr. Ruston: I realize the Minister of the Environment is in the committee downstairs and I thought he may be excused to come up and listen to my remarks. However, I will go ahead in case he does not come.
Mr. Speaker, the concern I have is a question I asked of the minister with regard to a project the former Minister of the Environment approved in the township of Rochester. I read the paragraph which says:
"I am pleased to confirm that I have approved the grant in the amount of $969,000, which represents 72 per cent of the net capital cost of the project, based on the estimates provided by the municipality."
I have here, Mr. Speaker, the certificates of approval signed by the ministry officials: the numbers are 7-0139-81-006 and 7-0994-79-817.
These were dated April 21, 1981, and April 8, 1980.
10:30 p.m.
The township received a registered letter from J. Neil Mulvaney, QC, to the township solicitor advising that as indicated on the telephone, an error has occurred in the calculation of the above grant and that the township is only entitled to $90,000.
If there was an error, I am asking why the township was not notified of the circumstances so that they would be aware of what was going on. Up to this date the township has never been advised where the error was made and who made the error. In fact on May 31 the township solicitor received a letter from Mr. Mulvaney indicating that the province would pay $90,000, or not more than 15 per cent of the cost of the 12-inch main from Lakeshore Drive on Highway 2 to the elevated storage tank at St. Joachim.
The proposed 12-inch main would not run from the Lakeshore Drive and there is no -- and I emphasize no -- elevated tank at St. Joachim. There never has been and it is not proposed in this project. I mention this to further reinforce my contention that the minister and his officials are perhaps misleading the township. They state in a letter that something is wrong, but have never said what the mistake was.
The application forms filed by the township are the same as the applications filled out by the township of Pittsburgh and the township of Kingston in the area close to where the minister resides. There was never any mention on their applications, or on the applications of the township of Rochester, that had anything to do with 100-foot lots along a highway. But they are now claiming that because it is a rural area it is not entitled to these grants.
The local representative of the Ministry of the Environment, Mr. MacMillan, urged the township of Tilbury North, in March of this year, to ask that the township of Rochester add a line to their project to hook up with Tilbury North, and at the same time to use the 72 per cent provincial grant they were obtaining from the Ministry of the Environment. So, in March of this year, the people of the Ministry of the Environment in Windsor and Sarnia and area were not aware of any error, if there was such. This further reinforces the fact that there was no error and that the minister has changed rules during the last six months.
Mr. Speaker: One minute.
Mr. Ruston: The minister must admit that if there was an error he should have been able to show, in the past few weeks, where it was, who made it and how it was made. That has not come about. He has only said they are not entitled to the $969,000. That was in a letter signed by the former minister on March 20, one day after the election of March 19, 1981, when Mr. Parrott was still holding that position.
I want to emphasize that there is something wrong in the Ministry of the Environment when the minister can withhold money that is properly assessed to the township, approved by the Ontario Municipal Board and when the township has already called tenders for the project. This is unfair, and we will have to continue making representations until the minister gives us a proper reply.
ENERGY RATES
Mr. Speaker: The, member for Welland-Thorold has given notice of his dissatisfaction with the answer to a question to the Minister of Energy (Mr. Welch).
Mr. Swart: Mr. Speaker, I hope the minister will be here before too long. If not, I may have some comments to make at the end. Perhaps his parliamentary assistant is going to answer.
This debate is being held because the Minister of Energy gave a totally unsatisfactory answer to my request for intervention in the Consumers' Gas proposal for an excessive and unfair increase in rates.
Surely the minister must be aware that last year's decision of the Ontario Energy Board increased Consumers' Gas net income by 19 per cent and consciously planned for a further increase in equity this year of another 25 per cent.
Now Consumers' Gas has asked for another increase, which by Consumers' own figures will increase home heating costs by an average of 59 per cent in just two years, or from $657 to $1,044.
Unlike most previous increases, a huge proportion is not going either to taxes or to wholesale prices but directly to the Consumers' Gas coffers -- $77 million in the last increase and $83 million in the one they are asking for now.
Does the minister not realize what that kind of unnecessary increase in home heating rates is going to do to the average home owner? By what strange logic does his Ontario Energy Board, without a word of protest from him, assure vastly increasing profits to this public utility monopoly while all other segments of the economy are increasingly depressed?
That is bad enough, but now he is apparently not going to voice a word of protest about the new proposal of Consumers' Gas which will increase the minimum charge by three times, from $6.27 to $18.30 a month and charge for gas that is not even used. He is prepared to let them make a surcharge on gas used in the winter. This will hit hardest at the elderly and the people in the north. By their proposals, the people who conserve energy by heat pumps or any other method will be penalized.
Does the minister fail to understand the fundamental contradiction between his oft-repeated policy of energy conservation and the deliberate policy of Consumers' Gas to penalize those who conserve? Traditionally, his government's indifference to the needs of consumers is evident, but his attitude on these home-heating hikes has hit a new high -- or perhaps the right words are a new low.
It was hands off in the unprecedented awards to Consumers' and other natural gas companies last year. Using the procedures of the Ontario Energy Board Act, members of this caucus on March 22 officially appealed that award to the cabinet and asked the cabinet to reduce it, as it has the power to do. Now, two and a half months later, we have not even had a reply to that legal and official appeal.
Two weeks after Consumers' Gas applied for this latest ripoff, the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr. Elgie), did not even know the application had been made. What a concern that is for consumers.
The minister tells us, in reply to my question last Friday -- and incidentally that was two or three days before the Liberal Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Peterson) and his party twigged to the problem -- that it would be inappropriate for him to intervene now that the application is before the Ontario Energy Board. Never have I heard such convoluted reasoning.
The issue is before the Ontario Energy Board precisely for the purpose of hearing evidence and views from any interested source. Not only that, the Ontario Energy Board, like the Ontario Municipal Board, considers government policy to be important, if not binding. It is therefore essential that he make a policy statement. If he believes, as he must, and if he cares, he will know that this will place additional costs on the average home owner. It is unfair that a minimum rate be tripled and gas be paid for by the home owner that he does not even use, and that the rate policy should reflect consideration of principles that he can bring about by stating government policy.
Mr. Speaker: The member has one minute.
Mr. Swart: The second requirement, if he is sincere about protecting home owners, is to intervene at the hearing and present the arguments on behalf of the consumers as fully funded and as adequately represented by lawyers and witnesses as Consumers' Gas is on the other side. If he should feel that somehow or other as Minister of Energy he would have a conflict of interest then the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations, who has the responsibility for consumer protection, could intervene.
But he and his government cannot stand idly by while Consumers' Gas overwhelms the Ontario Energy Board and walks away with the mother lode at the expense of the consumer.
We know this is a government attached to the interests of big business, but there must be some limits. I call on the minister and his government to respond positively to the petition from this caucus to reduce the 32 per cent increase in rates awarded last February, to issue a policy statement opposing the new proposal by Consumers' Gas, and to intervene at the Ontario Energy Board hearing on behalf of the consumers with resources and determination equal to that of Consumers' Gas.
If he cares, he will do just that.
Mr. Speaker: The member's time has expired.
Mr. McClellan: Where is the minister?
10:40 p.m.
Mr. Speaker: The honourable member for Downsview has given notice of his dissatisfaction with the answer to his question given by the Minister of Labour.
Mr. Di Santo: Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield to the parliamentary assistant if he wants to answer the member for Welland-Thorold.
Mr. Speaker: He is not required to if he does not wish to.
Interjection.
Mr. Di Santo: He has the authorization of --
Mr. Speaker: The clock is running.
WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION
Mr. Di Santo: Mr. Speaker, I asked the Minister of Labour a very simple question yesterday: Why is it that he cannot make a commitment now to introduce legislation to amend the Workmen's Compensation Act so that the workmen's compensation benefits for pensioners would be revised. He said yesterday that he could not make that commitment.
I find that absolutely unjustifiable on any grounds. How can he justify on moral grounds, on the grounds of social justice or on the grounds of common sense the refusal to give injured workers an increase in their pensions that would not increase their total pensions but would put them in a position to fight inflation like any other group in our society?
The government last week make an agreement with the doctors, an agreement so generous that it brought their salaries to the point where in 1985 they will earn $122,000 a year. In 1976 the pensioners in Ontario received a minimum of $5,064; in 1981 they received a minimum of $7,854. These are the pensions that we are asking the government to increase.
The minister knows that since 1975 the consumer price index has gone up by 78.3 per cent, the average industrial wage has gone up by 75.4 per cent and the pensions and benefits for injured workers have gone up by only 55 per cent. This means that from 1976 until today they have lost 23 per cent of their purchasing power.
We know what the minister's justification is: He is saying there is reform looming -- God knows when. But he knows better than we do that this reform will not take place and that the injured workers will not have this minimum increase, which would make their lives less miserable than they are today.
I think the minister did not justify and cannot justify the fact that he does not want to take this simple step. He said that in the past he has increased the benefits every year or every two years. Why not now? Why not in 1982? He knows that inflation is more than 11 per cent; he knows that most of the injured workers on partial pensions cannot live with those pensions. They are living far below the poverty line. He knows he will not be able to introduce reform, whether it be based on wage loss or on any other principle, for a long time. So why does he not want to introduce the amendments now?
I think he has a moral responsibility. I know the injured workers do not have a powerful lobby like the doctors; I know the minister does not dine with the injured workers, as the Minister of Health (Mr. Grossman) dines with the doctors of the Ontario Medical Association. But still they are human beings, and if he thinks he can fight --
Mr. Speaker: One minute.
Mr. Di Santo: -- the battle of restraints on the backs of the injured workers, then he is doing an injustice not only to those people, who cannot defend themselves, but also to himself, to his government and to the conscience of the people of Ontario.
If the minister thinks the injured workers cannot react because they are powerless, fragmented and suffering in their souls and in their bodies, then he is underestimating a reaction that is mounting out there. When he sees people out here protesting then that will be the final result of a situation of despair that the minister and his government have created.
I am not confronting the minister. I want to appeal to him to do something that is humanly just and is required by human justice.
Hon. Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Speaker, I have no quarrel with what the honourable member had to say in the first three minutes of his address. I must admit to having considerable quarrel with what he said in the last two minutes because he drew certain assumptions as to my personal feelings which I will not accept. I am disappointed he would draw those assumptions as to the way I may feel about injured workers. Those are strictly assumptions on his part and he has no justification in making them at this time.
Mr. Di Santo: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: I was not addressing myself to the personal feelings of the minister, but rather to the policy of the government which the minister embodies.
Hon. Mr. Ramsay: My thanks to the member. I appreciate that clarification.
I would like to expand on my remarks of yesterday by pointing out that the Workmen's Compensation Amendment Act introducing the last benefit revisions was introduced in this House on June 24 of last year and was proclaimed on July 1 of last year. That revision covered a 24-month period and included substantial increases. The income ceiling increased 20 per cent from $18,500 to $22,200.
Mr. Di Santo: Nineteen per cent.
Hon. Mr. Ramsay: Existing pensions were increased nine per cent to mid-1980 and a further 10 per cent to mid-1981. I heard the member say it was 19 per cent, rather than 20. If that is so, I stand corrected.
Previous increases were brought before the House in June 1974, then over a year later in 1975, three years later in June 1978, one and a half years later in December 1979 and again after one and a half years in June 1981.
The government's white paper on the Workmen's Compensation Act recommends an annual review of compensation benefits and awards for possible adjustments for inflation. This will be considered by a legislative committee next month along with other measures included in the white paper.
I said yesterday, and I want to repeat today, I have the matter of interim increases under review. I have nothing further to add at this time.
The House adjourned at 10:48 p.m.