Hansard Transcripts 1984-Mar-30 | Legislative Assembly of Ontario

The Deputy Speaker: Before proceeding with the routine issues of the day, I would like briefly to bring to the attention of members that a number of our colleagues are today honouring a person who has contributed greatly to this House over the years. I am referring to Farquhar Robert Oliver, a member of the provincial parliament for an impressive 41 years.

Mr. Oliver, whom many in this House would know, was a cabinet minister in the early 1940s for the Department of Public Welfare. He was also a leader of the Liberal Party and a Leader of the Opposition.

Today Mr. Speaker is representing this Legislature in honouring Mr. Oliver, who turned 80 earlier this month, for his contribution to the people of Ontario. This morning in the community of Durham, which is just south of Owen Sound, a special ceremony is taking place to salute Farquhar Robert Oliver.

The new Rockwood Terrace Home for the Aged will have a section of the building named Farquhar Oliver Place, thus paying tribute for many years to come to the man who pioneered the establishment of homes for the aged throughout this province. Farquhar Oliver Place will be a unique day care centre for the elderly, and it will be the focal point for the newest of programs catering to senior citizens in that area.

In closing, I am sure I speak for all in this House in congratulating Mr. Oliver and his family on this special day.

STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTRY

ONTARIO SPORTS MEDICINE OFFICE

Hon. Mr. Baetz: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to announce today that my ministry is establishing the Ontario sports medicine office.

Given the public's continued and growing interest in sports, fitness and recreation, it is an appropriate time to establish a central coordinating office for sports medicine. This new office will serve a co-ordinating function as an unbiased, authoritative source for sports medicine information. It will serve as a clearinghouse for up-to-date sports medicine research and as a resource centre for those seeking sports medicine programs and expertise.

The new office will be equipped to offer information on such issues as safe training procedures, the recognition and prevention of sports injuries, and advanced techniques and research in this new and exciting field.

The Ontario sports medicine office will be located at the Ontario Sports Centre in Toronto to serve the approximately 50 provincial amateur sport governing bodies that are housed there as well as the some 25 other organizations that do not have full-time staff. Its consulting services also will be available to fitness leaders, coaches and athletes in the province.

The Ontario sports medicine office will also continue the excellent work begun by the hockey trainer certification program, an important safety education effort for that sport. I would suggest that initiatives such as the Ontario sports medicine office and the hockey trainer certification program help ensure safe, enjoyable sport and fitness experiences for all Ontario citizens.

PRESIDENT OF UNITED STEELWORKERS OF AMERICA

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Speaker, I rise this morning to extend the sincerest of congratulations to Mr. Lynn Williams, who last evening was elected as international president of the United Steelworkers of America. He has had a very distinguished career, including the presidency of district 6 here in Ontario. He is well known and respected for his efforts on behalf of the trade union movement both in Canada and in the United States.

The position he will now occupy is one of the most prestigious in the entire world in the field of labour. He is entering it when the steel industry is experiencing very difficult times in North America. As a result, he has awesome responsibilities, but I am sure he will execute those responsibilities in a most positive and productive way.

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: Mr. Speaker, I am today tabling the results of a study --

The Deputy Speaker: Order.

Ms. Copps: Mr. Speaker, I was on my feet to associate myself with the statements made by the Minister of Labour (Mr. Ramsay).

In view of the fact that Mr. Williams received overwhelming support, not only from Canadian steelworkers but also from steelworkers from the United States, my party would like to associate itself with the support expressed by the minister. Certainly the members of Local 1005 in the great community of Hamilton had a little bit to do with his election. We are very happy to see him there. We know he is going to represent steelworkers across Canada and the United States extremely well.

Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, Lynn Williams has been a friend of mine for nearly 20 years. I am delighted he has been elected as president of the United Steelworkers trade union.

I could not help noticing that one of the charges against Mr. Williams was that he was described by someone as a "silver spoon unionist." If nothing else, that brought him even closer to my heart, because it makes us soul brothers in more than one sense.

I am sure all members of the House recognize that Lynn Williams is an extraordinary person. From the time he was first involved in the trade union movement, attempting to organize a certain store by the name of Eaton's, until the present day, he has been in the forefront of the fight for human rights, for an end to discrimination in the work place and for the rights of all people, whatever their background, nationality, creed, colour or sex.

After a campaign in which Mr. Williams's own nationality and background were an issue, we should all take pride that the United Steelworkers trade union, both in Canada and in the United States, has taken the high road once again in recognizing the extraordinary qualities of leadership of a very fine person. I am sure he will provide leadership of great distinction, not only to that particular union but also to the labour movement in North America in general.

HATE LITERATURE

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: Mr. Speaker, I am today tabling the results of a study by Patrick Lawlor, QC, into our existing procedures and legislation dealing with hate propaganda.

I am pleased that Mr. Lawlor, who was our colleague here in the Legislature from 1967 to 1981, is present today in the Speaker's gallery. In his report, he has demonstrated again his ability to put forth erudite and persuasive arguments on a troubling matter and has done so with his usual flair for the use of language.

The study contains a thoughtful analysis of the very difficult social and legal issues involved in controlling hate material directed at groups within our community. After a period of public response to the study, the government will consider various legislative and policy alternatives arising from it.

I intend to distribute Mr. Lawlor's report widely, and I hope that groups of concerned citizens will assess the proposals and offer their own views to assist the government in formulating policy.

10:10 a.m.

As Mr. Lawlor indicates, the question of how to control hate material defies simplistic solutions. It involves fundamental matters of freedom of speech on the one hand and our wish on the other hand to develop a sensitive and compassionate society that responds, perhaps aggressively, to the propagation of hatred towards minority groups.

As members will note in his report, Mr. Lawlor's study directs our attention to three proposals.

The first is the creation through legislation of a tort -- that is, a civil wrong -- to enable groups of citizens who have been subjected to hate propaganda to seek redress in the courts more readily through the civil action against the purveyors of the material. This, in effect, would be a class action.

The second, which would also be a class action, is an amendment to the Libel and Slander Act to permit civil actions by groups for defamation.

The third is an amendment to the Ontario Human Rights Code to enable groups of citizens who feel they have been defamed as a group to seek relief.

Mr. Lawlor suggests this third option might be the most useful because it would be the simplest and most expeditious and would provide access to the conciliation services of the Ontario Human Rights Commission which, he notes, "seeks to heal wounds, not by punitive and vindictive sanctions, but by persuasions and conciliations." This option could also include the use of cease-and-desist orders to halt the spread of defamatory material and the use of court injunctions to enforce them.

While the solutions to the dissemination of hate propaganda are not easy to come by, Mr. Lawlor's report catalogues the problems and provides some important guidance towards solutions. It leaves no doubt about the effect of hate material on some of our neighbours and the need for all persons of goodwill to act to alleviate the pain it causes.

In his study Mr. Lawlor offers this assessment of the impact of such material:

"When we were children growing up in a seemingly more innocent world than the present, we used to chant, 'Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.' With a little added knowledge of psychology and the experience of a great deal of history, we have sorely learned that just the opposite is the case. Sticks and stones may in circumstances mean very little, but words may lacerate a human being. As Yeats sang sadly, there are words that will break your heart."

I want to take this opportunity to thank publicly our good friend and former colleague Patrick Lawlor, QC, for his thoughtful and most useful contribution to the resolution, or at least alleviation, of this most important and complex social and legal issue.

Mr. Conway: Mr. Speaker, I might just say on my behalf and on behalf of my colleagues that it is certainly good to see the Irish face of the former member for Lakeshore in our presence here today, or at least to see that part of the face left remaining for inspection. It sounds like a most interesting and timely report, and we will all read it with great interest.

ORAL QUESTIONS

BUDGET MEASURES

Mr. Conway: Mr. Speaker, my first question today is to the Treasurer and it concerns the upcoming provincial budget.

The Treasurer will recall that some months ago, I believe it was in December, in one of his prebudget statements he indicated, "Our budget measures must address our social priorities."

Given the fact that in the recent speech from the throne his government has had a lot to say about women's issues, will the Treasurer give this House and the women of this province an undertaking here today that the Davis tax on women, instituted in the Ontario budget of 1982 -- specifically, the application of the provincial sales tax to feminine hygiene products -- will be eliminated, as it ought to have been eliminated two years ago?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, I will give no undertakings with regard to my budget until budget day.

Mr. Conway: In the light of the bilious ballyhoo of his colleague the Deputy Premier (Mr. Welch) in recent days about the finest record in the free world vis-a-vis women's issues, is it the case that the Treasurer is not even considering in the spring of 1984 the elimination of that most sexist of all taxes in the provincial sales tax regime?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: This year I have had the opportunity to add a group of women's representatives to the prebudget process, brought in by my colleague the Deputy Premier. At that prebudget meeting, women brought many well-articulated concerns before us.

It was a thoughtful and most incisive brief. It was the kind of thing that gets to the heart of the issues that really are important and have been articulated by my colleague. They are not issues that necessarily address the easy political optics, but they do get to the heart of the problem. That is the kind of thoughtful prebudget presentation our meetings and considerations are going through at the present time.

Any speculation with regard to what we are or are not considering is not going to occur, at least with my assistance, because I want to get from here to the budget date in as sensible and fair a way as possible. Any speculation that we get into with regard to what we are or are not considering only creates an uncertain and unfair environment out there, and I do not intend to get lured into that.

Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, there was no mention at all of any figures in the throne speech and many programs have clearly been delayed until the budget. That increases the need for a resolution of the doubt out there and the need for people to know exactly what programs are going to go ahead, how they are going to be funded and what the revenue base is going to be. Can the Treasurer please end the uncertainty today with respect to the date of the budget and tell us when it is going to be, since it is of such importance to so many people?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, I cannot do so quite yet, although I indicated last Tuesday evening in the windup to the debate on interim supply that I expected our date would not be too far off the traditional dates for spring budgets, somewhere within the usual time frame. It is no secret.

Mr. Conway: How can the Treasurer say he has not been speculating when for these past number of weeks and months he has been doing just that, suggesting certain specific things and concerns about agriculture? I remember a speech conveyed over the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. about two or three months ago when he was speaking in Sudbury and talking about his preferences for income as opposed to consumption taxes.

The Deputy Speaker: Question, please.

Mr. Conway: He has been doing the very thing over the past number of weeks that he says this morning he is not prepared to do about a key issue that indicates this government is very punitive when it comes to taxes on women that ought not to apply. Is he prepared today to give the women of this province an undertaking that he is at least considering the elimination of that preposterous and outrageous tax, which was instituted by his Conservative predecessor, the member for Muskoka (Mr. F. S. Miller)?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I have nothing to add to my previous answer.

EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES FOR WOMEN

Mr. Wrye: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Deputy Premier, the Minister responsible for Women's Issues. The minister will remember that on Monday of this week his colleague and seatmate the Minister of Education (Miss Stephenson) rose in reply to a question from my House leader on the disgraceful statistics with respect to positions of women in higher authority in the Ontario educational system. She said there had been "some very significant initiatives in the past four or five years in the Ministry of Education related specifically to the roles played by women in the educational system."

Last night, in the minister's address to the chairmen and directors of school boards, he directly contradicted her. He said, "The overall picture is still pretty grim," with some statistics "being nothing short of appalling." How does he explain the contradiction between the glowing words of the minister in the House on Monday and his pretty appalling comments last night about the school boards and their lack of initiative?

10:20 a.m.

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, it will come as no surprise to my friend that as far as my colleague and I are concerned there is no contradiction. We share the same information base.

I was at the conference to which the honourable member makes reference. It is a very impressive conference, well represented as far as the educational community is concerned. My colleague addresses that meeting today at noon and we are together in our resolve, along with the co-operation we expect from the educational leadership of this province, to continue to make some significant progress in the name of equality of access and advancement. There is no contradiction and no difference of opinion on this subject between my colleague and me.

Mr. Wrye: I want to talk a little about the co-operation the minister asked for last night. In his speech, of which I have a copy, he laid out the problem and some targets. He suggested 30 per cent would be an appropriate target. I am sure the minister is aware that we would have to more than double the number of elementary school principals who are women, we would have to more than triple the number of secondary school vice-principals who are women, and overall we would have to add nearly 2,000 women to senior administrative roles in the schools of Ontario to reach even that target of 30 per cent, which is a very modest target.

When the crunch came, the minister said last night, and I quote him, "Will you please make an immediate and public commitment to significantly improve the representation of women in your administrative ranks?" My question is, why did he plead with them last night? Why did he not simply order them to end this disgraceful situation rather than going once more, cap in hand, saying: "Please, please do something. It is all very embarrassing"?

Hon. Mr. Welch: We had a very tremendous meeting last night. It was positive. I was encouraged and I am optimistic. I was dealing with some very intelligent people. I felt I was making a presentation to those who would see the merit in the name of fairness, equity and justice in advancing the cause of women throughout their systems.

The member made references to initiatives. The initiatives are in place. I am sure many in that audience would agree that it was results we were talking about, or the lack of results. I feel quite confident, thinking of the representation there from the educational community, that significant progress will be made.

I do not make any apology for presenting the case in the way I did, inviting people to accept this challenge on their own without having Big Brother or Big Sister government coming along once again, telling them something with respect to legislation and regulation. I have confidence in the voluntary response that will come from that community.

Ms. Bryden: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask a question of the Deputy Premier. In view of the fact that the principal situation proves the voluntary approach has not been working, and in view of this government's statement in the throne speech that it is going to encourage boards of education to bring in affirmative action, why will he not make it mandatory, across-the-board affirmative action, as he has presumably done in the civil service -- that is what he claims -- so there is fair treatment for all teachers throughout the province instead of their having to rely on lobbying each school board individually and trying to persuade them to adopt it?

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, I am quite convinced at this stage the voluntary approach is the proper one when dealing with reasonable people and placing the facts and figures before them. Significant progress has been made in a number of school boards, and my colleague the Minister of Education will be sharing that information with the conference today at lunch. There are school boards that have made very significant progress and have some results about which they can be quite proud and which they no doubt will share.

At this stage, we should stay with the voluntary approach and do so with some optimism. The legislative approach is always available; it would be a matter of timing if it would be necessary at all. Why not respect the fact that people now recognize this as a very important issue and attach a very high priority to it? I am quite confident we will see some important strides made in this regard.

Mr. Wrye: It would be well and fine if the minister were standing in his place and this were March 30, 1976, saying, "I have confidence in their ability," but this is 1984.

Last night the minister alluded to the fact that the taxpayers of Ontario, particularly the women, have a right to expect more from their publicly funded institutions. Why is he trying to shift the responsibility for this mess on to the school boards by saying the onus is on them? I would remind the minister the ultimate onus is on him and his colleague in the government of Ontario. The title of last night's conference was Focus on Leadership. Is it not about time the minister started showing some leadership in this regard?

Hon. Mr. Welch: The employers in this situation are the school boards. We have respected the autonomy of the school boards. I remind members that school boards are elected. I reminded the trustees who were there, as the employer, that 54 per cent of their electorate were women. That happens to be the democratic process. The message should be quite clear. They are accountable to their electorate, 54 per cent of whom are women. It is about time they got busy and recognized that, because the people of this province are expecting some results. That message was quite clear. That is the focus on leadership.

Mr. Rae: Some people would call it leadership and some would call it passing the buck. I guess it depends on where one is sitting.

PICKERING SHUTDOWN

Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Treasurer. Under the terms of the so-called Pickering payback agreement signed by the Ontario government, Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. and Ontario Hydro, certain moneys have been paid over the years to the Ontario government while Pickering units 1 and 2 were in operation. Why has the Treasurer been so secretive about the fact that in 1983 the Ontario government lost $14 million in revenues because Pickering units 1 and 2 were not in operation?

The 1984 anticipated loss is $36 million, the 1985 anticipated loss is $34 million and the 1986 anticipated loss is $37 million, for a total of $121 million in lost revenue. Why has the Treasurer been so secretive about the major impact on revenue of the shutdown at Pickering units 1 and 2? Why has he not made a full financial statement to this Legislature with respect to the impact on the budget not only of Ontario Hydro but also of Ontario, of the shutdown at Pickering for the three-and-a-half-year period?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, there has been nothing secret about it. All that information has been made available from day one. Hydro and the Minister of Energy (Mr. Andrewes) have both made clear, with regard to the real net effect of the problems the member cites, the impact felt by Hydro ratepayers and the provincial taxpayers, because part of that payback agreement does affect their obligations to the province.

There has been nothing secret about that whatever. The member may not have discovered it, he may not have read the documents, but he should not pretend there is anything secret about it. There has not been.

Mr. Rae: One cannot help but notice the contrast between the Treasurer's approach to this shortfall in revenue and the impact it will have on this province and its taxpayers, and the way the Treasurer has been scurrying around Ontario, indeed all Canada, complaining about the impact of the Canada Health Act and extra billing. If there is not a double standard there, I do not know where there is.

Can the Treasurer explain why he has been the first one to go around saying all the taxes will have to be raised because of a change in revenue sharing between the province and the federal government because of extra billing? Why has he been so prepared to do that and yet we do not have a word, a peep, a sound out of the Treasurer with respect to the impact of a shutdown at Pickering units 1 and 2 for three and a half years?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: It does not matter how many times the member repeats that story, it is not going to change the facts. All that information has been available.

Mr. Rae: Where did the Treasurer say it? When did he make a statement in the House?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: With respect, many adjustments are made in the financial statements of the government of Ontario. They are made available to members. They are public documents that are tabled. If I were to stand up and discuss in detail every one of those adjustments, there would not be time for question period or any other business in this House.

10:30 a.m.

Let us be clear. Hydro and the Minister of Energy have both made it very clear that part of the reason all that cost will not be felt by the Hydro ratepayers is because it is partially offset by the payback agreement. There has never been any secret about that. The member may not have made the connection. I would think most people who have been following this and understand it have made that connection. There is nothing sublime or complicated about it. I bet most of my colleagues on this side of the House understood that from day one.

The fact the member had not realized it until now does not change the fact that all this information has been available, has been and is public, and has been pointed out by Hydro and the Minister of Energy from day one. That is the reality. It does not matter how many times the member says it, he is not going to sell that story. It has been made public.

With regard to why there is this apparent contrast, with respect, had there been an option, a policy decision available which would have prevented the taxpayers of Ontario from having to take over part of this cost, then of course I would have been speaking publicly and privately to try to avoid a policy decision which, on balance, we believe is not reasonable or fair to the taxpayers of Ontario.

This was not a policy decision open to us in the last period of time. There was a contractual obligation set in motion a number of years ago which kicks in when these events occur. There is nothing one can do to speak out about it that is going to change a policy decision if there is a contractual obligation entered into.

Conversely, when the federal government makes a new policy decision which suddenly impacts the taxpayers of this province, it is my responsibility to speak out about that and --

Mr. Conway: I heard an answer, Mr. Speaker.

The Deputy Speaker: He is just wrapping up.

Mr. Kerrio: Mr. Speaker, with the projected borrowings of Ontario Hydro over the next 20 years, suggested to be some $60 million, is the minister not concerned that in the first instance this is going to have some impact on the rating of the province vis-a-vis Ontario Hydro? Does the minister not think the Power Corporation Act should be looked into by his government and more accountability be brought to bear in Ontario Hydro?

The fact that over the years he has told us he does not want it to be a political football is a lot of something that is not credible, because in 1975, when the then honourable minister Darcy McKeough decided to put the brakes on Hydro, he just decided he would sort of hold back and limit its borrowings.

Does the minister not think it is time the highly complex, overextended, overborrowed Hydro was brought into some credibility with his government and the people of Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, the answer to the first question is no.

The answer to the second is, there are tests put on Hydro, not only inside Ontario, not only by the Ontario Energy Board and the Ministry of Energy, but also by the people who lend Hydro billions of dollars every year. I think it is safe to say if they thought they were lending money to an organization whose spending was out of control, which was bloated and every other adjective the member used, that indeed would be grounds for them wondering about the borrower, the same as any borrower.

To date, the Hydro bonds guaranteed by the government of Ontario -- which has at least an equally good record for management or else the triple-A credit rating would not be in place -- still sell without much difficulty among the best in the world. That is the biggest vote of confidence and one cannot suggest it is a political vote of confidence or political whitewashing of the situation. It is a market response, a market analysis to perhaps the best utility in the world. They buy their bonds, they are anxious for them.

Mr. Rae: It is not a market response and the Treasurer knows it. If there were a free market, the answer would be quite different and the Treasurer is aware of that too. It is simply because the government of Ontario is guaranteeing those bonds.

I would like to get back to ask a basic point of the Treasurer about the result of the information -- and I say with great respect to the Treasurer, I have never heard him, any spokesman for the government or the Minister of Energy say anything about this --

The Deputy Speaker: Question.

Mr. Rae: -- that as a result of the Pickering payback agreement the government of Ontario is going to be losing $121 million in revenues.

The Deputy Speaker: Question.

Mr. Rae: Given the fact that every other major jurisdiction in North America is reassessing the economics of nuclear power in the light of the new information and the new, tough realities about nuclear power, why is the Treasurer not pressing the government of Ontario to do the same?

Instead of simply going on with the blinkered approach he has reannounced today, saying there is no choice, there is nothing else to be done and there are no alternatives, why does he not take a fresh approach and a fresh look at what the economic costs and benefits of nuclear power really are?

To the ratepayers and taxpayers, $121 million is a lot of money, as he pointed out when he complained about the $50 million the government is not going to be getting from the federal government because of the commitment to extra billing. Why is he not expressing that concern within the government? Why is he not pressing for a public inquiry into the economics of nuclear power to guarantee that the future of this province is going to be as flexible, as prudent and as fiscally responsible as it needs to be to guarantee we are not simply building great blocks of electrical generation which are going to end up costing us far more than we can really afford as a province?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Many of those issues have been debated many times by the member and the Minister of Energy. The member has not succeeded in making the case with the minister, so we need not go over it again.

Mr. Kerrio: He is an apologist for Hydro. You cannot make the minister --

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I have read the reports of the select committee on Ontario Hydro affairs and how the member's colleagues voted, too.

I only say to the leader of the third party that while I regret ruining his morning with the scrum outside, before he gets too outraged about the loss, as he would have it, of an arrangement we entered into related to the nuclear payback agreement, I should tell him that to date under that agreement the taxpayers have made $216 million; that is, the government of Ontario, the consolidated revenue fund. The taxpayers have benefited by $216 million to date under that same agreement.

He will notice I did not stand up and announce that bonus or windfall, because it is neither a bonus nor a windfall. We declared it from the start of that agreement to date. From the start of that agreement to date, we have so far made $216 million or, to put it in some perspective, a 14 per cent return on our money. For a $116-million investment, we have so far made $216 million.

That information has been available each and every year as to the profit we have made, the same as the reduction in profit will now show up as a result of the events which have occurred.

Let us be honest and fair about it. (a) That information has been available. (b) We have made a large profit on that transaction. (c) That profit will still be there, though in smaller numbers as a result of these events. (d) We gave as much information about the success of that investment and the return on that investment as we did about the consequences of these events. In all cases, it was equal, full and public disclosure in the normal course.

If the member will think about it for a moment, we must do all of that to file the necessary documents to raise money in the money markets.

[Later]

Mr. Kerrio: Mr. Speaker, on a point of privilege: When I was putting a question to the Treasurer as to whether the triple-A rating of Ontario Hydro was in jeopardy because of its borrowings and I referred to the projected borrowings of Ontario Hydro, I may have said "in the order of $60 million." I should have said it is $64 billion that Ontario Hydro is proposing to borrow, and I wanted that to be very clear in the record because, of course, then the triple-A rating would be jeopardized.

PART-TIME EMPLOYMENT

Mr. Rae: Mr. Speaker, my next question is for the Minister of Labour and it concerns the plight of the 712,000 part-time workers in Ontario, 70 per cent of whom are women.

Given the full-blown statements that were made in the speech from the throne, can the minister confirm that the number of regular part-time employees -- and I emphasize the use of the word "regular" in the speech from the throne -- who are going to be covered by the ministry's initiative is somewhere between 3,000 and 3,400, and that this contrasts with an unclassified staff in the public sector of about 12,644? Can the minister confirm that is the case? Can he tell us what the government plans to do for the roughly 9,000 part-time employees in the public sector who are not covered by the government's initiative?

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Speaker, the collective agreement with the Ontario Public Service Employees Union on working conditions and employee benefits is currently under negotiation, and the issue of regular part-time employment is on the table.

Mr. Rae: I did not hear an answer to the question. I asked a simple question with respect to what the government's policy is.

Who exactly is being covered? The government put out a throne speech. All sorts of numbers are thrown around. The fact of the matter is it appears its initiative is intended to cover only about a quarter of the people who are working part-time in the public sector.

10:40 a.m.

My supplementary question to the minister is simply this. From February 1981 to February 1984 -- and the minister knows this -- as a province we have lost 48,000 full-time jobs and have gained 71,000 part-time jobs. This means the trend in the economy is very clear. Full-time jobs are being replaced by part-time jobs in the private sector as well as in the public sector.

Why was there no mention in the throne speech of measures to be undertaken on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of private-sector workers who have no protection in terms of pensions, vacation pay and fringe benefits and who have no access to the benefits which so many full-time workers have? Why was there no mention of those hundreds of thousands of people, and what will the minister be doing for those part-time workers in the private sector?

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: I have a particular interest in that problem in that my wife is a part-time worker. It seems to me, from my conversations with her, that she is getting some of the benefits the leader of the third party has described, such as holiday pay. That is already on the statutes.

Mr. Conway: Mr. Speaker, the minister will know that, together with some of his colleagues, the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Pope) has embarked on a very aggressive campaign to reduce full-time complement within that government ministry. Once the throne speech was before us, I called the Civil Service Commission to see whether or not the thousands of permanent casual workers within the Ministry of Natural Resources, for example, many of whom work in the Sault Ste. Marie area -- certainly they work in my part of the province -- will be covered in a way that the throne speech indicated.

At that time, 10 days ago, the Civil Service Commission did not know. Will the commitment that was spoken of in the throne speech be effective for the thousands of permanent casuals who are working for the Ontario government and who in many cases are finding that the number of their working weeks is being reduced and their benefits are being reduced as well?

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Speaker, I cannot speak for my colleague the Minister of Natural Resources. I can just repeat what I said earlier that the issue of regular part-time employment is on the table in ongoing negotiations.

Mr. Rae: The minister knows that seventy per cent of the part-time workers in this province are women. The minister also knows that every single brief which has been done on the situation of part-time workers in the work place today demonstrates unequivocally that they are prejudiced against in terms of many fringe benefits, and in particular, in most cases they are not entitled to participate in pension plans. There is nothing in the Employment Standards Act which provides them with any protection with regard to pension plans.

What is the minister intending to do with respect to the Employment Standards Act to ensure that part-time workers will be able to get a pension when they retire and will not continue to receive the same kind of systematic discrimination that is now being practised against them?

Hon. Mr. Ramsay: The member for York South knows what was in the throne speech in respect to the public sector. I have every confidence that will serve as an incentive to the private sector and many of the part-time employees there will begin to receive benefits from the private sector on a voluntary basis. I also feel this is a staged progress by beginning the system in the public sector, and it will continue on into the private sector.

TOBACCO TAXES

Mr. G. I. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I have a very important question for the Treasurer. As he considers the options available to him for raising the revenue required to finance this year's budget, I would like again to bring to his attention the effect the ad valorem tobacco tax is having on the tobacco farmers in my area of Ontario.

It was brought to the attention of the meeting of the Ontario rural municipalities task force in Simcoe that this area of the province, which produces 93 per cent of Canada's tobacco crop, could be faced with a loss equivalent to the production of 500 to 800 producers this year as a result of the ad valorem tax, which I might indicate has increased by 167 per cent since 1981. Has the Treasurer given this fact some consideration as he ponders the tax measures for this year's budget, particularly when he considers the potential job loss for some 5,000 workers associated with these 500 to 800 tobacco producers?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, yes, of course. We have not spent more time with any single group since I became Treasurer than with representatives of the tobacco industry in total, including the manufacturers and growers. In fact, my colleague the Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. Timbrell) and I met with their representatives on Wednesday of this week. I think they would report to the member that we had a very constructive and helpful meeting.

The concerns and the impact of the tax changes have been brought to my attention many times by the member for Oxford (Mr. Treleaven), the member for Elgin (Mr. McNeil) and others. From the day the impact of these tax changes first became quite apparent, they have been very effective in putting the case to me with regard to the need to keep in mind the impact of tobacco taxes on the tobacco farmers. Because of that, when we met in Ottawa in December with the finance ministers, we raised the question of the tax-on-tax spiral that has really caused this enormous price increase in the last little while.

I have already indicated our government is looking into dealing with the tax-on-tax spiral. That is not to say we are going to succeed, but we are trying to find a way to help alleviate that problem. We must do that in the context of understanding that the main spiral effect emanates out of the federal government's change in its tax policy.

Interjection.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: That is a fact. The member's colleague will not deny that. He will tell the member that is what caused the problem.

In any case, might I say we had a very good meeting this week. While I am still several weeks away from having to make recommendations to my colleagues on tax changes, the sensitivity of the tobacco crops to tax changes in this province is well known to us and we are spending a great deal of time on it.

Mr. G. I. Miller: I appreciate the fact that some of our other colleagues in the House have brought it to the Treasurer's attention, but I would like to make it very clear to the minister that the 500 to 800 tobacco producers that it is anticipated will be lost could well be young farmers who will probably never return. Does the Treasurer not agree it will be Ontario that will be the big loser here because the industry provides from 35,000 to 45,000 jobs annually at harvest time and creates more than $500 million in taxes for Ontario?

The tobacco farmers do not mind paying their fair share of tax, but when the province takes 63 cents of every $1.06 on a package of 20 cigarettes while the feds take 43 cents, I think the province is the aggressor here. I think it is time the Treasurer reduced the ad valorem tax because it is within his jurisdiction to do that. I am asking him to do that now so the industry may survive in Ontario.

The Deputy Speaker: Does the minister wish to reply?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: There was no question.

Mr. G. I. Miller: I asked the Treasurer to reduce the ad valorem tax.

The Deputy Speaker: Order. With all due respect to the minister, the member asked the minister to do something rather than for an answer. I think we did have a complete answer to the original question.

An hon. member: Oh, no, we did not. We did not have a complete answer.

The Deputy Speaker: It sure went on.

Mr. Breaugh: Mr. Speaker, could I ask the minister if he is reviewing, and I take it from his statement that in a way he is, or is he prepared to review the concept of automatic, unannounced taxes on taxes as being wrong? Is that what this "tax-on-tax spiral" stuff is all about?

10:50 a.m.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, let me say there are no unannounced tax increases. Let me also say the last time there was an --

Mr. Wildman: It is automatic.

Mr. Breaugh: I did not see the announcement about the last one.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: The last time there was an adjustment in tobacco tax because of the particular system in place was in January, when the system that is currently in place caused a modest reduction in the tobacco tax that is being levied this quarter. It was announced or implemented in the same way all other tax changes are implemented. There is nothing secret about that system. In fact, it is the very knowledge of that system that is causing people to be concerned, and I think they have some reason to be concerned about that spiralling system.

TELEPHONE RATES

Mr. Swart: Mr. Speaker, I would like to put a question to the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations on the request just made by Bell Canada Enterprises to increase the private telephone rate by six per cent and to increase most of the other rates by six per cent.

In view of the fact that there has been a 50 per cent increase in telephone rates in Metro since 1980 and similar increases elsewhere in Ontario, and in view of the fact that Bell has increased its profit by 200 per cent since 1980, with 25 cents of every customer's dollar now going into the company's gross profits, would the minister not agree with me that this request by Bell is preposterous?

Would he not make a forceful request to the federal government and make an application to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission for a reduction in rates so this giant monopoly will be prevented from its ongoing practice of gouging its Ontario customers?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: Mr. Speaker, as the member for Welland-Thorold well knows, matters related to Bell's telephone rate increases are in the domain of the Minister of Transportation and Communications (Mr. Snow), but of course we make our views known to him.

I would like to make it clear, however, that when he singles out those particular rates, he fails to mention, from the information I have available to me at the present time, that the overall revenue increases from the total package that has been presented to the federal government do come well within the guidelines they have proposed for themselves.

For him to take out part of it without telling the whole story may do him some political good, and it is in line with the way he usually deals with things -- by visiting Buffalo and finding a can of apple juice that is a little cheaper there than it is here -- but it never tells the whole story. That is the problem he has.

Certainly, we will be reviewing the total application, minus the apple juice, and we will be conveying our views to the minister so that if there is an appropriate presentation to be made, it will be made.

Mr. Swart: That is a pretty dead line for the people of Ontario.

The minister must recognize that his government has a five per cent guideline on salary and wage incomes. When will he and his government show some fairness and intervene to demand that the income of Bell, a monopoly that has never felt the depression, be subject to the same restraint as the other segments of society, recognizing that it had a 20 per cent increase in its income last year?

Would he not agree that the application of the new chip and computer technology to Bell's operations by its very nature permits it to increase its profits massively even if it gets little or no increase in rates? For instance, in the last two years it has cut its work force by 4,000 while increasing profits by 25 per cent. Does the minister not think that customers should get part of the saving instead of all of it going into Bell's profits?

Hon. Mr. Elgie: As I said, we will be analysing the material that is available to us to give our views to the Minister of Transportation and Communications so that it may be conveyed to the federal government in line with the review that will take place here.

But let me say from my knowledge that during the period of wage and price restraint within the public sector there has not been an increase awarded to Bell that was outside the guidelines proposed by the federal government. If the member has information to the contrary, he should stand up and say so, but he should not start plucking out little things, as he likes to do, without telling the whole story.

GRANGE COMMISSION INQUIRY

Ms. Copps: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Attorney General. The minister will no doubt recall his own words in establishing the Grange commission inquiry. He said: "The terms of reference for the commission expressly provide that the inquiry is not to involve any conclusion of law regarding civil or criminal responsibility. This provision was made to ensure that the commission would not function or be regarded as a criminal or civil trial. Trial by commission of inquiry is simply a concept that is totally foreign to the laws and the traditions of this province."

In view of the minister's already-stated strong feelings on this subject, if the Court of Appeal upholds the Divisional Court decision to allow the naming of names by the commission of inquiry, will the minister immediately amend the order in council to change that authority and to clarify his already-stated intentions regarding the purpose of this commission?

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: Mr. Speaker, as the member quite accurately states, this matter is before the Court of Appeal. Through my counsel who appeared before the Court of Appeal, we expressed our concerns in the context of the remarks the honourable member has just mentioned. It would be presumptuous of me to speculate at this point about what we might do in the event of a decision we have not yet received. At this time I do not intend to speculate as to what might or might not be an appropriate course of action, but simply to await the Court of Appeal's decision, which I think will be a useful guidepost for us all.

Ms. Copps: The minister is no doubt aware that in this instance speed is an issue that should be considered. I am not asking the minister to speculate on the Court of Appeal's decision. He has already stated quite clearly to this House, "The object of a royal commission is to determine the facts, not to try individuals or institutions, and this consideration is sufficient to guide the commissioner in the performance of his duty."

In view of his already-stated intention that this is not a criminal or civil trial, will he not assure this House that if the Court of Appeal decision allows the naming of names, he will be prepared immediately to redraft the terms of reference of the royal commission to make sure his already-stated intentions are guaranteed, and that those individuals who are involved in the process will be provided the protection he assured this House was going to be provided to them when he announced the original royal commission?

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: There is no question in my mind that it would be most inappropriate and perhaps even improper for me to make any such statement pending the decision of the Court of Appeal.

The matter is before the Court of Appeal and is obviously being given careful consideration by five members of that court. It would be inappropriate for me to state anything in this House that might be interpreted as an attempt to influence that decision one way or the other, and that would be the interpretation some would place on the statement the member is inviting. I have to repeat what I have said. I do not intend to say anything about the matter as far as the terms of reference are concerned until we have a decision by the Court of Appeal.

COMMUNITY GRANTS

Mr. Cooke: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Treasurer. The Treasurer will be aware that over the last number of years the city of Windsor has been hard hit by the economic depression, specifically in the auto industry. Why has the government decided to end the special grants that are given to communities that are hard hit in recognition of the extra strain that has been put on those communities? Why was it the government's decision that Windsor is no longer going to qualify for those grants, especially when one considers that our city still has nearly 20,000 unemployed people registered with the Canada Employment and Immigration Commission and looking for work, which works out to nearly 17 per cent of the work force.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, the decisions with regard to the allocations of the moneys we make available under that program are within the responsibility of my colleague the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing (Mr. Bennett). I might suggest the member redirect the question to him.

11 a.m.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Mr. Speaker, in relation to the question that has been asked about the special grants to various municipalities across the province, the honourable member will realize we released a list this past Wednesday that affected some 30 communities.

When we were trying to determine how we could help some of the municipalities that have experienced rather large tax increases and at the same time have experienced high unemployment factors, we did the same as we did last year and took the average of the unemployment situation in Ontario, which came to a 10.4 per cent position over a 12-month period, and added a factor that would try to compensate some of the excessively high unemployment areas in the province.

We used a 40 per cent increase factor, which brought us to a 14.5 per cent unemployment average over the 12-month period. From that point, we moved forward to grant on a per capita basis an allocation of funding to try to absorb some of the extra costs and some of the difficulties those municipalities are facing. l have a limited amount of money, and this formula we have worked out seems to have been able to resolve some of the problems. I acknowledge the fact that it does not resolve them all.

Mr. Cooke: If the minister is using Statistics Canada figures, which I assume he is, he must be aware that those figures are completely and totally inaccurate on a community-by-community basis. In fact, when the city of Windsor was having its dispute with the Canada Employment and Immigration Commission, this government supported Windsor's position that the Statscan figures were totally inaccurate on a local basis.

I am wondering how the minister can possibly make determinations on special grants based on Statscan figures, recognizing that the Ministry of Industry and Trade goes by a figure of around 17 per cent unemployment in Windsor and recognizing that the figures of people registered with the Canada Employment and Immigration Commission point out very clearly there are 20,000 people unemployed in the city of Windsor, which represents nearly 17 per cent of the work force.

The city is still suffering. Will the minister reconsider the government's decision and take a second look at whether Windsor should receive the special grant?

Hon. Mr. Bennett: I acknowledge the fact that we use Statscan figures. Obviously they are the only figures at this moment that have a degree of being accepted on a universal basis, not only in Ontario but also in Canada. While there always will be disputes as to whether they are absolutely correct, when I come to try to design a formula, I must use one set of figures for a common situation throughout the grant formula basis in the province.

In relation to the last request of the member, yes, I will review the situation in Windsor. I understand the mayor has been trying to reach me this morning.

Mr. Cunningham: Mr. Speaker, we in Hamilton-Wentworth are very happy to receive the $1.5 million announced the day before the visit of our task force to Hamilton on Wednesday, but that barely offsets the $1.7-million decrease we are going to get in educational funding, which is simply inadequate.

Will the minister commit himself to some long-term planning so we can eliminate the ad hockery in which our school boards and our municipalities find themselves in paring down their budgets and then having to readjust when they get some pittance from this government in the last hour of the game? Will the minister commit himself to some long-term, sensible program of funding so this ad hockery can be terminated?

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Mr. Speaker, that is a rather interesting question. I do not know whether the honourable member has absented himself from listening to any of the comments that have been made by me and other members of this government.

When I attended the Association of Municipalities of Ontario annual convention, I made it abundantly clear on two specific occasions that this government is no different from any other government in the land. There are certain shortfalls in the amount of revenue we have coming in. At the same time, we are all experiencing pressures for more and more expenditures, whether they be in the health field, in municipal affairs or whatever it happens to be.

To put things very concisely and clearly, I said to the municipalities I could only give them the assurance that I would attempt to find funding within the new allocation each year, within the budget of the province. I warned them the rate of increase in transfer payments by the province would be little or nothing. I suggest most municipalities heeded that advice and accepted that warning.

As in past years, we have found ways of trying to assist municipalities which, as I said to the member for Windsor-Riverside (Mr. Cooke), have experienced some difficulties. I do not consider it a pittance, nor does Anne Jones consider it a pittance. Most municipalities that have received it do not consider it a pittance; they see it as an additional understanding by this sensitive government in trying to assist them in their financial requirements for those communities.

Mr. Cunningham: It is a pittance compared to what you did for your own municipality.

The Deputy Speaker: Order.

Mr. Cunningham: It is a pittance compared to what you gave to Ottawa.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: Let me just correct the interjection because it is on the record. Clearly, I have explained --

Mr. Rae: You cannot correct an interjection, for God's sake.

The Deputy Speaker: Order. The member is correct. The minister wished to rise on a point of order and I believe he was doing so.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: The honourable member referred to the fact that there has been a difference in the allocation going to Ottawa-Carleton and the city of Ottawa. At the time I announced the transfer payment, I think I made very clear why this happened. The member should read the facts. His is the party that raised complaints about the way we handled police grants.

The Deputy Speaker: Minister, it is not a point of order; it was an interjection.

ONTARIO BUILDING CODE

Mr. Van Horne: Mr. Speaker, I am going to ask a question to the same minister and it is rather appropriate, given the present tone, that I ask a question about fireplaces. My question of the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing relates to the Ontario Building Code.

Section 20 of the building code states that where it appears to the minister that there is or may be a failure in construction standards or in the enforcement of the building code, the minister may designate a person to conduct an inquiry into such a failure.

It has come to my attention that some home owners in a fairly new subdivision in my community have discovered that fireplace construction in their homes does not meet building code standards. The building inspection department in our community is aware of the problem but claims its hands are almost tied in this regard.

In the light of these comments, I am wondering whether the minister is prepared to designate someone to conduct an inquiry into the difficulties in the area of residential fireplace construction.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Mr. Speaker, I am not aware of the specific subdivision to which the honourable member refers. I am not about to say I will appoint anyone to do an inquiry, but I will take it under advisement and review it within the ministry and try to come to a conclusion as to whether there have been some infractions, and if so what we should do from that point on.

Mr. Van Horne: In pursuing the issue, the building inspection people tell me the existing stages for inspection, particularly in residential construction, are not adequate to accommodate that particular facet of building; that is, the heat and smoke chamber of the fireplace.

I have also been told that whereas this has been drawn to the attention of the Building Code Commission here in Toronto and the commission says it is not a problem, the fact is that it is a problem. I have pictorial proof, and I will send the minister this envelope with a graphic illustration of how inappropriate inspection does lead to a very dangerous situation. It is inappropriate because it is not inspected at a time when the inspector can see all of the chamber. What happens is that part of the chamber is bricked over or covered over and they are not able to see it in its entirety.

A suggestion has been made that a new inspection phase be brought into the code to accommodate this problem. As the minister considers the matter, will he please look into the addition of an inspection stage to accommodate this problem?

Hon. Mr. Bennett: One of the things we are most concerned about under the building code is the life safety factors. If the problem the member refers to is in any way reducing the life safety factors in the construction of homes or units in this province, we are most concerned about it. I will await the information he has. I will take it under advisement with my senior staff in the building code branch. As he knows, we are going through some revisions right now with building codes to try to improve them, upgrade them, to make them even more workable for the consumers and the builders.

If there are some difficulties in this respect, certainly we will be more than anxious to make sure that they are corrected and that the proper inspection is carried out at the proper time so whatever corrections have to be made can be made. I thank the member for raising the question.

11:10 a.m.

FAMILY LAW REFORM

Ms. Bryden: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Attorney General. Will the Attorney General tell the House exactly what is meant by the extremely vague statements relating to the Family Law Reform Act in that massive obscurity presented as a throne speech on March 20?

The speech says, "The definition of family property will be reviewed." I thought the Attorney General had been reviewing it for the past 15 months after his December 1982 statement to that effect. Second, the throne speech says, "In order to maintain the integrity of the Family Law Reform Act, amendments will be proposed."

In view of the fact that many women and some men are suffering severe hardship from the deficiencies in that act, will he let us know when he plans to introduce these promised amendments?

Also, is he really intending to recognize what the preamble to the act says, that marriage is a form of partnership, and to provide for equal sharing of all assets, including pensions, registered retirement savings plans, insurance policies and business assets acquired during marriage, as was recommended by the Ontario Law Reform Commission in 1974 and as is done under the laws of Saskatchewan, Alberta and Manitoba?

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: Mr. Speaker, first of all, I hope the honourable member recognizes, as the majority of the public does, that the Family Law Reform Act that was passed in this Legislature and became law at the end of March 1978 is one of the most important pieces of reform legislation this Legislature has passed in many years.

Despite any existing problems with respect to that legislation, I hope the member does recognize that the existing legislation has provided a very significant measure of fairness, equity and justice for individuals who are caught up in the very unhappy situation that almost invariably follows any marriage breakdown.

In responding to the member's question, I do not want anyone to think I regard the existing Family Law Reform Act as containing some very significant problems when it comes to dealing with these matters in an equitable manner. It is important to recognize, particularly with so much emphasis on the issue of family assets, that although there is not a presumption of the sharing of business assets, the courts in many cases have attached business assets to arrive at a fair conclusion, and the act at the present time is working well.

The issue of the redefinition of family assets is being addressed; it has been under very careful review, as the member pointed out, for 15 months. It is a very difficult and important issue; the Deputy Premier (Mr. Welch) and I have had many conversations in relation to this issue, and we both have been giving it a very high priority.

I expect legislation will be introduced before the end of this spring; and once cabinet has reached a decision, I further expect the initiatives that Ontario is taking on a national basis with respect to the more effective enforcement of support and maintenance orders also will be a matter of some importance.

PETITION

EQUAL PAY FOR WORK OF EQUAL VALUE

Mr. Mancini: Mr. Speaker, I have a petition signed by people from Leamington, Chatham, Windsor, Kingsville, Amherstburg, Colchester South and St. Clair Beach.

"To the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

"We, the undersigned, beg leave to petition the parliament of Ontario as follows:

"Whereas women in Ontario still earn only 60 per cent of the wages of men; whereas women are still concentrated in a very small number of occupations; and whereas unanimous approval of the concept of equal pay for work of equal value was expressed in the Ontario Legislature in October 1983,

"We petition the Ontario Legislature to amend Bill 141 to include equal pay for work of equal value and to introduce mandatory affirmative action."

INTRODUCTION OF BILL

DAYLIGHTER ACT

Mr. Breaugh moved, seconded by Mr. Mackenzie, first reading of Bill 21, An Act to amend the Highway Traffic Act.

Motion agreed to.

Mr. Breaugh: Mr. Speaker, this amendment to the Highway Traffic Act comes during a week known as Daylighter Week. It provides for the use of low-beam headlights at all times when motor vehicles are on the highways. The short title of the bill is the Daylighter Act.

I believe it is a cost-efficient and relatively useful technique which, according to the federal Department of Transport, will reduce accidents on the highways by up to 20 per cent. The statistics do vary somewhat in other jurisdictions; some have achieved in excess of a 30 per cent reduction in accidents by this rather simple, cost-effective technique.

11:20 a.m.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

THRONE SPEECH DEBATE (CONTINUED)

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

Mr. Mancini: Mr. Speaker, last night I had about 40 minutes to comment on the government's throne speech. I know other members are anxious to get their views on the record. I hope to be able to wrap up in a few moments.

I will take to heart the comments you made to me this morning about not being overly mean to the government. I want to promise you, in the best way I possibly can, I will not be mean to the government. However, I have to be fair and positive, I have to make the record clear and I certainly have to judge the government's record. If it seems as though I am being mean, I do not really think I am; it is just that the record of the government is so poor.

This morning we heard my colleague the member for Windsor-Sandwich (Mr. Wrye) question the Minister of Education (Miss Stephenson) concerning statements she had made about affirmative action in the school system. We heard comments made by the Minister responsible for Women's Issues (Mr. Welch), and we could see by comparing the quotes made by these two ministers that they are in direct contradiction.

This is a major problem we face in the province. There was some vague comment made in the speech from the throne that this matter was going to be looked at and was somehow going to be resolved. The matter will never be improved until the government itself knows exactly what it wants to do, when the cabinet ministers know what they want to do and when they can get together and agree on what they want to do. That is the only way we will be able to resolve the unfairness which exists in the school system where even the women who want to be principals and vice-principals and are very capable of doing that work are not given the opportunity, even though they have the ability. We will never be able to make the system fair unless we have the leadership, co-ordination and dedication from this government to make it happen.

We have seen from the statistics quoted the situation is worse now than it was in the past. In my view, this is shameful. Last night I mentioned that I spoke to the Essex County Women Teachers Association a year ago and I have done some research on my own in this matter. I was truly shocked. I was not aware of just how poorly women were represented in senior posts in our school system.

The government mentioned in the throne speech that the matter of the Ontario Board of Censors was in the courts and the government was committed to ensuring that violence against women and movies of such nature were going to be censored. Those are the types of statements we have been hearing from the government.

When the government knows -- it has a decision from the Supreme Court which is about a year old -- the existing legislation under which the censor board operates is not valid, I do not understand why the Attorney General (Mr. McMurtry) would not come forward with legislation to change the present legislation so that the censor board can go on with its work.

I know a number of members of this House have visited the censor board and we have seen what they referred to as the outakes. I believe the majority of members who have seen those outakes agree some of that nonsense and unnecessary violence in movies, especially violence perpetrated against women, is really nothing but trash and a mechanism to desensitize people watching the movies and unfortunately making it appear that these things are normal. They are not normal, they are very perverted. I want the board to be able to do its job and I want the government to move on the new legislation that is necessary.

We get a lot of statements from the government that it wishes to do this, that and the other, but here it has an opportunity. They already have a judgement from the Supreme Court. They know what is lacking in the law and how to tighten it up. I wish they would get on with it instead of making further vague comments in the throne speech which serve no purpose at all.

The throne speech mentioned the important matter of nursing homes and chronic care beds. I have made personal representation to the Deputy Minister of Community and Social Services and have brought to his attention the fact that we are short of nursing home beds in the constituency of Essex South. I know from speaking with my colleagues on all sides of the House and from reading information on this subject we are short of nursing home beds all across this province.

The government talked in the throne speech about taking care of the elderly. They said society is judged on how we take care of our elderly. If we are not going to make nursing home beds available to our elderly, if we are not going to make chronic care beds available to our elderly, we know how to judge this government exactly.

We know they make a lot of statements and they try to paper over things, but when the time comes to place resources where they are needed, for some reason they are not there -- possibly because they have already spent all the money on Suncor to give them a window in the oil industry. I am sure when the Premier (Mr. Davis) looks out that window some time next week he might figure out why Shell Canada is going to take 1,000 jobs from the province.

Mr. Wildman: The window is fogged up.

Mr. Mancini: It is a foggy window, yes. The member for Algoma is correct.

It is terribly expensive, as we all know, to keep our elderly citizens in hospitals, where it costs anywhere from $140 to $180 a day, when it would cost anywhere from $40 to $65 a day to keep them in nursing home beds This is not only a travesty, but also a tremendous waste of dollars.

We have very few dollars in Ontario to waste. On a regular basis, we are getting close to anywhere from a $2.4-billion to $2.8-billion annual deficit. We have no dollars to waste. Why a government would sit back and allow this to happen, I do not know. They are the ones who have to provide the answers. People such as my friend the member for Scarborough-Ellesmere (Mr. Robinson), who may be going to take part in the throne speech debate later on, might tell us why his government wishes to do that. I see he wants to stand immediately. If he just hangs on, he will have his turn.

In regard to the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, I mentioned the Highway 401 service centres and other matters last night. Since I did not have time last night, I want to take this opportunity to remind the House -- I notice Mr. Speaker has just put on white gloves. I am not sure what that means. If there is anybody I know who looks good in white gloves, it is you, sir.

More than a year ago I brought to the attention of the House the shenanigans of the Urban Transportation Development Corp. when it was found out this corporation had a subsidiary corporation called Metro Canada. The subsidiary corporation of this crown corporation, under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, had gone out to Vancouver and had purchased four very expensive homes.

I have in front of me a photograph of one of the homes, which cost more than $335,000. I can see a huge home with plush surroundings and a "For sale" sign in the front. UTDC bought these homes, spending nearly $1 million, so four executives could live in plush surroundings in Vancouver. Less than a year later the crown corporation was forced to sell the homes. I am told the reason is that the executives for whom the homes were bought had quit and left the corporation.

11:30 a.m.

Mr. Kerrio: Were they Canadians?

Mr. Mancini: I am not sure.

Mr. Kerrio: I think three were Americans.

Mr. Mancini: That is a good question; it will be put to the minister.

Mr. Kerrio: That is the big insult.

Mr. Mancini: I want to thank the member for Niagara Falls for bringing that to my attention. We should ask the Minister of Transportation and Communications (Mr. Snow) whether or not these four executives were Canadians; not that it makes this unbelievable deal any better.

It was also brought to the attention of the House at that time that this same crown corporation, the Urban Transportation Development Corp., had more than 26 executive-style vehicles available for its executives. Everybody from the janitor on up to the president of the corporation was supplied with a very fancy and expensive car -- a shameful display of wasting government and taxpayers' dollars.

When I brought this to the attention of the minister, he said there was no waste of money. He said, "This is the way business is conducted in Ontario, and you will see that we are going to come out of this without any losses." The Minister of Transportation and Communications may think this is the way business should be done in Ontario, but this party does not believe this is the way business should be done in our province. We do not have $1 million to waste so that executives can live in plush surroundings in Vancouver.

Recently, on February 17, 1984, the Globe and Mail did a review of the subject. It stated that since these executives had now quit their jobs, the Urban Transportation Development Corp., an agency of this government, was forced to sell these homes; and this crown corporation took a loss of $250,000, money that could have been used for nursing home beds and for many of the other vital things we need in this province.

It can be shown time and again it is not money we lack in this province, it is administration that we lack. We could have all the money in the world, but if it is going to be wasted and if it is going to be administered badly, we are never going to have enough money to take care of the needs of society in our province.

I want to put the Minister of Transportation and Communications on notice that he will be receiving more questions about this crown corporation, about the vehicles it provides for executives and about the nationality of its executives, whether they are Canadian or American. I know my colleague the member for Wentworth North (Mr. Cunningham), who has been a steady and diligent critic of this crown corporation, will also be putting questions.

We are not criticizing this crown corporation just because it is fun to criticize. No, we are criticizing this crown corporation because it is operating as if it were outside the jurisdiction of government, it is operating in a wasteful manner and it is wasting a valuable resource, the tax dollars we have, and we have very few of those.

Last year I brought to the attention of the Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. Timbrell) an agricultural problem we had in our province vis-a-vis Quebec. I would like to read into the record a letter of August 8, 1983, that I directed to the minister.

"Dear Mr. Timbrell:

"As you know, Essex county is one of the largest producers of the red field tomatoes serving the fresh vegetable market. Our production is in the 600- to 700-acre range. Nineteen eighty-one figures (which was a poor year) show that 8.2 million pounds were produced. Of the above production, approximately 40 per cent serves the Quebec market.

"In the last two weeks, the Quebec government officials have been preventing the distribution of Ontario tomatoes throughout the province. Quebec officials claim that only tomatoes in four-quart baskets will be allowed free distribution.

"Ontario, in conjunction with all other provinces, agreed to distribute tomatoes as well as fresh fruit, in four-litre baskets. This decision was made with the consent of the Canadian Horticultural Council, a liaison group between industry and government. Quebec was consulted on this matter and did not oppose the change from the four-quart basket to the four-litre basket.

"I have been advised that Quebec is encouraging the growth of a tomato industry which would serve the consumer demands of that province. Therefore, it appears to me that the government of Quebec is imposing an artificial tariff on Ontario-grown tomatoes. While no one would want to discourage Quebeckers in attempting to serve their own consumer market, the actions which are being taken, at the present time, are causing considerable market disruption for Essex county farmers without just cause.

"I understand that provinces have jurisdiction over commerce which takes place within their own boundaries; therefore, this matter can only be solved by agreement with Ontario and Quebec.

"I would ask that you please contact the Quebec Minister of Agriculture and do whatever is reasonably possible to try to solve this problem. As tomatoes are a perishable product, I am sure you realize the urgency of this matter."

I received the following letter, dated September 28.

"Dear Remo:

"Thank you for your letter of August 8, 1983, in which you summarized the development of the four-quart/four-litre basket issue. I share your concern for the disruption of the Quebec market for tomatoes from Essex county, and from many other areas of this province. However, as you suggest, provincial jurisdiction includes many aspects of commerce or trade within a province and the Quebec government was, in fact, within its jurisdiction in restricting trade to the imperial measure baskets."

Of course, that was quite well known. Going back to the letter:

"We have received assurances from the Quebec government that four-litre baskets will be a legal, acceptable container within Quebec once the appropriate amendments are made to the federal regulations.

"My efforts to resolve this matter, therefore, have been directed to Mr. Whelan who has indicated that the necessary amendments should be made very shortly. Mr. Whelan's assurances have been confirmed by Agriculture Canada personnel, who report that the amendments should appear in the Canada Gazette the week of September 26.

"I realize that the late passage of these amendments will stimulate few, if any, Quebec sales of Ontario field tomatoes. However, I trust that these amendments will be made and that Ontario apples and potatoes in metric containers will be permitted into Quebec in the near future."

This problem is a year old. It has been a year since we brought this to the attention of the Minister of Agriculture and Food. The problem is still not resolved.

I recently received representation from area farmers who are unsure of the Quebec government's intention to accept either four quarts or four litres -- I should say the imperial measurement or the nonimperial measurement. I have made calls myself to the Quebec Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. As of last week, they are still unsure how they are going to deal with this matter.

The Minister of Agriculture and Food has had a year to work out an agreement with the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in Quebec. We still have no agreement. What are the farmers supposed to do? Are they supposed to abandon their land? Of course not. Even you would not suggest that, Mr. Speaker, even though you are from the metropolitan area.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: What has that to do with anything?

Mr. Mancini: Why do you not get together with the Minister responsible for Women's Issues so you are saying the same thing?

11:40 a.m.

Soon it will be time for farmers to make financial decisions. We want to know where the farmers stand vis-a-vis the export of Ontario tomatoes to Quebec. We want an answer from the Minister of Agriculture and Food. We want to know if he is going to work out an arrangement so our tomatoes can be sold in Quebec. We are very disappointed that after one year we are not certain where we stand on this very important issue. With the tremendous problems farmers have had in the past two or three years because of high input costs and high interest rates, the farmers cannot survive if they are unable to produce a product and then ship it to market. I am hoping that within a very short period of time we will hear from the Minister of Agriculture and Food about what he has worked out.

All this talk about having Mr. Whelan do this and Mr. Whelan do that is typical of this government. It is another deflection of a problem to Ottawa. If anyone would take a moment to investigate how trade is conducted in this country, he would realize that once the product leaves one provincial jurisdiction and enters another provincial jurisdiction it is that province, not the government of Canada, that has sole authority and responsibility.

Mr. Whelan can ensure the tomatoes go from southwestern Ontario to Montreal, but Mr. Whelan cannot ensure that once the tomatoes get to Montreal they will be distributed throughout that province.

Mr. Shymko: What about potatoes?

Mr. Mancini: It is not a funny matter.

The Minister of Agriculture and Food and the minister from Quebec are the ones who can solve this problem, not Mr. Whelan.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Mr. Whelan could not solve anything.

Mr. Mancini: It is always nice when the Minister of Education is around. Her statements are always so clear, so firm and so --

Mr. Van Horne: Delicate.

Mr. Mancini: -- delicate. The throne speech mentioned the modernization plan for the commercial fishing industry would continue and would go into effect. Over the past few days we have seen the result of the government's modernization plan for the commercial fishing industry. It is a complete disaster.

I have received representations from just about everyone involved in the fishing industry. What this government is doing is deliberately and without compensation trying to put a great number of people out of business. This government has allowed a certain number --

Hon. Miss Stephenson: Come on, be factual and be truthful.

Mr. Mancini: The Minister of Education says, "Be factual." Let me give her an example. She has some friends in Wheatley. Yes, she does.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: His campaign manager, as a matter of fact. How is he?

Mr. Mancini: I saw him a couple of weeks ago at a federal Liberal event and he was doing quite well. I did not get a chance to speak to him personally, but when I do he always gives his best regards to the minister. Yes, that is true.

Mr. Grande: Tories and Liberals unite.

Mr. Mancini: For example, if the Minister of Education were fortunate enough, or unfortunate as is the case at the present time, to own a fishing licence, in the past her licence allowed her to catch so many thousand pounds of smelt, perch, pickerel, white bass, etc. The government has come out with a modernization plan which greatly reduces, by government order, the tonnage that a licence holder can catch. If the licence holder is unable to meet his debts because he is unable to reap the necessary harvest, is that not putting people out of business by government order?

Hon. Miss Stephenson: There are other aspects to this which the member is not mentioning.

Mr. Mancini: I see. The minister says there are other aspects. If she can give us a full explanation when she gives her reply to the throne speech, I promise to be here and to listen as closely as I can.

As the matter now stands, I know the government House leader would never be a party to this. He would never put entrepreneurs out of the business by government order. I know he is much more sensitive than that. He would not take this drastic approach to the commercial fishing industry, but I suppose he cannot get his way in cabinet and that is where the matter stands.

The commercial fishing industry provides hundreds of jobs. It has provided millions of dollars of investment and a tremendous number of export dollars for Ontario and for Canada. Large numbers, the vast majority, of the pounds caught are exported, and our province has to live on export.

Yesterday I questioned the minister in the House. As usual we did not get answers to the specific questions I asked. We always get a lecture. We always get a statement about the meetings that have taken place. Some are with him or with his bureaucrats or the fishermen -- and some are all by himself, I guess. We never get a direct answer as to what he is going to do to limit the pain that is now being felt in the commercial fishing industry.

There is no doubt in my mind that at least 30 per cent of the commercial fishermen either will go into bankruptcy because of this modernization plan or will be forced to sell their licences at tremendous losses, when one considers the huge investments required to put a boat on the water. Furthermore, the fish packers and fish processing plants also will be hurt. I would not be surprised if some of them were forced to close down or go into bankruptcy. This has been caused by the modernization plan.

I want to put on the record that the government could not come up with a plan that would satisfy everyone in the industry. I am not suggesting that to the Conservative government. Indeed, it would be impossible for them to come up with a plan that would make everyone totally satisfied, but with thought, consideration and a little bit of diligence, certainly we could come up with a plan that would satisfy the great majority of the people involved in this industry.

Last year I introduced legislation which would require that consumer contracts be readable and understandable. This matter was debated. The bill passed second reading. We had a roll-call vote. The majority of the members of this House voted to support the bill I had introduced.

Many cabinet ministers stood in their places and supported the bill I had introduced, which would protect consumers. Yet there has been no action by the government either to bring forward my bill or a similar bill of its own. What hypocrisy. If they do not think the bill is adequate or fair or if they have no intention of doing anything with it, even if they do think it is adequate and fair, they should not stand up and vote for it. They are sending out the wrong message to the consumers, to the public.

11:50 a.m.

The Globe and Mail consumer editorialist was here in the gallery that day. She reviewed the legislation extensively. She reviewed the debate that took place. As a matter of fact, she was here for the debate and wrote a column on the legislation. That column mentioned that some cabinet ministers supported the bill and that the majority of the members of the Legislature supported the bill.

Thousands of people would have read that article. Many would probably have believed that, since the majority of the members of the House were in support of such a resolution, we would soon have a law that would require consumer contracts to be readable and understandable. However, a good many months have passed, and we have seen no intention whatsoever from this government to move forward with such a bill.

I want to take this opportunity to thank the Globe and Mail for giving the in-depth review they did on this piece of legislation that I introduced. By giving an in-depth review, they were able to comment sensibly on it.

I resented very deeply the editorial that appeared in the Toronto Star picking out a minor point and trying to discredit the bill. I did not receive a single phone call from anyone at the Toronto Star asking about the bill; I do not remember a single article placed in the Star about the bill. I am somewhat surprised when an editorialist, sitting in the head office at the Toronto Star, decides to write an editorial on a matter about which I am presuming, unless I can be shown differently, he or she knew very little.

No legislation is perfect when it is introduced in the House. That is why legislation goes to committee of the whole House and to committees generally. But the actual intent of the legislation was made clear to all who were here and who followed the legislation. It was to protect consumers.

I want at this time to congratulate the few private companies that are at this time providing contracts to their clients in plain English. I say to the other companies that are not that it appears to me there is no good reason why they are not.

Some weeks ago I read in the media about an individual who had arranged a mortgage on his home. After having paid on the mortgage for some five years, when the mortgage came up for renewal he owed more money on the home than he had when he started out five years earlier. The individual was asked: "Were you aware of this? Did you understand the contract?" He said: "No, I did not understand the contract. I assumed, as everyone does, that since I was paying it, at the end of five years I would owe less than I did before." Unfortunately, the contract was written in such a way and the payments were arranged in such a way that this was not the case. This is only one example of many we could bring forward to the House that would justify plain-language contracts.

I do not want to hear the argument from the Tories that it is difficult, that it cannot be done. I do not want to hear arguments from lawyers who say, "Over 100 years we have built up traditions in the courts and certain words mean certain things." The fact is that companies that have wanted to move towards plain-language contracts have done so and have done so very well without any problems in the courts, without any problems in their corporations and with great benefit to their clients.

I want to wrap up by mentioning to the members of the assembly that if they have not already done so, they should take the opportunity when they are in the southwestern Ontario area to visit the fine county of Essex. We have many fine tourist attractions. If, for example, they were to come to Amherstburg, which is my home town, they could spend an enjoyable day on Bob-Lo Island, which is an amusement park situated right in the middle of the Detroit River, a very family-oriented park with many acres of park ground, picnic benches and amusement rides. They could also visit the North American Black Historical Museum and the Gibson Gallery. They could visit the beautiful waterfront of Amherstburg and many other fine scenic spots.

They can even come and visit me. I would love to entertain members of this House and give them a personal tour of the riding as best I can. I do not want to forget to mention Fort Malden National Historical Park, a relic from the War of 1812 that has been refurbished to a tremendous extent by the government of Canada. It is a tremendous tourist attraction with a beautiful location right on the Detroit River. It is a family oriented type of museum with park grounds etc. They could visit the southwestern Ontario --

Mr. Kennedy: Will it be an all-expenses-paid tour?

Mr. Mancini: My friend the member for Mississauga South asks, "Will it be an all-expenses-paid tour?" I am assuming he is asking if I will pick up the tab. If not too many members visit all at once, I think I can pick up part of the tab, but if they all come at the same time, I think we will have to go Dutch.

As we move easterly in my constituency, we have a museum that has been established by a local citizenry to promote interest in heritage cars. People such as Harry Bergman and others have spent hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars of their own money to turn this into a first-class tourist stop. They have made arrangements for many students and others to go through their grounds. They have spent a lot of money. I have been there myself on occasion and it is a very worthwhile stop.

As we move easterly across my riding, we are very fortunate to have the shore of Lake Erie in that part of the county. The scenery is always beautiful. Large Great Lakes ships can always be seen and the small boat industry is quite active. Many of our own citizens and citizens from Ohio and Michigan use the lake extensively for their own pleasure.

Kingsville is a very fine town with a lot of large older homes. I have always been fascinated by Kingsville, especially the older homes that have been well maintained. I think it would be worth while for any member to stop there. I spend quite a bit of time there myself meeting with the local citizenry. I was there some time ago and I met with the Rebekahs, a very strong community organization in Kingsville. They are going to remodel their building. It is of a heritage nature and is well over 100 years old. We are going to work in co-operation with the town of Kingsville and with the Ontario Heritage Foundation to have the front of that building brought back to its original form.

Kingsville has also become the host of the Highland Games. I was fortunate enough to attend last year and literally hundreds and hundreds of people interested in bagpipes and music of that nature were there. It was a tremendous success, and I am told Kingsville is going to do it again this year.

12 noon

As we continue to move easterly, we get to what is the hub of southeastern Essex county, and that is the town of Leamington, surrounded by lush farm lands and hundreds of acres of greenhouses, which my friend the Minister of Agriculture and Food has come to know very well. I take great pride in having brought the concerns of the greenhouse growers to the attention of this House over the years. For a long period of time, it had been an industry that had been completely ignored by the government of Ontario. However, that has improved over the last few years, principally because of good representation made by members of the industry and through the opportunity to meet with appropriate officials in the government.

I want to mention Duncan Allan, the former Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Food, because he did show a lot of concern for the greenhouse industry. I also have to give credit to the present minister, because he has shown deep concern for the greenhouse industry. Whenever I have represented the industry's concerns to the present minister, I have always had a full and complete hearing. Maybe we did not get everything we wanted, but we got a receptive ear.

Mr. Grande: Are you going to support him for the leadership?

Mr. Mancini: No, I am not going to support him for the leadership. When the leadership convention happens, there will be a man from Chatham who can be referred to as the Treasurer of the past and he will be competing with the Treasurer of the future --

Mr. Breaugh: I do not think this Treasurer has any future.

Mr. Mancini: I will say about the present minister there is no one who has worked any harder or who is any smarter in this time period leading up to the leadership convention --

Mr. Mackenzie: He could never handle Darcy.

Mr. Mancini: No, I do not think he can handle Darcy McKeough. I do not know what it is, but Darcy still has a lot of connections within the Conservative Party. I would love to have a general election against Darcy McKeough. We would have a lot of fun campaigning against the czar of Union Gas, the former Treasurer who wanted to increase Ontario health insurance plan rates 37 per cent and who was forced from his job.

Mr. Breaugh: By his friends, twice.

Mr. Mancini: By his friends in the Conservative cabinet.

I am being somewhat distracted. I was talking about the greenhouse industry and how important it is to Mersea township. It is very important to the town of Leamington, which has been one of the fastest-growing areas in southeastern Essex county. Truly, it is a beautiful town. It has a dynamic business community, and there are a lot of fine shops. The shopping in Leamington, the number of shops and the quality of merchandising, is every bit as good as in Windsor. I had an opportunity to attend the chamber of commerce annual banquet only a few weeks ago. They are really working to promote Leamington, as are many of the other communities in my constituency.

As we move easterly through Mersea township, we come to the very beautiful village of Wheatley in Kent county. I remember during my first election when I started to visit Wheatley, although they did not support me electorally then, I was always treated with tremendous courtesy and we got along well. However, since then, I point out to the Minister of Education, my plurality in Wheatley has been steadily going upwards.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: That is because of David, of course; it is not because of the candidate.

Mr. Mancini: The Minister of Education says it is not because of the candidate.

Mr. Wildman: Surely they are not voting for Liberal principles.

Hon. Miss Stephenson: No. They are voting on behalf of David; he is a delightful young man.

Mr. Mancini: The people of Wheatley are fine, intelligent people. Once I had an opportunity to explain to these fine folks what I wanted to do, and it sounded reasonable to them; they ultimately supported me. Over the past several years, being able to work with the municipal leaders, people in the fishing industry, etc., they have listened to some of the comments I have made, and they have increased in some measure the plurality I have been able to receive from Wheatley.

That is a quick overview of the constituency of Essex South. Recently, I received a report from the Ontario Electoral Boundaries Commission. They want to change the boundaries of the Essex county ridings, as they want to change the boundaries of other ridings across this province.

They suggested the village of Wheatley possibly should be in another constituency. I deeply regret that temporary decision by the commission. I will do whatever possible, and I will use whatever persuasive measures and powers I have to convince the commission that Wheatley has a community of interests with the town of Leamington and the township of Mersea and, therefore, should be left within the Essex South constituency.

Since we are talking about the nature of the county and the nature of Essex South, it is also no secret that for more than 100 years we have had a tradition of boundaries running east and west. Those boundaries are also respected in that way by the Essex county council on a yearly basis. They elect a county warden from the north, then from the south and then from the north again. This tradition has continued for more than 100 years.

I was deeply appalled when I heard that some members of the local Conservative organization and of the local socialist organization were going to go before the commission and suggest they should disregard this more than 100-year-old tradition and, instead of having the boundaries run east and west, change them to run north and south.

I will gladly accept the decision of the commission, but I say to those people who wish to dismantle that tradition, to the socialists and the Conservatives, they will have to explain their position to the residents of Essex South in the coming election. They will have to explain to some of the municipalities why they are hesitant in representing them. That will be a lot of fun. I am going to have a lot of fun in the upcoming election.

Mr. Breaugh: He is threatening to become accountable to the people of Essex South. What a threat.

Mr. Mancini: I want to tell the member for Oshawa (Mr. Breaugh) that I still have that famous orange button. It says, "Mike was always my first choice."

Mr. Breaugh: Mr. Speaker, on a point of privilege: You cannot allow him to slander me like that.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Cousens): I do not think it sounded like slander.

Mr. Mancini: After the resignation of Stephen Lewis, I sought out the member for Oshawa and obtained one of these very important and historic buttons. I still have it in my office today. When the member decides he should again contest the leadership, I will be prepared. I will already have my button and I will gladly wear it in the chamber and around Queen's Park to show my tremendous support and respect for the member for Oshawa.

The Acting Speaker: The member for Essex South is proving the point that we can talk about anything in the debate on the speech from the throne.

Mr. Mancini: It is unfortunate the member for Oshawa came third and last during that convention, but I think he can do better in future.

I am pleased the Minister of Agriculture and Food was here today to hear some of the comments I made about the greenhouse industry. I hope he takes some of those comments to heart.

12:10 p.m.

Mr. Grande: Are you going to support him for the leadership?

Mr. Mancini: No, I am not going to support him for the leadership, unfortunately.

Interjections.

Mr. Mancini: No, I cannot. I have to show my fidelity to the member for Oshawa. I am with him, and that is it.

In closing, I just want to say that if there are people in the assembly who are hunting enthusiasts and who would like to visit Pelee Island, which is also in my constituency, about several kilometres from the shore, the municipal corporation has a pheasant farm and it has a pheasant hunt every year. I know the municipal council and I would be more than pleased to have any number of members visit Pelee Island during the hunting season. We will arrange for hunting passes for these honourable members and we will accompany them if there are members who do have an affinity for this sport. They will have an opportunity to see a unique part of Essex South riding, Pelee Island. We will go over on the boat because, as we do, I will want to make a case for a new and bigger boat for Pelee Island and maybe for some other services we need.

I thank you, Mr. Speaker, and the honourable members for their kindness in staying so long to listen to me. I would like to return the favour to them.

Mr. Mackenzie: Mr. Speaker, before I make my few remarks on the throne speech, I would like to use this occasion to pass on my own congratulations to one Lynn Williams, who is the new international president of the United Steelworkers of America.

I would comment that, while we have not finalized all the votes, it appears to be probably the biggest vote in Canadian history. With more than 100 locals still to report, including the one at Inco, which was running better than four to one in his favour, the last figures I had were 59,257 for Williams and 4,316 for his opponent, for a more than 93 per cent vote in Canada. I have reason to believe it may even increase.

I am pleased because, although one has to be a little cautious with the figures since we do not have all the west coast figures in yet, it would appear that even in the United States Lynn probably will have a clear majority, which of course is one thing we would really enjoy. So I would like to pass on my congratulations to him as the first Canadian to become the president of a major, powerful union in North America.

I have a number of things I want to cover with respect to the throne speech. I still have difficulty after eight years in the House, and I will admit it frankly, in understanding what the priorities are and what really to look at. I am never sure the throne speech means a heck of a lot. I suspect one will learn more or get more direction as to just what this government really plans to do by taking a good look at the budget when it comes in a few weeks down the road.

But if the throne speech is supposed to be an outline of and the direction of government policy, then the kindest thing I can say about it is that it is sadly lacking. I find it appalling in the kind of economic times we have to find an almost total reliance on words, aims and goals and a belief that we are seeing some kind of effective recovery; that is about all you get in the speech. It is just empty as far as any real action is concerned.

It is remarkable for the number of issues it manages to say very little about. There is not a word about new housing programs, and we are dealing with a major crisis in low-income housing in the province there. There is not a word about poverty. There is not a word about the loopholes in the safety and health legislation in this province. It does nothing about some of the labour problems; it seems to be easy to kick workers in the teeth these days in our province, but there is nothing about the problems of some of the activities on picket lines and some of the strikebreaking activities that have been raised and verified in this House. It does very little, in one new projected program, for the 176,000 unemployed young people.

The few things that are said in here are little better than regurgitated pap. In some cases, we have seen it two or three times in the last two or three throne speeches. Maybe we should go right to a budget and do away with it, because it does not give us much hope.

I want to deal with a number of issues. I want to deal with some of the great words in the throne speech. There is a lot in it about new methods of co-operation, working together, creating a new atmosphere in the labour relations field and gaining the trust of working people in the province.

At the same time as we are saying those kinds of things, with nothing more concrete than that in the throne speech, we have situations such as the one we raised in this House yesterday about a group of workers -- young ones, for once -- at Marshall Industries Ltd. in the city of Toronto who had one heck of a fight to get a union. They got it one year ago. There were 110 employees at the time.

When they organized, they signed almost unanimously; so there was no question about the desire for some form of organized representation of those workers. Many of them are fairly new to Ontario. A lot of Newfoundlanders and east coasters are in the plant as well as a number of West Indians. About 30 per cent of the work force in the plant is women.

It is not a super-high-paying plant. It has a good line, though. It is not a company that is in any trouble. It happens to make the carts one finds in the supermarkets, the racks for dishwashers, lawn furniture and the masks used by hockey players in Ontario. But the company has never been happy with the union finally moving in, because it had resisted it for a good many years with a company association in that plant.

The second contract has proved to be very difficult. As a matter of fact, the main problem in the negotiations for the second contract is that the company wants a two-tier wage structure. That may not mean a lot to some of the Tory members, but it is something the United Auto Workers and most other unions are fighting to reject. It would mean salaries of $1 to $2 an hour less for up to two or three years in some cases. People would be doing the same job but, because they were new employees, in some cases they would be working at a considerably reduced salary than employees who would be working side by side with them.

It is a dangerous, thin edge of the wedge, if you like, in terms of a real lowering of workers' wages in Ontario. That is the main issue and the company has taken a strike on it. They are forced to strike on it. I would stay out until hell freezes over before I would accept that kind of cutback, from my own experience.

What has happened? The strike was not a week old when we had the company hiring one of the professional strikebreaking firms in this province. It hired a private investigative service, in this case Max Security, and we have them doing what? We see provocation at the picket line, such as we saw -- and some of it was proved in court, as members know -- at the Indalex and Automotive Hardware Ltd. strikes and some of the other nasty strikes we have had recently in Ontario.

We find walkie-talkies and cameras and the security people right in with the workers. We also find an armoured van. Some members may have seen it on the TV news the other night. It really is a bus that has been souped up, plated and heavily wired. They use it to bring in the strikebreakers who are being recruited by another firm that has some connections and is in the same security field.

If we take a look at the owner of this particular company, we find he is Peter Downing. He is well known, along with his brother, Paul Downing, who is supposed to be out of business, but is not, as a result of some of the Securicor Investigation and Security Ltd. decisions.

We find them provoking the workers on the line. The tensions are high, and people cannot deny that. The key people, such as one of the young women who is on the executive of the local, and one of the key people who was responsible for organizing it, a very decent young lady at that, were being dragged away and arrested by the police from 23 division as a result of the friction that developed.

When one starts to look at it, one finds that the armoured van, which was hired in Sarnia of all places, was the same one used in the packaging strike involving a local in Ajax that was organized by the teamsters union. That strike got very nasty. Fortunately, that contract has now been settled.

12:20 p.m.

When we get through laying out all the information we have already picked up it is going to shock a few people. The kind of tactics, the dead licence plates used on some of the vehicles crossing the line, or junkyard plates, the things that are going on are part and parcel of a pattern in strikebreaking activities that this party has been raising with this government for years. We are not getting any action on it.

When we tie this in to Securicor, which was found guilty of many of the activities we talk about and which was to have its licence lifted back in June -- we are getting close to one year now -- we find the hearing has not even been held yet. Some members will recall not only have we been after it since last June, but on October 18 I asked a question of the Solicitor General (Mr. G. W. Taylor) in this House about the long delays. It might be worth repeating the question, asked back in October, five months ago, months after the licence of this company should have been lifted.

??"Mr. Mackenzie: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Solicitor General. It is our information that the principals of Securicor are now operating under the guise of another firm, namely, Brown Security. Is the minister aware of this matter?

"Hon. G. W. Taylor: Mr. Speaker, no, I am not aware of it, but if the member wants to give me more information, I will inquire into it and get back to him as to my awareness of the matter.

"Mr. Mackenzie: Inasmuch as the ministry did not go after the principals back on June 28, but only went after the licence of Securicor, and with some four months having gone by without the hearings having been yet held, what assurance do we have that the company is not now an empty shell with the business and contracts transferred to another firm?"

As far as I am concerned, that is now totally the case. In the case of Brown Security, when one phones one finds Mr. Paul Downing, who is responsible for a lot of these activities, is listed as an inactive vice-president, whatever that means, but one gets the rest of the family and the contacts we found in every nasty strike situation in Ontario spread out through half a dozen companies, most of which we have named in this House.

"Hon. G. W. Taylor: I cannot give the honourable member any guarantees on what is taking place. There is a licensing and regulatory process. If the individuals have gone through that and there is a prosecution against a particular company in a forthcoming hearing, the determination will be made by the hearing board.

"I cannot inform the member as to whether the new company is operating or whether there will be, as he might have suggested, a shell of a corporation left there. However, the hearing will proceed and a determination will be made by that board."

This is also the company that owes a pile of money as a result of having been found guilty of some of the activities on picket lines. I do not think we are ever going to see the money. The government has known from day one what is going on here because we have clearly laid it out, and the same thing is happening again today. It happened just a few weeks ago in the packaging plant situation.

This government had better start making it clear to people before they get the wrong impression. The Minister of Labour (Mr. Ramsay) says time and again they are really concerned. Sometimes he even says he agrees, as he did recently on the trouble in Marshall Industries, it is appalling and it should not be happening. When is the government going to do something about it? When are we going to see some action to stop these goons from doing more to cause trouble than the workers themselves will, no matter how agitated they get in a situation such as this.

When will some of the straight economics of it come through? We all know the figures we put on the floor in the Canada Cement strike months earlier. Almost $700,000 was paid to this same Securicor outfit. They were not worth a quarter of what they did in that strike situation, and that would have paid for the difference in what the contract dispute was all about.

If a poor little investor, probably because he has a bee in his bonnet about getting rid of the union or something, stays more than a couple of weeks with these people and their activities, it is going to cost him a heck of a lot more than a new contract is going to cost. Are those kind of activities how we are promoting free enterprise in business in Ontario? It is a pretty poor way and not a very effective way of providing employment for people, if they have to be involved in these kind of activities in a situation such as this.

Having been involved so long in the life in these activities myself, I suppose I may get a little emotional or tend to overreact to some of this, but I do not know how anybody can argue with the facts as laid out, the facts as proved and the facts as verified when these companies or security firms are found guilty before the Ontario Labour Relations Board.

How long are we going to let continue activities that, if not illegal, are so immoral and so on the borderline it is not even funny? Is that what the government means when it says in the throne speech it is going to encourage more co-operation and more discussion with workers in Ontario?

What about a case my colleague the member for Algoma (Mr. Wildman) will be raising and which we have already raised in this House? That is the case of workers involved in safety and health matters. I am talking about the Inglis plant in Stoney Creek, just outside my own riding in Hamilton.

We have a situation there that is a really serious crisis. When we started just a few short months ago they argued there were no more than four or five workers. Even the ministry is now admitting there are between 10 and 15 workers who are contaminated with -- "sensitized" is the word -- isocyanates.

Four of them are now on Workers' Compensation Board pensions and it is obvious the company does not want them back in the plant. The reason is obvious. A thimblefull of the material anywhere in that huge plant, and the Stoney Creek plant is huge, will start causing reactions in the two most seriously sensitized people in that group.

As a matter of fact, one of the workers had a very serious attack and had to be taken to hospital recently because he came in contact in a local supermarket with some of the chemical that is sometimes used in floor polish or polyurethane polish.

All the people involved, the four who are currently on pension and the other 10 or 11 they now admit are sensitized to some degree to the isocyanates in that plant, are relatively young workers. I point out to the members of this House that once one is sensitized it is irreversible. In its worst form it crystalizes the lungs. What is happening in these cases is they are susceptible to an asthma-like attack with any exposure whatsoever to the chemicals.

We have been fighting and we have been involved in it. Some of my letters to the Minister of Labour are in here. But mostly the union has been involved for months trying to resolve the situation in that plant.

What are some of the early things that were done? They put a great, big, blue line -- the workers call it a walkway -- down the centre of the plant. After a period of time, anybody who was sensitized or who had been working with the foam that is injected into refrigerator panels was not to work on the wrong side of that line. They were to work on the other side of it.

It is so ridiculous it is not even funny. We have only six toxic substances in Ontario for which we finally have standards set because they are considered so dangerous. There are about 30 more that should be in place but are not. Some of them were promised in the Ministry of Labour estimates I was involved in six or seven years ago. Isocyanates are one of them, recognized as a really dangerous substance for workers.

One of the problems we are having in that plant and with the ministry is to try to establish the lowest practical threshold level of exposure. I do not think there is a lowest practical level, quite frankly. I can tell the members there are other companies that use the material and in every case I know of where it is used it is totally enclosed. That has been one of the arguments of the workers at this plant. It has been one of the arguments with the Ministry of Labour as well. They have not been able to achieve that.

The union has made it clear to the Minister of Labour and to the safety and health people that they are totally unsatisfied with the government's outline of what can and cannot be done in dealing with the isocyanates problem in this plant.

In a ministry document, an interpretation is placed on the phrase, "the lowest practical level." It says, "Every employer shall take all necessary measures and procedures by means of engineering controls, work practices, and hygiene practices and facilities to ensure that the time-weighted average exposure of a worker to isocyanates is reduced to the lowest practical level and, in any case, shall not exceed 0.005 parts isocyanates per million parts of air."

12:30 p.m.

They call upon "the measures and procedures necessary to control the exposure of a worker to the airborne isocyanates to be handled." In this case they do not exist or are not available.

Perhaps I can switch a bit just to give members the problems we are having in some of the arguments. This has come down to some very severe pressure and an attempt to transfer these four workers on Workers' Compensation Board benefits to the Toronto plant of Inglis, where the company claims there are no isocyanates in use.

I went down the day they were to report, and those workers exercised under section 70 a refusal to go into that plant because they had no guarantee there were no isocyanates in that plant. We found out the company had transferred them because after being transferred they would be the lowest people on the seniority list; the next Monday there was to be a layoff of 27 workers in that plant and it would mean they would be gone. They would then have to look at establishing a WCB pension for the rest of their lives, and the company would neatly get out from under the responsibility it has of carrying these workers -- not carrying them so much as trying to establish conditions in the work place such that they could go back to work; and it is possible.

One of the points the ministry's own people came up with in the arguments that have gone on, B in a series of recommendations on what can be done and what cannot be done, is, "It is unreasonable to expect the employer to provide an enclosure with negative pressure around the foaming equipment."

As damaging as we know this is, and in spite of the fact it is done in other plants -- it is obviously a cost factor, although we have not been able to get a figure any higher than about $200,000 or $300,000 to carry this out totally -- this is one of the reasons the government gives for not proceeding with the enclosure.

Yet when the committee, the union and some of the workers who have been sensitized -- who, I can tell members, are getting pretty cheesed off in that plant, especially now that there are up to 11 or 12 that we know of, and we think there are 17 at this point -- asked the ministry to give them a reason why it is unreasonable to request that the company do this, when they asked the ministry if it had asked the company for hard figures on what it is going to cost them, the ministry inspectors refused to answer; they refused to deal with it.

This is one of the reasons it was presented at great length to our task force the other night, why it has gone to the minister -- so they are not unaware of it -- and why I am raising it here today. There have to be some answers and some actions in cases where we have put workers at risk for the rest of their lives, as we have done in this plant.

We are getting those kinds of answers within the last week or two. I ask again, is that part of this new co-operation and discussion with workers, with the people in the province, a new way of breaking down some of the barriers, getting away from some of the confrontation? How does the government expect to sell it to opposition members? Obviously they do not really care; they have a majority. But that attitude is going to get them into some serious trouble down the road.

We have the continuation. It is almost weekly. We have not raised this in the House yet, but last week the workers got the announcement of the closure in St. Catharines of the Hart and Cooley Manufacturing Co. of Canada Ltd. plant. True, it was down from 105 to about 37 employees, but they were all working; others were on recall.

There have been about three corporate takeovers in this case. It is a subsidiary of Tuttle and Bailey, which in turn is a subsidiary of the Interpace Corp. Interpace was taken over not very long ago by Clevepak.

One of my colleagues made the point the other day that it is facetious to argue that increased benefits for the private sector are going to result in new investment, because while we have seen increased profits in the last year we have not seen that increased investment; indeed, a good deal of the earnings in this country are going into those kinds of corporate cannibalism or takeovers. What do they produce in the way of jobs? Precious little.

Here we have 37 employees, plus those who are on recall -- and the company is very kind; they have a plant in Oakville and they say they might offer up to 15 of them a transfer; might, I stress, and subject to their work record and their qualifications. So it does not matter how long they have been there, what they have done, what they have got, how much of their lives they have put into working for this particular plant, you can bet your bottom dollar, Mr. Speaker, they will be lucky if half a dozen of those 15 they offer jobs to will get them.

We can also be darned sure the worker who may get the transfer to the Oakville plant will be the worker who is squeaky clean and smells like a rose. If he has one bad mark on his record, if he has ever had a Workers' Compensation Board claim or if he has a back injury, we can bet our bottom dollar that he will not be among the very few the company says, to begin with, it is willing to take a look at transferring to its Oakville plant.

They are now in the process of trying to work out something a little better in this case, but they are not getting very far. That has been going on this past week. Is that also what we mean when we talk about better co-operation, less confrontation and more working out of our problems with the work force in Ontario? If it is, it is a pretty sad commentary.

Incidentally, I am going to deal with what has happened to the workers at Consolidated-Bathurst since the closure of its plant almost a year ago now.

I am going to jump ahead for one reference, because it deals with what we are talking about here. It is not new. Two or three times in this House, I have raised the comments we got when we were sitting in the office of the Minister of Labour with the president of Consolidated-Bathurst and the president of his packaging division, his comments about why he would not consider an employee buyout of that plant, whether or not it could have been a viable operation, and his reason.

I will pass this around this province as long as I am in politics, I can guarantee members, because it underlines the problem we are facing with some parts of the private sector. His comment was, "No, we won't consider a worker takeover." His analogy was: "Imperial Oil wouldn't sell a choice corner lot to Texaco. Why should we put up with the competition?"

When we asked him about making a recommendation to transfer some of these workers, all of whom had more than 20 years' seniority, to the company they were selling the plant to -- which we did not even know about at the time of the meeting -- Reid Dominion next door, he said would not recommend the employees because he did not intend to recommend to anybody else who they should hire. That comment provoked the Provincial Secretary for Justice (Mr. Walker) to say the strongest thing he could say, that they were not the best corporate citizen.

There were some very skilled people in that plant. They are in the process now of transferring some of their workers from the London plant to the Rexdale plant in Toronto. The consolidation of that operation is continuing. I checked and found that because the workers kicked up a squawk, because they tried to purchase the plant, because they went before the Ontario Labour Relations Board, as members all know, and successfully charged the company with bargaining in bad faith, one employee did get a transfer. He is probably one of the top mechanics in Ontario, an extremely skilled individual who is of real value to the company; they could not get an immediate replacement. Out of 200 workers in the hourly rated force, he is the only one transferred. Fifteen or 18 of the office personnel were transferred; they were not organized.

Is that kind of treatment of workers what we mean when we say we are going to do more talking? Talking about what, in terms of trying to make things a little better for working people in the province?

I said in my opening remarks there is nothing in here that deals with the question of poverty. I was appalled to see a comment -- I do not know whether it is accurate; it was reported in the press two or three weeks ago -- from the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Drea) that there were no soup kitchens in Ontario.

His comment was one of the reasons we headed immediately to one of two or three soup kitchens in the city of Hamilton. We headed to the Wesley Centre and talked to some of the people who were lined up at the soup kitchen. I partook of the soup. So the government does not think I was taking something away from it, I paid $10 for that little cup of soup and a single piece of bread. I sat down at the table with those people.

12:40 p.m.

In the last three weekends, that one centre alone has had more than 200 people coming in for each serving. That is up substantially over the last few weeks. Maybe I should give the minister some idea of the figures from the Wesley Centre. The average daily attendance went from 123 in January 1983 to 136 in January 1984. That was not too bad, but it was a 10.5 per cent increase.

In February the figure went from 114 to 135; in March, from 116 to 135; and on March 27, from 115 to 144. The overall increase this year over last is about 26 per cent, and we had some rough times last year. In the last two or three weeks the figure has been as many as 200 people, a surprising number of them young and quite a few of them women. The director of the centre tells us one of the things he is concerned about is the increasing number of young people and women coming in.

I really wish we could have taken the Minister of Community and Social Services down there because we asked some of them sitting at the table if it was really necessary for them to be there and whether this had just happened. We knew it had not, but the minister does not think there are any soup kitchens operating in Ontario. Throughout the room we could hear them saying, "Bring him down." Maybe he should go down, as we did, and sit in with some of them to get his facts straight for once.

I do not think there is a major community in our province that is not seeing an increase in the number of people in this kind of need. Here and at a couple of other centres in Hamilton, we found that principals and ministers directed some of the kids there because they were concerned about the adequacy of their diets.

I do not think we are ready to go down the deep hole as yet, but we have a serious and increasing problem. What is in this throne speech this government brought in with all the hoopla to deal with it? Can any one tell me? There is not a damned thing in there that deals with this problem.

The welfare case load is increasing everywhere. I attended an annual meeting of the Catholic children's aid society last night. They were trying to be very kind to the government. I have their report back in my office. On at least three different occasions, in the acting director's report, too, it indicated its difficulty in dealing with the problems and the increased number of problems it was having because of the difficulties of funding.

I look at what is happening in my own city in terms of the welfare case load. My colleague the member for Scarborough West (Mr. R. F. Johnston) points out that this applies in almost every community across the province of Ontario and it has not changed a lot. We have the core welfare case load, but what we see increasing dramatically is the number of employable people who are now on welfare.

I am jumping ahead again, but we have a large number of International Harvester employees who have just had to go the welfare route in recent months. We have about 100 workers from Consolidated-Bathurst who will soon be out of benefits. I will go into a little detail because I had a pretty good survey done over the last few days with the people in the centre they have set up in Kenilworth, who will be out of all benefits in that one operation. We are looking at another 100 people, except that most of them will not go on welfare right away. Because the pension plan was not the best in that company, a lot of them did invest in registered retirement savings plans or had some savings.

Before these workers, who at 55 years of age have not got work and are not likely to find another job, reach the stage where they qualify for any welfare assistance, they have to use up the savings that were intended for their retirement, their pension. What in God's name are we doing to people who did have the foresight, who thought they would be there for the rest of their lives and did save some money or invested some money? Because of the employment situation, they are going to have to use that up before they then qualify for welfare, once they have used up their unemployment insurance benefits.

I do not have the more recent figures, but in the last month Hamilton-Wentworth showed an increase in the employable welfare cases of from 3,200 to 3,999 over the previous year. That is the kind of level that is going to jump. Not our members or supporters as far as I know, but some of the people involved right up at the top in the welfare offices are predicting we will see an increase in Hamilton in those numbers of employable welfare recipients.

It is happening across the province and we are not resolving the problem. I do not know how many members of this House deal with a lot of constituents. I think any member who is conscientious does. I suspect in a good many ridings, if not all, they are getting a lot of problems with housing. If not, they are all coming to us, and I do not think that is the case. We have a serious housing problem for those least able to afford it.

We have an increase once again in the city of Hamilton in the waiting list just out yesterday, I believe. The numbers have increased in each of the last few months. The previous month the number of families on the Hamilton-Wentworth Housing Authority list was 702. New applications were 172, cancellations, 88, and house turnover, 29. That is an increase of 55 in families, an increase of nine in the singles, an increase of 11 in the disabled, and we are up to 757, 59 and 96 respectively. Those are the figures as of yesterday.

I could go into the previous month, but I will not. It showed a jump too. It started at 700 and went up to 702, 50 and 85. The jump in the waiting list in one month is substantial. What is the province doing about this kind of housing allotment? It has something like 900 units that are being spread around the province to the various communities.

We have a situation of less than one per cent, 0.8, vacancy rate in our town. We have an absolutely urgent and desperate need for affordable low-income housing, and it is not happening. It is not in the throne speech. We may hope it is in the budget speech, but it is not in the throne speech. We make the arguments that something has to be done.

In my town I finally supported -- not finally, I probably would have done to begin with, but I had not given it high priority -- the setting up of a municipal nonprofit housing corporation as a means of mobilizing some action to deal with this problem. One of the things that was very annoying at a meeting I attended before a committee of city council just two nights ago was to have the local house builders association get up and attack everything from rent controls to any kind, including nonprofit agencies, of public housing.

They used some figures that were outlandish and untrue in terms of how much more it would cost. They told us it cost them 60 per cent more to put up low-income nonprofit housing. When they were challenged on that, as they were at the meeting, they came back with some arguments, most of which did not make sense. They obviously did not carry anybody, including one or two of the Tories on the committee, although they did get two votes in the final vote. It was a ridiculous argument and it was total anti. There was nothing positive in it about housing needs for people.

What disturbed me even more was we had before that committee some of the groups I have worked very closely with and hope to continue to work with in the future. However, because they are so caught in the rules as now set, the establishment, if you like, in housing in Ontario -- and I am talking about Victoria Park and about the East Kiwanis -- they were there to make presentations against setting up such a municipal nonprofit housing corporation.

I want to tell members what their argument was. The total core of their argument was that it would not work, it would not be helpful and it would make it harder for them. They were trying to respond to the problem, and it would mean the very small piece of pie they are getting from the federal and provincial authorities would have to be split even further and, therefore, it would not be economically viable for their operation. Their operation essentially provides about one in four units out of what they take on, and I give them full credit for the work they have done in terms of this desperate need for low-income housing.

12:50 p.m.

As I tried to point out to them when I had my chance to speak to the meeting, with all their efforts and giving them all the credit in the world, the problem is getting worse. Nobody is tackling the real issue; that is the size of the allotment. If we could get that, or if that could be the fight instead of setting up a municipal nonprofit corporation, maybe we would support it. That is the reaction of the community nonprofit groups.

I might, too, although I am inclined to think that if we do not have the leverage of a municipal corporation, we are going to be in some trouble. I might, too, but I have not seen any of them launch that kind of public campaign or effort. The bottom line is that in spite of all their good work, the problem is getting worse; it is not getting better. We are not dealing with it.

There is nothing in this throne speech that deals with that problem. Is it not serious? Has the decision been made, "Okay, so there is a waiting list of a few tens of thousands in Ontario"? The records also show that a heck of a lot of the poorest or most disadvantaged people are not likely to vote. I know it. The poorest areas in my riding have amongst the lowest turnouts.

Is there a feeling that because they do not have the clout, are not organized and are not a threat, we do not have to be concerned with what is a serious problem? I would like an honest answer from somebody across the floor of this House about that problem. Do they not see it as a problem? They obviously do not in the throne speech. Do they think it will go away or have they something up their sleeves for the budget? It is a legitimate question.

I do not have with me the brief on housing from the committee of the Social Planning and Research Council of Hamilton and District that was presented at that meeting. It was one of the most effective and best-prepared briefs I have heard in a long time. It was probably one of the reasons a very uncertain committee finally voted five to two in favour of setting up the nonprofit housing authority when the meeting ended.

I had a bet from one of the key people in one of the private nonprofit housing authorities that we were not going to win the vote, that the result would be to vote down the setting up of the corporation. But the problems were made evident by the various groups that made presentations, and the Social Planning and Research Council of Hamilton and District brief underlined the problem very adequately. We ended up with a five to two vote on that committee.

I do not know what will happen at city council in Hamilton. It will be nip and tuck whether the thing gets through. That may be because we are dealing with a bunch of Tories. The only two votes against it in the committee were by two well-known Tories in Hamilton. That is why I have to question the members. Do they not see it as a problem? Are they not going to react to this or do they feel they do not have to react to it?

A couple of other points were made in the presentation. Hamilton, unlike other communities, has no emergency housing available for families. While there is some in some communities, we find all too often this is also a problem. After a fire or eviction -- eviction because they cannot pay the rent is included in that -- housing is there for women and children, but with a separate place for men. The family is split up at the most inopportune time. The example they cited, which I think is a good one, is the Family and Veterans Residence in Toronto. It is a successfully operated, short-term housing shelter. It is one thing we desperately need in Hamilton.

The provision of housing is not the only part of the solution we have to deal with. In the provision of housing for low-income people, we have to take a serious look at adequate play areas, equipment and the need for support services. Too often these things are not really looked into.

In this brief, while they did not agree with their opposition to what was being done, there were some nice comments which I could echo about the work being done by the Kiwanis, St. Matthew's House and Victoria Park. But it was clearly outlined that the problem was not being dealt with, that the need was growing and that there has to be a new initiative in housing.

I could go into some of the examples, but I will not bother because there are too many other things I want to deal with. If I can finish in the few minutes I have left and leave off on that point, I want to deal with Consolidated-Bathurst. I think Consolidated-Bathurst underlines as effectively as anything the failure, in spite of all the high-faluting talk of this government, to deal with the problem of older workers and laid-off workers.

There were 207 workers for which the committee was responsible when it was set up. We got a little funding, which was appreciated, to set up that centre on Kenilworth Avenue. The funding came 50 per cent from the federal authorities, 10 per cent from the provincial authorities and 40 per cent from the company. It was part of the agreement that was finally worked out. The company was found guilty of bargaining in bad faith before the Ontario Labour Relations Board.

That program employed three darn good people, one of them being Rudy Oliverio, the ex-president of the local, to try to work with and help their people get established by retraining or new jobs.

Of those 207 people, 81 have found full-time work. Of the 81 who have found full-time work, 90 per cent are working for substantially less money than they made before. The rate was $11 to $12 an hour in that plant; so even where we have some success, we are really undercutting the wages of workers in this province.

Two of them are working part-time, while 28 are attending school, largely for upgrading. I talked to many of them and they do not like it. They are in their 50s and are finding it difficult. We have not had a pattern, which is one of the things we will have to do in our society, of allowing paid retraining leave and credits to the work force. Like a professor who can have a sabbatical every so many years, perhaps workers should have a year of training every four or five years in this province as part of the way to enable them to cope with the necessity of frequent retraining as our work force and society change.

Almost a year later, 106 are unemployed. Three of them, the shortest-term people, are now on welfare. They are down and despondent. They are still desperately looking for work and are not finding it. As I said earlier when I jumped ahead, they are using their savings, which were meant for their retirement years, because the pension plan in that plant was not the best. That was their pension, which they now have to use to survive until they are down to the level where they can qualify for welfare.

Almost a year later, 106 are not working and 28 are mostly on upgrading so they can qualify for a specialized course. There has been very little success in terms of specialized courses. In many cases it is the only way they can stay on unemployment insurance as well. That is really devastating for a 50- or 55-year-old worker who has put 25 years of his life into a plant.

Quite frankly, they are driving their families crazy. I have talked to a number of their wives as well. We are beginning to see a questioning of their own worth. I recall the summary my colleague the member for Scarborough West did of the SKF workers. The pattern is beginning to repeat itself here.

Let me finish with this because I see the time is up. Of the 81 who have found employment, 17 of them are at Camco Inc., one of the few plants in Hamilton that has been hiring. At Camco we are facing a layoff of probably 150 to 200 people. Throughout the plant, the word is that within a matter of weeks they will be laying off.

That will take care of every one of those 17 Consolidated-Bathurst workers. We have already had a layoff of some workers. Seven went to CIP in Burlington. There has been a layoff of four of them. Really, not even 81 are working because some of those who found full-time work have now been laid off in other operations.

Where is the government dealing with that problem in this throne speech? We can go to a lot of other plants to start outlining just exactly what is happening.

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

The House adjourned at 1 p.m.

March 30, 1984