Hansard Transcripts 1982-Nov-18 | Legislative Assembly of Ontario

Mr. Foulds: Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a moment to pay a few words of tribute to a federal parliamentarian, former cabinet minister and friend of mine, Bob Andras, who died yesterday. Those of us who knew Bob Andras will be deeply saddened by his death. He had earned a full and rich retirement, and it has unfortunately been cut cruelly short.

Bob Andras not only displayed competence and hard work at the federal level, he also demonstrated a constant and deep concern for his constituency without becoming parochial. He capably showed that decency and hard work not only are admirable personal characteristics but can also be formidable political assets.

Bob Andras and I shared the same constituency, he at the federal level and I at the provincial level, for eight years. Although we were political opponents, I am sure it is fair to say that we were friends. It is the personal side of the man that I will always remember: the man who hugely enjoyed himself at banquets at the Italian hall, the man who always returned to Thunder Bay for Remembrance Day services in spite of heavy ministerial duties, the man who was the first to open a full-time constituency office in the riding, the man who always had time to inquire about one's family and mean it.

Often called low-profile, many people did not understand just how fiercely he fought internally, privately and effectively for those things that he felt deeply about and believed in. Decent, hard-working, effective and caring -- not bad words to describe a politician, excellent words to describe Bob Andras. We in Thunder Bay will miss him deeply. Canada will miss his kind of public service.

Mr. Nixon: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of my colleagues, I want to join with the honourable member who has just spoken in expressing our sorrow at the death of the Honourable Bob Andras.

I must tell you, sir, that in my previous incarnation as leader of the party I visited his own community sometimes with spectacular lack of success, but I always found that Bob was a good host and interested in politics on the broad basis. All of us, as members of provincial parties, know that sometimes our federal colleagues do not completely share this interest in provincial affairs. It is a small point but it indicates the breadth of Mr. Andras's generosity.

I suppose everything has already been said about his penchant for hard work and dedication to public service. Some of us occasionally detected a conservative aspect to his political philosophy but, frankly, I found some of those aspects somewhat attractive myself.

Mr. Andras will be missed not only in his own community but right across Canada. We want to join with other members in the House in extending our condolences to his family.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, those of us on this side of the House would certainly want to join with the member for Port Arthur and the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk in expressing our sympathy to the family of the late Bob Andras.

Bob Andras, as the member for Port Arthur has pointed out, was a true northerner. I think it is fair to say that he put his constituency, his province and his country ahead of party politics. Bob, to those of us who live in northern Ontario, was one of us. He did not play party politics. In fact, when he went into politics he did not know what party he really belonged with, but he represented that particular area extremely well.

He looked after not only the needs of the Thunder Bay area but, indeed, the needs of all of northern Ontario. He was that kind of a man with sincerity, dedication and ability, and those of us who come from northern Ontario were really appreciative of the contributions he made to our area. He will be missed. We are indeed proud that he was a northerner and we extend our sympathy to his family.

METROPOLITAN TORONTO POLICE PRACTICES

Mr. Roy: On a point of privilege, Mr. Speaker: You will recall on November 9 last that my colleagues and I attempted to elicit from the Attorney General (Mr. McMurtry) some explanation of his conduct in the Proverbs matter. The trial is now over. At that time, Mr. Speaker, you ruled that we could not discuss the topic because it was, in your opinion, sub judice under the standing orders. At that time, as you will recall, the Attorney General made the following comment:

"To assist you, Mr. Speaker, this trial, hopefully, will end in the not too distant future. I will welcome a frank exchange with the member for Ottawa East, the leader of the Liberal Party and any other member of the assembly with respect to any comment I have made about this matter."

2:10 p.m.

This is a very serious matter indeed, and I would like the Premier (Mr. Davis) or the House leader to advise us why the Attorney General is not here at the first available opportunity to give us a full statement on the outcome of the Proverbs matter and what steps he is going to take, and to give us some explanation -- and, if necessary, an apology -- for his conduct in this whole sorry development.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I do not really think the Attorney General proposes to make an apology. I should forewarn the honourable member --

Interjection.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I can tell the honourable member the Attorney General is at Queen's University even as we are here. He told me to inform the members of the House that he has --

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Davis: No, I don't know. He may be taking a refresher course. My guess is he is talking to the Queen's law students this afternoon. He has ordered a transcript of the trial and indicated that, after a very fair and careful study of the transcript, he may have some observations to make to the House. I am not as aware of exactly what has transpired -- I go only by the newspaper reports -- but I think the Attorney General and perhaps the member for Ottawa East might feel somewhat constrained pursuing some of the discussions in this House, in that I gather the person in question has indicated he is going to appeal.

Mr. Nixon: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: Is the Premier indicating by his last few remarks that because the person in question has indicated he might appeal, the matter is sub judice as far as we are concerned and we should not pursue it? Surely he would not have the temerity to make such a suggestion.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I would have the temerity to make several suggestions. I just made the observation that I understand from press reports that the gentleman in question is contemplating an appeal. I will leave it to the member's legal advisers, because I am not going venture a legal opinion, to say whether, if an appeal is launched, members might have to be somewhat discreet in what they say.

[Later]

Mr. Renwick: On a point of personal privilege, Mr. Speaker: I submit to you that my privileges, indeed, perhaps the privileges of other members of the assembly, were infringed by what transpired in an exchange between the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Peterson) and the Premier of the province on November 8 with respect to the Proverbs matter.

On the following day, because you, sir, had not invoked the rules of the House, a further deterioration took place in an exchange during the course of the debate on the very question I wanted to avoid, again an exchange between the Leader of the Opposition and the Attorney General of the province.

By the failure of the Leader of the Opposition, the Premier of the province, the Attorney General of the province, and the member for Ottawa East to observe the sub judice rule, my privileges and, indeed, the privileges of other members of the House were breached simply because the sub judice rule, so far as it is a rule of debate in this House with respect to criminal trials, should be observed properly.

All that deterioration in exchange took place because of a statement made by the Attorney General outside the House on Thursday, November 4. Mr. Speaker, I ask you to hold that my privileges have been breached and to call upon the Attorney General, who precipitated this matter, and the Leader of the Opposition, the Premier and the member for Ottawa East to withdraw their remarks, and for the Attorney General either to explain his comment outside the House, withdraw it or apologize for it.

I make the subsidiary point in case I have not communicated my privilege clearly. I have no privilege with respect to what any member of this House says outside, but I have a privilege with respect to the ramifications of those exchanges and the deterioration of those exchanges in breach of one of the fundamental rules of debate of the House.

Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, may I speak to the point of privilege? You will recall that on November 9 last we had a full discussion. I pointed out certain precedents to you about the rules for sub judice and the role of the chair to be played in such rules. I pointed out at that time that your predecessor had said clearly that anyone who attempts to invoke privilege or sub judice is obligated --

Mr. Renwick: Are you challenging the ruling of the Speaker that day?

Mr. Roy: I notice the member for Riverdale is getting somewhat exercised.

Mr. Renwick: I certainly am.

Mr. Roy: I want to address the chair, but he is --

Mr. Speaker: I recognize the member for Ottawa East.

Mr. Roy: The rule and the convention stated clearly that anyone attempting to invoke the rule of sub judice is obliged to demonstrate to the satisfaction of the chair that he has reasonable grounds for fearing that prejudice might result. I say with great respect that the member for Riverdale is far from having satisfied that very heavy onus. If there has been any breach --

Mr. Renwick: Are you challenging the ruling of the chair?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The member for Ottawa East.

Mr. Roy: I say again, because my colleague from Riverdale may have interrupted, that he has a very heavy onus to satisfy and he has not done so. If there has been any breach of the rule of sub judice in this House or outside of this House, it is only the comments made by the Attorney General when he commented on the evidence and backgrounded the accused during the course of a jury trial.

No other statement, in my opinion, offended the rule against sub judice. This is why it is so important to have the Attorney General here to give some explanation at the first possible opportunity and to give some apology or explanation as to his conduct.

Mr. Nixon: Mr. Speaker, I want to bring to your attention that we are under your jurisdiction and rulings in this connection. I put to you that no question has been put in this House by any member and no answer has been given by any minister that you have indicated was out of order. The member for Riverdale, over my experience in the House, has repeatedly gotten up and in a rather condescending way has attempted to restrict the questions, the answers and the debates in this House on matters of urgent public importance.

I am sure that we rely on your good judgement in these matters and you know, as do we all, that if we cannot accept your rulings we have a remedy which from time to time we have attempted to use. I would say to you that the business of the House under your jurisdiction in this matter has been in order, that we are trying to come to grips with an extremely difficult situation involving the rights and privileges of individuals and groups, and I would hope that no member, and certainly not the Speaker, would use the rules in such a restricted way that we cannot pursue the matter.

2:20 p.m.

Mr. Speaker: Thank you very much. If I may just clarify one point, and it was a remark that was made by the member for Riverdale suggesting that I had failed to invoke the standing order or rule for sub judice, I think it has been clearly and well established that it is very difficult for a Speaker to know when a matter is sub judice. The Speaker must take direction and rely on information from members in this House, most normally from a person to whom the question is directed.

In this particular case it was the member for Riverdale who raised the matter, and I thanked him at the time for bringing it to my attention. But relying on precedent and past tradition, if you will, it is very difficult if not impossible for any Speaker to know what may or may not constitute sub judice on any given matter at any given time.

Mr. Renwick: I asked, sir, if you would decide whether or not my privilege and the privileges of other members of the House had been breached. Perhaps you would take it under advisement, look at the record and advise us whether that is so.

Mr. Speaker: Yes, I am prepared to do that. Sorry; I meant to advise you of that when I was standing here. I will get back to you and all honourable members just as quickly as I can.

HEALTH CALENDAR

Mr. Rae: On a new point of privilege, Mr. Speaker: A document has come into my possession that I believe should have been made available to all members of this Legislature. It is a document which for some reason the government has not given the wide distribution I think it deserves. It is a health calendar with the name of the Minister of Health (Mr. Grossman) on the front and on the back. It is a calendar of which I understand there are some 10,000 copies and, for purposes of information, I wish to inform you that the unit cost for each calendar is approximately $200.

Mr. Speaker: That is not a point of privilege, although it is a rather interesting point. Thank you very much.

VISITORS

Mr. Speaker: I would ask all honourable members to join with me in welcoming a distinguished group in the Speaker's gallery consisting of legislators from the House of Representatives in the state of Minnesota. Members of the local and urban affairs committee of the state of Minnesota have been studying municipal affairs and transit issues in Ontario.

It gives me much pleasure to introduce Representative Gordon Voss, chairman of the committee, Representative Bob McEachern, Representative Bob Haukoos, Representative Gerald Knickerbocker and Representative Bill Schreiber.

EDUCATION

Mr. Bradley: Mr. Speaker, on a point of privilege: It is my understanding -- and this affects all members of the Ontario Legislature -- that a major announcement is to be made in the field of education this weekend. It would seem to me that if the minister is going to reveal some important changes or policy in education, she will be bringing forward a statement before the House today.

Mr. Speaker: I have to call the honourable member to order and suggest that if the minister does not have a statement, the member may wish to raise a question at the appropriate time.

STATEMENT BY THE MINISTRY

SUDBURY ENVIRONMENTAL STUDY

Hon. Mr. Norton: Mr. Speaker, today I shall be tabling for honourable members a synopsis of the Sudbury environmental study which was initiated by my ministry in 1973 in order to clarify the causal relationships between mining operations and environmental effects on the Sudbury basin.

My senior officials and I regard this study, which is really a series of 17 distinct but related studies, as being of paramount importance in enabling us to better understand environmental phenomena -- not only in Sudbury, but elsewhere as well -- and to develop intelligent, efficient programs to control significant pollution.

Perhaps one of the most significant aspects of the study may be that it played a very key role in pointing Ontario scientists towards the need for our continuing and comprehensive study of acid precipitation.

The Sudbury basin has had environmental problems for nearly a century. Mineralized ore was discovered in the area as early as 1883. Five years later, the first smelter was constructed at Copper Cliff. Common practice in the mining industry at that time was to roast the ores in huge, outdoor fires which smouldered away for months.

Over the years, Sudbury grew and prospered. But, almost from the start of the smelting operations, there was damage to local vegetation. Everyone knew, or suspected, that it had something to do with the sulphur dioxide discharged from the smelting operations. Similar effects were emerging in other industrialized nations.

In the early 1970s, it became apparent that previous efforts to ameliorate the problem had been insufficient. New and tougher measures were needed. However, our knowledge of the problem and of possible remedial measures was inadequate.

Therefore, to test our assumptions that emissions from local smelting operations were adversely affecting the Sudbury environment and to help define appropriate collective actions, the Ontario government, through the Ministry of the Environment, initiated the Sudbury environmental study. The study focused on pollutant emissions, meteorology and the dispersion of pollutants in the air, on atmospheric chemistry, removal and deposition, effects on land and water, and remedial measures.

After eight years of research, material published in more than 80 technical papers and the expenditure of some $4 million, we are able to draw a number of conclusions with respect to the Sudbury environment and with respect to the impact of Sudbury emissions on other areas of the province. We have learned a great deal about the impact of other sources on Sudbury as well. The extent of the impact from external sources is in itself a very significant discovery.

When our research team started out in 1973, it was generally believed that we were dealing only with a serious local environmental problem -- the historic and ongoing effects of emissions from the nickel and copper smelting industry into the natural environment of the Sudbury area. As the study proceeded, our scientists determined that while there were certainly local effects from the smelting operations in Sudbury, the evidence led to the disturbing conclusion that the real culprit behind acid precipitation was the long-range transport of air pollution from other sources.

The Sudbury study gave us an up-to-date ranking of major pollution sources in the Sudbury basin. It was a factor in developing appropriate controls on these resources. It has also indicated the need for a broader-based study to help us understand more of the chemistry of acid rain and more of its transport over long distances.

On the basis of the earlier findings which emerged from the Sudbury basin study, the Ministry of the Environment in 1979 launched the Acidic Precipitation in Ontario study. It is ongoing and in its activities Ontario quickly established itself as a world leader in research into acid rain and the long-range transport of air pollution.

Let me briefly summarize what the Sudbury basin study brought to light and confirmed. The most significant emission source in the Sudbury basin is the 381-metre or 1,250-foot stack of Inco Ltd. at Copper Cliff, which contributes 50 to 80 per cent of the area's industrial pollution from local sources. The percentage varies depending upon weather conditions.

However, Sudbury industry is responsible for only about 50 per cent of the acid fallout problem measured in the Sudbury basin emanating from both dry and wet depositions of sulphur dioxide. The other 50 per cent originates from other sources in eastern Canada and from industry in the United States.

Pollution damage to vegetation in the Sudbury area has been significantly reduced since 1970, when the Ministry of the Environment issued its first control order.

An estimated 200 sizeable lakes and 1,200 other smaller lakes and ponds of 10 hectares or less within 50 kilometres of Sudbury are now acidic and incapable of supporting fish life. Limited success has been encountered in experiments to rehabilitate damaged lakes through liming and other means. The liming technique is, however, still uncertain and the evidence as to its success in Europe is very far from conclusive.

2:30 p.m.

Ontario's five-year research program to better understand lake neutralization is continuing and the two ministries involved, that is, the Ministry of the Environment and the Ministry of Natural Resources, are investing more than $800,000 in the lake-liming experimentation.

I draw the attention of the honourable members to an exciting undertaking by which some of Sudbury's original natural beauty is being restored. This is the work of the Vegetation Enhancement Technical Advisory Committee, which is a consortium consisting of my ministry, the Ministry of Natural Resources, the Nickel District Conservation Authority, Cambrian College, Laurentian University, the regional municipality of Sudbury, Inco Ltd. and Falconbridge.

Since 1978, this committee has been engaged in a vigorous land reclamation project. Over the past five years, some 20,000 trees have been replanted in areas where the soil has been treated and grass has been established.

I am tabling today copies of our 120-page synopsis of the research documents. For those who may be interested in pursuing specific fields of investigation in greater or more complete detail, the 17 study volumes, comprising some 2,000 pages, will be available next week in the legislative library and at offices of my ministry, including our main library on St. Clair Avenue.

Mr. Speaker: Before proceeding with oral questions, there seem to be a lot of conversations going on, and I would ask the co-operation of all honourable members not to have private conversations in the chamber, please.

[Later]

Mr. Elston: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order to invite the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Norton), who has just now left the room, to reappear before the members of the Legislature to make up for some errors in statements made with respect to his formal statement today in the House.

I note with some degree of chagrin that he decided to issue a statement in the House which indicated that an estimated 200 sizeable lakes, etc., in the Sudbury study were determined to be so acidified that they do not now support fish life. If we go to his formal press release, we find the same statement there. However, if we go to his executive summary included in the report, which I understand is to be tabled some time today, we will find that in fact it is an estimated 200 to 400 lakes. I think the minister really ought to be sure that his facts are dead on when he makes these statements.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: I have to call the honourable member to order because it is not really a point of order, with all respect.

Mr. Elston: It is. I am inviting him to correct the record.

Mr. Speaker: I am sure he will take note of your invitation and look into the apparent discrepancies you have described. That is all we can do.

Mr. Elston: Mr. Speaker, I do not want to argue, but the other day when --

Mr. Speaker: I should hope not. I would ask the honourable member to resume his seat, please.

ORAL QUESTIONS

METROPOLITAN TORONTO POLICE PRACTICES

Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, many of us on this side are most disappointed about not having the Attorney General (Mr. McMurtry) here today. I will direct my question to the Premier.

In view of the serious allegations that have been made and commented on in the Proverbs matter, especially allegations made about a variety of people including the Premier, the Attorney General, the judges in the courts, the crown attorneys, the chiefs of police, and so on, and in view of the fact that even the chief of police of Metro Toronto has stated today that he thinks we should be reviewing the rules of conduct for police officers, does the Premier not think it is inadequate that we have the police investigating the police? I am referring to the Ontario Provincial Police looking into this matter.

Does the Premier not think the proper way to handle this matter would be to have a full, complete and independent inquiry, preferably by a Supreme Court judge?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I have already explained that the Attorney General was at Queen's fulfilling a long-standing obligation. I think the honourable member knows the Attorney General well enough to know that, if he is here tomorrow, to the extent he can answer any of the questions related to this issue, he will be delighted to do so.

For the record, since the member for Ottawa East included the Premier in some of the "allegations," in my recollection, the reference to me probably caused my wife one of her more delightful moments at the breakfast table. Somebody had suggested that one easy way to get the Premier would be on an impaired driving charge. As she knows my habits better than most members opposite or anyone else, she thought that was not only rather ridiculous, but almost amusing. She knows I do not drive very well and for me to drive in that condition would be a rather new departure for the Premier of Ontario.

Mr. Bradley: And your chauffeur does not drink.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I don't know whether the person who drives me takes an antibiotic on occasion. However, I just wanted to put on the record the rather ludicrous, to one who knows me, reference to the Premier. I may commit other sins, who knows.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Only in your mind.

Hon. Mr. Davis: That is probably true. I have been trying to assess it.

The Attorney General has already indicated that some aspects are under police investigation and that is my reply to the member today.

Mr. Roy: I was hoping to elicit something a bit more positive. I can understand the concern about the personal allegations, and appreciate the Premier's explanations. But does the Premier not feel, in view of the serious attack on the administration of justice, that having the police investigate the police in this matter is totally inadequate? Would he undertake to convey to the Attorney General his desire to see an independent and complete inquiry by a judge rather than by the police?

Second, can the Premier assist in giving us some explanation for what was at times irrational and inconsistent conduct of the Attorney General in this whole matter, and the fact that he has made comments during the course of the trial about evidence which could seriously prejudice the outcome of this case, not only at trial but on appeal? Can the Premier give us some explanation of this and why the Attorney General has not afforded the administration of justice some explanation as to his conduct?

More recently, even in today's paper, the Attorney General is quoted as saying that he does not plan to make any further remarks until the appeal from the conviction is completed. The article goes on to say, "Mr. McMurtry said yesterday he will 'restrain his comments ... ,'" but that "such restraint isn't easy 'given some of the garbage we've heard' during the trial..."

Can the Premier give us some explanation as to why the Attorney General on the one hand would refuse to comment, refuse to give some explanation, and then all of a sudden would make wide-sweeping comments about the nature of the evidence, the background of the accused and so on?

Hon. Mr. Davis: I find some modest contradiction in the honourable member's question. At one point he is wondering why the Attorney General comments and then he wants the minister in the House here to make a comment.

I would only say to the member that in my experience I have found the Attorney General of this province on all occasions to be totally rational.

Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, I hope the Premier would agree that the allegations which have been made on the tapes, not by any individual who is on trial, but rather by two police officers, contain allegations of real importance, not only to the conduct of the police but to the administration of justice in the province, and indeed contain one important allegation with respect to the conduct of the Attorney General himself.

This is no laughing matter, Mr. Speaker, and I hope --

Mr. Speaker: May we have the supplementary, please.

Mr. Rae: I would simply ask the Premier as a supplementary question, does he not think that the allegations are sufficiently important that they warrant an inquiry that is independent both of the police and of the Attorney General?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I heard of many of the assets and liabilities of the honourable member before he entered this Legislature, but I really did not think a lack of eyesight was one of them. I really did not notice myself laughing, nor do I consider it a laughing matter, nor did I sense anyone else was laughing, except the gentleman to the member's left who was smiling. I say that with the greatest of respect. I know the distance between us both philosophically and geographically is fairly significant, but even I can tell when the member is looking serious and when he perhaps on occasion smiles.

If the honourable member is suggesting the allegation, for instance, as it refers to the Premier of this province is to be taken seriously, I would find that rather surprising. I do not say that in any way by way of personal defence, but I at least happen to know what my habits are.

I would suggest to the leader of the New Democratic Party that if he takes seriously the "quotes" related to the Attorney General, then I think that is extremely unfortunate.

I would say to the leader of the New Democratic Party, the Attorney General has already indicated to members of this House that the question of the tapes or their contents is a subject of investigation by the Ontario Provincial Police. I happen to have, as he does, complete confidence in the integrity and the capacity of the Ontario Provincial Police.

2:40 p.m.

Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Premier again, as a member of the bar and as a good friend of the Attorney General, with the admiration some of us have had for the Attorney General over these past years: In view of the serious attacks over the last few months on the integrity of the administration of justice, does it not concern the Premier of the province that, as to himself and the Attorney General, nobody seems to be coming to the defence and upholding the integrity of the administration of justice?

Is the Premier prepared to defend the administration of justice enthusiastically? There appears to be some reluctance on the part of the Attorney General. Does the Premier not think it is about time to consider having someone in that office whose sworn duty it is to defend the administration of justice? If the present Attorney General is not prepared to do so, we should have someone who is.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, over the years I cannot recall anyone who has articulated in a better sense or more often, not a defence of, but support for the administration of justice in this province than the present Attorney General. If the honourable member wants me to reiterate my support for the administration of justice in this province, I do so without hesitation or equivocation.

I come from a family where my late father happened to be crown attorney for over 30 years. I am relatively familiar with the traditions and history of the administration of justice in this province.

I would say with the greatest respect that, while on occasion problems emerge because one is dealing with human beings, with individuals, I would compare the record here in terms of the administration of justice with that of any jurisdiction in North America in a very favourable way.

SALE OF RENTAL UNITS

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations with respect to the Greymac-Cadillac Fairview transactions and a variety of other people.

Yesterday the minister learned some new facts pertaining to that situation. He learned that Cadillac Fairview's property management had been sold to Kilderkin Investments some time ago. Recently, subsequent to his last pronouncement in this House, he learned that Greymac Mortgage Corp. had been sold by Leonard Rosenberg to one William Player, the man behind the Kilderkin situation. With what we know about the mortgage financing of this deal, it now appears the tenants of the subject properties could be paying for Bill Player's purchase of Greymac Mortgage Corp.

We understand the proposed legislation makes it a little easier to handle the increased rental costs, makes them a little more manageable, but why should the legislation permit tenants to pay for this high-stakes wheeling and dealing between Leonard Rosenberg, Bill Player and a variety of other people we do not know about? How can the minister justify even one nickel of tenants' money going to finance this long series of Monopoly transactions?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: Mr. Speaker, let us not assume I had no understanding that the management of Cadillac Fairview was going to leave. As the Leader of the Opposition will recall from my statement of November 4, I said the president of Greymac Credit had told me he would be acquiring the management of Cadillac Fairview. So it is no surprise to me that they went on to the ultimate purchaser. If it is to the member, then I think that is interesting.

Mr. Peterson: Kilderkin.

Hon. Mr. Elgie: I said "initially". I said it was no surprise to me, and I am sure it is not to the member, that the management services then moved on to the company that ultimately is the long-term lease holder.

Let me also say that the sale of Greymac Mortgage from Mr. Rosenberg to Mr. Player is an issue I know about and an issue we have had discussions about. Certainly, one has to have some genuine concerns about whether the closing of that transaction in any way had any relevance to the other transactions that were completed on those days.

It is for that reason I have asked the same special examiner to add Greymac Mortgage to the companies under the Loan and Trust Corporations Act. They will be examining, auditing and generally carrying out an investigation as to the conduct of the company.

The member asked if I was concerned about the tenants. If he does not understand that what happened this week -- the legislation, the changes and the guidelines that were introduced -- is a loud and clear message that this minister and this government do not approve of frivolous speculation -- I am not commenting on whether there was in this instance or not, I am talking in general -- if he does not understand that message, he is probably the only one in this building who does not.

Mr. Peterson: It is obvious to me the minister is terribly embarrassed about this whole situation. He is the last one to know. There is a new snippet of information today from the minister that Greymac Mortgage will be investigated along with the trust company. Day after day, we have to pull it out from him. Day after day, as more information conspires against what the minister knows, he is increasingly embarrassed.

Since the minister's statement on Tuesday, he should know more because we know more than he revealed in that particular statement. I am asking the minister again, to avoid further embarrassment to himself, why will he not call for a full and open investigation now? The test he has imposed, the suggestion of criminal wrongdoing, was not the test he imposed in the other investigations. Surely we have an obligation to get to the bottom of this. Why does the minister keep stonewalling day after day?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: Let me try to be very fair in my comments here. I am not the least bit embarrassed about this or about anything I have ever done in this Legislature. If the Leader of the Opposition thinks I should be, then I do not know to whom he should talk, because he is not talking to people who understand the facts right now.

Let us also understand that I have ordered, under my statutory responsibility under the Loan and Trust Corporations Act, special examination, audit and general inquiry under the Public Inquiries Act. That will be an inquiry that is appropriate to the needs and purposes we are all concerned with.

If the member thinks I am being cautious, if he thinks I am not going to get to the heart of the issues, let me tell him very clearly that the full investigative force of my ministry is and will continue to be addressing all the issues related to these transactions.

Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, I guess being a Tory is never having to say you are embarrassed. If the minister has never been embarrassed, that says a lot about him.

Mr. Speaker: Supplementary, please.

Interjections.

Mr. Rae: The minister obviously needs a lot of help from some of his friends. They are not allowing me to put my supplementary.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Some hon. members: We want Jim Foulds.

Mr. Foulds: They cannot have me; I am here.

Mr. Speaker: I must point out to all honourable members, it is your question period. You may use it for whatever purpose you wish, but I want to hear the questions if nobody else does.

Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, if the minister is interested in getting rid of speculation and in punishing speculators, which seems to be part of the message he is coming out with in the last few days, why in the name of goodness has he not imposed a tax on the speculation that has taken place, causing totally false profits of over $200 million in the last two months?

2:50 p.m.

Hon. Mr. Elgie: Let me just reiterate that I am not the least bit embarrassed. I am not embarrassed but rather proud of the kind of support I have from my back-benchers.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Elgie: It is not the kind of support that a previous leader of the New Democratic Party had, because he did not have it.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Elgie: It is interesting to have the member ask the same question today that he asked the other day. I told him that the message from this minister in that statement, that bill and these guidelines, was very clear. I said, "If you wish to address yourself to other issues, you should address yourself to the appropriate minister." If the member wants me to write the name, I will be glad to do that, although I know his desk gets full of little notes. It was so high the other day from one question.

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, the minister said I was accusing him of being too cautious. Were those the words he used?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: No, I did not say that.

Mr. Peterson: I didn't accuse him of that. I accuse him of being naive and of being duped. I now accuse him of stonewalling. That is what I accuse him of. Because every day this information --

Mr. Speaker: Supplementary, please.

Mr. Peterson: Every day more information comes out and the minister is the last one to know.

Mr. Speaker: Supplementary, please.

Hon. Mr. Elgie: Was that a question?

Mr. Speaker: It was not a question.

Mr. Peterson: The question is this: In view of all the people the minister knows have been involved in various ways with this thing, including Mr. Cowper, and including John Clement, a former Attorney General, a director of one of these companies, and all the people he knows who have knowledge of the situation, why does he not feel an obligation to get all the truth out in public now?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: It is always kind of interesting in life to look back at repetition and see if the facts in the past always fit with those of the present. I recall a year ago I stood in this House, and who was criticizing me? It was a member of the Liberal Party, who was saying, "How dare you suggest that human rights officers have the right to enter a building and ask to look at books and premises?" I will not quote what one Liberal member said, but it was very clear: "You should have good and reasonable cause before you start making silly accusations."

Let me say very clearly, frankly and honestly that all these issues will be investigated. They are not going to be investigated by the member coming in daily with dribs and drabs of information and me standing up and giving him dribs and drabs of information. The member should tell his investigator, Mr. Whitelaw, that if he gets any information that is really interesting, he has an obligation to tell my investigator, so he knows very well what it is. In that way, we all get to the root of the matter rather than playing games in this House every day.

Mr. Peterson: A point of privilege, Mr. Speaker: Perhaps the honourable minister will be good enough to tell this House, with respect to the point he just made and in defence of my privileges therein, why his investigators in his ministry came to our researchers to ask what we knew, to find out what was going on in the situation.

Mr. Speaker: New question. The member for York South.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Elgie: Let me tell your researchers --

Mr. Speaker: I did not allow the point of privilege. I have ruled it out of order, therefore there is nothing to reply to.

The member for York South with a new question.

Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Premier concerning the Cadillac Fairview transactions. Given that the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations admitted yesterday in committee that he did not know who the beneficial owners of the property are now or were at any point during any of the transactions that occurred, why did the cabinet not decide to order a public inquiry into the entire series of transactions, given that without that inquiry we will never know the facts behind these deals?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I do not really want to upset the honourable member, but I listened to the exchange just a few moments ago in which he participated, where the same question was asked in a rather different form perhaps not in the same well-modulated voice -- and where the answer, I thought, was given in a very articulate way by the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations.

Mr. Rae: It may be necessary to ask the same question if we never get a good answer to that question. Does the Premier not think the tenants of this province ought to know, as a matter of right, who owns the roof over their heads, and can he point to any legislation or any inquiry that will give tenants the right to know?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I have never had tenants really portray to me their concern about what company or what individual necessarily owned the roof over their heads.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: Come off it.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Well, I am just telling you the main --

Mr. Rae: What are they supposed to do? Phone Mecca?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Let me explain. I have had tenants approach me on the question of security of tenancy, on the question of the rate they were paying. That has been, and I think for the average tenant still is, the main concern.

Mr. Rae: The Premier should recognize that if he wants to talk to any group of tenants, they will say that if it is impossible to know who is behind the numbered company, that is an issue of some real importance.

Would the Premier give a simple answer to this question? Can he point to any inquiry or to any legislation that will allow us to know who paid what to whom and when, and who now owns those 11,000 units? Can he tell us what inquiry will give us an answer to that question?

Hon. Mr. Davis: I think that question has already been asked.

Mr. Rae: It has not been answered.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I would be rather surprised if it is not in the course of the investigation that is going on under the Loan and Trust Corporations Act, where the bulk of that information -- I cannot assure the honourable member -- but where the bulk of that information in fact will be obtained.

JOB CREATION

Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, I would like to address a question to the Treasurer, who made an announcement yesterday with the federal Minister of Employment and Immigration with respect to a job program in Ontario. If the feds had put up $200 million, would he have put up $200 million?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, that is a hypothetical question.

Mr. Rae: That was not a hypothetical answer; that was an evasion, Mr. Speaker.

Can the minister tell us why his government is responding with less money now than it did in May, when the situation today is much more serious than it was in May? Why is he spending less money now than he was in May?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Until I tell the House how much I am spending, how does the honourable member know how much I am spending?

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, the Treasurer will recall, I am sure, that in November 1980, some two years ago, he brought in a mini-budget and the stated intention was "to create employment in Ontario."

That was two years ago. In the meantime unemployment is up by 242,000; the unemployment rate has gone from 6.6 per cent to 11.7 per cent, and total employment is actually down in this province: there are 81,000 fewer people working than there were two years ago; the gross provincial product in real dollars is 2.5 per cent below the 1980 level.

Things are very much worse than they were two years ago, when the Treasurer thought things were of such crisis proportions that he needed a mini-budget.

Mr. Speaker: Supplementary, please.

Mr. Peterson: Why does the Treasurer not bring in a mini-budget now to address these problems?

Hon. F. S. Miller: I have explained, Mr. Speaker -- and that question has been asked before also -- that a mini-budget is not needed at this point.

Interjection.

Hon. F. S. Miller: I took certain tax actions then. I will be reacting. I believe it now will be Monday rather than tomorrow. The discussions I had with Mr. Axworthy yesterday, and I thought they were very good discussions, have given me a slightly different program from what I expected; therefore, I have to amend what we are doing.

3 p.m.

Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, I wonder whether the minister does not think that job creation is worth spending more than two days of provincial revenue.

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, we do not have any one set figure, such as the amount we will be talking about in this supplementary action, as being the sum total of what we have done.

The Leader of the Opposition a moment ago talked basically about my Board of Industrial Leadership and Development document. The BILD document was a mid- to long-term economic policy, the kind of thing the honourable member's party talks about a great deal.

I want to say that as time goes on, around this province the recognition of the importance and appropriateness of the BILD document --

Mr. Rae: We lost 28,000 jobs last month.

Hon. F. S. Miller: It has only taken the member three days to interject. He must listen before he answers. When I was a teacher, I liked them to listen.

The BILD document was not something that was going to generate a lot of jobs all at once. It was a document aimed at attacking some of the structural problems in our economy.

The Minister of Industry and Trade (Mr. Walker) is quite busy these days going around opening the technology centres, and people come from all over to be there and to have their faces on television, to appear to be part of the scene even when they are part of the opposition.

I met with the electrical manufacturing people this morning, and they said that in their mind the best description of what Ontario ever needed in the electrical field was in the BILD document; that they could not have said it better themselves. There are others saying that. The name "BILD" can be seen all around the province, as some reporters have noticed, because we are working all around the province.

ARGOSY FINANCIAL GROUP

Mr. Breithaupt: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations concerning the matter of Argosy Financial Group of Canada, a matter about which there has not been any statement in this House by the minister since the arrests, apparently, reported on November 9.

Since there was an extensive, year investigation by the Ontario Provincial Police and the Ontario Securities Commission, can the minister now tell the Legislature and the 1,600 investors who lost their savings, how was it that the relevant Ontario regulatory bodies, such as the Ontario Securities Commission, the registrar of mortgage brokers and the financial institutions division, all under his ministry, managed to fail in their duty as public watchdogs and overlooked the operations of Argosy?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: Mr. Speaker, I will have to go from recollection of some time ago on this, but it is my recollection that there was a pretty thorough debate about this issue some time ago. It is my recollection that the director of the Ontario Securities Commission, as the honourable member will recall, initially did not approve of that prospectus and that the matter was then appealed to the commission, which approved it. If I am wrong in that, I will come back and say so. But that is my recollection of it.

Mr. Breithaupt: Since Argosy Investments was licensed provincially as a mortgage broker in the same way that Re-Mor Investment Management Corp. was; since London Loan Ltd., which during the relevant time was a subsidiary of Argosy, was also licensed provincially; and since Argosy Financial Group of Canada Ltd. was registered provincially as a securities issuer, does the minister not agree that the licensing and regulatory bodies involved have an obligation to monitor companies such as those which they license?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: If the member wants a detailed review of events after that, I will be pleased to get it and report to him.

Let me just say that my recollection of events, and it is some time ago, is that the director of the Ontario Securities Commission, as the member will recall, initially did not approve of it; the issue was then referred to a full commission, applying the principles of natural law, and the director was overridden.

Surely no one is saying that there was any wrongdoing or that anything was missed as a result of that, because I have to think that everybody did whatever was reasonable in the circumstances.

WAGE AND PRICE RESTRAINT PROGRAM

Mr. Mackenzie: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Labour. Will the minister inform the House and file with the House any studies or plans he has made to deal with the damage that will be done and the problems created to free collective bargaining in Ontario as a result of the arbitrary cancellation of contracts by Bill 179, the denial of the right to strike and the denial of arbitration rights?

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Speaker, I have no intention at this time of filing any of the contracts to which the honourable member refers.

Mr. Mackenzie: I obviously asked for any studies or information the minister had about the results of this particular legislation. As well, can he explain why he has prematurely broken the law himself by virtually shutting down the arbitration process in the public sector in Ontario, even with the number of key cases on the docket? Is the minister willing to appear himself, voluntarily, before the standing committee on administration of justice, which is discussing this bill, to deal with some of the ramifications of this legislation for Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: I believe I can best answer that question by reading into the record a very short letter which I wrote to the chief executive officer of the Ontario Nurses' Association and which addresses that very point. It says:

"The purpose of this letter is to accurately state for you my position in respect to the exercise of ministerial powers of appointment under the Hospital Labour Disputes Arbitration Act in the face of Bill 179.

"As you know, Bill 179 has been referred to a standing committee of the Legislature before which clause-by-clause debate is now in progress. While I can only speculate as to the precise date, it is reasonable to assume that this bill will be enacted within the next few weeks. No one can, however, be entirely certain of what amendments may be passed either on the Treasurer's motion or at the suggestion of one of the other parties.

"Until the final contours of the bill are known, it is impossible to say whether or to what extent the dispute resolution procedures under the Hospital Labour Disputes Arbitration Act will be relevant during the period of the restraint program.

"I would seriously question the utility of pursuing a dispute to arbitration at a time when legislation may render any resulting award void. For this reason, I have deferred" -- and I stress that word "deferred" -- "acting upon the request to appoint arbitration board members until the bill has been expressed in its final form.

"I believe my position is prudent in the circumstances and not in conflict with my responsibilities under the Hospital Labour Disputes Arbitration Act."

It is important to distinguish between a deferral and a refusal to exercise a statutory power. There has been no refusal on my part to date.

Mr. Wrye: Mr. Speaker, can the Minister of Labour help me by explaining whether he believes that contracts signed before the introduction of this legislation and still being carried forth are legally binding and should be honoured by the employer until such time as Bill 179 is or is not dealt with favourably by this Legislature? Should any increases that might occur while these discussions are ongoing be fully honoured until such time as there might be any rollback?

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Speaker, I believe the honourable member knows full well the nature of Bill 179 and what it provides.

Mr. Mackenzie: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: The minister also did not answer the second part of the question. Will he volunteer to appear before the committee?

Mr. Speaker: The minister really does not have to answer if he does not choose to.

CONVERSION OF SINGLE-FAMILY HOMES

Mr. J. M. Johnson: Mr. Speaker, I have a question to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing.

In view of the very serious shortage of rental accommodation in Metropolitan Toronto, will the minister consider working with municipal councils to encourage the conversion of some single-family homes into accommodation for two families: for example, by converting a recreation room into a small apartment? It would serve two purposes: (1) to provide much-needed apartments and (2) to assist financially depressed home owners to save their homes by sharing the mortgage costs with the tenants. Would this not free some housing stock in Metro?

3:10 p.m.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I am sure all honourable members will have an opportunity to ask their questions at the appropriate time.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Mr. Speaker, you will be aware that in the ministry we ask municipalities, first of all, to do a housing needs study in their various communities. From those studies, we try to assess the housing requirements.

In this community the mayor has indicated clearly that he wants to pursue this subject with his councillors and eventually to meet with the province of Ontario. I want to suggest very positively that the issue raised by the honourable member is one that actually will be responded to in a very positive way by the municipality itself, because it relates to zoning.

In the information backing up the Challenge 2000 program, we have indicated clearly that this is one of the possibilities of providing some secondary type of accommodation in our various communities. But as I said at the time, and I repeat it now, it will require a sales program by the municipalities to the various communities. As we have experienced in the past, some communities resist any further doubling-up or multiple use of some of the single-family residences in their community.

While we can assist from the provincial point of view, most of the responsibility for trying to sell the community on the zoning change will rest with the local municipalities.

Mr. J. M. Johnson: Many elderly and infirm people would be able to continue to live in their homes if they had the support service of someone sharing that home. The Minister of Health (Mr. Grossman), the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Drea) and possibly our housing czar, the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr. Elgie), should also be in such a program. Will the minister discuss the proposals with his colleagues and the municipal politicians?

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Without any doubt, we are advancing and asking the municipalities to review that very situation to find out what their interest happens to be in trying to convert some of the older homes to multiple use. Indeed, we said before that it would give an opportunity to some of our seniors who are home owners and having cash-flow difficulties in maintaining their homes to use them for a second residence and to have an income from the rental factor that would allow them to retain those residences for a longer period of time.

I say to the member very clearly, the points he raises are valid and I hope they are points the various municipalities around this province will take under serious consideration. Wherever we in the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing can be of help, we will help. I think there is value in the suggestion by the member.

Mr. McClellan: Mr. Speaker, is the minister aware that a proposal identical to the suggestion made by his colleague already has been brought to Toronto city council and that there has been discussion of the merit of the proposal?

Can the minister tell us whether there are funds within existing ministry budgets for the promotion of these kinds of conversion programs and whether there is staff in place in his ministry and available to meet with representatives of the city of Toronto or other interested municipalities, as well as sponsoring groups and organizations that are interested in seeing this proposal move forward?

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Yes, Mr. Speaker, there is staff available within the ministry to advise municipalities. That staff has assisted municipalities with other types of projects in trying to bring housing on stream in their various communities.

Regarding the financing, part of that will come within the review that I was asked to make on Tuesday of overall housing requirements and new scopes we might want to undertake in the next two, three or more years.

As regards the issue raised at Metropolitan Toronto related to suggestions they have advanced for the dividing up -- if that is the proper word to use -- of some of the residences in the various communities of Metropolitan Toronto, we are aware of their suggestions.

But I want to remind this House again that the difficulties will come not just in making suggestions to the minister, the ministry or the government. The real proof of it will be the ability of each municipality and each area alderman to sell to his community the idea that it would be a wise step, in the light of the conditions prevailing in the housing supply program and in the light of the requirement of units at a lower rental factor than we are experiencing under the development programs today, to make housing available through the division of some of the present homes.

I draw to the members' attention the confusion and the chaos in the Parkdale area with the bachelorettes, which served a very useful purpose for some people in the various parts of this metropolitan area. That was not well sold in that community. I suggest strongly that if the program being advanced by Metropolitan Toronto and some other communities across the province is not successful, it will not be because of the provincial attitude towards it, which is positive, but because of the inability of the council and the aldermen, the local representatives, to sell it to the people in the communities where they wish to make that zoning change.

Mr. Epp: Mr. Speaker, given the fact that the minister has just spent $50,000 to get out the vote in Ontario, why does he not use some of the money and some of the leadership that usually accrues to his ministry to call the various municipalities together to see how the zoning in the various municipalities might be expedited or changed to try to get more housing?

Second, how long will it take for him to get this housing study completed so we can get some benefit from it before thousands and thousands of residents of this province have to suffer under the lack of leadership he has offered in the past two or three years?

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Mr. Speaker, we hear the same idle words from the opposition constantly about lack of leadership. This province has offered a great deal of leadership in the provision of housing.

One can look at the Ontario rental construction loan program, the renter-buy program and various other programs this province has participated in either on its own or in co-operation with the federal government to produce units across the province.

We do not hesitate to point to the fact that the programs we have initiated as a government have been extremely responsible for the number of units we have been able to bring on stream in the rental construction loan program and the various ownership programs.

I say to my friend, do not give us this bumf about having done little or nothing. We have been aggressively trying to answer the problem within the financial limitations of the federal and provincial governments; so do not give us this nonsense about doing little or nothing.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: I suggested to the member a week ago that since the members opposite are so intimately related to the federal government in Ottawa, they might like to talk to the federal minister about certain additional allocations to this province under the co-operative, nonprofit, public and private programs, so we can get on with building some more units within that area which responds to people who require rental assistance. It cannot come singularly from the province -- it is a co-operative program but the federal government controls the number of units that are allocated to this province and, indeed, to any one of the 10 provinces of Canada.

I have very clearly suggested to municipalities the zoning changes and amendments to their official plans and secondary plans, and I do not think they require this minister to take them by the hand and lead them along that path. Metropolitan Toronto, the city of Toronto, Ottawa --

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The minister will ignore the interjections and proceed to answer the question, please.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Yes, Mr. Speaker. I will ignore the interjections, because that is about the value they have produced in the discussion in this House.

I believe that the major municipalities, which is where most of our housing problems stem from, are very well equipped. I compliment them on the superior staff they have in being able to design and develop new official plans and to find innovative ways of trying to change zoning that will cope with the present requirement for housing in their various communities.

I want to emphasize that planners and so on can be very astute, very knowledgeable and very much of assistance to the municipality, to the elected council, but I repeat that the final success in selling this will be when the aldermen, the local representatives, sell it to the individual communities, which very well might protest it and take it to the Ontario Municipal Board and through a long, drawn-out period of hearings.

3:20 p.m.

GRANT TO LONGFORD RESERVE LTD.

Mr. Eakins: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Natural Resources. As the minister is no doubt aware, the township of Longford in Victoria county is privately owned and is more than 50 per cent foreign-owned. Can the minister confirm that a grant of $25,000 was made available to a group known as Longford Reserve Ltd. under the managed-forest tax reduction program? To qualify, has it not been his ministry's policy that one must be a resident of Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Pope: Mr. Speaker, I will have to get the information on the specifics of that grant and get back to the honourable member when I am here next week.

Mr. Eakins: Can the minister confirm that at the time the grant was given, regardless of any change since, it was more than 50 per cent foreign-owned? Will he confirm that it is his ministry's policy now that to qualify one must be a resident of Ontario? Is that true?

Hon. Mr. Pope: I think the member has to distinguish between ownership of shares and residence of corporation. That has always been an argument with respect to the activities of certain individuals or corporations in this jurisdiction. There are always arguments as to whether a corporation is foreign-controlled or foreign-owned and to what degree that should affect our programs to improve the woodlot and wood production capacities of Ontario.

EMPLOYMENT IN SUDBURY

Mr. Laughren: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Premier on the job situation in Sudbury. I want to ask him about long-term commitments to Sudbury, not the temporary jobs that have been created by the various levels of government, including the region.

First, I want to ask the Premier whether he will make a commitment to Sudbury to take the advice of his own experts in his government, which they put forth in Towards a Nickel Policy for the Province of Ontario, back in 1977, when they suggested there should be a nickel institute in Ontario in Sudbury to implement strategies for domestic production of nickel-based products.

Second, will he direct that the exemptions to section 104 of the Mining Act be cancelled so that Falconbridge will refine its ores in the Sudbury basin?

Third, will plans be implemented now to create a fertilizer plant utilizing the sulphur at Sudbury and the phosphate deposits at Cargill township, near Kapuskasing?

Will the Premier make those long-term commitments to the people in Sudbury?

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. If the member for Sudbury East (Mr. Martel) has a question to ask the Minister of Natural Resources, he might better go outside the House and ask him. Please respect the rights of others in asking and answering questions.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I think the honourable member asked three questions but it was really one general question: Is this government anxious to provide some direction or assistance in terms of the long-term prospects in the Sudbury basin? There is no question, the answer to that is and has been "yes."

He referred to three specifics. He is going back to a report made in 1977 or 1978. I will reread that report. My instant reaction, and I am only going by memory, is that probably would not resolve the situation in the Sudbury basin. We may disagree on that.

On the question of the licence: At this moment in the economic history of that community, it would not be a wise course to pursue. I am informed by the Minister of Northern Affairs (Mr. Bernier) that his deputy will be in Sudbury tomorrow; he is meeting with the chairman of the region on Friday or Saturday to discuss any prospects or possible employment opportunities in Sudbury.

I can assure the member it has a very high priority. I am not going to kid him and say there are any instant or easy solutions, but we are pursuing it.

Mr. Laughren: I did ask the Premier three specific questions and perhaps he could respond to me in writing at a later time.

I wonder whether the Premier has seen the statistics developed by the Laid-off Inco Employees' committee in Sudbury which indicated that by the time these layoffs are over, the unemployment insurance payments will be $91 million, the loss in federal and provincial taxes will be $33 million and as many as 300 people could lose their homes in the Sudbury basin.

In view of those rather devastating figures, will the Premier sit down with the federal government and Inco and work out an arrangement, utilizing either stockpiling or subsidized operations with equity in return to the two senior levels of government, to ensure that Inco Metals Co. will go back to full production on January 3 at the same time as Falconbridge is returning to work?

Hon. Mr. Davis: I have not seen the specific figures but I am not disputing them for a moment. I think one only has to do the calculations of the numbers; so I am not arguing the figures.

My recollection once again is that the Minister of Natural Resources has been and will be meeting with the federal Minister of State (Mines). They are discussing various things relating to Inco and Falconbridge. I do not hold out that particular proposal as one of the solutions, but I can assure the member that this government, in conjunction with the government of Canada and the companies involved, is looking at all alternatives.

Mr. Van Horne: Mr. Speaker, although the specific reference to Sudbury was missing in the opening comments of the Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. Timbrell) at the Royal Winter Fair the other day, he did make reference to new initiatives for the agricultural industry in the north and what they might provide.

In relation to the question asked by the member for Nickel Belt about jobs, can the Premier, the Minister of Agriculture and Food or the Minister of Northern Affairs indicate what new initiatives there might be for jobs related to agriculture in the north?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, knowing me as well as he does, the honourable member I think will understand that I will not be directing the Minister of Agriculture and Food, but I am certainly quite prepared to ask him to give the member whatever information he can.

LANGUAGES OF INSTRUCTION COMMISSION

Mr. Eves: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Education. With respect to the establishment of a French-language entity in Mattawa and in the light of the recent visit of the Liberal member for Prescott-Russell (Mr. Boudria) to that community in the riding of Parry Sound, can the minister inform the House what the recommendation of the Languages of Instruction Commission of Ontario is?

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, it is my understanding that, after an investigation at the request of parties in Mattawa, the Languages of Instruction Commission has recommended that an independent assessment or Gallup poll of the citizens of the area be carried out and, if a majority of the citizens in that community are in favour of the establishment of an entity, that a school entity be established.

It is also my understanding that the responsible board of education, the Nipissing board, has accepted that recommendation from the Languages of Instruction Commission.

It seems to me that is in direct support of the position this government and the Ministry of Education have been taking since October 5, 1979. We did encourage, stimulate and attempt to persuade boards to establish entities for French-language education where the board and the community felt it was necessary and appropriate. We have not sought to impose such entities upon communities but have been working with the communities to encourage them to consider seriously the development of such programs.

It is my understanding that the Nipissing board feels it is going in the right direction and it will be pursuing the recommendation of the Languages of Instruction Commission.

I also gather that there was a very interesting reaction to the honourable member's visit to Mattawa yesterday. In fact, I am surprised to see him here today, because it was reported on the radio that the local president of the Liberal association announced he had lost every Liberal vote in that riding for all time.

3:30 p.m.

Mr. Eves: Is the minister aware that the president of the Mattawa Liberal association reportedly said this morning that thanks to the visit of the member for Prescott-Russell they have lost every Liberal vote they ever had in the town of Mattawa?

Mr. Speaker: Order. That question has already been asked and answered.

Mr. Boudria: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask a real question of the minister if I may. She said a moment ago that she was in favour of the establishment of French entities where numbers warranted. Could she explain to us why the Languages of Instruction Commission indicated that there should have been an absolute majority as opposed to a warranting number?

Could the minister further state to the House, if and when a majority or a warranted number or whatever comes about in that community, that the same situation will not occur as did in Iroquois Falls where the numbers were proved, the Languages of Instruction Commission was sent to them and nothing was done? It was totally rejected. Will the minister be putting more teeth into the authority of the Languages of Instruction Commission?

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, it might interest the honourable member to know that the Education Act in this province determines that where numbers warrant -- and the numbers are not specified but they are within 20 or so -- classes for French-language education must be established. That is required, and they are established.

The policy statement of October 5, 1979, related to the establishment of French-language secondary school entities, and it stated quite clearly that the government encourages the establishment of separate French-language instructional entities where the school board and the local community wishes this to happen. We have been working with both school boards and local communities to encourage them to move in the direction of ensuring that the French-language instructional requirements or needs of students are met through whatever method.

As a result of that policy statement, six new French-language entities have been established since 1979. There has been a significant increase in the French-language offerings in many of the mixed language schools, and the vast majority -- not the vast majority but certainly the majority, of French-language students at the secondary school level in this province are now attending secondary schools totally within the French language.

Mr. Mancini: Mr. Speaker, I have a point of privilege and I would ask the Premier (Mr. Davis) to stay to listen to it.

I have a document here, and it is an official newsletter published by the Ontario Council of Commercial Fisheries. Looking at page 2, I would like to quote --

Mr. Speaker: Can you identify your point of privilege, please?

Mr. Mancini: Yes, I am going to that point right away . It states, ''He has met with superminister, the Honourable Lorne Henderson." Mr. Speaker, I would like you to inform me whether or not there are superministers in the cabinet and just what classifies a person as a superminister, and if you cannot --

Mr. Speaker: Order. The member for Essex South will resume his seat, please.

PETITION

CLOSING OF START CENTRE

Mr. McNeil: Mr. Speaker, I would like to table a petition containing over 1,000 names opposed to the closing of the Start Centre located at St. Thomas.

REPORTS

STANDING COMMITTEE ON GENERAL GOVERNMENT

Mr. Barlow from the standing committee on general government presented the following report and moved its adoption:

Your committee begs to report the following bill with certain amendments:

Bill Pr3, City of Sarnia Foundation Act.

Your committee begs to report the following bill without amendment:

Bill Pr38, Town of Strathroy Act.

Motion agreed to.

STANDING COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT

Mr. Andrewes from the standing committee on resources development presented the following resolution:

That supply in the following amounts and to defray the expenses of the Ministry of Tourism and Recreation be granted to Her Majesty for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1983:

Ministry administration program, $1,695,300; tourism development program, $24,146,800; tourism and recreational attractions program, $18,868,500; recreation, sports and fitness program, $43,932,600.

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

BOROUGH OF EAST YORK ACT

Mr. Williams moved, seconded by Mr. J. M. Johnson, first reading of Bill Pr36, An Act respecting the Borough of East York.

Motion agreed to.

UKRAINIAN CULTURAL CENTRE ACT

Mr. Shymko moved, seconded by Mr. Runciman, first reading of Bill Pr47, An Act respecting the Ukrainian Cultural Centre.

Motion agreed to.

3:40 p.m.

ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS ON NOTICE PAPER

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, I would like to table the answers to questions 464, 534, 591 and 650 and the interim answers to questions 548, 644, 645, 646, 647, 648, 651, 652, 653, 654, 655, 656 and 657, all standing on the Notice Paper [see Hansard for Friday, November 19].

ORDERS OF THE DAY

PRIVATE MEMBERS' PUBLIC BUSINESS

AGRICULTURAL EXPORTS

Mr. McNeil moved, seconded by Mr. Lane, resolution 29:

That, in view of the success to date of agricultural trade missions in promoting the sale of our farm produce, this House strongly supports and encourages the initiatives of the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food for the expansion of export trade.

Mr. Speaker: I will point out to the honourable member that he has up to 20 minutes for his presentation and may reserve any portion of that for his windup.

Mr. McNeil: I would like to reserve a couple of minutes, Mr. Speaker.

We live in an era when the world is becoming more of a single marketplace. To sustain growth and ensure future prosperity, it is imperative for Ontario business to compete in the international trading arena. In the past five years, Ontario food and agricultural producers have achieved significant inroads in foreign markets. The export initiatives of the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food have contributed vital support for this expansion. I therefore urge that the House express its support for these initiatives by adopting the resolution under debate.

Last year, Ontario exports of food and agricultural products totalled $1.6 billion, a 21 per cent increase from 1980. That sizeable gain was not an aberration. In fact, our export trade has been expanding at about that pace since 1977. Foreign sales have almost doubled during that period. Our strategy is two-pronged: replacing imports with Ontario-grown products and boosting exports. Since the resolution concerns export initiatives, my remarks will centre on that theme.

In an important trend, Ontario exporters are breaking into new international markets while holding their own in traditional markets. The United States, of course, remains our largest foreign customer. Japanese imports from Ontario are positive. Ironically enough, it spends $40 million a year on our pork alone. Our trade in the United Kingdom and in Europe has grown in the past five years and that in the Caribbean has risen quite sharply.

We have made striking gains in the so-called nontraditional markets, such as the Far East, Latin America and the Middle East. Ontario exports to these regions increased fourfold between 1977 and 1981, growing from 13 per cent of our total exports in 1977 to a full 29 per cent last year. That performance gives us a solid base for further expansion in these emerging markets.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Food acts as a catalyst to stimulate export activity by Ontario agribusiness. It has established a comprehensive export market development program to identify opportunities to bring buyers and sellers into contact and provide support services. The program includes regular food sales missions to the United States, the Caribbean, the United Kingdom, Europe, the Middle East and the Far East.

Other elements of the program area are: incoming buyers missions, participation in trade shows, export sales aids, a sourcing directory and export showrooms. The heart of its sales effort is, of course, the series of trade missions to foreign markets organized annually by the ministry. About 120 companies participated in one or more of the 15 missions offered last year. According to results reported by participating companies, the missions are estimated to have generated immediate sales of approximately $30 million.

I have had the pleasure of leading three trade missions in recent years: a multiproduct mission to southeast Asia in 1979 and other major missions to the Far East in 1980 and the People's Republic of China in 1981. These opportunities to see firsthand how the system works have convinced me of the worth of such ventures. The China mission, for example, resulted in a major tobacco order of $7.4 million. That is especially good news when one considers that every $1 million in tobacco sales produces an estimated $4 million to $5 million worth of economic activity in Ontario in farming and related industries. Export sales stimulate growth, thus benefiting the provincial economy.

Let me now review the major markets served by our trade missions to illustrate how the program is tailored to seize new sales opportunities.

Let us begin with our biggest and nearest trading partner, the United States. The falling Canadian dollar has had at least one beneficial effect. Canadian goods are now more competitive in the United States, which makes it feasible to market to more distant points in that country. Hence, the ministry has sponsored trade missions to such destinations as Atlanta, Dallas and Los Angeles in addition to the customary journeys to points in the northeast and midwest.

The Los Angeles mission which returned last June 18 was particularly successful. Twelve Ontario food processing companies generated $7-million worth of sales in just five days. The highlight of the trip was a reception featuring displays and samples of Ontario products which attracted more than 325 representatives of major supermarket chains, brokers, distributors and importers. A wide range of products was sold, including cheddar cheese, wild rice, pasta products, table wines, McIntosh apples, butter tarts and beer.

A number of our exporters are turning the energy situation into new sales opportunities. For example, relatively high energy costs in California have created an opening for Ontario horticulture products such as shrubs and evergreens. More generally, rising transportation costs will give Ontario an advantage over California produce in eastern United States markets. Looking ahead, the ministry's goal is to build on recent gains to increase market penetration further, especially in the sunbelt states where US population growth is now concentrated.

Let me now turn to the European scene. Britain currently takes eight per cent of our food and agricultural exports, while the rest of the European Economic Community absorbs a further six per cent. As members will be well aware, Common Market agricultural policies are highly protectionist. Barriers are designed especially to block the flow of finished food products. Therefore, we must focus our resources on products which have unique competitive advantages in the European context.

For example, white beans are a commodity with good growth potential. Last June, the Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. Timbrell) launched a white bean initiative in London to lay the groundwork for sales of crops for future years. The program included a series of seminars for potential buyers, illustrating the educational aspect of the ministry's participation in the overseas sales effort.

Other priority items for European trade are canned and frozen sweet corn, tobacco, onions, apples and fancy meats.

3:50 p.m.

Japan is another nation regularly included on our trade mission itineraries. It is a key market for Ontario pork producers, currently taking 60 per cent of our exports of fresh and frozen pork. The ministry has been endeavouring to build on our reputation for quality meat by promoting livestock exports to Japan. Early this year, this ministry led a mission of 10 Ontario exporters of dairy and beef cattle, swine, sheep, semen and embryos to Japan and Korea.

Finally, I would like to outline recent developments in nontraditional markets, primarily the Far East, excluding Japan, and Central and South America and the Middle East. Since 1977 exports to the Far East have more than tripled, reaching a level of $60 million last year. Sales to Central and South America more than quadrupled to $75 million between 1977 and 1981. Exports to the Middle East during that period multiplied nine times, totalling $60 million last year.

While export volumes in these areas are relatively low, the spectacular growth rates signify exciting future prospects. The Ministry of Agriculture and Food is determined to capitalize on these emerging opportunities. Ministry staff has been working the Middle East market for about 18 months through trade missions and other activities. Geography prevents this part of the world from meeting its own food needs. There is little domestic food production to require trade protection, hence this area is a prime target for packaged, finished food products which have a high Canadian value-added content. Oil revenues mean that these countries can well afford such purchases.

The first Ontario incursion into this market occurred last year with a limited presence at a food show in Bahrain. This February the ministry will intensify the effort with a larger display involving seven to 10 companies at Saudi Food '83, the only food show in the highly prized Saudi Arabian market. The emphasis will be on finished food products. Ontario will also participate in a parallel show, Saudi Agriculture '83, to be held in April, with a focus on breeding stock, fertilizers and other aspects of agriculture production.

The trade mission program provides each participating company with one return economy-class airline ticket, as well as air transportation for product samples where necessary. Ministry staff handle the logistics, arrange the itinerary and do everything possible to support a successful sales effort. Companies participating in trade missions represent a cross-section of Ontario agriculture, both regionally and on a commodity basis. Our exports range from maple syrup from Georgian Bay to cheese from Winchester and wines from the Niagara Peninsula. Companies are selected according to their capability to meet the needs of the target market. The ministry is very interested in encouraging new entrants to the export arena. About one quarter of firms travelling on missions each year are new to the destination market.

The ministry staff strive to educate and advise companies on the opportunities available overseas and on how they can prepare to take advantage of them. Companies that are entirely new to exporting are usually started out on a US trade mission and then "graduated" to more challenging markets. In addition, the ministry's specialists are well versed on customs regulations and other logistical hurdles exporters face. They offer advice on overcoming these obstacles. In many cases the ministry supplies technical expertise to support export sales. Veterinarians and breeding experts from the ministry staff may assist in livestock sales and, in some cases, remain in the foreign country for several weeks to advise the buyer on proper care, a policy which helps ensure repeat sales.

I must also mention the excellent working relationship the ministry has with the Ontario Ministry of Industry and Trade. Industry and Trade facilities in foreign markets, such as meeting space and clerical support, are available to food exporters. In addition, the Ministry of Agriculture and Food has its own representative at Ontario House in London, England. Naturally, the policies of both ministries are compatible. Both are seeking to maximize Ontario exports having the highest possible value added -- sales, in other words -- which creates the maximum number of Ontario jobs.

While export missions are the most visible form of support for foreign market development, several other programs are also available to assist exporters. Incoming missions of foreign buyers are a regular feature. About 20 foreign companies a year from major foreign markets receive return airfare to visit Ontario and meet with our companies. We bring the market to Ontario, as well as bringing Ontarians to the market. Last year these contacts led to estimated sales of over $10 million.

The ministry, as I suggested earlier, arranges for Ontario participation in international trade shows. Last year 30 companies were involved in shows in Japan, France and the Middle East, which generated an estimated $15 million in Ontario sales. Companies planning to produce export sales aids are eligible for ministry financial assistance for export brochures, label redesign, packaging, product reformulations and similar projects. Last year 20 companies utilized this program.

The ministry also compiles and regularly updates an export sourcing directory which lists approximately 450 Ontario companies, marketing boards and trade associations. Indexed by product category, this publication is a valuable resource for foreign buyers.

Finally, the ministry maintains an export showroom at head office in Queen's Park, as well as similar displays in London, England, and Tokyo, Japan, which exhibit products and literature from Ontario exporters. The showrooms give potential buyers an immediate perspective on what Ontario has to sell.

This entire program, including the trade missions, is delivered by a professional six person staff on a budget of $850,000. We are obtaining a tremendous return in new sales from this investment. Our success in international markets is founded on a growing world recognition of the excellent quality of Ontario food products. Good things do grow in Ontario and consumers here and abroad realize that fact.

To keep the export momentum going, we are going to need not only new markets but also new exportable products. The agricultural programs of the Board of Industrial Leadership and Development have a key objective, which is the expansion of production for export.

BILD's five-year $20-million program to expand food processing in the province will make an important contribution to boosting foreign sales. For example, a BILD grant of $800,000 is helping Juergen Philipp Canada construct a $4.5-million fruit processing plant and frozen storage facility in the Niagara area. I am told the complex is expected to be on stream next year, producing canned and frozen fruit and vegetables, primarily for export.

The future prosperity of our food and agricultural industry will depend very much on our success in international markets. Our long-run prospects are excellent because our agricultural productivity is exceptional. Canadians spend less on food as a proportion of their income than any other country in the world except the United States. Our current food spending of 17.7 per cent of disposable income is actually lower than the 21.6 per cent ratio of 1960.

Those figures surely imply that Ontario food producers enjoy a competitive edge in many commodities over their foreign counterparts. The Ministry of Agriculture and Food is working closely with Ontario's 450 major food exporters to translate this tremendous potential into sales results and new jobs for the people of this province.

4 p.m.

The ministry's efforts so far have borne fruit. The trade mission program in particular has spearheaded our recent export growth. I urge the House to endorse this major policy thrust by adopting the resolution under consideration.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Villeneuve): I must inform the honourable member that he has one minute left if he wants to add something more.

Mr. McKessock: Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the honourable member for the efforts he has put into trade missions in the past. His call today for an expansion of agricultural export trade is really a motherhood issue. I rise to support it in principle, but I do so with some hesitation, which I will explain.

It would seem to me that in relatively recent times there have been a number of trade missions to foreign countries to develop export markets for Ontario products, and it is rather ironic that the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. Timbrell) is advocating a further expansion of export markets when we have not developed the production potential in this province to meet the export trade. Let us be mindful at this time that Ontario is a net importer of food, whereas at one time it was practically self-sufficient.

We must also be mindful that the federal government is at present considering legislation that would establish a federal body to be used by the agriculture industry in making export sales. The agency will be known as Canagrex. One has to wonder if there will not be a duplication of efforts and unnecessary expense in having Ontario trade missions endeavour to establish export markets, which will really be the function of Canagrex.

However, in Ontario we have the farmers, the knowhow and the resources to substantially advance our agricultural production, and there is no doubt that the expansion of international as well as domestic markets is an ingredient which is important to this effort. What has been lacking, however, is the government's commitment to this vital industry. While it is fine for the parliamentary assistant to suggest that we should increase our export markets, the most urgent need now is to save our farmers from bankruptcy.

If the Ontario government does not bring in meaningful programs to help our farmers survive the severe economic crisis they are facing, there may be no need to develop our export markets because we may not even have sufficient products to feed ourselves. Farmers cannot survive when the prices they receive for their produce are considerably less than the cost of growing those products.

Last year was a disastrous one for Ontario farmers, with 140 farmers declaring bankruptcy. In the first 10 months of this year Ontario farm bankruptcies were again the highest in Canada: 145 compared to 126 for the same period last year. This coming spring will tell the tale when farmers apply for operating capital having nothing to show but a tremendous loss on their financial statements.

Ontario is now the only province in Canada that does not offer any long-term financing programs to offset skyrocketing interest rates. In the meantime, Quebec has extended $467 million and Alberta $316 million in loans and loan guarantees to farmers in 1981-82. While other provinces offer programs to provide low-interest loans to young farmers, no such program exists in this province even though one was promised in the throne speech some time ago. How can our farmers hope to compete with farmers from these other provinces?

There are two questions that I am asked most frequently when I am out talking to farmers these days. The first is, are beef farmers going to get similar assistance this fall to that which they received last year? The reason for that, of course, is that the beef industry is now in as bad shape as it was this time last year, or worse.

The second question is, when is that young farmer program promised by the ministry coming in to assist the young farmers? When is it going to happen? That is the question they are asking.

As I have already indicated, Ontario is a net importer of agricultural products. During the past seven years, Ontario's food imports have increased by 126 per cent to $2.3 billion. We have the potential to displace over $1-billion worth of these imports with Ontario grown products if the right economic climate is provided for our farmers.

The governments own reports state that, over the next two decades, Ontario's food production will need to grow by an equivalent of 1.1 million acres of new food production capacity if we are to maintain current levels of self-sufficiency while meeting future demands. Yet our prime agricultural land continues to go out of production at an alarming rate with the silent approval of the Minister of Agriculture and Food.

I am sure the parliamentary assistant is well aware of the attempt to remove good agricultural land from production in areas such as Mississauga, Barrie and Brampton, not to mention the area he is most familiar with: Vaughan township.

The deputy minister made a great and successful attempt to change the Ontario Hydro corridor route from one agricultural land base to another. Surely, he will now try to continue his crusade for saving farm land in a more meaningful way around our cities.

The government has done very little to expand our agricultural production in this province. We can all recall the Premier's 1981 election promise to upgrade one million acres of northern and eastern Ontario land into high-quality farm land. Needless to say, that was a promise that has not gone far. The acreage improvement fund promised for this purpose has yet to see the light of day.

On August 27, 1982, the Ministry of Agriculture and Food announced it was developing an agricultural strategy for northern Ontario. This is yet another in the long line of studies that have been announced concerning agricultural marketing in the north.

The member will recall that in 1977, as a result of a lack of government commitment to northern Ontario agriculture, his own colleague, the present Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Pope), introduced a bill to establish a food terminal in northern Ontario. The minister of agriculture at that time supported the principle of the bill and initiated a market study along with the Minister of Northern Affairs (Mr. Bernier) to examine agricultural potential in the north. Such a study was to have gone from a steering committee to a committee of cabinet. As yet, no report has been released.

In May 1980, a further study was commissioned by the government concerning agricultural marketing in northern Ontario. Nothing has come of such a study, if indeed it ever got off the ground.

I am sure the members will excuse my cynicism and suspicion about the honourable member's motives in presenting this resolution when we consider the record of his government's lack of commitment to the development of the agricultural industry in the province.

Dealing more specifically with some of the government's past agricultural trade missions, I can understand that in some cases the minister must be represented as some of the countries to which these trade missions travel will not take a sales delegation seriously unless the government of the country wishing to export products is represented. Specifically, I am thinking of Japan and some of the hog sales to that country. However, I fail to understand the necessity for more than one government member on a trade mission which generally includes a host of people from the private sector.

On looking over the list of members participating in the mission to Korea and Japan in January of this year, I notice five government members were present on the trip, including the former minister and his executive assistant, all of them going at the taxpayers' expense. On the trip to Venezuela, Ecuador and Mexico, there were six government members.

Finally, I would be remiss if I did not mention one of this government's more elaborate trade missions to Australia and New Zealand in September 1981. While it was not an agricultural trade mission as such, none the less it offers an accurate reflection of this government's attitude to trade missions. That mission included the Premier (Mr. Davis) and his wife, the former Minister of Industry and Tourism (Mr. Grossman) and his wife, and nine government staff. The total cost to the Ontario taxpayers for that trip was $115,444.

4:10 p.m.

Mr. McGuigan: That was on the economy plan, too.

Mr. McKessock: This was under the restraint program.

I would like to add that I look forward to reviewing the response that will be provided to the question on agricultural trade missions that was submitted on the Notice Paper on October 26 by my colleague the member for Huron-Middlesex (Mr. Riddell), who unfortunately is not available to take part in this debate because of other commitments.

Mr. Swart: Mr. Speaker, I obviously find it difficult to talk and vote against what the member for Grey (Mr. McKessock) has said is sort of a motherhood resolution, but I want to tell the member for Elgin (Mr. McNeil) that there are a couple of problems my party and I have in supporting it.

First, the member has worded the resolution so that it pats the government on the back. It states: "That, in view of the success to date of agricultural trade missions in promoting the sale of our farm produce, this House strongly supports and encourages the initiatives of the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food for the expansion of export trade."

Of course, we in this party do not have any objection to recognizing success, even if it is achieved by the Conservatives; but there is really no proof that it has done any good. There is no proof it has increased exports to an extent greater than they would have been if there had been no missions whatsoever. In fact, comparing the export and import pictures in this province, the amount we spend on food imports compared to the increase in food exports, we are now in a worse position than we were six years ago.

If we use the figures of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food, we find out for instance that in 1975 the exports from this province amounted to about $600 million and the imports were $1.2 billion, or double that figure. That is a $600-million deficit.

We find in the figures for 1981, as the member for Elgin has said, that exports have gone up to $1.6 billion, and imports have gone up to $2.53 billion. That is a gap of over $900 million. Therefore, the situation is worsening. That is a 55 per cent increase in the export-import deficit in those six years.

The Ontario government has not kept up with the rest of Canada in narrowing that gap. We find in the figure for Canada that in 1976 exports were $4 billion and imports $3.1 billion, so we had a surplus of $900 million. In Canada as a whole in 1981, we find that the exports went up to $8.8 billion and the imports had gone up to $5.6 billion, or there was a surplus of $3.3 billion: a 265 per cent increase in the surplus, while in Ontario we had a 55 per cent increase in the deficit. That does not say a great deal for the so-called export policy of the Ontario government.

I have some special concern about fruits and vegetables, especially the fruit we produce in the Niagara Peninsula. In 1975 we exported $51-million worth of fruits and vegetables and we imported $284-million worth. We know there are some fruits we cannot grow in this province, but in 1981 our exports had only gone up to $127 million and our imports had gone up to $734 million.

The gap in just six years had gone up from $233 million to $607 million: two and a half times. And the honourable member is trying to tell us that the Conservative government of this province has improved the situation? Why, it is far worse, of course, than it was in 1975.

Just to take some of the member's own comments, he mentioned how it is so much easier now to get into the world markets because of the low dollar value; and that is true. Yet the value of the dollar, which has decreased dramatically since 1975, has made the situation in this province much worse than it was back at that time. So although he is saying in effect that it should have been easy to close that gap, it has become much worse. I am glad to see the member making some notes over there. He has one minute to reply, and I hope he will reply to this.

So I guess we can say that if the agricultural missions have been a success, as he claims they have, there is something else terribly wrong -- is there not? -- in the agriculture and food situation in this province. In a province as productive as this and with farmers as productive as the ones we have, there is a widening gap. We are importing more and more compared to what we are exporting. I hope the member will deal with that situation when he gets up.

The second thing that makes it difficult is related to what I have been talking about. This resolution and the publicity that the Tory government has given here to its trade missions are a distortion of priorities. It is really a coverup for doing nothing about import replacement in this province. That is not just my view; it is the view of people rather high up in the Ontario Federation of Agriculture and the Christian Farmers Association.

Let me just read a letter that was sent to our former agriculture critic, Donald MacDonald, which enclosed a statement by the Christian Farmers Association of Ontario signed by Elbert van Donkersgoed, who is executive director, as the member knows. He says, "Our analysis has led us to conclude that import replacement is far more important to agriculture than export development."

That has to be clear even to the people on the other side of the House, because if we are producing the food that we ourselves are consuming, we are then displacing the cost of so many of these imports and we are processing that food here and providing jobs for many more people in our society.

The Ontario Federation of Agriculture back in 1976 made a major issue of this in its brief to the government of this province. I will not quote at length, because I do not have the time, but in that brief they pointed out in their promotion of self-sufficiency:

"Only in eggs and vegetables, excluding potatoes and mushrooms, were we self-sufficient as a province in 1973 and 1974. The trends are for substantially greater deficiency in all the other groups in the future, for less surplus in eggs and vegetables."

Then they provide a table, which shows that while in 1961 and 1962 we were self-sufficient in six out of nine of the major food groups in Ontario, in 1973 and 1974 we were self-sufficient in only two of those major food groups. Then they have the prediction for 1985, which, if you look at the figures of the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food, is now being borne out. We are becoming less and less self-sufficient, as is indicated by the figures I gave.

So we find that the Ontario government is really using this kind of resolution as a coverup for its inadequacy in self-sufficiency, which is really so much more important.

4:20 p.m.

Mr. Stokes: Creating an illusion.

Mr. Swart: Yes. Even the farmers recognize that. Of course, it does make a nice junket for some of the employees of the government and the members of the government.

As the member for Grey has said, the resolution here today, for the reasons I have already mentioned, is not the answer to our farm problems. The answer is to deal with interest rates. I know that does not strike a responsive chord in the Liberals, because the Liberal government in Ottawa is responsible for them, and the agriculture critic here, in his speech on Bill 179, defended the high interest rates and said they were very necessary. But a government that really wanted to help out the farmers of this province would have intervened in such things as interest rates and in many other areas where the farmers are suffering. So let us deal with the real issues in agriculture. Let us not bring forth a diversionary tactic.

Mr. J. M. Johnson: Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a couple of comments on the member for Grey's remarks. First, I would like to go on record as strongly supporting the concerns he raised pertaining to the financial plight of some of our farmers. I do believe there is a problem and we have to address it.

Second, I would like to be less complimentary about his concerns about the change in the hydro corridor route. It is my Liberal opponent, one of the members of his party, Elbert van Donkersgoed, who takes full credit for the change of routes which now causes the member for Grey so much anxiety.

I would also like to address some comments to the member for Welland-Thorold (Mr. Swart) pertaining to the few remarks he made, and I will do that in a minute.

Agricultural trade missions are an important tool from which we all in this province can benefit. Not only do the producers and processors of Ontario agricultural products benefit from increased sales, which the trade missions make possible, but the province, as a whole, benefits because our agricultural trade deficit is reduced. Right now, that is an important point because our trade deficit stands at somewhere around $1 billion. That is a substantial amount, as the members have pointed out, and one that we should all work towards reducing. While it is not an answer in itself, it is something we should consider and we should all try to work towards lowering that figure.

In order to achieve this, there are measures this government can take and is taking, and there are also many things we ourselves can do to contribute to the demand for Ontario agricultural products in our capacity as legislators.

At one end of the scale, agricultural trade missions have been effective in boosting sales of Ontario products in many different parts of the world. We mentioned some: Chicago, Los Angeles and Dallas have brought in $18 million. Some people criticize the junkets, as they call them, but I was in business for many years and one cannot sell unless one tells the people one has something to sell.

Earlier this year, a food sales mission travelled to southeast Asia for the first time. We have seen trips to Korea, Japan, Venezuela, Mexico, Ecuador; and also the tobacco mission to China, which was led by my colleague and good friend, the member for Elgin. I must say he is an excellent salesman.

Back in the spring, the sale of 10 million pounds of Ontario tobacco was concluded with Egypt. That was the first sale of Ontario tobacco to that country. Clearly, agricultural trade missions are providing a useful, needed role to the food industry in Ontario.

However, this government's other role in reducing our agricultural trade deficit should also be mentioned -- this is to the member for Welland-Thorold (Mr. Swart). It involves the whole field of import replacement.

Ontario producers are capable of replacing about 40 per cent of current food imports interprovincially. A program of replacing 40 per cent of imports cannot, however, be put into effect overnight or even in a few years, but I would hope that by the end of this decade Ontario producers will be able to cover anywhere from 15 per cent to 20 per cent of replaceable imports.

Along with harvesting and weather problems, there is a lack of storage and processing equipment in this province. These probably are the major reasons we have so many imports. There is not too much we can do about the weather, but we can help through agricultural research to develop hardier plant varieties more capable of surviving the harsh weather we experience. Even in southern Ontario, frost, hail, rain and wind can cause substantial crop damage.

Poor weather and a short growing season often cause gluts of Ontario produce on the market for short periods of time, after which we have to rely on imports. In fresh produce alone, we import over $11 million in apples, $23 million in lettuce and more than $25 million in tomatoes; and all of these can be produced in Ontario.

Our best approach to this problem is to construct more storage and processing facilities. These are expensive undertakings. The Ontario government should be commended for making available through the Board of Industrial Leadership and Development program some $20 million for funding storage facilities over the next five years.

With adequate storage facilities some farm produce such as apples, onions and potatoes can be stored year round. The import value of these three products alone is almost $23 million. Through BILD assistance for storage and packing we can reduce our fruit and vegetable imports by one third or, in more easily understood terms, by about $200 million.

If the government can maintain its attack on this two-pronged problem -- the reduction of imports and an increase in exports -- then we will be moving in the right direction. It should be pointed out that one of the government's goals is to increase exports by 20 per cent annually; however, over the last 10 years we have seen food imports increase at a much faster rate than exports. I concede that.

The annual increase in imports has averaged 17 per cent versus 15 per cent for exports. Between 1980-81, our food imports grew by about eight per cent, while exports were up over 21 per cent. In 1981, imports cost us $2.5 billion, while exports were valued at $1.6 billion: a deficit of nearly $1 billion.

Recent programs would permit us to be fairly confident about meeting the goal of a 20 per cent increase in exports but for the worldwide recession which makes achieving this goal more of a challenge. In order to help achieve it, we should continue to support the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food agriculture trade missions.

Last year's missions generated additional sales of almost $30 million on a budget which I believe was less than one per cent of that amount. If members know anything about retailing, one per cent to sell 99 per cent is a good deal.

The missions have been well organized but there has been insufficient effort to publicize and popularize Ontario products around the world. We should not hesitate to remind ourselves that this province's produce is of excellent quality, and we should make the rest of the world aware of what we have to offer.

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to meeting with a delegation from South Africa: I have a little criticism about that, but that is another matter.

During lunch with the delegation, they mentioned that they had never heard of our cheddar cheese: world-famous cheese and they did not know anything about it because no one had told them. They import all their chicken and poultry from the United States, butter from New Zealand, cheese from Holland, beef from other African countries, some pork from Canada but most from Denmark. All these commodities could be supplied by Canada and, indeed, by Ontario.

I was concerned about the lack of interest in trading with South Africa because I have found that we --

Mr. Swart: We are trading with them. Our imports of wine have increased by three times in the last year and a half.

Mr. R. F. Johnston: We should not trade with them.

Mr. J. M. Johnson: I will not get into a discussion of whether we should or should not trade with them because of the political situation in their country. I do not support their policies, but at the same time I cannot support the policy they have in China or the Soviet Union. We sell to the Soviet Union. We have sold $1.5 billion worth of wheat to them, and there was not one member in this House who criticized it; so let us not play double standards and be so critical of one country. We should never use food as a weapon against any country.

In conclusion, I urge all members to support this excellent resolution.

4:30 p.m.

Mr. McGuigan: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in support of the resolution from the member for Elgin (Mr. McNeil). I have the honour of sharing part of the county of Elgin with him, and I know firsthand of his ability and his knowledge of the agricultural industry. I have no problem in supporting him.

I was pleased to hear the honourable member give us an excellent defence -- in fact, an excellent advance -- of the whole system, Canagrex, advocated by our federal friends. I wish my friend the member for Elgin would speak to the third member with whom both of us share the riding -- I refer to the former federal Minister of Agriculture, the Honourable John Wise -- and seek his support to pass this fine legislation to which the member has given such a fine endorsement at this time.

I have had some experience in selling to offshore markets, both in fresh and frozen products. An element one continually runs into is their criticism of us, as private Canadian exporters, when we have a product in excess supply in a particular year. We get excited. We rush off to some foreign market and dump the product there at a low price. We upset their traditional markets and then we disappear without follow-up sales in other years or without follow-up advice on how to handle that product.

Year after year, I have gone to conventions where we have heard people from both levels of government, provincial and federal, point out to us that this is not the way to do business. It seems to me we are trying to address that with the Canagrex system. Certainly we support Ontario efforts in that regard. I just wish our friend would convey that message to his friends in the opposite party at the federal level.

I can think back to 1972 when we had what was called the great grain robbery, when Russia entered the world's grain market and bought millions of tons of grain. They went to the five leading export companies in the United States, not telling the other members they were on this campaign, and in a matter of four or five days they bought up the whole supply of what might be termed surplus grain. They bought it at an average price in the neighbourhood of $1.25 to $1.65; the price changed as they bought. The highest price they paid was $1.65 a bushel.

With our western Canadian Wheat Board system, it is not possible to go in and divide the market that way. It realized what was happening. It held off and we finished the market. We sold at around $5 a bushel. Yet it is rather strange that our western friends today are very much opposed to the idea of Canagrex. I submit it is because of the influence of some of those American companies, which now are operating in the west. They are carrying through their philosophy and are misleading our friends in the Conservative Party in western Canada.

We certainly have some opportunities here in Ontario, as has been brought out by all members. One opportunity is occasioned by the fact that we have such very high standards of grading, and our grades, both provincial and federal, are recognized as among the best in the world. Our products stand up to the grade requirements, and people can believe and trust in them. That is one of the points in this whole business about selling on a continuous basis, because you can make sales worldwide only on the basis of trust. After all, we are dealing with products here that have intrinsic values, quality products, qualities that cannot be easily measured and are measured in words rather than on scales. It is only through building up trust over the years that we can make these repeat sales.

While I support these measures, I have very serious reservations about other things our Ontario government is doing or is not doing. One thing they are doing is attacking our marketing board system. I know our deputy minister is trying to help poultry producers in Ontario, but I believe his public statements about quota sharing do nothing but erode confidence in the system.

We feel, especially in the part of the province that both the member and I come from, that when attacks are made on the quota type of marketing boards -- and I must remind members that they are the minority of all the marketing boards we have here in Ontario -- they tend to undermine the whole concept in the public mind. I submit that when those foes of marketing boards do muster their forces and finally decide to bring down our system -- and we must remember their aim -- they will bring down not only the quota systems but also all the systems; and most of the production in southwestern Ontario is in the field of nonquota marketing.

Producers in our part of the province, just to use a sort of ball-park figure, are probably losing in the neighbourhood of $1 on every bushel of corn they have produced this year and perhaps that or a little more on every bushel of soybeans they are selling. The only bright spot in agriculture that is keeping the sheriff away from our doors is the fact that our specialty products, particularly canned fruits and vegetables and some of the fresh fruits and vegetables that are sold under marketing boards but not under quota marketing boards, are returning a profit.

I submit that when our deputy minister in a very political way puts forth the idea that Ontario could withdraw from the broiler and meat part of the poultry marketing system, he is flying in the face of reality, because all members know, and a good many farmers know, that we are able to operate that system because Canada is a member of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. This is an organization of western countries that was formed shortly after the Second World War, and its member nations have agreed to various terms of trading. One of the terms of that trade is that when a country --

The Deputy Speaker: One minute.

Mr. McGuigan: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have not time to go into the details of it, but my point is that farmers know how the system works, and I resent their being talked down to and his assumption that they do not know how the marketing board system works.

I conclude by congratulating the member for his work in the past and for his interest. I plead with him to carry the message to his federal counterparts and to tell them that we also need this legislation at the federal level.

4:40 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker: In calling on the member for Algoma, I want to bring to his attention that he has until the big hand gets to the XI, and then the member who brought forward the resolution has about a minute and a half.

Mr. Nixon: XI?

The Deputy Speaker: Well, whatever. That is on its side; IX.

Mr. Wildman: That is the number nine.

Mr. Speaker, much like every other member, at least on this side of the House, who has spoken in this debate, I rise in support of the resolution because it is very hard to oppose it. One would be opposing the idea of increasing exports, I suppose, if one were to go against this resolution.

However, I say to the honourable member who has introduced this resolution that I do not think a resolution of this sort, presented in this House by a government back-bencher, in any way indicates a real commitment on the part of this government to agriculture in Ontario.

If we are really concerned about our trade deficit in agricultural goods, which the member for Wellington-Dufferin-Peel (Mr. J. M. Johnson) admitted has climbed drastically in the past few years, then we should be doing something about import replacement. We should be producing more of those goods we grow in this province, and we have the ability to grow more, rather than continuing to import them largely from south of the border as well as from other parts of the world.

It seems a little silly to me to suggest that the main way to deal with a deficit is to increase exports. In other words, the government seems to have admitted that it cannot or will not do anything about imports, that imports are going to continue to rise astronomically and that the only way to lower one's deficit or at least keep it from going up too high is to increase exports.

Obviously I am in favour of increasing agricultural exports from this province, but that is not the main and most productive way of approaching the deficit. The best way would be to deal with things like tomatoes and so on and ensure that we are producing for our domestic needs.

To suggest that this will somehow resolve our deficit is dreaming. It is much like the attitude of the Minister of Industry and Trade (Mr. Walker), who seems to say, when told that we are importing more and more of our manufactured goods, that the answer is to hold seminars on exports for manufacturers across the province. In other words, we lower the deficits by increasing our exports and give up on trying to deal with import replacement. It is a defeatist approach, as far as I am concerned, with regard to our domestic market.

In my view, this government does not really have any commitment to agriculture and to farmers in this province, although it would like the agricultural community to believe that it does; so it introduces resolutions of this sort to try to give them that impression.

If the government really had a commitment to agriculture in this province, the member for Elgin would be fighting in his caucus for this government to introduce the kind of interest rate relief programs that all other provinces in this country have brought in for their farmers.

Interestingly enough, most of those other governments are Tory governments, and they have introduced interest rate relief programs to help their farmers, to help them compete in a period where we have a Liberal government in Ottawa that is committed to following US interest rates no matter what it does to the country.

Mr. McKessock: It's nice that it has come down to 10 per cent.

Mr. Wildman: I hear the member for Grey (Mr. McKessock) say, "It is nice that it has come down to 10 per cent." I suppose we can thank the American congressional elections for bringing down those interest rates, because the government in Ottawa does not have any policy independent of the Reagan administration on interest rates.

Unfortunately, because of that policy of following the American lead, we have brought upon ourselves the worst recession -- it is almost a depression -- that we have had since the Second World War. It is going to take us a lot longer to get out of it than it will take the Americans, unfortunately, because the government in Ottawa has nothing to offer, no economic leadership whatsoever.

Unfortunately for the farmers and small businessmen of this province, this government is unwilling to do anything independently to try to bring relief from the drastic effects of the federal governments policy. We have a situation where it brings in resolutions that do nothing about the main problems it faces.

Mr. McKessock: On a point of privilege, Mr. Speaker, I feel my privileges as a Liberal have been abused. The member has said that the Liberal government has caused the inflation rate to rise; yet when it drops to 10 per cent, he gives the credit to Ronald Reagan.

The Deputy Speaker: You are not in order.

Mr. Wildman: On that point of order, Mr. Speaker: I point out to you that it is impossible to abuse the privileges of a Liberal.

The Deputy Speaker: Your time has expired.

Mr. Wildman: I support this resolution because we should be trying to increase exports, but it does not deal with the real problems of the agricultural industry, which are import replacement and the interest rate policy that is killing farmers in Ontario.

Mr. McNeil: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the honourable members for their support. I have never said the resolution would solve our farm problems. I did not expect that kind of interpretation would be taken.

I do not agree with the member for Welland-Thorold that one can sit at home and do nothing about selling. I think one has to get off one's butt and sell. I cannot believe he would take the attitude that we would sell this produce anyway, regardless.

I appreciate the kind remarks of my friend the member for Kent-Elgin (Mr. McGuigan), because he does represent a very good agricultural part of the county of Elgin.

One of the problems being faced with respect to the support for Canagrex is the fact that the buying and selling will be left in the hands of bureaucrats. In this province, we believe the government should act as a catalyst. We have been trying to help companies, individuals and marketing boards to sell. That is the policy we support, and I think it is similar to the policy the federal Progressive Conservatives are supporting.

We believe in import replacement. Through the Board of industrial Leadership and Development, we have been giving grants to companies that will manufacture tomato paste. That is one import we can replace. We have been importing a lot of tomato paste from outside the country and it is possible to produce that here. That is one of our policies.

We also believe in Foodland Ontario and in encouraging the consumer to buy good food that is grown in Ontario. That policy is working. The opposition says we do nothing. We have done a great deal for the farmers of this province.

4:50 p.m.

EMPIRE-BUILDING CONTROL ACT

Mr. T. P. Reid moved second reading of Bill 165, An Act to control Empire-Building in Government.

The Deputy Speaker: I would like to bring to your attention that you have up to 20 minutes. If you would like to reserve time, please bring it to my attention.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Mr. Speaker, I intend to reserve the last two minutes of my remarks to wind up.

In rising to ask for the support of the House on Bill 165, An Act to control Empire-Building in Government, I think it would be useful if I spent a few minutes explaining just what empire building is. Various people have asked me in the last little while exactly what I meant by empire building. I can assure members it has nothing to do with the Empire State Building in New York.

I would like to give a couple of definitions and explain exactly what I mean by empire building within government. When I speak of the government, I also mean the emanations of government, including agencies, boards, commissions, crown corporations and so on, which we have seen proliferate in Ontario.

As part of the public administration lexicon, the term "empire building" is closely associated with sprawling bureaucracy, but there are also a couple of dictionary definitions that might put it in an even better context. In the modern bureaucratic context, Webster's defines an empire builder as "one whose aim and achievement is the extension of his control (as financial or political) over a large territory or an extensive enterprise or related enterprises."

The Oxford dictionary goes a step beyond this general definition by describing an empire builder as "one who deliberately acquires extra territory, authority, etc., especially unnecessarily."

What we are talking about simply is the extension of government control and government jurisdiction over the people, in our case of Ontario, and the way it is done.

To give a more concrete example, it is simply a bureaucrat or in many cases a cabinet minister who will take over a ministry and decide that he does not have enough public attention, that there are not enough employees to make him look good, that he or she does not have a big enough budget and, by God, will do something about that. They expand the tentacles of their power and authority over a much wider area than the original legislation ever envisaged.

I have some specific examples of these, but I would also call to the members' minds that a few years ago a book was published by C. Northcote Parkinson, called Parkinson's Law. He started off with a simple observation. He said. "It is a commonplace observation that work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion." He went on to talk about a couple of factors that had something to do with this observation. The first factor was that an official wants to multiply subordinates, not rivals, and the second factor was that officials make work for each other.

There are some other articles dealing with Parkinson's law. Parkinson's first law is, "Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion." Parkinson's second law is, "Expenditure rises to meet income." Parkinson's third law is, "Expansion means complexity and complexity decay or, to put it even more plainly, the more complex the sooner dead." I do not think that always happens.

There is Parkinson's law of a thousand: "An enterprise employing more than 1,000 people becomes a self-perpetuating empire, creating so much internal work that it no longer needs any contact with the outside world." I suggest those of us who have been around this chamber for some time can think of a great many examples of our own.

It is interesting that in this context Barry Goldwater said, "A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away."

Some anthropologists speculate that once the naked ape developed carnivorous tastes he formed hunting groups because the one-man mammoth approach was one-sided, Obviously the work group survived quite well -- too well. Subunits within organizations stake out territories, not through natural evacuation along the perimeters but through a blend of personal and bureaucratic effrontery. It is an organizational malady. Provide anyone with an office or a title or someone to evaluate, and presto, instant empire. The sum total of these many empires equals systematic inertia.

There is another law that may not be quite as well known as Parkinson's law. It is called Wicker's law: "Government expands to absorb revenue and then some."

Since the Speaker is an avid TV watcher -- including the Polka Dot Door, for those of us who have small children -- I am sure that he has seen the excellent British Broadcasting Corp. program Yes, Minister. He will have been delighted by some of the things that have come out of that. It is based on the Crossman diaries, which I have perused to some extent.

Crossman was a British member of Parliament and Minister of Housing at one point. He wrote three diaries that were the basis of this program Yes, Minister, which deals with how the bureaucracy manipulated this particular cabinet minister and the government as a whole.

In one segment the new minister, Mr. Hacker, was trying to get a handle on the bureaucracy in government. When he became minister, he stated that one of his jobs was going to be to cut down. I would just like to quote from part of the book called Yes, Minister, which is now out. Some of the events that went on were so true to life that anybody involved in the political process would recognize it as being very true to life,

Hacker is questioning his deputy minister about how many civil servants there are in his ministry.

"'How small?' I asked, and receiving no reply, I decided to hazard a guess." He was talking about how many employees there were. "'Two thousand? Three thousand?' I suggested, fearing the worst. The reply from the deputy minister was, 'About 23,000,I think, minister.' I was staggered. 'Twenty-three thousand people in the department of administrative affairs -- 23,000 administrators all to administer other administrators? See how many we can do without.' 'We did one of those last year," said the deputy minister blandly, "and we discovered we needed another 500 people.'"

He goes on. "The public is fed up with this waste in government and wants an accounting and wants it done away with," Hacker says to his deputy minister. "The public," says the deputy minister in a bit of a Freudian slip, "do not know anything about wasting public money. We are the experts."

He goes on to say about the deputy minister: "Asking the deputy minister to slim down the civil service is like asking an alcoholic to blow up a distillery."

Even those who come in here and reach that elevated station of being a cabinet minister get manipulated by the system and by the civil service sooner or later. The civil servants in Britain, and I am sure it is probably the same here, have a term they use when a minister begins seeing things the way the civil servants want him to see them. They then say that the minister has been house-trained. I think it is safe to say that in this particular government, almost all the cabinet has been house-trained.

Let me give the background to some of this. When I came into this House in 1967, the provincial budget was just a little more than $1 billion; I think it was $1.2 billion in 1967. There were approximately 30,000 civil servants at that time. Today, 15 years later, in 1982, without projecting what the deficit ultimately will be, we have a budget of $23 billion and we have more than 80,000 civil servants. Again it depends on how one counts, what that figure is, just how many there are.

I want to give the House some specific examples of what I am talking about. We have Ontario Hydro, and I intend to talk about them at some length. We have the Ombudsman. What the Ombudsman is doing is quite interesting considering there are as many employees in the Ombudsman's office as there are now members and at salaries that would make almost anybody twitch when they look at them to see what exactly they are.

5 p.m.

Let me just tell members that the salaries for secretaries range from about $16,000. Let us take regional directorates, of which there are six. The director's salary is $49,500. The area manager's salary is $38,000. There are two investigative directors, and they are in the $52,000 range. There are four assistant directors, and they are getting $39,000. If one looks at controller directorates, whatever they are, the director gets $51,000. It goes on and on. I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, that I was one of those who supported the concept of Ombudsman. I was on the select committee and, frankly, I do not think any of us had any sense that we were going to be building an empire for the first Ombudsman, who had everything done up very nicely in crests and all the rest of it.

The Ministry of Energy was started in 1974, at which time there were 36 people on the payroll and the budget was $1,618,000. In 1982-83, there are 212 people, 175 if we exclude the Ontario Energy Board, which I think we should, and their budget is $128,765,000. This is the classic case of empire-building because of that $128 million, $64 million goes to pay the interest and principal -- the principal being a small part of that -- for Suncor. I cannot think of a grosser example of bureaucracy run rampant, of egos expanding and saying, "We really have to have something to do and, by God, we will buy an oil company and then we, Malcolm Rowan and Billy Davis and Bobby Welch, will really be somebody." That is a prime example of what I mean by empire building.

I could stop right there and I say I have made my case. I could also say that in 1974, when it started, the Ministry of Energy did not have public relations and information officers. Now it devotes much of its time to that. I would just like to bring to the attention of members what happened in the public accounts committee when we dealt with this very matter. We found, because the auditor brought it to our attention, that the Ministry of Energy in Ontario was spending thousands of taxpayers' dollars in producing a pamphlet on energy tune-up and energy conservation for cars.

Our researcher was able to turn up a brochure from the federal Department of Energy, Mines and Resources and another pamphlet from Shell Canada which were almost word for word. All these high-priced PR people in the Ministry of Energy did was to take the federal brochure and Shell's brochure, take their logos off, stamp on "Province of Ontario" and there they were, earning their $45,000 and $50,000 salaries to the detriment of the taxpayers of Ontario.

The Acting Speaker Mr. Cousens): There are five minutes left of the 20 minutes.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Thank you. Mr. Speaker. I am afraid that I have so much material and so many examples here I will not be able to use them all.

In 1974, I asked about the public relations and information officers. In 1977, I asked again. In 1982, I asked again. A comparison of those figures would stagger you, Mr. Speaker. You know yourself that the government not only is spending millions of dollars in employing these people, mostly to make cabinet ministers look good, but also we spent an additional $40 million on hard advertising that these people thought up.

I will give another example related to this. We heard my friend who was speaking on his agricultural motion earlier talk about the Board of industrial Leadership and Development program. There is another classic example. I recall to everybody's mind the picture of the Minister of Health (Mr. Grossman) and the Treasurer (Mr. F. S. Miller) on the front page of BILD trying to elbow each other out of the way to see who was going to get credit for this ever-expanding proposition. The only thing BILD has done that anybody knows about that was not being done already, was not already in the works, is to put up thousands of signs all over Ontario saying "This is a BILD project."

The same thing has happened with the Ministry of Northern Affairs. They do some good things, but essentially they set up an empire there so that we have somebody who will deal with agriculture, somebody who will deal with television and communications in the north, somebody who will deal with roads and somebody who will deal with natural resources when we already had ministries to do those things. Of course, if you want to build an empire you just say: "I am going to tell you what to do even though I know not the first thing about road alignment or where roads should go. We are going to build up our empire."

We could even talk about the cabinet and the fact that we have 29 cabinet ministers. We could talk about the fact that we have some Ministers without Portfolio. We could talk about the fact that they have to have large staffs and executive assistants, that we all have to have these perks to expand our own field of jurisdiction and power and to assuage our own egos at the expense of the taxpayers of Ontario: 29 cabinet ministers in a House of 125, all with special assistants and executive assistants and all the trappings of power.

We could also talk about what has happened in school boards and in hospitals. We could talk about universities and tenure and all of that. It is all part of this whole spectrum of empire building. We could talk about the 700 agencies, boards and commissions that have just grown like Topsy, and until 1978 this government did not even know they existed. Of course, part of their reason is that it is a smokescreen so the government can pretend they are not really interfering with people's lives, that they are really running a small government; but it is costing us greatly and very little is being done about it.

The most horrible example, of course, is Ontario Hydro. If we go back to 1948, when figures were first kept on the employees in Ontario Hydro, there were 6,000. Now we have 30,850 employees at Hydro. The total head office staff is 5,141.

There is a press release on this. Let me just quote a couple of figures. To put things into perspective as far as Hydro goes, during a time when there was a 4.8 per cent increase in peak electrical demand -- that was between 1976 and 1981 -- there was at Ontario Hydro a 27.9 per cent increase in total staff, a 39.3 per cent increase in head office staff and an 86 per cent increase in square feet of office space occupied. If we look at their salaries, the average base salary for Hydro's 24,251 permanent employees is $31,118 this year, up approximately $4,000 from 1981, an increase of 14.75 per cent. If we throw in the benefits package, it comes to a cost of $40,112.

The Acting Speaker: The honourable member has exhausted his time.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Mr. Speaker, I do have some time left and I will continue.

The Acting Speaker: No, you had 20 minutes. I gave you notice at five minutes and then two minutes.

Mr. T. P. Reid: You mean that's it?

The Acting Speaker: That's it.

Mr. T. P. Reid: I am sorry, Mr. Speaker. In that case I would just ask that the House support this bill so that we can finally do something for the taxpayers of Ontario.

5:10 p.m.

Mr. Grande: Mr. Speaker, I rise to oppose this piece of noxious and dangerous legislation that is before the Legislature this afternoon. I listened intently to the member for Rainy River and he did not speak at all to the basic principle of the bill; and the basic principle is that it is nothing but a witchhunt. The bill is called An Act to control Empire-Building in Government but could very easily be called an Ontario inquisition act.

In the few minutes that I have I will show how this piece of legislation is dangerous. The member for Rainy River did not talk to it. For 20 minutes he talked about empire building in relation to ministers of the crown and agencies, boards and commissions. Nowhere in this bill, as I read it, does it speak to the empire building engaged in by ministers of the crown in Ontario.

He talks about the public service, or part of the public service; the staff, or part of the staff of a crown agency, board, commission or corporation. In other words, through this bill he deals a blow at the people who work in these bodies. He does not deal a blow at the empire builders: the board of directors or board of governors of these agencies, commissions and boards, those Tory has-beens and Tory hacks who want to build their empires and spend more and more money as time goes on. He does not say that in the bill. He did in his speech, but in the bill he talks about staff, or part of the staff.

Mr. T. P. Reid: No, no; read the bill. Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, it will probably save the member time if he would read the bill.

The Acting Speaker: The honourable member will have read it.

Mr. T. P. Reid: It does not refer to anybody in particular. If he would read subsection 2(2), in particular, he will see it refers to anybody who does it.

The Acting Speaker: No. that is not a point of order.

Mr. Grande: The member for Rainy River says read the bill. I assure the member that I did read the bill --

Mr. T. P. Reid: The member should have read his own bill last week.

Mr. Grande: -- and I know exactly what intention the member has in this bill. It to establish an inquisition in Ontario.

Subsection 2(1) says, "The public accounts committee may of its own motion investigate any instance of apparent empire-building." He uses the word "apparent." In other words, there need not be just cause. All that is required is that a member of the staff of a ministry or of a crown agency, etc., appears to be involving himself or herself in empire building. Then that person would be dragged before the public accounts committee and the inquisition would begin.

By the way, Mr. Speaker, you do know who sits as chairman of the public accounts committee; none other than the member for Rainy River. It appears to me that what the member for Rainy River is attempting to do through this bill is to establish his own empire.

I am not concerned about what the member wants to do. What I am basically concerned with in this legislation is that the rights of people in this province, whether they be public servants or workers with crown agencies, be preserved and that their civil liberties be preserved. I will not allow anyone to establish an inquisition so that these people can be weeded out.

The member for Rainy River almost wants to establish himself as the Grand Inquisitor during the Spanish Inquisition. Tomas de Torquemada, who was the Grand Inquisitor for 15 years, appointed by Queen Isabella, did not need any rhyme or reason for seeking out people and getting rid of them, to seek out the infidels.

The member for Rainy River says, "Seek out those members of the staff in the boards and commissions who are attempting to do their empire building and without any reason whatsoever drag them before the public accounts committee, and the public accounts committee after an investigation has the enormous powers of suspending, disciplining, reprimanding and dismissing."

It says to me that the member for Rainy River is not simply content -- and I know that this is private members' hour so therefore it does not represent the Liberal Party of Ontario -- in terms of his party's support for Bill 179, which takes away the basic human rights of working people in Ontario; he is not satisfied only with the ripping of their contracts which had been negotiated in good faith, he is not satisfied only removing workers' rights to bargain and negotiate.

Mr. Boudria: Are you speaking to the bill?

Mr. Grande: I certainly am. I am trying to say, if they do not understand, that the principle of this bill is none other than the same principle of the Spanish Inquisition of 1480 back in Spain.

lnterjections.

Mr. Grande: God knows, I listened to the member for 20 minutes and I am sure he can restrain himself and listen for 10 minutes. Maybe he cannot.

This bill hits the wrong target. It hits staff, it hits the public service. Why does he not read his own bill and find out what that bill says?

What this bill should be hitting is exactly the kinds of things that he talked about in his speech; it should be hitting at the board of governors of these particular boards and agencies who are the empire builders. It should be hitting at Hydro, that public institution which this government is unable to control and which has got out of control. This bill should be hitting at the Workmen's Compensation Board, where many injured workers in the last 15 to 20 years have hit their heads against a brick wall in attempting to establish their claims, because the top bureaucracy in that board will not recognize their claims.

The Acting Speaker: The honourable member has exhausted his time.

5:20 p.m.

Mr. Grande: My time is exhausted. If the member for Rainy River wants to establish the Ontario inquisition, I am not going to be a party to that establishment.

Mr. Robinson: Mr. Speaker, may I say at the outset that, while I may not be able to support many aspects of Bill 165, I do not have the ability to see it particularly as a witchhunt or an inquisition as my friend the member for Oakwood (Mr. Grande) may. Just the same there are some --

Mr. Boudria: You do not have the imagination or the time.

Mr. Robinson: As the member for Prescott-Russell (Mr. Boudria) points out, perhaps my imagination is not quite that vivid or perhaps my sense of history and interpretation of it does not follow quite the same line. I think it is uncharitable to say that to the member for Rainy River, who is a respected veteran in this House regardless of the fact he may at some point, in leading that great Liberal-Labour movement in northern Ontario, have somehow branched off from the mainstream of his party to take up his own special place in the ranks. Having said that, I do not think he is out to build his own empire as a result of this bill.

He gave us some interesting dictionary definitions of exactly what an empire is and what an empire-building situation is. I would remind him if he wants to talk about the conduct of the ministry or of other agencies, boards and commissions --

Mr. Boudria: Blame the feds.

Mr. Robinson: That member is going to be disappointed because I was not going to blame the feds --

Mr. Boudria: I am shocked.

Mr. Robinson: -- but now that he has mentioned it, now that he has raised once again that thorny issue -- as time is limited, I will overlook the opportunity to blame the federal government and just say the decision about the style of a ministry and who runs a ministry is a political decision. It is not a civil service decision as such.

I have read the bill thoroughly and I hope the member for Rainy River will agree with me. It talks about an investigation under subsection 2(2), "Where, after conducting an investigation under subsection 1" -- which is the one above -- "the public accounts committee is satisfied that a person has engaged in empire-building...". I like to think of myself as being as nonchauvinistic and as liberated, with a small "l", as the rest of us and I understand in 1982 what the word "person" means, but it seems that could just as easily be replaced by the word "minister." I am sure the member for Rainy River is not suggesting under Bill 165 that ministers of the crown should appear before a committee and accept they should be "dismissed or be suspended, disciplined or reprimanded" for whatever their activity may have been.

Mr. Nixon: I think that sounds like a good idea. What's the matter with that?

Mr. Robinson: I know the member for Brant-Haldimand-Oxford-Norfolk and everywhere else thinks that --

Mr. Nixon: Power to the people.

Mr. Robinson: -- would be a particularly acceptable suggestion; however, I am sure the member for Rainy River would not in good conscience share that thought.

I note we talk again about the differences and the numbers that are changing in the civil service. I will be more specific about those in a couple of minutes. With regard to the shift in the civil service and the fact one ministry has grown, I think the member conveniently overlooked that in that growth process there has been an equal and opposite shrinking process in other places.

Of course, it is fair to say in 1974 the Ministry of Energy contained a mere handful of people. It is also fair to say that basically in 1974 the world had not experienced the high profile that energy has taken on everywhere during the past eight years.

Mr. Boudria: The world didn't know about the Suncor purchase either.

Mr. Robinson: I do not think that anybody who wants to follow that argument through could possibly recognize that, while some priorities in our changing society may tend to take on less prominence at one given time, there are other areas that come right along and take their place and demand an equal or greater amount of attention.

Not being able to call it a witchhunt, I thought it would be something of a fishing expedition for him effectively, by his own definition and by the terms of the bill, somehow to link Suncor to the debate although I know the official opposition likes to bring that up at every possible turn. That should prompt some comment across the way without my even having to look up.

I also found it a little difficult that they were able to bring in the size of the cabinet as if that somehow had an effect on the bill. I am not saying one cannot make that a legitimate argument, perhaps in another forum, but not in terms of Bill 165 in my limited comprehension of it.

On the Board of Industrial Leadership and Development program, again reading this through carefully, I cannot see any way the BILD program would have a person engaged in empire building and then have that person disciplined, reprimanded or somehow shot at sunrise under the provisions.

I want to talk briefly, in the limited time available in this debate, about exactly what has happened in the civil service during the past few years. The deputy minister is responsible in an overall way for the administrative level but, as I said earlier, it is the minister who makes the political decisions. The deputy minister simply makes the adjustments to fulfil those political priorities, whatever they may be.

I am sure many members of this House will remember most specifically that in 1975 measures were tabled from the Ontario budget of two days earlier so that all public service competitions were halted until such time as there was a major reduction in the complement of civil service staff in Ontario. There was a ban on the advertising of positions.

That position was strengthened further in 1977 when a temporary suspension was placed on external recruitment for group 1 classified staff. I am sure those who have been around here even longer than I recognize that most positions in the Ontario civil service fall into that category. Since that time, there has continued to be a significant reduction in the number of civil servants in Ontario. It has gone down year in and year out.

Even the number of executive positions has declined. The member for Rainy River would have us believe it was otherwise. In fact, the number has declined from 689 in January 1976 to the current number of 596 positions. That is a significant decrease.

Mr. Nixon: How many contract positions?

Mr. Robinson: We will get to that, do not be impatient. We will touch on that as we go along.

Mr. T. P. Reid: Are you going to talk about Hydro too?

Mr. Robinson: I gave the member for Rainy River a chance and I am sure he wants to hear whatever wise comments I might be able to offer as well.

If we look at the composition of those positions at that time, as the whip might say, there were 29 deputy ministers, 54 assistant deputy ministers, 91 executive directors or their equivalent and 426 directors or their equivalent. Today, there are 30 deputy ministers, an increase of one; 57 assistant deputy ministers, an increase of three; 86 executive directors or their equivalent, a decrease of five; 423 directors or their equivalent, a decrease of three.

Mr. Nixon: How many public relations officers?

Mr. Robinson: I do not have that information here, but I know from looking at the Order Paper day in and day out that Her Majesty's loyal opposition is currently and in an ongoing way seeking to have exactly those facts. I am sure they can be presented in a more glamorous fashion than I might be able to guess at this time.

The numbers have gone down despite the fact that there has been an increase in the number of ministries overall, created by the change in alignment we had somewhat earlier this year.

In the very limited time I have left, and by my reading it is about two minutes --

Interjection.

Mr. Robinson: Thank you. I will continue for that amount of time.

The figures of the total civil service are the ones that really count.

Mr. Mancini: That is distorting it and you know it.

Mr. Robinson: We do not want to talk about the fact that the member was not making use of the public transit that was available to him today. In fact, he wanted to enhance the taxi industry in Toronto. We were not going to mention that and I will not be diverted to that today.

In March 1975, there were 87,109 employees of the public service. That correlates to one bureaucrat or one civil servant for each 94 citizens. In 1982, the figures are much different because the total number of civil servants has fallen by more than six per cent, to a meagre 81,826 positions. More important, that means that each civil servant in Ontario now serves 106 citizens, an increase in pure efficiency in the civil service of 13 per cent.

Finally, let us talk about agencies, boards and commissions for a minute because I know the members opposite are eager to hear about them. They have been sunsetted. In the past six years, 39 have been reviewed and nine of them have been sunsetted out of hand by the Management Board of Cabinet.

The procedural affairs committee continues its extensive review of agencies, boards and commissions, and continues to make recommendations to this House, as recently as a week ago, as in its previous report, again calling for more sunsetting as time goes by.

I think I have a grasp of what Bill 165 is attempting to do. I think I have a grasp of the language of it and also of the intent of the member for Rainy River. If there were clear-cut examples of genuine empire building within the Ontario Civil Service or within its agencies, boards and commissions, then we would be the ones bringing in that kind of legislation.

The people of Ontario want a leaner administration, as do all Canadians, almost as lean as I am becoming even as I stand here speaking today. We will not talk about inches, we will not talk about the fact that this suit is almost double-breasted now. If there were examples of empire building here in Ontario, we would be the first to bring in the legislation to curtail it. At this time, we do not see it and we are not able to support it.

5:30 p.m.

Mr. Boudria: Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to rise and speak in favour of Bill 165, An Act to control Empire-Building in Government.

Mr. Nixon: Tell them how they did it in Ottawa.

Mr. Boudria: First of all it would be interesting to note, as my House leader has said, that for a number of years I was in the employ of the federal government -- as a matter of fact, I was there for 14 years. Having worked as a public servant for a number of years, believe me, I know that such a thing as empire building does go on, in spite of the fact that the New Democratic Party wishes to ignore it and the Tories refuse to believe that anybody who is employed by their government, including they themselves, does such things. It goes on here in Ontario; it goes on at every level of government, and we have to create structures that will make the system more accountable to the public.

Surely there must be occasions when each and every one of the back-benchers on the government side would like to sit on a public accounts committee and question those things that are really unfair, those government expenditures that waste government moneys and waste their own constituents' money. They should be willing to stand up and fight for their constituents, not protect the cabinet ministers in front of them.

I could not let the occasion go by without commenting on the remarks of the member for Oakwood. The honourable member said this bill was dangerous, insinuating that it was dangerous for members of this Legislature to review certain spending policies of the government. What is dangerous in members of this Legislature trying to identify whether funds are spent properly, whether we are getting the maximum return on the dollars our taxpayers are spending in this province? There is nothing dangerous about that. It sounds to me like a very fundamental principle of democracy.

The member for Oakwood started to tell us that we are attempting to accuse individual public servants -- "individual ordinary workers," I believe, is the term he used -- of building empires themselves. Mr. Speaker, surely you know that staff do not build empires; managers do, There is nothing for an individual worker to gain by creating an empire; managers gain from those types of things.

Managers are not what the member for Oakwood was talking about, but that is what we are talking about: people in positions of influence in the government who create empires to enhance their prestige and to create situations where they in turn will have more power, more salary, more staff and more people to help them do their work.

It feeds on itself, and, believe me, having been in the public service for 14 years, I have seen it. It goes on here, it goes on in Ottawa and it goes on at every level: at the municipal level and at the school board level, as the member for Rainy River has explained.

The member for Scarborough-Ellesmere (Mr. Robinson) was telling us that there really is no empire building. If that is what he believes, he is not looking very well at what is going on in this province. If he does not believe that the number of public servants is increasing, directly and indirectly, he surely was not here the other day when we discussed the estimates of Management Board. He surely was not here when we discussed the number of contract positions and all these types of things that we see handed out in order to decrease the number of public servants artificially while it increases in fact. And although the number of public servants that the honourable member quoted is technically correct, it can be misleading to believe that this number tells us we have fewer public servants now than we had a number of years ago.

There may be members who have problems with the public accounts committee doing this type of review. What would be a better committee to oversee the public expenditures? There is no better committee than the public accounts committee. It is one of the most effective committees, I would say the most effective committee, in this Legislature. It has performed a very useful function. It outlines deficiencies in spending and empire building is a deficiency surely, whether or not it is admitted that it exists in this government. If it did exist, assuming one does not admit it does, empire building should be controlled and should not be allowed to happen. Even acknowledging what the member for Scarborough-Ellesmere said, that there is no such thing in Ontario, would he not want the public accounts committee to ensure that it never happens, even if he believed what he said? Surely he does not believe what he said; I refuse to believe any member of this Legislative Assembly could be so naive.

Let us look at empire building within this very chamber. There are 29 cabinet ministers, just about every one of them with a limousine, every one of them with staff, executive assistants, special assistants and all kinds of other assistants. There is almost an equal number of parliamentary assistants. I would like to know what the parliamentary assistants --

Mr. T. P. Reid: Sixty-two out of 70.

Mr. Boudria: Sixty-two out of 70 are either ministers, or parliamentary assistants, or chairmen of committees or have other functions. I would like to know what the parliamentary assistant for, let us say, the Minister of Revenue (Mr. Ashe) does. I would like to know what his functions are and just how much time it takes to do them, how much additional help he gets to do them and how much more prestige he has when writing letters to constituents saying he is the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Revenue.

I do not even acknowledge that the Ministry of Revenue should exist. As a matter of fact, we have decided that the role of critic for both the Ministry of Revenue and the Ministry of Treasury and Economics would be done by one of our members, who would be quite able to perform both functions and would equally be able to be the minister of both these ministries if we were in power. That is probably what will happen once our good leader decides to do that after the next election.

Let us talk again about those parliamentary assistants and just what they do. I have yet to see a parliamentary assistant answer questions in this Legislature on behalf of a minister. I have been here for a year and a half and I have never seen one of them answer questions on behalf of a minister. On two occasions I do remember my former leader trying to get a parliamentary assistant to answer questions and the Premier (Mr. Davis) refused to let him do that. We would not want any of them to ever work for the extra pay they get, that would be totally incorrect. I suppose that would be almost justification for their existence. I did say almost.

Mr. Runciman: What about your expenses? The highest in the House.

The Deputy Speaker: Two minutes.

Mr. Boudria: It is interesting to hear a member say that my expense account was the highest. That has been mentioned in the past. I was the second highest, but it does not really matter. It does not change much. The government refuses to give such services to my constituents as translation and other things I have to provide for them. I have provided those services, and I do not intend to apologize to government members for giving them the services the government should have been providing all along. I hope that settles the matter in so far as us providing services for our constituents is concerned.

It is not the expenditure in each member's constituency office I am concerned with. It is the empire building within the public service and within this Legislature: 29 cabinet ministers; a whole bunch of parliamentary assistants; staff, limousines and everything else the government members are building for themselves in this Legislature. That is a concern; that is why we need this kind of legislation, to protect the people of Ontario from those empire builders, many of whom are on the government side of this House.

5:40 p.m.

Mr. Charlton: Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to Bill 165. I will start my comments by saying that many of the sentiments expressed in the speech of the member for Rainy River, as well as those expressed by the member for Prescott-Russell in the speech he just finished, are felt strongly by the members of this party.

The member for Prescott-Russell mentioned that this party seemed blind to empire building. I suggest that he does not listen very well. Certainly he did not listen very well to my colleague the member for Oakwood, who set out some specific empire building problems that he would like to see dealt with; what he suggested was that this bill, unfortunately, would not deal with them. That is the point where I would like to pick up and carry on with my comments.

Bill 165, which we have before us, reflects a political naiveté in the member for Rainy River that I just cannot believe. In his comments he pointed out very eloquently the political culprits across the way and very carefully laid out several examples of the political culprits that need to be dealt with -- Ontario Hydro and the Ministry of Energy, among others -- but I see nothing in this bill that will provide the people of Ontario with the protection that the member for Rainy River and the member for Prescott-Russell both talked about.

What protection does this bill provide? The government has a majority, does it not? Does it not control the majority of the votes in this House? This bill talks about the House taking action on references made to it by the standing committee on public accounts. I see no sections in this bill which can get at the Minister of Energy, for example.

Since I have been here I have believed that we in Ontario had a system of parliamentary democracy based on the British model; that we had a system of political responsibility in which the ministers of the crown were responsible for the actions of their employees, whether as managers, as the member for Prescott-Russell puts it, or whether as workers, as my colleague for Oakwood said, because in both cases they are none the less employees.

Subsection 2(2) talks about recommending dismissal, suspension, discipline or reprimand. This Legislature perhaps has the power to dismiss, suspend or punish an employee, but this bill suggests no amendments that would make that possible. This Legislature has no power at present to punish a minister of the crown or a member of this Legislature for empire building.

I see no amendments in this bill that would provide the appropriate changes in either the Election Act or the Legislative Assembly Act to allow this assembly to deal with the problem which the members so eloquently set out in their speeches. I see nothing here that allows this Legislature to do anything but fire employees; and, fortunately, the members of this House are not employees under any definition outside the Legislative Assembly Act.

This Legislature already has the power to investigate in the public accounts committee, and this assembly has the power to discipline those who act inappropriately in the expenditure of funds, but there is nothing in this bill that changes the balance in a majority government situation. Certainly this bill sets out nothing that can force the Premier of the province to fire a minister or that would allow this Legislature to fire a member for inappropriate action in relation to empire building.

The specific examples used by the member for Rainy River in his speech are all examples that need to be looked at very closely. There is no question in the mind of anybody, at least on this side of the House, that Ontario Hydro has to be brought under control. There is no question in the mind of anybody on this side of the House that actions that were taken by this government, like Suncor, have to be brought under control. But there is nothing in this bill that accomplishes that.

There is nothing in this bill that does anything other than give this House the right to fire an employee. That misses the mark and the problem, because there is no employee in the public sector in Ontario who, although he may be involved in empire building, is responsible for it. The minister of the crown is responsible.

The member for Prescott-Russell went to great lengths to talk about his own experience in the service. Do the honourable members honestly believe there is any public servant anywhere who can empire-build without the knowledge of his minister?

Mr. Boudria: You are pretty naïve if you believe the opposite.

Mr. Chariton: There is no public servant anywhere who can empire-build without the knowledge of the minister for whom he works. The responsibility has to lie with the minister of the crown and with the government, not with the employee who does something at a minister's direction.

As I suggested, we can hardly agree with the sentiments that were expressed by the member for Rainy River. This bill totally misses the mark, deals with the wrong problem and misses totally the problem that has to be dealt with, which is the ministers of the crown across the way and the political structure under which we operate, because it is the politics and policies that emanate from those politics which create the empire building in the first place and not employees who are hired to do specific jobs.

Mr. Williams: Mr. Speaker, Bill 165, to some people, can be considered an embarrassment. Some people see it as being full of hypocrisy but, knowing the modesty of the sponsor of the bill, I would not suggest that either of those situations prevails.

In the back halls of Queen's Park, I have heard it suggested that the bill is self-serving. Again, I think modesty of the sponsor would suggest otherwise. His colleague the member for Prescott-Russell had suggested that empire building begins with managers and not the workers, and I think that is a valid point.

The difficulty is perhaps that some of the leading managers we have around here are chairmen of committees. I know the sponsor of the bill would be the last to suggest that he would want to build a bigger empire. I know that he takes great pride, as he should, in the power and responsibility that go with being a chairman of a committee and would be the last who would want to aggrandize those existing powers and responsibilities.

The difficulty and the hypocrisy that some people see in this bill, and I think it is regrettable, is the fact that the very sponsor of this bill would be building an empire the likes of which had never been conceived before in this Legislature. It is regrettable that he happens to be, as has been pointed out by the member for Oakwood and others, the present chairman of a committee.

Mr. Speaker: The member's time has expired.

Mr. Williams: Mr. Speaker, it is difficult to deal with this bill seriously given the apparent conflicts of interest that exist because of the fact that the sponsor of this bill is also the chairman of the committee that he wants to build into an empire unto itself.

5:50 p.m.

AGRICULTURAL EXPORTS

Mr. Speaker: Mr. McNeil has moved resolution 29.

All those in favour will please say "aye."

All those opposed will please say "nay."

In my opinion the ayes have it.

Motion agreed to.

EMPIRE-BUILDING CONTROL ACT

The House divided on the motion for second reading of Bill 165, which was negatived on the following vote:

Ayes

Boudria, Bradley, Breaugh, Breithaupt, Bryden, Conway, Cooke, Cunningham, Cureatz, Eakins, Edighoffer, Elston, Epp, Foulds, Kerr, Kerrio;

Mackenzie, Mancini, McClellan, McGuigan, McKessock, Miller, G. I.; Newman, Nixon, O'Neil, Peterson, Philip, Rae, Reed, J. A., Reid, T. P., Roy, Ruprecht, Ruston, Swart, Taylor, J. A., Van Horne, Worton, Wrye.

Nays

Allen, Andrewes, Baetz, Barlow, Bernier, Birch, Brandt, Charlton, Cousens, Dean, Eves, Fish, Gordon, Grande, Gregory, Grossman, Hennessy, Hodgson, Johnson, J. M., Johnston, R. F., Jones, Kennedy, Kolyn, Lane, Laughren, Leluk, Lupusella;

Martel, McCaffrey, McCague, McLean, McNeil, Miller, F. S., Mitchell, Norton, Piché, Pollock, Ramsay, Renwick, Robinson, Rotenberg, Runciman, Scrivener, Sheppard, Sterling, Stokes, Taylor, G. W., Treleaven, Villeneuve, Walker, Watson, Wells, Wildman, Williams.

Ayes 38; nays 54.

ROYAL ASSENT

Mr. Speaker: I beg to inform the House that in the name of Her Majesty the Queen, the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor has been pleased to assent to certain bills in his chambers.

Assistant Clerk: The following are the titles of the bills to which His Honour has assented:

Bill 91, An Act to revise the Municipal Interest and Discount Rates Act;

Bill 93, An Act to amend the Public Utilities Act;

Bill 131, An Act to amend the Registry Act;

Bill 132, An Act to amend the Land Titles Act;

Bill 145, An Act to amend the Brantford-Brant Annexation Act;

Bill 149, An Act to amend certain Acts respecting Regional Municipalities;

Bill 150, An Act to amend the Municipal Act;

Bill 163, An Act to amend the Agricultural Societies Act;

Bill 164, An Act to amend the Horticultural Societies Act;

Bill 171, An Act to revise the Farm Products Containers Act;

Bill 172, An Act to amend the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Act;

Bill Pr21, An Act respecting the City of London;

Bill Pr30, An Act respecting the City of St. Catharines;

Bill Pr31, An Act respecting the City of Thunder Bay.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, I would like to indicate to the House the business for the remainder of this week and next week.

Tonight we will have a debate on the motion for adoption of the recommendations in the ninth report of the select committee on the Ombudsman.

Tomorrow morning the House in committee of supply will consider the estimates of the Ministry of Revenue.

On Monday, November 22, in the afternoon and evening, the House in committee of supply will continue and finish the estimates of the Ministry of Revenue.

On Tuesday, November 23, in both the afternoon and the evening sitting we will be in committee of the whole to continue discussion of Bill 127.

On Wednesday, November 24, in the morning the resources development, justice and general government committees may meet.

On Thursday, November 25, in the afternoon will be private members' ballot items standing in the names of the member for Hamilton East (Mr. Mackenzie) and the member for Chatham-Kent (Mr. Watson), and in the evening the House will continue in committee of the whole the consideration of Bill 127 if required. I hope it perhaps will not be required, but if it is required we have allotted the evening of Thursday, November 25.

On Friday, November 26, in committee of supply the House will begin the consideration of the estimates of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food. This is different from the Order Paper, and a motion to this effect will be put to the House tomorrow or Monday.

The House recessed at 6 p.m.

November 18, 1982