Legislative Assembly of Ontario

The House resumed at 8 p.m.

Hon. Mr. Gregory: Mr. Speaker, on a point of privilege: Just before the orders of the day I would like to make an announcement on the election in Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry. Out of 118 polls, 74 have reported and 12,841 votes were cast. The Conservatives have 6,966; the Liberals, 4,656, and the New Democratic Party, 344.

Mr. Mancini: Mr. Speaker, on a point of privilege: The Minister of Revenue should have mentioned that they have spent close to $150,000 on the campaign in that riding.

Hon. Mr. Gregory: Mr. Speaker, further to that point of privilege, I think the honourable member will have to wait until results are published, which they will be, before he makes such a statement.

Ms. Copps: Mr. Speaker, on a point of privilege: The honourable member should wait until all the results are published before he makes any statement.

Mr. J. M. Johnson: Want to take a bet?

Mr. Speaker: This is developing into a debate.

Ms. Copps: Wait until the last. I think the member should know I once lost by 14 votes. One can never be sure in any of these things.

Hon. Mr. Gregory: I know that.

Ms. Copps: It is not over yet.

Hon. Mr. Gregory: That is right, Mr. Speaker. We will keep you informed, though.

Mr. Speaker: I am afraid we may get charged for operating illegally.

EMPLOYMENT STANDARDS AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Ramsay moved second reading of Bill 141, An Act to amend the Employment Standards Act.

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Speaker, as I said in introducing this bill, these amendments relating to equal pay, pregnancy leave and adoption leave are part of the government’s program of initiatives that are of particular benefit for working women in Ontario. This program has its roots in our long and honourable tradition of promoting the rights of working women through legislation and special programs.

While there can be no doubt that our initiatives have resulted in significant steps towards the goal of equality for working women, there are still a number of problems that need to be addressed. Some of these are appropriate subjects for legislation and are included in the bill before the House tonight. In the past few years the issue of equal pay has received considerable attention. That a significant gap exists between the wages of women and men is indisputable. However, there are differing views as to the solution.

As members know, the largest part of the wage gap can be accounted for by nondiscriminatory labour market factors. Of a gap of 37 per cent between the wages of women and men in the private sector, the ministry’s best advice is that approximately one half is caused by structural factors such as differing occupations in industries, education and training levels, experience and so on. For example, wage levels are higher in the predominantly male construction industry than in the service sector. That is why I stated, when introducing the bill last week, that the wage gap could not be closed by pay legislation alone and that the most significant change would be seen as female labour force participation rates, particularly in nontraditional jobs, continuing to increase.

The second main element in the wage gap is attributable to differences within broad occupational groups. Occupational segregation is estimated to account for about one third of the gap. In my view, the best solution to this problem is to continue to work to change attitudes and employment practices. We need to maintain our efforts to change the attitudes of employers, employees and students to ensure the rate of movement by women into management and professional and technical jobs accelerates, and that the number and proportion of women receiving training in nontraditional occupations continues to increase.

It is especially important now as new technologies change the nature of work to ensure that women have access to training and employment opportunities. Therefore, several cabinet colleagues and I will participate in a series of consultations to be held throughout the province during the next few months. The project organized by the Ontario women’s directorate and entitled, Jobs for the Future: Women, Training and Technology, is designed to generate practical community-based strategies to promote the equal access of women to emerging areas of employment.

The significant effect that affirmative action programs can have on the wage gap is demonstrated by the continuing progress that is being made in the Ontario public service. I note, for example, that since 1978 the number of women has increased in 80 per cent of the employment groups in which they were underrepresented and that the latest report of the women crown employees’ office shows the wage gap in the public sector has narrowed by 2.2 per cent in the last year to 24.2 per cent.

Although there is still some distance to go, I suggest the steady improvement is on account of the government’s continuing efforts to encourage and facilitate the movement of women into nontraditional jobs.

Mr. Speaker, I am getting great attention from the opposition benches but none from my own, I am afraid.

Mr. Foulds: And it is your own minister.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The Minister of Labour would like somebody to pay attention to him.

Mr. Foulds: Hear, hear.

Mr. Speaker: He mentioned the members who were sitting behind him.

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As honourable members know, a review of the government’s initiatives in the area of affirmative action is currently being co-ordinated by the Ontario women’s directorate. I expect the Deputy Premier (Mr. Welch) will be making some announcements in this regard in the new year.

The remaining wage gap of five to 10 per cent appears to be because of inequities and inequalities in wage and salary practices within defined occupations within establishments. It is this portion of the gap that is most appropriately addressed through equal pay legislation.

As the members are aware, the Employment Standards Act currently provides for equal pay for substantially the same work. In determining whether the jobs being compared are substantially the same, the legislation requires four factors -- skill, effort, responsibility and working conditions -- to be separately assessed. Unless all factors are individually comparable, the act does not apply, even though the jobs may be similar overall. As a result, the current provision is inapplicable to some valid comparisons.

The re-enactment I am proposing provides that the basis for determining equality of work be broadened to allow a composite evaluation of the four existing criteria, while continuing the requirement that the jobs compared be substantially the same. The amendment applies the equal test to jobs which are capable of meaningful comparison. I believe this is a significant and responsible move to take at this time and I intend to continue to monitor the situation following the amendment to assess its effectiveness in addressing the wage gap problem.

8:10 p.m.

Experience has also revealed some technical problems with the present equal pay provisions that have led to the circumvention of the act by some employers. I do not wish to be misunderstood in suggesting that such practices have been widespread, but the possibility for abuse does exist, and I believe the bill will rectify the situation.

It has come to my attention, for example, that the law may be avoided by hiring a female employee to replace a male employee and paying the female employee a lower rate for the same job. In that situation, since there is no basis for comparison, there being only one occupant in the particular job classification, the existing law does not apply, although the offence might be obvious. Equally, the existing provision may be circumvented by deliberately restricting jobs to employees of one sex, who are then paid at a lesser rate of pay than when males and females were performing the same work. Both these practices are prohibited by the proposed subsection 33(2).

The second set of amendments contained in the bill relates to the pregnancy leave provisions of the Employment Standards Act. As members know, the qualifying period for entitlement to pregnancy leave is 63 weeks. I believe it is fair to require a qualifying period in recognition of the fact that many employers have a probationary period to assess new employees. On the other hand, I agree with the argument that the length of the present qualifying period should be shortened. To address these concerns, the bill reduces the qualifying period to 52 weeks.

At the present time an employee may return to work before the expiry of the 17-week pregnancy leave to which she is entitled under the act only if her employer consents. Given that pregnancy leave is unpaid, this provision may operate to the disadvantage of an employee who is fit and able to return to work before the end of the statutory leave period. Accordingly, the proposed subsection 36(4) provides that an employee may return to work with her employer’s consent or upon giving her employer four weeks’ notice.

The act currently guarantees 17 weeks’ leave for pregnant employees, subject to certain qualifying conditions. However, there is nothing explicit in the act to prohibit the dismissal or demotion of pregnant employees who have not yet become eligible for pregnancy leave or who have returned from such leave. On the basis of inquiries received by the employment standards branch and the Ontario Human Rights Commission, there are grounds for concern that dismissals or demotions in the pre- or post-pregnancy period may be occurring solely on the basis of the fact of pregnancy. This, of course, is unacceptable, and the proposed subsection 35(2) prohibits an employer from terminating, laying off or penalizing an employee because of pregnancy.

I might add that section 37a will protect employees who have less than 12 months’ service by providing that a pregnant employee who does not qualify for the 17-week leave may not be required to return to work until six weeks after the birth of her child. This period of time is deemed to be a leave of absence under the act for purposes of rights to reinstatement.

In order to ensure that the prohibition against terminating or laying off a pregnant employee is not circumvented by the argument that such an employee is being penalized because of her illness rather than because she is pregnant, the proposed subsection 35(1) defines pregnancy to include a related medical condition that “renders an employee unable to perform the duties of her position or that materially affects the performance of her work.”

With respect to reinstatement following a leave of absence for pregnancy, subsection 38(1) of the bill continues the requirement that the employer return the employee to her regular position or provide comparable work without loss of pay or benefits. In contrast to the current act, however, the bill provides that an employee’s service-related credits and benefits shall continue to accrue during pregnancy leave for all purposes instead of being interrupted at the time of the commencement of her leave of absence.

I now turn to the provisions concerning adoption leave. As I mentioned when introducing this bill, I have received a number of letters concerning workers who are encountering difficulty in obtaining leaves of absence from their jobs when they elect to adopt a child. Since a period of time at home with the child is a requirement imposed by adoption authorities, such workers are placed in an untenable position.

To remedy this situation, the bill provides for an entitlement to a leave of absence of 17 weeks from the time the child is placed with the employee. In this connection, I note that as of January 1, 1984, workers taking leave for purposes of adoption will be eligible for benefits under the Employment Standards act, as is now the case for those on maternity leave.

In keeping with the corresponding sections relating to pregnancy leave, the same rights to reinstatement, subsection 38(2), and job security, subsection 37b(5), apply in the case of adoption leave. The same 52-week qualifying employment period is required, subsection 37b(2), and the leave of absence may be shortened with the consent of the employer or upon the employee providing four weeks’ notice, subsection 37b(3).

Finally, I would like to refer to work under way in my ministry to strengthen the protection afforded to domestic workers. I shall be amending the employment standards regulations to provide additional duty-free time for live-in domestic employees to reflect the prevailing practice of two days’ free time per week. Moreover, as the members know, a review is being conducted of the other provisions of the Employment Standards Act and regulations relating to domestic workers to ensure their adequacy and fairness.

In conclusion, let me say I believe the bill before the House will significantly improve the legal rights of women in the work place. It is a progressive piece of legislation that I believe deserves all-party support and I look forward to hearing the comments of the other members of the House.

Incidentally, before I take my seat, I do have to leave the House for only a very few short moments. That is not intended as any lack of respect for the speakers who will follow. I will be back just as soon as I can.

Hon. Mr. Gregory: Mr. Speaker, on a point of privilege: I have some of the results from Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry. Out of 118 polls, 83 reporting, 13,789 votes cast: Progressive Conservative, 8,033; Liberal, 5,262; NDP, 426; independent, 68.

Mr. Rotenberg: We won all three counties.

Hon. Mr. Brandt: There is a message in that.

Mr. Kerrio: You are getting it down. That is only $22 a vote.

Mr. Mancini: Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a few comments concerning Bill 141. The issue of equal pay for work of equal value has been a long-standing issue in Ontario.

Mr. Bradley: You are so gracious when you are winning.

Hon. Mr. Gregory: I have never had any experience at losing.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Mancini: During the 1970s this matter was used as an issue that should be addressed, and as late as this past October 20 my colleague the member for Hamilton Centre (Ms. Copps) introduced a resolution on equal pay for work of equal value. That resolution was debated here in the Legislature. The resolution asked that the principle of equal pay for work of equal value be enshrined into the Employment Standards Act. If my memory serves me correctly, there was a unanimous vote of consent on that resolution. All members who were here that evening stood in their places and voted in favour of the resolution presented by the member for Hamilton Centre.

8:20 p.m.

We, therefore, have waited anxiously for the government to introduce the legislation that would place into law a statement, a principle that was supported unanimously by its caucus. Since it is the Christmas season and since the Minister of Labour is a decent sort of chap, we will not go into a lot of hyperbole tonight. We will just say that the legislation which has been put before us does not encompass the principle of equal pay for work of equal value. There are several reasons for that.

Before I get into that, I believe I should put on the record that several of the amendments the minister referred to in his opening remarks are indeed progressive steps forward; they do make the legislation better than it was.

Getting back to the principle of equal pay for work of equal value, the government has let working women in Ontario down. The Minister of Labour and the Conservative members know very well that society and the marketplace place less value on the role of women and on the work that women do. This has been the way things have been historically, for whatever reasons.

I guess we could talk for hours and hours on why these conditions are such, but that is not the issue tonight. The issue tonight is to acknowledge that society does place less value on the role of women and on the work women do, and to address that issue.

This is what we thought the Minister of Labour was going to do in introducing his amendments to the Employment Standards Act. As I said earlier, he has let the working women of Ontario down. Let me give an example of the area in which a great number of women will not benefit from the amendments that have been put forward by the minister.

I would like to read to the Legislature an article written by Margot Trevelyan. The article is headed “The Concept of Equal Pay for Work of Equal Value.” This article provides a simple example of what equal value can do to the wage gap. It gives an example of certain technical workers who have a different pay scale from certain clerical workers.

“The technical workers are in one bargaining unit and are practically all men. The clerical workers are in another bargaining unit and are mostly women. All but a few of the men who are in the clerical unit find themselves towards the top of the salary scale.

“Let us now suppose there was a law calling for equal pay for work of equal value. A typist earning $2.15 an hour feels she should get paid the same as the mail clerk, who is earning $3.29 an hour. A union officer or a government inspector comes in and compares the two jobs according to the degree of skill, effort, responsibility and working conditions of each.

“He decides that the typist needs to know typing and other skills, whereas the mail clerk can be taught his job in a couple of days; so on a scale of 10 he gives the typist eight and the mail clerk two.

“When looking at effort, the officer decides that the mail clerk has to go up and down stairs, carrying bags of mail. For the physical effort, the officer gives the mail clerk a five. However, he decides that a lot of mental effort is exerted by the typist in trying to meet deadlines and so on. He also gives her five points for effort.

“The officer then finds the mail clerk has a good deal of responsibility in making sure that no important mail is lost, whereas the responsibility of the typist is less. For responsibility, the mail clerk gets seven and the typist four.

“In looking at working conditions, the officer gives them each five. The mail clerk works in a stuffy mailroom all day, but the typist must remain seated during the day, an occupational health hazard, as sedentary workers, those who sit all day, run six times the risk of a heart attack as other workers.

“When the equal pay officer has finished his examination, he finds that the mail clerk has an overall rating of 19 and the typist one of 22. Let us also say that the officer has a standing rule that says if the total points for the two jobs are within three points of each other, they will be considered to be of equal value. The jobs of the mail clerk and the typist are then of equal value in this establishment.”

The amendments put forward and the composite evaluation that was going to be used by the ministry will in no way have any effect on the particular situation I described. Therefore, because women have been geared to certain job areas and because they form the majority in those job areas, they will be unable to have their skills, effort, responsibility and working conditions evaluated along with areas in which men predominate in the work force; and I gave an example just a couple of minutes ago. Therefore, we will not have equal pay for work of equal value.

Yes, the present legislation has been bolstered somewhat: but no, the principle of equal pay for work of equal value has not been enshrined in law.

The last time I checked the salaries of women working in banks, I found that their salaries, compared to those for positions held by men in an office atmosphere, were significantly less. I dare say that if the work force in the banks was mostly men, the wage scale paid to tellers and other clerical staff within the banks probably would go up by at least 30 to 40 per cent.

This past summer, when my father and I travelled to Italy, I was quite surprised to see that in the Italian banks it was strictly a male work force. In hardly any bank I went into -- and I had to go into some banks to cash my American Express travellers’ cheques, as one can imagine --

Mr. Roy: You must have gone into a lot of banks.

Mr. Mancini: Three. I must confess I went into three different banks, and there was not a woman to be found. I talked to my uncle about this. I said, “Why are there no women working in the banks?” He said, “Banks have the best jobs and the highest-paying jobs.”

8:30 p.m.

We can see that society will always pay more for a man doing the same work if that job is dominated by males, and that is where the Minister of Labour has let the working women of Ontario down. If we wait for evolution to take its course, we are going to be waiting for another 100 years before we finally get equal pay for work of equal value.

Ontario women earn 63 per cent of what men earn, on average $8,623 a year less than men. According to Statistics Canada, the average income of a female-headed family in Ontario in 1981 was $19,512; the average income of male-headed family in Ontario in 1981 was $33,597. Despite Ontario’s equal pay laws, the wage gap between men and women currently runs at 40 per cent and is not shrinking.

With all due respect to the minister, I have to conclude by saying that while the legislation is progress and it does improve certain areas, he has not attacked the basic problem, which will remain with us until something is done about it.

My colleagues are going to propose two amendments. We will propose an amendment to subsection 33(1) and we will propose an amendment to subsection 36(1). I should inform the House that my colleagues and I will not be supporting this legislation.

Ms. Bryden: Mr. Speaker, on October 20 the Legislature voted unanimously that the principle of equal pay for work of equal value be enshrined in the Employment Standards Act. The Minister of Labour was one of the 82 members in the House at that time who supported this motion. The Minister responsible for Women’s Issues (Mr. Welch) also supported it.

On December 5, the amendments to the equal pay provisions in the Employment Standards Act, which the Minister of Labour had been promising us for two or three years, were unveiled. In my opinion, the changes proposed for the equal pay section are a flat repudiation of the principle of equal pay for work of equal value which all those members voted for.

I draw to the minister’s attention the fact that Canada ratified the Convention 100 of International Labour Organization in 1972, and the provinces are expected to carry out their constitutional share of the implementation of such a ratification. This is 1983, almost 1984, and Ontario has not fulfilled its responsibilities in regard to that convention, which sets out the goals and objectives for equal remuneration for men and women workers for work of equal value.

Under the present law, a woman can claim equal pay only if she is doing substantially the same kind of work as a man in the same establishment and if the jobs are comparable on each of the four criteria used to evaluate the job, namely, skill, effort, responsibility and working conditions. The only change the minister is making in his amendment is to substitute a composite of the four criteria for evaluating comparability. In other words, not every criterion need be comparable; a composite index of the four is sufficient.

In his statement to the House when he introduced the bill, the minister said it will mean the Employment Standards Act will provide equal pay for work of equal value between substantially similar jobs. That begs the question. The huge wage gap between men and women in Ontario, or anywhere, will not be closed until dissimilar jobs can be compared.

The proposed amendment will not cover the thousands of women in job ghettos where there are no men doing substantially the same work. Nor will it permit the comparison of dissimilar jobs being done by men and women in the same establishment, even though these jobs may be equal when the four criteria are applied and even though the work in question may be found to be of equal value on that basis. These jobs will not be eligible for comparison.

The only women who may benefit from these amendments are the few already covered by the present law. It is true that they may find it marginally easier to substantiate a claim that they are doing substantially the same job as men in their work place.

Recent statistics under the present law indicate it is not doing anything significant to close the wage gap of 37 percentage points in Ontario. In 1981-82, awards totalled about $330,000 and covered 666 women. This works out to only $500 per employee or to less than 20 per cent per woman employee in the work force in Ontario. Only 25 per cent of the claims submitted in recent years were found to be covered by our narrow equal pay law.

The minister, in his statement to the Legislature, revealed what appears to be his utter surrender to the opponents of equal pay for work of equal value in the cabinet. He asserted that the amendments he was bringing in were “a significant and responsible move to address the wage gap problem. It applies the equal value test to jobs which are capable of meaningful comparison.”

If the minister is still not prepared to accept that a meaningful comparisons of dissimilar jobs in the same establishment can be made, he should look at the federal and Quebec governments, which have been doing just that for some years under their equal pay for work of equal value laws.

Let me quote from a letter from the deputy chief commissioner of the federal human rights commission as to how the equal pay for work of equal value law is working after five years. She said:

“The commission has employed for most of the time since 1978” --

Hon. Mr. Gregory: I rise on a point of privilege, Mr. Speaker, with my apologies to the member. I thought the members might like to know the news from the by-election. With 100 out of 118 polls reporting, the total vote is 16,277; Progressive Conservatives, 9,432; Liberals, 6,265; New Democrats, 500, and the independent, 80.

8:40 p.m.

Ms. Bryden: Thank you. The member for Mississauga East (Mr. Gregory) did me a favour. I left out the first sentence of my quote; so I will start it over again. I am quoting from the letter of Mme Rita Cadieux to me regarding the operation of the federal administration of the equal pay section in the Canadian Human Rights Act.

She says: “At the present time, the commission has 27 investigators, any of whom may be assigned to investigate an equal pay complaint. Given the technical nature of these complaints, the commission has employed for most of the time since 1978 two equal pay specialists. These specialists assist investigators in the collection, analysis and evaluation of data and in the development of settlement proposals.

“The equal pay specialists also provide a consultative service for employers, employees and interest groups and are involved in the development of policy and procedures relating to section 11,” which is the equal pay section, “of the Canadian Human Rights Act.”

She gives the results in the five years since the act has been in operation. “Sixty complaints alleging violations of the equal pay provisions of the act have been filed since March 1, 1978. To date, there have been nine settlements directly benefiting approximately 4,600 employees.

“Voluntary settlements have increased the wages of a further 1,300 persons. The cost of these settlements has been in excess of $20 million in retroactive payments and an estimated $12 million per annum in ongoing costs. There are 28 complaints under investigation at this time and 23 complaints have been dismissed or withdrawn during investigation.”

This shows that meaningful comparisons can be made. I have sat down with one of those two equal pay specialists on the federal staff and learned from them the techniques they are using and the ways they are evaluating jobs. They start with the present job evaluation system in effect in the work place, if there is one. Then they look for sex bias in the criteria that are applied in that work evaluation. When that sex bias is removed, they have a new set of criteria for evaluating the jobs and whether they are equal in value.

The women in the province have been trying to tell the Minister of Labour, the cabinet and all the Conservative members who voted for the motion in favour of the principle that equal pay for work of equal value is seen as an integral part of the fight for equality in employment. They all agree there must be a package of measures, as Morley Gunderson and the minister have said.

That package must include legislated affirmative action, skills training programs, adequate day care and other support services if women are to move up the economic ladder and into nontraditional jobs. Without equal pay for work of equal value, we will not move them out of the ghettos where there are mainly female employees and where it appears the minister and the government are trying to preserve a supply of cheap labour for the employers of this province.

If the minister still thinks we cannot afford to bring the wages of underpaid women up during the present recession, he is failing to recognize that equal value adjustments would be a shot in the arm to our faltering economy. Bringing underpaid women up to the level of people doing equal value work would stimulate the economy. It would probably increase profits for many employers. It would certainly be more productive than incentive grants to employers to expand their operations. Employers are showing by their reaction to incentive grants that they are not prepared to move, to invest or to expand until they see a market for their products.

If 52 per cent of the population is made up of women and a great many of them are in underpaid jobs because of our lack of proper equal value legislation, the funds that would flow to them would be a great stimulus to the economy. As for the fear that some men may have that equal pay for work of equal value legislation would threaten their position in the labour market, I think the expansion that would come from the economic stimulation of bringing wages up to a fair share for both sexes would increase jobs for both men and women. That is something a lot of people have not been looking at.

In fact, under the federal equal pay law, a considerable number of men have benefited from the application of that law because they were in groups which were brought up to the level of groups doing dissimilar work, but which was judged to be work of equal value when the criteria were applied. There was a substantial settlement under the Ottawa law, where 3,000 food, laundry and general service workers, two thirds of whom were women but one third of whom were men, received approximately $17 million in adjustments when their wages were compared with other subgroups, mostly male, in the public service.

We consider the equal pay section of the bill completely unacceptable and it should be replaced with a section similar to the one which was in Bill 108, which was introduced by my leader the member for York South (Mr. Rae) and debated in this House on November 17. When his bill came up, in spite of all the people, including the minister, who had voted for enshrining the principle of equal pay for work of equal value in the Employment Standards Act, it was defeated, with the Minister of Labour voting against it. The Minister responsible for Women’s Issues (Mr. Welch) was not present for the vote.

There are some very good amendments in the package the minister has introduced. The improvements in the maternity leave are welcome. I think the objective under maternity law should be to put women who fulfil their biological role in producing the next generation in the same position economically as if they had not stayed off for maternity leave. We think a woman should not be disadvantaged by fulfilling her child-bearing role. I am also glad the minister has at last made it an offence for an employer to fire an employee because of pregnancy.

8:50 p.m.

I am somewhat concerned about one item in the bill, subsection 35(3), which authorizes the employer to require an employee to take leave for pregnancy when he thinks she is unable to perform her job rather than to take it at her own choice within the period allowed.

I think in situations where the employer has concern about whether she can perform the job, or whether the job is of such a nature that it may expose her to dangers to the foetus or to her own health, there should be some sort of right of appeal by the employee or the possibility of transfer to a less onerous job or a job that will not expose her to things that might be a danger to the foetus. That has been suggested for video display terminal workers who may be subject to hazards from the terminals.

An alternative might be that if the employer makes a decision that she is not capable and should be asked to take her leave earlier, there should be the right for her to submit a report from her own doctor as to whether he agrees with that decision; the employer might have his physician also make an assessment and the two reports could be considered by, say, a third party or an employee-management committee or something of that sort. But I think there should be some opportunity for the employee not to be subject to an arbitrary demand by her employer that she leave at a certain date.

I also welcome the extension of pregnancy leave to adopting parents. I think the fact that the federal government is going to bring in payments for adopting parents similar to those now paid to natural parents is partly what prompted the ministry to bring in this section. It has been requested for a number of years, and it certainly seems reasonable that parents adopting children should have at least the same rights as parents having natural children.

I would like the minister to consider an amendment for a somewhat longer leave for adopting parents because of the fact that adoption causes a greater change in the adopting parents’ lifestyle and in their household arrangements because it often happens very suddenly. They have not had the nine-month gestation period to prepare for it, they have to take the child when it is available because sometimes it is difficult to find a suitable child and also they may not have had other children in the household, as a lot of other parents have.

Another complication is that some children’s aid societies require an adopting parent to stay home for the entire six-month probationary period. Sometimes this can be worked out by splitting the six months between the spouses: one will stay home for three months and the other for the next three months.

But I think the minister should consider some amendments to the extension of pregnancy leave to adopting parents because of these special circumstances. I do not think one could say it is discrimination against natural parents; it is simply a recognition of the additional burdens and adjustments that must be made by an adopting couple. The legislation could perhaps ask the husband’s employer to give a certain amount of leave, which could be added to whatever the woman’s employer was prepared to give, to make up the six months that is required by many children’s aid societies.

With regard to the general maternity leave section, another amendment that could be considered would be, in effect, to top up the present maternity leave benefits which come through the unemployment insurance system. Those benefits are paid for 15 weeks, but they average only about 60 per cent of wages. Some unions, such as the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, have successfully bargained for a supplement that raises those benefits to 93 per cent of wages. The Ontario Public Service Employees Union also got 93 per cent of wages through arbitration. The reason for 93 per cent is that certain deductions are not required when one is not working. In effect, that gives people about the same take-home pay as they would have had if they were working.

In Sweden, up to nine months’ parental leave is given at 90 per cent pay, available to either parent. I think it is something the province could consider to provide some provincial supplement to the unemployment insurance benefit so that women who do fulfil their biological function in producing the next generation should not be worse off than those who do not. A recent federal task force recommended six months’ paid parental leave for all parents, natural and adoptive. I think that is the coming thing. Perhaps when the federal legislation comes in, the province could bow out. In the meantime, it would be a very important measure in ensuring women’s equality.

As to the treatment of domestics, the minister has promised to raise their time off from 36 hours to 48 hours. In other words, he is going to give them a five-day week, which most other workers have had for many years. That is welcome, but it is really not the answer to what can be real exploitation of this group of workers. The Employment Standards Act provisions relating to maximum weekly hours and overtime pay have not been extended to these workers. In fact, there is a regulation relating to the employment of domestic workers under the Employment Standards Act that denies them these provisions of the act. It is a discriminatory regulation that can produce slave labour in this province and it is something we should be ashamed of.

If we look at the fact that they have only 48 hours of guaranteed free time, that means they can be on duty or on call for 120 hours in the week. At their substandard minimum wage of $3 an hour, if they work or are on call for those 120 hours they could be working for $1 an hour. That is shocking and something we should be ashamed of. The only reason I can see for retaining it in the minister’s policy is that he wants to provide cheap domestic help for his well-off friends or the well-off friends of the Conservative Party.

That is something akin to child labour, about which everybody backs off and says is unthinkable, but we do have slave labour for live-in domestics in some cases. There is no protection against it. That is my main complaint. Before this debate ends, I would like the minister to make a commitment that he will extend to this group of workers the provisions of the Employment Standards Act relating to maximum hours and overtime pay and that he will raise that miserable $3-an-hour minimum wage.

9 p.m.

Hon. Mr. Gregory: Mr. Speaker, on a point of privilege: With my apologies to my honourable friend, this is the final result from 124 polls, that is, 118 polls plus six advance polls. The Progressive Conservatives have 9,980 votes, for 58.8 per cent of the vote; the Liberals have 6,389, for 37.6 per cent; and the New Democrats have 505, for 2.9 per cent.

The Deputy Speaker: The member’s point of order is interesting but not in order.

The member for Beaches-Woodbine is about to conclude her remarks on the bill, not on the Unemployment Insurance Commission and some of the other matters but on the bill, I understand.

Interjections.

The Deputy Speaker: Order.

Ms. Bryden: Mr. Speaker, regarding the domestics and the lack of any real protection for them in these amendments outside of the five-day week, the minister did say he would be reviewing the other provisions of the Employment Standards Act and regulations relating to this group of workers “to ensure their adequacy and fairness.” I hope I have convinced the minister that they are grossly unfair, that he will extend his promise of increasing the minimum wage for other workers to these workers and that he will perhaps do it soon enough to make it a Christmas present for them.

Those are some of the areas where we will probably bring in amendments, particularly to change the equal pay sections to something that will really produce equal pay for work of equal value and will ensure not only that the bill contains these good things I have mentioned, which do close some of the loopholes and do protect workers in some areas where there has been a bypassing of the legislation, but that it will also become an act that does really enshrine in the Employment Standards Act the principle of equal pay for work of equal value. At the present moment, I think it enshrines unequal work in the Employment Standards Act.

Ms. Copps: Mr. Speaker, I am depressed tonight for more reasons than one. One of the reasons is obvious, and that reason was outlined in the point of privilege raised by the member for Mississauga East (Mr. Gregory) --

The Deputy Speaker: He thought he had a point of order, but he did not.

Ms. Copps: -- a point of privilege that was overruled. The other reason I am depressed is that the government has the audacity and the hypocrisy to bring in this legislation and to expect it is going to satisfy the women of Ontario. I cannot believe this is the same government and the same Legislature that on October 20 voted unanimously to enshrine the principle of equal pay for work of equal value in the Employment Standards Act.

Make no mistake about it. The government of Ontario, through this legislation, is attempting to perpetrate a sham on the voters of Ontario. I think it would have been more incumbent on them to say they deny the principle, that they do not support the principle, and to have voted against enshrinement on October 20. It is ridiculous for them, on the one hand, to speak out in favour of the bill on October 20 and, on the other hand, to come forward with this flimsy piece of legislation, which does not even deal with the principle of equal value. I would have thought they would have a greater understanding of the voters of Ontario and of the women of Ontario and that they would have recognized we would not be taken in by this kind of sham.

M. le Président, je suis déprimée de deux façons. Une façon, c’est évident qu’on a pas obtenu la victoire qu’on a voulue à Stormont, Dundas et Glengarry. Mais l’autre raison pour laquelle je suis désolée, c’est parce que le gouvernement ontarien, ce grand gouvernement conservateur, qui justement il y a un mois a parlé dans la législature de dévouer tous ses efforts pour améliorer la situation des femmes et promit, le 20 octobre, qu’il allait appuyer la loi en faveur du principe de salaires égaux pour un travail de même valeur. Mais ce qui arrive, c’est qu’ils viennent avec une espèce d’hypocrisie totale, et je pense que les femmes de l’Ontario ne vont pas l’accepter. Si, eux, ils pensent que les femmes de l’Ontario sont d’accord avec cette législation, ils ont autre chose à y penser.

I would like to quote from some of the statements that were made by the Minister responsible for Women’s Issues (Mr. Welch) who has not even shown up here in the Legislature tonight to discuss the issue. He said:

“The resolution we have before us this afternoon presents a further opportunity for this House to continue the commitment by Ontario to dynamic principles of equal opportunity, principles that reflect achievements gained and present circumstances, not to overlook future objectives. It is with this established pattern of successful, staged progress that we will support this resolution.

“Once again, consistent with the tried and understood practice of the past, we will move forward by the introduction of additional legislation stages based on sound, workable improvements to be seen, therefore -- if I can put it this way -- as staged progress to a stated goal.”

In fact, when the members on the government side of the House voted for my resolution on October 20, they were perpetrating a dishonesty and an untruth upon the people of Ontario because, as of that moment, they had no intention of introducing legislation that would enshrine the principle of equal value.

I am sorry, but when the minister stands up and says one half of the gap in the average wages earned by men and women in this province is caused by market factors, it still leaves us with a gap of 18½ cents. If by the principle of equal value legislation, the women of Ontario were able to move even five cents or 10 cents towards equality so that they have an equal opportunity to compete in the marketplace, I would suspect, they would embrace that legislation.

Instead, the government has totally dismissed the notion of equal value. For them to present this piece of legislation, to pretend and hide behind an addendum to a law that was brought in in 1952 and has proven itself to be unworkable in closing the wage gap between the women and the men of Ontario, is simply unacceptable.

During the last couple of months, we have had a number of pages with us here in the Legislature. A number of those young women pages have talked with me about some of the hopes and the desires they have for their future. I had hoped for and I had asked the government to give a Christmas present to the women of Ontario by saying in that regard it was going to bring in true equal value legislation that would at least be a start in closing the wage gap between men and women. It would degenderize the present inequities that exist within the system, which have been accepted by all parties.

Instead, this government has attempted to bring in changes in the present law that do not even incorporate the notion of comparisons between dissimilar jobs. My colleague the member for Essex South (Mr. Mancini) commented earlier that he feels the Minister of Labour is a “decent chap.” I think that is very true and I appreciate the concerns he has genuinely expressed inside and outside of this House about the working people of Ontario.

I would have thought, however, if the minister was really sincere about bringing in equal value legislation, he would have stood firm in cabinet and made sure the government of Ontario attempted to respond to a ground swell that is not coming from political parties. It is not coming just from the Liberal Party and it is not coming just from the New Democratic Party. It is coming from the men and women across this province who recognize the principle of justice and equality for all and who recognize that to have gender as one of the determining factors in salary in 1983 and coming on to 1984 is simply unacceptable.

9:10 p.m.

The minister knows full well that the only way to degenderize salaries in Ontario is to bring in equal value legislation. Instead, he has chosen to hide behind a poor facsimile of the legislation as we presented it. Frankly, I believe, and the members of my party believe, that without accepting the amendments we are going to be presenting here in the Legislature, this particular piece of legislation -- and I hesitate to use this word because it has gender connotations -- emasculates all of the work that has been done by all sides of the House on this issue.

Mr. Speaker, I cannot tell you how disappointed I am in this government. I understand that the Minister responsible for Women’s Issues has concentrated on the notion of staged progress, but I want to ask him and the members on the government side, do they not think that waiting since 1952 for equal value legislation has been staged enough?

We have been waiting for more than 30 years and, frankly, the legislation as introduced by the minister is completely and totally unacceptable. To support it in its present form would be to support a fraud upon the women of Ontario, who I believe are intelligent enough to recognize this particular piece of legislation is a sham on the voters of Ontario. It does nothing to introduce the equal value principle we all lauded on October 20. Either the minister supported the enshrinement on October 20 or he supports this poor facsimile; he cannot have it both ways. The people of Ontario recognize the fraud the government is trying to perpetrate in the form of this particular legislation.

If the member for Prince Edward-Lennox (Mr. J. A. Taylor) believes the legislation should be withdrawn, then he has probably spoken the only true word that will be spoken on the government side tonight about this issue. The piece of legislation before us does nothing to deal with all the hallowed promises given to us prior to, on and following October 20.

I think the only honest thing for the government to do at this particular juncture would be to withdraw this legislation and bring in legislation which addresses the real and critical problem, which addresses the notion of comparison of dissimilar jobs within the same company and which commits the government to doing what it promised to do on October 20, that is, enshrine in law the principle of equal pay for work of equal value.

M. le Président, sans avoir ces amendements, les amendements que nous, le Parti libéral, avons présentés, ce projet de loi ne sera accepté ni par les femmes ni par ceux qui travaillent pour l’égalité des salaires et pour l’égalité d’opportunité de tous les gens de l’Ontario. Mon Parti et moi-même sommes désolés aussi bien par les récentes élections que par les projets de loi que ce gouvernement a essayé de faire accepter par le peuple de l’Ontario. Le peuple de l’Ontario n’est pas si ignorant des faits pour être inconscient de ce qui est fait par ce gouvernement.

We reiterate that we are very sorry this legislation has come forward because it has perpetrated a sham on the voters of Ontario. It has perpetrated a fraud on the women of Ontario, and our party has no choice but to reject this particular bill as long as it stands in its present form.

I would urge the members on the government side of the House to recognize the promise they made on October 20 and to stand in their places and vote with us on the pertinent amendment, to make this bill what it was intended to be when we all stood and voted for it on October 20. Without that, the members are totally denying to the women of Ontario the opportunity of seeking equal employment opportunities in this province. Entering into 1984, it is a situation that is completely unacceptable and one that not even this government can get away with.

Mr. Mackenzie: Mr. Speaker, I rise to oppose the bill as it stands. I think it is a sad answer to the problem out there in the community. I do not think we need to reiterate some of the differences, but I recalled and was able to find a clipping I had picked out of the paper about a year ago. It talked about comparing two or three jobs.

One of them I quote is as follows: “Barb Marquette hunches over her sewing machine, her hands carefully manoeuvring a three-by-four-foot sheet of brown vinyl, soon to be the door lining of a Wagoneer Jeep, under the racing needle. She and 304 other sewers at the Canadian Fabricated Products plant here, all women, earn $9.57 an hour. Once the whistle blows and Marquette heads home, Cliff Porter hauls out his push broom and sweeps up the scraps left behind by the sewers. He and five other sweepers, all men, earn $9.81 an hour, 24 cents more than the sewers.”

It is not an overwhelming difference, as it goes on to say, but I think it helps to make the point. “Wayne Sheppard makes $8.71 an hour as a groundskeeper.” This is at Metro’s York University. “There is no minimum education requirement for his job, although now the university demands that new groundskeepers have related experience. Sheppard had none when he joined the staff 11 years ago.

“Janet DeWilde and Carmela Triola are both grade 3 clerks earning $8.10 an hour, about $21 less than Sheppard for a 35-hour week. To get their jobs, they needed a grade 12 education with secretarial training and typing speeds of 50 to 60 words a minute.”

Those cases are probably mild compared to some we could put on the record, but they point up the fact that the work to be done should not be based on a person’s sex, but certainly on the job and its price, the wage to be paid.

The composite test amendment does not give us the answer the minister is talking about in this legislation. The only things I can really have anything kind to say about are the maternity leave changes and the adopting parents provisions in the bill. They are welcome and we agree with them. They are points and moves that are long overdue and are useful to have. But to add those to the total lack of action on equal pay for work of equal value and try to use them to sell this inadequate bill is not right.

Even the labour market factors that people are concerned about would disappear if we had equal pay for work of equal value and did not have the women ghettoized into some of the jobs that pay less in salaries. If we got rid of this inequality in our wage patterns today, we would have men bidding for many of the jobs women now hold and we would have women moving into some of the other higher-paid jobs much more quickly. I think there are some false perceptions of the problems we might have in terms of equal pay for work of equal value.

It seems to me it is a bit sad and it certainly disturbs me to have this House back on October 20 vote unanimously for a resolution, and I say that pointedly, a resolution calling for equal pay for work of equal value. I do not agree with the previous speaker that all kinds of hallowed promises were made. I think they were simply given the opportunity.

I have made the same mistake, and I think the resolution was a mistake, with improvements in the private pension plans. I did it and got pretty general support some three or four years ago. We are still waiting for action on those minimum improvements in private pensions in Ontario. I think when that resolution was moved -- and it maybe a cynical observation -- because it was a resolution and because this is an issue for which the time has come in Ontario, it was easy for the government and all members of this House to vote for that resolution.

If some people think I am being a little harsh, I remind them it was only a matter of weeks later when we had an actual private member’s bill moved by the leader of my party that set out equal pay for work of equal value legislation. What happened? All of a sudden, every voter across the way who just two or three weeks earlier had voted for a resolution stood up and voted against the bill. I might say I think the member for Hamilton Centre (Ms. Copps) had trouble keeping some of her colleagues in. There was a stampede of a good many Liberal members out of the House as well when that bill was voted on.

The point I am making is that it is one thing --

Mr. Kerrio: That is a lot of baloney.

9:20 p.m.

Mr. Mackenzie: That is exactly what happened and the member knows it. It is one thing to put up a principle that then frees the government and members of this House to go out in the next election and say. “Hey, we voted for that principle.” But they sure as blazes did not vote for it when it was a bill and the government set out the provisions of equal pay for work of equal value.

Mr. Kerrio: He knows better than that. Nobody stampeded out of the House. We voted for it.

Mr. Mackenzie: The member for Niagara Falls has his turn coming. He probably would not vote for it anyhow.

Mr. Kerrio: I certainly did. I voted for it and that is why I am angry about what the member is saying.

Mr. Mackenzie: Good. If he is angry, then I am glad.

Mr. Kerrio: It is not true what the member is saying. It is a lie.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Foulds: On a point of privilege, Mr. Speaker: The member did use unparliamentary language. I think the word “lie” is not acceptable in the Legislature.

Mr. Mackenzie: I really do not expect anything more than that from him.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Cousens): I did not hear that. Who is it the honourable member is directing his attention to?

Mr. Foulds: The member for Niagara Falls.

The Acting Speaker: The member for Niagara Falls has been accused. Is there anything unparliamentary that has happened here that I should have paid attention to?

Mr. Stokes: You should pay attention to everything, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Kerrio: Mr. Speaker, I said the gentleman lied. He told an untruth. I retract the word “lie.”

The Acting Speaker: I thank the member. I will now call upon the member for Hamilton East to continue.

Mr. Mackenzie: I recall the member for Hamilton Centre having to chase after some of her colleagues who were leaving the House in a hurry when that vote was coming up. It is interesting that it sometimes seems to hurt when the truth is out in this House.

Mr. Kerrio: The truth is I voted for the bill. That is the truth. My mike is off. Why did they turn it off?

An hon. member: Is the member a little sensitive?

Mr. Mackenzie: Yes, he is very sensitive, I think.

Mr. Kerrio: Sure, I am sensitive.

Mr. Wrye: If I got two per cent of the vote, I would be sensitive, too.

Mr. Mackenzie: I thought that was one his party was going to win.

Mr. Wrye: At least I didn’t lose two thirds of my vote.

Mr. Bradley: Right off the bat.

The Acting Speaker: Order. The member will speak to the motion.

Mr. Bradley: If Jim Renwick had not gone down there, you wouldn’t have any.

Mr. Mancini: Our 39 per cent of the vote is a lot different from 2.9 per cent.

The Acting Speaker: Order.

Mr. Mackenzie: They are really bothered about something down there tonight, I guess.

An hon. member: The boys are restless.

Mr. Mackenzie: I can recall their party losing their ex-leader’s seat where they did not do very well.

There is another issue here that bothers me personally. It is simply that we have before us a bill that involves a total switch on the part of the government from the resolution that was before this House not too many weeks ago. It makes one really wonder at the integrity of the government’s position.

We also have a bill the government brought in on December 6 or December 7, whatever the date was. With the House due to adjourn on December 16, the bill worked its way up so that we are ready to deal with it with about three or four days to go in this House. Then we were told that either the bill goes through or it will be withdrawn. It would not hurt me. I hate to lose the maternity leave provision and the adopting parents provision, but when the bill is a farce and when the bill does not deal with the issue of equal pay for work of equal value, which is the essential ingredient of legislation to bring fairness into the province right now, then I am not sure it really matters.

The bill is not one that meets with much favour with those people who have been fighting for a good many years for this kind of legislation. It is the height of arrogance then to be told it will be put through without sending it out to committee, without allowing those groups that have a concern to be heard -- and there is a large number of important groups in our community that wish to have some input into just how inadequate this bill is -- largely on the basis that the government already knows what their arguments are, in any event.

I think it is long past time that this House simply says that we may go down to defeat on a bill, but at least we are going to have a fair debate on it and we are going to allow that when it is a bill as important as this one -- not the makeup of this bill but the principle that is at stake. When it is a bill as important as this one, we are going to have some input into it. We are going to allow people to say what they think of it and not have it railroaded through in 24 or 48 hours in this House without that kind of input. That is an important issue.

I know the Liberal Party was ready to collapse and let that go as well. I am glad we did not because I think it is important that people who are concerned do have the chance to put some input into this bill. I welcome the fact that there has been a reconsideration of this and it will go out to committee. I think that is important.

Mr. Wrye: Mr. Speaker. I rise to make some comments on this legislation. One might have hoped it would be a Christmas present for the women of Ontario. Unfortunately, the bill is certainly otherwise.

On my own part and on behalf of my party, I want to start by congratulating the winner of the by-election in Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry. I am sure Mr. Villeneuve knows he will be a gentleman who will have to work very hard to be a worthy successor to our friend Osie. I certainly congratulate him on a very solid victory tonight.

I also want to pay tribute to our candidate, John Whitteker, who has served the united counties of Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry well over the years and whose vote tonight I am told is the largest vote our party has received in that riding in four decades. We are very pleased not only to have held our ground but to have made some gains tonight. We look forward to having Mr. Villeneuve in the House and to continuing the fight.

I do not want to be too mean-spirited tonight because it is the Christmas season. As the former Labour critic, I have a great personal regard for my friend the Minister of Labour. I would be delighted if I could stand in my place and say we would support this legislation on second reading. An argument could be made for supporting it because there are certainly improvements over the present legislation. Clearly, the composite test is an improvement over the present equal pay. I would be the last to deny that.

Some of the other improvements are quite welcome, if long overdue. While I would like to be able to say I support the legislation, the time has come for those of us who believe that the women of Ontario deserve a square and a fair deal to say no to half steps and to say an even louder no to the kind of minimal step the major change embodied in Bill 141 would have us pass.

I join my colleagues in saying we will vote against this legislation on second reading and that we will be putting amendments at the appropriate time to make what we believe to be the appropriate changes to provide a first step for true and equal justice for the women of Ontario.

I have not heard all the debate, but I want to say a word about the comments of my friend the member for Hamilton East (Mr. Mackenzie), who believes he and his colleagues were the only people who pressed for committee debate. If memory serves me correctly, as the Liberal critic for women’s issues, I spoke with our House leader and our whip shortly after the bill was introduced and said I thought the bill should go to committee. It is my understanding there was some discussion at that point. It was only the Liberal opposition in the initial stages that wished to send the bill out to committee.

9:30 p.m.

I am sure the New Democratic Party have had a change of heart and I am sure their views, which I share, are that the women of Ontario ought to have a chance to come and state their opposition to this sideways progress that is embodied in the composite test. After a while, once in a while, I get a little fed up with hearing the sanctimonious stuff to my left and I would like to set the record straight in that regard.

Mr. Foulds: You are not bad at sanctimony yourself.

The Deputy Speaker: Order.

Mr. Wrye: I am just setting the record straight. If the member for Port Arthur (Mr. Foulds) wishes to engage in this debate, perhaps he will have another letter I have sent to my constituents that he wishes to read.

I am more than disappointed that we do not have in this legislation either a true attempt to have equal pay for work of equal value or even, at a minimum, a statement of intent through a comprehensive pilot project right within the government confines, right within the civil service of Ontario.

It is my view that this government apparently does not want to get its act together enough to find out whether equal value legislation would really work because it keeps complaining it cannot get information from Quebec and it cannot get information from here. I am just amazed that a government that can spend the kind of money this one does and waste the kind of money it does cannot seem to get that information.

If this government has some legitimate concerns -- I do not think they are legitimate I will state that for the record -- if the government feels it has to tread carefully in terms of moving forward to equal value legislation, moving forward to the concept my colleague the member for Hamilton Centre presented to this House and which every member of this government voted for, if the government feels it likes the concept but is worried about whether it will play, then let us introduce the concept right here at Queen’s Park and work out the bugs here.

But oh, no, we will not have that. We will have no equal value legislation. We will continue with the tried and true complaint that it just will not work. I do not know how this government can justify to itself standing up in late October and saying, “Oh, yes, we favour equal pay for work of equal value and, indeed, we favour enshrining it,” and then less than two months later stand up and introduce for the entire province a composite test and present to us not a word about moving forward with a meaningful pilot project to bring in equal value legislation. I suppose by their nature Liberals are reasonably moderate individuals, and I am not one who wishes to be strident about saying we have to have it all today.

If this government, businesses and others out there have concerns about whether it is a realistic concept, I am quite prepared to see a pilot project at work and to work out any of the bugs there, but we do not have that. Consequently, we have the first amendment in some time in terms of equal pay law in Ontario and, quite frankly, we have the last amendment for some time in equal pay law in Ontario. That amendment goes nowhere near far enough to provide any meaningful improvement in the wage gap women suffer from -- and they do suffer -- and, even more important, in ending, through that part of the arsenal of weapons, the pay weapon, the job ghettos and the occupational segregation that the women of Ontario face.

They not only face it all through the private sector, but they face it through the public sector, through the municipalities, through the school boards and, yes, they face it right here at Queen’s Park. If the minister wishes to see the proof of that, I suggest he go and look at the occupational categories of male and female employees at Queen’s Park.

We are not only not reducing the levels, but in some areas the numbers of women working in traditional women’s jobs is getting larger. It cannot go over 100 per cent. It is so close now that one would have thought there would be some small diminution of the numbers of women as a group. In one category, for example, it went from 92.5 to 92.6. It actually went up, unbelievable as that may be. That tells us that even within the government its affirmative action program is not working. In my view, the equal value provision would be the provision that might be tried next.

It is my view that the composite test will do very little to end those job ghettos. The men of this Ontario society, including this male-dominated Legislature, have no job ghettos. They are free to reject -- and indeed they do -- those jobs that are traditionally female jobs because of the poor pay those jobs offer. In overwhelming numbers they take a look at a female clerical job, a secretarial job, and say those jobs may have better working conditions, but that is all. They may have more skill, effort and responsibility than some male-dominated jobs which will pay $4,000 and $5,000 a year more.

I am sure all of us can understand why the male of this society would simply say: “Perhaps I would like to be a secretary. There is nothing wrong with a male secretary. Perhaps I would like to be a nurse, but with those skills, that effort, that responsibility and those working conditions I can do much better staying with one of the male-oriented, male-dominated jobs,” and they do.

The only way to end the job ghetto, not only for the women but for all society, the men as well, is to ensure that those jobs will pay well if they wish to take that opportunity, if they wish to do clerical work, if they do not want to be parking lot attendants, if they do not want to be workers on an assembly line. Yet we have not seized the opportunity and it is so very regrettable.

The evidence we have from Ottawa and Quebec City indicates that equal value legislation can work. Yet this government is timid as always, afraid to take the initiative, afraid to dare this society. We listened to the Treasurer (Mr. Grossman) today bring forth his economic statement with all his statements of co-operation, “Let us be bold, let us not fear to venture into the future.”

I say to the government, in terms of this legislation, why do we fear to be bold? Why do we not dare just once? Why do we not say to the women of Ontario we think it is high time they not pay as they have paid for decades for the economic wellbeing of Ontario? Why do we not say it is not acceptable for all of those women who are the heads of households to be caught in job ghettos which undervalue their work? Why do we not say it is unacceptable for the single women of Ontario to be caught in those same job ghettos?

9:40 p.m.

With six exceptions, we are all men in this Legislature. Why do we not say the time has come to give the women of Ontario a fair break? I suspect if we had 119 women in this Legislature, if all of us were gone tomorrow and there were 119 women, equal value legislation would follow very quickly.

I do not wish to be long because the hour is late and I hope we are nearing the hour of ending this session of the House. I did not wish to let the moment pass, however, in a 15-minute debate on a piece of legislation that is as important as this to 52 per cent of our population and as inadequate as this. Indeed the women of Ontario, in my view, and I say this more in sadness than in anger, have been sold out by the minister. I feel very badly that I have to say that. In a sense, they have been betrayed.

I do not mean that in a mean-spirited way. I know the minister is an individual who believes very much in trying to do the best he can for all the workers of Ontario, but I think this minister, like this government, lacks the boldness and the willingness to dare to move into the future boldly and without fear that if something goes wrong once in a while we could not move back.

That is why this legislation moves forward so inadequately for the women of Ontario. That is why, in moving inadequately forward all over the province, we have not even said as a Legislature or as a government that we will dare a little bit, we will come forth with a pilot project immediately because we believe equal value legislation ought to be enshrined and now we want to see that it will work.

In closing, I hope the minister will take note of these comments. I hope he and his colleague the Minister responsible for Women’s Issues, who I believe are well-meaning individuals in a cabinet and a caucus that regrettably, and I am only commenting on what the minister said, appear to be hostile to taking even these inadequate steps forward, will press forward, will go back to the cabinet and come forward with some attempt to move us forward a little further than the very inadequate composite test will do.

I regret I will be joining my colleagues in voting against the bill. I think the time has come to say to this government that half a loaf is not always better than none when that half a loaf is all the women of Ontario can expect as long as this government is around. The women of Ontario expect more. More than that, they deserve more. We would be very wrong to offer our support to the government on second reading of this legislation.

Hon. Mr. Gregory: Mr. Speaker, on a point of personal privilege: I would like to thank the honourable member for his remarks a few minutes ago. I did not hear them, but I do appreciate them.

I would like to give the House a final rundown on the election in Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry. The final votes cast were 20,923. Progressive Conservative, 12,097; Liberal, 8,102; New Democrat, 617; Independent, 97.

Mr. Renwick: Mr. Speaker, I have three matters I would like to raise with the minister that are of concern to me in connection with Bill 141. I happened to be walking through the corridors below the assembly on the way up to the House tonight and I heard somebody say, “The one good thing about living in Ontario is it makes life very simple because the government makes all the wrong decisions for you.”

It seems to me that is what Bill 141 is about tonight. I was struck this afternoon when the minister, usually a most equable man, vented his frustration against my colleague the member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Laughren), not because it was the member for Nickel Belt but because the minister was feeling the personal frustration of the problem with respect to his own son in the question of a plant layoff. He knew the defence he put up was an unacceptable one.

I know the minister well enough to know he understands he is faced with barriers against advancing social legislation in the field of labour relations that neither he nor his predecessors, no matter how nice they were -- and they were all nice fellows, that is their job, that is why they were appointed to the Ministry of Labour, to be nice guys -- the incontrovertible barrier to progress in the field of labour relations on behalf of the Tory government is one which must be totally frustrating.

This is exactly that kind of bill. The minister knows what the member for Windsor-Sandwich (Mr. Wrye) has said, he knows what my colleague the member for Beaches-Woodbine (Ms. Bryden) has said, what my colleague from Hamilton has said and what has been said time and time again with respect to the historic segregation of occupations among men and women. Generally speaking, women are uniformly engaged in areas which are not specifically and substantially the same jobs that men do and they are paid a lower rate of pay.

The minister knows that. Many people must have told him that. Many people must have said to the minister: “Break out of it. That is the problem. The problem is to break away from that.” If I might draw a minor analogy, we are faced with the same problem in the question of family law reform. Instead of stating a principle in the family law reform legislation, we got into the intricacies of a bureaucratic structure of courts, judges and others who would make decisions in order to bring about some division of assets or some settlement with respect to family property, when the principle was simple.

Had the legislation simply stated very clearly the principle of community property within the marriage framework and had an accounting at the onset of marriage and at the end of a marriage relationship for whatever reasons and then made the division on the grounds that it was community property, it would have been much easier for the courts and everybody else and in the long run less expensive, less intrusive on individuals and would lessen to a great degree the harassment and inequity of that problem.

The analogy to me is very simple. All we are asking of the ministry and of the government is to simply state the principle. Do not get hung up in whether or not we can compare what is involved in comparing the work which is done by one person and the work which is done by another person, where it happens that the work in one area is done entirely by women and the work in the other area is done entirely by men. To erect a barrier and say they cannot make any comparisons I think is fundamentally wrong.

I think it is fundamentally wrong not just in the moral sense of the term, but the minister knows as well as I do that there are skilled arbitrators in this province. We have had a great deal of talk under Bill 111, which has now been passed, about the arbitration process. There are very skilled arbitrators in this province who are quite capable of making the sophisticated comparisons required in order to eliminate the ghettos that are involved in the occupational world of women.

It can be done. Mr. Teplitsky and Mr. Adams can do it. Mr. Burkett, who did the University of Toronto faculty association arbitration, is a very skilled arbitrator and was making comparisons in fields which are not comparable. It is very difficult to find somebody out there who is comparable to a university professor in there, yet they are able to do it because they have the sophisticated skill and knowledge to draw the comparisons.

9:50 p.m.

When somebody says to me. “Oh, well, you cannot devise a formula by which you can compare unequal operations,” I say, “Of course you can.” You can find men who are skilled in the world of making comparisons and making value judgements taking into account any number of things, some of which perhaps have a formula base but most of which are simply a question of straight judgement.

I would say that in the long run this government would be much better from its own point of view, and the people of Ontario would be much better served, if the principle were stated. That is what my colleagues have been saying, that is what the members of the Liberal Party have been saying and that is what I am sure many representations made to the ministry have been saying.

Ultimately it is simpler to have the principle. Then over the course of time, whatever the mechanism to apply the principle is, one will find that the decisions will be made; people by and large will begin to accept them. There will always be people who will fight against them, and more decisions will have to be made, but that is the way the world is.

But the principles are very important, and if the minister had stated the simple principle in the bill we would not be faced with the semantic, juridical, legalistic problem that has come to my attention in a comparison of the wording. I ask the minister to listen to the wording in the Revised Statutes of Ontario, 1970, in the Revised Statutes of Ontario, 1980, and in Bill 141.

It is almost gobbledegook. The minister is going to ask people to take almost a microscopic view of the language to find out what this assembly intended to do when it changed the law by Bill 141. I think there are very few people who have the patience to go through that kind of semantic exercise. Let me try, at least, to put it on the record.

In the Employment Standards Act in the Revised Statutes of Ontario, 1970, we have this wording, “for the same work performed in the same establishment, the performance of which requires equal skill, effort and responsibility and which is performed under similar working conditions.” I underline the words “same work,” “equal skill, effort and responsibility” and “similar working conditions.”

We come along to the Employment Standards Act of 1974, and we have the wording, “for substantially the same kind of work performed in the same establishment, the performance of which requires substantially the same skill, effort and responsibility.” I underline the words “substantially the same kind” and “substantially the same skill, effort and responsibility.”

When we come to the bill that is now before us, we find, “for substantially the same kind of work performed in the same establishment where the work requires substantially the same skill, effort and responsibility and the work is performed under similar working conditions; or substantially equivalent or greater skill, effort and responsibility.” I underline “substantially the same kind of work,” “substantially the same skill, effort and responsibility” and “substantially equivalent or greater skill, effort and responsibility.”

Just to recite the similarity of the syntax, if that is the right word, in each of the three statutes from 1970 to the bill that is in front of us now indicates to me such a microscopic view of the problem as to produce a problem of interpretation that would defy the ordinary person. Certainly it would defy an employer with the best will in the world who wanted to understand the change that he is now supposed to conform to.

What would happen? He goes out and he has to consult a lawyer about it. What does the lawyer do? The lawyer tells him what he thinks it happens to be; he consults with other lawyers about it and they try to come up with an answer to the question, “What do I do in my plant tomorrow that is different from what I do today?”

The minister knows that game of gymnastics, that game of semantic trivia, is not the guts of the problem. I think we were affronted when he tried to sugar-coat the legislation by bringing in, quite properly, matters related to adoption and adoptive parents and matters related to pregnancy leave. Those are matters which should not have cluttered up the bill, which should have been, if necessary, passed by themselves if he was going to try sell the principal part of the bill.

He knows as well I do that he cannot get away as a government without those pregnancy leave provisions and adoptive leave provisions. I give him credit for bringing them in. But he knew that in a time of restraint he had better bring in something in the nature of social legislation. Those are matters which have been upfront and centre for a long time and whose reasonableness, equity and social need speak entirely for themselves.

The gut provision to have it incorporated in the same bill hurt me, affronted other members and led to an intransigence on our part with respect to the need again to have further hearings for the purpose of trying to have the people who understand the problem get through to the minister and his advisers.

If it is true that the economic Neanderthals in his cabinet who think they understand the world of economics but do not understand the world of people are the barrier, say so. I do not want him to have to express his frustration, as he had to this afternoon, and quite properly expressed it, because he knew he was boxed in. He knew he could not get it through the cabinet.

He knows it is the simplest way to deal with it. He knows it is not a problem of legalisms or a problem for legislative draftsmen. It is not a problem for his lawyers to say, “What minor changes in the wording can we do that might advance this intractable problem a little bit?” and they make the changes which have been made, which I tried to put on the record.

Nobody understands it, not a single employer in the province. It will be a matter of endless discussion on the table as to what we did in the assembly on December 16, if that is the proper date, when we debated this bill. Nobody will understand it.

I also want to say, and this is my third comment on the bill, that in April 1985 a provision of the charter is going to come into force. I just want to read it and leave it with the minister. He is going to be faced with a provision which simply says that every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination. It goes on to talk about the particularities of various types and degree.

The fundamental thing is that the minister is discriminating. He is continuing to discriminate and he refuses to recognize it. One day a court will tell him he has to establish comparability of working conditions and work which is performed when it is work that should be getting the same pay. He knows that. The principle has been stated many times: equal pay for work of equal value.

He cannot hide behind the proposition that he cannot find people of the other sex doing that kind of work and pretend that is an excuse for continuing to discriminate. I do not particularly enjoy this kind of debate because I know that the minister understands it; I know he understands it very clearly.

10 p.m.

I know that even within the strange bureaucracy of the ministry he inherited from the now Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr. Elgie), some of them may understand it. But he is faced with men who are engaged in the minutiae of sitting down and making minor changes in wording and trying to persuade the world that they are fundamental changes in principle. It just does not work.

He can say it and he can understand it, and I know he understands it. As far as I am concerned, we will oppose the bill. All we consider the bill does is -- as we were going to do by having 20 members stand in their places had the government not agreed with us -- to get it out again to a committee for three days, if that is the bargain that has been struck, so he can hear again the facts of social and economic life in Ontario for women who are ghettoized in jobs of historic social necessity and compulsion.

Mr. Lupusella: There may be men as well.

Mr. Renwick: As my colleague says, there may very well be men in the same position as that. That does not bother me. If we solve it for women, this is one of the problems we will also solve for men to the extent that they are subject to the same degree of ghettoization. But that is not so; there are many more women in that position.

The minister must have read the study of the task force that dealt with the status of immigrant women in this society. Giving the minister full credit for long hours in his office and in the works, perhaps he should get up some morning and go out and inspect some of the ghettos, wherever they are in the city of Toronto or in his own city of Sault Ste. Marie, and say, “That is the barrier I have to break.” Do these words break it? No, they do not break it.

We are talking about a society of equals and about a government that insists it is the best government in every single sphere in the whole of the North American continent. That is no credit to the government unless it recognizes the fundamental basic equality of men and women which had its basis -- and one does not need to be a Marxist to understand it -- in the economic choices that are available to men and women. They should be equal and the rewards should be equal.

The minister understands that I forgive myself for allowing myself to engage in a tirade, because I know he understands it. It is directed more at the Neanderthals in the cabinet and at the business establishment that controls the cabinet of the government of Ontario so that we cannot possibly get a simple principle of equality in the economic circumstances of individuals enshrined in law in this province. He faces us with legal gobbledegook; that is all it is. I have said enough.

Mr. Charlton: Mr. Speaker, I will be briefer than I had originally intended to be. I would like to begin my comments tonight by congratulating the member for Hamilton Centre, not so much for the position she has taken on women’s issues here in the House but for the influence she has had within her own caucus.

I recall in 1979 and early in 1980 dealing with Bill 3 and the same issues we are again dealing with here tonight, only tonight we are dealing with them in a very inadequate fashion. In 1979 and 1980, we dealt with them in a much more appropriate fashion. I remind the Speaker that Bill 3 received the support of this House, was passed on second reading and spent some two months in January and February of 1980 in committee doing full hearings on the issue of equal pay for work of equal value.

The reason I want to congratulate the member for Hamilton Centre is simply that in that committee in those months of January and February the Liberal caucus unfortunately was split on the issue. They have come together much better since then, although there are still some renegades over there. I have to give some credit to the member for Hamilton Centre for that.

Unfortunately, Bill 3 died on the order paper in that parliament because the government across the way never saw fit to call the bill for third reading.

Mr. Kerrio: I will have to talk to the bill.

Mr. Charlton: If the member for Niagara Falls would please be quiet, we could get this debate over with.

The Deputy Speaker: Order. The member for Hamilton Mountain wants to get back to the principle of the bill.

Mr. Kerrio: Why does he not talk to the bill?

The Deputy Speaker: Order. He is on his way there.

Mr. Kerrio: The member for Hamilton Mountain is not talking about the bill. What is he talking about?

Mr. Charlton: The member for Hamilton Mountain is speaking directly to the bill.

One of the reasons the government has given repeatedly for not being able to proceed with legislation on equal pay for work of equal value is it is not sure, on the one hand, that it can make it work, and on the other hand, how the system of comparing positions can be adequately put together.

It is unfortunate that the present Minister of Labour and the former Minister of Labour did not participate in that committee in 1980, because the extensive hearings that were held documented rather clearly, by unions, employees and industry, that the system could be made to work.

It is high time the Minister of Labour sat down and read through the Hansards of that committee, because many of the questions he has put as upfront and, I might add, phoney questions in recent debates in this House were answered in that committee by the private sector, the industrial sector, the business sector, the trade unions and some of the unorganized people in this province.

In my comments tonight I will not be quite as charitable as the member for Windsor-Sandwich (Mr. Wrye) was simply because of the coming of Christmas. I recall only too well the consequences of the story we all listen to and watch every Christmas, A Christmas Carol, and Scrooge.

I want to make a few comments on the issue the minister has raised, not in the bill tonight but in his statement tonight about domestics. He was allowed to raise the regulation changes he is going to propose, in addition to this bill, that will deal with domestics. They were raised because they are not changes to the bill but changes to the regulations under this bill. I want to make a few comments to this minister on the whole question of domestics.

In October 1979, we debated a bill on domestics that I presented in this House. I would like to read very briefly a couple of quotes from the then ordinary back-bench member for Sault Ste. Marie, now the Minister of Labour, in that debate. This is the quote from the member for Sault Ste. Marie:

“The problems facing domestics are currently under review in the Ministry of Labour. As has been pointed out, the regulations under which the Employment Standards Act is applied already cover all such employees in those areas where it has been judged feasible to extend protection.”

10:10 p.m.

We had a statement from the minister regarding domestics again tonight, some five years later. What did that statement tell us? There was a change, a break period on weekends from 38 hours to 48 hours, which still leaves domestics with the unfortunate potential of being forced to work 120 hours in a week. That is all we got from the current minister, then simply the member for Sault Ste. Marie, who talked about a review in 1979 when speaking to my bill.

Tonight he also promised us a review of the Employment Standards Act as it applies to domestics. I want to read another quote from the present Minister of Labour. Again, this is the member for Sault Ste. Marie referring to his predecessor, the then Minister of Labour. He is quoted by the Sault Ste. Marie Star as saying:

“The Minister of Labour is presently finalizing various changes to the Employment Standards Act for submission to the cabinet, eventually for draft legislation. These changes would implement numerous benefits and areas of protection for the domestic far more comprehensive than those covered in the private member’s bill.”

Bunk. In five years, those “more comprehensive changes” have reached the stage where the minister has this evening granted us roughly 10 per cent of what was covered by my bill. I am not saying my bill was perfect. There were certainly other inadequacies for domestics, even if my bill had passed, such as workers’ compensation coverage and any number of better protections. The minister has managed, as of tonight, to provide us with roughly 10 per cent of what was promised by him in 1979, namely, a more comprehensive package than my bill contained.

It is particularly frustrating for those of us on this side and for the women in this province who have been a part of the debate over the past decade. To the best of my knowledge, the first bill on the question of equal pay for work of equal value was dealt with in this House either in 1975 or 1976. For almost a full decade we have been hearing the same story: “Review.” “It is not time.” We are not sure if it will work.” “It needs further study.”

To top it all off, and I will wrap up my comments with this, the former minister, the present Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations, in November 1980, speaking again to my bill, Bill 157, on equal pay for work of equal value and a number of other issues -- affirmative action, a women’s bureau in the Ministry of Labour and several other issues -- said, “We need a blend of legislative compulsion and educational persuasion.” He was referring eventually to getting equity in terms of equal pay for work of equal value.

He said: “A special section of the branch has been established, staged with specifically trained officers who have been assisted in their training by representatives of the women’s bureau. New staff have been added for this purpose. In addition, as members know, there was a major media campaign on equal pay last summer. All the indications are that the campaign and the activities of the inspectorate have increased public awareness of employees’ rights and, equally important, employers’ obligations under the law.”

All that may very well be true in terms of those obligations that exist under law. The problem is that with all the comments that have been made about support from that side about special staff arrangements, educational and moral suasion, we still do not have what the former minister referred to as “a blend of legislative compulsion and educational persuasion.” We still do not have any significant progress in the area of equal pay for work of equal value comparing dissimilar or unlike jobs.

It is a full decade now, and I fear the frustrations among the women in the work force are growing daily. It will not be very long before the government is forced to act, but we would much rather see it act reasonably and soon rather than by force and much later.

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Speaker, I just want to thank the honourable members opposite who spoke to the bill this evening.

10:28 p.m.

The House divided on Hon. Mr. Ramsay’s motion for second reading of Bill 141, which was agreed to on the following vote:

Ayes

Andrewes, Ashe, Baetz, Barlow, Bennett, Bernier, Brandt, Cousens, Cureatz, Dean, Drea, Eaton, Elgie, Eves, Fish, Gillies, Gordon, Gregory, Grossman, Harris, Havrot, Hennessy, Hodgson, Johnson, J. M., Jones, Kells, Kennedy, Kerr, Kolyn, Lane, Leluk, MacQuarrie, McCague, McLean, McNeil, Mitchell;

Piché, Pollock, Pope, Ramsay, Robinson, Rotenberg, Runciman, Scrivener, Sheppard, Shymko, Snow, Stephenson, B. M., Sterling, Stevenson, K. R., Taylor, G. W., Taylor, J. A., Timbrell, Treleaven, Walker, Watson, Welch, Wells, Williams, Wiseman, Yakabuski.

Nays

Allen, Bradley, Breaugh, Breithaupt, Bryden, Cassidy, Charlton, Cooke, Copps, Eakins, Elston, Epp, Foulds, Grande, Johnston, R. F., Kerrio, Laughren, Lupusella;

Mackenzie, Mancini, Martel, McClellan, McGuigan, Newman, Nixon, Philip, Rae, Reed, J. A., Reid, T. P., Renwick, Roy, Ruprecht, Ruston, Stokes, Swart, Sweeney, Van Horne, Wildman, Wrye.

Ayes 61; nays 39.

Bill ordered for the standing committee on resources development.

10:30 p.m.

Mr. Speaker: Do we have unanimous consent to revert to reports?

Agreed to.

REPORTS

STANDING COMMITTEE ON SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

Mr. Robinson from the standing committee on social development reported the following resolutions:

That supply in the following amounts and to defray the expenses of the Ministry of Health be granted to Her Majesty for the fiscal year ending March 31. 1984:

Ministry administration program, $80,332,000; institutional health program, $4,431,541,000; public and mental health program, $604,612,000; health insurance program, $2,395,351,000; and

That supply in the following supplementary amounts and to defray the expenses of the Ministry of Health be granted to Her Majesty for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1984:

Institutional health program, $28,500,000; health insurance program, $53,500,000.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Martel: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: Can you tell us what is going on so we will know. Because of that bedlam, I cannot follow the order of business.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: There is some rather important business going on. If everybody would keep quiet, then you could hear it.

An hon. member: You cannot hear it down here.

Mr. Speaker: You are probably your own worst enemy.

Interjections.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, let me tell you right now that it is past 10:30 and if you do not have a motion to continue, then the House is adjourned.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Martel: No.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: We have the concurrence of the House.

Mr. Martel: Get a motion to sit or tell us what the order is. I was not even speaking.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: I did not say you were.

Mr. Martel: If you want to play games, I will play the bloody games. Adjourn the House.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Just a minute. We did have concurrence of the House to revert to motions.

Mr. Martel: That is right.

Mr. Speaker: Okay.

Mr. Martel: I could not hear and I got up in a proper manner on a point of order.

Interjections.

Mr. Martel: You said if I would be quiet, I would probably hear.

Mr. Speaker: No, I did not.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: With all respect, I did not say that at all.

Mr. Martel: I am saying it is now 10:30.

Mr. Speaker: We do have concurrence --

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The House agreed to revert to reports. I know it is late and I know we are all tired.

Ms. Copps: Who is running the House?

Mr. Ruston: Elie. He has been running it for five years.

Mr. Speaker: Order. By unanimous consent we did agree. The House can agree to do anything by unanimous consent and we had that consent.

Mr. Laughren: No.

Mr. Speaker: I heard it.

Mr. Martel: I simply rose in my place because I could not hear the order of business.

Mr. Speaker: Neither could I. It is just as difficult.

Mr. Martel: After the House estimates were being presented, I could not hear whether you called for a vote or anything.

Mr. Speaker: No, I did not.

Mr. Martel: I simply rose in my place to ask you that.

Mr. Speaker: Well, I could not hear what you said, to be quite honest with you.

10:40 p.m.

Mr. Martel: That is right, but you did not ask me to repeat what I said. You simply said if I was prepared to be quiet, I might have heard it. I am sorry.

Mr. Speaker: All right. We have agreed by unanimous consent to revert to reports and I have called for a report.

Mr. Martel: I wanted to know what report we were on.

Mr. Speaker: I am not sure. The member for Lakeshore (Mr. Kolyn) rose, and that is as far as we got.

Mr. Martel: That is why I rose in my place to ask you, because I could not hear after the member spoke and I wanted to know where we were.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Wells: I understand my friend’s problem. I think perhaps we should all just quiet down for a minute as we all want to get the business of this House done. I would be very happy to move that this House continue to sit until reports are completed.

Mr. Speaker: Are you all familiar with the motion?

Mr. Martel: That is not the problem. The problem was I simply did not know --

Mr. Speaker: Okay, okay, okay. Order. Order. Order.

Mr. Kerrio: You are acting like a school boy.

Mr. Martel: All I am saying is I just wanted to know what order we were on. That is all I rose in my place to ask. I do not need a motion. When I get that sort of response, then I am prepared to accept --

Mr. Speaker: Okay, okay. All right.

Mr. Martel: All I want to know is the order.

Mr. Speaker: All right. There is a motion before the House. Order. You have all heard the motion?

Mr. Foulds: What is the motion?

Mr. Speaker: Is it the pleasure of the House the motion carry?

Agreed to.

Mr. Martel: Now would you kindly tell me as we proceed what order of business you are on?

Mr. Speaker: Reports.

Mr. Martel: I know that. What report? We had moved from the report of the member for Scarborough-Ellesmere (Mr. Robinson). The last thing I heard was his report. I simply want to know if that matter was handled and we then moved on to the next order of business. That is all I am trying to find out.

Mr. Speaker: We have reverted to reports under routine proceedings. The member for Lakeshore rose when I called for reports, and he will identify what report he is going to bring in.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, I didn’t hear you dispose of the report from the member for Scarborough-Ellesmere. That is what I am trying to find out.

Mr. Speaker: All right. Let me enlighten you. There was no disposition of it. That is a report to the House and that is as far as it goes.

Hon. Mr. Welch: It goes on the order paper for concurrence.

Mr. Martel: That’s right. I just wanted to know that.

Mr. Speaker: Right. No vote is required. Will the member for Lakeshore please identify what report he is bringing in?

STANDING COMMITTEE ON ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE

Mr. Kolyn from the standing committee on administration of justice reported the following resolution:

That supply in the following amounts and to defray the expenses of the Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations be granted to Her Majesty for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1984:

Ministry administration program, $7,441,000; commercial standards program, $16,154,900; technical standards program, $8,148,700; public entertainment standards program, $24,601,300; property rights program, $27,644,200; registrar general program, $4,570,000; liquor licence program, $5,462,600; residential tenancy program, $8,203,000: and

That supply in the following supplementary amount and to defray the expenses of the Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations be granted to Her Majesty for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1984:

Commercial standards program, $6,648,900.

STANDING COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT

Mr. Barlow from the standing committee on resources development reported the following resolution:

That supply in the following amounts and to defray the expenses of the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing be granted to Her Majesty for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1984:

Ministry administration program, $18,630,000; community planning program, $41,062,000; real estate program, $38,816,000; community housing program, $24,348,000; Ontario Housing Corp. program, $157,812,000; municipal affairs program, $761,673,000; and

That supply in the following supplementary amount to defray the expenses of the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing be granted to Her Majesty for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1984:

Community housing program, $7,072,000.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, before we adjourn the House, I would like to announce the business for tomorrow. After routine proceedings we will begin with resuming the adjourned debate on Bill 142, followed by concurrences in supply in the following order: Labour, Provincial Secretariat for Justice, Solicitor General, Correctional Services, Agriculture and Food, Environment, Provincial Secretariat for Resources Development, Tourism and Recreation, Energy, Natural Resources, Health, Municipal Affairs and Housing, and Consumer and Commercial Relations.

We will then proceed to the budget debate in which 45 minutes have been allotted for the official opposition and third party speakers and 20 minutes for the government windup.

Mr. Nixon: That is 45 minutes each.

Hon. Mr. Wells: Each, if they wish, and there will be 20 minutes for the government windup. After that there will be the supply bill and then, I hope, royal assents and prorogation.

I might also indicate to the House we expect to have the newest member of the Legislature, Mr. Noble Villeneuve, in the gallery tomorrow.

The House adjourned at 10:47 p.m.