Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

The House met at 2 o’clock, p.m.

Prayers.

Hon. R. Brunelle (Minister of Community and Social Services): Mr. Speaker, may I introduce to you and to members of the Legislature the class of grade 8 students from St. Patrick’s School, Kapuskasing, in the west gallery.

Mr. Speaker: I should like to inform the hon. members that we are favoured today with guests in the Speaker’s gallery, a group of very distinguished parliamentarians from the United Kingdom and the Mediterranean region. This is under the sponsorship of the CPA. Our guests have been on tour across Canada. They have been with us today as part of their trip, which will take them through to the other coast. I am sure we will extend them a warm welcome.

Mr. E. W. Martel (Sudbury East): Mr. Speaker, it gives me a good deal of pleasure to introduce Mr. Keir Kitchen, principal of Pinecrest Senior Public School in Val Caron, in the riding of Sudbury East, and 100 grade 8 students from that school.

Hon. J. R. Rhodes (Minister of Transportation and Communications): Mr. Speaker, it gives me pleasure to introduce to you and to the members of the Legislature 60 grade 8 students from St. Theresa Separate School in Sault Ste. Marie, with their teacher, Mr. Orlando, in the west gallery.

Mr. Speaker: Statements by the ministry.

NIAGARA ESCARPMENT AND PARKWAY BELT WEST

Hon. J. White (Treasurer and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): Mr. Speaker, a year ago today the government presented proposed design plans for the preservation of the Niagara Escarpment and for the establishment of the parkway belt west. Since then, we have begun the complex task of bringing these two important concepts to reality. Today I should like to review our progress to date for members of the House.

Mr. J. A. Renwick (Riverdale): How much has the Treasurer lost?

Mr. S. Lewis (Scarborough West): Got development control today?

Hon. Mr. White: Progress has been made toward our objectives for the Escarpment. A commission has been established and is meeting regularly, the planning area has been formally defined, the central office has been established in Georgetown, with area offices at Clarksburg and Grimsby, and 25 professional and support staff have been recruited. The main emphasis of the commission’s work now is toward the preparation of a system of development controls and the preparation of a plan document.

Within the next few weeks I expect we will be ready to apply development controls to about 40 per cent of the Escarpment area. This will represent a major achievement for Chairman George McCague and the commission who are developing a system of guidelines and criteria for development to meet the special needs of this unique asset of Ontario.

Mr. Speaker, the progress on the parkway belt west will be increasingly evident in the coming months as we produce and publish our draft plan for its development. As members will recall, the parkway belt defines and separates communities, controls urban sprawl and provides both open space for recreation and other public uses, as well as a service corridor to move people, goods, energy and information around rather than through communities.

Two of the most important objectives in the development of the parkway belt programme are to deal fairly with land owners affected and to involve the widest possible degree of public participation in the development of the programme.

The implementation of these aims has necessarily taken much time and planning. They account, in part, for the delay in the publication of the draft development plan and the ensuing public hearings required by the legislation.

Under the legislation we are required to appoint advisory committees. It has been decided that two advisory committees are to be appointed to assist in developing the plan and to assist in its implementation. One committee has been drawn from local government and the second is to be drawn from interested groups and citizens at large.

The municipal advisory committee consists of the chairman of Metropolitan Toronto and the regions of Peel, York, Halton and Hamilton-Wentworth, along with their planning directors, Robert Bailey, Ed Cumming, Peter Allen, John Bower and William Power, as the second representative of each of the municipalities. The chairman is Mr. Lou Parsons of the regional municipality of Peel; and they have held their third meeting on May 27 with our staff.

The second committee, called the interested groups and citizens’ advisory committee, is now being formed. Mr. F. Warren Hurst has been appointed as chairman. Fourteen interested groups have each nominated a representative, a list of which I am tabling; and 10 citizens are being invited to participate as members. I expect I will be able to name the citizen members and call the first meeting in mid-June.

I am pleased that Mr. Hurst has accepted this appointment because his extensive experience in business and government will enable him to be an effective chairman. I am also well satisfied with the calibre of representatives appointed by the various interested groups.

The legislation required that public hearings be held following the publication of the draft development plan, and I am required to appoint hearing officers, who will report to the Treasurer, to preside at the hearings.

After considering a number of alternative approaches, we decided this function could best be performed for the public by the members of the Ontario Municipal Board, who will be hearing officers under the parkway belt west legislation.

My colleague, the Attorney General (Mr. Welch), will be advising hon. members on plans to expand the staff and scope of the Ontario Municipal Board so that individual members may be specifically appointed to carry out this task.

There has been one area of particular concern to those responsible for and affected by the parkway belt. Because of the necessity to control and curtail development within the belt, using provincial land use regulations while detailed plans are prepared, some property owners have felt unfairly restricted in the use of their properties.

As you know, Mr. Speaker, the regulations provide an opportunity for amendment, and we have indicated by statement and action that we are prepared to amend the regulations to meet individual circumstances where such amendment would not conflict with the parkway belt purposes.

My colleague, the Minister of Housing (Mr. Handleman), has informed me that he has received 245 applications for amendment; 32 of which have been approved, 61 have been rejected or deferred and 152 are now being examined.

While the number of applications is large, there may be some owners who are still unaware of the procedures to follow in making application for amendment. We must hear from these owners, because we can do nothing to relieve their situation unless an application is made. Steps are now under way to supplement the actions already taken, including the establishment of a toll-free telephone number which anyone can use to secure information about the parkway belt.

The original procedure required that applications to amend the regulations be directed to the municipality concerned by the applicant. These were sent to Queen’s Park after the municipality had examined and made comments on them.

Applications are now made directly to the plans administration division of the Ministry of Housing, which will circulate them to the municipality and other affected agencies for their comments, thereby minimizing delays.

Members and owners have been concerned about the problems of owners of vacant lots of less than 50 acres who are unable to build on these parcels because of the wording of the land-use regulations. We are now assembling data on these small holdings to see whether the land-use regulations or the policies to be incorporated in the draft development plan can be modified so as to permit these lots to be used for in-filling without conflict with the primary objectives of the belt. Preliminary surveys indicate that there are approximately 350 vacant lots in the parkway belt not scheduled for public acquisition. About half of these lots are less than one-half an acre in size.

To further reduce the undesirable effects on private lands within the parkway belt, we recently adopted a practice which I will refer to as advance purchase. Under this practice the government will consider the immediate purchase of land where: The lands are offered to the government by the owner; the lands are indicated as being required for ultimate public purchase on plans presently being prepared by the parkway belt task force; the owners are suffering significant and exceptional hardship as a result of the present government policies; and the hardship is the result of government policies and not of the owner’s own making.

Funds have now been set aside to permit acquisition of lands under this advance purchase policy. The responsibility for administering this policy falls to the Ministry of Government Services and the Management Board of Cabinet. Mr. Walter Macnee, the executive co-ordinator of land-oriented projects in the Ministry of Government Services, will play the major role in co-ordinating this policy as well as carrying out his other functions relating to land acquisition within the parkway belt and the Niagara Escarpment.

As members know, the Solandt report received by the government in March recommended that part of the 500 km line between Nanticoke and Pickering be located within the parkway belt. This recommendation, if accepted by the government, would have significant effects on the design of the belt. I expect a government decision on this recommendation will be made shortly.

Mr. Speaker, there have been some published allegations about delays at Queen’s Park relating to the parkway belt. We have checked and attempted to resolve those cases which have come to our attention. At this time, I want to ask any property owner who feels he is not getting fair or prompt response from the government, to write directly to me and I will personally see that a response is provided.

It is not yet possible to be specific about dates for the public hearings. There are too many events which must occur first. The requirement for discussions with the advisory committees on the proposed plan is a good example. The legislation calls for consultation with these committees in the process of preparing the plan before the plan is published and the public hearings are held. I do not know how long these consultations will take, but if we believe in public participation, then such consultation is essential. One thing is certain, however, we are not going to attempt to push the committees into the role of providing advice on the plan until they have a good understanding of objectives, issues, problems and consequences.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, I should like to refer briefly to the parkway belt east which is an integral part of the concept. We are now concentrating all the resources of our task force on the preparation and publication of the plan for the parkway belt west. As soon as this is completed, the staff will be reassigned to work exclusively on the parkway belt east to bring it forward as quickly as possible.

I have placed on the order paper a resolution, as required, for the confirmation of this House. This amendment is minor because it does not affect the territory covered by the planning area but is a rewording for clarification purposes only. The majority of members of this House and citizens of Ontario have given us their encouragement and support for the preservation of the Escarpment and the development of the parkway belt. I hope this statement will assist them by informing them of the progress we are making toward its realization.

DAYCARE SERVICES

Hon. M. Birch (Provincial Secretary for Social Development): Mr. Speaker, I would like to announce, on behalf of the government, the efforts that we will be making to expand daycare services in Ontario. Quite clearly, these efforts will have implications for all of the ministries in the social development policy field, Health, Education, Colleges and Universities, and most directly the Ministry of Community and Social Services. Changes in our society, especially the growing participation by women in the labour force, present us with a clear need for programmes that will make daycare services more generally available.

I should say at the outset that during the two years of study of this area by the ministries within the social policy field we have found there is almost as great a diversity of philosophy of child care and rearing as there is of children themselves. We do not believe that government ought to impose choices between philosophies upon the parents in Ontario. And so, as we move to encourage more developments in this area, and as we continue to regulate the services that are provided, we will make every effort to preserve and to encourage the pluralism that has marked this field, leaving parents to make the choices they ought to be able to make on behalf of their own children.

As we have decided on the programmes that we will use to foster more rapid development of the daycare services in Ontario, we have set clear priorities for the use of public funds so that we can assure access to these services for those with the greatest social and financial needs.

Our first priority is the establishment and delivery of daycare services to handicapped children. The parents of children with physical and mental handicaps are uniquely in need of help in caring for their children, and of course the problems faced by these young people are dramatic. Because their numbers are relatively small, we believe the impact of a programme designed to make sure they get the services they need can also be dramatic.

Our second priority is to assure that children from low-income families and native children have access to these services. The parents of these children have not had the money to take advantage of the daycare services that already exist. We believe that a programme to make funds available for them to obtain such services will benefit these parents by permitting them something closer to the range of choice that people in Ontario ought to have, and will also benefit the children in providing them with more opportunity to learn and to grow.

Our third priority for the use of public funds and facilities is the more rapid development of daycare services so they can be made generally available across Ontario.

We will be making funds available so that more local and voluntary organizations will be able to establish daycare programmes, and at the same time we will be revising many of the regulations and practices of government to remove provisions that have sometimes had the effect of interfering with the development of such programmes and to permit a much broader participation by parents themselves in the design and delivery of daycare services.

Before describing our new programmes in detail, I should like to point out to all members that the approach we are taking here is something of a departure from the way governments most commonly involved themselves in social services over the past two decades. The social services that governments provided during those years were in the areas of the highest need and of highest cost; education, health care and the like. These services depended on institutions and on the development of large numbers of highly-trained and relatively highly-paid professionals.

Because of the huge cost and necessarily universal application of these kinds of services, they were most often financed entirely through taxation and were available on a “free” basis to everyone. And as governments provided these “free” services, taxes of necessity grew larger. In Ontario, during the decade from 1961 to 1971, spending by the provincial government in the social policy field grew eightfold; that is it increased by an average of 23 per cent every year.

Mr. Renwick: It’s still ridiculously low in total.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: No one has to be much of a mathematician to figure out that, at that rate of growth, it would be simply a matter of time before the greater part of everyone’s income was taken in taxes to pay for social services.

Mr. Renwick: Not to pay for social services in this province; the government can’t get away with that. The minuscule amount the government pays for social services is an absolute disgrace.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: We do not believe that would be a healthy state of affairs.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: We do not believe it is necessary.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: And so, in the past two years, we have slowed the growth in social policy spending to only a percentage point or two above the rate of inflation.

Mr. Lewis: If the government is going to provide programmes provide them, and spare us the fatuous statements.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Some members, Mr. Speaker, have said that this slower growth in spending is really a de-emphasis of social services by this government, and that is simply not true.

Mr. Martel: Right on.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: But it is an important change in emphasis within the social policy field: a change away from high-cost institutionalized services, controlled entirely by the government and financed entirely by the taxpayer; a change toward more decentralized and diverse services, supported in part by the government but involving much more voluntary action by citizens and backed up by programmes that will provide individual citizens of Ontario with the resources they need to purchase services for themselves.

Mr. Martel: When does all this start happening?

Mr. Renwick: Why doesn’t the minister get in there and fight with her colleagues for money? That’s what she needs to do.

Mr. J. F. Foulds (Port Arthur): That’s called reprivatization.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: We believe that this is a much healthier way to go.

Mr. Lewis: The government still has more institutions than it knows what to do with.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: That is the way we have decided to go in developing daycare services in Ontario. We will not establish a system of “free” universal daycare across Ontario.

Mr. Lewis: Right. Make them pay.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: The most obvious reason for that is the simple fact that these kinds of services can never really be “free.” We estimate that such a universal system would cost the best part of $1 billion. Now part of that cost could be covered by funds we are already spending for these kinds of services --

Mr. M. Cassidy (Ottawa Centre): When is the government going to close down the elementary schools as well?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: -- but the greatest part of that $1 billion would have to be raised by large increases in taxes at the provincial level here in Ontario.

Mr. Lewis: Just provide something -- never mind it being universally free.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Faced with the rising cost of living across Canada, we do not believe the people of Ontario are willing to sign over yet a larger slice of their incomes to the government --

Mr. Lewis: What kind of a straw man is this, for God’s sakes? What is she setting up?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: -- so that the government can set up a costly and unnecessary monopoly over daycare services to young children, services that, for the most part, people are able to provide for themselves.

Mr. Cassidy: She is a puppet of the Treasurer.

Mr. Renwick: How much does the Treasurer allow the minister for her budget?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Order.

Mr. Lewis: What is this? What is she setting up?

Mr. Renwick: Absolutely ridiculous.

Mr. Lewis: She is setting up this ridiculous straw man. Nobody is asking her to provide everything; therefore, what is she providing?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Order.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: But the very high cost of a universal daycare system is not the only reason we have decided against it.

Mr. Martel: What high cost in Ontario?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: The kind of flexibility and choice that we believe ought to exist in daycare services would be difficult to attain in that kind of a system. The right that we believe parents ought to have -- to choose for themselves the kind of care their children will receive -- would almost certainly be compromised.

Mr. Lewis: If Laura Sabia stays on after this kind of statement.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: There is a final reason we have decided against a universal daycare system in Ontario: It simply is not necessary. Instead, we will encourage the development of daycare services so that they will be available to everyone --

Mr. F. Laughren (Nickel Belt): Despite all the evidence to the contrary.

Hon. Mr. Birch: -- and we will make sure that those with the greatest need for these services can afford them. That way, every parent in Ontario will be able to make his or her own choice as to the kind of care that each child ought to receive.

Mr. Laughren: Who wrote this statement? The member for Timiskaming (Mr. Havrot)?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: And we will do this without unnecessarily expanding government control and standardization --

Mr. Cassidy: Does the minister really think that? Does she really believe that?

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Cassidy: What a fatuous bunch of nonsense!

Hon. Mrs. Birch: -- through the area of social service that should most properly remain diverse and pluralistic. Of course, the growing body of daycare services we hope to see in Ontario will not exist in a vacuum.

Mr. Martel: A disgrace to womanhood.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: The province is already heavily involved in services to young children.

Mr. Martel: That is all there is in daycare now -- a vacuum.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Our most extensive programme is the kindergarten system operated by local school boards and funded in part through the Ministry of Education.

Mr. Lewis: Exactly what is this all about?

Mr. W. Hodgson (York North): Why doesn’t the member listen and he’ll find out.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: To give some idea of the scope of provincial support for these programmes and the wide acceptance that kindergartens have in Ontario, I can tell hon. members that in the fiscal year just ended, the senior kindergarten programme served 122,660 children at a cost to the provincial government of $29,136,000; the junior kindergarten programme served 37,990 children at a cost of $8,549,000 to the provincial government.

Mr. Lewis: Is the minister providing a programme or isn’t she?

Interjection by an hon. member.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Quite clearly, the half-day kindergartens programme will continue to be an important part of our services to young children.

Mr. Lewis: Is there a conclusion to this?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: But kindergartens are designed to perform a specific function -- preparing young children for formal schooling.

Mr. Renwick: One thing about this government: It is all preamble.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Their hours are necessarily tied to the hours of the school system and are therefore not suitable to the needs of working mothers in Ontario.

Mr. Lewis: Well, exactly.

Mr. Cassidy: It hits you, eh?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: So to meet those needs in a way that will complement the existing kindergarten programme, we want to encourage a diverse group of daycare services to provide children with ancillary care and informal education.

To help those services develop, we will be setting up an additional programme of financial aid under the Day Nurseries Act. Beginning Sept. 1, we will make up to $15 million of new funds available to the Ministry of Community and Social Services. This money will cover the first year’s costs for these categories of financial assistance.

Under the first category, non-profit organizations wishing to expand or establish daycare programmes will be eligible for capital assistance grants.

Mr. E. R. Good (Waterloo North): We passed the legislation a year ago. Is the minister just getting around to the funding?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: We believe that high setup costs have often prevented voluntary groups from providing this kind of service and have added substantially to operating costs of programmes that have been developed. Making capital assistance grants available to these groups will ensure easier entry into the daycare field.

Mr. Lewis: How much of the $15 million is that?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Already the Ministry of Community and Social Services has made almost $1 million worth of grants to groups serving handicapped children and to parent-participating day nurseries.

I should make it clear that we do not intend these grants to go for the construction of a large number of new buildings. Rather, we intend that they will be used primarily to renovate existing structures up to the standards required by the daycare services. We anticipate that much of the money in this programme will be spent, for instance, on buildings owned by churches; and the Ministry of Education will be working with local school boards to ensure that, wherever possible, surplus school facilities are made available for the operation of daycare programmes. Of course groups planning to renovate school facilities to make them suitable for day care will be eligible for these capital assistance grants.

The second category of grants will be subsidies for the costs of daycare services to handicapped children. Because it is more costly to provide day care to handicapped children, many programmes have not included handicapped children at all. Even where these children are included, their families are often faced with an inordinate financial burden.

Our subsidies will have two effects: They will make it possible for many more daycare programmes to include handicapped children and for specialized services to develop where these are necessary; and they will ensure that the costs to families for daycare services to handicapped children will be no greater than the costs of equivalent services to children who do not suffer from any disability.

The third category of aid will be assistance to low-income families so that they can afford daycare services.

Costs that are well within the reach of most in Ontario can still be very prohibitive for low-income families, and as I have said daycare services can be uniquely valuable to both the parents and the children of these families,

So we will provide these families with assistance, making sure they have the purchasing power they need to choose the kind of day care their children will receive. Families receiving this assistance will be able to apply it to the fees at any licensed daycare centre in Ontario.

Mr. Lewis: Be able to apply it to what? Sorry?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: The fee.

This three-part programme will ensure that daycare services will become more generally available throughout Ontario. In line with our priorities, we are focusing public resources on the areas of greatest need -- handicapped children and children of low-income families.

We believe that by leaving the decision as to the kind of services each child requires in the hands of the parents in Ontario while encouraging the development of a wide range of services, we are making the most effective use of public funds. We are also avoiding unnecessary government interference in decisions that ought properly to be left to the families themselves.

Mr. Martel: What is the cutoff point?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: In addition to this programme of financial assistance, the Ministry of Community and Social Services has been reviewing its regulations and their application to make sure they succeed in their primary objective -- maintaining a high standard of care in Ontario -- and that they do so without unnecessarily interfering with developments in this field.

Mr. J. E. Bullbrook (Sarnia): Why does the minister let her people do that to her; write speeches like that? She could say that in two pages instead of this lengthy thing. It’s an abuse of the procedures of the House.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: I can give the members some concrete examples of the changes we have already made. I believe they demonstrate clearly both the problems, inherent in this kind of regulation and the very positive approach the ministry has been taking to these problems.

Mr. I. Deans (Wentworth): That is a Throne Speech.

Mr. Bullbrook: Why doesn’t she write proper speeches for the ministry?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Daycare centres have always been required to provide meals to the children in their care. In the past, this requirement was interpreted in a way --

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. V. M. Singer (Downsview): What page is that?

Mr. J. E. Stokes (Thunder Bay): How many more pages?

An hon. member: Stay with it.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: -- that prevented the licensing of many daycare centres that did not have a fully-equipped kitchen on their premises. Since this was unnecessarily restrictive, the ministry is now granting licences to centres with no kitchens if they have made adequate arrangements for catering.

Regulations pertaining to fire safety have been marked by an unnecessary arbitrary quality: In the past, daycare centres had to be located on the first three stories of any building. I think it is obvious that which storey the centre is on is only peripherally related to its real fire safety, so this requirement is being changed.

Mr. Stokes: How many more pages?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Instead the ministry is now co-operating with the office of the provincial fire marshal to apply flexible regulations that relate directly to the real fire safety on each site. Once again, the real standard has not been changed but the ministry has found a better way to achieve it.

These kinds of changes will promote easier entry into the daycare field, without sacrificing any of the quality of service or facility the Day Nurseries Act is intended to assure.

Mr. Cassidy: This isn’t for commercial operations, is it?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: We also expect they will lower the high set-up costs that have retarded the development of daycare services in the past.

We will also be making a major effort to involve more parents and volunteers in daycare programmes in Ontario.

Mrs. M. Campbell (St. George): We have got them now.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: In the social services, we have tended to assume that quality of service is inevitably dependent on professional qualifications. Applied to daycare programmes, this assumption has been carried to the extreme of acting as though parents were not competent to get together to provide care for their own children.

That is clearly an inappropriate stance for any government to take.

At the present time the regulations under the Day Nurseries Act require that whenever more than five unrelated children will be present without all of their parents also being present, the gathering shall come under the requirements of the Act, and will have to be licensed as a daycare centre.

We will be adding one clear exception to that regulation: Where there are no fees involved, where there is no staff hired and where all the care is provided by the parents themselves on a voluntary basis, that arrangement shall be left entirely to the parents and will not come under the Day Nurseries Act. I think it is quite clear that the government has no business trying to regulate these purely voluntary arrangements; that government serves no useful purpose in trying to do so.

Mr. R. F. Nixon (Leader of the Opposition): Are we getting there?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: We are getting there.

Mr. Singer: Seven more pages.

Mr. R. F. Ruston (Essex-Kent): A speech or a budget?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: To encourage more parent and volunteer involvement in all daycare programmes, the ministry has increasingly been approving staff on the basis of individual competence and experience rather than by relying on any particular set of professional qualifications. We will extend this practice by removing from the regulations under the Day Nurseries Act the requirement that all staff have specialized knowledge of what the regulations now refer to as methods of child guidance.

We will require no formal qualifications for staff in the supplementary after-school programmes for six- to nine-year-olds. We will, of course, continue to require that supervisors of daycare centres have specialized knowledge, but once again we will recognize relevant experience rather than relying solely on any particular professional background. The programme of early childhood education at our community colleges will provide graduates who have the required skills and knowledge for these positions but we will not create from daycare services in Ontario a private preserve for any profession.

We believe that this more flexible approach to staff qualifications will not result in any lower standard of care, but will permit much wider involvement by parents and volunteers in daycare programmes and it will permit voluntary groups to operate programmes more economically.

There is one other assumption that has serious effects on the cost of daycare services and ranks as a major piece of social service folklore. It is the assumption that all social services ought to be provided only on the basis of the highest possible concentration of staff. Applied to daycare, this assumption has led to very small child-to-staff ratios.

Now it is true that some children, particularly handicapped children, need the kind of intensive supervision and guidance that can only come from very small child-to-staff ratios. But it is by no means certain that very small ratios are generally necessary otherwise.

However, there are some things that are certain. It is certain that the smaller the child-to-staff ratio, the more it will cost to serve each child. And it is certain that there will always be limits on the resources available to pay for these services, both on the resources that governments can make available and on the resources that parents will be able to afford to spend. These two facts make one other thing certain.

Mr. Cassidy: This sounds like Birch’s baby farms.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: The higher the cost per child, the fewer children we will be able to serve with our limited resources.

We believe that the present child-to-staff ratios under the Day Nurseries Act are unnecessarily small; that they add far more to the cost of these programmes than they bring in tangible benefits.

Mr. Ruston: Come on, get down to the business of the day.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Because these ratios have been kept too small, we can make modest changes in them, realizing significant reductions in the cost per child while still retaining a very high quality of service.

Mr. Lewis: No, this will wreck it. The government doesn’t understand that this is not day care. The quality of day care depends on ratio if there is any educational content to it.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: In doing this we make it possible to serve many more children.

Mr. E. M. Havrot (Timiskaming): Why doesn’t the member listen? He might learn something.

Mr. Lewis: Something wrong with the member for Timiskaming in infancy. I wouldn’t say anything, my friend.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: The present regulations require all day nurseries to have at least two people on staff. Obviously that is sensible and we will retain that requirement, but we will make the following changes in other ratios required under the regulations.

For children under 18 months of age, we will raise the maximum child-to-staff ratio from five to one to six to one; this results in a 20 per cent saving in the staff cost per child.

Mr. Lewis: Results in a 20 per cent diminishment of child contact.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Stated another way, it means that we can serve 20 per cent more children without increasing staff costs.

For children from 18 months to two years of age, we will raise the maximum child-to-staff ratio from seven to one to nine to one. This will mean that almost 30 per cent more children will be able to receive daycare services.

The highest ratio currently permitted for children between the ages of two and four is 11 to one for half-day programmes. We will raise the maximum to 14 to one, giving a saving of almost 30 per cent in the staff cost per child.

Mr. Lewis: Fourteen to one for kids between two and four? Is that what the minister said?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: For full day programmes for this age group --

Mr. Lewis: Well, so much for quality day care.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: -- we will increase the maximum from eight to one to 12 to one. Here the saving is in the order of 50 per cent in the staff costs per child.

We will retain the present maximum child-to-staff ratio of 22 to 1 for half-day programmes for five-year-olds, but we will raise the ratio for full-day programmes for this age group from 11 to one to 16 to one.

Mr. Cassidy: Can the minister give that figure again, please?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: From 11 to one to 16 to one. Once again, the saving is of the order of 50 per cent in the staff costs per child.

Mr. Lewis: The minister is certainly wrecking the programme for the sake of numbers.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: For after-school programmes for six to nine-year-olds, we will increase the ratio from 17 to one to 25 to 1.

Mr. Lewis: If they gave the minister any money in the Treasury Board she wouldn’t have to destroy day care as enacted.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Again the saving is in the order of 50 per cent, or phrased another way it will permit about 50 per cent more children to receive these services.

Mr. Lewis: Why doesn’t the minister make it 30 to one?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Now we will no doubt be accused by some of making arbitrary changes --

Mr. Lewis: Talk about educational content.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: -- and we will plead guilty to that. The changes we are making are arbitrary but they are no more --

Mr. Lewis: And they are manic.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: -- arbitrary than the existing ratios and no more arbitrary than any set of ratios set in this manner.

Mr. Foulds: Cavalier, too.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: We hope to move in the future to a far more flexible system where requirements --

Mr. Bullbrook: Abuse of the ministry.

Mr. Martel: The government intends to destroy the whole programme.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: -- like child-to-staff ratios can be set locally --

Interjection by an hon. member.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: -- to reflect the priorities and the opinions of communities across Ontario.

Mr. Lewis: Not only is the statement against the rules of the House but the content is offensive. It should come to an end.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: What we have tried to do in the meantime is to strike a balance between the quality of service, as reflected in child-staff ratios --

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Sounds like one of the speeches of the member for High Park (Mr. Shulman).

Hon. Mrs. Birch: -- and the costs of services, with their effects on the number of children who can receive day care in Ontario. The alternative followed in the past has often been to provide extremely costly services even if that meant they could be provided only to a few. That is not an acceptable alternative here.

Mr. Lewis: Set up baby-sitting in day care.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: I think our policy is clear. We believe that if we succeed --

Mr. Foulds: Yes, we do, too.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: -- in promoting the development of a wide range of daycare programmes --

Mr. Lewis: Not through this programme.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: -- and that if those programmes are not lumbered with very high costs due to unnecessary restrictions --

Mr. Lewis: The minister is just diluting what she has now.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: -- then most parents in Ontario will be able to obtain daycare services for their children with no further assistance from government.

Mr. Lewis: So much for Laura Sabia’s concern.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: And because handicapped children and children from low-income families deserve a special priority, we have designed special programmes of financial assistance to them.

Mr. Lewis: The government doesn’t understand what this is all about.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: We do not believe it is either necessary or desirable for government to monopolize this field of social service. We believe it is a more proper role for government to assure that the services are available, that they meet a high standard and that they are not forced by government to be exorbitantly expensive. Then we believe that people ought to obtain the services they require, independent of government.

We believe this programme will have that result for daycare services in Ontario. And it will also do so at a reasonable cost, something we believe is important to the people of Ontario.

Mr. Speaker, I believe the programme I have just described is a major advance in the design and the provision of social services in Ontario.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Ruston: The programme was a speech.

Mr. J. R. Breithaupt (Kitchener): On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, would it be possible, to prevent mistakes, for you to obtain a copy of the policy secretary’s statement in order to read it to the House?

Mr. R. F. Nixon: That is a good idea.

Mr. Speaker: That, of course, is not a proper question to direct to the Speaker. I might say that one hon. member has suggested there has been an abuse of the rules.

Mr. Cassidy: That’s right.

Mr. Speaker: The only thing I can say is that it is highly unusual, although there is no rule against the reading of such ministerial statements.

Mr. Bullbrook: It is an abuse of the minister by her staff; it really is.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: There is absolutely no rule against reading ministerial statements.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: I might say that one hon. member has asked me if, in view of the length of the ministerial statement, would I extend the time for ministerial statements. The hon. minister.

TEACHER EDUCATION

Hon. T. L. Wells (Minister of Education): Mr. Speaker, during the past five years, the Ministry of Education has been following a policy of integrating Ontario teachers’ colleges with the universities of the province. This policy arose out of a major recommendation of the McLeod report of 1966 on the training of elementary school teachers, which also suggested that all applicants to teacher education programmes should have a university degree.

In 1969 there were 13 teachers’ colleges operated by the Ontario Ministry of Education training elementary school teachers. Since then, seven have been integrated with universities and two have been closed because of declining enrolments. Today I would like to inform members of the House about the future of the four remaining colleges in Sudbury, Ottawa, Hamilton and Toronto.

Negotiations to integrate Sudbury Teachers’ College with Laurentian University have been continuing, as we announced just over a year ago. An agreement is now being finalized between the ministry and Laurentian University. Negotiations will be undertaken immediately to integrate Ottawa Teachers’ College with the University of Ottawa, which is presently training French-language teachers for elementary and secondary schools. One of the important conditions of this integration will be that separate English- and French-language programmes be offered. This will ensure that the language and cultural aspects of training teachers for French-language and English-language schools will be maintained in the Ottawa area.

With the integration of Sudbury and Ottawa, only the colleges at Hamilton and Toronto would remain. As has been the case at every step of the integration process, we have analysed the implications of this policy with extreme care, particularly since any integration of Hamilton and Toronto teachers’ colleges with universities would completely remove any direct involvement of the Ministry of Education in the process of preparing teachers for Ontario classrooms.

Mr. E. J. Bounsall (Windsor West): What is wrong with that?

Mr. Foulds: It might be a step forward.

Hon. Mr. Wells: After full consideration of all factors it has been decided that the Ministry of Education will continue to operate the teachers’ colleges in Hamilton and Toronto. Organizationally, the two colleges will be combined to form a new Ontario Teacher Education College which will operate on two campuses, namely the present facilities in Hamilton and Toronto.

Mr. Martel: That makes sense.

Hon. Mr. Wells: Of major importance is the fact that the graduates of this college will receive not only a teaching certificate, but also a Bachelor of Education degree. This will be in addition to the undergraduate degree which was required for admission in the first place.

Both the Hamilton and Toronto teachers’ colleges have a long tradition of excellence in preparing elementary school teachers. It is our intention that this will be tangibly reinforced and strengthened with the new status and structure being introduced today. Mr. Speaker, by combining Hamilton and Toronto into a two-campus college and by retaining the ministry’s jurisdiction over its programmes and operations we see a number of major benefits accruing to students in the years ahead. Probably the major benefit will be the flexibility to experiment with new approaches to teacher education. We want both the Hamilton and Toronto campuses to develop into model institutions, in effect breaking new ground in making teacher education more vibrant and relevant for those entering teaching as well as those who seek continual professional development.

In large measure, this new style of operation we expect to evolve will be stimulated by a minister’s advisory council for the Ontario Teacher Education College which will be created before the start of the new term in September. This will be a widely-based advisory council, with representatives of teachers, trustees, parents and others who are in a position to make a positive contribution towards strengthening and improving elementary teacher education in Ontario. I hope, Mr. Speaker, to name the chairman of this council within the next few weeks.

Mr. Martel: I don’t want the job.

Hon. Mr. Wells: We will expect the advisory council -- the member for Sudbury East won’t be asked.

An hon. member: He won’t be asked.

Hon. Mr. Wells: We will expect the advisory council to recommend specific measures --

Mr. R. F. Nixon: He is missing one qualification.

Hon. Mr. Wells: No, he is missing several qualifications -- which will add to the status and the quality of the new Ontario Teacher Education College, and permit it to provide the kind of leadership we will expect from it in the years ahead.

Mr. Lewis: On a point of order, sir, before the orders of the day, I want to draw to your attention that none of the members of the standing committee on natural resources, so far as I can discern, have received notices today, as is usually the case, suggesting that there may be a committee meeting tomorrow. Normally those notices are given a day in advance. Since the vice-chairman is in the House, since the Speaker undertook to pursue it if possible, I wonder whether we could have this matter now resolved.

Mr. Speaker: I will undertake, at the request of the hon. member, to speak to the vice-chairman of the committee and see if any arrangements have been made to convene a meeting of that particular committee. I must point out there is nothing in the rules, of course, which provides me with the authority to compel the chairman of any committee to convene a meeting; but I will investigate it with the vice-chairman directly.

Mr. Lewis: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In fact a letter did go to the vice-chairman requesting such a meeting, as you suggested yesterday.

Mr. Martel: On a point of order, might I ask the Speaker what the members are supposed to do when an agreement has been reached on two occasions that a meeting be held and the government determines that meeting will not be held? These arrangements were made in good faith. What’s the Legislature supposed to believe in -- that they aren’t being called as scheduled?

Mr. Speaker: I should point out to the hon. member for Sudbury East, as I believe I did yesterday, that it was my understanding, based on the information that I had obtained, that there was no majority vote or expression of opinion in the committee meeting that the Workmen’s Compensation Board be summonsed to appear before the meeting. Now I wasn’t at the meeting.

Mr. Stokes: The transcript does not support that.

Mr. Speaker: I was basing my findings upon what was related to me. I will again of course --

Mr. Martel: Have you checked Hansard?

Mr. Speaker: -- ask the deputy chairman whether or not such a majority expression was made. In any event, I will determine from him whether or not he intends to convene a meeting.

Mr. Lewis: Even the chairman is here today. We have got both of them now.

Mr. Speaker: I understand that the chairman was not present at the meeting to which the hon. members refer.

Mr. T. P. Reid (Rainy River): He was the second time.

Mr. Lewis: Indeed he was, he chaired it.

Mr. Speaker: I appreciate the information conveyed to me. I will investigate it.

Mr. Lewis: I don’t know who is giving you the information, Mr. Speaker. You should deal with it.

Mr. Speaker: I accept the information from the hon. member without question.

Oral questions.

The hon. Leader of the Opposition.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: No more statements?

AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE RATES

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I would like to ask a question of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations. Would he explain to the House what possible sequence of events could have allowed the announced increases in automobile insurance to take place, dictated by the Canadian Underwriters Association to its 55 adherent companies in this jurisdiction, without at least some statement from the minister, or an attempt at least to review these increases before they were simply announced in the public press?

Hon. J. T. Clement (Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations): The sequence of events requested by the hon. Leader of the Opposition are as follows: The industry itself met with the superintendent of insurance, and I believe the deputy superintendent, some two, three or four weeks ago -- in that area. Discussions were conducted. The figures were made available. They are available to my staff. As a result of those meetings and those discussions, the figures that were referred to by the hon. Leader of the Opposition were approved by the superintendent as being reasonable in light of the performance of the companies involved; and accordingly they were announced.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Supplementary: Would the minister not agree that because of the unnaturally high increases in some areas -- 19 per cent I believe in northwestern Ontario as well as high increases elsewhere -- the time has come, since people really have little or no choice in the matter of automobile insurance under these circumstances, for a hearing before some public body, using the powers that have already been granted by this Legislature in the past to the minister for control of these rates and more control of the industry than has been our experience in the past?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Speaker, if the hon. Leader of the Opposition will take a look at the rates, I think the CUA increase for last year was substantially lower.

Mr. Lewis: No, no; it is not so.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Taking a look at it across the board, over a term of two years, it appeared to the superintendent and his staff that it was not unrealistic in terms of costs for repairs and for the things that go into making up an insurance premium.

Mr. Renwick: Medical expenses.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Insofar as public hearings are concerned, I would reserve the right to consider that further. However, I would like to point out to the House, Mr. Speaker, it has been suggested here by certain other members in the past that perhaps there should be a rate-setting board in this province; but the experience in those other jurisdictions, particularly south of the border where rate-fixing boards have been established, has been to the effect that the rates have substantially increased, much higher than where the competitive nature of the industry has allowed them to find their own level.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: What competition is there here?

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Allow me to ask the minister -- I’m a bit out of turn, I’m sorry to say -- could the minister possibly indicate what competition there is in the automobile insurance business in this province when 55 of the main companies evidently have their rate structure dictated by one organization? Surely this must concern the minister and make a justification in public absolutely imperative?

Mr. Deans: And it has been going on for years.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Speaker, I’m positive there are more than 55 companies selling automobile insurance within this province. As I understand it, the submissions made by the CUA were as a result of the discussions which went on by the member companies which belong to that particular group. Quite frankly, the experience of these companies is not unique in this particular jurisdiction, it’s the same across Canada and the United States, by virtue of the fact of the higher judgements which are being awarded, the larger cost of repairing automobiles and this sort of thing.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Why can’t there be a public justification for such increases?

Mr. Lewis: Supplementary?

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

Mr. Deans: The minister wouldn’t think there was price fixing, would he?

Mr. Lewis: Price fixing? It’s a monopoly industry.

Mr. Deans: He wouldn’t think there was collusion in it, or price fixing or anything like that, would he?

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. Lewis: I would like to ask the minister, is part of his answer to imply that the increases were with the approval of the superintendent of insurance in Ontario and his or her deputy? In which case, I say to him respectfully, they are patsies of the insurance industry in this province. If he will not allow us a public inquiry will the minister in fact order, I’m asking him to specifically order, that the insurance companies come to him as minister and present their alleged justification for the increases, which he will then report to the Legislature on, with an accompanying report on his thoughts as to whether or not they should be rolled back?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Speaker, first, it is not a matter of the superintendent of insurance approving increases. It’s a matter of the figures being brought to his attention to be studied by his staff, including an actuary. It means looking at and reviewing the experience of the various companies in the particular field over the past 12 or 14 months, covering the period involved; and looking at the rate structures insofar as they compare with other jurisdictions. There are variations in rate structures geographically within this province. It is a matter of those discussions being brought to the attention of the superintendent as a senior executive in my ministry. He being more knowledgeable in insurance than certainly I am, I suggest that he and the actuary in that branch are the people with whom they should actually communicate.

Mr. Stokes: But the minister is responsible!

Mr. Lewis: Who protects the consumers of Ontario?

Mr. R. F. Nixon: There is no protection.

Mr. Lewis: The insurance companies have a field day in this province and no one fights them.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Well perhaps, Mr. Speaker, my friends across the House --

Mr. Renwick: It’s ridiculous. Why did the minister meet with them?

Hon. Mr. Clement: -- might explain the tremendous increase in the insurance premiums in the Autopac of Manitoba, where it’s run by the government?

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Lewis: I’m going to give the minister those figures in a moment.

Mr. Speaker: Order, order. The hon. member for Downsview.

Mr. Singer: I wonder why the minister took so long to mention --

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Singer: I wonder why the minister took so long to mention that there was an actuarial check in the superintendent’s office; and whether he is sufficiently knowledgeable to tell me if, in the examination and/or discussions -- I suspect they were discussions more than examinations -- any consideration was paid to investment income of the companies, or interest on prepaid premiums, and the extent to which anyone within the superintendent’s office really knows the reason for the raise in rates?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Yes, Mr. Speaker, that was implemented last year, wherein investment income and those other items touched on by the hon. member for Downsview were taken into consideration; in some instances they represented very substantial sums earned by the companies.

Mr. Singer: Will the minister table the rates that were examined on the basis of the analysis?

Mr. Speaker: The member for Scarborough West.

Mr. Lewis: Supplementary: Can the minister explain why he will permit an increase in northwestern Ontario, which with the same coverage for a recent model car and a driver over 25, married and using his car for commuting purposes, will cost by way of premium $177 to $236 in Kenora, compared; with $101 in the adjacent and similar area of Manitoba, with the Manitoba increase already computed in? In other words, it will cost 73 to 134 per cent more in Kenora than the adjacent area with similar driving conditions; 13 per cent more in Toronto than in Vancouver; and 56 per cent more in Hamilton and Ottawa than in Winnipeg. How is it that public insurance in every instance is so much preferable to private insurance, which the government will not regulate?

Hon. Mr. Clement: In the first place, we are not subsidising it indirectly like they are in the Province of Manitoba.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Tell them to be quiet. I want to speak, Mr. Speaker.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Speaker, where goes the order in this House?

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Lewis: Who protects the consumer?

Hon. Mr. Clement: The rates quoted by the leader of the New Democratic Party are usually those applied to pleasure vehicles and not business vehicles, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Lewis: They are commuting for purpose of business.

Hon. Mr. Clement: The programme in Manitoba is subsidized by increased licensing fees.

Mr. Lewis: This includes the increased licensing fees.

Hon. Mr. Clement: They have started a programme over the radio in Manitoba asking people who have small claims under $50 to do the right thing and not present those claims.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Clement: The benefits paid by insurance companies --

Mr. Lewis: They have lowered the rates in British Columbia and in Saskatchewan.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Yes, they have lowered the rates in BC. When I was out there, they were having trouble because they have to pay so much an hour in addition to their coverage to get their cars --

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I spoke to the Attorney General of British Columbia --

Mr. Lewis: The minister should have the guts to protect the public interest; that’s his job.

Hon. Mr. Clement: One of the problems --

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Clement: They are discriminating against me. This is NDP brutality. Mr. Speaker, they won’t let me answer.

Mr. Lewis: Brutality? The minister is waging economic warfare against the public.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Speaker, in the Province of British Columbia, the rates are based on the auto repairs people receiving $14 an hour, and they want as much as $16.50 an hour.

Mr. Lewis: Oh, come on!

Hon. Mr. Clement: The people taking their cars in for repairs out there are being asked to make up the difference of anywhere from $1.50 to $2.50 an hour.

Mr. Lewis: The minister is in trouble on this one.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Clement: And let me tell you about the Manitoba plan, Mr. Speaker: It’s so good the auditor wouldn’t even certify as to the first year’s financial operation because he didn’t have enough information.

Mr. Lewis: The minister is in trouble on this one.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please! The hon. Leader of the Opposition. There have been five supplementaries, which is reasonable.

ECONOMIC AND SOCIOLOGICAL NEEDS OF NATIVE PEOPLE

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I would like to ask the Provincial Secretary for Social Development if she is aware of the deep sense of shock experienced across the province at the reports of the information given to her and her committee in her visit to northwestern Ontario, perhaps summarized best by the statement made by the mayor of Kenora, who was critical of a community that would “allow part of it to feed out of garbage cans” -- referring to the Indian community.

Can she assure the House that the policy of this government is being directed towards a solution that is going to meet the economic and sociological requirements of the Indian community in the north? Can she also indicate to the House that she would be prepared to lead a select committee of members of this House right to the Indian councils concerned, without the bureaucrats between the politicians and the Indians who are suffering under these circumstances, so that we can get the information necessary to at least effect a solution in the provincial jurisdiction, or as nearly as possible to a solution, in conjunction with the federal authorities?

Mr. Speaker: That speech included one question and three supplementaries.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Thank you.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Mr. Speaker, that is precisely why the social policy field travelled to northwestern Ontario. Of course we are concerned --

Mr. Martel: Oh yeah?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: -- we have already made arrangements to meet with the native people --

Mr. Lewis: That’s very nice. How kindly.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: -- and we will certainly be most interested in seeing that these problems are erased.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: A supplementary, with your permission, Mr. Speaker: Would the minister not consider that it is necessary for members of all parties to join with the responsible administrators of government, to go directly to the Indian councils and the Indian communities to see if we cannot effect a solution with advice directly from the Indians, so that when we convene in the fall we can add to the programmes that the government is evidently bringing forward, although they are ineffectual, and we can do what must be done in a community such as ours to effect a solution?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Mr. Speaker, we will take that under consideration.

Mr. Stokes: A supplementary: Is the minister aware that one of the top civil servants in the educational field in northwestern Ontario has said: “God knows, the time for experimentation is past. We have been experimenting in the ministry for 25 years. It’s not a school problem; it’s a sociological problem.” When we get top-level civil servants, who are dedicated and who have delineated the problem, why has the government spent 25 to 30 years in procrastination, instead of in mounting positive programmes, to bring our native population into the main stream of society in the Province of Ontario?

Hon. Mrs. Birch: Perhaps, Mr. Speaker, that question might be more properly directed to the Minister of Education.

Mr. Singer: Why is that?

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Oh no. It is the provincial secretary’s.

Mr. Breithaupt: It is policy.

Mr. Speaker: Order. We should deal with this question first.

Mr. Martel: A supplementary question: Is the minister aware that in the Ministry of Community and Social Services, there is less than $2 million for assistance to native people?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Mr. Speaker, I don’t think that’s a fair question, because we try to give the native persons the same services that are given to the others. And if the hon. member adds up the amount of money that is given to the native people in all the various ministries of this government, it will be 10 or 15 times the amount that he has quoted.

Mr. L. A. Braithwaite (Etobicoke): It’s still not enough.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, surely you would agree that the questions are properly directed at the policy secretary who chairs the cabinet group that attended in northwestern Ontario on this very issue. We expect her to take the lead in forming policy with the ministers to whom she is trying to slough off the responsibility to answer --

Mr. Breithaupt: What is her job then?

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Is she not also aware that we are prepared to deal with the members of the government party and the NDP on a truly non-partisan basis to effect a solution, with her leadership?

Hon. W. D. McKeough (Minister of Energy): Oh yes!

Hon. Mr. Wells: Don’t be so fatuous!

Mr. Lewis: It won’t be non-partisan where we are concerned, because we disagree with that party’s solutions. We want the hon. member to know that.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Are there any further answers to any questions?

An hon. member: They don’t have any answers.

Mr. Speaker: If not, the hon. Leader of the Opposition.

KRAUSS-MAFFEI SYSTEM

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Well, I would like to ask the Minister of Transportation and Communications if he can give some further information to the House on the revelations yesterday that the contracts between the ministry and Krauss-Maffei are being renegotiated? Can he indicate whether, in fact, those trains are going to run on magnetic levitation or on wheels? Are we expecting to save money by this renegotiation or are we heading for a further cost escalation?

Mr. Foulds: It is running on the skids.

Mr. Breithaupt: Or on hot air.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, there are a number of questions in the hon. member’s address.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: There must be in the minister’s mind, too.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: First, the wheeled vehicle referred to in the Globe and Mail, Mr. Speaker, is actually a piece of test equipment designed specifically to test and develop the command and control subsystem of the development project.

Mr. Singer: Good technical name for a failure.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: I have some photos, Mr. Speaker, that I would like to table at this time -- I have copies for both the Leader of the Opposition and the leader of the New Democratic Party -- which will show the particular vehicle.

Mr. Singer: Are there going to be any mule trains?

Mr. Cassidy: Those pictures may corrupt those kids in the gallery.

Mr. Lewis: The minister did that with his normal aplomb.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: I thought a little better.

Mr. Singer: How many mule trains?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, this particular vehicle does not have passenger-carrying capacity; it was never intended that it should. It will contain only test equipment and space for a test engineer.

Mr. Lewis: As a matter of fact it is the closest we will come to the real product.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Following the extensive tests currently being carried out in Munich, Germany, the wheeled equipment will be used to --

Mr. Reid: We will have a community on the moon by the time the minister gets around to finishing.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, either the member for Rainy River will sit and listen or I will be glad to sit down and not answer the question of his leader.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: We are listening.

Mr. Cassidy: The minister probably won’t answer it anyway.

Mr. Breithaupt: Poor minister.

Mr. Bullbrook: The member has the effrontery to interrupt the minister. That is terrible.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: I am pleased the member for Sarnia agrees with me.

Mr. Bullbrook: Yes. He has the effrontery to interrupt the minister. That is terrible.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, the passenger-carrying vehicles will be the magnetically suspended vehicles and will not operate on wheels. This particular vehicle is a test vehicle to test the command and control equipment which will be used in the eventual demonstration at the CNE.

Now that’s part of the question. It was so lengthy, would the member repeat the second part?

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I will make it a supplementary. Since I have seen the pictures and the vehicle has wheels on it -- evidently this was taken in Germany. Right? The picture was taken in Germany? Why can’t the Krauss-Maffei company test its own vehicles since we are paying $25 million for the system? Why can’t we have something that works?

Secondly, if the minister will permit me, why doesn’t he abandon this fiasco while he can?

Mr. Braithwaite: He is sending good money after bad.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, the vehicle is not the test vehicle; it is testing the command and control equipment. Perhaps, again, I can send something over for the hon. member’s benefit.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: It looks like a backhouse.

Mr. Ruston: He doesn’t know until he has the books, that’s all.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: This particular booklet, of which 1,000 copies or so were issued to various interested persons -- the press certainly had them -- will explain exactly what vehicles we are talking about. I am surprised the Leader of the Opposition hasn’t taken the time to make himself aware of this. Would he like one? I have one for the other member, too.

Mr. Lewis: Sure, why not? As long as he is giving them out, let him just snap his fingers at one of the pages.

Mr. Breithaupt: Can the minister confirm the invention of the wheel?

Mr. Stokes: Looks like a two-hole privy.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: The text in there will take care of it. I can’t find a page.

Mr. Deans: I don’t blame him; I’d walk right by, too.

Mr. Foulds: They can spot a loser.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: These are not the test vehicles for carrying passengers. Those vehicles will be the magnetic levitation vehicles.

Mr. Lewis: Mr. Speaker, since we clearly go from bad to worse in this whole epic disaster, might the minister consider -- I ask him rather seriously about this -- establishing or encouraging the Premier (Mr. Davis) to establish a select committee of this Legislature, which --

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Would go to Munich.

Mr. Lewis: I admit, I hadn’t thought of Munich.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I think probably it would have to.

Mr. Lewis: No, no.

Mr. Breithaupt: Oktoberfest is wunderbar!

Mr. R. F. Nixon: We don’t need a committee on that.

Mr. Lewis: That’s the first time I’ve heard him say that. But I wasn’t thinking of travelling to Germany.

Mr. Speaker: Order please.

Mr. Lewis: A committee of this Legislature which, in the months immediately coming, presumably --

Mr. R. F. Nixon: The member means this very summer.

Mr. Lewis: -- this summer, not unlike the Hydro committee, would examine the contractual arrangements, the financial arrangements and the probable delay periods in order to give a critical assessment about whether or not the project should proceed at all; given, I’m sure, the considerable unease which the minister, and the government itself must feel. Would the minister consider approaching it that way at this point?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, I don’t believe that there is a need to have a select committee to look into the particular project. I think the project is moving along extremely well.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Extremely well?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Perhaps I can answer some of the questions that have been asked concerning the contractual arrangements, and I think it was part of the question asked by the hon. Leader of the Opposition.

Mr. Reid: The minister’s wheels are getting flat.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Are the contracts being renegotiated?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, I would like to explain, firstly, the hon. member is probably referring to some of the material that was in the Globe and Mail this morning.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: That is not my only source of information.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: It indicated that the contract provisions stated that none of the contractors would have to be paid until the entire train system would be operating properly and no interest would be paid on money that contractors had to borrow to finance their share of the work.

Mr. Speaker, the facts are, firstly, that these contracts are the responsibility of Krauss-Maffei and provide for the portions of the work to be performed by the Canadian subcontractors. The terms of both the ministry’s contract with the company and Krauss-Maffei’s subcontracts with the civil engineering industry include standard provisions calling for holdbacks pending acceptance of the work.

The ministry’s contract with Krauss-Maffei, in section 720, provided for 90 per cent progress payments. Krauss-Maffei’s subcontracts with the Canadian subcontractors called for payments of up to 90 per cent of the value as the work proceeds.

In addition, the ministry’s contract includes a standard provision holding back the remaining 10 per cent of the cost until the whole of the development system is accepted by the ministry. However, Krauss-Maffei’s subcontracts with these Canadian subcontractors call for a holdback for the remaining 10 per cent, not just on completion and acceptance of the civil engineering portion of the works, but rather their clause is equivalent to retaining the holdback until the ministry has accepted the whole development system including the vehicle and the command and control system.

Mr. Lewis: That is what we should look at, because that is ridiculous.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Right; and we agree. This may occur at some period following the actual completion of civil works. Therefore, the Globe and Mail article this morning is wrong in stating that the contract provisions call for no payment until the entire train system is completed.

The influence of this holdback on possible tenders would be equal to the cost of financing, which might equal a 10 per cent interest charge on the amount of the holdback or one per cent of the contract value which, in the case of the stations -- and not with what was being referred to in the article today -- would be one per cent of $2.1 million.

There was also reference in the article today that there had been a presentation made to the deputy minister of this ministry. That is not correct. He was notified of a possible cost influence by receiving a copy of a letter that was sent by the Ontario General Contractors Association to the subcontractors. He received a copy of that and in that letter there is indication that a meeting was being held two days before the contracts of the tenders were to be opened. The deputy responded to a second letter which he received on May 13, which was well after the closing of the contract. It came from the Ontario General Contractors Association, and this was three weeks after the tenders were opened. He responded on May 21, and I quote:

“This work is being performed under a development contract with Krauss-Maffei and, although our contract with Krauss-Maffei provides the ministry with certain controls and vetoes, we do not have the freedom of direct control that ministry contracts normally provide.”

He went on to indicate:

“Because the guideway contract bids are above estimates, the whole of the civil engineering work is to be reviewed and you can be assured your comments are welcome input into this proposal review.”

Mr. Lewis: That’s where we need more than this ministry.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: On the same day I made that announcement in this House that we were going to review the whole situation out at the CNE --

Mr. Lewis: The ministry should have others to research it.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: -- with an effort to reduce the costs. We believe that even in this, by retendering and re-arranging -- and we agree with what the hon. members have said -- there were unusual requirements in that contract between Krauss-Maffei and the subcontractors.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Did the ministry cancel any of those contracts?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: No, we haven’t cancelled any contracts; but we are going to renegotiate this portion so that we can get a better tendering. We agree that the tendering cannot be fair under this present system.

Mr. Lewis: Why doesn’t the minister involve the Legislature in it now? The ministry is getting nowhere.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: It’s a mess.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: I don’t think that is necessary. We’re doing it right.

Mr. Lewis: That’s too much for one man.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. member for York-Forest Hill has a supplementary.

Mr. P. G. Givens (York-Forest Hill): Mr. Minister, since the government is obviously heading for disaster on wheels instead of a magnetic cushion --

Mr. Lewis: That’s right.

Mr. Givens: -- wouldn’t the government consider instituting negotiations with the Boeing Co., which is apparently making magnificent progress with the development of an LRT vehicle for public transit? Would the government consider doing that immediately as an alternative, because it is going to have to scrap the other system?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, that is only the opinion --

Mr. Cassidy: Didn’t they build that one in Morgantown?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: -- of the member for York-Forest Hill that it will be scrapped.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: It is not the intention to scrap it at all. It is the intention, as I said before, and I repeat --

Mr. Cassidy: That’s also what he said about dial-a-bus.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: -- to provide a good working system that is required for good urban transit here. We believe this is the right system and we believe this is the right technology. We do believe that.

Mr. Lewis: The minister doesn’t believe that any more surely?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: And we are going to go ahead with it.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: As far as disaster is concerned, Mr. Speaker, the member is probably headed for more disaster if he runs for mayor around this part of the town.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Why run for mayor?

Mr. Givens: I will succeed the minister.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Lewis: He is not running for mayor.

Mr. Cassidy: Supplementary: Would the minister not agree that his ministry set the government up for the very large cost overruns on the project by giving to another contractor, that is, Krauss-Maffei, the right to make the specifications and the awards in the civil engineering and leaving no control in the hands of the ministry, effectively putting it on a cost-plus basis?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, that is certainly not correct. The ministry has an excellent contract with Krauss-Maffei, a very stringent contract to protect the rights of the people of this province.

Mr. Lewis: It can’t build anything until the price goes up.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: It is a good contract and I think the hon. member knows it if he’s read it. Within that contract was the privilege for Krauss-Maffei to carry out its own contractual work with its engineers and the civil engineering.

Mr. Cassidy: All they can do is run out of wheels.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: There is no way that this particular setup has cost us anything extra. In fact, it gives us the veto power, that they must come to us and ask us about all of the various contracts that are let. We are exercising part of that now by having this reduced.

Mr. Cassidy: But the government’s cost is up by $8 million.

An hon. member: Supplementary.

Mr. Speaker: No, there has been a reasonable number of supplementaries. The hon. Leader of the Opposition has no further questions? The hon. member for Scarborough West.

LEAD EMISSIONS STUDY

Mr. Lewis: I want to ask of the Minister of the Environment when exactly he expects his study on lead emission and, most important, when he intends to implement whatever programmatic response he has, now that there is yet another child, a 13-year-old, in the Sick Children’s Hospital, being tested for unusually high lead levels in the blood?

Hon. W. Newman (Minister of the Environment): Mr. Speaker, I am just as concerned as the member is. The report should be in about the third week in June and I intend to have a look at it as soon as it comes in and study it. I won’t see the report until the third week in June.

Mr. Lewis: By way of supplementary, is the minister aware that in the year 1973 there were 26 actual workmen’s compensation claims awarded for lead absorption and lead toxicity, 16 of them in the immediate Metropolitan Toronto area or an area primarily concentrated in downtown Toronto, so that we can assume, I think validly, that that number is increasing in 1974? We’re again leading to an area of enormous occupational health hazard without his willingness to step in before a crisis develops. Can he not set the levels now before several months more pass?

Hon. W. Newman: As I said before, we have abatement equipment on all these plants at the present time, as the member knows.

Mr. Lewis: That’s not helping.

Hon. W. Newman: It is helping. If the member wants to see some of the results, they are having some effects on cutting down the milligrams per cubic metre of air. They are having some effects on the situation. We are concerned about these people. That’s why our subcommittee is working. Also the Ministry of Health has a special committee of medical men dealing with the health effects of lead on people.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Since the statistics would indicate that by the time the third week of June rolls around there will be more young people in the Sick Children’s Hospital under the same circumstances, and the emissions from the lead plants are now higher than the requirement specified by the ministry itself, surely the ministry should suspend their operations until the report is available?

Hon. W. Newman: As I said before the other day, as far as the emissions from some of the plants are concerned, they are within our criteria basically, although some of them are not within our criteria at all times. That’s why we want to wait for these reports to come in on this situation. We are monitoring. We only have just had the abatement equipment on Canada Metal, and we really have not had any long-range benefits of the monitoring at this point in time.

Mr. Lewis: Supplementary: With evidence of children being admitted to the hospital facing the ministry day after day, week after week, with evidence of claims now being honoured by the Workmen’s Compensation Board, doesn’t the minister see that the levels which now exist are too high and the emission standards are too liberal and that, therefore, they must be brought down to a level which is manageable and which will protect human health? Why doesn’t he do that in advance of his study? Why does he err on the side of damage to health rather than on the side of preventive health?

Hon. W. Newman: That isn’t just quite true, Mr. Speaker. We do have abatement programmes, and we have put all the technology that’s in our hands at this point in time into use in all these plants.

OIL PRICES

Mr. Lewis: One question of the Minister of Energy, if I could, to end my questions on a placid note.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Be careful.

Mr. Lewis: Now that clearly there has been no response from the minister in any specific or documented way to the figures from Statistics Canada, the National Energy Board and Interprovincial Pipeline on the amounts of reserve that the oil companies actually had beyond that which they said they had when the government entered into the price agreement, might the government not consider taxing back some of the additional money in a way which could be used to offset the additional costs for the consumers in Ontario? Or could the minister not at least give a public accounting for the reasons why the oil companies are allowed to behave in this fashion?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Mr. Speaker, we are still looking at the figures which the hon. member provided. We agree with some; we have some questions about some others. But the public accounting would have to be given by the people who approved and set the 45-day limit, which was the government of Canada.

Mr. Bullbrook: And acquiesced in by this government. Remember that.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: When the agreement was reached, we suggested to the government of Canada and to the companies that obviously there was a linefill, that there was a certain amount in storage.

The government of Canada has had access to those figures since last fall. They have completely monitored the industry at all stages, right through from the well to the pipeline, to the refinery, to the storage. Since last September, they have had those figures at their disposal -- they have had them right through the piece. They set a figure of 45 days, which in their wisdom, and which we accepted, was an average period.

So any accounting of the 45 days should be directed to the government of Canada and not to this government. We didn’t set the 45 days.

Mr. Lewis: That’s rather curious, because if I recall correctly, didn’t the minister say to the House on previous occasions that he simply accepted the 45-day period, although he admitted that the period was established on the basis of the oil companies’ information? And was it not part of the agreement which was entered into by the Premiers and the Prime Minister of Canada relating to the whole cost for the consumer? How can the minister slough it off to the government of Canada alone, when again apparently he participated in an understanding which resulted in a seriously increased cost to the consumer of Ontario, with no one to protect them, least of all the government?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Mr. Speaker, I am sorry the hon. leader of the New Democratic Party is ending his questions on such an unplacid note and when he is obviously not conversant with the facts.

Mr. Deans: That’s what we thought of the Premier just a week ago.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: At no part of the first ministers’ discussion, to my knowledge, was there a discussion as to what would happen to the price at the pump, the price at the wholesale level.

Mr. Deans: Why?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: That was a determination made by the government of Canada. The determination made by the first ministers was the price at the wellhead would rise on April 1.

Mr. Lewis: No discussion of the price at the pump?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: The determination made by the government of Canada was that the period for inventories to run down was 45 days.

Mr. Lewis: And the minister accepted that?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Again, I suggest to my friend -- I realize he doesn’t have quite the same class of lovely little ipsy-dipsy relationship with the government of Canada which he did before the writ was issued, but that’s whom he should be talking to.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Ipsy-dipsy?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Ipsy-dipsy -- palsy-walsy -- between David and Pierre.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Sort of fuddly-duddly.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: He’s forgotten that the writ has been issued; and instead of trying to protect the Liberal bunch at Ottawa, he should remember he is in an election and get after the real enemy.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Lewis: Now I know the minister is in trouble. Now we have got him.

Mr. Havrot: The member is supposed to be placid. Sit down.

Mr. Lewis: Okay. Let me put it this way: He sounds more like Jackie Gleason than he does the Minister of Energy. Let me ask him something.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: He looks more like him, too.

Mr. Deans: No, the Treasurer looks more like Jackie Gleason.

Mr. Lewis: Let me ask the minister something, now that he has more or less in his own cautious way --

Hon. W. A. Stewart (Minister of Agriculture and Food): Placid, placid.

Mr. Lewis: -- admitted to the authenticity of the figures -- admitted that the 45 days was accepted by the government -- what is he going to do to retrieve the $52 million to $73 million which was exacted illegitimately from the consumers of Ontario? How is he going to get that money back?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Mr. Speaker, I think the solution to that problem is that we on this side of the House will be working for the election of a Conservative government on July 8, and the country will then be in good hands.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Lewis: My last question to the minister is -- perhaps he might not count on it? Perhaps he might look carefully at the Gallup poll that’s about to be published?

Mr. Speaker: Does the hon. member for Scarborough West have further questions?

Mr. Lewis: No.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Minister of the Environment has the answer to a question asked previously.

PROPOSED COTTAGE SUBDIVISION ON NAPPAN ISLAND

Hon. W. Newman: Mr. Speaker, in response to a question of the hon. member for Waterloo North, I’ve checked the comments provided by the Ministry of the Environment on the proposed subdivision for Nappan Island in Seymour township. The plan for the subdivision was submitted to my ministry for comments December, 1970. This first plan involves some 240 single family lots, a motel, a marina and a commercial development. Our comments to this plan were that because of the large size, the development should only proceed with full municipal services. Ministry staff pointed out at that time that municipal services would likely be more expensive because of the shallow soil overburden on the island.

In September, 1971, a revised plan was submitted to my ministry for comments. This plan was for 258 lots as a summer residential development. As in the original proposal, individual septic tank systems were proposed. Our comments again were that the land was not satisfactory for the installation of septic tank systems because of the shallow soil conditions.

Subsequently, approval in principle was given to the plan of subdivision. It was conditional on the report satisfying my ministry that an adequate piped water system be provided, along with a satisfactory arrangement for the use of sewage holding tanks and an acceptable system for the disposal of collected sewage. My ministry’s requirements were conveyed to the Metropolitan Consultants Ltd. --

Mr. Lewis: From oil to insurance, no one does anything.

Hon. W. Newman: -- I said consultants -- who are now working with my staff to fulfil the conditions of the draft approval.

Mr. Good: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Could the minister tell me why he is letting Eddie Goodman and his friends at Troon Holding and Cadillac developments go ahead with this plan when there are three separate studies which say there should be no development on the island?

Now will the minister convince the Minister of Housing to withhold final draft plan approval until the Minister of Environment comes up with a study that shows that this development should go ahead?

An hon. member: Will he?

Hon. W. Newman: I said when our requirements were met that would be satisfactory as far as this ministry is concerned.

Mr. Good: Tell me any place else that the government is allowing 250 holding tanks in the province as a means of sewage disposal. They won’t allow one anywhere else.

Hon. W. Newman: Oh, yes we do.

Mr. Good: Not 250.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Supplementary: I would like to ask the minister if he is aware that the material from the holding tanks -- sludge, I believe it is called -- is going to be dumped in a rural community a few miles from Nappan Island, and has he given approval for such a dumping procedure as this? Is this what he means when he says it comes up to the requirements of the Ministry of the Environment? Surely not; it looks like crass political patronage has dictated this approval.

Mr. Reid: That’s right.

An hon. member: That’s a fact.

Mr. Good: It makes a goat out of the minister.

Hon. W. Newman: No, Mr. Speaker; nobody does that.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Dump it near Eddy Goodman’s cottage.

Hon. W. Newman: Let me assure the members that we want to be properly satisfied in this ministry that what we want carried out is carried out.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: The minister should not be satisfied. It is a mistake.

Hon. W. Newman: I can assure the members that it will be done properly, as far as this ministry is concerned.

Mr. Good: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Since one of the requirements for final approval of this project is that the federal Minister of Transport and the Trent valley system must give their approval of the work to be done, how is it that, on a phone call to them, neither of those institutions knows a thing about this development?

Hon. W. Newman: I can’t answer that question but I can tell you this --

Mr. Good: He had better.

Hon. W. Newman: -- I know of our involvement in it and I know what we are doing about it.

Mr. Good: This whole thing has been a cover-up job.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Sarnia is next.

UNIVERSITY ENTRANCE REQUIREMENTS

Mr. Bullbrook: Mr. Speaker, a question of the Minister of Education: I’m wondering if the minister would care to comment as to the decision taken by the senate of the University of Western Ontario last week, to make compulsory a grade 13 certificate in English prior to admission to the university, because of their research that shows, according to them, that their freshmen students can neither read nor write properly?

And, more important, does the ministry feel any obligation in connection with this? Does the minister think that he and his predecessors, including the Premier, have had anything to do with this sorry state of affairs?

Hon. Mr. Wells: First of all, Mr. Speaker, I reject that. I think that the assertion the hon. member is giving, that somehow --

Mr. Bullbrook: I am giving the assertion of the senate of the University of Western Ontario.

Hon. Mr. Wells: -- the competency in English of our students is not as good today as it perhaps was one day, is not well taken.

An hon. member: Where has the minister been?

Hon. Mr. Wells: And I don’t think it can be documented. It can be taken in little pieces. But just remember that this ministry and this government last year made English a mandatory subject in schools. Correct?

Mrs. Campbell: It used to be a mandatory subject until the minister took it away.

Mr. Ruston: Why did they do it? Because they couldn’t read and write!

Mr. Bullbrook: Has the minister finished?

Hon. Mr. Wells: No.

Mr. Bullbrook: All right, go ahead.

Hon. Mr. Wells: I would also say to my friend that I certainly welcome the action of the senate of the University of Western Ontario and I have said many times --

Mr. Bullbrook: Which is unjustified, he said.

Hon. Mr. Wells: I have not said it is unjustified; I said the complaints of some people about the quality of the English used by the majority of graduates and the quality of their English learning were unjustified.

Mr. Bullbrook: The senate complained.

Hon. Mr. Wells: To group everybody who has graduated from our school system into that category is wrong.

Mr. Bullbrook: He can’t read.

Hon. Mr. Wells: I think Lloyd Dennis said it very well the other day -- if members read or heard his reports -- that children are coming through our system much better prepared to face life than ever before.

Mr. Reid: What else was he going to say?

Hon. Mr. Wells: Now, it may have been --

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Wells: -- at the expense of that that some of them can’t spell as well as others could before.

Mr. Bullbrook: It was a policy of the minister and the Premier of Ontario.

Hon. S. B. Handleman (Minister of Housing): Who cares?

Mr. Bullbrook: I care, and the government should care too.

Hon. Mr. Wells: If my friend read the report in the Star on Saturday I think he would see that Robert Nielsen, in his fine series of articles, gave the system a conditional pass. No one has ever said that it’s perfect --

An hon. member: No, no.

Hon. Mr. Wells: -- but if one looks at the kind of system that we have today and the kind of times that we are preparing young people for, it does that.

Now, let me deal with the member’s question about the senate of the university. Much of the trouble that we’ve had in regard to courses in secondary schools has been because of the attitudes of the universities. I think that it is just fine if the University of Western Ontario wants to make English a mandatory subject.

Interjection by an hon. member.

Hon. Mr. Wells: That’s great. That then tells the people in secondary schools, who have their own chance to choose their subjects, except English, that they have to take English in grade 13 if they want to go to the University of Western Ontario. I find nothing wrong with that. And if some of the universities would again insist on French as a subject which they require for entrance we would have a lot more of the young people taking French in secondary schools.

Mr. Laughren: No, no.

Interjection by an hon. member.

Hon. Mr. Wells: When the member makes that statement it’s not me that he is faulting.

Mr. Bullbrook: I am not making any statement. On a point of order --

Hon. Mr. Wells: The member is always dealing with some kind of fatuous statement.

Mr. Bullbrook: On a point of order --

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Bullbrook: -- I will not permit him to say again that I made a statement. I read him a statement by the senate of the University of Western Ontario.

Hon. Mr. Wells: The hon. member read me a statement --

Hon. A. Grossman (Provincial Secretary for Resources Development): He made a statement. He made a statement.

Mr. Bullbrook: That’s what I read to the minister.

Hon. Mr. Wells: The hon. member read me a statement, and in the tone of his voice he implied that the teaching of English in this province --

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Wells: -- is not in a very good state.

Mr. Bullbrook: Not at all.

Hon. Mr. Wells: I just say to him that every time he says something like that about the system he slurs not only the Ministry of Education --

Mr. Bullbrook: I slur the minister and his predecessor.

Hon. Mr. Wells: -- but every teacher in the schools of this province.

Mr. Bullbrook: By way of supplementary: In view of the minister’s response as to the significant quality of curriculum development in education, especially English, in the Province of Ontario, could he rationalize for me why the universities of Ontario found it necessary to undertake remedial English courses for their new students?

Hon. Mr. Wells: I don’t think that that’s a question I need to comment upon. I think that probably there has always been a need, from the beginning of university courses in this province, for some type of --

Interjection by an hon. member.

Hon. Mr. Wells: -- remedial courses in all areas.

Mr. Bullbrook: The minister is a milk sop.

Hon. Mr. Wells: But I just want to say that what comes out from this hon. member --

Mr. Bullbrook: These people are telling the minister that.

Hon. Mr. Wells: -- what comes out from this hon. member and all his --

Mr. Bullbrook: These people are telling you.

An hon. member: Why doesn’t the member listen?

Hon. Mr. Wells: -- what comes out from this hon. member and members of his caucus, like the member for Rainy River, is a desire to get back to the elitist form of education that we used to have.

Mr. Bullbrook: Nonsense. Does the minister know what he has done for education in Ontario? He has --

Mr. Lewis: That’s right. The minister is right about that. Whatever else we disagree with him upon, he is right about that.

Mr. Speaker: The time for oral questions has now expired.

Petitions.

Presenting reports.

Motions.

Introduction of bills.

Interjections by hon. members.

An hon. member: The member’s leader agrees with him.

An hon. member: There is no hope for them; no hope.

Mr. Speaker: Before we proceed with the committee of supply, the hon. member for Nickel Belt.

Mr. Laughren: I would like to draw the attention of the Legislature today to the presence in the east gallery of 24 students from the Ramsey Public School and the Shining Tree Public School accompanied by their teachers, Mr. Roger Dore, Mr. Koski, and their bus driver, Mr. Bourgeault. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Lewis: Let it be noted that only the NDP acknowledges bus drivers as well as teachers and students.

Mr. Speaker: Orders of the day.

Clerk of the House: The 27th order, House in committee of supply.

ESTIMATES, MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND FOOD (CONTINUED)

Mr. Chairman: The hon. member for Huron-Bruce.

Mr. M. Gaunt (Huron-Bruce): Mr. Chairman, last night I was talking about the matter of input costs in relation to farmers, how these costs have gone up and what an unsettling effect it is having on farmers in that they are very uncertain about whether they should expand or maintain their operations at the same level and so on. Essentially, farmers are in a real quandary today as to what they should do in their farming operations.

I was making the point that government, both federally and provincially, should bring some stability into the situation so that farmers were certain at least of a basic income insofar as their cost of production is concerned in view of the tremendous fluctuations in input costs. The fact is that to try and achieve domestic stability in an unstable world at zero cost is an impossible dream. It is going to cost the government something; it is going to cost society something; it is going to cost the farmer something. But I think the cost is worthwhile insofar as trying to bring some stability to the situation is concerned.

That is why I have been drawn to the proposition of an income stabilization scheme for farmers not as a method of preserving the status quo but rather as a method of building the confidence of our farmers, encouraging more young people to remain on the farms, and building and maintaining a viable rural community. Under this scheme the farmer would not worry so much about his increasing costs because he would have reasonable assurance that he would at least recover his cost of production. This kind of thing has to be worked on a national basis and on a federal-provincial cost-sharing and co-operative basis otherwise we get into the provincial wars like we have now, with Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Quebec and Prince Edward Island all pouring provincial money into some segment of their agricultural industries in order to support it.

This means that producers in those provinces gain an artificial competitive edge over producers in other provinces where no such assistance is being given. I know hog producers in this province are very concerned about it. It has been talked about at their provincial meetings. They feel that Alberta, Manitoba and Prince Edward Island are all supporting their hog industries and yet we in Ontario are not doing anything in that regard.

I can appreciate to an extent the minister’s argument that any help of that nature should be done on a national basis. None the less, it is very difficult for our producers to accept the fact that these other governments can assist their producers, while we in Ontario won’t have any part of it. That is why an income stabilization plan, in my view, has to be a national plan. The federal government has said it’s willing to pay part of the cost of setting up that kind of plan, with the federal government willing to contribute money for its operation as well.

The member for York South (Mr. MacDonald) mentioned the matter of the hog stabilization programme, which was announced by Mr. Whelan. That is certainly a step in the right direction, and I think that kind of programme could be expanded into other areas. I guess there are two basic ways in which it can be done. It can be done through a stabilization fund or it can be simply a price stabilization programme. As far as I am concerned, I prefer the former. The price stabilization programme guarantees prices at a certain level. This has been tried under the Agricultural Stabilization Act at various times for various products but it really has not worked.

Frankly, I prefer the income stabilization fund because everyone has a stake in its success. This is something that is different and distinct from the programme that Mr. Whelan announced, but his programme, as I understand it, will support the hog producer at a basic level of $22.41, I believe, based on the wholesale price of feed and one or two other input costs.

Hon. W. A. Stewart (Minister of Agriculture and Food): The difference between the feed price and the sale price of the hog.

Mr. Gaunt: That’s right, the difference between the two. But this kind of thing that I am talking about, the stabilization fund, is somewhat different from that. Farmers and provincial and federal governments would pay into the fund when total national income from a product is above a certain level, and farmers would draw money out of the fund whenever total national income fell below that level.

Any income stabilization fund would be more likely to pay out money to farmers when they needed it, not just when prices fall below a certain point. The plan should also include a cost of production factor so that support is tied closer to income, rather than simply to prices and sales volume.

I think income stabilization is more important today than ever before because of price uncertainty, since farmers simply are not going to invest in new machinery in buying more land and in all the other inputs to increase production, unless and until they receive some guarantees and some assurances that increased production will not lead to short-term surpluses which ruin prices and force them into bankruptcy.

I would like to get the minister’s view on this kind of plan for our producers. The minister has a great tendency to wash his hands of all these problems and blame Ottawa when things aren’t going too well. The minister has been able to get away with that kind of approach for many years. However, I think the time has come when farmers have a right to expect something more than that from this government. It’s time for close co-operation, and I think that the minister does farmers a great disservice by playing this sort of political game.

I understand there have been some discussions with the federal minister, along with the provincial ministers of agriculture, directed toward this kind of programme. Frankly, I would like to know what the minister thinks about it. Does he support it? Would he promote it? Is he willing to participate or does he want to opt out? Does the minister think the programme will work? These are questions I would like to have answered in response to the matter.

If the minister doesn’t think this kind of programme will work, what other options do we have? What other options is the minister prepared to put forward in his negotiations with Ottawa in connection with some type of system or scheme whereby producers are at least given the option of getting their costs of production back from their operation?

I want to turn now to the matter of fertilizer and fertilizer pricing. I touched on it earlier but I want to deal with the problem in more depth for a few moments. Last fall, this winter and this spring, rumours -- some substantiated and some not -- have circulated with respect to fertilizer shortages and wildly gyrating prices. In some cases, I think the companies have taken advantage of the situation.

I understand that prior to 1974, ammonium sulphate could be obtained easily from steel companies at a price, to fertilizer dealers, in 1973 of $32 to $35 a ton, and at a price to farmers of $52 a ton. This year the product is being sold to fertilizer companies at $42 a ton, an increase of $7 to $10 a ton over 1973. The price to farmers, however, is reported to have jumped to $85 to $92 per ton. That, Mr. Chairman, is price-gouging and should not be allowed.

The fertilizer industry is facing increased costs -- there’s no doubt about that -- however that doesn’t give anyone the right to take the farmers for all they can. The farmer will have to bear the increased cost or the consumers of Canada will have to pay in increased food costs. The industry, in this example, was capitalizing on the situation created by the increased demand throughout the country -- up approximately 11 per cent last year and another six per cent this year -- plus the energy crisis, to jack up substantially these prices to farmers.

Canada has traditionally exported approximately 50 per cent of its total fertilizer production, excluding potash. Formations containing all three primary plant nutrients -- nitrogen, phosphorus and potash -- are manufactured in Canada. Except for rock phosphate, the raw material source of phosphorus, which is all imported, Canada is self-sufficient in all other necessary raw materials, including energy, for fertilizer production. Although the Florida Export Rock Association, our major source of supply of rock phosphate, has placed Canadian users on an allocation of 80 per cent of contracted amounts, other suppliers are making up the difference.

With the seeding season almost complete, it is obvious there have been shortages of fertilizer, particularly nitrogen fertilizers in various parts of the province. This happened while the industry continued to assure farmers there would be enough fertilizer in this country to meet our needs before any exporting took place. This didn’t happen. The minister said the only commitment of the industry was to supply us with the same amount as last year. That, Mr. Chairman, in my view, is not good enough. Our needs are increasing. I am told that large amounts of fertilizer, particularly anhydrous ammonia, were shipped to the United States this past spring.

Many dealers, after purchasing from the companies, decided they could make a good profit by selling to the States. The minister condones this action by saying that the companies could receive higher prices for their product in the United States. That’s true; that’s the whole point. The industry should not have sold to the United States, regardless of the price, unless and until all our needs were met in this country. The minister took the position that we could not get too tough, otherwise the one ingredient, phosphorus, we import from the United States, may be cut off. I don’t think it would have happened that way because we have two ingredients but only one imported. In other words, we have two for one and no government in its right mind, including the US government, is going to retaliate when it is getting two ingredients back for every one it supplies.

Our farmers cannot be placed in the position of having to compete with foreign producers assisted by Canadian imports that they themselves have not been able to acquire to reach the position of excellence in competitive world markets.

We see the logic in selling our oil and gas to Canadians first and at reasonable prices, so why not fertilizer? Fertilizer is essential to our crop production. Our needs should be met before the industry sells elsewhere. I think the minister was delinquent in not seeing that was done. I think the industry here thought the minister would be easy, that he would be a milquetoast on this issue. They figured they could get away with it and, as a matter of fact, they did get away with it.

It was pointed out at the fertilizer conference that the minister convened in March that the United States has already taken steps to obtain natural gas. She will need to expand her nitrogen fertilizer production and of course the only way she can do it is by having a source of natural gas.

Apparently a chemical company in the United States has signed an $8 billion contract to buy anhydrous ammonia from Russia. In return, the US will sell phosphorus to Russia. The US and Russia are moving to meet their fertilizer demands. We should be doing the same here. We should not have to depend on anyone else for the raw materials used in fertilizer production. We can be self-sufficient and we should be. Our governments at both levels should be moving in that direction and should get going on it immediately.

We have plenty of potash; we have plenty of natural gas; we can develop our own phosphate supplies -- and in the Rockies we have domestic supplies of a very high grade, although I understand there is some difficulty in mining it. There are other supplies in the shield of eastern Canada. As a matter of fact, I understand there was a thriving industry in the Perth area of eastern Ontario back in the early 1900s, around 1920, or thereabouts. These mines were closed even though they have good deposits, because there were huge deposits discovered in other areas of the world and these were developed. The mines at Perth, I believe, sold phosphorus fertilizers for around $100 a ton during the 1920s, compared to recent prices of about $50 a ton.

However, we have never really found out how much phosphorus is available in Canada. I think now is the time to find out and to pursue that matter with some vigour.

Multi-Minerals Ltd. has announced plans to open mines in northern Ontario which will supply some phosphorus -- I believe 60,000 tons a year -- towards our total demand of about 2.5 million tons a year. These mines can only be developed if and when the mining companies find markets for the iron ore that is extracted with the phosphorus. Northern Ontario mines, for example, yield about 90 per cent iron ore and only 10 per cent phosphorus. However, I am sure that problem can be overcome.

Between northern Ontario, BC and eastern Ontario, I am sure that we can find and develop enough mining facilities to develop the phosphorus for our own requirements in this country. Given that fact, we have all we need to make the fertilizer industry in Canada self-reliant. We have the raw resources to supply more than enough fertilizer to meet our domestic needs. As world demand for food increases, production will have to increase, and most of that increase will come from more intensive farming of our land. To develop a self-reliant fertilizer industry in this country should and must, in my view, be a very high priority for the minister. I hope he will pursue the matter with all the vigour he can muster.

The final area I want to deal with is the matter of land-use planning. The minister has heard me speak on this a number of times. I talked about it in my Throne Speech contribution in relation to Ontario Hydro; I don’t want to repeat all that I have said previously on the matter.

The Huron-Bruce power line negotiating committee has had several meetings with the minister and with other cabinet ministers with respect to the power line coming from Douglas Point and the fact that it’s going through some very excellent farmland. On every occasion, our group has received strong support from the Minister of Agriculture and Food for the preservation of good farm land, for which I and the group are very grateful. I therefore feel that the minister and I share a common interest and concern on this topic -- although some of his other colleagues, I gather, are not so enthusiastic.

As a matter of fact, there is a growing body of concern being expressed that something has to be done soon to preserve our good land for food production. The Federation of Agriculture, the Farmers’ Union, the Solandt commission report, the Croll report and the farm classification report have all dealt with the matter and supported the proposition, some quite vigorously.

We have allowed our cities to spill on to the best farm land in the province, and we are saying, in effect, that another shopping centre, another highrise office building, another subdivision, another factory -- are more important than our food production and our farming.

We have chosen the best farm land for urban expansion and buried top-notch topsoil under pavement and concrete, rather than spending a few extra dollars to divert urban development on to soil that cannot produce food. Good land is being taken out of production as our towns and cities swell and speculators take advantage of the fact that they can make more money letting the land be idle than farmers can by using it to produce food.

Surely our priorities are mixed up when this can happen. Just west of here, Peel county, which is one of the prime agricultural areas in the whole country, had some of the best dairy herds, fruit farms and poultry operations a few years ago. But in every one of the past 10 years, Peel county lost five per cent of its farm land to urban development. What does this mean to food production and, ultimately, to food prices?

Mr. R. F. Nixon (Leader of the Opposition): That’s when the member was selling off the Kennedy estates out there.

Mr. Gaunt: In 1961, there were 604 farms with commercial chicken operations in Peel; in 1971 there were only 196 of those farms left, and the number of chickens in the county had dropped by more than 75 per cent. This sort of thing has happened all around Toronto and the other urban areas.

It’s time we started treating good agricultural land with more care and concern. As the Federation of Agriculture pointed out, if we continue to lose 25 acres per hour of good agricultural land to development, in 50 years we would not have any left for agriculture and would not even be able to feed ourselves.

It is estimated that with the present technology of the developed countries, about one acre of cultivated land per person is desirable to produce enough food for an adequate standard of living. At the present time, on a world basis, there are only 0.65 acres of usable land per person. In the United States they have about three acres per person; in Canada, we are around five cultivated acres per person.

This means we should be in a position to feed a good percentage of the world. Aside from our grain production, our exports are not that impressive in proportion to our available land resources. Further, our imports are increasing by 10 per cent per year.

To meet the basic needs of close to seven billion people by the year 2000, we will need to expand cultivated acreage by 50 per cent and double yields, as we did in the last 25 years, on a world basis. That is why it is so important that we save our good land for food production.

The Federation of Agriculture in its brief said that class 1 and 2 land must be preserved for food production, and any departure from this policy should require the most searching examination. The point was also made that class 3 land should be retained in agriculture, to the extent at least of supplying local markets, where the proportion of class 1 and 2 land falls below 40 per cent of the total. Agricultural designations for land should be established as permanent land use classification.

There were many good points raised in the federation brief with respect to land use, and this government should certainly be over the study phase by now and should be prepared to act. Provincial government must provide an overall planning framework for Ontario, which recognizes agriculture as having top priority for good land, instead of using agriculture as a temporary or holding category.

I think the province up until now really hasn’t taken this matter of land use very seriously. Back a few years ago, I think Dr. Norman Pearson did a study, and he said of some 50 planners employed by the Province of Ontario, there were only two who really understood what land classification was all about.

The farm classification report had some definite things to say about the preservation of farm land and I want to talk about it for a moment. The committee recommended that farm land be classified on the basis of agricultural, agricultural residential, rural residential, rural recreational, and rural speculative. The committee also recommended that a farm index be established and maintained for all farm land.

The committee tried to come to grips with the definition of a farmer, who has been undefinable for years. Actually I think the committee came as close as anyone has to defining a farmer as being a person whose principal activity is devoted to the production of plants and animals useful to man. It was further recommended that the policies and programmes of the ministry be confined to those so engaged. Then the committee made this comment about farm land:

“The committee is particularly aware of and supports the concerns expressed by the public over rapidly disappearing prime farm land. The committee is also firmly of the opinion that farm land is finite and irreplaceable, and the most important resource in the production of plants and animals useful to man.

“The committee in its classification has paid heed to this expression of concern, and has provided a method of identifying various factors that lead to or result in the removal from agricultural production of such farm land. It was repeatedly expressed to the committee that the authorities having jurisdiction over farm land are in a conflict position in that assessment and other revenues from agricultural uses are less than those obtained from residential, commercial or industrial use.”

This was the background, then, for recommendation No. 11, which said that all farm land be subject to the jurisdiction of the Minister of Agriculture and Food, with respect to land-use planning.

Frankly, that’s the last we have heard about the report. I don’t know whether the minister went into a state of shock from which he hasn’t recovered, or not. I am interested, for instance, if the minister is going to undertake an indexing of all farm land in the province. If not, why not?

Is the minister going to define a farmer and have the programmes apply only to those people so defined? Is the minister inclined to assume a veto power over all farm land before it can be used for development? These are things I would be interested in. I want to hear the minister’s views. If not, why not?

I think the report deserves to get better treatment than to lie on the shelf and collect dust. Are we going to get any action in the direction the report suggests? I think we are entitled to know.

In summary then, I think the committee made a pertinent observation when it said:

“The committee was impressed by the frequent statements made at the meeting that, in consideration of the dwindling number of producers and farmers and the ever-increasing importance of agriculture in all respects in Ontario, the Ministry of Agriculture and Food should intensify its ongoing efforts to actively promote public understanding of the industry and its problems.”

The minister hasn’t done very much of that, I don’t think. He has left it for the most part to the federal minister, and I think it’s about time this minister did his share too.

Finally, I think it’s fair to say that the conditions in agriculture are changing so rapidly today that much of our conventional wisdom is going to have to be re-examined. For instance, there’s still a feeling that specialization is still the best way to provide cheap food for Canada. I’m not really so sure. Specialization has been a very popular piece of advice by agricultural experts over the past 10 years or so but specialization depends on constant prices of fossil fuels. We all know what happened there in the last number of months.

An hon. member: That’s for sure.

Mr. Gaunt: We have seen another increase just a few weeks ago. That increase alone will raise costs to the farmer by at least five per cent. It will mean another seven per cent increase in food prices.

Mr. I. Deans (Wentworth): At least.

Mr. Gaunt: At least. Over half of the price increase in food this year was the direct result of fossil fuel price increases. This is something that has not been widely publicized, but there it is. I think our agricultural industry is going to have to ease back into diversification because of the energy price increases mainly. There are other reasons too. I think it lowers the risk. There is the old saying that when one doesn’t have one’s eggs in one basket one has a better chance to survive. I think that the rapidly changing circumstance that we’ve seen in the last number of months has certainly underlined that wise piece of advice.

I think we are going to have to foster an agricultural industry that is ultimately energy-saving, environmentally cost-reducing and is land-saving. This will involve altering the structure of the agricultural industry so we can feed ourselves and others. After all, Mr. Chairman, as farmers that’s our job.

Mr. Chairman: Does the hon. minister wish to reply at this time?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Mr. Chairman, I regret the fact that the critic of the NDP is not here with us today. He told us he would be out campaigning for the federal party but for me to go ahead and make whatever comments were appropriate to remarks which he made.

Mr. Deans: On a point of order, that is fine and I don’t mind the jest, but in fact he is not out campaigning for the federal party. He has a speaking engagement which required him to be out of town both Monday and Tuesday of this week, which has nothing whatever to do with the federal election at all.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: As a matter of clarification, I will accept my hon. friend’s explanation of why the agricultural critic of the NDP isn’t here. He told both myself and the House leader that he would be out on commitments he had made to the federal party for the federal election. If that’s wrong, I accept the explanation. There is no problem. The fact of the matter is he isn’t here.

Mr. J. Riddell (Huron): He has since felt it would be a waste of time.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: That could well be. My guess is that, regardless of his efforts, they will be as fruitless as they have been over the last 30 years, including anybody else in that party.

Mr. Chairman, let me continue to talk about the things which my hon. friend, the agricultural critic of the NDP talked about last Friday. He talked about the need -- that there was no long-term policy for agriculture in the Province of Ontario nor in Canada. I just have to wonder a wee bit about this need for long-term agricultural policy planning. I don’t know for the life of me, and I’ve been around this place for a long time both as a farmer and as a minister in this province --

Mr. M. Cassidy (Ottawa Centre): The minister is against it. Is that right?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: -- how one can make long-term policy planning in agriculture. Just let’s get a few illustrations on the record.

In 1968 and 1969 and following in 1970 and 1971 we had such enormous surpluses of grain, Mr. Chairman, in this country of ours, in the United States and, in fact, in the grain-growing countries of the world that there was virtually no export market for it. Now we talk about long-term planning. The long-term planning that went into the reason for that surplus was that in the previous time of shortage we were told that we could grow all the grain we could and there would be a market for it.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: That was what Diefenbaker and Alvin Hamilton said.

Mr. Deans: They thought so. Obviously they were wrong.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: The time came when the surpluses of that commodity built up to the point where there was no market for it.

Mr. Deans: It was obviously wrong.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: If there is long-term planning that’s the result.

Let’s take a look at what the federal government did, and I supported the federal government, in the LIFT programme -- lower inventories for tomorrow. It was as plain as the nose on anyone’s face that if there had not been something done to relieve the incredible position the western farmer found himself in, he was going to do just what my hon. friend from Huron-Bruce suggested a moment ago -- diversify; and he diversified into livestock production. As soon as the western farmer diversifies into livestock production, unless there are enormous export markets found for his production, those commodities have no other place to go but to the large urban areas of eastern Canada. That’s exactly what happened.

I raised the point at federal-provincial conferences of the ministers of agriculture -- there are two held each year -- and I raised this point particularly because we were expressing great concern in the Province of Ontario over the attempt being made by the western governments. Really, I didn’t blame them at all, but we were concerned with the net results -- and expressed it to the federal officials -- of the increase in hog production, to use one illustration, and the incentive programmes which were introduced at the time of the grain surpluses in western Canada. There was nowhere else for that production to go but east. We were told, “Don’t worry a bit about it; there can’t be sufficient increase in pork production to jeopardize the eastern Canadian markets.” There would be markets found in the United States; there would be offshore markets found. Fine and dandy -- but those markets were not found until after pork prices had dropped to the $19 to $20 dressed-weight price and there is no possible way that a farmer in this day and age, even in the early 1970s, could hope to make a living from that kind of price structure.

The federal government stepped in and simply suggested there should be farmers paid not to grow grain, to convert some of the less productive grain-growing areas of western Canada into forage production areas, to boost the grass and forage which could be used for an expansion in the beef industry. Heaven only knows there looked to be a need for an expansion in the beef industry, based on the current increases in per capita consumption of beef both in Canada and in the United States and, in fact, the world over.

Now that happened. It’s a fact of life. But what’s the net result? Today we have an increase in beef production which I believe has gone far beyond the contemplation of anyone associated with the industry in any way three or four years ago. We have a decrease in the per capita consumption of beef -- in the United States particularly -- of a substantial amount, around 6 lb per capita. Multiply that by the per capita of the population of the United States and you have an enormous decrease in total tonnage of beef use. These are matters of great concern.

Then we come along with the energy crisis which has affected the whole world. There is no question that some of the pork contracts made with, say, Japan and eastern markets have fallen into jeopardy because Japan is now buying oil and paying increased prices for that oil. The Japanese are virtually totally dependent on it and they are diverting dollars which could’ve been used and would’ve been used to purchase food on the one hand to paying increased prices for oil on the other hand. As a result, much of that export market to Japan has ceased to exist and our western farmers, in both Manitoba and in Alberta, who negotiated contracts with the Japanese trading syndicates for substantial exports of pork now find themselves in some jeopardy, at least with that price structure.

We are advised as of yesterday that Japan has closed the door to all imports of beef from New Zealand and Australia. This again will have an adverse effect on the Canadian beef price structure because our imports of beef from New Zealand and Australia have increased 40 per cent in this period of 1974 in comparison with the similar period of 1973.

These are the things that I have to wonder a bit about when we talk about long-term policy in agriculture. It’s a great idea; it looks great on paper; it’s a wonderful thing to talk about. I suppose I am as guilty as anyone for having said in the past we need long-term policy for agriculture. But just how effective can it be when one takes into consideration the unknowns that happen on a worldwide basis insofar as agricultural food production is concerned? It is a very difficult aim. I just want to point out that it is not just all sweetness and light insofar as that is concerned.

My hon. friend from York South enunciated five different points that he called the foundation stones of the NDP. Well, they may be. I don’t know what the NDP would do in the Province of Ontario if, heaven forbid, they ever were to take power. My guess is they never will, and I don’t think we have to worry very much about it. But I am a bit concerned to hear of some of the things that are suggested.

Mr. Cassidy: Why spend so long in your speech talking about it then?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: We can only judge what the NDP will do by other provinces.

My hon. friend from the islands -- he is afraid to live in Ottawa any longer; he has come to Toronto and lives on the islands -- interjects here on an agricultural debate about which he knows less than nothing.

Mr. Cassidy: I have been around a few farms.

Mr. Deans: He is not learning much listening to you.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Let me suggest this; I would just like to read, Mr. Chairman, if I might --

Mr. Cassidy: I have been learning a lot from the farmers of eastern Ontario. I learned a lot from the farmers where the Tories didn’t show up.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: I would like to know who invited the people? Was it the NDP-NFU group in eastern Ontario that extended the invitations? Because none reached my office, either verbally or written; and let the record so show.

Mr. Cassidy: That was the Ontario Federation of Agriculture.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: All right. Then why didn’t they send an invitation to us? We knew nothing about it.

Mr. Cassidy: You ask them; I don’t know. We understand that they invited Conservative after Conservative and nobody would come.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: We never heard one word about it. Not a word.

Mr. Cassidy: Maybe you can ask them.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Let’s see how the NDP uses the farmers. In the one province where there has been an NDP government longer than anywhere else in this country of ours -- and my guess is that if the farmers really get to know what the NDP will really do, they won’t be around much longer in Manitoba either.

Mr. Cassidy: They have been re-electing New Democrats there for years.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Let’s just listen to this. This is an editorial in the Winnipeg Free Press, Dec. 3, 1973; it is titled, “Pork Barrel?”

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Deans: You can understand the editorial is not necessarily a reflection of the public view.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Listen, if you fellows are so sure of your position, I am sure you will want to hear this, because you’ll enthusiastically endorse what your government is doing in Manitoba.

“Manitoba pork producers are beginning to question the Japanese pork contract about which the provincial government was so enthusiastic. While consumer prices are at the highest point in recent times, producers claim they are not getting their share of the high prices because they are subsidizing the poor business acumen of the provincial government.

“A director of the Manitoba Hog Producers’ Marketing Board has put the subsidy at between $7,000 and $8,000 a day” --

Mr. Deans: Terrible. That reminds me of the $120-million subsidy to machinery manufacturers in Ontario.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: To continue:

“As matters stand, it is impossible to prove or to disprove these claims because, according to the director, the government refuses to permit the men elected to run hog marketing in Manitoba access to the contract. [Man, does that government ever support the farmers!] No businessman would accept the government’s explanation for the refusal, that it is not good business for the directors of a corporation to know the day-to-day operations of the business for which they are responsible.

“The government, however, may soon have to account for its dealings. Last week, a meeting of hog producers voted for the resignation of the present board chairman, Max Hofford, and for the termination of any further pork shipments to Japan until the contract terms are made public.

“The producers timed their demand to coincide with their takeover of control of the marketing board. Until now the government, through its appointed members, has controlled the board’s action. But this control is ending as more districts become eligible to elect their own representatives.

“While the Hog Producers’ Marketing Board exists, it does so by government decree, not by the wishes of the producers as reflected in a free vote” --

Mr. Cassidy: Wait a minute. The NDP is liberating the hog farmers there. It is probably remembering the Tories.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Going on:

“At the moment most board decisions are based on an even split of appointed and elected members with the government retaining control through its appointed chairman whose resignation has been demanded. The provincial government, faced with loss of control of its own creature, the marketing board, is now, as the government commonly does in such situations, proposing to change the rules.

“Last week Agriculture Minister Sam Uskiw professed to see dark, political motives behind the actions of the producers and said if this were so then the government must consider changing the format of the board and making an all government-appointed board. [So much for democracy.] At the same time, the government has been trying to transfer any effective power the Manitoba board may have to an interprovincial superboard which will have appointed members only from Manitoba. It has already agreed to commit Manitoba hog producers to absorb any deficit run up by the superboard, while allowing any surplus to be credited only and not distributed.”

Mr. A. Carruthers (Durham): That’s socialism.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: To continue:

“Manitoba hog producers naturally are worried at these machinations. They are even more worried about the possibility of many farmers getting out of hog production as a result. Should this happen, the government could be left with a contract and no means of filling it, which leads to the possibility of the government using this as an excuse to get into both the hog production and processing fields.”

So much for socialism, Mr. Chairman, as my friend, the member for Durham, very well suggests down here at the end of the line.

Mr. Cassidy: Why don’t you talk about the Ontario hog producers and what you are doing for them?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Really and truly, I think that editorial article so aptly describes what really happens when socialism takes over and, believe you me, it sure has in Manitoba. There it is.

Mr. Deans: Wait a minute. The Tories control the press across the country.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: I’m just saying that, and there is no denial that I’ve seen of any of these comments.

Mr. Deans: What’s the point? It is an editorial comment by a Conservative editor.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: It sure is. It is factual, though, isn’t it. Is that a Conservative paper?

Mr. Deans: It is a Conservative editor writing in a Conservative paper.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Is it really? Who is the editor?

Mr. Deans: One editorial comment.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: A Conservative editor, now who is he? My hon. friend doesn’t know. Let the record show that he hasn’t a clue.

Mr. Deans: The editorials are almost without exception an expression of newspaper ideology.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: This is your finest hour.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Mr. Chairman, the twiddle-twaddle from over there doesn’t amount to a hill of beans. Let’s forget it.

Mr. Cassidy: The Free Press is one of the most reactionary newspapers in the country and it has conducted a vendetta against the government ever since 1969.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Has it really?

Mr. Deans: It predicted the demise of the government.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: My hon. friend talks about a prices review mechanism and he talks about the Manitoba fertilizer study and he refers to various things that have happened in our province in comparison with what has happened in that socialist Utopia to which they like to refer in Manitoba.

Mr. Deans: Why don’t you read a few editorials about those things too?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Let me say this, that that group out there have had that report since last fall. They’ve gone through the whole processing facility of getting the fertilizer out to the farmers this year and haven’t done one single, solitary thing about the report which was referred to the other day.

Mr. Deans: You mean it has been sitting since away last fall?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: They talk about review of prices. There hasn’t been one single thing done by any NDP government in western Canada regarding prices review at retail level, not a thing. Let’s get the record straight on those kind of things.

Mr. Cassidy: The prices are set right here in Toronto and you won’t touch them.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Mr. Chairman, I come to my friend from Huron-Bruce. He makes reference as well to the prices review board and suggests that Mrs. Plumptre should be taken to task for some of the things that have been said.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Behind the woodshed, he said.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Yes, as a matter of fact, he suggests she should be taken out behind the barn -- I think I’ll leave that reference out at the moment.

I would just like to suggest that some of the people she has working for her seem to have made up their minds before they ever started to work concerning the validity, the merit or the wisdom of established marketing boards.

I refer, of course, to Prof. Forbes of the University of British Columbia who was supposed to be one of her chief thinkers and investigators. I would like to say that his contribution can be rated as an absolute disaster even before it is ever heard of. If he starts out on that premise about farm marketing boards, about which he admits he knows nothing, then to my way of thinking we will not learn very much from that kind of an input.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Didn’t you rake him over the coals last fall too? Play that through again.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: The high input costs are here. There is no question of that; it is a fact of life. I have a copy of the stabilization programme, as announced by Mr. Whelan, relative to hogs.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: All rise.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: I think the income stabilization scheme which my friend from Huron-Bruce referred to a moment ago does have a good deal of merit in many respects. One can take that route or they can take the route that Mr. Whelan announced in his stabilization programme.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: You don’t want a freeze on those things, you want a 90-day freeze on that stuff.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: When we went into the ministers’ conference last year in Prince Edward Island, the federal minister and his officials came along. One of the items on the agenda was the matter of commodity stabilization programmes. The subject was introduced by the chairman, Mr. Alex Campbell, the Premier of Prince Edward Island and the Minister of Agriculture. I think that’s a very fitting co-ordinative approach, quite frankly.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I thought you would have thought about that earlier.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Of course -- but it seems a little late to me now. I thought it was a very fitting tribute to one of the provincial ministers of agriculture that he be the Premier as well. I am sorry that he has relinquished the position.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Too bad you never had any ambition.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Yes, that is very true. One has to have ambition for those kinds of things.

The matter of stabilization programmes was introduced because Prince Edward Island was proposing to embark upon a programme of commodity stabilization for hogs. They enunciated their programme and it seemed like quite a sensible thing for them to be doing. It really didn’t have much of an impact upon the rest of the country because I don’t believe the hog production of Prince Edward Island is enough to meet their provincial demands. They are short of pork in Prince Edward Island. So it didn’t have any impact on the rest of the country.

The question that was raised by other ministers and deputies there was what was going to happen across Canada. Obviously, as my friend suggested, in the Agricultural Stabilization Act as it now exists there is a 10-year averaging period. With the escalating cost factors which were evident last midsummer and which have continued to escalate ever since, such an averaging factor just really didn’t make much common sense. So we were quite enthusiastic that something should be done to improve that stabilization programme. Suggestions were made concerning reducing it to three years, to five years and to upping it from 80 per cent to 90 per cent of the average over that period, making it a more realistic programme in light of today’s economy.

However, the federal minister -- and I thought this was interesting and quite significant -- suggested that if there was to be such a programme introduced, there would have to be supply management tied right into the programme. I suppose that one could agree with that type of position. I think we all can recall the days when fairly substantial support prices were established in Canada without the limitations of supply management, and we had enormous surpluses built up of butter and cheese and powdered milk and other commodities as well.

So it seemed to take some rational approach as far as the federal minister was concerned. However, prices continued to escalate and in late August we got word that there was likely to be a meeting called in September. I believe the Prime Minister of Canada instructed his Minister of Agriculture to invite all the agricultural officials to Ottawa to discuss the rapidly escalating food costs and how there could be a better means provided of encouraging food production in Canada.

We accepted the invitation to come to Ottawa. We talked about very many things, chiefly the matter of stabilization of prices. Strangely enough, in the Ottawa meeting that was held in September, there was no mention made whatever of supply management. It was to be stabilization of prices -- to get food production increased -- but there was nothing said about supply management. I think that is significant.

There were several suggestions made by the federal people at that meeting and commented on by the provincial people. As a result of that meeting, there were two further meetings held -- one in Ottawa and one in Winnipeg. Officials of the 10 provincial ministries and the federal minister’s department met to discuss the various items that had been introduced by the federal minister at his Sept. 27 conference. Among them were stabilization programmes, export development programmes, farm labour, supplies, those kind of things that have a very definite bearing on matters of concern to food production.

As a result of the meetings held in Ottawa and Winnipeg, our staff made a presentation to me, as minister, based on their discussions and we decided to meet with the Ontario Federation of Agriculture which had asked for a meeting to discuss with them matters of commodity stabilization programmes. As a result of that series of meetings and our final position, after a great deal of reflection I addressed a letter to the federal minister dated Dec. 17, 1973. I do not wish to read the entire five-page letter, but I would like to read the first two pages because I think it is pertinent. It sets out Ontario’s position vis-à-vis stabilization programmes and provincial commodity stabilization programmes.

“Dear Mr. Whelan,

“On Nov. 19, 1973, you wrote asking for comments on a number of proposals which you made at the meeting of ministers of agriculture on Sept. 27, and discussed in greater detail at staff meetings held subsequently in Ottawa and Winnipeg. We have given a good deal of consideration to these proposals. There are a number of comments I would like to make respecting the suggestion that amendments be made to the Agricultural Stabilization Act. Our discussions in Ontario lead us to believe that farmers in this province share the belief that at present support levels the Act is simply not doing what it was intended to do, namely protect them from the vagaries of the marketplace and provide long-term stability.

“Your proposals of (a) shortening the base period, (b) increasing the number of named commodities, and (c) introducing a cost factor into the base price calculations, probably would have some benefit. But we in Ontario question whether the changes are broad enough or extensive enough to suffice.

“We also noted with some interest that your proposal concerning these amendments to the Agricultural Stabilization Act make no reference to the related matter of supply management which, you will recall, you felt was essential when the matter was discussed at the ministers’ conference in Prince Edward Island in July. There may be sound reasons for omitting reference to supply management in these later discussions, but in Ontario we are of the opinion that a definite and inescapable relationship does exist between the nature of price stabilization programmes and the levels established therein, and the ability to manage and market the products that will flow from our Canadian farms.

“This comment should not be misconstrued as anti-expansional in any sense. Rather I want to go on record as supporting wholeheartedly the philosophy of maximizing our production, of expanding our markets, both at home and abroad. However we must ensure that our production is geared to meet known markets, that it will not become unmanageable, that it will not back up storage in Canada, burdening the taxpayers, depressing prices and demoralizing rural people. It is for this reason I embrace with a good deal of enthusiasm an agricultural export development system.

“In our discussions with the representatives of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture it became abundantly clear that the Agricultural Stabilization Act, even in its present form, or subject to the proposed amendments, would not be accepted. The Ontario Federation of Agriculture and its parent organization, the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, stand fast on the principle that only when producers have price guarantees based on cost-to-production will the levels of output advocated by the government of Canada be assured.

“This proposal is consistent with the aims and objectives of your department as set out in various papers presented to the several conferences and completely consistent with the strong stand you have taken in your many speeches across this country in recent months. After considerable thought and discussion, Ontario supports this proposition: That agricultural producers be guaranteed minimum prices based on cost of production on that portion of their product that is marketed domestically in Canada. Product in export or offshore sales would be sold at world prices, with the returns pooled but with no price guarantees or support levels to apply.

“Ontario supports this approach to price stabilization, subject to two major conditions:

“1. We believe that price stabilization is a national responsibility and we question the wisdom of the government of Canada entering into special and perhaps differing agreements with individual provinces.

“2. Cost of production statistics could and should be calculated provincially or regionally for the purposes of the kind of price stabilization we propose.

“Ontario is much concerned with the inevitable possibility of interprovincial competition if provincial commodity stabilization programmes are developed, such as the one announced by Saskatchewan, for hogs at a price that could well be considered an incentive to production and might well have sweeping adverse effects on all hog producers in Canada in the long run.

“Ontario takes the position that where any province implements an incentive support programme over and above the levels established in the national programme, the federal government should reduce its guarantees to the producers in that province by a like amount.

“In other words, for each percentage point or cent-per-pound, or comparable measurement, that each provincial programme raises the price guarantee in that province above the national level, the federal government should reduce its guarantee by a like amount to the producers of that commodity in that province.

“In the interests of stability, supply management and long-term security, we simply cannot permit a system to develop where provincial treasuries compete with each other to defeat the intent of national price guarantees and create in their place incentive programmes.”

Mr. Chairman, here are other paragraphs that I could refer to regarding export development, but I believe that sets out our position as far as price stabilization is concerned. We think that it’s a reasonably sound proposal.

As I mentioned here not long ago, in reply to a question that was asked by one of the members of the opposition as to why we were not embarking on some type of commodity stabilization programme here in Ontario, I simply pointed out that there was no possible way that the Ontario Treasury could compete with the treasuries of Alberta and Saskatchewan, with the enormous found money that they now have flowing into those provinces as a result of the energy agreements that have been recently concluded.

Mr. Deans: Why, was your Premier (Mr. Davis) negotiating without adequate preparation?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Oh, of course, but these are facts of life that we have to face, and while we may all object to the increased costs of energy we must recognize, as has been so well pointed out here on numerous occasions, that the price of energy here in this country of ours, at $6.50 a barrel, or $6.70 as the case now is, at the wellhead, is quite different from the $8.50 which pertains in the United States and the $10.50 which pertains on the world market. It’s quite a difference.

Mr. Deans: It’s our oil from our ground belonging to us originally, extracted by multinational corporations.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Then your colleagues at Ottawa should have persuaded the Premier --

Mr. Deans: Your Premier was supposed to be there on behalf of the consumers of Ontario.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: -- to have negotiated a better deal. Before you start yapping about that stuff you should have had your people at Ottawa better quoted than you have today.

Mr. Deans: The Premier of Ontario was there supposedly on behalf of the people of Ontario and he went ill prepared.

Mr. Chairman: Order.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Mr. Chairman, my friend from Huron-Bruce mentions the matter of fertilizer, and I suggest to him that there have been some real problems in fertilizer supplies and sources, and I am not defending the fertilizer companies. I am simply suggesting to you, Mr. Chairman, that had it not been for the opportunities to export fertilizer out of Canada in the last number of years there would be few, if any, fertilizer manufacturing plants in Canada. The total volume of fertilizer used in Ontario, and to some degree in Quebec, to some degree in the Maritimes, but very little used in western Canada other than in British Columbia, up until the last two or three years was virtually insignificant in the total North American market. Our fertilizer companies make no secret of the fact that were it not for the opportunity to use the export markets, that they had available to them south of the border, they really wouldn’t have been justified in trying to meet the demands of such a comparatively small market here in Canada.

Just to go back a moment to before 1973, I think we are all aware of the fact that there were quite a number of fertilizer processing plants in Ontario that simply closed up shop. Some of them sold out to other fertilizer manufacturing companies because there was no return on the investment that was commensurate with good business practices as far as they were concerned. I think they’re all astute businessmen, and if there had been money in the business, they’d have had it. But there wasn’t.

Now, it’s true that nitrogen fertilizer, as we understand it in the modern concept, is a byproduct of the natural gas industry. No question of that at all. But when one considers that it takes twice as much natural gas to make anhydrous ammonia or ammonium fertilizers as it does to make steel, one can also understand the --

Mr. Gaunt: Three times.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Oh, three times as much? There is the problem; it’s an enormous problem.

I have to say to you while natural gas certainly is a product of Canada, so is potash. Neither one of them is produced to any great degree here in Ontario because that material emanates from another province; natural gas from Alberta, and potash from Saskatchewan.

It’s true that today we are totally dependent on Florida for our sources of phosphate rock. There may be other limited supplies that can be developed here in Ontario, and I support my hon. friend in saying that we should be doing all we can along this line, and I believe that it is being done. But the fact remains that while we are exporting from the nitrogen manufacturing plants in Ontario to United States, we are also receiving phosphates from United States to keep our plants operating. Were it not for that exchange, I think we would find ourselves in very grave difficulties.

I have been in conversations with United Co-operatives of Ontario, for instance, which, with other co-operatives across Canada and co-operatives in the United States have embarked on the building of perhaps the largest nitrogen manufacturing plant in all Canada in Alberta, because the sources of natural gas were right there, and because they could get a special agreement from the Alberta government if they were to locate there -- which they as businessmen, and farmer-owned, couldn’t really ignore.

Because we are very dependent on that fertilizer commodity, the first question I asked UCO was, what does this mean to supplies of nitrogen fertilizer for Ontario’s corn crop? And they said they could assure us that there would be increased sources of nitrogen used and provided to Ontario farmers, even though the production of that northwestern plant in Alberta was going to go south of the border. That would generate increased supplies coming this way through UCO contacts and channels. This to me was reassuring, and I have no reason to believe that that is not a valid statement, that it will be adhered to and lived up to in every detail. I have checked again with them just as recently as a few weeks ago, and was again assured that this was indeed a fact.

I really don’t know how one says to these companies who have to negotiate back and forth across international lines, you cannot sell this commodity out of Ontario, when that very company is dependent on sources from the other country to come this way to meet their demands within our province. Trade flows both ways.

I realize that potash is a product, as far as North America is concerned, largely available and produced in Saskatchewan. What can be done to make a bargaining point of that one, I’m not too sure. So far the Saskatchewan government has limited the production of potash in Saskatchewan to meet the known demands, certainly not to produce it in any excess quantities. Again it would appear that supply management is very much a fact of life insofar as they are concerned.

There is one point that I want to raise, Mr. Chairman. I don’t pretend to have all the answers on this one at all; I know very little about it, but I have read a little about it. I was interested in my friend from Huron-Bruce saying we should become more self-sufficient insofar as phosphates are concerned. I completely agree with that. I think we are losing a great many phosphates in not recovering as many phosphates as we possibly can from city sludge from our various sewage disposal plants throughout Ontario, throughout Canada, when one recognizes the enormous amount of phosphates that are removed from the soil each year just by the growing of wheat, by corn, and by the various cereals which are used in food products, either for livestock or for humans.

As far as livestock foods recovery is concerned, we have stressed, we have promoted and I think we have succeeded in convincing most farmers in Ontario of the wisdom of maintaining and recycling animal wastes into the soil; one of the best sources of fertilizer we have at hand on many of these farms. This has been done.

I don’t think we have made the same attempt at recovery of phosphates from city sludge. I have asked our staff if we can get all the information possible on how this can be accomplished. I make the suggestion, Mr. Chairman, that in our Agricultural Research Institute of Ontario we might look upon that as of top priority because I believe it might help solve some of the problems that my friend, the minister of the Environment (Mr. W. Newman), has and perhaps others as well.

It seems to me this is a decreasing natural resource, which it obviously is in this North American continent. The very fact that phosphate rocks are relatively scarce throughout the world and that the phosphates mined in Florida, if shipped to the European market instead of to the Ontario market would sell for twice as much as they sell for here, is indicative of the enormous worldwide demand there is for phosphate fertilizers. I don’t think we can afford to have those phosphates lost to us when it can be prevented.

My friend from Huron-Bruce referred as well to land-use planning. Of course, Mr. Chairman, this is a subject which could embrace the rest of the afternoon, all evening and all the rest of the time. It is virtually a limitless subject to discuss and I don’t pretend to do that. I say I support the philosophy that there simply has to be a greater input from the Ministry of Agriculture and Food into decisions made on where housing units are located throughout Ontario and where industrial development takes place when the decisions are made for the future -- not one year, two years or five years from now but 25 and 50 years from now, as this province develops.

I feel very keenly, Mr. Chairman, that the time has come when all of us have to take a much more serious look at decisions to locate; even the desirability of locating within this area -- by “this area” I refer to the Toronto-centred region -- and the development of lands which could perhaps be better used for agriculture or food production.

Mr. R. Haggerty (Welland South): You should have read those lines 10 years ago.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: I believe there are areas, Mr. Chairman, where development could take place -- within driving distance of Toronto -- where the total agricultural production of the province would not be very adversely affected. Those areas are defined now on the soils map that we have for the Province of Ontario and it seems to me we are going to have to pay more attention to it.

I would say, however, the decisions made over the years, prior to midsummer, 1973, were made in the realm of and with the full knowledge that we had enormous surpluses of agricultural food products throughout Canada. When anyone in the opposition parties or anyone in the organizations or agricultural groups across Ontario, or the Minister of Agriculture and Food in Ontario for that matter raised a voice concerning the need to preserve agricultural lands, we were told immediately “Look at the surpluses you have. People are being paid not to grow; what’s the need to preserve this agricultural land?”

I suggest to you, Mr. Chairman, that was before the year 1973. The year 1973 brought us up very sharply. It put everything into perspective, it put everything into focus on what could happen when adverse weather conditions pertained around the world and food supplies became short.

Mr. Haggerty: Where were your experts?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: My friend, my experts were at the same place as the experts of your party in Ottawa. They are not mind readers and they can’t gaze into crystal balls and predict weather conditions throughout the world.

Mr. Haggerty: There have been many reports of food shortages.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: I think we have to recognize the fact -- and if you had been listening to what I said a few moments ago about long-term policy and planning in agriculture, you would realize there simply is no way you can possibly accurately plan those kinds of things.

Mr. Haggerty: You are about 10 years too late. Ten years too late.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Of course, my hon. friend suggests we’re 10 years too late, but I will tell my hon. friend, Mr. Chairman, through you, and he may not agree, but he himself was espousing the fact of the necessity of land-use planning. I am sure he was. How many people -- no, he shakes his head that he wasn’t. So even he didn’t agree there was any need for land-use planning. Let the record show that.

Now let’s see about this Kowal report, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Haggerty: All you have to do is go back and look at the record and it will tell you what I said. But you sit over there and you won’t listen to anybody from this side; only your own experts.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: The Kowal report, Mr. Chairman, is now before the various ministries of the government which are affected in any way by its recommendations. We expect a decision will be made as to the implementation or otherwise, or acceptance or otherwise, of the various recommendations in the report within the next few weeks. It is under active consideration at the moment. I am surprised that there hasn’t been more reaction from the public to the report which was published. I think it’s generally well accepted. I think people expect that there should be indexing of the types of farms we have --

Mr. Gaunt: Mr. Chairman, may I ask a question?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: By all means.

Mr. Gaunt: Has the Ministry of Agriculture and Food taken a position on the report insofar as other ministries are concerned? I think the other night in debate the Minister of Revenue (Mr. Meen) said, “Well, we’re waiting on the Minister of Agriculture and Food to indicate to us his feeling about some of the recommendations.”

We were talking about defining a farmer. Have you indicated your preferences?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: I don’t recall the conversation my hon. friend refers to. But I can say that as far as the report is concerned, we have submitted it to various people. There is a co-ordinating committee within the government that has been set up to review the positions taken by the various ministries. Whenever that consensus is arrived at there will be a government position taken. My guess is that most of it will be implemented, with the exception of recommendation 11, which is the one that suggests that the Minister of Agriculture and Food should have full veto powers over all other ministries within the government.

I said to the chairman when the report was made public that I thought he had gone plenty far in making that suggestion. To me this would simply mean that the Ministry of Agriculture and Food would have to develop the same type of expertise and staff as is now in some of the other ministries.

Mr. Gaunt: You should have input though.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Yes, exactly. I have made that statement publicly on numerous occasions. In fact I just did that, Mr. Chairman, a moment or two ago, when I suggested that the Ministry of Agriculture and Food, in my opinion, would have to have a great deal more input into decisions made by other ministries, and in the formulation of government policies as to the using of class 1 and 2 agricultural lands for other than food production. I feel very keenly about that. I believe this already has been an accepted policy by the government, certainly by the Premier, and I would suggest to you that this is already in effect.

We have a food lands development committee established within our ministry now. This committee is charged with the responsibility of making the best possible use we can of lands being held for future development by the government or by private developers throughout Ontario.

We feel that that land, even though it may be acquired by someone other than the original farmer, should be kept in production where possible. We are going to do everything we can to accomplish that objective. Surprisingly, in surveys to date it would appear that pretty good use is being made of a good deal of land that’s being held, particularly by private developers. It would appear, as well, that some land acquired by the Province of Ontario is now being leased back to the farmer who originally owned it, or being leased to those who wish to come in, some of them on fairly sizable acreages.

My friend mentioned specialization in food products, Mr. Chairman. I share his concern. He mentioned diversification in agricultural production. I would share that too. On the other hand, one has to realize the enormous capital investment in too much diversification in some areas.

I think of some farmers who have a full line of equipment to harvest cereal grains, a full line of equipment to harvest com, a full line of equipment to harvest hay and all the rest of it. That all costs money, and a great many of them have seen fit to specialize and thereby eliminate at least two lines of that equipment, or in some cases only one line.

There are others who are saying they will go all to beef, all to dairy, all to hogs or all to poultry; and, of course, when the bottom falls out of the market, then they find themselves like the proverbial fellow who is carrying all his eggs in one basket and happens to slip. That really is a concern. But I think it is an individual matter that has to be resolved by a person taking into consideration all of the factors that are to be considered when one makes that kind of a decision.

I would hate us to stand up here -- and I am sure my hon. friend is not suggesting this -- and decree, by some type of legislation or regulation, that “thou shalt not do any of these kind of things;” that is, specialize. I think this is determined by the local person.

Mr. Cassidy: No, but you didn’t observe with concern the working of market forces in affecting prices.

Mr. Chairman: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Well, I’ll tell you. I don’t know what you are observing, but I do know that it hasn’t produced the slightest ray of light whatever in that mind of yours as far as agriculture is concerned -- not even a smidgeon. So don’t start telling me anything about what agriculture does.

Mr. Cassidy: I will be here long after you leave this place.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Mr. Chairman, I present these estimates for the consideration of the members of the Legislature, and I will be pleased to debate the various items that are here. We think they are realistic, that they make sound common sense, and we will be pleased to support them. Thank you.

On vote 1701:

Mr. Chairman: I think we could take vote 1701 as a whole. Would that be agreeable to the members?

Mr. Gaunt: Mr. Chairman, are you going to take it item by item or are you going to take the vote in full?

Mr. Chairman: The first vote would appear to go together as a whole. If you wish it item by item, that’s fine.

Mr. Gaunt: I think item by item would be better.

Mr. Chairman: All right. Item 1, main office. The member for Huron-Bruce.

Mr. Gaunt: Mr. Chairman, on the main office I am interested in reviewing the spending estimates associated with this ministry.

In looking over the entire picture, I notice that in a good many cases the salaries and wages are down; some are down substantially. However, in the main office the salaries and wages are up substantially. Specifically, last year it was $247,900, while this year it is $338,900, which translates itself to me in terms of increased staff. I wonder what increased staff the minister has had recently and whether or not the decreases in the other areas have been brought into the main office?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: There are three more. There is the parliamentary assistant in the main office --

Mr. Haggerty: What’s that for?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: -- one artisan on the museum staff, and one secretary 4. Those are the three who are added to the main office staff.

Mr. Gaunt: Then I take it there has been no transferring of personnel from the other branches into the main office?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: No.

Mr. Chairman: Anything further on the main office?

Mr. Cassidy: Yes, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman: The member for Ottawa Centre.

Mr. Cassidy: I have been looking for the correspondence in my files, Mr. Chairman, but I will have to recall it by memory because I haven’t got a copy of the minister’s reply to me.

Perhaps the minister will recall that some time ago I wrote him a letter and sent along with the letter a very detailed statement about what was happening up at Arnprior, where 70 or 80 farmers were being affected by Ontario Hydro’s plans for the Arnprior dam.

The dam was going to take out about 2,000 acres of land. As far as Hydro was concerned, they felt the land was of no value; but the minister would know that the land included arable land which was under cultivation; it included pasture land; it included some scrub; and it included some land that was part of a family farm, and had been a part of it for, in some cases, up to a century. It has a pretty large value -- not just symbolic but also economic -- to the people who are affected.

The minister, as I recall, simply joined in with his colleagues and decided that he would send that letter on to the then vice-chairman of Hydro, the member for Simcoe North, I think it is -- Simcoe Centre (Mr. Evans). To my knowledge, he did not intervene in any way to bring the concerns of the farmers to bear with the Minister of Energy (Mr. McKeough), with Hydro or with anyone else.

I raise this matter out of concern in a number of different ways, but the specific one is that this minister, as he is so proud to say, does speak on behalf of the farmers. If he doesn’t, nobody else will.

In this particular case, Ontario Hydro had commenced letting contracts for construction work which would have the effect of flooding the land of these farmers. It had no claim to their land. It had been abusing them in the so-called negotiations for their land by asking them to submit an offer to Hydro at which they would be willing to sell, rather than making offers to the farmers. It had no legal title or claim to the land; no notices of expropriation had been filed and yet this land was going to be submerged.

Could the minister say what role he played in protecting the interests of those farmers -- a number of whom are having to move their farms because of the fact that not enough land would be left to keep up a viable farming unit?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: As far as I’m concerned, Mr. Chairman, I think the matter was well handled by the Minister of Energy and the Ontario Hydro vice-chairman. As far as my particular role is concerned, I was instrumental in drafting and developing the Expropriations Act to which these farmers all have access and I think would have the protection of that legislation.

Mr. Cassidy: But apart from that, did the minister look into it personally or did he get any of his people to look into it personally? Did he feel that the farmers’ case was justified? Did he understand their feeling that they wanted to stay on that land, and they did not wish to see their farms demolished and submerged because of the dam?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Mr. Chairman, it wouldn’t really matter whether I said we had or we hadn’t. My hon. friend would still feel that we should have stopped Hydro’s deliberations, or stopped their procedure in developing what they thought was a necessity to control downstream erosion.

Mr. J. E. Stokes (Thunder Bay): Did the minister think the interests of the farmers were well served?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: I think there are very many viewpoints that can be taken on the matter. There was certainly a great deal of discussion that went into the decisions before it was ever made. I believe that it was based on the factual evidence that had been presented by a variety of sources concerning the viability of the land itself. The quality of the land would be well known, since the first soil maps were available, not only to Ontario Hydro but to the people who owned the land itself. Of course, it was available to the people in the opposition parties if they saw fit to use it. In my opinion sufficient and very good research had gone into the project up until that time.

Mr. Cassidy: The minister still hasn’t answered the question. What did he or his staff do in order to meet with the farmers to find out what their concerns and feelings were? Did he look into the matter personally rather than leaving it in the hands of people who, I’m sure he would agree, are not the experts on agriculture as the minister intends to be, or says he is?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Mr. Chairman, our local agricultural representative did provide advice to the local farmers as to what could be done to assist them in finding another location if they had to move out, and to advise them as to what best use could be made if parts of their farms were remaining that were not required by Ontario Hydro.

Mr. Cassidy: Did the ministry look at all into the effects on farmland prices in Renfrew county of a group of 50 or 60 farmers being displaced and going out and seeking new farms, into what was going to happen and how that would affect the total cost of input for farming in the area? Did he feel any concern about that side of the situation?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Mr. Chairman, my friend’s concern expressed today about the cost of present farmland values is hardly consistent with his mouthings in the last few weeks concerning the bill which my friend and colleague, the Minister of Revenue, put through the House last night. They are hardly consistent, so that in my opinion there were mighty --

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: -- few farmers involved who would have to go out and purchase additional land.

Mr. Cassidy: Mr. Chairman, I find this rather difficult to accept. I had understood before I came down here and I understood afterwards, because the minister has been playing the role, that this is the fellow who speaks on behalf of the farmers. In this case I have had one or two meetings with farmers in the area. They’ve made it very clear that money was not their object, therefore the procedures of the Expropriations Act were as irrelevant to this matter as the minister’s reference to the Land Speculation Tax Act.

In this case the farmers not only wished to stay on their land, but as people who owned the land which was subject to some degree of erosion, and had been subject to erosion for long before hydro-electricity was invented, they felt that alternative means were workable and should be seriously explored before Hydro went ahead with its project.

Not only that, Mr. Chairman, they felt offended at the arrogant way the government proceeded. Whether it was Hydro or the Minister of Energy or the Minister of Agriculture and Food, didn’t much matter as far as they’re concerned. They lumped it all together as government. They felt that government had acted in an extraordinarily arrogant fashion towards them. They found that their land was going to be flooded by a project and they had had absolutely no input. They had not had their day in court, and they would not have their day in court, according to the law, until the hearing necessary under the Expropriations Act which, in fact, has yet to be heard. By now, something like $15 million or $20 million worth of contracts have been let for this project.

The farmer has considered very seriously going to the courts ahead of time in order to seek an injunction to stop the project until the valid points they were raising could get serious consideration by the government and other interested parties. They found, however, that in the way the law works in the Province of Ontario they simply could not take that risk. Even if one farmer were to go to court and they had all supported him, he would have borne the risk, not just of damages, but of double damages if a temporary injunction had been granted, and then subsequently repealed when the application for a permanent injunction was heard.

Now that risk, since double damages meant double what Hydro was spending on the contracts per diem, meant that one day of stopping the project, the way that the law was tailored in the Province of Ontario, could have incurred a liability up to $60,000, maybe $100,000 -- who knows how much they are spending up there? It’s very high.

Does the minister not understand that the people in that area were looking for someone to speak for them? They wound up coming to me, as an opposition member and somebody who represents a very urban riding -- as the minister never forgets -- because their member, the member for Renfrew South (Mr. Yakabuski), simply didn’t take an interest. The surrounding members, the member for Lanark, if he’s here, or the member for Renfrew North (Mr. Hamilton), and the member for Carleton (Mr. Handleman), didn’t want to get involved --

Mr. D. J. Wiseman (Lanark): We met with them too, Mike.

Mr. Cassidy: -- even though two of those three members had properties directly affected, and the Minister of Agriculture and Food refused to get involved as well.

Who is it farmers should go to to speak for their concerns, and who is it, Mr. Chairman, who will speak?

Mr. Wiseman: They went to their members.

Hon. S. B. Handleman (Minister of Housing): They went to their members.

Mr. Cassidy: Sure they went to their member --

Hon. Mr. Handleman: And the member spoke for them.

Mr. Cassidy: -- and the member met with them. That was the last thing that was heard. I am glad the member for Lanark is in the House.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Why?

Mr. Wiseman: I met with them on Saturday again.

Mr. Cassidy: On Saturday the member met with them?

Mr. Wiseman: Again.

Mr. Cassidy: Again, that’s fine. I’ve met with them again and again as well --

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. Cassidy: -- but not a word was said by the member for Lanark, not a jot or tittle of government policy has been changed. The government juggernaut has not been deflected by an inch by the member for Lanark, nor by the member for Renfrew South nor by the member for Carleton who just happens to be here. They simply refused to get involved in any public way. Or even, I have to judge from the evidence, in any way at the backbench level, or the caucus level, or in the cabinet.

Maybe the minister can say what he was doing on behalf of this group of 60 or 75 farmers behind the scenes. If he wants to tell us that he worked effectively behind the scenes, that it is not the government’s way to work in public, I think that that should go on the record. And we should find out what he has done. But so far, I gather, nothing was done. He simply left is to the good judgement of his friend, Mr. Gathercole; his friend, Mr. McKeough; and his friend, Mr. Evans. I don’t think that is good enough as far as the farmers of this province are concerned, knowing that when they need help the Minister of Agriculture and Food who is meant to represent them in the government, wasn’t there.

I think the minister should make no mistake. The Arnprior dam issue is something that doesn’t just affect 10 miles of river and 60 or 70 farms. It’s been covered across the province through “Farm and Country” and other farm publications. It’s been followed right through eastern Ontario; anywhere one goes in eastern Ontario, people know about it. The member for Port Arthur (Mr. Foulds) has had questions about it in his riding, 1,000 miles away. It became a symbolic kind of an issue because the question the people were asking was, “Where was the Minister of Agriculture when those particular farmers needed him?”

Mr. R. G. Hodgson (Victoria-Haliburton): Ever think that might have hurt the case by going through the member?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Shows how far hot air travels.

Mr. Chairman: The member for Huron.

Mr. Cassidy: Maybe the minister wants to reply, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Deans: That was uncalled for.

Mr. Chairman: The member for Huron. Order please.

Mr. Cassidy: I apologize.

Mr. Deans: You apologize too.

Mr. Cassidy: What did he call me?

Mr. Riddell: Mr. Minister, you have been serving in your capacity as Minister of Agriculture and Food for I believe 12 years, since 1962. Perhaps I stand to be corrected on that.

Mr. R. G. Hodgson: An outstanding career.

Mr. Carruthers: And served well.

Mr. Riddell: Yes, there is no question about that.

Mr. Cassidy: For as long as he wants. Discount the tens of thousands who have left farming in that time.

An hon. member: The increased production in that time.

Mr. Riddell: He has piloted the ship through some rather stormy weather, where there has been general unrest amongst the farmers. And you have certainly experienced periods of calm such as we are having at the present time when farm prices are --

Mr. Deans: Wait, for it -- here it comes.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Here comes the bad news.

Mr. Riddell: -- relatively good for farmers. Although the hog and beef producers are not entirely satisfied. But many of the hog producers, and I give them credit, maintain that they have had two or three good years. I haven’t heard too many of them crying because we, as farmers, know that we have got to have one or two bad years once in a while.

But the point I am trying to bring out is that the minister has been able to steer this ship by himself for this period of time. I mean without the assistance of a parliamentary assistant. I realize the minister has got a good many experts helping him out in this matter, but --

Mr. Haggerty: He needs a navigator now though.

Mr. Riddell: -- up to this time the minister hasn’t had to have the services of a parliamentary assistant. At the beginning of this session we read the announcement that the member for Middlesex South (Mr. Eaton) was appointed as parliamentary assistant. And so we see an additional $5,000 of the taxpayers’ money being spent for this assistance.

Many farmers ask me why it is that, all of a sudden, the minister requires the assistance of a parliamentary assistant, particularly at a time --

Mr. Haggerty: As he said Bill, you are working.

Mr. Riddell: -- when we are experiencing, I would say, a period of calm amongst the farmers.

There have been some rumblings. I believe there was a small article in the “London Free Press” not too long ago that the Minister of Agriculture and Food was not going to seek re-election at the dissolution of this parliament. I am wondering if it is a case of where a man is being groomed for your position and if so I am just wondering what the qualifications are for a man to follow in your footsteps.

In my way of thinking, he is a man that should have a sound agricultural background and have been a successful farmer. I also feel he should have a rapport with farmers, the same as a teacher must have a rapport with his students. I think he has to have a good, all-round knowledge of agriculture.

An hon. member: He must be full of beans.

Mr. Riddell: I just can’t see, on that side of the House, a person who meets those qualifications. I’m a little concerned, but maybe I shouldn’t be because I fully expect there will be a change in government next year. I concur with you that it certainly won’t be the NDP that forms the next government.

Mr. P. D. Lawlor (Lakeshore): Oh, don’t count on it.

Mr. Deans: That’s what they said in Manitoba and that’s what they said in British Columbia.

Mr. Riddell: If it is the case where the Liberals form the next government, I think we have a man here who is fully qualified to carry on in that position.

I am concerned about this particular matter. First of all, I’m wondering if we can justify that $5,000 expense at this point in time. Then I’m wondering if you are prepared to make recommendations to the Premier if you are thinking of vacating the ship next year, as to whom you might think should qualify for it. It’s an important position and I think we’ve got to have a good man in there.

Mr. R. F. Ruston (Essex-Kent): An early retirement?

Mr. Haggerty: Who is it?

Mr. Gaunt: They won’t let the minister retire -- no way.

Mr. L. Maeck (Parry Sound): We’d hate to see him go.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Mr. Chairman, I am far too modest to suggest that I have any ideas as to what the appropriate definition of the Minister of Agriculture and Food is. Let me suggest this, however, that I’ve been surrounded by an excellent staff for the last 12 years. They made my responsibilities much easier to accommodate, and most of them are here today.

Mr. Lawlor: That’s the one thing that has buoyed you up.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: I would be the last, Mr. Chairman, in any way to suggest that any of the calm waters through which we are passing today are attributable to my personal genius in any way, shape or form. It certainly is something that has been a team effort in our ministry. I like to think that our ministry represents a very substantial and very profound team effort in all of its endeavours.

With regard to why I required a parliamentary assistant, I can suggest this to you, Mr. Chairman; as far as I’m concerned the workload has, I would say, intensified by at least 300 per cent in the last 12 years. I don’t think there is any question of a doubt about that at all. We have employed more staff. There was a time when I didn’t have any executive assistant. I have had one for the last six years. I suppose the same questions could have been asked at that time. There is no possible way that one man can carry a workload such as I have carried throughout the years, and as it continues to build, hope to keep on top of it.

So I have no apologies whatever to offer to anyone on the appointment of a parliamentary assistant to the Ministry of Agriculture and Food. I certainly feel that the present incumbent, the appointee of the Premier in the person of the member for Middlesex South fits all of the definitions, Mr. Chairman, which my hon. friend described as befitting the Minister of Agriculture and Food. I have the utmost confidence in his ability and in the way he is handling the affairs that have already been assigned to him, which are quite substantial.

Mr. Chairman: Item 1, the member for Ottawa Centre.

Mr. Cassidy: I’ll be brief, Mr. Chairman, because I have to leave in a minute. This isn’t related to the last comment, but I do want to ask the minister, as this has puzzled me for some period of time and I didn’t get a chance to ask it last year, can he explain why it is that he has been so consistently ignoring the National Farmers’ Union and why specifically he refuses to go, as I understand, to their conferences and has so refused to do for the last several years?

It just strikes me as very odd. We had a Minister of Labour (Mr. Guindon), for example, who refused to go to conventions on the invitation of certain labour organizations. It would seem rather bizarre in this province, which has two major farm organizations, that the minister has consistently snubbed the farm union, while he’s been going and obviously has been in touch with the Ontario Federation of Agriculture.

I ask this because I really wonder, now that the Ontario Federation of Agriculture has begun to take a rather more militant line and has become much tougher in terms of defending the interests of farmers and in terms of the things it is saying to the ministry, is the minister going to start snubbing them too, since it appears that it was the radicalism of the farm union that led him to boycott them? Would it be that the minister would boycott the Federation of Agriculture if it happened to stray over to a point beyond the militancy of the farm union, which is quite possible now because both groups are pushed by the kind of crisis in agriculture that has been created in this province and elsewhere due to the cost of inputs and other factors? Why won’t you talk to this group that represents at least a significant number of farmers in the province?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Well once again, Mr. Chairman, my friend from the islands has displayed his abysmal ignorance --

Mr. Deans: That’s wearing a bit thin.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: -- there is no question of that whatever.

Mr. Cassidy: Where do you stay when you are in town?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: He was abysmally ignorant of the facts.

I have never refused to meet with the farmers’ union. As a matter of fact, I have had their executives in my office every year since I have been appointed Minister of Agriculture and Food.

Mr. Cassidy: How many of their conventions have you been to?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: I attended every one of their conventions to which I was invited when they were a provincial organization, but I have never attended their conventions since they became a national organization, nor have I ever attended the Canadian Federation of Agriculture convention in Ontario at any time since I became Minister of Agriculture and Food.

Mr. Deans: Why not?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: That’s the national organization. Now I met, along with the cabinet members of our resource policy field --

Mr. Cassidy: That is nit picking.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: -- with the union. Well, of course it wouldn’t matter what I said. My hon. friend wouldn’t admit that it was right no matter what was said. Because he has that kind of a mind which will not accept the facts except when they are warped to his queer way of thinking. The fact of the matter is, Mr. Chairman --

Interjections by some hon. members.

Mr. Deans: That’s not parliamentary. That’s not parliamentary!

Hon. Mr. Stewart: -- that I have discussed on numerous occasions with the executive of the farmers’ union and have expressed to them a willingness to meet with them any time they want to come to my office. And there I let the matter rest.

Mr. Cassidy: That means, in other words, if they come to you -- regardless of whether they are a national organization or a provincial organization -- you will meet with them. But because they happen to have the two levels subsumed into one organization in Ontario, you will not go to their meetings when they are held in this province?

Mr. Maeck: You are twisting things.

Mr. Cassidy: That seems to be a bizarre situation.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Well, maybe.

Mr. Cassidy: If you wanted to be consistent then you would refuse to meet with them here at the provincial level when they came into the cabinet chambers. Now, obviously that would be unacceptable.

But you draw this strange distinction, and it seems to me that the reason is not because they have become a national organization. It is simply the deliberate effort to snub the NFU, because in the past the Minister of Agriculture and Food kept trying to assure the OFA that it was all right, that he wasn’t going to help the other side.

Now I think that he should be impartial as between a couple of organizations which represent farmers in the province; I don’t think that’s acceptable behaviour on the part of the minister.

Mr. Chairman: The member for Welland South.

Mr. Maeck: Suppose the people of the province think it is acceptable?

Mr. Haggerty: Mr. Chairman, I wasn’t going to enter this debate until the minister and I got into the crossfire across the floor here and he said let the nod stand on the record. Yes, I did nod my head in disgust, or rather disappointment, that the minister would come in at this late date and all of a sudden lay before the Legislature an agricultural land-use programme. If I can recall, when I first came into this Legislature, I think I was one of those persons to get up in the House and say that the minister should have such a land-use programme to preserve our valuable farmlands.

I’ve had literature, and in fact I’ve been a member of organizations in the former county of Welland that have suggested by resolution to this government that it should bring in some type of controls so that our best farmland does not disappear. And I said last year, and perhaps the year before that, the minister has allowed the MTC to cultivate perhaps more farmlands for highways than is actually cultivated for farm purposes.

I’m concerned, though, that the minister has perhaps seen some of the light now, and agrees there is need for an agricultural land-use programme in Ontario. I was just wondering what position the minister will be taking in the matter of the new proposed provincial Shorthills Park in the town of Pelham, and including part of the town of Thorold, which is in the riding of the hon. member from Welland. Here the advisory committee made a recommendation to the Ministry of Natural Resources to extend beyond the boundaries of the land already purchased for the park. In other words, they want to extend out into the exceptionally good farmlands and fruitlands around in the Fonthill area.

Now with some of the proposals, it would give the public the right to travel over farmlands. I’m talking about the public who would have access to the farmlands in that area. Some of these farmers in that area represent second or fourth generations on this land, and it is valuable farmland. I hope the minister will take this into consideration, or one of his staff members will be looking into this, to ensure that the advisory committee does not extend the boundaries under section (f) in that report. This would mean they are going beyond the existing boundaries which can take in some valuable farmland acreage in that area.

The other concern is -- and here I am going to come back to the Minister of Transportation and Communications (Mr. Rhodes) and some of their new highway programmes in the Niagara region, in particular the one east of the city of Port Colborne, I am sure when I mention the name the minister will be familiar with it -- the Augustine Farm. A father and two sons have a family farm there. Their farm is in danger of being removed from production if we allow the MTC to cut that farm right down the middle to put in a four-lane highway to tie in with the tunnel in the city of Port Colborne.

This is a good piece of farmland. It is one of the best there is within the city of Port Colborne. I would hate to see this farm destroyed by another road through the middle of it. The farm is about 125 acres in one parcel. This road will come right down the middle of that farm. The farmhouse and barn buildings are almost 1,000 feet off an existing roadway now. This new road will come to the back door of their farmhouse. They will be another 1,000 feet from the existing Highway 3 to the north. When you have two existing roads already available for transportation purposes you wonder where the planning comes in to destroy such good farmland as that.

That would be one farm that will disappear. About a mile east of that there is another good farm -- one of the exceptionally good farms in that area. That will also be destroyed by having another road split that farm. In other words there will be three roads within about five-eighths of a mile. It will certainly take out some good farm acreage.

Perhaps some of the minister’s staff have already received correspondence on this particular matter. I am sure the Federation of Agriculture is involved in it. They want to preserve this farmland in that area.

As I said before, I am delighted to see the minister is concerned about some of these matters now. Perhaps his staff will give more serious thought to it so that when the MTC people come in to construct the new roads they will ensure they don’t cut up good farmland.

Mr. Chairman: Item 1. The hon. member for Huron-Bruce.

Mr. Gaunt: Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to make a comment about the matter of the Arnprior dam raised by the member for Ottawa Centre.

There were two things, really, that were rather offensive to me. The member for Ottawa Centre has mentioned one of them. The fact that Hydro started construction of the dam, they put the bulldozers in there, before they held the inquiry under the Expropriations Act. The Expropriation Act provides that any of these projects can be subject to an inquiry to determine whether the taking of the land is fair and reasonable and necessary. Yet under the actions of Ontario Hydro in this instance, they started construction before the farmers and the land owners had a chance to do this.

No inquiry officer in his right mind is going to say that the project and the land on which the project sits is not necessary after the construction of that project has begun. So I think that farmers and land owners in that instance were deprived of their rights under the Expropriations Act, use of which is normal procedure, I would say, in any project of this nature. I think the land owners should have the opportunity to put their case and to say that in their view the taking of their land is not necessary for particular projects. In this instance that particular right was taken away from them.

My view is that Hydro acted in a high-handed manner. They acted arrogantly; I feel that the farmers were deprived of their basic rights under the terms of the Expropriations Act in this instance.

Under the new policy which Hydro enunciated just 10 days ago or two weeks ago, they have moved in to unify their land-buying procedures. When they are going to embark upon a project like this now, they are going to issue notices of expropriation to all land owners. In my view, this is the right way to do it; then everyone has an equal chance under the terms of the law. But in this instance, I think there was a serious shortcoming by Ontario Hydro.

The other thing that irked me in this situation was the matter of payment. As I understand it, Ontario Hydro came in and offered more money for a little parcel of land on which a cottage sat than they did for a working farm with land, buildings, house -- the whole bit. On top of that, they allowed the cottage owner the privilege of moving his cottage. I think it just represents the mood and the feeling of Ontario Hydro with respect to farmers and farmland. They feel it is unimportant. They are not clued in as far as value and types of farmland are concerned.

Certainly I found this to be so when we were dealing with them on the Douglas Pt-Georgetown land. They really have no concept as to what farmland is and what it should be used for, and they have no sense of judgement when it comes to deciding what farmers should be paid. We found this right along the way.

All I can say is I certainly hope that with the new corporation they get some new input and some new direction in their policies. Those two things with respect to the Arnprior dam were particularly offensive to me.

Mr. Chairman: The member for Waterloo North.

Mr. E. R. Good (Waterloo North): I would like to bring up a problem that the Minister of Agriculture and Food could perhaps take under consideration. It affects his ministry as well as that of the Attorney General (Mr. Welch). It has to do with the truckers who are hauling poultry or fowl on Sunday being charged. I don’t know if the minister is aware of it or not, but there have been charges that I am aware of and I understand three more were laid, under the Lord’s Day Act to which the Attorney General of the province must give consent before the charge can be laid.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: May I ask my hon. friend when were those last three charges laid?

Mr. Good: The one charge was laid on April 9. The two charges of which I am aware were both in Perth county, where the trucker was on his way to pick up a load on Sunday. If he’s found with an empty truck, he is contravening the Lord’s Day Act. If, however, he has already picked up his load of poultry or turkeys, then he has perishable goods aboard and he cannot be charged under the Act.

The Attorney General did give consent to these two cases, one of which has been heard and the other one, I understand, is still before the courts. I don’t want to discuss the legality of it, but I think there is a problem here that could be solved with some kind of co-operation.

The case of the trucker in my area who was charged has already been heard, but the decision has not been given -- it will be held over.

The thing simply amounts to this. The processors must have birds there at 7 o’clock on Monday morning to start their processing. You can’t leave them sitting in a truck from Saturday night, so they have to be picked up some time on Sunday. The producers don’t like the idea of the truckers rolling in at midnight on Sunday or even late Sunday evening. They say they have to catch the birds, they have to get high school kids or whatever help they can get to catch the birds to have them ready to truck.

This particular trucker had been trucking for 18 years and had never been bothered by the police until he was stopped in Perth county a couple of months ago. He feels that as far as the truckers who are doing the work are concerned, they will be glad to abide by any decision that is rendered. It may be they can’t start out until after a certain time on Sunday. But then the producers of the livestock say: “We don’t want you here in the evening.” And the processors say: “We have to have the birds at our plant door by 7 o’clock Monday morning. We don’t care when you get them there.”

It’s everyone throwing the blame onto the other.

But in the final analysis the Attorney General gave permission for charges to be laid under the Lord’s Day Act on two specific cases that I know of. I was told three more charges had been laid after that. I can’t verify what those three were, but I do know of the first two.

I gave the problem to the Attorney General’s department some months ago. Unfortunately the Deputy Attorney General lost my file on the thing --

Mr. Haggerty: They do that on every occasion.

Mr. Good: -- and it was some time before I was able to track it down again.

Then there was a new parliamentary assistant appointed to the Attorney General and he promised to look into the matter further. I got the information to him and now he has been appointed Minister of Labour, so that’s gone by the boards, although he did make a good effort on my behalf to inform me that he had it on the word of the Attorney General that no more consents would be given for charges to be laid under the Lord’s Day Act until these cases had been dealt with and a final disposition of the problem can be ascertained.

I think everyone’s case seems reasonable. The processor needs birds on Monday morning to process. The trucker can’t do it between midnight and 7 o’clock. The farmers don’t want to catch their birds in the middle of Sunday night. So it’s got to be done on Sunday. Surely if the trucker can prove he’s on his way with an empty truck to pick up a load of birds there should be some way of getting around the problem as it now exists. I wonder if the minister has had any representation on this problem or if he would like to comment.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Mr. Chairman, I’m well aware of the problem. We were involved in the representations on this matter raised by my friend from Waterloo South.

I was surprised to learn of three new charges. My guess is they may have been laid prior to the meetings that had been held. I doubt if there will be much fuss raised about them.

Certainly the points are well taken. There is no possible way that the processing plants can operate on a Monday unless those birds are picked up on the Sunday night. Anyone who knows anything about poultry realizes you can’t catch them until after dark, so you have to wait until dark to pick these birds up. You can’t wait until Monday morning because then it’s daylight. So there’s only one time to do it. It would seem perfectly reasonable to us that they should be permitted to travel to the farms to pick up these birds.

On the other hand, I suppose one could say that the appropriate way to take care of this situation would be to have the Lord’s Day Act amended so it would permit this kind of thing. I think representations should be made, and I assume some responsibility for making that representation. But I think it should be made through the law officers of the Crown. There may be other implications that go far beyond what we would anticipate might be involved in this instance.

My parliamentary assistant advises me that the matter is being resolved. I was given to understand it was resolved to the satisfaction of all concerned, certainly through the truckers’ association to which my hon. friend’s constituent belongs.

Mr. Chairman: Item 1.

Mr. Deans: To take your guidance, Mr. Chairman, I wonder whether the land-use policy is suitable to raise here, or whether you prefer to raise it in another portion of the estimates.

Mr. Chairman: It would be main office as much as any place, as far as the Ministry of Agriculture and Food is concerned with it.

Mr. Deans: I didn’t want to incur the wrath of the minister before I started. I want to speak about a problem I’ve raised a number of times in the Legislature. What I think can be truly said is there is certainly a diminishing of the amount of land used in the production of tender fruit in the Niagara Peninsula; perhaps not at a drastic rate but it is certainly diminishing.

Mr. Haggerty: Particularly in Saltfleet township.

Mr. Deans: Particularly in Saltfleet township, strangely enough, that I represent. It’s been a source of worry to me and I don’t think the minister is surprised. I’ve raised it on a number of occasions and I don’t want to get into a hassle with him about it. I am not going to try to quantify the amount or anything else at the moment, but I do want to talk about it for a few moments.

I want, first, to say I recognize as well as anyone that modern technology and techniques have enabled us to produce more and more on less and less land. Though we have less acreage in production at the moment than we had a number of years ago, we are capable because of changing times and new farming methods of producing more in terms of crop than perhaps we did on the land that we previously had.

But there has to be a point at which that ceases to occur. I suspect if that point hasn’t been reached it will certainly be reached in the not too distant future. When it is reached, there will not be the opportunity to go back and reclaim the land because much of it will have been taken up by urban growth in the peninsula or by sprawl. As my colleague says, the demand for production is no doubt going to increase over the next generation and we have an obligation to ensure that we can produce sufficient by way of food -- I am talking about tender fruit now in particular -- for the generations that follow this one.

I think that is a fair premise to begin on. I recognize, as I say, they will be able to continue to produce and no doubt the techniques will always improve and we will always be able to find new ways of producing more and more on fewer and fewer acres. What concerns me is that many of these techniques are expensive, and as we develop them the cost obviously will come to a point where we won’t be able to produce more. The cost of producing what we are capable of producing will have risen to the point where we will likely or will possibly price ourselves out of existence, as far as farm industry is concerned.

I am not about to come forward with any great revelations as to how I think the problem can be solved. I don’t think it can be solved by zoning. I once thought it might be able to be solved by zoning I realize that that works a tremendous hardship on many farmers, a hardship which is pretty tough to take. On top of that for some reason or other, no matter how carefully we zone something, no matter how assiduously we draft master plans, they always seem to be able to be circumvented, if not through appeals, through some other methods. I don’t know why it is but it just seems to be true.

I have come to the conclusion that for those farmers who actually want out of the business, who legitimately want out and want to sell, it would be better if the government were to enter into an arrangement whereby they purchased the land than it would be to have it fall into the hands of developers. If we agree, and I think possibly the minister and I would agree on some things -- not many, but on this, that the land is not only valuable but probably, given its productive capacity, it is more than just simply valuable -- it is in our best interests and the best interests of those people who are going to follow us that we attempt to maintain as much of it in production as we possibly can.

That means a lot of the urban pressures will have to be withstood and they won’t be withstood by the private individual. It just simply can’t be done. I don’t think the private individual has the wherewithal or the capacity to withstand it. But I do think, as farms become available throughout the peninsula, the government is going to have to acquire the land and seek ways to encourage existing farmers who want to stay in production either to lease or to make use of that land in whatever form we decide to make it available so that they can continue to expand to the best of their ability. I think we tread on very dangerous ground if we don’t begin the process now. It may, in fact, have gone beyond the point of redemption.

I suppose if we had discussed it five years ago, we would have found the land costs were exorbitant and we couldn’t afford it. Obviously those land costs have risen considerably since five or 10 years ago and we are going to make the same basic argument that land costs are very high. I have every reason to believe and no reason to doubt that the land costs will continue to rise and 10 years from now we will look back and say that it made better sense to buy in 1974 than it does in 1984. And I think that the ministry simply has to make clear that it is in the business of preserving the land.

I think that the tender fruit industry in the Peninsula is pretty solid. I think that it is a fairly committed industry. I think the farmers who are involved in it are committed not only to making money, which they no doubt do, but committed to the production of foodstuffs for the people of Ontario and the people of Canada, and for that matter people around the world. And I think that they would dearly like to see the government involved in some way in trying to protect that interest. It’s not only their own personal interest, but the interest of the community at large.

I was frankly disappointed when the federal government entered into the tariff arrangements with Australia in February, 1973. I realized then, and I still realize -- I think the minister would agree I’ve made the point numbers of times in the House -- that the fruit industry, in its early season, certainly requires protection. There is no question about it. The imports have caused our farmers to suffer immeasurably economically.

The fact that there are other climates around the world not even as far away as Australia, perhaps not too far south of here, that enable crops to come to salable state at a much earlier time in the year, permits those farmers to take advantage of the Canadian and particularly the Ontario, market. There is no question in my mind that they drastically reduce the income capacities and possibilities for a great many farmers who reside in the Peninsula and in other parts of the province.

So when the federal government made its tariff changes, I didn’t like it. I realized from discussion with the minister last year, that the ministry did, in fact, make some representation. Although I was never quite clear as to how it came about, I remember the discussion that we had. Nevertheless, I am informed that the ministry made representation.

I am interested to know whether the ministry continues to make that kind of representation, whether there has been some forceful representation again made by this ministry to the federal government on behalf of those farmers who grow much of the tender fruit in the Peninsula, and who, in fact, have suffered immeasurable losses by the reduction of the tariffs and the permission given to the Australian producers and canners to export to Canada, and to Ontario, things which we are capable of producing ourselves.

This has caused many of the people in my constituency, many in the constituencies of a number of the members of the Liberal caucus -- and I suspect it has caused even the present Attorney General to have some consternation about the effects on many of the residents of his area too.

If I can quote about seven paragraphs that are very appropriate, I think it summarizes what I am trying to get through to the minister. Let me just quote from a very recent edition of “The Grower” which I receive regularly. In the March issue of this year, the minister may have read the article by Mr. Teskey and Mr. Evans of the Department of Horticultural Science, dealing with the fruit industry, present and future.

I want to read from one part which deals with areas of production, if I may, Mr. Chairman:

“Niagara is still associated with fruit. In this narrow belt between Lake Ontario and the Escarpment is one of the most concentrated fruit-growing areas in the world. There the unique, geographical conditions which are not duplicated elsewhere in Canada make possible the profitable production of the tender fruits -- grapes, peaches, apricots and cherries as well as pears, plums and other fruits.

“Increased yields per acre during recent years have so far tended to offset the rapid loss of the irreplaceable fruitlands. [And that is what I was saying to the minister a moment ago.] The increased yields tend to camouflage the insidious process that continues to allow this priceless heritage to be forever destroyed.

“We are at a time in history when starvation already threatens sections of the world’s burgeoning human population.”

I think the minister will agree with me that over the years I have made that point in the House. I well recall in committee about two or three years ago, the minister telling me that he too made that point in the House, but he had since come to another realization. That’s okay, I still believe that it is true.

“One of the direct results of the threat to our peach land is the research effort of the University of Guelph to develop or discover a cultivar of tender fruits that will survive commercially outside of the Niagara Peninsula.”

I think the minister and I discussed that, and in fact attended a meeting with a number of processors where we did talk about the change from one form of peach to another that would have been much more easily harvested and which would have provided an opportunity for growth to take place in parts other than the area of the peninsula currently involved. Nevertheless, it would have involved the peninsula too.

“The climate of middle and southwestern Ontario, for example, in the counties of Oxford, Norfolk, Elgin, Middlesex, Essex, Lambton and Huron, is well-suited for the growing of apples, pie cherries, pears, plums, raspberries and strawberries. These crops can be produced profitably where suitable soil and topography coincide. Sweet cherries [reminds me of a day I had in 1967 or 1968] sweet cherries, peaches and even a few grapes were grown precariously in a few of the most favorite enclaves within this general area.

“Perhaps one of the finest apple-growing areas to be found anywhere in the world is between the Escarpment and the southern shores of Georgian Bay. Here, with its hub in the Beaver Valley, lies about 50,000 acres of actual or potential apple land.”

I am not going to read the remainder of that paragraph because I want to go on to something else.

“Within the last 20 years, urban spill has gobbled up a wide strip suited to horticulture along the way from Hamilton to Oshawa. This has forced the industry to modify its crops, cultivars and methods, to move even farther north and away from the lake. Urbanization is still spreading and creeping relentlessly after the horticultural industry in the Toronto-centred region.

“However, at the moment, many excellent fruit farms are furnishing many apples. Also, pie cherries, strawberries and pears are flourishing from below the Escarpment east of Guelph to just north of Oshawa. East of Oshawa, a narrow strip of fruitland seldom more than five miles in width hugs the north shore of Lake Ontario for some 100 miles as far as Trenton. The good land is not continuous, but actually quite spotty, the soil depth being limited by the underlying stratum of limestone rock. Prince Edward county, being an island, possesses the moderating advantages of Lake Ontario.”

Mr. J. A. Taylor (Prince Edward-Lennox): Hear, hear.

Mr. Deans: Thank you. That’s the first time you have said anything kind to me.

“Here again, much of the soil is too shallow or poorly drained and a considerable proportion is sand. Only along the Bay of Quinte south of Belleville are really good orchard sites to be found.”

I won’t go on again, but I want to read two small paragraphs:

“A few apple orchards remain down the St. Lawrence valley in the proximity of the groundsite of the old village of Iroquois and farther north near Kemptville. [Then I skip a little bit and it says:] Fruit growing in northern Ontario is pretty well confined to a small widely scattered planting of raspberries and strawberries.”

What I missed out, I didn’t miss out because I didn’t agree with it. It is simply that I didn’t want to put it all on the record. It would take too much time.

I am persuaded that, left to their own devices, in spite of their best intentions and in spite of their best efforts, the farmers will not be able to survive against the urban sprawl. I am persuaded that if he isn’t forced out by the very sprawl itself, he will be forced out by the tremendous cost of developing a farm or maintaining a farm next to the urban community because the urban community imposes rather severe additional costs. There is no question that a farm within or almost within, the environs of any major municipality is an extremely costly business. The cost of doing business and maintaining that farm is well beyond the ability of the farm to produce sufficient crops to be economical.

Now, having said that, it is also obvious to me that because of what is said in this article and what has been said in many other articles, that there isn’t really sufficient land elsewhere. So we are caught on the horns of a dilemma.

If we say that the cost of producing on the land within or in the shadow of urban Ontario is too high to be economical; and if we also say that it is extremely costly, perhaps more costly in the long run to try to develop the new techniques to grow in other less fertile soil; and if we also say we can’t afford not to grow, we have to decide on something. I think what we have to decide on is what it is we hope to accomplish in the farm community.

I think first of all we want to accomplish a farm community able to produce sufficient quantity to meet the domestic needs. That’s the first thing we have to do. The only way we are going to be able to do that is if we make best use of best land.

It doesn’t matter a damn what kind of soil you build a house on; nor does it matter what the subsoil is like if you want to put in a parking lot. It doesn’t really make much difference what the soil is like if you want to run drainage through it in order to put a subdivision in. It doesn’t really make a heck of a lot of difference what the soil is like if you want to put in a highway or a landing strip. In other words, if you want to develop in an urban way the quality of the soil is of no consequence.

But the quality of the soil is of absolute and ultimate consequence if you want to maintain the farming community. There is no point in us pretending that, somehow or other, we will be able to develop new and better soil. Funnily enough we don’t seem to have any control over that. There is not very much we have been able to do in the years gone by to encourage or improve the quality of the soil. We might have been able to improve it marginally with fertilizer and new fertilizing methods but we haven’t made significant improvement and we’re not likely ever to be able to make it.

Mr. Gaunt: You can’t change the composition.

Mr. Deans: We’re not going to be able to change the composition of the soil.

Mr. Gaunt: We can change the capability.

Mr. Deans: In addition to not changing the composition of the soil, we certainly can’t change the climate. I think it is pretty obvious to most that the climate in southern Ontario, particularly along the Peninsula, is ideally suited to growing the tender fruit I’m talking about.

Mr. Chairman, if you would permit me I’d like to call it 6 o’clock because I want to say something to the minister and I would prefer to say it at 8 o’clock. I have a little more and there’s no point in going on. I think it’s 6 o’clock if you would permit it to be 6 o’clock.

Mr. Chairman: That’s agreeable. I declare that it is 6 o’clock.

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