Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

The House met at 2 o’clock, p.m.

Prayers.

Mr. L. M. Reilly (Eglinton): Mr. Speaker, in the visitors’ gallery today there are some 140 grade 7 and 8 students from the Blessed Sacrament Separate School, accompanied by Carl Matthews, a school trustee and some parents and teachers. I know that you and other members of the Legislature would like to welcome them here today.

Mr. Speaker: I am sure all hon. members will join with me in welcoming two distinguished parliamentary visitors seated under the Speaker’s gallery. We have Mr. Joseph Casey, who is a deputy speaker of the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Nova Scotia, and Mr. Allen Saxon who is the Clerk of the Parliament of New South Wales. We welcome these two gentlemen to our Legislature.

Statements by the ministry.

OHC LAND PURCHASES

Hon. D. R. Irvine (Minister of Housing): Mr. Speaker, last Friday a number of questions were posed regarding the purchase of land in Sudbury by Ontario Housing Corp. They arose out of an article in the Toronto Star which, in my opinion, has to be one of the truly great non-stories of all time.

Mr. J. A. Renwick (Riverdale): The minister made up his mind about this before he even read the story.

Mr. S. Lewis (Scarborough West): Isn’t it enough that the government has destroyed the Globe and Mail? Does it have to do it to the Star now?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: The first purchase has to do with some 21 acres in the city of Sudbury for which OHC paid $1,300 an acre, or a total of $27,235. The innuendo is that the land was sold by someone who supports the Progressive Conservative Party and therefore the price must be too high, that the whole thing occurred in a two-week period, and there was an unexplainable delay in bringing the land to market.

I would like to point out to the members the land had been offered on Sept 19, 1967, at over $2,000 an acre, and was under discussion for more than a 10-month period. The sale did not magically occur in a two-week period. The appraisal, which was received on Jan. 22, 1968, a full six months before OHC purchased the land, not only indicated OHC was paying a fair price for the property but that the corporation was getting the best land in the parcel.

Mr. R. F. Nixon (Leader of the Opposition): Well, that is what happened in South Milton.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Order.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: There was a $4 million profit.

Mr. Renwick: Why didn’t the minister go down to Chicago and buy it himself?

Mr. A. J. Roy (Ottawa East): Any price is a fair price for this government.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: The five acres which were later sold to Headway Corp. were not part of the 32 acres offered.

Mr. Lewis: Headway Corp.? What a reverberation from the past that is.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Headway Corp., yes.

An hon. member: Headway? Who’s Headway?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Although OHC’s Home Ownership Made Easy plan only began in August, 1967 -- I might say with a start-up staff of about 12 people -- just six weeks before this land was offered to the corporation, I do not feel there was any undue delay in starting work on the property. OHC purchased the land in question on July 29, 1968; registered the land the next month; began draft plans in September; engaged our engineer in July, 1969; obtained draft plan approval in September, 1969; closed our servicing tenders in August, 1970; and began installation that November.

The real delay occurred in the servicing of the parcel. When the tender for this work was issued, full soil test information was available to all tenderers. I would say more, but the non-performance of the servicing contractor in the first instance is currently a matter of litigation between OHC and this firm.

Another firm completed the servicing and, in July, 1973, a building call was issued. No builders responded to the call, which might be due, in part, to the very obvious fact that we all know there was a rising vacancy rate in Sudbury at that time; a very definite rise in vacancy rates.

In May, 1974, another call was issued and again no builders responded. In 1974, the vacancy rate was still very high at 9.2 per cent.

Mr. R. Haggerty (Welland South): It’s too high.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: A new call closed April 15, 1975, with three builders responding to the call. The OHC board of directors approved the prices from two builders May 21, 1975, and construction will commence shortly Prices received are within the target prices established -- $22,500 for three-bedrooms and $23,500 for four-bedrooms.

When the original 657 purchases by OHC were tabled, this parcel was overlooked because the file for this purchase was with our legal counsel for the lawsuit. When this was discovered, the list was reviewed and certain minor corrections and 79 new listings were added and tabled last week.

Mr. Lewis: Seventy-nine new listings? Quite a busy law firm he has.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: And there may be more, Mr. Speaker.

An hon. member: Like the LCBO.

Mr. Lewis: How many legal suits has he got going on at one time?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: The other two parcels of land mentioned in the news story were sold to builders who were later successful in OHC public calls for proposals. One is in the area of the OHC land purchase for HOME lots and the other is not. Under the proposal call technique the builder supplies both land and building. It is not necessary for him to be the registered owner of the land. He can control it by option. In considering proposals, land and buildings are looked on as one for a total price, and appraisals are made on a per unit basis, that is, if it is an apartment, on a per apartment cost basis.

The first of the proposal calls mentioned in the story was submitted by Headway Corp. Ltd. to OHC in 1969, as part of a family rental housing call for 300 units. Headway owned one acre, optioned five acres from Eugene Vannier and submitted the six acres in a 106-townhouse proposal. Having been awarded the contract, Headway arranged to have the site transferred directly to OHC for $127,283, the price agreed upon by Headway and Quality.

I would like to point out to the hon. members that the cost of $16,781 per unit for land and buildings was good value, according to the chief appraiser of OHC. Contracts were awarded to the two lowest bidders.

The third parcel of land referred to by the Star was a 2.4-acre Paris St. site, obtained from Quality Homes by Tilzen Holdings Ltd. for $200,000. In response to a 1971 call for 150 senior citizen units, Tilzen submitted a proposal for the construction of 101 apartments. Six proposals were made in response to the call and contracts were awarded to the lowest bidder and to Tilzen.

The lowest bidder’s price was 811,431, which provided 101 low-rise units on 2.5 acres. Tilzen’s unit price was $12,445 for 101 high-rise units on 1.2 acres, plus another 1.2 acres valued at approximately $100,000. The zoning on the Tilzen parcels permitted a greater density. This effectively reduced the per unit price of land and building for the Tilzen offer to $11,445 a unit. The 1.2 acres is being retained by OHC for future development. The corporation paid $217,655 for the total of 2.4 acres. OHC’s senior appraiser also appraised this call.

Mr. Renwick: The minister must have got his facts from this newspaper story; it is perfectly accurate so far.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: As well, both of these proposals were approved by CMHC and this is very important for the hon. members to pay attention to -- because of CMHC’s 50 per cent subsidy. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, both of these proposals were good value for OHC and for the people in that area.

Mr. Roy: Would the minister repeat that, please?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Having regard to all of these facts, I suggest to the House that those who have called for a judicial inquiry are seeking headlines rather than facts.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: They are seeking justification for the minister’s waste of money.

Mr. Lewis: Well said.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: In my judgement, if there is fault in this case it lies not so much with the opposition who have been misled, or with the authors who have laboured mightily to produce little, but rather with the decision of the Star to run an article in the first place.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: None of those papers likes the minister.

Mr. Lewis: This is the big city press he is talking about.

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

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Speaker, I want to reply to the question raised at the same time on Friday by the member for Carleton East (Mr. P. Taylor) when he questioned certain practices in regard to the assembly of Carlsbad Springs.

Mr. Roy: Yes, we will see about that.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: I would like to say, although the hon. member isn’t here today, that all the material which was previously tabled has very clearly outlined what did happen. I would like very briefly to say that OHC, and not the federal government as has been indicated by the Minister of Urban Affairs recently, purchased 5,500 acres with an average price of $1,500 an acre, ranging from a low of $600 per acre to a high of $2,000 per acre. At the same time we had all levels involved -- OHC, NCC, CMHC -- in regard to the price of this particular laud.

Mr. Roy: NCC expropriated it. They didn’t buy it.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: We have the NCC also involved in expropriation. Some of their lands in question are within the parkway system in Ottawa. The prices vary, as I understand it, from $400 to $1,600 maximum per acre. They are presently in control of somewhere around 4,000 acres which surround our assembly of 5,500 acres. The member for Carleton East, very obviously, coming from the area has absolutely no idea of what’s going on and should have made himself aware of the facts.

Hon. S. B. Handleman (Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations): He doesn’t know where the riding is.

Mr. Roy: Keep the blindfolds on.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Oral questions. The hon. Leader of the Opposition.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, since undoubtedly there will be questions on the matter of the inspection of meat, is the minister prepared to make a statement before we get into that matter, in response to some of the developments over the weekend? No? Okay.

Mr. D. C. MacDonald (York South): He’d better correct what he said last week anyway, that there is nothing wrong.

Mr. Lewis: Did the minister inadvertently mislead the House last week?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. Leader of the Opposition with his questions.

OHC LAND PURCHASES

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I would like to put a question to the Minister of Housing in response to his statement. Can he tell me if the Conservative Party still maintains its offices in the premises of Eugene Vannier in Sudbury?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Speaker, I haven’t the faintest idea.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Supplementary: Wouldn’t the minister think, even with the response he has given here today -- which admits that information tabled in this House in response to the question was incomplete and in fact misleading since the Vannier dealings were not included -- that since, over the past number of months, in a number of land deals in this province it has been indicated that Conservatives received favourable consideration on decisions, and profits that were unconscionable even though they were based on evaluations that had come to the government from a number of sources; is it not time for a full review of the function of Ontario Housing Corp., with even an establishment of the concept that it’s time the Ministry of Housing took over those functions, and that the Ontario Housing Corp. has outlived its usefulness because it is not prepared to do business in public?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Speaker, in response to the hon. Leader of the Opposition, one thing I should make awfully clear is that day by day he keeps on harping about the past --

Mr. R. F. Ruston (Essex-Kent): The election isn’t in the past.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: -- and it is going to be much more difficult for this government to have anyone who isn’t a Conservative -- he is driving people right into our party, which we enjoy very much. From day to day there is nothing wrong with the Conservative Party doing business with a Conservative.

Mr. Lewis: This is quite a novel reply.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: If there is a profit that has been made, I take no exception to that fact, but if he keeps on harping --

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Let me keep on.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: -- the hon. Leader of the Opposition will find out that his party’s support is going to go down the drain.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Supplementary: Just as a matter of clarification, is the minister implying that because the government provides special favours to people who are Conservatives in the community that more people are going to become Conservatives? Surely that’s what he is saying, and we are simply drawing this to public attention, and that’s what’s going to finish his party because the taxpayers won’t stand for it.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Speaker, again we have a typical example of a statement being taken out of context. The hon. Leader of the Opposition knows full well I didn’t say that.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: He knows that full well, and the record stands corrected. We do not make special exceptions for Conservatives. All I said was the way he acts will make more people become Conservatives.

Mr. E. R. Good (Waterloo North): Only if they have land.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: I’ll worry about that.

Mr. Good: The minister had a hard time making it.

Mr. Roy: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: I would like to ask the minister about the land purchases by Ontario Housing in Carlsbad Springs in Gloucester township and his comments about them this afternoon --

Hon. J. R. Rhodes (Minister of Transportation and Communications): That is not a supplementary question.

Hon. W. A. Stewart (Minister of Agriculture and Food): No, it isn’t.

Mr. Roy: Is the minister aware of the fact that because Ontario Housing paid the amounts of money it did for the land down there --

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: That is not a supplementary question.

Mr. MacDonald: He didn’t hear the statement.

Mr. Roy: -- it’s causing the NCC great problems in the sense that they’re expropriating in that area and the owners are relying on the OHC purchases, which are distorting land values there? Is the minister aware of that?

Mr. Good: They’ve done that all over the province.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: I really can’t control what the NCC does; nor can I control what the Minister of Urban Affairs does.

Mr. T. P. Reid (Rainy River): The minister has no control over OHC either.

Mr. Ruston: He has no control over OHC. Why doesn’t he admit it?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: The only thing I can say is this: OHC -- the government of Ontario -- bought certain lands for development which, in our opinion, should start much later than this year or next year. The hon. gentleman, as the local member, has had the opportunity, I imagine, to read what the hon. minister, Mr. Danson, has said --

Mr. Roy: It took eight months to get information out of the minister’s ministry.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Danson has stated his ideas as to how a city should be proceeded with. I want to say right now, for the record, that the government of Ontario very much wants to work with the regional municipality of Ottawa-Carleton and with the area municipalities, and not against them -- and that is what Mr. Danson has been doing --

Mr. Roy: Answer the question.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Whether or not we bought the land before NCC got into the action, that’s up to them. NCC can do whatever they want to, as far as I’m concerned.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Who started it all?

An hon. member: The government started it.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: What about the green belt?

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. member for Wentworth has the opportunity to ask a supplementary.

Mr. I. Deans (Wentworth): Given that there’s a real concern that Ontario Housing Corp. has been complicit in the whole land cost spiral, and given that over the next number of months, if not years, there are going to be a number of isolated incidents such as the one just raised with regard to Sudbury coming before the public, wouldn’t it makes more sense to refer the land purchases of Ontario Housing Corp. since the inception of the home ownership programme, to the standing committee of the Legislature that deals with these matters in order that we can, firstly, see the procedures used by Ontario Housing Corp. and, secondly, have access to the appraisals that were actually undertaken and by whom, and clear up once and for all the role of Ontario Housing Corp. in forcing up land costs by its purchases?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Wentworth apparently is not very well versed with the opinions of some members of his party. I happened to have the opportunity the other night to be speaking at the same time as one of his colleagues, at which time his colleague said, “The government of Ontario should purchase all land for housing development.”

Mr. Deans: What’s that got to do with what I asked?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: What we’re saying today is that we have tabled a list of the lands that have been purchased by OHC --

Mr. Lewis: The minister is updating it all the time.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: We have updated it. There may be other lands that we have missed -- I’m not denying that.

Mr. Lewis: Yes, 79 oversights in one ministry; that’s not bad.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: But there are a lot of purchases too --

Mr. Lewis: Sure.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: The point the hon. member fails to recognize is that OHC has done a lot of work, and a lot of good work; and we are not in any way making the price of land go up. We are controlling the price of land --

Mr. Deans: OHC is playing the same game as the speculator does.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: -- and we are very much accepted in the municipalities where we have purchased land, and I was asked as recently as Saturday to proceed with HOME developments and other developments in many municipalities.

The hon. members opposite forget or fail to understand that our financing is only supplied to us in a limited amount this year for the development of HOME land. We have acquired many lands in the past and we’ll acquire again as soon as we have adequate financing.

There’s absolutely no need for any committee. If I thought there was, I would certainly say so. But there is no need for any committee to look into the procedures of OHC in the past. We’ve tabled the list of purchases. If you wish, I’ll table today the appraisals for Sudbury; I’ll be happy to do it if that will help them out in any way. I would ask this information be tabled, please.

Mr. MacDonald: That’s what the Minister of Agriculture and Food said last week about tainted meat, and he was wrong.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: There is no need for it.

Mr. Deans: Let the minister table it if he will, I don’t mind; but that’s not what I asked him.

Mr. Speaker: A supplementary from the member for St. George.

Mrs. M. Campbell (St. George): In view of all the questions which have been raised with reference to OHC, in view of the minister’s position that OHC really has nothing to hide, would it not be proper and advisable at this time, not only to table the information which he is tabling now, but to table the minutes of OHC so that they could be considered along with these transactions?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Speaker, I say no. The member for St. George has asked this question before. I just don’t think it’s relevant whatsoever.

Mrs. Campbell: What has the minister got to hide?

Mr. R. F. Nixon: He should have tabled the minutes.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: The history and the background of the OHC is one of which every member of this House should be very proud. They should be very proud of it.

Mr. Lewis: Then table the minutes.

Mr. M. Cassidy (Ottawa Centre): Table the minutes, then we’ll know.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: When were the minutes of OHC ever tabled before?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: As I said before, why don’t we get together and try to build homes rather than look back at something which happened six, seven, eight or 10 years ago. It’s a lot of nonsense.

Mr. Cassidy: The minister is suppressing the information.

Mr. Speaker: One final supplementary from the member for Scarborough West.

Mr. Lewis: If I understand the minister’s statement today, he may disagree with the tone of the Star’s story but he does not disagree with a single fact. Therefore, the obvious extension of his statement today is that the profits from the public purse tendered to these people, whatever their politics, were clearly unconscionable in the period of time in which the land was held, and that is what is critical for the behaviour of the Ontario Housing Corp., because then it acts as a speculative adjunct in the Sudbury basin. How can the minister allow the corporation to continue to return those kinds of profits when he has admitted all the facts and figures in his statement today? In fact, he hasn’t altered the substance of the article one jot.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Speaker, the leader of the NDP should look at the statement a little bit more closely.

Mr. Lewis: I’ll read it again.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: All right, read it again. OHC bought one parcel only for approximately $27,000. OHC received two proposal calls which produced housing at a price which no one can produce in any other part of Metropolitan Toronto. Agreed?

Mr. Lewis: Of course.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: All right. Now the purpose of OHC is to have units on the market at an affordable price. In my opinion, this is what has happened.

Mr. Lewis: Regardless of the cost?

Mr. Cassidy: This is Sudbury, not Toronto.

Mr. Deans: Even though the minister could produce them for more?

Mr. Lewis: The minister paid $1,000 more than he should have paid.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: The OHC was delayed -- and this is the point which I want to bring out again clearly -- in bringing these units on the market because of the failure of a contractor to provide the servicing.

Mr. Lewis: I understand that.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: The member understands that but some people didn’t. I want to make sure the hon. member understands it.

Mr. Lewis: It’s all here. It’s in the story.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: The delay was not because of OHC. We have got units which are certainly justifiable and units which the member cannot argue against.

Mr. MacDonald: That’s not the point. It could have been less.

Mr. M. C. Germa (Sudbury): My mother-in-law won’t understand it.

Mr. Renwick: That’s not the point.

Mr. Lewis: The minister threw away public money and there was no need.

Mr. Speaker: The Leader of the Opposition.

SALE OF TAINTED MEAT

Mr. R. F. Nixon: I have a question of the Minister of Agriculture and Food. In view of his statements latterly, last week, and the additional information that was made available through the press over the weekend, is he not now in a position to account to the House for the signal failure in the action of his ministry and the inspectors responsible to him, and for his lack of adequate communication with the Ministry of Health and the other authorities in this matter of the sale of tainted meat in this province? What has he got to say about the charges that, in fact, this ring has been in operation for four years and growing in strength in its involvement in sales in the community? Does he not see it as his responsibility, following on the situation which many of us remember from 1962, when this matter first arose in the House?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Mr. Speaker, it’s a matter of very grave concern. There is no question of that at all and I’ve never suggested that it wasn’t. I am concerned about the stories in the press, and I have all three of them here on my desk right now. We have checked them all out. Regarding the story in the Sunday Sun that is reported to have been told by a former member of the Ontario Humane Society, charges were laid by the Humane Society. I understand that one of them was dismissed and another one registered a conviction on another farm. There is no evidence, other than the opinion, as expressed in today’s Toronto Star, by Mr. Koegler, who I assume was the person referred to in the Sunday Sun article --

Mr. M. Shulman (High Park): No, he wasn’t.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: He wasn’t? Maybe he wasn’t; all I know is that Koegler is the fellow who is quoted in the Toronto Star today, and he said, “There are lots of buyers buying meat in Ontario presumably for dog food. In my opinion, a lot of that is going for human consumption.” Our inspectors are checking with Mr. Koegler this afternoon to determine what causes him to have that opinion. We are following up on that, because that is the first evidence we have had.

I want to assure the House, Mr. Speaker, through you if I may, that in meetings I had last Wednesday with our chief inspector, our special investigation officers -- and this morning I met, all forenoon, with the three top special investigators of my ministry; these are over and above the inspectors -- they categorically stated to me that on not one occasion did they ever find meat in one of our dead-animal disposal places that was not properly denatured when it was ready to be moved out; nor have they ever found meat in transit that was not properly denatured and in boxes showing the stamp, “unfit for human consumption.” There is no reason why that meat shouldn’t be sold in Quebec, or anywhere else for that matter, to those kinds of outlets. There’s no reason for that at all.

What meat comes back into Ontario? Any meat that comes into Ontario from outside should and must bear the stamp of the Canada Department of Agriculture health of animals branch. That’s a federal responsibility. We can’t sell Ontario-inspected meat from our slaughter houses in Ontario under provincial meat inspection, even though it has the same standard of health both ante-mortem and post-mortem, and the same wholesomeness for human consumption. That stamp is not legal in other provinces, nor is any other province’s stamp legal in Ontario.

Any charge that may have been laid in Ontario for uninspected meat having been sold doesn’t necessarily say that that was meat from fallen or dead animals. It was uninspected meat. There has been, to my knowledge, no proof that it came from sources outside of Ontario where this type of meat was being processed and supposedly shipped back here.

The only thing we have to go on -- and this is a most distressing thing to us in our ministry, to the Ministry of Health and, I’m sure, to everyone here -- is the fact that there are statements being made in the crime probe inquiry in Quebec, which are as yet unsubstantiated in any respect, Mr. Speaker. They are statements only. There is no proof of them to my knowledge. I have asked our people if they have proof of those things, and they have not. There are suspicions, yes. According to what has been in the press, there are suspicions. But where is the proof? We simply haven’t got it.

I can tell you that we are following up in every respect. All the county or the district health units across the province have been alerted to get right on top of anything of which they are the slightest bit suspicious. We want to make sure that none of this kind of thing is going on. I have no reason to believe that my position is any different today than it was last week.

We’re following up on the charges that have been made in the press. They are alarming. Certainly the statement by one who was supposed to have been with the Humane Society for some 24 years is quite an alarming statement to be made. I must say, Mr. Speaker, that if that gentleman has information that leads him to make such a statement to the public today, then I think we should be hearing that statement ourselves. Our people will be talking to him this afternoon if he can be found.

Mr. Speaker: A supplementary from the member for York South.

Mr. MacDonald: I have a double-barrelled supplementary question. Why did the minister not inform the House at the beginning of last week that his ministry had observers at the inquiry in Montreal? Why did we have to learn that only from his colleague, the Provincial Secretary for Resources Development (Mr. Grossman) on Friday?

Secondly, if the minister has such close co-operation with Quebec in dealing with this kind of a situation, why were we not informed by his colleagues in Quebec, instead of having to read about it in the newspapers, when they have witnesses who are making this kind of statement now?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Mr. Speaker, quite frankly, I have no answer for the first part of the question. It never occurred to me that we should advise the House that our people were there. There is certainly nothing ulterior about it whatever. Our people have been in on the discussions. I believe they were in on some of the closed sessions, the closed in-camera sessions. They have been there. In fact, they have been going out to bring in some of the witnesses who have been called before the inquiry. There is certainly nothing secret about that whatever. We have a bilingual OPP officer there at the hearings right now.

I think there has been some misinformation, or I should say misunderstanding perhaps. I read Friday’s Hansard where my colleague, the minister on my left, suggested there had been the best of co-operation with officials in Quebec. I think that is somewhat out of context.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Does the minister mean there has not been the best co-operation?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: We have provided the Quebec people with all the information that we could find since 1969.

Mr. MacDonald: And they didn’t do the reverse?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: No, they did not. They did not; in fact there have been many disappointing instances of trying to get to the bottom of this at that level. We have not had that kind of co-operation and this is most distressing.

An hon. member: Supplementary.

Mr. Roy: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Well have the one from Ottawa East first of all.

Mr. Roy: I wonder if I might ask a question of the minister, because of the great concern of people in the Ottawa area -- in eastern Ontario generally. The minister talks about statements that are unsubstantiated statements emanating from the inquiry down there. I would ask the minister, in view of the statements made at the inquiry, not only by witnesses, but in fact by their chief counsel, that this practice goes on in the Ottawa area and parts of eastern Ontario, is the minister prepared to say here today that that is not so and that he has no evidence whatsoever that any of this meat is coming back into Ontario, or that this type of meat is in fact being sold in Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Well, all it is, Mr. Speaker, is rumours emanating from this inquiry. I can well understand --

Mr. Roy: Rumour? It is not rumour.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Well, all right, what do you call it?

Mr. Roy: It is evidence under oath.

Mr. MacDonald: The minister is painting himself into a corner.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: We just simply don’t have the kind of proof that would in any way allow us to lay charges. I can tell the members that those statements that have been made are being followed up to the nth degree, both by the local county health people and by the Ministry of Health officials urging that every consideration be given to probing these charges, and I can assure the members that our people will be co-operating, are co-operating and have co-operated with the Ontario Provincial Police, with the RCMP, and with the Ministry of Consumer and Corporate Affairs of the government of Canada.

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

Mr. Shulman: Was the ministry not informed last summer of the police investigation that took place right here in Ontario of the Luciano Wholesale Meat Co., of 2515 Finch Ave. which was distributing horse-meat to a series of retail outlets right across the city? And is the minister not aware that the chief owner of that firm, one Antonio Bertucci, has continued to sell meat in this province, in this city, since the $500 slap on the wrist the ministry gave him last year?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Mr. Speaker, our inspectors were a part of the investigation that led to that conviction.

Mr. MacDonald: But the $500 was a licence to continue the violation of the law.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: They worked with the RCMP; they worked with the Ontario Provincial Police and with the city police to get the conviction. Now, my friend suggests that the operation is still continuing.

Mr. Shulman: Yes.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: We are very interested in that statement and I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, that we will be checking it out because quite frankly my friend has no proof, to my knowledge, that that is going on today. And if he has evidence let him lay it on the table and I can tell you that the charges will be laid immediately, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Lewis: Come on now, that is the minister’s job.

Mr. MacDonald: He wants everybody else to do his job.

An hon. member: Why the hell is he paying his inspectors?

Mr. Shulman: Supplementary: Why did the ministry only charge one retail outlet? They know of the whole long list of them, why did they charge only one, the one in Etobicoke?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Well, as I understand it, there were two charged.

Mr. Shulman: One.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: There were two charged.

Mr. Shulman: One, there was one against the wholesale outlet and one against the retail outlet.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: There were two convictions. As I recall it two convictions were registered. There were two convictions for selling horsemeat.

Mr. Shulman: What about the other 23? Why didn’t the minister charge them?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: I can’t answer that question; I don’t know. I think you have to have proof that this was being sold.

Mr. MacDonald: Pretty weak-kneed enforcement by the minister’s law officers whom he has such confidence in.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: But it’s one thing for my hon. friend to stand there and make charges about things having happened without any particular evidence to back them up.

Mr. Shulman: I asked why the minister didn’t charge them.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: There is no proof, to my knowledge, of what the member is saying. Sure he can make a statement --

Mr. Roy: Well, that is proof. That’s evidence; that’s proof.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: -- but proof, that’s the thing -- and that’s what our inspectors are trying to find. And I can tell the member they are on that very thing this very day --

Mr. Roy: They accept the minister’s word in court all the time. The Minister of Transportation and Communications can tell him.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: -- to try to find out whether that is right or not.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Thank God the member for Ottawa East will never defend me, if that’s his idea of law.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: I can say that there is nothing illegal about selling horsemeat. There is a licensed outlet in Toronto for selling horsemeat. The problem, Mr. Speaker, is that horsemeat should not be sold where other meat is being sold --

Mr. Shulman: Pepperoni.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: -- that’s the problem.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Huron-Bruce with a supplementary.

Mr. M. Gaunt (Huron-Bruce): Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the minister. Obviously the ministry officials and others are conducting a very intensive investigation into this whole matter. When does the minister anticipate on getting a report?

Mr. Roy: Denying it.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: We will lay charges as soon as any sufficient evidence is found on which to lay charges. But there has to be some substantiation of the evidence before there is any way you can lay a charge. I can tell the member quite frankly, one can’t just say that so-and-so is doing something wrong; one has to have some evidence to support it. I can tell the House we would like to have that evidence if, in fact, there is any indication that such trade practices are going on. We simply don’t have that evidence.

Mr. Speaker: The member for High Park with a final supplementary on this.

Mr. Shulman: Has the minister not seen the police statements that their key witness, one Skolodny, refused to give the evidence which would have allowed the minister to lay the appropriate charges -- because he was told if he did, he would be killed. Has the minister got that police statement?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: No, I haven’t got that statement. I have the statement of the member for High Park.

Mr. Lewis: The minister is a very sanguine fellow.

Mr. MacDonald: He has been asleep at the switch.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: I don’t have that statement. My officials may have it.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. MacDonald: How can he get a conviction on the charge? He has not even looked at the police statements in relation to the charge.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: The police have the statement. Am I supposed to read every police record of every criminal in this province?

Mr. Lewis: Yes, he is supposed to.

Mr. MacDonald: His staff. He is speaking on behalf of his staff.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Of course, my staff did, and have that information. They have a large file on our friend down there at police headquarters.

Mr. MacDonald: It has been given to them.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: So there it is.

Mr. Lewis: I’d read every police statement given to me with fascination.

Mr. Speaker: Any further questions? The Leader of the Opposition.

GRAVEL EXTRACTION PERMIT IN HALDIMAND-NORFOLK REGION

Mr. R. F. Nixon: We can’t get any further, eh? Okay. I think maybe we should ask more questions since the minister has been so mild and reasonable.

I would like to put a question of the Minister of the Environment. Does he recall approving a gravel extraction permit for a property held in the government property in the so-called new town site in the former Townsend township? Is he aware of the extraction of gravel there? I ask this in the absence of his colleague because it is our understanding it was an Environment Ministry approval which permitted the extraction of that gravel even though it has not been approved by any of the local authorities or by the Ministry of Natural Resources.

Hon. W. Newman (Minister of the Environment): Mr. Speaker, I think in fairness that question should properly go to the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Bernier). I’m fully aware of the situation because it is in my area, but I think the question should go to the Minister of Natural Resources.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: A supplementary: What does the minister mean it is in his area? His area of jurisdiction?

Hon. W. Newman: In the great riding of Ontario South, sir.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: This is in the township of Townsend in the Haldimand-Norfolk regional area.

Hon. W. Newman: I thought the member was talking about the other one.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Since the operation is going forward not by the legislation by the Ministry of Natural Resources but because of an environmental permit, would he be good enough to inquire into such a permit in this case? It’s the Anderson property in the former Townsend township. I believe this ministry is directly involved. Would the minister do so?

Hon. W. Newman: Mr. Speaker, the only way we would be involved is by making recommendations to the Minister of Natural Resources. If the member likes, I would be glad to let the Minister of Natural Resources know he asked the question.

Mr. Speaker: Any further questions? The member for Scarborough West.

SALE OF TAINTED MEAT

Mr. Lewis: Yes, I want to ask the Minister of Agriculture and Food for a moment, a point of clarification. Do I understand that what he is saying is that none of the evidence and the material which has come out in the Quebec hearings has been of a kind which would allow him to document anything or substantiate claims of tainted meat moving back and forth across the border; and that the Quebec police have not given him any documentation which would underpin the kind of evidence given on oath in the inquiry in Montreal; and that therefore, until he read the specific charges in today’s Star, he had no specific routes to examine or investigate?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: No, I think there is some misunderstanding there, Mr. Speaker. My staff and I were fully aware that meat from dead-animal disposal and collection plants in Ontario was moving across the border into Quebec. No problem here; they have every right to sell it wherever they wish to sell it, provided it’s denatured and in boxes stamped, “Unfit for human consumption.”

The problem, according to the statements which have been coming out of the hearing, is that that meat had been processed in Quebec and has come back in. That’s the thing that concerns all of us, but to my knowledge, we have no facts to go on as to whether it actually came in or where it was being sold.

The charge mentioned by the member for High Park pertained to horsemeat in processed food products. The charges were laid under the federal Food and Drug Act by the federal Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs; the Act simply says one cannot do that. That’s against the law. There was nothing to say that that horsemeat was from fallen animals and that tainted meat was used. It was simply a case that this was what happened under the Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs Act. That was the charge that was made.

As far as we are concerned, we are following up on these various things that have come to our attention, but we haven’t got the proof. We would like to have it. Long before this hearing broke in Quebec, we asked for evidence from Quebec of such things coming in here because we wanted to know. We have not had that kind of information provided to us.

Mr. Lewis: So there is no evidence available to the Minister of Agriculture and Food, or I take it to the Attorney General (Mr. Clement) which would give underpinning or specific documentation to the assertions made under oath in the Montreal hearings. The ministry has none of that?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: That is my understanding, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Roy: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: In view of the statements made by the chief prosecutor and some of the comments made by the presiding judge, have ministry people been in touch with the commission? I am not talking about contact with the witnesses, I am talking about whether the ministry has been in touch with the chief prosecutor and the judge of the commission to forward to the minister any evidence they may have of this meat coming into Ontario so that he might be in a position to have evidence and then take appropriate action. Has the ministry done that?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: I can’t answer, specifically, as to whether we have or we haven’t. I haven’t got that information. Our people were there, they were fully aware of it; but as yet we have no evidence to support the claims that were made.

Mr. Roy: But the ministry should as there is a lot of concern.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Oh yes, I know; we asked for this information long before the hearing ever took place. My hon. friend ought to have listened a moment ago to hear me say that.

Mr. MacDonald: But once the charges were made the ministry should have asked for it again.

Mr. Lewis: He should be getting chapter and verse.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: We had, in fact, assisted in providing the people conducting the inquiry with the information on characters of whom we were suspicious in Quebec. In fact our people went out and brought them into the hearing, the Quebec hearing. That’s the kind of co-operation we are trying to provide. We want the information.

Mr. Roy: The minister should go right to the top.

Mr. MacDonald: Why hasn’t he asked for it again?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: If we can get it, we’d like to have it. So far, these are unsubstantiated statements being made in that court of criminal inquiry.

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

RAYBESTOS-MANHATTAN STRIKE

Mr. Lewis: I have questions of the Minister of Labour. Can he give the Legislature a status report on the strike at Raybestos-Manhattan (Canada) Ltd. in Peterborough?

Hon. J. P. MacBeth (Minister of Labour): Mr. Speaker, my information on the Raybestos-Manhattan (Canada) Ltd. strike in Peterborough is simply that it started on May 15, that there are 110 employees involved and that a conciliator from my ministry met with them on May 14. The further note I have here is that a check will be made next week; and next week is this week as this was prepared for me last week.

I understand, however, that the leader of the NDP has been to Peterborough and into the plant and has come up with some figures in regard to readings on asbestos. We don’t have that information; at least the figures he has quoted are not the figures we have. I have a little statement if the member would like me to read it, or I can hand it to him.

Mr. Lewis: He has a little statement?

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: If he has some figures, we’d like to have those figures and to know where they came from. I can give him a statement about information on it, if he wishes it.

Mr. Lewis: Go ahead. Can this be taken as a ministerial statement?

Mr. Speaker: We’ll judge on the length of it, if it’s longer than a normal answer.

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: I am not prepared to give it as a statement. The member can ask me questions.

Mr. Lewis: I’ll ask him a series of questions and he can give me the statement in reply, because I used no figures. I only got them.

Let me put it in this context: Does the minister know that one of the primary contract items in dispute is the question of the industrial health and safety of the workers? Can he tell the Legislature very quickly, today or another day, why the workers should have to negotiate their own safety in a contract rather than having it guaranteed by law; why there are no dust counts currently posted in that plant; why the workers in the plant have not had access to them; why the last dust counts to which they have had access, in February, April and May of 1974, list areas of the plant with dust counts as high as -- and this is the first time I’ve seen them -- 10.6, 15.3, 13.5, 17.8 and 22.6; and the dust collectors levels were 36 and 30 -- higher than the levels which caused the closing down of the Johns-Manville Mine in Reeves township? Can the minister explain why the workers are unable to accompany inspections through the plant? Why have the directives which the Ministry of Labour set down apparently not been followed? Can he give us a report on the relationships with the Workmen’s Compensation Board, because there appear to be on file five deaths in the last 14 years and another five which the employees feel are also directly related to asbestos or asbestos-induced diseases?

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: Mr. Speaker, I have the answers to some of those questions but in view of the number of questions I think it would be wise to take that as notice and put the answer together.

Mr. Lewis: Thank you; I would appreciate that.

APARTMENT CONSTRUCTION VOLUME

Mr. Lewis: A question of the Minister of Housing, if I can: Is the minister aware that the level of apartment construction in the last year in Hamilton, Kitchener, Ottawa, St. Catharines and Thunder Bay, among other communities, is below the level of condominium starts; and that in Metropolitan Toronto for the first three months of 1975 over 1974, apartment starts are down by some 69 per cent? In light of what is happening to apartment building in Ontario, can he make a change in the law on the controversy of adult-only buildings?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Speaker, I am well aware of the figures the leader of the NDP has mentioned. As the Minister of Housing I do follow what comes out from time to time.

Mr. MacDonald: I don’t know why the minister is so optimistic all the time if those are the figures.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Like about every day, many times during the day.

Mr. Roy: That’s not obvious by what the minister is doing here.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Therefore, I know exactly what is happening in the construction industry.

We know there are certain problems in regard to buildings being converted to adult-only. There was a problem last fall with the conversion of rental accommodation to condominiums. It is not a problem now. That problem has been resolved.

Mr. Lewis: Yes, they have all converted.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: I think the problem of adult-conversion will probably not be one of major proportions. It is under consideration by my ministry; we are looking at it very closely.

Mr. Cassidy: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Since more than half the apartments available in the market in Toronto today are for adults only and since buildings with as many as 100 families with children are gradually but inexorably being converted to adults-only by the termination of leases, does the minister not consider there is a problem for families with children getting rented accommodation?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Speaker, I think I indicated to the leader of the NDP that I know there is a problem. Again we have to say supply is the answer to all of it and we are trying to do that. After I come back from Ottawa on June 10 maybe we will have a better indication as to what the supply will be.

Mr. Roy: Do they still talk to the minister down there?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Hopefully Mr. Danson will have encouraging news for us.

Mr. Cassidy: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. There are many other members who wish to ask questions and I think we should --

Mr. Lewis: How much time have we left?

Mr. Speaker: We have eight minutes.

Mr. Lewis: I have no further questions.

Mr. Roy: I have a question.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Ottawa East with a new question.

ALUMINUM WIRING

Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask a question of the Minister of Energy. In view of Hydro’s statements last week on the present CSA standards on wiring components where aluminum conductors are used and the change of approach in that, can the minister say if he has any plans or if he has any directives to the thousands of homeowners who have houses with aluminum wiring components and so on installed over the last five or six years; or to apartment owners and apartment tenants? What does he say to these people when Hydro brings out a statement like this? How does he reassure all these people?

Hon. D. R. Timbrell (Minister of Energy): Mr. Speaker, if the member would read the whole report -- if he doesn’t have it I will make sure he gets it -- he would know that in point of fact Hydro, after consultation with people like the fire marshal’s office of Ontario and various people in the manufacturing and installation end of the thing, recognizes that it doesn’t see a great danger to life and limb.

There has been a considerable amount of discussion between Hydro, my ministry, the Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations and the federal Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. I believe my colleague, as recently as a week or two ago, has written again to the hon. André Ouellet suggesting more work be done by them with the GSA and suggesting that perhaps further studies could be carried out by the Ontario Research Foundation --

Mr. Haggerty: Sure it has.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: -- but there is not, based on what material has been gleaned to date, a danger.

Mr. Roy: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: I was not referring to the danger, because what the minister is saying basically is that he has no hard evidence that it causes a fire. But is the minister not aware that, for instance, the NRC in Ottawa apparently is in a position to say that the aluminum wiring with the present components will fail in a much shorter duration of time than copper wiring, which will cause additional expenses to the home owners, apartment owners and so on? What do you tell these people? Hydro and GSA have been encouraging the use of aluminum wiring for a short-term saving when, in fact, it is going to be a long-term headache for all of the people who have these components?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, I don’t think it is fair to say that Hydro has encouraged the use. They have certainly monitored the use. They have certainly, over the years, laid down some pretty clear guidelines on the proper use and installation. I am not sure which report the member is quoting from, but obviously it is out of context. I would think --

Mr. Roy: Out of context? The minister is pretty irresponsible.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Well, obviously, the member is not quoting the whole report; I am not trying to be pejorative. I am just saying that he is obviously not quoting the whole report. I would think that report would include the fact that, if not properly installed --

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: -- the chances of failure around the receptacles is greater. But I think it is patently unfair to suggest or state, as the member has, that Hydro and the CSA have encouraged this. Aluminum wiring has been used for decades. The problem has been that over the last few years, with the extremely great increases in the cost of copper, that in the construction industry they have tended more and more to use aluminum because of its relatively lower cost.

Mr. Speaker: The member for High Park.

SALE OF HORSEMEAT

Mr. Shulman: A question of the Attorney General, Mr. Speaker: Can the Attorney General inform us from his files and reports what the relation is of the Bertucci Brothers, the horsemeat kings, to organized crime?

Hon. J. T. Clement (Provincial Secretary for Justice): Mr. Speaker, if I knew I couldn’t think of a worse place to discuss it than here in the House so that we would make sure that anybody who is involved in any investigation would be properly forewarned. I just say this, that the Ontario Provincial Police are looking into certain matters pertaining to the question of the alleged sale of horsemeat in this province and will report to me shortly on it. I might add that to date we have no information that would indicate from the Ontario Provincial Police or any municipal force that, in fact, the allegations about the sale of tainted meat in this province from Quebec has taken place.

Mr. Shulman: Supplementary: Is the minister not aware of the lengthy file and investigation, and the one conviction of Bertucci?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Yes, I am aware of a lot of things. Mr. Speaker; but I don’t find the member for High Park the treasure box in which to repose it when matters are under investigation as at the present time.

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

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STUDIES

Hon. Mr. Newman: Mr. Speaker, I was asked by the hon. member for Nipissing (Mr. R. S. Smith) if I would request a hearing before the Environmental Hearing Board of the proposal made by Sherman Mine for the expansion of the east pit of its operation in the Temagami area. As I indicated at that time, the matter does not fall under the purview of the Environmental Hearing Board. I am advised that my colleague, the hon. Leo Bernier, the Minister of Natural Resources, has this matter under review. Comments on this proposal are being prepared by my ministry and they will be forwarded to the Ministry of Natural Resources to assist them in making their decision as to whether to lease certain Crown lands, which I understand are necessary in order to proceed with the proposed pit expansion.

Mr. Speaker: The member for St. George.

HYDRO BLOCK

Mrs. Campbell: Yes, my question is to the Minister of Housing: In view of the fact that the minister indicated the other day that the Hydro working committee was in complete approval of the plan in accordance with his statement; in view of the fact that they have not had any consultation on the financing of that block, is the minister prepared at this time to table the agreement reached between his ministry and that of Mr. Danson in Ottawa?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Well, Mr. Speaker, I don’t believe the hon. member understood what I said in my statement.

Mr. MacDonald: He has awful difficulty being understood.

Mr. Deans: There is something wrong. Nobody ever understands him.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: What I said was that the CHMC officials, the city of Toronto, through its non-profit housing corporation, and the Hydro working committee, will get together to bring forward a proposal, along with OHC, which will be suitable to all concerned. We have to proceed to develop whatever may be on the property in the future. We haven’t a definite idea whatsoever as to what will be built. We haven’t got the exact costs. This is something which has to come out in the future.

Mrs. Campbell: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker, if I may: Is the minister prepared to table the agreement which has been reached -- and which he announced had been reached -- with Ottawa on the development of the Hydro block?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Mr. Speaker, I think I have to again point out to the hon. member that the agreement reached was a verbal agreement in principle.

Mr. MacDonald: That’s not worth the paper it’s written on.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: Hopefully the verbal agreement reached by a senior official of CMHC will not be one that will be just turned aside and not fulfilled. I would hope it will be fulfilled. They have given us their undertaking; if the CMHC officials change their minds, I would be very much surprised.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Sandwich-Riverside.

LIQUID WASTE DISPOSAL

Mr. F. A. Burr (Sandwich-Riverside): A question of the Minister of the Environment, Mr. Speaker, regarding the burial of industrial chemical wastes under high pressure in deep holes drilled into the earth; specifically, in the area of Gosfield North township in Essex county: Why are deep abandoned mines not being used for this purpose, with gravity being the only force to consider, rather than a pressure of 1,500 lb or 2,500 lb per sq. in., a procedure which could force the chemicals upwards into the ground water and into the subsoil?

Hon. W. Newman: In answer to that question, Mr. Speaker, my technical experts tell me there is only a certain type of rock formation into which you can put deep-well inorganic liquid waste disposal; and there are only certain areas of the Province of Ontario where this type of rock formation is located. On the question of putting it into mines or abandoned mines, as the member knows, in most abandoned mines there is a certain leakage of water and there could be a leachate escape through eventually into the ground water supply. There is only a certain type of Precambrian rock formation which will take these inorganic liquid wastes.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Peel South with a final question.

Mr. Burr: Mr. Speaker --

Mr. Speaker: No, order please. We will get one final question in.

ODOURS FROM LAKEVIEW SEWAGE PLANT

Mr. R. D. Kennedy (Peel South): Mr. Speaker, a question of the Minister of the Environment: Would the minister advise the present status of the efforts being made to control the offensive odour at the Lakeview sewage plant; and just when we might expect this to be finally cleared away, please?

Hon. W. Newman: We have had a few problems at the Lakeview sewage treatment plant. We had a breakdown about three or four weeks ago and the effluent was pumped into safety lagoons. We now have a new heat exchanger unit in the plant, which we’re working with. At the present time we are dumping in massive doses of chlorine and lime and some other chemical to keep the odour down.

One lagoon, as of last Friday night or Saturday, was pumped dry and it’s being limed down to clean it up. I can assure the member that as quickly as we can get the others pumped back through the plant for treatment, we’ll clean the situation up.

Mr. Speaker: The oral question period has expired.

Petitions.

Presenting reports.

Motions.

Introduction of bills.

Orders of the day.

Clerk of the House: The 28th order, House in committee of supply.

ESTIMATES, MINISTRY OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (CONCLUDED)

Hon. J. T. Clement (Attorney General): Mr. Chairman, when we left this matter the other day, as I recall, we had completed all of the matters in connection with my estimates, save and except for item 5 in vote 1207. The member for Kitchener (Mr. Breithaupt), speaking on behalf of his party, indicated that the member for Windsor-Walkerville might have some questions which could not be completed in the very few minutes we had left on Friday last. Accordingly, the committee rose and the matter was to be dealt with today.

The member for Windsor-Walkerville is in the House and I’m quite prepared to debate with him the matter that he directed his attention to -- namely, the Ontario Municipal Board, being item in vote 1207.

Mr. Chairman: Does the member for Windsor-Walkerville have a question to ask at this time?

On vote 1207:

Mr. B. Newman (Windsor-Walkerville): Mr. Chairman, the question I had intended to ask of the minister on Friday was concerning the Municipal Board’s rejection of the lending programme of the municipality of Windsor. Since then I understand, and I read in the press either on Friday or Saturday, that the Municipal Board had had a second thought and had approved the borrowing wishes of the community.

One of the portions of the Municipal Board’s action which did disturb me to some extent, Mr. Chairman, and to you, Mr. Minister, was the fact that the priorities were being set by the OMB. I think the extent of the borrowing capacity should have been a responsibility of the OMB, but I think if you intend to have municipal input and if you intend to allow the municipality to decide exactly what its priorities should be, I don’t think the OMB should have interfered at all. They could have said to the community: “You can’t borrow any more than $10 million,” say, for the want of a figure, and if the various projects in the municipality fell within that amount, all well and good. But I think the priorities, as to which projects should or should not be developed in the community, should have been left to the community and not to the OMB.

Mr. Chairman: Does the minister have a reply?

Hon. Mr. Clement: No, I don’t really have any reply to that. I perceive the question raised in the mind of the member for Windsor-Walkerville. Insofar as I understand it, he says he can see that the Municipal Board has to keep a municipality within the financial constraints set out in the Act, but the question of priorities within those constraints should really be a matter determined by the local level and not really determined by the Ontario Municipal Board.

With this I make no comment one way or the other. I can appreciate the position that he takes. The OMB, of course, is bound by the provisions of the Ontario Municipal Act as they apply to a municipality, and if they do, in fact, exceed that authority or those guidelines then presumably the municipality which is turned down would appeal by way of petition to cabinet in the event that the OMB exceeded its authority. I’m not familiar with the Windsor situation. I don’t know if it was during the past year or before that, but, I’m sorry, I’m just not familiar with that.

Mr. B. Newman: Mr. Minister, the only reason why I held up your estimates last Friday was because all indications were, as far as we were concerned, that the OMB was dictating to the community which projects that community should or should not proceed with -- and that is absolutely wrong -- but since then it has had second thoughts and has permitted the programmes to go on as originally intended.

I could, Mr. Chairman, read at some length articles in my own local press concerning that, plus a very scathing editorial on the position of OMB with this. I don’t intend to take the time of the House for that. But once again, Mr. Chairman, the OMB was wrong in trying to set priorities for the municipality.

Mr. Chairman: The member for Ottawa Centre.

Mr. M. Cassidy (Ottawa Centre): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman: On item 5?

Mr. Cassidy: On item 5, yes, Mr. Chairman. I haven’t got my notes with me. I didn’t realize that the estimates were about to subside -- but I did have a few comments to make about the Ontario Municipal Board and I wanted to express concern about the way in which the OMB has been working over the last year.

I think I’m probably the only member in the House who regularly sees clippings about the operations of the Ontario Municipal Board and about decisions of the Ontario Municipal Board; these come in to me from newspapers across the province. I don’t understand why I even read them. It seems like an exercise in futility to follow the OMB.

Frankly, I think that we need to reconsider very seriously the role of the OMB. I say that with some trepidation, because it’s just over two years ago that the member for York South (Mr. MacDonald) and myself were on a select committee of this Legislature that was dealing with the Ontario Municipal Board. At that time that select committee gave a qualified but quite strong endorsement to the work that the OMB was carrying out. We proposed a number of means by which the work of the OMB could be strengthened and we reflected the concern that was expressed by municipal people from across the province; they said basically that they would prefer to keep the OMB rather than scrap it.

The fact is that the worst attributes of the OMB are those that have continued to hold sway and that the government is responsible for the failure of the OMB to improve. I see that the minister has got a copy of the report right there. This minister, who is responsible for the OMB, although its workings are more in the area of the Treasurer (Mr. McKeough), may be aware that the process of enunciation of provincial policies to guide the Ontario Municipal Board has never been made clear, that the process of selection of members of the OMB has never been clarified and that the review of the Planning Act or the procedures under which decisions are made before they go to the OMB has never come under review by the government.

The review of the Planning Act is particularly important, because one of the major recommendations of our OMB committee was that there should be a process very clearly laid down in order to ensure that zoning and planning matters had full consideration at the local level. We wanted to try to eliminate, wherever possible, the incessant recourse to the OMB which has been a feature of our municipal life over the past few years.

We felt it was wrong that municipalities would make a decision and that the decision would then almost automatically be appealed to the OMB, which would try to second-guess the local decision. We thought it was wrong that a municipality had no direct recourse against an unfavourable decision by the OMB.

Personally, looking at the decisions of the OMB, I think it is wrong to place that reliance on the Municipal Board in view of the quixotic nature of its decisions. You can’t predict which way it is going to go. It depends a great deal on which commissioner you happen to get. It depends on which side of bed they happen to get out of that morning or whether they had a good flight or a bad flight on their way from Toronto to the place where the hearing happened to be heard.

Over the last month and a half there was a particular example of the OMB abusing its particular responsibilities in the directives it has passed out to local municipalities regarding their capital spending. The OMB, time after time -- the case mentioned from Windsor is only one example; it has happened also in London, in Metro Toronto and in smaller municipalities; I’ve got the list in my office, and I can let the minister have it -- has sent letters around saying that in view of the current inflation and the current severe unemployment situation, they are telling the municipalities to cut their spending, and then they are telling them specifically what items to cut from the capital spending budgets. The cuts are of the order of 25 to 33½ per cent. They are specifically enunciated.

The OMB has not only taken upon itself to suggest to the municipalities that they review their spending plans and find a certain proportion that could be cut, but it has tried to pre-empt the decision of the municipalities as regards what projects should be deferred and which ones should be allowed to carry forward.

In certain cases the projects that have been picked by the OMB are projects which have 100 per cent financing from the provincial and federal governments. They are even projects, such as sewer works and so on, which are being carried forth at the behest and on the orders of a provincial ministry. The grounds for deferral or cancellation of these projects that the OMB has offered do not appear to be the borrowing capacity of the municipalities concerned. They appear to be -- this phrase referring to this reappears -- inflation and the severe unemployment situation.

Now I know of no directive from the government telling the OMB to turn around and tell the municipalities they’ve got to cut their capital spending by a quarter or by a third. I know of no conscious balancing-out within the government of the effect on inflation of additional municipal borrowing, as opposed to the effect, in a recession or in an unemployment situation, of using unused resources in the construction field in order to carry on with municipal spending.

One of the examples that I can recall -- I’m not sure if the member for Windsor-Walkerville mentioned it -- was the E. C. Rowe Expressway in Windsor. I have some grave doubts as to whether that expressway should be continued to be built, but my doubts are not related to the borrowing capacity or the construction capacity of the municipality. They are related to the same problems that expressways cause in every city in every part of the province.

After two years of suspension of work the municipality was told yet again this year to hold off on construction of that expressway, which I understand in their opinion is a much-needed facility. It doesn’t make an awful lot of sense for that kind of project to come to a stop because of the OMB’s intervention, particularly when 75 or 80 per cent of the funding is going to come from the provincial government and the provincial ministry involved had evidently agreed to the funding of that particular project. Now, if 80 per cent of it is okay to spend at a time of inflation and recession as far as the provincial Ministry of Transportation and Communications is concerned, I question the OMB coming into second-guess the municipality, which is going along with provincial approvals from another source.

I want to suggest to the ministry -- then I’ll sit down -- given the fact that the Treasurer is giving absolutely rock bottom priority to the review of the Planning Act, that there is absolutely no concern there. Given the fact that we have waited for two years for that review to take place -- and I think it is a tragedy that our select committee possibly wasn’t asked to continue its work, because we had a pretty good idea of what was needed and we could have come up, in about six months, with a very acceptable draft for reforms to the Planning Act that would have accommodated a lot of the problems we are experiencing now. Given all of that -- given the fact that a couple of study directors or the Planning Act review have been appointed and then gone on to greener pastures and better paid government fobs or whatever -- I would like to suggest to the minister that this minister consider immediate reforms to the Act that affect OMB responsibilities.

I would suggest first that a code for processing or considering matters that are to come before the OMB be considered so that the OMB can, in effect, shake itself free from considering matters where it is clear that there has been full public consultation and consideration before decision by council. Secondly, I would suggest that any OMB decision which runs counter to the decision of council could be overruled by that council upon reconsideration and upon passage by a two-thirds majority of the full council.

In other words, I think that the OMB review may at certain times be desirable or useful as a means of allowing people who didn’t get full consideration to have their points of very considered. I think in certain cases the OMB has done valuable work in protecting minority rights and in bringing minority rights to the fore. But I think the quixotic nature of OMB decisions needs to be taken into account. I think that the fact that they have on occasion tended to be very pro-development and very much out of step with the tendencies and the decision-making by municipal councils where those councils reflect the views of the local populations.

Therefore, what I suggest is that if the OMB does play a role and considers a municipal decision and overrules the municipality, then the municipality should be entitled to go ahead with its original plan, provided that that plan is confirmed by two-thirds of the full council -- a qualified vote. The qualified vote of two-thirds is well entrenched in Ontario municipal laws as I think the minister is aware. It’s similar to the vote that is required, say, to overrule a board of control recommendation on a financial matter when it’s a full council. I think that you could move usefully with new legislation, even within the time we have before the summer recess of this House. That would be a very positive move to curb the abuses of the OMB and put it into a helping role and not an arbitrary and dictatorial role. I would appreciate the minister’s comments.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Chairman, I have listened with interest to the observations made by the member for Ottawa Centre. I am aware he was a member of the select committee which looked into the activities of the Ontario Municipal Board some two years ago. I think the foundation stone of the some 36 recommendations that came out of the study was that the OMB be retained. This is a very valid consideration and recommendation, as far as I personally am concerned, in that it has really been and still remains as far as I perceive, an independent tribunal.

As for your observations about the council overruling the Municipal Board, I will think on that. I don’t want to agree or disagree with you at this particular time. I know that the OMB from my own personal experience has really been the victim of many, many applications that had to be brought before it in order to correct oversights made or mistakes made at the municipal level.

I turn my mind back to an application some years ago in which I was involved where the setback instead of being 10 ft., I think was 6 in. The committee of adjustment looked at that as a minor variance and allowed the construction to go forward because it was just a minor variance. My god, you couldn’t get a ladder back there, let alone a fire truck at the back of this proposed high-rise structure. This put my client in the position where he just had to appeal to the OMB. They had to set up a tribunal in the Niagara area which quickly dealt with and in effect quashed the verdict of the committee of adjustment. To me, that was a complete abandonment by that committee of its responsibility which forced the OMB to come down and to correct the situation because of the decision of that particular committee of adjustment. I think the OMB has been called on in the past in a number of situations, such as that, where it shouldn’t even have been involved.

I don’t know what the answer is, but it would seem to me that this is really a prostitution of the role of the OMB in setting up a hearing on something as flagrant as that. I know of many cases -- and I’m sure the member for Ottawa Centre heard much evidence in view of the submissions and the number of people who made submissions -- where appeals to the OMB are launched really by people who really have no status other than that they live in the community where a council decision or a committee decision has been made but perceive their role to be that as an objector.

I can think of a situation again where someone a half a mile away from a proposed project which was approved by city council in the city of Niagara Falls put in an objection. They really weren’t grieving against the proposed construction but they thought somebody from the OMB should hear their complaints about municipal parking on their particular street. This held up a major project in my city for a number of months until it was dealt with. I think the OMB has had to play a major role but has dealt with rather minor matters where the perception of the OMB by the citizenry or a member of citizens is that whatever the objection is, “Let’s get it in. It might not be relevant to the matters before the city council or the committee before which an appeal lies, but let’s delay everything and I tell the OMB about it.”

The recommendations, some 12 of them, which don’t require a change in the legislation, have been implemented. We have a variety of occupations reflected on the board. We now have three ladies sitting as members of the Ontario Municipal Board. The complexion of the board includes people involved in planning, municipal politics, the practice of law, business, engineering, accounting, business administrators and so on. Your committee pointed out in one of their recommendations that there should be a greater mix; hopefully, we are moving in this direction.

When this session is completed, I propose to pick up the threads that are dangling there from my predecessor and meet with the Treasurer in order to ascertain the extent to which the recommendations of the select committee can be implemented. I don’t apologize for the delay; I simply haven’t had the time to do this. I think it should be done -- it must be done -- or the recommendations of the select committee really amount to nothing. The committee was formed for a purpose, it served that purpose; now I think it is up to the Treasurer and to implement those recommendations that are consistent with good government.

I will keep an open mind on the member’s submission as to the two-thirds votes of council. I find certain aspects of that rather intriguing. Perhaps he might permit me the luxury of thinking about that one and I will indicate to him, perhaps at some future time, whether we should move in that direction or not. I am not agreeing; I’m not disagreeing. I find that a novel approach.

Mr. Cassidy: I appreciate what the minister has got to say, and I think this probably has been a constructive 10 or 15 minutes.

Let me answer two or three things that he mentioned. First, he expressed concern that the OMB would get involved in a case such as the one where the committee of adjustment blew it down in his region of Niagara. I suspect that’s probably a place where the OMB is useful. Somebody else can be brought in, whether or not you have a two-thirds rule, to catch and correct the abuse of decision-making authority at the local level. If necessary, if the council wanted to go back and do it all over again, that perhaps should be up to them. But at least they would know the implications of that which they had to do.

The second thing is about frivolous objections, say from somebody half a mile away. The minister knows that some so-called frivolous objections in fact come from some pretty genuine citizens’ groups who have got cogent points to make. We recommended in the committee that there be a pre-hearing process -- maybe it could be done down here -- whereby the OMB would have the right to look over objections and to toss out the ones, if there were any, that seemed to be simply frivolous and unwarranted in having a full hearing.

A third point which I think relates to what I am suggesting about municipal autonomy and the power of the council, possibly by qualified vote, to overrule an OMB decision, is that I think that the cabinet is going to get itself more and more implicated in municipal decisions though appeals from OMB decisions if we don’t change that particular avenue of attack.

Let’s face it, at times there are a number of situations where there are some pretty hard-held opinions on either side of a planning or a zoning controversy; when it comes up before the OMB and it is decided in a certain way, the party that loses then decides to lodge an appeal with the cabinet. It’s not too expensive. It costs $1,000 or $1,500 to appeal to the cabinet. It probably costs $10,000 or $15,000 for the cabinet to consider each of those appeals. But those appeals are very difficult for the cabinet to resolve. In most cases they do not really involve provincial policy. They just involve the cabinet coming in as a kind of a court of last resort. I would have thought that the cabinet itself would like to get those appeals off its plate and back where they belong, at the local municipal level.

I will give the minister an example if I may, very briefly, of a case in my riding. It concerns a woman who ran a speech therapy operation for children, which required a quiet residential environment, and after years of some struggle she gained the support of Ottawa city council with the necessary zoning change that will permit her to carry out this speech therapy work with kids in her particular home.

The matter went before the OMB as a spot zoning change. It was rejected. It came back before council and council changed it into a general zoning amendment for that particular R3 zone, I think it was, across the city. So here we had a general zoning amendment to cover a city of 300,000 people to permit speech therapy as a home occupation in R3 zones.

It went back before the OMB and the hearing before the OMB concentrated exclusively on the objections of three neighbours on this one street who had successfully, up until that time, fought the application when it was localized, and they fought not on the general question of home occupations but on the question of whether or not there would be an extra two or three cars per hour on that particular street, and the OMB treated the matter as such. The commissioner -- it was a one-commissioner hearing -- said that this general zoning amendment is unjustified because of the traffic it would bring on Lynwood Ave. and the application by the city was rejected.

Subsequently the matter was reopened because of a feeling that the hearing had been unfair and there was an appeal to cabinet to get a rehearing. After some months the cabinet said, “Okay, boys, you can have a rehearing, but we won’t overturn the decision.” A new hearing was held and, as it happened, the new hearing once again confirmed the decision and said that “because of the traffic on this particular street, you can’t have speech therapy for kids.” A lot of kids who could have benefited from that kind of residential treatment, which had proven to be very effective, are the worse because of the OMB decision in overruling something which all but about two members of the Ottawa city council consistently were at that time supporting.

Surely once those opponents on the street had had their day in court and had convinced the OMB that the original decision was wrong, it should have gone back to the local level and the local council should have just been able to consider the matter and say, “Yes, we think the OMB was right to bring us to account,” or, “No, we don’t really agree with the OMB’s objections, even though they were obviously substantial enough to get it back to us, and therefore, by a two-thirds majority, we will permit the zoning change which we had passed originally.” As long as there is that opportunity for second thoughts and for a careful study, then the minority interest that may be affected will have had their day in court, and that is surely the purpose of having the OMB as an independent tribunal considering those local decisions.

So if you don’t want the cabinet to get clogged up and if you want to respect municipal autonomy, then I suggest that the kind of thing the minister has said he will consider with interest be adopted by the cabinet.

Mr. Chairman: The member for St. George.

Mrs. M. Campbell (St. George): Mr. Chairman, just a few words. I don’t want to be repetitive on this subject, but following the Treasurer’s statement on the budget in this House, I had some serious concerns about what he was really getting at and did some investigation which caused me to believe that it was the Treasurer who instructed the OMB on the position which they took with reference to the municipalities of, in effect, determining the priorities of municipalities. This is unlike what the member for Ottawa Centre has said. If that is the case, I would like to know whether there was any consultation with your ministry before such directives were given and what, in fact, is your position, vis-à-vis the Treasurer, on this whole matter of the function and operation of the Ontario Municipal Board?

I can understand the select committee sitting and studying the OMB, at the time at which it was sitting coming to the type of conclusion it came to, having in mind the chairman of the day and the operation which he had so well set in motion. Unfortunately, there has been, in my view, a complete reaction to his sort of philosophy at the OMB and I think it should, indeed, be investigated.

I would hope, too, that the Attorney General, either himself or in consultation with the Treasurer, would review the two aspects of the OMB function -- one is planning and the other is the fiscal policies of the municipalities -- with a view to coming up with some determination as to how far the OMB ought to be determining planning functions without, in effect, having adequate or any staff at all to bring objective planning principles before it. It is a tribunal but nevertheless it is not a court for the purposes of judgement and it does attempt to make planning determinations which bother me and have bothered me for some time. I would hope, at least, there would be some review of the two functions.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Pardon me; could I ask the member a question, Mr. Chairman, so I understand her position? Is it your position that the OMB should have resources available to it in terms of planning and this sort of thing so that, independently of the evidence which it hears at a hearing, it might come to some conclusion as to overall planning requirements and so on? I want to get that straight in my mind. I’m not really understanding you and I would appreciate your clarifying it for me.

Mrs. Campbell: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My position is I query its right to carry out the planning function at all. This is what I should like to see reviewed, particularly with the municipalities having input into it. However, if it is determined that it should have a planning function, I question its reliance upon the usually very well developed planning position of developers and of municipal planning functions when there is no real protection for the citizen who really cannot develop any sort of planning proposals in competition.

What I’m saying is I would like to see a study undertaken as to whether the board should have that role at all. Secondly, if it has it, whether it should not have its own advice for the protection, hopefully, of citizens who haven’t the funding or the expertise to bring forward any other point of view.

The third thing I would like to see the Attorney General look into is this matter of the way in which the OMB will undertake a rehearing. I must say that in my own case, I was very happy it took on a rehearing of a case in which I was acting some years ago. It came to a very good conclusion the second time around.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I can tell by your smile.

Mrs. Campbell: I do believe there should be some consideration, nevertheless, of a procedure by which a tribunal, perhaps otherwise constituted, may review an earlier decision of the same tribunal. It gives me some concern, notwithstanding the happy results of my own case.

I really would like to see the Attorney General at least take a look at these procedures and, perhaps, report back to the House when he has the opportunity to do so as to his position in these various matters. I don’t know to what extent, as I say, he is going to be consulting with the Treasurer. But certainly I wouldn’t think that the Treasurer ought to have the function of directing the OMB in its function of whatever kind it may be. It seems to me that is a rather dangerous assumption of authority on behalf of the Treasurer, and it’s my submission one has to guard very zealously the independence and objectivity of a tribunal of this kind.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman: The hon. member for York Centre.

Does the minister wish to reply?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Yes, I’d kind of like to respond to the member for St. George, first, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman: All right.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I don’t historically know the reason why the Ontario Municipal Board has been a responsibility of the Ministry of the Attorney General, but it would seem to me that probably the rationale was to keep it away from the influence of the office of the Treasurer so that it would certainly be somewhat independent and not a satellite of that particular ministry.

Now, the situation is that the Ministry of the Treasury, Economics and Intergovernmental Affairs sets planning policy and financial policy applicable against municipalities, and the Ministry of the Attorney General provides the administrative support to the Ontario Municipal Board. And, of course, the Attorney General must report to the House on the activities of the OMB.

Your observations cause me some concern, and I can appreciate them. I have attended numerous OMB hearings over the years and very sophisticated evidence is tendered, both by the municipality and the developer or developers who are present, in terms of consulting reports and traffic studies and feasibility studies. All of these, by the way, are very expensive for those who are involved in it, be it the developer or whoever it might be -- the municipality likewise. The citizen who doesn’t have those resources available certainly is hard-pressed to contradict the very intensive surveys made by people trained in planning or traffic studies, or whatever it might be. I am always amazed at the number of experts who seem to attend these things.

On the other hand, I would be somewhat concerned if the OMB had the resources available to it to have independent studies done. I wonder really if they wouldn’t be inclined to rubber-stamp the recommendations of their own staff and we might eliminate the advisability of obtaining outside studies and getting a fresh view. I would be afraid that the imprint of the OMB would be just a little too strong; that they would lose their independence.

So I am not saying you are wrong, I am not saying you’re right. I can appreciate the position that you take on it. I personally have always looked on the Ontario Municipal Board as somewhat of an adversary tribunal, but not in the same sense as a court. I think that, in many ways, they can be distinguished from a court -- and well might they be, and should be.

I don’t know the answers to these things, but I will be meeting with the Treasurer in due course -- as I indicated to the member who spoke ahead of you -- to see what implementation, if any, can be brought out of the recommendations of the select committee, what changes in legislation would be required if those recommendations were to be implemented, and the impact of those recommendations. Are they feasible? Are they practical? Are they financially able to be looked after? But I think until a better system comes along, probably the OMB will have to remain the responsibility of certainly the Ministry of the Attorney General, or some other ministry, as opposed to a satellite of the Treasurer’s ministry.

I mean nothing personal against the Treasurer or his staff, but I think that the public perception of it has to be one of independence, and I think that that may well be lost if it became just a branch of that particular ministry. I think no one could really support that view. I thank you for your observations.

Mrs. Campbell: Excuse me a minute. Can I ask just one question? The minister has not stated whether he was aware of any directive to the OMB from the Treasurer on the matter of the setting of priorities for expenditures of municipalities. Is he aware of any such directive? If he is not aware, would he investigate to see whether in fact the Treasurer did issue some such directive to the board?

Hon. Mr. Clement: He may have. I’m advised by my staff that the only directive they’re aware of was really one in the form of a speech made in this House, but I am not aware of any directive having gone forward to the OMB from the Treasurer. I’ll look into it.

Mr. Chairman: The member for York Centre.

Mr. D. M. Deacon (York Centre): Mr. Chairman, I know we’ve all been concerned about how we can maintain local autonomy, true local autonomy, and still not prohibit citizens at times from getting their fair day in court, which the OMB has provided in the past.

At the same time, I’ve been concerned that there should be some system whereby if it does go to the OMB and there is a desire for a hearing by a council, that before the council does rehear it, there is actually a requirement for that council to be truly accountable to the community for its views.

In Toronto we had the situation involving the Spadina Expressway; it’s well known that the OMB supported the view of the elected council, but the opinions of the majority of the people in the area certainly seemed to be opposed to the construction of that expressway. When you look at the Pickering Airport, to use another example, if that happened to have been a local government decision, there is no question that the majority of people today are opposed to that decision by the elected body responsible for the construction of airports.

What I am trying to get at is, should we not consider the idea of the right of recall on municipal councils and, at the same time, extending their term of office so that when the Treasurer and the minister consider the future role of the OMB, they can think of a different method of councils being truly accountable to the people who elect them? I can see a situation occurring where a council that is very much opposed to any sort of development, makes a decision opposing a development and perhaps the citizens decide there should be some changes in the situation and there is an appeal, supported by a large number of people, that the development should proceed or a certain change should be made. It’s quite contrary to what’s happening today; it’s the other way around at the moment, but it could be going the other way in the future.

In any event, it seems wrong that a body such as the OMB should really be deciding the issue in the final case or that the cabinet should be deciding the issue in the final case. The decision really should be by the people. If there were provisions in our Municipal Act whereby if 20 per cent of the elected voters requested a by-election in council, that that by-election would be held, then the majority of the residents of an area would be deciding whether they have confidence in that council and in its decision. In that way we could perhaps look to the councils to be given the ultimate responsibility for the decision in the long run. I think that would have worked very well in the Spadina situation.

In the Spadina situation, if the voters of Metro Toronto had had an opportunity midway to decide upon the members of council when it would go back to council, there would have been a change in the council to such a degree that the Spadina would have been stopped by the council itself. It certainly was evident, in the elections that took place in recent years, that the majority of the people in this city are looking to people who are thinking of other things than jest expressways as a mode of transportation.

I’ve seen it in my own area and in other situations where the OMB has been supporting a council which, at times, has been taking positions contrary to what seem to be the majority view of the population. I think, under those circumstances, the council should be made accountable by means of a right of recall. As I mentioned earlier, if 20 per cent of the people indicate they want to have a by-election they should be able to call for a new election of council, to make that council truly accountable to the people in the municipality about the plans it has in store or the position it has made. I would appreciate the minister’s comments on that approach.

Hon. Mr. Clement: If we had that kind of situation you’re putting forward as a suggestion, I question whether councils might not tend to do what is municipally very popular at that time in the short run but may not be very popular in terms of overall planning for some period of time. We are all called upon, at one time or another, to make decisions which should be made only by taking into consideration the long view and not the short view. If your submission was the law, I wonder if councils might not be inclined to take the short view, the popular view, and let the devil take the hindmost when it comes to long-range types of decisions which are going to be best for the overall public of this province. We tend to be somewhat parochial in terms of our own needs at the municipal level and sometimes we have to be a little more extensive when looking at the overall needs of the people of the entire region, area or the province. I would express that concern.

I personally toyed with the idea, while sitting here today listening to some interesting observations, that what both parties may be saying is that there might well be a need, before you get into the OMB arena, to have the matter reviewed again at the local level, be it by council or a committee of council, before you invoke the formal procedures of filing formal notice of objection with the OMB and bringing about a hearing. I don’t think there is any question that the OMB is and has been performing a very responsible function for a number of years.

I’ve had occasion, in the not too distant past, to speak strictly on an informal basis with people from across the river -- as we call them down in my riding; namely, from the United States, New York State -- who are very envious of some of our planning on this side of the Niagara River, I can only point to a number of areas, like Niagara Falls, NY, between there and Buffalo and Tonawanda where planning has been lacking until fairly recently and now it’s too late to close the barn door.

I don’t think anyone can dispute the function of the OMB. As I see it, it’s whether it can be better utilized by directing a different avenue to get there, perhaps with many other avenues being shut off and dealt with locally instead of having the OMB make the decisions.

They were very interesting observations and I will obtain a copy of Hansard for today. When sitting down with the Treasurer, we’ll look at them and weigh the observations here plus the recommendations of the select committee, then make a determination to bring back to the House for its consideration, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Deacon: Mr. Chairman, I know the minister doesn’t wish to underrate the common sense of the general public. I think it is sometimes our inclination; we feel we have to remove ourselves and protect ourselves from any immediate public response. I think the whole democratic process is one by which, if you really do provide the public with a proper accountability procedure -- and they can be sure those elected are properly accountable -- they are quite capable of taking just as long a view as any of us are; in fact, often more so. I think we often assume they’re not because of a few extreme positions that people take. But when it gets down to the actual voting in the end, they are pretty good and they can assess situations very well.

I note that if a person is a shareholder, as long as he can get the holders of 20 per cent of the shares of a company to go along with him, he can call for a special general meeting of a company and, in effect, call for a new election of directors. That is something that we have in business law. I don’t know why we don’t assume that maybe the ordinary voter should have the same sort of right. It would take a lot to get 20 per cent of the voters signing a request for an election. If that election were called and strongly confirmed those who were in power -- which I think in most cases it would unless they were going completely against the basic philosophy and thrust that community believed in -- then I don’t think that any group could easily get 20 per cent again.

People have told me that this philosophy would cause turmoil but I don’t believe so. In my experience, you can get a lot of people to sign a petition that they don’t often read, but they will only do that once if it really causes them a problem.

Last year at the time of the York County teachers’ strike I was suggesting we have a trusteeship of the province until such time as there could be a new election of trustees in order that the public could make a decision as to whether or not it supported the prevalent view of that former board. It was interesting, even though it was several months later, that there was a very strong sentiment against the board, as indicated by the results of the election. This year there has been a tremendous change in the attitude of board-teacher relations because of the type of trustee that has been elected.

The deputy Speaker will certainly support me in the view that at that time there had been a breakdown in communication. The public was unhappy and indicated that, although it didn’t want the teachers to be given everything, it also wanted strong communication to exist between teachers.

The public really has a lot of common sense and I think we should recognize that in whatever we do here. I don’t agree with this idea of just a two-year term of office because that makes for shorter-term planning. If we could have a system of right of recall with a longer term of office for municipal councils so they had four years just like most of us can expect, I think it would make for better government, but only if there is that sort of control and accountability which this might bring into play.

I think that this would do a great deal to help the situation with local problems where we have a public meeting in advance before a bylaw is passed, where the public really does have a chance to get involved. The council approves it, somebody can appeal to the OMB and the OMB, in effect, is an opportunity for the opposing points of view to be clearly put forward. If it does go back to the council, I think there should be somewhere the opportunity, if there is a strong feeling in opposition to what the council is doing, for an election to take place and for the local people to express whether or not they have confidence in the council and the position it is taking.

Mr. Chairman: Shall vote 1207 carry?

Vote 1207 agreed to.

Mr. Chairman: That completes the estimates of the Ministry of the Attorney General.

Hon. Mr. Clement moves that 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 certain resolutions and asks for leave to sit again.

Report agreed to.

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

BUDGET DEBATE (CONTINUED)

Mr. D. M. Deacon (York Centre): Mr. Speaker, this is probably the last time I shall be addressing the House on this matter of the budget. I think I am one of the few who has been able in the past to speak twice in the same budget debate. It wasn’t intentional, but because of my anxiety at the time to bring forward certain points and matters of concern, I did forget that I had already spoken previously on the budget -- and I want to emphasize some of those points. But certainly this budget presented to us by the Treasurer (Mr. McKeough) in April is one that was well described by a French radio station as a “galaxie des cadeaux” --

Mr. A. J. Roy (Ottawa East): Des cadeaux. Gifts. Goodies.

Mr. Deacon: -- a galaxy of gifts, with the moneys that are provided apparently to -- pardon?

Mr. I. Deans (Wentworth): Would the member explain to me about his speaking twice? I don’t understand it. What is he saying? During this budget?

Mr. Roy: He said on the budget. He spoke twice on one budget.

Mr. Deans: Not on this budget?

Mr. Deacon: Oh, no, the previous one.

Mr. Deans: Oh, yes, I remember. I wondered --

Mr. Deacon: Yes, I don’t do that every time a budget comes up. But I did mention the fact that I --

Mr. Deans: I mean it is bad enough to have to listen to the member once.

Mr. Roy: We had to put up with the member for Wentworth for so long.

Mr. Deacon: Some others share the same view --

Mr. Deans: About me? Oh, I know.

Mr. Deacon: But I did want to have this opportunity to bring forward some of the comments on what I felt was an illustration of a government that had become quite irresponsible in its desperate attempts to stay in power.

I was interested that again nearly 90 cents out of every dollar that this government is passing along to local government and to school boards is conditional upon the money being spent in accordance with the direction of this government. It is another illustration of the lack of confidence that this government has in the locally-elected bodies and the fact that so many of these grants are percentage grants where, in effect, they are providing incentives for greater spending instead of incentives for greater economy. It is something that continues to distress me.

Why do we have a percentage grant? If it is a 75 per cent grant, any money that is saved is really of very little concern to the municipality or the body which has the money granted to it. Why not, instead, make our estimate of the cost for providing the service and make a straight outright grant? If the grant is 75 per cent of the estimated cost -- and it was a $1,000 item and we made a grant of $750 -- and then said to the local body, “You have to raise the balance,” then there would be no question of the incentive to the municipality to provide that service at the minimum cost and get the very best deal and break for its local taxpayers.

After all, at the provincial level, we have the benefit of taxing resources. They are far more equitable than real estate taxes, on which the municipalities have to depend, and yet we are not in nearly as good a position to decide what should be given priority -- what is the best source of the service or the best manner in which we can get them the greatest value for the money we spend. It is important that we provide to these locally elected people every incentive to save money, to get good value for their local taxpayers and to do it without having some bureaucracy and a lot of red tape overseeing them at all times.

The one thing we must be sure of is that they are truly accountable to the people who elect them for what they do. This is why, in connection with any system of unconditional grants, it’s important, Mr. Speaker, that we set up a system of evaluating the quality of the services that has been provided not only in that municipality but in other municipalities of a similar type. Then we can see from one municipality to another just what is being provided; how much it’s costing; whether it’s one-star, two-star, three-star, four-star or five-star in quality. The public then has an opportunity to judge for itself whether or not they think those they have elected are doing their very best job.

It’s shocking when we see in the eight years since I’ve been elected the increase in the civil service from 45,000 to over 70,000. At the same time there’s been a tremendous increase in the number of employees in the regional councils and in the county school boards that have been set up. Now we have to have special publications for them. For example in York region they now have a special publication, because of the huge staff they have now -- some 1,300 employees -- in order for them to know each other. This whole proliferation, this tremendous expansion of bureaucracy, both at the provincial and at the regional government level, is placing an untold burden on our taxpayers of all types. It also is providing us with a less responsive, and in my view a much less efficient, form of government.

So in this budget I’m certainly sorry to see that the Treasurer failed to deal with those two areas that I’ve been suggesting -- increasing the extent of unconditional grants so that they are no longer percentage grants. No longer should they be 90 cents or 87 cents out of every dollar, conditional upon them being spent in accordance with what the bureaucracy here at Queen’s Park decides.

The second area of this budget that greatly distressed me was the whole approach of making a housing grant of $1,500, instead of increasing in a major way water and sewage services in this province. A minor increase from $115 million to around $130 million in capital funds provided for the provision of water and sewage services is, to my mind, an illustration of the complete failure of the government to appreciate the essential role that services play in providing houses.

I was looking not too long ago at a house in Richmond Hill which cost between $4,500 and $5,000 in 1947. It was one of those typical wartime houses on about a quarter acre of land. That house today is selling for about $45,000 -- not $4,500, but $45,000.

Mr. B. Newman: Ten times.

Mr. Deacon: When I asked a good builder how much he could build that house for today -- it’s around an 800 sq. ft. house -- he said it would cost in the order of $16,000 to $18,000. The cost of the actual site, the lot on which that house is built, thus has moved up from in the order of a few hundred dollars to $25,000 to $30,000. The actual provision of services in front of that house, on a per foot basis, certainly would be no more than around $5,000 on that street today, because it doesn’t have curbs or full pavement and all that sort of thing. It’s a very adequate and desirable site and is zoned by the price at which the house would sell. It’s a small house -- not one of those fancy houses -- but it’s a house that really fits the needs of the majority of our home buyers today. Yet we can’t get them, because the land on which that house has been built has risen from a few hundred dollars to over $20,000.

That is only due to one thing -- some 20 years of shortage of serviced building sites in this province. We all know that when there’s a shortage in any product, prices rise. If you have a shortage over a period of 20 years, you have speculation occurring and this aggravates the situation further.

Until this government recognizes that it’s not a matter of $115 million to $135 million in capital works, but that indeed we should be going up to $500 million in capital works, then we’re never going to solve the basic problem. After all, this isn’t pouring money down the drain, such as in buying land and fueling the fires of speculation, which this government has been doing with its big land deals, such as in North Pickering. This is a matter of constructing a revenue-producing facility similar to a hydro plant, a facility where there be continuing revenue to pay off the capital cost of it and that over a period of time will not be a load on the government, a burden on the government, but it will indeed be a source of revenue for all time to the government.

So it’s a far different type of expenditure than a normal government expenditure, where you can say it’s really money down the drain. Yet this government fails to understand that and still, in a very minor way, is coping with a major problem. It’s another illustration of the failure of the government to get to the core of the problems to understand and root out the cause of the speculation that is costing the home buyers and everyone in Ontario so much money. It is really due to the bad management, the failure of this government to understand a basic situation in the market place -- that of supply and demand.

The second thing that worries me in this housing plan is not just the services but the fact that this government fails to understand what is in the minds of people who are elected to municipal councils when it comes to approving subdivisions. Anyone who has sat on a council which has had subdivision plans taken before it by developers will know that one of the prime concerns they have is what is going to happen to the tax dollars of themselves and those who elected them as a result of approving that subdivision. Are there going to be demands from the new development that are in excess of the taxing revenues they can expect from the development? So often those of us in council found that any development where the average assessment of the development was going to be lower than the average assessment per capita of the existing municipality, we could be sure that taxes would go up in a year or two or three as demands for services, such as schools and policing and road improvements and things like that, became evident.

For that reason, it is important that this government make it abundantly clear and apparent in its programmes of support to municipalities to accelerate housing, that not only would the existing taxpayers not suffer as a result of any development which will include a major proportion of low-cost housing, but that they would actually benefit. That could be done by making use of the system of mining tax support that used to be provided to mining municipalities before there was any property assessment of mines. At that time, the municipality would record every home that was owned by a miner and the province would provide to the municipality a special grant for that home to compensate for the fact that the person who lived in that home did not work in industry and there was no property tax support from the business at which that person was employed.

This was an excellent procedure, one that we knew worked in mining municipalities, which could have been used by this province in connection with small housing. For example, if the house had a 750 sq. ft. assessment, the province could earmark a subsidy for that house for the first 10 years, which would more than offset the fact that that house, on a normal basis had an assessment far less than the average assessment per capita in the municipality. By initiating that amount and having it decline to zero over a 10-year period, it would be possible for members of council to see that during the 10-year period the people who lived in those homes would attract commercial development and industry, because of the availability of labour, which would soon overcome the deficiency of that house by itself with regard to real estate tax sources to support services required for that house.

This is the sort of incentive the government should be providing but, instead, all it’s doing so far is giving a $600 maximum one-shot payment to municipalities. A report by the York region, which was a study done by them, shows it to be completely inadequate and probably in the order of 10 per cent to 15 per cent of what is really required over the 10-year period to compensate for the extra costs that house would attract for the municipality to bear.

The third thing, of course, is public transit accessibility to new development and, particularly in the north, improvements in the highway connections to municipalities so that municipalities right across this province have good transportation access, one way and another. We know that in high density areas, such as southern Ontario, highways will never be the answer to it. Only by a proper coordination of rail and other public transit means will we be able to provide the kind of transportation required for development in these areas.

At the same time, in any proper programme looking after the housing needs of this province, the government has to provide for good transportation of one form or another. We know in this part of Ontario the best transportation it can have is improved public transportation. It has made great strides in the eight-year period I have been here but it still has failed to persuade Ottawa to work more closely with it in integrating rail with highway. We’ll never get a proper system until we do.

Unfortunately, with regard to housing the government seems to be contenting itself with a minor increase in water and sewage services, a completely inadequate support programme for municipalities and little or no change in what it has been doing for transportation. Instead of that, it is pouring fuel into the fires of inflation with a $1,500 grant to new home buyers. It isn’t the answer and it never will be. It’s strange to me that a government which claims to be a good manager hasn’t more sense than to do that.

Another area is that of education. We are looking for this government -- and we’re pleased to see it beginning to make some strides in the education area -- to start to recognize the professionalism we want to encourage in the teaching profession. Teachers are just as much professionals as doctors, lawyers or engineers and there’s no reason they shouldn’t have the responsibility of deciding who is qualified to be part of that profession, evaluating these who are part of it and disciplining those who are not coming up to standard so that teachers no longer look to tenure and, to my mind, ether most undesirable means of protecting themselves but instead have to be accountable to their profession for the way they carry out their work.

To my mind it’s a great mistake for us to pretend that teachers don’t have the same abilities and the same sense of responsibility and desire to carry out their duties and meet the challenges of their profession as people in any other profession. I’m hoping we’ll see a great change in the recognition of this profession over the years to come. This hasn’t occurred under the present government and I’m sure when the election is called teachers will recognize and support -- and the public will recognize and support -- those who realize that teachers are professionals, should be treated as such and should be given as much of an opportunity to direct their affairs as the other professions are.

In my experience, when we have problems over salaries and disputes to do with money or working conditions for that matter, it nearly always reflects far more basic concerns than money or some petty situation with regard to fancy teachers’ rooms or things like that. They want to get down to a situation in which the teacher, the professional, is in control of the situation, and he’s not being mothered or hen-pecked by some supervisory bureaucracy, where he is accountable to those whom he is serving, to the community he is serving, and where he is not part of a great big machine, just like a mechanic operating a machine, as he or she certainly has the impression of being today. These are things that can do a great deal to return the teaching profession and the educational system to the dignity and the public esteem in which they have been held in the past.

The next area that concerns me in the budget is that there is no concentrated or major programme not only to disperse government departments and ministries but to provide other opportunities in other areas, to disperse them away from where all the opportunities are in the Toronto and “the golden horseshoe” areas. People don’t just come to this city because they want to. It is because they have no alternative. Until the government gives leadership itself in providing job opportunities that are worthwhile in other centres of this province, we are just not going to see any change in the current trends which are causing problems in Toronto and which Toronto’s own citizens are objecting to, where growth is continuing to harass the public in many ways. The whole growth requirement has been foisted upon it because of this government’s failure to disperse the opportunities by improving services, by improving transportation and by decentralizing job opportunities into other parts of the province.

I think of our own region of York where we are having a continual fight with the regional roads people to stop them from building roads that aren’t necessary. I know in other parts of the province that money could be well spent to great advantage. It wouldn’t be destroying the countryside but it would enable people to enhance things. I think of roads, such as the road between Richmond Hill and Maple, which was turned into a four-lane road recently. In all the years I have been driving back and forth along it, I have never seen a traffic I am to equal the traffic I am going into Pembroke or in same of the other centres, such as Timmins. Why haven’t we pushed that money away from the “golden horseshoe” area to improve transportation where it is really needed and where it would do a lot of good and be most welcomed?

For some reason or other, we have had a system of budget review year after year in this province where we seem to be continuing to base nor allocation of funds on some sort of formula that really distorts where those funds go instead of using common sense, recognizing that if we are going to disperse opportunities for people we have to improve the services and we have to improve transportation into these centres away from the “golden horseshoe” and concentrate our funds away from this area.

The next area I wanted to get into, Mr. Speaker, is that of debt -- the debt of this province and the way it has soared in the eight years since I have been elected. I have noticed that the province continued to report debt on the basis of net debt figure. As I look into that, I begin to realize that it is a very artificial and a very inadequate way of reporting just what our actual debt situation is. It has been done in a way that is similar to the way, I think, that Mr. Bennett did it in BC for many years where you really don’t see the true financial position of the province because of the way it is setting up its figures.

In 1967, the grass debt of the province was around $3 billion. Per family basis that was about $1,800. In 1971, it was up to nearly $6 billion or about $2,400 per family. In 1975, it’s over $10 billion or about $4,100 per family. Of that $4,100 per family, something in the order of $1,200 has occurred in the deficit this year alone.

With Hydro, the debt goes up to around $5,300. I have never been quite as concerned about Hydro because actually it is an expenditure that does produce some revenue, but the other debt is pretty well a noose around our necks.

When I analyze the fact that the net debt the province is always reporting is really only net debt because of the accounting procedure, then it really frightens me, because it’s the gross debt we really should be concerned about nowadays because of the way we are reporting our figures. The way the government reduces the gross debt from around $11 billion to a net debt of around $4.7 billion, as of the end of the 1975 fiscal year -- or the difference between the net debt and the gross debt is achieved by transferring the province’s borrowings to the account of universities and colleges, of schools, the Ontario Housing Corp., the North Pickering development, the Ontario Development Corp. and so on. Well, we can’t expect revenue from most of those.

For example, in the case of an advance to Ontario Hydro, they will be selling power and will be able to get revenue from that source; in the case of Ontario Housing there will be some revenue, but actually there will be a net loss in its operation because it is a subsidized operation. The Ontario Development Corp. probably will be able to pay back its $80 million debt. On the whole, though, most of these so-called assets are really liabilities insofar as the province’s position is concerned, because each year as the province increases the amount of money it puts into these assets, it increases the responsibilities that it has to bear in connection with their operations.

All the money that goes into universities, for example, is for capital assets that are going to require more and more government funding to support those bodies, In effect, we should not be deducting money we have lent to universities and showing it as an asset; that really isn’t an asset, it is a real financial liability to the province and to its taxpayers in the future. We should be reporting our net debt at a much higher figure than that which I just cited, which is shown in the budget statement as $4.7 billion. If we were really honest about the assets we have on the balance sheets that we are using to deduct from the gross debt figure, the net debt should be much closer to $10 billion than to $5 billion.

This is really going to cause us problems in the future, because this year we have already seen an example of just how the marketplace views Ontario borrowings. It may be a triple-A covenant -- or was last year -- but when Ontario Hydro recently came to the market with just $100 million, it completely knocked the market for a loop; it sent Ontario bonds down and caused general interest levels to change by nearly one percentage point. That’s a major change caused by an event that is going to occur much more frequently in the future.

In the past, the province has been able to borrow moneys from the Canada Pension Plan fund, the public service superannuation fund, the teachers’ superannuation fund and the Ontario Municipal Employees’ Retirement System fund, but in the future those funds are going to decline. There are actually going to be no funds coming from the Canada Pension Plan in the not too distant future. We have been borrowing from public service funds at a low interest rate. I am sure there is going to be pressure from them to get a proper and adequate return on their funds and to have freedom to invest those funds as they deem wisest.

In connection with the municipal employees, we already have a report which the government has adopted, recommending that they be independent of the government in the investment of their funds. For some reason or other, the government has taken four or five years to transfer the responsibility over to them for independent management, but that is coming ahead.

I am sure the teachers are going to put pressure on the government to give them control over their funds. No longer will there be captive buyers of government debentures or bonds, at a time when this government has an increasing debt load facing it. This year, in particular, the borrowings in the market are estimated by the Treasury to be $375 million. I would think that if the government were being honest with these different funds, they would be actually going out and allowing these funds to invest their moneys in the marketplace at the best return and then themselves going out to the marketplace to borrow the funds where the government would be truly accountable.

Quebec seems to be doing a much better job than we are with regard to managing its funds, The Caisse de Depots which looks after Quebec’s portion of the Canada Pension Plan funds is having extraordinarily good results. It has been a source of funding for all sorts of development in the province. It has stimulated development as a result of that. It is helping to bring ownership of industry not only back to Quebec but back to this country.

Instead of our following that, which is a very wise course of providing independence of buying ability on the part of these pension funds and, even more so, providing a real accountability of the province to the marketplace for its own borrowing, I think this government has been making a great mistake. It is going to be of great cost to our children when they have to pay up for what has been covered up during the past eight years, particularly in the past four years, in year after year of deficit under the Davis government.

I am very concerned for the future because of this. As we see from the report of the Canadian Tax Journal of March-April, it indicated that the interest payable by this province on capital funds in the future will exceed the actual cash coming from the Canada Pension Plan fund to the province. By 1982, we will be paying out more than we will be receiving from them, and it may come even sooner than that. When we see that happening in the other funds as they are given independence, I can see great problems facing the future Treasurers of this province that have been passed along by the current Treasurer and the ones particularly in the last four years under the present Premier.

In the days of Mr. Frost, when the member for Haldimand-Norfolk (Mr. Allan) was Treasurer, this government earned the respect of the people of this province for good management of its money affairs. Certainly in the last four years we are seeing this government leading the people of Ontario into a debt position for which our children are going to have to pay in their generation and for a long time to come.

For that reason, Mr. Speaker, I hope one way or another the people of Ontario will be given an opportunity in the not too distant future to realize how badly this government has been managed, particularly in the last four years, and will recognize by their votes the need for a complete change to responsible and accountable new government which will give them value at long last for their tax dollar in this province.

Hon. A. Grossman (Provincial Secretary for Resources Development): The member doesn’t really mean it.

Mr. Deacon: Boy, I sure do.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Withdraw.

Mr. Roy: Where are all the minister’s friends? He looks lost. Where are all the resources, as Provincial Secretary for Resources Management?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Even if I just had one friend here, the members opposite need a lot.

Mr. W. Ferrier (Cochrane South): Why doesn’t the minister give us a speech?

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Does the members mean my born-in-a-log-cabin speech?

Mr. Ferrier: Anything.

Mr. H. Worton (Wellington South): No, in a manger.

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

Motion agreed to.

HIGHWAY TRAFFIC AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Clement moves second reading of Bill 89, An Act to amend the Highway Traffic Act.

Mr. P. D. Lawlor (Lakeshore): Would the minister mind just abeying this while we look up the bill and see the contents thereof? Was this slated for today?

Hon. J. T. Clement (Provincial Secretary for Justice): The member for Lakeshore can take my word for it, it’s good law.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Doesn’t the member have any confidence?

Mr. Lawlor: I have absolutely no confidence in the running of this government.

Mr. Speaker: Does the hon. minister wish to make any comments prior to the debate?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Yes, I would like to make a brief comment which perhaps will give my friends across the House an opportunity to refresh their minds insofar as the bill is concerned. I introduced this bill last week, with two companion bills. The Ontario Law Reform Commission some time ago made certain observations with reference to the statute of limitations.

Mr. Lawlor: It’s all right, the minister can sit down, I’m in favour of it.

Hon. Mr. Clement: The member for Lakeshore says he’s in favour of it. During the estimates last year of the Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations, with reference to insurance, we had some lengthy discussions as to the limitations period contained in the Highway Traffic Act -- namely that an action must be brought within 12 months from the date of the infliction of the alleged injury.

This bill simply has one amendment striking out the 12-month limitation period and extending it to two years or 24 months. This is consistent with a number of similar pieces of legislation across Canada in other jurisdictions. I can’t speak for my friends across the House, but I think that all would agree it is indeed a step in the right direction. It is not prejudicial, and will be very commendable legislation.

Accompanying that bill at the time, I introduced also Bills 90 and 91. In due course, perhaps even today, we’ll move second reading of those bills too, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Ottawa East.

Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, we on this side are in favour of this type of legislation in the three bills involved. I think we spoke about this before in the House. We’ve had discussions in other areas about limitation periods, and I think I should mention something about them. In our system of justice, generally speaking some discretion is left to the courts. When you are bringing different actions, under the rules of practice, there’s always some flexibility left with the presiding judge.

When it comes to limitation periods as established by statutes -- I suppose this is a pun -- but when we are talking about fatal accidents missing a limitation period, that is, in fact, fatal to an action. For a lay person it’s always been impossible for him to understand how he was in time having issued the writ on Nov. 25, but should he happen to have gone past and issued it on the 26th, at that point he is disbarred from putting in any action.

So as the limitation period here is extended, we have to support this legislation. But I would like to discuss with the minister certain aspects of this legislation. I would ask him whether he would discuss with us, first of all -- have the insurance companies lobbied at all or said anything to him about opposing the extension of the limitation period? I gathered that from the time the minister presented this legislation to the House, there had not been much fuss about the extension of the limitation period. In fact, since the recommendations of the Law Reform Commission, I’ve not heard that much objection to the limitation period.

I can recall we discussed extending limitation periods in relation to doctors, dentists or health professionals under the Health Disciplines Act, At that point there was a lot of fuss by some members of the profession when we wanted to extend it at that time for something like five years. They took serious objections to it. One of the amendments that was proposed at that time, and found favour with all parties, was that the limitation period worked this way: I think the action could be started from one year from the time that the client or the plaintiff in the action knew, or should have known, of his injury or any handicap left to him as a result of treatment by one of the health professionals.

When you leave that type of flexibility in the limitation period, of course it gives the court something to hang its hat on, to extend the time. When it’s as clear as it is here, there is no jurisdiction whatsoever in the court in a proper case to extend the limitation period. Of course, what we are doing, I suppose, for 99 per cent of motor vehicle accidents is purely academic. What is the percentage of motor vehicle accidents involving only damages to the motor vehicles? I suppose 75 or 80 per cent of them, and these matters are solved within weeks or within months. Fortunately, Mr. Speaker, most injuries are fairly limited and therefore are settled within the 12-month period, where it is not necessary to issue a writ.

If this government had a bit more guts and less tendency to look at the polls, it would be bringing in legislation for seat belts as well, and this would cut down the number of accidents. But I won’t hold the minister responsible for that. He has got three ministries and he is aging day by day in this House. I see those grey whiskers in that beard of his right from here. The minister should get out of those three -- although his staff is not aging at all. I’ve noticed that. But anyway, getting back to the bill, Mr. Speaker.

Interjection by an hon member.

Mr. Roy: The Chairman of Management Board (Mr. Winkler) should not talk about age.

Mr. Speaker, getting back to this bill, when we are extending it, we are sort of making a proviso for the exception. There are relatively few cases where an injury is so serious that a writ has not been issued.

I would just like to ask the minister whether he would consider or has considered leaving something in the statute which would give some flexibility to the court to cover that instance. Mr. Speaker, I’m not sure I can think back to experiences -- having done motor vehicle work -- where there was good reason not to have issued a writ within a period of two years. I don’t know what it really would be. It might be in medical malpractice cases, where they don’t find the swab or the scissors have been left there.

Mr. Lawlor: People are often in the hospital for a very long time.

Mr. Roy: Yes, it could be -- but usually they have relatives or someone who discusses it with a doctor. I’ve represented people with very serious injuries, and somehow the relatives get back to the lawyer.

One of the purposes served by limitation periods, of course, is that they bring actions on -- and I can’t really be categorical about that either. Once you have issued the writ, you can stall pretty well when it involves statements of claims, statements of defence and all of that. The extension of this limitation period, I suppose, is going to be helpful to some of us out-of-town lawyers who have to deal with some of the local Toronto bar here, who are motion happy.

I can recall being involved in cases, Mr. Speaker, with some local lawyers. You would issue your writ within the period of a year just so that you preserved the limitation period. But the injuries were so serious that one did not have final medical reports, and therefore at that point it was really a useless exercise to prepare a statement of claim, because the injuries had not been fully diagnosed, the prognosis not complete and so on. Yet they keep wanting to have the statement of claim.

I have been involved in actions where some of these counsel have brought in motions to strike out the actions and so on. Unfortunately, most often in these cases, the court allowed them to put in the statement of claim, with good reason. So I suppose it is going to stop some of that.

But I get back to my original point with the minister -- whether in fact there should not be something when we talk about limitation periods, and whether we do not in fact have sufficient respect and faith in our court system whereby we would have a proviso in this limitation period to say that it is going to be 12 months, but for extraordinary circumstances or something, the court would have jurisdiction to grant an extension of time after the period of two years. I just want to leave that thought with the minister, because we are, Mr. Speaker, in favour of this type of legislation for all these reasons.

But I get back to my point, when we talk about justice in this province, who does the limitation period serve? I suppose to some degree when the medical profession were talking about having an action hanging over their heads for 10 years or something, that can be a problem, but when we are involved with motor vehicle and insurance companies, who in fact are we protecting? Or who would suffer or be severely prejudiced if we had that type of proviso in the legislation? We could even limit the judge, a judge of the Supreme Court of Ontario, to extend the time in a necessary case.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Lakeshore.

Mr. Lawlor: First, Mr. Speaker, the position of this party -- I think I can say this without tearing caucus to shreds -- is that the minister should keep the three harlequin hats that he presently wears and, as far as I can see, he would be very well advised to pick up a few smaller types of sombreros to place on top of them. I told him that the business of the Human Rights Commission should be within his demesne, and there are a number of things which the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations (Mr. Handleman) presently handles, which the minister knows all about, which would be very well brought within the Attorney Generalship or that overall ministry thing.

Mr. J. A. Renwick (Riverdale): I would have thought that, until I read his speeches, which he sent over to me this afternoon. There is a certain amount of repetition in them.

Mr. Lawlor: Up till this time we thought that the minister was cavorting with certain cavalier tendencies and was completely in charge. As a mailer of fact, we rather suspect over here that the job he vacated was far more onerous in its intent and what it demanded of him than what the leisured and sanguine demesnes of the law are now. I don’t see people trooping up and down the hall outside seeking to attend upon him with respect to numerous legal matters, because the minister knows they are consolidated and they are well known and they are set down and they are within the peculiar ambit of lawyers and, therefore, they have some kind of certainty and some kind of grasp of the law.

So, again, I just thought I would mention that, as always, we like to distinguish our position from that of the Liberals, if at all possible, and in this particular occasion I would give that indication. I will be pleased to say to you, Mr. Speaker, this has nothing whatsoever to do with the bill, but I know you appreciate that.

To deal with the bill as it stands, while we rant and tear our hair a little with respect to the severe time limitations that are presently extant, on the other hand, we must be cognizant that there must be an end to litigation or an end to the threat thereof, and that the Damoclean sword of law cannot be hung over people’s heads almost indefinitely.

For that reason, we are prepared on this occasion, with some reservations, which I will indicate, to honour this and accolade it as a move forward, which we have sought and which is finally being given impetus. It will mean, this afternoon, an enormous breath of relief to a large element of the legal profession to have this added elbow room and ambit in which to move.

How many legal firms, in particular how many young lawyers who are not really clued in on this stuff, have got themselves hung up and ended with o negligence suit against them for the mere failure to have issued a writ within that very severe time limitation? This is particularly so if they have been bamboozled by insurance agents or insurance companies who write them letters extending the time indefinitely with respect to proposed settlements -- like the temptress Circe in the pageant -- who would lead them over the line into the Despond. I’ve been saved myself by some kind of voice evoked from the unconscious on one occasion many years ago. A partner in law operating out of a different office went over the line and we all had to chip in.

So I find this legislation has a kind of soothing influence upon my whole personality this afternoon. Nevertheless, what the member for Ottawa East says is true. I think in due course, as the law becomes even more complex and as it expands, trustingly within your lifetime and within your time over there -- and it is beginning to move now -- we will come to a concept of greater discretion on the part of the judiciary with respect to this matter.

I would remind you by analogy of what happens in default judgements. There’s a case where writs and statements of claim are issued and for one reason or another time goes over. The lawyer on the other side moves in on you quickly, and signs a default judgement against your client. You are then forced into the somewhat embarrassing position of moving under affidavit before a judge on motion to have that judgement set aside because the case was never tried on its merits. Due to any number of factors to not change his ruling, the loss of time and other factors, the way in which you have acted in the circumstances might influence the judge to lift it. But usually this is under conditions: “All right, you can go on with your action but you are going to have to pay the costs up to this point”. So, there is a penalty concept involved.

I say, by analogy with that, why not repose in the judiciary, within very confined wording and only extraordinary circumstances, the power to extend the time even further. I am not going to press that today because to get this far is beneficial. But I do think the law will evolve, maybe within your tenure, into a position where you feel this wider discretion would be altogether beneficial and commendable and more in line with the straight justice of the case, rather than having a guillotine factor still operating here even if it is somewhat prolonged.

I would have it operate very substantially -- but there are always the extraordinary cases -- and it is not a case of hard cases making bad law. These are hard cases that may make some good law. There is no reason why a case dealing with the merits of a person’s injuries ought to be determined by the mere lapse of time. That being the case I would have you give some thought to that possibility, as we go into the next session -- if there ever is going to be one -- and amend the legislation more along those lines, leaving the clause as it is, but granting, within a very structured wording, this possibility.

As a matter of fact there is legislation on the books now which permits precisely that. Much of the legislation coming through consumer affairs on licensing matters did provide, with respect to time failures, a discretion in which a judge could move under somewhat pressing circumstances to extend that time.

Those are the basic things. The three bills are along the same line and I certainly don’t feel they should go into committee.

Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, I have spoken once but I wanted to point out one thing to the minister with the consent of the House -- I failed to raise it before, but it was mentioned by the member for Lakeshore. I wish somebody in the ministry, whether it’s through this minister or the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations, would get to insurance companies and to adjusters. I’ve seen letters floating around on one or two occasions where you get adjusters negotiating with the individual. They say to the individual, as they keep getting closer to the limitation period of one year, “We’ll waive that. We’re waiving the limitation period. Don’t worry about it, we’ll continue negotiating and that’s waived by us”.

I think in court a judge would stand on his head to try to stop the insurance company from arguing the limitation period, but I think there’s case law to show you can’t waive a limitation period. That practice should stop, really. Insurance companies and adjusters should not lull people into a false sense of security by waiving limitation period.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. minister.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Speaker, that kind of activity was deplored by the previous superintendent of insurance, and was the reason, in certain instances known personally to me, of his calling in representatives of that particular company that would carry on that type of practice. To my mind that no longer continues. If anything like that comes to the members attention, I would most appreciate it if he would draw it immediately to the attention of the new superintendent of insurance.

With reference to the question about whether the insurance companies have objected to this, I have to respond, “No”. My discussions with Gordon Grundy, the late superintendent of insurance, commenced about a year ago and he died in April of this year. But at no time in the two or three times I discussed it with him did he indicate there was ever any objection.

I think all concerned at this time are served better to have a definite period than a discretionary period. You have to test the courts to find out what the discretion is going to be. Case law has to develop, and I think the interests of most would be served right now by extending it by the extra 12-month period. As the member for Lakeshore has pointed out, the threat of litigation can almost be as bad, if not worse, than litigation itself.

It seems to me at this moment to be much more advantageous to have a definite period and extend it the extra 12 months. Let’s work with it and see how it works. I don’t think I could feel much sympathy, except in the most unusual of circumstances -- maybe this is what the member had in mind -- where someone, in 24 months, hasn’t seen fit to instruct that a writ be issued. I can visualize them and they would be unusual circumstances. Perhaps this is the area that someday a discretionary remedy in the court might well take care of.

Motion agreed to; second reading of the bill.

THIRD READING

Hon. Mr. Clement moves third reading of Bill 89, An Act to amend the Highway Traffic Act.

Mr. Roy: Could I just ask one question of the minister on third reading? When does he plan to have this in force?

Hon. Mr. Clement: When there is royal assent.

Mr. Roy: Royal assent. Does he have any date in mind?

Hon. Mr. Clement: If it goes on the list for royal assent, I imagine Her Honour will be coming forth --

Mr. Roy: Oh, but the minister didn’t have --

Hon. Mr. Clement: No, not proclamation. Royal assent.

Hon. E. A. Winkler (Chairman, Management Board of Cabinet): Could be this week.

Hon. Mr. Clement: It could be this week.

Motion agreed to; third reading of the bill.

FATAL ACCIDENTS AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Clement moves second reading of Bill 90, An Act to amend the Fatal Accidents Act.

Mr. Lawlor: Our only comments were basically along the same lines as those in the last bill, and I think they’ll stand.

Mr. Roy: If I might ask the minister one question on this, maybe this is a matter for the courts, but just so I get my procedure down with substantive law -- will this law have application to motor vehicle accidents happening prior to the passing of this bill but in which the limitation is not a year, or will it only have application to motor vehicle accidents which happen after this bill is given royal assent?

Hon. Mr. Clement: I would think it would be the latter. If a case happened 1¼ years ago and this bill gets royal assent, then one will have two years, say, from this Friday; if the two-year period is it, one would go back two years from this Friday. Subject to talking with my people, that would be my impression of it right here.

Mr. Roy: I am just wondering about a situation where, for instance, if the accident happened nine months ago and the limitation will not be till three months from now and meantime royal assent is given -- will the two years apply on that action?

Hon. Mr. Clement: I would think so, sure.

Motion agreed to; second reading of the bill.

THIRD READING

The following bill was given third reading upon motion:

Bill 90, An Act to amend the Fatal Accidents Act.

TRUSTEE AMENDMENT ACT

Hon. Mr. Clement moves second reading of Bill 91, An Act to amend the Trustee Act.

Mr. Lawlor: Our comments on the previous two bills are the same for this one.

Mr. Ferrier: Is the member for Ottawa East going to ask the same questions?

Mr. Roy: No, I just wanted to say that somehow we are not obsessed about not saying a word on that particular bill. We’ll just let it go through. Posterity will forget me, but what the hell.

Mr. Speaker: Shall this motion carry then?

Motion agreed to; second reading of the bill.

THIRD READING

The following bill was given third reading upon motion:

Bill 91, An Act to amend the Trustee Act.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I’ve only got five more bills on the order paper; could I run them all through before 5 o’clock, Mr. Speaker? I would be grateful to the members opposite if they would help me that way.

Mr. Roy: Don’t crowd your luck.

PRIVATE MEMBERS’ HOUR

NOTICE OF MOTION NO. 1

Clerk of the House: Notice of motion No. 1 by Mr. Roy.

“RESOLUTION: That in the opinion of this House, the government should implement the dental care scheme which would cover children aged six and under in the first phase and would increase the age limit in each successive phase until the entire population was covered.”

Mr. Roy moves Resolution No. 1.

Mr. Roy: Am I on already?

Mr. Lawlor: He is taking the place over.

Mr. Roy: I know.

Mr. Lawlor: It is the legal brains.

Mr. Speaker: Would you just place your motion first, please?

Mr. Roy: I have to read the motion, eh?

I think this an important enough resolution, Mr. Speaker, that I should read it in full, because it is going to be one of the highest priorities for a new Liberal administration when we take over, next fall I think it will be; October, November; sometime around there.

“RESOLUTION: That in the opinion of this House, the government should implement the dental care scheme which would cover children aged six and under in the first phase and would increase the age limit in cacti successive phase until the entire population was covered.”

Mr. Speaker, the purpose, of course, of moving this type of resolution is that the Liberal Party of Ontario feels that health care in this province should be a total package, and that we should not start isolating certain segments of the human body and saying this part is covered by OHIP, or this part is covered by a universal programme and the other part is not.

We were extremely disappointed recently when the Premier (Mr. Davis) stated: “Ontario cannot afford a dental care programme this year, but the government hopes to implement one in the not too distant future.” He said it was too expensive and that it would be fiscally irresponsible to have such a programme.

I suppose the way he is running the province he is right; it would be too expensive. We have a health budget of $2.9 billion. We are facing a deficit this year of $1.7 billion -- probably more like $2 billion by the time we have finished all the election promises -- and so on that basis he is right. The way he is running the province there is just no way we can afford the type of programme which would cost something like $180 million in a five-year programme.

I suppose, when the Premier said that, George Drew must have been turning in his grave, because back in 1942, Mr. Speaker, that was one of his political platforms. One of 22 programmes announced at that time was a dental care programme for the Province of Ontario.

It’s ironic that the shining light of the 1970s, the boy wonder, the Minister of Transportation and Communications, and so on, should be the one who states that this province cannot afford it.

It’s not a matter, Mr. Speaker, of not being able to afford such a programme. It’s a matter of high priority. What is one’s priority as far as the government is concerned? Does one give higher priority to Krauss-Maffei and highways? Does one give higher priorities to spending programmes -- for instance, publicity programmes across the province which enhance the image of the Tory party or the Tory minister? It’s a false sense of priority and that’s the problems. Of the matters with proper priorities, like we in the Liberal Party have, this would be one of our high priority items.

Mr. G. Nixon (Dovercourt): Oh!

Mr. Roy: The member can hang in there because after most of the Tories are defeated we will have a dental care programme for all of them.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. G. W. Walker (London North): That is the only policy the Liberals have so far. Now name two policies they have.

Mr. Roy: We won’t ask them which way they voted or how they sat in this House.

Interjections by an hon. member.

Mr. Roy: Yes. My friend was saying there are a lot of bad teeth on that side and he’s probably right.

Mr. Speaker, I think a responsible administration, like the Liberal Party will be --

Mr. Walker: Is the member admitting they are irresponsible now?

Mr. Roy: -- will have this type of programme without increasing expenditures across this province. That’s a promise we are prepared to make on the hustings and that is the promise we shall keep, Mr. Speaker. We shall keep our promises; we shall level with the people of Ontario, and we shall bring in that type of programme without increasing expenditures.

Mr. G. Nixon: That’s impossible.

Mr. Roy: What we will do is rearrange priorities around this province because we feel this is one of the high priority items. I hazard to say to my friends across the way and to my left -- way left out there -- that prior to election day, 1975, your leader will change his mind on this and he will probably promise a dental care programme. We intend to talk about this during the year 1975.

It seems to us that a programme which has been proposed by the dental association since 1968 -- they have documented their situation and they’re willing and enthusiastic to work within such a programme. All three parties are apparently for it. I’ll get back to my point; the party governing this province temporarily -- if we can call it that -- has a strange sense of priority.

Mr. G. Nixon: What a clown.

Mr. Roy: We shall spread the message. I’ll get back to my point: I think the other parties will be changing their minds before the next provincial election.

How would this work? This is how the Liberal Party of Ontario would bring in this type of programme.

In the first year we would have the programme up to age six and it would cost something in the area of $10.2 million. In the second year it would include the ages seven and eight and would at that point cost something like $23.5 million. In the third year we would have ages nine and 10 included and it would cost something like $37.5 million. In the fourth year, the ages 10 and 11 would be included and it would cost something in the area of $47.6 million. Finally, in the fifth year, this programme would include the ages of 12 and 13 years and it would cost something like $65.3 million. In other words, we estimate that such a programme would cost for phase one, as we call it, something like $184.1 million.

My colleague from Windsor-Walkerville is going to talk about the benefit of such a programme and is going to talk about some of the savings even within the figures I’ve mentioned. I will leave that matter up to him.

Another phase to this programme is that a person 65 years of age and over would be covered. We estimate that would cost something like $19.15 million. We’re on these figures --

Mr. J. H. Jessiman (Fort William): There was another Liberal used to say, “What is a million?” C. D. Howe.

Mr. Roy: We don’t miss the boat by $200 or $300 million, as the fellows across the way have been doing consistently.

Having said this, Mr. Speaker, a Liberal administration would look at some other aspects of dental care. In other words, we would explore it responsibly, looking at how the other segment of the population would be covered, whether we would work it on a basis where individuals would pay so much per visit or on the basis of having a type of deductible programme of maybe $200 or $250 a year deductible for some of these individuals. This is a promise, this is a commitment, this is a priority. It is one of the highest priorities of a Liberal administration to have that type of programme. Having said this, how would we do it without increasing the expenditures? That’s where it becomes interesting anal that’s where we would start coming in with the knife and cutting out some of these programmes that we feel, Mr. Speaker, are not serving a useful purpose in this province. I suppose that the first thing that the Liberal administration would do, or I would hope that it would do, is to get rid of superministers, these policy secretaries.

Hon. Mr. Clement: I wouldn’t have anything to do.

Mr. Roy: The minister has still got two ministries. He is still Attorney General and Solicitor General. We would leave him in our administration, as critic in both those portfolios if he liked. He would be welcome in them. We would like that.

Mr. Speaker, we feel that commitments and promises have been made but that the expenditures in these areas have been wasted and we do not see anything useful emanating from policy secretariats. How much would we save? I think we would save something like about $2 million per year out of these policy secretariats.

We would look at the question of seatbelts in this province and surely any responsible government has got to look seriously at that type of legislation. First of all, we would save $650,000 from this ad campaign. I think it’s going to be important to get rid of this. God knows how much money I could save across this province by saving some of the other ad campaigns. Just the other day I saw a new campaign emanating from the Treasurer’s office. It had something to do with a land forest grant. They managed to get two ministers’ names on that one too. They are spending something like $10 million a year in 1975 for their ad campaign. That $10 million in itself would pay for our programme in its first year.

Anyway, may I go on: Using the ministry’s own statistics, Mr. Speaker, we know that motor vehicle accidents in this province cost the health care system $1 million a day.

Mr. Deacon: Is it $1 million a day?

Mr. Roy: It is $1 million a day.

Mr. Deacon: What is the total cost of accidents per day right now?

Mr. Roy: These are the statistics from the ministry. I am sure I am going to be supported by the parliamentary assistant when he talks about this.

Mr. Deacon: What is the total cost per day right now?

Mr. Roy: What I am saying basically is that we have statistics in Australia, Sweden and other countries that seatbelt legislation will save something like 20 to 25 per cent in accidents, injuries and death. If that was programmed over a number of years and coupled with a bill reducing the speed limit in this province to something like 55 mph, which would save energy as well, this government could save conservatively in the total budget of the province something like $50 million to $100 million a year. That would easily pay for a dental care programme in this province.

I could go on. I suppose one of the priorities of a Liberal administration would be to cut out $6.1 million for the Krauss-Maffei system. What’s that going to do for the province? That is just a face-saving gesture and the government knows it and should agree with me on that. That is simply $6.1 million to let the Premier get through 1975 without too much embarrassment. That’s one of the things that a Liberal administration would get rid of.

Mr. Speaker, such a dental programme in our opinion would be of high priority. We think we are taking a responsible approach. We are presenting a programme with documentation and with figures to show how much it will cost over a period of years and how much money we plan to save through various cuts and through various other programmes. I suppose I could go on about cutting back on some other programmes.

Talking just about health, the message is quite clear. We were making comments two, three and four years ago about a constraint programme in the Health ministry which the government has consistently failed to accept, and they are coming back to haunt the government because its health budget keeps going up; and, of course, with that type of an administration it can’t get involved in too many new programmes. However, had they accepted in 1972 Dr. Kinloch’s approach to a constraint package, which would have saved something like $50 million, how many dental care programmes could we have for that kind of money?

Mr. Speaker, I think a Liberal administration can present that type of an approach, and it will be a priority of ours. Somewhere along the way, during 1975, the members opposite and their leader are going to change their minds and get on the bandwagon and say, “It’s a priority for us.” I only hope that they do it for the benefit and the welfare of people in this province. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Oxford.

Mr. H. C. Parrott (Oxford): Thank you. Mr. Speaker. I really find it difficult to believe that the member who introduced this resolution, which deals with a very important subject, should spend about 85 per cent of his time simply using it as a political vehicle to discuss anything and everything unrelated to the resolution. I think it is a travesty the way he has treated a very serious problem.

Mr. Roy: Oh, the member never gets into politics, eh?

Mr. Parrott: I think it’s a real travesty. If the member had stuck to his subject-matter and offered some constructive criticism, we might have heard him.

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. Parrott: Yes, I will try to be a little constructive.

Mr. Deacon: The member for Oxford should have been listening.

Mr. Parrott: For the hon. member for Ottawa East to suggest for a moment that he and his party, and not the rest of the members of this House, have suggested a dental care plan is not quite the way it is. I would like to read into the record a few statements that were made many times.

Mr. Roy: Well, why doesn’t the government implement them or do something about them?

Mr. Deacon: Don’t talk about it, implement it.

Mr. Parrott: All right. We will deal with that in a minute.

Mr. Roy: That’s all the government does is talk about it; it proposed it back in 1942.

Mr. A. Carruthers (Durham): The member for Ottawa East made his speech.

Mr. J. Dukszta (Parkdale): He thinks he’s in opposition because he’s on this side of the House.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The time is passing.

Mr. Parrott: I think we can afford a dental health plan --

Mr. Roy: Now he’s talking.

Mr. Parrott: It is my submission that a plan is available and we don’t have to look very far afield for it. It is the one sponsored by the Ontario Dental Association, with a few modest changes. I would have hoped that the member who has just spoken might have looked at some of the changes that his party would like to see. It is basically an excellent plan. I think the former Minister of Heath, the member for Quinte (Mr. Potter) when he was the minister, made the same kind of comments. I think they are on the record, but I will read them again.

Mr. Renwick: The member for Ontario (Mr. Dymond) didn’t say that.

Mr. Parrott: “I am also on record as saying that to make our health plan complete, we must include drugs” -- and I remind you that that has been done -- “and dental care.” So obviously we are progressing towards that.

Mr. Deacon: What is the member waiting for, election time?

Mr. Parrott: Next quote: “Only in recent years have we appreciated what a tremendous educational programme will be required to teach our citizens how best to protect our teeth.” The member for Ottawa East made no comments about the educational programme that must accompany a treatment programme.

Mr. C. Nixon: Right on.

Mr. Roy: Why doesn’t the member for Oxford read George Drew’s comments back in 1942?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Parrott: Another quote:

“We know it would be practically impossible at this precise moment to introduce a dental care programme that would provide complete care for everyone -- impossible not only from the financial standpoint, but from available manpower as well.”

I hope I can have a few minutes on that; time goes very quickly.

The Premier, in my opinion, was very forthright in going to the Ontario Dental Association and dealing with the problem right at the very heart of the problem. He addressed them just two weeks ago, and he didn’t say the plan wasn’t coming; indeed, he said to the contrary.

Mr. Roy: That’s what I am saying.

Mr. Parrott: To quote:

“But to put it as simply as possible, we have looked at the current financial picture and it just can’t be done at the present time. We can’t afford it, which in all honesty is to say that the taxpayers can’t afford it.”

He talks about the dental plan in another quote:

“I have looked at it. It is a good programme, and it will be introduced as soon as the taxpayers of this province can afford it, which I hope will be in the not too distant future. When the programme is introduced, it will require a great deal of co-operation and good will from the dental profession. It is not difficult to make a case for the need of dental care, nor is it difficult to determine the priorities for such a programme. We are all agreed to the first priority, which is to begin preventive care for children starting with the age group of from three to seven [somewhat as suggested by the member for Ottawa East] and proceeding from there on an annual increment basis.”

Now this is where I don’t quite agree with that particular part of it. I think to start at age three to six and then increment in perhaps two years at a time is far too slow. I think there would be total dissatisfaction with that kind of programme.

Mr. Roy: They call it fiscal responsibility.

Mr. Parrott: Initially, I think we should include another group beyond three to six and for this reason, that would give us a very biased opinion as to the need, the cost and the acceptability of the plan. At age 12, the dental needs are entirely different to the dental needs at age three or five. Indeed, as people go on into an older span of life, they’ve got an entirely different set of circumstances prevailing. So I think we would have to look at an age group of perhaps three to six, 12 to 14 and then our senior citizens, who are now nearly all covered, could be incorporated as well in their entirety.

It seems to me the time that has elapsed since this thing has been talked about more actively has not gone to waste. In fact, to the contrary, I think that in the last two or three years this government has moved very progressively. Back some time ago, when I addressed the Ontario Dental Association and got in some trouble, I suggested to them that I thought it was absolutely imperative that new ground must be broken. These are a few lines from that speech.

“First of all, I think we must have a very expanded role of the auxiliary. We’ve had a pilot project by the Ontario Dental Association. It was at a cost of $125,000 and I think that programme indicated that the auxiliaries could do the job and do it well. On the basis of that, and in complete co-operation with the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Colleges and Universities, we now have a programme which will indeed enhance the auxiliaries a great deal; that is, the duties that they can perform.”

Mr. Ferrier: How many new hygienists are they going to graduate this year?

Mr. Parrott: If the member would like to ask the minister some time for exact numbers, we have those available. To continue:

“It will just change the face of dentistry almost completely. We are not just increasing the number of hygienists, but indeed, there are a great number of new services rendered by auxiliary personnel with less training than previously.”

The importance of that, Mr. Speaker, is so that the people of this province can afford dental care. That seems not to be an important issue, other than to make political hay, to the speaker who addressed this resolution in this first instance. I think it is absolutely essential that we find an alternative method of treatment --

Mr. Roy: The member didn’t listen to the speech, eh?

Mr. Parrott: Yes, I did. The member was not talking about auxiliaries and the new roles that they can play, because --

Mr. Roy: The member is all talk.

Mr. Parrott: -- the old conventional method will be too expensive. We must have those personnel and we must have them before we start into a programme rather than afterwards, because if we start into a programme without them, we will have established a pattern, it will have cost this province far too much money, we will have raised the expectations of people to a certain method of treatment and then to try to change it will be extremely difficult. So I submit that it is most important that we have these auxiliaries; they are now permitted by this government, and I think they will do an extremely good job. The Ontario Dental Association fully supports that as the first step toward this plan.

One last thing as time runs out. I would suggest that it is absolutely important in the financial considerations of a plan of this nature that there be a co-operative payment from the patient.

Mr. Roy: We mentioned that.

Mr. Parrott: The lack of good dental health in a person is to a very marked degree preventable, and not to ask the patients who are prepared to contribute more in the way of their own self-care -- not to give those patients a lesser cost -- would be a marked disadvantage to them which I think they should not have to suffer. So I’m suggesting to you that it is important, when we come to consider a dental health programme, that we have a coinsurance feature. I don’t like that word particularly but the essence of that is most important to the programme.

I would like to expand on that a bit more but I see you reaching for your mike and I shall yield the floor to the next speaker. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Parkdale.

Mr. Dukszta: Mr. Speaker, the member for Oxford, by some kind of intellectual calisthenics, manages to arrive at a point in which he both supports and opposes Mr. Roy’s bill.

Mr. Deacon: He’s quite a gymnast.

Mr. Dukszta: At least, that’s what I managed to understand from what he was saying. If he actually supports it then he should speak to the people on the other side, which he obviously doesn’t, to tell them to implement it.

The Conservative Party has been promising denticare for over 30 years now, and even in the short time that I’ve been here successive ministers have promised it. I remember Mr. Bert Lawrence, the member for Quinte and even, I think, the present Minister of Health (Mr. Miller) hinting that they were going to introduce denticare any day now.

Mr. F. A. Burr (Sandwich-Riverside): We can’t do these things overnight, you know.

Mr. Dukszta: In 30 years? That’s true. I have just had it pointed out to me by my hon. colleague that you can’t do things over 30 years. It’s very difficult, obviously, for the Conservative Party.

Mr. Roy: You’re going to have hygienists pretty soon in the present setup.

Mr. Ferrier: They have to plan things ahead of time.

Mr. Dukszta: In the interim, the cost of a potential plan rises as preventive dental care is neglected.

The state of dental health of Ontario children is not good, Mr. Speaker. A study conducted in 1972 of school children aged five to 13 revealed the following: The average number of decayed, missing or filled teeth per child was 4.4. Only 21 per cent had no cavities whatsoever. The children requiring dental work had an average of 2.5 teeth needing filling.

The level of service which is currently available is quite inadequate. The Ontario Dental Association -- ODA -- has estimated that only 25 to 30 per cent of the population receives adequate care -- defining adequate care as regular diagnostic, preventive and restorative work, as opposed to emergency relief of pain such as an extraction which is what is practised generally now -- and only half the people of Ontario see a dentist under any circumstances.

There are several reasons for this: One, of course, is cost; most people can’t really afford to go to a dentist. There is the availability of service; there are many places in Ontario where there are very few dentists for the number of people who live in the area. There are the attitudes; most people believe that tooth decay is unavoidable and tooth loss a natural result of an aging process. This, of course, is not fully true.

Most authorities agree that a government-operated dental plan should begin with children aged up to 12. I agree that maybe one should start at first with up to eight or 12 and it should be phased in incrementally over a period of about five years.

The Ontario Dental Association has been pushing the government to implement a plan for several years. The majority of dentists are now in favour, actually, of denticare for children. Free dental services for children have been an NDP policy for years. Obviously, we would support any intelligent move in that direction and would implement a plan promptly if elected as the next government.

While the PC government has made no firm commitment to institute a plan, it has been meeting, I understand, with the ODA to discuss the matter. The ODA has published and distributed a brochure containing an outline of its recommendations. I would like to talk a few minutes about the difficulties of implementing that particular approach which the ODA suggests.

Even when the Conservatives do bring in a plan, we can be quite sure that its central characteristics will be the use of licensed dentists operating on a fee-for-service basis as primary practitioners, and the continuation of the present delivery system for the majority of dental services -- namely, private practice as opposed to clinics. Any system based on these premises will necessarily be faced with certain problems.

First, there are simply not sufficient dentists in Ontario to provide adequate care now, especially in eastern and northern Ontario, let alone to clear up the huge backlog of dental work which would have to be done if a children’s plan came into effect, and to service those children regularly. It would, moreover, take too long and cost too much to train the extra dentists required.

Secondly, the use of private practice, individual dentists operating independently in individual offices, will result in a relatively low utilization rate. Many people are reluctant to seek out dental services and parents will continue to feel reluctance if they cannot afford to buy services for themselves or if they do not already have a family dentist. The ODA has itself used the figure of 75 per cent as the final utilization rate after the programme phase-in, a five-year period is complete. Surely, we must aim higher than having three-quarters of all children receive benefits?

Thirdly, the cost of using dentists in private practice is high. If the utilization could be increased to 100 per cent the cost of a children’s dental plan could be as high as $275 million for the first five years.

Do I still have a few more minutes?

Mr. Speaker: Yes.

Mr. Dukszta: You look as if you are just about to cut me off.

Mr. Speaker: No. It is all right, you have about four minutes left.

Mr. Dukszta: The NDP government in Saskatchewan has implemented a dental plan for children which departs from the traditional methods of dental care delivery. The plan, which came into effect on Sept. 1, 1974, is currently providing free dental services -- no premiums or direct charges to parents -- for six-year-olds and will be covering all children aged three to 12 by 1979.

Basic diagnostic, preventive and restorative work is being provided by dental nurses who are salaried employees. All complex work beyond the competence of the nurses is referred to licensed dentists whose work is also covered by the plan. Service is delivered primarily in clinics which have been established in schools. This has the advantage that one is dealing with a captive audience. The government is anticipating a utilization rate of 95 per cent for school children right from the start. The implications of this for the general state of dental health are clear and obvious.

The NDP in Ontario would implement a children’s dental plan along substantially similar lines. If we apply cost data from Saskatchewan to Ontario it can be calculated that the plan using dental nurses would cost approximately $150 million for the first five years; a considerable saving over service provided only by the dentists.

An NDP plan would place primary emphasis on the prevention of dental disease rather than restorative treatment after tooth decay has set in. This is essential both in terms of financial planning and health planning. Accordingly, a significant part of the dental plan budget would be allocated specifically for dental health education programmes to be conducted in schools, clinics, dentists’ offices and the media. Serious consideration should also be given to provincial financing for necessary -- although that is not part of our policy -- the fluoridation of municipal water supplies, the single most effective, according to some authorities, and cheapest mechanism for improving dental health.

Mr. B. Newman: The party is not unified on that.

Mr. Dukszta: No, we are not unified on that as yet.

The last remark I would like to make on the dental health plan is the best way of delivering dental care on the pre-paid level for children up to the age of 12 would be under the comprehensive aegis of a community health and social services centre in which integration of all health services would in the long run not only provide better, more accessible and more available service but at the same time would also be cheaper.

We are not suggesting it should be done separately from it. I think a thrust of the NDP government in health policy would be to extend the total health care, including social services, in all aspects of the health care. Dental health care, just like the provision of free drugs, would be part of this total health policy.

We estimate the cost to be $150 million for the first five years. If it is united with a general and total approach to the health care in the form of community health and social services the cost will probably be much cheaper.

Once more I blame the government for not having done it before since it is in many respects a very simple and cheap way of doing it. I urge them once more in the short time they have left to be the government to implement the plan.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Windsor-Walkerville.

Mr. B. Newman: Mr. Speaker, I rise to support the resolution introduced by my colleague. I noted that the two previous speakers endorsed the resolution, so there is no need really for any discussion as far as the resolution is concerned. All we really need is action on the part of the government. This government has had the responsibility of governing for some 32 years now. Surely within that period of time they could have implemented the scheme.

There is the comment that we are being irresponsible in suggesting the scheme as we have over a period of time. May I tell you, Mr. Speaker, that by selecting priorities or by establishing priorities my colleague showed the scheme was financially practical. We could implement the scheme immediately; we wouldn’t have to wait. I notice that the member for Oxford made mention that we aren’t in a financial position to implement the scheme. My colleague pointed out in his opening remarks that by selecting our priorities the financial resources are available. When we suggested the scheme we were really being financially responsible.

The member made mention likewise that manpower was not available. If manpower is not available, then whose responsibility has it been over the past 30 years to develop that manpower?

Mr. Parrott: We are making great strides in that area.

Mr. B. Newman: This government for 32 years has had the responsibility to take care of the health services of our people.

Mr. Roy: What have they been doing for 30 years?

Mr. B. Newman: It has shirked its responsibility. It has not followed the recommendations in the various reports submitted to government concerning the establishment of more dental facilities in the province.

Mr. Parrott: They would not have accepted this five years ago.

Mr. B. Newman: They certainly could have and should have taken care of all of that. They have had 32 years to do it and have neglected to live up to their responsibilities. As far as the manpower being available today is concerned, in a conversation with the dentist in my own community who had been the president of the Ontario Dental Association back some years ago, he did make mention that their scheme had been presented to the government back in 1968 so the government has had the Ontario dental scheme back from 1968, some eight years ago. Surely it didn’t require the dental association to tell the government that health should be a complete picture, it should be a total package, that we shouldn’t be concerned only with one aspect of health and we should look at the whole health package when we are talking about the individual.

This dentist mentioned to me that there are sufficient dentists available if we take advantage of our community colleges and develop the health personnel that is being developed now and can be developed to a greater extent. Dental assistants now are being developed there.

Mr. Parrott: They will be in the next two years, not now.

Mr. B. Newman: Dental technicians will be coming out of our community colleges.

Mr. Parrott: That’s not what we need.

Mr. Roy: The member should bow his head in shame.

Mr. Parrott: The member doesn’t know the facts.

Mr. B. Newman: Dental therapists will be coming out of our community colleges. With the dental services team -- the whole package -- the dentists and the fact that the dental services are not used by all of the people, we do have sufficient personnel today. For example, in the Province of Quebec, which has such a scheme, only 30 to 40 per cent of the people use the services. One can see they are under-utilized. We do have the manpower.

Mr. Parrott: Not under-utilized, but undereducated. Compare dental health in the two provinces.

Mr. Roy: The member is always finding excuses.

Mr. B. Newman: We do have the manpower, Mr. Speaker, to come along and implement the programme immediately.

Mr. Parrott: That is no excuse; that’s a fact.

Mr. Roy: Leadership comes from the profession, and not from the government. That’s a fact.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Windsor-Walkerville has the floor. Order, please. Go ahead.

Mr. B. Newman: Mr. Speaker, before we -- I shouldn’t say “before” -- the government, at present, does have a dental education programme or I think it does have a dental education programme. The February, 1974, publication of the Ministry of Health -- volume I, No. 1 of The Pulse -- goes to some length to describe the programme now in existence in the ministry and in the schools, through the ministry.

They use Murphy the Molar as the individual who is going to tell the students, by means of television, that they have to follow certain approaches if they wish to have a minimum amount of teeth problems. Their first recommendation is the five simple rules for dental health: 1. Brush your teeth; 2. Practice tooth safety; 3. Develop good food habits; 4. Visit your dentist regularly; 5. Have fluoride protection. On that last comment, had the government implemented it I think it would have diminished the need for dental services so substantially that the manpower definitely would be available.

On some of the other comments, I wonder how an individual who comes from a one-parent family, whose single parent makes a minimum wage of $2.40 an hour or even $2.60 -- I think it is $2.60 now -- could develop good food habits when the family can’t afford to buy good food in many instances? We do need the programme implemented as quickly as possible.

Preventive dentistry, such as in the comments I have made concerning the Ministry of Health’s magazine, Pulse, should be expanded quite substantially and it is going to be expanded in our school programmes. We need a massive expansion of an educational programme in our school systems.

I can recall at one time, when I happened to be on city council, when an individual on welfare had some type of tooth problem the only thing that could be done was that the tooth would be yanked out. However, now, with the new approach and with assistance from the Ministry of Community and Social Services, we find that no longer is the tooth simply pulled out. The individual who happens to be unfortunate and is on some sort of social benefit has the same type of attention given to him by the dental profession as does the individual who has to pay for his own services. However, it has also been found that of those who are on social service benefits, only 40 per cent use the services of dentists. For some unexplained reason it just happens to be so.

To illustrate that there are sufficient dentists available now, in 1971 it was pointed out to me that 49 per cent of the people visited a dentist regularly. In the scheme my colleague mentions, the cost would be a total package of $184 million. My colleague really exaggerates when he mentions $184 million because he says for the first year up to the age of six, it would cost $10.2 million; the second year, including the seven and eight-year-olds, would cost an additional $23.5 million. But individuals in the second year, now aged seven, would have already received treatment under the six-year-olds’ programme the year before. As a result, their dental caries and the problems with their teeth will not be as great as for the individual, generally, who had had no dental attention.

If one follows that same approach in the five-year programme he mentions, individuals in five different age groups would already have had dental attention in the previous year so the cost of the programme would not be as substantial as has been indicated.

Up to the age of three, I understand, the dentists don’t generally have the children in. In the first place, there is a lack of communication between the dentist and the youngster. In the second place, there isn’t the same type of problem, even though the dentists do recommend to mothers to bring their children in for examination.

Mr. Speaker, --

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

Mr. B. Newman: Mr. Speaker, I will complete my remarks in a minute here. Such dental plans are already --

Mr. Speaker: The time is already half a minute over.

Mr. B. Newman: -- the “big three” auto workers have a dental plan; municipal employees in many instances have a dental plan; the well-organized have dental plans. But it is the disadvantaged, those who are working at the minimum wage, who are the ones that don’t have these plans. Mr. Speaker, it is time that the government implemented a plan to provide dental services to every one up to the age of six, and progressively beyond that age.

Mr. Speaker: The member for London North.

Mr. Walker: Mr. Speaker, I rise to offer some comments on the resolution made by the hon. member for Ottawa East. Generally, it is a good resolution. I don’t think that any objection can come, other than the questions of cost and timing. I would like to offer some thoughts from the vantage point of being the parliamentary assistant in the Ministry of Health relative to how the decision for timing was arrived at, and some of the considerations that went into the government’s overall interest in the programme of denticare.

As you know, Mr. Speaker, discussions have been held with the Ontario Dental Association and the provincial Ministry of Health for over two years now, and they have been very fruitful. I know the ministry is extremely appreciative of the ODA for their participation, their contribution -- indeed, their inspiration throughout the whole process. There is no question that there is a need for a comprehensive plan to attack dental care problems in Ontario. It’s been clearly identified through a number of studies, and there is one study that I would like to refer to.

There appears to be a need for a children’s dental care programme to be introduced on an incremental basis, which is generally along the lines of what the member for Ottawa East has suggested. The need is supported by one study that I am familiar with. It showed that 75 per cent of decayed teeth in children aged three were not filled; 60 per cent of decayed teeth in children aged seven were not filled; 44 per cent of decayed teeth in children aged 13 were not filled. There were a variety of regional disparities of course, involved in that study.

Of the children in the five-to-seven year-old age group, 29 per cent had one or more permanent teeth removed by the time they had reached the age of 13. Twenty-two per cent required orthodontic treatment, in contrast with the two per cent actually treated.

It should be noted that the ODA, Mr. Speaker, and the Ministry of Health are united in their agreement for the fundamental importance of a preventive dental health care programme. It is regarded though, as being essential that a comprehensive preventive programme must be mounted prior to the introduction of any actual dental programme.

There is a plan that has been studied for some time between ODA and the Ministry of Health. It developed over the last few years or so, and I would just like to touch on some of the salient points, Mr. Speaker. The recommendation of the ODA would be for a phased two-yearly incremental programme providing preventive and basic treatment services for children age three to 18 inclusive to be offered as an OHIP benefit.

Initially, the programme would offer services for children age three to five, with the possibility that age three to seven inclusive would be considered, adding a two-year age group in each succeeding year. The services would be provided through designated health agencies based on the school system and staffed by dentists and dental nurses when available, and dentists in private practice, who would preferably be paid on a sessional basis. In the first year the programme would probably cost over $12 million. However, the add-on cost in successive years would be very high. It is anticipated that two age groups would be added each successive year in this incremental programme. The estimate for the overall plan is about $150 million spread over the initial five-year period. It would be recognized that this is only a ball park figure. The actual cost would probably be somewhat higher due to recent fee increases and the generally inflationary trends with which we’ve been suffering in the last few years.

Our current budget requests are nearly $3 billion this year, Mr. Speaker; 30 cents out of every dollar spent by the province is spent just on health care. There would, of course, be an increase in that if a dental plan were to be accepted at this moment in time.

The plan has been shelved, Mr. Speaker, at least for this year, according to a speech the Premier gave to the Ontario Dental Association as recently as May 21, and to some extent quoted by the member for Oxford.

The Premier started his comments to the ODA, Mr. Speaker, by saying:

“It had been my hope and intention today to announce that the government of Ontario was prepared to embark upon a phased implementation of a dental care programme. But, to put it as simply as possible, we’ve had a look at the current financial picture and it just can’t be done at the present time. We can’t afford it, which in all honesty is to say that the taxpayers can’t afford it. Given the current economic climate, however, along with the escalating costs of present health care programmes, it would be fiscally irresponsible to make any such commitment, at this point in time, let alone to implement it.

“This has not been an easy decision for me to make, but I think it is the right and only decision. I also think it appropriate that I inform you of this decision here and now because, as you know, the Ontario Dental Association and the Ontario Ministry of Health have been working together for nearly two years in developing a dental care programme.”

Mr. Roy: The member is good for that. He is good at talking.

Mr. Walker: Continuing quote:

“I have looked at it. It is a good programme, and it will be introduced as soon as the taxpayers of this province can afford it, which I hope will be in the not too distant future. But for reasons that have to do with pure economics, as opposed to ultimate intentions, the government has to go into a holding pattern temporarily, and I ask for your understanding on this matter, and your patience.”

Mr. Speaker, I share the Premier’s view on this matter, having been somewhat involved in the discussion to date. I feel he has taken the prudent course; obviously only course that could be taken.

Mr. Roy: The way you run the province.

Mr. Walker: In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, may I say that I’m delighted by the comment made by the member for Ottawa East, who said that the Liberal Party in the future will be responsible. I’m so delighted to hear that, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Roy: Yes, and I proved it too; I proved it.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Cochrane South.

Mr. Ferrier: Mr. Speaker, I want to join in this debate. It’s a matter, I suppose, of where you put your priorities and how you spread around the tax dollar. The Treasurer in his budget made a great play by taking the seven per cent sales tax off production machinery to help out the corporate sector. Had some of this money been directed to a social need, such as dental care, we would be able to go ahead with this programme this year. Helping out the big shots at the expense of the average citizen is the kind of priorities that we expect and get from this government across the way.

Mr. Walker: Come on, the member need not say that. He doesn’t believe that.

Mr. Ferrier: The other speakers have mentioned that we have been after a dental care programme in this province for ever and a day. The hon. Bert Lawrence, when he was Minister of Health, said that we would have dental care in Ontario and it would be something the same as in Quebec. He said that on June 14, 1971.

Mr. J. Lane (Algoma-Manitoulin): We will have it.

Mr. Ferrier: He said that in the field of dentistry, if we could get our priorities sorted out in the next six months, then in a year to 18 months from now we could start bringing those benefits forward. This kind of programme starts with children three to five, and moves on up. Here it is four years later and we are still in the same spot as we were then.

The member for Oxford says that we have to get auxiliaries trained so that we can go ahead with this programme. What’s been going on in the last four years?

Mr. Parrott: Doesn’t the member agree? Doesn’t he agree with auxiliaries?

Mr. Ferrier: I agree that we have to have auxiliaries, but he is saying --

Mr. Parrott: How much does the member know about that programme?

Mr. Ferrier: He is saying he could start his auxiliary programme now so that he will have his auxiliaries through school in the next year or two and maybe at that point, we’ll have a chance to use them so that this kind of a programme can be implemented. I’m saying that is about three years too late. We should be in a position to do that right now.

Mr. Parrott: It is a study that took two years and it was absolutely essential to have that done first.

Mr. Ferrier: I’m not so sure. I remember back in 1971 having met with Dr. Roger Ellis and Dr. A. M. Hunt, with whom I think the member is familiar. They said: “We want to go ahead with this.” He said: “I helped set up this programme that’s going on in Quebec, I would like to see the children of Ontario come in and get the same type of benefits. What’s going to happen in this election? Can we push it?” We started pushing it and we got this announcement from Bert Lawrence that all would be well; we’re going to be able to look after our children and our young people much better; we’re going to be able to deal with these caries that they have in their mouths and see that they get the dental care that they really need. Now we get the announcement that it’s not coming for at least a couple of years.

Mr. Parrott: I wouldn’t say that.

Mr. Ferrier: People are not sending their children to dentists or taking them to dentists as they ought to. One of the reasons -- there are two or three -- is the cost of it and I think this is somewhat valid. Dental care is becoming more and more expensive as the fees continue to escalate, so a number of people don’t put the priority on dental health that they should. The percentage of children and people who should get to the dentist don’t get to the dentist, and among some of them, particularly the lower income groups that don’t get there, the children are suffering.

The dental care programmes that we have in the province now are the result of the trade union movement, through collective bargaining, exacting these kinds of programmes from their employers.

Mr. Parrott: Oh, there were plans well ahead of that.

Mr. Ferrier: Would it be that this government across the way would make it a lot easier for trade unions to be certified and to take their place for the workers in this province, but it even puts roadblocks in their way and makes it difficult for them to organize so that they can do the work and they can get the kind of programmes for their members that they rightly deserve and should have. It’s not just the trade unionists and the teachers and these kinds of people who should be giving the leadership; we should be getting it from government for those who are on the minimum wage or are low wage people. These are the ones we should be taking the leadership for.

We must go ahead with the auxiliary plan that was mentioned here before. I think that more encouragement has to be given and more money has to be invested in the preventative programmes, as can be done. Some of the health units to a larger extent are carrying out examinations and proceeding with topical applications of fluoride to the children. The dental association and a number of other people feel that the fluoridation of water is important; that it’s a preventive measure that could be engaged in. But in terms of the future health of the children and future health of our population, I think it is vitally important that there be sufficient attention given to looking after the teeth and seeing that children keep their teeth and not let them get so decayed that they have to be taken out. Some people, when they get to be 18 or 20 or 21 -- as I’ve seen in some of the smaller communities where there hasn’t been adequate dental care -- they have all false teeth and none of their own teeth at all. That is terrible.

Mr. Parrott: That’s right.

Mr. Ferrier: This is why I have been speaking so strongly for a dental care programme, because I think that we can keep our own teeth and have healthy mouths and healthy teeth. It is not going to cost us all that much. As these programmes are implemented by going from three to five years and on up --

Mr. Parrott: Oh!

Mr. Ferrier: -- let’s put more in there -- as we look after the dental needs of the children, as we bring more in and as the work is done, then I think that the need for further work lessens.

Mr. Parrott: No, new conditions prevail. What is the member going to do about those, about orthodontics and traumatic injuries? Has he considered those as well?

Mr. Ferrier: We could always get more orthodontists. We shouldn’t be taking them out of that practice and putting them in politics. We have got such a shortage.

Mr. Roy: Let’s have a vote on this.

Mr. Ferrier: I am happy to have a vote on this. As I say, it is a very, very important thing and I do not feel that the government should be delaying as it has. They have been fooling the people, saying they are going to bring this in tomorrow or perhaps a few months hence. They said it in 1971.

Mr. Deacon: They said it in 1942.

Mr. Ferrier: Let’s be more recent. We hate found how irresponsible they are on this. The advertising campaigns we have been getting to advertise every possible programme that the government thinks needs advertising are using money mainly for political purposes. There’s where some more money could be got.

Mr. Parrott: Doesn’t the member want the people to know the value of the programmes that are being offered? Which programmes would be cut out?

Mr. Ferrier: The government took the seven per cent sales tax off machinery for the big companies. As my leader so well put it, if some of that money was put into a socially good programme for people --

Mr. Parrott: What kind of programmes would the member cut out?

Mr. Lane: We work for the people.

Mr. Ferrier: -- where the priorities lie, we would have our dental care programmes announced to take place within the next few months. I think that the government has been running this province in a very shameful and disgraceful way, where it has not put in --

Mr. Parrott: I think it is time for the member to sit down.

Mr. Ferrier: -- this programme for people in the way it should be.

Mr. Walker: He should go back to the pulpit.

Mr. Ferrier: I could wax very eloquently in the pulpit about this, too, because I feel very strongly about it. I think the government has been negligent and has hurt the people of this province by not showing the leadership in this field that they expected of their government.

Mr. Roy: Can we have a vote on this?

Mr. Speaker: The business is now dispensed with.

Mr. Roy: Can we have a vote on this? I don’t see anything on the standing orders, Mr. Speaker, saying we can’t have a vote on this. Everybody spoke in favour of it.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. That matter has been decided many, many long months ago.

Mr. Roy: It has?

Mr. Speaker: This order of business is completed. Next order of business.

Clerk of the House: 28th order, House in committee of supply.

It being 6 o’clock the House took recess.