Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

The House met at 10 o’clock, a.m.

Prayers.

POINT OF ORDER

Mr. M. Shulman (High Park): Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. Yesterday the government --

Mr. Speaker: I hardly see how it can be a point of order at this moment. The proceedings haven’t started -- nothing is out of order. It may be a point of privilege.

Mr. Shulman: It refers to yesterday’s proceedings, sir.

Mr. Speaker: Was the hon. member present when the alleged breach of order occurred?

Mr. Shulman: Yes, sir.

Mr. Speaker: It should have been brought up at that time.

Mr. Shulman: I couldn’t; I didn’t know it was occurring. The government House leader yesterday said he was giving the answer to question 3 on the order paper. I presumed he was giving the answer. How could I know he wasn’t? That is the point of order I would like to raise.

The information he supplied was not the information requested. The information requested which referred to certain dates has still not been supplied, and the question is off the order paper.

Mr. S. Lewis (Scarborough West): Well, that’s just outrageous, Mr. Speaker.

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. Lewis: Well, let the minister supply the right information. He shouldn’t be a patsy to his colleagues.

Mr. Speaker: I should point out that any question, whether it be oral or whether it be written, may be answered in whatever manner the hon. minister to whom the question was directed sees fit. There is nothing in the standing orders that requires a question be answered in one way or another. It may be answered but it need not be answered.

POINT OF PRIVILEGE

Mr. E. Sargent (Grey-Bruce): A point of privilege, Mr. Speaker.

I have been trying to get information from the Provincial Auditor both on the amount of moneys being paid to Robert Macaulay who has been retained at $75 an hour to the Minister of Energy (Mr. McKeough) and on other matters of equal importance in the public interest and the Provincial Auditor refuses to give me any information. His position is that the information should be requested in the form of a question to the ministry or in the public accounts committee.

Mr. Speaker, the simple facts are that the public accounts committee has information 18 months old and the ministry will not give information if it is embarrassing, but will cover it up. So I’m trying to get across this position. If we are going to do a meaningful job here, on behalf of the taxpayers of Ontario, in weeding out these inequities and what is going on, then we must have access to this information.

The fact is that these public servants know this information; I am not allowed to know it but they know it. I, as an elected official, have a right to that information and I think it is time that we resolve this, immediately, because the job we are doing is not meaningful if this is allowed to be continued. So I ask you, Mr. Speaker, to weigh this question that the Provincial Auditor must furnish this information to us, each hon. member of the House.

Mr. Speaker: I should comment upon the remarks of the hon. member. First of all I believe he did rise in reference to what he alleged was a point of privilege. Privilege, of course, is a right conferred upon a member of Parliament or the hon. members of Parliament collectively, which right or privilege is not conferred upon the members of the general public. The hon. member perhaps has a valid complaint, but certainly it is not a point of privilege as referred to in the parliamentary rules.

He has made his point and I think that it should be pursued, but certainly it is not, in my opinion, a point of privilege. It can be pursued to determine just whether or not the hon. member has the right to this information, but it is not a parliamentary privilege to which he referred, therefore there is no action which can be taken on my part. As far as the Speaker is concerned, I can in no way impel the auditor or anyone else to divulge information. There are other means by which the hon. member may pursue this.

POINT OF ORDER

Mr. P. G. Givens (York-Forest Hill): Mr. Speaker, I would like to raise a point of order, since you entertained the previous point of order. I have asked a number of my colleagues on all sides of the House and I get different answers. I would like to know, sir, when ministers reply with written answers -- when ordinarily they would be expected to reply in the House to oral questions and their answers would be the soul of brevity -- generally when they prepare written replies they come out about six times longer than they should. Do you in fact, Mr. Speaker, stop the clock with respect to these replies, having to do with the time allotted for the oral question period, or do you not? May I have an authoritative answer, please?

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member is asking for an authoritative answer. The only authority is the Speaker, because there is nothing in the standing orders which stipulates what shall or shall not be done in certain circumstances. I believe the hon. member has observed the custom and the practice in the House and he has a copy of the standing orders. There is a 45-minute period provided for oral questions, and a reasonable number of supplementaries may be directed to the minister. Again, this is left at the discretion of the Speaker to determine what is a reasonable number of questions. In that respect I do have to consider the nature of the question in the first place, the importance of the question, whether or not two or three or four or five supplementaries are in order.

Regarding the time taken to provide an answer by the hon. minister, I have worked out a programme where if I feel that the question has constituted something that would more properly have been a ministerial statement, then I have added two or three or four minutes to the question period time. I might say to the hon. members that in my opinion, two or 2 1/2 minutes would be a reasonable length of time, at the most, in which to provide an answer to any question. If it goes beyond that then I do add one or two or three minutes to the question period time. I trust that answers the hon. member.

POINT OF ORDER

Mr. V. M. Singer (Downsview): Mr. Speaker, since this seems to be order time rather than question time, let me raise a point of order too. This morning, as I understand it, we are going to continue, at the appropriate time, with the estimates of the Ministry of the Attorney General. At the same time, the House leader has indicated to us that perhaps he is going to call second reading of the two taxing bills which stand on the order paper. This places a very substantial burden on many hon. members of this House who would like to take part in both of the debates and I appeal to you, Mr. Speaker, perhaps to suggest to the House leader that he might be able to order the business of the House so that those who are interested in both of these events might be able to take part in them at different times.

Mr. Speaker: I am sure that the hon. member for Downsview doesn’t really believe that I should direct, in any way, the House leader as to the order of business --

Mr. Singer: I did not ask you to direct him.

Mr. Speaker: I believe that the hon. member for Downsview intended only to get his point across to the House, which he has done. In no way can I direct the hon. House leader what we will do.

Mr. A. J. Roy (Ottawa East): Somebody should.

Hon. W. D. McKeough (Minister of Energy): Mr. Speaker, on a further point of order, I only heard part of the question asked of you, sir, by the hon. member for Grey-Bruce, but I would suggest that if he puts that question on the order paper it will be answered.

Mr. Sargent: I didn’t hear that.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: I would suggest that if the hon. member is concerned about certain expenditures and if he puts a question on the order paper, it will be answered.

Mr. Sargent: Doesn’t the minister know the answer himself without me putting the question on the order paper?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Lewis: Mr. Speaker, I have a point of view I want to raise with you.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. W. G. Davis (Premier): That’s unusual.

Hon. E. A. Winkler (Chairman, Management Board of Cabinet): How is the hon. member going to put it forward?

Mr. Lewis: In one of the galleries, east or west, there are politics students from Wexford Collegiate, many of whom reside in my riding, and I’d like to introduce them to the House.

Mr. Speaker: From that point of view, it’s perfectly in order.

Mr. Lewis: Thank you.

Mr. Speaker: Statements by the ministry.

Oral questions.

The hon. member for Kitchener.

AD IN GLOBE AND MAIL

Mr. J. R. Breithaupt (Kitchener): Mr. Speaker, a question of the Minister of Revenue: Can the minister advise as to the cost of the full-page advertisement in this morning’s Globe and Mail and whether, in addition, item 10 is correct when it says: “Ontario will reduce its outstanding public debt to a target figure of $449 million utilizing cash flow surplus and excessive liquid reserves”?

Mr. Sargent: Misleading the public.

Hon. A. K. Meen (Minister of Revenue): Mr. Speaker, I have not seen that advertisement. I’ll get the information for the hon. member.

Mr. Sargent: The minister okayed the ad, didn’t he?

OFFICE FURNISHING STANDARDS

Mr. Breithaupt: A question of the Minister of Government Services: Following the information in his ministry’s supply standards catalogue, can the minister justify for me the requirements of the basic entitlement of ministers of the government to have, among other things, a double-pedestal desk valued up to $950 and ashtrays of $15 each, for a possible total of some $6,673, in their particular offices? Can he advise me as well how he can justify that cost for a desk, when in Grand and Toy’s present catalogue the most expensive desk they sell is priced at $565 and even that one is on sale at $318?

Mr. T. P. Reid (Rainy River): His father-in-law sells them.

Hon. J. W. Snow (Minister of Government Services): Well, Mr. Speaker, the supply standards catalogue specifies certain classes of furniture, with which I’m sure the hon. member is familiar, for different offices. We also have standards as to space for different types of accommodation, whether it be an office for a minister, a deputy minister or an executive director.

Mr. Singer: He didn’t read the X-rated catalogue.

Hon. Mr. Snow: These standards that have been developed are certainly maximums. I don’t believe any of the ministers that I know of have had any more elaborate desks than would be anticipated. These are maximum standards that have been approved by Management Board and they are the standards that we live with.

Mr. Breithaupt: As an additional question, Mr. Speaker, to go further into this rug-ranking problem, can the minister justify how a government secretary, again according to this manual, is entitled to some $239 worth of office amenities while a ministerial private secretary is entitled to $1,943, eight times as much?

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Snow: Well, again, these standards are set up. The normal secretarial furniture that the government uses is standard steel furniture. Normally, furniture for ministerial secretarial offices is wood furniture. This makes some of the difference. It is normally of a design that blends with the other furniture in the office.

Mr. Lewis: It is a matter of blend, is it?

Mr. D. M. Deacon (York Centre): Supplementary: Do the prices that have been indicated by my colleague reflect the benefits and the savings that accrue to taxpayers by centralized purchasing in this province? Why can’t the government show any evidence of economy and consciousness of inflationary costs in the way of operating this?

Hon. Mr. Snow: Mr. Speaker, these supply catalogues have not been changed. There have been no inflationary increases built in. This furniture is --

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Snow: Does the hon. member want an answer or doesn’t he? If his colleagues would quit shouting --

Mr. Reid: We would like an answer.

Hon. Mr. Snow: I can assure the hon. member that all of this furniture is bought by public tender and is bought under the bulk purchasing system of a larger order put together, and the tenders are called on this at varying intervals.

All our furniture is publicly tendered through the central purchasing system and is bought for all ministries under the bulk system. When we buy filing cabinets, we don’t go out to Grand and Toy, as the hon. member may be suggesting, and buy one filing cabinet at retail price.

Mr. E. R. Good (Waterloo North): It would be a lot cheaper if they did.

Hon. Mr. Snow: We call tenders on the supply of the necessary filing cabinets that we need or anticipate that we will need in one year. Then as the requirements come up, these materials, whether they be filing cabinets, whether they be typewriters or whether they be wastepaper baskets, are supplied against our overall purchasing contract for that commodity.

Mr. Deacon: A further supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Would the minister not agree that the specifications for this equipment should be reviewed, because it’s obvious that the prices are completely out of line to what’s appropriate?

Hon. Mr. Snow: No, I would not agree at all with that, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Breithaupt: I have another question of the same minister, Mr. Speaker: Can the minister provide us with the information -- I realize he can’t perhaps do it right now -- of any costs for improvements that have been necessitated by the recent five appointments to the cabinet?

Hon. Mr. Snow: To my knowledge, Mr. Speaker, and I will check into this further, there have been no changes or no refurnishings of any type in any minister’s offices with these last changes or appointments. In fact, there have been very few changes or very little new furniture for any minister in the two years that I have been minister of the department.

Mr. Lewis: In fact, there is no space to put the furniture in.

Hon. Mr. Snow: Mr. Speaker, the desk and the furniture in my office are exactly the same that was put there when the building was built.

Mr. Reid: Oh, antiques!

Hon. Mr. Snow: The furniture my predecessor, three removed, the hon. Ray Connell, selected in that office is still there and has been used by each minister since and is still serving me very adequately.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Breithaupt: Perhaps if it was used harder, it might wear out. That’s possible, Mr. Speaker.

Interjections by hon. members.

DENTURE THERAPISTS

Mr. Breithaupt: I have a question of the Minister of Health. Can the minister advise us if there is any new information that he can give us with respect to the situation of the denturists, particularly as to whether there have been any further charges laid or whether the minister can advise us of expected changes that will hopefully resolve this particular problem?

Hon. F. S. Miller (Minister of Health): Mr. Speaker, on the first part of the question, I can make no more comment at this point in time. On the second part of the question, to the best of my knowledge no more charges have been made. However, charges are not brought by the Ministry of Health, as I am sure the hon. gentleman knows; they are brought by the normal people who can lay charges.

Mrs. M. Campbell (St. George): By whomever it is.

Mr. Sargent: By normal people?

Hon. Mr. Miller: That leaves the member for Grey-Bruce out. I am certainly hopeful that a final decision will be forthcoming soon.

AD IN GLOBE AND MAIL

Hon. Mr. Meen: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, before we go on to the next question, the hon. member for Kitchener asked me about an advertisement placed in the Globe this morning which I hadn’t seen and I readily conceded that, but I can see now why I was not aware of it. It’s placed by my colleague, the Treasurer (Mr. White), and by the Premier. It seems to me the questions raised by the member for Kitchener should more properly have been directed to one or other of those two of my colleagues, rather than to me and to my ministry.

Mr. Breithaupt: Mr. Speaker, the reason I did that was because one wasn’t here, and I didn’t think the other one would know.

Mr. Sargent: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: I’m sorry. The minister had risen on a point of order. There can be no supplementary to a point of order.

The hon. member for Scarborough West.

Mr. Sargent: Well, he’s totally wrong anyway.

Mr. I. Deans (Wentworth): I like that.

INQUIRY INTO HOSPITAL EMPLOYEES’ REMUNERATION

Mr. Lewis: Since mediation began yesterday in the hospital worker controversy, can the Minister of Health make a statement to the House today about any intentions he may have of resolving that dispute, specifically before this month ends?

Hon. Mr. Miller: Mr. Speaker, if I said this wasn’t one of the most important problems to me I would not be speaking the truth.

Mr. Lewis: Then don’t say it.

Hon. Mr. Miller: I am very concerned about the outcome of those negotiations. However, I think the member would agree with me that the free bargaining process should be given every chance to find a resolution to the problem.

Mr. D. C. MacDonald (York South): Not if the government withholds the wherewithal for settling it.

Hon. Mr. Miller: It is working now and it is my hope that a solution will be found via that means. I am in close contact with various people involved in the process and I am keeping myself as well informed as I can. I think any other comments I might make at this time would defeat the purpose of the free bargaining process.

Mr. Reid: A supplementary.

Mr. Lewis: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker, if I may: The minister will know that we all believe in the free collective bargaining process but he’s not pretending, surely, that there will be any resolution of the hospital worker controversy without additional money from the government? Surely he knows that is true. Therefore, I must ask him, since the days pass and the strike psychology accelerates and the workers live on the razor’s edge, why will he not say he intends, presumably at some point, to make an offer? Does he intend to make an offer to increase the ceilings or provide additional moneys for these hospitals before May 1?

Hon. Mr. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I think anything we say here which is reported in the press could have a very negative effect upon the bargaining process.

Mr. Lewis: It could have a very positive effect in possibly avoiding the strike.

Hon. Mr. Miller: I think the negotiations should go on between the bodies appointed to do them at this point in time without my offering advice to them in either direction.

Mr. J. A. Renwick (Riverdale): The government is the silent partner.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Rainy River with a supplementary.

Mr. Reid: Does the minister really believe that the free collective bargaining process can continue when the ceilings are still on and the workers are in the position of knowing that under the present circumstances they can’t be brought up to a reasonable wage?

Secondly, if I may, Mr. Speaker, does he have within his ministry a report on the wages and salaries of the hospital workers in the province?

Hon. Mr. Miller: The first part of the question assumes that when the ceilings for this year -- one of the quick assumptions everybody made is that when the ceilings in hospitals went up by roughly eight per cent it meant that salaries were limited to an eight per cent change. That does not necessarily follow.

Mr. Lewis: Of course it does.

Mr. Reid: Where else are they going to get the money?

Mr. Lewis: Come on, why is the minister doing this to the workers?

Hon. Mr. Miller: This is one of the reasons, of course, why there are two studies going on to answer that very question.

Mr. Lewis: But why is he forcing them to strike?

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Miller: I am not forcing them to strike and I sincerely --

Mr. MacDonald: He leaves them no alternative.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Lewis: Why is he doing it to them? Why is he pushing them to that?

Hon. Mr. Miller: I sincerely hope that the unions will respect the law as it is written and not ask their members to go on strike.

Mr. Lewis: Does the minister respect their right to live? Does he respect their right to a wage?

Hon. Mr. Miller: I do.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Renwick: He can’t procrastinate.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I will permit supplementaries in their proper order.

Mr. Lewis: Sorry, Mr. Speaker.

Hon. Mr. Miller: On the second part of the question as to studies on salaries, I have seen a number of studies on salaries for hospital workers in various areas. I wouldn’t want to say any one of them was a total provincial picture. Certainly I have seen studies of the Toronto area and of certain of the unions involved.

Mr. Reid: If I may ask, by way of further supplementary, if the minister has those studies as he suggests, is there any point in waiting for the Minister of Labour (Mr. Guindon) to come up with his report? Why is he using that as an excuse not to make a statement in this Legislature that the hospital workers will, in fact, be given a decent wage?

Mr. B. Newman (Windsor-Walkerville): And that they are not bound by the eight per cent.

Mr. Reid: And that they shouldn’t be bound by the eight per cent limit?

Hon. Mr. Miller: Well, of course, they are not bound by the eight per cent limit; I take exception to that one point. I could show that categorically in the estimates that were given us before the year began.

I can only say this: With bargaining going on at this point in time, I am very anxious to give it its full opportunity to resolve the problems within the parameters we have given.

Mr. Reid: How much more time does the minister need?

Mr. Lewis: Well, may I ask a supplementary? The unions in good faith have told the minister what they intend to do on May 1. What is the Ministry of Health’s response going to be if, in fact, it has forced the workers out on that day?

Hon. Mr. Miller: Well, that is a hypothetical question at this point in time.

Mr. Renwick: It is not hypothetical.

Mr. Lewis: It is not. They are the minister’s hospitals; it is his jurisdiction.

Hon. Mr. Miller: They are not my hospitals in that sense; they are not my employees in that sense.

Mr. Lewis: Sure they are. The minister is the partner at the bargaining table.

Hon. Mr. Miller: I am certainly a partner.

Mr. Lewis: That’s right. What is he going to do? He is the Minister of Health.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Scar- borough West.

PRICE FIXING IN SUPERMARKETS

Mr. Lewis: A question of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations, if I may: In his analysis of the various supermarket chains, did he look at the possibilities of internal-administered price fixing and vertical integration after looking at their profits?

Hon. J. T. Clement (Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations): No, Mr. Speaker, the study was prepared from the public financial statements, made available by the industries to the public as required under the securities legislation of this province.

I should point out that in those particular studies they leave something to be desired, particularly when we don’t have a breakdown as to food sales as opposed to sales of other objects in supermarkets. As the hon. leader of the NDP knows, in supermarkets today one can buy anything ranging from cleaning cloths to mops, brooms, dishes, books of knowledge, or things of that nature; and yet the sales indicate total sales, and don’t give us the breakdown -- what is allocated for food sales as opposed to those other items -- and it concerns me.

Mr. Reid: Yes, one can’t afford to buy the food.

Mr. Lewis: May I, by way of supplementary, ask the minister to extend his inquiry into the possibilities of internal-administered price fixing in the Weston empire, based on this set of assumptions, or this information:

Is the minister aware that Loblaws said they had to raise the price of bread because of the increased cost to the supplier, the supplier being Weston’s, which owns Loblaws -- as the minister knows? Weston’s said it had to raise the price because of the increased costs to its suppliers for milk and sugar; the suppliers for Weston’s are Donlands and Royal Dairy and West Cane Sugar, all owned by Weston’s. Weston’s then said that the flour had gone up from their suppliers, the suppliers being McCarthy Mill of Streetsville and Soo Line of Winnipeg, both wholly-owned subsidiaries of Weston’s. They then said that the distribution costs were going up which would require an increase in bread --

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Question?

Mr. Lewis: And the distributors involved

Hon. W. A. Stewart (Minister of Agriculture and Food): Is this a speech?

Mr. MacDonald: It is the kind of speech the Minister of Agriculture doesn’t like.

Mr. Lewis: -- National Grocers and York Trading, both subsidiaries of the Weston empire.

Now since all of the price mechanism is controlled within the same corporate empire, is the minister going to look at the possibility of price fixing?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Speaker, price fixing, if it can be proved and is against the public interest, is an offence under the Combines Investigation Act. May I point out that while the matters the hon. leader of the NDP has described may well occur, that not only did the price of those products go up to subsidiaries of the industry or the company named by the leader of the New Democratic Party, they went up in other sectors with the competitors paying pretty much the same prices for the basic product as they obtained it from the market for resale, too.

Mr. Speaker: Does the hon. member for Scarborough West have further questions? Supplementary -- the hon. member for York Centre.

Mr. Deacon: In connection with the segregation of food items and food sales from other sales, would it not be possible for the minister, through the Minister of Revenue, to find out the type of sales by supermarkets, as the returns under the sales tax would indicate the division between sales; because all items that are non-food items are subject to sales tax?

Hon. Mr. Clement: I have written to the president of each of the companies named in the study requesting their making available additional information, not only to the shareholders by way of the obligatory financial statements, but so that the consumers of this province have some knowledge of what is involved in their wholesale operations for the previous year.

Insofar as the member’s question is concerned, I suppose that mathematically it could be roughly computed. I think it would be much more advisable if the company on its own gave a statement breaking down the food sales as opposed to those other items. I don’t know -- I haven’t discussed it with my col- league, the Minister of Revenue -- but it might well be that his staff is precluded from making that information available to me under their legislation.

Mr. Deacon: Is that the case?

Hon. Mr. Clement: I don’t know.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Riverdale.

Mr. Renwick: Mr. Speaker, by way of a supplementary question, is it, by any chance, by reason of an exemption granted by the Ontario Securities Commission to each of these companies under the Securities Act that they are not required to provide a breakdown of their sales figures? If it is, as my surmise would lead me to believe, will the minister deal with the Securities Commission and ask them to withdraw that exemption and to require the kind of information on the gross sales figures which he now requires in the public interest?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Speaker, I’m not aware that any such exemption has been granted by the Ontario Securities Commission, but I will inquire and find out if such is the case.

Mr. Lewis: No wonder the price is right.

UNION GAS

Mr. Lewis: May I ask the Minister of Energy if he has received complaints from farmers and municipal officials in Raleigh township about the behaviour of Union Gas when it digs on farms and cuts across roadways, in terms of what it pays and the various costs of repairs and the dismemberment that is left? Has he been dealing in that area?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Raleigh township?

Mr. Lewis: Raleigh township.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: No, not to my knowledge, I haven’t. I think if there were such complaints they might well go to the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations, who has the pipeline inspection branch, or they might come to the Ontario Energy Board, but I’m not familiar with any complaints.

Mr. Lewis: Could I ask the minister to make inquiries in that direction?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: I shall do so.

Mr. Lewis: Thank you.

SALE OF LAND ON MANITOULIN ISLAND

Mr. Lewis: One last question of the Premier, Mr. Speaker.

Is the Premier aware that the Ontario Paper Co. Ltd. has put up for sale on Manitoulin Island some 80,000 acres of what I believe amounts to prime recreational land with some 65 miles of lakefront? As I understand it, there are two prospective American buyers but, as yet, no others. Would the Premier consider taking this land into public park ownership?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Bernier) is having some discussions now with the Ontario Paper Co.

Mr. Lewis: Is that so?

An hon. member: To beat the property speculation tax.

Mr. Speaker: Are there any further questions from the hon. member for Scarborough West?

Mr. Lewis: No, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. minister responsible for the Youth Secretariat has the answer to a question asked previously.

Hon. D. R. Timbrell: (Minister without Portfolio): Mr. Speaker, the question came from the member for Parkdale (Mr. Dukszta) and, due to his absence from the House today, if I may, I will hold it over until he’s here.

Mr. Speaker: All right. The hon. Minister of Health has the answer to a question asked previously. Then the hon. member for Grey-Bruce is next.

SALE OF COLZA OIL

Hon. Mr. Miller: Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday, the member for Wentworth asked me about colza oil and its effects upon the human body. I have looked into the background of this and found the following information.

For many years, rapeseed oil has been a common edible oil ingredient of certain foods, margarine, salad oil, cooking oil and mayonnaise. However, in the past five years, laboratory evidence accumulated in several parts of the world indicated that high-level feeding to laboratory animals resulted in degenerative lesions in the heart muscles -- lesions attributable to erucic acid in the oil. For the interest of the rest of the hon. members, it’s a C22 mono-eloic acid.

An hon. member: Wow!

Mr. Deans: I realize that.

Mr. Lewis: We are all aware of that. The minister doesn’t have to be condescending. That’s old stuff.

Hon. Mr. Miller: It sounds a little better than colza oil, I thought.

The mass of evidence does not support the contention that sterility also results. An interesting aside is that a judge in Italy overruled the health authorities and said it caused sterility. The health officials never claimed that.

As a result of laboratory findings in August, 1973, the health protection branch of the Department of National Health and Welfare, Canada, issued a bulletin to all suppliers and processors, both foreign and domestic, asking for a voluntary restriction of the erucic acid content of edible oil products to five per cent of the total fatty acid content.

A survey of market food products containing rapeseed oil, just completed by the federal authorities, found that only one out of 359 exceeded the five per cent level. This represents a good response on the part of the food industry by monitoring the erucic acid content, and it will continue as a matter of routine.

The control of the chemical content of nationally distributed foods is a responsibility of the Department of National Health and Welfare, Canada. Officials of this department have expressed the view that the rapeseed oil content at existing levels does not represent a threat to public health.

Mr. Deans: Just one supplementary question for clarification. Am I correct in assuming that this applies equally to imported oils and to domestically produced oils?

Hon. Mr. Miller: That is my understanding.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Grey-Bruce.

HYDRO INVOLVEMENT IN PRIVATE SECTOR

Mr. Sargent: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Premier. Will he advise the House if he has approved, and the extent, of allowing large consortiums to have -- in the Minister of Energy’s words “to give them a piece of the action of Hydro”? What is the form of policy allowing Hydro to be involved with the private sector and in the words of the Minister of Energy “having secret negotiations with these consortiums”? In other words, is this approved government policy now or is it just a lot of talk?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I think there are several sections to that question from the hon. member for Grey-Bruce. As to whether the government approves of the suggestions made by the Minister of Energy, I would say categorically yes.

The Minister of Energy has made some suggestions that I think are very creative and that would help resolve some of the capital problems that Ontario Hydro and the public generally might face and which I think might be an excellent utilization of the nuclear technology that is available to us. As the question relates to the procedures, the possibility of this and how it might function, I would say with respect, Mr. Speaker, the hon. member might direct that to the Minister of Energy himself.

Mr. Sargent: Supplementary: I think the Premier should know what is going on too.

Hon. Mr. Davis: If that is a supplementary question, I can only say --

Mr. Sargent: No, that’s a statement.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- being very humble, while I don’t purport to know everything that is going on, in some ways I feel that perhaps I know a little more about what is going on than the hon. member for Grey-Bruce.

Mr. Sargent: I would hope so.

Supplementary: Mr. Speaker, does the first minister of this province not realize the magnitude of allowing Hydro -- which for 68 years has been a public body -- allowing the friends of the government to get a piece of this action? Might I ask the Premier -- and he should know this -- is the $15-billion programme the government is in line for now -- he admits that we are being drained but we are not broke --

Mr. E. M. Havrot (Timiskaming): Question.

Mr. Sargent: Will the Premier tell me that it is because the government can’t afford that $15 billion that he is going to allow them to take a part of the action? Is that it?

Mr. W. Hodgson (York North): The member for Grey-Bruce didn’t approve of his friends having action either?

Hon. Mr. Davis: I find this an unusual question from the member for Grey-Bruce who is something of a free enterprise entrepreneur, as I understand it, himself --

Mr. MacDonald: Free wheeling, free entrepreneur.

Mr. Sargent: That has nothing to do with it.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- that he would object to government utilizing the private sector.

Mr. Sargent: I certainly do, especially the way the government does it.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I suggest to the hon. member that he can be as critical as he likes of Ontario Hydro but I think it is abundantly clear, and increasingly so, that Ontario Hydro has an excellent record in production of energy costs that will compare favourably with any public utility anywhere on this continent.

Mr. Sargent: That is what you call stick- handling, Mr. Speaker.

Hon. Mr. Davis: The member should know.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Sandwich-Riverside.

WIND ENERGY SEMINAR

Mr. F. A. Burr (Sandwich-Riverside): Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Energy regarding his statement two weeks ago today that he would not send anyone to the wind energy conversion seminar in Sherbrooke, Que.

Mr. Lewis: The minister is going to lose this debate in the long run.

Mr. Burr: This is the first opportunity I have had to ask this question, Mr. Speaker. Why did he make this announcement two weeks ago today, after notifying me the previous day that he had suggested to his senior technical staff that they send someone to this seminar? Who is running the minister’s department, he or the civil service?

Mr. Lewis: And why?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Mr. Speaker, that is an excellent question on a Friday morning. I can only assure the member that I do, but at times I’m impressed by their logic.

Mr. Burr: Mr. Speaker, a supplementary --

Mr. Sargent: He is talking about the minister. That’s why the minister is good. He has lots of hot air.

Mr. Burr: Why did his --

Hon. Mr. Davis: There is a better judge in the House of that than the member.

Mr. Burr: Why did his deputy --

Mr. Sargent: I will get the Premier next.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Is that a promise or a threat?

Mr. M. Gaunt (Huron-Bruce): Let the member for Sandwich-Riverside go on.

Mr. Burr: Are there any more supplementaries?

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Is it Good Friday this Friday?

An hon. member: The farmers got it.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Burr: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary is, why did the minister’s deputy go to Thunder Bay to address a meeting of engineers and virtually plead with them to give him all the information they could on various forms of energy -- and he specifically mentioned wind power -- then, when I inform the minister of a meeting at which the most knowledgeable people in this area are going to be present, he shows no interest?

An hon. member: Because he knows the member is not going to vote for him.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Mr. Speaker, I suppose the key word there would be “give.” The deputy minister is asking people to send information in so that we don’t have to send people to conferences.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member --

Mr. Burr: A supplementary: Is the minister going to continue the policy of getting information on various forms of solar energy from the Atomic Energy Commission which is part of the nuclear establishment? Why doesn’t he go to the source of knowledge instead of to rival and competing establishments?

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. Deans: Why doesn’t he talk to the member for Sandwich-Riverside?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Mr. Speaker, as I said before, we are monitoring some of these things. When the time arrives we will take a greater interest than we are obviously taking now. We do continue to follow them. We don’t think, as I have said before, that the day of wind energy has arrived or that we should be spending public money in pursuit of something which is not yet --

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. MacDonald: It’s been around for about 3,000, 4,000, or 5,000 years.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: -- in any way proved or, in our view, suitable for use here in Ontario. I can assure the member that we --

Interjection by an hon. member.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: -- continue to read a great number of technical journals. We keep abreast of this and of course, we are following the member’s speeches with great interest and we know that he will keep us informed of the latest developments in wind energy, geothermal energy and solar energy.

Mr. MacDonald: The minister is right there.

Mr. Lewis: He is going to end up as the Don Quixote of this House.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for St. George is next.

READMISSIONS TO ONTARIO HOSPITALS

Mrs. Campbell: My question, Mr. Speaker, is of the Provincial Secretary for Social Development, in the absence of the Minister of Health. Could she advise this House as to whether or not the ministry will release the information and statistics on readmissions to Ontario Hospitals?

Hon. M. Birch (Provincial Secretary for Social Development): Mr. Speaker, to the hon. member, I will make sure she receives this information.

Mrs. Campbell: I am sorry?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: I’ll make sure she receives the information.

Mrs. Campbell: Thank you.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for High Park.

LIQUOR LICENCE FOR HOLIDAY INN AT OWEN SOUND

Mr. Shulman: A question of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations, Mr. Speaker: Can he give any explanation whatsoever of the fact that the Liquor Licence Board has deliberately contravened the law which states that no manufacturer of liquor may have an interest in a retail outlet? I am referring to section 30, paragraph d which says:

“No licence may be issued or renewed under this Act for premises in which a manufacturer of liquor has an interest, whether freehold or leasehold, or by way of mortgage or charge or other encumbrance or by way of mortgage lien or charge upon any chattel property therein, and whether such interest is direct or indirect or contingent or by way of suretyship or guarantee.”

Despite this being drawn to the attention of the Liquor Licence Board, can he explain why the board gave a licence to the Holiday Inn in Owen Sound when the land is owned by Parham Investments Ltd. whose directors are one Alex Graydon, Bruce Pritchard and John Harrison, two of whom are on the board of Labatt’s?

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I thought the member would never ask, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Singer: The minister wishes he’d never asked!

Hon. Mr. Clement: No, I’d be glad to read the letter, with the indulgence of the members.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Clement: It was sent to the member for Grey-Bruce on Sept. 21. It’s pointed out by the Liquor Licence Board, as a result of an inquiry which came from that particular member, that the Holiday Inn at Owen Sound is owned by Parham Investments Ltd. and Commonwealth Holiday Inns of Canada Ltd. as tenants in common. The inn is operated by Commonwealth Inns of Canada Ltd. under a lease with the owners. The applicant, namely Commonwealth Holiday Inns of Canada Ltd. is the tenant and operator of the inn. None of the directors of the applicant is in any way connected with the liquor industry. They are not directors of any brewery or any vintner.

It was the opinion of the legal officer of the Liquor Licence Board at that time that there was no infraction of section 30 of the Act in issuing the licence to that particular establishment. I had this supplied to me this morning as a result of another inquiry.

Mr. Havrot: Shot down again.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Relax --

Mr. Shulman: A supplementary, if I may, Mr. Speaker.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Sargent: The member remembers Talisman? Same deal.

Mr. Shulman: Is the minister saying that the Act --

Mr. Sargent: The laws don’t mean a damn thing.

Mr. Shulman: -- may be simply avoided by putting the application in in someone else’s name? Is the minister denying that Labatt’s owns that place?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Speaker, Labatt’s are not the applicant or the owner of that particular enterprise.

Mr. Shulman: Of course they are not the applicant, somebody else applied for them.

Hon. Mr. Clement: The Liquor Licence Board of Ontario has absolutely no intention of licensing anybody contrary to section 30 of the Act; that is the very purpose of having section 30 contained in the Act.

Mr. Shulman: Labatt’s owns it.

Hon. Mr. Clement: An inquiry was made -- and it was a valid inquiry, I have no reason to criticize it -- in April, 1973.

Mr. Shulman: Labatt’s used somebody else to apply for them, that’s all.

Hon. Mr. Clement: We took the opinion from the legal officer for the board at that time. I have the letter here before me. Perhaps the member would like to read it so I don’t waste the time of the rest of the members of the Legislature, and see the opinion of the law officer.

Mr. Shulman: Just ignoring the law.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for York Centre.

ACCOMMODATION PROVIDED OISE AND OETA

Mr. Deacon: A question of the Premier: Why has it taken so long to answer the question I asked on May 24, 1973, requesting information on the accommodation provided OISE and OETA? It has been on the order paper all that time.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, the question related to the institute was discussed very thoroughly, if memory serves me correctly. Just about six years ago I can recall very well the member for Scarborough raising this matter. The officials from the institute were there and it was gone into in some depth.

If memory serves me correctly as well, and perhaps the hon. member might consult with some of his colleagues on the committee, the question of accommodation was very fully dealt with at the standing committee dealing with the estimates -- I think of the Ministry of Education or Colleges and Universities -- just in the past session.

Mr. Deacon: A supplementary: This question asked for details concerning the proposals, and in none of those records could I find the details being given. That is why --

Hon. Mr. Davis: It was thoroughly discussed six years ago.

Mr. Deacon: Well, it is a matter of discussion; that does not say the questions were answered. I have asked for answers to the questions.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Well, they were answered.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Essex -- all right, I must recognize the hon. member for Sandwich-Riverside.

SOLAR ENERGY REPORT

Mr. Burr: Mr. Speaker, a question of the Minister of Energy: Has the minister yet received a copy of the solar energy panel report of December, 1972, that was given to President Nixon? This was a report by 40 scientists of NASA and the National Science Foundation.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Mr. Speaker, I am not personally aware of the report, no.

Mr. Burr: A supplementary: Does the minister mean to tell me that after I notified him back in December he still has not got a copy of this most important report?

Mr. Deans: Don’t they do any work over there?

An hon. member: Hasn’t the minister read his correspondence?

Mr. Lewis: The minister has a big technical staff, what do they do?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: We do not have a big technical staff. I am sure that some of the staff are reading it, and if they think it is important enough will forward it to me.

Mr. MacDonald: They keep the minister in the dark.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Welland South.

RAPID DATA CORP.

Mr. R. Haggerty (Welland South): I would like to direct a question to the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations. On March 29 I asked him a question in the House. Has the minister taken any steps to ensure that the $6.5 million in Eaton’s employees’ pension fund that was invested in Rapid Data Corp. is protected now? Has he -- and I believe he said that they were going to meet that morning -- has he anything further to report on that?

Hon. Mr. Clement: I apologize to the member for Welland South. I have overlooked getting back to him. I remember the question very well and I haven’t got the information. I will get it and get back to him right way.

Mr. Haggerty: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Is the minister aware of the Financial Post report of April 6, 1974, that the Eaton retirement annuity plan with the T. Eaton Co. is a secured credit to the amount of $6.3 million and will receive nothing directly on dissolution?

Hon. Mr. Clement: I am not aware of that.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Windsor-Walkerville.

GASOLINE SAVING DEVICES

Mr. B. Newman: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations. In view of the fact that miracle gas savers and mileage boosters are becoming more and more apparent on the market, does the minister plan to require companies that are involved to produce proof of their claims before he will permit the sale of these mileage savers?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Speaker, if there was an offence committed under the Consumer Protection Act as to any misleading advertising, then we would have to prosecute or the federal people would have to prosecute under their legislation.

I have no way of compelling. I have no legislative authority to compel them to submit any proof to me.

It has been our experience in matters that we have inquired about that whatever industry we direct the inquiry to has answered responsibly, but I point out they don’t have to and I have no way of compelling them to produce such information.

Now I read with interest the other day, I believe, that there have been federal charges laid against the manufacturer of motor vehicles for what is alleged to be fraudulent advertising relating to the performance of one of its vehicles in a cross-country race some two or three years ago. That’s the only knowledge I have.

Mr. Speaker: Did somebody say supplementary?

The hon. member for High Park.

HIRING OF LIQUOR STORE EMPLOYEES

Mr. Shulman: A question of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations, Mr. Speaker: Can the minister explain the discrimination against women that is used by the Liquor Control Board in their hiring? Can the minister explain why no women -- although in theory they are invited to apply for permanent clerk positions -- are hired in those positions?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Speaker, that is not true. Women are being hired by the Liquor Control and Liquor Licence Boards -- particularly by the Liquor Control Board for self-serve stores, where in most instances they perform the function of cashiers.

With reference to the existing stores that are not self-service, I must point out to the hon. member that there are some difficulties. One of the difficulties is that the staff are called on to stack cases, many of them containing bottles weighing 40 ounces; they are very, very heavy. That’s one problem.

The second problem is the sanitary facilities. Many of the stores have only one washroom and if we hire female staff we are obliged to put additional washrooms in for them.

So we are using women as cashiers in those areas that have self-serve stores, but we are not utilizing them in other areas -- having them stack cases and unload trucks and this sort of thing.

Mr. Shulman: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Is the minister really not aware that each and every woman who has been hired as a cashier in the self-service stores has been hired as a temporary, not a permanent employee, paid only for the hours she works and limited to 27 1/2 hours per week?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Yes, I am well aware of that because the board hires all its staff initially on a temporary basis. And if the vacancy continues and the performance of that individual is satisfactory they go on to permanent staff after a waiting period.

Mr. Shulman: Supplementary.

Mr. Lewis: Supplementary.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Supplementary over here.

Mr. B. Newman: In an attempt to increase the opportunity for the handicapped in obtaining employment, would the minister consider the employment of handicapped women as cashiers in some of the self-serve stores?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Yes, if they can do the job I’m sure the board would seriously consider that. It might be a very good role for a person so afflicted.

Mr. Lewis: Well, I have a supplementary. The minister is not seriously accepting the board’s argument about washroom facilities as a device to discriminate against women? I mean, he is not advancing that as though it were plausible, surely?

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. Lewis: Oh, our friends at the board. Why trot that out?

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Havrot: The member is a real paper tiger -- all mouth.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I am just pointing out, Mr. Speaker, that these are considerations. I’ve got stores down in my area that have been there for five or 10 years that were initially designed with one set of washrooms.

Mr. Lewis: The minister can add to the facilities, for heaven’s sake.

Hon. Mr. Clement: All right. Fine. We are converting in the self-service stores; this thing will clear itself. But perhaps the hon. member is aware that if we do have female staff it’s mandatory that they have individual washrooms.

Mr. Lewis: Of course it is. So do something about it.

Mr. Shulman: Mr. Speaker, a supplementary?

Mr. Speaker: There are only a couple of minutes remaining. I think --

Mr. Shulman: A very short one?

Mr. Speaker: I think there have been sufficient supplementaries.

Mr. Shulman: How come none of the board’s temporary staff have ever been made permanent? They are female; not one of the minister’s cashiers has been made permanent.

Mr. Speaker: That’s a statement. I believe the hon. member for Waterloo North was up first.

Mr. Reid: I believe you are wrong, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Well, if the hon. member for Waterloo North will defer to the hon. member for Rainy River, I’ll call him.

DAY NURSERIES ACT REGULATIONS

Mr. Good: A question of the Minister of Community and Social Services: Could the minister tell us whether the new regulations under the Day Nurseries Act regarding the setting up of day nurseries by charitable and other non-profit organizations are now in effect? And how much money will be designated for this additional function during this next fiscal year?

Hon. R. Brunelle (Minister of Community and Social Services): Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to inform the member that the regulations are now in effect. As far as the amount is concerned it will be a substantial amount, but at this time it is not known. Our budget will be --

Mr. Good: A supplementary: How many applications does the minister have under that section?

Mr. Speaker: The time for oral questions has been exceeded.

Petitions.

Presenting reports.

Mr. Havrot in the absence of Mr. Taylor from the standing administration of justice committee, reported the following resolution:

RESOLVED: That supply in the following amount and to defray the expenses of the Justice Policy Secretariat be granted to Her Majesty for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1975:

Justice Policy Secretariat

Justice policy programme …….. $401,000

Mr. Singer: What happened to the 18? We want to get rid of that, too.

Mr. Speaker: Motions.

Hon. Mr. Winkler moves that Mr. Havrot be substituted for Mr. Dymond on the standing public accounts committee.

Mr. Speaker: Shall the motion carry?

Mr. Lewis: We object in principle but let it carry. My colleague, the hon. member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Laughren) would not forgive me were we not to say that.

Motion agreed to.

Mr. Speaker: Introduction of bills.

CITY OF CORNWALL ANNEXATION ACT

Mr. Irvine moves first reading of bill intituled, An Act to provide for the Annexation of Certain Land for the City of Cornwall Act, 1974.

Mr. Deans: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: The Minister of Labour is not in his seat.

Mr. Speaker: Is the hon. member suggesting he is in his wrong seat? Will the hon. Minister of Labour please take his right seat. Now, shall the motion carry?

Motion agreed to; first reading of the bill.

Hon. D. R. Irvine (Minister without Port- folio): Mr. Speaker, this bill provides for the annexation of approximately 62 acres of the township of Cornwall to the city of Cornwall. This small parcel of land, which is now owned by Ontario Hydro and the St. Lawrence Parks Commission, is located between Lake St. Lawrence and Highway No. 2 on the west side of the city. It will be the site of the new Combustion Engineering plant. My colleague, the Minister of Labour and myself met with members of the city and township council at Cornwall on Monday last. They agreed that the government should proceed in this way in order to facilitate the early establishment of this industry -- one of the major elements in the regional economic development programme in Cornwall.

In addition to the annexation, the bill provides for the designation of the annexed area, together with an adjacent 18-acre parcel in the city, for industrial use.

Mr. Speaker, we are very anxious to proceed as quickly as possible with this bill, and I will be taking it through the legislative process myself.

PROCEEDINGS OF THE HOUSE ACT

Mr. Shulman moves first reading of bill intituled, An Act to regulate the Proceedings of the House Act.

Motion agreed to; first reading of the bill.

Mr. Shulman: As you know, Mr. Speaker, the rights and privileges of the backbenchers have been chipped away in the last eight years. This is an attempt to reverse that procedure.

Mr. Speaker: Orders of the day.

LAND TRANSFER TAX ACT

Hon. Mr. Meen moves second reading of Bill 26, An Act respecting the Land Transfer Tax Act, 1974.

Mr. J. A. Renwick (Riverdale): Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: A request was made to the minister yesterday to provide us with copies of any proposed amendments to the bill. My point is simply whether or not we can debate the bill on second reading if we do not have the amendments which the minister proposed to introduce in the course of this debate.

Hon. A. K. Meen (Minister of Revenue): Mr. Speaker, I had hoped I might have copies of the amendments which my staff and I are presently working on available for the hon. members at this time. Regrettably, they are not ready yet.

I could perhaps take a moment at this point, however, and outline two or three of the areas in which I do expect to have amendments available when we get into committee. I guess that would be next week.

If the House would like me to do so, I could cover what I have. I have two or three.

Mr. Speaker: Would this be acceptable to the hon. members who have raised the point?

Mr. V. M. Singer (Downsview): Well it would give us a little information. It is high time we had it, we have been asking for it for a week.

Mr. Speaker: In view of the fact it’s high time, the hon. minister may proceed.

Hon. Mr. Meen: I am not prepared to admit it’s high time, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Singer: No; the minister is not prepared, period.

Hon. Mr. Meen: I am prepared to tell hon. members of a couple of areas in which submissions have been made to me and in which, I think, we are going to be able to make some amendments.

If hon. members refer to section 1, sub 1, sub f, sub ii, they will note that we set in that subsection one of the criteria for the designation of a non-resident corporation as being a corporation in which any one shareholder held a block of 25 per cent or more of the shares, it being obvious under a previous subsection that if 50 per cent or more were held by non-resident shareholders that would be a non-resident corporation.

However, it has come to my attention that it’s entirely possible that a 25 per cent share in a corporation could be held by a non-resident, but in fact the corporation could be controlled by resident Canadians or by people falling in the category of residents. I will therefore propose in due course an amendment that would modify that section so that it would be essentially 25 per cent but it would be possible if it is demonstrated, I suppose to my satisfaction, to the satisfaction of the minister, that the corporation is in fact controlled by residents, that it would then not be automatically, as would otherwise be the case under sub ii, a non-resident corporation for the purposes of the Act.

Section 6, subsection 1, is another section which has caused a good deal of consternation among mortgage lenders. The first mortgagees on building loans, for example, have been concerned that the potential lien that would arise if the property presently being built, let’s say by a builder and during the course of the construction he’s receiving mort- gage advances, if that property were subsequently sold to a non-resident, the provisions of section 6, sub 1, would place the lien for the 20 per cent tax in priority to all of those mortgage advances.

That had not been my intention. The intention had been to preclude an arrangement whereby property was sold with a mortgage back -- sold to a non-resident, then the mortgage back -- it is our intention that the lien for the tax would be in priority to that kind of mortgage, but not in priority to mortgage advances made in good faith by a lending institution, or any other person for that matter, in the course of the construction of a dwelling; so I will have an amendment to that effect in committee.

Lastly, section 16, sub 1, is in the opinion of my legal advisers somewhat more limited than it should be to permit the imposition of a lien for unpaid non-resident tax where we wish to postpone that lien in favour of mortgage advances.

It’s roughly the same sort of thing. What we anticipate under section 16 is the non-resident corporation dividing building lands and developing them to the point of sale for construction purposes. At that stage or at some stage in the course of acquisition it would normally be subject to the 20 per cent non-resident tax. We don’t want to do that if the corporation eventually sells those lands back to Canadians or to residents.

Therefore, what we propose to do -- and we thought we had sufficiently broad language in section 16, subsection 1, to accomplish that -- is to take a lien for the unpaid tax and if the property is eventually sold to resident Canadians to wipe out the lien. That lien would, once again, have priority over mortgage advances and other securities for moneys advanced, which we don’t really want to do. I want to have the authority, as the minister, to postpone the lien in favour of mortgage advances which come along and to provide for partial discharges of that lien with respect to smaller parcels within the subdivision as they are eventually sold off from time to time to resident Canadians.

I will have an amendment to section 16 which will extend somewhat broader authority to the minister for that purpose.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Kitchener on Bill 26.

Mr. J. R. Breithaupt (Kitchener): Yes, Mr. Speaker. On Bill 26, there are a couple of points I would particularly like to raise with the minister. I realize that the minister, of course, has made certain comments on reports in the press that flowed originally from the comments made by the Treasurer (Mr. White) in his budget.

I think we are all particularly concerned with the effect of Bill 26 because the minister has stated that this is one of the policies which this government is intending to develop in order that eventually the supply of housing and residential accommodation generally would be improved for the people of this province.

There are some specific questions, I think, which should be put to the minister and these, I hope, will enable us to have a better bill or at least have various points clarified. As I had suggested to the minister yesterday, I felt there was some merit in obviously encouraging the greatest amount of public involvement that could be possible. I suggested, you will recall Mr. Speaker, that it might well be in the best interests of all parties concerned that we would put this bill in standing committee eventually so that the public could, in fact, appear before the committee so that there could be the broadest possible public discussion with builders, with persons who frankly speculate in the price of land, with municipal authorities and with the various officers of financial houses which are involved in this kind of development. I still believe that would be worth- while. However, we shall see if that can be accomplished.

Mr. D. M. Deacon (York Centre): It would be a very rare thing if it does get to standing committee.

Mr. Breithaupt: The minister, of course, is of the view, as he has expressed it, that the law must be clear and must be known as quickly as possible. My view of that, Mr. Speaker, is that I would not want a bad bill just because we were in a hurry to pass one. I would rather use the powers which the minister has to have an effective date of April 9, which is a date after which all transactions will be reviewed. The minister has suggested, indeed, that matters until September will be subject to this review so that the kiting of offers which was referred to earlier can be reviewed and certainly looked into in some depth.

I am certain, of course, that there will be some who will attempt to avoid the interest the minister has shown in trying to regularize this kind of a situation. Those persons who choose to break the law in spirit if not in letter are going to have the ministry’s officials involved in reviewing their particular transactions. I think that is certainly valid.

Since that power does exist, I would suggest the minister could well reconsider his earlier comment with respect to the future development of this bill. I think that if the power exists to review all of the circumstances we can well take several weeks, if necessary, to come up with a better bill, once we have had a full discussion of all the possibilities of all the problems and indeed of the future development of this area, and once we have involved all the segments of our society that are interested in this particular situation.

Mr. Speaker, on the bill itself you will recall that I made some comments, in my lead-off on the budget debate for the opposition last Tuesday, specifically with respect to the point that was raised that this tax imposition will, in fact, discourage ownership of land. I suggested that foreign interests, because of the safety and because of the desire to be involved in a growing economy, may well accept this 20 per cent simply as a cost of doing business as they see it. I suggest further to you, Mr. Speaker, that if that is the case, if interests in Europe, in Asia, are prepared to buy into Canada at any price, then of course the ultimate price they pay will be reflected in the return they are going to want to have. If we have done nothing but add 20 per cent onto the cost of a facility, then the eventual resident, the home buyer, the apartment dweller, the condominium purchaser, are going to be sharing in that additional cost.

So I caution the minister; I suggest to him that if he is serious about this, I presume he would say that no foreign interest could purchase land. If he simply thinks that he is going to avoid the foreign purchase of land by the imposition of this tax, then I suggest he is incorrect. I think this might have a very slight effect, but in the overall long-term point of view the attraction of our economy is going to simply have this imposition of tax treated as another business expense. I think that we are only going to be kidding ourselves if we think this tax is going to suddenly avoid the problem that the minister foresees.

In my part of Ontario, in the city of Kitchener, there has been tremendous growth and development, much of it stimulated by foreign capital. I have received several letters from various dealers and persons who are involved as agents, particularly for German funds, and they raise some particularly interesting points. Certainly, Mr. Speaker, I am not standing here as their mouthpiece in the sense that I may necessarily agree with the point of view they take, but I think the points they raise should at least be discussed. The reason for this is that if we discourage certain building and certain procedures, this may be a decision the government openly chooses to make; but the point which was raised to me was the one which I have already just made for you, Mr. Speaker; and that was, of course, that it is most important to ensure that if we are interested in stopping foreign investment there are ways to do it, and this is likely not the way that is going to be successful.

Now I noted, Mr. Speaker, that there were several areas of concern which were suggested in press reports. The persons who are dealing solely in vacant lands and the transfer of them from one party to another are the persons which this kind of a tax also is going to harm. I think that this tax, as it is looked upon as a companion to Bill 25, An Act to impose a Tax on speculative Profits resulting from the Disposition of Land, that together they are two instruments which the ministry has chosen to develop in order to attempt to resolve a problem.

Mr. Speaker, as I have suggested in my budget speech, this will not resolve the problem. This bill will not bring any more housing onto our market, certainly not this year and certainly not next year. The only way to resolve that problem is by increasing large areas of serviced land immediately, but I will not repeat the remarks I made in that earlier debate.

I would suggest, Mr. Speaker, that there are some particular points on which I would like to hear from the minister as he responds with respect to the principle of this bill. Is it true that the officials in his ministry at least consider that this tax may be accepted as a cost of doing business in this province? Is it true that vendors may be induced to hang onto their properties, and therefore since they do not have a ready market available to them, the supply of housing ultimately will not be developed in the way it is hoped this kind of bill might assist?

There are various problems that are going to come up, particularly when we look at the carrying costs of these various persons who are speculating, and the persons to whom they might like to sell their properties. If, for example, we deal with Ontario residents who are going to be encouraged to purchase land and develop it, what sort of a mechanism will we really have available to us to track down whether in fact these persons are acting for themselves, for foreign interests, for non-residents, for others who may in fact be putting up the money?

It was interesting to talk yesterday with a person who, as an accountant, has been involved with speculation. He said to me that the greatest thing they feared was the uncertainty of having matters reviewed in the minister’s office. If there was a definition they could find a way around it; and this, of course, I think is what we are going to see. If there is a definition made obviously there are going to be persons who will lie awake nights attempting to avoid the results of that definition. And if the definition says 20 per cent or 40 per cent or whatever, then in effect we are going to have persons who are going to attempt to avoid the problem.

Mr. Speaker, I really don’t wish to take up too much of the time of the House in reviewing this bill, because I think that we are agreed that there are certainly things which have to be done in order to encourage housing within the province. However, I feel that we are also disagreed as to the kinds of things which, in fact, should be done and the best manner of putting onto the market housing which of course is badly needed within the province.

If this 20 per cent land transfer tax is going to apply to non-resident sales of apartment buildings then we may well be in a difficult position when we look to the kinds of capital developments we need in order to construct apartments. I think that it may well be that the tax is validly going to be imposed on those persons who are interested solely in land speculation. However, I do suggest that some consideration could well be given to the matter of applying this tax to the ownership of completed projects. There are many builders who are developing their properties here within the province as a result of investment of foreign funds. I think that if we are going to cut out those foreign funds by this tax then we may well have some difficulty.

The minister shakes his head, and indeed this may be one of the points he will want to clarify. Certainly it’s one of the points which I think is important to have as clear as possible.

I believe the shortages of apartment construction, especially as we approach a zero vacancy rate in cities like my own and in Metropolitan Toronto, are going to give us a series of problems to get accommodation on stream and developed as quickly as possible. It may be that this tax will have a serious effect on that matter, and surely there j is not much merit in putting in a tax if it is actually going to harm housing development during this period which the government admits is one of crisis.

Mr. Speaker, those are just a few remarks. I think that we would like to hear from the minister and I’m sure that many other members will wish to make their comments, so that the various points that have been raised are clarified and so that our people know, as a result of this debate, the directions in which the ministry is moving.

Mr. Speaker: We want to give the Minister of Labour an opportunity to introduce a group which he wishes to introduce to the House.

Hon. F. Guindon (Minister of Labour): Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I’m sure the hon. members would like to join me this morning in welcoming students from the Etienne Brule French high school, Toronto, in the west gallery.

Monsieur le Président, je vous remercie. Au nombre de nos visiteurs ce matin je suis heureux de signaler la présence des étudiants de l’école secondaire française Etienne Brûlé de Toronto qui sont accompagnés de leur professeur. Au nom de tous mes collègues je leur souhaite la plus cordiale bienvenue à la Législature ontarienne.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Wentworth.

Mr. I. Deans (Wentworth): Mr. Speaker, I too have a few comments I want to make about the bill.

An hon. member: Quite a few.

Mr. Deans: I want to begin by saying that I must say to the member for Kitchener I’m not quite clear whether his party is in favour or opposed to the bill. I gathered from his leader’s comments on the day the legislation was introduced that the Liberal Party was very much in favour of what the government was doing in regard to this bill. I’ll be very interested in watching how the vote goes, just to determine whether we are back into the education debate again.

I want to say to the minister one thing to begin with. We’ve raised a number of times the problem of separating policy from administration in the area of taxation. I believe the Treasurer of the Province of Ontario has an obligation to be here today to defend his policies with regard to this particular legislation. The minister who is before us is dealing only with the application of the legislation, how it will be applied, including the force in the province, rather than the policy considerations that resulted in the legislation coming forward from the cabinet. I think at this time we should in fact be dealing with the policy, what the policy really is of the government and what the intention of this legislation is supposed to be.

An hon. member: Bankrupt!

An hon. member: That’s what the first speaker was.

Mr. Deans: I think it would serve the government well if the Treasurer were to find the time to come into the Legislature and to listen to the reasons why other people here feel that perhaps this is not an appropriate way to deal with a very severe problem in this province.

I want to state right off the bat, Mr. Speaker, that we will oppose the legislation. We will oppose the legislation because it is not the kind of thing that should be done in the Province of Ontario if the government’s intention is to eliminate both speculation and land holdings of foreigners in Ontario.

The Legislature set up a select committee and that select committee studied the matter of the foreign land holdings in the Province of Ontario. In fact, the current member in the chair is the chairman of that committee. The committee studied at some length the impact of foreign ownership of land in the Province of Ontario. The committee gave a great deal of consideration and produced a report, the entire report being some 60 pages long, dealing entirely with the matter of foreign ownership of land, foreign ownership of real estate.

The committee considered whether or not there should be a tax applied to the foreign ownership at the time of sale and the committee rejected it as being an unworkable and an unnecessary way to do business. The committee rejected it, saying --

Mr. E. W. Martel (Sudbury East): Did the minister read the report?

Mr. Deans: -- that the time had come in Ontario for us to reclaim for Ontarians and future Ontarians the ownership of land in this province.

The committee went on to say it believed that it was necessary to put a stop to the further purchase of land by non-residents and by foreigners in the Province of Ontario. That was after careful deliberation. That was after the committee had taken the time to hear many representations from many representatives of a number of groups across the Province of Ontario. The committee had the benefit of the expert advice, the best advice available, in the province. The committee came to a number of conclusions and the government has decided, for reasons which I can’t understand, to completely --

Mr. Martel: Ignore.

Mr. Deans: -- ignore the recommendations and conclusions reached by that committee. I happen to be a member of that committee, as is my colleague from Sudbury who will speak, and I know the member for York Centre wants to speak. I want to say that that committee’s recommendations were far-reaching. If that committee’s recommendations had been followed, this particular tax would not have been brought forward by the government at this time.

The member for Kitchener says that it will become a cost of doing business in the province of Ontario. A 20 per cent tax at this time will not only become a cost of doing business, it will be a force that will increase the cost of land and holdings in Ontario.

The 20 per cent tax, rather than being a deterrent against the purchase of property, will become simply a built-in cost that will add to the inflationary spiral of land costs in this province. And it is not going to solve the problem. It’s not even going to begin to solve the problem. In fact, it could be fair to say that this is going to add to the problem; it is going to add to the inflationary spiral and it is going to increase the cost of land in Ontario. And this is exactly the opposite to what the government has stated its intentions to be.

We will oppose it because it is basically wrong, it is silly and it doesn’t meet the objectives of the government in providing any kind of stop to the spiralling costs.

If this government had taken even a moment to read the recommendations of the committee, if this government had honestly believed that the setting up of that select committee was a worthwhile endeavour and that the time spent by the members of the Legislature in studying this matter deserved even a tiny consideration, then they could never have come down with this kind of legislation.

What did the committee recommend? I think this is important and germane to the argument that we are going to have. Let me refer all members of the House to the interim report of the select committee, dated 1973, on foreign ownership of Ontario real estate. It deals specifically with this very problem.

Mr. Martel: It’s signed by seven Tories.

Mr. Deans: And let me read from page 53 in the summary of recommendations:

“Ownership of real estate by individuals:

“1. The committee recommends, subject to recommendation 2, that all future transfers of legal or equitable (including leasehold) interests in real property in Ontario to individuals, directly or indirectly, be restricted to Canadian citizens and landed immigrants resident in Canada.”

Mr. Martel: Did the minister hear that?

Mr. Deans: That’s point No. 1.

Mr. Martel: And it was signed by seven Tories.

Mr. Deans: This bill doesn’t even begin to deal with that.

“2. The committee recommends that individuals who are neither Canadian citizens nor resident landed immigrants be entitled to lease real property in Ontario for a maximum period of one year without option of renewal being included in the arrangement.

“3. The committee recommends that persons who, subsequent to the implementation of recommendation 1, acquire real property in Ontario (other than by short-term lease) as landed immigrants resident in Canada, and who subsequently lose their resident landed immigrant status other than by becoming Canadian citizens, be required to dispose of property so acquired, within three years of the effective date of their change in status.

“4. The committee recommends that individuals otherwise ineligible to acquire real property in Ontario who are designated as beneficiaries of real property in Ontario under a will or intestacy be required to dispose of the property so acquired within three years.

“5. The committee recommends that municipalities in Ontario be empowered to levy a surcharge of up to 50 per cent of the real property tax otherwise applicable in respect of land owners in Ontario not ordinarily resident in Canada.

“6. The committee recommends that the policy and practice with respect to real estate on which property tax obligations are in default be reviewed with particular attention to public advertisement, notification to adjoining owners, auctioning and tendering, and uniformity of procedure.”

I’ll go on in a moment, but at the outset I want to suggest to the government that if it is their intention to reclaim for Ontario the land that rightfully belongs to us, then these are the kinds of recommendations and the kinds of actions that have to be undertaken.

And if it is their intention to drive down the cost of land in the Province of Ontario, to decrease the cost of real estate in the Province of Ontario, then adding a 20 per cent tax isn’t going to do it, and we are opposed to it.

If there is any value at all in using the tax mechanisms of the province to drive down the cost of land, then the only way they will be effective is if the tax is 100 per cent, and anything less than 100 per cent becomes a cost of doing business in the Province of Ontario. This 20 per cent will simply mean that land and property which was previously at a level almost out of the reach of anyone in the Province of Ontario will have, as an additional cost, 20 per cent added on. And we don’t see that as being a worthwhile way to deal with what has become a major problem confronting most, if not all, of the residents.

Under the area of commercial and corporate real estate ownership, the committee made further recommendations; and we numbered them starting at No. 7, again on page 53:

“7. The committee recommends, subject to recommendation 8, that all future acquisitions of land in Ontario other than by individuals be restricted to corporations or ventures not less than 75 per cent owned by Canadian citizens or landed immigrants resident in Canada.”

That is not being done by this bill.

“8. The committee recommends that corporations less than 75 per cent owned by Canadian citizens or resident landed immigrants, who can establish that it is bona fide in the nature of their business to acquire land on a regular basis for real estate development or finance, have the option of becoming 75 per cent owned by Canadian citizens or resident landed immigrants as a condition of being entitled to continue to acquire land during the period required to obtain a fair price for the corporation’s shares on the Canadian market.”

And that is not being done by this bill.

“9. The committee recommends that corporations or ventures less than 75 per cent owned by Canadian citizens or resident landed immigrants be entitled to obtain leasehold interest in land in Ontario on terms appropriate to their commercial needs.”

And that is not being done by this bill of this government.

I turn to No. 11 -- they all are applicable, but they don’t all have to be read into the record:

“11. The committee recommends that foreign ownership of or investment in real estate other than land in Ontario should be investigated further as a priority matter, with a specific view to assessing the desirability of extending the committee’s recommendations regarding commercial and corporate ownership of land to all real property in the province. A study should include examination of:

“(a) the role of foreign investment in the behaviour and performance of markets for and development of real estate other than land in Ontario;

“(b) the extent and nature of Ontario’s requirements, if any, for foreign capital for real estate development;

“(c) the other various aspects of foreign ownership of or investment in real property other than land identified in the foregoing discussion.”

And that didn’t take place! And that should have taken place! And that should have been one of the priority matters of the government if it really believes as a government that there is a need to do something in Ontario about the rapidly escalating costs of real property and land and the inflationary spiral that is forcing many Ontario citizens to the wall with regard to their inability to meet their commitments to provide basic shelter for their families.

I want to tell you, Mr. Speaker, that I seriously wonder now at the value of the study that was conducted by this committee.

This committee conducted a study I suspect unlike any ever conducted by any committee of this Legislature heretofore. I think it fair to say that there was more time and effort put into the compilation of the reports of this committee than any other single committee that ever was struck by this Legislature.

We sat for days and days on end, just on land alone. We met with people who expressed any interest at all in the problem of land.

We met with developers; we met with builders; we met with speculators; we met with financiers. We spoke to people outside of the country about the impact of the proposals we were making. We spoke to them in Switzerland, because it was important. We spoke to them in New York, because it was important. We wanted to see the impact of what we were going to do and what we were going to recommend.

We attempted to come up with recommendations which would protect the interest of Ontario against the intrusion -- the unwarranted, unjustified and unnecessary intrusion -- of financiers from outside of Canada. We came down, we believe, with recommendations which, if implemented by this government, would have made this kind of tax unnecessary; they would have made this kind of move by the government completely and totally out of character with what we were trying to get.

It’s hard to convince the government, obviously, that the impact of what it is doing is going to be exactly the opposite of what it intends. What’s going to happen in Ontario is that those people who already have sufficient capital to invest and who are outside the Province of Ontario and outside the Dominion of Canada as investors are simply going to add on the additional cost of doing business here, and when the time comes to pass it on to the Ontario resident; that will be a cost which we in Ontario will have to bear.

That will be a cost which will be built in in the final analysis. The minister shakes his head and holds his arms up.

Hon. Mr. Meen: On a point of order.

Mr. Deans: On a point of order?

Hon. Mr. Meen: It’s really quite contrary to the point I have already made. If a foreign investor comes in on this basis to develop lands for the benefit of Canadians or Canadian residents, we will give him a waiver of that tax. If he eventually does meet his commitment and sells to Canadian residents, the tax will be written off. There will be no obligation, not even interest.

Mr. Deans: The problem --

Mr. R. D. Kennedy (Peel South): It is obvious the member hasn’t read the bill.

Mr. Deans: We have read the bill and I understand the bill.

The point the minister makes is wrong. That’s not what is going to happen, because the speculator in land invariably turns the land over from time to time through other speculative processes. It goes from the speculator to the developer and there will be no appreciation of value. There will be no development taking place. There has never been in the past; there is not going to be in the future. The speculator in land who is going to be --

Hon. Mr. Meen: We are not talking about the speculation tax.

Mr. Deans: We are. We are talking about the foreign holdings and it will include the speculators in lands. It will include the speculators. What’s going to happen is that they are going to develop a process whereby when they turn the land or the property or whatever over from their holding company to the Canadian operation or to the operation here that cost will become a cost added into the cost of doing business.

It will inflate the price of property in the Province of Ontario. It will not deflate it. Even in the case of the speculator, even in the case where the land is sold from foreign hands to foreign hands, that cost will be built in. That will establish the market value. This is what I am trying to get through to the minister.

As those properties change hands and that cost becomes a built-in cost, that cost will be part of the basis of establishing market value in the Province of Ontario. It will have an impact, an upward thrust, on the value of property. When the foreign speculator or investor sells his land to another foreign speculator or investor and is forced to pay the tax -- or in reverse when it’s sold from Canadian to foreign hands and there has to be a tax paid -- that tax will be added in. That will then become the value of the property for the next sale.

It will continue the upward escalation of prices; and that’s where the minister is wrong. That’s where the tax isn’t going to work and that’s why we say that is not the way in which to deal with the problem. If the minister could prove to me there was going to be a two-pricing system in the Province of Ontario whereby those who were involved and had this tax applied against the sale would have a higher price to pay or would be unable to absorb the cost into the final value, okay. But he can’t do that, because no matter what the costs are they become the costs to everyone else and it simply means there will be a larger profit which will take into account what would normally be a 20 per cent tax as set out in the bill.

The minister is wrong in the way in which he sees the tax working. I don’t doubt for a moment that he envisages it as working differently, but it can’t.

Mr. Speaker, to go on. The committee of which the member for --

Mr. S. Lewis (Scarborough West): Sudbury East?

Mr. Deans: No, the chairman.

Mr. Lewis: Northumberland (Mr. Rowe).

Mr. Deans: The committee of which the member for Northumberland was the chairman undertook to try to meet the problems. It undertook to try to come up with recommendations which would have met not only this particular problem but many of the other problems involving both land speculation and foreign holdings of real estate in the Province of Ontario. If this government had had any intention at all of meeting its commitments to the people of the province, they would have followed the recommendations.

But the government wasn’t in the business of trying to meet its commitments to the people of the province. The government seems, these days, to be in the business of trying to sell to the people of Ontario, by way of great press statements, the idea they’re doing something about the housing needs while in fact they are playing the game alongside the speculator.

This government, in fact, has even been part of the speculation in the Province of Ontario. This government has, over the years, steadfastly refused to use the lands which it held within Ontario Housing Corp. to pressure down the cost of land in the Province of Ontario. Even though these things were brought to its attention, this government has never recognized its obligation to put an end to speculation in the essentials. This government has never taken a step to try to end, once and for all, the speculative impact of people who have no interest in the welfare of the province, reaping from the public massive amounts of money without any substantial input into the economy. This is where the problem really lies.

I’m going to tell you Mr. Speaker, unless the government is prepared to put an end to speculation in land -- an end to it -- unless the government is prepared to make the tax on speculation so severe as to make speculation unprofitable, then it will continue. It will continue here in this bill, and it will continue in the companion legislation, Bill 25.

I’m not the only one who thinks that the speculator is going to find ways of building this particular tax into the final sale price. Everyone else believes it. Even those dealing in land believe that this will be built in.

Let me read something to you, Mr. Speaker, if I can find it. I just can’t pick out the spot but there is an article in the Financial Post of April 20 which says, “but few expect the tax to reduce prices in the near future.” I can’t just pick it out, but it says that it will become a cost of doing business in Ontario and that the speculator in land and the foreign holders of land will simply add that tax in.

I ask the minister, I ask him seriously: Does the government intend to stop foreign ownership of land in Ontario?

Mr. Martel: That is the issue. That is really the issue.

Mr. Deans: Is it the intention of the government to put an end to foreign ownership of land in Ontario? Because that’s the key question.

If it’s the intention of the government to put an end to foreign ownership then you simply stop it by law, Mr. Speaker, and you don’t run the risk of further escalating prices by way of an additional tax which by the government’s own statement really is not intended to yield much by way of revenue in any event.

If the government doesn’t intend to stop speculation in Ontario then it must stop playing games with the public. It must not pretend these two taxing measures are going to suddenly reap for the public of Ontario a great benefit with regard to a reduction in realty costs, because the real estate agents don’t believe it, the developers don’t believe it, the speculators don’t believe it and the public doesn’t believe it.

If the minister honestly feels there is a need to put an end to what has become one of the greatest single problems confronting Ontario residents, particularly young people, then I suggest to him that he withdraw this bill and come back into the Legislature with a bill that will say clearly and equivocally that we will not permit any further foreign investment in Ontario and that we will put an end to the speculative aspects of the moneys already here. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker: Before the hon. member for York Centre proceeds, perhaps I might be granted a moment to inform the House that in the name of Her Majesty, the Queen, the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor has been pleased to assent to certain bills in her chambers.

ROYAL ASSENT

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

Bill 20, An Act to amend the Farm Products Grades and Sales Act.

Bill 27, An Act to amend the Retail Sales Tax Act.

LAND TRANSFER TAX ACT (CONTINUED)

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for York Centre.

Mr. Deacon: Yes, Mr. Speaker. I find this bill one of the most maddening pieces of legislation that has ever been brought before this House. It is another example of a government sham or pretence of accomplishing something it knows the public wants to see achieved. It knows the public is concerned about the fact that foreigners are second only to this government in fanning and fuelling the fires of land speculation.

This government is buying up land and putting funds in the hands of those who have found out ahead of time where it is going to buy and then allowing them to go and buy new areas of land. This government has failed to recognize that only when there is a surplus of a product will there not be speculation.

What bothers me here is that the government is trying to pretend that it is concerned, as was the select committee, about foreign buying of land in Canada and is making it more difficult for Canadians to own their own country.

Mr. Lewis: Well, the Liberals welcomed it on budget day. They welcomed it. They applauded the government on budget day.

Mr. Breithaupt: In principle.

Mr. Martel: They are all over the ball park.

Mr. Lewis: They applauded them for both taxes on budget day.

Mr. Martel: They welcomed the tax, and they were going to support it.

An hon. member: No, we said --

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Deacon: Who has got the floor?

Mr. Lewis: The hon. member for York Centre has the floor.

Mr. Deacon: Thank you.

Mr. Martel: They’re the greatest flip-flop artists around.

Mr. Speaker: Order please; order.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Martel: Twenty minutes ago they were going to support the bill.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. member for York Centre has the floor.

Mr. Martel: Twenty minutes ago they were supporting the bill.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. A. Grossman (Provincial Secretary for Resources Development): Next budget, when the press asks for comment, wait 24 hours.

Mr. Lewis: What to say is: “Maybe.”

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Say to them, “I’ll tell you in a few hours.”

Mr. Martel: It didn’t even take that long.

Mr. Deacon: The thing that bothers --

Mr. Lewis: Know what I am doing now? I am taking a couple of headache pills. The hon. member is giving me a headache.

Mr. Deacon: Well, I am glad the hon. member is buying a foreign pill.

The thing that really concerns me here is that surely some of the people who are taken in by this sort of pretence might be some members of our own party.

The public as a whole is very conscious of the need to restrict buying of land to Canadians. But just because we happen to have a huge land mass in this country doesn’t mean that we have an unlimited supply of land for the purposes that we want as Canadians -- for example, building sites, recreational cottage lots and recreational land. Indeed, there is a definite restricted availability of such sites in this province. We know that other countries throughout the world are recognizing that unless they own their own land they indeed are going to be threatened with losing their sovereignty over the land they are supposed to have.

Our select committee recognized the need not to discourage development of housing or other developments that would add to the economic activity and strength of our province. It recognized there are alternatives to owning land, that in most cases the only reason foreigners are anxious to own land is so that they can ride up with the inflation in land values that this government has caused by its policies over the last 20 years. In fact, there are many examples of excellent developments carried out by all types of investors, of improvements to properties, buildings and different deals on land-lease deals.

No impediment is caused by the fact that one cannot own the property outright -- none at all. There are all kinds of ways for improvements to properties to be made by those who bring in capital from outside this country, as well as those who have ordinary domestic capital to develop and improve property. There is no reason why we should fear the results of outright prohibition of land ownership by foreigners and non-resident Canadians.

I want to indicate that this government has really pulled the wool over the eyes of the people of this province by this device of a transfer tax, hoping that it will indeed make people feel it is recognizing a problem of foreign ownership of land and doing something about it. It isn’t. It is a sham. It is a shell.

It is going to be ineffective, and particularly ineffective because it is dealing with a situation at this time where there is a shortage of building sites and there is a shortage of recreational land. And under these circumstances all that happens in a situation where it is a sellers’ market is that prices have increased so that any cost such as this tax imposes is just passed on to the buyer.

Surely this government can find better ways to get revenues than this, because this is not going to do anything except penalize the end buyer; the person who is trying to rent an apartment or is leasing space or accommodation. We are only making it possible, by what we are doing here, for the government to pretend it is doing something when, in fact, it isn’t doing anything at all to help the basic problem we face in Ontario from foreign ownership of land. And it is for that reason I certainly feel this bill is a fraud and a deceit.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Sudbury East.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, I must say before I get into the principle of this bill, that I watched with amazement this morning the transition that took place to my right.

Mr. Kennedy: Don’t be surprised any more.

Mr. Martel: The far right -- I think it is even further right than the Conservative Party if that is possible -- but it took place again this morning, much like the teachers. Within 20 minutes after my colleague, the member for Wentworth, started to speak, they had decided they would flip-flop. The welcome of the bill by the leader of the Liberal Party the other day was gone, the remarks of the member for Kitchener were gone, and we heard the last speaker. They were in --

Mr. Deacon: Did the member for Sudbury East hear the first speaker support the bill?

Mr. Breithaupt: Did I support the bill?

Mr. Martel: Yes, the member for Kitchener didn’t say he was going to welcome it; in fact he was very careful not to indicate where he was going to stand on it. He wanted to find out which way the political winds were going to go before he would take a position; and that is typically Liberal. It is called flexibility.

Mr. Breithaupt: Why doesn’t the member for Sudbury East speak on the bill?

Mr. Martel: They call it something else.

An hon. member: Middle of the road, isn’t it?

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, I want to tell you that I oppose the bill. After a year of study on this, I guess, it is amazing. I am absolutely convinced not a cabinet minister read the bill or the select committee report.

Mr. R. Haggerty (Welland South): The member doesn’t want any controls at all, does he?

Mr. Martel: The member for Welland South will hear what I want in a few moments. Don’t get excited; he will hear what I want in a few moments.

Mr. Haggerty: The member is opposed to any controls at all; that is what he is telling

Mr. Martel: No, I am not opposed to controls.

Mr. Haggerty: That is what the member for Sudbury East just got through saying.

Mr. Martel: If the member for Welland South will just restrain himself for a few moments, just a couple of moments, I will get to what our position is.

Mr. Speaker, after a year --

Mr. Kennedy: It would be nice to know.

Mr. Martel: Well, the member for Peel South should know; he was on the committee.

After a year of study, my colleague indicated what the recommendations were by the select committee -- an 11-man committee made up of seven Conservatives, who supported the recommendations --

Mr. Kennedy: Some of them; some of the recommendations.

Mr. L. M. Reilly (Eglinton): Some of them.

Mr. Martel: I am sure the member for Peel South who is now interjecting --

Mr. D. C. MacDonald (York North): There were some dissenters.

Mr. Martel: I am coming to that. I wanted to make sure I cleared that up -- there were some dissenters -- but the overall principle of the report was accepted by all the members.

Mr. Haggerty: The member for Sudbury East is one of those who dissented.

Mr. Martel: That’s right, and I want to tell the member that I further dissent to this bill. The important thing is, though, that despite some dissent -- in fact I want to read one of the dissents, Mr. Speaker. It will show you how ludicrous the position of the Minister of Revenue is. These are dissenting opinions of Messrs. Kennedy, Newman, Rowe and Walker. And do you know what they were dissenting to, Mr. Speaker? Listen to this: “In our view it would be improper to levy a surcharge of the sort proposed on non-resident taxpayers.”

They didn’t want a surcharge on non-resident taxpayers for recreational land. What the government is doing is it is imposing 20 per cent -- and are the members going to support it?

Mr. Kennedy: That’s individual existing recreational cottage areas. The member is all mixed up between the report and the bill.

Mr. Martel: I will read the rest, Mr. Speaker: “Non-resident land owners are in effect tourists, who when visiting Canada do contribute to the general revenues of all three levels of government.”

What difference does that make if they buy it tomorrow? What difference does it make if under the new bill they are going to pay 20 per cent more for the right to purchase property in Ontario? But the government is dissenting to anything.

Mr. Kennedy: Does the member want to practise discrimination right now?

Mr. Martel: Well, the government is practising discrimination. It is going to discriminate against anyone why buys land in Ontario tomorrow.

Mr. Kennedy: Yes, but --

Mr. Martel: The government can’t have it both ways.

Mr. Kennedy: But that is known in advance. The member can’t have it both ways.

Mr. Martel: That’s known in advance? It’s going to be interesting, Mr. Speaker, to see where these four gentlemen vote.

Mr. Kennedy: No problem.

Mr. Martel: It is really going to be interesting, Mr. Speaker, because you hear the member for Peel South, as he argues this 50 per cent surcharge suggested by the committee is discriminatory and he is now saying it’s okay to put 20 per cent on though. If that’s not discriminatory, I wonder what you call it.

Mr. Kennedy: It is not in unfair taxes.

Mr. Martel: It goes on to say --

Mr. Kennedy: The member has an obsession.

Mr. Martel: -- “a surcharge which would fall on non-Canadians who own vacation lands in this country would be discriminatory.”

The same would apply to those businessmen then who bought land and had to pay 20 per cent more. Wouldn’t that be discriminatory? The government is all over the ball park.

Mr. Kennedy: Applying that surcharge on a few people is frivolous.

Mr. Martel: Isn’t that interesting? It’s going to be interesting to see whether the member for Peel South votes for discrimination or not. The member for Victoria-Haliburton (Mr. R. G. Hodgson) is enjoying this because he supported the recommendations of this report, all of them.

Mr. Kennedy: Just a frivolous levy.

Mr. Martel: Why did we oppose any more foreign domination? It is unfortunate the member for Welland South is not in his seat, because I want to make the point, as my colleague from Wentworth did, that the question is a very simple one: Do we allow more takeover by the foreign sector of land in

Ontario? The select committee said no on all counts.

It’s obvious the Minister of Revenue did not read the report. It’s obvious his advisers didn’t take time to look at what an 11-man committee of this Legislature, who had counsel and who had researchers to work with them, recommended. In fact, the last recommendation of this report states, and I want to put it on the record because it’s very important:

“The committee recommends review and implementation of its recommendations as a matter of urgency and priority, and that consideration be given to the early promulgation of a date on which the implementation of the committee’s recommendations would take effect.”

The minister has ignored it in totality. Who in God’s name on that committee of his or in the Treasury even looked at this report? Who looked at it? Who looked at the recommendations of an 11-man committee who had counsel themselves, who had a research staff themselves, and for over a year wrestled with this problem, bringing in everyone who had a say at all? My friend, the member for Peel South, knew what we haggled about and what we finally decided it was based on.

Let me put a paragraph from the report on the record.

Mr. Kennedy: Would the member permit a question?

Mr. Martel: Yes.

Mr. Kennedy: A few minutes ago the member said that the committee agreed on all counts. Does he mean by that on all classes of real estate?

Mr. Martel: No. On the principle of land ownership, on the basic principle. There was some difference of opinion on commercial land.

Mr. Kennedy: Well now, the member is misleading this House because --

Mr. Martel: On the basic principle.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Peel South is out of order.

Mr. Kennedy: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The hon. member, with all respect, is misleading the House, because he implies that the 11-man committee agreed on all counts if he said the words which I think he means -- “all categories of land.” There was substantial dissent with respect to commercial and industrial lands. I think that should go on the record for clarification.

Mr. Lewis: He wasn’t implying it; he was explicitly asserting.

Mr. Breithaupt: He said it.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: He was giving the impression of some other things.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, let me say that on page 12 --

Mr. Kennedy: Do you accept that point of order, Mr. Speaker?

Mr. Martel: -- is one of the things that decided the committee’s eventual report. It says:

“On the other hand, the committee does not feel the issue of foreign ownership of land or other real estate is appropriately dealt with merely by arriving at a judgement about the present level and significance of land holdings. Attaining optimal development and land utilization for the people of Ontario and Canada demands long-term perspectives and solutions. The committee is of the view that the nature and patterns of foreign demand for real estate in Ontario merit careful consideration in this context.”

A 20 per cent surcharge isn’t going to do a thing about it.

I’m not sure if the minister is aware that immediately to the south of us -- and this is one of the things which impressed the committee -- is a population of 100 million Americans -- just immediately to the south of us in the “golden horseshoe” area -- who have as much leisure time as Canadians, higher wages, more disposable income, and who in fact are screaming for land. One hundred million!

I’m wondering again if the minister is aware that certain countries, such as Germany, provide special tax laws which encourage the purchase of land in other countries and give concessions for that purchase back in their own state, such as Germany.

My friend the member for Victoria-Haliburton knows. He has whole townships tied up by German capital because they have special tax laws in Germany which encourage the purchase of land in Ontario or in countries other than their own. It’s a very easy matter for those laws in Germany to be modified to take into account the 20 per cent and it won’t change a thing. When this report was being drafted one thing taken into consideration was the amount of money for investment that the Arab world has now and the fact that they are looking for investments and looking for an outlet.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: So long as they don’t buy in Forest Hill.

Mr. Deans: That’s a problem.

Mr. Martel: They just might.

Mr. Deans: That’s exactly the problem.

Mr. Martel: The point is, we have tremendous masses to the south with more money. What happens when they start buying land for any purpose? Recreational land for private individuals is not stopped.

An hon. member: No, it’s the oil wells.

Mr. Martel: They can pay more because they have more disposable income. What does that do for the population of Ontario and for Canada if Canadians, other than those dwelling in Ontario, want to purchase land in Ontario? What happens to that land as it is being driven up because Americans have more money to spend? The 20 per cent isn’t going to do it. They’ll be willing to pay the 20 per cent because they haven’t got land in the United States. They must come here.

We’re talking about 100 million immediately to the south of us and we’re talking about a population of 200 million. What happens with the special tax laws of other countries which encourage investment in Ontario in the form of real estate?

One wonders again, as my colleague said earlier, what good is the select committee? Is it just to appease the public because we’re studying it? Are any of the recommendations of a select committee ever taken seriously? We spend $1 million to prepare reports and these two bills, particularly the one we’re debating today, fly totally in the face of the report. Why have it? It’s a waste of time.

Mr. Speaker, I just want to quote a few sections from this. It says:

“An important source of foreign demand, as is widely known, is the United States. Two facts place the issue in stark perspective: the states neighbouring Ontario are among the most populous in the United States and the wealthiest in the world.”

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. Martel: Well, if the member thinks 20 per cent is going to prevent them from buying into Canada or into Ontario, he is whistling in the dark. It goes on:

“Over 100 million persons live in the northeast and north-central regions of the United States adjacent to Ontario, and with the exception of California, these areas have the highest incomes in the world.

“For other reasons too, Ontario and Canada are and have been attractive places to buy land; and for real estate in general. From a general business standpoint, Ontario has been and is a desirable place to establish business operations.

“Further, particularly in or near urban regions, investment in real estate in Ontario has been attractive to both foreign and domestic investors. In particular, British, other European and Japanese investors, encouraged by substantial upward revaluation of their currency relative to the Canadian dollar, are active participants in Ontario real estate markets.

“All these factors translate into significant foreign demand for land and buildings in Ontario, and point to an acceleration rather than an abatement of the acquisition of Ontario real estate by non-Canadians, The nature and implications of developing patterns and trends of foreign ownership are considered below.”

And I’ll just put on the record, Mr. Speaker, if I might, a couple of figures I had with respect to who owns what and where the investment lies. Well, I’ll come to them in a moment.

For example, on page 27, it says:

“Representatives of the Urban Development Institute estimated before the committee that of the order of 50 per cent of the developable land in zone 1 of the Toronto-centred region is owned by foreign- owned developers.” [Fifty per cent in the Toronto-centred region is foreign owned.]

“For example, it was given in evidence before the committee that 95 per cent of the property managed by the Metropolitan Trust Co. is foreign owned.”

Does the minister think 20 per cent is going to change any of that?

Hon. Mr. Meen: Is the member suggesting we expropriate them?

Mr. Martel: No, I am suggesting --

Hon. Mr. Meen: Confiscate them?

Mr. Martel: Well, there is a recommendation in here --

Hon. Mr. Meen: What does the member suggest?

Mr. Martel: Did the minister read the report?

Hon. Mr. Meen: Yes, I have read some sections of it.

Mr. Martel: The report? Even the recommendations? Did he read them? Because there is a recommendation which says that they would have three years. It says:

“The committee recommends that individuals” [and the same could apply to corporations] “otherwise ineligible to acquire real property in Ontario who are designated as beneficiaries of real estate property in Ontario under a will or intestacy be required to dispose of the property so acquired in three years.”

Or the minister could do the other thing that we have discussed, that I --

Hon. Mr. Meen: Now members opposite are against that too.

Mr. Deans: Yes, there are always a few who are not very bright.

Mr. Martel: Or he could do as recommendation No. 8 says.

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. Deans: But the committee recommended it.

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. Deans: The minister couldn’t even convince his own colleagues that we were wrong.

Mr. Martel: Recommendation No. 8 could take care of that. He could do that with real estate.

Mr. Deans: He couldn’t convince them we were wrong.

Hon. Mr. Meen: I convinced them members opposite were wrong, that was no problem.

Mr. Martel: Recommendation No. 8 says:

“The committee recommends that corporations less than 75 per cent owned by Canadian citizens or resident landed immigrants, who can establish that it is bona fide in the nature of their business to acquire land on a regular basis for real estate development or finance, have the option of becoming 75 per cent owned by Canadian citizens or resident landed immigrants as a condition of being entitled to continue to acquire land during the period required to obtain a fair price for the corporations’ shares on the Canadian market.”

The member didn’t read this report; it is obvious. It is so obvious. It is pathetic that he would be in here trying to sell us a bill when he doesn’t even know what the select committee that studied the situation for a year discovered.

Mr. Renwick: And when the Treasurer says this is on interim step towards serious consideration of these propositions.

Mr. Martel: He has gone by some adviser. Could the minister not at least take into consideration his cabinet colleague, the Minister of Housing (Mr. Handleman). The Minister of Housing signed this report along with the rest of us before he became Minister of Housing. He is vitally concerned with land. Why isn’t he here today?

Mr. Lewis: And he didn’t dissent.

Mr. Martel: In fact he wrote that he was not dissenting to all of the content in this report. He is the man now responsible for housing. I’m wondering when the Treasurer and the Minister of Revenue drafted the bill if they consulted the Minister of Housing. I suspect they didn’t, because he agreed with everything in the report, and there is a statement in this report to that effect. He recognized, as others of us did, that it is a fundamental question: Do we allow more intrusion into Canada and into Ontario of foreign interests in the real estate field?

Mr. Deans: Or do we say: “You can intrude if you can afford it,” because that is what this minister is saying: “Intrude all you want as long as you pay the tax.”

Mr. Martel: The Minister of Housing said no. He said we can’t.

An hon. member: He’s crazy.

Mr. Martel: He said we have to make sure there is land in perpetuity in our area and that we, in fact, will lease lands. If you will look on pages 57 to 59, Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Housing indicated that he supported every principle in this bill. There was only one thing he cautioned about. He said let’s do it slowly and let’s make sure that we have a study and know what we are doing.

It is obvious, Mr. Speaker, he wasn’t consulted. In fact it is obvious that he was excluded from discussions, because the bill flies in the face of everything that he as Minister of Housing signed -- not as Minister of Housing at the time, he has since come into that portfolio. But he, like the rest of us, after over a year of study recognized what the problem was about.

Hon. Mr. Meen: I thought the member said not a single cabinet minister read that report.

Mr. Martel: He wasn’t a cabinet minister at the time. That’s why I say the Minister of Revenue must have excluded him from the discussions, because he wouldn’t have -- did he support the bill by the way?

Hon. Mr. Meen: Oh sure!

Mr. Deans: Tell us about the cabinet discussions.

Mr. Martel: He supported the bill?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: We all supported the bill.

Mr. Renwick: Tell us about the discussions about the percentages.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, there are so many reasons. We had before us so many people, and we ultimately came down to this decision that all land would either be leased or would be owned by Canadians and landed immigrants. For business purposes, corporations, whether commercial or industrial, could lease land from Canadians. In fact we were told as a committee over and over again that in Britain, and to a greater extent in the United States today, corporations aren’t buying land. They are leasing land on long-term leases. They don’t even attempt to purchase the land any longer.

Mr. Speaker you could go on and on listing the reasons the committee came to the conclusion it did. To have the government simply fly in the face of these reports, this study, these recommendations -- one would like to get into the cabinet room just once to hear what type of discussions this would be.

Hon. Mr. Meen: The member will never get the chance to do that.

Mr. Martel: Whether it was the Treasurer or the Premier (Mr. Davis) saying: “That’s it. This is the way it will be accepted.”

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Is the member sure he just wants to get in once?

Mr. Martel: Just once -- that would be enough. I’d like to hear what went on in this one.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Some day in the future he may have an opportunity. That’s all he needs is one opportunity -- that’s all the public will go for. If he gets in there once they’ll throw him out.

Mr. Lewis: Actually he is just angling for a cabinet post. He wants this kind of public commitment.

The member for Sudbury East has it.

Mr. Martel: Have I got it?

Mr. Lewis: He has it.

Mr. Martel: Thank you.

It is hard to understand how the government arrives at this sort of legislation. Is it the politicians who decide it; or some backroom boy? Or is it civil servants? Who decides these things when an 11-man committee of this Legislature makes a recommendation or a series of recommendations?

Mr. Haggerty: Way down in Fort Lauderdale.

Mr. Martel: Is that where it was made?

Mr. Haggerty: Yes sure, down there -- that highrise complex.

An hon. member: Condominium.

Mr. Deans: It was made on a trip through the Black Forest.

Mr. Martel: You know, Mr. Speaker, as we put this all together it was intriguing. We had before us all of the various people representing the major corporations involved in commercial and industrial development and for two days we tried to get answers from them -- answers as to how much land they held. You couldn’t. Ask the Minister of Housing. For two days we tried to find out about their financing and at the end of two days we were left in the cold.

We tried to find out how much --

Hon. Mr. Grossman: The investigation was very poorly done, because the list of land available was made public about five or six months ago. Does the member remember, at the invitation of the federal minister we did it, the city did it and then he didn’t provide the member with it.

Mr. Martel: Oh yes. Oh yes.

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. Martel: I know he is talking, but I want to just correct that statement by the minister.

It says:

“To the committee’s knowledge” [and we had our research staff do it and we had our legal counsel do it] “no systematic and comprehensive study of the extent and pattern of foreign ownership of real property in the province has been undertaken.”

Hon. Mr. Grossman: They weren’t talking about foreign ownership. They are referring to the land that the Minister of Housing should have available to him --

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Martel: Oh no; oh no.

Mr. Lewis: No, no, no.

Mr. Martel: Let the minister go back and read his paper.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: I am reading the member’s speech.

Mr. Martel: Well, read my speech then.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: A previous one.

Mr. Martel: We attempted to find out how much land was in the developers’ hands, not for commercial purposes in the sense of commercial buildings but for housing. The figures varied depending on which group you were talking to.

In fact the committee, at the end of two days, was absolutely frustrated, and you know it was because we couldn’t get a handle on any of this. It is because, as the report states, there is no study of land in foreign ownership. It is because of the amount that we know is there in certain key areas and in certain key sectors. It is because we know that special tax laws are made abroad to encourage investment here. And finally it is because we know there are so many people to the south of us that we came through with these recommendations.

I suggest to the minister that before he goes any further with this bill that he in fact consults, at least, with his seven colleagues on his side of the House who sat in on this committee for over a year looking at land. The minister shouldn’t just go by maybe a few civil servants, maybe some backroom boy. Why doesn’t he sit down with his colleagues over supper some night -- like tonight -- and ask why three of them endorsed every recommendation here? Three -- and the other four were split on certain recommendations, but nonetheless the overall import of the report they agreed to.

I suggest that if the minister did this, he would by next Monday withdraw this bill and he would come in with a bill designed to protect land -- and by that I mean stating categorically landed immigrants and Canadians are the only ones who own land. That is how we will resolve the problem, otherwise it is just an exercise in futility which is going to drive prices up, because those outside have more money to spend than the citizens of Ontario.

It is so obvious, you know. In recreational land today even -- in recreational land! They were leasing lots last year in the Parry Sound district -- $400 a year for a leased lot for recreational purposes, because of the type of system the government has introduced; not the lottery but the auction -- there’s a prime example that was proved.

Land that was leased the year before was 100 bucks, but as people can afford more they continue to drive up the price for recreational land on a year-lease basis, and in the Parry Sound area last year land was leasing at $400 a year. And I suspect it will go up to $500.

That’s exactly what’s going to happen when the government imposes a 20 per cent tax, because it is just going to drive up prices. It’s unfortunate that the minister doesn’t recognize it -- that before he plunges ahead with this bill he doesn’t at least indicate to this Legislature what he is really trying to accomplish. I am not convinced that it is accomplishing much.

Mr. Deans: Bring the Treasurer in and make him answer for his sins.

Mr. Martel: Finally, Mr. Speaker, my colleague the member for Wentworth and I, just feel that any participation in a select committee is an exercise in futility because of this bill.

We think that any further sittings of the select committee on economic and cultural nationalism should be discontinued. We just think that it’s nothing but a sop to try to appease Canadians who are concerned about foreign domination. The government puts up a facade about it.

We in northern Ontario recognize that probably more than anyone. It has been window dressing up there for 30 years --

Mr. Haggerty: Just window dressing.

Mr. Martel: -- and we are absolutely convinced that for us to continue --

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Pretty good window, it needs good dressing.

Mr. Martel: No, the government party won’t have that many seats left come next election.

Mr. Deans: My colleague is authorized to tell them I won’t sit again.

Mr. Martel: And my colleague, as you have heard Mr. Speaker, suggests that to sit again is absolutely useless because the government doesn’t intend to do anything but mislead the public with various reports. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Any other member wish to speak before the minister replies on Bill 26?

The hon. minister.

Hon. Mr. Meen: Mr. Speaker, the --

Mr. Renwick: Perhaps before the minister replies --

An hon. member: Hey, what goes on?

An hon. member: What gives?

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. W. A. Stewart (Minister of Agriculture and Food): They’re afraid they won’t have enough supporters to vote.

Mr. Martel: The Liberals are with us now.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Riverdale.

Hon. J. A. C. Auld (Minister of Colleges and Universities): So what’s new? They’ve been on and off for months.

Mr. Martel: They started out supporting us.

Hon. Mr. Mean: I would like to hear from the member for Riverdale.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Renwick: Yes, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker --

Hon. Mr. Grossman: He has nothing to say, but he is having a hard time thinking about it.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. T. P. Reid (Rainy River): To conclude my remarks --

Mr. Renwick: To conclude my remarks, since the leader of the party has now arrived, I thank you for the opportunity of participating in this debate.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Breithaupt: This speech will even be better.

Mr. Lewis: Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Riverdale is reserving his contribution. All of the members in this House are fair minded and will view his remarks on Monday as an appropriate contribution to the debate. My apologies, I had to run out on something rather quickly.

Mr. Speaker, I want to add my voice to the modest crescendo of opposition that’s mounting to this bill. I think you have got a tremendous hornet’s nest on your hands and the minister hasn’t realized the extent of it. He hasn’t begun to realize to what extent public opposition and political opposition is going to mount -- not only on this bill but on the 50 per cent land speculation bill, because they are both fraudulent. They are both faulty right at the root. Neither of them make any significant contribution to the problems they are allegedly designed to alter, or to correct fundamentally, and that kind of bill in public terms begins to evoke resentment and opposition which ultimately presents the government with a major confrontation. And that’s just what we are now on the verge of.

I predict that before we have finished these bills, the government is going to find itself in a debate, publicly, the like of which it never believed possible. It will, in fact, compare with the kind of debate we had over the land use legislation and the Niagara Escarpment and the parkway belt west, none of which was anticipated by the government because it assumed simply by introducing those bills it would win sufficient public favour.

I want to add to the remarks of my colleagues from Wentworth and from Sudbury East in a number of specific ways. We really resent this bill. This bill shouldn’t be in the House. It is a bad piece of legislation; it is a bogus piece of legislation. The government is pretending with this bill; it is toying with the political process more flagrantly in this bill than it has done in almost any other. It is introducing a number of anti-social principles which are of absolutely no use; and I will refer to them in a moment.

The provincial Treasurer of Ontario brought in his budget about 10 days ago now and in the budget, under the Land Transfer Act section he said:

“In examining the problem of rapidly rising prices for real property in Ontario, it is becoming increasingly apparent that large scale acquisition of land by non-residents of Canada is a significant factor. The matter of control of non-resident ownership of Canadian land is a current constitutional issue which has not been fully resolved. The problem has been studied, however, and has been reported on recently by Ontario’s select committee on economic and cultural nationalism.”

Mr. Martel: Flew in the face of every report.

Mr. Lewis: And then what flows within the budget statement in the next half dozen paragraphs is a clear implication, Mr. Speaker, that somehow the recommendations embodied in the select committee’s report are reflected in the tax policy announced by the provincial Treasurer. This statement in the budget is a very clever little piece of duplicity in itself.

What the budget might have said, to be honest, is that the “select committee on economic and cultural nationalism analysed this subject, investigated it thoroughly, made a number of recommendations and we, the cabinet, have decided to repudiate every single recommendation the select committee made.” That might have been honest, not to say honourable.

The government chose instead to imply that the select committee’s recommendations were embodied in the legislation which would follow; and that, of course, is not the truth at all.

As my colleagues have pointed out, particularly the member for Sudbury East, the select committee recommendations in this field were recommendations that were embraced by a number of Conservative backbenchers, including among them men who are now in the cabinet. Let me read to you what the Minister of Housing said very explicitly at the end of the select committee report:

“On the basis of information available to us both from the evidence given before the committee and from the research conducted by the committee’s staff, we support the comments and recommendations contained in this report.”

Those were the members for Carleton (Mr. Handleman), Victoria-Haliburton and Humber (Mr. Leluk); three perceptive mortals in this instance. They go on to say:

“In our view a nation is firmly rooted in its history, its people and its primacy over the land which it occupies. Ownership of Canadian soil by our citizens and those who have committed themselves to this country by immigrating to it, can only strengthen the nation. Perception by the young of the Legislature’s resolve to retain ownership for them of their natural heritage will impress on them the fact that government is for them and their future as well as for the here and now.”

You know Mr. Speaker, perhaps it is not lyrical, but it is pretty good. It is a pretty assertive statement about the quality of the Canadian identity and about the need to do something for it. Let me point out, Mr. Speaker, that the other members of the committee who were Tories, while they dissented on specific recommendations -- one, two, three or four of them; from time to time -- on balance they embraced the recommendations of the report, the thrust of the document, and certainly the kind of sentiments expressed by the now Minister of Housing and his colleagues.

I don’t know whether one could say the Minister of Housing is in a conflict of interest. I don’t mean a personal conflict of interest; I mean an intellectual conflict of interest. I tell the government what it is doing in this legislation today damns the recommendations and the position of the Minister of Housing. If in fact it is dealing in matters related to land, it severely compromises him as Minister of Housing in the cabinet now.

This minister may not have thought of that when he introduced this legislation but that is precisely what he is doing. He is compromising the Minister of Housing hopelessly because he is rejecting the basic foundation of his personal commitment as expressed through the select committee’s report.

I understand the kind of resentment and frustration which the member for York Centre feels; which the member for Wentworth feels; which the member for Sudbury East feels; maybe to some extent which the member for Victoria-Haliburton feels -- I cannot speak for him. It is the resentment and frustration of having come together, dealt with a subject, dealt with it in good faith and at length, and then having the government introduce legislation which is not only incompatible with the recommendations of the select committee report but in no way reflects their intent.

If ever the select committee process has been reduced to mockery in this House, it is in this case. That cabinet over there has said to hell with the select committee on economic and cultural nationalism. It has clearly thumbed its nose at it. It again has asked the select committee to indulge in the kind of exercise which is totally futile. The ministers have no blessed respect for the legislative process at all, be it their own backbenchers or the opposition.

It’s worse still, Mr. Speaker, because as I stand here there is no question in my mind that the recommendations of the select committee on economic and cultural nationalism, where they respected ownership of real estate in Ontario, were simply neither read nor absorbed by those engaged in the policy in this bill. The Minister of Revenue says in that congenial aside of his, “I read some of the recommendations.”

I’ll tell you, Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Revenue did not read this report. He may have read bits of it. He may hurry home and read it now but he’s bringing in a bill which is central to this report and he hasn’t even absorbed it.

The people in the cabinet live in their own world. That’s why much of it is crumbling around them. They have absolutely no interest in the process and nothing but contempt for the contributions which members make or for the social policy which may flow from select committees or anything else. If ever there was a case of it, it’s right here in this bill.

Let me go on to another point I wanted to make, Mr. Speaker, on the use of taxation policy. My colleague from Riverdale put it to me very strongly this morning when we were talking about this bill in advance. He was saying to me -- and I might as well put it the way he put it -- the use of taxation policy is normally a revenue-gathering use. It is normally a device for redistributing income, for reapportioning wealth, for budgetary and fiscal matters. The use of tax policy is the central fiscal device which the government has. It is not an appropriate instrument for the implementation of social policy of this kind. It isn’t appropriate in this bill and it isn’t appropriate in the land speculation tax bill.

As a matter of fact, in neither case does the minister anticipate raising very much revenue, if any. In both cases, he has made provision for returning the revenue raised over an extended period of time if certain requirements are met.

In other words, he is taking a piece of legislation which is tax legislation and he is trying to serve social ends not fiscal ends. In so doing, he is mocking the effective use of tax statutes, which is essentially a redistributive function out there in the incomes place, and he is trying to achieve certain social objectives which just cannot be achieved through this legislation.

And as it happens, he has rejected every major recommendation that has been put to him on the question of foreign ownership of land in Ontario. He has rejected it in order to institute a fiscal device that is doomed to failure from the outset.

So the bill is absurd, and the minister can’t ask us to support it. It is faulty even in its philosophic intent, let alone in its inability to cope with the problems he has laid out. Let me talk about that for a moment.

The basic principle of the bill is that the minister is instituting a 20 per cent tax on land transfers for those from outside Ontario who would wish to purchase Ontario. All right. What the devil is the minister saying? Let’s clear all the clutter. The minister is saying it is going to cost 20 per cent more to buy Ontario. That is what he is saying. Is that fair?

Mr. Breithaupt: That’s right.

Mr. Lewis: Isn’t that what this whole idiotic bill says? It says to the American, Swiss and German entrepreneurs: “Look, fellows, do you want to buy us out? Fine, but it is going to cost you 20 per cent more from now on.”

Mr. Deans: It is crazy.

Mr. Lewis: Well, what kind of unutterable doggerel is that?

Mr. Deans: It is crazy.

Mr. Lewis: What kind of nonsense is that? We are not going to deter any of the major land developers and entrepreneurs around the world from buying Ontario because it is going to cost them 20 per cent more. They are laughing up their sleeves.

There was a party on the night of the budget. In fact, I heard about a number of parties on the night of the budget. A number of them were land developers who got together and simply laughed about this bill and about the land speculation bill.

Mr. Deans: They didn’t even drink. They just laughed.

Mr. Lewis: They just chuckled, because all the inconvenience it caused them was one phone call to their lawyer late in the afternoon to find out if the loopholes were sufficient. In one bill, the land speculation tax bill, the loopholes are not only sufficient, they are positively an invitation to personal and corporate exemption. And in this bill it may cost them a few dollars more. So what.

Mr. Breithaupt: They’ll pay it.

Mr. Lewis: What the minister has done in this bill is he has put up a little sign outside the legislative buildings, symbolic of Ontario, which says: “Ontario for purchase. It costs a little bit more today than it cost last week.”

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. Martel: In fact, we’ll make a special deal.

Mr. Lewis: To pretend that that in some way protects Ontario real estate is like saying to Inco: “You are going to have serious problems with your balance sheet because we are taking a few million dollars more from you next year in resource taxation than we took from you last year.”

Inco simply builds it into all the other factors that are true of a major corporation, and smiles quietly in the corporate board rooms that the Tories and Inco have again managed to get together in what appears to be a mutually beneficial undertaking. The public may think it has hope, but it has none whatsoever. This bill is absolutely preposterous. My colleague from Riverdale says to me -- is that “even” at the top?

Mr. Renwick: Yes.

Mr. Lewis: What he means is, moreover, furthermore or in addition: “The tax they pay in Ontario they will be able to recover by credit in the foreign country from whence they came.” You can see that is from the hon. member for Riverdale, Mr. Speaker, because I never use “whence.” But I point out that the argument that he makes is exactly right.

As a matter of fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if there was a device in the tax world that would make it profitable for them to pay 20 per cent more in taxes here than in their country of origin.

Mr. Deans: If there isn’t one, they’ll find one.

Mr. Martel: The select committee pointed that out.

Mr. Lewis: Yes, the select committee did point out there were devices whereby it could be positively profitable.

Mr. Martel: Germany does it all the time.

Mr. Lewis: If there are German laws, which clearly have been identified by the select committee, that encourage and give special exemptions for the purchase of property outside the country, then presumably the more you pay the higher the exemption.

Mr. Deans: Absolutely.

Mr. Martel: The minister might have to read the report.

Mr. Lewis: I really want to re-emphasize, Mr. Speaker --

Mr. Deans: Withdraw this bill, for heaven’s sake.

Mr. Lewis: What the minister is doing in this bill is saying: “We will not change the rules of the game at all.” Ontario is still up for sale. Foreign real estate will continue to dominate in Ontario. The land can be purchased -- commercial, industrial, residential, agricultural -- Ontario is still for sale to the highest bidder. He hasn’t changed social policy one jot. He hasn’t done a single thing to protect this province against foreign ownership of our land. And that is wrong.

Mr. Deans: They have further escalated costs.

Mr. Lewis: That is socially wrong and morally wrong, because the minister knows the way the people of this province feel about our real estate. He knows he should be bringing in legislation to protect the Province of Ontario, not simply to escalate the inflationary speculative dimension of foreign ownership of Ontario’s economy and Ontario’s land.

As far as we are concerned, this bill is so flawed we wouldn’t give it five minutes’ notice in our caucus. All we were willing to do with it was to talk about the nature of the opposition. The minister couldn’t have sustained the argument with us for a moment.

My colleague from Wentworth pointed out that the effect, ironically, which resides in this bill, in addition to the other things the minister is doing is that it is going to raise prices of land in Ontario. That is just absurd. I can’t believe that a cabinet gets itself into the position where it brings in a bill the effect of which will be to sell Ontario and to make it cost more for residents of Canada.

Mr. Deans: That’s right.

Mr. Lewis: Not only is the minister perversely reinforcing the foreign ownership of our land but if we ever buy it back it’s going to cost us 20 per cent more than it would cost us today. He is penalizing Ontario and Canadian residents on that front as well. What perversity compels him to do all this is something I, for one, will never understand.

Somehow sanity has to take over in that cabinet. Somehow its members have to understand just how destructive they are being, and that they have to respond sensitively and feelingly to the kinds of objections which have been expressed about foreign ownership in Ontario’s land. The only way to make that response, I say to them, is by legislation.

Mr. Speaker, let me be absolutely specific. There is now significant ownership of the beaches of Lake Erie --

An hon. member: By whom?

Mr. Lewis: -- by foreigners. There may be a few more tracts of land, an occasional frontage, available for public purchase. If the government wants to stop that land from being purchased by foreigners, it has to bring in legislation which says that no non- resident of Canada can own more land on the beaches of Lake Erie. That’s what the legislation has to say.

Mr. Deans: Furthermore --

Mr. Lewis: This Act will not do it. This is no deterrent at all.

Furthermore, it has to bring in an amendment to the Beds of Navigable Waters Act which will allow Canadians or Ontarians access to the beaches of Lake Erie. More than that, it is going to have to expropriate some of that property and, providing due compensation, reinstate for public use what is now in the hands of private cottage owners resident in Buffalo.

All of these things have to be done if the government is serious about retrieving land for Ontario. The one thing this bill will not do, the one thing it will assuredly not do, is protect Ontario’s real estate.

That’s the essential sham of the budget. That’s why it is -- and the member for York Centre used quite a legitimate word at the outset of his remarks -- that’s why it is so maddening. For us there is counterpoint of madness -- it’s the capacity of the Liberal Party to take one stand one day and another stand the next.

Hon. Mr. Meen: Quite so.

Mr. Lewis: It kind of undermines the solidarity its members bring to their passion. It depletes it a little.

Mr. Deacon: Does it?

Mr. Lewis: I understand those problems. On the other hand, it is maddening. The government brings in a budget and the headline quality of the budget is: “Tories in Ontario concerned about land speculation, clap on 50 per cent land speculation tax.”

Mr. Deans: Right.

Mr. Lewis: The only way in which one judges a land speculation tax is in the context of housing in Ontario. The land speculation tax isn’t going to put one additional house on the market at a reasonable price. So that whole policy is bogus.

Then, knowing that there is this kind of consistent theme of unease in the public about foreign control of Ontario, the government brings in a taxing device which says 20 per cent more on purchases of land by non-residents, as if to imply that somehow that’s a protection for Ontario’s real estate -- again, completely bogus.

The government are the most artful dodgers I have ever seen. It’s catching up with them though. They have fooled too many too often and there is nothing but scepticism out there now for every single policy they introduce -- nothing but scepticism. When the full import of this piece of legislation and other pieces of legislation begin to be felt by the Ontario public, let me say they are coming closer to those numbered days that they have left.

I simply say in summary, Mr. Speaker, that we will divide the House. We oppose the bill. We will resist it clause by clause, as we have resisted it on second reading. We will make whatever amendments we need make. We want the minister to know that we’re not really interested in his technical, administrative apparatus that he’s got set up to govern this bill. My colleague from Wentworth was right on those grounds as well.

We never get the minister in here who is responsible for the policy. All we get is the sophisticated bureaucrat. That’s all we have. I don’t mean that in a deprecating way. He is Minister of Revenue and, like his predecessors, all he sees is kind of a nit-picking function. He is here to administer the laws. We can’t discuss social policy with him. This bill is nothing but social policy. The minister has no other point to it. It’s wrong in social policy; it’s wrong-headed.

I don’t really know why we are debating it with the minister. I suppose we have to debate it with someone, but why with him? I hold no personal malice. They are nice fellows, maybe honourable men and women. So be they all, but they are incapable of responding to social change. That’s their problem, and if ever it was demonstrated it was demonstrated in this piece of legislation.

The government has made a decision. I don’t know why they made this decision. They have made a calculated decision as a cabinet that they will not protect Ontario’s lands from foreign acquisition. They have made a decision as a cabinet that Ontario’s land is up for ransom to those that pay.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: That is not true.

Mr. Deans: It is true.

Mr. Lewis: They have made a decision as a cabinet that every single policy recommendation --

Mr. Martel: Is useless.

Mr. Lewis: -- of the select committee which involves protection of commercial, industrial, recreational, housing or private land is to be repudiated. They have made a decision as a cabinet that they will bring in a taxing device which they know will fail in its objective from the moment they introduce it. They have made a decision as a cabinet that the world can own Ontario and they’ll never move in to protect the residents of this province in terms of future generations.

Hon. Mr. Meen: Not so.

Mr. Deans: As long as they pay the price.

Mr. Lewis: They have said that they have their price and that they are just jacking it up by 20 per cent. They are an extremely cynical and manipulative cabinet.

Mr. Martel: Stupid is a better word.

Mr. Lewis: They have made a conscious decision about it because it is --

Mr. Martel: Not one of them has spoken today.

Mr. Lewis: -- impossible to construe it otherwise. I’ll tell the minister this as a member of a party which has been torn internally often on questions of foreign ownership, and how far we should go in preserving the Canadian economy and repatriating everything from land to resources. I tell him as a member of this party that we can often be engaged in difficult policy areas, with enormous economic repercussions and all kinds of internal tensions and very great uncertainties, but just as it runs through this party so it runs through the country as a whole that something has to be done to protect our cultural inheritance, of which land is essential, from foreign acquisition. Seven members of the Tories endorsed that in a select committee report.

Mr. Martel: Not one of them has spoken today.

Mr. Lewis: The government brought in a bill which simply says, “To the devil with all of that. We believe in foreign ownership of Ontario and what’s more, we are simply going to preserve it.” I want to see where those members stand when the vote comes.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for High Park.

Mr. M. Shulman (High Park): Does the member for Victoria-Haliburton want to speak?

Mr. R. G. Hodgson (Victoria-Haliburton): Mr. Speaker, I just want to take a few minutes. I think what we are doing here is mixing apples and oranges, because our report, in my opinion does not deal with the same principles as being enunciated in this bill.

Mr. Martel: Don’t prostitute yourself.

Mr. R. G. Hodgson: I think what is being dealt with in this bill goes a long way to meet some of the concern that we expressed.

Mr. MacDonald: How for example?

Mr. Deans: Don’t do this to yourself.

Mr. R. G. Hodgson: Well, if the members wait a minute maybe I’ll tell them something.

Mr. Deans: Don’t do this to yourself. You are too nice a guy to go on the hook for that.

Mr. R. G. Hodgson: You will remember that in our report we mentioned a very vital concern with regard to the recommendations that we were making, and that is the legal basis on the constitutional position with regard to our recommendations and the principles enunciated.

Mr. Deans: And what did the member recommend?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Come off it, let him speak. We listened to the opposition members.

Mr. Deans: The minister did not.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: We certainly did. You fellows never said a word.

Mr. Deans: The committee recommends that the government of Ontario take the position that legislation of the kind that the committee recommended be proceeded with.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: As if he were talking intelligently.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: That is why he is over there and we are over here.

Mr. R. G. Hodgson: I think that’s the crucial point.

Mr. Speaker: Order please.

Mr. Deans: Read the recommendation of the constitutional issues.

Mr. Speaker: Order please.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Now the member is getting us annoyed.

Mr. R. G. Hodgson: I agree with the member for Riverdale on the principle of taxing policies. I see no conflict, in my opinion, with that principle in this bill. But they talk out of both sides of their mouths apparently when they say that they think the taxing policy should only deal on one principle and then say it should be used for social principles as well. I can’t quite follow them in that.

Mr. Deans: The member didn’t understand the argument.

Mr. R. G. Hodgson: I understood the argument I think all too true. What they are trying to do is to say that this government did not meet the recommendations nor the suggestions made in the report of the select committee.

Mr. Deans: And that isn’t true?

Mr. R. G. Hodgson: Then they are trying to say, on the other hand, that because they brought in a taxing policy measure to raise the tax on land to somewhat toward that -- and it will have an effect --

Mr. Lewis: What effect?

Mr. R. G. Hodgson: -- and they will have to admit that.

An hon. member: That’s right.

Mr. R. G. Hodgson: If anyone has to pay 20 per cent more for land, for a tax --

An hon. member: It’s not going to happen.

Mr. R. G. Hodgson: -- you will have to realize that the values of land will go up to those people who would be subject to that tax.

Mr. Lewis: That’s right.

Mr. Breithaupt: They will pass it on.

Mr. Martel: It is more costly for everyone then.

Mr. H. Worton (Wellington South): Add another 20 per cent.

Mr. R. G. Hodgson: That will deter certain people from coming into this country and purchasing land. But to confuse the two, I don’t understand them.

Mr. Deans: Then don’t, please.

Mr. R. G. Hodgson: The member for Sudbury East did his best to wrap us into an all-encompassing approach in the recommendations. That isn’t true. Then, the member for Scarborough West points out that our position -- that is, the member for Humber, the Minister of Housing and myself -- differed, and that the principle that was enunciated by the member for Sudbury East -- that we are all-encompassing and all agreeable on everything in the report -- was not true. So I have to say that --

Mr. Martel: The member endorsed everything in the report.

Mr. R. G. Hodgson: Yes I did, except for the caution that we raised.

Mr. Martel: Except for the caution, okay. Come on.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Kennedy: So he didn’t endorse it all. So the member is wrong again.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: He said on all counts.

Mr. R. G. Hodgson: I would simply say that they are mixing apples and oranges. I think the taxing policy -- and I have no problem in supporting the taxing policy -- that is enunciated in this bill doesn’t really deal with the issue of the ownership issue --

Mr. Lewis: Exactly.

Mr. MacDonald: Except perversely and adversely.

Mr. R. G. Hodgson: And it is unfortunate, in my opinion, that so much attention is paid to the principles that we enunciated and then confusing those with the principle in this bill.

Mr. Lewis: How can he not pay attention to them?

Mr. R. G. Hodgson: I think it is unfortunate that people are drawing the conclusion that they are one and the same.

Mr. Lewis: They are.

Mr. Deans: They are.

Mr. Lewis: This is the government’s answer to foreign ownership. That is what the budget says.

Mr. R. G. Hodgson: This government, when it has studied the legal implications, in my opinion, will come down very substantially on the basis of our report.

Mr. Martel: Did the member read the budget speech?

Mr. Deans: The government doesn’t even read the reports,

Mr. Speaker: Order please.

Mr. R. G. Hodgson: Oh, is my friend saying that ministers who were part of the report, who signed the report, did not read it? He has to be wrong. He has to be wrong.

Mr. Deans: I am saying that the minister who brought the bill in didn’t read the report and I am saying that the report was never considered by the cabinet.

Mr. Speaker: Order please. The hon. members have had an opportunity to speak to the bill.

Mr. Martel: The member’s selling price is pretty cheap.

Mr. Speaker: Let the hon. member say what he has to say about the bill.

Mr. R. G. Hodgson: I think that what the government has done here in this bill will go a long way to ease some of the problems.

Mr. Martel: No, it won’t.

Mr. R. G. Hodgson: It is not the total answer. I don’t think anyone in our party would say it’s a total answer. We haven’t recognized yet all the instances and complications because they are not all brought to the attention of the Legislature. There will be complications with this legislation, as I see it, which we won’t even run across until the tax is applied. Then we will know the problems that will have to be dealt with by this government. They will have to be dealt with in a constructive way, and I have no doubt that they will be.

Mr. Kennedy: He said that in the budget.

Mr. R. G. Hodgson: I feel, Mr. Speaker, that I will have no problem in supporting this legislation. I don’t appreciate, however, all the references to the principles and the recommendations in the select committee as being waived or thrown out by this government --

Mr. Deans: No, because they happened to make the member’s position wrong.

Mr. R. G. Hodgson: -- because further study is needed and there are further complications that have to be understood and worked out. I feel free to express my belief that this government will deal with them adequately. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for High Park.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Now the member will explain that his leader is wrong, that it won’t cost 20 per cent more. Is that right?

Mr. Lewis: Well, it doesn’t have to. They can get around it.

Mr. Shulman: There are so many ways around this bill that one can drive a truck through it. The government is not going to collect that 20 per cent. Does the minister know who it will collect from?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: We’ll close more doors if that happens.

Mr. Shulman: They are going to have a lot of doors to close -- more than they had before.

Does the minister know who the government will collect from? They will collect from the fellow in Detroit who works at General Motors and comes over and buys a cottage on the Canadian side.

Hon. E. A. Winkler: (Chairman, Management Board of Cabinet): The NDP have got something going over there, haven’t they?

Mr. Shulman: He is going to pay the 20 per cent, because for the sake of the $1,000 that’s involved, it isn’t worth his while to go around it.

But for the man who lives in Lugano and who wants to buy a piece of Ontario, because it’s a great place to stand and to invest one’s money, he’s not going to pay the millions of dollars that would be involved in the 20 per cent tax because it is just too easy to get around.

I tell you, Mr. Speaker, the government didn’t seriously want to stop those people coming in, because if they did -- if you look at the bill -- they would have put in some penalties. Will someone be sent to jail for 10 years if they bring in a false affidavit? Are they given some terrible penalty? No. What is the penalty? They would have to pay the amount they evaded, if they are caught, plus an amount not less than $50 and not more than $1,000. We are talking in terms of millions and millions of dollars, and the minister is talking about a $50 fine. It’s ludicrous.

If the minister really was serious, he would have brought in a bill that had teeth. He would have brought in a bill that said, “All right. We recognize there are going to be people who are going to try to avoid paying this huge tax. Therefore, we must have penalties that are going to be serious enough to act as a deterrent.”

But what do they do instead? They say, “We are going to bring in deterrents. The deterrent will be a $50 fine.” Mr. Speaker, they don’t really intend to enforce the bill.

I predict -- and I speak to the former Minister of Revenue (Mr. Grossman) -- I predict that when all the smoke clears and this bill has been enforced for 12 months, he will find that the government will have collected a few hundred thousand dollars from the small people who are buying summer cottages. But the total receipts will be a tiny fraction of what the Treasurer predicted would be brought in during the first year.

This bill is not quite as ludicrous as the one to follow it, the speculative land tax, but in itself it’s bad. It’s bad because the government’s deluding the public, leading them to believe that we are going to stop the foreign takeover of land -- and the government is not going to do it. It is not going to do anything. It is going to produce a little more Ontario revenue, mind you -- not for the province, not for the people, but for the lawyers. Ah, the lawyers love this bill. They see in it the prospect of a huge increase in income in the next year. The Conservatives will have a solid lawyer vote across the province in the next election.

Mr. Speaker, I want to go on to a different aspect, but perhaps this is a proper time to adjourn the debate.

Mr. Shulman moves the adjournment of the debate.

Motion agreed to.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Mr. Speaker, before I move the adjournment of the House, I would like to tell my fellow members that we will proceed as was announced yesterday and continue with this item, No. 9, then No. 8 and No. 6.

The House will not sit on Monday evening, but I expect we will on Tuesday evening and I will probably then be able to give the members an additional schedule of the estimates.

Hon. Mr. Winkler moves the adjournment of the House.

Motion agreed to.

The House adjourned at 1 o’clock, p.m.