Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

The House resumed at 8:10 o’clock, p.m.

Hon. J. P. MacBeth (Minister of Labour): Mr. Speaker, before the House commences its evening proceedings I would draw your attention to a number of girl guides in the west gallery from the 277th Girl Guide Company of St. Giles-Kingsway Presbyterian Church in Islington, under the guidance of Mrs. M. Robb. I’d ask you to welcome them.

Clerk of the House: The second order, House in committee of the whole.

MINISTRY OF COMMUNITY AND SOCIAL SERVICES ACT (CONCLUDED)

House in committee on Bill 148, An Act to amend the Ministry of Community and Social Services Act.

Hon. R. Brunelle (Minister of Community and Social Services): Mr. Chairman, before the House rose, the hon. member for Nipissing (Mr. R. S. Smith) asked me a question concerning the composition of the board.

The board is composed of 15 members. The Chairman is Mr. M. Borczak of Toronto, former Deputy Minister of Community and Social Services. There are three vice-chairmen: Miss R. J. Morris, a former commissioner of public welfare for the city of Toronto; Mr. H. J. Price, Toronto, a former member of the Ontario Legislature; and Mr. Robert J. Abbey, a lawyer from St. Catharines.

The other members of the board are Mr. E. Armstrong, a former reeve of Gloucester township and a former member of the council of the regional municipality of Ottawa-Carleton; Mr. James Ballantyne of Toronto; Mrs. A. (Norma) Brown, wife of Rev. Arthur Brown of Toronto, a housewife and mother of three girls; Mr. Leonard Ellins, a retired bank manager from London, Ont.; Mr. Lionel Vaillancourt of Cornwall, a former motel owner and retail store proprietor; Miss D. Parent of Kapuskasing, a former public health nurse; Mrs. Norma Dool of Sault Ste. Marie, very active in community activities; Mr. Desmond Bender, former councillor, city of Ottawa, and former councillor of the regional municipality of Ottawa; Mr. Uno Viegandt, real estate broker in Thunder Bay, former president of the Thunder Bay Children’s Aid Society, and also former president of the Ontario Children’s Aid Society; Mr. Nino Poli-Cappelli of Toronto, an insurance business person, member of the Toronto-Italian community and related organizations.

And also from the north country, Mr. Adiuto John Pianosi, Copper Cliff, president of Building Co., co-chairman of the Multicultural Centre of Sudbury, member of the board of regents of Laurentian University, member of the board of Sudbury and District Boys’ Home, and associated with numerous social and community services -- a very dedicated man.

Mr. E. W. Martel (Sudbury East): I know him well; staunch Tory.

Hon. A. Grossman (Provincial Secretary for Resources Development): What is the matter? Does the member for Sudbury East recognize him?

Mr. Martel: He is a staunch Tory. You are covering all the bases over there, Mr. Chairman.

Hon. E. A. Winkler (Chairman, Management Board of Cabinet): Do you want the job?

Mr. Martel: Mr. Chairman, you know I am really impressed with that group. It certainly is a representative group. Every last one of them is some form of businessman, except the two women, and that is really representative of society. The clients, of course, they get a break on it, too. They have a representative there too, don’t they?

Mr. R. D. Kennedy (Peel South): What’s wrong with businessmen?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Yes, Mr. Chairman, there is a representative who is a recipient of social assistance.

Mr. Martel: Which one is that? The former insurance man or the former bank manager?

Hon. G. A. Kerr (Solicitor General): What’s wrong with bank managers? Don’t knock them today, in spite of the 13 per cent.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: It would be best then not to identify him.

Mr. Martel: Oh, I know, Mr. Chairman, through you to the minister, it is really a representative group.

I want to read you what the Swadron report says on the review --

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Swadron is a Tory; you don’t want to read that.

Mr. Martel: Oh, well, I’ll read what he said; he might be enlightened.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Pick your own Tory.

Mr. Martel: In the field of welfare there certainly aren’t very many enlightened Tories, I’ll tell you -- as demonstrated by that side of the House in its legislation.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Only the ones you suggest.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: We are all working.

Mr. Martel: It says:

“Currently, the chairman of the board of review may authorize one member to conduct the hearing and to report to the board. A quorum is three. The new legislative scheme [I don’t know what happened to the new legislative scheme] will require a quorum to be present at the hearing.”

I wonder what in God’s name happened to that legislative scheme to have a quorum -- and a quorum being three -- that was in the Swadron report in 1972.

Let me go on just for a moment:

“This will, of course, increase the time demands on the members of the board. It is our understanding that even now the board is hard-pressed and on occasion fails to meet its time limit of 40 days. There is no doubt but that the structure of the board of review will have to change, and probably there will have to be regional boards of review.”

Now, I don’t know why we establish a commission in this province, except to hide the problems under the table or to dispel the fears -- and then we don’t change anything. I suppose this country has more royal commissions and reviews and investigations and commissions than any other jurisdiction in the world. They all report, and none of the reports is ever followed.

Now, Swadron recognized what most of us here recognize, that there are really some inadequacies. Let me just give you another one, which I’ll come to in a moment. Just listen to what he says:

“Few lawyers would have had occasion to deal with these statutes. Even those who might would have to take a considerable amount of time simply to know what the state of the law of governing the board and its procedures is. Without legal training, as matters now stand, the applicant or recipient has little going for him in being able to understand the review process.”

That’s your commission reporting, Mr. Minister. The minister for policy in the natural resource field says: “It was headed up by a Tory, even.” Yes, it was written by a Tory. You can imagine the inflammatory language we would use if we were writing the report on the board of review.

I looked at the statistics for a couple of years, and we certainly don’t agree with the statistics. The numbers are the same, but the points of view -- you people are proud of the fact there were only 1,700 cases in 1972-1973 and that only 30 per cent of them were won, and so, of course, it means that all of your administrators across the province are being fair. I suggest to you, Mr. Minister, that what in fact is happening is that the client doesn’t have a thence going in. He has a raft of businessmen; he has bankers and real estate people and insurance people looking at his or her problem, but they don’t know what poverty is. They don’t know what it is to be hungry.

Mr. B. Gilbertson (Algoma): Don’t be too sure about that.

Mr. Martel: Well, I only quote from the Swadron report that was looking into this.

Mr. Chairman: Order.

Mr. Martel: Well, Mr. Chairman, he aggravates me. He knows not much of what he speaks.

Mr. J. E. Stokes (Thunder Bay): Are you calling the Tory member to order?

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. Martel: Oh, yes, they sure did. You had better look at the statistics on education, too, to see where the money is and the educational opportunities are in this province. I suggest to you that if 1,272 out of 1,700 cases in 1972-1973 are denied, part of the problem isn’t -- as you people would like it to be -- that it was such wise decisions made at the top but that in fact the client doesn’t have a chance going in. He doesn’t have the expertise. Swadron says that even lawyers who have not read up on the Act and on the Family Benefits Act and so on would have difficulty in understanding it, let alone winning the case, and we sit over there and say: “Well, there no problem. We can have a commission, you know, with A. J. (Red) Pianosi.”

I know him well. You forgot to mention he is president of Unity Bank. I know his list of qualifications. What understanding has he got of the problems? What is his knowledge of the Act and that of most of these people who sit on that board? What is their knowledge of the board of review? What is their knowledge of the Act in its entirety?

The minister has difficulty with the Act, and he works in it every day and has been doing so for the last three years -- and you ask why I want a quorum to be three and why I request of you that in this province, if you can’t take this elitist group out in groups of three, you in fact establish around the province, as the provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba have done, advisory boards. From that you could draw two other people to sit in, and hopefully one of them would be a client all the time who knows something about what it’s like to battle before the board of review.

I just think that the minister has to look at that again, based on the Swadron report, which came out after the McRuer report. If that’s what he discovered as he and that group of people toured the province two years ago, I don’t think it has changed or improved. He recommended and certainly was left with the impression that legislative action would lead to three-man boards hearing each case or each appeal. You fly in the face of the report, Mr. Minister, and its recommendations.

I would ask the minister to stand this section down and take a look at it before we allow it to remain in the statutes in Ontario. Otherwise the clients who appear before the board of review, particularly if there is only one man or one woman hearing it, based on the studies of Swadron, don’t have much of a chance of winning their cases before the review commission.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Mr. Chairman, I often agree with the comments of the hon. member, but on this occasion I do not agree with his comments. I’d like to say that the board of review is a very efficient board and that the appellants are given every assistance to have as fair and as just a hearing as possible.

He referred to the Swadron report. The provisions he referred to were repealed and now one or more members constitute a quorum, and this is as a result of the McRuer report. As I indicated earlier before dinner, less than three per cent of our hearings are held with one member in other words, 97 per cent or more have two or three members.

Mr. Chairman, in all fairness, I do think this counteracts the argument that the hon. member brings forth. As I said, in his remarks on the board of review I think that the hon. member is being unjustified in his criticism.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Chairman, be that as it may, I look at the statistics, and I haven’t even got a copy of the recent report.

Mr. Stokes: That has never deterred him before.

Mr. Martel: You might tell us how many appeals there were last year. I suggest that the number that’s here is rather small. Based on the number of cases I alone handle in this field, it’s relatively small. I want to tell you why. I had a woman phone me two weeks ago Monday; she was advised that she had a hearing on Tuesday. She had one day’s notice. She phoned to ask if I could represent her but I had a commitment here in Toronto on Tuesday. Her reason for phoning me was to say she couldn’t go before that group. She said, “They’re too smart. How do I present my case to them?”

Mr. R. Haggerty (Welland South): They have about half a dozen welfare workers there with them.

Mr. Martel: Yes. Have you ever sat in on one of those? I’ve been before a number of them. I’m not saying the board is unjust or anything like that. They’re petrified. My God, the Workmen’s Compensation Board has now established in this province that if the worker hasn’t got someone to represent him or if he doesn’t belong to a trade union or if he doesn’t have a member of the Legislature or some group to represent him it will provide a client representative at the hearing, who helps him or her to prepare for the hearing and makes the presentation on behalf of the worker.

If you look at welfare cases, and surely to God you have, the majority of the people are fairly illiterate and middle-aged. We’re not talking about an educated group; we’re talking about a very unsophisticated and in many instances illiterate group. We’re asking them to go before an august body, one member of which used to be a lawyer. I’ve been at three or four of the hearings.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: They are held in their homes.

Mr. Martel: They’re held in the homes. That doesn’t change anything.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: It makes it more informal. They’re at home.

Mr. Martel: Do you think making it more informal does anything for the client who has a grade 5 education? Does he or she feel any more confident because it’s in his or her home?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: They can bring their own counsel. They can bring you if they like.

Mr. Martel: Sure they can bring me. That isn’t the point. Why did the Workmen’s Compensation Board go to revisions and start to provide for the workers if they didn’t have a representative to help them prepare their case?

Swadron says that even the lawyers can’t understand the bloody thing, and you want someone with a grade 5 or 6 education to make an appearance before that group and to be able to present his case succinctly, knowing exactly what the laws are in order to make the best case on his own behalf. That’s ludicrous; you know it and I know it.

I intend to move a motion on that in a few moments when we get to that particular section, Mr. Minister, but in coming back to this section, I say to you in all kindness that when only 1,700 or 1,800 cases are heard and 70 per cent of them are lost, that is not a very good batting record for the claimants. I suggest to you rather strongly that it is because their case isn’t presented in the succinct fashion that is necessary in order to have a reversal of the decision against them.

The rate is atrocious and even if it is only three per cent who go before one-man boards, what is the other percentage? You tell me that in three per cent of the cases there is only one. But in how many cases are there only two? Even the Workmen’s Compensation Board again shies away from two, whether it is at the appeal tribunal level or the full board level. They attempt to have three, because there can be an honest difference of opinion and with three the chances of a fair decision are greatly enhanced. The Workmen’s Compensation Board, which operates under provincial legislation, recognizes that and has moved away from less than a quorum of three for a hearing, either at the appeal tribunal level or the board level. It seems to me that if we do it in that area, we should be assuring it in the other level.

When we say there are only 1,700 cases or 1,800 cases, we are not talking about a lot of cases, are we, Mr. Minister? We are talking about a relatively small number of cases, based on the number of clients that we have in this province, so one should be assured that there is always a quorum. Certainly that was the recommendation -- again I drive the point home -- after McRuer and after it was investigated by Swadron; it was after that he made the recommendation. It doesn’t come before McRuer, it comes after. That’s what he found and that’s what he recommended, that there be a quorum of three. He didn’t say one or two, or two most of the time and one infrequently; he said three because of what he discovered when he toured the province in the spring of 1971, and he was disturbed by what he saw.

We can pretend that there aren’t many cases and in a few instances there is only one and in some instances there are only two. But his first-hand observation of the procedure left him somewhat cold, as his report indicates. You can’t bypass it, and you can’t hide behind McRuer, when someone who has investigated has seen that the client doesn’t have much of a chance of success.

Mr. Chairman: The hon. minister.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Mr. Chairman, I would like to make a few brief comments. Again, you know --

Mr. Stokes: Surely you understand that?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Oh, I certainly do. I am surprised that the hon. member for Sudbury East doesn’t.

Mr. Martel: I understand it. You don’t.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: The hon. member knows the appellant can get legal aid if necessary; he can call on his local member, his clergyman --

Mr. Stokes: With one day’s notice?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Oh no, they are given more than one day’s notice. They are given several days’ notice.

Mr. Martel: Several days’ notice. Ha!

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Again, I would like to repeat that less than three per cent have only one member at the hearing. Also the hon. member said -- and I think this is the reason he thinks there should be several members -- the decision is made by the chairman. But, at the same time, that person who hears the hearing does consult. All the members of the board meet at least once a week and legal counsel is available, as well as all the expertise. That person has all the advice possible, so the decisions are made in full consultation with the board.

Mr. Chairman, there are many areas of our ministry that the hon. member can criticize and that are vulnerable, but when it comes to the board of review, it is not a perfect board, but I would say that it is a very good board; it is one of the best boards in Canada and it does give the appellant every justice possible.

Mr. Martel: And how many that do?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: The hon. member referred to the number of cases. Just for his own information, the final report for 1973-1974 will be available soon. The total number of hearings was 1,303. Out of that number, the number of appeals that were granted was 443. In percentage, 34 per cent were granted.

Also, Mr. Chairman, the members of the board, the director of family benefits, and so forth, and the social workers do their very utmost to help the appellants. They’re there to help the appellants. They’re there to provide every assistance possible.

Mr. Martel: I wish they could be informed of that. I don’t want to cast any aspersions on any of those board members, but I have sat in on three or four of the hearings and a person without any expertise is lost. When you stand up and tell me that a client gets all the help he needs and that he can go to legal aid, he’s never told he can go to legal aid, she is never told she can go to legal aid. Don’t give me the gears. I’ve handled too many cases of welfare to accept that.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Mr. Chairman, would the hon. member permit me one comment?

Mr. Martel: Yes, sure.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Every recipient of family benefits is given one of these books. Also, most of the local municipalities make them available. On page 27 -- and this is in the two official languages, French and English -- under the heading “How Do You Appeal?” it indicates all their rights, whom they can consult, and so forth. Whenever a decision is made that their allowance is either suspended or reduced, they get an individual notice that they can appeal. So, Mr. Chairman, every effort is made to give the appellants as much information as possible.

Mr. Martel: One must recognize, of course, Mr. Minister, the educational limitations of most people on welfare, and that is what this ministry fails to recognize. They are not a sophisticated group. If you were to ask 90 per cent of your clients if they have that book at home now, they couldn’t find it. You know it and I know it. Many of them don’t even know there is an appeal procedure. That’s possibly no fault of the minister; you send the material out. I’m just saying that it isn’t there.

All I’m trying to talk about in this section -- I’ll come to the next section in a moment; I’m still back on section 6 -- is the number of people who are necessary to constitute a quorum. You continue to dance around that like a candy dancer.

Why do you think Swadron made his recommendation after his journey across the province? Why do you think he recommended it?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: What about Justice McRuer? You refer to Swadron. What about Justice McRuer? He had a different opinion. Surely, between the two, and I don’t know either person, but I would put more trust in Justice McRuer.

Mr. Martel: You might more faith in Chief Justice McRuer and I’m not going to belittle the man. I’m saying that Barry Swadron, after the Act had been in place for three or four years, in fact went across the province to see how it was working. I suppose if he sat down with Chief Justice McRuer and told him what he saw, you might find the chief justice very quick to change his mind. Certainly, Swadron must have seen things that displeased him for him to devote a section of his report to this. It’s in pretty strong language, Mr. Minister. He pointed out that a quorum of one was not doing the client any justice, and that was after three or four years in place.

I say to you again, should you not insist that three of the full board members from Toronto come out? Fine, provided that in each of the municipalities there are other people you can draw on whom you might establish as an advisory board as other provinces have done. Frequently on those boards, for example in Saskatchewan, there are representatives, I understand, from the Metis group. There is a representative on one of them from the Indian community itself, and on some there are a number of recipients as well.

It seems to me that an advisory body in each of the districts into which the province has been divided into would make it easy -- if necessary, and all three board members weren’t available at any given time -- so that you, in fact, could draw from an advisory board. You and I both know that in Sudbury they have been trying to formulate an advisory board for community and social services and health delivery, and it collapsed two weeks ago. I thought it was Napoleon retreating from Moscow who drafted that report. It was so divided it would have taken five years to get all the way through the procedures that were laid down and to get any recommendations that would either get back to Community and Social Services or general welfare. It was one of the reasons that led to the convention that was called rejecting it. In fact, I talked to Dr. Williams ahead of time and suggested to him it was so complicated that its chances of survival or of being of any use were ridiculous.

One also draws a comparison between BC which has elected advisory boards now which have some funding to do, planning and passing on of advice to the ministry. They don’t attempt to formulate legislation or anything. It is a contact that I think this ministry is desperately lacking out there. You can make so many uses of an organization like that. I don’t want to restrict it just to a board of review situation. You can then make sure that in a board of review situation there are three, based on -- and as I said no discredit to McRuer -- what Swadron and his committee saw when they travelled the province and were rather upset with.

I am just offering to the minister another way of ensuring that there is a quorum without necessarily having to draw them all from Toronto, if it can possibly be done, because it is a last court of appeal, so to speak, for the client. You handed me the latest report and there are only 1,300 cases. The number of applications continues to go down. That bothers me, not that I want to see a lot of cases, but I have to ask myself why. The minister knows how many cases I handle. Frequently, I write to him on these matters. When I see only 1,300 appeals across the province I wonder how efficient it is and I wonder how well-informed the clients are when you have that few, because it continues to drop. In a day and age when people are demanding more services, most of us know that the number of calls we get personally are increasing. Yet, in the board of review they have dropped from almost 1,800 two years ago to just over 1,300.

You might think it is just based on the efficiency of your ministry and I hope that that is the case. At the same time you must wonder, you must have a few anxious moments and ask yourself could it be that people have simply given up on the board of review and are not going that route. There are two possibilities. You can’t give credence to the one and say it’s the other, because we have such a good board that they are coming. I suspect that the saw-off point is somewhere in the middle of those two points, and it doesn’t fall squarely on the one point I have suggested nor squarely on how successful the board of review is. Somewhere in between the two lies the truth.

All I am trying to ensure, as we amend the legislation, is that because it’s the last appeal procedure we are as sure as possible that the client is going to get the benefit of the doubt.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Mr. Chairman, I believe there are at least two reasons and maybe more as to why there were fewer hearings in the past year. One, I would think, and the hon. member referred to it, is that we have a very efficient staff. Our district directors and our social workers do make every effort to assist the client and to prevent a hearing. Also, as the hon. member knows, there were somewhere over 10,000 permanently unemployable persons transferred from the General Welfare Act to the Family Benefits Act. Many of those cases, as the hon. member knows, are borderline cases. I do believe this was another reason there were fewer appeals. I do believe this present year we could have just as many, if not more, because we now have the guaranteed annual income Act. There have been not too many so far, but there have been a few, and there could be additional cases.

With reference to having at least two if not three members present; as hon. members know some of our members come from various areas, and there could be, for instance due to weather, plane cancellations and so forth; and as I indicated earlier the fact they all meet and collectively assess the case, I do believe that in that way they do make every effort to give the appellant as good a review of the case as possible.

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

Mr. Haggerty: Mr. Chairman, the member for Sudbury East has perhaps mentioned some of the things I’ve run across when I have to appear before the review board. The minister has indicated that under the Family Benefits Act there is a little pamphlet or booklet. I don’t know how many social workers carry that pamphlet around with them, but my experience is they don’t go out and inform persons under general welfare or under the Family Benefits Act. People are not well informed; they don’t inform the people of their rights.

I’ve found this on a number of occasions. I wouldn’t be standing before the House tonight if I didn’t come across this particular situation. I can recall a couple of instances where, I can’t criticize the I review board, but I think the person appealing the case was at a disadvantage, when you find about three from the board of review sitting there, with about two, perhaps in this case it was three, social workers there armed with ammunition. I’ll tell you this, the person appealing the case was certainly at a disadvantage until I got into the picture. At times I thought the air was rather blue, because of the attitude some of the social workers had taken towards persons perhaps less fortunate than themselves.

Now I have a particular problem today, and I have been making inquiries of the ministry. It deals particularly with a person who was under the Family Benefits Act. Her son now is working and coming back and paying board, $10 a week. She has another son over the age of 18 who has a disability and has to have continuous care.

I’ll tell you what happened in this particular case. One of the social workers called up from the regional office in St. Catharines at a quarter to five on a Friday night and said: “You’ll be getting a cheque on Monday, but do not cash it because you are not entitled to it. You’ve been removed from the Family Benefits Act since your youngest son has been working.”

That short notice didn’t even give her time to go to the general welfare office to receive assistance until the day I made an inquiry into it.

Now they are paying her, I think it is $47 a month, as a single-person mother. They based it on the fact that she is receiving $10 a week from the youngster working, that is $40 a month; and then she should get something from the $218 for board. Yet I thought under the General Welfare Assistance Act they were entitled to earn $80 a month if they were out working.

So I made a further inquiry into it and I’m thinking about assisting her in making an appeal. Then I came to the question of the criteria that is set up by the ministry which said this is classed as income as they say. The other terminology was that “income” and “earnings” are two different things, and they classed the $10 a week board money as earnings. I guess it is in a sense, it is not income.

I thought income was earnings and anything that is accumulated for labour, but apparently in this particular instance she is only going to get $47 a month. You know that won’t even pay the municipal taxes.

How do you make an appeal, then, if a decision by your ministry already says she is ineligible just on the interpretation of the words “income” and “earnings”? I think this is the wrong approach.

Hopefully I am going to make an effort to appeal it on her behalf. I’ll tell you this much, she was never informed she had a right to appeal. I can say this much about many of the persons receiving assistance under the Family Benefits Act or General Welfare, that they are not informed of their rights. I have criticized the minister before about this particular section. The social workers, I believe, are not doing their job.

If they go out and cut a person down by two or three dollars a week, or $10 a month, they figure they are doing an excellent job for the government of Ontario. But they are denying that person what they are entitled to under the Family Benefits Act.

I was going to suggest to the minister that maybe there should be somebody from labour on the board of review; but I would hesitate to suggest that. I found out they can appeal to the Unemployment Insurance Act, where they have representation from labour, and I find them the toughest to deal with.

I say this much: I think your board is doing a good job, but I think the persons under your programme should be told of their rights under the Act. I feel that the social workers, particularly in my area -- I can be very critical of them -- they are not doing their job in this particular instance.

I can say this much about your regional administrator, Mr. Desiri, I think he is doing a good job. But, again, perhaps its the staff below him who are not doing their work.

I don’t think any member of the Legislature should have to battle for those persons under the General Welfare Assistance or the Family Benefits Act, because I think if the social workers were doing their job we wouldn’t have to be making appeals on their behalf. But somebody has to do it.

I think the member is quite right when he says the government, or the staff of your ministry, should be providing assistance on the appeal; the same as with the Workmen’s Compensation Board. He brings out a good point. I suggest that is what’s missing in your appeal system when a person on welfare has to go before the board.

Section 7(c)(1) is quite confusing to me. It says:

Notwithstanding the Statutory Powers Procedure Act, 1971, all hearings of the board of review shall be heard in camera.

(2) Subject to subsection 3, members of the board of review holding a hearing,

(a) shall not have taken part in any investigation or consideration of the subject matter of the hearing prior to the hearing.

Boy, I can tell you this much: Anywhere I have assisted, the board is well prepared and armed with ammunition; because they have a stack of it there. There is very little help or assistance given to a person who is making the appeal. I suggest to the minister that perhaps he should give consideration to the suggestion of the member for Sudbury East that some assistance should be given on behalf of the persons receiving assistance under your programme; because I think they need it -- I am sure they do.

Mr. Chairman: Shall section 6 carry?

Carried.

Section 6 agreed to.

Mr. Chairman: Shall the bill be reported?

Mr. Martel: No, Mr. Chairman. Section 7.

Mr. Chairman: Section 7.

Mr. Martel: Yes, and I’d like some guidance from the Chairman.

On section 7:

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Mr. Chairman, on section 7, if I may: One of the member’s colleagues last night, the member for Windsor West (Mr. Bounsall) made a very worthwhile suggestion. It’s an amendment to change the wording in this section from “may” to “shall”.

If I may at this time, Mr. Chairman, this would read as follows, this would be subsection (7) of section 7(c) on page 5, on the fourth line, it would delete the word “may” and substitute the word “shall.” It would then read:

“Where a request for a hearing had been made and the board of review is satisfied that there may be financial hardship to a party or witness attending a hearing, the board shall pay the party or witness travelling and living expenses if necessary to enable his attendance at the hearing of the board.”

Hon. Mr. Bernier moves subsection (7) of section 7(c) be amended to delete the word “may” in the fourth line and substitute “shall.”

Mr. Chairman: Shall this amendment carry?

Carried.

Mr. Chairman: Shall the bill be reported?

Mr. Martel: Mr. Chairman --

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

Mr. Martel: I want to move an amendment, and I am not sure where exactly one could put it in section 7. Let me move it first and then I won’t give it a number for the time being. I would ask the Chair for guidance. I want to move the following: “Where a request for a hearing has been made, the minister will provide a client representative to the client when one is requested.” I would suspect it could come in after section 6 or section 5, but I am not sure, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman: I would think there should be a new section and that we should renumber them.

Mr. Martel: Whatever the Chair wants to do, but Mr. Chairman, I have already indicated substantially my purpose for moving the motion. Under the terms of the Workmen’s Compensation Act there are client representatives if that client doesn’t have access to an advocate group, a member of Parliament or a trade union; in fact the board will provide, at the man’s request or the woman’s request, someone to assist them in preparing their case adequately and to assist the board in coming to a decision.

As I have indicated, we know, based on the Senate report on poverty in Canada, the “Real Poverty Report” and all the reports coming out of your own ministry, that the average educational level of people in receipt of welfare or family benefits is very low.

It seems to me that if this government, under the terms of the Workmen’s Compensation Act, allows a client to have a representative appointed by the board to assist him in preparing his case to present to the Workmen’s Compensation Board, surely we should be doing that for a group of people who don’t have the expertise, the educational ability and so on to prepare their cases adequately.

Again, I refer you to Swadron. He says:

“Without legal training, as the matter now stands, the applicant or recipient has little going for him in being able to understand the review process.”

It seems to me that if we really want to make sure that these people have, let’s say put their best foot forward in preparing their cases, if they are alone and have no one to represent them, that the minister might designate one of his staff in each of his offices across the province as the person who, on a given occasion, would be the client representative. Such a person would not necessarily have had anything to do with that particular case, but nonetheless he would have the expertise, would know the Act and in fact would be responsible for being the client’s representative.

Better still, of course, would be to have possibly five or six of these people in the province in designated areas, strategically located geographically, so that when called upon, they could get to an area in a hurry to assist the clients. It seems to me that it’s the least the minister can do to guarantee that these people have as fair a hearing as possible. Therefore, I would ask him to accept this amendment so that, as I said, the clients would have a fair shake in presenting their case.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: I am not sure if this is necessary. As the hon. member knows, at the present time if an appellant requires legal aid, that is available to that person. If the ministry was to pay for the services of a clergyman or whatever the case may be, we feel that it would sort of destroy a bit of this independence. We think that the present provision making legal aid available really gives the appellant the opportunity to avail himself of special assistance in that area.

Mr. Martel: Surely to God, though, Mr. Minister, that’s the last area we want to move into. We don’t want to make this, as we hope we haven’t made the Workmen’s Compensation Board, into an adversary system. Surely if we start drawing in lawyers, the informality that we hope will be retained will not remain. If we start to go to legal aid, these cases are going to become so legalistic that we are going to destroy the whole process.

I’ve appeared before the Compensation Board a good many, many times and because we don’t have the adversary system it’s not frequently costing the client or the government a pile of money. Surely, that’s what we should be aiming at, keeping it very formal and very unstructured so that you don’t get hard and fast rules and legal jargon going back and forth, because frequently it isn’t decided on legal grounds. I think it’s a bit more compassionate than the law would be in that sense.

All I’m saying is you might want to designate one person in your offices, or maybe only set up four or five of them, again on the five geographic regions you have, who would be available if the person doesn’t have an advocate group, such as the Welfare Action group in Toronto or a member of the Legislature or some other group representing them.

I think our aim should be to keep it as far away as possible from becoming too legalistic. I can’t see the reluctance on the minister’s part, particularly in view of the fact that the Workmen’s Compensation Board has done it. It’s not as though this is something new in the province; it’s already in place. In fact the Workmen’s Compensation Board is going to expand that service in the future.

My colleague the member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Laughren), my colleague the member for Sudbury (Mr. Germa) and I met with the representatives of the board not more than several weeks ago and they indicated they hoped to expand the service. And here we are refusing to provide the same service for FBA and GWA applicants.

We’re talking about 1,300 cases that were appealed last year. It seems to me it wouldn’t be a great burden on the ministry and yet would give the client a kind of sense of security that someone was helping him. As I said, with respect to the case I had two weeks ago, I had to spend most of Monday afternoon hustling around trying to get someone whom I knew in the Sudbury area to represent this woman. It ultimately ended up with a friend of mine who’s a former social worker and who teaches at Cambrian College in the field of sociology. Although his timetable was crowded, he assured me he would have someone representing the woman. She was absolutely petrified going before this group by herself. If nothing more than for moral support, this representation is very important to these people. Surely that’s the least we can do.

Mr. J. R. Smith (Hamilton Mountain): Nonsense! They are understanding people on the board.

Mr. Chairman: Order, please.

Mr. Martel: Where does that come from? Smitty, is that you?

Mr. J. R. Smith: That’s right. I represent people all the time.

Mr. Chairman: Order, please.

Mr. Martel: It’s an understanding group. You can give it all the malarkey you want. I might ask the member why the Workmen’s Compensation Board is expanding that service in the Province of Ontario.

Mr. Chairman: Order, please. The hon. member will direct his questions to the minister.

Mr. Martel: They’re very understanding down at the Workmen’s Compensation Board too; yet they are expanding the service. I would ask the minister to accept this and explore the ways it could be implemented.

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Mr. Chairman, I certainly would be prepared to give consideration to this, though not at this time. I do believe right now we would be prepared, for instance, as we have a lot of staff available, if the appellant wishes, to have one of our staff assist him. We certainly would be prepared to do this. At some time later we’ll give consideration to it.

I’m not too familiar with the Workmen’s Compensation Board. I’ve listened to your remarks and the remarks of others, and if it is feasible and desirable, we’re certainly prepared to do it.

At this time, if the hon. member would agree, we will consider this in the near future. For the time being our staff, on the request of an appellant, would be available to assist him at a board hearing, that is staff from the local area.

Mr. Martel: Could I ask the minister then if he would send out the instructions to his offices to that effect, that one of the staff be made available to the client, and that the client would be advised until it was studied?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Yes.

Mr. Martel: And would the minister send me a copy of that so that I could advise people who come to me that, for example, Mr. Belanger will make someone available to help them prepare their case in the Sudbury area?

Mr. Chairman: Does the hon. member for Sudbury East wish to withdraw his amendment at the present time? Thank you.

Any other comments, questions or amendments to the bill?

Section 7, as amended, agreed to.

Bill 148, as amended, reported.

Hon. Mr. Winkler moves the committee rise and report.

Motion agreed to.

The House resumed, Mr. Speaker in the chair.

Mr. Chairman: Mr. Speaker, the committee of the whole House begs to report one bill with amendment, and asks for leave to sit again.

Report agreed to.

Clerk of the House: The 24th order, concurrence in supply for the Ministry of Transportation and Communications.

CONCURRENCE IN SUPPLY, MINISTRY OF TRANSPORTATION AND COMMUNICATIONS

Mr. Speaker: Shall this order be concurred in?

Some hon. members: No.

Mr. Speaker: Those in favour of this order being concurred in will please say “aye.” A point of order?

Mr. M. Cassidy (Ottawa Centre): Yes. I believe we have up to half an hour to debate the concurrence before the vote is taken, is that not correct?

Mr. I. Deans (Wentworth): That is correct.

Mr. Speaker: This was discussed the last time this matter came up. If the members will look at number --

Mr. Deans: Don’t do that, you will be in trouble.

Mr. Speaker: -- number 87(c) it says: “The proceedings in committee of supply shall be limited to not more than 90 sittings, including the presentation of and debate on the reports provided for in clauses (g) and (h) of this standing order -- “

Mr. Deans: Which was this?

Mr. Speaker: Order 87(c). Clauses (g) and (h) include the concurrence matter, so it is very clear that the total time of the 90 sittings includes the concurrence debate. Therefore, there is no time left over for that. That was my ruling before and it still is.

Resolution concurred in.

Clerk of the House: The 23rd order, concurrence in supply for the Ministry of Revenue.

CONCURRENCE IN SUPPLY, MINISTRY OF REVENUE

Resolution concurred in.

Clerk of the House: The 22nd order, concurrence in supply for the Ministry of Labour.

CONCURRENCE IN SUPPLY, MINISTRY OF LABOUR

Resolution concurred in.

Clerk of the House: The 21st order, concurrence in supply for the Ministry of the Environment.

CONCURRENCE IN SUPPLY, MINISTRY OF THE ENVIRONMENT

Resolution concurred in.

Clerk of the House: The 20th order, concurrence in supply for the Office of the Speaker.

CONCURRENCE IN SUPPLY, OFFICE OF THE SPEAKER

Resolution concurred in.

Clerk of the House: The first order, resuming the adjourned debate on the amendment to the amendment to the motion that this House approves in general the budgetary policy of the government.

BUDGET DEBATE

Mr. J. R. Breithaupt (Kitchener): Mr. Speaker, on the adjournment earlier, the member for Downsview (Mr. Singer) had the floor but he has another obligation to attend upon this evening. With the agreement of the House I hope that he will be able to complete his remarks on another day.

Hon. E. A. Winkler (Chairman, Management Board of Cabinet): Having discussed the matter with the member for Downsview, and recognizing the seriousness of his problem this evening, we will agree.

Mr. Speaker: The matter is agreed to, that the member for Downsview will be able to complete his remarks at a later date.

Is the member for Wentworth making his remarks flow? Yes, the member for Wentworth, then.

Mr. I. Deans (Wentworth): I wish my guys would get together. Come on. This is getting a bit much.

Mr. Breithaupt: The member should savour it while he can.

Mr. M. Cassidy (Ottawa Centre): That will wake them up on that side.

Mr. Deans: Mr. Speaker, no matter how hard you try you can’t get them in line, it just doesn’t matter.

I hadn’t anticipated making a speech tonight, but since the occasion arises and since something aggravates me so, I think I will talk about it. I wish the House leader would stay a while because I want to talk to him.

Mr. C. E. McIlveen (Oshawa): Yes, well the member can use his nothing speech tonight.

Mr. Deans: Yes. No, I think I will use the member for Oshawa’s nothing speech for a change. That’s the one he has given three times since he came in.

Mr. W. Ferrier (Cochrane South): Has he given that many?

Mr. Deans: I want to talk for a few minutes -- perhaps until about next Tuesday -- about a number of topics that have been aggravating me for a long time. I would have started out tonight talking about what I choose to call the Davis years. I think I will leave that for maybe tomorrow or the day after, because I have a few things I want to talk about that may, in fact, be just a little more important than a discussion of the Davis years. Of course, the members know what I am going to talk about in my discussion of the Davis years, don’t they?

Mr. Ferrier: They are coming to an end.

Mr. Deans: I am going to talk about the energy tax and the Fidinam matter and the cabinet ministers’ land deals and regional government and the WCB inquiry and so on.

An hon. member: The member ought to be thankful for it.

Mr. Deans: But I want to talk first of all about the government’s attitude toward collective bargaining. I was prompted to make this presentation -- you might call it that -- by the remarks of the Chairman of the Management Board when he spoke tonight at 6 or thereabouts.

We’ve heard a lot in this House in recent years about the collective bargaining system and how the government believes in it and thinks that it can work well. In spite of its intrusions into the collective bargaining system time after time after time, it still thinks that with just a little help it might work fairly well.

In recent weeks we’ve seen the government in action with the civil service. Now far be it from me to defend the civil service. They can defend themselves quite adequately, and defend themselves they will, I have no doubt.

I want to talk about something that really has caused me a considerable amount of consternation and aggravation. Not a week ago the Chairman of the Management Board spoke in glowing terms of how he was going to have a news blackout. We weren’t going to have any news statements from either side about the state of collective bargaining --

Hon. Mr. Winkler: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker --

Mr. Deans: Is the minister on his feet already? Would he make up his mind whether he’s here or away?

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Let’s have these two issues very clear.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Deans: I don’t need to have anything very clear.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: The monetary issue and the Crown employees issue are two different things.

Mr. Deans: What is this man on his feet for?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. House leader has a correction to make. It’s not a point of order, I believe.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: The correction is, let the hon. member not mix up the two issues.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Wentworth.

Mr. Deans: I would like to make it clear to you, Mr. Speaker, that there is no mix-up in the two issues. The issues are one and the same.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Well, that is interesting.

Mr. Deans: The issue that has brought us to the brink of a strike in Ontario is the government’s adamant refusal to permit reasonable, sensible collective bargaining to take place in the public sector.

Mr. Ferrier: Right on.

Mr. Deans: If the government had moved at any point in the last six months to correct the inadequacies of the Crown Employees Collective Bargaining Act, we would likely not be faced with the problems we’re faced with today.

Mr. F. Laughren (Nickel Belt): It’s a real problem.

Mr. Deans: That’s where the difficulty lies. The difficulty is not so much whether what they’ve asked for is too much or whether what they have been offered by the government is too little; it’s that the government allowed an Act to remain on the books that deprived residents of the Province of Ontario of an opportunity to have any kind of say in the way in which their place of work was going to operate.

They weren’t permitted to talk about the very things which most aggravate people in their day-to-day employment. There was no opportunity, as a result of the Crown Employees Collective Bargaining Act, for employees to bring before the government, as their employer, their grievances with regard to the way in which they were being treated as employees of the Crown.

It’s the attitude that has caused the problem and not the demands. The demands themselves may well be, in the opinion of the Management Board --

Hon. Mr. Winkler: If that is the case, why wasn’t there a willingness to talk about the main issues?

Mr. Deans: We’re coming to the minister, just hang on.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: That’s fine.

Mr. Deans: The problem has been in the attitude of the government towards its employees, not in what it offered but in its unwillingness to even discuss, prior to not so many days ago, with its employees the need to correct the Act under which they are employed.

If you can recall, Mr. Speaker, and I know you can, the discussions that we had at the time that the Crown Employees Collective Bargaining Act was brought in, you will recall that I discussed with the then Treasurer and Chairman of Management Board of Cabinet, the Hon. Charles MacNaughton, who has departed from the House --

Mr. Breithaupt: That sounds so final.

Mr. Deans: It is final -- what the problems were going to be in regard to collective bargaining between the government and its employees. We pointed out to him the management rights clause and we said to the government at that time that that clause was so restrictive, so archaic, so Neanderthal that it would create problems; that it would render useless any negotiation process; that it didn’t begin to address itself to the normal, modern workplace problems; and that it didn’t afford employees an opportunity to express to management, their employers, the things which they felt they might be able to correct in order to create a more harmonious relationship.

I remember saying that, in fact I have almost said it word for word in the way I said it some years ago to the minister then in charge. I suggested to him that what he was bringing in wasn’t going to fill the bill; it wasn’t going to be satisfactory.

I even predicted that at some point in the future there would be considerable unrest within the civil service, once they got to understand what the conditions of the Crown Employees Bargaining Act really meant to them; and how those terms contained within the section dealing with management’s rights could be applied, and what they really meant in terms of day-to-day operations within the various ministries and departments that they were then employed in.

Well, it has come to pass.

Mr. J. E. Bullbrook (Sarnia): Election issues.

Mr. Deans: It has come to pass.

Mr. Bullbrook: That is what has come to pass.

Mr. Deans: Well, we are coming to that too.

Mr. Bullbrook: The member might be coming to it; but that’s what it is: an election issue.

Mr. Deans: What has happened is that Crown employees, over the course of two or three years, have found that they are unable to deal reasonably with the government about other than monetary matters; and we will talk about the monetary matters in a moment.

They have difficulty finding someone to talk to; someone who would listen to them. They didn’t have to be listened to, because the law forbade them to talk about the things that really mattered where they were employed.

We suggested then, and we suggest now, that in order for collective bargaining to work reasonably and well, that there has to be an opportunity afforded to both sides to raise all matters pertaining to employment; that there has to be a chance to talk about them. There is nothing wrong with saying: “There is a problem that is developing; we have some feeling for a way of resolving it; and we should I sit down together and talk about it.” But the government rejected that.

Well we went through two or three years in which there were feelings developing within the CSAO, within the civil service in general; and it has resulted in them taking a very hard-line position.

And then we come to where we are; where we are today in December of 1974. Not so many weeks ago, negotiations began. The CSAO put forward its position; and the government put forward its position; they were poles apart.

At that point it was evident to me that some very serious and tough negotiation was going to have to take place. And as the minister well knows, I was pleased when I spoke with the minister privately and said to him that I was glad they had finally gotten over that whole episode of bargaining in the press, and were finally going to get down to talking across the table to each other. I think the minister will agree I said that to him in the hall.

And I thought, I frankly thought --

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Let me make that one point clear. I think the hon. member said he was completely satisfied with the fact that we had a news blackout on our negotiations regarding the Crown Employees Collective Bargaining Act -- right?

Mr. Deans: Oh no; oh no.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Yes?

Mr. Deans: I was saying to the minister I was delighted they had finally gotten to the point of talking across the table with each other and weren’t going to carry on this battle in public. I was talking about all of the matters pertaining to the differences between the Crown, at this stage, and the Civil Service Association.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: I wonder if the hon. member would like to tell me where the public battle started?

Mr. Deans: I am going to come to the public battle.

In any event, I think there is a lesson to be learned from what has happened in this dispute. I think first of all that the minister might well have advised his friends, Mr. Robarts, Mr. Colin Brown and all of the others who are associated with this so-called Citizens’ Coalition, that the government of Ontario is capable of dealing for itself; that it doesn’t require some high-priced help from them, that it doesn’t require them to speak up.

Would the minister sit down; he will get a chance.

Mr. Bullbrook: My God, he is leaving.

Mr. Deans: He was almost, almost.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Deans: That’s right, that’s right.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: I just wanted to say we don’t have Dunsky Advertising on our side.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Deans: No. And the more I --

Mr. Chairman: The hon. member for Wentworth has the floor.

Mr. Deans: That’s okay, that’s all right. I don’t mind the interjections from the member for Sarnia, he interjects regularly.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Oh, I know, I know. They’re both polarized --

Mr. Deans: Well, talking about polarizing, we’ll talk about that in a moment too.

An hon. member: The member is an expert on that, is he?

Mr. Deans: I don’t think the government required John Robarts and Colin Brown and the others who gather around the government in its moment of need, to advertise on its behalf. I don’t think the government required that an outside group of highly paid --

Hon. Mr. Winkler: And we don’t.

Mr. Deans: -- highly paid, influential, affluent people in society to tell the remainder of society a lot of nonsense.

Hon. G. A. Kerr (Solicitor General): Nor from Montreal or anywhere else.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: And we don’t.

Mr. Deans: I don’t think the minister should act as the director of research for the Citizens’ Coalition. I don’t think it’s necessary they be fed information from him or from anyone else in government.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: The information I gave out is public information.

Mr. Deans: Yes, public information. I’m sure it is public information.

An hon. member: What does he mean, public information?

Mr. Deans: I don’t think they need the minister’s help to come up with the kind of full-page ads -- and the minister and I both know what a full-page ad in the Globe and Mail costs.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: I have no idea.

Mr. Deans: No, he has no idea.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: I just know the CSAO ran some too.

Mr. Deans: Well I can tell the minister this, that if he requires John Robarts and Colin Brown to get him out of this one --

Hon. Mr. Winkler: And I don’t.

Mr. Deans: -- then he is in very serious trouble. Let’s take a look at what he is trying to do. It’s an old game in negotiations. It’s called trying to separate the leadership from the membership.

Mr. Laughren: That’s right.

Mr. Deans: You’ve seen it happen, Mr. Speaker. The member for Sarnia has been involved in negotiation and he knows that is what is happening here; the government is attempting to separate the rank and file from its leadership. And that’s what is evident in the statement the Chairman of the Management Board made tonight.

Hon. J. W. Snow (Minister of Government Services): Does the member for Sarnia go along with this?

Mr. Deans: He doesn’t have any say in what I say, luckily. Let me read to the minister from his own page 5. This is where the whole matter should have rested.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The member for Wentworth has the floor.

Mr. Deans: The minister said: “The CSAO’s committee considered our proposal over the lunch period and they indicated they wanted to discuss our position on the weekend with other officials of the CSAO.”

That’s an eminently reasonable proposal. The minister had made an offer. They said: “We need time to consider it.” But instead of allowing them to go back to their membership and to put before their membership what his offer was, the minister then pre-empted them by standing up as the employer and attempting to sell it to the membership without the benefit of the leadership having had an opportunity to discuss whether what he had done was in their best interests.

That’s the same as the Tory back-benchers getting together and going to the CSAO and saying: “Look guys, we are prepared to give you more. Don’t worry about Eric Winkler and what he says.” That’s the position the minister put them in. He had no business going to the membership of that association, within hours of their leadership having assured him they would talk about it over the weekend with their middle leadership, in an attempt to find out what their views were. The minister had no business in making public his offer until such time as they came back and told him whether or not they were prepared to discuss it further with him.

Mr. Laughren: Some labour relations.

Mr. Deans: And that’s where the Chairman of the Management Board falls down. It’s not that he means any harm, I suspect, although the member for Sarnia may think otherwise. I once thought -- maybe I still think -- that the whole racket is to try and create a strike in the Province of Ontario so that the minister can force them back to work; in order that he can stand up and ask the people who is going to govern.

Mr. Bullbrook: That’s exactly what it is, and the member is naive not to think it is otherwise.

Mr. Deans: I said that a month ago.

Mr. Bullbrook: It is exactly their motivation throughout. Don’t let the member kid himself. They want to make it an election issue because they are dead otherwise.

Mr. Deans: The problem that the minister has is --

Hon. Mr. Winkler: They are both wrong.

Mr. Deans: We are not both wrong, Mr. Speaker.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: They are both wrong.

Mr. Deans: We are not both wrong. It is evident -- and the member for Sarnia and I will agree on this I’m sure --

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Somebody has to be responsible to the citizens of Ontario and that’s an imaginary issue. The member’s leader --

Mr. Deans: -- that from the start --

Mr. Bullbrook: That’s the type of tripe that the minister is going to put forward --

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The member for Wentworth has the floor.

Mr. Deans: It’s okay. I’ve got lots of time.

Mr. Ferrier: Does the Chairman of the Management Board have his snow tires on for his election campaign?

Mr. Deans: From the time the minister started negotiating it was evident, to me at least, that he had no intention of settling. The fact that he enlisted the help of the Citizens’ Coalition to try and put his position to the public without having to put his name to it was, to say the least, despicable. For him then to say, within hours of having made an offer, without giving the other side the opportunity to discuss it reasonably with the people to whom they were responsible, that he would go to the press and go to the public and attempt to separate the leadership from the rank and file was unconscionable.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: I came to the Legislature.

Mr. Deans: This is a public forum. He might as well have said it on television.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: The Legislature has a right to know.

Mr. Deans: The Legislature has a right to know what the position of the government is if it has not been accepted. But until such time as that had been relayed by the leadership to the rank and file, this government should not have used this Legislature as a political vehicle to by and convince the public they were doing the right thing.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Oh nonsense. Why doesn’t the member get the facts?

Mr. Deans: If on Monday next there had been a statement from the CSAO to the minister, privately or publicly, that they had not accepted his offer, it would then have been reasonable for him to have stood up and said what the offer was. That would have been reasonable. But for him to go before the membership without giving their leadership an opportunity to talk to them is not acceptable to most of us who know anything about collective bargaining. And that’s where he failed.

Mr. Bullbrook: There was no need for it.

Mr. Deans: That’s right, there was no need for it. It’s all part of the game that I was coming to; it’s all part of the game the government plays.

Mr. Bullbrook: There was no need for it at all.

Mr. Deans: The government has taken a position that it is going to create in its own favour a confrontation between itself and its employees, and the minister is the pawn’; and if he is not the pawn he is the mastermind -- and I don’t think he has got, I wouldn’t give him credit for that,

Mr. Bullbrook: That’s it. He is not the pawn at all; he is the mastermind.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: The taxpayer is the pawn in this deal.

Mr. Bullbrook: There is an election coming, if I ever saw one, on that issue right there.

Mr. Deans: That could be.

The taxpayer of the province has the right to know, but the taxpayer of the province expects that the government will deal with its employees both reasonably and in the customary way. I am telling the minister now that what he has done today has set back negotiations with the CSAO beyond anything that has been done up to this point, and that if a problem develops between now and the time they have set as a deadline it’s on his shoulders that the blame must fall, because they said to him that they were prepared to take his offer back and discuss it with their membership, and he didn’t give them a chance. That is not collective bargaining, and that’s not bargaining in good faith.

And that’s where the minister fails. That’s where he fails in every single aspect of collective bargaining; it’s where he fails in his dealings with other people in the Legislature; and it’s where he fails in his dealings with the public at large: He doesn’t know the meaning of good faith. I think the only hope the government has of resolving this -- and I put it on his shoulders personally -- is to remove him as the chief government negotiator.

Mr. Laughren: He should step down voluntarily.

Mr. Deans: The fact of the matter is that any number of other people, both in the back benches and the cabinet, would show considerably more sensitivity to the issue and would at least be prepared --

Mr. R. S. Smith (Nipissing): I don’t know where they dug up that six they sent over there.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: What did the member say?

Mr. R. S. Smith: Where did the government dig up that six that it sent over to negotiate?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Will the member for Wentworth continue?

Mr. Deans: It’s okay, I’ve got to breathe.

Mr. R. S. Smith: Weren’t there five with the minister?

An hon. member: Those were the bodyguards.

Mr. R. S. Smith: Were there not five other cabinet ministers?

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Probably.

Mr. Deans: Yes.

Mr. T. P. Reid (Rainy River): The weakest ones in the government.

Mr. Deans: Anyway, let it be said by me to the minister that without trying to even decide what would be a fair offer, I want him to know one thing -- that by his actions he has taken a great step toward destroying whatever could have been considered as bargaining in good faith. I suggest to the minister that if there is no settlement --

Mr. Laughren: Don’t buy it, Eric.

Mr. Deans: -- in the next two or three weeks he can claim all of the credit for himself in having created this confrontation.

Mr. Laughren: Don’t buy it, Eric.

Mr. Deans: He might, in fact, have passed up the only opportunity to sit down and reach a reasonable settlement. I know that if I were a member of the CSAO and I got the kind of treatment that they have just received from the minister, I wouldn’t be prepared to take it sitting down. The reason we have collective bargaining in this country, the reason we need it in this country, is to do away with the kind of thing that he just attempted to do.

Mr. Laughren: That’s exactly right.

Mr. Deans: I remember reading a book called “Lockout.” I don’t know how many members have read it. It was about that great philanthropist, Andrew Carnegie, whose libraries can be found all around the world; Scottish by descent, I feel ashamed to say --

An hon. member: A real rogue, eh?

Mr. Deans: -- but he bargained just like the minister did. He attempted to discredit the leadership of the organization. He did everything in his power to ensure that the membership separated itself from its leadership, and he found, much to his horror, that he created a hornet’s nest that he couldn’t deal with, because collective bargaining in itself is a worthwhile way of dealing with people. We can’t deal with them one by one, and if the minister had to deal with them one by one, the one-to-one relationship would soon deteriorate.

In any event, I suppose what I am saying, in a nutshell, is this, that I find the minister’s statement today at 6 o’clock to be as destructive a statement as I have heard made in this House, and in spite of the fact that he carries on a conversation while I am trying to tell him something, I suppose I should overlook it. It’s the normal practice.

Mr. Laughren: If the member for Fort William is selling, don’t buy it.

Mr. Deans: That’s exactly how he deals with the CSAO; in exactly the same way. But I tell him that there was no need for what he did. It has destroyed a sense that maybe a settlement could be reached; that what he has provided in his offer may well have been I the basis for some further discussion; that the rank and file of the union should have had the opportunity to hear from their own leaders before they heard from the minister. That’s elementary collective bargaining. What he did today was wrong and I hope he will never do it again, because he can’t possibly succeed in creating any kind of good faith bargaining if he is going to do that sort of thing in the Province of Ontario.

Mr. F. Young (Yorkview): He doesn’t want to.

Mr. Deans: My colleague says the minister doesn’t want to. Does the minister know something? I think my colleague is right. I think he’s right. I think the minister is trying to create an election issue.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: That is wrong.

Mr. Deans: That’s fine. The minister says it’s wrong and I don’t have any --

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. Deans: -- way of disputing it with him, except to think that as I watched the way he has conducted --

Mr. J. E. Stokes (Thunder Bay): What did the minister hope to achieve?

Mr. Deans: -- himself in this collective bargaining --

Mr. Stokes: What did he hope to achieve?

Mr. Deans: -- and with this latest Act --

Mr. Reid: Change the Act.

Mr. Deans: -- I have got to think that his intention was to attempt to delay and to thwart any reasonable opportunity for settlement.

Mr. J. H. Jessiman (Fort William): He has the respect of the House.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: The member tells me it was our intention to delay?

Mr. Deans: That’s right.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: He doesn’t understand the whole question. That’s what is the matter with him.

Mr. Deans: That may be.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: That’s right.

Mr. Deans: That may be. I suspect that I understand the question as well as the minister does.

Mr. Cassidy: Coming from the minister, that is incredible.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: The member will get other opportunities to see about that.

Mr. Deans: Yes, and I suspect that what the minister has done has destroyed whatever semblance of reason that existed between the civil service and the government. Nevertheless, I tell him right now that he is going to be faced with very severe difficulties in the next few weeks and he has brought them on the government. In fact, he probably should be in a position to resign fairly shortly, because he obviously isn’t capable of doing the job.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Who, me resign? No hope, if that’s what the member is thinking; no hope.

Mr. M. C. Germa (Sudbury): Why doesn’t he quit while he is ahead? It would be a good idea.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Germa: Why doesn’t he do the Tories a favour and resign?

Mr. Deans: In any event, I want to say this one final word about collective bargaining: There isn’t any doubt in my mind that the government is totally opposed to the whole collective bargaining process.

Mr. Laughren: He can’t afford it; he doesn’t deal in, land.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Have it on the record and say that’s wrong.

Mr. Deans: Yes, well the minister can say it’s wrong, but we judge a man by his actions, not by his words.

Mr. Cassidy: The member is right.

Mr. Deans: We can only judge by his actions. The minister saw what happened to Karl Mallette. The minister should learn a lesson from what happened to Karl Mallette.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: The member doesn’t worry about that?

Mr. Deans: No, the minister doesn’t worry. Does he know what’s wrong?

Hon. Mr. Winkler: I said the member doesn’t worry about it.

Mr. Deans: I don’t? Oh, I do worry. I worry. Can’t the minister tell from looking at me. I am worried?

Hon. Mr. Winkler: That’s an absolute joke.

Mr. Deans: All I am telling him is that he is following along in the very steps of Karl Mallette --

Mr. Jessiman: Even his own hairdresser wouldn’t tell him!

Mr. Deans: -- and the minister will go the same way. I haven’t sold any land recently.

Mr. Jessiman: Go back to your checker game, you fireman.

Mr. Deans: That’s what the member’s colleague from Wentworth said the day I defeated him.

Mr. Jessiman: With great respect to the pot-bellied, short-sleeved firemen of the province.

Mr. Laughren: Oh, you can’t dig yourself out now, Jessiman.

Mr. Deans: You’re too late. Why don’t you go back, sell some land and make a few more dollars?

Mr. Laughren: Rip somebody else off.

Mr. Jessiman: Why don’t you go get your hair done?

Mr. Deans: I’m going to talk about you later. You come under cabinet ministers and other government lackeys who sell land at a profit. You come under that. You’re in the fifth category down.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. All remarks through the Chair.

Mr. Deans: I’ll get to the member for Fort William later.

Mr. Jessiman: I’ll be glad to hear you.

Mr. Laughren: You’ll be gone.

Mr. Germa: He’s not the solution; he’s the problem.

Mr. Deans: He is indeed. Well, let’s talk about land costs now, because I think it’s appropriate since he is here.

Mr. Laughren: Yes, good idea.

Mr. Deans: I have long felt that the government had no real understanding of what the housing problem was -- I’m finished with that fellow; he can go home now.

Mr. Germa: He didn’t add much anyway.

Mr. Deans: I have long felt that the government didn’t understand what the problem was in housing. And, you know, the more I look at him, the more I realize that he’s part of the problem.

Mr. Germa: He is the problem.

Mr. Deans: When you can take land -- not you necessarily, but when people can take land and they can sell it to the government for twice what they paid for it --

Mr. Jessiman: On a point of personal privilege, Mr. Speaker --

Mr. Deans: I didn’t say he did that.

Mr. Jessiman: On a point of privilege, Mr. Speaker --

Mr. Speaker: What is your point of privilege?

Mr. Jessiman: I never at any time ever sold land to the government, and I’d like this member from Wentworth, or wherever he’s from, to know that --

Mr. Stokes: He never said you did.

Mr. Deans: I didn’t say he did.

Mr. Jessiman: That big mouth.

Mr. Young: His conscience is bothering him now.

Mr. Stokes: He didn’t say you did.

Mr. Cassidy: You had a good try, didn’t you?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Stokes: You needn’t have reacted in that way at all.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. I did not hear such a remark. I would suggest the hon. member address his remarks through the Chair.

Mr. Jessiman: Send him back to the fire hall.

Mr. Deans: What I said was this, Mr. Speaker --

Mr. Speaker: I heard what you said.

Mr. Deans: When you can sell land, and I don’t mean you necessarily, to the government for twice what it’s worth within one week of having acquired it, then there’s something drastically wrong with the government land purchasing arrangements.

You know, Mr. Speaker, that in 1967, right after I was elected I raised in the Legislature a problem with the Saltfleet area. The problem that I raised was that there seemed to have been some rather unusual goings-on in Saltfleet with regard to land purchased by the government of Ontario.

I was a little perplexed at what I was hearing, and I asked the then minister, Stanley Randall, since departed from the Legislature, what was happening. I said to him: “Stan, tell me about the land deal on Saltfleet Mountain, will you?” So he said to me, “Ian, look, I can’t tell you right now but I’ll tell you later.”

Well, I waited, and I asked him again in the Legislature: “Tell me, Stan, how much did the government pay for the land on Saltfleet Mountain?” “Well,” he said, “I can’t tell you yet but I’ll tell you after.” Well, I waited some more; through 1967, 1968, 1969 and 1970 I waited.

Mr. Stokes: Then you called him Stanley.

Mr. Deans: Stanley left. I saw Stanley one day; he’s not in land any more. Then we got around to talking about Saltfleet Mountain the other day and we suddenly discovered what had happened.

Let me tell you what happened, Mr. Speaker, I know you’ll be interested because you’ve got a real feeling for land, as I recall from our discussions in the select committee. Do you know, Mr. Speaker -- and you could listen to this; you might learn something about how to sell your land to the government. Do you know that that land was assembled by Kronas Realty? It was assembled in the months of January and February, and on into April, 1967. Kronas came to the government and they asked the government if they’d like to buy it. But Kronas is a Liberal. They didn’t want to buy the land; there wasn’t enough of it. Kronas then sold it to somebody called Jon-Enco. You remember me talking about him in 1968, eh? Well, he sold it to Jon-Enco and Jon-Enco then continued to assemble land. He sold it in May.

Mr. M. Gaunt (Huron-Bruce): Is Jon-Enco a Tory?

Mr. Deans: Letters from the mayor of Hamilton, Victor Kennedy Copps, and from the reeve of Saltfleet, Les Thomas, appear in the files of the Ontario Housing Corp. urging that the government buy the land because the municipalities are prepared to help in servicing.

Jon-Enco continues with his assembling. He takes options. He doesn’t spend a lot of money, mark you. He doesn’t lay out a lot. He just takes options on the land. Right up through until the first week in December, 1967, be takes options. A funny thing happened in the second week of October, 1967, while Jon-Enco was still taking options. The government of Ontario announces it has acquired 1,500 acres in Saltfleet Mountain for Ontario Housing Corp. development. Do you know, Mr. Speaker, that purchase was never approved until the second week of December, 1967? Do you know what was going on in the first and second weeks of October, 1967? We were in the midst of a provincial election. The government made the statement because they were trying to save a seat. They had made a commitment to Jon-Enco to buy the land, even although it had never been approved and even although the Ontario Housing Corp. didn’t deal with it at its board until the second week of December of that same year.

Do you know what Jon-Enco paid for the land, Mr. Speaker? The total price, right up to the very last parcel in the first week of December, was $3.3 million. Do you know what the government paid them in the second week of December? It was $6 million.

Mr. E. R. Good (Waterloo North): That was brought to light by the member for Grey-Bruce (Mr. Sargent).

Mr. Deans: No, I did that long before he even talked about it. It was $6 million or $4,000 an acre for that land that had cost $3.3 million. When I speak to the people in Hamilton, and particularly those who are going to move on to that land and buy a house, I don’t know how to tell them that those $20,000 building lots are really only worth $10,000. If this government had looked after the interests of the people rather than the interests of the land speculators those houses would have been available to them today for $10,000 less, including carrying charges and servicing costs, than they are going to be available to them in the year 1974 as a result of the government’s action or inaction, depending on how you look at it, in 1967, Mr. Speaker.

I listened to the Minister of Housing (Mr. Irvine) telling me aren’t we lucky they bought the land. Yes, we are lucky they bought the land, but we would have been a damn sight luckier if they had bought it for what it was worth. We would have been a lot better off. I can remember when I raised the matter with Stanley Randall, since departed. I can remember talking to him and saying to him, “Stan, why don’t you use the land that you have?” You have about 700 or 800 acres on Hamilton Mountain and about 1,500 acres in Saltfleet. Why don’t you use that land as a lever against the increasing land prices? Why don’t you use it to try to lever the prices down?

Do you know what Stanley told me, Mr. Speaker? I will let you answer if you want. Do you know what he told me? The Speaker shakes his head to indicate no, he doesn’t know. He said to me, “We are not in the business of competing with the private developer.” In other words, the cost of the land and the cost at which it was to be sold to the public was to be a cost predetermined by the land speculators in the land that they owned privately.

This government is speculating in land. This government has played an active role in forcing the price of housing up in the Province of Ontario. This government by its actions has raised the cost of the housing in the area that I represent by at least $10,000 per unit. This government could have received the land in May of the same year and continued to assemble it for a total price of $3.3 million or less, because no one is to think that Kronas didn’t get a profit out of it either. Had they taken what was offered to them in May, they could have saved the taxpayers $2.7 million and they could have made those homes available on an average for $10,000 less per building lot.

Mr. Stokes: What was the member from that area doing?

Mr. Deans: When I make the charge that the government is speculating in land, that the government is, in fact, using its position to force the cost of housing beyond the reach of the average individual in Ontario, I do it on that basis. That is only one isolated incident.

This is where we now come to what’s been raised by members of the official opposition. If that had been one isolated incident I would have said: “Well, okay, these things happen. Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe somebody appraised it wrongly. Maybe there had been an error made by the Ontario Housing Corp.”

But what we now find out from things that have come out in the last few weeks is that this is the practice of the Ontario government. Its practice isn’t to try to assemble land in order that it can provide housing at a cost that the people can afford. Its practice is to tax the people of Ontario to put into the pocket of the developers of Ontario the additional money they need to support the Tory party. That’s where the problem really lies.

I hope the minister has been listening to this, since I notice a new Speaker. I wouldn’t want to have to go over it. You can pick up the thread of the debate without me having to go back to the beginning, can you, Mr. Speaker?

Mr. Stokes: Because he must talk to the Speaker.

Mr. Deans: I will tell the House what it’s going to mean. It’s going to mean that the people who are going to rent that land are going to have to pay $150 or $160 a month for the ground rent, rather than the $50 or $60 that they might have had to pay had the land been amortized over a reasonable period and had been half as much as it was in cost. It’s going to mean that the average family in the Hamilton area is not going to be able to afford to pay the costs to live on the land that belongs to the Crown. That’s a pretty sad state of affairs.

It’s a pretty sad commentary on this government’s activity when the public of the province earning an average wage, living in a metropolitan area -- working in the Steel Co., or Dofasco, or Procter and Gamble, or any number of other places -- can’t afford to live on Crown land because of the activities of the government.

All right. I said two or three evenings ago on television that it was time for an inquiry. I know that my colleagues in the official opposition have called for a judicial inquiry. I suggest that that’s not the appropriate vehicle, because the terms of reference of a judicial inquiry would be far too narrow. It wouldn’t afford the opportunity for the kinds of discussion that we would want to have in inquiring into the dealings in land by the Ontario Housing Corp.

So, I am suggesting that what we should have is an inquiry of the type that we conducted into the Workmen’s Compensation Board. That a standing committee of the Legislature be empowered to hire counsel; that it would be empowered to subpoena witnesses and records; and that it inquire, as we did, into the WCB, particularly into the practices and policies of the Ontario Housing Corp. with regard to its purchases of land.

I personally want it to direct itself to that purchase. It can direct itself to whatever other areas it wishes, but I would want it to direct itself to that purchase -- because I want to know the answer to at least one question. And that question is: What is residual value and what does it mean?

How is it that the developer gets residual value, while he doesn’t pay it to the farmer or to the landowner that he purchases the land from? What does it mean and what does it cost the Province of Ontario and the taxpayers? It’s okay to have a triple-A rating. It’s a lot better to provide housing at a cost the people can afford.

While I’m on the topic of housing, I want to tell you, Mr. Speaker, that I’m concerned not with those who can afford a house, or can’t afford a house and wish they could, or ought to be able to afford a house because of earning a reasonable income and working very hard. We also have to change our policies with regard to rental. We have to change the policies to ensure that in times like these, with low vacancy rates, when there is little opportunity for the middle- and low-middle and low-income families to purchase, that those who happen to be in the business of renting apartments, renting accommodations, don’t take advantage of it.

We have got to ensure that people are not being used by the system, that they are not having whatever it is that they are capable of earning taken from them by greedy, hardhearted people, whose only concern in life is money.

I want to make it clear that I don’t consider every landlord to be of the type who takes everything that he or she can get. The landlords who deal favourably and reasonably have nothing to worry about. I want to suggest that there are certain landlords, though, in this province who, because of the low vacancy rate, have taken from the renters, knowing full well the position that they are in and the inopportune moment that they are in in terms of trying to find other accommodation. They have taken advantage of this situation.

I suggest, as I did in a debate not many weeks ago, that it is time that we had a review -- a procedure for review. It’s time that we set up a rental review agency with power to do but one thing -- with power either to approve of or deny rental increases required. That agency, on the initiative of any tenant, would require of the landlord that he produce the evidence to justify the rent increase, and if that evidence was not sufficient to justify the increase that was being applied for, no increase would be granted, and a further application would be required in order for any increase to be given.

I want to suggest that the reason I said that, was because I think that given that as the alternative, the majority of landlords would think very carefully about the magnitude of the increase and the application of the increase to the already high rents that they are collecting in the Province of Ontario.

I think it is time to ensure that tenants do in fact have some kind of voice in the affairs of the place in which they live. We have got to recognize that apartments aren’t like factories; they are home for a great many people, and they are entitled to live in that apartment as if they were living at home, without fear, without threats, and they are entitled to live like human beings.

If we were to rewrite the Landlord and Tenant Act, I would suggest that one of the things that should be contained is a standard lease form, so that those who may not have the education, once having had the lease explained to them, are able to know exactly what to expect in any subsequent lease. That standard lease, in my humble opinion, should be set out in such a way as to ensure -- it should be mandatory by law -- that it be used, and set out in such a way as to ensure that any change to the lease is obvious to the tenant, and must be approved by both parties before it becomes a legal document.

I think the government has an obligation at a time like this, and I think its obligation is to try to ensure that there are sufficient numbers of homes and apartments available as an alternative to the private market. I don’t know what that means in numbers. I have thought a lot about it; I have wondered what it would cost, and I have wondered what the total numbers of accommodations might be.

I suggest to the House that if the government were serious about meeting the legitimate housing needs, it would be prepared to move into a crash programme, and would not just simply try to meet last year’s limits and fall short by 10,000 or 20,000 housing units. It would be prepared to move into a crash programme to provide, on an overall basis, a sufficient number of units in order that the price in the private sector would be affected and would be reduced.

I’ve wondered about what’s happened in the housing field, and I offer this to the member as a personal view. The problems that we are facing, though not entirely related to housing, are influenced by the housing market. At one point not so many years ago a person was able to purchase or rent for 25 to 30 per cent of their income. When you included their total costs of maintaining themselves, you found that they had perhaps 20 per cent of their total income left for, what I would choose to call “frivolous purchasing.”

As a result of the land deals of this government, its inability to come to grips with the housing crisis and its unwillingness to ensure a sufficient supply of housing, we have found that for many young people -- and many not so young people -- the cost of acquiring accommodation has risen to 50 and sometimes 60 per cent of their disposable income, and we now face a situation where there is little or no income left over for what I again call frivolous spending.

I want to tell you, Mr. Speaker, that frivolous spending includes things like, the purchase of televisions, the purchase of automobiles, the purchase of carpeting -- in fact, other expenditures which may not be considered necessities but which are generally considered by most to be part of the quality of life, the standard of living that we enjoy.

The consequence of what has happened, much of which -- or at least a portion of which -- I attribute to this government, is that those people who manufacture those commodities that may be purchased by that expendable income are no longer required to produce as much. When they don’t produce as much, they don’t work as much; when they don’t work as much, they don’t buy as much raw material; and the effects of that kind of cycle on the economy can well be disastrous.

That’s simplistic, perhaps, but it’s one of the reasons why we are facing a situation in this province and in this country whereby people are finding themselves no longer required to produce the things which were once being purchased by that frivolous income that I spoke about.

I want to suggest that we can’t afford to have 80 and 90 per cent of the income-earning capacity taken up providing only the essentials. That may well have been fine in the Thirties, it may well have been fine in the Twenties, but because of advertising, because of expectations being raised, people expect a higher standard of living. When we allow housing to take such a large chunk of a person’s income, we reduce his capacity to buy the other things that are very much a part of the maintenance of a reasonably stable economy. That, I think, is one of the responsibilities of this government, and I lay it directly at its door.

It can’t slough it off on Alberta; it can’t slough it off on British Columbia; it can’t even say that it’s a federal responsibility. It’s something that the government of Ontario could have done and didn’t do. I suggest that that is where it has failed, in terms of trying to stabilize the economy.

I want to take the members back again to 1967, because in the very first speech that I made in this House I spoke about that very problem. I tried to convince the government of that day that they had to take some action to insure against the rapidly rising costs -- and my God, when I think of 1968, when I think of what I thought was a rapidly rising cost, and I look at it in the light of 1974, what was happening then was hardly discernible when viewed over and against the rise of costs in 1973 and 1974. In a personal sense -- I’ve made this statement many times -- I look at the house that I bought in 1964. It cost me $15,000; three bedrooms; a little brick house. I still live in it. It cost me $87 a month to principal and interest; 6½ per cent.

Do you know, Mr. Speaker, what that same house is on the market today? Conservatively, $48,000; $260 a month, plus taxes, just to carry it.

I suggest that even the members of the Legislature, if they didn’t have their expense allowance and they had to live on their $16,000, couldn’t buy that house.

When I look at my three kids and when I speak to others -- and I think of the opportunities that they have -- I say to everyone, with very few exceptions, that if they went out today and they earned their father’s income, they couldn’t buy the house that their parents live in at today’s market price.

That Mr. Speaker, is an indictment of the government. That’s because it has failed to come to grips with the housing problem. It’s okay to talk about meeting the market price, but the responsibility lay in another direction altogether.

Surely a government’s responsibility is to ensure that the basic essentials are available to those who work at a price that they can afford. And this government failed in that, and it failed in that because it is in the same game as the speculators. It has played the same game too long and because it comes from the same family. That’s the reason why we have such difficulty in trying to meet what I consider to be one of the major problems confronting the majority of people.

And how does this government go about dealing with it? I want to talk about that for a moment, too. I want to talk about the lottery in Hamilton. The lottery was grossly unfair; the lottery didn’t begin to meet the bill. There were too many loopholes and problems that developed as a result of the way that lottery was run. Far too many good and sensible people are so discouraged and upset by it that they have almost given up.

You pick up the phone in the evening and you hear people crying, literally crying, because they couldn’t get a house. You talk to them and you find that there are some very serious questions about the way in which the lottery was conducted. You find people who already own houses, very adequate houses, whose names were in the lottery and who have been drawn. So they are going to sell the one they have at the market price and they are going to move into the Ontario Housing Corp. house. Well, okay, the law permitted it; but it ought not to have. That’s one of the major problems.

With a lottery for 700-odd houses, you find people being forced to apply to a single builder who may have 60 or 70 lots. Instead of having one chance in 700, they have one chance in 60 or 70. It’s quite ridiculous. When running a lottery it would make sense -- and I suggested it before -- that they continue to draw the names out of the hat or out of the drum until they are all drawn.

Give them a priority number, because we know that the government is going to have future housing developments. They then are given the opportunity to move into that housing development as their priority number comes up, rather than to take a chance year after year after year, to have their expectations raised, to have their hopes dashed, and to have them soured and turned off and discouraged by a system which is grossly unfair, which doesn’t take into account their capacity to pay, which doesn’t take into account their need but just simply takes into account luck.

Well, I have got to tell you, Mr. Speaker, that I just don’t happen to think that in the field of housing luck should play a very important part. I just don’t think so, and I think it’s about time that the government understood it. There is a lot more to be said about the lottery, but I don’t intend to speak forever about that. I have got a number of other things I want to talk about.

Do you recall, Mr. Speaker, that during the health estimates I raised with the Minister of Health (Mr. Miller) the problem of the ambulance services around the Province of Ontario? I want to suggest to you, as I did to him, that there is a great need for a review of the method of providing emergency service in the province. While I realize there are some who will disagree with me, I still believe that an ambulance service has to be provided on a reasonably uniform basis to all residents.

I understand and I want to make it clear that there are places where the ambulance will no doubt be much closer, where it will get to the scene much more quickly, where it is much easier to provide the service. But, to the greatest extent possible the requirement is to ensure that the sick can be transported as quickly and as equitably as is humanly possible and that can’t be done with the existing system.

It can’t be done with the existing system because the existing system is based on something called “an incentive programme.” It’s privately operated -- or is it? We’ve an ambulance system that’s private; well, what’s private about it?

The government pays for the housing of the ambulance, the ambulance base. The government buys the ambulance. The government pays for all of the equipment on the ambulance. The government establishes the budget for the service. The government audits the budget, so-called. The government decides how many ambulances are needed in an area. The government makes sure that there’s an adequate communications system set up to send the ambulances out to the places where they are needed and it pays for it. And then it hands it over, all paid for, to someone and says: “It’s yours, baby. You are a private enterpriser. Go ahead and run it.”

I have got to ask you, Mr. Speaker, what’s private about that ambulance service? Taxpayers’ money paid for the vehicle. Taxpayers’ money paid for the equipment, paid for the communications, even paid for the house that the ambulance sits in. The government pays the wages, monitors the budget and then hands it over to some individual and says: “Whatever you can cream off the top, you can keep.”

Well, I don’t understand that. That’s not a private system, that’s a public system. The only thing is the government is saying to its friends that they are going to give them X number of dollars and if they can manage to run it a little more cheaply, they can keep the difference.

How do you justify that, Mr. Speaker? How does anyone justify that? How do you justify the disparity in available service? How do you justify to my colleague from the north the inadequate ambulance service that they have? I don’t understand it. I have never understood it, I probably never will. If we come to power, we will change it.

An hon. member: That’s for sure.

Mr. Deans: We will change it. We won’t change it that much, by the way. We won’t have to. We will just simply say that that which belongs to us still belongs to us. We will put a manager in, the manager will manage it, he will be paid a salary; and whatever is saved the taxpayers will keep.

Not a bad idea, eh? Maybe we could save a few dollars for the taxpayers that way. We might even be able to provide a better service because maybe the few dollars we save we could put into another ambulance someplace. Maybe we could ensure that there’s a helicopter ambulance service available in certain parts of the province. How do you know?

It surprises me. The more I think about it, the more wonderful ideas I have about what we could do with the money that we currently give away to the ambulance operators. Very nice people, but I can’t afford them. I can’t afford to have them. I can’t afford to be taxed in order to keep some people going in fancy homes, driving big cars, at the taxpayers’ expense -- and the taxpayers can’t afford it either.

I’m suggesting to you, Mr. Speaker, if you ever talk to the Minister of Health I want to urge you to suggest to him that since we own it all anyway, why don’t we run it? Why don’t we run it out of the hospitals where it ought to be? Why don’t we stop giving the private operator the money in his pocket to acquire property for his own use in the future?

You know what happens in that regard, don’t you? He goes out and he finds a little building or he builds one, and then the government, taking into account the cost of maintenance and the cost of amortization of the building, settles on a figure that it will pay him in order that he can maintain that building. That building is in his name. Someday when it’s paid off, do you know who owns it, Mr. Speaker? He does. Do you know who paid for it? We did.

Anybody can be a private enterpriser under those conditions. Even I could run a business.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Not even a Freshie stand in the Gobi Desert!

Mr. Stokes: Under those circumstances, he couldn’t miss -- not even he.

Hon. A. Grossman (Provincial Secretary for Resources Development): Where would he run it? He’d run it into the ground.

Mr. McIlveen: He talks as though he had brains.

Mr. Deans: I’ve got to tell you, Mr. Speaker, even I could run a business if the government guaranteed to provide everything I needed and to pay for it and let me keep what I could.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: If the member’s party gets in, that’s probably what will happen, to!

Mr. Stokes: That’s what is happening.

Mr. Deans: That’s the ambulance service of the Province of Ontario.

Mr. J. Riddell (Huron): The member fails to differentiate between urban and rural centres. Some people are 50 miles away from a hospital.

Mr. Stokes: That’s what is called blue socialism -- socialism for the rich.

Mr. Deans: When you’re 50 miles away from a hospital you have serious difficulty getting an ambulance, Mr. Speaker.

Mi. Riddell: The member better believe it.

Mr. Deans: Therefore you require substations when you’re 50 miles away. But for those in the metropolitan areas the ambulances should run out of the hospitals.

Mr. D. A. Paterson (Essex South): I say there is more to it.

Mr. Deans: I didn’t catch what the member said.

On top of that, if a person is a number of hundred miles away from a reasonable health care facility, maybe we should give some thought to creating a health care facility closer by. Maybe that might not be such a bad idea. It could well be that some of the communities in the north and in other areas more sparsely populated --

Mr. Stokes: There are mobile clinics.

Mr. Deans: -- could have some form of mobile clinic or the establishment of a health care facility, not necessarily a fancy hospital --

Mr. Stokes: Maybe a flying doctor.

Mr. Deans: -- in closer proximity to where they live. I think the answer is around if we look long enough. I don’t think it’s in this racket here. There are a number of ways to do it and I don’t think this is the right way. It may be there are ways other than I think, but what the government has done in this regard reminds me a little bit of Robin Hood, but robbing the poor to pay for the rich. That’s what happens.

I don’t think the government has the right to use taxpayers’ money to provide not only an income -- I wouldn’t mind the income -- but to provide any person in the Province of Ontario with the opportunity to acquire for his own use and for his personal use only, real property in the province. That’s what the government has done in the ambulance service and, if it doesn’t change it, it’ll rue the day. I can assure the government that a great many people across the Province of Ontario are beginning to ask the questions. They may not have the answers, but they’re asking the questions.

I’d like to talk just for a brief moment or two about regional government.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: It’s working well in Hamilton. It’s a big success in Hamilton-Wentworth.

Mr. Deans: I wanted to talk for a moment or two about regional government because I know that a great many people in the Hamilton-Wentworth area are quite concerned about the cost. I know you can remember, Mr. Speaker, that I asked the Premier (Mr. Davis) some months ago --

Mr. Stokes: The Solicitor General disagreed.

Mr. Deans: Oh, the Solicitor General always disagrees with me -- and always lets me know I am right.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: They are happy in Hamilton-Wentworth; happy the taxes went down.

Mr. Stokes: Ecstatically happy.

Mr. Deans: They are delighted. The people of the area are asking the question: “What are we getting for our dollars? What is it that we get in return for the tax dollars that we are paying?”

I have got to think the people deserve an answer, and I am not at all sure that there is anyone capable of giving them the answer. I have asked the question. I asked the Treasurer (Mr. White) during a debate we had on regional government some weeks or months ago. I asked the Premier: “What do they get for their money?” But he didn’t seem to know.

So, I wrote him a letter and said to him: “Look, you are going to conduct a study into Metro Toronto regional government. You are going to appoint that fine fellow, John Robarts -- the guy who pays for the Citizens’ Coalition. You are going to appoint him as the chairman of the study.”

Hon. Mr. Snow: Great man, great man.

Mr. Deans: And he is okay. You know, he may do a good job. But I said: “Don’t you think, since you are inquiring into the form of regional government, it might not be a bad idea to have some kind of cost-benefit analysis of the regions already in existence, before we jump any further into regionalization? Don’t you think that we should take a serious look at what people are getting for the additional tax dollars that they are paying, before we thrust any more regionalization on top of them? Don’t you think that maybe we should be a little more honest with them and calculate their taxes without the transitional grants so they might see what it is really costing them to have regional government, or what it is going to cost them in five years time -- even without any increase for additional costs and cost of living increases?

“Don’t you think the people of the Province of Ontario, those who are already in regions, have the right to know what the tax burden is going to be after the next election when the transitional grants are no longer forthcoming and when the Province of Ontario isn’t picking up such a large share of the cost of operating the regional governments?”

And then I looked at the Hamilton area and I thought: This was supposed to be --

Mr. Paterson: Are we going to cut those grants out?

Mr. Deans: Yes, after five years.

Mr. Paterson: We are?

Mr. Deans: Yes; but the member is not going to be the government, so it won’t matter.

I thought to myself: This government is supposed to co-ordinate things. They are supposed to see some co-ordination; some doing away with the duplication. I looked at the Hamilton area. Well, we have got the Hamilton-Wentworth official plan under way; we have got the Escarpment plan under way; we have got the lakefront plan under way; we have got the interior Hamilton transportation study under way; we have got the airport plan under way; and now we have got the Hamilton-to-Nanticoke corridor study under way. Have I forgotten any?

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. Deans: Right. And they are not coordinated in the least. Do you know, Mr. Speaker, that government can’t decide one without thinking about the other? It can’t come to a decision on one without knowing how the other is going to work. It can’t possibly develop the Hamilton region official plan without knowing what the Escarpment plan is going to be. It can’t develop the Hamilton region official plan without knowing what the lakefront plan is going to bring forth. It can’t plan any integrated community without knowing the interior transportation methods that are to be used. It can’t plan for Hamilton-Wentworth without knowing exactly how the Nanticoke-to-Hamilton transportation and utility corridor is going to be developed. And it certainly can’t do any meaningful planning unless it knows in advance where the airport is going to be.

So here we have all these things all going on, independent of each other -- five or six different operations by different people, not coordinated in the least. There is no indication that one knows what the other is doing. I spoke to the Nanticoke corridor people. I said to them: “Okay, how are we going to get the people from the dead end that you’ve got drawn on the map that ends at Lime Ridge? How are we going to get them, down to the industrial area?” They didn’t know.

Mr. R. Haggerty (Welland South): Build a new city.

Mr. Deans: I said to the escarpment people: “How do you expect the Hamilton-Wentworth planners to plan the community without knowing how much of it is to be saved for escarpment purposes?” They didn’t know. I asked the lakefront planners: “How do you hope to plan for the saving of the lakefront without knowing where the municipality intends to build?”

In other words, there are five or six different plans going on, and there is absolutely no co-ordination one with the other. Wasn’t that one of the things that regional government was supposed to bring?

What did we get for regional government? Oh, we got higher taxes. It will be denied by the member for Halton West (Mr. Kerr) but we got higher taxes. The full impact of the taxes are being felt yet, but the higher taxes are reflected in the size of the provincial grants, which are currently offsetting the additional costs. Some day those grants won’t he coming, because they are transitional; and when they cease to come, what then will be the cost and what will be the benefit that will accrue? That’s where we’re at.

What I’m saying to the Premier and to the Treasurer is that with the sophisticated machinery of the government, surely they can sit clown and do a cost-benefit analysis. Surely they can look at what it now costs, at what new projects are under way, at what it costs to produce what is required in order to create a viable community, at what it costs to create an overall plan of development to save what has to be saved and to develop what can be developed, and then tell us whether we’re better off with this great new plan or whether it’s costing us more than we’re getting in benefits. I suggest that at least in the interim, and maybe in the long term, it’s going to cost considerably more than the majority of today’s residents will ever see in benefits. That’s the question.

As I said about housing, about the ambulance service and about the collective bargaining process, we have the obligation to create a system that can provide the maximum at the lowest possible cost. Money doesn’t grow on trees --

Mr. Stokes: Right on.

Mr. Deans: -- and the majority of taxpayers in the Province of Ontario can ill afford the cost of these fanciful programmes and schemes that the government dreams up in an attempt to enhance its public image.

I have two or three other small matters that I want to talk about before I get to the main topic that I wanted to raise.

Mr. A. J. Roy (Ottawa East): Bring this man to order.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Is he filibustering the member for High Park (Mr. Shulman)?

Mr. R. S. Smith: He’s cut off.

Mr. Deans: No, I’m not cut off for six minutes, until we get to the evening programme.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: The late, late show.

Mr. Deans: It’s commonly called the late show. Tonight it’s a mystery. Other nights it’s been a comedy. It depends who does it. But tonight it’s a legitimate mystery, and we’re all going to hear it.

Mr. Roy: Is the member saying he’s a comedian tonight?

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Deans: I thought I’d spend a moment, since I have only a few moments -- I might as well tell you, what I’m going to talk about Thursday, so that you know, Mr. Speaker --

Mr. Roy: Yes, we’re waiting in breathless anticipation.

Mr. Deans: I want to talk at length about the cost of living, and I have a few notes here that I want to refer to. I also want to talk about organized hockey.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: The member for Downsview is first; don’t forget that.

Mr. Deans: Not in the line of violence; I want to talk about organized hockey and the effect --

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. Deans: -- of the operation that we have in Ontario on youngsters in the Province of Ontario. I am going to do that on Thursday, I hope; but I don’t want to start it tonight, because I wouldn’t be able to get into it and it is one of those sort of compartment-type --

Hon. Mr. Winkler: I think the hon. member for Downsview comes first, in the next introduction of the debate.

Mr. Deans: Oh no, he will get on when I am finished. I am already in --

Hon. R. Welch (Provincial Secretary for Justice and Attorney General): Isn’t the member finished yet?

Mr. Deans: Not at all. I will be delighted to --

Mr. Stokes: One doesn’t interrupt the speaker who is available for one who isn’t available.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Oh, I am sure we can make an arrangement.

Mr. Deans: Anyhow, just to maintain this, so that I don’t lose the continuity, I don’t want to deal with the other two matters before Thursday. I want to turn to something that has caused me some aggravation. I want to talk a little bit for five minutes, or four minutes now, about the Bill Davis years, because they have intrigued me.

Mr. Roy: Talk about organization of the work of the House.

Mr. Deans: No, I can’t do that, because there is no organization to talk about.

An hon. member: Great years.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Best years of Ontario.

Mr. Roy: The House leader is here; tell us how we are supposed to sit on Wednesday?

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Tell us about the flip-flop of the member for Ottawa East.

Mr. Roy: Yes, tell us how we are supposed to sit on Wednesdays.

Mr. Haggerty: Tell us about the flip-flop of Benoit.

Mr. Roy: The flip-flop of who?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Perhaps it might be appropriate, if the hon. member has reached a convenient spot in his remarks, to move the adjournment of the debate.

Mr. Deans moves the adjournment of the debate.

Motion agreed to.

Mr. Speaker: Are there any further announcements before the next order?

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Mr. Speaker, if you wish me to put on the record the business of the House for Thursday, I would be pleased to.

Mr. Speaker: Perhaps you might.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Starting with items Nos. 11, 12, 17 and 18, and then anything I might wish to announce after that.

Mr. Speaker: I think we can deem it to be 10:30 o’clock, p.m.

Order, please, in accordance with the standing order 28(a), I deem a motion to adjourn to have been made. As announced earlier, this afternoon, the member for High Park has two matters he wishes to discuss. I might just point out that the hon. member has approached me indicating that his two remarks are so closely related -- in fact, they are almost one and the same I believe -- and that he has a total of about 7½ or eight minutes. I would seek permission that he be allowed to combine his two five-minute periods into one of 7½ or eight minutes, and then any replies can follow. Do I have that agreement? Very well.

The hon. member for High Park.

SEAFARERS’ INTERNATIONAL UNION

Mr. M. Shulman (High Park): Mr. Speaker, on Nov. 19 I requested that this government investigate the violence and other abuses within the SIU because, as I then said, the federal government is too intimately associated with the SIU to take the necessary action. Following that speech, I supplied the information I had to the RCMP, but Mr. Allmand said yesterday that I had given them nothing. I am therefore relating these matters here in the hope that the provincial government will order an inquiry.

I do not intend to go through the history of how the Liberal government brought the SIU to this country, but it is worth pointing out that internal telegrams of the SIU during the 1960s referred to the Liberal government as the SIU’s branch office in Ottawa. The heads of the SIU do not consider that things have changed since that time.

Item 1. The man in charge of the federal investigation is Solicitor General Warren Allmand. I would have hoped that Mr. Allmand would have assigned someone else to this investigation, in view of the fact that he himself has personally intervened on behalf of the SIU in the past.

On Oct. 4, 1972, Mr. Allmand, in his position on the federal transportation committee, criticized his own government and Transport minister Don Jamieson for not doing more for the SIU on the Great Lakes. Twenty-six days before the federal election Allmand went to SIU headquarters to promise Gralewicz his continued support. On Oct. 5 the SIU assigned a team of workers to Mr. Allmand’s Montreal riding to assist him, and the campaign from that point on was marred by beatings and ripping down of opposition signs.

It is significant that Allmand’s official agent was Joseph Nuss, 626 Clarke Ave., Montreal. Mr. Nuss has been the lawyer for the SIU for many years. Nuss was the SIU counsel during the Norris inquiry, and commissioner Norris said about Nuss in his report that he did not conduct himself as counsel should, that he made the mistake of identifying himself too closely with the SIU and that he permitted himself to be used to delay and frustrate the inquiry. The commissioner concluded: “Attempts were made to delay and frustrate the proceedings in every way, and to harass and bait the commissioner.” That’s Mr. Allmand’s official agent. Perhaps this makes Mr. Allmand’s comments about the Munro tape more understandable. He said the tape shows no evidence of corruption or bribery. Well, no one ever suggested it did. What it does show is that the SIU has the same relationship with Munro as it has with Allmand -- sufficiently cozy and friendly that the federal government will not act, despite the continued violence.

Today Mr. Allmand admitted receiving money from the SIU and said there was nothing wrong with accepting a campaign donation from a union unless there was proof that that union was involved in illegal activities. Tonight I shall table evidence that was in the hands of the federal Minister of Labour proving such illegal activities were taking place at the very time that Allmand held his joint press conference with Gralewicz at SIU headquarters.

Item 2. On Nov. 25 when the Toronto officers of the SIU, Harnum and Willis, who are in the gallery tonight, were served with summonses in relation to charges laid against them, they said to the six police officers that nothing would come of it because too many important politicians were involved.

Item 3. Roman Gralewicz, president of the SIU, in September of 1974, when interviewed by police officers from two forces, boasted to them that they could do nothing to the SIU because he had a senior cabinet minister “in his pocket.” He then named the minister. It was not Mr. Munro; it was not Mr. Allmand. In the course of the same statement, Gralewicz also spoke of the union’s close connection with other members of the cabinet. The RCMP have a copy of Gralewicz’s statement, including the name of the cabinet minister. I called that minister and he denied being in anyone’s pocket, but he did admit to a close friendship with Leonard McLaughlin.

Item 4. Gralewicz’s predecessor as head of the SIU was Leonard McLaughlin, who is described in an SIU inquiry as devious, unscrupulous and entirely untruthful. This man was appointed by federal Labour minister Martin O’Connell in 1972 to be a labour adviser to the United Nations representing this country. This appointment was made after the bitterly contested SIU election the year before which had been marked by violence and beatings. McLaughlin’s appointment allowed Gralewicz to take over as head of the SIU.

Item 5. At an SIU executive meeting prior to the last federal election, it was decided to donate $10,000 toward the election campaigns of specific cabinet ministers. Whether or not those cabinet ministers received the money can only be determined at a royal commission. It has been suggested to me by a police officer that portions of the money which left the SIU never reached the cabinet ministers.

Item 6. The RCMP now have a tape of a conversation between Roman Gralewicz and Labour minister John Munro. This tape is the one the Star referred to as “a bombshell.” I do not believe that it is a bombshell. It is, however, highly significant. This tape, made just before the last federal election, is of a phone conversation, during the course of which is discussed financial aid and, more importantly, a large block of votes to be supplied to the Labour minister in the campaign. In addition, the SIU leader asks if Martin O’Connell, the previous Labour minister, requires assistance. He refers to this Liberal members as “my old friend.”

The conversation between Munro and Gralewicz is obviously that of two friends. Here is an excerpt:

Gralewicz: “I want to give you a little money for your campaign. I’m going to give you $500.”

Munro: “Thanks a million.”

Gralewicz: “Well, no, it’s not a million; that’s for the good guys. All you so-and-sos get is $500.”

In my opinion, the significance of this tape lies in the fact that Munro had just come from negotiations between the Seafarers’ International Union and the shipping companies at which he personally had sat at the table as the “impartial” arbiter.

When we look back over these six items the overwhelming impression is that of a union that is very sure of its relationship with the government. After all, it is one thing to make a campaign donation; it is another to boast to your membership of your relationship with important politicians, and surely it bespeaks an arrogant confidence for union leaders to dismiss police officers with a comment that they can do nothing because key members of the cabinet are in their pocket.

In 1972 a mass of detailed evidence of violence was presented to Martin O’Connell with a request that something had to be done “before any more violence occurs.” Included in this mass of evidence was an affidavit, which I will table in a moment, describing a beating administered by Gralewicz and Willis and 11 other men. The reply of the Minister of Labour was that his department was “without authority to conduct investigations into the internal activities of a union.” The Labour minister down there can’t do it, the Labour minister here can’t do it, and the federal Minister of Justice can’t do it. Who can do it? Our Solicitor General says he can’t do it.

Since that day in 1972, the violence and intimidation have continued. While O’Connell, Munro, Allmand and other cabinet ministers have said nothing is wrong and nothing can be done, they have not found any difficulty in accepting SIU money and other aid.

Before tabling these papers, I would like to read them into the record. The first one is dated March 17, 1972. It’s addressed to the hon. Martin O’Connell.

“Dear Mr. Minister:

“During the 1971 general election of officers for the Seafarers’ International Union of Canada, intimidation and violence have taken place. Since the results of the election, the intimidation and violence are still with us, and we are requesting that the federal Department of Labour investigate our union and its implications in these acts. Also the financial structure and how much SIU money was spent on the election, paid to people not qualified to receive any remuneration from our union.

“We sincerely trust that your department will make every effort to investigate these acts before any more violence occurs.

“Thanking you and your department, we very kindly remain,

“Yours very truly,

“Seamen’s Reform Committee,

“John S. Cooper, chairman.

“Frank Wheeler, co-chairman.”

Accompanying that document was a great mass of affidavits. I am only going to read one into the record because of lack of time, and it is this one because it mentions the leaders of the SIU.

“Please be advised that I was a candidate form the position, of vice-president for the port of Quebec during the 1971 SIU general election, I was forced to resign my position prior to the election in order to campaign for the said position.

“While, attending the SIU general membership meeting in November at Thunder Bay, Ont., I was in the company of Bill Glasgow, Ray Doucette, Lenny O’Toole and Evan Keating. After the meeting at the St. Louis Hotel, at 11 p.m. I left the hotel to bring Bill Glasgow’s car to the front of the hotel and discovered that his car had all the wiring cut out and also the power brake lines were cut. I returned to the hotel and advised Bill Glasgow of this and at that time we all left the hotel together.

“We were attacked in the hotel parking lot by 12 to 14 men. In the group of men were Roman Gralewicz, John Pearson, Bobby Lazarus, and Roy Willis, and I personally was attacked by four men, two of whom were Wayne Lazarus and Ian Vickers. I was struck several times in the face and knocked down and was repeatedly kicked all over the body and face. I was completely black and blue. Wayne Lazarus and Ian Vickers travelled with the Gralewicz party from Thorold to Thunder Bay.

“Fraternally yours,

“Francois de Lachavotier.”

This is the reply the Labour minister sent and it’s dated March 24, 1972. Let me stress again there are a mass of documents, a mass of affidavits.

“Dear Mr. Cooper:

“Hon. Martin O’Connell has asked me to acknowledge your letter of March 17 signed by you and Mr. Frank Wheeler concerning alleged violence within the Seafarers’ International Union of Canada. I have been advised that you, accompanied by other members of the Seamen’s Reform Committee, met with Mr. W. P. Kelly, assistant deputy minister, industrial relations, and A. R. Gibbon, assistant director, conciliation arbitration branch, on Wednesday, March 22, regarding the above matter.

“Further, it is my understanding that you were informed by Mr. Kelly that the minister or the department are without authority to conduct investigations into the internal activities of a union.

“Yours sincerely,

“David J. Simms, executive assistant.”

I’d like to table these papers, please.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member has about 30 seconds left is he finished?

Mr. Shulman: Almost, in 30 seconds more. I suggest to you, sir, that all of this adds up to a prima facie case showing an intimate relationship between the SIU and the federal government. It is sufficiently close that the federal government has seen fit to ignore the continued violence which has been documented and presented to it since 1971. Surely it is time for this government to order an inquiry into the violence and other abuses. In closing, let me stress, so that it will not be forgotten, the main issue is the violence and the men who are in terror at the waterfront, not the actions or lack of same of people in the federal cabinet. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Solicitor General.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: I’d just like to take a few minutes to outline the role of the police authorities in the investigation in respect to violence and intimidation in the SIU and also the question of an inquiry as suggested by the hon. member for High Park.

I think in some of the remarks made by the member for High Park, particularly in his speech of Nov. 19 last in the Legislature, there seemed to be some insinuation that the police were not aware of some of the facts that he had exposed or indicated to the House that evening and that, in fact, he brought the activities of the SIU within the SIU to the attention of the Attorney General and myself. The facts are that the Metropolitan police and the Ontario Provincial Police have been investigating allegations of violence and intimidation within the SIU since early spring, since April, and this investigation, of course, has gone on within the province and also in certain areas outside the province.

A number of interviews took place with those seamen who have made complaints regarding assaults on themselves and regarding violence. In August of this year there were two charges of assault laid as a result of that investigation. There is no question that there has been some difficulty in getting sufficient evidence because of the reluctance of seamen to lay charges because of fear, not only for their own selves but for their jobs. However, in spite of this and because of a stepped-up investigation by the Metro force and the OPP, there are now about five charges that have been laid and are pending before the courts. I want to say that the police have been investigating these charges, certainly long before the hon. member for High Park came to my office in late August to tell me about the interviews that he had had with seamen regarding beatings and assault of various seamen along the waterfront.

Now this investigation of course will continue, although I must say that the protection of privacy Act has inhibited to some extent the investigation of the police. However, the police are still attempting to lay further charges.

Now, certainly the information that has been given the House this evening is known to the police. And if there is any new information, of course, this will be further investigated by the police. But I wanted to make that one point that the police now, including the RCMP, are thoroughly involved in the allegations of violence and intimidation and assault on the waterfront.

Mr. Roy: How does the Invasion of Privacy Act stop them?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Well, you have to get a court order, for one thing, and you have to have sufficient reason and evidence to get that court order.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. There is no time for questions and answers.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: That is one thing.

Mr. Speaker: There is very little time at the members’ disposal.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Mr. Speaker, regarding the question of a royal commission, both the Attorney General and I have said on a number of occasions in this House that if there is to be an inquiry, it should be at the federal level.

Mr. Deans: They won’t do it.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: The Seafarers’ International Union is a federally-chartered union. It is under the authority of the Canada Labour Code. Its members are from all parts of Canada, and even some from outside of Canada. Its head office, I believe, is in Montreal. From 1963 to 1967, the union was under federal trusteeship. I am informed, Mr. Speaker, that any regulation of the union is ultra vires of the province under the provisions of the British North America Act

Now the hon. member at one point had indicated that one of the main reasons why we should have a royal commission is to investigate the hiring hail methods of this union -- the hiring system of the union. As the hon. member knows, I am sure, the use of hiring halls is a provision of the collective agreement between the shipping associations and the union itself. The collective agreement is arrived at and validated by the provisions of the Canada Labour Code.

Any change, therefore, in the hiring system would have to be achieved by amendments to that code, or pressure would have to be brought by the membership to ensure that the next contract doesn’t include the hiring system that exists at the present time.

Mr. Speaker: May I determine if the hon. Solicitor General is replying to both questions, or just to one?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: To both questions.

Mr. Speaker: Is the hon. Attorney General going to make a reply?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: To both questions, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Reid: He lost the flip.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Now, it’s quite possible at this point, Mr. Speaker, that I should suggest that possibly the NDP caucus should have a position on the hiring system as it exists in the SIU --

Mr. Bullbrook: Don’t be silly. Don’t do that.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: -- particularly the federal caucus. Certainly, that is one of the main roots of the problem in that particular union at the present time.

Mr. Deans: Supposing the minister had a decision. Does he think we could do anything about it? He is the government.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: I would think so.

Mr. Cassidy: This government supports the system. It supports the violence.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: The NDP is probably very close to the union.

Mr. Deans: Is that the minister’s answer?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Mr. Speaker, as the Attorney General has indicated and as I have indicated, we feel there should be an inquiry. As we have said, it should be a federal inquiry. I think you will agree it would be rather a ludicrous situation that would develop if the provincial government was investigating possible wrongdoing by federal officials or federal politicians.

Again, I can refer to the power given to the minister under the Canada Labour Code, section 196. “The minister, upon application, or of his own initiative” --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please, I just want to make certain. Is the minister answering both of the questions? Is that clear? In which case, there will be a total of 10 minutes. If that’s in agreement with -- because five minutes are up.

Mr. Bullbrook: Will the Chairman of the Management Board settle this dispute so that we know what’s going on? Normally he is level-headed.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: “ -- may do such things as to him seem likely to maintain or secure industrial peace and to promote conditions favourable to the settlement of industrial disputes or differences.”

Then, of course, there’s the power of the federal minister, particularly of the federal Minister of Justice to hold a judicial inquiry, just as we do in this province from time to time. It may be even possible, Mr. Speaker, to reconvene the old commission of inquiry under the federal labour code. That really has never been wound up.

Mr. Speaker, although there may not be sufficient evidence to lay charges of bribery or corruption against federal officials, I believe there is sufficient evidence of assault and violence and intimidation that requires an inquiry which would cover the waterfront and, in my opinion, would clear the air.

Mr. Bullbrook: Cover the waterfront? That’s beautiful really.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: How about that?

Mr. Bullbrook: Who wrote that for the minister?

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, in summary, the allegations and the innuendoes of the hon. member for High Park are serious. If, in fact, as the Solicitor General mentioned, this should be the subject matter of an investigation, there is no question where the jurisdiction lies to do this, in the government of Canada. The Prime Minister himself can obviously intervene in this matter.

Mr. Roy: The minister has no right to speak, Mr. Speaker.

Hon. Mr. Welch: I am quite satisfied under the circumstances, as far as police investigation and law enforcement are concerned, that we are doing our job. These charges have been laid and they are before the courts. I would certainly support the position of the Solicitor General and urge the government of Canada to review these matters and, if an investigation is required, that it be done by the government of Canada with the powers it has.

Mr. Speaker: It was my understanding that the Attorney General was not going to, speak. That’s why I allowed the extra time to the Solicitor General. We’re still within the time limit. We allowed this. It’s an unusual procedure, I know; but because the two questions were really one, or at least very close in my opinion, we did stretch that point.

I now deem the motion to adjourn to have been carried.

The House adjourned at 10:50 o’clock, p.m.