Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

The House met at 2 o’clock, p.m.

Prayers.

Hon. J. P. MacBeth (Minister of Labour): Mr. Speaker, before you get to statements I would draw your attention to seven people from Olivet Day School, six pupils and one teacher, who are in the gallery this afternoon. I would ask the House to give them its usual warm welcome.

Mr. Speaker: Statements by the ministry.

Oral questions. The hon. Leader of the Opposition.

APPEAL ON OHIP PAYMENT

Mr. R. F. Nixon (Leader of the Opposition): I would like to ask the Minister of Health what action he now contemplates since the Chief Justice and a five-man court of the Supreme Court of Ontario have dismissed the appeal of the government in the case of Arthur Taylor, formerly of St. George, Ont., having to do with his medical costs, which OHIP decided it would not pay. Does he expect to appeal that case further or is he going to pay up?

Hon. F. S. Miller (Minister of Health): Mr. Speaker, I am well aware of the case and I am sorry that that particular gentleman was the subject of the litigation. I am not prepared to say we won’t appeal the case, until I have had a chance to get some advice from the legal staff of the ministry. If, in fact, the principle that we are trying to protect -- that is, that the cost of certain services outside of Canada must be at the Canadian rate, or the Ontario rate -- is critical, then I think we are going to have to amend the law if it is not standing up in court, because I think it is an important law. I am sure the Leader of the Opposition knows that voluntary hospital costs and involuntary medical services can be much higher in other parts of the world than the Ontario tariff.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Supplementary: Has the minister satisfied himself in his own mind that there is not a certain degree of confusion and that the point is not that these particular people are being charged at a rate that is substantially different from the Ontario rate, but that OHIP refused to pay for the special charges of bringing the doctors some distance to serve Mrs. Taylor? Surely, since the Supreme Court of Ontario has found this, it is time for OHIP to pay up and for the minister to amend the legislation, if he wants to make it clear that we are not prepared to pay the exorbitant fees charged by hospitals and doctors outside this province. Actually, there are very, very high fees here, except that in some states, particularly where there are a number of tourists, there seems to be a real tendency to overcharge.

Hon. Mr. Miller: I think it would be unwise for me to make any comments upon what I will or won’t do. I haven’t read the judgement. I would rather have the judgement explained or read to me, or whatever has to be done to make a simple layman like myself understand it, before I make any comments upon the need to change the law.

Mr. E. Sargent (Grey-Bruce): He said it: “simple.”

Mr. R. F. Nixon: A further supplementary: Since Mr. Taylor, an elderly gentleman, has now waited years for the disposition of this case -- it has now been appealed twice, and finally now comes the judgement by the Supreme Court of Ontario with five justices -- surely it is time to pay up and to make some other disposition if, in fact, the ministry feels that the legislation is inadequate.

Hon. Mr. Miller: I take that more as a statement than a question. I’m quite prepared to pay up --

Mr. R. F. Nixon: With your permission, Mr. Speaker, it is not a statement. Wouldn’t the minister agree that Mr. Taylor has waited long enough for the payments that have been upheld by every level of the courts?

Mr. R. Haggerty (Welland South): Accept the decision of the courts.

Hon. Mr. Miller: Mr. Speaker, if, in fact, our ministry decides it should not appeal the case, I am sure we will pay the charges.

MAPLE MOUNTAIN PROJECT

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I would like to ask the Provincial Secretary for Resources Development, what is the position regarding the Maple Mountain land claims that has given rise to the problems with the member for Timiskaming (Mr. Havrot)? Is the government assisting the Indians in putting forward their land claim so that it can be settled by the court, or has the whole concept of Maple Mountain now been discarded by the government?

Hon. A. Grossman (Provincial Secretary for Resources Development): Mr. Speaker, I think that question should properly be directed to my colleague, the Minister of Industry and Tourism (Mr. Bennett).

Mr. R. F. Nixon: A supplementary: Would the minister not agree that in recent matters pertaining to the application of provincial law to the Indian bands and communities, he has taken upon himself to be the spokesman as far as the provincial position is concerned? Why would he not think this was an area in which he should involve himself, since it has led to the controversy involving the member for Timiskaming, and certainly the government has a position regarding the development of Maple Mountain that the people would be very interested to know?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: There were two facets as I recall, Mr. Speaker, in answer to the hon. member’s question. One had to do with the development, or otherwise, of Maple Mountain; the other had to do with matters relating to Indian band claims which, of course, are involved with constitutional problems, particularly as they involve the federal government. On the latter point I am not taking, as a matter of fact, any responsibilities upon myself. There are certain responsibilities which have been delegated to me by the government. But, certainly, in respect of band claims and property rights and so on, those I think the hon. member will agree should quite properly be referred to the Treasurer and the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs (Mr. McKeough), who I am sure will be quite prepared to deal with them.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Riverdale.

Mr. J. A. Renwick (Riverdale): By way of supplementary, Mr. Speaker, would the provincial secretary advise us as to whether or not these claims and the validity of these claims are in the hands of the Attorney General (Mr. Clement) for assessment as to their validity?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, there has been a number of meetings -- the last one which I attended was I think last Wednesday, Thursday or Friday -- with, I believe his proper title is, the claims commissioner, federal government. We had a meeting with him in order to clarify what the various positions are in respect to Indian band claims.

I am sure the hon. member knows it is a very complex one and certainly the kind of problems which can’t be dealt with by me at this particular stage. In the final analysis if, in fact, it requires any policy to be declared by the provincial government, it will have to be dealt with by the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, as he deals with the federal government in matters having intergovernmental responsibilities, particularly in this field.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: This might be an appropriate time, Mr. Speaker, to put a similar question to the Minister of Industry and Tourism having to do with the Indian land claims in the area where the provincial programme for the development of Maple Mountain has been put forward.

Is the government assisting in the disposition before the courts of those land claims, by giving some assistance to the Indian bands concerned? I believe they have put some claim on about 110 townships there? If not, what is the disposition of the announced programme for Maple Mountain? Has it been pretty much dismissed or is it still viable?

Hon. C. Bennett (Minister of Industry and Tourism): Mr. Speaker, some weeks ago the same question was asked in this House regarding Maple Mountain and I answered it. The relationship to the project itself, which is the second part of the Leader of the Opposition’s question, I believe, is that as far as the Maple Mountain project in the Ministry of Industry and Tourism is concerned it is at a standstill for the moment until there is a clearance of the claims that have been registered against the holdings by the various Indian bands in that part of the province. In relation to the first part of the hon. leader’s question, I think the question would be better directed to the Attorney General because of his ministry’s participation with the Indian bands and their legal counsel in taking the question forward to the courts if that is necessary.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Sargent: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker: I would like to ask the minister how much money has been squandered up to this point?

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Mr. Speaker, at this point in time there has been a preliminary study. I would have to look for the exact figure, but I believe it’s in the range of about $70,000.

Mr. W. Ferrier (Cochrane South): The minister thinks it’s been squandered, does he?

Mr. S. Lewis (Scarborough West): A supplementary, if I may: I take it that whatever happens to the land claims, even if there were a resolution, is it not basically the policy of his ministry to recommend that the project not proceed?

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Mr. Speaker, again some weeks ago I answered that very same question. I said that if and when the claims are cleared and if the ownership of the land should rest in the name of the Crown, then we would continue with the studies that would be necessary to determine the viability economically of the particular project, and only at that time would we carry on with the studies.

I am not in a position to say to the hon. members today that we would see ourselves building Maple Mountain at some day in the future. If it’s economically viable to produce for that community and this province the type of tourist attraction that will benefit us, then we will advance in that direction.

Mr. Renwick: Mr. Speaker, by way of a supplementary question, is the validity of the claims at issue being treated by the government solely as a matter for the Attorney General or are there negotiations proceeding between this ministry or any other ministries and the Indian bands concerned for the purposes of a settlement of these claims, apart altogether from the legal issues involved in them?

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Obviously, Mr. Speaker, the claims relating to the land are being dealt with singularly and solely by the Attorney General with the legal counsel as appointed by the Indian bands to represent their particular position. My ministry does not have the challenge of trying to decide on who owns and who does not own land in the Province of Ontario. It would rest singularly with the Attorney General so that no confusion can enter into the affair.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: For clarification, Mr. Speaker, if you’ll permit, can we then assume that all expenditure on behalf of Maple Mountain and this ministry is at an end and that there is no further expenditure?

Hon. Mr. Bennett: I gave assurance to the House some weeks ago and again today that we are not doing anything further with Maple Mountain or that project until there is a clarification as to the ownership of the land.

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

Mr. Lewis: Just a second, Mr. Speaker, I just want to send a message to the press gallery so that I can get some questions for the question period.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: The press gallery is ahead of the member.

Mr. L. Maeck (Parry Sound): It’s nice to have them do the research.

Mr. Lewis: I fear I will run out before the end of the period, thank you.

HEALTH SURVEY OF ELLIOT LAKE MINERS

Mr. Lewis: If I may ask the Minister of Health first, now that he is here and available to us -- he’s been working in the hinterland for the last few days, I gather -- how he has resolved, if at all, or can he explain to the House, the happenstance that allowed Dr. Cowle of his ministry to provide to a doctor in the pay of Rio Algom the list of names of pre-silicotic miners at Elliot Lake, which names, I gather, found their way directly to the company, rather than doing it in what one would have thought a more appropriate manner by bringing the union and the management together and working out a joint delivery of names, if that was required?

Hon. Mr. Miller: Mr. Speaker, first of all, I should explain my absence. I was planting potatoes, just in case I lost my seat in the next election; then I would have some food for the winter.

Mr. J. R. Breithaupt (Kitchener: That was prudent.

Mr. Lewis: Given the price of potatoes that’s all the minister would have, food.

Mr. Ferrier: The minister should think positively.

Hon. Mr. Miller: However, I was naturally interested in the question of the ethics of this particular issue and even though I’ve talked about it a number of times during the past week I’m still a bit confused about the medical ethics involved. We had at one point agreed, for example, in our chest x-ray programme through the miners’ test stations, to let the family physician know the results of the x-ray or, failing a family physician of record, to bring the miner to our chest x-ray station for a personal explanation of his state.

I understood that before Dr. Cowle was involved in releasing these names to Dr. Warren, the doctor who is employed by Rio Algom, he questioned whether he had the right to do it. He checked with the College of Physicians and Surgeons and was told that under these conditions it was medically ethical for the doctor to exchange information.

Secondly, as members know, we’ve been considering and have announced recently a programme whereby the company, the union and the men would co-operate in programmes involving relocation on a voluntary basis of men who are reaching this state. It was felt that if it was medically ethical for the company’s doctor to be aware of those men reaching a difficult position it would be in the men’s interest, too, to have this information so that perhaps steps could be taken as early as possible to assist them in working in safer places. That was the sum and substance of it. There was no attempt to hurt them; in fact, I would strongly defend those men’s right to tenure in the mines but it was simply to make sure the steps were taken.

I’m sure the member knows that when the United Steelworkers came down from Elliot Lake to see me some months ago, one of the things they expressed to me was their fear that they weren’t hearing the truth in these things. It’s long been considered medically unethical, often, to tell the patient some facts about himself, I’m sure the member knows that, on various test procedures. That’s why it’s been a physician-to-physician relationship in the main, with the exception being the rule. I believe only two miners of the entire group who showed dust effects really didn’t have personal physicians to whom information could be given.

Mr. Lewis: Let me, if I may, carry it one step further, in two parts, because I am as perplexed as the minister is. He says the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons told a medical health doctor in his ministry that it was ethically proper for him to give the names of the men to the medical doctor at Rio Algom. Please explain to me why he approached the College of Physicians and Surgeons and not the Minister of Health or an appropriate cabinet minister in Ontario. I would have thought that has an ethical implication as well.

The second thing I want to ask is, what is it about the occupational health people that possessed them to deal that way with the company, independent of meeting with the representatives of the workers, so that there is immediate suspicion (a) of a behind doors relationship, and (b) great anxiety for the workers whose economic security may well be jeopardized if Rio Algom chose to be vindictive about those who might one day be on pension?

Hon. Mr. Miller: First of all, I think we’ve taken steps to assure both the company and the miners that there would not be economic sanctions imposed on the various companies through this change in health status.

I’m open to argument, rather than saying I’m sure of this, but I question whether the union should know the names of the men specifically.

Mr. Lewis: But they should know the names are being passed on.

Hon. Mr. Miller: I think we will find very shortly that we get certain mechanisms for dealing with these kinds of problems and I hope we do. I intend to be up in that area before too long in an attempt to work out methods which the men will trust -- that’s No. 1 -- methods with which they will co-operate, because in the long run we are only interested in reducing hazards to them and in ensuring a good livelihood for them.

Now, as for the first part of the question, it would be pleasant to think that every single decision a staff member made could be brought to my attention.

Mr. Lewis: That is a decision of a special kind.

Hon. Mr. Miller: It is an important decision.

Mr. Lewis: Different from anything the ministry has ever done before.

Hon. Mr. Miller: Well, I think there are precedents for medical records being given to company doctors.

Mr. Lewis: No, not the names of the workers to a company doctor. It is the first time.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Let the minister answer the question.

Mr. Lewis: That is the first time in several years that has been done.

Hon. Mr. Miller: I am not necessarily prepared to say the member is wrong. I would question whether he is right at this point.

Mr. Speaker: Has the member for Riverdale a supplementary?

Mr. Renwick: A supplementary question: If I understood the minister correctly, did he say there were only two of the miners who did not have personal physicians? Yet the names of all the miners were given to the doctor at Rio Algom.

Hon. Mr. Miller: I think the member is confusing two issues. The names of all the men who showed category 4 x-rays were, I understand, given to the company doctor. I am told there were two who, according to our records, did not have family doctors and who were talked to personally by one of our staff. The others have personal physicians to whom records could be sent.

Mr. Renwick: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker: Is the principle he has just enunciated in this House that in all instances in which information is available about the health of any person, either at the Workmen’s Compensation Board or the Ministry of Health, the Workmen’s Compensation Board doctors feel free to give information about Workmen’s Compensation Board cases to doctors who are in charge of health at various companies? Is that the generalization he is making?

Hon. Mr. Miller: I don’t want to generalize too much because, as I said when I started out by answering the member for Scarborough West’s question, I want to know more about the medical ethics of the situation before I go too far. I would point out though that one of the great fears the WCB people have expressed in the past has been the unavailability of information whenever it was needed. I think it is important that it be available to those parties who can use it properly in the interests of the employee.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Scarborough West.

GOVERNMENT BORROWINGS FROM ARAB NATIONS

Mr. Lewis: Yes, I have a question of the Treasurer, if I could. Is he in the process, specifically now, of attempting to finalize the negotiation of loans or moneys from the Arab world, however they come to us, for the purposes of Hydro or housing in Ontario?

Hon. W. D. McKeough (Treasurer and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): I wouldn’t say we were in the final negotiations, Mr. Speaker. We are in the negotiating stage. When I say we, I mean Ontario Hydro which, of course, uses the credit of the province so we are very much involved. I was in Europe last week looking at various markets and we have several options open to us.

Mr. Lewis: Am I to understand by the minister’s reply that the negotiations which he now has moving are specifically in terms of Hydro and not an effort to find a similarly substantial or a substantial amount of money for matters of housing?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: We wouldn’t draw that distinction. I know where my friend’s information -- or his question -- is coming from. He did get a reply from the press gallery; good, I’m delighted.

Mr. Lewis: I almost always do.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Right. We wouldn’t distinguish between housing and the general needs of the government. The Ontario Housing Corp. and the Ministry of Housing draw their money from the same sources as others using capital funds and we would not make a specific loan in Canada or elsewhere on behalf of housing. Hydro would be separate.

To answer the question more fully, any negotiations which we are having outside Canada at the moment, so far as I am able to determine at the moment, would probably be on behalf of Ontario Hydro rather than on behalf of the government.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Supplementary: Did the minister read the answer three weeks ago from his colleague, the Minister of Energy (Mr. Timbrell), when a similar question was put to him, which indicated that the government was negotiating for Arab capital for Hydro and that, in fact, the loan had been made and that the announcement was simply pending?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: That’s not the way I read the answer to the question -- that’s not the way I read it.

REQUEST FOR MEDICAL REFEREE

Mr. Lewis: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Labour, if I may. I asked him in the House on May 15 about the request for a medical referee in a Workmen’s Compensation Board case involving a resident of Windsor and respiratory troubles induced by work in the vehicle tunnel between Windsor and Detroit. I asked him about the provision of a medical referee where there was a difference of medical opinion. The minister wrote me back and sent me a copy of the appeal board decision of the Workmen’s Compensation Board, which was addressed to me in the first instance. I thank him for a copy of the correspondence I had received some weeks earlier. Can he, on the other hand, tell me why it is not possible these days to get the Workmen’s Compensation Board to allow a medical referee where there is a clear dispute in medical evidence?

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: Mr. Speaker, the answer that I gave to the leader of the New Democratic Party was on the basis that the person who had given the contrary opinion was a senior authority in the field, and it was that opinion that the board had decided to accept, and that there was no new evidence. I believe we went on to say that there was no fresh evidence and they had relied on someone who had senior stature in the field.

Mr. Lewis: Mr. Speaker, a supplementary: I’m very worried about the behaviour of the Workmen’s Compensation Board these days, and that’s why I press it. Is he telling me as the minister that he is satisfied that when he has three medical doctors on record -- a general practitioner, a general surgeon and an internist -- all of whom say there is concrete evidence of the disease, and the one doctor the Workmen’s Compensation Board chooses says there is no such evidence, that he would not permit a medical referee, nor should they permit a medical referee in such a clear and conclusive difference of opinion?

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: I didn’t realize it was three against one, and I’m not sure there is not additional supporting evidence for the senior medical man’s position here. But as you know, Mr. Speaker, that is a decision that the Workmen’s Compensation Board makes. It’s a little bit difficult for the Minister of Labour, even though the board answers to him, to tell the board what medical evidence it should accept.

Mr. Lewis: Would the minister pursue it one step further, now that he knows?

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: Absolutely. I will be glad to follow up this additional information that the member has just given me as to the ratios involved -- three to one.

Mr. Lewis: When the minister is following that up, would he also follow up the instance where commutation of a pension for a Workmen’s Compensation Board recipient would have made the difference as to whether or not a family could retain their home or lose it? Since they are now in the process of losing it because the board refuses to render a decision -- week after week on end -- if I give him the name of the individual and the case number, would the minister pursue that as well?

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: I certainly will, sir.

Mr. Lewis: Thank you.

MINISTER’S TOUR OF UNIVERSITIES

Mr. Lewis: One last question of the Minister of Colleges and Universities: When is the minister going to make the tour of Ontario campuses announced March 6, 1975, by John McDermid, executive assistant to the Minister of Industry and Tourism -- is that right? Is he his executive assistant? The universities await him breathlessly.

Hon. J. A. C. Auld (Minister of Colleges and Universities): Mr. Speaker, I believe that came from Carleton University. I had arranged to go to Carleton on either one or two occasions, and something happened there and they asked me to change the time.

Mr. F. Laughren (Nickel Belt): Yes, the students were still there.

Hon. Mr. Auld: After some discussion, it was decided that I would wait until the autumn, inasmuch as most of the full-time students, the regular students, have already completed their activities.

Mr. Lewis: Something else may come up.

Hon. Mr. Auld: I have been at five or six of the universities prior to the summer recess. I’ll be back in the fall when they’re back.

Mr. Lewis: No further questions.

Mr. Speaker: Supplementary; the member for Ottawa Centre.

Mr. M. Cassidy (Ottawa Centre): Does the minister have a plan in order to explain his policy to these universities, as Mr. McDermid said at a meeting at which I was present, or is it simply a matter of casually dropping in from time to time?

Hon. Mr. Auld: Mr. Speaker, what I have done is visit with the students, make certain statements, answer questions and have a general discussion about student affairs and university affairs.

Mr. J. E. Stokes (Thunder Bay): The minister is always casual.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Grey-Bruce.

PAYMENTS TO ROBERT MACAULAY

Mr. Sargent: Mr. Speaker, a question of the Minister of Energy: Does the minister still have Mr. Robert Macaulay as his legal adviser in his ministry? If so, how much has he been paid and what are the terms of his deal there?

Hon. D. R. Timbrell (Minister of Energy): Mr. Speaker, first of all Mr. Macaulay is not in the ministry. Mr. Macaulay does represent the province on various occasions before various regulatory bodies. As far as the actual terms and conditions and the amount paid are concerned, if the member could let me know the period he is referring to -- because he doesn’t work every day of every week -- I’ll be glad to get the material for him.

Mr. Stokes: Another one on contract?

Mr. Sargent: A supplementary: Would the Treasurer advise me how much we are paying him per day and what’s the score on the whole deal?

Hon. A. K. Meen (Minister of Revenue): It’s out of order.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: It seems to be the kind of question that should be put on the order paper.

Mr. Sargent: I am asking the minister, doesn’t he know?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: No, I don’t know.

Mr. Sargent: He knew it was $1,000 a day the last time we asked him. What’s it now?

Mr. R. F. Nixon: It’s gone up since then.

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

REGGIO FOOD

Mr. M. Shulman (High Park): A question of the Minister of Health, Mr. Speaker: How long has he been aware that Reggio Food have been selling food in Ontario and why has he done nothing about it?

Hon. Mr. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I am only aware that Reggio Food, by that name, is selling food in Ontario if, in fact, the note the member sent me is correct. I am aware that the investigation in the Province of Quebec into tainted meats being offered for sale in public had, as a rider to it, a statement that they were also being sold in Ontario.

Mr. Stokes: Say it “taint” so.

Hon. Mr. Miller: As a result, I am assured by other members of the cabinet who are interested -- incidentally three levels of government are interested since, as the member knows, federal inspectors for meat in slaughter-houses, the provincial inspectors and local health unit inspectors are involved -- that it is being checked into at once to see what we can find.

Mr. Shulman: A supplementary: My question is, how long has the minister had this information? I know he had it before I sent him my note. Secondly, as a supplementary, is he aware that Cotroni’s trucks of Salaison Alouette have been seen quite frequently on the streets of Ottawa? Surely there is some action he can take?

Hon. Mr. Miller: Mr. Speaker, certainly action can be taken by the various inspectors if any foods which have not been inspected are for sale. I am sure that both the Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. Stewart) and I are very interested in those two aspects.

Mr. Shulman: Why doesn’t the government take action?

Mr. Speaker: The member for St. George.

EMERGENCY CARE

Mrs. M. Campbell (St. George): A question of the Minister of Health: In view of the latest bulletin from the Ontario Hospital Association which indicates certain problems arising by reason of the malpractice insurance problems in the United States, as they relate to our border hospitals, can he tell us what our policies will be? Are we in a position to take these emergency cases and on what terms?

Hon. Mr. Miller: No, Mr. Speaker, I can’t but I’ll look into it.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Ottawa Centre.

INCREASE IN VIOLENT CRIME

Mr. Cassidy: I have a question of the Premier, Mr. Speaker. The Premier may recall an exchange we had on the question of his allegations about an increasing tide of violence in Ontario. Now that he has had an opportunity to consider the figures introduced into the House at that time, can he give his figures or what information he may have about whether violent crime is on the increase? If so, I’d like to have the information as promised.

Hon. W. G. Davis (Premier): Mr. Speaker, I am really quite pleased that the member for Ottawa Centre is so enthusiastic about this subject that he wishes to continue to ask questions. It really gives me an opportunity, which I won’t seek today, to restate the rationale which obviously he and his party oppose. I have some figures here. I haven’t digested them.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Would he say the NDP is in favour of crime?

Hon. Mr. Davis: No, I wouldn’t say the NDP is in favour of crime, I wouldn’t say that.

Mr. Cassidy: Just say the NDP is opposed to violence.

Mr. Lewis: We oppose crime in general.

An hon. member: He just doesn’t want to do anything about it.

Hon. Mr. Davis: As their leader says, they are selective about the crimes they are in favour of.

I will continue to look at it and, Mr. Speaker, I have to say this: I know the member for Ottawa Centre will share with me a desire to see the figures decreasing. Although I don’t think they show this, that doesn’t lessen the resolve on this part of the House to do all we can about violent crime over his opposition.

Mr. Cassidy: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker. The Premier knows perfectly well that there is a concern in this House about violent crime as well. The question was, does the minister have any figures to indicate an increasing tide of violent crime in Ontario society in order to provoke the current wave of concern expressed by the government? I gather that the answer is no, he does not have such information.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I would only say this: Whatever the figure is right now it is too high, and if the member for Ottawa Centre doesn’t think so and he is satisfied with what is happening in our society today, then for heaven’s sake say so. I just don’t happen to believe it, I am not going to say it, and I am opposed to it.

Mr. Lewis: That is a tough stand.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Please ask me another one tomorrow.

Mr. Lewis: Spiro couldn’t do any better. That’s it, give it to ’em, boy.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I wish he would do it every day.

Mr. Cassidy: I wish the Premier would do something about housing with the same vehemence that he gives to violence.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Cassidy: What about tenants? He won’t do a thing for tenants.

Hon. E. A. Winkler (Chairman, Management Board of Cabinet): There is something wrong over there.

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

PORTRAYAL OF VIOLENCE BY COMMUNICATIONS INDUSTRY

Mr. T. P. Reid (Rainy River): Can the Premier now provide us with an estimate of what the cost of the commission into violence will be? There was another article in the paper on the weekend that Miss LaMarsh is apparently going to go on CBC radio and also work as a commissioner, holding both jobs --

Mr. Speaker: Order. I don’t think this is a supplementary to the previous question. This is a new question.

Mr. Reid: I want to know the cost the Premier indicated --

Mr. Speaker: If it is a new question the member has the floor for a new question.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Those fellows used to think Judy was pretty good.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Rainy River.

Mr. Reid: Does the Premier have the cost of the LaMarsh commission?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I haven’t, but I am endeavouring to get an estimate for the hon. member. While I am on my feet, as I say, I haven’t digested it but if Bruce Garvey is correct in Saturday’s Toronto Star, it does show from Statistics Canada, which is probably about five or six months behind, there has been an increase in violent crime in Canada in the past year.

Mr. Lewis: In Canada yes, but Ontario is running well below the Canadian average.

Hon. Mr. Davis: But it is still up.

Mr. Cassidy: Well, sure, great; it’s no fault of the Premier.

Mr. Lewis: The population is up.

Hon. Mr. Davis: No fault of the NDP either.

Mr. Speaker: A new question, the member for Windsor West.

PUBLIC HOSPITALS REGULATION

Mr. E. J. Bounsall (Windsor West): A question of the Minister of Health, Mr. Speaker: Is the minister aware that a regulation under the Public Hospitals Act, proclaimed last year, requires hospital workers absent from their jobs for more than three days to report to the public health nurse in the hospital’s health service? Does the minister think it is reasonable to force these workers to report there, such as is happening at Queensway Hospital, if they have a letter from their own doctor certifying that they are well?

Hon. Mr. Miller: Mr. Speaker, if in fact they have received medical attention and the cause of their illness is known it would seem logical that they shouldn’t have to. I would be glad to look at it.

Mr. Speaker: The Leader of the Opposition has a new question.

STATUS OF MEMBER FOR TIMISKAMING

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I would like to put a question to the Premier, having to do with acceptance of the present member for Timiskaming as a Conservative candidate, in view of the record that we have read over the last few days; a record of his statements about the Indian community and also a certain degree of quite serious incompetence when he insisted on going forward with his position in the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission meeting.

Is the Premier prepared to accept him as a bona fide candidate by the Conservatives, or will he perhaps follow a tradition that was established by one of his predecessors, the late Leslie Frost, who in one instance which I can recall, having to do with a candidate in Renfrew South, found means whereby he was not prepared as leader of the Conservative Party to accept him as a candidate? Surely under these circumstances this is an alternative position that the Premier must take.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I would only say to the Leader of the Opposition, let him worry about the candidates for his party and I will worry about mine. I am sure he has sorted out just which candidate is going to be acceptable officially -- the member for Downsview (Mr. Singer) or the member for Grey-Bruce. Has he sorted that one out yet?

Mr. R. F. Nixon: A supplementary: Since the Premier is concerned, I support without equivocation the two gentlemen he spoke about. What is he saying about the member for Timiskaming?

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Is he going to support him?

Hon. Mr. Davis: I am not going to comment on that in this Legislature.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Surely not.

Mr. Lewis: Why does the Premier back off?

Hon. Mr. Davis: I am not backing off.

Mr. Lewis: Does the Premier think the member for Timiskaming was right to describe it as a diabolical plot on the part of the press to do him in personally? How did the Premier feel about that stuff?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I don’t intend to comment upon it at all and the hon. member knows full well that I don’t intend to comment upon that aspect of it whatsoever. The member for Timiskaming never denied to me or anyone else that he made the statements that were attributed to him which were reported in the press, and on the basis of those statements I asked for and he has been relieved of his responsibility as chairman and as a parliamentary assistant.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: He is neither useful nor an ornament.

Mr. Lewis: Since the member for Timiskaming said publicly that the Premier overreacted to his statements --

Mr. Cassidy: Shafted him.

Mr. Lewis: -- in fact the Premier shafted him -- but that the Premier overreacted to his statements, does the Premier think that kind of thing is consonant with candidacy in the government party?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I really am delighted that the leader of the New Democratic Party is so concerned about the internal situation of this party. I would only offer him the same advice. Let him solve his own problems; we will look after ours.

Mr. Lewis: Not really, just curious.

Hon. Mr. Davis: How can the leader of the NDP have the member for High Park as a member for his caucus? He thinks his leader is totally incompetent.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Why doesn’t the NDP disown him?

Mr. Lewis: My problems are too numerous to attempt a solution. What about the Premier’s?

Hon. Mr. Davis: We have very few.

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

SALE OF TAINTED MEAT

Mr. G. Samis (Stormont): A question of the Minister of Agriculture and Food, Mr. Speaker: In view of the testimony already referred to before the Quebec crime inquiry regarding the sale of meat in Ontario, can the minister inform the House if he has checked with the minister in Quebec regarding the foundation for those allegations, and can the minister assure the people of Ontario, particularly the eastern part, that none of that meat, if it did enter this province, was put on sale in Ontario?

Hon. W. A. Stewart (Minister of Agriculture and Food): Mr. Speaker, all I can do is say this: There have been three prosecutions, all successfully proceeded with, in eastern Ontario over the last few months. There has been a great deal of information fed to the officials in the Province of Quebec concerning this issue.

We have asked the RCMP to identify and to give some further information on the statement that I believe was made by the CBC recently in which an RCMP officer made reference to the fact that such a problem could exist in Ontario. To our knowledge, under the Dead Animal Disposal Act no such situation exists in Ontario and we have no reason to believe in any way that any of that meat is being disposed of in Ontario. We have asked for the details of that statement that is reported to have been made over the CBC. We have no information to substantiate it whatever.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Stormont.

Mr. Samis: Supplementary: Is the minister launching a personal investigation from his provincial jurisdiction into this matter?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Mr. Speaker, we have a number of inspectors working within our ministry, with the RCMP, and with the Ontario Provincial Police. We have no reason to believe there is any such problem here.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Brant.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Supplementary: Can the minister tell us whether the three prosecutions involved only animals slaughtered in Ontario and sold here, or were they brought in from another province?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: No, our understanding is that the meat did come in from an outside source.

Mr. Speaker: Does the hon. member for High Park have a supplementary?

Mr. Shulman: Yes, please. Has a special check been made of the six shops in Toronto which are open as outlets for Montreal cheese and meats?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: I can’t answer that question, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Kent.

CANADIAN BOOK WHOLESALE CO.

Mr. J. P. Spence (Kent): Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Culture and Recreation. On April 22 I asked the minister a question in regard to the erosion of the Canadian publishing industry in the province. Has the minister got a reply to that question?

Hon. R. Welch (Minister of Culture and Recreation): Mr. Speaker, I thought I had answered that. I will check into that. I am sorry.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Sudbury. A new question?

LAURENTIAN HOSPITAL MANAGEMENT

Mr. M. C. Germa (Sudbury): Mr. Speaker, a question of the Minister of Health: Has the minister yet made a decision in the request by the regional municipal council to call an inquiry into the construction at Laurentian Hospital in Sudbury? Is he aware of the public revelation that the chairman of the board may have been in conflict of interest in that he was indebted to the Sisters of Charity to the tune of $100,000 when he bought the land from them, and is he also aware that Ellis-Don was the low tenderer in two contracts and yet didn’t get the contracts?

Hon. Mr. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I am aware that the latter company, whose name is familiar to me, was the low tenderer on the first phase of the first contract --

Mr. H. Worton (Wellington South): The company is a friend of the government’s.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: It used to be.

Hon. Mr. Miller: The time lapse during which they said they could do the job was longer than that which was acceptable to our ministry, and tenders were called again. I am told they were not the low tenderer in the second instance, that Janin Construction was low, and that the tenders were opened in the presence of my ministry staff.

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

COW-CALF PROGRAMME

Mr. Reid: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Agriculture and Food. Is the minister prepared to announce the new subsidy or insurance programme, whatever he wants to call it, for the cow-calf operators in the Province of Ontario? And does the minister intend to make that programme retroactive to last year?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Mr. Speaker, the matter is under consideration.

Mr. Reid: A supplementary: Does the minister realize that the longer he delays, the worse the problem is going to get? Are we going to have an answer or a programme in place by the end of June of this year?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Mr. Speaker, we’ll announce the programme whenever we have something to announce. The situation is not likely to deteriorate a great deal over what it is today. Live cattle prices have increased by up to 10 cents a pound over the last little while, and I should think the situation is better in hand than it was a little while ago.

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

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STUDIES

Mr. F. A. Burr (Sandwich-Riverside): Mr. Speaker, a question of the Minister of the Environment about environmental assessments: Has Shell Canada and/or the city of Burlington presented any environmental assessment study on the Burlington property adjacent to Oakville, where a Shell oil tank farm has been proposed, side by side with a high-density housing subdivision?

Hon. W. Newman (Minister of the Environment): Mr. Speaker, one of the companies out there has been to see us and is doing an environmental assessment study, but I can’t tell the hon. member whether it’s Shell or the other company that is out there. I’ll find out and let the hon. member know.

Mr. Speaker: The question period has just about expired. Does the member for Nipissing have a quick question?

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STUDIES

Mr. R. S. Smith (Nipissing): A question of the Minister of the Environment, Mr. Speaker: Because of the anticipated expansion at the east pit of the Sherman Mine and the environmental impact that will have, even into the centre of the town of Temagami, will the minister order a hearing of the Environmental Hearing Board and table the results of that hearing so that he can make a decision as to whether this expansion of the east pit should be allowed to go ahead or not?

Hon. W. Newman: Mr. Speaker, my only comment to that is I don’t think that comes under the purview of the Environmental Hearing Board unless it actually involves tailings or a pit.

Mr. R. S. Smith: I’m sorry, I didn’t hear the last part of the answer.

Mr. Speaker: The question period has expired. In fact, it has run over.

The member for Welland.

Mr. E. P. Morningstar (Welland): Mr. Speaker and hon. members of the House, it is a pleasure to introduce five distinguished visitors from Welland, Ont., which is part of the great Welland riding -- Mr. and Mrs. Herman Van Der Most and their three children, Eric, Kyle and Anastasia.

Mrs. Van Der Most is being awarded the Ontario Environmental Award of Merit by the hon. Minister of the Environment in the recording studio at 3:15 p.m.

This award is being made in recognition of the organizing of a most successful “Rampage on Litter” during the city of Welland’s spring cleanup week, which was held May 4 to May 11.

Because of her efforts, over 6,000 school children, parents, teachers and members of the general public collected 20 tons of litter. This involved 80 local schools and is an outstanding example of what individuals can do when they put their concerns for our environment into practice. Mrs. Van Der Most is an example we can all follow in making our communities more habitable. Please welcome this distinguished family from Welland.

Mr. Speaker: With the agreement of the members of the House, the Minister of Culture and Recreation has a statement. Is it agreed that he could make a statement at this time?

Mr. Lewis: If I can ask him a question, we will give unanimous consent.

Hon. Mr. Welch: After the statement.

Mr. Lewis: Or even before.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: The member for Scarborough West says that because the member for High Park is not here.

Mr. Lewis: Is that a fair exchange? I have a question from one of the minister’s speeches which I have been dying to ask but he is never here.

ONTARIO WINTER GAMES

Hon. Mr. Welch: I want to advise the hon. members that the 1976 Ontario Winter Games are to go to Sault Ste. Marie over the last week of February.

Mr. I. Deans (Wentworth): That statement could have been made tomorrow.

Hon. Mr. Welch: We want to announce this in Sault Ste. Marie today.

The selection committee was highly impressed with the facilities available at Sault Ste. Marie and the fact that it will be most suitable for outdoor sports. We will be using municipal staff and facilities along with those of the board of education, the Department of National Defence and Sault College. We expect, Mr. Speaker, 1,500 athletes to compete in 27 events over a three-day period. The cost of the games will be paid by this ministry and will include transportation, housing, feeding and administrative costs as well as the competitive expenses for the athletes and the officials.

These games, as most members of the House know, are now annual events. They provide our athletes with important competitive experiences as they aspire to a place on Canada’s national teams. We expect to provide further experience through the regional games which will be held in several areas of the province to qualify participants for the Winter Games.

In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the municipalities of Kitchener, Waterloo, Ottawa and Barrie for the presentations they made to hold the games and to invite them to continue their interest in this programme.

Mr. Speaker: Petitions.

Presenting reports.

Hon. J. T. Clement (Provincial Secretary for Justice): Mr. Speaker, I beg leave to table a copy of an order in council approved with regard to an expropriation approved under subsection 3 of section 6 of the Expropriations Act. The tabling of this document is required under subsection 5 of section 6 of that Act.

Mr. Speaker: Motions.

Introduction of bills.

Orders of the day.

Clerk of the House: The 18th order, House in committee of supply.

ESTIMATES, MINISTRY OF THE SOLICITOR GENERAL (CONTINUED)

On vote 1504:

Mr. Chairman: Are there any comments?

Mr. T. P. Reid (Rainy River): Mr. Chairman, are we going to do this item 1, 2, 3, etc.?

Mr. Chairman: Yes, I would suggest that we do it item by item, dealing first with item 1. The hon. member for Riverdale.

Mr. J. A. Renwick (Riverdale): Mr. Chairman, in the London Free Press of Jan. 23, 1975, the following editorial appeared, and this is a quotation of part of it:

“The Ontario Provincial Police and the London city police reflected the highest standards of professional competence during the past two days, with four children being held hostage by an escaped convict determined to buy freedom. The police performance was flawless.”

Having read that accolade to the committee, I now want to dare to tread where angels fear in some small measure by way of asking some questions impliedly, therefore, criticizing the performance of the Ontario Provincial Police in the incident related to that particular escaped convict, Donald Wayne Cline.

Perhaps, Mr. Chairman, I could recall to you and to the committee that at 1 o’clock on Tuesday, Jan. 21, a car was stolen in the vicinity of London, Ont. At about 3:30 in the afternoon there was an armed holdup of the IGA store in Thamesford. Subsequently five persons were charged; one of whom was Cline. The other four were people by the names of Ireland, Cuthbert, Baker and Garton. My comments relate not to those four but to the incident surrounding the man Cline.

The end of the incident came on Thursday, Jan. 23, at 5 o’clock in the morning when Cline was arrested in London, Ont. So we had a period of about 37 hours during which for those who were intimately involved in it -- and I’m quite certain for the members of the Ontario Provincial Police who were acting at that time -- something like an ordeal took place.

My first concern is the period from the time Cline was located in the house of Mr. and Mrs. Field up to the point when Mrs. Field, and then subsequently the four children, were allowed to leave the premises. I am concerned also with that period from around 4:30 in the afternoon of the first day -- that’s Tuesday, Jan. 21 -- until the eldest boy was released at 1:20 a.m. on Thursday morning, Jan. 23, about three or four hours before Cline was apprehended.

My first concern is that it was about 6:15 or thereabouts on Tuesday, Jan. 21 -- that’s about an hour after Cline was found by the police to be holed up in this particular house, the home of Mr. and Mrs. Field, holding the hostages -- when Mrs. Field was allowed to leave the premises, and, as I said, subsequently the four children. At around 6:15 there was a call put through to the house by a reporter of the London Free Press -- and all of this is reported in the London Free Press over a period of two or three days and confirmed, more or less in substance, in other newspapers throughout Ontario, and also by the Globe and Mail. It was at that time and in response to that call that the ex-convict Cline made his demands for a $10,000 ransom and for a getaway car, and for practical purposes the negotiations started at that time.

I cannot understand why it would have taken from that hour on the Tuesday afternoon until 1:20 the following afternoon -- that’s Wednesday afternoon -- for the arrangements to have been made to provide payment of the ransom money. Obviously the decision was made to meet the demand and to provide the car. But why did it take something like, by my calculation, about 20 or 21 hours from the time when the demand was made until there was compliance with the demand? Granted the decision was made to meet the demand, why did it take that length of time to get $10,000 and make the arrangements for the getaway car to be provided and for Cline, his girl friend, the driver of the car who had gone into the house by arrangement with the police, and the eldest boy, to drive away at the same time that the thee other children were released? The payment was $10,000. So my first question is, why the 21-hour ordeal, if my calculation of time is correct -- that is from 6 o’clock on Tuesday evening until 1:20 p.m. on Wednesday?

My second question -- and I was concerned because I happened to be listening to the Harry Brown show; I am quite certain it was on the Wednesday morning, the 22nd, that he put a telephone call through and talked to Cline on the phone. Any number of persons were obviously putting calls through to that house. I would have assumed that one of the first steps that would have been taken by the Ontario Provincial Police was to have been in contact with the Bell Telephone Co. and to have intercepted and monitored -- provided they allowed the calls to go through -- all of the calls going through the Field house, rather than to have any number of persons from the media calling through continuously to Cline and talking with him over a long period of time, including --

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. Renwick: Perhaps the Treasurer could conduct the financial business of the province outside.

Hon. W. D. McKeough (Treasurer and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs): It’s agricultural.

Mr. Renwick: There were calls from media all over, including calls from the Columbia Broadcasting System and calls from any number of newspapers -- I suppose the traffic on that phone was greater than it was ever at any other time. The only reference to OPP monitoring that I could find in the reports, let alone not intercepting, was that they were on the party line in an adjacent farm house and they may have listened to the calls at that particular time or over the period of time while those calls came through to that household.

I must say I was upset by it. I am quite certain that many people were upset that representatives of the media, in what they considered to be the performance of their obligations, were engaged in any number of calls to that household without any indication whatsoever that the police had done the very simple thing which would have come to the mind of anyone; to go to the Bell to intercept the calls and then to permit telephone traffic on that line to that house within their control for the purpose of carrying out whatever plan they may have had.

The third matter that concerned me -- and I couldn’t find the precise particulars of it -- was there was another man and his wife who rented the back apartment in the Field house, and they were in jeopardy for some considerable period of time in that house. They could hear what was going on next door. They could hear the shots that were fired by Cline from time to time. I hasten to say that one of the good things about the incident was that at no time, as I understand it, did the police -- either the Ontario Provincial Police or the London police force -- engage in firing upon that household. That’s one of the good things. I’m not suggesting that everything was wrong about the operation.

My third question is: Why did it take so long to ensure the safety of the man and woman who resided in the apartment to the rear of the Field household?

My fourth question is that there was evident confusion in the press and presumably in the Ontario Provincial Police monitoring system as to whether or not they lost track of Cline, the man who was driving the car -- who as I have said was driving the car by arrangements through the police -- Cline’s girl friend and the eldest boy, during the period from 1:20 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 22, until the boy was picked up in London about 1:30 a.m. on Thursday, Jan. 23, which is a period of about 12 hours.

There were very conflicting reports. You will recall, Mr. Chairman -- I’m sure the minister does -- there was some suggestion that when in Toronto, there was firing from that car toward the Metropolitan Toronto police. But apparently that car came down Highway 401 to Toronto and went back along Highway 401 to St. Thomas and there appears to be absolutely no doubt they did lose track, around midnight or shortly after, of Cline and his girl friend, who left the car in St. Thomas. Apparently, according to the press, they made their way back up to London, Ont., by cab and, as I say, because of a tipoff were captured at about 5 o’clock on the Thursday morning.

My fifth question is an evident concern about the way in which the police commented on the activities of the media in the course of that operation. I’m quite satisfied that under stress, of course, people will perhaps make statements which they would not otherwise make, but there is no question whatsoever there was serious criticism, both by the acting deputy commissioner at that time, James Erskine, and substantial criticism also I believe by Detective Inspector Geoff Cooper of the OPP, about what the media had done.

It would appear that there was a great deal of antipathy and lack of communication between the police and the media. Indeed, there was no doubt that police used the media to mislead Cline into believing he was not under surveillance. That may be quite proper, but it was not done through co-operation with the media, which also have an interest and a responsibility, even though that interest and that responsibility is different from that of the police.

So far as I can understand it, there was no subsequent meeting between the Ontario Provincial Police and representatives of the media, either at the level of those who were specifically involved in the incident, or at a higher level, or jointly with those specifically involved and those at a higher level, where the people from the media could say: “Well, all right, we made some mistakes”; and the people from the police could say: “Well, all right, we made some mistakes. We’re not going to be immune to this kind of activity again. Let us see if we can’t learn whatever lessons there are to be learned from this incident. Let’s see if out of this we, the police, can’t develop contingency plans,” recognizing that you can’t plan everything to cover every incident that will occur when you’re developing a contingency plan. But there certainly is no indication there is a contingency plan available, should such an incident, or a comparable or analogous one, either at a criminal level or a pseudo-political level, take place in the province.

It seems to me that there has got to be, if such an incident were to occur again, an immediate point of contact between the media and the police. There has to be someone in whom the media will have confidence, someone whose responsibility and obligation in the OPP will be to communicate, to be the point of contact, to be able to say “no comment” when asked or to make whatever explanation; someone on whom the media can rely for information as to what is taking place, recognizing that, I think, the media, if so dealt with, will respect the responsibility which is placed upon them in this kind of a situation.

The reason I emphasized this latter part of my comments and questions to the minister is that all of these incidents which have taken place at various places throughout the world have in each instance reflected the use by the focal person engaged in the activity, Cline in this instance, to get in contact with or have the media get in contact with that person for the purpose of using the media for publicity purposes for expressing their demands and negotiating. Surely that is a part of the pattern which has taken place in Canada with the FLQ crisis some years ago and certainly in practically all of the instances which have otherwise occurred, including the most recent one in Sweden where the same kind of problem occurred with an escaped convict being in a bank and holding in the vault of the bank any number of people as hostages over a long period of time and using contact through the media and by telephone to get demands known. Fortunately again, in the Swedish case it was frustrated, as it was in this case because of the work which was done by the OPP and the London police.

It does seem to me that somehow or other, if I could summarize very briefly the five comments which I made, it took an inconceivably long period of time to collect the $10,000. Acting Deputy Commissioner Erskine said, apparently at the press conference that he held, that the then Solicitor General (Mr. Kerr) had approved providing the $10,000, but that getting it in the early morning of Wednesday was a problem. He refused to say where he got the money; but of course it was paid back by the government. His question, rhetorically placed to the press at that time, was: “Did you ever try to raise $10,000 at 3 o’clock in the morning?” He raised it in Toronto, I gather, and took it to London in his wife’s blue suitcase, according to the reports. At 6:15 on the evening of Tuesday in London, which is not without some wealthy people and not without access to wealth, it was known that the man wanted $10,000 and a get-away car. What was the acting deputy commissioner doing in Toronto at 3 o’clock in the morning trying to round up the money? Surely if it had been done effectively the money could have been raised very early on the evening of Tuesday, Jan. 21.

That’s my first point. My second point, very briefly in summary, related to the family in the rear apartment at the Field household. My third question related to the problems related to the media. I’m sure the minister has a note of the other two comments which I made referring specifically to the role which the media played and the failure of the OPP to have intercepted and monitored every call which went into that household and to use those calls for their own purposes.

As I said in my opening remarks, in the face of the editorials, which were a cacophony of praise for the police, it is with some trepidation that I dare to criticize that operation. Surely I do so only for the purpose of having the minister draw for me the lessons which were learned by the OPP about protecting the public in the likely event that at some point some kind of analogous or similar incident is likely to occur again. It seems to be a prevalent mode of criminal activity throughout the world at this time whether or not it is disguised as pseudo-political.

Hon. J. T. Clement (Acting Solicitor General): Mr. Chairman, I don’t wish to run the risk of declining to answer many good points brought to the attention of the House by the member for Riverdale over the past few minutes. The Cline matter is presently before the courts and I would like to point out to the member that many of the matters which he has stated here this afternoon -- and he very properly pointed out that he gleaned them from the media -- are incorrect.

I am not criticizing the member for Riverdale. I read those things myself and heard them at the time and I don’t wish to discuss subjectively that particular matter which happened in London last January. I don’t want to prejudice the trial of the accused. I don’t want to prejudice the Crown.

In a very objective way, I would point out, if I may, that the Ontario Provincial Police in that particular matter, did hold conferences with the media on an hourly basis to keep them advised. Many members of the media in attendance, following the event, did express their thanks by oral word and written word to the police forces involved in what could have been a very tragic matter at that particular time.

I am not declining to answer. There are answers and you have touched on some questions which may well be the subject of cross-examination at the trial. They may well be relevant to the issue of the Queen versus Cline. If the member can appreciate the position in which I am right now -- and I think he can -- I will decline to make any further comment on it until the matter is completed. I would be glad to discuss it with him in detail, with the deputy commissioner, who was in charge of that operation on that particular occasion.

Mr. Chairman: Any other comments on item 1?

Mr. Renwick: Mr. Chairman, I suppose in the circumstances I have no alternative but to accept what the Solicitor General has stated. I would assume it would not be possible for him and me to have had a reasonable exchange on this matter without dealing in the specifics of those particular 37 hours.

I suppose I will, perforce, have to leave it, and if I am not here in the next parliament I don’t know who will raise it. I suppose my colleague, the member for Lakeshore --

Mr. P. D. Lawlor (Lakeshore): I won’t be here either; so it is okay, you are off the hook.

Mr. Chairman: The member for Welland South.

Mr. R. Haggerty (Welland South): Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask the minister a question. This question was raised here about three or four weeks ago concerning the Ontario Provincial Police operations in the former village of Crystal Beach, now the town of Fort Erie. I believe this detachment of some 14 or 17 men, which is present there during the summer months, covers about one square mile.

Mr. Chairman: Order, please. I am wondering if law enforcement shouldn’t come under vote 1505.

Mr. Haggerty: I am perhaps dealing with the administration of policy of the commission. I am concerned about removing some 17 police officers, particularly in the summer months, who are employed to cover that municipality, the village of Crystal Beach. I suppose if that service is removed, it means the region will have to go out and perhaps add another 12 or 15 personnel to cover that particular area. This could add an extra burden to the municipality. When do you propose to remove this detachment if it’s in your plans?

Hon. Mr. Clement: First, Mr. Chairman, the extra officers are required in that particular area during the summer months for very obvious reasons which I am sure the member for Welland South would be more familiar with than am I. It is a very popular, well-known resort area and amusement park which has existed in the heart of the member’s riding for a number of years. I remember years ago, when I first knew the member by sight, going up there on various evenings and watching him enjoy himself on the roller coaster, and I hope this summer will be no exception for the hon. member for Welland South.

Regional government planning has included certain changes in Ontario Provincial Police responsibilities within newly-established regional municipalities, and Niagara is no exception. We have to consider economics and administrative feasibility in determining the extent of the role of the Ontario Provincial Police within these various regional municipalities; I cannot say to the hon. member at this particular moment that on the first day of such-and-such-a-month, either this year or next, the Ontario Provincial Police detachment will absent itself from that particular area.

What I am really saying is that we will see what the needs are and make a determination. I think it is logical to conclude that a decision probably will have to be made at some time in the future to withdraw that force from that area; but whether that takes place this year or next remains, to me, to be seen. All I know is they need additional policing in that area, for the very obvious reasons we have touched on.

The Provincial Police have the trained personnel available to provide this, let us say, temporary additional help, in that area. If they withdrew their services completely, then the Niagara regional police, of course, would have to take on additional staff or deploy them from somewhere else. This would mean you would have to hire regional police officers, train them, invest in their training, outfit them and equip them. But the need for them really would terminate on that great day known as Labour Day. I have been there on Labour Day, and I am sure the hon. member has; and the next day you could shoot a cannon off down there and nobody would be hit. If we had 15 or 17 extra officers employed by regional Niagara, I don’t know what we would do to utilize their talents from that day on to about May 24.

I think the people in that area, and in the region generally really, have the best of two worlds at the present time in that they have the experienced and trained personnel available to come in to handle the seasonal problem; and then when these men and women are not required they can be redeployed somewhere else. I think it’s consistent to consider that as the population grows in that area, assuming that it will, perhaps we will come to the point where a permanent need will exist in that area, at which time the Ontario Provincial Police would have to consider, in co-operation with the regional police, withdrawing completely the OPP services and replacing them with regional police services for that particular area of Niagara south.

Mr. Haggerty: Through you, Mr. Chairman: What is the cost involved in the police protection of that particular area of Crystal Beach? Would you have that cost there?

Hon. Mr. Clement: I don’t have it. I could obtain it for you today. I don’t have it at my fingertips.

Mr. Haggerty: I would appreciate that. I appreciate your comments to my question. I hope you don’t withdraw that service from that area. I think they’re doing an excellent job in that community, and I hope they continue for the next 10 years anyway.

Mr. Chairman: The member for Windsor-Walkerville.

Mr. B. Newman (Windsor-Walkerville): I wanted to ask of the minister: What is the purpose of informing on an individual who makes a complaint? A citizen makes a complaint and the first thing that happens is a police force member goes to the individual who is being complained about and says: “So and so called up because of the problem.” Should the individual who has complained be identified? You can cause more serious problems by saying “Mr. Joe complained; and you, Mr. Brown, are causing all of these problems.”

Hon. Mr. Clement: I am not aware of any policy that says the complainant cannot be identified. Perhaps it’s an ad hoc sort of thing done at the time, depending on the nature of the complaint. If it’s a matter of someone being treated in a discourteous fashion and the target of that complaint is that type of individual, he would be hard pressed to know which one of the 15 people had complained among those he was discourteous to on the day in question.

I don’t think there should be hard and fast guidelines which the person receiving the complaint has to follow very rigidly. The nature of a complaint is such that while it may seem at first blush to be a complaint, it’s really an inquiry looking for additional information. It’s probably a lack of proper communicating in the first instance, between a member of the public and the officer involved.

The complaints’ bureau was created last July, and by and large I think it has worked very well. Altogether, the public has brought some 174 types of complaints to the attention of the force and they have been handled in a very standardized way.

It doesn’t matter whether you make a complaint here at Toronto headquarters as to the conduct of an officer, let’s say, in North Bay over this past weekend, and I do the same sort of thing in Niagara Falls. These things will eventually follow the same channels and be handled in the same way, so that somebody in North Bay is not being dealt with in a heavy-handed way and a person down in Niagara is being dealt with in a different fashion.

That sort of thing has been standardized as to the channels in which the complaint flows and who has responsibility for conducting the inquiry and this is very important -- reporting back to the member of the public who brought the complaint to the attention of the OPP in the first instance. Because, really, many of the complaints, once they have been looked into, are not really complaints against the OPP, they’re complaints against a multitude of other things. It may be a municipal force that’s involved; or it isn’t really a complaint against any police force, it’s a complaint against law and order and the administration of the courts, or something of that nature.

There is no hard and fast rule that I’m aware of, nor have I been briefed on any hard and fast rule, that disclosure as to the source of that complaint has to be made known to the officer. In fact, standing here I visualize instances where it would be most inappropriate to disclose the source to the officer.

Mr. B. Newman: Mr. Chairman, back on Dec. 8, a citizen did complain to me that he had informed one of the police forces on a matter of complaint. It was not the OPP in this instance. The first thing that happened is they knocked on the individual’s door -- that is, the one who was being accused of doing something -- and said: “Mr. Jones, your neighbour down the street, is complaining about this and that.” To me it’s a completely wrong approach. You are actually telling people not to register any complaints, not that the individual wants to be a stool pigeon or anything of that sort; but if he sees something wrong he would like it corrected.

His only recourse is to one of the police forces, be it OPP or a municipal police force, but if the force itself is immediately going to inform the person about who registered the complaint, you are not going to get complaints registered again. I also had that within the last several weeks in a local municipal matter. The party complained about was told immediately. He called up and said, “You complained about so and so”. You simply created friction between two neighbours.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I think I made clear the position of the Ontario Provincial Police, whose vote we are dealing with now along with other municipal forces. I suppose we have as many systems of handling complaints as we have municipal forces.

Your colleague from Downsview some two weeks ago asked me if recommendations and observations put forward by Arthur Maloney, QC, in his study done on behalf of the Metropolitan Toronto Police Commission were found to be valuable would we, as the Ministry of the Solicitor General, pass those on to municipal forces and encourage their use. Of course, I immediately responded that we would.

What the Maloney inquiry here in Metropolitan Toronto may do for the municipal forces across the province is more or less standardize procedure so that a complaint which goes to a municipal force like the region of Niagara may be handled in the same fashion as one which goes to the region of Durham. Right now, they have their own internal systems for processing these. The OPP has its standardized system.

Mr. B. Newman: There is hesitancy on the part of the public to complain about a police officer because, whether it be an OPP officer or a municipal officer, there may be repercussions as a result of the complaint. I don’t think a citizen should be worried at any time about that. The repercussions mentioned to me were from the OPP itself. I thought that was a completely wrong approach to be using toward a citizen complaint.

While I am on my feet, Mr. Chairman, one year ago I asked the minister or his predecessor, if the OPP had looked into the use of the “stun-gun.” Apparently it was a sort of weapon which fired a canvas bag filled with lead shot and rather than injuring the individual it knocked him out for a while. I noticed that this was in use in some of the -- I don’t know whether it was in use at all -- but Wayne county in the State of Michigan sought permission to use such a weapon. Is that in use at all in the Province of Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Clement: I am advised that the matter was investigated by the Ontario Provincial Police and after obtaining information arising out of this investigation they decided not to proceed with the use of the “stun-gun.” I understand a copy of that information was sent to the member for Windsor-Walkerville explaining to him why the “stun-gun” would not be used.

Mr. B. Newman: Mr. Chairman, if I may, to the minister, the only thing I have is a letter from your ministry or from the Solicitor General of last year, simply stating, “We are looking into the feasibility of this weapon for the OPP.” I have no further report from them. That was dated May 7, 1974.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I am sorry, I may have misunderstood. If the member for Windsor-Walkerville would like to know the rationale we would be glad to send him a copy. If you have shares in a “stun-gun” company, I am telling you you might be well advised to sell them.

Mr. Chairman: Does the member for Lakeshore have comments on item 1?

Mr. Lawlor: On item 1 I have a rather broad comment, really, which may include some of the others, Mr. Chairman, with your permission.

I am looking at the amount of money. The estimates for 1974-1975 were $1,100,000; it’s dropped to about half on this particular vote. Since it is unknown for government to cut back on anything, it simply seems to me a question of where you redistributed the moneys. Looking further down, I see a monumental increase in staff development and again a substantial increase in community services. Is that where the money has basically gone?

Hon. Mr. Clement: The 1974-1975 item for the office of the commissioner shows $1,104,600, and for 1975-1976, $571,000, for a decrease of $533,600.

Mr. Lawlor: My Lord, imagine that!

Hon. Mr. Clement: The main portion of that $533,600 is because senior staff within the division have been allocated to their divisions to reflect division of responsibility. This is a wage item of $391,400 which now is not charged in this particular item but will find its way into other items.

Mr. Lawlor: That’s what I figured.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Transportation and communication reflects a $2,300 expenditure removed from the office of the commissioner; services, $140,200; and supplies and equipment, $300.

Mr. Lawlor: Three hundred dollars?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Yes, $300.

Mr. Lawlor: We have to account for half a million bucks.

Hon. Mr. Clement: It will reflect a reduction of $533,600 but, as I say, it’s because of re-allocation of certain senior division staff.

Mr. Lawlor: Within the overall vote?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Yes.

Mr. Chairman: Any further comments on item 1? Item 1 carried? Carried.

Any comments on item 2, staff inspection? The hon. member for Lakeshore.

Mr. Lawlor: I refer the minister again to the Solicitor General’s report of 1973. Under staff inspections, it points out:

“A system of staff inspections throughout the various districts and detachments ensures that OPP personnel adhere to force policy. Staff inspection personnel also undertake special assignments. In 1973, 4,557 uniformed and civilian personnel were interviewed, 65 staff complaints were investigated and 25 special studies were conducted.”

It was the special studies that kind of twigged my interest and I would ask for some explanation of what that particular set of special studies might be. Also, last year -- and into the next following year, as you see it -- were there other special studies programmed? Can you give us some notion of what they may be and what they cost?

Hon. Mr. Clement: If the hon. member would just bear with me, I will see if I can put my finger right on it. Would he like a rundown of what the inspections cover, in addition to those items that he has specifically mentioned, such as staff studies?

Mr. Lawlor: No. Does it cover financial management? No? Okay, tell me.

Hon. Mr. Clement: The staff inspections referred to here do not include financial management.

Mr. Lawlor: Okay, tell me.

Hon. Mr. Clement: The inspections under this item really cover inspections of physical assets and include interviews with the personnel. In 1974-1975, for example, they inspected buildings belonging to or used by the force, namely the general headquarters, the offices and the garage complex; 15 district headquarters office buildings and 171 detachment buildings.

They also inspected 551 mobile transportation units, namely the boats they have, the snowmobiles, the cruisers and the motorcycles. So that’s a second aspect -- the transport equipment inspected.

They also inspected, for administrative purposes, the 171 detachments, the 15 district headquarters and 273 administrative branches and units located at the general headquarters. They interviewed, as I think you pointed out, 3,833 uniformed and civilian personnel. They have certain special assignments which we include under this heading. We have a staff superintendent permanently seconded to the Ministry of the Solicitor General and another staff superintendent, again permanently seconded to the ministry, with responsibility relating to matters dealing with Indian bands. We had a staff superintendent seconded last year to the royal commission on the Landmark inquiry, the royal commission dealing with the building industry and also the royal commission dealing with the Toronto Jail and custodial services.

Mr. Lawlor: May I interrupt just for a moment please, Mr. Minister, through you, Mr. Chairman? I have before me the Ontario Provincial Police organizational chart. Are these staff superintendents the same as chief superintendents, or how do they fit into this?

Hon. Mr. Clement: No, they are under management division, Mr. Chairman.

Now, carrying on with the items dealing with the member’s inquiry, there were staff studies done under this heading, consisting of 14 staff studies made on departmental matters and 11 studies on interdepartmental matters, such as the task force study on divided responsibility for the transportation of prisoners, one dealing with policing in the provincial parks, one dealing with policing the King’s Highways, one dealing with policing of and absorption of municipal police forces and one dealing with the regional policing of Haldimand-Norfolk. I think those are the only items that are included in that, the cost of which is $366,000 for this vote.

Mr. Chairman: Any further comment on item 2?

Mr. Lawlor: I say specifically in that particular year 25 special studies were talked about.

Hon. Mr. Clement: That’s the previous year.

Mr. Lawlor: Yes, 1973.

Hon. Mr. Clement: There were 25 this year.

Mr. Lawlor: There were 25 this year?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Yes, there were 14 staff studies on departmental matters and 11 studies -- that’s the one I just touched on -- on interdepartmental matters.

Mr. Lawlor: Without impinging too deeply upon the internal affairs of the OPP, regarding the 14 staff studies, can you give me an idea what the nature of that type of study might be? Is it investigating somebody’s conduct, or what is it about?

Hon. Mr. Clement: I am advised it could be an allegation against someone’s conduct in a certain matter or allegations of misconduct coming to the attention of those in charge dealing with one or more people, which might bring in the interdepartmental aspect. It could be on matters of policy pertaining to the policing of parks or as to the highways patrols.

Mr. Lawlor: You have given me those, I have written those down. These are other matters; they seem to be internal somehow and not so objective.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Manpower allocations, I am told --

Mr. Lawlor: Manpower allocations?

Hon. Mr. Clement: -- took a number of those, yes.

Mr. Lawlor: Just clear up one point for me then. The OPP has established a complaints bureau of more recent date; does this inspection staff work in conjunction with that? Are they part of that operation, on the interrogations?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Major complaints would come under this heading.

Mr. Lawlor: They would?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Yes.

Mr. Lawlor: In other words, this is the investigation branch for that type of complaint coming through the OPP? Is that right?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Yes, sir.

Mr. Lawlor: Okay.

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

Mr. B. Newman: Mr. Chairman, I want to ask the minister if any studies have been undertaken by the OPP concerning lead poisoning and its effect on the police officer. I don’t mean at the receiving end but at the working end. For example, I happen to have a report headed, “Pistol shooters’ peril.” It says:

“Everyone knows that it is dangerous to be in front of a loaded gun, but health authorities in Georgia report that being behind the gun can also be risky. Three Dekalb county police instructors were found during a routine screening to have dangerously high levels of lead in their blood, enough to cause brain damage and other serious effects. The three men had something else in common: They were tops in marksmanship on an indoor range, each firing 200 or more rounds a day. Puzzled doctors checked the airborne lead levels of the range and found that they stood at zero before the shooting started each day but the readings rose after 16 minutes of firing to more than three milligrams per cubic metre of air. This is 20 times the accepted safe limit and high enough to make continued pistol shooting under such conditions nearly as damaging to the shooter as it is to the target.”

In the course of discussions with the Ministry of Correctional Services I brought up a study conducted in England concerning the effects of lead on the individual. In a reply from the ministry I have a statement saying, “Inorganic lead works at the synapses and in the musculature to produce brain damage of a passive kind and sometimes causes paralysis.” These officers being continuously exposed in an indoor range could be subjected to some real health hazards.

Has the minister anything to reply on that?

Hon. Mr. Clement: The symptoms you describe are, of course, symptoms of lead poisoning whether you inhale lead-bearing fumes or whether you eat a heavy ingestion of lead-tainted foods. No. 1, the OPP does not have any indoor ranges; No. 2, all the firearms instructors have been tested for this very problem by the Centre of Forensic Science. I am pleased to report that none of them has suffered any damage in connection with this type of injury.

Mr. B. Newman: Could the minister at the same time assure us that in the next vote the same thing would be true -- municipal police forces may have indoor ranges and their officers could be exposed to this hazard?

Hon. Mr. Clement: I certainly haven’t written any request that this be done. I think it is probably a very valid suggestion. Perhaps my staff could indicate whether any formal letter has been written. I would feel assured, subject to confirmation by the commissioner who is here with me right now, that in various consultations he has with the police chiefs association it would certainly be drawn to their attention. I don’t know whether they have carried out any such study of firearms instructors in particular at the municipal level.

The Ontario chiefs are holding their annual convention in June and the commissioner has indicated it would be a very proper item to be included in the agenda. Thank you.

Mr. B. Newman: Now that we are concerned about our environment surely, if the officers are exposed to this type of hazard, we should do everything we can to eliminate that hazard.

Mr. Chairman: The member for Welland South.

Mr. Haggerty: Yes, Mr. Chairman. Following the same thought as the member for Windsor-Walkerville, have you initiated any studies concerning the environmental hazards for the police officers patrolling highway traffic, say, in highly congested areas like the Queen Elizabeth Way, the Gardiner Expressway and that area, for lead poisoning along the highways? What about the environmental air studies particularly dealing with officers who are patrolling that area for some eight hours every day? I am sure there must be some problems which could be caused by the contaminated air they have to breathe day by day.

Hon. Mr. Clement: No, no such studies have been conducted on officers doing the type of duty described by the member for Welland South.

Mr. Haggerty: Have you given any consideration to such a study? I was thinking in particular of personnel and immigration officers employed at the entrance of the Peace Bridge at Fort Erie. I think the federal government initiated a study there concerning the hazards of carbon monoxide poisoning, lead poisoning and perhaps other contaminated air involved in pollution from automobiles. It apparently indicated it could cause some problem. Why hasn’t your ministry undertaken a study in that particular field?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Chairman, I don’t think that the ministry up to the present time has proceeded in this direction for a number of reasons:

1. To take a proper measurement of the amount of lead ingested into the human body is a very involved, time-consuming and expensive process; it’s also somewhat uncomfortable for the person who receives that type of testing.

2. Speaking personally from my own limited knowledge of this particular subject, it wasn’t too long ago -- I would turn the clock back about 15 or 16 months -- that there was almost a panic across this province because of a directive that came forward from a federal agency saying that if you used a new tea kettle or something you could get up to 50 parts of lead per million or billion -- that is how little I know about it, it’s probably per billion -- by using an electric tea kettle. The hospital services literally were driven crazy. The general public was running in and wanting to have mommy and daddy and all the little whatnots tested for lead.

Let me tell you that probably the purest baby food you can buy in a glass jar has well over 200 parts in it, and a bottle of beer has over 400 parts. But that was omitted in the communiqué. I met with certain members of a particular industry who drew this to my attention through an expert in pharmacology, a professor at the University of Toronto. One of the greatest sources of lead, for example, is peanuts. I didn’t know this. We are going to get to the point where we are going to stay home and never go anywhere.

All right, I have told you everything I know about lead. Now, I am not aware of any complaints that have come to the force --

Mr. Lawlor: How much lead is in a peanut?

Hon. Mr. Clement: You know me; I won’t eat peanuts.

Mr. Lawlor: You won’t, eh?

Hon. Mr. Clement: No, I just won’t eat them because of that.

Mr. Lawlor: One of these days the minister is going to lose weight.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I don’t eat baby food, either.

But I think there has to be, more than there is now, some justification in the form of complaints by the officers -- if we take it on our initiative to take the whole force and go through this, I wonder if we are not just really spinning our wheels. I am not mocking the danger of lead poisoning; it is a very serious and invariably very permanent type of injury. I think that we can carry this too far. I mean, if we have an annual test, do we then make it semi-annual and then a monthly thing?

All I am saying is that we are not testing right now and we have had no complaints. I am not saying it will always remain that way. Perhaps, with the improvement of testing facilities and methods, this will be a very proper sort of test to conduct; but at the present time we don’t carry out such tests on the traffic patrol people who are probably subjected to the type of thing that the member describes.

Mr. Haggerty: The reason that I brought it to the attention of the minister was not to say that every person should go through the test; I just made an inquiry as to whether any studies had been made. I think there have been studies by the Health, Education and Welfare Department in the United States which indicated that even a person driving an automobile in congested traffic will become drowsy as a result of the air they are breathing.

I was wondering about your officers patrolling the highways, and perhaps breathing this over a period of eight hours a day, and whether the long-term results could constitute an occupational health hazard. I am not sure and you are not sure. I bring it to your attention because you should be aware of it in case something does crop up in say 10 years from now. For example, if a person patrolling the highway does come down with emphysema or something like that, you can perhaps pinpoint it and say that it could have been caused by that.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I think my colleague the Minister of Health (Mr. Miller) is embarking more and more on this type of study in relation to occupational hazards and, as I understand the member’s comment, this could well be one of these occupational hazards. I will see that he is made mindful of our discussions here today.

Mr. Chairman: The member for Windsor-Walkerville.

Mr. B. Newman: Mr. Chairman, could I bring to the attention of the minister studies that have been conducted in other jurisdictions? Here are the comments concerning one -- there are two types, inorganic and organic leads, and they both seem to have some type of an effect on the brain. Now, organic lead ingestion, however, does seem to promote aggression with what may prove to be statistically significant regularity. In sufficient quantity it may cause psychotic effects by its action on the interior cell structure of the brain. Organic lead is mainly found as tetraethyl lead. Like metal mercury, it is fat soluble and enters brain tissue very easily.

The principal exposure is by the gas station attendant who stands over a gas tank as new gasoline displaces gasoline vapour and a lesser degree of exposure is experienced by all motorists -- and in this I would include OPP officers who are on duty -- who may be caught in traffic jams where some vapour is usually unburnt.

According to studies, this apparently does have a harmful effect on the individual and the OPP officer, as well as the municipal officer, who is involved in either directing traffic or sitting in a vehicle and driving up and down the highways. So I think, Mr. Minister, it really is deserving of some attention on the part of the ministry, or possibly through the Minister of Health, to see that our officers are not subjected to this health hazard. According to information provided to me by one of your colleagues, it can cause some type of brain damage.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I would be more than willing to communicate in writing with my colleague, the Minister of Health, and perhaps enclose a copy of Hansard of our discussions here today. Presumably there are other areas of activity. You mentioned people working at gasoline stations. It might well be the subject of an investigation to see what the overall effect is, because I think that type of person would be subjected to much more severe exposure to carbon monoxide fumes and this sort of thing than would a police officer on patrol.

But let’s send it on to the minister and see if his occupational hazard people would initiate a study, or perhaps they already know. Perhaps we’re just jousting here today in an area that’s been fairly well reconciled medically. I just don’t know.

Mr. Chairman: Shall item 2 carry? Carried.

Item 3, staff training. Are there any comments?

Mr. Lawlor: Mr. Chairman, I want to make an honorific statement to the House, and to you in particular, Mr. Chairman. I don’t intend to dwell over each of these items any longer. Nor, perhaps with your indulgence, do I wish -- when we get to the next vote, which is very broad -- to go over them point by point, either.

I have a number of items which may, or may not, fall within this vote or the next vote. I would beg a boon of you and ask that I be able to take them in block, to take them seriatim. They’re based mainly upon this task force on policing report and the replies that have been given thereto in the documents submitted by the Solicitor General on the last day we were in the House. I would simply like to leaf over these pages and discuss a few points with him.

The reason I’m making this little speech is that in the course of doing it we may come and hit something on the in-service training. I don’t want to be ruled out of order at that particular time simply because the vote has been passed. I don’t intend to argue the vote at the moment. I ask for that type of indulgence. I won’t abuse it, I assure you.

Mr. Chairman: Perhaps we might deal with item 4, which would be properties, and then we could deal collectively within service training, staff development, planning research and community services. How would that be?

Mr. Lawlor: Yes.

Mr. B. Newman: Good enough.

Mr. Chairman: Does that meet the approval of the committee? Are there any comments on item 4?

Mr. J. E. Stokes (Thunder Bay): On staff training?

Mr. Chairman: I’m sorry, on item 4; yes, properties.

Mr. Stokes: Yes, I would like to ask the Solicitor General when he, in concert with the Ontario Provincial Police, is going to make a request of the Ministry of Government Services to provide decent and sufficient accommodation for their forces so that we’ll get the proper complement.

I’m told by the commissioner of the Ontario Provincial Police and from people out in the field that they would love to accede to our request to bring their complement up to a level that would be in keeping with their responsibilities. The big problem is the lack of accommodation. In discussing this with your colleague, the Minister of Government Services (Mr. Snow), he said no application has been made. When I talked to the commissioner of the OPP, he said, “Somebody is all wet. We need it badly.”

Are you the stumbling block? Are you the fellow who is not making representations on behalf of your colleague? Everybody is agreed that we need an increase in complement. Everybody is agreed that we need accommodation. But nobody does anything. It is like the weather. Nobody does anything about it. When are we going to get some action so that we get a proper complement?

I don’t want to get into services. I just want to talk specifically about properties. When we get to another vote, I’ll expand more on the services that I think should be provided and the kind of staff training that I think is needed in certain areas. What about properties, please?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Chairman, literally some days ago we were advised by the Ministry of Government Services that it has allocated some $700,000 for 1975-1976 out of its estimates for this very matter.

I am aware that many of the constables brought into certain places in the north have been living in trailers and in some instances sharing a trailer with office accommodation -- that is, a trailer part of which is being used for living accommodation and the other for office accommodation. I am aware that some of the constables have gone in for a few days on a visit and have had to stay in a cabin that maybe doesn’t provide all the amenities that one would come to expect in the service of the Ontario Provincial Police. In any event, I am pleased to advise the member that there is some $700,000 specifically marked for this type of accommodation. We were advised of that some days ago.

Mr. Stokes: Not specifically in the areas that I am concerned about. I want to know how many you are going to build at Ignace so that they can get up along Highway 599 and look after the law enforcement and police surveillance needs along 193 miles of highway. Highway 599 stretches from Highway 17 at Ignace on through Savant Lake all the way up to Pickle Lake, Central Patricia. We’ve got a community at the top end of that road that is going to increase by 1,500 to 2,000 over the next couple of years. There is no accommodation at Ignace to serve the needs along the highway. There is no accommodation in Pickle Lake to serve the needs of an expanding community at the top end of the road. I asked your colleague how much for Ignace and how much for Pickle Lake. He said, not a penny.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I would like to advise the member that Pickle Crow is our No. 1 priority. For example, at Fort Hope, the patrol cabin will be available early in June. At Big Trout Lake, the site has been selected and the construction of a cabin will commence June. At Sandy Lake, the site is under negotiation right now and once the legalities have been cleared up insofar as actually obtaining the title goes, then the construction will start almost immediately thereafter. At Fort Severn -- you are not interested in that, I guess, as it’s northeastern Ontario.

Mr. Stokes: Why wouldn’t I be?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Are you interested in northeastern Ontario?

Mr. Stokes: That’s not northeastern Ontario.

Mr. Reid: It’s northwestern Ontario.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Fort Severn?

Mr. Stokes: Right, that is the most northerly community in Ontario where anybody lives and it is in the beautiful riding of Thunder Bay.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I am sorry, I have that in my list here as northeastern Ontario.

Mr. Stokes: It is served from the Timmins area but it is in northwestern Ontario.

Hon. Mr. Clement: That’s probably the reason why I have it on that list.

Mr. Stokes: It should be in the Kenora area, but it is under the supervision of the OPP at Timmins.

Hon. Mr. Clement: All right. Then you will be happy to know the building site there has already been selected for the construction.

Mr. Renwick: Boy, that was quite a task! That must have been a difficult decision.

Hon. Mr. Clement: What about Fort Albany? That is east of where you are up north of Cochrane.

Mr. Stokes: That is along James Bay.

Hon. Mr. Clement: The site has been selected to build a patrol cabin this summer at Attawapiskat. The Department of Indian Affairs will provide living accommodation for the OPP officers in that area. I have told you about these others.

Mr. Stokes: What about Ignace and Pickle Lake?

Hon. Mr. Clement: I don’t see Pickle Lake and Ignace on this particular list, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Stokes: That’s what bothers me.

Mr. Reid: That’s where the problem is.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I am glad to hear that’s the only area that bothers you. I thought you had something else wrong. I’ll see if I can get back to you on that.

Mr. Reid: We are going to get to that.

Mr. Stokes: You will find out what really bothers me.

Mr. Reid: We are going to get to that on the next vote, the next page.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I am advised, as I mentioned earlier, that Pickle Lake is the No. 1 priority. They are attempting right now to get a module or trailer unit in there as a temporary accommodation to provide service in the area; it will be followed by a more permanent-type accommodation, probably next year.

Mr. Stokes: That’s just not good enough.

Hon. Mr. Clement: What was the other one, Ignace? It’s the same thing with Ignace.

Mr. Stokes: All right. I want to tell you just what the problem is. Now, I don’t know whether the commissioner knows -- I am sure you don’t know -- we have 192 miles of highway where there is activity right along. Your OPP detachment in Ignace is understaffed, and the reason they can’t bring it up to complement is because of lack of accommodation in Ignace; and my colleague can elaborate on that. I won’t say another word about Ignace except that they can’t serve my riding because there isn’t accommodation there, and it makes sense to have them operating out of Ignace. I don’t want to encroach on his territory, but at the top end, at Savant Lake, you used to have service from the OPP detachment at Armstrong but the only way they could get over there was by CNR train when it ran. The crisis was always over by the time they got over by train, so they relayed the responsibility for Savant Lake to Ignace because there was road access. Now the OPP uses the excuse they haven’t accommodation so that they can bring their force in Ignace up to complement. That’s the Savant Lake problem; it’s tied in with what people there are at Ignace.

At the top end you used to have a corporal and two constables based at Central Patricia. Central Patricia and Pickle Lake are twin communities. Ever since I have been going into that area you have had one corporal and two constables at that detachment. That community has grown by 1,000 people in the last 12 to 16 months. You have still got your one corporal and your two constables. It’s going to grow by another 600 to 700 within the next year when Umex mines get into full operation. So there you have a community that has increased in population from about 500 to about 2,000 and you still have the same complement.

In addition to that, you are shooting them up into the far north. You mentioned they are going into communities like Webiquie, Fort Hope, Lansdowne House, maybe as far as Big Trout, and some of them up to Fort Severn. You have expanded their area of responsibility, but you haven’t increased the complement. The OPP are doing a wonderful job up there, but there is a limit to what any small group of people can do. The more people you get, the more complaints you are going to get, the more problems you are going to get; it’s just unrealistic to expect those people to cover literally tens of thousands of square miles with the added population and inadequate accommodation.

Those are real hot spots. If you want people to go to those remote communities and serve and perform yeoman service, you have to put them on a high priority list and make sure they get the kind of accommodation you and I take for granted and other police forces and law enforcement officers take for granted down here in the south. It’s bad enough for them to have to go away up there and suffer the hardships of weather and distance; working, sometimes, around the clock. At least give them a decent place to live and provide sufficient accommodation so you could add men and bring the complement up so they are not on duty 24 hours a day. I think that’s what breaks down the morale of law enforcement officers, when you don’t have adequate accommodation and adequate staff so they can do a proper job.

They are doing a wonderful job under the conditions, but it’s just impossible to expect them to operate effectively and efficiently under present conditions, I think whatever it costs -- $300,000 or whatever the figure is -- you should allocate it and get on with the job of making life a little more pleasant for those people. They are doing the kind of job we expect of them.

Mr. Chairman: Shall item 4 carry? The hon. member for Rainy River.

Mr. Reid: I’ve been waiting patiently, and perhaps it’s been covered, but I have been through this with various people, talking about increasing the staff, in Ignace particularly. That’s the item I’m particularly interested in.

Am I, and my colleague who just spoke, correct in saying the problem in increasing the complement is with the lack of housing in Ignace; or is it just a lack of personnel?

Hon. Mr. Clement: I understand it is the lack of housing primarily.

Mr. Reid: Perhaps you could prevail upon your colleagues to get our sewer and water system moving along there. Am I to take from that, then, that once we have adequate housing you will increase the staff at Ignace?

There are a corporal and five constables at the moment. They have to patrol almost to Dryden, down the Trans-Canada and up 599. They are just too small a force to handle that area, particularly if there are any kind of accidents or criminal problems of any kind; not even taking into account sickness or vacations or anything else. Surely the matter is critical enough that some way can be found to increase the staff in the Ignace area. Can you tell us, do you have any plans for improving the situation in the near future?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Chairman, the staff at Ignace has been increased twice over the past 12 months; by an additional constable each of those times. I think it’s fair to say the primary problem is lack of suitable accommodation, but also there is some difficulty at times in securing personnel for that particular area of Ontario. I think that housing is the primary problem, there is no doubt about that, but I want to make it clear to the members, Mr. Chairman, that there is a special group at Sioux Lookout to provide special protection. We move them in by plane; that has been in effect since some time last fall.

Mr. Reid: That is where the problem is.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I don’t want the hon. members to think that there is absolutely no protection.

Mr. Reid: No. That’s primarily for the northern Indian reserves, is it not?

Hon. Mr. Clement: You and I and our colleague from Thunder Bay, are ad idem on this thing. We are under constraints, as are all the other ministries, but the requirement up there has a very high priority. There’s no question that we need accommodation up there.

My predecessor and my permanent staff in this ministry made a very good case to Management Board some seven to 10 days ago which resulted in the approval of a $70,000 expenditure. That money is to be allocated for those types of accommodation projects up there in northwestern Ontario; and I also see some here in what I have shown as northeastern Ontario.

Mr. Chairman: Shall item 4 carry?

Mr. Reid: Thank you.

Mr. Chairman: We will deal with items 3, 5, 6, collectively; and I’m not certain whether item 7 should be dealt with at the same time or not. Perhaps the minister could give some indication on that.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I beg your pardon, Mr. Chairman?

Mr. Chairman: Should item 7 be dealt with at the time as items 3, 5 and 6? We’ll deal with the balance of the vote collectively.

Mr. Stokes: On the staff part, I realize you’re moving farther ahead than you ever did before with regard to assisting the far northern reserves to maintain law and order and police surveillance. I’m well aware of the programme that’s under way and that it’s a companion to the kind of remarks you made earlier about providing accommodation for law enforcement officers going into remote reserves. I’m on the area legal aid committee and I know the problems.

Hon. Mr. Clement: How long have you been on it?

Mr. Stokes: Oh, about three years -- since 1971 -- and I know the problems native people in the far north have in understanding the programmes that are available to them.

Every so often a native person will get into trouble. He really doesn’t understand the charge and doesn’t understand the law. An arresting officer will go in and say: “You are guilty of such and such.” It’s accepted. If he says so, it must be true. It never occurs to them that they have the right of appeal, that they have a right to duty counsel and they have the right to legal advice or anything like this. They don’t know that if somebody should set upon them and beat them up they may have some recourse under the compensation for victims of crime. There are so many areas of our daily lives, including justice, that they know nothing at all about.

I think it is fair to say that if a law enforcement officer came to you or me and said: “You are guilty of such and such,” we’d have a fair idea of whether or not he had a case and whether or not we would plead guilty and take our knocks. This isn’t the case with a lot of people. When I’m talking about a lot of people, I suppose there aren’t many in the overall scheme of things, with a population of eight million. But there are when you are talking in terms of people who live in the far north of the province. I’m talking about all who live in the north end of Kenora riding, which is represented by the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Bernier), the north end of Thunder Bay riding, which I represent, and the north end of Cochrane North riding which is represented by the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Brunelle).

A good many of these people just accept the fact that if a law enforcement officer says they are guilty, that’s it, that’s the end of the line. They plead guilty and either pay the fine or spend their time in jail. They haven’t learned a thing, because they just don’t understand the laws. They have no way of knowing what the laws are.

I’m hoping, as a result of your new interest in the north, that perhaps the kind of people you are sending in there will have a better understanding of the needs of those people. I hope they will not just go in there and hit somebody over the head, if he’s misbehaving; or say: “We think we’ve got a good case against you for misuse of alcohol or for hitting somebody over the head.” I hope they will go in before the fact and spend a few days there.

The only time the OPP responded to a problem in the north was if there was a drowning and they had to call in an OPP constable and some divers to recover the body; or if somebody beat up somebody else they would go up and bring him into Sioux Lockout; or put him in jail until court day and then give him the appropriate fine and send him back.

Nobody learned anything as a result of this exercise. There was never any great understanding of our laws. That’s what’s needed; understanding.

If you are just going to send somebody you recruited down here, from Toronto or Windsor or Ottawa, and say to him: “How would you like to go into law enforcement in northern Ontario?”, he would say “I’ve never been there, it should be kind of interesting;” and up they go. They have no idea of the lifestyle of those people; the kind of understanding that’s needed and the kind of communication that’s needed in order to get along well with those people.

Have you ever read “The Judge of the Far North,” by J. H. Sissons?

Hon. Mr. Clement: No, but I know who you mean.

Mr. Stokes: Spend three or four hours reading that book. It was recommended to me.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I would love to do that tonight and will undertake to do so, Mr. Chairman, if perhaps my friends across the House could accommodate me.

Mr. Stokes: If I hadn’t been up here talking about it you’d never know about it and where you could read about these things.

Hon. Mr. Clement: That is right and I am grateful to you.

Mr. Stokes: Yes; well, read it. It will be worth your while. He manifests an understanding of people in the far north which even I didn’t have a grasp of, and I’d like to think that I know native people fairly well and understand them and have their confidence. He calls them the people par excellence. He spent half his time, while he was a judge stationed in Yellowknife, battling the bureaucracy that is the federal Ministry of Justice in Ottawa and battling the bureaucracy that is the Ministry of Indian Affairs and Northern Development; going to bat for native people, stressing there were many things you and I accept as a matter of course, which are completely foreign and alien to them and their culture.

It we are ever going to understand our native people, first of all we’ve got to be prepared to live with them for a while, to go up and spend some time with them. I don’t mean just go in as a result of call for service, spend a couple of hours and get out so you can get back down to Sioux Lookout while there is still some daylight left.

Now that you are building accommodation up there, you will be able to send your people in -- people who are well trained, people who are understanding, people who are willing to communicate and to explain our laws to those people living in the far north. They will then know in advance what is expected and what is required of them and the kind of behaviour we demand of our citizens in the province.

If you had never been told, Mr. Minister, that such and such was a crime, how else would you know? There are a good many things in the statutes of this Province of Ontario and parts of the Criminal Code that those people know absolutely nothing about.

Now you might say to me that ignorance of the law is no excuse. Well, perhaps you will be able to make a case if you were dealing with people like the member for Windsor-Walkerville or myself. There are things that we should know, I suppose. But when you apply that standard to somebody living in Fort Severn, which you’ve just mentioned, or Attiwapiskat, or Kasaboniha, a good many of whom have never been south of the Albany River, when you tell them that ignorance of the law is no excuse, I think you are being grossly unfair. They can’t read. They can’t write. They have never been exposed to the kind of education that you and I have, and yet we apply the same laws. That is why I recommend Judge Sissons’ book to you. He opened more doors and windows as a result of his efforts in the north and kicked out of a cocked hat more conventional wisdom than anybody ever shook a stick at, and did it rather convincingly.

I suggest to you, under this vote in staff training, that you are going to have to come up with the kind of personnel who have an understanding of what is involved in dealing with people in the far north who very seldom get out and rub shoulders with the kind of activities and the kind of society that you and I live in. They are going to have to be prepared to spend some time, probably even learn the language or take an interpreter in with them, and very methodically explain what is acceptable and what is not acceptable. You are going to have to explain to the northern people the kind of services that are available to them once they get into trouble. This isn’t being done.

I discussed this with the regional director of Legal Aid, and he’s on a pretty tight budget. The director of Legal Aid and myself would like to go and spend a couple of days in that community, just explaining to those people the services that are available to you and me as a matter of right. If we don’t have the financial resources to hire legal counsel, we have a basic right to go to the director of Legal Aid or the legal aid committee and say, “I would like a certificate.”

I would venture to say that 90 per cent of the people on whose behalf I am speaking now don’t even know there is a legal aid plan in the Province of Ontario. They don’t even know that there is compensation under the legislation covering some kind of compensation for victims of crime.

I am wondering how serious you are not only in providing a presence in the far north but about recruiting and training in a meaningful way the people you are going to send into those areas. It is not going to be easy. It is going to take a very special kind of person. Some of the things they will see up there will really appal them -- things they never thought went on in the Province of Ontario at all. I hope they won’t overreact. I hope they don’t just start swinging and ask questions afterwards.

I am not going to detail to any great extent the differences in the lifestyle up there. I have had private communications with you. I think I have tried to outline to you the kinds of problems they are going to be faced with in certain communities in the far north. I would like to see the kind of constables you are going to recruit for that special service maybe look a little bit deeper and say, “We are not here just to enforce the law. We are not here just to maintain law and order.”

What you should be doing is going a little bit deeper and saying, “What are the social causes of a certain type of behaviour that we find unacceptable?” There are a good many reasons, I suppose, for different kinds of behaviour by different kinds of people under certain circumstances. I would hope that as a result of this new activity you speak of in the far north maybe we can come to grips with some of the social problems which occasion and result in this unacceptable behaviour.

If we can cut it off at the pass, maybe we can reverse the statistics. I am sure your people who are advising you have analysed the statistics by which our first citizens, on a percentage basis, far outweigh the white population in terms of the number of arrests and the number of days spent in jail. We have to be concerned about these statistics and start to turn them around.

I am not suggesting it’s an easy thing at all but I see this programme as the kind of vehicle which might at least begin to turn those statistics around. When you go into some of those communities in the north and you see 90 per cent on welfare in this province of opportunity, it must be obvious to you and your colleagues that there’s something wrong. We are not going to solve the economic problems of the people in the north until we begin to solve some of the social problems in the north. I see this as one of many approaches to coming to grips with that kind of problem.

I hope you are not just throwing an ad in the paper, saying, “X number of constables for service in the far north where the fishing is good.” You have some nice airplane trips up into the north. Everybody goes up there with star-filled eyes and says, “It’s a brand new experience.” I will tell you it will be a brand new experience for them but if it is not done properly not only is it money wasted but it won’t serve a useful purpose.

We have to get a special kind of person; somebody who is understanding, who is patient, who is able to communicate, who is able to be sympathetic, who is going to have to stand up and be counted and come to the defence of those people when they think they should be defended. That takes a special kind of person. I would like to have the assurance of this minister that at least he understands what I am trying to say and hopefully in the process he will begin to do something about it.

Mr. Chairman: Does the minister wish to reply?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Chairman, the Ministry of the Solicitor General has, up to about two years ago, been seized with the responsibility of really enforcing justice, and really was an agency -- and I’m talking now in the police sense, not in terms of public safety with the fire marshal and coroner’s office and so on, I’m talking with relation to the police function -- indeed carrying out its very area of statutory responsibility, policing Ontario. My remarks here are pertaining to the north, the part that you and I have been talking about.

Because of the many problems, some of which have been touched on ever so lightly by the member for Thunder Bay -- and I’m sure he could delve deeper if he chose to do so -- it seemed that the only agency that had a presence up there was, in fact, the police and certain other ministries of various levels of government. But the police had a presence there all the time.

I think what you’re really saying is that there has been an inability in the past to communicate. Really, the whole problem is one of communicating; communicating the white man’s laws and requirements to the native people, and in turn, their ability to communicate some of their problems to the white man. As a result of this, the Ontario Provincial Police in particular, having recognized the problems, and after instructing some consultants to conduct a study in that area two years ago, have come up with a programme which last year attracted some 50 applicants -- only 27 were accepted at Lakehead University for specialized training to deal with some of the problems that the member has touched on.

The curriculum included lectures on the social sciences, the psychology and philosophy of the Indian culture, as well as subjects related to the application of the criminal law and statutes. That’s fine. That’s a start. It certainly is not enough and we recognize that.

In April, 1974, there was a co-ordinator of Indian reserve policing appointed, his responsibility being to maintain liaison among general headquarters, also reserve officials, superintendents, grand councils, government agencies and other organizations dealing with native policing. Eight of these special constables have taken recruit training in the “A” part of the course down at Aylmer. Three of the newly appointed special constables have attended a three-week orientation course at the OPP training and development centre -- pardon me, the first group took recruit training at the Ontario Police College, and four have taken part “A” only. I guess eight took “A” and “B”, the two parts. I don’t want to be misleading on that.

Three of the newly appointed special constables have attended a three-week orientation course at the OPP training and development centre. The director of the centre is endeavouring to have two or three of these constables attend future orientation courses if they have not taken parts “A” or “B” at the Ontario Police College. By the way, they work themselves up into the same pay scale, after certain levels of training have been completed, as a regular Ontario Provincial Police officer.

Also, there’s the situation dealing with the band constables per se. The federal-provincial programme, which I think this year contemplates the utilization of some 100 individuals, is funded 60 per cent by the federal government and 40 per cent by this province. They will work in the various areas. They are native peoples and they will hopefully maintain some form of liaison between the white man and the Indian people. At present there are 39 of them, on 25 of the 100-odd reserves within the province.

Mr. Stokes: Can we get a list of those?

Hon. Mr. Clement: I don’t have a list here but we can provide you with a list. We hope to amplify this very shortly.

There are detachment co-ordinators in addition. The commander of the detachment is located near an Indian reserve and visits on a systematic basis. On those visits he meets with the chief, members of the council and constables stationed there to discuss any problems they might have. On larger detachments this is invariably the responsibility of the corporal. His responsibilities are to assist supervisory personnel establish and maintain effective liaison with the native people and the native police in that area, to ensure that native leaders are advised by field supervisory personnel of our policing responsibilities.

They are encouraged and assisted in establishing their own constabulary, and adhere to proper procedure in so doing. They assist field supervisory personnel in monitoring the effectiveness of band or reserve constables. They ensure that current reserve policing policies are known to those involved in reserve policing -- that is a very important thing. It is the nub of what we are talking about here -- communicating. They monitor various approaches to policing of reserves so evaluations and recommendations can be made.

I think there are two senior OPP superintendents seconded from the OPP to the ministry, one is seized with the very essence of his responsibility to really deal with native people’s problems. I have met that individual, I think, on two occasions, one at policy field and one under other circumstances, to discuss matters pertaining to the native people’s problems.

What I am trying to demonstrate to the hon. member, I hope, is that the OPP in particular has had to expand its role from policing, as we know it in southern Ontario, into those other areas of communicating as a diplomatic corps or an educational unit in dealing with these people up there.

I have only been up to the Hudson Bay area once in my life and I must confess I certainly was astounded. I knew these things existed but you have to look at them. I was astounded to run into fairly young people who spoke absolutely no English or French, but Cree. I know these things existed but you have to see it to appreciate it. The culture and the background of these people is something I, as an individual, have not had the opportunity of being exposed to.

I have read excerpts from the book written by Mr. Justice Sissons. I remember two or three incidents in the abridgement that I read dealing particularly with Eskimo people. But I will read the book.

I think the OPP, in recognizing its area of responsibility, has expanded. I am not for a minute suggesting it has gone anywhere near as far as it intends to go. But we must creep before we walk and we are proceeding in these matters. I have personally discussed individual problems pertaining to a particular treaty. I have discussed those with members of that band council; as the minister I have discussed these matters with the Treaty No. 3 group two weeks ago in Thunder Bay.

With that same group I arranged for senior law officers of the Ministry of the Attorney General to go up and meet with the band council or representatives of that council and their legal counsel pertaining to certain matters of common interest. I don’t think the role of communicating is necessarily restricted to the Solicitor General’s ministry. I think the Attorney General has certain responsibilities as do all the other ministers whose areas of responsibility deal with the native people.

I just give you the background, Mr. Chairman. I know the interest of the member for Thunder Bay. I hope this programme expands and is successful for if it expands and is not successful, we really have done nothing but spin our wheels.

Mr. Stokes: I don’t want to prolong this, Mr. Chairman, but I want to highlight how important it is that this programme does not fail. I visited a community seven weeks ago and I was made aware of a series of events and it started out something like this.

A fellow is driving along on his snowmobile. He stops the snowmobile, sees an elderly lady, walks up to her and punches her in the face. He knocks her down in the snow, jumps on his snowmobile and away he goes. When the relatives of the victim get to hear about it, they go over to the fellow’s house and they proceed to take out their vengeance. They do this by trying to get at him; he barricades himself in his home. They proceed to break the doors and the windows and make a real shambles of his house in retaliation for this.

A couple of days go by. The culprit in the whole piece decides he is going to retaliate. He goes over to friends of the victim and does the same thing -- smashes the doors and the windows in a row of brand new homes. They meet the snowmobiler again and the snowmobiler catches somebody in a state of inebriation, knocks him down, puts the boots to him, kicks him in the face, kicks his ribs and has his vengeance. A couple of days later they retaliate again and the result of it is they burn a house down.

Mr. Haggerty: They play rough.

Mr. Stokes: Your law enforcement officers finally got there, took him out and he stood trial. I understand he was fined $75. I’ll bet you there was $50,000 worth of damage and his fine was $75.

That’s bad enough but the thing really worries me. I took the trouble to make some inquiries in the community about how this was affecting the youth. I took the trouble to speak to the school teachers and they say that the little six- and seven-year-olds, during the course of their play, re-enact what they see their elders do in real life in the community.

When all this violence is going on in the community, the women stand back and they are very fearful of what the consequences might be while the men go around staggering drunk, kicking, hitting and breaking down homes. This is what the little boys at school do at play; they go through all the motions that their older counterparts engage in. They think it’s normal behaviour. The little girls stand by and hope they won’t get involved, that somebody won’t take a swing at them. This is what the kids do at play. They think it’s normal behaviour.

If we do anything at all with this programme you speak of we have to get these well-trained, articulate people -- willing to communicate, able to communicate -- into the schools up there to tell those kids what the laws of the province are, that you just don’t come up and hit somebody for no reason at all, and that it is unacceptable behaviour to be burning houses down. The kids think it’s normal behaviour.

That is the challenge I throw out to you. I could relate many others, but I don’t want to take the time. I think you know what I mean; I think you know how serious the problem is. Just don’t fumble the ball.

Mr. Chairman: Are there any other members wishing to speak in this vote, items 3, 5, 6 or 7?

Mr. M. Gaunt (Huron-Bruce): I have a few brief comments with respect to the OPP procedures insofar as dealing with new applications are concerned. I don’t get a lot of applications from my area but I’ve had a few people who have applied to get into the OPP in recent weeks. On each occasion they have received a form letter saying they haven’t passed the initial testing and that any future consideration for the force is not open to them.

There are two matters with which I want to deal in this connection. The first one has to do with the actual tests that are employed. As I understand it, there is a general psychological aptitude test that is provided. The other part of the testing that is done is to get the applicant to write an essay. If they can’t write an essay, then presumably they can’t join the OPP. In my view, that’s a rather amateurish way of deciding who should get into the force and who shouldn’t.

I know that is only one phase of it, but it seems to me there have to be better methods employed than simply asking an applicant to write an essay. In the cases with which I have dealt in recent weeks, on all occasions they failed the essay part, although I understand they weren’t rated very highly in the other parts of the tests either.

I ask the minister, and perhaps through the minister to the commissioner, to take a look at the procedures employed in testing new applicants. While it is awfully nice for the applicant to be able to write good English and to express himself in writing in a very efficient manner, I don’t think it’s absolutely necessary in order to become a good police officer. The minister may have a different view, I don’t know.

The other thing I want to raise with the minister is this business of saying in the letter, “You have failed and no further consideration will ever be given to your application.” In other words, the door is closed -- period. In my view, that is very poor public relations and certainly from the minister’s point of view, it is poor politics.

I would think that in some of these cases, particularly where you get a young person coming out of high school and applying for the OPP, it could very well be that they are some of those people we call “late bloomers.” He may not be very proficient in English or in expressing himself in writing, then, all of a sudden, as a result of his own efforts and after a few years in terms of maturing, he picks himself off the floor and he becomes quite good at it. Under the conditions set out now, apparently he has no further opportunity to apply to the OPP. I think that is wrong.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Chairman, first, I would like to make it clear that no standard type of letter is sent to an individual who is unsuccessful in his application.

Mr. Gaunt: Did it just happen that all three letters were the same? Was that accidental?

Mr. Haggerty: Was it a coincidence?

Hon. Mr. Clement: I don’t know why they would all be the same, unless the condition was generally the same that led to the failure of each of the three individuals. If you will allow me to explain myself I want to make this clear. There are two types of situations where a person will be rejected -- for physical reasons and/or for, let’s say, educational reasons. That is, they didn’t do very well on the tests to which they were subjected.

If the psychologist thought in assessing his psychological tests or intelligence tests, that perhaps by returning to school for a period of six months or a year the applicant could upgrade himself, then that would be one type of a response that would go to that type of individual. Or if the medical officer in examining somebody found a physical impairment that could be corrected by some kind of exercise or therapy, that would be that type of response.

If, on the other hand, either one of those or both couldn’t be corrected in the opinion of the people at the Ontario Provincial police, they would get a third type of letter -- to apply back after a period of 12 months.

The physical requirements are such that they must be between the ages of 21 and 35. They have to meet certain physical standards -- pardon me, I am advised now that the lower limit is 18 -- and they must have grade 12 or the equivalent. Psychological testing to screen applicants is an integral part of the departmental process. Four tests are administered by the field personnel. There is a mental ability or IQ test -- it’s the Minnesota Multi-phasic Personality Inventory. There is a written communicative skills test, scored by trained personnel in career management branch and clinically assessed by the psychologist. I am advised that the upper limit insofar as age is concerned is not restricted now to 35. There is no upper limit now.

I was surprised to learn when I was being briefed on this, that there are now 34 members of the Ontario Provincial Police who possess university degrees. In fact, once the applicant is accepted, as a result of a certain recommendation made by a professor, it is possible under certain conditions for the OPP officer to embark upon and complete university in connection with his police career. There are eight attending full-time university courses or community college courses right at this moment. They are encouraged, once they are on the course, to attend courses at community colleges or universities that are taught part-time or in the evening.

I have had to touch on this over the past few days. I have been personally involved in a community college programme which was attended -- turning my mind back three or four years, I think there were 35 or 40 officers attending a law enforcement course at that time on an evening basis. The colleges are quite adaptable in terms of teaching some of the courses in the afternoon, some in the evenings, to accommodate those who ore working on shifts and might not be available for both of those periods.

There is no form letter. I can give no explanation for the three the hon. member touches on, other than to indicate, if they came from the same writer, there might be a certain inflexibility in our wording and writing -- perhaps the member has some kind of opening he always uses in replying to letters from his constituents -- “I am simply delighted to have heard from you concerning your application for so and so” -- you know. It may be something of that nature but there is no form letter. I don’t pull out the reject letter and send it to Mr. Smith. They just don’t exist.

They try to be as diplomatic as possible, but I think we must be able to distinguish. There are those situations where the applicant has a condition, be it physical or something else, that can be corrected, which will put him in a position where he can be considered. There are those applicants who, because of their deteriorated physical condition or just inferior scoring on the psychological and intelligence side of the thing, just can’t be considered under any circumstances. So we have got the two kinds of situations.

Mr. Gaunt: I don’t want to prolong this, Mr. Chairman, but what really made me wonder was that one of the applicants was a person who was involved with a municipal police force and had been for some seven, eight years, as I recall -- I am working from memory -- but he had been there a considerable period of time.

I had occasion to take a look at his worksheets in comparing them with other people on that force, and he was one of the best, if not the best performer on that force. But he just simply was right out of the ball park when it came to the OPP. He didn’t get by the first station. It triggered some concerns in my mind because I thought he really couldn’t be that bad, otherwise he wouldn’t be doing the kind of job he’s doing in the municipal force.

I understand there are other factors that perhaps come into play, too, such as supply and demand. If you have got a heavy volume of applicants, you can afford to get a little picky and choosy. On the other hand, if there is a scarcity of applicants, then you have got to make that judgement accordingly -- and I appreciate that.

But it seems to me that somewhere along the line there must be just a little difficulty there with the kind of test in assessing the qualities that you need and desire in a good policeman. I am not so sure that the tests being employed now pick up those qualities that make a good policeman.

It is the very same thing as a person who is going through for a medical doctor. They take a look at the report card and say: “Oh, yes, 92 per cent. You are fine; you go on through.” And somebody else with 67 per cent, in a good many cases -- not all -- would make a better doctor than the chap with 92 per cent. I have had doctors tell me that.

I just question the validity of some of the tests which these new applicants undergo in picking out the qualities that would be applicable and certainly desired in a good policeman.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I realize the hour, Mr. Chairman, but I would just say this to the member: If you would like to discuss that one particular person with me privately, as opposed to discussing it here in the House, I’d be glad to take it up with you. There are instances where someone serving on a municipal force, because of perhaps his performance or something during his service with the municipal force, could preclude him from service on the Ontario Provincial Police. He may have been tolerated on a smaller force, and that may well be the reason -- but it’s speculation on my part.

Mr. Chairman, I think we have reached that hour which is the private members’ hour.

Mr. Chairman: Might I check with the hon. members to see if there are more speakers on this particular vote?

Mr. M. Cassidy (Ottawa Centre): Yes, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman: Yes.

Hon. Mr. Clement 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 progress and asks for leave to sit again.

Report agreed to.

PRIVATE MEMBERS’ HOUR

NOTICE OF MOTION NO.5

Clerk of the House: Private member’s notice of motion No. 5, Mr. Drea.

RESOLUTION: That this House request that the Minister of Transportation and Communications dedicate Highway 400 as Frost Highway in memory of the late hon. Leslie Miscampbell Frost, PC, CC, CD, QC, LLD, DCL.

Mr. F. Drea (Scarborough Centre): Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the member for Peel South (Mr. Kennedy), resolution No. 5 standing in my name.

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Drea, seconded by the member for Peel South, moves resolution No. 5.

Mr. Drea: Mr. Speaker, I move this resolution out of a sense of social history for the Province of Ontario rather than out of partisan political considerations. For too long in this province, despite our distinguished history, we have ignored the people, particularly those active as political leaders at the provincial level, who have helped build this province to the particular state where it is today.

I realize that from time to time the government dedicates a park, or indeed, in the case of this government, honours some of our past Premiers with their names on government buildings. I don’t think you can maintain a society that has no appreciation of the past -- and an appreciation of the past is necessary if you are to consider the challenges of the future ... until it begins to recognize some of the social history of its own particular past.

One of the difficulties perhaps is the fact this province was not developed by the gun or by the military. It was not developed, as were other jurisdictions, in the course of a battle or two, or the course of a prolonged campaign. Rather, this province was built by the plough, the road, and by thousands and thousands of people who came here looking for the opportunity to develop themselves, and their families to the fullest of their ability. Perhaps it has been inevitable that we would forgo the recognition of those who came here for opportunity, to fulfil that dream.

I would like to state the reason I have singled out Highway 400, in what I would hope would become a continuing project by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications to put some of our history into our roads. That particular highway in terms of length certainly is short, and in terms of age, I suppose, it is one of the youngest major highways or thoroughfares in the world.

I suggest to the House that that highway, more than anything else, symbolizes the one thing that history will record as the legacy of Mr. Frost to this province. I refer to his unbounded faith in the future of Ontario to go onwards and upwards, his faith that this could be the land of prosperity, and his faith in the future that the north -- although certainly the north as he knew it then is very far removed from the north as we know it now -- could be developed. He believed the north could lead to more prosperity, more jobs, more economic opportunity, more social benefits, not only for the people of Ontario but for the children who are yet to come, and those who, by choice, come from overseas to make Ontario their home.

Above all, Mr. Frost was a builder. He may have been a political leader, one who represented this province as its Premier for 12 years, but above all, he was building for that future.

In fact, as a builder, he is the man really who is responsible for most of southern Ontario being able to call its main cities world ports. If it weren’t for him and the ultimatums he laid down to the United States, the St. Lawrence Seaway would not have been developed at the particular time.

I think in terms of nation building or province building that was a remarkable achievement. If the members recall, the man who was President of the United States longer than anyone else in history, Mr. Roosevelt, tried throughout his four terms as president to get the St. Lawrence Seaway built. His successor, Mr. Truman, tried to have it built but it was always blocked. I think it is of considerable significance that when Mr. Frost said Ontario would join together with New York State and the two of them would build it, only then did the United States government become formally involved in the Seaway.

Of course, with the Seaway came the St. Lawrence power development which to a large degree has enabled Ontario to attract and to keep new industry; to avoid the brown-outs and blackouts --

Mr. R. Gisborn (Hamilton East): How about the Spanish River the KVP built? Tell us about that one.

Mr. Drea: -- which have become part of industrial developments elsewhere. He built hospitals, roads, schools and institutions across this province. He is the father of nuclear power -- Canadian nuclear power -- he is the man who more than anyone else arranged for the natural gas pipeline to bring the great resources of the west to the Ontario industrial and consumer market rather than being diverted to the United States as was the popular pattern then.

It was said of Mr. Frost, at the peak of his political popularity and power, that every strip of highway he built or modernized was yet another attraction for new industry, more jobs, more prosperity, a higher standard of living and all of the other things which today are taken for granted. Toronto itself and the boroughs owe their own world-wide reputation to his very courageous decision in the mid-1950s -- before anybody else in any jurisdiction considered a new form of government -- that the old city government simply would not meet the challenges of the fifties, sixties and seventies, and the metropolitan form of government and now the regional form of government were essential if the older core areas were not to become dilapidated and almost deserted as they are in places which were not fortunate enough to have his leadership.

He recognized that. He brought in the Metropolitan Toronto bill. Now Metropolitan Toronto is the envy of the world, in terms of government stability, government financing, the standard of living, the fact that downtown Toronto is not a blighted core area and that the suburbs haven’t milked the city and vice versa.

He was indeed a builder. I think it is very symbolic that Highway 400 -- which, incidentally, Mr. Speaker, you would be pleased to know was known as the Huronia Road for a few brief hours until unfortunately the people who preferred the new designation of 400 as the first sign of the number of superhighways which were going to be built, and still are being built across this province, had their way.

At that particular time, as he did throughout his political career and down to the time that he died, Mr. Frost did recognize the aspirations of the people of Ontario. We were surrounded, particularly to the north, with boundless resources, and we had the limitless resource of our people who have transformed this from a wilderness into a land of farms, into a land where the natural resources were harvested. He had great faith in the people and their aspirations and he knew the time had come to open up a rapid link. At that time, Highway 400 was the gateway to central Ontario. Of course, almost a quarter of a century later Highway 400 is now the gateway to northern Ontario and a great many changes have taken place.

But I suggest that the reasons those things have taken place is the fact that Mr. Frost did have such confidence in the future of this province. He knew that we would not only be able to afford such a highway but that it would pay dividends in terms of the industrial expansion along it and of opening up a great part of the interior of this province to the tourist industry.

Because of our crowded urban settings, or the fact that many now prefer to live in highrises, people did want to be part of the great Ontario that lies beyond the cities. I think his foresight, his resolution, his determination, and above all his faith in our future, are an integral part of the social history of this province and should be recognized.

It’s very interesting that despite the reluctance of the province to designate any of our main highways in honour of the builders of this province, most municipalities do. This is perhaps because municipalities are a bit closer to the people. I think it is significant that they have chosen the highway as the symbol of those who have built, those who have developed, and those who have encouraged the orderly stable development of our urban areas. I think it is extremely significant that in Metropolitan Toronto the first founder and the first director of the metropolitan form of government is honoured by his name upon the main thoroughfare coming in from the west.

It’s not a question, really, of putting someone’s name on a highway, the inference being that this is some kind of a reward or public acclaim for someone who had done little more than his duty -- after all, most of the people after whom highways are named, whether they are in this jurisdiction or others, are people who were elected to office to do a job and they did it. I think there was a feeling that perhaps we shouldn’t emulate some of the gross mistakes of the last century when statues by the droves, or streets or buildings or what have you, were erected and named after popular politicians of the day.

But I think in this case, if we are going to come to grips with the difficulties of making our young people, in particular, recognize the achievements of the past rather than take them for granted, this would be a fitting way to begin.

I say that because we are somewhat trapped in this province in terms of community history or social history or whatever you want to call it. We are trapped in the north-south communications line with that of the United States. Unfortunately because of their dominance in the communications industry, far too many of our children are aware of the achievements of Americans. They are far too aware of the growth and development of the United States. Despite the efforts of the schools, and because our history is not a military one and not covered with campaigns of glory but rather with steady progress, it is unfortunate that the contributions of the builders of this province are not recognized in a way that will symbolize the real impact of their tenure.

I can think of no better way to honour the vision, the achievements and the memory of Mr. Frost, than to designate this highway under his name. I suggest this highway because, when hundreds of thousands of people journey north on the weekends and south on Sunday they will be reminded of our past. Sometimes it is a slow and tortuous grind. Sometimes, indeed, because of the vagaries of the weather, it is a hazardous one, particularly in the early spring. I think it will bring home, across this province, the fact that the standard of living, and the society we have today is not something that dropped from the clouds.

It is the product of people, of men and women who worked and believed, and many who stood for public office because they believed in the future of this province. It is the product of people like Mr. Frost who could look ahead; those who could bring something like this to reality when others thought of it as a dream. Because of the great determination and foresight such projects take, I would suggest that perhaps this might be the first of many. There are superhighways coming into the metropolitan area and across western Ontario in the very near future.

I suggest one of them might very well be called the Hepburn-Nixon Highway. There are highways in the east which might appropriately be named after distinguished builders of eastern Ontario.

Mr. E. Sargent (Grey-Bruce): The Davis ditch? How would that be?

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

Mr. Drea: There are roads in northern Ontario that were pioneer roads built by the political leaders of that time, when no one else wanted to build them and could see no reason for them. Perhaps it’s time to bring back the name, the Ferguson Highway.

I suggest to you that for a province with a quality of life and a standard of living second to none anywhere in the world, there is a time to look inward, to look back on how these things were achieved, on the kind of people who had the foresight, dedication, and love for the province and its future. I think now is the time, when society is often looking at itself and wondering where it is going to go; when political leaders of all parties are profoundly moved by certain aspects of society, and where we’re going and where we should be going.

We could recall our heritage by focusing attention on someone who met the challenges of an era just as difficult, although the problems of that era were measured in terms of economic dollars and cents rather than social quality. Mr. Frost was one who met those challenges, who was prepared to put his leadership to the test over investing in this province. I suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, in the year 1975, by redesignating Highway 400 as the Frost Highway, it might very well be the stimulus whereby Ontario begins to take a real cognizance of its social history, of its social past, and of the people who helped to build for the future. It could, as a result, instill confidence in the future leaders and those who make decisions.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Essex-Kent.

Mr. R. F. Ruston (Essex-Kent): Thank you, Mr. Speaker, I wish to join in the discussion on this resolution today. One of my colleagues said it wasn’t a resolution that would cause the fall of the government today. But we are discussing something that is, no doubt, of interest to a great many people.

I question whether this is the right way to honour the great Premier that Mr. Frost was. I’m not completely convinced we should have highways named after former Premiers. I have a variety of reasons for saying that. Mr. Frost carried on for 12 years as Premier and his dedication to his job is well known. From what I hear from some of the people here who sat in the Legislature while he was here, it was nice to see him operate where he could get up and take care of things when they got a little out of hand.

He spent a great deal of time in the Legislature. I am kind of disappointed that we haven’t had a Premier who did the same in the last few years. However, that is a little outside of this resolution, Mr. Speaker, but it is something I recall of the political system over the last number of years and his regime while he was Premier.

I was thinking Friday when I was driving home on Highway 401 whether I would want a road named after me. I don’t think I would after I saw what happened: A car went across a 30-ft median between the two lanes, and was sitting in the centre of the median completely demolished, the motor completely out of the car. Apparently it had run into a truck on the other side.

If we are going to build highways and we want to be remembered afterwards, one thing we should do is to build them so that cars are not going to run across the median into another lane of traffic. That is something that we haven’t done yet. We have put some protectors up in some areas but there again, I don’t know that naming a highway after a person is an asset.

We are talking about highways, and we’ve got Heritage Highways. I was just noticing in Weekend Magazine of May 24, a full-page advertisement that says, “Follow the sign of the wheel on a Heritage Highway voyage of discovery.” The strange part of it is that it starts at Percé, Que. -- I don’t suppose I am pronouncing that right -- and comes down through Quebec to Montreal, Kingston, to Toronto, to Niagara Falls and stops.

Yet in southwestern Ontario we have the Heritage Highway signs up on No. 3 Highway, which is called Talbot Road, the old Talbot Trail, and it has been there for many years. I was noticing an editorial in the Windsor Star of May 23. The heading is:

“DOUBTFUL HERITAGE

“Government travel ad writers need to go back to school.

“Witness one of the latest ads for the Heritage Highways promotion, a joint venture of the Ontario, Quebec and federal governments. The full-colour, full-page ad ran in at least one nationally circulated magazine.

“Prospective tourists are advised in the ad that they can follow the Heritage Highways to everything from great, sophisticated cities, glittering night life and superb restaurants to museums filled with artifacts linking the past with the present.

“The ad writers’ links between past and present, unfortunately, aren’t all that good.

“Despite the brown-and-white signs proclaiming ‘Heritage Highways-Route des Pionniers’ -- that can be seen on highways around Windsor, this area doesn’t appear on the map in the advertisement. The Heritage Highways, according to that map, run from Percé in Quebec at the tip of the Gaspé Peninsula to Niagara Falls. West of Niagara Falls, the map shows nothing.

“This area could feel ignored and insulted about what is at best a sloppy bit of ad writing. But there is evidence that whoever is responsible for the ad was thinking of some other place and some other bunch of pioneers.

“According to the slickly-written text, you follow the sign of the wheel ‘where pioneers paved their way from Percé to Niagara 400 years ago.’

“The first white man to see Niagara Falls, the explorer Father Hennepin, arrived there in 1678, not quite 300 years ago.”

I feel a little put out, too, that it is not on there. I suppose our own generation hasn’t been in that area that long but when I look back and find out that they did move in across to what we call the Amherstburg area that the hon. member for Essex South (Mr. Paterson) is so familiar with, in about 1832 or somewhere around that time, that is only about 145 years ago but it is a heritage that I think we are missing in whoever is sponsoring this. It says in the ad, “Heritage Highway, Queen’s Park, Toronto, Ontario,” so we are a little disappointed that that part of the highway numbering system is left out.

Mentioning former Premiers who have had names carried with them into different areas, we see right here in our own Queen’s Park complex, the Mowat block, the Ferguson block, the Frost and Hepburn buildings, the Robarts Library -- which in itself is quite a sight to see. I’ve never been in it but I have been around the outside of it -- it is quite a good-looking building. Now I understand the forensic science laboratory is to be named the George Drew Forensic Science Laboratory Centre.

As much as I have great respect for the intent of what the member brought in in this resolution, and a great respect for the years that Mr. Frost led this province, I am doubtful whether it is really adding something to his long span in public life and what he has done for this province. Maybe the 401 should have been called the Frost Highway. It runs directly from Windsor to the Quebec border, a highway that is 500 or 600 miles long. I think that was a real feat. It was during his term of office that the major part of it was built and I know it took many years.

I can recall when my young lad was about four or five years old it started in the Windsor area going to Tilbury -- and he asked me one day, “Dad, how long do you think it will be before you can drive to Toronto on that highway?” I said, “Well, I think maybe by the time you have a driver’s licence you might be able to drive to Toronto on 401.” And it so happened that it was about 13 or 14 years from that day until it was opened, all the way to Toronto -- it wasn’t quite finished in eastern Ontario. So it took a number of years to build it.

However, I have reservations about whether we should name a major highway, especially the one we’re talking about here which hasn’t got the best of records for the construction. But at the same time I do respect the member’s resolution and we certainly all respect the great interest and great work that former Premier Frost did while he was Premier of this province.

Thank you.

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

Mr. D. C. MacDonald (York South): Mr. Speaker, I was increasingly fearful as I listened to the hon. member for Scarborough Centre review all of the great achievements of the last 20 years and then associate them with a tinge of partisanship to the name of Leslie M. Frost. He almost provoked me into an equally tinged partisan balancing of the picture which at another time and another place I might be willing to do. But perhaps this is not the time and place.

On balance, I think this resolution is worthy of support with certain qualifying comments I would like to make. In the first place, I think the hon. member and everybody should recognize that if you really want to honour the memory of somebody and have the name become identified and sort of a household word, naming them after highways is not going to achieve that purpose. I suspect that for every one person who refers to that highway from Windsor through to Quebec as the Macdonald-Cartier Freeway, there will be 10, 15, 20 or 25 who refer to it as the 401. They don’t know it in spite of the fact that the names are there.

Mr. J. E. Stokes (Thunder Bay): They don’t know that it was named after the hon. member for York South.

Mr. MacDonald: As a matter of fact -- I think I’m correct -- it was Leslie Frost who named the 401.

Mr. H. Worton (Wellington South): Robarts.

Mr. MacDonald: I should just like to underline my comment with regard to the dangers in naming highways after great men. There was one cabinet minister, whom I shall mercifully leave unidentified, who when that highway was named the Macdonald-Cartier Freeway, objected to it and objected to it for an incredible reason -- that it was identifying another French-Canadian in the history of Ontario. Perhaps the hon. member would like to cogitate on that.

An hon. member: Who was that -- the member for Timiskaming (Mr. Havrot)?

Mr. MacDonald: I said I was going to leave him unidentified.

A second reason which I think should be brought in on this naming process is -- and it doesn’t apply in this instance -- is that there has been a practice on the part of this government down through the years to name causeways and dams and so on after local Tory politicians, obviously for the purpose of trying to rehabilitate their reputation and to retain seats for them and things of that nature.

Hon. W. A. Stewart (Minister of Agriculture and Food): The member knows better than that.

Mr. MacDonald: I not only know better. I know that what I am saying is the truth. I don’t think it is a practice that should be pursued. When people of stature have taken their place in history, I personally not only have no objections, I would support the proposition that they should become identified with some aspect of the history that they were associated with in their lifetime. But that practice has been abused on occasion.

My comment, I repeat, doesn’t apply in this particular instance. If anybody is to be chosen and identified with Highway 400, I can’t think of a more worthy name than that of Leslie Frost.

I suppose there is no one who had more fierce political tangles with Leslie Miscampbell Frost than I did. Looking back on them, I look back on them almost with fond memory.

If I may say, Mr. Speaker, one lesson for me that emerged from those rather fierce political battles, was a lesson which I think should be learned by everybody in politics -- that you can disagree with a person and still have respect for him. The more battles I had with Leslie Frost, the more I had a grudging respect for him as a politician, and indeed for his concept of what Ontario should be, could be, and what he was willing to do to achieve it.

He commanded, beyond any doubt, a respect in the Province of Ontario and a confidence among people of many parties, with the result that he tended to get something of a coalition vote far too frequently at election time, as we in the opposition discovered.

Leslie Frost was the last of a political breed. I sometimes wonder whether one of his type will ever again emerge in Canadian politics. Politics has become so complex that no one man can grasp all parts of it in the fashion that a few other provincial politicians in other provinces have done down through the years. He dominated it in a fashion that most members today, particularly those who are newcomers to the House, would find to be absolutely unbelievable.

There were two sets of rules in the Legislature for Leslie Frost. One was for him and one was for the rest of the members. If he wanted to intervene in the debate, he intervened in the debate; and God help the Speaker if he dared to presume that the rules should be applied unilaterally across the board to everybody.

It was part of the day and it was the part of the way he operated; but if there was one justification for his intervention -- and I don’t really think of it as a justification -- if there was one justification, it was that he knew the details on more of the politics of Ontario than anybody else.

Mr. Stokes: He was probably like the member. He was minister of everything.

Mr. MacDonald: For example, I could never make up my mind whether Leslie Frost’s presence in the House and the frequency with which he bailed out one of his ministers when he thought a minister was getting into too deep trouble, was because he had learned from such sad experience that it was better to intervene a little earlier and keep the situation under control than to leave it to get into such a state that it was difficult to rescue.

In fact, I have a recollection of one evening in which he had an evening engagement over in St. Catharines. The situation in the House had degenerated to such a point that rumour had it around Queen’s Park a message went out, an SOS went out to Leslie Frost to come back; and he got back. We didn’t adjourn at 10:30 with any regularity in those days, and be got back in time to rescue it.

I can recall another occasion when a new cabinet minister -- who again I shall leave unnamed -- was subjected to the usual experience with Leslie Frost. That is at some point, when he, Leslie, thought it was appropriate to intervene, he rose and was going to take over the estimates for 10 or 15 minutes, but be was rather imperiously waved down by this new cabinet minister. He rather wilted for a moment and took his seat to avoid any further embarrassment in the scene.

Mr. Worton: It was the member for Ontario (Mr. Dymond).

Mr. MacDonald: I said I was going to leave that cabinet minister unidentified, too. It was a lovely little vignette of Ontario history; I hope some time that somebody will record it and give it the appropriate attribution.

The characteristic of Leslie Frost that was both commendable, and I think will be debated very vigorously in history, was his personal integrity; that is the standards he set for himself as an individual, and his willingness to have a double standard in terms of his party in politics. Leslie Frost was willing to condone, and indeed wink at, things being done for the benefit of the party -- financially and otherwise; questionable and otherwise -- which with his rather Victorian rectitude he would never for one moment have contemplated for himself.

Perhaps I might as well make my comment a current one. I was rather fascinated with that comment of Norm Webster’s last week when he was dealing with l’affaire Havrot. He said the Premier (Mr. Davis) had acted with the decisiveness and the ruthlessness which was characteristic or reminiscent of Leslie Frost. I couldn’t help but smile at it, because if the Premier is going to follow in the footsteps of Leslie Frost he will be out in Timiskaming campaigning for the member in the next election. That’s what Leslie Frost did when he fired two cabinet ministers and the subsequent election came up.

I hasten now to put it into historical perspective. That was part of an approach one found in Sir John A. Macdonald, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Mackenzie King and many of the great men of history. What they were willing to do for their party they would never contemplate doing on behalf of themselves. They had double standards.

Mr. Worton: What about Jim Dempsey?

Mr. MacDonald: Jim Dempsey? That’s another chapter, and people, including the member’s leader, had things nicely mixed up if they wanted to pick a good example this afternoon in terms of what the Premier should be emulating in dealing with l’affaire Havrot.

My time has just about elapsed, Mr. Speaker. I repeat I think this resolution is worthy of support although I don’t think it is really going to achieve the objective the member has in mind of fastening in the minds of future generations the name of Leslie Frost by identifying it with a highway. If one was going to pick a highway, that’s the highway I suspect Leslie Frost himself would want his name to be associated with because it ran from the great, throbbing, urban centre into the north -- the near north, my friends from the north will hasten to remind me -- into the cottage country, a heritage that Leslie Frost was proud of. Sometimes I wish he had done more to protect it, but that, too, was part of his day and we hadn’t standards as rigid as hopefully a government today would accept in protecting that heritage.

For all of these reasons, and with all of these qualifications, I personally would vote for the passage of this resolution if this government were to permit votes to take place on resolutions.

Thank you.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Wellington Dufferin.

Mr. J. Root (Wellington-Dufferin): Mr. Speaker, when I came into the House this afternoon I wasn’t aware this resolution was to be debated so I have no notes. But I do want to support the idea of naming this very important highway after the late Premier Frost.

I came into this House under Mr. Frost just about 24 years ago, and I had the honour of seconding the motion to adopt the Speech from the Throne. Mr. Frost asked me if I would do that. I said there were two things I would like to talk about if he didn’t object. One was that I thought it was time we had a pioneer village to preserve the story of the development of our province.

At that time, we had no pioneer villages or institutions of that kind. My own ancestry goes back just about 200 years ago when settlers moved into the Niagara Peninsula; and then about 150 years ago into Wellington county. My mother’s people were in the county of Peel about the same time. They settled in the Cheltenham area. In fact, they came from Cheltenham, England; that’s where it got its name.

However, Mr. Frost said: “You go ahead and make the speech and we’ll see what the reaction is.” There was tremendous support for the idea of a pioneer village. Out of that came this whole programme of the St. Lawrence Parks system, Ste. Marie among the Hurons, and all of these historic plaques scattered throughout the province that play a major part in attracting the 22 million tourists who come from the United States, and another 600,000 from European countries.

To get people around the province you had to have roads and Mr. Frost was a man who was interested in the development of the north. I know that. I travelled on members’ tours with him.

I remember the first time we went up to Moosonee. He had the vision of some day having a port in that area. I think the day will come when that will happen. It may not be at Moosonee, but somewhere in the north we will have a port and we will see more development in the north. Mr. Frost was intensely interested in that.

I remember another members’ tour in northwestern Ontario when we had to travel by rail. I remember stopping at Nakina in the grey hours of the morning and Mr. Frost was off the train. I would say to my hon. friends in the official opposition who talk about the north that there were no members of their party on that tour. The same goes for the third party.

Mr. W. Ferrier (Cochrane South): None of your cabinet ministers were on the last tour except one.

Mr. Root: However, I know they have developed an appreciation of the importance of that part of Ontario.

Through the time that I have served in this House I have seen many highways built into northern Ontario. I have seen a highway built from Sault Ste. Marie right around the head of Lake Superior to Nipigon to join No. 11 Highway. I remember driving over a dirt road there one time when we almost had to get out of the bus to get along. We went out to see where a bridge was reported lost. The bridge actually wasn’t built at that time.

I was with Mr. Frost the day he cut the ribbon, with a broad axe, opening the highway to Atikokan; and the signs went up on the other side “On to Fort Frances.”

We were there the day they opened the highway and the Noden Causeway. I am not averse to naming bridges and highways after people who have made a tremendous effort. The late Bill Noden did put on a tremendous programme to get that highway through to Fort Frances; and it was built.

Highways into Red Lake, into Elliot Lake and all through the north have helped in opening up the north. You look at the map today.

Go back to a map at the time when Leslie Frost was starting this programme and directing our traffic into the north.

I am all for it. I would say that Highway 400 is probably a highway that would symbolize his vision of developing that part of our province. It is something I very much favour.

I get quite concerned when I see our major developments on some of the best farm land in Canada; then I fly over that north country and see the area that could be developed. Last Tuesday I was up at Pickle Lake in the riding of Thunder Bay, where my friend the member for Thunder Bay is well aware there is a mining development proposed. There is a highway built into that area now, and if that development goes forward it will mean a new town in the area. Highways are the traffic arteries that let our people get around and open up this province.

I think it is a wonderful thing that the member for Scarborough Centre put this resolution on the order paper to name this most important highway, that funnels thousands of people north every week, day after day.

Really, the end of 400 is not the north; and neither are No. 17 or No. 11. That is central Ontario. When you want to see northern Ontario you get on a plane arid fly for another three or four hours and get up to Hudson Bay. I said before in the House that I hope the day will come when we will see more industry there. Instead of putting all our treated industrial waste into the Great Lakes system, we will be putting some of it into the Arctic.

I think Leslie M. Frost made a tremendous contribution to this province, as has been well said. I appreciate what the member for York South said about Mr. Frost. He was a master of politics, if you like; but in my definition the best politics is common sense, and he had a lot of common sense.

Mr. R. F. Nixon (Leader of the Opposition): The government wouldn’t be in the trouble it is in now if he were around.

Mr. Root: I don’t think we are in trouble. I say to the member for Brant (Mr. R. F. Nixon) that he feels his own pulse and thinks that is the pulse of public opinion. Just wait on the quiet people --

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Oh, just you wait.

Mr. Root: Look at the record of what has happened in this province with leaders like Leslie Frost and John Robarts and our present Premier and George Drew, who laid the foundations for the development of the north.

Mr. Ferrier: Why doesn’t the member go in the spring if he is so confident?

Mr. Root: And some day I hope we have a highway --

Mr. R. F. Nixon: The government’s people have lost the touch.

Mr. Root: That’s what the hon. member thinks. We have maybe lost touch with him, but I am not worried about him. I won’t miss him anyway.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: This government has turned it over to the bureaucrats.

Mr. Root: I hope the day will come when we have a highway named for George Drew, who laid the foundation for the tremendous development that has taken place.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: That is going a bit far.

Mr. Root: Mr. Frost built on that foundation; built the highways and built the roads. I was in cabinet when Mr. Diefenbaker said we will pay 75 --

Mr. R. F. Nixon: There are a couple of roads in my riding that can be named after him.

Mr. Root: How would the hon. member like to listen for a change?

I was in cabinet when Mr. Diefenbaker said: “We will pay 75 per cent of the cost of composite schools to give our young people a better education.” Mr. Frost said, “That’s manna from Heaven. We’ll go for it.” As a result we got many fine new schools.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Diefenbaker promised Frost $200 million that he never got. Does the hon. member remember that?

Mr. Speaker: Order please.

Mr. Root: How would the hon. member like to make a speech on his own?

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member has the floor.

Mr. Root: I am saying it was under the Frost regime that we got into the composite school programme that has given a lot of our young people training they never got under previous administrations. It was never thought of when the hon. member’s party was in power.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: The government got into it too deep. It wasted $100 million; wasted it.

Mr. Root: We went into a capital grants programme that made it possible for us to build the hospitals that are there today which made our medical system possible.

I mentioned roads, I mentioned schools --

Mr. Sargent: Time, time.

Mr. Root: All right; if the hon. member hadn’t interrupted me I wouldn’t overrun.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member has a minute to finish.

Mr. Root: I would refer to power development as well. So, Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to support the idea of an important highway being named for a man who made a tremendous contribution to Ontario. He maintained its history through development of roads, schools, hospitals, historic pioneer villages and what-have-you. Thank you very much.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for York-Forest Hill.

Mr. P. C. Givens (York-Forest Hill): Mr. Speaker, I am not prepared to dissect with the surgical precision with which the member for York South examined the character and the career of Mr. Frost. But I did have experiences with him, even though I didn’t sit in the Legislature, the kind of experience which enabled me to measure the abilities of the man as a politician and as a statesman.

Although one can look back at any person in public life and pick out the pockmarks and the warts and various defects that he had, as the member for York South did, the fact is when a man passes from the public stage, if he has really been a great public servant, there is a certain veneer that covers over his career. He enters into the kingdom of heaven or the Valhalla of the politicians, and one is in a position to say: “He was a great public figure,” as I did, Mr. Speaker, when we were discussing the matter of John Graves Simcoe.

The hon. member remembers when I supported him on that particular motion. We support this resolution as far as it relates to that aspect of it. There isn’t one member of this particular sector of the opposition who does not support the idea of memorializing the name of Leslie Miscampbell Frost. There isn’t one member of the Liberal caucus who isn’t prepared to acknowledge the fact that Frost was a great public figure, a great public servant, and a great politician. Would he were still around today to lead the Conservative Party, although I don’t know whether I am completely satisfied in saying that because maybe our forces would be a little different than they are.

But he was a man of substantial stature. We certainly feel that something which would merit the stature of the man should be named after him. We are quite satisfied in so far as it relates to that.

Mr. Speaker, having said that, we oppose the resolution because it seems to me that in forwarding this resolution the member for Scarborough Centre walked into a stockroom, looked around for a public work on which he could put a finger or his hands, and said: “Let’s name this public work after Leslie Frost and we will be memorializing for all time this great public figure we want to honour”. So he picks on this recycled, old crock of a highway, which is over 30 years old, which is sort of a recycled road which runs from nowhere to the cottage country.

It isn’t the north. One can wax as eloquent as he wants to about this connecting Toronto with the north; but it doesn’t connect the north. This isn’t northern Ontario. That is a bunch of nonsense, a bunch of baloney. It has no connection; it is a country road. Somewhere it is divided four-lane highway. It has just become a six-lane highway. In some places it is a two-lane highway. It has been pock-marked; it has been patched; it has been widened; it has been narrowed.

It has been the symbol of skulduggery. It has been the symbol of bumper-to-bumper frustration every Friday afternoon and every Sunday night. It has been the symbol of mayhem and it has been the symbol of carnage and accidents. Literally scores of people have been killed on this highway.

And this is the way the member wants to memorialize the name of one of the great figures of Ontario political history, by naming this old crock of a highway after this great man?

I think he does him an injustice. It is inconsequential; it is ignoble; it is insufficient, it is undignified, it is inexcusable. I think it is absolutely ridiculous. In trying to memorialize this man this way he is consigning his name to ignominy.

Mr. Drea: It’s pronounced ignominy.

Mr. Givens: Ignominy, I pronounce it ignominy. The member is making an ignominious gesture out of the whole thing. Let me give you an idea of what I would do, Mr. Speaker. Here was a man of political dynamism. Here was a man of political imagination, of political vision.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Acuity.

Mr. Givens: We might as well reconcile ourselves to the fact we are going to have an international airport in Pickering. I don’t care whether there is going to be one runway or two runways. There is going to be an international airport. This government works in cahoots with the federal government for this purpose. I am sure you are prepared to admit; I don’t mean you singular, but you plural. So there is going to be an airport there. Why doesn’t the government name it the Frost International Airport?

Why doesn’t it name the parkway belt after him? It is something new. I don’t agree with the government in every respect in what it is trying to do with the parkway belt. I don’t believe that in order to benefit all the people of Ontario the government should confiscate the property rights of even a minority of people by stealing the land from them. When the 10 commandments say: “Thou shalt not steal,” the government simply goes in there and takes away these rights.

But it is a new concept; so name the parkway belt after Frost. The member for Scarborough Centre knows as well as I do, Mr. Speaker, John Robarts went ahead and changed the name of Highway 401 to the Macdonald-Cartier Freeway. I don’t think there is one person, one Ontario resident out of 100 who calls the Macdonald-Cartier Freeway by that name. They call it the 401. When one drives home today and hears the people from the radio stations in the whirlybirds giving the traffic reports, they refer to the 401 and to the 400. They do not refer to the Macdonald-Cartier Highway. They will continue to refer to Highway 400 long after the government will have named it the Frost Highway.

So why should the member choose to make this kind of ignoble gesture to this very honourable man of high stature? I think he is making a big mistake. Pick something new. If the government wants to put his name on a road, pick a new road. The government is building new highways. It is spending many millions of dollars on new public works. Make it a new building. Make it the parkway belt. Make it the airport.

Make it something new and vast and dynamic and gigantic -- something that measures up to the stature of the man. But, for goodness’ sake, don’t pick an old crock of a road that has been refurbished, repotted, refilled and resuscitated over and over again, and say that you are doing honour to this great man, who was honoured on all sides of this House, by naming this recycled road after Leslie Miscampbell Frost.

It almost appears to me that the member wants to dishonour the man by introducing this resolution in the Legislation today. Don’t do this unkind thing to this wonderful man.

Mr. Speaker: This concludes this item of business.

Clerk of the House: The 18th order, House in committee of supply.

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