Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

The House resumed at 8 o’clock, p.m.

Mr. Chairman: Before we resume the debate on the estimates I would recognize the member for Scarborough Centre.

Mr. F. Drea (Scarborough Centre): Mr. Chairman, through you to the hon. members, I would like to introduce, in the west gallery, the members of the Scarborough Centre Progressive Conservative Association.

Mr. M. Shulman (High Park): There aren’t very many of them.

Mr. R. F. Ruston (Essex-Kent): Not very many Conservatives in the House either.

Mr. L. C. Henderson (Lambton): There are enough, though, from upstairs.

ESTIMATES, MINISTRY OF THE SOLICITOR GENERAL (CONCLUDED)

On vote 1504:

Mr. Chairman: When the committee rose at 5 o’clock we were debating items 3, 5, 6 and 7. Is there any further comment on any of these items? The hon. member for Lakeshore.

Mr. P. D. Lawlor (Lakeshore): On the mere illusive, recondite, remote, unimportant monetary aspects of this vote, last year you spent $193,000 on item 5, that is staff development. You have gone to $445,000, half a million dollars, this year. Would you explain yourself? And make it good for the Conservatives, otherwise they mightn’t believe what you are saying.

Hon. J. T. Clement (Acting Solicitor General): Mr. Chairman, without being prompted by my staff, you will recall before the supper hour I showed you one item wherein there was a transfer; a reduction of some $533,000. And I pointed out a transfer of personnel had been made from one area of the Ontario Provincial Police to the other --

Mr. Lawlor: This is the area, is it?

Hon. Mr. Clement: -- and that while the vote was reduced by $533,000, it would appear in another spot.

Mr. J. E. Stokes (Thunder Bay): That is without even looking.

Mr. Lawlor: It is rightly called staff development; it develops in a big way.

Hon. Mr. Clement: The decrease on the staff development, item 5, is a decrease of $251,900.

Mr. Lawlor: Did the minister say decrease?

Hon. Mr. Clement: An increase; I am sorry.

Mr. Lawlor: That’s a good boy; there is a difference.

Hon. Mr. Clement: An increase. You see I am so used to telling you about decreases I am programmed. I have been saving you so much money here.

Mr. Lawlor: There’s one decrease in your whole estimates.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Have you got your pencil out?

Mr. Lawlor: We all have pencils out.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Okay, would you like to know the particulars of the items on that sum?

Mr. Lawlor: Yes, let’s have them.

Hon. Mr. Clement: There is a $52,900, made up of senior staff transferred from the office of the commissioner; and as my memory serves me, Mr. Chairman, that is the item that we referred to earlier this afternoon. There’s $6,500 --

Mr. Lawlor: Wait a minute. What’s that item again?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Beg your pardon?

Mr. Lawlor: It is from the office of the commissioner?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Yes.

Mr. Lawlor: Is that a salary, or is that some individual?

Hon. Mr. Clement: No, I am sorry; it is the approved salaries and benefits.

The next item is $6,500, covering transportation and communication; and again that was formerly in the commissioner’s estimate. The last item is vote 1504, item --

Mr. Lawlor: Let’s stop there just for a moment. I don’t understand. What is the accounting principle that is involved here?

Does it mean the commissioner is not as mobile as he once was? Does it mean that he has levitation techniques or that he doesn’t have to use the ordinary means, like gasoline? Why has it swung into a different --

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Chairman, there are certain senior staff who are in the office of the commissioner and those individuals naturally had their salaries, wages, employee benefits and so on charged to his branch of the operation. Also, attached to those staff were certain transportation and communication costs. When they were transferred from the commissioner’s office into the staff development operation, for accounting purposes their salaries, wages, and expenses incidental to their operation, must accompany them. Hence the transfer of the $52,900 to which I have already referred, and the $6,500 item we are talking about right now.

Also, under the heading of services in this same item 5, there is the final item of $192,500. This covers projects which were formerly charged in the name of the commissioner’s operation. They were transferred to the branch because of the new organization structure. As you know the internal management system was reorganized last fall. Those three items total $251,900.

Mr. Lawlor: I fail to appreciate the rationale on that restructuring. What difference does it make where the $191,500 for projects of various kinds are located? It could be in the office of the commissioner, or three spaces down somewhere else and so on.

I have before me an organizational chart issued in April of 1974. I suppose what I must ask for in the course of these estimates is a new organizational chart. I suspect this one is totally out of date and has very little validity.

Mr. Minister, I’m not going to be too harsh on you tonight, but if you’re going to restructure and make these estimates have any sense whatsoever, then why don’t you supply us with a chart? Why don’t your people have the courtesy, in advance of the estimates, to supply us with a chart that sets up the structure of the very ministry we’re supposed to deal with?

One deals in the dark. You have these things, you peruse them, you spend your time analysing them, trying to see what the internal structure of a ministry of this kind is, and they are out of date. The fact that you’re a new minister, who had it visited upon you very much against your own will, is irrelevant. I suppose a certain amount of credence must be given to you because you are the victim of circumstances. The Premier (Mr. Davis) obviously found your capabilities so broad, and the seat on which you sat so wide, that he felt you were able to accommodate all these diverse ministries.

Now the member for Downsview (Mr. Singer) has raised ructions from the beginning of these estimates about the failure to provide us with basic information. We find it very difficult to proceed over here.

Here’s another instance. Is it insouciance? Is it a failure to respond? Do you not give a damn? Do you want to get them over with as quickly as possible? What goes on in these estimates? I’m almost inclined to reduce this salary to one dollar, just as we tried in the previous instance to bring down your super ministry.

The ministry itself, you see, is oriented in the wrong way. If you took your parallel, of your analogy, from what goes on in Ottawa, which is far more intelligent than anything you do here in this regard and in these matters, you would be covering a third, fourth or fifth ministry, flow many ministries do you have? The 17th ministry is Correctional Services.

The police, the correctional power, the prisons, the jails, all fall within the same dimension and perimeter as far as I can see. In any properly structured ministry this would he the way it is. You would have responsibility in that regard. At least we’d get a package deal instead of the truncated beast we have to deal with in the course of these matters.

I’m going to gesture towards you with my right hand, not my left, and say could you supply us with a reorganization chart? Later tonight we’ll come across areas which are reported in the police report, but which aren’t reflected, as far as I can see, anywhere in the organizational charts. One would be picking in a great haystack to locate that needle, however fine it may be.

At some point one becomes like Theseus in the labyrinth. You are no Ariadne to give us the thread out of it. You might even get eaten if you don’t get these pictures cleared up for us.

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

Hon. Mr. Clement: I was going to --

Mr. Chairman: The hon. minister first.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I am sorry, Mr. Chairman. I am just going to point out that I will be able to put the member for Lakeshore out of his misery very quickly -- I say that in a poetic sense, he realizes that -- here is an organizational chart which may be of assistance to him.

Mr. Lawlor: It doesn’t help a bit.

Interjections by hon. members.

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

Mr. Shulman: Mr. Chairman, through you to the minister, I wonder if the minister could explain to me how someone gets promoted in the OPP. Are there exams or do you just sort of pick the names out of a hat? How does it work?

Mr. R. Haggerty (Welland South): He knows the answers.

An hon. member: No, that doesn’t work either.

Hon. Mr. Clement: If the chairman will just bear with me, I have been briefed on this, and I asked for the briefing. I have three daughters, Mr. Chairman, and just through circumstances and mathematics, it’s likely that one of them might well marry an OPP constable. I want to be able to advise both her and the young man as to his future in the Ontario Provincial Police, if I can just put my finger on it. Thank you.

There’s a branch of the OPP called the career management branch and this group is responsible for recruitment of the uniformed member of the force, and also manages and operates the promotional process of the force. It also provides career counselling and management development of senior uniformed members for future managerial positions.

As I understand it, when one has obtained a certain level of achievement, both in terms of service -- and I can give you those particulars in a moment -- and in terms of in-house training, one then can apply. The vacancies are posted and one can bid on a particular vacancy. One must write the examination to move from one level to the next.

The last examinations were held some two months ago. Some 2,400 officers wrote examinations on that occasion to fill I believe, some 125 to 130 positions. The examinations are marked. The overall record of the applicant is reviewed. Those who achieve the highest level are promoted in that particular order.

I want to assure the member there’s a very definite programme and pattern available for advancement of each officer; it isn’t a matter of just picking someone out because he happens to be the favourite of the commissioner or someone like that.

Mr. Shulman: I am glad to hear that. There are no exceptions to that rule are there?

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

Mr. Shulman: In other words, any man who is promoted from one level to the next has passed the exams. There would be no exceptions made?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Yes, there could be.

Mr. Shulman: What exceptions might be made?

Hon. Mr. Clement: The exception that could be made is where you have the OPP taking over the operation of a municipal force, for example, and providing contract policing to the municipality. When that occurs, the Ontario Provincial Police has a policy of assimilating into the OPP force all of that municipal force so long as each individual meets the requirements to be an Ontario Provincial Police officer. Depending on the size of the force which has been assimilated, depending on the experience of the individuals within that force in terms of exposure to police work, in terms of length of service and in terms of responsibilities, it is possible, for example, that a chief constable of a rather smallish force -- say 5, 10 or 12 people -- might well go into the Ontario Provincial Police, perhaps with the rank of corporal, not having written the OPP examination.

Mr. Shulman: That isn’t really what I meant, Mr. Minister. Would it be possible, if someone hadn’t passed the exams, for a certain prominent politician to phone down to the commissioner and say, “I want these two men promoted”? Could that possibly happen in our force? Is that possible?

Hon. Mr. Clement: I quit the law; and I'm afraid to say that nothing is impossible.

Mr. Shulman: Why don’t you ask the commissioner before you answer?

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

Mr. Shulman: Ask the commissioner if he is aware.

Hon. Mr. Clement: There have been no permanent promotions made on the basis of that suggestion.

Mr. Shulman: Never mind permanent Have there been promotions made on that basis?

Hon. Mr. Clement: It could have been an acting promotion.

Mr. Shulman: Thank you.

Mr. Chairman: Are there any further comments? The hon. member for Windsor-Walkerville.

Mr. B. Newman (Windsor-Walkerville): Mr. Chairman, in view of the fairly large ethnic population in the Province of Ontario, I want to ask the minister if the OPP is ensuring that a certain number of people of ethnic background, who could communicate better with the citizenry, are given the same opportunity of being selected by the OPP as would anyone else.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Yes, that is quite correct. The OPP attempts to have, as far as possible under all the circumstances, the same ratio of persons at each detachment or in each region or police area, so as to reflect as closely as possible the percentage of the predominant ethnic groups within that area. We have many officers on the force who are bilingual, in other tongues than English and French -- Polish, Lebanese, Russian, Slavic, Dutch, Italian, Danish, Hungarian, Flemish, Finnish and so on.

Mr. B. Newman: Thank you, Mr. Minister. That’s very nice to hear. The minority groups have a feeling that they aren’t given the same opportunity as others, but you have assured us they are. I think that is the right approach.

Vote 1504 agreed to.

On vote 1505:

Mr. Chairman: The criminal and general law enforcement programme. Item 1, special services. The hon. member for Lakeshore.

Mr. Lawlor: I don’t suppose this surprises you, but in the light of the Reformation which caused all that bloodshed, Zwingli, Calvin and Luther came up with the same church. Similarly, there’s not very much changed with regard to the OPP. For instance, you have eliminated a division called senior projects officer; that seems to be a role that has some kind of worth, some kind of validity. What does he do? What’s his new name, in other words?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Did you say special projects officer?

Mr. Lawlor: Yes.

Hon. Mr. Clement: That type of officer could be involved in investigations relating to major crimes.

Mr. Lawlor: No, you are answering the wrong question. I haven’t asked that one yet. I’m looking at these two sheets; in the one I had previously, in April, 1974, there is a designated slot, a whole area set up here for a senior projects officers. On the new sheet you handed me a few moments ago, that has been eliminated; no such animal appears. What happened? Where did he go?

Mr. Stokes: He went on a project.

Mr. Lawlor: Has he got a new title?

Hon. Mr. Clement: No, the item to which you refer, I am advised, is really in the other vote. It deals with staff relations or staff development items; item 5, vote 1504.

Mr. Lawlor: Listen, bonnie boy, you are not going to confuse me with footwork tonight. I am simply referring to your own wretched sheets, one from April, 1974, one from 10 minutes ago.

I am looking to see what you’ve got here. You have substituted -- you have one, two, three, four, five, six chief superintendents. Under each of these headings you have a new area which has been created under the second heading, under chief superintendent, director of community services branch. That’s interesting.

Over against that, on the third column of the previous sheet, there was this senior projects officer, who as I say doesn’t reappear a year later; he’s apparently disappeared from the scene. I’d like to know why and what he is doing; where he is. Has he been demoted? He has disappeared off the face of the earth. Did he have no role? I would have thought a senior projects officer would be a very important person.

Hon. Mr. Clement: You are talking about last year’s organization chart.

Mr. Lawlor: You are perfectly right.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I am turning my mind to the one I sent over to you, the copy of the one I sent over to you, bearing the date in the right hand corner, May 5, 1975.

Mr. Lawlor: Right, one is April 1, 1974; the other is May 1, 1975.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Yes. I am sorry, I don’t have the 1974 one before me. The individual to whom you refer and his activities, if you look on the left-hand side near the top it says “Service-side deputy commissioner.” Does the member for Lakeshore see that?

Mr. Lawlor: What was it, again?

Hon. Mr. Clement: At the top you have the commissioner; and coming down what is the left-hand side to the reader is “Service-side deputy commissioner.” Do you see that?

Mr. Lawlor: Yes.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Then moving to the right again, staff development division, assistant commissioner. Then coming down to the description, second from the bottom, director staff relations branch.

Mr. Lawlor: I wish to spend a few minutes reviewing certain highlights of the police report which zeros in and centres on the OPP. As I indicated earlier today, all I wanted to do was to follow the way in which things fall out in this particular report; that is, the commentary on the report, the submissions and the status report given by the OPP itself in reply to the various recommendations -- 140 recommendations -- made as to its internal reorganization and financing.

Some of the replies are valid, of course, and some are exceedingly vague, vague indeed. The first one I wish to refer to is having to do with a role, 3(2) and 3(3), which talks about the primary emphasis in recommending and assessing a police officer as to his demonstrated ability to receive high priority problems in the community. What are you going to give weight to in this particular regard? In the area called status or what response the Ontario Provincial Police will make to that, they say this implementation will largely depend on individual forces, which I suppose is true.

Nevertheless the commissioner of the OPP will provide a very central focusing role in order to give guidance to and an overall direction to what the police forces are doing and will do with respect to the role of the individual officer performing his duties, either on the beat or in the community at large.

Then you go on to say that the OPC is providing stimulus through these experimental projects in personnel development. Well, that is very pleasant. I always think a little stimulus is good for the soul, as long as you are not dealing in pure stimulus response psychology, which is a kind of a salivation, simply because you see the cheese. If the stimulus is stimulus, as is valid, then let us know a little about it.

That’s the nature of my question here. What are these approaches? What are these experimental projects? Is this muffling? Is this window-dressing? Is this a form of pretence that there is something being done, when nothing is really being done? Or is it a simple answer to assuage your feelings in your role as minister?

Hon. Mr. Clement: The development of the branch was largely brought about as a result of recommendations 3.2 and 3.3 of the task force on policing. The Ontario Provincial Police under its branch objectives desires to maintain sound and effective police-media-community relations. It desires to keep force employees at all levels informed of public attitudes and sentiments.

Mr. Lawlor: Don’t give me that malarkey. I’ve been to the Blarney stone twice and it didn’t help either time. I want to know what these experimental projects are.

Mr. W. Ferrier (Cochrane South): Come on; level with us.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I am obviously not really understanding here, I thought I was, what you are trying to get across to me. You are referring to the status report, 3.2 and 3.3 of the task force on policing.

Mr. Lawlor: That’s right. You say that is providing stimulus to these approaches -- I love the language -- through experimental projects in personnel development. What are these projects?

Hon. Mr. Clement: With reference to the Ontario Provincial Police, as I understand your question and the response is that it is providing stimulus to these approaches; the OPP is concerned very much with its own image.

Mr. Lawlor: I don’t care about the stimulating approaches; be damned with them. I want to know what the experimental projects are. Stimulating be damned. We get all of that we want; give us something more concrete.

Hon. Mr. Clement: There are police commissions. This status report refers to the Ontario Police Commission, I am dealing here with the Ontario Provincial Police. I am not with you and I’ll confess to it.

This says the Ontario Police Commission is providing stimulus to these approaches, and role 3.2 deals with the priority problems of the community, that is referred to in the task force on policing. Role 3.3 says these officers should be given as broad as possible a cross-section of issues in a community. In other words, they are working within a community.

The Ontario Provincial Police is involved in community work, as a result, I presume, of this OPC stimulus. It is involved in community activities. It has speakers going out. I can give you the statistics of the number of schools they talk to, the number of school children, the number of classes, the number of service clubs, the number of film presentations and that sort of thing.

In other words, the OPP is involving itself with community problems at the community level. Now that is how I understand your question. Am I wrong? I just don’t understand.

Mr. Lawlor: Please don’t understand it that way. You are not as dense as you are appearing tonight.

Are you saying that because we passed this previous vote, that now you’re concentrated solely and exclusively upon the Ontario Provincial Police, and that the commission has no further role in this thing? I thought I made a fairly lengthy little talk this afternoon indicating that I thought when we hit this vote, we would zero in on the whole thing. We wouldn’t spend a lot of time on the previous vote for this very reason.

After all, it’s the document you gave me. You were decent enough to give it to me. Sure I’ll seek to embarrass you with it if I possibly can -- that’s what I’m being paid for.

You say that experimental projects are being carried out. Any type of lambent reply is not to the point. If they say experimental projects -- they are policemen -- they know what they’re talking about, they have a definite, precise, concrete notion in mind; and any kind of palaver isn’t going to work. We want to know what the experimental projects in question are precisely. Is that too much to ask?

Hon. Mr. Clement: You’ve come across loud and clear. I missed your Shakespearean tones this last day. I think I understand your question. You’re talking about test programmes and this sort of thing?

Mr. Lawlor: I wouldn’t dare call it that. I would call it experimental projects.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Okay. Experimental projects have been installed in three detachments throughout the province, based on the principle of management by objectives in order to effect an improvement in the general operating efficiency.

Mr. Lawlor: Obfuscation. What are these projects?

Hon. Mr. Clement: I didn’t hear what you said then.

An hon. member: Obfuscation.

Mr. Lawlor: Holy cow.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I understand “holy cow” but I don’t understand those other words.

Mr. Lawlor: Are you trying to beat Bill Davis at his own game? He never succeeds.

Hon. Mr. Clement: You can’t.

Mr. Lawlor: He’s been around here a lot longer than you have.

Mr. Henderson: And will be.

Mr. Lawlor: He’s the master of double talk. He throws up veils of myths. I want to know something simple.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Well, ask in a simple way.

Mr. Lawlor: Name me your experimental projects. You suggested it to me. I wouldn’t have dreamed of experimental projects had you not told me over the weekend. I spent all Sunday night panting to get the answer to that damned question. Then you start off with management projects and cost benefit analysis -- away out there.

A mere philosopher like me can’t follow those things. Stay down to earth. Give me the facts about this; we’re wasting a lot of time on this particular one.

Mr. L. Maeck (Parry Sound): You’re wasting a lot of time.

Mr. Lawlor: No, no, no.

Mr. R. S. Smith (Nipissing): Getting to you, Pat?

Mr. Ferrier: Lorne, go on down and help the minister out.

Mr. Lawlor: I don’t think there are any experimental projects at all. I think it’s --

Hon. Mr. Clements: Yes, there are, Mr. Chairman. There are three: one in Huntsville, one in Newcastle and one in Parry Sound.

Mr. Lawlor: What are they all about?

Hon. Mr. Clement: They are an effort, so I am advised, to assist the officer in charge of the detachment to generally improve the overall operating efficiency of the detachment.

Mr. Lawlor: Oh, is that ever nice. The overall operating --

Hon. Mr. Clement: It’s an attempt, so I am advised, to do things at the detachment level as opposed to having them done at central headquarters.

Mr. Lawlor: What things?

Mr. Shulman: Lawn mowers. Things like that?

Mr. Lawlor: What do you do? What is this all about?

Hon. Mr. Clement: The operational results of a detachment are, as I understand it, regulated or modified or accumulated at that level. The records are maintained at that level as opposed to sending everything into one central headquarters and having the statistics come back to them. It’s an effort to decentralize. All of the activity up to the present time has been generated at the focal point, namely, the headquarters. I’ve never seen one of these in play and I’ll bet you haven’t either. That’s why I’m having some difficulty in understanding your question. I think both of us are talking about something we don’t know anything about.

Mr. Lawlor: But I am not the minister. I am not the Solicitor General and I don’t have to know. But you do. You’re a great Attorney General, John -- or you may be, as our friend Bullbrook said -- and you’ve still got to prove yourself on that particular role; but you are a lousy Solicitor General. You palaver too much about the thing.

At Parry Sound and Huntsville, do they assist cats down from trees? Is the officer judged in his developmental role in terms of the kindly disposition he has when holding the left hand of housewives when they are in heat, or I don’t know, in some kind of thing?

Interjection by hon. members.

Mr. Lawlor: What happens?

Mr. Chairman: Order.

Mr. Lawlor: What precisely does he do? I’m concerned that you want the demonstrated ability of the man on the beat, the guy out there, the guy who is doing the slugging, who has to meet the public in the crunch situations.

They are all rascals, the fellows under the throne there. They hide behind their desks and sit there all safe, although some of them, many of them, most of them thank God, can claim they’ve been through all that before and they are saved from that fate.

I’m talking about the man out on the beat. You have to assess him. You want to give him advancement. You want to assess his role. You want to know how to improve upon that role and you say you’ve got all kinds of experimental projects in order to determine how this is done. You don’t give me a single one; you pretend you don’t understand the question.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I wouldn’t pretend because I’ll be very candid with the member, Mr. Chairman; quite frankly I didn’t understand the question.

Mr. Lawlor: You finally got the point.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I do appreciate his interest in this particular type of project. Now the purpose of the project which has been the subject of discussion here for the last half-hour is really to study the efficiency of field operations and I will read this:

No. 1. Evaluating the duties and activities of district and detachment personnel in relation to their contribution to the force’s overall goals and objectives.

No. 2. Identifying factors which reduce the efficiency or effectiveness of operations.

No. 3. Determining the quality of our present management information system and its use in evaluating ongoing operations and necessary achievements.

No. 4. Reviewing preventive activities and recommending an approach for field experiments to measure their impact on criminal occurrences and traffic collisions, all at the local level.

Mr. Lawlor: I’m not going to insist. I give up in despair.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Will Hansard record this?

Mr. Lawlor: Who feeds you that stuff?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Will Hansard really report this, because I want that enshrined in marble.

Mr. Lawlor: It is despair. It is nothing to commend yourself with, let me tell you.

That’s all gobbledegook. That’s the kind of thing I’m accused of. I thought you people were beyond that. I ask about cats in trees and women in trouble and various things like that. What does one get? A mess. Let’s go on to the next thing; I give up.

Hon. J. W. Snow (Minister of Government Services): I never found that very troublesome.

Mr. Lawlor: I’ll skip that one. The next one is role 3.5. This is one of the areas where you talk about working under the auspices of the community services branch of general headquarters in Toronto. I notice in your news sheet that you managed to substitute for something called safety and information branch, which has been eliminated, something called the community services branch; which I take is a new label on an old bottle and the wine goes sour.

I won’t insist upon that. At the moment I want to say a word of commendation to the Canadian Council of Christians and Jews on the work they have done with your department over the past few years in terms of community relations vis-à-vis the police. That should be recognized as the area they have singled out and are now exploring as to cementing. I suppose there is hardly an area in our society which could be better ploughed and furrowed than that particular one.

I won’t dwell on it at length tonight. In previous years we’ve said a great deal, and in the opening statements, about the alienation of the police, the alienation of the citizenry by and large, and the division between them. It is to the betterment of this society, if it can possibly come to pass, and every effort should be made from whatever agencies it may flow, so that some sort of liaison, some form of mutuality and understanding be set up.

As I say, this is an organization to which I used to belong, but since I’m here every night of the week and can belong to nothing, much less the human race in being in this House pretty well every night, I haven’t attended their meetings of recent years, but in those days they did yeoman service, and, in this particular regard I think every once in a while it’s good to pause and recognize the role of certain agencies in our community trying to work things out.

Could you tell me a bit about the feedback programme? Under what heading does that fall in the organizational chart? Who handles it? How many people are involved and exactly what does it do?

Hon. Mr. Clement: It has, Mr. Chairman, a complement of 13. It is under the community services section.

Mr. Lawlor: That’s a bigger staff than Morty Shulman’s got, for heaven’s sakes, trying to get some feedback too. How come?

Hon. Mr. Clement: I think I was confusing your prior question when I started to answer some time ago.

Mr. Lawlor: You sure were.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I was feeding you back the information that I had under this particular community services branch.

Mr. Lawlor: Is that what you were doing?

Hon. Mr. Clement: That’s what I was doing.

Mr. Lawlor: I couldn’t figure out what you were doing. It was very confusing over here.

Hon. Mr. Clement: The branch is involved in many community activities in terms of special events and it has been particularly active in 1974 in the number of special events that staff attended; in the number of broadcasts in which they became involved, both over the radio and on television.

Mr. Lawlor: You mean not listening to, but participating in?

Hon. Mr. Clement: In most instances they were leading, in attending schools and this sort of thing, elementary and secondary schools.

Mr. Lawlor: What about the media? You talk about television, what’s that about?

Hon. Mr. Clement: In radio interviews they were involved in 351; in taped radio safety spots they were involved in 1,120.

Mr. Lawlor: That’s almost as much as the Conservative Party at election time, but go ahead.

Hon. Mr. Clement: And they were involved in 176 TV appearances.

Mr. Lawlor: Okay, good. How many commissioner’s citations were given last year?

Hon. Mr. Clement: None last year.

Mr. Lawlor: What does that import, that no one seeks to assist the OPP in times of troubles? Why not?

Hon. Mr. Clement: The programme is relatively new. It’s just been instituted this year and not having been in existence last year, I presume no one qualified.

Mr. Lawlor: Oh, I see. That’s a good answer. That’s the best answer you gave tonight. You’re improving. Just keep going like this.

On the complaints bureau, mention was made of Mr. Justice Morand, Arthur Maloney and others. May I say I have misgivings about the Maloney report? I have not received one yet, haven’t been the beneficiary of that, but it’s fine and I agree with Maloney except that --

Mr. J. A. Renwick (Riverdale): Chairman Bick confiscated them all.

Mr. Lawlor: Chairman Bick confiscated them all.

In setting up a representative elected board to police commissions, that is the radical move and that is the good move that he makes, as far as that’s concerned. I would much prefer that we could extend the principle of elections that far, and I see no reason for not doing so, so that all the members of that police commission be elected by the public at large at the time of the municipal elections. People could stand on their merits, present their credentials and show their qualifications for being on a police commission. Police commissions are so crucial these days that that would be my personal position. I don’t claim this is the position of my party. I haven’t a clue what their position would be.

But then Maloney, in a true Conservative verve, moves radically here, but then he slows up over there. He permits the present investigative staffs within the police force itself to be the ones to receive the complaints initially and to process them and investigate them; and I find that playing poker much too close to the chest. I find that isn’t an open and porous enough situation.

I would want some kind of objectivity brought into it, some kind of third party arrangement where at least they would be participating in the thing. I am not convinced, in other words, that the police are the best people to investigate the police, for many reasons; for buddy-buddy; for positions of esprit de corps; for the sense that anyone has, who ever belonged to a regiment, that you are with your buddies -- the fraternity concept. It’s inbreeding and it’s deeply biasing in its processes; and this is the way it works.

To the extent that Maloney allowed that particular structure to remain, I, personally again, find it questionable and would find it equally questionable as operative within the OPP, which is our central focus for tonight.

Give the OPP all the credit in the world in the sense that they launched into a complaints bureau, apparently pre-empting to some degree what Maloney says; although I am sure they’ll take it into cognizance, however it may be implemented or effected within their own organization. In other words, they will not ignore the more beneficial aspects of the Maloney report. At the same time, it is a novel concept within the OPP and I think we have not heard in these estimates quite sufficiently yet as to how it operates. In the status area of the report the last paragraph says:

“The OPP inaugurated a force complaints bureau in 1974. The new OPP complaints processing system is aimed at centralizing statistical analysis, needless of upper management awareness of field complaints and the assurance that each complaint is investigated and handled in a rational and unbiased manner.”

I want the justification for the words “rational and unbiased.” I’d like to know how many complaints have been processed thus far and whether the minister himself, who is in charge of these matters, feels the degree of unbiasedness requisite in this circumstance can be reached by the way in which it is proposed that this complaints bureau be operated.

Hon. Mr. Clement: The unbiased aspect of the handling of complaints, I suggest, is as best as can be dealt with by human beings, in that a uniform reporting procedure has been developed, along with a follow-up investigation by a superior in rank. The complaint must be accepted at any time.

Mr. Lawlor: Who can initiate that complaint?

Hon. Mr. Clement: The public or a --

Mr. Lawlor: Can an MPP?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Yes, yes.

Mr. Lawlor: Can a lawyer?

Hon. Mr. Clement: There were received last year from July 1 to the end of December, remembering that the complaint bureau commenced in July last, a total of 174.

You wondered what form the complaints took in terms of types of complaints. Some dealt with the lack of patroling; others dealt with improper procedure and/or investigation; others were really protesting a summons. There were some miscellaneous complaints and a number that really turned out not to be complaints against the OPP but complaints dealing with the process of law or the courts or something else, but really didn’t relate to the Ontario Provincial Police.

It is interesting to note, of the 174, that 115 were found to be unfounded; 44 were found to be founded and remedial action was taken in those 44 instances. Then the ones that were really not complaints against the Ontario Provincial Police made up 15 of the total of the 174.

The ministry itself attracted 53 complaints, that is, from individuals complaining directly to the ministry; and 121 came in from various detachments throughout the province.

Mr. Lawlor: Let me investigate a little further. The minister says that MPPs, I take it, can write to the complaints bureau on behalf of constituents and that that would be as sufficient unto the day.

You know that hasn’t been true of the Metropolitan Toronto policing. I tried to intervene in a couple of instances and was most irritated when they find that the individual himself hail to go down personally to police headquarters; run the gauntlet or the gamut or whatever it is that you run; go upstairs and write out the whole thing in his own words and in his own language. Then it went through the mill.

I thought it was very wrong. First of all, it is intimidating to have to bring the individual alone. Sure, he could bring his MPP, I suppose, along with him as a handmaid, but I don’t think that is very helpful and you haven’t got time. Why can’t you simply write an intelligent letter setting out the facts seriatim? I think it is far more logical and intelligent to present it by way of a letter coming from an MPP than it would be by the individual himself in most instances. Anyhow, they have to appear down there, lose time from work, suffer the kind of intimidation involved and write all this out. By the time they have gone through those hoops, the process is self-defeating; or maybe it serves its own ultimate and somewhat nefarious purposes, namely to block people out.

I would trust that I will be answered that the OPP do not do that in their complaints bureau and that a lawyer who has a client in front of him and who hears of actions by police officers or by some kind of internal management in the OPP of which he feels there is some kind of a breach of his client’s rights, has the opportunity of addressing these complaints on behalf of that client in a solicitor/client relationship to that body in writing and that will trigger the investigation. That is all you really need. Is that so?

Hon. Mr. Clement: We don’t require anything in writing. A phone call will precipitate the investigation of a complaint. A number of the complaints received during the first period on which I have just reported to the committee on, Mr. Chairman, did emanate in fact from MPPs, some of whom made phone calls.

Mr. Lawlor: On the whole the OPP does give leadership in this province; and that’s a considerable advance over what we have had to suffer from in this great city.

When the matter comes before the commission, is the complainant, with or without solicitor, entitled to appear, cross-examine, present his evidence and attend throughout on the hearing?

Hon Mr. Clement: I would think not, Mr. Chairman, and I stand to be corrected. If you are getting into disciplinary action against an officer under the Police Act, he would be prosecuted by an officer of the Ontario Provincial Police, very much like the adversary -- well it is the adversary system completely. He would be cross-examined by the officer prosecuting him on the complaint, misconduct or conduct unbecoming an officer, or whatever charge he happens to be facing, dereliction of duty.

Mr. Lawlor: The complainant isn’t there at all?

Hon. Mr. Clement: The complainant isn’t there at all. I have personally appeared at a number of hearings under the Police Act, and as far as I can recall I am sure they were all held in camera. It’s an interdepartmental disciplinary procedure and really not open to the public for public scrutiny. I should point out that the accused can be defended either by himself or by a fellow officer or by counsel.

Now when I practised law, I was involved in many of these on behalf of individual police officers, and more often I cross-examined than examined. Under the Act, the officer was tried by a superior rank, and in one instance preferred to be tried by the entire police commission -- in fact was tried by the full commission, sitting very much in a court room atmosphere.

If the evidence of the complainant was crucial to the departmental charge against the officer, then they would have to bring him to testify. I stand to be corrected -- I am not that familiar with the particulars of the Police Act -- but I think that under certain circumstances there is power to subpoena witnesses before a disciplinary hearing such as we have been discussing.

Mr. Lawlor: Nevertheless, extensively fair as that would appear to be, if I had been standing in this place 10 years ago, I would have said in 50 years that would be considered a farrago of justice. It is too inbred. It is almost incestuous.

In all objectivity, as I see the situation -- and I am not that close to it -- how can a brother police officer vigorously, in the same sense of the objectivity and distance that applies to a Crown prosecutor over against an accused, proceed to present the evidence, particularly in camera? However unambiguous it may be and however forceful that prosecution, it shows all the marks of a court martial type of thing. There is a very great question in my mind about those involuted proceedings called courts martial. In any event, here it is within the police organization.

I suppose it is better; I suppose the argument must be that in terms of the social impact, in the terms of protecting the prestige and integrity of the policy, of not bringing them under invidious scrutiny by the public generally, that it is better to handle these interdisciplinary problems this way. In other words, the social gravamen is so great over against maintaining an image of police discipline, over against what may bring them under some form of questioning and some form of even possible degradation in the public eye; balancing those two things out it is better to have the more secretive process and the more incestuous proceeding.

On the other hand, I speak merely as a lawyer, looking at it in terms of equities, in terms of arm’s length transactions, in terms of the objectivity involved, that particular kind of proceeding in any other area of our law would be considered damnable and against the weight of the British notion of justice, where everything is open and disclosed, and there is no smell or simulacrum of the possibility of any inbreeding of any bias or any favouritism. That’s our whole court system, the whole theory.

The jurist theory in this particular area, I put it to you, is undermined and traduced. I don’t think any terrifying social consequence comes out of all that. I think it’s suspect. I think it’s up to us as responsible people to say so if we think so, and I do. I think you, as a fair-minded Solicitor General, ought to give it grave scrutiny when the police are prosecuting the police.

These fellows have to live together. They have to live in the same community. They have to rub shoulders perhaps on many occasions, social and official. It’s a difficult job to do if that’s the position you put the so-called police prosecutor into. It’s even more difficult, as it always is, for any accused in this particular circumstance.

I ask you to give that some scrutiny to see whether you can’t come up with a third party, a more independent and objective individual, to run those matters; who would show much care for the in camera concept. You know the in camera concept runs counter to this and that it’s treated in every other circumstance with great distaste.

We bend over backwards to prevent in camera sessions. In every piece of legislation we pass, we say that they should take place only under very restrictive conditions where the financial or personal integrity of a human being would be so deeply afflicted by public disclosure that it ought not to take that form. Therefore, we safeguard against it.

It’s an exception, a dire exception. Here, it’s the rule. There’s something wrong. The onus of evidence, the internal presentation of evidence is curiously reversed in this context, because it happens to be the police. Explain that to me and give me your justifications.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Chairman, I don’t think there’s anything unique about a professional group disciplining a member of that group.

Mr. Lawlor: They don’t normally do it in camera.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I don’t know of the public being in attendance at discipline hearings before the Law Society of Upper Canada. I don’t know of the public being in attendance at hearings conducted by the College of Physicians and Surgeons discipline committee. I’m not saying these things don’t exist. I’m just not aware of them.

I do know that in just about anything I’ve ever been involved with under the Police Act, it would be very much against the officer’s wish that, in fact, he be tried publicly. For in the event he was acquitted, for whatever reason, be it technical or on merit, his effectiveness as a police officer might well be destroyed by the public viewing of certain allegations made to him during these proceedings.

I do know of an instance where a very senior officer was charged with conduct unbecoming. On advice of his counsel and, indeed, he personally felt strongly enough about it, he demanded that it be held publicly. He was accommodated by the police commission; in fact, the matter was delegated to a county court judge and was reported daily in the press. Just as a matter of interest, he was acquitted of those allegations of conduct unbecoming, because the gist of the charge against this very senior officer was that he had mouthed, on two separate occasions a few minutes apart, an old Anglo-Saxon saying to two of his police officers.

It was very much in his interest that he not be charged in camera with the offence of conduct unbecoming or discreditable conduct, because that would give rise to all kinds of speculation as to his personal life, and in fact his very integrity. When he asked for the public hearing, it was granted. But that’s the only one which I personally know, and I have had some years of experience in the past of appearing at disciplinary hearings on behalf of the officers.

I have never prosecuted because I don’t have the right to under the Act. Insofar as ever finding an officer of faint heart who would not prosecute his fellow officer, I found that very much to be the reverse -- a dearth. I found eager beavers prepared to present the evidence -- some by the way with a great deal of skill, possibly observed in other areas of their activity; some a little more zealously than others. I can think of several officers presenting evidence with that degree of impartiality that hopefully a Crown attorney would present evidence -- really having little or no interest in the outcome, putting it before the chief constable or the police commission as the case may be.

It has been pointed out to me that it does not have to be in camera. I am looking at these notes for the first time. I feel very strongly about this. With the greatest of respect I would suggest if one made it mandatory that they be public hearings, the greatest resistance would come from the police associations themselves, for the reasons I have outlined.

So far as I am aware, it is not being abused. It’s a very serious matter. It can range from a reprimand to a complete discharge from the force. There is a whole gamut of punishments within the regulations under the Act that set out the various disciplinary actions which can be enforced. Many minor ones are in the form of a reprimand and an entry on service record, or loss of several days’ pay; culminating in employment being terminated forthwith. There is a right of appeal, of course.

Mr. Lawlor: I am not going to belabour this much longer tonight. I find a distinction between the College of Physicians and Surgeons and this particular type of proceeding. I would think the least that could be done in these proceedings is that the complainant himself, together with his counsel or if he wishes to send counsel, might be present on these hearings to see that at least on his subjective point of view justice is done. Since he is the person who has been most injured and the one who launched the proceedings in the first instance, he ought to be accorded the privilege of attending on the thing and seeing whether or not he felt the presentation of his particular complaint was adequate, and that the presentation was just as it is finally resolved through the apparatus.

Let us go on to 4(1) where you talk about the recruiting strategy to bring the ethnocultural composition of the force roughly in line, I just wonder whether any figures of the ethnic balances within police forces have been reached at this stage. Whether a community which has a goodly number of, say, German-speaking people is represented in turn by German-speaking police officers.

We’ll come in a moment to the bilingual problem, but the diversity of cultural and ethnic origins in the various communities is very striking these days, and many problems, surely, cannot be handled on the spot.

A great deal of preventive crime measures could be reached if there were adequate numbers of officers reflecting the Portuguese potential in a community, the proportion of that community which is Italian speaking; and increasingly the number of people from the Caribbean. I just sense there isn’t any great proportion in this regard, and that that is sloughed off as being one of those silly demands that opposition people make from time to time.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I can go through the number of officers of each ethnic group if the hon. member so desires.

Mr. Lawlor: Why don’t you pick one and give a picture?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Arabic?

Mr. Lawlor: No.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Chinese?

Mr. Lawlor: That’s going pretty far.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mandarin or Cantonese? Croatian?

Mr. Lawlor: How about Shanghai?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Shanghai is not a language, it’s a state of being transferred.

Mr. Lawlor: Oh. All right, damn it, we’ll take the Mandarin.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Dutch?

Mr. Renwick: Take the Mandarins because you’ve got a few of them in front of you there.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Yes, well, Mandarin, that’s Chinese, the Mandarin dialect. The officers name is W. Fu.

Mr. Lawlor: Where is he?

Hon. Mr. Clement: I don’t have any particulars as to where he is tonight. I don’t know where he’s stationed. I would presume probably more likely in the city of Toronto, Hamilton or Windsor.

Mr. Lawlor: How many Portuguese-speaking men have you got?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Two.

Mr. M. Cassidy (Ottawa Centre): Out of a force of how many?

Hon. Mr. Clement: About 4,000.

Mr. G. A. Kerr (Halton West): Don’t forget the OPP aren’t in the cities.

Mr. Cassidy: Portuguese people also go into the countryside.

Mr. Lawlor: How many Italian-speaking?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Three officers.

Mr. Cassidy: How many Finnish?

Mr. Lawlor: The hundreds of thousands of Italian people in this province, and we’ve got three officers.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Three Finnish officers.

Mr. E. R. Good (Waterloo North): They’re all Canadians, you know.

Mr. Cassidy: And how many francophones?

Mr. Lawlor: We do have linguistic difficulties, don’t we? How many French?

Hon. Mr. Clement: There are 186.

Mr. Lawlor: There are 186 French-speaking. Go ahead, Cassidy.

Mr. Cassidy: Could I ask about the francophones?

Mr. Chairman: Order, please. We have others ahead of you. Is the member for Lakeshore finished on this particular item?

Mr. Lawlor: Oh, I’ll come back to it later.

Mr. Chairman: Thank you. The member for Windsor-Walkerville.

Mr. B. Newman: Mr. Chairman, I’ve been trying to get on for some time. I appreciate the concern of the member for Lakeshore. However, I wonder if either this ministry alone, or with the OPP or other provincial jurisdictions, even including the federal government, are doing anything or making any recommendations concerning the ever-increasing problem of automobile thefts?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Automobile -- ?

Mr. B. Newman: Thefts.

Mr. Good: Here today and in Quebec tomorrow.

Mr. B. Newman: Are you doing anything, Mr. Minister, that would suggest a decrease in the number of auto thefts, or devising any methods that could be employed to decrease them?

Hon. Mr. Clement: The hon. member might be interested in some of the activities last year dealing with this type of offence.

During early 1974 the force became aware that a series of stolen 1973 and 1974 Quebec vehicle permits were being used to register stolen cars in Ontario. Most of the cars stolen were from the Montreal and Hull areas, but in some cases the vehicles were stolen in Ontario and the Quebec permits were used to register them here. That investigation is still continuing, with 116 vehicles already recovered in connection with this one operation. They have been recovered in such places as Windsor, Chatham, North Bay, Ottawa, Toronto, Sudbury and Hearst. There have been a number of charges laid.

In one instance, a fairly well-known citizen in one of our communities was in possession of a 1974 Cadillac stolen in Montreal. He apparently heard that the car was stolen and he took the plates off it and abandoned the car in Detroit and then reported it as stolen. He has been charged with public mischief and has pleaded guilty.

In addition to that particular ring, naturally there are numbers of individual cars that are found by the wayside or reported stolen and they are intercepted.

We have 117 community service officers and they are involved in crime prevention work -- addressing service clubs and business groups and this sort of thing. Also, they conduct programmes dealing with how to prevent your car from being stolen, what to do in the event that it is stolen, and pointing out the cost to the taxpayer in lost vehicles every years, in terms of insurance and police efforts expended in order to recover them.

If the member would like to know some more particulars I’d be prepared --

Mr. B. Newman: I’d like to know, Mr. Minister, what your ministry is doing in an attempt to curtail or overcome the increasing incidence of auto thievery. I noticed a task force in the United States is studying the problem. One possible recommendation concerns suggesting to the manufacturer the installation of a better lock on the door, because most of the stealing of the cars has been the result of keys being left in. One of the reports I have says that 75 per cent of all thefts are committed by juveniles, and this would be cut very sharply if new types of door locks were placed on the vehicle or if ignition lock improvements were made.

Are you making suggestions to the auto manufacturers that some of these changes be implemented in an attempt to cut down the number of automobile thefts? For example, are you considering legislation that would make it an offence for an individual to leave the keys in the car or leave the car unlocked, in an attempt to overcome this ever-increasing problem?

The statistics in the United States for the year 1974, I think, showed that 960,000 automobiles were stolen for a value of $1.5 billion and 900,000 have not been recovered.

Hon. Mr. Clement: What was the value?

Mr. B. Newman: It was $1.5 billion. And 900,000 of those were not recovered -- only 60,000 out of 960,000 were actually recovered. So the unrecovered ones have gone into some type of market in the US or have been exported. I don’t think the problem is as acute in Ontario as it is across the border, but I would think that we would have a substantial number of automobile thefts that possibly could be reduced. This could either be as a result of legislation or improving the locking mechanism on the car, or maybe from the development of a system of dual titles as is now being suggested in the United States. When you are scrapping the car there is a title that has to be turned in immediately and when you don’t scrap the car there is another title.

You might say you have to turn in your title when you scrap the car, but you don’t. A car could be completely demolished in an automobile accident; a fellow will come along and use that title and maybe buy a car of the same make, the same year and simply use that title. No one checks -- or very few times is the vehicle registration checked against the motor and against the body of the vehicle.

Is your ministry considering something along the lines of what is being planned in the United States to overcome this ever-increasing problem?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Chairman, the ministry has not made any direct representations to manufacturers of motor vehicles but it has worked and is working with the auto theft committee of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, which deals directly with the manufacturers on the improvement not only of ignition but also of trunk locks.

Last year almost 45 per cent of the cars stolen were recovered. The figure is 44.4 per cent for 1973. In 1974, it was 42.1 per cent and I would think that the 1974 figure would increase before the end of 1975 because of the possibility of recoveries during calendar year 1975 which would lead to a higher percentage. I am just advising the member of that so that he might have some idea of comparing it against the 900,000 odd he said were stolen.

Mr. B. Newman: Last year 960,000 automobiles valued at $1.5 billion were stolen; some 900,000 are still on the missing list.

I am pleased to hear the remarks that you have made there. I know that our problem isn’t as acute as it is in the United States. But let me tell you that we inherit a lot of these problems very quickly unless we keep a very vigilant approach to the whole problem and unless we develop new methods of counteracting the automobile thievery that is going on.

For example, in the United States 40 per cent of the cars are stripped for their parts. I would assume that that may come over here. We don’t want to see it happen here. Our incidence of recovery is extremely high compared to theirs. I hope it improves even to a greater extent than it is today. I tell you that I am concerned because I think the problem is liable to increase substantially as a result of rising unemployment figures.

Mr. Good: Mr. Chairman, on the same subject could I make a point?

Mr. Renwick: Do you mean people on unemployment will steal cars?

Mr. Chairman: Order, please. In order to call people in order, the member for Simcoe East is next, followed by the member for Ottawa Centre.

Mr. G. E. Smith (Simcoe East): Mr. Chairman, I would like to comment on another subject and this concerns water patrols on the Trent-Severn waterway. Each year for the past several years I have commented during the minister’s estimates on the need for additional patrols on this body of water. I am wondering if the minister could give me any indication as to whether the number of personnel has been increased as far as the water patrol is concerned and whether any additional equipment has been made available to the OPP for this type of use in that area.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Chairman, there has been no addition in the complement nor any additional boats for this programme for the Ontario Provincial Police. As the member is aware, we do maintain some boats on the international waterways. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police forces have their own water patrol on a seasonal basis as the need arises.

In the member’s area, No. 7 district, last year three boats operated for a total of 96 days in that area and were responsible for a total of 268 charges and warnings being issued to boaters. In addition, boats were operated in other areas including Peterborough and Belleville areas.

Mr. G. E. Smith: Mr. Chairman, I would like to pursue this just a little further. As the minister may be aware, the boat traffic in the area is increasing each year and, as he is no doubt also aware, from what I have been told, the RCMP are withdrawing from the actual water patrol. I believe they are directing their efforts to more or less a specialized patrol, checking as far as liquor offences and drug offences might be concerned on the waterways. As a result, they are leaving more and more of the actual patrolling of the facility to the OPP.

I wonder if you could give some indication as to whether it might be possible to transfer some people to the area for additional patrolling personnel. Where the speed limits are posted in the narrow channels it becomes rather a problem to keep the boats, not necessarily tourist boats but even some of the local boats using the facility, within the posted speed limits.

On behalf of some of my constituents, I have spoken to the OPP in the area who, incidentally, are doing an excellent job with the personnel and the equipment they have. But I feel there should be greater emphasis placed on this type of patrol because of the increased traffic and the need to keep these boats -- the boat operators, I guess I should say -- operating within the limits placed, I assume, by the Ministry of Transport.

I am not sure whether the minister is a boater; I know he is a flyer. If he had anything to do with boats he’d know the wash or the wake from some of those large cruisers going over a 6 mph limit -- if they are going, say, 12 or 15 mph, which some of them do at the narrows at Atherley -- almost takes the shoreline away and upsets some of the smaller boats that are docked. I would like again to emphasize to him that I would hope his ministry might be able to provide some additional funds to the OPP to increase the complement so there could be a more effective patrol made in that area.

I would also ask the minister if the OPP are engaging in any type of specialized training to provide some of the emergency services which are sometimes very necessary in times of accidents, etc., on the waterways throughout the general area. I know that in our area and throughout the Georgian Bay area, the Muskokas, etc., from time to time it has been necessary to secure the services of private individuals to dive for the recovery of victims who have lost their lives as the result of drowning accidents. Perhaps you might give some indication as to whether you are putting a greater emphasis on this type of training.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Chairman, while the present projection does not call for any increase in complement or boats, there is no doubt that the sport or the pleasure, or whatever you might call boating, would appear to be growing. That would necessitate perhaps, a greater increase in resources, both human and in terms of equipment. When that might come about, I think we will have to wait and see. I agree the need is going to be greater if the present trend continues.

I cannot help but be impressed in noting there are three boats operating in the Barrie and Orillia area. That doesn’t seem quite fair to me. I was thinking maybe we should transfer a couple down to the Niagara area to operate in the Welland River and look after the water skiers in that part of the world, too. If your local paper picks that up tell them I was just pulling the hon. member’s leg.

On Lake Couchiching each May, the Ontario Provincial Police run an intensive one-week course for its water patrol people. This year it was attended by a few members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who asked if they might attend. Some other detachments have indicated an interest in duplicating this type of course in their area later in the summer.

I agree it’s something to which greater attention must be paid. I was appalled to learn today that 68 people died in Ontario over this weekend due to accidents, a number of which related to drowning. If the season continues climatically as it has over the past week or two I am concerned, and I’m sure the member is, with the potential death rates this coming summer.

Mr. G. E. Smith: Mr. Chairman, I raised the matter a few weeks ago to the Provincial Secretary for Resources Development (Mr. Grossman) when I questioned the proposed lock fee which has been implemented by the federal government on the Trent-Severn system. Many of the boating public, many of my own constituents, have said they could understand the lock fee, providing some of the revenue was funnelled back to provide additional facilities for the boating public. The fee has now been instituted. There is no indication as to how the additional funds will be utilized by the federal government. But I might point out to you, sir, through the chairman, that your ministry and the provincial government are being somewhat criticized for not providing additional facilities, such as additional personnel to provide better policing, even though we do not have any benefit from the funds being collected by the federal government.

The need is there. We are being criticized. Many people aren’t aware that this fee is going to the federal government. I would hope that perhaps you, through your ministry and through to the RCMP, might have a better working arrangement where the RCMP could continue to at least provide slight additional facilities in the way of better patrol of the waters of the Trent-Severn system and Georgian Bay.

Mr. Chairman: The member for Ottawa Centre.

Mr. Cassidy: Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask about those francophone constables. How many are in eastern Ontario and where are they located?

Hon. Mr. Clement: I cannot give you a total. I can give you a breakdown by districts.

In district 8, Peterborough, there are four; in district 10, Perth, there are nine uniformed and three civilians; in district 11, Long Sault, there are 56 in uniform and 15 civilians. In district 12, North Bay, there are 23 uniformed and 26 civilians. The other areas here are northwestern Ontario and the Niagara area and so on.

Mr. Cassidy: What is the total size of the force in the Long Sault district?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Approximately 175.

Mr. Cassidy: Well, the figures are a bit better than I expected. The experience of people in the counties of Prescott and Russell where the Long Sault detachment is located -- and presumably it covers a larger area -- is that often French-speaking drivers are stopped by constables who are quite incapable of speaking French.

There is a real problem about the provision of police services in areas where there’s a heavy concentration of francophone drivers. That’s been the case in eastern Ontario, particularly on Highway 17 and the new Highway 417, which are used so heavily both by French-speaking people in Hull and Ottawa, and by people from Montreal coming to Ottawa. What plans does the minister have for providing training in French for constables located in French-speaking areas?

Hon. Mr. Clement: The bilingual constables, of course, are primarily stationed in the areas which require their services. They have developed driver education and safety programmes in French. These include instruction, handout material, French language films, and they are for use in the French schools and other gatherings of the French-speaking communities. We have increased the bilingual recruits this year by an additional 21. in addition to the bilingual individuals to whom I made reference a few moments ago, there were, this past year, 19 employees engaged in a French language instruction programme.

Mr. Cassidy: That’s 19. Perhaps the minister is aware that the counties of Prescott and Russell, again, which is the tip of eastern Ontario, are about 85 per cent or 90 per cent French speaking and are the most heavily French-speaking counties in the province. I wonder if he could comment on this as well, if one constable in three in the Long Sault region is French speaking, then could he give an estimate of the chances of a French-speaking driver, let’s say from lower town Ottawa, who is stopped by a constable, having that constable speak French?

Hon. Mr. Clement: I’m sorry, I don’t know if I understand your question.

Mr. Cassidy: If a francophone driver is stopped on the road between Ottawa and Montreal, and if one-third of the constables in Long Sault region are French-speaking, what are the chances of that French-speaking driver coming up against a constable who speaks French?

Hon. Mr. Clement: One in three. But, you see, the OPP just doesn’t stop people who reside in the area for offences. There are many people passing through many areas.

As a matter of fact, we’re all very familiar with certain allegations made, particularly with reference to jurisdictions to the south of us, where people touring back and forth along the Atlantic seaboard are often, so they say, the victims of being stopped by police forces in southern states of the U.S., and that people in the home state are never picked up. I don’t know whether that’s right or wrong, but I’m trying to make a point.

I’m sure that if you looked over the statistical records of the Long Sault detachment in that particular district, being district No. 11 -- you say 80 per cent or 90 per cent of the people there are francophones -- I would be confident that not necessarily 80 per cent or 90 per cent of the people who in fact were charged were francophones, because there would be travellers, people moving back and forth, north, south, east and west, who also must be accommodated in that area in terms of being able to communicate with the officer who stops them.

While I think the ultimate would be, obviously, that everyone who is stopped there can converse or communicate in either one language or the other, that would be the ultimate in terms of accommodating the public and so on, one must be not unmindful of the fact that not all of the people who are charged, say with speeding offences there, are francophones.

Mr. Cassidy: Let me ask a bit more then. What’s the name of the northeastern Ontario region for the OPP, and what number of francophone constables have you got there?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Are you talking about North Bay area?

Mr. Cassidy: I guess so, yes. Do they extend up to Cochrane and Sudbury?

Hon. Mr. Clement: North Bay, it’s 23 uniformed officers --

Mr. Cassidy: Out of how many?

Hon. Mr. Clement: -- and six civilians. Sudbury, 14 uniformed officers and two civilians.

Mr. Ferrier: What about South Porcupine?

Hon. Mr. Clement: South Porcupine, 16 uniformed and 11 civilians.

Mr. Cassidy: Out of how many in each case?

Hon. Mr. Clement: What’s the complement at North Bay? Sudbury?

North Bay is, I am advised, approximately 175, Sudbury approximately 160, and South Porcupine about 140.

Mr. Cassidy: I have the ear of the minister so perhaps I can just comment. We won’t make these changes overnight, but I would certainly like to see a much stronger move by the ministry to recognize the fact that 10 per cent of the population of the province are of French mother tongue. In the North Bay, Sudbury and South Porcupine areas where about 10 per cent of the force are francophones, the proportion of French-Canadians in the population ranges as high as 55 per cent; in the riding of Nickel Belt, about 40 or 45 per cent; in the Timmins area, very heavy and in the Sudbury area as well; and quite substantial in the area of North Bay.

These areas, like eastern Ontario, also have a good deal of cross traffic from neighbouring areas of Quebec which are just 30 or 40 miles away, and there is simply no recognition of that in what the ministry is offering. It seems to me that, as far as French as one of Canada’s two official languages is concerned, there should be a French-language capability within the force throughout Ontario. I suspect that that is not available in many parts of the province. Also, areas where there is a substantial traffic by French-Canadian tourists or businessmen and so on should be recognized in the composition of the force.

I would say that you fail that test at this time if in an area where 80 per cent or more of the population is francophone, only a third of the force is French-speaking, and if in areas between 30 and 60 per cent of the population are francophone, only 10 per cent of the force is French-speaking. It looks to me as though there has been a consistent history of either failure to seek out francophone recruits, or consistent discrimination against francophones in bringing people into the force. And I would like an assurance from the minister that that will end, that there will be affirmative action in order to ensure a greatly increased number of francophone recruits into the force.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I’d be pleased to give the assurance except that it never had a start. It’s in the best interest of the force, for very obvious reasons, to desire to recruit people who have a multitude of talents. They are getting more for their money if a person, in fact, is trilingual or more.

The force is constantly seeking this type of individual, but I suggest that it is not as simple as it might seem in terms of your taking your population and whatever the Ontario Provincial Police complement is in that area and having the same percentage of francophones on that particular detachment, because --

Mr. Cassidy: I accept that.

Hon. Mr. Clement: -- area needs are different. I come from a city which this year will attract between 12 and 14 million visitors. We have at the Niagara Regional Police Station at Niagara Falls a number of Italian-speaking officers because perhaps as much as a third of the people in my city are Italian-Canadian in origin. Yet it would be of no value to a good number of people visiting Niagara Falls if a third of the officers reflected that and we had no francophones on the force. Because we have hundreds of thousands of people coming into Niagara Falls from Quebec. So I think we are saying the same thing.

Mr. Cassidy: No, no.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Well, if we’re not, I just say you cannot take the community and say there are so many francophones in this community, therefore the same percentage must apply to OPP personnel and it will all be equitable. In some instances you may require a higher number of OPP bilingual constables in a community than there are, in fact, percentage-wise francophones in that community. You have to look at the needs, you have to see who is visiting there, who uses the community, and so on.

Mr. Cassidy: Fine. In that case, you should be able to point out to me OPP detachments or OPP regions where there happens to be a higher proportion of francophones within the force in that area than there are in the population at large, and you can’t show that to me. There is a consistent pattern that there is a smaller proportion of French-speaking -- let’s just not talk about francophones -- people with a French mother tongue and French-speaking constables or officers on the force, than there are in the community that they serve.

The argument that this is a tourist police force just doesn’t hold water. In the main, this is a police force which provides municipal policing in rural Ontario and which provides highway policing for all of us who travel the highways. Most of the people travelling Ontario highways are, of course, Ontario residents; and 10 per cent of them are francophones -- a much higher proportion in certain parts of the province.

I don’t think the figures on Portuguese and on Italians and so on are excusable either. Another thing you could say is that the Italian community has become much larger in Canada since the war than it was before, and it takes time for an immigrant group to start to take on positions as teachers, as police constables and other positions like that. But you can’t draw that argument with the French-Canadians in Ontario -- the franco-Ontarians. They’ve been here as long as any other group in this society.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Just in completion of my observations, Mr. Chairman, the member said that we just don’t have a proportionate number of bilingual officers in any particular detachment. It’s been pointed out to me that at Casselman, the entire detachment is bilingual.

Mr. Cassidy: How many officers is that?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Twenty. Pardon me, 10.

Mr. Cassidy: Pardon?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Ten. And not everybody in that area is bilingual or francophone.

Mr. Cassidy: Okay. But that Casselman detachment, which is in an area which is 100 per cent francophone -- and which thus obviously reflects the needs of the area -- is part of the overall Long Sault detachment. It serves four or five counties in the extreme eastern part of Ontario, and there the proportion overall is all skewed, even if in one particular detachment they happen to hit it about right.

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

Mr. Shulman: Mr. Chairman, I would like to speak for a moment of the intelligence squad. I direct my remarks, through you, primarily to the commissioner. I have thrown a lot of rain on his head -- he and his predecessors -- over the last seven years. Finally, I’m now going to say something nice -- and I want to say that -- and then I’m going cavil a bit.

Mr. Cassidy: Duck.

Mr. Shulman: But he deserves some commendation for this past year, particularly now that the intelligence department has been able to pull itself together. This is the first time they’ve received the support they should have had, financially and otherwise. I wish to commend him and the member for Halton West, who is not here, for having pushed that. It’s a tremendous move forward.

I want to thank the present minister and the commissioner for the courtesies that have been extended to me over this past year and having opportunity to see how the detachment works and how the OPP works. I find that much criticism was unwarranted; mostly because I was on the outside and couldn’t see what was happening. Now that I do see what is happening, I take it all back -- no, I take a lot of it back. I have one criticism that I want to give to you now. This is what I want to speak to you about, because it’s a serious matter. It may appear unimportant at the top, but at the working level it is very important.

I’ve had the opportunity to travel with and work with some of your OPP intelligence men. They are a very fine group of men doing a good job and working as hard as they can -- but this comes back to the promotion system. We have the funny situation where a corporal from the OPP intelligence squad is working in close conjunction with an assistant to a governor, an inspector of a force, and the head of an intelligence unit in other jurisdictions, because of our system of promotion.

The system of promotion here is that almost always promotions are made as a result of writing exams. But a man who is off in intelligence for a year or two, who is away from traffic, hasn’t got a chance in hell of passing those promotional exams, because he just isn’t going to know the answers about radar and all the other things which the men who are on the beat or out on the highway are going to know. A man who gets off in that specialty, in effect, is going to be a corporal or a sergeant, or whatever he happens to be at the time he gets in there, forever. This applies to your security people, too -- I’m more familiar with the intelligence end of it -- the more and more he specializes in intelligence matters the less chance he has of passing a promotion exam.

There is one constable -- I’m not going to mention his name because it would embarrass him -- but here is a man who in any other force would be somewhere over the level of sergeant. I’m sure the commissioner knows who I’m referring to, but because of the set-up he can’t be promoted.

The night before last, the head of the Southfield Police Department and his deputy came up here. Who do they want to see in the whole of Toronto? Constable So-and-so from the OPP, because this is the man who knows more than anybody else in this city about the particular type of crime this particular officer is working on. I had the opportunity on Thursday night of going out with these very senior men from Detroit and from Southfield and they only wanted one OPP man along, a constable.

The same thing happened three months ago when Joe Arita came up from the Detroit police and when the assistant to the governor of Michigan came up here. They invited two policemen to come out with them -- again, both constables.

I suggest to you that if we can make exceptions under special circumstances and have men given temporary promotions, the same thing should be done with these men who have been directed off, for our benefit, into a field which is highly important. It is more important, I suggest to you, than the work of the man running the traffic work; certainly it is as important. Yet we have them stuck at a low level in the force, which they shouldn’t be.

They deserve promotion and they need promotion. It’s ridiculous for them to go to New York or Detroit or Cyprus or these other places they go to, and when the chief of police comes out to meet them and says “Inspector,” they say, “No, it’s constable.” It’s a ludicrous situation and I suggest we must find a way to solve that.

I ask the minister is there not some way of seeing that these men can be promoted within their specialty if they can’t be promoted within the force at large?

Hon. Mr. Clement: The present situation somewhat described by the member for High Park is being reviewed. It is presently operating under an agreement with the Ontario Police Association. I’m advised by the commissioner that the matter described by the member for High Park can occur, which would appear to be inequitable to those who are in a specialized type of activity and because of their specialization may well not be able to join in the regular flow. They may be prejudiced by becoming specialists and this is a subject for consideration. There have been apparently one or two discussions with the provincial police association on a number of items, this being one of them.

Mr. Shulman: As a temporary measure -- I suggest it has some urgency at the present time -- is it not possible to give some form of temporary status as I understand there has perhaps been a precedent before in the force? There are only a few men involved, I believe.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Yes, if there was a need for the talents of a particular person. I don’t think any particular person would be elevated just for the sake of elevating him or her. If there was a need for someone possessing those particular qualities, yes.

Mr. Shulman: Can I have an assurance from the commissioner that this will be given some consideration and I’ll drop the matter there?

Hon. Mr. Clement: I’m just talking objectively and I think maybe you have a particular individual on your mind.

Mr. Shulman: I have two individuals on my mind.

Hon. Mr. Clement: If you have two in mind perhaps you might speak to the commissioner or communicate with him by letter so that the individuals are not embarrassed by their identification across the floor of the House.

Mr. Shulman: Yes, but I happened to meet two individuals; I’m sure there must be others in the same position. All I’m asking is will the commissioner consider some way of giving these men some form of special status, so that when they meet with the other forces we don’t have this ludicrous situation?

Hon. Mr. Clement: We will take a look at it. I don’t know if the commissioner can say, “Well, I think it is Monday; I will create a special status for Joe Doakes. He is a good fellow and he is in a specialized field.” He is bound by the Act.

Interjection by an hon. member.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Within the confines of the Act and the regulations if there are any equities that can be practised which in his opinion are not being practised, then he will bring them about. But he cannot just designate a special status. He can designate maybe an acting rank.

Mr. Shulman: An acting status is all right.

Hon. Mr. Clement: All right. I think we are just quibbling over terminology.

Mr. Chairman: Before the Chair recognizes the hon. member for Waterloo North, perhaps I could make a comment concerning the discussions in this vote, 1505. I was assuming that we were dealing with the vote item by item, but the first vote, special services, is rather broad in its scope. I am just wondering whether we are veering a bit from special services or if there is overlapping in the items to the extent that we should consider the whole of vote 1505 --

Mr. Lawlor: Take the whole vote.

Mr. Chairman: -- and consider all the items at one time. Is this agreeable with the minister and the committee?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Yes.

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

Mr. Good: Mr. Chairman, I have just one comment I would like to make, and it involves going into a little more detail about the matter that was mentioned by the member for Windsor-Walkerville; that is, car theft.

One point which I think could be borne out by statistics is that there are a great many cars stolen from public parking lots where the requirement is that the keys must be left in the car. In the desire to provide more parking spaces on certain lots of a given size, some parking lot owners require that you leave your keys in the car. I think that is a very bad practice. I think it is quite a different thing if the keys must be left in the office of the parking lot.

I know of one parking lot in particular where two cars have been stolen in the last short while, and both these people happen to be residents of my constituency. This lot is on King St. W., right across from Honest Ed’s -- somewhere in there. The requirement is that you leave your keys in the car, and not in the office of the parking lot. The excuse given each time is that the gate at the back of the parking lot has been broken down, the chain is not there and somebody slipped out with the car when no one was looking. The answer in each case is the same from the police: “If we don’t find it in three days, you’ll know that it was repainted and on its way to Quebec before 10 o’clock the same night.”

If police know that such rackets are going on, surely there is something that could be done. First of all, I think that parking lots should not be allowed to tell the customers that they have to leave their keys in the car. If they want to move your car, the keys should be in the office. I think there should be regulations and controls over this type of operation to require that the keys be maintained in the parking lot office. Surely there must be some responsibility on the part of the parking lot owner to exercise due and reasonable care for the safekeeping of your car while you have it parked on such a lot.

As recently as last Thursday, this gentleman I know had his car stolen from that same lot where another person whom I know very well had lost his car some time earlier. In each case it was the same thing: “Someone drove it out when we weren’t looking. They’re supposed to come out the front door, but the chain was down at the back and somebody took it out the back door.” It is a pretty slipshod method.

The statistics given here tonight by the member for Windsor-Walkerville perhaps are not as bad in Canada, but certainly they must be substantial when I know of the cars of two people who live in the city of Waterloo that have been taken from the same lot here in Toronto.

I wonder if the minister would comment as to whether there are any statistics to show that cars are being taken from lots where keys must be left in the car and, secondly, if the police know that there are these rings going on where they will have your car and have it painted -- this car that was stolen last Thursday has not shown up so we can only presume that it has been painted, false identification and registration provided and it is off to the Province of Quebec. Can I have the minister’s comments, especially on the regulations regarding keys left in cars on parking lots?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Chairman, the Ontario Provincial Police have very few areas where they bear the responsibility for policing parking lots. There are very few of them involved. Insofar as parking generally is concerned, getting away from the OPP role in this matter, I think there’s a recognized problem that parking is at a premium, particularly in the large metropolitan areas such as the city of Toronto. If one was going to pass provincial legislation saying that one is entitled to lock his car and so on, then you would have to realize that you are reducing the capacity of a lot of the lots in the central part of Toronto where many people wish to park. This would, through necessity, make them -- and it might be a good thing, I don’t know -- make them either use public transportation or it would drive them further away from the core of the city where they want to park, because where they have the keys left in the car is really for the convenience of the attendants in allowing them to block cars one ahead of the other and sometimes as many as I think three or four deep.

Mr. Good: Put the keys in the office and not in the car.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Well if they put the keys in the office, I suppose that might resolve some of the problems, but the ingenuity of man is such that somebody will figure that out too. Remember this, when you leave the keys in the office, let’s hope the fellow who works in the office is honest, because he can end up in a very few minutes with sets of keys to your house, your business and everything else. You can get your original keys back when you return and he will have duplicate keys for everything. Speaking of the member for Waterloo, I sure would like to have keys to some of the businesses that he operates.

So you see it can be six and two threes, and I think we could argue the philosophy of this for an extended period of time. I sympathize. It’s an invitation to steal. The member for Windsor-Walkerville mentioned that perhaps we might well consider, certainly on public streets, in public areas, legislation making it an offence, as it is in some jurisdictions, to leave the car unlocked. But those who are naive enough to think that locking a car will discourage all car thefts are deluding themselves, because you have seen people with a coat-hanger open a car in a second.

All I am saying is, if somebody really wants to steal your car it really doesn’t matter very much whether they have the keys available or not. It is just that the spontaneous thief, perhaps the juvenile, may be more attracted to your car if the keys are in it than if it was locked up and you had the keys in your pocket. But the OPP itself really polices very few areas that do have parking lots. It’s a good point.

Mr. Good: Just on the point, in any other type of business a person is required to develop a certain standard of care. Surely there should be some standard of care that a parking lot operator has over the valuables that are entrusted to him in the form of automobiles. There seems to be no standard of care whatsoever. You put your car in there and you are just supposed to be thankful you found a place that will take your $2.50 to let you park your car for half a day or something. That’s about how bad it is down here in Toronto.

Hon. Mr. Clement: With the greatest of respect, there has been a standard of care developed in the civil courts as to the standard of care that the operator must extend to you as user of his lot, and if he doesn’t meet that standard of care then he has to reimburse you or your insurer for the loss of the car.

Mr. Chairman: The following hon. members have indicated they wanted to speak on vote 1505; The hon. members for Welland South, Lakeshore and Sudbury. The hon. member for Welland South.

Mr. Haggerty: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I see in vote 1505, item 1, special services, there is quite an increase in the cost, $1.6 million. I was just wondering about the number of new employees involved in this particular vote, and is the member for High Park included in vote 1505 (1) under special services? It seems that he has quite a bit of influence with the Ontario Provincial Police and perhaps with other law enforcement agencies in Canada, or in Ontario and the United States.

Hon. Mr. Clement: There are two items there -- I am speaking now of special services, item 1 -- and the increased total is $1,639,000. Of that, $1,139,100 is for salaries and benefits for the additional complement of 28 individuals. Communications and transportation, $190,000; that is a travel increase due to inflation and the increase in complement. Forty-nine thousand, nine hundred dollars is shown against services made up of additional car rentals due to increase in workload. Supplies and equipment -- an additional $260,000 for additional equipment required for security and surveillance. Total -- $ 1,639,000 with reference to item 1.

Mr. Haggerty: Of the 28 personnel who have been employed, how many are in any particular special field?

Hon. Mr. Clement: All of them.

Mr. Haggerty: Mr. Chairman, the other day -- I believe it was on Friday -- I had some dialogue with the minister concerning this particular vote and I was ruled out of order. It deals with the prevention of crime and offences against the laws in force in Ontario and the criminal laws of Canada. Particularly, I was discussing with him the matter of the control of firearms in the Province of Ontario. As I said before, I wasn’t satisfied with the response I received from the minister and I was just wondering if he wasn’t going to bring in tighter controls on small firearms. One question I want to ask is what is the maximum penalty for a person who is convicted of possessing an unregistered and restricted weapon? Another question is what type of weapons do you actually include in the category of small arms? How do you define them under the Criminal Code?

Hon. Mr. Clement: I don’t have a copy of the legislation here with me. Perhaps my staff could get me a copy of it. What is it in particular that the hon. member would like to know?

Mr. Haggerty: What is the maximum penalty for a person who is convicted of possessing an unregistered or restricted weapon?

Hon. Mr. Clement: I am not going to answer that until I get a copy of the Criminal Code, a federal statute which deals with it.

Mr. Haggerty: Does no one on your staff know?

Hon. Mr. Clement: I am sorry, I just don’t know the penalties relating to firearms. There is possession of offensive weapons. There is pointing dangerous weapons and discharging weapons. The penalties are not necessarily the same in all those instances. If the hon. member is asking a question, I will give the answer.

Mr. Haggerty: What would be the maximum penalty for a person who was charged and convicted for an unregistered and restricted weapon?

Hon. Mr. Clement: For example, for a person having possession of an offensive weapon dangerous to the public peace, the maximum sentence is five years. It seems to me an anachronism of the law, and I stand to be corrected, that for the offence under the Criminal Code of pointing a dangerous weapon the maximum is two years. I think I am right on that. The moral would almost appear to be that in terms of punishment it is less serious in the eyes of the federal legislators to point a dangerous weapon than to possess one.

There has to be some rationale behind the development of those penalties. Can someone get me a copy of the Criminal Code? I wonder is Mr. Callaghan here? I will undertake to get that information so that we don’t hold up the deliberations of the House. There is quite a difference as you go through all the different sections relating to offensive weapons in the Criminal Code, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman: The hon. member for Lakeshore.

Mr. Haggerty: Mr. Chairman, I want to continue.

Hon. Mr. Clement: A copy of the Code is on the way.

Mr. Haggerty: The former Attorney General, Allan Lawrence, who is now a member sitting in the federal House and who is trying to impress the public that he is the No. 1 crime fighter in Canada, was gutless in bringing about law and order in the Province of Ontario. He was speaking at a convention of the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police and he stated that stiffer gun laws in the province were likely to come. Mr. Lawrence said he wanted to see fewer guns in the hands of private citizens.

I was just wondering, what are your particular views on this matter now? Are you going to be bringing in stronger regulations applied to small firearms? How are you going to control violence on the streets in Ontario if you don’t bring in stiffer laws pertaining to small-arms weapons? I’m talking about the handgun, the revolver or a sawed-off shotgun.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Are you talking about handguns?

Mr. Haggerty: A sawed-off shotgun that you can hold in one hand and fire.

Hon. Mr. Clement: A sawed-off shotgun?

Mr. Haggerty: A rifle or that.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Wait a minute, let’s talk about apples and oranges. You’re talking about weapons; are you talking about handguns or are you talking about hunting rifles, shotguns, the whole ambit?

Mr. Haggerty: I’m not making reference to rifles for hunting purposes. I’m talking about a person who uses a weapon for an armed holdup.

Hon. Mr. Clement: We don’t allow rifles in the north. No, sir, a man at Kenora who got blown to hell was carrying a rifle, at least that’s my understanding of it. Let’s find out what kind of weapons we’re talking about.

If you’re talking about handguns, do I, as Solicitor General of this province in an acting capacity, intend to introduce legislation to deal with handguns? I suggest that we might well be in a constitutional conflict, because the federal government has already occupied the field under the Criminal Code, and I’m not being critical of that, and if we have five years for something for which they say two, we’ve exceeded our jurisdiction. That’s confusing to the public.

I’m not prepared to give a constitutional argument on whether we have the right to do it. I suppose we could regulate the licensing of people who possess those guns, but we’re right back into the same discussion we had the other night. All law-abiding citizens will come in and register, like they’ve already done, and all the crooks and thieves will hang back. It won’t make a particle of difference in your statistics at the end of the year on the use of offensive weapons, particularly the handguns.

Mr. Haggerty: How do you effect control of violence on the street then? I mean, you have a commission established now. Judy LaMarsh is looking after it, but that deals with television. But how do you remove the actual crime itself from the street when you’re allowing these persons to carry a weapon like that? I think even the police associations in Ontario want --

Hon. Mr. Clement: We don’t allow them in Ontario.

Mr. Haggerty: Pardon?

Hon. Mr. Clement: We’re not allowing them, whoever them is, to carry guns.

Mr. Haggerty: You’re allowing them in a sense, to say that they’re carrying them.

Hon. Mr. Clement: And if that’s the law, would it stop them from carrying them?

Mr. Haggerty: If you don’t bring in tighter controls how are you going to restrict it?

Hon. Mr. Clement: With the greatest of respect, why don’t you write your colleagues in Ottawa and have them bring in tighter controls under the federal Criminal Code?

Mr. Haggerty: If I was in your position that’s what I would do.

Hon Mr. Clement: I’ve talked to the federal Minister of Justice about it and they still haven’t changed it. They haven’t even changed the pinball legislation.

Mr. Haggerty: You’re the law enforcement officer in the Province of Ontario, not myself.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I have letters from him saying that he’s going to.

Mr. Haggerty: Yes, but you’re the law enforcement officer in the province, not me.

Hon. Mr. Clement: We’ll enforce it, but we’ve got to have something to work with.

Mr. Haggerty: I’m going to read an article that’s as close to your heart as it is mine. It’s from a local newspaper, the Niagara Falls Review. The headline is: “Meaningless and Dangerous.” It says:

“The welter of existing firearms legislation is meaningless, and what is more, most citizens are content to let it stay that way although they realize anarchy is the only possible result. A York county grand jury is only the most recent to condemn the law that permits lethal weapons to be sold without any reasonable regulation. The only guarantee to stricter laws and far less ease for criminals or anyone else to buy firearms is for a public outcry so countrywide that the government would have to listen.

“The gun lobby, the sportsmen and the rest have made it so much of an operation to keep the ears of the members tuned in to their direction that this manoeuvring by the minority has brought the government to the edge of anarchy. Hunters and gun club members are a minority, yet the government refuses to offend them by enacting legislation that the majority wants. But unless the majority makes it clear that it will not tolerate dictation by the small minority, our gun laws will continue to be weak, inconsistent and meaningless.

“The argument that strict gun controls are unenforceable is nonsense. Tough sentences for anyone owning a dangerous weapon, except under the terms of the wide-ranging Act, would decrease violence even if it meant filling the prisons instead of letting violence spill over onto the streets.”

You are well aware this is what is taking place; violence is spilling out onto the streets.

Mr. Chairman: Order, please. May I draw to the member’s attention that the minister has indicated this is a federal matter? The Chair cannot see that this matter falls under the jurisdiction of vote 1505.

Mr. Good: The member for Halton West had a bill ready to bring in.

Mr. Haggerty: The member for Waterloo North says the previous Solicitor General had a bill he was going to introduce some time in the Legislature. It deals with this particular item -- prevention of crime and offences against the laws in force in Ontario and the criminal laws of Canada.

Mr. Stokes: The former member for Dovercourt introduced a private member’s bill and with the outcry he got from across the province they pretty near ran him out of town.

Mr. Haggerty: They can run me out of town. I may be wrong; hopefully I am right. I think it is time the minister took the bull by the horns and brought in some type of legislation, if you have to bring it under provincial laws. If you don’t remove firearms from the streets you’re going to have violence.

Mr. Ferrier: It’s a matter for the federal boys.

An hon. member: If you outlaw guns, only outlaws get ahead.

Mr. Chairman: The member for Lakeshore.

Mr. Stokes: That’s not the answer.

Mr. Haggerty: Then you know who has got it.

Mr. Lawlor: In an endeavour to wind up the debate, I will get back on a number of things. Continuing with the status report, take a look at role 4.6. It has to do with the hiring of women, equal status, nondiscriminatory. It is indicated that the provincial police exercise great open-mindedness in this particular regard and there is only one sentence I want to question you about. The last sentence says, “The Employment Standards Act is being amended to exempt persons hired in pursuance of the Police Act.” What does that mean? That there is an intention to amend. the Employment Standards Act so that women police officers or women engaged in the place, doing work commensurate with or equal to that of men, will be treated somehow differently? Is that what you are saying?

Hon. Mr. Clement: The regulations under the Employment Standards Act, when drafted, did not contemplate the utilization of females, certainly in the police forces. Therefore we would be in breach of those regulations if they were not amended to reflect the use now of policewomen.

Mr. Lawlor: So the Act, not so much the regulations, is deficient in this regard?

Hon. Mr. Clement: That is my understanding of it. Mr. Chairman, through you, I would like to say to the member for Lakeshore, I sure rue the day I gave him the status report. I hope you enjoy reading it because you are keeping me hopping over on this side of the House.

Mr. Lawlor: As I say, I am not going to press matters too much. The next matter I want to touch on was private security forces. Again, what the Act says, there is a study to be completed in June, forthcoming on criminology. I would be most interested in being provided also with a copy of that. It was $45,000 out of your pocket or the taxpayers’ money, and I think it might be, for future purposes, very interesting indeed to see what the University of Toronto has to say under this heading of law.

I made numerous comments the other day as to these private forces and the explosion of these forces in the province. Certainly one of your chief tasks as Solicitor General will be to harness that; to have your finger on the situation. I notice, and I wasn’t quite aware of it, that the project focused on the in-house services in Ontario is not being included under the private investigators or security guards Act at this time. I would hope that in the very near future you will give some thought to amending that particular legislation to bring these people within its ambit. After all, they are exercising at least quasi police powers in the province. It is simply a failure to be abreast of events of these times in this area of security guards that it wouldn’t be so covered.

The next item -- as I say, I’m hurrying on. I noticed organization, Org.1.7, having to do with Muskoka; just a word about that because I don’t think it can be passed over without some adversion to it, the reorganization, territorially, on a regional basis, of the police forces of the province. I have in my hand certain remarks by the member for London South (Mr. White), called “Local Government Reorganization and the OPP,” given at the Toronto Airport Hilton Hotel on Wednesday, Dec. 5, 1973, in which he addressed himself to this particular issue. I take it what he says is largely what has come to pass, namely, that the regional concept does bring into some coherence the numerous diverse police forces; in order to shorten this up, at 1.6 he says as follows, “As I say, it is impossible to predict what policing arrangements may be worked out by the counties that decide to restructure themselves.”

You departed from the regional concept of a form of commissioner, on the part of government, for purely political reasons; nothing to do with efficiency; nothing to do with intelligence; nothing to do with economies of scale; nothing to do with anything except politics. The government retreated from its regional concepts.

So far as the organization of the police and other things were concerned it went to a restructured county basis; I don’t think it’s advanced very far in this particular regard. Then it went a third step that within the structure of the county the urban areas therein would have their own local police forces, in continuity as they are, to protect local loyalties and sentiments of that kind, and the provincial police would handle the rural outlying areas within the county structure.

I take it that’s the policy and the chief thrust of things at the present time. I’ll just finish this paragraph, however, before I sit down: “That’s largely up to them but many of them being rural like Haldimand and Norfolk may well decide to adopt the Haldimand-Norfolk formula.”

My query is whether the ruling formula, the central formula, not the only one but the main one, is precisely the Haldimand-Norfolk formula? That is, organizing existing municipal forces into a single force and retaining the OPP in the rural areas. Would the minister care to address himself to that issue?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Does the member want my views as to whether I think that is the best way or the only way?

Mr. Lawlor: The best way. Is that the way that’s been lighted upon and is being implemented?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Chairman, I think the theory of regionalization is really to decentralize many of the functions of municipal government from Toronto, that is from Queen’s Park. I think one has to look at the geography involved, the economics involved, the numbers of people to be served, the particular needs or the peculiar needs of a particular community. I would hesitate to say that regionalization of the forces is the best way, with the Ontario Provincial Police providing the supplementary services, say, on the highways.

I immediately think of the needs which are presently being served in the Ottawa area, where you’ve had regionalization of government, except for the provision of policing. It may be that is lagging at this particular time; it may be that the area has not faced the inevitable. At this particular moment I can’t say that what I have in regional Niagara or in Haldimand-Norfolk is better in terms of services being provided to the public than those being received by the people in the Ottawa area. I really haven’t turned my mind to it but I do recognize that there are individual differences for the reasons I’ve touched on.

If I may digress for a moment, Mr. Chairman, I now have the advantage of a copy of the Criminal Code before me. Perhaps the member for Welland South would like to peruse it insofar as the penalties are concerned that we touched on.

Possession of a weapon dangerous to public peace carries a maximum sentence of five years. If you are carrying a dangerous weapon while you are attending a meeting, you can be guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction and you can go away for six months. If you carry a concealed weapon without a permit, it’s indictable and you are liable to imprisonment for a maximum of five years; if you point it, you can get a maximum of two years.

There are all kinds of sections about delivering firearms to persons under the age of 16; possession of prohibited weapons; prohibited weapons in a motor vehicle; delivery of restricted weapons to people without permits -- it goes on and on and on. In other words, there are a lot of facets dealing with prohibited weapons and various penalties apply to the different offences. If the hon. member would like to look at it, I think he would find it rather interesting reading as to the great variety of views in the federal House when it enacted the punishment sections of that part of the Code.

Mr. Chairman: Shall vote 1505 carry?

Mr. Lawlor: My final question on this vote, as far as I am concerned -- no, I am sorry; I can’t say that. There is one other matter.

Why have you jettisoned the recommendation with respect to the appointment of a director of personnel development? It is a fairly elaborate and a fairly well worked out recommendation as to the specific functions of tasks that this man would do were he appointed, and it has been thrown out. I’d like some explanation for that.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Chairman, I am advised that the appointment of such a director under the present structure would throw the whole thing out, if I may use that phraseology.

If we followed the recommendations under the task force, we would have to increase the number of persons presently on the police commission. Each individual would have an area of responsibility reporting to him. The government has not seen fit to go forward at this time with an increased number of individuals on the police commission; accordingly, the various responsibilities now have to be borne by the commission members in toto.

Mr. Lawlor: Just one word then. Do take a look at it. It seems to me that a fresh approach is needed. The amalgamation of a diversity of services -- recruiting, manpower planning and selection, in-service training -- all these various things that need rejuvenation and new life, if coherently handled by a single man of the right imagination, very well could make the best elements of the task force report a living thing.

However disruptive in terms of overlapping jurisdictions and stepping on other people’s toes, as I see he would do in the present structure -- even if that were the case, surely the accommodations can be slightly restructured in order to give the kind of vitality of which I am I speaking. I don’t say that you will end up doing it; nor would I be critical if you didn’t. I simply say it seems to me, as an outsider, that it looks auspicious and really worth looking at; and I take it that it’s your task to do that.

I have one other matter, and I am going to get it over with right now by asking a simple question. I have before me a document I was asked to inquire about. It concerns Young People in Legal Difficulty, a Kitchener-Waterloo group that is seeking funding. Do you know of them and can you do anything for them?

Hon. Mr. Clement: I heard about them today. As best as I can recollect, somebody asked me if I had indeed made some comment about them and then they referred to the Parkdale community activity and the other one I think I had mentioned earlier -- it’s referred to in Hansard as People in the Law.

Mr. Good: Young People in Legal Difficulties.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I don’t think I have ever discussed that one before.

Mr. Lawlor: Can you do anything for them?

Mr. Chairman: I draw the time to the hon. members’ attention and to the minister’s.

Mr. Lawlor: Okay. This won’t last very long next day.

Hon. E. A. Winkler (Chairman, Management Board of Cabinet): Let’s finish it.

Mr. Chairman: The member for Sudbury. Was your question fairly brief?

Mr. M. C. Germa (Sudbury): Very brief, Mr. Chairman. The rising price of gold I am sure has created an incentive for highgrading and I wondered what is the status of our highgrading squad? Do we still have one? Has there been an increase in activities? Are we having any difficulty as far as highgrading gold is concerned? Is there much export of illegal gold and have we had any arrests in the past year or so since the price of gold took this severe jump?

Hon. Mr. Clement: No, we no longer have a highgrading branch as we used to under Inspector Woods some years ago. Each branch now has someone knowledgeable in dealing with, identification of and this sort of thing, of highgrade ore. We have no information to the present time that because of the escalating prices of gold there is any increase in this particular type of activity. The commissioner and the senior staff have recently reviewed this, bearing in mind the very point the member for Sudbury makes -- that is, the escalating price of gold -- to see if the reintroduction or re-creation of a high-grading branch was required. The consensus after that study was no. It’s being done at the detachment level.

Mr. Germa: Have there been any convictions? Have you had any cases of highgrading? I’m sure there is still some around. If you have somebody in each detachment, the thing is still there. I wondered, have you had any convictions?

Hon. Mr. Clement: I can’t say whether or not we have had any. I can tell you there have been no significant increases. I don’t think the briefing I have here indicates a breakdown reflecting that particular type of offence which, to say the least, is rather unusual contrasted with robbery, assault, murder and this sort of thing. If the member would like me to answer that further, I will find out after tonight or before the opening of the House on Thursday and pass the information on to the member, if he would so desire.

Mr. Germa: One other item, Mr. Chairman. Regarding the Moosonee detachment, could you tell me how many men you have in Moosonee right now?

Hon. Mr. Clement: At the present time, there is a corporal and four constables.

Mr. Germa: It had been the practice in the past for the OPP to run the lockup. Does that still exist? When the OPP pick somebody up, they are the jailer as well?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Yes.

Mr. Germa: About feeding of prisoners, how is that handled presently in Moosonee?

Hon. Mr. Clement: I was under the impression it was purchased and brought in but we’re not so sure if that’s what they do or if the corporal’s wife prepares it. I can’t answer that, I’m sorry.

Mr. Germa: Maybe I should tell the minister; I think it is still in existence. The corporal’s wife is the chief cook and bottle washer and maybe she’s the jailer, too. The reason I’m asking this is the menu supplied to the prisoners, I think, would be worthy of your investigation. The way I understand it functions is that the cook or the corporal’s wife or whoever has that responsibility of supplying meals is paid on a per meal rate by your ministry, I presume. I doubt if the ministry is getting value for the dollar as far as the amount or quantity or food supplied to the particular prisoners is concerned. I wonder if there has been any inspection done in that regard as far as food service to the prisoners is concerned.

Hon. Mr. Clement: No, there has been no inspection, so far as I am aware, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Germa: Could I have your assurance that this particular aspect will be looked into?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Yes, we’ll take a look at it.

Vote 1505 agreed to.

Vote 1506 agreed to.

Mr. Chairman: This concludes the estimates of the Ministry of the Solicitor General.

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 supply begs to report it has reached certain resolutions and asks for leave to sit again.

Report agreed to.

Hon. E. A. Winkler (Chairman, Management Board of Cabinet): Mr. Speaker, before I move the adjournment of the House, there is a slight change from that which I announced the other evening regarding the calling of the legislation tomorrow. The second readings will be as follows: Items 2, 13, 14, 6, 10 and 12.

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

Motion agreed to.

The House adjourned at 10:35 o’clock, p.m.