Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

The House met at 2 o’clock, p.m.

Prayers.

Hon. M. Birch (Provincial Secretary for Social Development): Mr. Speaker, in the absence of my colleague, the Provincial Secretary for Resources Development (Mr. Grossman), I wish to advise that we are pleased to have the students of grades 7 and 8 from St. Mary’s School, Toronto, in the gallery this afternoon.

ESTIMATES

Hon. E. A. Winkler (Chairman, Management Board of Cabinet): Mr. Speaker, I have here a message from the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor, signed by her own hand.

Mr. Speaker: By her own hand, Pauline M. McGibbon, the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor, transmits estimates of certain sums required for the services of the province for the year ending March 31, 1975, and recommends them to the legislative assembly, Toronto, May 6, 1974.

Statements by the ministry.

TREASURER’S TRIP TO EUROPE

Hon. J. White (Treasurer, Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): Mr. Speaker, I should like to report briefly to the hon. members on my recent trip to Europe.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. White: As hon. members know, the main purpose of my trip was to address the Chambre de Commerce France-Canada, and members have received a copy of my remarks to that body.

Mr. S. Lewis (Scarborough West): It didn’t do anything for his French.

Mr. J. E. Stokes (Thunder Bay): How about reading that page in French?

Mr. M. Shulman (High Park): I thought the Treasurer had gone because of my bill.

Hon. Mr. White: In addition to these prepared remarks, I also announced that our government was giving active consideration to the establishment of an Ontario office in Paris for the purpose of stimulating trade and communications. I know that the Minister of Industry and Tourism (Mr. Bennett) will be studying this matter carefully in the next few weeks.

The second purpose of the trip was to call on our fiscal managers in Paris, Zurich and Frankfurt to introduce myself and the new Deputy Treasurer, A. Rendall Dick. We also had the privilege of meeting the newly appointed vice-president of the Bank of Montreal assigned to the Benelux countries, who will be stationed in Amsterdam.

Finally, I met with senior French officials concerned with national economic planning, regional planning and new towns, and I gained valuable information which will assist me in developing plans for the Ontario Land Corp.

I was happy to meet the secretary-general and officials of the Canadian delegation to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris.

Mr. Speaker, this is a time of considerable change and uncertainty in European financial and governmental circles, and it was of great value to learn about some of the factors which affect world-wide economic conditions. I am happy to say that wherever we went, we were assured of the high level of confidence enjoyed by the Canadian economy in general and the Ontario economy in particular.

Mr. J. A. Renwick (Riverdale): The chamber of commerce over there is the same as here.

Mr. A. J. Roy (Ottawa East): Did the Treasurer speak to Mitterand?

Mr. Speaker: Oral questions.

The hon. Leader of the Opposition.

UNION GAS

Mr. R. F. Nixon (Leader of the Opposition): I would like to ask the Premier something further on the Union Gas situation, which has been raised in the House two or three times. The last time, I think, I raised it directly with the Premier in the absence of the Minister of Labour (Mr. Guindon).

In view of the fact that a serious gas fire occurred when the main high-pressure transmission line through Raleigh township had been tampered with, does the Premier not believe that either he or the Minister of Labour ought to take a stronger position in the continuing negotiations, now three months old, in order to achieve an agreement before there is a serious accident, possibly involving the destruction of property and the loss of life?

Hon. W. G. Davis (Premier): Mr. Speaker, I will be discussing this matter with the Minister of Labour. We are, of course, concerned. I was in that area myself on Thursday. The great problem we have, of course, is to maintain an objective and neutral position in these matters of negotiation; and of course I know the Leader of the Opposition supports the free collective bargaining process. At the same time we are concerned about the safety situation. I shall be discussing it with the minister, but I cannot say “a stronger position” because that has implications that one has to be on one side or the other. Quite obviously, Mr. Speaker, we’d like to see this matter settled as much as anyone.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Supplementary: Does the Premier not agree it is a fact that the mediator, the last two times he has called the two sides together, has simply indicated he did not feel it would be productive to continue the meetings because of the intransigence in the two positions? Would the Premier not agree that the Minister of Labour should call the two sides together and indicate to them the serious view the government has under these circumstances; and perhaps insist that they continue meeting until there is some meeting of minds which would effect an agreement, before the eventualities that may happen do happen?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Labour is as aware as anyone in this House of the serious nature of this dispute. As I say, I shall be discussing it with him, probably later today or first thing tomorrow.

Mr. Lewis: Supplementary, if I may: Since there was a very real question raised about good-faith or bad-faith bargaining on the part of the company, given its present position before the Ontario Energy Board seeking a rate increase, does not the Premier think it is now time to bring together the Minister of

Energy (Mr. McKeough), the Minister of Labour and himself, to see whether direct government intervention couldn’t resolve it, since the company clearly intends to persist in its present position?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Well Mr. Speaker, I am not sure whether there haven t been discussions already on that particular course of action, so I would only say to the leader of the New Democratic Party that we are very concerned about the situation and I shall be discussing it with my colleagues. Beyond that I cannot go today.

Mr. V. M. Singer (Downsview): Supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: There was one previously; all right, the hon. member for Downsview.

Mr. Singer: Yes; in view of the dangers being presented to some of the residents in that area, has the Premier made any arrangements for additional policing by the OPP to protect the citizens who might be affected by some of the unusual acts?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I think some few weeks ago I personally asked that the OPP become involved to see there was no danger to any of our citizens, in that area. I shall check again to see whether or not there is a sufficient supply of men to make sure there is no problem.

GO-URBAN SYSTEM

Mr. R. F. Nixon: A question of the Minister of Transportation and Communications, Mr. Speaker: Is he aware of a statement made by Geoffrey Van Alten, president of the Trans-urban Systems Canada Ltd., a subsidiary of Krauss-Maffei, that the GO-Urban system is now seriously behind schedule? Can he indicate how this will affect the timetable for the establishment of the CNE test track; and can he give some reason why it is falling behind schedule?

Hon. J. R. Rhodes (Minister of Transportation and Communications): Mr. Speaker, I understand the statement said six to eight weeks behind schedule, and that’s the same timing that was announced by Mr. Kirk Foley, president of the Ontario Urban Transportation Development Corp. at a press conference. It is six to eight weeks behind for a variety of reasons; and we have so stated quite willingly.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: So it is now $25 million over estimate and eight weeks behind?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: I think that would be basically correct, yes.

Mr. M. Cassidy (Ottawa Centre): Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Does the minister seriously expect that six to eight weeks of lost time will be recouped; or will it in fact double or treble by the time we get into the summer of 1975?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: I have no way of knowing how that’s going to affect the future. I say six to eight weeks behind. I don’t think that’s too much to be concerned about at this time. As to whether it’s going to double or treble, I’ll have to leave that to the member’s ability to foresee the future.

Mr. Cassidy: Supplementary: Will the minister give the Legislature a detailed statement on the reasons for these delays; and tell members whether the specifications laid down by his ministry can realistically be achieved or must now be abandoned?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, that in- formation would have to be gathered. I don’t have it at this time.

Mr. Lewis: Does the minister think he will make it by the election?

HOPE TOWNSHIP GARBAGE SITE

Mr. R. F. Nixon: A question, Mr. Speaker, of the Minister of the Environment: Further to his statement to the town and village section of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, I believe in the speech that he made on Saturday, where he was quoted as saying that Metropolitan Toronto should look after its own garbage -- which is quite a nice sentiment -- does this indicate any change in the policy of the government that might, in fact, lead the minister not to approve the CPR application to dump Toronto garbage in Hope township?

Hon. W. Newman (Minister of the Environment): Mr. Speaker, in my talk to the town and village section of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario last Saturday, I was talking about garbage as a resource material which I believe it is, a resource material. I went on to say that we can’t continually go on with sanitary landfill sites. We must look for other means of using this resource material, of collecting it, and of reclaiming it. As members know, we have programmes within the ministry now, the Watts from Waste programme that we are moving ahead with. We are hopeful that we can move ahead in the reclamation field.

What I was trying to say, whether I used the Hope residents or the Pickering residents or the Vaughan residents as an example, was that we must be moving more in the reclamation area rather than in landfill-site efforts in the future. We must start reclaiming that resource material.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Supplementary: Would it be true to say then that all the technical information -- the specialists’ recommendations -- have been received by the minister, and whether, or not, to approve the Hope township site is now a matter of political judgment on the part of the minister. Is that what we are waiting for?

Hon. W. Newman: No. We are still waiting for the final report from the staff, who are now summing up the material that has been collected and all the testing that has been done. I haven’t had a final report from my staff yet.

Mr. Lewis: By way of supplementary, what flim-flamming game is the minister engaged in around -- well, he can answer that, I’m sure -- the question of garbage disposal? Does he recall saying in that speech, “I want to tell you now that solution is unacceptable to my ministry,” meaning landfill operations? Does he recall saying, “We cannot continue to cover the landscape of this province with tons and tons of garbage”? Does he recall saying, “I can agree with residents of Port Hope and Hope township in their opposition to having Metro Toronto garbage dumped in their area? Their attitude, and quite rightly” --

Hon. W. Newman: Read the whole speech.

Mr. Lewis: -- “is that Metropolitan Toronto”, etc. -- How can the minister under any circumstances, after making this kind of speech, approve the application of CP Rail? How would he justify it?

Hon. W. Newman: Mr. Speaker, the leader of the New Democratic Party asked for a copy of my speech this morning, which he got.

Mr. Lewis: That’s right.

Hon. W. Newman: Quite obviously, he has only read the parts he wished to read.

Mr. Lewis: I read the whole thing.

Hon. Mr. Newman: If he’d like to read the paragraph above, what I said was --

Mr. Singer: The paragraph about flim-flamming.

Hon. W. Newman: -- “We will not and we cannot condone continued landfill at the present rate.”

Mr. Lewis: That was one of the things he said.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. B. Newman (Windsor-Walkerville): Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Since the minister is so concerned with waste reclamation, is he now prepared to accept Bill 48 that I introduced on the order paper last week setting up a waste disposal and reclamation commission?

Mr. Singer: Good idea.

Hon. W. Newman: We are always prepared to look at anything but not at this point in time, and not what the member recommended. We feel that we have the expertise within the ministry to deal with many of these matters.

Mr. Lewis: Does the minister realize that in this speech he publicly indicated that he would not accept Hope township and that, in fact, he was going to oppose Pickering? That’s the sense of this speech. Now how can he say that in Port Elgin and say something different in the rest of the province?

Hon. W. Newman: Well, Mr. Speaker, that’s a lot of nonsense.

Mr. Lewis: It is certainly not.

Hon. W. Newman: It is so, a lot of nonsense. If the member would like to read the whole speech, I’ve got it here. I’ll read it to him.

Mr. Lewis: I read the whole speech and he has gone right down the line, but he will retract because he is playing two games in Ontario.

Hon. W. Newman: I don’t think he did. He only read what he wanted to read out of it. That’s what he did.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. W. Newman: Read the whole speech and then come back with some intelligent questions.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Leader of the Opposition.

An hon. member: That was like a speech by McMurtry.

POTATO SUPPLIERS

Mr. R. F. Nixon: There are a couple of McMurtry’s left, as a matter of fact.

I’d like to ask the Minister of Agriculture and Food if he is prepared to report to the House on his investigations into the allegations of a potato-pricing cartel? Since the escalated prices are still being paid by the consumers of Toronto, I think it is essential that we get a report with as little delay as possible.

Hon. W. A. Stewart (Minister of Agriculture and Food): Mr. Speaker, what I have been investigating I am not prepared to report to the House at this particular time.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Supplementary: Could the minister now confirm that the OPP and the other law officers of the Crown are not involved in this investigation, but only the officials of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Mr. Speaker, I have no comment whatever to make on that at this moment.

An hon. member: They’re not doing anything at all.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Scarborough West.

SOLID WASTE DISPOSAL

Mr. Lewis: A question of the Minister of the Environment: Since he indicated in the same speech that two things are causing the problem for urban municipalities, one being the encouragement of a throw-away society -- and the minister specifically mentioned soft drinks in non-returnable containers -- is he about to bring in legislation to enact what his predecessors have promised for two or three years and again to give some substance to this speech?

An hon. member: Five years.

Hon. W. Newman: Mr. Speaker, I believe I answered a similar question in the House two or three weeks ago. We certainly have it under very active consideration at this point in time.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh.

Mr. Lewis: By way of supplementary, has the minister indicated directly to Metropolitan Toronto the same kind of opposition that he put forward in Port Elgin?

Hon. W. Newman: Well, Mr. Speaker quite obviously the hon. member didn’t read the speech properly. Certainly I have talked to Metro officials from time to time; it is part of my job. What I indicated at Port Elgin, if the hon. member would like to read over my speech carefully -- and I hope he will -- was that sanitary landfill sites are things that we are going to need to some degree in the future, but certainly not to the extent that we have in the past. We are looking to reclamation of resource material.

Mr. J. R. Breithaupt (Kitchener): In the future they are things of the past.

Mr. Lewis: The hon. minister had better read his own speech again, more carefully.

PROSECUTION OF POLLUTERS

Mr. Lewis: May I ask the minister another question? What is he going to do about the air management branch of his ministry, which refused to undertake prosecution of Inco for a clear violation, which prosecution had to be undertaken privately through the Environmental Law Association and resulted in a $1,500 fine to Inco?

Hon. W. Newman: Mr. Speaker, I read about that fine. There were four charges laid by the Environmental Law Association, three of which were dropped. On the one which they received a conviction, we were notified on the first violation of this matter, Mr. Speaker, and corrective action was taken immediately. Therefore, we did not lay a charge. They introduced some sort of system that corrected the situation very promptly.

The Ministry of the Environment has charges against Inco right now, as the hon. member well knows, but in this particular case, though there was a violation, it was corrected immediately. We don’t want to charge everybody every minute of the day --

Mr. Lewis: I’m sure.

Hon. W. Newman: -- but as far as they are concerned, we also have charges where we are waiting now for the judgements to come down.

Mr. Breithaupt: Not much danger of that happening.

Mr. Stokes: Shades of KVP!

Mr. Lewis: Is it not interesting that the first time that Inco was ever fined for polluting in Ontario, it came through a private application and on the evidence of Mr. Ross Mackenzie, who was conveniently dismissed from this ministry? Does the minister not think that he might prosecute more vigorously on behalf of the people of Ontario?

Hon. W. Newman: Mr. Speaker, we do a lot of prosecuting where it is necessary in this province. We don’t like to persecute.

Mr. Cassidy: They do not.

Hon. W. Newman: We have many prosecutions throughout this province, but we don’t like to persecute.

Some hon. members: Right.

Mr. Cassidy: That law is a disgrace.

Mr. Singer: The minister had better get his predecessor’s line, “The polluter will pay.”

Mr. R. F. Nixon: The desk is still split where he hit it.

Mr. Lewis: Yes, the minister used to take off his shoes then and whack them lustily against the desk.

BANKS’ CONSUMER CREDIT CHARGES

Mr. Lewis: May I ask a question of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations? Would the minister make a direct representation to the federal government about the increase in consumer credit charges by the Bank of Montreal by one per cent and by the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce by three-quarters on one per cent, given the escalation that this adds to the inflationary spiral?

Hon. J. T. Clement (Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations): Mr. Speaker, I would be prepared to communicate with the federal government, yes. As the hon. member well knows, the Bank of Canada set the prime rate and the other banks follow suit, with a markup for their profit and administrative costs. I would be prepared to write, but I don’t anticipate that I would get much by way of an answer.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Maybe David Lewis ought to make a submission.

Mr. Lewis: He is making his submission later today.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Good.

Mr. Lewis: A good thing too, right.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Is the hon. member sure that’s right?

Mr. Lewis: No, I am sure of nothing any more. May I ask the minister a supplementary question? Would he consider the use of a tax credit mechanism in the Province of Ontario to overcome the absurd increases on the consumer credit front -- quite apart from mortgages which are themselves indefensible -- increases on the consumer credit front which the banks are now indicating?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Speaker, I would think that would be more of a decision to be made by the Treasurer than by me. I thought after I sat down it might be more advantageous if I write to the federal government, maybe, sometime after July 8, which is an important date.

Mr. I. Deans (Wentworth): Knowing the speed. at which the minister operates he is not likely to get there before July 8 anyway.

LEGAL AID ADVERTISING

Mr. Lewis: A question of the Solicitor General (Mr. Kerr); can I ask him about Legal Aid Advertising? I will ask it of the Premier. The Solicitor General wouldn’t answer me anyway.

May I ask the Premier how he balances between the provision of public moneys for the advertising of something like a tax credit scheme and the refusal to provide public moneys to advertise a programme like Legal Aid in Ontario, which is clearly useful only to a number of citizens who are frequently disadvantaged and can hear of it only through public advertising?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I can only say it’s a very difficult task to balance.

Mr. Lewis: By way of supplementary, might he reconsider his priorities to provide some of his public largesse in an area of clear social need?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, if the leader of the New Democratic Party is saying there should be a more extensive campaign or an advertising campaign for the Legal Aid plan, I will draw that to the attention of the Attorney General (Mr. Welch).

Mr. D. C. MacDonald (York South): Perhaps there could be less spent on the tax rebates.

Mr. Lewis: By way of supplementary, was the Premier aware of the cut out of the budget of the moneys to advertise the Legal Aid plan to the province generally?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I am aware there have been some discussions.

Mr. Lewis: Fine.

Mr. Cassidy: But when there is a political payoff to be made from it, the government advertises.

LAND PURCHASES IN HALDIMAND-NORFOLK

Mr. Lewis: One last question of the Treasurer, Mr. Speaker: Has the Treasurer received a submission from the regional government of Haldimand-Norfolk on the new townsite?

Hon. Mr. White: The council met a week ago Thursday and asked that I meet with them, which I hope to do this coming Thursday afternoon. At that time I expect to receive the advice of the councillors as to whether the new townsite should be proceeded with in the very near future and if so, what their feeling is about the location of such a townsite. By Friday I will know more about their attitudes.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: A supplementary: Do those options run out at the end of this month so that a decision would be forthcoming before the end of May?

Hon. Mr. White: Yes.

Mr. Cassidy: Can the minister say what the tax treatment would be for the people who have been speculating in land in Haldimand-Norfolk, awaiting this particular decision?

Hon. Mr. White: I’m sorry; I didn’t hear the first part of the question.

Mr. Cassidy: What will the tax treatment be, given the fact that speculators moved in and pushed up the price of property on the projected townsites back in the fall while the minister’s new tax of 50 per cent on speculation only applies from April 9?

Hon. Mr. White: I am not prepared to attempt to answer that hypothetical question. All of the taxes which apply will apply.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: The Treasurer said he hoped they would go broke.

Mr. Cassidy: Will the minister not agree that it is like locking the stable door after the speculators got in in that particular case?

Mr. Breithaupt: Not after they got in but after they got out.

Mr. Speaker: The Minister of Natural Resources has the answer to a question asked previously.

PROPOSED COTTAGE SUBDIVISION ON NAPPAN ISLAND

Hon. L. Bernier (Minister of Natural Resources): Yes, Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Waterloo South asked a question --

Mr. E. R. Good (Waterloo North): North.

Mr. Lewis: North.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Waterloo North? I am sorry. He asked a question of me last week concerning a certain subdivision plan on Nappan Island. I would inform him that the Ministry of Natural Resources objected to the subdivision on Nappan Island as it was originally proposed. Based on certain conditions imposed at our request, the proposal was given draft approval by the Ministry of Housing.

Mr. Good: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Is the minister aware that the conservation authority concerned with the area, the Trent Valley Conservation Authority, had no knowledge of the approval of this subdivision on an island in the River Trent?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: I am not particularly aware of that, Mr. Speaker. I would point out to the member that the Ministry of Housing has the final decision under the Planning Act concerning approval of subdivisions.

Mr. Good: Another supplementary: Did the Minister of Natural Resources give approval for future dredging of the river and the disturbance of the ecology of the area that will result with this subdivision?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: As I said in my opening remarks, we objected to the original proposal but there were certain changes and amendments made to which the housing ministry agreed.

Mr. Good: What were the changes made?

Mr. R. F. Nixon: They’re going to jack up the island.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: I have them here; I can give them to the member or does he want me to read them in to the record?

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Table them.

Mr. Good: Are they very lengthy?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: About a page.

Mr. Good: All right. The minister can send them to me.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: I will be glad to.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Essex-Kent.

UNION GAS

Mr. R. F. Ruston (Essex-Kent):, Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations. Due to the Union Gas strike, is the ministry aware of any leaks there may be in some of the gas lines in the Union Gas area? With the major fire that took place on Saturday night of this past week, and also a fire in Fletcher Tile yard that was hooked up directly to the gas line that was tampered with, is his department making any effort to see that these lines are properly patrolled?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Yes, Mr. Speaker. As the hon. member is probably well aware, there were allegations, which were borne out to be correct, of tampering with the lines prior to last Saturday. Patrols have been conducted in the area, so I am advised by members of a particular police force -- I believe the Ontario Provincial Police. One person has been charged and is awaiting trial. Insofar as the incident to which the hon. member refers last Saturday night, I am anticipating the receipt of a report tomorrow, so I haven’t any particulars on it right now.

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

GRANTING OF LIQUOR LICENCES

Mr. Shulman: A question of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations, Mr. Speaker: Inasmuch as the Cattleman’s restaurant was refused a liquor licence on the ground that there were too many licences; in the area, can the minister explain why Reubin’s, which is next door to Cattleman’s, was granted a licence exactly one week after a letter had been written saying there were too many in the area?

Mr. Breithaupt: There was less competition then.

Mr. Cassidy: Wow! That sounds like patronage.

Hon. Mr. Clement: No, but I anticipated I would probably hear something from the hon. member for High Park.

Mr. MacDonald: The minister is perceptive.

Hon. Mr. Clement: With reference to the story which appeared in the Globe and Mail on Saturday, I communicated with the board this morning -- the chairman is not there; he’s out of town on hearings -- just to find out what the sequence of events was. The Globe and Mail, as I recollect the article on Saturday, said the plans had been approved for the -- is it Cattleman’s? And that is, in fact, not correct.

Mr. Shulman: They were stamped “approved.” I saw them myself.

Hon. Mr. Clement: They were not stamped “approved”. They made application on Aug. 29, 1973, and they were turned down on Nov. 26 on the basis that there were sufficient outlets in the area at that time, in the board’s opinion.

On Dec. 13 the solicitor made re-application and advised the board that he had some additional information he’d like to bring to the board’s attention, and they made application Dec. 13 for another hearing. And that was granted; that re-application was allowed for them to return. On Jan. 25 an inspector attending at the premises found them closed.

On Feb. 28 of this year the solicitor was advised of a meeting which was to be held on March 6. On March 6 no one appeared; the solicitor did not appear; the applicants did not appear. And, accordingly, on April 2 the formal letter went forward saying they’d been turned down again. On April 5 the solicitor notified the board he would no longer be representing that particular company or group of applicants.

So, that’s the sequence of events. Now, I should point out that at the time application was made, the board would not approve plans in advance; they would wait until the hearing.

Last May we had a number of discussions because it was brought to my attention that many people were making application -- they were buying land or premises, spending substantial sums of money -- and then finding themselves in a position where they would be refused for one reason or another.

The board, effective last May, determined that on all applications thereafter, they would indicate in advance whether -- all things being equal -- a licence would be granted. In other words, a person today or anytime following last May, could option naked land, get drawings approved or drawn, submit them, and if all things remained equal he would know in advance before he even purchased the land or commenced construction or alterations, whether his application would be granted.

This has saved a great deal of difficulty for aspiring applicants. Otherwise they had to buy the land, erect the premises, perhaps have several hundreds of thousands of dollars invested, and then find out, for one reason or another, that they weren’t going to get the licence.

This application was initially filed. I am advised, prior to that date.

Mr. Shulman: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Would the minister determine and report back on why, if on Nov. 26, as he states, there were sufficient licences in the area, exactly 17 days later, on Dec. 13, a, new licence was granted to an applicant just two doors away?

Hon. Mr. Clement: I have no knowledge of that particular matter. I will look into it.

Mr. Speaker: The member for St. George.

MR. ELI COMAY

Mrs. M. Campbell (St. George): A question of the Minister of Housing: Could he tell this House whether Mr. Eli Comay is still in the service of his ministry or whether he has left it at this time?

Hon. S. B. Handleman (Minister of Housing): Mr. Speaker, it is my understanding that Mr. Comay is no longer connected with the ministry in any capacity.

Mr. Singer: That’s understandable.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Thunder Bay.

PROPOSED RAILWAY LINE FROM STEEP ROCK MINES

Mr. Stokes: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a question of the Minister of Transportation and Communications. Is the minister in a position to give the status of negotiations going on between his ministry and Steep Rock Iron Mines as they pertain to Lake St. Joseph and Canadian Pacific Railway and Canadian National Railway with regard to the construction of a railway line from Steep Rock Mines at Lake St. Joseph to Savant Lake and possibly on to Ignace? How soon will we get a decision on whether or not the Ontario government is prepared to participate in such a venture?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, the answer to the first part of the question is no. I understand these studies are continuing and are being handled by the Provincial Secretary for Resources Development. He is taking part in the discussions which are going on; I am not.

Mr. Stokes: A supplementary: Does that mean it is conceivable that the Ontario government would enter into an agreement whereby it might assist Steep Rock Iron Mines without the knowledge of the Minister of Transportation and Communications?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: No, Mr. Speaker, I am sure I would be made aware of any arrangements and any final negotiations; or the results of the negotiations. At this time they are being handled by the Provincial Secretary for Resources Development and when the information is available it will be brought to the Ministry of Transportation and Communications and other related ministries.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Windsor-Walkerville.

PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT BUILDING IN WINDSOR

Mr. B. Newman: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Government Services. Could the minister relate to the House the status of the provincial public building in the city of Windsor and whether that new building will contain a registry office?

Hon. J. W. Snow (Minister of Government Services): Yes, Mr. Speaker; the architects are presently working on the detailed working drawings for the new Ontario government building in Windsor. I believe the tenders are scheduled to be called sometime in July, and the building does include the new registry office.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Yorkview.

MOTOR VEHICLE ACCIDENT CLAIMS FUND

Mr. F. Young (Yorkview): Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations. What attitude is the minister taking to the recent report that over 7,000 persons owe $33 million to the motor vehicle accident claims fund, almost as many as are now paying about $9,000 into the fund on back accounts?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Speaker, what kind of an attitude am I taking? I am not very happy about it but it happens to be one of the facts of life that applicants for payment out of that particular fund are reimbursed and, of course, the judgement then becomes the responsibility of the person who was found negligent.

In many instances these people have no assets; they may have died or left the jurisdiction and cannot be traced, and very often the cost of trying to locate them would exceed the amount one might recover. It would be ideal if they did have the wherewithal to reimburse that fund for the amount expended in protecting the victim of their particular negligence but, unfortunately, if the money isn’t there, if they haven’t got it, it is just uncollectable.

In many instances judgements are obtained against them and executions filed. Once in a while, much to our surprise, they are paid off because they have inherited money or they have come into certain funds. Of course, we take their licences away and don’t let them drive, which may prevent them from causing another accident, but the fund just has to bear it and this is some of the rationale behind having the fund in the initial instance.

Mr. Young: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker -- the inevitable supplementary to a question like this: Wouldn’t the minister consider it far more sensible to have a public auto insurance plan under which the insurance is paid as a condition of getting a licence with, of course, the public plan being administered under government supervision, as is now done in at least three other Canadian provinces?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Speaker, that has been and is the law in several other jurisdictions. I am advised that in one of the states neighbouring to the south there are companies which now specialize in selling policies on a 24-hour basis. The applicant for a licence to drive or a new licence for his car, goes in with one of these policies, the face of which would indicate that it has a year to run. They obtain their plates and the policy is immediately cancelled on the following day. Then of course if you are the victim of a person where that type of situation exists, there is no one against whom you can collect because there is no insurance in force, and of course the person who has worked this type of fraud has no assets. So the victim often finds himself without any fund from which to reimburse himself for his injuries. We have thought about it.

Mr. Young: Mr. Speaker, a further supplementary: I agree with the minister that that plan is imperfect but I was not asking about that kind of plan. I was asking about the kind of public plan that is now in effect in Saskatchewan, Manitoba and British Columbia, administered by the government itself.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I just didn’t understand the question. I’m sorry.

Mr. Young: My question, through you Mr. Speaker to the minister, is, would it not be more sensible to replace our present motor vehicle accident claims fund by a public automobile insurance plan, administered by a government agency not a private agency, wherein the premium is paid when the licence is bought?

Hon. Mr. Clement: No, I don’t think that I would like that plan, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Downsview.

MR. ELI COMAY

Mr. Singer: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Housing. Could he tell us his understanding of the reasons Mr. Eli Comay left the government services?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, Mr. Comay didn’t leave the government services. He had a temporary contract to act as a consultant to the ministry until such time as its administration could be organized. Once the contract expired he was no longer connected officially with the government. However, I would never hesitate to use his distinguished advice, as this ministry has in the past and as I would hope to be able to do in the future.

Mr. Lewis: A supplementary, if I may Mr. Speaker: Did Mr. Comay leave a particular plan of action which was allegedly the basis for his being hired as a consultant? If so what has happened to it?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Mr. Comay advised the ministry on a plan of action arising out of the task force report. He put into place a number of preliminary actions which have led to the housing action programme which is now being developed in the ministry.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: A supplementary: Would the so-called housing action programme be identified with Mr. Comay’s initiatives in this? If so, as is generally understood, would not the minister have been well advised to retain his services for the implementation of the programme? Is it possible that Mr. Comay has become upset at the delays in implementation of those recommendations?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: I believe Mr. Comay was invaluable in setting up the bare bones of the programme.

Mr. Singer: Yes, invaluable.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: The development of the programme requires a great deal of negotiation; and it’s felt this should be done within the ministry by ministry people.

Mr. Good: He wasn’t given the authority he should have had.

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

Mr. R. F. Nixon: The minister is guarding his memoirs.

CANDU SALE TO ISRAEL

Mr. F. A. Burr (Sandwich-Riverside): Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Energy regarding the weekend report that the Hon. Mitchell Sharp is willing and eager to sell atomic reactors to Israel. Could the minister find out for me how close any of these will be to the Golan Heights?

Mr. Breithaupt: The minister had better wait a few days before he tackles that.

Mr. Singer: Answer that one.

Hon. W. D. McKeough (Minister of Energy): Mr. Speaker, I’ll. be glad to try and get that information. I must say I was a little surprised about the report, because to my knowledge and to the knowledge of others in this House, the state of Israel and AECL have been negotiating for several years. There are some people here in Toronto who have been assisting the state of Israel in attempting to purchase a Candu reactor, and Mitchell Sharp and the Department of External Affairs have held it up year after year.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: This conversion on the road to the Golan Heights perhaps over the weekend can only mean that a federal election must be coming.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: But I’ll try to get the information.

Mr. Lewis: Actually, that’s probably true. That’s Jimmy Walker struggling through the Middle East.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Kitchener.

TRUCK LOAD COVERS

Mr. Breithaupt: I have a question of the Minister of Transportation and Communications. Following the commitment of the minister’s predecessor (Mr. Carton) when will he be bringing in and enforcing regulations to have all trucks carrying sand and gravel use tarpaulins over their contents to prevent stones and sand from blowing out and damaging motor vehicles on the highway?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, I understand that many of the truckers are doing that voluntarily now; but I can tell the hon. member that there are quite a number of amendments to the Highway Traffic Act that will be brought before this House very shortly. I am hoping that will be included.

Mr. Good: It just needs regulations.

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

Mr. B. Newman: Mr. Speaker, a supplementary.

Mr. Speaker: Supplementary, yes.

Mr. B. Newman: Will the amendments that the minister made mention of that will be coming before the House include the categorizing of ambulances as emergency vehicles, because at present they are not considered emergency vehicles?

Mr. Speaker: That’s not a supplementary to the question that was asked.

Mr. Breithaupt: I have a supplementary, Mr. Speaker: If this matter can be dealt with by regulation, rather than waiting for amendments to come before the House, can the minister attempt to have those regulations proclaimed soon to avoid this damage and annoyance to many of our citizens?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, in fact the Act, I think, does cover this particular problem. I suggest that a proper enforcement of the section of the Act would probably take care of it. If it can be done by regulation, we’ll do that.

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

WITHDRAWAL OF CHARGES IN HAMILTON CASE

Mr. Shulman: I have a question of the Solicitor General, Mr. Speaker: Who in his department issued instructions that the charges of obstructing and assaulting police, laid against Messrs. Papalia and LeBarre in Hamilton, be withdrawn?

Hon. G. A. Kerr (Solicitor General): I am not aware, Mr. Speaker, that any such instructions were given.

Mr. Shulman: Why were the charges with- drawn?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Would the hon. member tell me what specific charges he is talking about?

Mr. Shulman: Yes. I am referring to the charges that came about as the result of the bookmaking raid some six weeks ago in Hamilton, in which the Papalias and their associates, Messrs. LeBarre, etc., were arrested and charges of obstructing and assaulting police were laid as a result of incidents that day. When it came up in court, the Crown attorney said, “I have instructions to withdraw these charges.” I am asking who --

Mr. Singer: Surely that would be the Attorney General’s department.

Mr. Shulman: Should this be the Attorney General?

Mr. Singer: Yes.

Mr. Shulman: Is it within the minister’s department or is it within the Attorney General’s?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Mr. Speaker, all I would say is that if instructions were issued at all, they wouldn’t come from the Solicitor General. It is my understanding that there was a guilty plea --

Mr. Shulman: To bookmaking.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: -- to bookmaking, right. Therefore, I would think that the local Crown attorney can give the member the facts.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Minister of Transportation and Communications has the answer to a question that was asked before.

KRAUSS-MAFFEI SYSTEM

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The hon. member for Kitchener asked me, I believe on Friday: “Can the minister confirm that the Urban Transportation Development Corp. has hired a public relations firm to attempt to improve the image of the Krauss-Maffei system, and if so, who has been hired?”

First of all, the public relations firm was not hired to improve any image of any particular system. The company that was hired is Continental Public Relations Ltd. The company was engaged to provide art services, preparation of all material relating to several press conferences, preparation of several folders, information displays and booklets outlining products and personnel, and editorial services and photographic services. The estimate of the total cost for all services is $5,000.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Rainy River.

JOBS FOR GOVERNMENT BACKBENCHERS

Mr. T. P. Reid (Rainy River): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a question of the Premier. I am asking the Premier’s assistance in righting a great wrong and ending a discrimination which is causing great hardship to a number of people. Can the Premier indicate when he is going to appoint his last remaining eight backbenchers to some government job?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I would be delighted to, since I am always seeking creative ways for the utilization of the singular talent that exists on this side of the House.

Mr. Reid: He has thought up a lot of them.

Hon. Mr. Davis: As I find them, I shall make the necessary appointments.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Wentworth.

HOME PROGRAMME

Mr. Deans: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Housing.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Deans: Will the Minister of Housing in his investigation of unusual occurrences under the HOME programme inquire into a practice whereby certain people who own homes already appear to be eligible in getting HOME programme homes?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, I would certainly be pleased to look into that. Everyone who owns a HOME unit and every builder engaged in activity under the HOME programme is advised that this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and that nobody can have more than one. If anybody does have one, or if there is anybody who suggests that he can have another one, even though he is presently occupying one, I would be pleased to hear about it.

Mr. Deans: I am sorry; a supplementary question in order to clarify my question. I asked it very badly.

Persons who currently own private property, not a HOME programme home, are applying for and going on the list of HOME programme home applicants and getting a HOME programme home and then selling their private dwelling, or keeping it and renting it.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: I know of no ruling in the HOME programme that would deny a person that opportunity if he meets the income tests. However, I would be pleased to look into the prevalence of it to see whether or not it is a serious problem.

Interjection by an hon. member.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: If the hon. member has any instances that he can put to me in confidence, I would be pleased to look into them.

Mr. Deans: Supplementary question: Since there appears to be no provision which prohibits it, will the minister consider putting such a provision in the HOME programme, in order to ensure that people who need a house get a house and people who have a house keep the one they have got?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: I would be pleased to look at the possibilities of such a restriction. It would appear to me that almost everyone who is looking for a HOME unit is occupying some form of shelter, whether a rented or an owned home. But I would be pleased to look at it and see whether or not it would be a constructive suggestion.

Mr. Deans: They are rented.

Mr. Cassidy: But they are being ripped off as tenants. That is what is happening to most of them. Because they can’t get a house.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Waterloo North.

PROPOSED COTTAGE SUBDIVISION ON NAPPAN ISLAND

Mr. Good: Mr. Speaker, a question of the Minister of the Environment relating to the subdivision on Nappan Island, referred to previously by the Minister of Natural Resources.

Since one of the conditions put forth by the Minister of Natural Resources on which the Minister of Housing gave draft plan approval was that the firm seeking the approval do a five-year environmental study in relation to the wildlife and the ecological effects of this subdivision on the island -- which will, of necessity, be done after the subdivision is built up -- would his ministry look into the matter, since I believe there was never any environmental approval given for this subdivision; and would the minister look into it and see whether the proposed subdivision meets the environmental requirements of his ministry?

Hon. W. Newman: Mr. Speaker, I will be glad to look into that matter.

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

HIGHWAY 3 NOISE REDUCTION

Mr. Burr: Mr. Speaker, a question of the Minister of Transportation and Communications: When is the minister going to reduce the speed limit for trucks on Highway 3 along the edge of Windsor so that the residents may be relieved of the excessive noise to which they have been subjected for so many years?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, I didn’t really know whether or not there has been any request of the ministry in the past to reduce that speed limit. If there is such a desire, the residents of the area should contact me, or go through the member. I will be pleased to look at it.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Kitchener.

Mr. Burr: Supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. This request has been going on for the last three years. It came to the minister two weeks ago in a personal letter. I wish he would do something about it.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, I must confess that I have not seen that letter. But if it is in my office, I will certainly look it up when I go back. If we can be of some assistance, we will certainly do so.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Kitchener.

Mr. E. J. Bounsall (Windsor West): Supplementary, Mr. Speaker --

Mr. Speaker: I regret that time is just about up, but I think the hon. member for Kitchener should have his opportunity.

INSPECTION OF REFRIGERATION AND COOLING UNITS

Mr. Breithaupt: A question of the Minister of Colleges and Universities, Mr. Speaker: With respect to the enforcement of regulations for the refrigeration and air-conditioning trade, has the minister received various complaints from individuals in this province that there are apparently not sufficient counsellors, qualified with respect to enforcing the regulations, and is there an intention now, to create a separate enforcement branch with inspectors qualified to determine that the jobs that are installed and serviced are done properly in a safe and competent manner?

Hon. J. A. C. Auld (Minister of Colleges and Universities): Mr. Speaker, the answer to the first part of the question is yes. In fact, I have pointed out to those who have written, including a number of members of this House, that we do not have sufficient staff to deal in a general way with overall inspection, although we do have sufficient staff to deal with specific instances where we get a complaint and really have a chance to track somebody down, without spending three or four weeks time to do it.

In fact, the Dymond report had some recommendations in this connection regarding the whole field of apprenticeship and certification, and we are looking at whether or not it would be wiser to have the enforcement end in some other ministry because, as the hon. member realizes, the people in the apprenticeship and certification trades work a great deal with employers. No decision has been reached as to what course of action we are going to follow, particularly because of the Dymond report, which we are studying at present.

Mr. Speaker: The question period is now completed.

Petitions.

Presenting reports.

Motions.

Introduction of bills.

LAND TRANSFER TAX ACT

Hon.. Mr. Meen moves first reading of bill intituled, An Act to amend the Land Transfer Tax Act, 1974.

Motion agreed to; first reading of the bill?

Mr. Cassidy: That bill just had second reading didn’t it?

Mr. Shulman: Is there anything left of that bill?

Mr. Cassidy: How many amendments does the minister expect to get in this year?

Hon. A. K. Meen (Minister of Revenue): Mr. Speaker, section 17 of the Land Transfer Tax Act, 1974, provided that where the minister was satisfied that a conveyance was being tendered for registration as the result of an agreement executed and reduced to writing before April 10, the registration would take place on payment of the tax provided for under the now repealed Land Transfer Tax Act and amendments thereto. In certain cases, however, section 17 of the Land Transfer Tax Act, 1974, required that the agreement resulting in a conveyance must be filed with the minister before May 16, 1974.

The amendment proposed in this bill will remove the requirement for filing agreements by a particular date, but will leave in force the requirement that the minister be satisfied that the agreement was reduced to writing and executed before April 10, 1974.

Mr. Shulman: How does the minister decide that? By divine right or crystal ball would be better.

Hon. Mr. Meen: In addition, the amendment will provide that the consideration provided for in the agreement must be fixed before April 10, 1974, or determinable only by reference to a period prior to that date.

Mr. Shulman: The bill should be called “Rule by Whim.”

Mr. Deans: Mr. Speaker, before the orders of the day, there is a rumour around the House that we might be sitting this evening, and I would like to say to the House leader that we would have preferred to have had a little notice if it is his intention to sit this evening. I realize notice is not required, but it makes things a lot easier if we know what are the intentions of the government, even a few hours in advance.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: With the list of business I gave to the House last week, I thought it would have been implicit in that list. We will sit tonight, tomorrow night and Thursday night.

Mr. Deans: Then, on this matter, Mr. Speaker, I would like to say to the House leader that nothing around here is ever implicit.

Mr. Lewis: Nothing is ever explicit!

Mr. Deans: Last week we sat on Monday night because the Governor General was having a dinner at the Royal York Hotel on Tuesday, and therefore we were unable to sit on Tuesday night. I distinctly recall asking the House leader if that was to be the pattern, and I distinctly recall him saying he didn’t know.

Mr. Lewis: That’s right.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: That’s explicit.

Mr. Deans: Now, how are we to be able to understand what to tell our members about the way to conduct their business if the House leader isn’t prepared to give us some advance notice?

Mr. Speaker: I must refer the hon. member to standing order No. 3, which clearly states that at 6 o’clock on any Monday, Tuesday or Thursday that business is not completed, we will sit in the evening.

Mr. Shulman: Just as a matter of courtesy.

Mr. Stokes: It’s a hell of a way to run a store.

Mr. Speaker: Orders of the day.

Clerk of the House: The sixth order, resuming the adjourned debate on the motion for second reading of Bill 25, An Act to impose a Tax on Speculative Profits resulting from the Disposition of Land.

LAND SPECULATION TAX ACT (CONTINUED)

Mr. D. C. MacDonald (York South): Mr. Speaker, I had begun some comments with regard to this bill a week or two ago -- perhaps three weeks ago, I have forgotten when it was --

Mr. S. Lewis (Scarborough West): April 29.

Mr. MacDonald: April 29, before the provincial Treasurer (Mr. White) had gone to Paris, I don’t want to repeat in detail the introductory remarks I made then, but just let me summarize them. The objective of the bill, to get at speculative profits gained on land, which are boosting prices to scandalous heights today, is obviously one of which everybody would be in support.

However, we in this party find ourselves unable to support this particular bill because it simply doesn’t fulfill that objective. It is something of a fraud. It is deceiving the public with regard to what it is going to achieve.

I pointed out, for example, that the prospective victims of this land speculation tax are obviously not greatly disturbed. There is no outcry from them, and that in itself is rather significant. I pointed out that the government’s contention that it is going to raise only $25 million -- an amount which surely should be raised from any one of 20 different major developers in the Province of Ontario -- is proof of the ineffectiveness of the tax. That remains true notwithstanding the self-serving comments of the provincial Treasurer to the effect that the lower the revenue raised the more effective the tax. The lower the revenue raised the less effective the tax is my contention.

The provincial Treasurer has been repeatedly warning people -- he started almost the day after the budget -- that if the tax didn’t achieve its purpose something more would be done. By implication, if that is the appropriate comment in light of the discussion we had, he was suggesting that even he had some doubts of the effectiveness of the tax and he was just warning that something else would follow if it didn’t achieve its purpose.

A final rather significant point is that within a week, when there appeared to be a pause in the whole rash of speculative effort in home sales in the metropolitan area, the Metropolitan Real Estate Board contended, in its self-serving way, that the tax was serving a purpose in that a pause had been achieved and therefore all was well. Clearly there will be some sort of a pause. The lawyers who are going to be working on behalf of the big developers by either finding loop-holes in the bill or setting up new corporate structures which will make it possible for them to evade the whole objective of the bill, are clearly going to take a bit of time. Those who have land to sell or who want to buy are clearly going to wait until they’ve had some clarification with regard to the comers which can be cut.

However, all this pause was rather dramatically underlined when at the end of April the new figures came out and revealed that in the month of April -- three-quarters of which followed the introduction of this tax -- the price of a home in the metropolitan area had gone up a cool $4,000 more, from $50,000 to $54,000. At that rate, with this sort of tax in prospect, we have in sight the likelihood that home prices are going to double in the next year. By simple arithmetic, if it goes up four per cent in one month compounded -- I’m sorry; eight per cent in one month --

Mr. P. G. Givens (York-Forest Hill): That’s not simple arithmetic.

Mr. MacDonald: Pardon?

Mr. Givens: That’s not simple arithmetic.

Mr. MacDonald: No, that is not simple arithmetic; one doesn’t need to be very simple, as a matter of fact. Eight times 12 gets pretty close to 100 and 100 means double; even the provincial Treasurer smiles at something he can grasp.

However, I want to get to the real point of this bill, Mr. Speaker. The real point of this bill, the real principle underlined in this bill, is that it is an elaborate legislative facade to distract attention from the real issue which is the government’s frantic effort to recoup a very disastrous housing policy.

The interesting thing is to analyse what has happened in the last three or four months. It became clear even to the government, which had been living with the problem, that there was one. It acknowledged its existence and confirmed its acknowledgement of its existence by appointing a minister. We had a Minister of Housing appointed last fall.

The next step in this process was to identify the bad guys, to see if the government could find somebody upon whom it could fix the blame for this serious problem. That identification has now emerged; the government has found the speculators. It is rather interesting that in all of the studies and the reports of Comay, in all of the public statements of a succession of Ministers of Housing, including the present Attorney General (Mr. Welch), there was no indication at all that the speculator was being designated as the villain in the piece that was creating this housing crisis. But now he has been identified.

So when you acknowledge a problem and you find your bad guy, you’ve got to have a solution. And what’s the solution? The land spec tax! This, presumably, is going to call a halt to the whole thing.

Well the weaknesses of the tax, Mr. Speaker, I think are so obvious that it’s not going to achieve its purpose. I just want to draw attention to a few of them; some of this will be by way of repetition, because it has already been dealt with in the House and undoubtedly before this bill has gone through the wringer on second reading it will be dealt with even more extensively.

The first major weakness in the whole approach is that the government is attempting to use taxation as an instrument of policy to sort of change social conditions. Quite frankly, there is a very great deal of evidence to suggest that traditionally, that isn’t an effective way. There are thousands of lawyers who spend all their lives finding and using loop-holes in taxing legislation, and the courts are extremely receptive to attempts to evade new taxes.

The whole game becomes a bit like a tennis game in which the government has very little possibility of scoring any aces. In fact the whole role of the Minister of Revenue (Mr. Meen) as the man who is responsible, poor he, for taking these bills through the House, is becoming clear. He is still hiding, somewhere, what are reported to be 13 amendments on the land spec tax. He has already brought in an amendment within a week or two of the passage and royal assent to the land transfer tax.

What we have are two pieces of legislation which are really in a legislative shambles. The government has such a mix of motives and objectives, some of which are explicit and some of which are propaganda that they haven’t been able to come up with an effective tax. They are patching feverishly the kind of instrument they are attempting to create even before they have been able to get it through the House.

This is a very complex piece of legislation, so complex that it clearly should have been raised with some measure of time to have input from everybody who is necessary in a standing committee of the Legislature. However, the minister has already indicated we are not going to waste time with that; we are going to rush it through even though it is so faulty that amendments have to be introduced almost within a matter of days.

Assuming the government persists on this, I suspect it’s going to take two or three years to get an effective piece of legislation; and there will be no effective piece of legislation until the message is communicated to the people who are engaged in the speculation that the government really means it. Until now, the message that has gotten to the people who are really engaged in the speculation is precisely the reverse. They know the government doesn’t mean it. They are not complaining, because they don’t need to complain.

The second weakness of course is the whole incidence of the tax. The tax can only be effective if it isn’t passed on to the consumer. Otherwise, it’s just going to become another cost of doing business for the speculator. And that tax is not going to be passed on to the consumer only if the market is firm enough to resist upward pressure.

All one has to do is to note the fact that in the city of Toronto resistance was so non-existent that in the month of April, three weeks of which followed the introduction of the tax, there was an eight per cent increase in the cost of the average dwelling in the metropolitan area during that single month.

If in fact the government wants to make a tax really effective, 50 per cent obviously isn’t going to do the trick. I suspect 75 per cent isn’t going to do the trick; I suspect at least 100 per cent is the only kind of tax which is going to make it an effective speculative tax. And it must be a tax that will have to be paid out of the speculator’s pocket, in whatever fashion the government deems effective to make certain he pays it rather than it just being added onto the price and passed on to the consumer.

In fact the provincial Treasurer in his report presented a table that showed the impact of corporation tax and capital gains and this. It is interesting to raise the question that if taxes at 61 per cent and 74 per cent have been passed on, and those are the figures which the provincial Treasurer presented as the impact of taxes during the course of his budget presentation, if those could be passed on -- and clearly they have been passed on; we have seen the consequences which have forced the government to move now -- what reason is there to believe that a tax somewhere between 81 and 87 per cent won’t be passed on?

After all, the difference between 61 and 74, and 81 and 87 isn’t so great as to suggest that suddenly the minister is going to achieve his purpose and the tax isn’t going to be passed on. What evidence can the government present to the House to show that the breaking point for speculation, or for speculators, lies between 81 and 87 per cent? Or that an increase of six per cent will do the job whereas a tax of 81 per cent didn’t beforehand? There has been no evidence submitted and I suggest it simply doesn’t exist.

However, I just want to mention, because it has been dealt with by other people and clearly other members who want to speak to this bill will come back to it again, that the exemptions and the deductions which are permitted in the bill make a mockery of the bill from the word go. There are so many exemptions that clearly the minister had to concede he was only going to raise about $25 million revenue out of the literally hundreds of millions, or indeed billions of dollars in speculative profits which have been made in land in the past and there is good reason to believe are going to continue.

There is the proposition, for example, of the 40 per cent rule. As my colleague the member for Riverdale (Mr. Renwick) pointed out, the very fact the government would say that if one put a building on which represents 40 per cent of the total value of the property one is going to be exempt from the tax, indicates that the government itself is conceding that 60 per cent is going to be for the land. And 60 per cent for the land is embedding, consolidating, this fantastic land cost.

There used to be a day when one could buy a lot for $5,000 and put a home for $15,000 or $20,000 and have a total home value of $20,000 to $25,000. Now here is the government conceding that if one has a piece of land, as long as one puts a home on it which represents only 40 per cent of the total selling price, one will be exempt from payment of the speculative tax. The government has conceded, as I said in my budget reply, that not only does it accept inflation, it is living on the profits of inflation. It even talks about sharing the profits of inflation. Here we have another instance of it when the government speaks of the total value of a property and is willing to concede that the land component of that total is going to be 60 per cent.

As for the 20 per cent renovation exemption -- if 20 per cent renovation costs are put in a property one is exempt from the tax -- in the current market within Metropolitan Toronto that is almost nonsensical. One buys a property for $30,000 and puts in at least 20 per cent, which is $5,000; $35,000 or $36,000 is the total outlay but one is likely to be able to turn around and sell that house for $45,000, $50,000, $55,000 or $60,000.

The minister has done nothing to undercut speculating in land costs. Indeed, his procedure with the 20 per cent renovation cost is only going to be a further incentive to pursue the whole matter.

Mr. Givens: To put in a shower costs $5,000.

Mr. MacDonald: Pardon?

Mr. Givens: To put in a shower costs $5,000.

Mr. MacDonald: My friend over here says to put in a shower costs $5,000. I can assure members if I were going to do it it would be cheaper than that, but he may be right. Perhaps for a home in Forest Hill Village or somewhere like that he may well be right.

Mr. Givens: The member is always dis- criminating against Forest Hill. He used to represent Forest Hill; he never used to talk that way about it.

Mr. E. R. Good (Waterloo North): He is against taxation.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. MacDonald: As a matter of fact, when Forest Hill Village was part of my riding I gradually reduced the density of the majority --

Mr. Good: He got better the longer the elections went on.

Mr. MacDonald: The member is right, the longer the elections went on.

Mr. Good: That is right and I don’t think --

Mr. MacDonald: However, I am glad to leave it to the member.

Let me try to summarize, Mr. Speaker. This is really a repeat of what I have already said in the budget, but it becomes even more pertinent and even more relevant now we have come to the detail of the tax itself.

What this bill does is to consolidate the land speculation which has gone on in the Province of Ontario. There’s no effort, there’s no desire, there’s no intention to create a situation that might reverse the trend or even engage in some sort of a roll-back procedure. What the government is doing is consolidating the incredible gains that have gone on in past years up until April 9.

Well presumably that might be some measure of progress if it was going to be halted there, but I pointed out that the loop-holes in the bill are such that it’s not going to halt the increase. An 8 per cent increase, three-quarters of which came in the month of April after this bill was passed, is some indication of just how ineffective the people in the game of speculation regard it. So the government is going to have a continuation of increases in the future, as well as a consolidation, an imbedding into our price structure of those that have gone on in such scandalous fashion over the last two or three years up until April 9 this year.

In short, Mr. Speaker, the tax is a fraud. I am sorry to put it into such blunt phraseology, but the tax is a fraud. If the purpose of the tax is to do something about halting the speculative profits on land, it is simply not going to achieve that. And it becomes a double fraud if the government really believes, as the provincial secretary has implied, as the Minister of Revenue has stated, and as it was confirmed by the Provincial Secretary for Resources Development (Mr. Grossman) the other day in an interjection, that the whole objective of the bill is a boost to our housing programme; that it is going to increase costs -- not going to bring more property onto the --

Hon. J. White (Treasurer and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): On a point of order, I hope my hon. friend will apologize for the use of the word “fraud” some months from now, if the remarks of the president of the Toronto Real Estate Board are sustained. I see, in a Toronto Star article dated April 27:

“TREB president Maurice Park, early this week, credited the Ontario government’s land speculation and land transfer taxes and 11 per cent mortgage rates with cooling the real estate market that has run rampant for several months.”

Mr. MacDonald: What date is that?

Hon. Mr. White: This is Saturday, April 27; and in the same article the Toronto Star says that when the “unprecedented buying spree by Metro Toronto home owners is over, the map shown above should become a collectors item.”

Mr. MacDonald: Is the minister making his speech now?

Hon. Mr. White: Now then, sir, my only suggestion is if the president’s remarks prove to be correct and if our anticipation is proven by events, I hope my hon. friend will apologize for the use of that very strong word “fraud.”

Mr. MacDonald: I am not going to apologize for it. And may I say to the minister if he had really been listening to me, and not just looking at me as though he were listening, I acknowledged that the real estate board people had said that. I pointed to the fact they had engaged in the self-serving game because they are willing to play along with it. This bill is not going to hurt them. They are not complaining. They are presumably going to be the victims of it. They are not being hurt at all.

Mr. P. D. Lawlor (Lakeshore): Will the minister apologize in four or five months, too?

Mr. MacDonald: They made that statement because they are in the game with the minister. They and the minister are pretending to come to grips with the problem and the minister is not coming to grips with the problem. The answer to the minister and to the spokesmen for the real estate board is that the day after he made that statement, the figures came out from his own agency which indicated that the cost of an average home had gone up from $50,000 to $54,000 in the month of April; three-quarters of which was after the bill had been brought in.

The bill is a fraud in terms of what the minister says it is going to do; namely, eliminate speculation. It won’t. The bill is a fraud in terms of it being a real boost to the government’s housing programme, which has been reduced to a shambles. It is for that reason we are going to oppose the principle of the bill, because the principle of the bill is not, ostensibly, to deal with the problem the title of the bill suggests.

Hon. Mr. White: The hon. member will eat his words before this has run its race.

Mr. MacDonald: Like the minister with his energy tax last year.

Mr. Speaker: Does any other member wish to participate in this debate? The hon. member for Essex-Kent.

Mr. R. F. Ruston (Essex-Kent): Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak briefly on this bill. To begin with, I want to say that I believe in the philosophy of taxation on a dollar; it should be taxable, regardless of how you earn it. Having worked for a long time on a wage or salary, or whatever the case might be, the taxes the government took out were always taken out before I even had a chance to spend any of it. I felt that taxation, in order to be fair, should be based on the dollar taxed regardless of how you make it, whether it’s with your hands or whether it’s with your brain.

With the speculation tax, what I classify as speculation is, I suppose, more predominant here in the Metropolitan Toronto area, and possibly Waterloo and Ottawa, more so maybe than even in our own area of Windsor and the surrounding towns. We have it there in a smaller way. My interpretation of the speculator is a person who would buy a couple of hundred acres of land that was farmland at the time he bought it. He may or may not rent it out for farming; he is more liable to just let it grow up in weeds or perhaps only have someone cut the weeds on it and nothing more. Maybe a couple of years later, as the city grew, he might sell it for 10 times what he paid for it without doing anything to it. That’s what I would call a speculator.

I have noticed in the towns in the area I’m from and in some other parts of Ontario that someone might buy 100 acres on the periphery of the town or sometimes right in the town. Some of the town sites were larger than the built-up areas, and now that they are putting in sewage works and so forth this land is now available for building on.

I feel that if a person was to buy 50 or 100 acres around one of these towns and spend two or three years getting the municipality to come to agreement on the subdivision agreement, getting approvals of the plans for subdivision through the provincial government and things like that; he in turn, of course, adds a fair amount of value to that property. If he has a subdivision agreement, he has the zoning properly planned and such things as that, then it would seem to me he would be adding something to that land.

Some of them, of course, don’t have the capital to develop it. Then, in turn, they sometimes may sell it to someone who has the wherewithal and the equipment to go in and put in the sewers and the watermains and the roads and so forth. These would be people I would classify as heavy construction people who may come in and buy it from him to put in the services. And then they in turn sell it, maybe five or 10 lots at a time, to what I classify as small builders.

A lot of small builders I’m aware of may only employ not any more than one or two besides themselves. Some of them operate as a family enterprise, just as in a farming enterprise; their boys work with them when they’re not in school and their wives work with them.

This is how they’re making a living; and I will say they’re making a good living at it. But they’re building new homes and they have to depend on these lots being available. They don’t have the capital to go in and buy 25 acres or 50 acres or 100 acres and develop it. They have to depend on someone else.

So we have almost what we call a three-stage programme to get this land from raw land to the stage where you can move in and live on it in a house. I think the minister should give some consideration to some form of exemption for that type of stepped programme. If a person buys it with the intent and purpose of getting the zoning done on it, getting the plans done, obtaining the agreements with the municipality, getting the subdivisions approved here in Toronto -- I don’t think that if he does that within a reasonable length of time he should be taxed. Of course, I suppose someone could ask, “What is a reasonable length of time?” That could vary from one year to five years I suppose. But knowing the way this has been going on in the past it sometimes takes as long as three years to get all these approvals, so he has got his money tied up in the property for that time.

This is one area I think we should be looking at. I don’t know that these people would be really speculators. They probably are to some extent; I guess we’re all speculators in effect. Most of us will go and buy a $1 ticket on a raffle or a $10 ticket on the Olympic lottery and think that sometime we might win $1 million. I suppose that’s speculating too, to a degree.

But this is one part of this bill that I think should be given some consideration. Perhaps when the bill was written it had some loop-holes, from what I can gather, although I think sometimes it is more of an umbrella type of bill that covers more things than the minister intended when he first thought up the bill and the plan. That would be the Treasurer of course.

I would suppose we wouldn’t have as much need for this if we had had more action on the part of the government in the past few years in the approval and constructing of sewer works in many of the cities and towns. There was the time delay. I can recall in my own area that they had a hearing in 1968, when the hon. member for Wellington-Dufferin (Mr. Root) was the vice-chairman of the Ontario Water Resources Commission. He appeared at that hearing. They were making an application to install a sewage treatment plant outside the town, in the township, and there was a necessity to have a hearing at that time. It is now 1974 and the contract has not yet been let for the sewage project.

In the meantime, the town has annexed 400 acres of land in the adjoining municipality to square up its boundaries. There were no objections from the township because it was so located that it was an ideal situation for the town to annex all this land to square up its boundaries. It has 300 of the 400 acres ready for development now. It has been sitting there for a couple of years. If this sewer work had been done within a reasonable time, these lots would have all been built on. This land would have all been built on now and it would have avoided the pressure from escalating prices.

What with restrictions on selling lots out in the country area -- the severances -- pretty well restricting sales to farmers only or their sons who are involved in the farming operation, that too caused pressure. Since that has been put on it has put pressure on people to look to the towns for building sites. But the problem was the province wasn’t ready and wasn’t prepared to offset that pressure by mounting a crash programme to get sewage works built in these towns.

Another thing they are doing which is probably going to hurt the situation too is the undersizing of sewer works in some of the towns in which they are building them. They are saying your town can build 200 homes over a period of 10 years. That is only 20 homes a year, and this restriction is in effect causing the escalation of prices. So they are compounding their own problems by what I call just bungling here in the ministry and failing to approve subdivisions and get sewage work completed within a reasonable length of time.

That’s about the only thing I have to say right now, Mr. Speaker. I will look forward to seeing amendments to the bill and discussing them in committee.

Mr. Speaker: Are there any other members? The hon. member for Parkdale?

Mr. J. Dukszta (Parkdale): Mr. Speaker, Bill 25, innocuously titled An Act to impose a Tax on speculative Profits resulting in the Disposition of Land, stems from numerous and diverse sources. The bill stems from an attempt introduced in the budget to produce an anti-inflationary policy and an attempt by the government to produce some kind of a viable housing policy, in an attempt to solve what I think is an increasing housing crisis in Ontario, and especially in the city of Toronto.

It is this gimmick of blaming the speculators for the mess in housing which has not been dealt with by the government that is almost amusing. It is not the government which is to be blamed. It is tenants, it is speculators, it is the inflationary spiral, it is the federal government -- anyone but this government.

This Act, which is supposed to deal with the land speculation, ironically enough doesn’t even deal with the land speculation. The tax doesn’t seem to be a land speculation tax, but more a tax on land and residential dwellings and encompassing much more than raw land, which is a statement made quite recently by the Metropolitan Hamilton Real Estate Board.

It is of some interest that it is called just a land speculation tax. Bill 25 has to be judged according to the hidden agenda inherent in the bill. There are two key areas that need to be discussed in detail for us to understand how monumental is the failure of the government to deal with two major areas of crisis in our society. One is inflation, the other is the housing crisis.

Let us deal first not with the implicit hidden agenda but with the explicit statements about solutions that the bill is supposedly designed to deal with.

The government having convinced itself -- especially the three ministers -- that the speculators are a major cause of rapid inflation in housing prices and major performers in having created the housing crisis, the government has unveiled the speculators’ tax as the solution to the problem.

The weakness of the speculation tax as a means of stopping housing price inflation falls under four general headings:

1. The problems associated with any attempt to control behaviour of any kind through the tax system.

2. The incidence of any speculation tax: will it fall on the speculator or will it be passed on as a cost of doing business to the consumer?

3. The exemptions and deductions, in the proposal are so generous as to make the tax virtually ineffective; and

4. The role of speculation in the housing price spiral: a speculation tax can’t do it alone.

Most of those points have been dealt with in some detail by other members of this party. I merely summarize them to point out how ineffective is even the stated purpose of this particular tax.

What is so interesting is that both the bill and the statements of the Minister of Housing (Mr. Handleman) betray, almost unconsciously, the fact that the government is recognizing that there is a major crisis in housing, a crisis of almost gargantuan proportions. The housing crisis and galloping inflation cannot easily be separated, and above all cannot be dealt with by this bill. It reminds me of a physician who, when faced with a broken leg, gives a couple of Aspirins and hopes for the best.

Let us deal first with the bill as a part of the government’s supposed anti-inflationary policy. If I were narrow-minded and field dependent -- which is a psychological term that indicates some individuals are capable of focusing on the issues only in the way that they present themselves -- I would bring down proposals to dampen rising housing and real estate costs precisely in the manner that the present Minister of Housing has done. But my party and I have long since left the early 20th-century clemencies to the Keynesians, represented here so well by the two ministers.

Let me take a few moments to bring to the attention of the House the real factors involved in the current housing and land inflationary spiral. In order to deal with the problem, one must first understand the problem, otherwise the solutions offered will be meaningless.

First, we must ask, why are housing and land costs escalating at the present ridiculous rate? The simplistic and erroneous answer -- and, incidentally, the one stumbled upon by the minister and his myopic advisors -- is land speculators, foreign, national and individual. At this level of analysis, the solution is of course a set of disincentives to acquire housing and land by way of taxation.

The minister and his group, as is their wont, stopped at this level of analysis, when in fact another question required to be asked. The question is a more fundamental one. Why are foreign and local institutions and individuals speculating in this particular area of economic activity, and in doing so driving up prices to heights beyond the reach of most people in our province?

There are two reasons. First, land and housing are scarce resources. There are limits or boundaries to the quantity and the quality available. Therefore, as money is poured into this sector, prices will automatically rise. Therefore, it is a good investment. Therefore, many institutions and individuals will put their capital into this sector.

The second reason is more subtle and for this reason escaped the minister’s contemplations. Think of the ordinary citizen, the ordinary investor, or even “the little people,” as the minister, the Treasurer, so endearingly and paternalistically puts it. From a variety of investment options available, why is housing and land selected as a sector in which savings are placed? Surely there are other investment alternatives -- for example, government of Ontario debentures or the stock market; or guaranteed investment certificates or bank savings accounts.

Well, needless to say, all of us recognize that the alternatives I referred to amount to actual losses when calibrated with the annual increase in the cost of living. Why, for example, buy Ontario bonds at 7 1/2 per cent or whatever, when the cost of living will increase by 10 or 11 per cent? Why put savings in a bank account, for similar reasons? Why invest in the stock market, which has demonstrated nothing but a “head and shoulders” effect for years? Why should people, I ask the minister, put their hard-earned savings in losing causes? It doesn’t make economic sense to do so.

It is perfectly clear to most people and institutional investors that one of the few remaining investments of merit is housing and land. Putting savings into this sector is a guarantee against the penalties of inflation. This sector is now the only major investment source that makes any investment sense; I know it, my colleagues in the NDP know it, the official opposition knows it, and I think the government knows it. So also does everyone else.

In view of this universal knowledge of the economic psychology of investors, and the bad repercussions it is having in our society, one can only wonder why both ministers have opted for Mickey Mouse legislation instead of bearing down on the real problem. Why, for example, have they not thought it prudent to suggest that in order to remove economic pressure from the housing and real estate marketplace, they should increase the attractiveness of other investments?

Why not, for example, bring about a change in the interest rate of Ontario bonds and bonds governed by the province, that is Hydro bonds, so that instead of arbitrary interest rates such as 7 1/2 per cent per annum, a fixed interest rate of three or four per cent could be made plus an interest-bearing rate equivalent to the annual increase in the cost of living. In this way, bonds would again become an attractive investment in the sense of providing a hedge against inflation. In doing this, obviously, Ontario would lead the field in enlightened economic policy and by example force the federal government and the governments of other provinces, and the banks, to make similar necessary moves.

The implementation of such a scheme would immediately create alternative investments to the frantic field of housing and land.

The point I make is a simple one. People in Ontario are dismayed at the present situation in housing and land prices; they are alarmed at the probable future of these prices. In response to this fear they are turning their savings into this segment of the market because there is no comparable alternative in sight. The Conservative government must shoulder the blame for this flight of confidence.

I think it is rather interesting that I am arguing from a more conventional financial point of view to a government that seems to have abandoned all prudence in that respect.

It is patently obvious that the government does not have an economic plan for the citizens it represents. The problem is much more serious than the piecemeal solution the government has tabled before us. I fail to understand how policy can be offered without a proper diagnosis of the problem on the one hand, and without any clear-cut objectives on the other.

Here we are, a wealthy province, without an economic head. Heed me: We are, indeed, heading for more chaos in the land and housing market until such time as the government decides on a justifiable set of policies.

In this respect, I would like to ask some objective questions of the minister. Does he think that adequate housing for the lower socio-economic groups is a desirable objective? Or does he think that the middle and lower income group should be protected from the scourges of inflation? Or does he think both? And if so, what in heaven’s name does this present bill have to do with these objectives and what the hell does the whole budget have to do with the present objectives?

Let us look at the other part of the hidden agenda of this Act, which is the housing crisis, and let us look at how the bill pretends to deal with the crisis. We have often said in our NDP policy statements that an attack on speculative profits, even if effective, cannot in itself reduce housing prices. Such action must be coupled with a programme to relieve the pressures that lead to inflation in the first place. For the immediate future, this means massive government involvement in the housing market as opposed to the present token efforts. For the longer term, it means redirecting growth away from areas like Toronto that are experiencing the high costs of excessive growth and toward areas in need of development.

The government’s share of the housing market in Ontario is pitiful. The following is the picture for 1971. In the figures I’m going to give the housing stock figures are from the census, the public housing figures are from Ontario Housing Corp.

In 1971 housing stock for all of Ontario, the number of units owned was 1,400,340, rented 825,150; total 2,225,490. The figures for Ontario Housing’s portion of this were: Owned 9,092 -- that’s the HOME Programme -- and 42,359 under administration; total 51,451. Ontario Housing Corp. units as a percentage of Ontario stock worked out to: Owned 0.65 per cent, rented 5.13 per cent; total 2.31 per cent.

In 1972 the additions to housing stock were: Ontario Housing Corp. public housing 6,967 units; HOME lots 1,785 units; for an Ontario Housing of 8,752. The Ontario Housing Corp. total of completions was 96,438, which showed Ontario Housing Corp. percentage of overall 1972 completions to be 9.08 per cent.

Compare this with what goes on in Britain where more than a quarter of the housing stock is rented from local public housing authorities. My source is “Fair Deal for Housing: British Command Document 4728, July 1971.” This is a low estimate of total government involvement since it covers only public housing.

This dismal performance in Ontario is merely a reflection of the government’s general attitude toward housing. In the Comay report, in the government’s prior policy and in its statements subsequent to the report’s publication, the basic philosophy is always the same: Housing is to be primarily a private commodity rather than a social need; the private sector is to build what it wishes to and make its profits and the government will deal with that part of the population that is not served; and the quality of the public housing that is built must be such that it is clearly separated from the private housing market.

Until Ontario has a policy for all housing, until government undertakes massive direct involvement in the housing market, there will be no solution to the housing crisis. The real reason is quite simple -- the business of development and real estate industry is to make money, not to achieve social housing goals. Yet the government persists in its belief that the housing problem can be solved by viewing the province, municipalities and the private development industry as equal partners in the pursuit of social objectives.

The present Attorney General, in his last major speech as housing minister, recognized the failure of co-operation with private industry when he criticized the integrated housing and rent supplement programme, but the message was lost on the present Minister of Housing. He now holds up his programme as a shining example of what the housing action programme will be like.

An overall massive, publicly financed and subsidized building programme is, indeed, the only long-term way to solve the present crisis in housing, but on the immediate basis certain things can be done which would ameliorate the present situation. I want to spend a few minutes to go over a particular proposal which is of some interest and shows how a group of people, limited in power, can actually do something about the housing crisis.

I am referring to a report which is called “The Living Room: An Approach to Home Banking and Land Banking for the City of Toronto,” which has been prepared under the chairmanship of Michael D’Arcy Goldrick. The Goldrick report on housing, “Living Room,” is a major approach to home banking and land banking for the city of Toronto. It was produced in November, 1973, and is a brilliant attempt to provide innovative and ingenious solutions to the present housing crisis in the city of Toronto. The solutions were presented virtually on a shoestring because the municipal government, unlike the provincial government, has neither money, responsibility nor power to implement a significant housing programme. The provincial government which is and should be predominantly responsible for housing does very little to solve the crisis in housing.

Alderman Goldrick recommends that the city first of all adopt as a basic principle that decent housing must be provided for those who cannot afford it. An interesting departure is the recognition by a major political figure with a large following in the city of Toronto that housing is a social need, not a commodity to be used for making money. He suggests it must be done both by building new housing and by preserving, improving and converting existing housing. He also stresses that the consumer and community must be involved in non-profit corporations as producers of housing.

Alderman Goldrick recommends that the city adopt the following housing targets for each of 1974 and 1975. Again, I am fascinated by the fact they are prepared to go to such an extent and I am reading this into the record here to show that the government, with its own infinite resources, should follow an equal policy. On page 2 of the report he suggests the city adopt the following housing targets for each of 1974 and 1975:

(a) The production of 4,000 new units, to include;

(b) The production of 2,000 new assisted units, as defined in this report, of which 1,000 would be produced for low income households and 1,000 for moderate income households, as defined in this report;

(c) Thirty-five to 40 per cent of all new production be family housing and that half of all new assisted housing be suitable for families;

(d) The unit production allocated as shown on table 4 of this report;

(e) The acquisition of 600 existing housing units, 300 by the city and 300 by private non-profit groups;

(f) The rehabilitation of 600 housing units, about 200 of which will be acquired under (e).

Goldrick also recommends, if necessary, changes in the official plan to allow for a more extensive building programme and a possible conversion of apartment hotel sites, and so on.

Additionally he recommends the city adopt a major land assembly and banking programme. Again where you have the limited powers of Toronto municipal government the report urges adoption of all means of persuading the provincial government to help the city with its housing programme and use everything the federal government offers in the form of CMHC under section 42 and section 16 of the National Housing Act and other sections.

The report then states that if land cannot be purchased consideration should be given to expropriation. This is an example of the extremely ingenious outlook characterizing Goldrick’s approach to housing. He suggests the city of Toronto planning board and the parking authority jointly examine the present parking authority sites to find out whether those sites could be jointly used for both parking and housing.

On page 7, under “City Non-Profit Housing Programme,” Goldrick suggests full involvement of the city in the non-profit housing programme. Is the government really ready to react to this very pragmatic approach? The breadth of imagination exhibited by what I call Goldrick’s knowhow, shoe- string approach is spectacular. On page 8 he says there is a number of ways of rehabilitating existing housing in an attempt to reduce the cost of housing for people. There are also sections on public housing, assisted home ownership and organizing for housing delivery.

I have consciously stressed Goldrick’s proposals, and the Goldrick knowhow on a shoestring, because this proposal reflects a willingness on the city’s part to innovate, to improvise and to build on a limited budget, while on the other hand there is a staggering unwillingness on the part of the provincial government to be involved in the housing crisis. The government should do as this report suggests. It says:

“Where municipalities are willing and able to undertake the responsibility for planning, developing and managing assisted housing programmes, this responsibility should be delegated to them [by the provincial government, fully]. This should be based on adoption of a joint plan for assisted housing which sets out the provincial and municipal housing objectives and how they are to be implemented. In the first instance, delegation should take place in Metropolitan Toronto, which has half the provincial stock of assisted housing.”

It is not clear whether the report advocates that the metropolitan corporation, rather than the area municipality, should be responsible, nor whether it is the responsibility for all assisted housing programmes which is contemplated or only public housing. But surely there is room for some kind of massive co-operation here as long as the provincial government is at the moment willing to be involved in it.

Control of housing costs and a massive housing programme on a public basis, if the government is ever willing to go into it, will by themselves not solve on an immediate basis the problem of escalating costs on family-owned housing, because family-owned housing is now only 50 per cent of all accommodation in the city of Toronto. The other half is rented accommodation. Though increases in new housing will maybe control prices in the long run, on an immediate basis we will have to do something about the present escalating rent for the people who live in rental accommodation.

There are many ways of doing this. One way which has been suggested and urged by many people on the provincial government is to introduce some kind of a rent control -- whether as a rent control, a rent freeze or rent subsidy. I want to mention that rent controls are at best only a temporary stop-gap, but would be a major step in bringing about an overall housing reform in Canada.

In 1968 the Economic Council of Canada pronounced that a desirable rent in proportion to income was 25 per cent. Tenants, on a national average, spent 17 per cent of their income on rent in 1969. However, a 1968 survey of households receiving public assistance revealed the shelter-income ratio to be 46 per cent on a national level and 49 per cent in Toronto. That is the group least able to pay for shelter must spend almost 50 per cent of every dollar for that purpose.

Parkdale has a higher proportion of disadvantaged people than many areas of the city. The Parkdale Tenants Association has recently produced a two-part brief on rent control. It is a long document and I am not going to read it all. But I want to urge the government to move decisively into the whole area of rent control and rent subsidy, as both ways of alleviating the present housing crisis and also, not incidentally, as an important way of controlling inflation.

Only a comprehensive housing policy, which has as its two main thrusts a massive public subsidized housing programme and concurrent rent controls, has any chance of solving our housing crisis.

Mr. M. Gaunt (Huron-Bruce): The member for High Park (Mr. Shulman) doesn’t agree with the member for Parkdale.

Mr. Dukszta: Oh; what am I to do about it?

The curious scape-goating that goes on in this bill about the speculators, merely throws sand in our eyes and persuades some gullible people the government is actually doing something about the housing crisis.

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

Mr. B. Newman (Windsor-Walkerville): Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I wanted to make a few comments concerning Bill 25; the bill that proposes to impose a tax on speculative profits resulting from the disposition of land.

Mr. Speaker, I support the principle of a speculative tax. I think it is right that if one does nothing to a piece of property one should be taxed substantially for it; were he to make some type of contribution in the way of developing, then it would be a different story.

Mr. Speaker, as a private member, I, as well as all of my colleagues, deplore the continuous escalation in the prices of homes. We are all extremely concerned. We have so far seen the rampant or the mushrooming effect in the city of Toronto. We are afraid, very much so, that that may spread to other parts of the province.

It has gone 50 miles or 70 miles beyond Toronto and we don’t want to see it coming into the Windsor and Essex county area, where the only home that an individual will be able to afford in the not too distant future will be the mobile home.

As an aside, Mr. Speaker, I have noticed that mobile homes in the state of Michigan sell for as little as $5,800; and that same home in the Province of Ontario goes for $9,000 and $10,000. So you can see the difference in the prices between those two jurisdictions.

Mr. Speaker, I feel the land speculation tax as drafted by the ministry will have a deleterious effect upon the cost of new homes, because they fail to distinguish between speculators and developers.

There are three distinct stages of new home development. These can be described as sub- dividing, servicing and building. The sub-divider buys the raw land and goes through all the procedures required to obtain the release of a registered plan of subdivision. This process is risky. It s time-consuming and requires a great deal of legal, engineering and survey work.

Then Mr. Speaker, there is the developer who specializes in the installation of the services required in a new subdivision -- say services such as sewers and roads. Finally there is the builder who actually constructs new homes on the serviced land.

There are, of course, Mr. Speaker, large companies which have the resources to be able to complete the entire process themselves, from the purchase of the raw land to the construction of the new home. These are in some instances almost “megacompanies.”

However, there are others who simply specialize in one particular field of development, and this tax is weighted heavily against them. These include the farmer who obtains a registered plan of subdivision on his land but has neither the resources nor the expertise required to construct sewers, roads or homes. They include people who specialize in obtaining raw land and converting it into registered plans of subdivision. They include companies which specialize in putting in the services after the plan has been approved, but before home construction can begin. They include small independent builders who must rely on others to provide them with serviced lots.

Mr. Speaker, while there is a certain element of speculation in every area of land development, there is a clear distinction between those whom I have mentioned previously, who make a valuable and indispensable contribution toward making homes available, and the pure speculator who not only does nothing to solve the housing crisis but artificially escalates prices by taking subdividable land off the market.

There can be three effects of levying this tax against the subdivider at either of the two early phases of development. First, the subdivider will be forced to go into the business of servicing land and building homes. This is outside his area of expertise and most often beyond his financial ability. Second, the subdivider will sell out to a large company which can carry out all three stages of development and then avoid the tax. Third, the subdivider will add the cost of the tax to the land and ultimately this will be passed on to the home buyer.

Mr. Speaker, I am certain the majority of the homes in Essex county are supplied by smaller, independent builders who rely on others to supply the serviced lots. Because of this tax, there is a fear that these builders will be forced to pay more for their lots than the large developer who can service his own land. Ultimately, the large developer would acquire a monopoly and the small builder would be out of business. We would have the development of a “megacompany.”

Mr. Speaker, I would suggest to the hon. minister that the land speculation tax should contain additional exemptions; for example: One, the transferor who has purchased raw land and sells it under a registered plan of subdivision. A second exemption, a transferor who has bought property under a registered plan of subdivision and sells it as, fully serviced land. And the third exemption, that a transferor who has purchased serviced land and sells it with a building, the value of which exceeds 40 per cent of the proceeds of distribution.

Mr. Speaker, the effect of the above exemptions would be to encourage land which is suitable for development to be developed and would discourage the multiple turnover of land without improvements. Anyone who buys raw land and sells the land as raw land would still be liable for the tax. Anyone who buys unserviced subdivided land and sells it without servicing it would still be liable for the tax. Anyone who buys fully serviced land and sells it without building upon it would be liable for the tax.

This amendment, Mr. Speaker, would permit the continued competition between the large company which has resources to subdivide and service its own land, and the small owner or developer who only has the resources to compete in one phase of the total development. This would also encourage any landowner to make his land available for development if it is located in an area where it should be developed.

Mr. Speaker, the independent home builders in Essex county are very much concerned about the small builder, who normally builds between five and 10 homes a year. He is vulnerable to many factors such as the weather, the economy and his own illness; this may all adversely affect him. A pro- longed period of bad weather can totally disrupt his whole plans. The uncertainty of the economy, especially in one-industry communities, can have an unforeseen effect on the number of homes he may be able to sell in any particular year. When the small builder becomes sick, his entire operation is brought to a standstill.

In addition, the uncertainty of whether the tax would become payable would cloud the transaction for up to a whole year. There is little doubt that if the tax does become payable, it would be passed on to the ultimate consumer. The administration of this tax then, Mr. Speaker, would become very complicated.

Finally, the amendment suggested would not exempt the subdivider who sells his land to a company which specializes in servicing land. Any tax levied at any stage will ultimately be paid for by the consumer.

Mr. Speaker, the independent home builders and developers in Essex county believe that to relieve the pressure on housing costs, government policy should be directed toward making more lots available for building, primarily by speeding up the subdivision approval process.

The government should also consider subsidizing the cost of installation of new services, such as sanitary sewers, rather than continuing to place the full burden of these services on the new-home purchaser, who in turn may also be the party to whom the property is rented. Coming as I do from a community that has had a shortage of rental properties for many years, I can point out to you, Mr. Speaker, that last September there was a need for housing accommodation for 840 senior citizens. This year, as of April 1, there is a need for 1,076. So you can see, Mr. Speaker, how acute the need for accommodation is in the city of Windsor itself. In September, 1973, there was need for 826 family units. As of April 1 this year there are 613 requesting family accommodation. The combined needs for senior citizen and family accommodation on April 1, 1974, was 1,689; in September, 1973, it was 1,666. One can see that in well over half a year we have only a difference of 33 housing units to both senior citizens and families in the community. There is still a substantial number of people who do not have housing accommodation. We have provided a considerable number, but the demand continues to increase.

Mr. Speaker, I am very much concerned that the tax may be passed on to the eventual buyer of the home. In this way the senior citizen and the regular individual who must look in the commercial housing market and not in government geared-to-income housing will find himself so adversely affected he will have no choice but to curtail the purchase of necessities and essentials to keep alive his attempt to find housing accommodation.

I hope, Mr. Speaker, that my fears may be allayed by the minister because I am very much concerned that the cost of housing may escalate as a result of this.

Mr. Speaker: Does any other member wish to speak?

The member for Scarborough West.

Mr. Lewis: Mr. Speaker, I have a few comments I want to make on the bill to the minister, and I think others of my colleagues do as well. We haven’t given up on the debate on second reading of this piece of legislation yet, although presumably it will conclude in the evening.

We are the only party now opposing the bill in principle and I want to say something about that, Mr. Speaker. I want to draw attention, for a moment at the outset, to the Liberal rhetoric in this Legislature and what it has meant.

When the tax was first indicated in the budget statement which was brought down by the provincial Treasurer, I think probably an error in judgement was made by the Liberal Party; and in this case, as in the land transfer tax, it indicated almost uncritical approval.

Its members were able to disengage themselves on the land transfer tax because of some adroit footwork, in the absence of the leader, by the member for Kitchener (Mr. Breithaupt). But on this bill they were too committed and they couldn’t extricate themselves, and so they are going down the line supporting a bill which is absolutely unsupportable. They are supporting the bill and, in the process, maligning it in a fashion which makes the hypocrisy of the position worth putting on the record for a moment.

Mr. Gaunt: Is the member in favour of the speculators?

Mr. Lewis: I don’t usually involve myself this way --

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Lewis: If the member is going to ask me, or rather to tell me --

Mr. Good: Does the member support the speculators?

Mr. Lewis: -- that the enemy is over there, I know where the enemy is. Let me deal with the sort of corporal’s rump over here for a moment or two, because they are kind of an engaging piece of nostalgia.

Hon. A. K. Meen (Minister of Revenue): Never mind, they have demonstrated some intellectual integrity over there.

Mr. Lewis: That is the first time.

The member for Downsview (Mr. Singer) said: “It is a gestapo arrangement that the minister is setting.” Now that’s not bad. It’s not bad for criticism, it’s not even bad for hyperbole; but by God, it is really quite something to describe central clauses of the bill as a “gestapo arrangement” and then support the principle of the bill.

The Leader of the Opposition (Mr. R. F. Nixon) said there should be a tax on unconscionable profits. Mr. Speaker, with great respect, the unconscionable profits which will continue to be made once this bill comes into force puts to the lie that kind of argument because what it means is that some profits are less or more unconscionable than others, but on the principle of unconscionable profits generally, the Liberal Party will share half a loaf. Well we just simply will not accept that. Unconscionable profits are that, period -- and I will define them for you if you want me to, Mr. Speaker -- and we won’t have anything to do with it.

The member for Downsview said, in that memorable phrase -- it’s such a delicious quote I have to put it on the record:

“Mr. Speaker, we are going to support the principle of the bill, but my colleagues and I are going to watch very, very closely the kind of amendments that are brought forward and, if they are not good enough by the time it gets into committee and on third reading, we may completely change our approach.”

Well, as a definition of contemporary Liberalism there is nothing more succulent on the record.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Lewis: Now, the member for York-Forest Hill; who has a kind of peroration capacity, I don’t know. This is what the member said:

“So, Mr. Speaker, it’s a sad day when we deal with a piece of legislation which is of such far-reaching consequences. I would never expect that a true blue Conservative government would bring such legislation into this province because of the effect that it’s going to have on the whole economic picture of the province. It will have no beneficial effect that anybody can see in bringing down the price of housing. It will have no beneficial effect as far as bringing in revenue is concerned, because the minister himself has admitted that it’s not going to bring in a great deal of revenue and that isn’t its fundamental purpose.

“So what is the purpose of this particular piece of legislation? It is to indicate to the public that the government is doing something for them; to indicate to the public that it is trying to stoke the fires of inflation; to indicate to the public that it is trying to bring down the cost of housing when, in effect it is not doing that at all.”

Then the member for York-Forest Hill will stand and support the principle of the bill.

Well you fellows, and the member for St. George (Mrs. Campbell), are a quite remarkable crew. If this parliament is recognized for anything it’s their capacity to shift posture from Monday to Tuesday and Tuesday to Thursday without so much as a scruple.

All right, that’s fair enough. I understand. And by the way I say that more amiably than I’ve ever said anything before, because I appreciate what’s being played.

Mr. Lawlor: Don’t say it too amiably.

Mr. J. E. Stokes (Thunder Bay): Haven’t they got some virtues of some kind?

Mr. Lewis: I shudder to think, should they ever be called in to be advisers for the government of Nova Scotia let us say, because they’ll never reach the government here.

I would say, Mr. Speaker, as colleagues in my party have indicated, that this bill is absolutely unsupportable in principle; we cannot bring ourselves to support it. It is one thing to enshrine a principle as a kind of blanket coverage for a piece of legislation, but when the legislation itself emasculates that principle, or when the principle is clearly revealed as misconceived and essentially fraudulent, it is impossible to support it.

There are more loop-holes -- I’ve jotted down some of them and I’m going to deal with them -- there are more loop-holes and inadequacies in this piece of legislation than we have seen in some time. As a matter of fact, it’s very much like the profiteering legislation that the federal Liberals just brought in, of which the New Democratic Party said similarly, in the House of Commons: “We will have nothing to do with it.” This government can’t expect us to support such a nonsensical conception as the Land Speculation Tax Act. Let me just raise the points very quickly, Mr. Speaker, and see if I can make the case.

No. 1: It has been said by certain of my colleagues that the government is trying to use taxation as a tool in order to effect social policy which can only be effected by major legislative changes of an essentially non-statutory kind, or major legislative expenditures which don’t involve taxation alone. It can have legislative enactments which freeze the price of land or roll it back. That might make some sense. It can have a legislative enactment which buys for the public sector 100,000 to 150,000 acres of land on which to erect housing in Ontario within, or adjacent to, the 20 major urban centres. But to pretend that by this taxing device any effective social policy will be achieved is simply a deception, and I think the government understands that.

Let me go further than that. It is worth noting in this regard that the days of rampant land speculation in the Province of Ontario followed the imposition of the capital gains tax introduced -- 1970 or thereabouts, 1970-1971?

Mr. Good: Jan., 1972.

Mr. Lewis: Jan. 1, 1972 -- and the greatest increase in the cost of land and the cost of housing has occurred in the two-year period since the capital gains tax was imposed. Mr. Speaker, that either says something to the government about the way in which corporations and large land holders can get around capital gains imposition, or it should have told them that the speculative land tax is of no consequence at all.

As a matter of fact it won’t make one jot of difference. The speculation will continue unabated.

The second point I want to make, Mr. Speaker, is that the Speculative Land Tax Act takes no account of retroactivity at all. Harold Greer, in a rather neat article I saw on this tax, pointed out -- I think I quote him fairly -- that “that’s like walking in insanity.”

That is exactly what the government has done in this bill. It has accepted the worst speculative increases that have occurred in the Province of Ontario up to and including April 9, 1974, and said that’s fair game. Any tax we apply, we will apply subsequent to that. What the government is saying is that the speculation -- which drove the market- place out of kilter entirely, which added to the housing crisis, which is itself anathema to most civilized people -- was entirely acceptable until April 9, and any profits, however usurious to that date, will be sanctified by this government. Anything we do will only be applied after that. All of the absurdity involved in speculation will not be touched. For that, of course, is also an appreciable defect of the bill.

Let me go further, Mr. Speaker. The loop-holes and the exemptions in the bill are absurdly widespread. This bill is like a sieve through which the remaining speculators will slide easily, comfortably, all the way to the bank. And I think the minister is aware of that.

As a matter of fact, one of the particular loop-holes, the 40 per cent on property loophole, is particularly grievous. What the minister in effect is saying is that if you bought a piece of land for $20,000 some years ago and you put a $40,000 structure on it, you can then sell it for $100,000, giving yourself a tripling of the land value because the $40,000 will represent the 40 per cent that is required in order to grant an exemption under this Act. As a matter of fact, that kind of relationship is not at all far fetched. It is merely a simple measure of what has happened in the marketplace.

In tolerating that, the government has given to the speculators a kind of measure of greed which they themselves have not to this point had, and I am not sure the government realizes that. As a matter of fact it was my colleague from York South who was saying that if you set up this ratio of 40 per cent, you are saying in effect that land is worth 60 per cent, and I want the minister to think about that for a moment. I would like him to tell me, based on any analysis that he has made, when it was, at a given point in time, that land was expected to assume 60 per cent of a real estate transaction.

Mr. Speaker, there was a time when land assumed 20 per cent and property 80 per cent. There was a time when land assumed 40 per cent and property 60 per cent. There may even be a time now in some parts of the province where it is a 50-50 split. But what the government is saying to the speculator in this bill is that you can drive up land prices to represent as much as 60 per cent at any transaction.

Now that is unconscionable. That is creating a precedent for driving up the prices of land in Ontario which knows no parallel. And it’s an open invitation.

It’s like the land transfer tax bill, where the government says: “Ontario is still for sale, only it will cost you a little bit more.” What the government is saying in this bill is: “The land is still for sale and you can make a little more on it than you were able to make on it before.” It’s really quite incredible that this should have been the case.

Our colleagues in research in the New Democratic caucus point out how developers would be totally exempt from tax on other grounds. Let me give another example, which is a perfectly relevant ex- ample.

A developer who bought land in 1967 for $2,000 an acre, built houses for $25,000 and sells the houses with lots for $60,000 in 1975 -- that’s all, that’s quite appropriate; that happens all the time -- making a profit on the land of $138,000 per acre, assuming four lots per acre, is therefore exempt from the tax.

Mr. Good: The hon. member doesn’t know much about the cost of building a house.

Mr. Lewis: What, $25,000 per house? Well, they build them under the HOME plan for $19,000, $20,000 and $21,000. There are a great many places in this province where they can build a home for $25,000. Well, make it $30,000 or even $35,000. That still allows for the extraordinary profit on land. As a matter of fact, in the example I’ve used, the net profit is $138,000 more than the acquisition cost. And all of that is within the developer’s right. He’s not touched by the tax. He has done what he was required to do.

Now the same thing obtains for the sale of property renovated at 20 per cent of the acquisition cost. I want to point out that that too is a total loop-hole in this legislation. It won’t stop any of the white- painting, so-called, in downtown Toronto; as in a place like Donvale. As a matter of fact, Mr. Speaker, I recall using figures in my Throne Speech contribution of the accelerated cost of housing in the Donvale area over the last few years, all of which would be acceptable within the parameters of this legislation.

In other words, this legislation has opened up so many avenues of escape for the development industry that it is rendered virtually irrelevant. And as a speculative land tax, it falls flat on its face. Therefore, how in God’s name can the minister sup- port it in principle?

As a matter of fact, again if I remember the concluding paragraph of the Greer article -- and I was quite struck with it -- he said, and again I think I’m quoting him accurately: “It is all madness and quite unnecessary.” I would have to agree, and I don’t always agree with Harold Greer. There are those rare occasions when we have differing opinions, which are on those occasions when we differ. It happens.

Hon. Mr. Meen: Very rarely.

Mr. Lewis: Now Mr. Speaker, that is why one must then look to the amount of revenue which the ministry expects to gain from the bill. And, again, I think this demonstrates how silly is the whole process.

In the course of the debate on the land transfer tax, my colleague from Riverdale used the figure of $11 billion as the value of total real property transactions in the Province of Ontario in a given year. It was then suggested that $10 billion was probably closer to the truth. It’s hard to extrapolate specifically, given the figures that are available. The one-third of one per cent and the one-sixth of one per cent that had been paid on the land transfer tax was a good route to establishing the total real estate worth in any given year by way of transactions in Ontario. I think the minister conceded that the $10-billion figure was perhaps not out of line. I think the $10 billion figure is supportable on the basis of the projections which were done. Since it wasn’t refuted and was accepted in debate -- maybe it is out a percentage point here or there -- let me show the hon. members what happens.

Total property sales in Ontario in 1973-1974, 1974-1975, can be estimated at at least $10 billion; it may be more but let us take the $10 billion figure for 1973-1974. If average prices rise by 20 per cent in 1974-1975, hardly a great projection since they are rising at the rate of seven or eight per cent per month at the moment, the inflationary gain on sales in 1974-1975 will be about $2 billion.

If we assume an average carrying period, since April 9, of six months, about five per cent of this would be deductible given the 10 per cent carrying cost per annum. Thus the total potential taxable gain -- the total gain -- is $1.9 billion. If we apply the 50 per cent tax on that we might expect in the Province of Ontario in the year 1974-1975 a revenue of $950 million representing 50 per cent of the real estate transactions in the province minus the carrying charges which are deductible under the government’s legislation and which I have counted in.

Do members realize what that says about this bill? It says the projected revenue from the speculation tax is $25 million and that represents 2.6 per cent of the revenue which would be received if the entire market were covered. The government has a potential tax revenue of $950 million, it expects a revenue of $25 million which represents 2.6 per cent of what it might get from a serious tax and it pretends this bill is supportable in principle. How is it possible? How is it possible that this bill is so riddled with exemptions that in advance the government is positing the assumption that $925 million will be lost to the public purse?

I may say, Mr. Speaker, that even if the figure rises from five to 10 or from 10 to 15 per cent -- one doesn’t know because we are dealing with a $10 billion figure and it is difficult to know whether it is $9 billion or $11 billion -- but even if the tax reflected five per cent or 10 per cent or 15 per cent, doesn’t the minister see the tax is excluding the bulk of the real estate transactions in the Province of Ontario? He has understood that in advance.

If this were a buyer’s market, I suppose that wouldn’t matter because that kind of tax might have the effect of moderating the amounts charged for land and housing in the rest of the real estate sector. But it is not a buyer’s market; and because buyers are frantic and because houses are scarce and because costs are so high, the reality is that the tax now imposed will have virtually no effect whatsoever on the real estate transactions in the Province of Ontario.

The minister may be willing to refute some of that, but I think the essential argument is pretty straightforward. As a matter of fact, when we asked the provincial Treasurer, I remember, some weeks ago after the budget was tabled what were the various percentage components, in dollar values, of types of real estate in Ontario -- commercial, industrial, residential, and so on -- he was unable to answer. He had no answer for that. So the $25 million figure must therefore have been plucked from the air. There is no other way it could have been arrived at. The $25 million represents such a marginal percentage of total real estate transactions, were they seriously taxed at 50 per cent, that the whole tax cannot be considered serious in any sense.

Therefore, Mr. Speaker, the crux of all this comes back to the cost of land and the cost of housing. I must agree with the arguments made by members in the Liberal Party and members in my own party, that the present tax is likely to drive up the prices in Ontario.

Now the developer will be encouraged, if he worries about the tax at all, to build on the land; therefore he will compute as high a cost of the land as he can once the property represents 40 per cent.

Alternately, if he feels he can’t escape the tax or some measure of the tax, he will simply incorporate it into the cost of doing business. That has obviously happened since the capital gains tax was introduced; it will obviously continue to happen.

Further, it appears as though the government is systematically forcing out the small builders in Ontario unless they bring in an amendment which significantly alters the legislation. That creates an even worse situation because the large developers will hold onto the land. All of us have received, from real estate boards, from small companies, from all kinds of people, recognition that small builders are being forced out.

I had a letter recently from someone in Guelph naming the development companies which had indicated to the private small builders they simply were not providing any more lots. They would do the building themselves and that, too, would drive up the cost, because the developer will incorporate as much as he can for the land.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, the cost of rental accommodation will have to absorb the increase of this tax, if ever it is felt and should anyone feel they can’t escape it, because if one wants to sell rental property, that again becomes a cost of doing business.

I just don’t think this piece of legislation was seriously thought about at all. I don’t think any of us on this side feel that. The government was in a tremendous bind. The government is under bitter and relenting criticism about its housing policy.

Mr. M. Cassidy (Ottawa Centre): What housing policy?

Mr. Lewis: Yes, about its so-called housing policy. The government won’t do the job that is required to be done in the simple provision of homes, so it looked around for a bogey. It looked around for a straw man that it could set up and then demolish, and it found it in the speculative land tax. For the first time in the last several months, the new Minister of Housing started to talk about speculators, just in advance of the budget being brought in. And the government then trumpeted a speculative land tax from the provincial Treasurer and pretended that the least amount of money it got the better it would be. But it really demonstrated that the loop-holes were so large that it don’t really expect any revenue from it anyway.

But in terms of dealing with the crucial issue, it responds not at all, and the minister knows that. The real principle of the bill, unstated in its title, reads: “A speculative land tax in order to provide accommodation in Ontario.” That’s the real principle of the bill. The Treasurer admitted it, the Provincial Secretary for Resources Development admitted it in the House last Monday night, April 29, and the Minister of Revenue admitted it. That’s the principle of this bill. If the government wants to pretend there is a principle with respect to a speculative land tax; it is defunct, it is absurd and the minister can’t support it. If he wants to go further and pretend that there is a principle here that relates to the provision of housing, which is the assertion of the Treasury benches, then that too collapses. Because there isn’t a single thing in this bill which will solve the housing crisis.

Mr. Speaker, housing is a frustrating business to talk about, but in some ways it is the most important thing to talk about. It is the one issue clearly identified in the public mind, out of the whole area of inflation, as a provincial responsibility. I quite agree that the Premier (Mr. Davis) has managed, to use the words of my colleague from York South, to “flim-flam” the jurisdictional responsibility for inflation when it comes to energy prices, food prices and a number of other areas where provincial-federal relationships are allegedly ill-defined. But when it comes to housing, there is no question in anyone’s mind where the responsibility lies. It lies with the provincial Conservatives. It is very much their present and future Achilles heel, and because their homage to the private sector is so complete, they brought in this kind of bill hoping that public attention would be sufficiently diverted to allow them to pretend that action was under way.

Well, let me remind the minister, I won’t take long and I’ll take my seat -- let me remind the minister -- and the question period today was interesting in that regard -- Eli Comay left in January, the end of his temporary contract. He has sat through the tax task force, seen the Ministry of Housing born, agreed to a temporary contract at the request of the Premier, provided the basis for the so-called Ontario housing action programme; and from the day of Eli Comay’s departure to this day, May 6, 1974, there has not been a significant new ingredient in the housing crisis in the Province of Ontario, not one.

The new Minister of Housing repeats up and down the province his reliance on the private development industry and the malleability of the municipalities. The municipalities said in May that the private development industry wants a quid pro quo, they want a trade-off, which even this government so far cannot provide.

The Minister of Housing has talked about HOME lots, increasing in number to 6,000 this year, to be offered to the private sector. But not a word in this House about how many of these lots will actually be taken by the private sector.

The Ministry of Housing concedes there are 22,000 acres all in the Ontario Housing Corp. land bank, 4,000 acres recently acquired in the regional municipality of Durham. But from the point of the announcement to the point of this debate, there has not been a tittle of information about when that land will be serviced, how many homes will go on it and whether or not it will be used to overcome the present housing crisis.

There has been support expressed by the provincial government for the federal programme, non-profit co-op housing; but let me make it clear, Mr. Speaker, that that is a federal initiative, a pretty excellent federal initiative as a matter of fact, and if it were up to this government it would never have happened. As a matter of fact if it were up to the parliamentary assistant for housing, the member for St. David (Mrs. Scrivener), we would have no non-profit co-op housing anywhere in the Province of Ontario. And it was only the acceptance of a federal initiative which gave that programme some substance.

I want to simply point out to you then, Mr. Speaker, that there is a staggering default of any specifics in the whole housing area.

I got a letter from the Minister of Housing today about Malvern. He indicated, Mr. Speaker, in his letter -- I represent a Scarborough riding so I presume that was the reason for sending it to me -- the minister at any rate pointed out there are condominium units going up in the Malvern area. If memory serves me it is a total of 154 units -- maybe it is 134, but I’ll inflate it to be on the safe side -- 154 condominium units which he is going to allow to those people who participated in the lottery some months ago for phase two of Malvern.

Now let me remind the Minister of Revenue there were some 230 houses offered in phase two, and in a matter of days there were 10,000 applications. The newspapers indicated some 20,000 were turned away or some 20,000 simply gave up. And what the minister is saying is, he is adding 154 to that 230, leaving some 9,500 or 9,600 people who couldn’t even find a HOME lot on which to present a bid.

So the reality is that we are surrounded by total collapse in the housing programme. The geared-to-income housing programme has not been extended, the HOME housing programme has not been extended, the servicing of OHC lots has not been accelerated, the new Ontario housing action programme with input from the developers and commitment from the municipalities has not happened. The only thing the Minister of Housing has done in a concrete way is to announce that the cost of houses on HOME lots will go up in price.

Now, maybe there is some kind of nemesis about this housing portfolio. Maybe there is a death wish about it, maybe it is a Midas in reverse --

Mr. Speaker: Order please, I think the member for Scarborough West is not on the principle of Bill 25.

Mr. Lewis: I am on the principle of Bill 25 --

Mr. Speaker: No. Would he get back to the principle of the bill?

Mr. Lewis: -- because the speculative land tax bill is specifically designed to place more housing on the market. I don’t have to tell you that during the debate the Minister of Revenue said: “And one of our major objectives is getting more housing on the market.” The Provincial Secretary for Resources Development said -- it is on the record -- that “the bill is to provide land and housing.”

Mr. J. R. Breithaupt (Kitchener): I was here; I heard that.

Mr. Lewis: I am speaking to the principle of the bill. I am telling you, Mr. Speaker, that the tax part of it is an absurdity. It shouldn’t be dignified by a vote in the House; and the housing part of it will never occur. It is as unprincipled a piece of chicanery as this government has engaged in in some considerable time.

The government pronouncements are worthless. It is kind of like the Toronto Real Estate Board announcing that housing prices have levelled off 48 hours or 24 hours in advance of a jump of $3,000 to $4,000 per transaction in Metropolitan Toronto.

The Treasurer of Ontario, Mr. Speaker, has long been infatuated with that lovely little fairy tale about the emperor’s new clothes. He is infatuated by it because it best conveys for him the quality of the legislative process as one of masquerade. I think he is carrying his personal foibles a little too far, don’t you?

I mean, Mr. Speaker, if you really subjected this bill to scrutiny, the contents are naked -- don’t you think so? Don’t you think the bill could be charged with indecent exposure if you move too far in an examination of its contents? There is nothing in this bill that merits support. The only way the government could rescue this bill is by withdrawing it.

I must say -- and I don’t want to embarrass him -- I thought the member for York-Forest Hill made a first rate speech on this bill. I thought the way in which he ended clearly catapulted the Liberal Party into the necessity of opposing this in principle, because the logic was inescapable. Okay, apparently not; apparently the official opposition is going to give the government support on principle. But we are not going to give it any support on principle.

All my colleagues have indicated to you, Mr. Speaker, where this bill is wanting. All of us have demonstrated to the minister that it is a piece of legislation which shouldn’t even be dignified by debate in this House. All of us have indicated to him that where we can we will try to amend it in committee; although I really must say that the best course of strategy in committee is simply to oppose the sections rather than reinstate them unamended.

Let me say to the minister that he already has so many amendments planned, he has already been so embarrassed by the content of the bill, he brings it up for debate in the desperate hope that the federal budget and the rumours of war will somehow eclipse what is occurring here. Everything the minister has done is designed to avoid the essential embarrassment about a piece of legislation which is essentially worthless -- and we will have none of it.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Huron.

Mr. J. Riddell (Huron): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just want to say a few words on this bill.

Again, we on this side support the principle of the bill, but we certainly do not support all aspects of the bill as it stands at the present time.

Anyone who has any social conscience at all has to deplore the continuous escalation of the prices of land and property; there is no doubt about that. Certainly if low and moderate income families want to own their own home, and if young people interested in embarking on a farming career want to buy land for that purpose, then we as legislators must be prepared to co-operate in any attempt to put some stability into the cost of housing and land.

The land speculation tax as presently drafted fails to distinguish between speculators and developers. Now, surely the developer who buys raw land and goes through all the procedures required to obtain the release of a registered plan of subdivision, should not be required to pay this tax. This land is then very often purchased by another developer who specializes in the installation of the services required in a new subdivision, such as sewers and roads. Surely this developer should not be taxed for his efforts in endeavouring to put more serviced lots on the market. Then of course we have the builder who actually constructs new homes on the serviced land. We realize he is exempt from the tax; but in many cases this builder is not going to be able to stay in business, as he relies on the subdivider and the developer for the serviced lots on which he builds. The subdivider will either sit on the raw land and wait until prices go even higher before he goes through the stages of subdivision, or he will incorporate the added costs of this tax into the sale price of the lot. This ultimately will be passed on to the consumer or the person buying the house.

The reason we support this bill in principle is that we look favourably on taxing the speculator who buys and sells land and houses for generally nothing more than paper money, and without adding any improvements whatsoever to the property.

This speculator, Mr. Speaker, is the person who has driven the price of farm land to prices beyond the reach of young people who wish to became producers of food. An economical farm unit today is considered to be in the neighbourhood of 200 to 250 acres. Because the speculative price has spread beyond the boundaries of urban centres, this acreage will cost in the neighbourhood of $200,000. Add to this cost another $50,000 worth of machinery -- this is a conservative figure, small c -- and another $25,000 worth of livestock, and we are now talking in terms of $275,000 to $300,000 for this young fellow to get into the farming business. The maximum loan this young farmer can get through the Farm Credit Corp. is, I believe, $100,000. Thus he is $150,000 to $200,000 short of what is required in order to get into the farming business.

The reason he is subject to such a high cost is because of the speculator who has been buying land. As I say, the speculative price has been moving further away from the boundaries of the urban centres and out into the country.

Then we wonder why the price of food is accelerating year after year. As long as the speculator is allowed to continue his practice of profiteering, then farmers are going to continue to exert pressure on government for stabilized prices so they may meet their cost of production and hopefully make a small profit; and consumers then are going to ever be faced with rising prices.

Most farmers will endeavour to start their sons in the farming business, and therefore they tend to ignore the outrageous prices that are being offered for their farms. A lot of farmers say: “This is the only thing I know. I know how to farm. I have no desire to go into industry or into the city; and therefore I am not interested in the price that is being offered for my farm.”

So they are going to try to start their young sons into the farming business. But at some point in time this farm is apt to pass out of the ownership of the family, and according to this bill as it now stands, this farm will be subject to the speculation tax.

I contend, Mr. Speaker, that the farmer who has owned and farmed this land for a good number of years should not be classified as a speculator if he sells his farm to someone other than members of his own family. He did not get into the farming business to become a speculator, yet he is being penalized because he has worked a lot of hard years trying to produce food for the consumer only to find that when he sells the farm he is going to be subject to this 50 per cent tax.

Nor do I think the elderly lady who sold the home that she and her now deceased husband lived in all their lives should be classified as a speculator. But according to this bill, if she happens to sell that house for three times what it originally cost then she is subject to the tax. Certainly neither she nor her husband bought that house for speculation purposes.

Neither do I think the owner of a fourplex who sells for reasons beyond his or her control -- be it health reasons or age or what have you -- should be classified as a speculator.

To my way of thinking, this bill does not spell out what a speculator is. Therefore it certainly is not clear in my mind who is going to be subject to this speculation tax. I would hope that when some of these amendments come in we will find out for sure who is going to have to pay this tax and who is going to be exempt from paying it.

Mr. Lawlor: Then the member will vote against it!

Mr. Riddell: But the farmer, the home owner, the owner of the fourplex --

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Cassidy: The member is going to vote for the bill? He can’t vote for the bill on what he says. He is going to break ranks with the party.

Mr. Riddell: These people are all expected to pay the speculation tax; and I say, Mr. Speaker, they are not speculators.

So we are going to wait for the amendments to come in and we’ll know better then exactly what stand we are going to take. But at the present time, we are in favour of the principle, we are in favour of taxing that speculator who is simply buying and selling land without adding any improvements to it. We are certainly not in favour of taxing the farmer who has farmed this land all his life, the home owner who has to sell the house for some reason or the owners of a fourplex who have had to sell again for reasons beyond their control. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Ottawa Centre.

Mr. Cassidy: I just find the position put forward by the member for Huron really quite incredible.

Mr. Lewis: We were being friendly.

Mr. Cassidy: What he has said is the Liberal Party seems to support the bill, but that at times the bill is casting too broad a net. The fact that it is taxing, is it 2 1/2 per cent of the transactions, is too broad; and that the speculators who are causing the problems in the Province of Ontario do not account for 10 per cent of the transactions and not for five per cent, not for the 2 1/2 per cent that the minister is trying to tax, but maybe for one per cent or one half of one per cent; and so we are left with this incredible position --

Mr. R. Haggerty (Welland South): So a person can have two homes; one in Ottawa and one on Toronto Island.

Mr. Cassidy: We are left in this incredible position as far as the Liberal Party is concerned, that the net of the bill is too broad. I hope that has impressed itself on the minister. And I hope he understands that the support he is getting from that side of the House is qualified on even more exemptions being written into the bill, in order to narrow it down until finally one person in the province, one person in the province, will be singled out and will actually have to pay the tax as far as that party is concerned.

Mr. T. P. Reid (Rainy River): Now he’s got it.

Mr. Cassidy: Now speculative profits as a whole, you know, Mr. Speaker, don’t only go to people who walk around in dark raincoats wearing dark hats.

Mr. Reid: They go to millionaire socialists.

Mr. Cassidy: Nor do they only go to people who wear loud, flashy check suits or something like that. They go to people who are cabinet ministers for God’s sake.

Mr. Reid: And in corduroy jackets.

Mr. Cassidy: They go to people who are farmers, they go to people who in their normal lives are God-fearing gentlemen, and who go to the Presbyterian church and appear as elders every week. These people are speculators as well.

Mr. Reid: Keep going, the member hasn’t missed anybody yet.

Mr. Riddell: A farmer is a speculator in the member’s mind?

Mr. Cassidy: A farmer who receives $2,000 or $3,000 an acre for his land is not receiving agricultural value for his land --

Mr. Speaker: Order please; the member for Ottawa Centre should be on the principle of the bill.

Mr. Cassidy: -- he is receiving speculative value for his land.

Mr. Lewis: Members will notice the unions weren’t mentioned.

Mr. Cassidy: That’s right, Mr. Speaker.

You know, we are just about to call time for private members’ hour. And one of the points I don’t think anybody has quite seen in the bill but which I think ought to be made -- and I am sorry the response to this bill is going to come from the Minister of Revenue and not from the Minister of Housing -- because there is a very clear abandonment of the course of action the government took in relation to housing last September when the decision was announced to set up a Ministry of Housing.

If the minister has read the Comay report, he will find that of all the priorities in the housing field, the question of speculative gains on land was seen as a corollary, as incidental, as secondary, was not seen as an area of primary concern to the government. Now as it happens we disagreed with the Comay committee’s point of view on the questions of speculation and speculative profits in the land field. But as far as the government was concerned, they took the stand that if they got moving on the supply side, put lots on the market, bought land for development, accelerated the provision of services, the other problems would take care of themselves.

That was the point of view the government expressed at that time. The government endorsed in general all of the findings of the Comay task force, and those findings indicated that the question of speculation was secondary.

The Comay commission said specifically that the taxation of speculative profits in land is a matter which should be given early study, but they did not call for any immediate action at this time. They said that taxes on speculative values created considerable problems in regulation and administration, which could lead to more and costly procedural delays than now occur. The Comay task force said that a tax on speculative values also produced numerous side effects which would have to be examined in detail before any positive recommendation on their use could be made. Then they said you should examine land value taxation under the context of the tax system as a whole.

When it looked in detail at the various kinds of taxes, including speculation taxes, which could be applied, the Comay commission said these taxes constituted a kind of level of provincial involvement in the private sector which was restrictive to competitive enterprise and was unwarranted, at least until other policies and programmes had been fully explored.

In other words, they said if the government chose to go into a speculative land tax, it means that they admit the other programmes and policies they’re adopting are a failure. We’re willing to agree that they’re a failure, but the government has not been so frank in its assessment so far. I would hope that the minister, for once, would vault beyond the narrow technical confines of his responsibilities in order to answer in this debate on the broad grounds of housing policy, since the tax on speculative gains on land was so clearly intended by the Treasurer as an instrument of housing policy.

The Comay commission said these taxes could also seriously distort the operations of the housing market with long-term disadvantages. They spoke of the difficulties of proper and equitable regulation and administration, and they said these taxes would not deal directly with the central issue, which is the supply of land for development.

On behalf of the New Democratic Party, Mr. Speaker, I can associate myself with all of those criticisms of the tax as it has been put forward by the government at this time. The failure of the government is that it continues to try somehow to prop up the private development system for land, even in bringing forward this tax. The minister and the member for Huron may disagree as to what exactly a speculator is, but they do seem to agree that somehow one can sit down in the market and one can define certain kinds of activities which involve the taking of massive profits from land and, call them speculative, and take other kinds of profits which also arise from land and define them as not speculative but as being legitimate and therefore not subject to tax.

Frankly, we don’t see that kind of distinction being a realistic one. As far as I’m concerned, Mr. Speaker, the profit which is taken by a developer who bought land for $2,000 an acre a few years ago and is now selling it at the equivalent of $150,000 an acre, covered with houses or some other form of development, that profit on land is just as unconscionable as the profit which is taken by somebody who is churning land and passing it from hand to hand in the speculative process which has preceded the actual development.

In the one case, you have a series of people trading the land, and the ultimate position is that the land is retailed at $150,000 an acre, where it began at $1,000 or $2,000 an acre. In the other case you have one developer who buys in at $1,000 or $2,000 an acre and who is retailing that land again at $150,000 an acre. But in the one case the concentration in one hand of that process is exempt from tax; and in the other case the proliferation of hands at the till is seen by the Ontario government as evidence that something wrong is going on, and therefore it taxes it as a tax on speculators.

Mr. Speaker: Perhaps the hon. member should adjourn the debate.

Mr. Cassidy: I’d like to proceed for a few more minutes, Mr. Speaker, so possibly I could adjourn the debate at this time.

Mr. Cassidy moves the adjournment of the debate.

Motion agreed to.

PRIVATE MEMBERS’ HOUR: BEDS OF NAVIGABLE WATERS ACT

Mr. Haggerty moves second reading of Bill 18, An Act to amend the Beds of Navigable Waters Act.

Mr. R. Haggerty (Welland South): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This bill represents, perhaps, to a great number of citizens in Ontario, their last hope of retaining ownership of the province’s valuable shoreline for posterity’s sake.

In 1968, the then Minister of Lands and Forests (Mr. Brunelle) had indicated to the Legislature that a departmental study of between 1,400 and 1,500 township lots in 76 townships fronting the Great Lakes had been completed. A legal opinion at present is being prepared by the department on the extent of the beach land in those townships which may be in public ownership.

The wording used in the grants from the Crown for these lots varies in terminology. In some cases it may indicate to the shoreline, to the water’s edge or to the bank, and in many other instances to a post or a benchmark. The minister then stated that this time it appears the policy which may be followed is one of acquiring privately owned land where it is in the public interest. The cost of buying lands that, in a number of instances, are now Crown lands, has been estimated to be well over $400 million.

Mr. Speaker, the issue is the present struggle of citizens of this province to control lakefront beaches that line some 14 miles of lakeshore in the former county of Welland. But in the broader picture the issue is the control and development of recreational resources in Ontario, and perhaps elsewhere in Canada, particularly in regard to Crown lands.

In January of this year the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the Ontario Supreme Court’s decision of Chief Justice Stark that owners of four beachfront properties in Bertie township were entitled to exclusive ownership right to the water’s edge, and further entitled to erect fences barring the public the right to walk the shoreline. Chief Justice Stark of the Ontario Supreme Court has, in my opinion and in the opinion of others, disregarded all the evidence and the results of early surveying, which indicated benchmarks beginning at a post along the lake, and meaning high-water marks or places of vegetation growth.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to read into the record from some provincial surveys or land patents back in the year 1798. This one is in reference to Mr. Daniel McQueen, township of Bertie.

“Beginning at a post of the front concession marked 15 and 16 on Lake Erie, and then north 134 chains more or less to the third concession, then west 20 chains, then south to Lake Erie, then easterly along the shore of the lake to the place of beginning.”

And, of course, the place of beginning is a benchmark at post. This is registered in the Land Titles Office -- I guess it would be registered -- in 1797. And again, this concerns property in this vicinity:

“Beginning at a post on Lake Erie marked 13 and 14, thence north 81 chains and then west 20 chains, then south to Lake Erie, thence along the bank to the place of beginning.”

And, of course, again there are two benchmarks here, Mr. Speaker. There is a post, a benchmark or surveyor’s post, and the bank, which means the sand hills along the shoreline.

And the third reference here is the register of property in 1797 to Jeremiah Kettle, township of Bertie:

“Beginning at a post on Lake Erie marked 16 and 15, then north 142 chains more or less, then west 20 chains, then south to Lake Erie, then easterly along the lake to the place of beginning with allowance for roads.”

So, you can see by the difference descriptions of titles to land patents here that there is some question as to the intent of it, but I think the intent is there at the “beginning at a post.” It may say “along the lake”; that could be the bank or it could be the water’s edge. I am not quite sure but I think the intent is that there was a benchmark there beginning at a post.

The present chaotic situation lies directly with the government. In fact previous governments of the Conservative Party are responsible for the confusion arising over the ownership of shoreline property. The government must answer in a responsible manner to the citizens of this province, particularly for the 1951 amendment to the Act. In 1941 it was indicated that the shoreline for beaches was interpreted as the high-water mark or the banks of the lake. The Conservative government in the past number of years has handed public property to the private owners along our Great Lakes shorelines.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to read an article from the Buffalo Courier-Express concerning this decision of the Supreme Court of Canada. This was an appeal made by the then Minister of Lands and Forests for a Supreme Court hearing. The decision was handed down here in February of this year. The headline reads:

“Thunder Bay Beach Group Upheld On Waterline Rights.

“Ottawa -- The Supreme Court of Canada Tuesday sustained the claim of four Buffalo area residents that they own the beach in front of their Lake Erie-Thunder Bay summer homes to the waterline.

“Justices of Canada’s highest court unanimously rejected an appeal from the Province of Ontario whose attorneys argued that Ontario for at least 40 years had insisted that beaches remain public on Crown lands converted to private use.

“But lawyers for the Thunder Bay property owners maintained that their clients enjoyed a special distinction: Their land was originally given by a grateful British government to veterans who had served the Crown in Canada’s colonial wars, principally the war of 1812.

“Claims Traced

“‘The issue here was, what did the first lakefront property owner claim as his right?’ explained Richard Moot of Buffalo, a US attorney for the property owners.

“‘We proved that this first landowner, a War of 1812 veteran who had once been taken prisoner and held by the Americans in a Philadelphia camp, claimed to the waterline.

“‘That established the right of all succeeding property owners, including our clients, to claim the beaches to the waterline.’

“Attorneys for the province argued that ancient royal grants gave landowners title only to the high-water mark, leaving the beach from there to the waterline in the public domain. But the high court in its unanimous decision found so little substance in this claim that it ordered the Province of Ontario to pay the court costs.

“‘This is done only in cases where the judges find the case has almost no merit,’ Moot explained.

“Moot, who has a home in Thunder Bay, left prosecution of the case to attorney W. L. N. Sommerville of Toronto. He earlier had won favourable decisions in Ontario county court and the

Supreme Court of Ontario.

Some of the most persuasive earlier testimony for the four property owners, Moot said, came from John Lord O’Brian, who was the oldest lawyer licensed to practise before the US Supreme Court when he died last year at the age of 95. O’Brian, long a Buffalo lawyer, was one of the first US citizens to acquire property on the Canadian lakeshore, Moot said. Despite his advanced years, he took the stand to refute many of the claims of provincial witnesses.

“‘Among other things, they claimed a road once ran down to the middle of the beach,’ Moot said of the O’Brian testimony. ‘He denied it and convinced the judges it was not so.’

“Complainants Listed

“Moot and others, seeking a landmark decision that would protect US property owners, selected four neighbours in the Centralia Ave. section of the Thunder Bay beachfront as complainants. They were:

“Mrs. Richard Stockton, Sr., of 28 Hodge Ave., Buffalo, and her son, Robert, who owned summer homes on opposite sides of the Centralia Avenue ‘allowance’; William Walker and Mrs. Mary Elizabeth Letchworth of Orchard Park.”

It’s amazing that when you appear before the Supreme Court of Canada that we, as Canadians, have to go to American neighbours and bring witnesses to appear and tell us, “I know more about your land than you do as Canadians.”

I think, Mr. Speaker, this is a most distasteful case before the Supreme Court of Canada. In particular I have argued on numerous occasions about this particular court issue and the ownership of the land. I have indicated that along that shoreline some 100 years ago there was a landmark there and parts off it are still there today, concerning a windmill, which used to be a grist mill and used to grind the grain. People used to travel the lakeshore because there were no roads in this particular area 100 and some years ago.

To have some American come over here and tell us it was a veteran of the War of 1812! The land was first surveyed in 1797 and title of the land was given to, I think, a Mr. McQuinn. At that time he was one of the original property owners. It was not in the War of 1812. To think that things of such importance as this -- and perhaps even rubbish like this -- would appear before the Supreme Court of Canada and that witnesses from some other country or from one country, would come over here and tell us, perhaps based on these arguments put forth, that he knew more about the history of that area, I am a little bit amazed and astonished at the decision of the Supreme Court.

They might be knowledgeable men -- no doubt about it, they are -- but their wisdom and judgement in this particular case, I don’t think was in the interests of the people of the Province of Ontario or the citizens of Canada.

This is going to start a precedent in Ontario, Perhaps we are going to see very shortly that there will be applications made to the Lieutenant Governor, the cabinet of the Province of Ontario, to county councils and regional councils to dispose of all road allowances on existing lakes throughout Ontario. If the road allowances are closed off and given to a certain privileged few people who own cottages along the lake, the lakes will become totally private. I don’t think it is in the best interests of the people of Ontario that these lakes become totally private, denying the public access to them.

I suppose I could go back to the early history of the Province of Quebec and its statute under George III giving to fishermen and other persons rights of access to the waterways and beaches along the shoreline from Quebec -- along the St. Lawrence River straight through the Great Lakes system. For some reason, over the past number of years it was particularly the decision of this government -- not this particular government but the Conservative government in 1951 -- to make amendments to the Beds of Navigable Waters Act which allowed the owners rights, perhaps to the water’s edge.

I would like to see the government move now in this direction and either rescind that 1951 section of the Act or bring in a totally new Beds of Navigable Waters Act which will define the shoreline of the property. This is what the intent of the bill is.

The purpose of this bill is to provide a uniform interpretation of deeds of property bounded by navigable water so that the high-water marks shall be deemed to be the boundary of such property and that property shall remain as Crown lands. I don’t say as public lands but as Crown lands. In future years if the government wants to, it can extend the boundaries or extend the agreements to include larger and more areas of beaches throughout Ontario. As our population grows, we are going to need more recreational lakefront property.

There was an article in the Toronto Star of Monday, Feb. 4, 1974, on the opinion page; it was written by Judy LaMarsh and the headline was: “We Should Buy Back Lake Erie Beaches.” As I stated before, the minister has suggested that we should buy back Lake Erie beaches but she goes on to say:

“That’s a heap of public funds to buy back what was legislated away. But there is no expense involved in hastening to amend that 1951 legislation to restore the principle of public fights. The time is overripe for the provincial government to produce a policy for immediate development of public lands remaining and a long-term programme for purchase or expropriation.

“It was the government’s lawyers who took the beaches case to the Supreme Court and lost. They argued for the primacy of the public’s right. Their political masters will have to act now.”

She raises a valid point that the government took it to the Supreme Court and now it must live up to that commitment.

I can say this much, Mr. Speaker, when the heat was on in that particular area the struggle was called the Battle of Ridgeway. If we went down into the entrance of the main building here we would see a bronze plaque, to the right going out to the door, which says “The Battle of Lang Ridge.” That was the battle of the Fenian raids back in 1866. But in this very particular instance, the battle of beaches was called the Battle of Ridgeway and the Battle of the Beaches. And it is going to continue until the government moves in some direction to guarantee that the public would have access to the shoreline along the Great Lakes system.

I would also like to see the government perhaps bring in some legislation to remove any fences along the lakeshore. Now, I can see with this decision of the Supreme Court of Canada fences are going to go up, denying the public their rights. I suppose if you read into the reasons for the decision of the Supreme Court, it was based upon the Limitations Act, If I can put it in layman’s terms this means that if they can show just cause that they have had title to the property for a number of -- what 60? -- years, then the decision through the courts through the Quieting Titles Act, is that the property can be deeded to them or given to them through that statute.

I just wish I was one of those persons appearing before the Supreme Court here in Ontario or even appearing before any of the courts. In this particular instance this group of Americans by all intentions have stolen the property from the people of Ontario. In 1942 a bylaw was moved or presented in the former county of Welland to amend the road allowance. I know these Americans had built upon the original road allowance, and the council had directed them to tear the building down or remove the building. So in 1942 they came back and there was a compromise given by Welland county council that they would give their portion of the land next to the road allowance in lieu of the land taken by them for constructing the road allowance.

I suppose if we look at this present decision of the Supreme Court of Canada, it means that by altering that road now the party can erect fences on both sides of that property. I am sure there is still the possibility that one side still remains as Crown lands, but by relocating this road it will allow them to erect fences denying the public access. The minute the fences go up, I suppose erected along the lakeshore, the property owners can come back with, “Well we have had title to it under the Limitations Act and we will apply to the courts for that final decision.” As the fences go up it’s sure the public is denied their rights and their access to the beaches.

In Bertie township at the present time, or I should say in the town of Fort Erie, there are about four road allowances available now for the public -- a population of about 20,000 that goes up to about 60,000 in the summertime. I guess it figures out to about one-100th of an inch per person. Now that’s how serious the problem is along the shores of Lake Erie and I think the government must act now and bring in the proper legislation to control it for posterity’s sake, so that the land will remain as Crown lands.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Victoria- Haliburton.

Mr. R. G. Hodgson (Victoria-Haliburton): Mr. Speaker, may I first of all commend the member for Welland South who has brought in this bill to try to provide in this discussion some basis for an Act that would correct some of the problems that exist. However, it is a very complex and complicated area of law which has not, I suppose, been entirely settled as yet. The bill provides for a uniform interpretation of deeds of property bounded by navigable waters so that the high-water mark of the shoreline will be the property boundary of the private property.

According to the bill, the high-water mark shall mean the level at which the water, in a navigable body of water, has been held for a period of time sufficient to leave a mark on the bank. This is an area that is very hard to determine, because you have high-water floods and low water for periods of time that leaves marks. How to determine the right mark then becomes a problem.

The term “bed” in the Act refers to the land under the waterline below the high-water mark and all other land. The property line of the private property owner shall be the high-water mark of such a navigable body of water. Presumably, the intent of this legislation is to stabilize or to simplify a very complex legal matter involving those cases of law, or potential cases, in which the ownership of the land below the high-water mark has not been clearly established.

However, an approach of simplicity will not satisfactorily resolve a matter of such deep complexity. Such a simple approach raises a host of questions which are left unanswered by the bill.

These questions include: What are to be the determining features, or criteria, for establishing a high-water mark? What method will be established to determine the high-water mark assuming there are clearly defined criteria such as contours of land, the positioning of the sands, and whether trees are above the high-water mark? What provisions are there in the Act to permit the owner of the private property to appeal the decision of the surveyor general? Or, failing that, of the Minister of Natural Resources?

How does this bill affect the 66-ft road allowance using the high-water mark defined in the bill if the high-water mark is higher than the road allowance -- that is, if the 66-ft road allowance is the existing high-water mark? What effect is this Act going to have on existing private property lines? How does this legislation relate to the recent decision involving the case mentioned by the member for Welland South, the Stockton-Walker case in the Supreme Court of Canada? Many other questions could be raised by this bill.

The principle of the bill appears fine in theory but in looking through its application the implications are rather frightening. For example, as set out presently the bill does not clearly establish the high-water mark. That is, the bill does not appear to recognize the natural cycles of ebb and flow of water.

Let me be more precise. In the case of Wasaga Beach, over the years the people have been able to drive their cars or walk up to one-eighth of a mile from the steps of the older cottages established after World War II -- along the beach out to where the lapping waters stop. However, in 1952 and also in 1972 I believe, the high-water mark which would be established under this bill would be the level at which the water reached the doorsteps of these older cottages. That would mean that some of the previously held land by a private owner would now be subject to Crown ownership.

We are seeking in this situation that the type of property being considered is identical to the properties involved in the Stockton-Walker case. The Supreme Court of Canada recently held in a judgement involving that case that the low-water mark represented the boundary line of the private property. In essence, the rights of the two owners toward their land extended to the water’s edge.

The thrust of this bill would tend to reverse the principle of this law in an indirect sense by usage and by the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision. People who own cottages or recreational property would assume that their property rights extended to the water’s edge. Now we have the situation in which the precise opposite would be occurring. The land would be taken away without any due compensation.

It is very similar to a situation where, for example, the speed limit is changed from 35 miles per hour to 25 miles per hour. In other words, you get into the habit of changing the rules in the middle of the ball game.

What is wrong with this bill is that it does not clearly establish to me, at least, what you mean by high-water mark. How do you arrive at the high-water mark? In what year do you measure it? Is it to be measured over a 10-year cycle, as it has occurred in previous experiences we’ve had with water levels in the Great Lakes system?

Presumably the surveyor general would send out field staff to take evidence or he would use some sort of committee mechanism to arrive at what would be the properly defined high-water mark. After gathering sufficient data, the surveyor general would recommend to the Minister of Natural Resources that a certain water mark be established as a high-water mark. But then, if one reads the legislation clearly it states that the Minister of Natural Resources “may,” and then it proceeds upon the recommendation of the surveyor general.

In other words, the minister “may” recommend a certain water mark in some cases, but not in others. It would seem to me that the word “may” suggests that a rather confusing set of standards would be in operation.

Perhaps the hon. member meant to use the word “shall”. Mr. Speaker, I would submit that the Beds of Navigable Waters Amendment Act is basically bad law, philosophically, as well as bad law arbitrarily in the unethical sense. It would appear to me that the law is a harsh one, and that there is no real sound appeal procedure in which representation could be made by various owners of property affected by this act.

It is bad law in one sense because it relies on purely a technical aspect determining the high-water mark. Even then the high-water mark, at least to me, appears to be a floating high-water mark.

There are no real rights of redress under this legislation. Therefore it is bad law on that count as well. I would suggest, Mr. Speaker, that this legislation is presented on a piecemeal and ad hoc basis. It leaves unknown how many properties would be affected by this type of law, and yet I can sympathize with the hon. member trying to deal with the properties on the Great Lakes.

But the basic law should apply to the whole province and we have different situations throughout Ontario. In some instances there is joint jurisdiction between the federal and provincial governments and in others there is purely provincial jurisdiction. And then there is the situation that exists on the Great Lakes. I suggest the government does need to deal with this situation, but I don’t think this is the ideal type of legislation to do it under, without running into difficulty with some of the points that I have raised. Thank you very much.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Thunder Bay.

Mr. J. E. Stokes (Thunder Bay): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think that it is important that we are given an opportunity from time to time to discuss matters such as this in the Legislature. It is just a shame that there aren’t more cabinet ministers here to lend their voices to the kinds of things that are being said to resolve some of the long-standing problems dealing with ownership of land, and the rights or the private individual, as opposed to the rights of the public in general.

I want to commend the member for having introduced this bill because it is good for purposes of discussion, although I haven’t heard anything from the present Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Bernier) who is responsible for the administration of

Crown land and for providing adequate recreational land for the people in the Province of Ontario. And I don’t hear anything from the resources policy field about how they would come to grips with such a problem.

The hon. member for Victoria-Haliburton has stated that it is a very complex and difficult problem. Yet, in spite of all of the promises that we have had, in spite of all the detailed research that has gone into a problem of such long standing, we have nothing from the government to indicate in any way, shape or form that it is willing to come to grips with such an important matter.

The member who introduced the bill is quite right when he says there are far too many descriptions dealing with the riparian rights of people, whether under the Beds of Navigable Waters Act, the Crown Lands Act or the Limitations Act, or any other act for that matter.

The amount of Crown land and choice recreational land that has been alienated from the Crown and lost for use to the people of the Province of Ontario for recreational purposes, is of such a magnitude that it would cost us literally hundreds of millions of dollars to repatriate.

I am not suggesting that we should go out and just expropriate without any consideration for those who have in their deeds legal tenure to the land. They have a right to expect that they will continue to have tenure to the land unless they are adequately compensated for it. I think there is a great need for clarification because prior to 1951, it was generally accepted in the Province of Ontario that it was the low-water mark that would be the boundary in any surveys or descriptions where water was to form one or more of the boundaries of a parcel of land. Then this same government, in their wisdom, changed that to say that it would be the high-water mark.

This met with a good deal of favour with a good many people across the province who are as concerned as the member who introduced this bill today, representing a good many cottage owners along the shores of Lake Erie, and indeed the rights of the public to have adequate access to a sufficient amount of recreational land to satisfy their needs for an outdoor experience. Then, without any fanfare the government reversed themselves again and said, “No, we’ll restore it to the former rules of the game and it will be the low-water mark.” So we are right back where we started.

The member for Victoria-Haliburton has admonished the member who introduced this bill. He says that you can’t change the rules of the game in mid-stream.

Mr. Haggerty: They have been changed three times already.

Mr. Stokes: They have already been changed three times and I don’t see any reason why they couldn’t be changed again to suit the needs of the majority of the people in the Province of Ontario.

I can’t heartily agree with the member who introduced this bill. He sort of slaps the wrist of the judge who made the decision, he slaps the wrist of the Court of Appeal that upheld the decision, and he also admonished the Supreme Court that reaffirmed both former decisions. Having read the Court of Appeal ruling re the Queen and the right of Ontario and --

Mr. Haggerty: We’ll have to live it --

Mr. Stokes: -- Walker, from my limited knowledge of legal matters, I would have to agree with the Court of Appeal which says in Ontario the common-law rule placing the boundary between land and water at the water’s lowest mark has been continuously in effect except for a limited period of time when the Beds of Navigable Waters Act was amended. The amendment said a Crown patent which indicates one of the boundaries of the land granted to be a boundary of water, establishes that boundary at the water’s edge “and not upon any bank or high-water mark, unless the grant reserves by description or otherwise a space between the land granted and the water boundary or unless the boundaries of the lot can be so clearly delineated by reference to an original plan of survey as clearly to accept or reserve to the Crown a space between the land granted and the water’s edge.”

So it’s quite clear in the Beds of Navigable Waters Act, and obviously it was quite clear in the deeds that were held, that the judge was, indeed, on firm ground and made the right decision. So we don’t admonish the courts. They were going on the basis of the law as it exists at the present time and as it existed when the people got legal tenure to the land. So if it wants to see that justice is done on behalf of all of the people of the Province of Ontario, it’s incumbent upon this government to change the Act.

Now, what the government changes it to -- whether it be the high-water mark or some other arbitrary line -- is something again. I can quite clearly see that it is going to create a lot of problems if the government suggests that it is the high-water mark, because unless it spells out quite clearly and unequivocally that it is the high-water mark as established by the natural ebbs and flows or the cyclical water levels that do appear from time to time, as witnessed in 1973 on the lower Great Lakes, that’s one thing. If it is suggested that it is the high-water mark as a result of man-made fluctuations in water levels, that’s something else again.

I want to remind the members who are here, Mr. Speaker, and the member who introduced the bill, that we have a situation up on Lake Nipigon where the water levels fluctuate quite drastically as a result of the manipulation of those water levels by Ontario

Hydro in its quest for generating of hydraulically-generated electricity.

Of necessity, it has to store water from time to time because they don’t require a peak load. At other times, when there is limited precipitation, it has to allow the escape of ever-increasing amounts of water to satisfy their generating needs.

As a result, there are drastic variations, even to the extent that there is massive erosion on the west side of Lake Nipigon. In the last 20 to 30 years it has lost over 100 feet of bank. If it wasn’t for the fact that we were able to persuade Ontario Hydro to build a breakwater to stop the erosion, an entire community could have found itself ending up surrounded by the waters of Lake Nipigon.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member’s time has expired.

Mr. Stokes: Well, we don’t have a second speaker, so if you want me to sit down now, that’s fine; if you want me to take --

Mr. Speaker: Well the hon. member is entitled to his 10 minutes, which has expired.

Mr. Stokes: Well, I just want to say, then, Mr. Speaker, that I want to commend the member for having introduced the amendment. I don’t think the amendment, as it is presently constituted, will satisfy the needs of the people of the Province of Ontario. I think the matter is much more complex than that. But I think that he has provided us with a basis for discussion and I think that it is incumbent upon the Ministry of Natural Resources to set up a committee of some sort of very knowledgeable people having regard for what has gone on before, giving the people of the Province of Ontario an opportunity to express their views. After this has been done in a democratic fashion, I think they should bring in an amendment to the Act that is much closer to meeting the needs of the people than this Act does at the present time.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Huron.

Mr. J. Riddell (Huron): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise to support my colleague in the amendments which he proposes to the Beds of Navigable Waters Act. The issue of the public’s rights along Ontario’s lake and river fronts is an issue of considerable public concern.

I can recall just as recently as last year a dispute over the ownership of a beach at Grand Bend, which you recognize, Mr. Speaker, as being one of the more popular resort areas in Ontario. I suppose this dispute was the result of the vagueness of the bill as it now stands. The person who owned a restaurant on the beach maintained they owned the beach right to the water’s edge. They constructed a fence which denied the public access to that beach and, of course. the fence was taken down and reconstructed. I’m not too sure that the dispute has ever been settled yet.

Now, we contend that the government of Ontario must, take the step to protect for public use all lake and river front areas.

It is very distressing when one reads of situations such as that of February, 1974, when the Supreme Court of Canada sustained the claim of four Buffalo area residents that they owned the beach in front of their Lake Erie-Thunder Bay summer homes to the waterline.

I was interested in the reading of this case, where the justices of Canada’s highest court unanimously rejected an appeal from the Province of Ontario, whose attorneys argued that for at least 40 years Ontario has insisted that beaches remain public on Crown lands converted to private use.

But lawyers for the Thunder Bay property owners maintained that their clients enjoyed a special distinction. Their land was originally given by a grateful British government to veterans who had served the Crown in Canada’s colonial wars, principally the war of 1812.

It would appear to me that the flimsiest excuses can be used to retain the ownership of beaches to the waterline. I suppose it’s again due to the vagueness of the bill as it is presently written.

What is at issue is the fact that the Ontario public is being denied access along much of Ontario’s coastline. What has come into conflict is whether the rights of the public take precedence over the assumptions of lakefront property owners that they are given title to the water’s edge.

Canada’s early pioneers always maintained the right of public access to the beach and that it is the high-water mark which delineates the extent of the public domain.

We would agree with the hon. member for Victoria-Haliburton that section 3 of the bill should read:

“The Minister of Natural Resources shall, upon the recommendation of the surveyor general, fix the high-water mark of any navigable body of water, or any part thereof, and his decision shall be final and conclusive.”

I’m not too sure it’s all that complex a problem. The hon. member talked about the floating water levels. Wouldn’t it be simple to establish a landmark for the high-water mark at that particular cycle when we were at the high-water level?

Mr. Haggerty: Like right now.

Mr. Riddell: Like right now, for instance.

Mr. Haggerty: It’s right into the sand dunes.

Mr. Riddell: This then would be the benchmark for the high-water level.

Mr. Stokes: What about when it’s in the living room?

Mr. Riddell: Well, then, that would be time to move the cottage back a little.

It is therefore surprising when one reads that our judiciary should decide in favour of American traditions. The legislation must be amended so as to confirm that the beaches are public domain, as was the situation between 1940 and 1951.

In 1951, however, the provincial government amended the Beds of Navigable Waters Act to revoke the sections of the 1940 Act, which made the high- water mark the boundary line for lakefront property owners. The public had now been made trespassers on land which was formerly held in common.

There have been many cases of legislation which has been passed in other parts of the world and may be applied to the situation in southern Ontario. The Danish Conservation Act of 1969 was enacted with the dual purpose of protecting the nature and landscape values of Denmark, and affording the population the widest opportunity to enjoy these values.

Of particular interest in this case is that the definition of “beach” refers to an area where there is no continuous turf or any other continuous land vegetation, rather than defining it in terms of banks or the posing of water at a point in time.

What is of importance in the above example is that it indicates that valid possibilities exist through legislation as an alternative to the reliance of the government of Ontario on case law -- its case law with its uncertain interpretations.

Where the government is willing to act, then public access to the beaches can be secured. In order for the citizens of Ontario to regain what has been lost to them since 1951, the Beds of Navigable Waters Act must be amended to confirm the high-water mark as the limit of public domain. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Simcoe East.

Mr. G. E. Smith (Simcoe East): Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak on this bill and I might say I am well aware of the problem the member who introduced the bill has in his constituency, particularly in the Fort Erie location.

Certainly in my area there isn’t quite the same problem. I am told by some of the lawyers in my area that most legal descriptions, as far as waterfront property is concerned, describe so many feet starting at a point to the water’s edge. I suppose the normal fluctuation of the water in areas like Lake Simcoe and Lake Couchiching doesn’t particularly alter that much. However, as the member for Thunder Bay pointed out there are some extenuating circumstances caused by man-made conditions.

We have on the Trent-Severn system a series of lakes which act as reservoirs for the storage of water for the Hydro system throughout the province. I know of at least one lake reservoir which fluctuates 22 ft in the season and certainly it would be a rather difficult situation to try to establish a high-water mark on a lake such as that.

There is certainly a need to describe or give a legal description as to what is a common boundary along the water’s edge. We have some really old deeds registered in our area which indicate that the property owner owns the land under the water for several feet out. This has caused some real problems for the Ministry of Natural Resources which is attempting to preserve some of the spawning beds and the property and the development which is so essential to the continuing preservation of wildlife and fish in the area. As I say, there is certainly a real need to define just the boundary ends.

This bill, however, does leave unknown many properties which would be affected by this type of law. I feel, too, there should be a study made, in the broad sense throughout the province, as to how it might satisfy all the needs of all the property owners in the Province of Ontario.

What we are trying to do in this legislation is resolve a dilemma between the use and accessibility of public beach property and the concept of private property ownership. Perhaps this would resolve the problem in the area of the member for Welland South but I do not feel it would serve any useful purpose in mine and consequently there is need for a broad study.

The member for Simcoe Centre, in whose constituency Wasaga Beach lies, tells me they have had no real problem in that area under the present legislation and under the present definition. However, I can see there could be, as the member for Victoria-Haliburton mentioned, if this was amended. It could serve some real hardships on the public of Ontario who own property in that particular area.

Mr. Speaker, in conclusion, may I say I do feel there is a broader need for a definition. However, before we go into legislation, there should certainly be a method of appeal to any decisions that might be taken, some method indicating guidelines so that the problems that arise in my area, by man-made fluctuations, are compensated for and taken into consideration.

I believe that the bill we are considering today does not satisfy all the needs of all the people in the Province of Ontario. Consequently, I cannot support it. But I would urge that the Minister of Natural Resources set up a committee to study the problem and to bring in some concrete recommendations after receiving public input.

Mr. Speaker: Does any other hon. member wish to enter this debate? If not, I declare the private members’ hour concluded.

It being 6 o’clock, p.m., the House took recess.