INFLATION RESTRAINT ACT (CONTINUED)
The House resumed at 8 p.m.
House in committee of the whole.
INFLATION RESTRAINT ACT (CONTINUED)
Resuming consideration of Bill 179, An Act respecting the Restraint of Compensation in the Public Sector of Ontario and the Monitoring of Inflationary Conditions in the Economy of the Province.
On section 1:
Mr. Chairman: Are we ready to put the question on clause 1(a)?
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Not quite, Mr. Chairman. No, not quite.
Mr. Wrye: Mr. Chairman, I was going to let other members of my party speak first but my colleagues have --
Mr. R. F. Johnston: I see you got the total support of caucus on this.
Interjection.
Mr. Wrye: Thank you very much; thank you. I thank the member for Lake Nipigon (Mr. Stokes) for that support.
I wish to make a few remarks on the definition section of this act and specifically on clause 1(a). I want to indicate at the outset, as best I can remember where we are in our consideration of this bill, that we will vote in favour of the section as it now reads. We will vote in favour of it, because quite frankly the definition section is not important in terms of the substance of the amendments which we still hope to present in the days to come.
In spite of the fact the hour grows late in terms of discussion of this bill, we still have some very substantial amendments to offer.
With your indulgence, Mr. Chairman, I would like to speak a little bit about what we believe the Inflation Restraint Board might be doing under an amended bill which would offer to the public sector workers in Ontario a much more palatable, much more acceptable kind of restraint than the one proposed by the government at this time.
Let me make it very clear to the government and to the government members we would hope, if they have not done so already, that they should take a very good look at the amendments we wish to propose and in a thoughtful way give some consideration to those amendments.
Mr. Mackenzie: Quit kidding yourself.
Mr. Wrye: I hear my friend on the left talking, my friend who sees no problem not only in his party stonewalling, stonewalling a majority in terms of governing but also stonewalling the proper workings of this democracy in which any party can properly place its amendments before this House. The tyranny of the minority in this case is absolutely --
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Outrageous.
Mr. Wrye: -- is absolutely outrageous. My friend from Scarborough West says it so well. It is shameful; just shameful.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: There are 22 members who are willing to stand up and fight this thing.
Mr. Wrye: There are a lot of public sector workers, my friend, who do not disagree with a policy of restraint. For you, in your utter arrogance, to suggest that only you have the right answer denies not only to those public sector workers who agree with us but denies to this House, as a group, the right to put the amendments.
Mr. Mackenzie: What is the pay off? What is the Tory pay off? It is not going to go through.
Mr. Wrye: Of course, my friend the member for Hamilton East (Mr. Mackenzie) can say that so easily because he has done everything in his power and in the power of his party to prevent our amendments from being placed.
Mr. Chairman, let me ask, if we put our amendment on subsection 3(4), which would call for due process, how would they vote? I remember the member for York South (Mr. Rae), the Leader of the New Democratic Party, talking about due process. Do not tell me about due process. Tell your leader about due process. He talked about it. How will you vote on subsection 3(4)? The hypocrisy of the party on the left knows no bounds.
I guess my problem is that I like to believe a democracy can work and that every party can have a chance to place amendments on the floor and will let this Legislature vote aye or nay. Apparently my friend the member for Hamilton East and his colleagues are so determined there is no way to improve the bill, they would find it embarrassing --
Mr. Mackenzie: One hundred Tories.
Mr. Wrye: There are 103 --
Mr. Mackenzie: One hundred and three.
Mr. Wrye: As usual, your mathematics are wrong.
Speaking to the amendment, let me suggest -- -
Mr. Kerrio: Ask your leader to do your arithmetic for you.
Mr. Mackenzie: You are just absolutely beautiful.
Mr. Wrye: Once again, I suggest that the real problem with my friends on the left is that they decided very early on for their own reasons that the bill could not be amended. Having read our amendments and having found them so eminently sensible, they are now desperately trying to justify their position by ensuring, through this most ridiculous obstruction and ridiculous filibuster, that the amendments never come to the floor of this Legislature for a vote.
I suppose you can get together with your friends in the government who want to bring in closure; I am sure you will all stand up and you will be hypocritical and you will say, "We are against closure."
Mr. Mackenzie: Mr. Chairman, on a point of order: I just want it on the record that there has been an admission from the member for Windsor- Sandwich that there are 103 Tories in the House.
Mr. Ruston: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman: I just want to advise the House that there are 30 members from the New Democratic Party being paid but only 22 ever sit in their seats.
Mr. Wrye: Frankly, there are barely 22 at the best of times.
If I may speak, I know you want to draw me back to Bill 179, Mr. Chairman. I suppose I got carried away. Perhaps the member for Welland-Thorold (Mr. Swart) with his speech of two and a half hours on the all-important and all- encompassing amendment he was speaking on, and the member for Etobicoke (Mr. Philip) and his 95 minutes' worth of remarks today on that all-encompassing and very important clause that he was speaking on, have drawn me a little bit off topic.
Let me see if I can return to the topic and speak to the section now before us, which is clause 1(a). In the view of our party, some of the things we believe the Inflation Restraint Board should be doing -- unlike our obstructionist friends to our left, we do not really care whether it is called the Inflation Restraint Board, the fair prices commission, the arbitrary powers board or anything else. A name is a name is a name.
8:10 p.m.
An hon. member: The Tories are the enemy.
Mr. Wrye: Mr. Chairman, could you ask my friend the member for Downsview (Mr. Di Santo) to return to his seat?
We believe one of the things this board will have to deal with is the present total irresponsibility of this legislation with respect to due process. When the hour shall come when we can place an amendment to the section of the bill, we intend to do so.
We do not believe it is in the best interests of making this legislation work and making it fair and equitable to public sector workers that those workers be denied due process by statute. We believe intolerable and unacceptable pressures will be put on the Inflation Restraint Board if we do not amend the bill in that way. That is why we believe that that amendment should be placed.
I had a chance to listen to my friend the leader of the New Democratic Party in his speech on clause 1(a) of this bill. It was an excellent speech, but it was an excellent speech on subsection 3(4) of the legislation. It is unfortunate that the member for York South did not have and has not yet had the opportunity to speak on subsection 3(4), because I know he would want to make the same remarks that he made so eloquently some time ago.
Apparently there are members of his party who really do not wish to have due process written into this legislation. At this stage those who have framed the legislation have not yet become convinced of the fact that for public sector workers, due process is an absolute necessity. But I am sure there are a number of government members who, if the amendment were to be presented and debated in full, would agree with our position that due process is not only fair to the public sector workers but is really the only way the Inflation Restraint Board and the members thereof, including the chairman of the board, Mr. Biddell, can ever have a chance to make this legislation work in a fair and equitable manner; in a manner in which the public sector workers will come to accept, perhaps, that the sacrifice they are being asked to make is being dealt with equitably not only on the wage side but on the price side. I believe that is extremely important.
I also believe there are a number of other changes that would make the board's task much easier. Let me outline a few.
We will be proposing that wage increases in the transition year be mandated at nine per cent and not be up to nine per cent.
Mr. Cooke: And when they turn us down you will vote for the bill anyway.
Mr. Wrye: If the member for Windsor-Riverside (Mr. Cooke) would quit yapping for a second, I could conclude my speech and he could get up and make one of his own.
Mr. Cooke: We know how you are going to vote on third reading. You will either stay out of the House or you will vote in favour of the bill.
Mr. Wrye: The members on my left, among other things, believe themselves to be all-knowing, and now they know how to foretell the issues as well as everything else.
I suggest that we could take some of the problems away from the board. And make no mistake about the fact that the Inflation Restraint Board is going to have a great problem in adjudicating whether, for example, a school board that offers its teachers zero per cent or three or four per cent in the transition year should mandate an increase to the full nine per cent. We simply believe we ought to help the board by mandating a nine per cent increase. It is one thing to ask workers in the public sector in Ontario to make a tremendous sacrifice, and that is what we are asking.
The Ontario Liberal Party would have widened this legislation to include public and private wage and price controls because we believe there is an intrinsic unfairness in public sector controls only. In our view it would make the problem really unpalatable and unacceptable to the Inflation Restraint Board if it had to rule on a catch-as-catch-can basis as to whether public sector wage increases in the transition year are to be nine per cent or something less.
That is why, at the appropriate moment, this party will be placing an amendment to take that problem out of the hands of the board. We do not expect a monstrous bureaucracy and we believe it is very important that this board get on with the task of monitoring price increases. It will be a difficult one.
I have received a large number of submissions from my riding. I have asked them what view they accept: public sector wage and price controls only. such as we have here; public and private, such as my leader and my party have proposed; no controls whatsoever; or other options they may wish to specify. The overwhelming number of people in my riding have responded that they believe in public and private wage and price controls and the increasing --
Mr. Cooke: That is not true and you know it.
Mr. Wrye: If the member for Windsor-Riverside wishes the numbers I can give them to him. Of course he will not believe them but I will even show him the ballots. He will not believe that either because those members do not even believe in democracy.
Mr. Cooke: That is so silly. We believe in democracy; that is why we are voting against this bill.
Mr. Wrye: The view we hold, and one which I believe a strong majority of the people hold, is that the price side of this bill must be toughened up substantially. It is very important to us that the Inflation Restraint Board not get bogged down in whether to give a six and a half per cent or a seven and a half per cent or a nine per cent increase in the transition year. Nor should it get bogged down in the other issue: whether to give an increase for nonunionized workers in the public sector of between zero and five per cent in the control year.
Let us mandate those increase. Let us admit for once that we are asking the public sector to make a tremendous sacrifice, They are the only ones being asked to carry the can for this government's so-called fight against inflation. So let us at least say to them, as this government has so piously suggested: "We care enough about you that we are not going to get you caught in a long hassle as to whether you will get six per cent or seven per cent or eight and a half per cent in the transition year. Let us give you the nine per cent."
Let us take that hassle away from the board as well because, make no mistake about it my friends, the board is going to get caught in a number of public-hearing submissions. Unions are going to demand to know why the board will not give them nine per cent or will not give them five per cent and the whole bureaucracy is going to bog down.
We should take that problem away from the board now. Surely, giving them nine per cent in the transition year, giving them five per cent in the control year, does not mean they are going to outstrip inflation. It is clear to all of us they will fall somewhat behind the rate of inflation. It is mean-spirited to offer them something less than nine and five in the two years. It is wrong to try to fudge the figures, to try to play games and say, "The powerful will have their five but the less powerful -- the nonunionized public sector -- will have to fight for every scrap they can get." Give them their five per cent; they deserve it.
8:20 p.m.
One of the things I find reprehensible about the bill and about the problems the Inflation Restraint Board will have is it is going to be put in the unique position of saying yea or nay to those who are at the lowest income scales in the public sector.
If there is any one shocking thing we learned in the two weeks of public submissions to the standing committee on administration of justice, it was that there are far too many people in this province working in the public sector who are not earning $15,000, $20,000 or $25,000 a year, but who are earning $8,000, $9,000 and $10,000 a year.
This government proposes to say, "We will give you $750," to somebody earning $10,000 a year who obviously is not even able to make ends meet on $10,000 a year. "We will give you $750 and, if the Inflation Restraint Board in its wisdom deems it reasonable, we will give an extra $250." That is going to cause amazing and incredible problems for the board. We wish to take those problems out of the board's hands.
It is absolutely wrong that those at the lowest end of the scale be treated in this mean-spirited manner. That is the kindest phrase I can put upon it. We would take the problem out of the hands of the Inflation Restraint Board. We would mandate a minimum settlement and a minimum wage increase in the control year period of $1,200.
Group after group came before us and said: "At $8,500 we did not cause inflation. We have not caused this problem in Ontario." They are right. If there is any group that has not caused the problems and the economic emergency we have in this province, it is the working poor of Ontario. My party will place the appropriate amendment before this House for its consideration.
The government members who have heard the debate day in and day out, and who have heard the public submissions, probably would be most attuned to and most sympathetic towards those amendments, so we would give those workers who are almost on starvation wages a decent increase, an increase in keeping with the kinds of increases that have been awarded by boards of arbitration in a number of nursing home disputes and other disputes in recent months.
We would try to follow the lead of those boards of arbitration which have found that, notwithstanding the economic emergency and notwithstanding really anything else, it is time for those who are at the lowest end of the spectrum, who have paid the price time and again, to catch up. We believe it is simple justice for us to put before this House and have this House accept such an amendment. Not only that, it would remove another critical impediment from the workings of the Inflation Restraint Board.
I say that not knowing if perhaps the government wishes to solve the whole problem of unemployment by having a massive board, a massive bureaucracy. What we in our party are trying to do is to bring as much economic justice as we can and to streamline the process at the same time.
Similarly the bill, while it is entitled An Act respecting the Restraint of Compensation in the Public Sector of Ontario and the Monitoring of Inflationary Conditions in the Economy of the Province, instead uses a sledge-hammer. It restrains not just compensation, but the right of free collective bargaining with all that it entails, the right to move eventually to arbitration and to strike. It removes that right and that natural conclusion from the public sector workers.
I believe the board is going to find itself caught in dispute after dispute as to whether the employer has bargained in good faith on what I would call, not nonmonetary but noncompensation issues. They would be issues I would narrowly define as having nothing to do with wages and direct fringe benefits.
We believe that will bog down the Inflation Restraint Board in a totally abnormal, unnatural --
Mr. Chairman: The board.
Mr. Wrye: I said Inflation Restraint Board, Mr. Chairman. I have said it more often than my colleague the member for Etobicoke said it this afternoon. I have tried to put it in at least once every four or five minutes.
Mr. Bradley: Keep it going.
Mr. McClellan: Wrap it up.
Mr. Wrye: My friend the member for St. Catharines (Mr. Bradley) said to keep going.
Mr. Cooke: We know the member for St. Catharines doesn't always mean what he says.
Mr. Wrye: I believe -- and these are not just my views but the views of my constituents -- it is very important that the Inflation Restraint Board spend most of its time making sure that price increases in this province are also part of the five per cent world, that the gouging stops and stops immediately and that my friend the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr. Elgie) gets his act together on rent controls and on a number of issues.
We believe this government should get its act together in terms of price increases and should stop playing little word games on things like the Ontario hospital insurance plan and Ontario Hydro and so on.
We believe the Inflation Restraint Board will unnecessarily and unnaturally get bogged down in dispute after dispute on good faith bargaining on what employees can do to get justice when the employers say, "Well, we have this bill in place and quite frankly, friend, we do not have to bargain with you." We believe that it should not have to be the role of the Inflation Restraint Board, as defined in clause 1(a), to have to adjudicate those problems and disputes.
When our amendment is presented, I am sure it will be supported by my friends on the left; they may wish to further amend the bill to include compensation and the House will deal with that as it sees fit. But I am sure from what I heard in the standing committee on administration of justice that my friends on the left and perhaps some government members, certainly the Minister of Labour (Mr. Ramsay), who is in his place, would understand that natural collective bargaining should continue with normal procedures and in as normal a way as possible throughout the life of this act should it come into force.
In my judgment, it is simply asking for immediate trouble for the Inflation Restraint Board and, in the long term, for the collective bargaining process, for us not to free up as wide an area of collective bargaining as we can during the restraint period to allow it to apply on grievances, on scheduling, on the addition -- for example, with teachers -- of staff under Bill 82, for protection for women on video display terminals and in a number of other areas, and to allow it to move ahead as it has done normally and totally freely in the last several years.
Subsection 12(5) will cause enormous problems for the Inflation Restraint Board. A number of those problems, in my view, have already emerged. Even those who are dispensing advice in this interim period have tried to dispense advice as to whether merit increases -- and I would remind you they are merit increases in the widest sense of the word, which can occur for anything from length of service to meritorious work and a lot of elements in between -- as defined in clauses (a) to (e) will bring a public sector worker up to and beyond $35,000.
8:30 p.m.
In the amendments the government has proposed, which we find wholly and totally inadequate, we notice it has tried to wrestle unsuccessfully with that very problem. That was brought home to us, time and time again, with specific example after example in our committee hearings. We heard only 70 or 72 groups in a short, two-week period -- we would have heard 77, but the member for Oshawa (Mr. Breaugh) decided to cut off debate and cut off the public hearings. If in that two-week period we could hear as many examples as we heard, it seems to me the Inflation Restraint Board will find out there are literally hundreds of problem areas out in the public sector.
Again, I do not think it is useful to have a bill that is complex and complicated and puts some workers in double jeopardy and others in triple jeopardy. It ought to be put up to the board to try to sort out the confusion this government is creating. When our amendment is put, it will take that confusion away from the Inflation Restraint Board. It will simply scrap the provisions for merit pay increases.
There are a large number of other items. I do not wish to prolong the debate because --
Mr. Roy: Go ahead. The New Democrats took four or five hours.
Mr. Wrye: It seems to me it is very important that we give the Inflation Restraint Board not only the time but also the power and the ability so that it does not get caught up in a whole host of problems on the wage side. If there is a problem, let us err on the maximum side. Let us mandate within the confines of restraint, if that is what we wish. Let us mandate the maximums. Let us not fool around and try to fudge figures and set one public sector worker off against another and one board against another.
If the government truly believes there is an economic emergency, let us recognize that the public sector is being asked to make a tremendous sacrifice. Not only are they being asked to make a sacrifice, but also they are being asked to fight for every scrap they get in the next 12 months, which is absolutely wrong and beyond the pale. Public sector workers should not have to go to the Inflation Restraint Board repeatedly to bargain nonmonetary issues, to get their nine per cent and their five per cent, to make sure that somebody does not play games with them on merit increases and a whole host of other problems.
If this government wants to suggest to the public sector workers that it plays a role in this era of restraint, it should say that clearly by moving as distinctly as it can to maximize the benefits, wages and otherwise, that those workers will receive in the next 12 months. At the same lime it should untie the hands of the Inflation Restraint Board, fair prices commission, or whatever we want to call it -- it does not matter a whole lot. That is the issue: Do not make the workers fight night and day because the people opposite wrote a lousy bill. That is what it is, a lousy bill.
Mr. McClellan: You already voted for it twice.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: And he will again.
Mr. Roy: Have you guys not taken enough time in your own speeches without interrupting --
Mr. McClellan: Am I wrong, Albert? Did he not vote for it twice?
Mr. Roy: Where are your manners over there?
The Deputy Chairman: Order.
Mr. Wrye: If we could untie the hands of the Inflation Restraint Board on the wage side, and untie them, quite frankly- -- and I make no apologies for it; I am not particularly proud of it, because I do not like urging restraint on any sector or urging any lack of free collective bargaining; I do not like that at all --
Mr. Mackenzie: You told us you wanted it for everybody.
Mr. McClellan: The Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Peterson) wants it for the private sector.
Mr. Wrye: I agree with that.
Mr. McClellan: Why don't you say it out loud?
Mr. Wrye: I agree with that, I say to the member for Bellwoods. But then again, he and his party wish to continue to live in a fairy tale world where there is no economic emergency; there are only 1.5 million people unemployed. To them the money will mysteriously make an appearance. The millionaire is coming in later tonight, I guess, only this time he had better be a billionaire.
We believe that if we can unfetter the hands of the Inflation Restraint Board as defined in clause 1(a) -- so I can indicate to you that I am speaking on the amendment, Mr. Chairman -- there are many things the board is bound and ought to be doing on the price side, and it will take all the time and all the efforts of the board to ensure there is no price gouging.
For example, we believe that section 27, which now says, "(1) The minister shall establish economic criteria by which price increases shall be reviewed," and he can refer those increases to the board, ought to be widened and not only allow the minister to refer those to the board. Frankly, we do not trust any of those guys over there; we have already seen the Minister of Energy (Mr. Welch) wring his hands and suggest to this House- -- and if I were not so filled with disbelief, it would gall me -- that in the five per cent world, 8.2 per cent for Hydro is just fine and dandy, thank you very much.
Interjections.
The Deputy Chairman: Order. The member for Windsor-Sandwich has the floor.
Mr. Wrye: If, with the support of those who are so holy on our left, we ever get our amendment to the floor -- not their amendment, because I do not know whether they have any on the price side other than their silly amendments on clause 1(a) -- if we ever get our substantive amendment to the floor, which would allow the people of this province to refer price increases to this board for investigation, we believe and accept that it would create a lot of work for this board to do, because I, for one, believe there are a lot of unfair price ripoffs going on.
I say to this government that under this act as it now stands the board is going to spend all its time worrying about the wage side for two reasons: first, because the bill is so messy and so fraught with difficulties that it is going to spend night and day just trying to sort out that section; and second, because I do not believe any minister in that group over there will ever refer a price increase to this board. I do not think they care about price increases, because they know where their bread is buttered.
8:40 p.m.
An hon. member: You don't know what you are talking about.
Mr. Wrye: Let the minister tell his friend the Minister of Energy that 8.2 per cent is five per cent.
The Deputy Chairman: The member for Windsor-Sandwich is speaking to clause 1(a) of Bill 179.
Mr. Wrye: Tory mathematics; that is the problem with the government over there. That is the kind of mathematics it has been practising in this province for far too long. When is a deficit not a deficit? When the Tories introduce it.
The Deputy Chairman: It has been drawn to my attention that the honourable member who normally sits in seat 37 is in seat 36. The honourable member should carry on. As to any interjections coming from other than one's own seat, that honourable member will have to be advised.
Mr. Wrye: I suggest it is very important that we not only give the board the ability by removing the problems on the wage side but also allow it the scope not only to receive price increases from ministers, if it ever will, but also to receive them from the ordinary taxpayers in Ontario, public sector workers, private sector workers, owners or members of the Legislature from wherever.
I think it is important and so do my constituents. An overwhelming number believe the major problem, and this government and the minister have not yet recognized it, is that this so-called anti-inflation program will live or die, in the view of the public, on whether the wage controls, which are so carefully written and which are so lacking in any loopholes, are accompanied by tough price controls.
Speaking to clause 1(a), I say with respect to my friend the Minister of Natural Resources, that is why I am sure that if this bill were toughened in the way we would toughen it, the Inflation Restraint Board would have an opportunity to investigate and report on the 8.2 per cent increase that Ontario Hydro has been given.
I invite the government to accept our amendment, because I am quite confident that once we asked the board for such a report, it would in its wisdom roll back that increase from 8.2 per cent to five per cent and make Hydro part of that five per cent world.
Mr. Roy: What about all those rent increases?
Mr. Wrye: My friend the member for Ottawa East (Mr. Roy) talks about rent increases and he speaks with a certain sensitivity, coming from a community where rent increases are out of control. Mr. Chairman, I will not carry on long on this, because I know your patience was sorely tried on rent issues before the supper adjournment, but my friend the member for Ottawa East is so correct.
If we can empower not just ministers but also individuals to come before the board and say, "The landlord is not living in a five per cent world and he ought to be, because I am," it seems to me the board's work is going to be cut out for it. It is going to have a lot of work to do. I do not want to suggest that all landlords are like this, but there are a number of landlords, a large enough minority with diversified enough holdings, that the board is going to be caught up in a great amount of work to make sure the tenants of those buildings are protected.
I do not wish to prolong this debate, because we look forward in the next hours and days to placing our amendments before the House, but I want to suggest that my friend the member for St. Catharines (Mr. Bradley) put it so well last Thursday night that I thought it might be worth repeating.
If we cannot move ahead on this bill, if we cannot move from clause 1(a) and move on smartly and directly to the substantial amendments our party will propose and to the amendments which my friends on the left suggest are substantial and substantive -- and I have not seen any yet, because the amendments they have proposed so far have been nothing short of silly --
Interjections.
Mr. Wrye: What we need is substance, not definitions -- not some definition as to whether we have a fair prices commission or an Inflation Restraint Board, as if that is important. What is needed is amendments of substance -- whether we will have a five per cent world for Hydro, whether we will have doctors in the plan, whether we will have a five per cent increase for the Ontario health insurance plan, whether we will have notching. Those are amendments of substance.
Mr. Martel: And the government will vote against them.
Mr. Wrye: My friend the member for Sudbury East, with his usual cynicism, suggests the government will vote against them. Did my friend the member for Brantford (Mr. Gillies) tell the member for Sudbury East (Mr. Martel) that? Did my friend the member for Oxford (Mr. Treleaven) tell him that? Or was it the member for Mississauga North (Mr. Jones)?
Mr. Martel: The government House leader.
Mr. Wrye: The government House leader is just one vote. How many votes is my friend?
Mr. Martel: You are even sillier than I thought.
Mr. Wrye: I simply suggest that my friends on the left are once again, in their usual way, anticipating democracy.
Mr. Martel: No. We have been told.
Mr. Wrye: I suggest the important issue now before us is not whether clause 1(a) will carry but whether the opposition will have the opportunity to convince this Legislature -- each of its 125 members -- that every one of our amendments is important.
The problem we are facing now is that we have a government that is determined to ram through its bill. It really does not care a lot about our amendments because it did not write them into the bill. Individual members might want to vote for them but the government party, the cabinet, did not write these amendments into the bill; so obviously they are not their priority.
But more important we have a party to my left that is desperately afraid -- that is the only way I can put it -- that is desperately afraid that just one of our amendments will make it to the floor, because then the jig will be up for that party. Then they would have to vote yea or nay or clear out. They would have to say yes for due process or no.
The Deputy Chairman: We are speaking to clause 1(a).
Mr. Wrye: If we can get off clause 1(a), which our friends on the left desperately do not want, and get to the substance, and if they do not like it --
Interjection.
Mr. Wrye: Does the member for Sudbury East want to deal with section 34 next? Why does he not suggest that to the government House leader?
Mr. Martel: Let us deal with bills in the order that the sections come.
Mr. Wrye: That is right. Of course we will.
Let me suggest to the member that when the public sector workers are short money in their paycheques, when they are short rights that might have been given back to them, he need not come to anybody looking for a scapegoat. The only scapegoat is the New Democratic Party, which has made and continues to make a mockery of democracy.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to follow in the rotation after the Conservative speaker, and I noted the applause from his back-benchers and front-benchers on his position there.
I realize that in the precedent of the latitude that was given the member for Windsor-Sandwich, and perhaps even my own colleague the member for Etobicoke, that I have free rein here to talk about anything I want as long as I say every few minutes the words "Inflation Restraint Board." That seems to be the rule. But I will not succumb to that, Mr. Speaker, you will be pleased to know.
But I will be speaking to the name of this board -- which means the inflation Restraint Board.
Hon. Mr. Norton: Have you figured out your own name yet?
Interjections.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Is it not good to have the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Norton) here?
The Deputy Chairman: Order. Do not allow yourself to be distracted by any of these interruptions.
8:50 p.m.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: One might well ask, especially if one is in an effusive mood such as the minister is in tonight, "What's in a name?" That conjures up all sorts of Shakespearean kinds of things. The name is very important. It is important because it supposedly represents and signifies that which you are dealing with, whether it is a person or a thing, in this case a thing that is going to be called an Inflation Restraint Board.
I suggest that this name is dissembling, deceitful and fraudulent, and it does not apply to the thing we are dealing with here.
There is a statement that a rose by any other name smells the same; but so does skunk cabbage, and this is skunk cabbage. Liberals also smell the same, no matter whether they are a community party or whether they are in a situation. The kind of garbage we have heard here tonight about hypocrisy is simply outrageous. The aspirations to power have gone to the heads of these people. They think that they now are part of the executive wing, that they now are part of the Tory caucus, that they now have some say in putting through this legislation.
In the delusions of grandeur they are suffering, they believe that substantive amendments to this bill actually will be passed by the Tory government. My God, it is either colossal hypocrisy and they are playing the game out because they are now accepting closure and saying that is admissible in this game, or they actually believe it.
The Deputy Chairman: The member will speak to the motion.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: They actually believe the Inflation Restraint Board legislation will be amended to meet their needs. That is garbage. That is skunk cabbage, as is the name of this bill and the Inflation Restraint Board.
Mr. Nixon: You never gave it a chance.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: The member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk says we have never given it a chance. Let me just say that at a meeting today the government House leader made it very clear that he would not support any substantive amendment. If the honourable member's House leader reported to him, he would know that. If he knows that, why bother playing along with these people?
The Deputy Chairman: Order. The motion before the House has to do with clause 1(a). I ask the member to deal with Bill 179, clause 1(a).
Interjections.
The Deputy Chairman: Order. Will the member carry on and speak to 1(a)? I think that is the reason these interruptions are taking place.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Mr. Chairman, I am speaking against the name, "the Inflation Restraint Board," because I believe it is phony; I believe it is a fraudulent name which does not represent what this bill is all about. Therefore, I am suggesting that any decision to support it, any decision to vote twice for it already and then claim they are going to put in amendments to make this an Inflation Restraint Board when they know the government is not going to accept them, is as hypocritical as this darned legislation and the name of this board. It is just as hypocritical.
These people here to my right -- and I stress, to my right -- talk about the sacrifice, that we all have to say openly to our public servants that they are now expected to sacrifice, and that we should be sort of putting that up as a positive thing for them to be doing and not understanding that they are not sacrificing, they are being scapegoated. For them then to try to stand up twice and vote for this Inflation Restraint Board, which is not an Inflation Restraint Board but which is a scapegoating of the workers of this province who work for this government and for the people of this province, is hypocritical just as the name of this bill is.
Hon. Mr. Norton: What about those people in the private sector who are out of work?
Mr. R. F. Johnston: That is exactly the point. This does not do one darned thing for those workers.
The Deputy Chairman: I recognize the member for Ottawa East on a point of order.
Mr. Roy: Mr. Chairman, in your long experience sitting in that chair you will obviously know that the honourable member keeps using a word that has been already ruled here by the Speaker to be unparliamentary, and that is the word "hypocritical." I think you know that, Mr. Chairman.
It is an offensive word, especially coming from a party that is obviously -- as we call it in French, les marionettes -- the puppets of other forces in the community. When he calls us hypocritical, he should be brought to order, Mr. Chairman.
The Deputy Chairman: I appreciate the member for Ottawa East bringing up that point. As the member for Scarborough West proceeded, I was carefully trying to see -- because I knew he was walking that fine line -- that he did not call any particular person that kind of being. He was walking close to it. in fact, I asked the table to listen closely. I concede the floor to the member for Scarborough West.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Duplicity, as I recall, is an acceptable word.
The Deputy Chairman: I thought the honour- able member was going to indicate that he was repeating himself a little bit.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Fine, Mr. Chairman. I am sure you will bring that to my attention without the help of the member for Ottawa East.
I think it is imputing motives by the member, if I might say so, to suggest that this party is a marionette of anybody or any group. We are standing here on what is a very important principle to us. For whom are we marionettes? Stand up and name them.
Mr. Roy: Labour leaders.
The Deputy Chairman: We are getting off the bill. We are still on clause 1(a).
Mr. R. F. Johnston: We have been accused of being marionettes of the labour leaders.
The Deputy Chairman: Order. On clause 1(a).
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Yes. This is the Inflation Restraint Board, which should not be called the Inflation Restraint Board. It should be called the public sector wage expropriation board. It should at least be called what the title of this bill is, A Board respecting the Restraint of Compensation in the Public Sector of Ontario and the Monitoring of Inflationary Conditions. Even that is not quite accurate.
Maybe it should be called the cost pass-through bill, maybe it should be called the arbitrary powers bill, or maybe it should be called the "We selected you as scapegoats" bill, saying, "We are going to ram it down your throats, but if we were a Liberal government we would make all workers the scapegoats for the problems that have been inflicted upon by the government of this province and this country." Those are the titles that this bill should be given. It is a dishonest piece of legislation, and this name is totally dishonest.
Let us look at what this name says: Inflation Restraint Board. I suppose inflation restraint is the next stage of inflation wrestling. We have seen the inflation wrestling techniques of the federal government and how they failed. Now we are going to see the inflation wrestling techniques of the provincial government.
Who are we wrestling here? We are wrestling 500,000 workers, many of whom are not highly paid workers. We are taking money out of their pockets which they have already bargained for with this government, which I am sure the Minister of Labour (Mr. Ramsay) would admit has been their right. Now that right is being abrogated.
Are we affecting inflation at all? Are their agreements inflationary? Have they been causing inflation in this province? Surely the answer has to be no. I would say the real effects on inflation are interest rates, energy prices -- whether oil or hydro prices -- the price of food and the markup by the food processing and distribution networks, and the cost of housing.
Those are the inflationary aspects in our province. Those are the things that are getting out of hand. Those are the things that are making it difficult for the average person to get by. Those are the things that have made it impossible for small business to survive. That is the inflation that needs to be fought.
I respectfully say that this is fraudulent. It does not fight those basic causes of inflation. What it does instead is turn on a whole group of people who are earning often below the average in this society -- certainly a heck of a lot less than members of this House are earning, and many other people in this society who are not being touched by this bill in any way at all -- and who are finding it harder to get by in our society today.
We decided we were going to make them the examples. We are going to say: "You are the causes of inflation. This government is attacking you first. That is why we are having an inflation Restraint Board to attack you, the civil servants." The people on my right, the Liberals, say: "You are right. We want to make it a little fairer in terms of the way it is applied." But that basic unfairness of picking on scapegoats is accepted by this party on my right, the Liberal Party, the community party, the anti-labour party, as we have just heard. They are essentially saying they will offer up amendments that will take this fundamentally dishonest bill with a fundamentally dishonest title for the board that will have its powers, and will somehow amend it and make it into the silk purse that --
Hon. Mr. Norton: You are a fundamentally dishonest speaker. You are misquoting facts tonight.
Mr. Martel: Not on your life.
9 p.m.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: I would like that withdrawn, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Martel: Is he going to withdraw?
Mr. R. F. Johnston: "Fundamentally dishonest" is what I heard. I do not believe that is acceptable, Mr. Chairman.
Hon. Mr. Norton: Mr. Chairman, if I am not mistaken, I understood the honourable member to indicate that there were two principal areas of pressure for inflation, one being food and one being housing. If he looked at the record and the facts in this country, he would find that food and housing were both under five per cent in the past year. That is, in my opinion, inadvertently misleading.
Mr. Martel: Mr. Chairman, are you prepared to make him withdraw?
Mr. Chairman: The Minister of the Environment indicated that --
Mr. Martel: No, no. He has not withdrawn, and I suggest --
Hon. Mr. Norton: I cannot, obviously, attribute the lack of knowledge to the member that he has expressed --
Mr. Chairman: Would you withdraw it?
Hon. Mr. Norton: Sure. I will withdraw it, as a personal comment, but I think it is also important that those people in the Legislature tonight understand that he is speaking from a very limited base of knowledge, so come clean.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Thank you for your rough handling of that minister, Mr. Chairman. I would remind him of the rules of this House. You are not to give speeches when you withdraw. You are to withdraw, and then make your speech afterwards, if you choose to, on a point of order of some sort.
Speaking to the definition before us, which is of an Inflation Restraint Board, I would like to look at inflation at the moment --
Hon. Mr. Norton: What are the inflationary rates for food and housing? Come clean, let's have some facts.
Mr. Martel: You would not recognize them if they hit you between the eyes.
Hon. Mr. Norton: For the past year we have heard these nonsensical generalizations. Let's have some facts. It is easy to spill off these generalizations.
Mr. Martel: Are you going to control him, Mr. Chairman?
Mr. R. F. Johnston: I would like to talk about some facts, about the people whom inflation hurts and why we need to control it.
Hon. Mr. Norton: No. no, that is not what you were saying. You were making some generalized statements about the role of inflation and you were wrong.
Mr. Martel: Are you going to control him?
Mr. R. F. Johnston: I realize you are in an awkward position, Mr. Chairman, when a minister decides to act out in front of the Legislature, but I ask you to tell him not to write my speech but allow me to give it. I believe that is the right I would afford him.
Hon. Mr. Norton: It would be a much more accurate speech if I had written it for him.
Mr. Chairman: The member for Scarborough West, you have our undivided attention.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: I was trying to say that in my view the causes of inflation in this province are not the wages we have meted out to our civil servants or the agreements that have been made between this government and the civil servants, in a responsible fashion I presume, or those which have been arbitrated through a system established by this government with the civil servants. Those are not the causes of inflation in this province.
The causes of inflation are the interest rate policies we have accepted, the cost of energy which we allow continually to be passed through, the ability to speculate on housing and therefore to make housing costs exorbitant, and the high cost of food, not because of what the farmers get but because of what is done to the food and the costs that are added to it afterwards. I suggest the victims of inflation are often the people whom you are now hurting with this legislation.
This government has now decided to take away money from those people who need their purchasing power for commodities such as energy, housing and food. This party to my right has decided that is fair and just. In fact, all we really need to do is make all the other workers in society subject to restraint as well.
Hon. Mr. Norton: You people do not understand the concept of equity, that is your problem.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: The concept of equity that is being put forward here is that because there are people unemployed, because of the failures of this government and the failures of the federal government, because those people are suffering, because those people are losing everything they have worked for, let us damned well make the civil servants suffer too. That is their notion of equity. That is damned well their notion of equity and that is what this bill is all about. It does not do one damned thing to control wages and the minister knows this.
Hon. Mr. Norton: No, it is a matter of sharing. You people do not understand the concept of sharing.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Sharing in the suffering, that is what he wants. How much is the minister suffering tonight? He can go to his damned limousine and drive home. With his $65,000, or whatever it is he gets a year, he can put through this kind of thing on day care workers who are getting $9,000 or $10,000 a year. This is the most hideous piece of legislation that has been put through, and it cannot be passed off as some kind of equity by saying that because some workers are suffering they should all damned well suffer. That is exactly what this is about.
Mr. Chairman: A little bit of parliamentary language, please.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: You do not like "damned"? I thought "damned" was parliamentary.
I believe in what I am talking about. The title of this bill is deceitful and duplicitous. It has nothing to do with what this bill is all about. It is not speaking to it.
Hon. Mr. Norton: It is an NDP title.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: God help us.
The wealthy are not hurt by housing costs. The wealthy in our society are not hurt by high interest rates. They profit by high interest rates. The people who are affected by inflation, who need help because of inflation, will not be getting anything through this Inflation Restraint Board notion. Senior citizens, no matter what the Provincial Secretary for Social Development (Mrs. Birch) says, have now been cut off by the federal government with, I presume, the support of this provincial government. They have been cut off from the normal indexing of their pensions to try to keep up with inflation. They are the people who are suffering, and this Inflation Restraint Board does not do one thing for them.
People on welfare -- as you know, I am fairly profoundly involved in that issue, Mr. Chairman -- received increases this November, most of them in the neighbourhood of five per cent, to help them against inflation, although since the last time they received an increase inflation has gone up 26 per cent. If we wanted an Inflation Restraint Board, it would be one that would help them. February 1981 was the last time those people received more money, then five per cent in November 1982.
During that period the cost of living went up 26 per cent, the cost of milk went up 30 per cent. The cost of a quart of milk for one of those people cost as much as it does for me at $42,000 a year and with a five per cent increase that leaves me not badly off. They are the people who are suffering. If there was a real Inflation Restraint Board worthy of its name, those are the people it would be directed to supporting. Instead we get $52 million as a supposed recession package from the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Drea) to protect these people.
Hon. Mr. Norton: Mr. Chairman, on a point of clarification: I think it is important that the honourable members in the House understand that the facts just quoted by the honourable member are not accurate. He made reference to the recipients of public assistance in this province receiving an increase of five per cent. In fact, that was the minimum, and many of them received as much as a 17 per cent increase.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Just to be very clear about that, although it is very possible that a single employable male in Toronto has now been selected as a worthy recipient and may receive up to 17 per cent, around the province --
Hon. Mr. Norton: I just want to give the complete picture. The member is distorting it.
9:10 p.m.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: No, I am not. Wait for it, as they say. Around the province there are people who are receiving less than five per cent and there are people who are receiving nothing.
Hon. Mr. Norton: Who?
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Check with the minister if you don't know; and you should know
Hon. Mr. Norton: I don't know. I am asking you. You are the one who is making the statement. Who?
Mr. R. F. Johnston: People who are living with other individuals, people who may be living with somebody who is unemployed, a disabled individual who may be living at home -- those people are not receiving one dime more.
My point is -- and the ex-Minister of Community and Social Services, who has now gone off to some environmental dump which is obviously affecting his head, knows it very well -- that the last increase those people received was in February 1981. They received seven per cent before that, and the increase in the cost of living was 26 per cent. Some of them, if they lived in Toronto where the costs are highest, may have received 17 per cent, but the vast majority received only five per cent and some received nothing.
My point, to come back to the definition, was -- if the minister can keep his attention on it for a bit -- that this Inflation Restraint Board --
Hon. Mr. Norton: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman: There is nothing out of order. What is out of order?
Hon. Mr. Norton: I would simply ask, Mr. Chairman, that you address yourself to the relevance of the comments of the honourable member to the name of the board.
Mr. Chairman: Order. He was.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Mr. Chairman, how many times do I have to put up with this? At some point I hope I will be allowed the possibility of developing an argument and not be interrupted. as I have been by the minister.
Mr. Chairman: The difficulty I have with that, as all members know, is that interjections in these chambers are allowed. A speech is not allowed as a continued interjection, of course. However, we will do our best to restrain the Minister of the Environment.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Mr. Chairman, if this were a real Inflation Restraint Board there would be something in this bill establishing this Inflation Restraint Board that would have protected family benefits mothers, who received five per cent in additional income this November.
If some notion of fairness, some notion of protecting the weakest in our society were involved in this anti-inflation battle instead of just a mean-spirited attack on the civil servants of this province, then there would have been money or some protection and some admission in other programs that there was a need for more money for mothers on family benefits and there would have been some recognition of the fact that a person on a minimum wage in this province is hurt far worse by inflation than the minister or I.
But we have not seen any move to get us out of 13th position in minimum wage in this country. Only Newfoundland pays people less. We have seen no suggestion that this government is going to protect those workers from the ravages of inflation. If this were an Inflation Restraint Board surely it would be directed at protecting those people. But it does not, and that is why it is fraudulent.
The Minister of Labour (Mr. Ramsay) is here. We have heard the people on workmen's compensation asking for some more protection against inflation. We have had no action, and yet we are supposed to buy the notion that this is an Inflation Restraint Board that is worthy of its name, that is worth putting up amendments for to try to turn it into something useful, when in fact it is a totally destructive piece of legislation that does not protect the poorest among us and turns savagely on the people who keep the members opposite in power, turns savagely on the people who make its programs work.
How consistent is this? If this were a real restraint board surely it would be consistent with other government action to protect us from the causes of inflation. For instance, if we did not believe in inflation and we needed to fight it, we as a government would not have brought in an ad valorem tax on gasoline, something that increases the revenues and the cost of gasoline extra each time the price is raised at the wellhead; surely we would not have accepted that as a notion and we would not suggest that the costs of energy should be passed through, as we do in this legislation.
If we really believed that we needed to protect people from the ravages of inflation, would we have increased the sales tax, which affects the poor more than it affects the wealthy? No, we would not. This is not an Inflation Restraint Board, because such a board would protect people.
Mr. Rotenberg: How do you know it would not?
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Because we have had good indications. It is always nice to have the interjections of the member for Wilson Heights. I have donkeys at both ends here. Sorry, I withdraw that. I have been upset by the minister at the other coil and I apologize for that. I have been called an animal name in here myself and I did not appreciate it. I should not do it to anyone else.
If we believed in anti-inflation and needed a board to protect people, surely we would not allow the Ontario health insurance plan premium increase to pass through, but we do.
Mr. Roy: You won't control anything with your filibuster.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: If they wanted to put it in, they would have put it in. They have denied any number of times they had any intention of covering it.
Mr. Roy: You guys are against our amendment. How can you speak against inflation when you are undermining our amendment?
Mr. R. F. Johnston: You know they will not pass it; stop play-acting.
The Treasurer (Mr. F. S. Miller) and the Premier (Mr. Davis) both said OHIP premiums will be passed through. They said it was right that they be passed through and that they should not be covered by this legislation. There again, those premiums affect the poor more adversely than they affect people like myself. This cannot be taken seriously as a piece of legislation.
Does the government actually believe this is an actual attempt to control prices and costs? Is it saying the reason it does this to the civil servants is because they are protected, because they have it fine at the moment? Is it saying it is only the people who are being laid off in plants and factories around the province who are really hurting, and these other people have got to learn how to suffer?
If it is saying this, maybe we should see there is total job security in the civil service. Maybe we should see there is some connection between this Inflation Restraint Board and the lack of cutbacks. Look at the groups at the back of this bill who are covered by this board. Look at what has happened to a lot of those people.
Mr. Rotenberg: We are not there yet.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: I am talking about the title of the bill and the reason why this is not an Inflation Restraint Board. It is punishing people. The reason I raise this is because we have seen several instances lately of further cutbacks in government -- the Art Gallery of Ontario and cultural groups listed here under the Ministry of Citizenship and Culture, or in family counselling. People are being laid off now in various areas around the province. Workers in developmentally handicapped institutions have to learn to sacrifice and take a wage cut.
They are also learning that 1,100 of them are not going to have jobs, that those jobs will be lost. This legislation is duplicitous. The government is making them suffer in two fashions. Their wages are reduced now and then their jobs are going to be taken away from them. To pretend that is not going to happen is fraudulent and deceptive.
I would like to draw one comparison in terms of priorities and restraint. Through negotiations with our doctors, this government decided we should, over the next couple of years, give from our Treasury something in the neighbourhood of $700 million as an increase to these 14,000 or 15,000 people. That is a statement of our value of that profession. It is a statement of their worth to us in Treasury terms. I think it must be seen as a statement of our lack of concern about inflation. This fall, we gave $52 million to several hundred thousand people who are at the lowest level of income in this province. It is a sham as restraint --
Mr. Rotenberg: What has that got to do with this bill?
9:20 p.m.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: I will tell the member what it has to do with the notion of inflation restraint and the lack of protection for those who are suffering most under inflation while giving out huge sums of money to those people who do not need more protection from inflation. The name of the board is the Inflation Restraint Board.
Mr. Rotenberg: That's right. Are you against that?
Mr. R. F. Johnston: All I am saying is that by giving that much money to doctors, we were saying there is no problem with inflation. To put $700 million out to that area at the same time as we punish people at the lower level with $52 million for 200,000 or more of them is just skewed priorities. The fact is this government is not concerned about inflation at all or it would have put its foot down then.
In these times, it is interesting whom it decides it wants to break contracts with and whom it chooses to rip up agreements with. I am not advocating it rip up its agreements with the doctors.
Mr. Boudria: We were wondering.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: I want to make clear to the member for Prescott-Russell that I am not advocating that at all. What I am saying is, how can it live with the fact it has put that much money into doctors' hands and does not see that as a major inflationary cause in comparison with the amount of money it is dealing with for these many more civil servants, 500,000 or so of them? It will control the one group but not the other. It is hypocritical and it cannot be supported.
Hon. Mr. Norton: Mr. Chairman, that is unparliamentary.
Mr. Chairman: It was not directed to a specific individual.
Mr. Cooke: Why don't you leave the House, Keith?
Hon. Mr. Norton: I have to sit here to keep you in check.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Mr. Chairman, I did not want to spend a long time speaking but I was a little angered, if I might say so, by the ---
Hon. Mr. Norton: Don't disappoint yourself. You can stop any time.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: I was a little disappointed and angered by the role of the Liberal Party in this, with its notion that somehow because we have decided to fight this thing doggedly --
Mr. Rotenberg: Spelled filibuster.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: He can spell "fight" any way he wants. He spells Inflation Restraint Board any way he wants, does he not, but it does not mean anything. There is no way we can change this into a real Inflation Restraint Board. There is no way we believe anything will be done by this government to turn this into a good piece of legislation that would protect the poor people in society from the ravages of inflation, get people jobs to help them fight inflation and stop profiteers from speculating in land and profit. There is nothing in this that does that. There is no control and we do not believe we can change it.
It is not our job to play through some charade that is going to move amendments and play-act out every little issue when we know the government is going to defeat them all. We have seen the lack of willingness of this government even to bring before us in committee ministers we thought we needed to talk to. We have seen no movement or inclination at all by this government to accept any of the kinds of amendments that would be raised.
The Inflation Restraint Board established under this legislation is a mockery of due process. It is not the kind of thing any honourable government would bring in in terms of protection of the rights due to members of society. It may very well be contrary to our Constitution. The government may want some help in making it a little more closely aligned to the new Charter of Rights so it would guarantee due process a little more than it does. It may want to give it some of the powers that are normally given boards under the Statutory Powers Procedure Act instead of the totalitarian power you have given at this point.
Do not expect us to help you do that. We have no intention of assisting you in doing that at this point. It is your bill, you live with it. You are the ones who have introduced it on the premises it is based on, these false premises, with a false name, a charade of government action that says you are doing something to change around the economy of this province when you know you are not; a charade that is going to be very painful for the workers in the public sector.
The Liberal Party may want to play the game out -- and I think they are very relieved to see closure, if I read their communique properly -- and can list out all the ways they would try to change this bill to make it a better bill. They are doing that now because they know there is no chance for it to go through.
Do not expect us to turn this into some piece of useful and progressive legislation because it is not possible. You are stuck with it. Those of you who say we have fears of this process that we have been through, and this extended debate and fight that we have been putting up and that we are supposedly delighted to see an end to this, you are just dead wrong. We feel absolutely vindicated about fighting this --
Hon. Mr. Norton: Mr. Chairman, on a point of order: I must say that I feel it is incumbent upon the speaker, if he is going to talk about degrees of pain, to quantify the pain that is experienced by a five per cent increase as opposed to the pain that is experienced by the hundreds of thousands of people in the private sector in Ontario who are unemployed at the moment.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: I suppose the logical extension of what the minister is suggesting is that if we want equity we would be even rougher with these people, make them really feel more pain.
Hon. Mr. Norton: If you are going to talk about pain, talk about pain, let's not --
Mr. Cooke: That is no solution and you know it.
Hon. Mr. Norton: I know it is not in what you are --
Mr. Cooke: Where are the solutions?
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Why does the government not really decide to really savage these people.
Hon. Mr. Norton: Savage who? Cut out this nonsense.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: If you do not think this is enough to bring equity, Mr. Minister of the Environment --
Hon. Mr. Norton: Face reality.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: -- why do you not go and physically abuse some of the members of your ministry if you think that will make them feel better.
Mr. Cassidy: Tell the minister to go to bed.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Tell the minister to go soak his head.
Mr. McClellan: You are not supposed to use that language.
Mr. Chairman: Order. Did you say something that offended a lot of people? I am sorry, I missed it.
Hon. Mr. Norton: Let's not think that a lot of people in this province aren't experiencing pain today, because they are. You know that, so let's be honest.
Mr. Chairman: The member for Scarborough West has the floor, continuing with Bill 179, clause 1(a), "'Board' means the Inflation Restraint Board."
Mr. R. F. Johnston: The Inflation Restraint Board which is not hurting, as the Minister of the Environment says, his civil servants, is not going to do one thing to help the 50-year-old SKF worker to get a job. It may make the minister feel better to know that somehow he is trying to equalize the levels of pain a little bit in the province, that a little bloodletting, if you will, in economic terms of his civil servants will somehow make up for the devastation that people in the private sector have undergone, but it will not do one thing for those people. In reality, it will not make those SKF workers feel better at all.
Hon. Mr. Norton: Mr. Chairman, on a point of order --
The Deputy Chairman: Is this a legitimate point of order?
Hon. Mr. Norton: Yes, it is. I think it is important that if the honourable member is espousing before the House this evening a class structure in our society in terms of protectionism, he come clean and explain in detail what it is he means. If he feels there is a class in our society that is benefiting --
The Deputy Chairman: The honourable minister is doing --
Hon. Mr. Norton: -- at the expense of others, then say so. If you feel there should be some equity in our society then face up the facts --
The Deputy Chairman: The honourable minister is really entering the debate with what he calls a point of order. I realize that I have not been listening in detail to what the member for Scarborough West has been talking about, but I will just remind him that we are at 9:30 and we are looking for possibly moving forward within this bill.
9:30 p.m.
Interjections.
The Deputy Chairman: The member for Scarborough West. Pray, continue with your presentation on clause 1(a).
Interjections.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Can you hear me?
The Deputy Chairman: I think they have got it out of their system.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: I would just like to say I will only be a few more minutes. The member for Etobicoke (Mr. Philip) wants to continue his dissertation, and perhaps the Minister of the Environment would prefer that.
The Deputy Chairman: Maybe we can move towards the vote.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Mr. Chairman, the attitudes that have developed around this Inflation Restraint Board need to be looked at: the notion of how we decide to try in a false way to make it look as if we are repairing the economy while we take money out of the hands of people whom we already have contracts with that they should receive.
I just want to bring to your attention, if I might --
Hon. Mr. Norton: Falsehood is your corner of the market. I don't mean that individually or personally; I mean collectively.
The Deputy Chairman: The honourable minister has too many interjections.
Mr. Cooke: You are very observant, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Foulds: Mr. Chairman, on a point of order: That particular interjection, I believe, should be withdrawn.
The Deputy Chairman: No, I did not hear it as being a specific reference to an individual. I call upon the member from Scarborough West.
Mr. Foulds: Mr. Chairman, may I ask for clarification? It is all right, therefore, to accuse people, as long as you do not name individuals, as purveying falsehood in this House. Is that correct? Is that your meaning?
The Deputy Chairman: Well, maybe the honourable minister could respond and clarify it so there is no intention of maligning the character or person of any other honourable member of this House.
Hon. Mr. Norton: Mr. Chairman, far be it from me to malign the character of the member for Scarborough West, but it was he who made the allegations of falsehood. I simply responded by saying that falsehood is not in our court, falsehood is in your corner. And that was not directed to any particular individual; it was simply returning the ball to his court,
The Deputy Chairman: I thank the honour- able minister. Are we ready for the vote on clause 1(a)? No. The member from Scarborough West.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: It might seem useful to you, Mr. Chairman, to have a minister come in here and abuse the evening, as he has, as a means of trying to badger a speaker and interrupt a speaker, but it --
Interjection
Mr. R. F. Johnston: I am not yet ready to stand down.
The Deputy Chairman: Order. I ask the member from Scarborough West to speak to 1(a).
Mr. R. F. Johnston: I have been speaking to the name of the Inflation Restraint Board.
Hon. Mr. Norton: After two months if you are not any further on than you are now then, by God, the people of this province will be disappointed in you.
The Deputy Chairman: Order, please.
Mr. Cooke: Kick him out, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Foulds: It's about time the member for Kingston and the Islands (Mr. Norton) left this chamber.
The Deputy Chairman: Well, the tension is building in here, and I was hoping that the honourable member who has the floor would just continue with his presentation.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: You might understand that it is a little difficult at times to do so.
I was talking about the fact that in my view the Inflation Restraint Board is an improper name for the board we are establishing and that it does not in fact control inflation, does not restrain inflation; that because of the prices passed through, the real impact of inflation on prices is not controlled in any way at all; that there is nothing controlling the real problems of inflation that affect average working people in this province, 500,000 of whom are members of the civil service, except that you are taking their wages. You are now limiting the capacity of those people to meet the cost of inflation in our society, and somehow that is supposed to help them.
The inflation Restraint Board, if it were worth its name, would be dealing with those issues and would in fact be a prices control commission, as we have suggested in the past. If it were worth the name Inflation Restraint Board its emphasis would not be on the wages of one particular sector in society with one group whose --
Interjection.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: If I had not seen that happen on so many other evenings, I would believe it was just an accident of wind; but I happened to have seen it many other times and I do not find it particularly amusing at all, if I might say so. We do not need any more encouragement of the kind of brouhaha we have been getting here tonight.
The Deputy Chairman: Just carry on with clause 1(a) of Bill 179.
Hon. Miss Stephenson: What is the member complaining about, his cough?
Mr. R. F. Johnston: I will tell you what I am talking about. I am talking about the phoney breaking of wind that we sometimes hear from the chair when certain chairpeople are in the chair and make --
The Deputy Chairman: May I ask the honourable member to speak to the bill and if the --
Mr. R. F. Johnston: I suppose you want to go back to it, and I do not blame you, but damn it, that just demeans the place.
Hon. Miss Stephenson: So what? He happens to have a cough.
The Deputy Chairman: Clause 1(a) is what you are talking to.
Hon. Mr. McCague: That certainly must make you proud.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: You're darned right I am.
The Deputy Chairman: I apologize that I coughed in the middle of your speech. I do so. I will be candid with you --
Mr. R. F. Johnston: It happened at a very inappropriate moment.
The Deputy Chairman: -- I did so.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Do not tell me it is not premeditated.
The Deputy Chairman: Speak to clause 1(a) and you have the floor. If you are not going to speak to clause 1(a) you will not have the floor.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: There is no control in this bill over rents, and many of the people who work in the civil service are renters, people who have not been able to accumulate enough money to buy a home. There is no control there.
Mr. Jones: It is under other legislation.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: If the member for Mississauga North has not been to a rent review hearing board lately to see what actually goes on, he will not have learned that these people are paying much more than the six per cent we had ideas about, or that they are getting a pass-through in their lodging costs which will be far in excess of what they are getting in terms of any kind of percentage of their wages. He is just kidding himself. It is not fair that these people should be singled out in that fashion when there is no real control of rents in this province.
The Deputy Chairman: I recognize the member for Wilson Heights.
Mr. Rotenberg: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman: With respect, I am listening to the member for Scarborough West. We are discussing clause 1(a), "Board' means the Inflation Restraint Board." I think we should be discussing that definition of the board. At this stage of the bill there is nothing about the restraint of wages; that is in part II. There is nothing in this bill about rent review. I would suggest the Inflation Restraint Board as such is not the part of the bill that deals with controls. I suggest the member save that part of his speech until we get to that clause. I ask that you ask him to stick to the definition of "board" only, Mr. Chairman.
The Deputy Chairman: I thank the honour- able member for his help and I return to the member for Scarborough West and ask him to speak to the bill.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Could I have a ruling as to whether or not I have been?
The Deputy Chairman: I did not hear your question.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: I said can I have a ruling as to whether or not I have been?
The Deputy Chairman: You walk a thin line at times.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: I want a ruling. I want a ruling, damn it. I do not want to be interrupted continually. I want to know whether I have been speaking to the bill.
The Deputy Chairman: I have invited the honourable member to speak to the bill, and if I thought he was out of order at particular times I would bring him back to order.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: I would appreciate it if you would and if it was not being done from elsewhere. I would really appreciate the right to be able to speak tonight. Thank you very much all of you.
Interjections.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Mr. Chairman, I had hoped that in this House we might have the right to present our ideas, even though they may not be agreed to by other members of the House, and not be badgered. If other members wish to speak afterwards, or wish to call a question of order for you to make a ruling on, I would appreciate it if they would do so, rather than standing up on a continuing basis with phoney points of order. For myself, not receiving any kind of ruling, it interrupts my train of thought when I am trying to make my points which I believe to be valid.
A little heckling I do not mind, but tonight has been a real shambles and I think an abuse of what we are up to here. You may disagree with my point of view on this. You may disagree with our right to stand and speak the way we have been, but damn it -- sorry, Mr. Chairman -- but it is there in the rules for us to do so and that is what I have been trying to do.
Mr. Stokes: Just say, "Gosh all hemlock."
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Gosh all hemlock. I thank the former Speaker.
Let me just summarize. The reason I am voting against this clause is because the name, in my view, is fraudulent. The name does not connote the powers that we are thus giving to the board which holds this name. For that reason it is an inappropriate name and in fact it embodies the nature of the bill, which works on a false and dishonest premise.
This board neatly divides workers against each other. We have heard the interjections tonight which have asked me to compare the pain of somebody who has been laid off with the pain of somebody who is now going to have his or her wages rolled back. That is the presumption of this board and that is why the name is wrong. The name should say that is what this board is about, because what it is doing is scapegoating people.
9:40 p.m.
In a whimsical moment earlier on, I was looking at the definition of name and some literary notions of what's in a name, etc., etc., when I came across the definition of nameless. It strikes me that perhaps this board would be better to be left nameless and not named, because the definition of nameless is that it is indefinable, too bad to he named, abominable and loathsome.
I would suggest the board should be known as the Nameless Board because of the kind of thing it is perpetrating on workers of the province and not as the Inflation Restraint Board because that is not what it does.
Thank you for the opportunity of making this speech this evening. I appreciate all your attention.
Mr. Rotenberg: Mr. Chairman, I have been sitting here through two or three sessions of debating clause 1(a) and I find it one of the strangest debates I have been through.
We have heard words from the opposition such as dishonest, charade and so on. We have heard the word "misleading", not directed at any one member, but directed at the total government side.
If there is anything dishonest in this bill and I say there is not; if there is any charade and I say there is not; if there has been any misleading and I don't think there has been, but if any of that has happened, I would suggest that it has happened from the 22 members opposite and not from the government side and, in this case, not from the Liberal side.
If anyone is misleading the public, if anyone is misleading the civil servants in this province, if anyone is misleading the trade unionists and workers in this province, it is the members of the New Democratic Party by this debate.
I think the members opposite understand the rules of this House, I would hope they do. They are masquerading as if they do not. Either they do not understand the rules, which is not very good for members who have been around for a while, or they are deliberately ignoring the rules, which is worse, because we have had a second reading debate on this which takes into account the principle of the bill and all of the ramifications.
What we have been debating for the last number of hours, and I think the chair knows how many hours there have been, is clause 1(a), Inflation Restraint Board.
Mr. Di Santo: Mr. Chairman, on a point of order: I would like to ask for your advice. I hope you can also enlighten the member. Is the member for Wilson Heights speaking on the bill or is he making a point of order because he is not addressing the Inflation Restraint Board?
Since he has been the one member who rose several times today, quite inappropriately, when the members of this caucus were speaking on the bill, he is the member who should respect the rules of the House, Mr. Chairman, in view of the fact you never found that any one of our members was in violation of the rules, the standing orders of the House.
Therefore, if the member is not speaking on a point of order, I think that we would like to rotate because we have very interesting things to say about the bill.
The Deputy Chairman: I will call upon the member for Wilson Heights to address his remarks to Bill 179, clause 1(a).
Mr. Rotenberg: I would point out to you, Mr. Chairman, and to the member from my neighbouring riding of Downsview, that every time I rose on a point of order, I gave the member opposite a few minutes to develop his thought before I raised the point of order that he was out of order. I would ask the member for Downsview to give me the same courtesy.
What I was saying, and I was just coming to clause 1(a) when I was interrupted -- and he has of course the right to interrupt me on his point of order. What I was saying was that clause 1(a) says -- and this is all we should be speaking on -- "In this act 'Board' means the Inflation Restraint Board."
What we have been hearing for the last 17 or 72 hours or whatever, from members of the party opposite, were some reasons which were germane to that section and many reasons which were not. In effect, members of the New Democratic Party are saying they do not want an Inflation Restraint Board in this province. If and when we get to vote on clause 1(a) and if, as time after time and member after member has indicated, they are going to vote against clause 1(a), and the explanations are all phony, they are going to stand up on their hind legs and vote against Ontario having an Inflation Restraint Board. That is what they are doing.
Mr. Di Santo: Right on.
Mr. Rotenberg: That is right.
Mr. Chairman, as imperfect as this Inflation Restraint Board may be --
Mr Martel: Right on.
Mr. Rotenberg: -- and I am not saying it is, whatever an Inflation Restraint Board can do to restrain inflation has got to be a plus for the economy of this province and of this country. After wasting all these hours of the time of this House, when members opposite stand up and vote not to have an Inflation Restraint Board, we know exactly where they stand and we know why they are standing there.
We are dealing with the bill clause by clause. Members should understand that, but obviously they do not. First, the bill sets up the board, and then it goes on to the next section and the next section. If there are matters in relation to the Inflation Restraint Board about which members are unhappy, then they should put amendments. I do not always agree with the members opposite in the Liberal Party, but, at least they understand the parliamentary process and know that we go clause by clause and debate each clause as it comes up and not debate everything else.
If the members of the New Democratic Party sincerely want a proper inflation Restraint Board, even in their terms, they should, first of all, be voting to have an Inflation Restraint Board and then getting themselves on record. Yes, they will probably lose most of their amendments, but if they really are sincere, they should be getting themselves on record amendment by amendment by amendment as to what they think an Inflation Restraint Board should be. When they stand up, as they will in a short or long period of time, and vote against the Inflation Restraint Board, the message goes clear across the province that those 22 members opposite simply do not want an Inflation Restraint Board of any size, shape, kind or description within this province. Let us put that seriously on the record.
Mr. Foulds: We surely do not want this particular Inflation Restraint Board. It is savaging the workers. It is a phoney. That is what this definition is all about.
The Deputy Chairman: Order. The honourable member will give the opportunity to the member for Wilson Heights to make his presentation
Interjection.
The Deputy Chairman: I make every effort to keep order.
Mr. Rotenberg: As I was saying, when my friend the member for Port Arthur got a few things off his chest, which he is entitled to do in the spirit of this debate: This 1982 New Democratic Party, under its brand new, spanking new leader, is saying to the province it does not want an Inflation Restraint Board.
Mr. Foulds: This Inflation Restraint Board.
Mr. Rotenberg: Any Inflation Restraint Board. If the NDP anted a different one it would vote for this section and put in amendments.
Mr. Foulds: This is not any one. It is the one the government has designed in this legislation under this definition.
Mr. Rotenberg: Mr. Chairman, why are the NDP members doing this? Let us understand why they are doing this. We have had the odd word floating across from the rump of 22 members over there about people over here doing the bidding -- I think it was the member for Ottawa Centre (Mr. Cassidy) who said it -- of certain corporate masters and so on. Those are the kind of phoney phrases they put out. What is this whole debate on the Inflation Restraint Board and this filibuster all about? Why are they doing this?
I would submit to you, Mr. Chairman, that they are doing the bidding of their masters, who are the union leaders in this province: the Ontario Federation of Labour and Ontario Public Service Employees Union. They really do not care whether there is an Inflation Restraint Board up, down, sideways or backwards. They care about protecting the union leaders, not the rank-and-file union members, so that they keep their positions, because they do not want their people to have to be restricted to five per cent. They do not care about the workers. They care about the status of the unions.
I challenge the members over there to go out among the rank-and-file trade union members of this province and ask them if they want an Inflation Restraint Board. I challenge them to ask the rank-and-file union members of this province if they think public servants should get more than a five-per-cent increase in the coming year. I challenge the member for Sudbury East (Mr. Martel) to go to the Inco miners who have been laid off, or the member from Windsor to go the auto workers who have been laid off and ask them whether they would like to have jobs.
9:50 p.m.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: They have all invited us to go up.
Mr. Rotenberg: The union leaders have. I am not talking about the union leaders. Ask the workers whether they would like to have jobs at as much money as they got last year, let alone five per cent more than the had last year. Ask the people of this province.
Mr. Foulds: How would you like a job at $11,000 which you are cutting back in next year's contract?
Mr. Rotenberg: Ask the people.
Mr. Foulds: How would you like to rip up the contract of the workers at a nursing home? That is what you are doing.
The Deputy Chairman: Order. The member for Wilson Heights has the floor.
Mr. Rotenberg: I would even suggest that if one quietly took a private, secret poll of the people who work in Queen's Park, the thousands of civil servants who do such a good job for this government, and asked them in these times of restraint and what is going on, how they feel about --
Mr. Cassidy: All the Tory secretaries, they have no choice.
Mr. Rotenberg: I said all the secretaries -- even the honourable member's secretary. There have been three or four nights when -- I am not quite sure how it was organized, but I am sure the word got out, "Fill up the galleries in the evenings to show your support to members of the union around here."
I have seen how full the galleries have been on the various nights with those people among the loyal employees of this government who come out to support the New Democratic Party filibuster against having an Inflation Restraint Board. By the busloads and carloads they have been coming in here to say: "New Democrats, you are doing a hell of good job in filibustering this bill. You are doing an awfully good job in preventing the government from setting up an Inflation Restraint Board in this province."
I challenge those 22 members. I challenge them to go out amongst the trade unionists just in this building, the Macdonald Block and so on, and see how many people really agree --
Mr. Cassidy: We have. Where were you? In front of the building?
The Deputy Chairman: The honourable member will speak to clause 1(a).
Mr. Rotenberg: How many people showed up?
Mr. Cassidy: Where were you? You were cowering in your office.
Interjections.
Mr. Rotenberg: I say to the honourable member, with respect, I do not think I have ever cowered in my life and certainly not before someone like the member for Ottawa Centre.
The Deputy Chairman: Order, please. I am having difficulty hearing the member for Wilson Heights with these developing conversations.
Mr. Rotenberg: Mr. Chairman, it is interesting. Obviously I am getting to them, especially the member for Ottawa Centre. What are we debating in clause 1(a)? One very simple proposition only. I remind the members opposite again, this is not a second reading debate and this is not a debate in principle. At this stage it is a debate only on whether we will have a board called the Inflation Restraint Board.
When we get to vote on this clause, as we will one of these days, let the public understand which members of this Legislature want an Inflation Restraint Board, whatever it may do, and which members of this House do not want an Inflation Restraint Board, whatever it may do. When we decide that, we will go on to clause-by-clause consideration and decide, either this way or other ways, what that Inflation Restraint Board may do.
It will be very interesting in the coming months when they go across the province, and we and the Liberals go across the province, because we will tell the people of this province, and I am sure the Liberals and the member from Windsor who spoke a few minutes ago will tell the people, who in this House wants an Inflation Restraint Board.
I am going to support this province having an Inflation Restraint Board, and I hope all the members will do so as well.
Interjections.
Mr. Boudria: Mr. Chairman, I find it interesting to hear a few members of the New Democratic Party cheering us on to participate in this debate.
Mr. Piché: I could have told you that about two months ago.
Mr. Boudria: I have listened with great interest to the contribution made by the member for Scarborough West (Mr. R. F. Johnston), and I am now listening to the contribution of the member for Cochrane North (Mr. Piché), somewhat unwillingly.
I find it interesting to have listened to such an extensive debate on why the board should or should not be called the Inflation Restraint Board. We have listened to an extensive discourse by various members of the New Democratic Party as to why we should not call this the Inflation Restraint Board.
I have listened to all these presentations, and I fail to understand why the members object to the name of this board. It is quite obvious that the name of the board is irrelevant to some members of this House, and the attempt is obviously to slow down the process of discussing this bill. As a matter of fact, that was discussed publicly by members of the third party.
Mr. Martel: Did you figure that out all by yourself?
Mr. Boudria: I would not want to be accused of imputing motives. I had to refer to something my friends had admitted to.
Interjection.
Mr. Boudria: By these delaying tactics on clause 1(a), the honourable members to my left are preventing other very worthwhile amendments that our party intends to provide. The time is coming very shortly, and it is important for all of us to know it, when the government will be cutting off debate on this bill. We all know the bill will pass whether we like it or not. But the point is, if this legislation is to pass it should pass with the best possible amendments that honourable members of this House can provide. We should make the legislation as fair as possible to everybody in this province.
That party should stop playing the charades we have been hearing for the past few weeks; it should stop trying to delay the process here. It is not contributing anything towards making this bill better for the people of this province.
Mr. Cooke: How can you make a bill that is fundamentally unfair, fair?
Mr. Boudria: I know some people are saying the bill is fundamentally unfair. Everyone is entitled to that opinion.
Mr. Cooke: The member for Windsor-Sandwich (Mr. Wrye) said that.
Mr. Boudria: I did not say anyone said that. I said members are entitled to have that opinion if they want. But surely, as responsible legislators duly elected by the people of this province, even though they may not like the legislation, they should be able to recognize that this is a majority government. They must recognize that an opposition party is to provide constructive opposition. I am sure the term has been used before by some people. Perhaps the member has not heard it lately, but I believe that is still the mandate for which I was elected as a member of the opposition.
I had a meeting last Saturday with certain union people in my constituency, and we discussed the amendments we want to provide to this bill. Of course I did not discuss with them that I wanted to amend clause 1(a). I do not feel that whether clause 1(a) calls the board the Inflation Restraint Board or the anti-inflation board will significantly alter the amount of take-home pay of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union employees residing in my constituency. They obviously will not be greatly --
Interruption.
The Deputy Chairman: Order. There will be no comment by people in the gallery. Such person making the next comment will be removed. I ask honourable members in the House to --
Interruption.
The Deputy Chairman: Will you please remove that person from the gallery?
Interruption.
The Deputy Chairman: I will ask that the galleries be cleared. The galleries will be cleared.
Interruption.
The Deputy Chairman: Clear the galleries. Yes, they clapped as well.
Mr. Mackenzie: It's Tory insensitivity.
Interjections.
The Deputy Chairman: I apologize to those people who were not participating, but there were intermittent expressions from both sides of the galleries from a mixture of people. It would not have been possible to identify those who were not participating in that expression.
I now recognize the member for Prescott-Russell.
10 p.m.
Mr. Martel: Yes, general.
Mr. Mackenzie: This is jackboot dictatorship.
Mr. Piché: Do you call that democracy?
The Deputy Chairman: Order.
Mr. Martel: Yes, general.
Mr. Philip: Some of these people have thrown steers bigger than you.
The Deputy Chairman: Order. Honourable members, we are in committee. To remind ourselves, we are now on Bill 179.
Mr. Boudria: Mr. Chairman, the members will recall that only moments ago we were discussing clause 1(a) of the bill. We were receiving various contributions, as we are now again from the member for Cochrane North, regarding this particular amendment and regarding the position that I certainly have, and I am sure our party supports, of voting against this amendment.
Mr. Wildman: I thought you were going to amend the bill.
Mr. Boudria: We want to amend the bill in a meaningful way for the people affected by the bill as opposed to providing ridiculous amendments that do not do anything to improve the lot of the people it affects. Now that we have cleared up that matter, let me outline, since some members of this Legislature are against having an Inflation Restraint Board, what this would do.
We know this whole process is merely one of stalling for time. While we are discussing an Inflation Restraint Board we are not discussing other amendments that obviously we would like to propose as a constructive opposition party, amendments such as limiting rent increases.
I wonder whether the New Democratic Party members are against controlling rent increases. I wonder whether they are also against our amendment to restrict increases in Hydro rates. I would be very curious to find out whether they are against that. But, of course, if we never discuss that amendment by always discussing --
Mr. Philip: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman: It is not the New Democratic Party that is interested in stopping the control of rent increases; it was the Liberals in 1977 who voted against all those amendments. It was not the NDP.
Mr. Roy: Mr. Chairman, why do you let that charming member get away with that?
Mr. Chairman: That is why: he is charming.
Mr. Boudria: As we were discussing, we as a constructive opposition party, as opposed to an obstructionist opposition party, have several amendments that we want to propose to this bill to make it as fair as possible to everyone concerned. I am sure that even members of the third party want bills to be as fair as possible. I hope that is an objective of that party, although we are wondering, in their attitude towards the deliberations on this piece of legislation, just what their attitude is concerning making legislation as fair as possible.
I know that some members over there are saying it is impossible to make this bill fair. To make it better, they are proposing to change the Inflation Restraint Board to something else. I suppose they would like to explain to us how that makes the bill better. I would be very curious, and I am anxiously awaiting the next NDP speaker who will explain to us why their amendment is of such importance to this legislation. Their amendment is to delete the "Inflation Restraint Board."
Why is that particular amendment so important that we should not talk about including the Ontario health insurance plan fees, that we should not talk about holding down rent increases, that we should not talk about holding down Hydro rates? No, that is not what we should he talking about. The NDP believes that what we should be doing is talking about the title of the bill or, rather, whether the board should or should not mean an Inflation Restraint Board. That, to the NDP, is more important than some of the things I have been enumerating.
Mr. Riddell: It is interesting to note that when they do not have the galleries to play to, most of them have left. Have you noticed that?
Mr. Boudria: That is also another very interesting fact.
I am also wondering whether our amendment to restore due process to the bill by making it subject to the Statutory Powers Procedure Act is less important than their amendment, which has to do with deleting the definition of Inflation Restraint Board.
In terms of the order of importance of all those amendments, I am anxiously awaiting the contribution of the next member of that party to explain to us why their amendment is more meaningful than the ones we are proposing as a party. I am very curious to find that out; I am sure we will find it a very meaningful contribution at the time. But let us remember that you have spoken --
Mr. Cassidy: Mr. Chairman, I am quite ready to proceed right now and give an answer to the honourable member. He does not need to continue any further; he has made his point.
Mr. Riddell: Sit down.
Mr. Cassidy: I am accepting the challenge of the speaker, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Boudria: Which one of us has the floor?
Mr. Riddell: Haven't you been around here long enough to know you don't stand up when somebody else is speaking?
Mr. Boudria: I know how anxious the New Democratic Party members are, and I can understand that they want to speak right away on this bill, but I want to suggest that they have certainly had ample opportunity to give us all the reasons their amendment should supersede all other amendments.
After all, that is what we are discussing. We are not discussing whether the bill should or should not be amended, because they have proposed an amendment; and if they have proposed an amendment, they are recognizing that the bill can be improved by amending it. Otherwise, why would they have proposed this amendment?
Now that we have recognized this is what we are trying to do here, amending the bill to make it better. I wonder why that particular NDP amendment, which they are spending all their time on, should stop all other processes of amending this legislation. It is absolutely dumfounding to all of us here why we should listen to the member for Scarborough West take up hours of the time of this Legislature to explain why the board should be named something other than the Inflation Restraint Board.
Hon. Mr. Norton: Oh, they are just trying to frustrate the democratic process, that's all.
Mr. Boudria: I wondered about that. I do not want to go on at length about this but, after all, I do feel that after the very lengthy contribution that the New Democratic Party has made on amending clause 1(a) of this bill, we should take some time to expose to the Legislature why we feel that, as important as this particular amendment may be, it should be taken in the context of the relative importance of all amendments proposed by political parties; and I am sure the government members have amendments to propose as well.
We have 31 different amendments we want to propose to this bill. I do not know how many amendments the government wants to propose, but I have heard that if they do not succeed in moving a number of their amendments, they are quite prepared to pass the bill as is.
The interesting thing about this is that the New Democrats would rather see the bill as is than amended. That is obvious. Why else would they not entertain any other amendment? Seemingly they have one amendment that they feel is important.
Maybe I should not have said that. Maybe I should not have said that the New Democrats were against all amendments. After all, they do feel that at least one amendment is necessary; they do feel that we should amend clause 1(a) by deleting "'Board' means the Inflation Restraint Board." I recognize, of course, that if that amendment is passed, nothing else will be because of the time being so short --
Mr. Wildman: Time for the coach.
Mr. Boudria: I see I have attracted the attention of some of the --
Mr. Grande: Listen to what Bradley has to say to you.
Mr. Boudria: I have listened to what the member for St. Catharines has to say, and I do intend to participate fully in the discussion on this amendment.
Mr. Chairman: Go right ahead.
Mr. Boudria: Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, you will recognize just how important it is to amend this bill in as constructive a way as possible and how important it is to demonstrate why the New Democratic Party has wasted the time of this Legislature in moving that one single amendment, which does not change anything.
10:10 p.m.
Hon. Mr. Norton: They are fundamentally anti-democratic. That is their problem.
Mr. Boudria: That could be said. I am not sure whether they are the New Democratic Party or the anti-democratic party. Perhaps they will entertain a change of name for their party in the future. We know they have changed the name of their political party in the past to reflect their changing mood and purpose. Perhaps now their purpose is anti-democratic and they will change the name of their party to the anti-democratic party. I am not sure.
Regardless of whether they do that, I know it is dangerous, but I would like to agree with the Minister of the Environment --
Hon Mr. Norton: I would not recommend it.
Mr. Boudria: -- that a process by which a political party spends all its time attempting to change such a meaningless clause, instead of amending more substantial clauses of the bill, is certainly anti-democratic. On that point I agree with the Minister of the Environment.
Mr. Foulds: I thought we had a pretty substantial debate in principle on second reading.
Hon. Mr. Norton: The member for Prescott- Russell missed the point. What they are trying to do is prevent people from debating any other part of the bill.
Mr. Boudria: It is interesting to hear the heckling and interjections. I know they are out of order, Mr. Chairman, because you have told us so on a number of occasions before. Nevertheless, it is interesting to listen to the members over here accusing others of being "in bed with the Tories." Those 22 members who pretend they are 30 -- not only do they pretend they are 30, but they have convinced the government to pretend they are 30 -- tell us we are in bed with the Tories. Is that not amazing, Mr. Chairman? This is really something else. We hear the New Democratic Party, who supported the government for something like two or three years prior to the last election, accusing us of being in bed with the Tories.
We should return to the amendment to clause 1(a) of Bill 179. The principle of the clause is rather difficult to describe in a very lengthy manner. Certainly the principle of the amendment is almost totally meaningless.
Mr. Chairman: The amendment was defeated. We are just talking about clause 1(a).
Mr. Boudria: That is correct, but the New Democrats had proposed that amendment. What we are discussing now is clause 1(a) and I recognize that, but I am going into the history of what has happened in the past and the obstructionist tactics on clause 1(a) that have resulted in what I am describing. As all honourable members of this Legislature know, the result is that all the important amendments we as a party would like to move, and I am sure the important amendments the government wants to move to this bill have been stalled.
Moments ago I was attempting to describe a meeting I had with Ontario Public Service Employees Union members in my constituency last Saturday. Then there were some interjections from the gallery and we had to cease the debate for a few moments, unfortunately. I say unfortunately, because anyone who attends the deliberations of this House must not attempt to participate. It is unfortunate when that happens and I hope it does not occur in the future. Again, I hope it was not anything I said that provoked it.
The members of OPSEU who came to my constituency office on Saturday recognized as much as we do that this bill will become law very shortly. We had a thorough discussion on that and they said: "We recognize it is a majority government. If the bill is going to pass, let us make it as good as possible under the circumstances."
Mr. Wildman: Did they recognize that the member was going to vote for it?
Mr. Boudria: Of course, I told them that. I find this laughter rather peculiar, Mr. Chairman. The same people who are going to prevent constructive amendments to make this bill better are laughing at people who are trying to improve the legislation; they would rather see it in its present state notwithstanding the fact there probably are some injustices in the bill, which is very unfortunate.
Vous savez, M. le Président, lorsque nous avons discuté des principes de ce projet de loi samedi dernier au cours d'une réunion avec les employés de la fonction publique du gouvernement de l'Ontario, nous ne nous sommes pas attardés sur l'article 1. Comme vous le savez, cet article 1 ne parle que de la définition de la commission sur les restrictions budgétaires en Ontario.
Les employés de la fonction publique n'étaient pas tellement intéressés à savoir si le Parti libéral ou le Parti néo-démocrate ou le gouvernement passerait beaucoup de temps à discuter cet article du projet de loi. Ils voulaient seulement connaître la position des différents partis sur ce projet de loi et en particulier sur l'article 1, article dont nous discutons actuellement. Ils voulaient également savoir quels amendements constructifs on pouvait apporter à ce projet de loi afin de s'assurer que la loi serait le plus juste possible, car ce projet de loi, M. le Président, deviendra loi trés bientôt puisque nous avons ici en Ontario un gouvernement majoritaire.
Ce gouvernement n'est pas mon choix car, comme vous le savez, je suis député de l'opposition. A ce titre, il incombe à chacun d'entre nous de proposer des amendements des plus constructifs. Je suis heureux de constater que mes collègues du Parti libéral partagent cet avis et je serais encore plus heureux de voir mes collègues du Parti néo-démocrate le partager aussi.
Je suis ravi que le ministre de l'Education soit ici avec nous ce soir pour participer aux discussions portant sur l'article 1(a) du projet de loi 179. Je sais que le ministre veut s'assurer que tous les amendements qui seront votés pour ce projet seront le plus équitable possible. Nous ferons au mieux pour tous les résidents de la Province de l'Ontario.
Le ministre des Services gouvernementaux est également parmi nous. Lui aussi vient de l'Est de la province, tout près de la capitale de notre pays. Lui aussi veut s'assurer que le bill 179, lorsqu'il deviendra loi, sera aussi équitable que possible.
Mr. Chairman: I have bad news for the new member for Hamilton West. He is not in his seat. Now I recognize the honourable member.
M. Allen: M. le Président, point d'interrogation: C'est possible que vous nous donnerez un service de traduction simultanée ce soir?
10:20 p.m.
Mr. Boudria: Mr. Chairman, just to brief you on the recent happenings, the member for Hamilton West (Mr. Allen), of course, was wondering when we would have simultaneous translation in this Legislature so that all of us can participate more fully in both official languages. I will not get into that debate because at the present time we are discussing clause 1(a) of Bill 179 and I will continue with what I was saying.
On discutait justement et on partageait le sentiment du Procureur général de la Province. Lui aussi représente une région avec un certain pourcentage de franco-ontariens. Lui-même est bilingue et comprendra certainement notre discussion approfondie de l'article 1(a) du projet de loi 179. M. le Procureur général, je le remarque, porte une attention tout à fait particulière pour s'assurer que l'article 1(a) du projet de loi 179, qui a été discuté longuement ce soir par le député néo-démocrate, sera juste. Cette discussion a également pris beaucoup de temps au cours des derniers jours, temps inutile à mon avis, puisque les amendements les plus importants n'ont pas été discutés.
J'ai mentionné tantôt, dans le seul but de m'assurer que tous les députés avaient compris, qu'il fallait proposer certains amendements pour veiller à ce que l'Hydro Ontario soit aussi régi par le bill 179. Assurément, tous les députés voudraient que l'Hydro Ontario soit sous le contrôle de ce bill. Nous désirons tous voir cet article 1(a) stipuler que les loyers en Ontario n'augmenteront pas plus de cinq pour cent. C'est normal puisque cela correspond à l'augmentation des salaires, augmentation avec laquelle nous sommes d'accord dans le but de réduire l'inflation. Si donc nous sommes d'accord sur l'augmentation de cinq pour cent des salaires, il est tout à fait normal d'apporter un amendement afin de s'assurer que les loyers et l'électricité ne dépasseront pas ces cinq pour cent.
Je suis persuadé que l'Honorable député de Scarborough-Ouest partage cette opinion. Il l'a d'ailleurs exprimée. Si donc il est d'accord pour que tous les Ontariens --
Interjections.
Mr. Chairman: The member for Ottawa Centre.
M. Cassidy: Le député de Prescott-Russell a lancé un défi. Il cherche maintenant une réponse du côté du Nouveau Parti Démocratique. Il nous est impossible de donner cette réponse, étant donné la verbosité du membre de Prescott-Russell.
M. Roy: M. le Président, je voudrais simplement dire que le député d'Ottawa-Centre n'a nullement mentionné un point d'ordre. Il est plutôt frustré. Comme tous les députés du NPD, Monsieur le Président, il est extrèmement frustré parce que ce soir la discussion ne va pas dans son sens. Les députés du NPD sont des marionnettes, et les montreurs de marionnettes ont quitté les galeries maintenant, alors les députés du NPD sont frustrés et ne savent plus quoi faire. Il ne s'agit donc pas d'un point d'ordre.
M. Cassidy: Le bill que nous avons devant nous a été proposé d'abord par le bill sur les "National Issues." C'est un groupe, M. le Président, qui constitue des grandes corporations canadiennes. Si ses membres sont considérés comme des marionnettes à la Chambre, que dire du Parti libéral et du Parti conservateur --
Mr. Boudria: Mr. Chairman, I am sure that in your wisdom you will recognize that none of these were points of order.
Mr. Chairman: Yes.
Mr. Boudria: As the member for Ottawa East has just so eloquently described it, it was more a point of frustration on the part of the NDP which had orchestrated another long series of speeches on clause 1(a) of Bill 179, and which was prepared to make its exposé tonight to ensure all the people they wanted to hear it would hear it at a scheduled time.
The member for Ottawa East was explaining to us that the member for Ottawa Centre had risen on a point of order drawing to your attention, Mr. Chairman, that I had challenged them over half an hour ago to explain to us why they wanted to discuss clause 1(a) rather than other sections of the bill which I felt were more meaningful.
Mr. Chairman, that was just to brief you on the relevance of that situation and I am sure that you will recognize --
M. le Président, je vais reprendre mon exposé sur l'article 1(a) du projet de loi 179, puisqu'afin d'être à l'ordre -- et je ne voudrais pas être à l'opposé -- il est important que l'on discute des amendements à apporter au projet de loi, ainsi que le notait le député de Scarborough-Ouest.
Je disais donc, lorsqu'on m'a interrompu, pourquoi il était important de proposer tous les amendements nécessaires à ce projet de loi et de ne pas s'attarder trop longuement sur l'article 1(a). Nous y avons déjà passé plusieurs heures et ce temps ainsi passé est inutile car il n'apporte aucun élément positif. Notre rôle de députés de l'opposition est de fournir des propositions constructives.
Je suis heureux de voir que le député d'Algoma partage cet avis. Vous reconnaîtrez sans doute, Monsieur le Président, l'importance des autres amendements que les députés du Parti libéral voudraient apporter à ce projet de loi.
Prenez par exemple, M. le Président, l'amendement que nous voulons proposer sur les régimes d'assurance-maladie dans la Province de l'Ontario. Vous reconnaîtrez sans doute que les augmentations massives des primes de ces assurances-maladie au cours des dernières années sont totalement injustes. Il faudrait absolument que ces primes n'augmentent pas plus rapidement que les salaires. Je vois l'approbation qui semble se manifester sur la figure du député de Scarborough-Ouest. Il est évident, en constatant cette manifestation positive, que ce député convaincra tous ses collègues. Ainsi, lors de la prochaine discussion de ce projet de loi, il n'y aura plus de tactique d'obstruction ou de retard de leur part, mais au contraire une grande collaboration. On pourra alors passer tous les amendements nécessaires afin que la population de l'Ontario puisse se doter d'un bill 179 amélioré à l'intention de tous ceux qui sont touchés par celui-ci.
Certains députés pensent que le Trésorier de la Province ou d'autres ne seront pas prêts à écouter les amendements que nous proposerons au projet de loi 179. Je suis pourtant persuadé que si nous passons tout notre temps à discuter de l'article 1(a) de ce projet, il est certain qu'on ne pourra faire aucun amendement. On se demande réellement si les députés néo-démocrates désirent adopter le projet de loi dans sa forme originale. S'ils ne veulent pas d'amendements, nous pouvons seulement en conclure que le projet de loi, dans sa forme actuelle --
Mr. Chairman: We have a couple of things to do yet. Does the member want to cut off?
M. Boudria: Oui, je vais terminer brièvement -- que le projet de loi dans sa forme actuelle est mieux que celui qu'on a demandé. Je regrette cette opposition, M. le Président, et j'espère continuer lors de la prochaine séance.
On motion by Hon. Mr. Wells, the committee of the whole House reported progress.
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, just before the adjournment of the House, I thought I should indicate that there has been a change in the procedures for the business of the House. Tomorrow the House will be meeting at two o'clock. When we come to orders of the day it is our intention to call government notice 10 standing in my name, and that will be debated. If it is not completed tomorrow, it will continue on Thursday afternoon and Thursday evening.
The House adjourned at 10:30 p.m.