Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

The House met at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Mr. Maeck: Mr. Speaker, I would like to introduce to the members of the House, 60 grade 10 students from the Almaguin Highlands Secondary School in the heart of Almaguin Highlands in the great riding of Parry Sound. I would ask the members to please welcome them.

Mr. G. E. Smith: Mr. Speaker, I would like to introduce to you and to my colleagues in the Legislature, 80 grade 10 students from Park Street Collegiate Institute in Orillia, accompanied by Mr. Watt and Mr. Passfield. I would ask you to welcome them.

Mr. Singer: Mr. Speaker, I would like to introduce 25 students from the Toronto Junior Academy in the east gallery. They are accompanied by Mr. Jurinasz.

Mr. Speaker: Statements by the ministry.

Mr. Lewis: It certainly is quiet.

Mr. Mancini: They have given up.

Mr. Speaker: Oral questions.

OMA FEE SCHEDULE

Mr. Lewis: I have a question of the Minister of Health, if I may, Mr. Speaker. What accounts for the apparent utter breakdown in negotiations between his ministry and the Ontario Medical Association, given the optimistic reports he made from time to time to the Legislature about the process of those negotiations, now that the OMA has made very lavish wage demands which the minister himself clearly finds unacceptable?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, the negotiations have not really broken down. That’s the interesting part of this to me. The statements to the press would indicate that. Yet I think a careful reading of some of the comments made would show they included a number of qualifications, as I read them anyway, that would permit negotiations to go on as they were.

The stated positions of a 35 per cent fee increase generating 48 per cent more revenue were, in their opinion, based upon studies they undertook to see what it would take to catch up with the level they were at four or five years ago or whenever it was felt they had become constrained. I read into some of their comments that they were still willing to live by guidelines and this seems to be paradoxical. One can’t ask for 35 per cent and live within guidelines. I had to say unequivocably I can’t accept that kind of demand.

Mr. Lewis: You could even say it unequivocally.

Mr. Mancini: Ask him if he wants --

Hon. F. S. Miller: One of the problems with being an engineer is I always get extra syllables in.

Mr. Lewis: It was an old Tom Wells trick.

Hon. F. S. Miller: In any case, I feel, too, that a number of physicians who are among the electorate represented by this executive somehow feel that their moderation has only resulted in them not gaining as much as they should have. Whether that is fair or not is a subjective decision, I suppose. I feel that some of them think they have to become more militant to press their point.

Mr. Lewis: Well, they are a union after all.

A supplementary, if I may, to the minister: Is it his intention to continue to negotiate, and if so, can he indicate to the Legislature what the government is offering? Does he intend to continue to negotiate to reach an agreement which he will then take to the Anti-Inflation Board, presumably in conjunction with some federal initiative on professional income guidelines?

Hon. F. S. Miller: I believe that good progress is being made at the Anti-Inflation Board discussions on guidelines for professional incomes. The Treasurer (Mr. McKeough) might nod up or down or sideways if he could tell me.

Mr. Shore: He should keep the ministers informed.

Hon. F. S. Miller: We are getting clearer definitions. --

Mr. Lewis: That nod was a blessing.

Hon. F. S. Miller: That was a blessing.

Mr. Singer: Let it be recorded in Hansard.

Hon. F. S. Miller: Let me say, that is the first blessing the Treasurer has given me of late.

Interjection.

Hon. F. S. Miller: In any case, I assume that the moment the guidelines are clearer, the negotiations of the Clawson committee will begin again. That was the agreement we had. There is no termination on an indefinite basis. They were simply terminated until this clarification came from Ottawa. It was quite properly felt that there was no use negotiating for things as yet undetermined. We had too many variables in the case of fee for service which don’t necessarily apply on a straight salary issue. We were getting this clarification and the moment we have it, it is my understanding the Clawson committee will reconvene. Then I will really know whether or not they are serious about negotiating within the guidelines.

Mr. S. Smith: A supplementary: In view of what the minister has said and in view of the statement by the vice-president of the OMA that each doctor is his own boss and can opt out of OHIP if he so chooses -- he said, “If 8,000 doctors do that it would require Jehovah’s hordes for the government to police it” -- can the minister tell the House what his view would be and what the action of the Ministry would be if 8,000 doctors did pull out of OHIP?

Mr. Nixon: How many hordes do you have?

Hon. F. S. Miller: I would like you to enunciate a little more clearly on some of your words here. You’ll think of them a little later on perhaps.

Mr. Nixon: You have got some of those lined up, too, have you?

Mr. S. Smith: The minister’s free association process is of great interest to me but let’s carry on with the matter at hand.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. minister will continue with his answer.

Hon. F. S. Miller: The federal government has one weapon it has said it will use. It is my understanding that certain information will be required of professionals in Canada, in terms of their change in income and change in billing practice. The government has said it would tax any people who broke the guidelines 100 cents on the dollar, as I recall.

Mr. Lewis: A supplementary, if I may: Does the minister think the doctors were incited to their extremism by the present Minister of Labour (B. Stephenson) when she said to the medical association not so long ago, “A sizable increase in the 1976 OMA schedule of fees is indicated, warranted and needed. Do it, but please do it right.” What do you think she had in mind by that?

Hon. F. S. Miller: I don’t know what she had in mind then and she is in the House today. I can only say that recently she has been seeing things my way a lot better.

Mr. Lewis: I couldn’t agree with the minister on that.

Mr. Roy: A supplementary question.

An hon. member: Here’s the new leader.

Mr. Roy: Would the minister advise, in view of the fact that there has been this threat of doctors opting out of the plan, whether he is in fact considering legislation to opt them back in? Secondly, is he considering legislation at least to prohibit the doctors from charging senior citizens or people on social welfare the difference between OHIP and what their fees might be?

Hon. F. S. Miller: First of all I am not convinced there is any sizable change in the number of people opting out. Any statistics that I have had -- and admittedly they are always a month or two in arrears -- would not indicate that. I have no intention of opting people out under the present conditions where we have a free choice by those doctors --

Mr. Roy: We are talking about opting in, not out.

Hon. F. S. Miller: They can opt in any time they wish. If they opt out then there may be problems for certain patients. I don’t see that there is currently a problem.

PAPERWORKERS’ STRIKE

Mr. Lewis: A question of the Premier, if I may: Is it possible for the Premier to intervene to do something about this endless labour dispute in the pulp and paper industry that is ravaging so many communities across Ontario, since the Ministry of Labour seems to be having difficulty coming to grips with it?

Hon. Mr. Davis: The government, of course, is very concerned about the matter. There are a number of members on this side who have a very direct interest as far as their own communities are concerned.

Mr. Samis: On all sides.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I just said “this side.” I am not saying not on that side; I didn’t say that.

I would also add, though, that in my view the Minister of Labour (B. Stephenson) is not only very aware of it but is making every effort from her standpoint and the ministry’s standpoint to see just how the government can be of assistance. I question whether any direct intervention on my part at this moment would serve any useful purpose. This doesn’t minimize our concern about it, and I am more than confident that the Minister of Labour is doing everything possible that she can to come to grips with the problem.

Mr. Ferrier: In view of the fact that this strike affects so many aspects of government, does the Premier not think he should use his own good offices and influence to bring pressure to bear to get meaningful negotiations under way?

Hon. Mr. Davis: As I said to the hon. member’s leader just a moment or two ago, I am quite satisfied that the Minister of Labour, who is working on this matter, is making every effort and is doing all that can be done at this moment as far as the government is concerned.

PORT ARTHUR CLINIC STRIKE

Mr. Lewis: Can the Premier review or seek equal satisfaction in the very nasty and divisive labour dispute at the medical clinic in Thunder Bay which is also causing such problems in that community since the Ministry of Labour again seems congenitally unable to handle it?

Hon. Mr. Davis: I won’t get into any facetious response as to the non-provocative way the Leader of the Opposition has phrased his question except to restate that, once again, I have complete confidence in the ability of the Minister of Labour (B. Stephenson) and the Ministry of Labour to deal with these matters, including that particular situation.

Mr. Foulds: A supplementary: In view of the rumours that are circulating in Thunder Bay about the possibility (a) of a general strike and (b) of the withdrawal of services from the Thunder Bay hospitals by the same local that is affected by the Port Arthur clinic, does the Premier not think that this is a matter of some urgency in order to get the parties back to the bargaining table and to find out from the doctor-owners why they rejected the minimal agreement recommended by the government’s mediator?

[2:15]

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, first, I don’t deal in rumours, and second, I would repeat what I said to the hon. member’s leader, that I have complete confidence in the ability of the Minister of Labour to deal with these matters.

TELSO STRIKE

Mr. Lewis: A question of the Premier: Could the Premier concern himself in the labour dispute in Tilbury involving Telso Products which the Ministry of Labour has failed to solve, given 14 months now of the labour dispute despite the changes in the legislation last summer, which we thought would affect a conciliation?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, very briefly, for a period of time last September I met with one of the people involved in that particular dispute. While I recognize the Leader of the Opposition would like to have me involved in every labour dispute in the province --

Mr. Lewis: Speed up the ministry.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- I would only repeat, and I hate to be repetitious but I shall be, once again it’s a situation where the minister and the Ministry of Labour are making all the efforts they can, and I am quite satisfied as to the minister’s capacity to deal with these situations.

HOSPITAL CLOSINGS

Mr. S. Smith: A question for the Minister of Health: In view of the fact that he has, on previous occasions, refused to tell this House the list of hospitals for which he is considering closure, could he at least at this time tell the House the criteria by which such closure will or will not be determined, and will he specifically tell us whether he is going to include therein criteria having to do with efficiency of operation?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, there will be a number of criteria. One of the most obvious ones would be the condition, physically, of a hospital. Chesley, for example, fitted into the state where it required replacement if it was to continue. Another criterion would be to determine if adequate alternative hospital facilities were within reasonable distance of the facility to be closed and, in fact, had, in our opinion, the capacity to handle the flow.

Insofar as operating efficiency, I don’t think by itself that would be a reason to close a hospital. Surely it would be our duty then to look at the reasons for the poor operation of a particular hospital, and to work with the administration to see if we could improve that efficiency, rather than close it simply because it was not cost effective.

Mr. S. Smith: If, in fact, the two major criteria are to be the physical condition of the hospitals and the existence of adequate alternatives, could he please explain to us how, (a) we are to measure the physical condition of these hospitals, and (b) how we are to understand, if there are adequate alternatives in the area, why these other hospitals were built in the first place?

Hon. F. S. Miller: I don’t think the physical condition of the hospital is as difficult to measure us one may think. We have people going around the province from various inspectorates, such as the fire marshal’s office, looking at buildings and determining that they are or are not in a safe condition. We have others looking at the demands on a given building and its ability to cope with them -- traffic flow, things of that nature. Insofar as whether we built too many hospitals in the past -- yes, we have changed our overall guidelines and we are adjusting to them.

Mr. Godfrey: With regard to the closure of hospitals, Mr. Speaker, will the minister assure the House that hospital workers who are forced out of their jobs by the closure of hospitals would be replaced in other work?

Hon. F. S. Miller: No, I can’t give that assurance, Mr. Speaker. I will do everything I can to see that attrition, which is high in the hospital field, takes a goodly number of the people who drop out. We have about 110,000 people functioning in the hospitals in Ontario. I don’t know what the turnover rate in that field is, but it may be as high as 10 per cent or more per year, so that there would be a fairly high attrition rate. Secondly, I would think where, in fact, some people can’t be absorbed through attrition, we should most certainly try to encourage the hospitals in the area, or other facilities, to use people willing and able to work.

Mr. Nixon: Supplementary of the Minister of Health: Can he assure us that as this programme goes forward, we won’t be faced with the situation similar to what has happened in the Mount Sinai Hospital, where on a policy of closing at one level or another, a major facility sits vacant in the centre of this city? Basically, can he assure us that it isn’t just smallness that is the criterion? He keeps talking about closing the small hospitals, and surely that’s not the major thrust. Wouldn’t he agree that these --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. I believe the question has been asked.

Mr. Nixon: -- are the planning problems that we face?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Smallness is not necessarily one of the criteria. It may well be that some of the larger hospitals will fit into this. Right now, I don’t think there is any major hospital on the list I’m talking about; there could well be. The specific hospital that the member referred to, though, will reopen in January of next year -- whether the member was aware of it or not.

Mr. Singer: As what?

Hon. F. S. Miller: As a chronic rehabilitation and teaching unit attached to three Toronto hospitals and the University of Toronto Medical School.

Mr. Nixon: You’ve left it closed for two years.

Mr. Roy: That’s real planning; two years closed.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. A final supplementary from the member for Timiskaming.

Mr. Bain: Could the minister tell us if there are any hospitals that are presently functioning as hospitals that are unsafe according to the Ontario fire marshal’s office?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Most certainly.

MUNICIPAL GRANTS

Mr. S. Smith: A question for the Treasurer: Does he agree with Mrs. A. H. Jones, the chairman of the regional municipality of Hamilton-Wentworth, that the province’s decision to limit increases in grants to municipalities to five per cent or six per cent means that there will have to be a substantial municipal tax increase, even in order to carry on present programmes in social services and health? Would he not agree, then, that his so-called austerity programme really simply shifts the burden of taxation --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. That’s debating the issue. The question has been placed; the member is debating the issue now.

Mr. S. Smith: Would he agree with Mrs. Jones?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: I haven’t seen Mrs. Jones’ comments; and I wouldn’t want to agree or disagree until I’ve seen them.

Mr. Roy: You just heard them. Don’t dodge the question; you heard it.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The member for Hamilton West with a supplementary.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Nixon: Tuesday. Get ready for Tuesday.

Mr. Speaker: Could we have fewer interjections in the House, please? The hon. member for Hamilton West wishes to ask a question.

Mr. S. Smith: Supplementary question: In view of Mrs. Jones’ letter to the Hamilton Spectator, published three days ago in that newspaper, in which she says, “The indications are that provincial grants and social service programmes will have to be increased beyond the six per cent limit, unless Darcy McKeough is willing and able to impose an absolute freeze on social service payments in 1976,” would the Treasurer not agree that his austerity programme really simply shifts the burden of taxation from the province on to municipal property taxes?

An hon. member: Just answer yes.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Mr. Speaker, I am sorry; I have not seen that article in the Hamilton Spectator.

Mr. Shore: Forget whether you’ve seen it; answer the question.

Mr. S. Smith: You heard the question.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: At such time as I’ve had a chance to look at it and see what Mrs. Jones said, I’d be delighted to reply to the member fully.

Mr. Bullbrook: My God, won’t you ever stand up for anything?

Mr. Shore: Supplementary.

Mr. Speaker: I don’t know how there can be a supplementary question when there was no answer. We’ll hear the hon. member if he thinks he has a supplementary to an answer which is a non-answer.

Mr. S. Smith: He didn’t answer me.

Mr. Speaker: All right, the member for Hamilton West has further questions.

Mr. Shore: What happened to my supplementary?

Mr. S. Smith: He didn’t give an answer so it’s hard to ask a supplementary.

CORONER REPORTS

Mr. S. Smith: A question for the Solicitor General: Is the Solicitor General prepared to make coroners’ reports public? Would he undertake specifically to make available to members of this House the coroner’s report on the Sudbury deaths due to the crossing of the gas lines in a Sudbury hospital?

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: Mr. Speaker, I have not seen that report that the hon. member for Hamilton West has requested. I will take it under advisement and reply tomorrow or the first of the week.

Mr. S. Smith: Thank you.

MINIMUM WAGE

Mr. Samis: A question to the Minister of Labour: In light of the fact that the announced projected minimum wage in Newfoundland now exceeds that of Ontario, could she please specify when the working force of this province will know when the minimum wage will be increased?

Hon. B. Stephenson: Mr. Speaker as I announced in response to a question of some two weeks ago, the statement regarding the movement of the minimum wage will be made before the end of December.

Mr. Lewis: When the Legislature is out of session.

Mr. Samis: Supplementary. Hansard reveals the minister said “on or about Dec. 1.” I would like to know how much longer after Dec. 1 we have to wait?

Mr. Speaker: Order please, the question has been asked. There are further questions over here. The member for Ottawa East.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Order. I might point out that asking the same question in a different form twice is really wasting the time of the question period, and I ruled that second question out of order. The member for Hamilton East with his question.

Mr. Lewis: Ottawa East.

Mr. Speaker: I mean Ottawa East.

An hon. member: I would like you to meet Mr. Albert Roy.

Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, a question of the Solicitor General --

Mr. Samis: On a point of order --

Mr. Speaker: I ruled your question out of order. Has it something to do with something different?

Mr. Samis: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. That question wasn’t the same. I specifically referred to Hansard in the supplementary.

Mr. Speaker: The content of the question, in my opinion, was the same. I ruled it out of order. The member for Ottawa East has the opportunity to ask his question.

Mr. Lewis: Albert, why are you so popular with the Tories?

Mr. Roy: You would like to know, wouldn’t you, Stephen?

OTTAWA AREA CRIMINAL ACTIVITIES

Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, a question to the Solicitor General: In view of the fact that in the Quebec crime commission inquiry there has been tape-recorded evidence given that one of the people involved in that inquiry -- one Violi -- apparently has operations in the Ottawa area. Would the minister advise the House whether his ministry is aware of this, and what it is prepared to do about the investigation of these activities in the Ottawa area?

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: Mr. Speaker, the ministry is aware of it and an investigation is being carried on.

Mr. Roy: What is that?

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: I say the ministry is aware of it and we are following up the matter.

Mr. Shore: Oh, that is terrific.

Mr. Roy: A supplementary: Could the minister advise, first of all, if he has people who are communicating with the Quebec police or attending the crime commission hearings down there, and could he report to the House the extent of the activity or what setup he has to follow up in this: province?

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: I am unable to report today, Mr. Speaker, but I will likewise attempt to get that information for my hon. friend.

TRAINING SCHOOL STAFFS

Hon. J. R. Smith: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Kitchener-Wilmot (Mr. Sweeney) yesterday asked for an answer and was anxious to know about reported staff reductions in this calendar year, and also sought information regarding our projects of admissions to Grandview School, which is a training school for juvenile girl wards in Galt.

A number of staff positions have been abolished. In most cases, the incumbents have been reassigned to other duties in the school. Recently, five teaching positions were declared redundant. Currently, we are interviewing these staff members to ascertain whether their desire is to transfer to other teaching positions outside of Grandview School, to training school supervisory positions, or, if suitably qualified, to probation, parole or probation aftercare positions. In recent weeks, we have also deleted a number of part-time casual training school supervisory positions.

In regard to the second part of the member’s question, it is difficult in present circumstances to forecast precisely how juvenile ward admission trends will go. However, at this time, it is our expectation that they will not rise to any significant degree from their current low level in the foreseeable future.

Mr. Sweeney: Supplementary: The reason for the second question was that it was my understanding that that school, which is presently only for girls, is going to become coeducational and this would increase it. Is that correct or not?

Hon. J. R. Smith: There are no plans to this effect at the present time.

Mr. Davidson: Supplementary: I would like the minister to change the name of the city in which the school is located to the proper name, that of Cambridge, as has been --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Thank you, that is really not a supplementary question.

[2:30]

EDUCATIONAL TELEVISION IN NORTHERN ONTARIO

Mr. Martel: I have a question of the Minister of Culture and Recreation: Rather than spending $7 million on the preparation of material for OECA, would it not be better for the government to take $2.5 million from that budget to ensure the delivery of outlets in northern Ontario, rather than cut them as the ministry is doing at the present time?

Mr. MacDonald: Is this minister against northern Ontario too?

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member will recall from the last time we had this exchange in the House, I made a distinction between that portion of the budget which OECA has for programming -- which comes from other ministries -- and the responsibility which is the board’s with respect to its extension, which would come from general government financing.

It will become obvious I am sure, as the budgetary plans of the government are announced, that OECA may well have to restrict its programming or funds for new programming as well.

Mr. Martel: That is not my question.

Hon. Mr. Welch: I share with the hon. member his concern with respect to the fact that this aspect of the expansion of OECA has had to be postponed. It’s consistent with the general economic climate and we would hope that once there is some improvement we could reconsider that particular aspect of the plans.

Mr. Angus: A supplementary to the Minister of Culture and Recreation: Why, every time there is an austerity move, is it against northern Ontario?

Mr. Speaker: It seems to me that question is facetious.

Mr. Martel: Nine out of 13 stations are in southern Ontario.

Mr. Ferrier: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: A real supplementary?

Mr. Ferrier: Yes.

Mr. Speaker: This will be the final supplementary.

Mr. Ferrier: Would the minister consider diverting some funds from Wintario to the Ontario Educational Communications Authority to provide some of the outlets which he feels he may have to cut back on?

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Welch: I am interested in the applause which was attendant upon that question, because it was the decision of this Legislature that proceeds from the lottery would not be used as a substitute for taxes and that we would always look to tax support for the ongoing programmes of the government.

Mr. Martel: The government wasn’t going to cut northern Ontario out of the picture either.

LANGSTAFF JAIL FARM

Mr. Stong: I have a question of the Treasurer: When does the minister intend to negotiate with the city of Toronto to include in the parkway belt the Langstaff jail farm with its vacant 600 acres, and thereby save the Langstaff community, with its 84 homes and 120 businesses which employ over 800 people, from obliteration?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Mr. Speaker, at the request of the Minister of Energy (Mr. Timbrell) I met with that group a week or so ago and indicated to them that my officials were working on the problem in conjunction with the Ministry of Energy, Ontario Hydro and the Ministry of Transportation and Communications; and that in due course, perhaps we might find a solution to a rather vexing problem.

Mr. Stong: A supplementary: As a result of the minister’s meeting with the representatives of Langstaff community, is his attitude today the same as it was then, when he indicated to them that if they continued to complain about their plight, he would personally see that the parkway belt goes right through their community?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Mr. Speaker, I indicated no such thing.

Mr. G. E. Smith: Mr. Speaker, I have a two-part question for the Minister of Health.

Mr. Stong: Point of order.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Does the hon. member have a point of order?

Mr. Stong: I have a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I have a document here signed by several of those people who attended the meeting.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. That’s debating the issue.

Mr. Stong: Mr. Speaker, I have a document signed by seven people who attended that meeting with the minister, indicating that what he just stated to the House is not true.

Mr. Nixon: Table that.

Mr. Speaker: That’s not really a point of order, that’s getting into a debate, in a reply like that. The hon. member for Simcoe East, I believe, was asking a question.

Mr. Philip: To the Treasurer, Mr. Speaker, I met with the same group and they have given me the same statement.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. We are not getting into a debate in the question period, and we must not be disputing what someone else says in that respect. The member for Simcoe East, please. Order, please.

HOMES FOR SPECIAL CARE

Mr. G. E. Smith: I have a two-part question of the Minister of Health: Is he aware there are plans to move the regional office of the homes for special care from Orillia to Penetang? Secondly, if this becomes a fact, would he not agree that the location would not be as central to the area serviced from Alliston to Huntsville in the north, in which case it would perhaps affect the efficiency of the administration and would be more expensive to administer? Would he take a look at that?

Hon. F. S. Miller: I’m aware that we have been centralizing the offices for the administration of the homes for special care programmes into psychiatric facilities where possible. The closest psychiatric facility in that area is in Penetang. We have done the same thing in the past in other places like Whitby.

I believe there are three employees in Orillia. Two of them intend to commute and one of them intends to leave the service. I would be glad to look at the programme and see if the move is necessary, but since these people are dealing with patients released from the psychiatric hospital and since they have to be in contact with them before and after, it seems a bit difficult to have them removed from the hospital to which they relate. In the past as the member knows, Orillia supplied a number of these people to the community.

GREAT SEAL CEREMONY

Ms. Bryden: I have a question of the Minister of Government Services. Could she tell us what was the cost of the ceremony and the reception, reported to be for 100 persons, following the ceremony on the occasion of the inauguration of a new thing -- a new programme -- called “The Ceremony of Giving Custody of the Great Seal of Ontario”?

Mr. Deans: What?

Mr. Nixon: We haven’t had that since George Drew.

Interjections.

Hon. Mrs. Scrivener: This ceremony was initiated and arranged by the Lieutenant Governor. I cannot answer that question.

Mr. Ruston: Supplementary: Was the instigation for this not by the Minister of Government Services?

Hon. Mrs. Scrivener: The answer is no.

Mr. Bullbrook: What is the Great Seal?

Mr. Nixon: One of those guys in the back row.

Ms. Bryden: Supplementary: Could the minister indicate to us on what basis the guest list of non-governmental people who were invited to this reception was chosen? Were there any farmers or workers there?

Mr. Roy: That’s not fair.

Mr. Shore: By lottery.

Hon. Mrs. Scrivener: As far as I know, the guest list was for people who were primarily involved with the use of the Great Seal. That is my understanding.

Mr. Singer: As distinguished from the small seal.

An hon. member: Watch your flippers.

TOWNSEND ADVISORY PLANNING COMMITTEE

Mr. G. I. Miller: Mr. Speaker, since the Minister of Housing is not in the House, I’d like to ask the Premier who is going to be the chairman of the Townsend advisory planning committee?

An hon. member: Here is the Minister of Housing now.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I know one person who isn’t.

Mr. Nixon: I hope the Premier is not referring to Jim Allan.

Hon. Mr. Davis: No, that will be for another time.

Mr. G. I. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister of Housing who is going to be the chairman of the Townsend advisory planning committee?

Mr. Nixon: The rumours can’t be true.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: The chairman of the advisory committee will be the member for York North (Mr. Hodgson), my parliamentary assistant.

Mr. Nixon: Surely not.

Interjections.

Mr. G. I. Miller: Supplementary: Does the Minister of Housing not feel it would be better to have a local person, someone who is closer to the situation, as chairman of the advisory planning committee?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: I don’t think it would be better to have someone else.

Mr. Bullbrook: I don’t think it could be worse.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: I’m confident that the member for York North can handle that particular chore. I might tell the hon. member that I did give very serious consideration to the hon. member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk, but after due consideration I felt it better it should be my parliamentary assistant.

Interjections.

An hon. member: Why? Why? Tell us why?

Mr. Speaker: Does the hon. Leader of the Opposition have a supplementary, first of all?

Mr. Lewis: I have a supplementary; I am sure you will come back to the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk, Mr. Speaker. May I ask the minister what is it especially about that part of the province, unlike North Pickering for example, which requires direct control and stewardship by some member of the Tory party in the House in order to have the planning deemed appropriate? Why cannot it not be done regionally or locally?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: I am sure the hon. Leader of the Opposition knows that the representation on that particular committee is primarily people from the area who are involved -- the regional chairman, the mayors of the various communities around Nanticoke. I believe having the parliamentary assistant as chairman of that committee gives me an opportunity to have regular reports as to what is occurring in the area.

Mr. Lewis: The minister doesn’t trust the local people to tell him?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: It keeps the ministry informed. I most certainly do trust them and I am sure they will have a great deal of input, but I feel that there is an opportunity to have ongoing discussions about what is occurring in that important project.

Mr. Lewis: It is an affront to the local people.

Mr. Nixon: Would the minister not agree that since the area has suffered through the chairmanship of the member for St. David (Mrs. Scrivener) these many months, where little if anything was achieved --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Nixon: -- why would he compound that error in judgement and impose another backbench Tory -- not from Toronto, this time from York -- on the good people of Haldimand-Norfolk? It just flies in the face of everything democratic. Now what did we do to deserve this?

Hon. W. Newman: He’s going to seek the leadership again, I can just tell.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: No, Mr. Speaker, I do not agree.

ACCOMMODATION AT RYERSON

Mr. Warner: To the Minister of Colleges and Universities: So as to avoid CMHC foreclosure on the mortgage with the Neill-Wycik residence, would the minister be willing to consider an exemption on the capital freeze presently invoked; on the basis that the present freeze squashed a building-approved, 700-person Ryerson residence, and further on the basis that an exemption has already been allowed for University of Toronto expansion; so that refinancing could take place?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I’m sorry, Mr. Speaker, I didn’t hear that question as clearly as I should have. If the member likes I will reply to that tomorrow. I just did not hear all of it.

Mr. Warner: Mr. Speaker, could I repeat the question so as to elicit an answer? The minister indicated he did not hear my question. Could I repeat the question?

Mr. Speaker: You might paraphrase it. It seemed to me that there was quite a bit of argument in the question.

Mr. Cassidy: No, Mr. Speaker.

An hon. member: It was explanation.

Mr. Warner: With due respect, it was a question which provided two bases for the question. I simply asked that in order to avoid CMHC foreclosure on the mortgage at Neill-Wycik residence, would the minister be willing to consider an exemption on the present capital freeze so that refinancing could take place? The bases were two: 1. That the present freeze squashed a building-approved, 700-person Ryerson residence; 2. That it has already taken place for University of Toronto expansion.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: The answer is very simply no. I think the member has in this instance confused the sources of funds and I don’t have that information at my disposal.

ONTARIO HOUSING CORP.

Mr. Sargent: A question of the Attorney General: With regard to our efforts to gain access to the files of the Ontario Housing Corp. and in view of the fact there are federal moneys involved here, would the minister agree to co-operate with the OPP and the RCMP in granting a search warrant?

Mr. Shore: The minister would do that, wouldn’t he?

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: I am always prepared to co-operate with the OPP and the RCMP in the appropriate cases. I am not so sure this is the appropriate case. Or to put it another way, I’m not satisfied this is a case in which a search warrant would be warranted.

[2:45]

Mr. Singer: By tomorrow the minister can be sure he is satisfied.

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

Mr. Sargent: As the minister knows, federal moneys are involved --

Mr. Speaker: Question?

Mr. Sargent: -- and if the RCMP --

Mr. Speaker: Question, please?

Mr. Sargent: Does the Speaker want to ask the question, or shall I ask the question?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. I will rule the member out of order if there is any further response like that.

Mr. McNeil: Out, out.

Mr. Sargent: What does the Speaker mean that I am out of order?

Mr. Speaker: If the member has a supplementary question he may ask it.

Mr. Lewis: Why does the Speaker accept that?

Mr. Sargent: If the RCMP are willing to go for a search warrant while the OPP cooperate --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. A supplementary question is supposed to be a question. Will the member take his seat?

Mr. Sargent: The Speaker is in a rut.

DAYCARE BUDGET

Mr. McClellan: I have a question of the Minister of Community and Social Services. As the minister knows, last Friday the budget subcommittee of the municipality of Metro Toronto eliminated the entire 1976 daycare expansion programme for the municipality. Is it true, as Commissioner Tomlinson has asserted, that this was done on the basis of a provincial directive to the effect that no capital funds for daycare expansion will be available for 1976?

As well, has he opposed a 10 per cent limitation on new daycare subsidy contracts?

Hon. Mr. Taylor: I surmise there are two parts to that particular question.

Mr. Singer: That is clever. The minister is coming right along.

Hon. Mr. Taylor: Is that a fair deduction? I’m right on so far then?

Mr. Roy: The minister’s colleague whispered that answer to him.

Hon. Mr. Taylor: In regard to the first part which, I gather, relates to budgeting on the part of an external agency, I don’t know how they arrived at their priorities.

In regard to the second part, directives will be going out to all of our agencies in terms of what the permitted total increase will be in overall budgeting.

Mr. McClellan: Is the minister aware that the imposition of limitations on the development of new daycare subsidy contracts means that a number of centres which opened in 1975 are going to close because they are unable to get municipal purchase of service agreements?

Hon. Mr. Taylor: I think the hon. member should distinguish between the limitation on capital moneys and the moneys that are used for current expenditures, or operational moneys.

Mr. McClellan: I did in the question.

Hon. Mr. Taylor: I don’t know that he distinguished that.

Mr. McClellan: Of course I did.

Mr. Lewis: Those were the two parts of the question the minister surmised.

Mrs. Campbell: Could the minister then advise this House if, as the officials of Metropolitan Toronto state, that it was by a directive of this government that certain capital expenditures are being dropped -- is that statement then inaccurate?

Hon. Mr. Taylor: I would have to study the particular project they had in mind, because there are certain capital projects which are under way now that have, in fact, been approved and will be proceeded with. There are other proposed projects which are more conceptual in stage that are planned for next year, and which may not be able to be proceeded with.

Mr. Speaker: The oral question period has expired.

QUESTIONING OF WITNESSES

Mr. Singer: Mr. Speaker, on a point of privilege. On Thursday, Dec. 2, at a meeting of the committee set up by this Legislature to consider Bills 20 and 26, after a member of the public had completed his submission I attempted to ask him I a question. I was advised by the chairman that the committee had determined that only members of the committee could question witnesses and that, since I was not a member, I had no right to ask my questions.

I’ve been a member of this Legislature, Mr. Speaker, since 1959 --

Hon. Mr. Welch: And that’s too long.

Mr. Singer: -- and never before has my right to ask questions been ruled out of order by any committee chairman, by yourself, or by any officials of this House.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Perhaps he didn’t hear you.

Mr. Singer: Mr. Speaker, it is an important part of the use and the custom of this House that members are allowed to and, in fact, have a duty to participate in its activities.

I would like your ruling, sir, as to whether or not any committee chairman or any committee holding public meetings has a right to rule that members of the Legislature cannot take part in those meetings and cannot question witnesses who appear in public at public hearings of the committee.

Mr. Speaker: As I understand it, the hon. member wanted to ask a question in committee but was not allowed to ask it because he was not a member of that committee; is that right?

Mr. Singer: That’s right.

Mr. Speaker: I presume you raised the question at the time?

Mr. Singer: I did.

Mr. Speaker: It has been my experience in past years, in answer to your direct question to me, that members of the Legislature who are not members of the committee could participate in discussion but were not allowed to vote or take any final decision.

Mr. Singer: That’s right.

Mr. Speaker: If that is any help to the committees?

Mr. Singer: That’s my very point, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Thank you.

RIGHTS OF COMMITTEE MEMBERS; ACCURACY OF STATEMENTS

Mr. MacDonald: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Could I get from you clarification on two questions? The second one is in relation to what the hon. member for Wilson Heights has just raised. Is there any distinction between the right of a member on a standing committee and a member on a select committee? More pointedly, is there a restriction in a select committee which doesn’t exist in a standing committee?

Mr. Deans: No.

Mr. MacDonald: The second question I want to raise with you is -- without any reference to the substance of an earlier exchange today -- is it not appropriate to rise on a point of order and to draw attention to the fact that a statement in the House was not factually accurate at the very time the statement was made? I understood from past experience that that was an appropriate point of order.

Mr. Speaker: It can’t be suggested that another member is not telling the truth, as we have indicated many times.

Mr. MacDonald: I appreciate that nicety but I have even heard members of the front benches over there get up and say it was a terminological inexactitude, or some such euphemism as that.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Only your leader uses words like that.

Mr. Macdonald: What I said, Mr. Speaker, and I repeat it, was it is an appropriate point of order for a person to get up and to draw attention to the fact that a statement made in the House was factually inaccurate? That doesn’t mean you are calling a person a liar. It just says that, wittingly or otherwise, his statement was inaccurate.

Mr. Speaker: Thank you. What was the first question you asked me?

Mr. MacDonald: My first question was --

Mr. Speaker: Oh, I know now.

Mr. MacDonald: -- as to whether or not there is any distinction between the rights of a member on a select committee as opposed to one on a standing committee.

Mr. Speaker: I will have to consider that. When I gave my answer I was thinking of standing committees and I have just realized that all the committees at this time are called select committees. If there is any difference, I shall inform the House.

Mr. Singer: Mr. Speaker, continuing this discussion very briefly, to the best of my ability I checked and I find that all committees are treated in the same manner. Committees are committees.

Mr. Speaker: I will take it under advisement.

Mr. Deans: Mr. Speaker, on this same point of order, when you are considering the point of order raised by my colleague and the point or order raised by the member for Wilson Heights, you might recall that when you were the chairman of the economic and cultural nationalism committee you did allow members other than those members of the committee to take part in the debate and to ask questions.

Mr. Singer: That is right.

Mr. Speaker: That might have been an error.

Mr. Williams: On the point of order, Mr. Speaker, and in the response to the question raised by the member for Wilson Heights, the position of the committee when I was its chairman was that the rules and procedures prescribed by the committee and determined by the committee will prevail unless directed otherwise by the House.

Mr. Singer: I think that is the whole point; the member has no right to do that. Neither the member for Oriole nor Cassidy nor anybody else.

Mr. Speaker: I think the hon. member for Oriole, if I understood him correctly, is not entirely correct.

Mr. Lewis: On the point of order, Mr. Speaker, I would like to refer to something my colleague from York South (Mr. MacDonald) raised. I realize how anxious you are to proceed. I also realize and approve of, and very much support, the toughening up which the Speaker is applying to the question period.

If there are points of order that emerge, surely it is possible to allow them to be stated if they are in order and then simply to extend the question period by an equivalent amount of time, if you feel that the discussion should take place. Let me remind you before the Treasurer (Mr. McKeough) leaves the chamber, Mr. Speaker, that a question was raised about what the Treasurer had or had not allegedly said at a meeting.

The Treasurer said, “I didn’t say it.” Then, as I understand it, there was presented to the House a document where seven citizens at the meeting contradicted the Treasurer on a point of order, and another point of order was made by a member of this party. Surely it is legitimate then for the Treasurer to have an opportunity to clarify, rather than points of order to be ruled out simply because we feel so compressed about the question period. I urge you, where points of order serve to illumine, that you permit them and simply add to the question period time.

Mr. Stong: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order.

Mr. Speaker: Let’s deal with one point of order first of all.

Mr. Stong: It is supplementary to that point of order.

Mr. Speaker: I think what we are trying to do in the question period is to make it a true question period for questions and answers for information and not to allow it to develop into a debating period. As soon as one starts refuting the other, we are immediately into a debating session. That’s the basis of my ruling on that particular case and I think it has to be that way because otherwise we could be bickering back and forth with opinions and facts and so on which should not be presented during the oral question period.

The hon. member for York Centre had a point of order.

Mr. Stong: I appreciate the comments from the Leader of the Opposition. I have been advised since I made my comment on procedure to have this matter debated in the House next Tuesday night at 10:30 and I am prepared to follow that procedure.

Mr. Speaker: I think that is the proper procedure, if a person is not satisfied with the answer given. The hon. member has notified me quite properly, that he intends to do this and it will be raised next Tuesday evening presumably.

Mr. Roy: Just on one matter on the point raised by the member for Wilson Heights (Mr. Singer). In view of the fact that your ruling is pending on the point of order raised by the member, would you advise then the chairman of the committee that we can ask questions pending his ruling because the committee hearings are going on now?

Mr. Singer: Yes, it’s stifling.

Mr. Speaker: I think I have made my position clear on that at the moment. I took it under advisement as to whether there is any technical difference between standing and select committees. At the moment I see none.

Mr. Roy: What do we do in the meantime? The committee hearings are going on now and they are going to go on for just a couple more days.

Mr. Speaker: Actually, we will allow the chairman to use his good judgement until I find any reason to change my mind on the thing.

Mr. Lewis: The chairman doesn’t have to judge.

Mr. Speaker: Petitions.

Presenting reports.

Mr. Morrow, from the select committee on the fourth and fifth reports of the Ontario Commission on the Legislature, presented an interim report and moved its adoption.

Mr. Lewis: You move its adoption? Television in the House, good grief!

Mr. Morrow: It’s open for debate.

Mr. Lewis: Live coverage?

Hon. Mr. Welch moved the adjournment of the debate on the motion for adoption.

Hon. Mr. Welch: The fact is that this particular report will be printed in Votes and Proceedings which will provide all the members of the House an opportunity to study the report. If the House agrees, in consultation with the House leaders of the other two parties, I will then schedule a time when the report could be debated.

Mr. Deans: During this current session?

Hon. Mr. Welch: Hopefully at this time.

Mr. Cassidy: Hopefully or definitely?

Mr. Lewis: It will be the report of that committee.

Mr. Speaker: Does the House leader’s motion carry?

Motion agreed to.

Mr. Speaker: Motions.

Hon. Mr. Welch moved that the report for the Workmen’s Compensation Board for the year ending Dec. 31, 1974 be referred to the standing estimates committee for consideration on Dec. 5 and Dec. 8 concurrently with the House, such consideration to be recorded by Hansard and transcribed for members of the committee only.

[3:00]

Motion agreed to.

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, just by way of explanation to that motion, there may be some technical problems spacewise in connection with Monday, with some conflict with the committee studying Hydro rates, which we won’t know about definitely until later on today or tomorrow. It may be necessary to make some accommodation for that, but I thought we would just make that known now and hopefully that won’t be a problem on Monday.

Mr. Speaker: Introduction of bills.

Mr. Swart moved that the regular business of the House be now set aside to discuss a matter of urgent public importance under standing order 30, namely, the now critical economic and social hardship being experienced by 11,000 workers directly involved in the labour dispute in the pulp and paper industry, by the many thousands of workers in related woods and other industries and by the many communities directly involved.

Mr. Grossman: Point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Not at this particular time.

Mr. Grossman: I have a bill to introduce, Mr. Speaker. I am sorry, I thought it would be appropriate that my bill be introduced prior to the emergency debate.

Mr. Speaker: Perhaps just before I place the motion, may we revert to the introduction of bills? We overlooked an hon. member who wished to introduce one.

Mr. Singer: Too bad.

Mr. Speaker: Do we have permission? Agreed? I hear a dissent. Okay. We will continue with this then. The hon. member and a representative from each party may have five minutes each to discuss this.

Hon. Mr. Welch: As to a point of order, not to be difficult but this motion usually precedes the calling of the orders of the day. The agenda is quite clear that we have petitions, reports, motions, introduction of bills and then orders of the day.

An hon. member: Quite right.

Hon. Mr. Welch: Now if the hon. member who wants to introduce his bill didn’t get to his feet perhaps -- I don’t think that was called and I think he should be entitled to --

Mr. Singer: It was called.

Mr. Roy: He missed it.

Mr. Nixon: It was clearly called.

Hon. Mr. Welch: Wait a minute. Surely we are not going to be overly technical on this? The procedure is to have a motion dispensing with the orders of the day just before calling the orders of the day. Why wouldn’t they let the member introduce his bill?

Mr. Roy: He called for bills.

Hon. Mr. Welch: That is the usual procedure.

Mr. Nixon: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I would be quick to leap to your defence. I heard you call “introduction of bills,” I saw you examine the intent faces of the government members, nothing happened, and then it went on to the other matter.

Mr. Roy: That’s right.

Mr. Eaton: He stood up.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk is correct. We sought permission to revert to introduction of bills and there was dissent, but I believe the hon. member is content to introduce it tomorrow, as I understand it.

Hon. Mr. Welch: As long as we have it clarified.

Mr. Eaton: He stood up and you didn’t recognize him.

Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, I prefer to introduce it today but if my friends opposite won’t withdraw, then I will have to wait until tomorrow.

Mr. Speaker: Thank you. Order, please. In case there is some confusion, I would be willing to place the question. May we revert to introduction of bills to allow the member to introduce his bill? Do we have the permission? Agreed? The member may proceed now.

MUNICIPALITY OF METROPOLITAN TORONTO AMENDMENT ACT

Mr. Crossman moves first reading of bill intituled, An Act to amend the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto Act.

Motion agreed to; first reading of the bill.

Mr. Grossman: Mr. Speaker, this bill would transfer the ownership of that portion of the Toronto Islands known as Algonquin and Wards islands from the metropolitan corporation to the city of Toronto, while the bill also sets out complementary liabilities and uses of the corporation and city in relation thereto.

PAPERWORKERS’ STRIKE

Mr. Speaker: Now we will proceed with the matter raised by the member for Welland (Mr. Swart), and may I just point out that a representative from each party will have five minutes to explain the position of his or her respective party. Thank you.

Mr. Swart: Mr. Speaker, I want to assure you and the House immediately that this motion is not introduced lightly or without recognition of the implication of dispensing with the ordinary business of the House. But I am sure the importance of it overweighs those disadvantages and certainly every member of this House is concerned with this problem. To those of us who live in the paper-mill communities, I think it’s self-evident that this dispute in the paper industry is a matter of real urgent public importance.

Just to put it into perspective, I want to point out that there are about 11,000 workers from the industry who are directly affected and unemployed. There are perhaps, by best estimates, about twice as many unemployed now indirectly because of the dispute; it has been going on since mid-July, much of it, but all of them have been out since early in September. It has a serious effect on the economy as well as the individuals and the municipalities concerned.

This dispute is unique in several ways. It’s unique to the degree that I think it requires the special consideration of this House. It is a widespread dispute. There are 22 mills closed and more than half as many communities affected, from Thorold through to Cornwall to Kapuskasing and to Thunder Bay. It is the only or dominant industry in many places -- places such as Thorold, Iroquois Falls and Kapuskasing. It is a dispute, perhaps a fight, between a fledgling Canadian union which was formed on Sept. 1, 1974, and the giants of industry operating in Canada, a sizable proportion of which is foreign owned. It follows a year when the pulp and paper industry made higher profits than at any time in its history.

It’s introduced at a time when industry, after the strike had been on for five months, failed to make any offer until November, and then in no way made a reasonable one. It is introduced in the light of the fact that several companies would like to settle but their organization, to the best of our knowledge, prevents that settlement.

In addition to these unique features, there are two far more compelling reasons. The first is the failure of the minister to get the parties into serious negotiations after all this time, not to mention getting a settlement. The second important compelling reason is the critical effect on the individuals and the communities that are concerned with the pulp and paper industries.

I wonder if members of this House know, that because it is a new union, they have only been able to pay, over these five months, a maximum of $80 in total, in five payments, in strike pay? In many of the communities there is no other work available. Loans are drying up. No welfare can be issued. The seriousness of it perhaps could be demonstrated by the fact that just today I received a telegram from Mayor Gervais, of Iroquois Falls, in which he says:

“The social and economic hardships suffered by our one-industry community due to the five-month-old labour strike have reached disaster proportions. I implore the legislative assembly for immediate help.”

I am sure that each of us who live in the paper-mill towns, could give examples of the very real hardship that exists, including in my case a minister coming to see me, saying that he literally has dozens of people applying to him for assistance.

Mr. Speaker: Thirty seconds.

Mr. Swart: I am just concluding. I would just say that these conditions would indicate to me, and I think to this House, that this matter is at least of equal urgent public importance to the other issues for which the regular order of business was set aside, and I ask the House to support this motion.

Mr. Nixon: Mr. Speaker, I hope you will not consider the fact that this labour dispute has gone on since early July and has been discussed in this House since last May as any reason why you cannot now judge it to be an emergency situation.

Mr. MacDonald: That is why it is an emergency.

Mr. Nixon: It has been clearly indicated by the mayors of the municipalities concerned who were here speaking to the Minister of Labour (B. Stephenson) and perhaps others last week, that it is necessary for the government to take some action.

The minister has indicated she is considering using the undoubted power of this House to end the strike or take some other action. Since it may be that the House in its present sitting will not continue for, perhaps, more than another week, I think it would be a very serious matter indeed if we allowed the strike to continue into the New Year without debate here. Whether or not the House is prepared to take action to end the strike or take some other action might come from the debate. I hope you will consider it a matter of urgent public importance, because we do.

Hon. B. Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, since Oct. 7 I have considered this problem to be of urgent importance in this province. As a matter of fact, during that time, my ministry and I have expended many hours in efforts to persuade both the unions and the companies to come back to the bargaining table. It has seemed to us the best solution to this unique situation in the Province of Ontario -- and it is unique in that there have been very few strikes against the paper industry; in that it is a new union, as my hon. colleague across the floor mentioned; and in that it involves towns in which there is only one industry, namely the paper companies.

Very soon after I was appointed Minister of Labour, I met with the mayors of the northern towns and I heard from them their concerns and the economic effects which this strike was having on those towns. I promised them that I would begin to take some action. This was at least three days after I had been appointed Minister of Labour.

We immediately called upon both the leaders of the union and the presidents of the paper companies. We met with both of those groups separately and asked them to please come back together to begin some meaningful negotiation. As members know, in mid-November the Abitibi plants and the paper unions were brought together by my ministry in Toronto. They did discuss their mutual problems for a matter of three days and when, at the end of that time, it was deemed that as a result of their proposals and counterproposals, they were not about to make progress, the mediator appointed by my ministry suggested they go back and reconsider their positions.

Shortly thereafter, I had yet another meeting with the mayors of the northern towns who again expressed their concern and asked that I consider a petition -- a resolution -- which they brought to me and which they had all signed. That resolution was that I persuade the cabinet and the government of this province to legislate the paperworkers back to work. It was signed by the 11 mayors.

I would have to report to you, sir, that the following day, two of the mayors sent telegrams asking that their signatures be dropped from the resolution.

Mr. Mattel: Ex-mayors, I think, is the term for some of them.

Hon. B. Stephenson: As a matter of fact, I met them as the mayors of the towns and the reeves of the townships.

Following that meeting, I again met urgently with the president of the Canadian Paperworkers Union and the Ontario vice-president for a matter of two hours. We discussed the possibility of further negotiations, they were not entirely opposed to the idea.

We then called a meeting of all of the presidents of all of the paper companies and again each attended, save one who happens to have had an automobile accident. They proposed courses of action as well.

I think I should tell members that there is some indication that both sides would be willing to come back to the negotiating table.

[3:15]

Mr. Lewis: The unions have always been willing.

Hon. B. Stephenson: That is not exactly the position.

Mr. Lewis: It most certainly is.

Hon. B. Stephenson: They are willing to come back to the bargaining table as soon as there is some indication of the Irving Settlement decision by the Anti-Inflation Board. Unfortunately, this has not been forthcoming. It has been considered by the board and has been sent back to Saint John for further information. There is urgency in this matter. We have expressed that urgency to both the union and the paper companies. I am sure that both sides appreciate the urgency. I would hope that as a result of our efforts we will be able to do as we propose, to hold a summit meeting early next week of the leaders of both sides to discuss again the possibility of resuming negotiations urgently in order to resolve this difficult matter.

I have no hesitation in saying that this is a critical and urgent problem for the Province of Ontario. I have no hesitation in reminding you, Mr. Speaker, that I have answered questions about it on nine occasions in the past month. I would hope that if you see fit, sir, to allow this debate to occur this afternoon, that the members of the opposition, namely the member for Welland (Mr. Swart) and the member for Port Arthur (Mr. Foulds), will tell this government precisely the course of action which they feel the government should take in the way of legislation.

Mr. Lewis: As always, we’ll give you your course of action to follow.

Mr. Germa: You need somebody rational.

Mr. Speaker: Well, if I might just comment on the three propositions put forward. At least two people have mentioned one of the main criteria in deciding a question of this order, and that is the matter of urgency. Of course, it is a matter of the interpretation of the word urgency, isn’t it? Historically, the word urgent has had to do with a matter of recent occurrence, rather than something, such as in this case, that has been going on for, what -- seven months or thereabouts? And therefore, on that basis, although it’s very critical, the debate might be ruled out of order. But at the same time, I think the arguments in favour of the fact that the whole matter is of grave public importance perhaps outweighs that part of it.

I propose to give the mover the benefit of the doubt in this case and place the question in a moment, and let the House decide whether or not the debate shall proceed.

I will now place that question: Shall the debate proceed?

Those in favour of the debate proceeding, will please say “aye.”

Those opposed will please say “nay.”

In my opinion, the “ayes” have it. I will call on --

Mr. Deans: What leadership!

Mr. Ruston: Let’s go.

Mr. Speaker: The first speaker is the hon. member for Welland. And, by the way, each speaker has 10 minutes.

Hon. Mr. Welch: What do you mean? You won the debate.

Mr. Lewis: You are giving up too easily.

Hon. Mr. Welch: Sitting back there saying “what leadership.”

Mr. Lewis: We would never had had this debate in the old days.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please; we are interfering with the hon. member’s time.

Hon. Mr. Welch: We respect the issue; we are just as concerned as you are.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member’s time is running.

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: You don’t want to play politics.

Mr. Lewis: You are. Where is the fact-finder you promised in the campaign?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Can we get on with this debate? Order, thank you.

Interjections.

Mr. Swart: Mr. Speaker, after hearing the Minister of Labour (B. Stephenson) state that she hopes that there is another meeting coming up early next week, I am more convinced than ever that it was appropriate to bring this matter before the House and have a debate here. I would hope from this debate that we will be able to convince the pulp and paper industry that they should get back to the bargaining table and then that meeting, I would hope, would be fruitful.

I covered some of the issues in supporting the emergency motion, but I do want to cover certain other aspects of the situation, especially since I have been employed in the paper-mill industry most of my working life.

The comments that I am going to make may sound as though I consider the pulp and paper companies to be the culprits in this situation -- and they will sound like that. But I want to assure this House that I am not biased; that the facts speak for themselves; and that they are predominantly at fault in this issue. In my mind there is no doubt that there is a co-ordinated attempt by the companies to force the workers back, regardless of how long it takes, without anything like a reasonable wage increase and in so doing, to weaken or destroy the new Canadian union, the Canadian Paperworkers Union. I think there is sufficient evidence to corroborate that statement.

There has been a tremendous buildup in the pulp and paper inventory over the last year or two. For some period of time, going back as far as 1962, the companies insisted that they should go on a seven-day week. This was opposed by union after union, by local after local. Eventually the companies won out and all of the mills, with two minor exceptions, now are on a seven-day week and we have this buildup of paper inventory.

I would point out that, unlike in most company-and-union disputes, no offer was made before the strike even though most of the contracts expired back in May -- some three or four months before the strike. No offer was made after the strike, until November, and then no realistic offer was made. The desire on the part of some companies to settle always seemed to be thwarted by the association. And I would like to give this House an example of the co-ordinated attack on the union, or obstruction to the union, in this regard.

An agreement was reached with the Continental Can Co. some several months ago, long before the strike, in the corrugated box factory that they operate in Toronto. This settlement was based on what, now, has become something of a pattern with the woodworkers in other places in Canada.

On the same grounds and owned by the same company was a mill which made the paper for corrugated boxes. The company refused to negotiate and made no offer there, even though they had settled with their other employees working almost in the same factory. I think this proves there is a co-ordinated attempt to block a settlement.

I would point out, Mr. Speaker, that it is not because the paper mills cannot afford it that they haven’t settled. The price of newsprint has gone up, from 1973 to 1975, by 52 per cent. The price of pulp, from 1973 to 1975, has gone up by 118 per cent. The profits of the paper mills in Canada in 1972 were $100 million. In 1973 they went up to $320 million, and in 1974 they went up to $685 million. A substantial proportion of that, probably $175 million, accrues to the Industry in Ontario. The Abitibi Pulp and Paper Co. itself made profits of something like $46 million. If we compute this out, we find that it is equivalent to something more than $10,000 per employee in the industry, and yet they refuse to settle. Wages, during that time, it should be pointed out, only increased by something like 20 per cent -- barely keeping up with the cost of living.

Well, there’s no question about it. They can afford to settle. There are settlements with the IWA and Irving now that could very well be a basis for settlement in the whole industry.

Most of the contracts ran out long before there was an Anti-Inflation Board or any guidelines. The companies are simply hiding behind those guidelines and a Labour minister who won’t take any effective action to obtain a settlement. To force the workers back without a reasonable settlement and to weaken the union -- a new Canadian union -- seems to be the objective of the paper companies.

Our party isn’t alone in sharing this view. The federal Minister of Labour has made some comments quite recently in this regard. He said:

“The paper manufacturers in Canada have let their side down rather badly. If they [management] carry on with this intransigent posture, it can’t be labour that can be faulted.”

Finally, in St. Catharines just a little over a week ago, he said:

“There is no reason to justify their [management’s] absence from the bargaining table right now. To show sincerity they should be back at the bargaining table here today.”

And that is the purpose of this debate here today.

I suggest to this House that the minister has a more than normal responsibility in this particular case. The pulp and paper industries are using a provincial natural resource and, believe me, they pay little for it. Their total payments to this province on stumpage charge agreements was about $17 million in 1973 and the cost to the province was something like $32 million. Yet they have a $1.5-billion operation now and, as I have already stated, their profits are something like $175 million.

I say they ought to accept their responsibility to the people of this province, to the workers, to the provincial economy and to the national economy, because our exports are substantially reduced and there is a terrific imbalance of payments due very substantially to this dispute in the paper industry.

In summary, it seems to me that this is an issue on which the minister ought to have no hesitation in stepping in and giving some direction to the company to get back to meaningful bargaining or she is going to have to do something about their agreements and cutting rights in this province.

It is not an issue where only a few cents separate the sides, as there is so often in many disputes. It’s one where some communities are being devastated and the life of a fledgling Canadian union is at stake; resources are an integral part of the issue and there is a widespread effect in Ontario. It is, I suggest, a strike which was planned by the companies through overproduction and many other ways, which has meant that those who are unemployed don’t get unemployment insurance as they would, had a settlement been made and had they then been laid off.

I suggest it is one where public and community sympathy, unlike in many strikes, is on the side of the workers. I suggest to the minister that her performance as a minister, especially in view of her anti-labour statements which have been chronicled by some of my colleagues, is pretty much at stake in this one. I hope for the sake of the workers and this province that she can come through.

Mr. R. S. Smith: I would like to make a few comments in this debate. Over the past weeks and months I have been involved in the question period on a number of occasions, together with the hon. member who has just spoken, in questioning the minister as to what the government was doing and what was taking place within this dispute that has lasted far longer than the people concerned can afford.

There is no question that this is a different situation from that which exists when a labour dispute takes place outside of some area that is not under the direct control of the provincial government. There is no question that the woods industry in this province is controlled through the licensing powers of the Ministry of Natural Resources.

These companies and the employees of these companies indirectly do have some responsibility in a more direct fashion to the government itself than do other industries and perhaps other workers in the province who are operating strictly within the private sector. The question of the weeds industry is not within the private sector, it has government involvement. Therefore government should be involved much more closely and much more quickly in this type of labour dispute than it is in others.

There are the other matters that we must bring up. First of all, there is the fact that many of the employees, the 10,000 or 11,000 who are on strike, live in municipalities where there are no options to work. You either work at the paper mill or you don’t work. Or you work in the woods industry that surrounds that town that supplies that paper mill, or you don’t work. So there is no question that in this specific strike there are two circumstances that go beyond the ordinary: The fact that government should be directly involved because of its licensing powers and because it does set up these mills and allow them to operate under the aegis of the government; and because, in most cases, the worker has no other option for employment. Nor do the people in the area have any other option for income other than directly or indirectly from the mill operation itself.

In this specific strike, there is no question that prior to the strike, which started in the Abitibi mills in the second week of July and in the other mills in late August and early September, there was a buildup of inventory and that there was a movement of that inventory in the last few weeks of June out of those mills to those people to whom they supply.

In fact, in the operation that Abitibi has in my area, they called back to work people they had laid off a year-and-a-half ago and gave them enough work in moving out the inventory before the strike so that those people disqualified themselves from unemployment insurance benefits by going back to work for a very few days in order that Abitibi could move out their inventory to the people they supply. In other words, there are a great number of people who have lost the right they had to those benefits because of Abitibi’s -- I just don’t know what the proper word would be; the guile of the company perhaps might suit -- in bringing these people back in after laying them off a year-and-a-half previously and giving them enough work to take away from them benefits that they had earned.

This is the type of thing that took place prior to the strike. Since that time, Abitibi has refused to make OHIP and other payments on behalf of the workers. They have also refused to pay holiday pay which is coming to the workers and they are the only one of the group of mills to have done those two things. I know the minister is going to say that holiday pay is not coming to those workers until the end of the year --

Interjection.

Mr. R. S. Smith: -- but the fact of the matter is that all the other mills across the province have acted in somewhat good faith in providing the workers with those two assistances which, in the long run, will cost them very little, if anything. So you can see that insofar as Abitibi and the Canadian Paperworkers Union are concerned, animosity has been built up. Perhaps it was the worst place to start to try and get a settlement.

Traditionally in this industry there have been negotiations between the union and one company. And they set a bench-mark agreement which is then applied across the board to the other companies. This year the company chosen to negotiate happened to be perhaps the one that was the most difficult to negotiate with, and continues to be that way, and that was Abitibi. They met for some four minutes in early May -- I think it was May 7. After the past contract had run out in April, they met for four minutes in May. From then until about five weeks ago there was no meeting whatsoever. In other words, they went for six or seven months without even going to the bargaining table. I would give the minister credit for bringing Abitibi, and the workers, to the bargaining table about five weeks ago, but I do not believe Abitibi went to the bargaining table with any desire to settle whatsoever. They went to satisfy the government more than to get down to hard bargaining.

Their offer to the workers at that time, as I understand it, was eight per cent, six per cent and four per cent over a three-year contract which is, and I repeat again, below the guidelines set by the federal government at the present time.

It’s impossible, in this day and age, to see how anybody could be acting in good faith when they are making an offer below the guidelines set by the federal government. Obviously, nobody is going to settle for anything that is less than the guidelines of the federal government and, in almost every instance, their request is for far more.

Of course, the federal government guidelines will come into play in this matter. A judgement will have to be made by that body in Ottawa but, in the meantime, the company and the union must get together. There must be bargaining because, if there’s no bargaining, there’s never going to be a settlement. I think it is a part of government and a responsibility of, not only the Minister of Labour (B. Stephenson), but the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Bernier), who said the other day, “This matter has gone on long enough.” Yet, we don’t have any results.

I think it is within their jurisdiction, and within their right, to say to the company: “Get back to the bargaining table.” There is no question the union has been available to go back to the bargaining table. Whether some of their demands are responsible, or not, is really not the question at the bargaining table.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member has one minute.

Mr. R. S. Smith: The only alternative I can see to that type of thing is legislation brought in to the Legislature to put these people back to work. Of course, there would not be agreement, I do not believe, from our party to that type of legislation.

The minister indicated last week there were a number of alternatives that she was looking at. I think today is the day she will tell us what those alternatives are. Either that or there are no alternatives because this strike --

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

Mr. R. S. Smith: -- has gone to the point where all the alternatives must be placed before the public, and the minister must use them short of that one which I indicate we could not support.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, I enter this debate for two reasons. First, I recognize the importance of the pulp and paper industry, certainly in Ontario and nationally. Second, is the fact I do represent a community that has people who are on strike as a result of this labour difference.

There is a small Abitibi mill in my community. It is relatively small compared to other pulp and paper mills around this country. If you compare it to the major industry in my community it’s a small employer -- perhaps 400 employees as opposed to 10,000 to 11,000 at Algoma Steel. But the effects of this strike, which has gone on since July, on the families of the employees are of real concern. They are really not aware of the fact that there are larger industries because, to them, this strike has been 100 per cent on their doorstep. It has had a tremendous effect on these families. It has had a substantial effect on the community as a whole.

Perhaps one of the problems is that the community itself doesn’t recognize exactly what the impact has been. The employees of this mill, over the years, have been very good employees; the type of employees any company would be pleased to have working for them. They have suffered over the past number of years with slowdowns, and the type of recessions which have struck the paper industry, but they remained with that company.

Many very close friends of mine who work for that company have had to work reduced shifts and take home much less pay than they would have under normal circumstances. They could very easily, by their own competence and capability, have gone on to other industries, perhaps to more full-time and steady work, but they remained with that company. They are long-time employees; people who are expert in that particular area.

I am very concerned that as this sort of labour-management problem continues, many of these people will be leaving my community.

They will certainly be leaving the industry because they must work and they must support their families and they will be looking elsewhere to work. When this particular problem is resolved, it may well be that it will be that company which suffers most when it attempts to put the mill back into operation with employees it just won’t have; it won’t have these competent people to go into the mill.

I mentioned the effect it has on the community. I really wonder if my community knows that in lost wages alone about $2 million has been lost to the economy since this strike started. The Soo situation is a rather sad one because it was back in the 1940s that this company was rescued from receivership by its employees and kept operating. I really believe that the employees have always acted in a spirit of co-operation. I’m afraid it may be lost and I do not like the feeling which can be created as a result of this.

In 1972, the company told the employees that unless certain modifications were made to contract negotiations the company would be forced to close the mill in Soo. That was a very trying time. As a relatively new member of this Legislature, I was very concerned over what was going to happen to that industry in my community. Lord knows, keeping industries in northern communities has not been an easy chore. To see one of this size perhaps closing was a bit frightening. They were told at that time that the community would suffer that loss and that the mill itself might well have to close unless there was a modification in demands and positions taken.

Strangely enough, when we get right down to the final point of the fact, nothing changed and the mill kept operating. The men have lost some confidence. In speaking with them I’ve found they want to get back to the bargaining table; they want to sit down and discuss these problems with the company across the bargaining table. I believe we must work toward getting both the company and the union to the bargaining table where these particular problems can be resolved.

In the community itself, some of the small businesses which rely on the paper industry could very well go bankrupt; their business will disappear. There is the spinoff effect on the woodcutters who supply the wood for the mill itself. Some of them have been laid off already and won’t be back to work probably until next May so we have this sort of unemployment created.

There was meeting in Sault Ste. Marie on Dec. 2 and representatives of the Canadian Paperworkers Union were there. I was invited to attend but I was unable to do so because of responsibilities here but a member of my staff did attend. He did discuss some of the things and expressed some of my views. Really, what they are saying to us is get it solved. The way to do that, I suggest, is to be at the bargaining table.

It was interesting to note that Mr. Tom Curley, who is the vice-president for Ontario region 3 of the union, made several comments. One of them was that he felt there was nothing any provincial government could do in this situation; that it was a national confrontation and they would like to see the federal government get the two sides together to get it solved. He indicated that he thought the provincial Ministry of Labour and others were helpless in this. He said he would like to see the Prime Minister talk to the company presidents so they could get down to the business of settling this confrontation and this problem. He also indicated that he felt both the federal and the provincial governments should get together to undertake a review of the manner in which certain forestry concessions and what have you are made to the various companies.

[3:45]

I don’t think for a moment that the Province of Ontario -- I know this from discussions I have had with the Minister of Labour (B. Stephenson) -- wishes in any way to try to push this off as not being one of our responsibilities. It is one of the concerns of the Minister of Labour, and Lord knows, in the conversations I have had with her she has made a sincere and honest effort within the limitations of her office to bring these parties back to the table again. She is certainly competent enough to speak for herself as to the number of meetings she has had and the sort of reaction she had from them.

I urge all these parties involved to make one goal theirs, a common goal, and that is to come back to the bargaining table; to sit down together and resolve this dispute. This dispute is not good for the economy of this province, and in communities where pulp and paper is the sole industry, many people are in desperate need of assistance now. The best assistance they can get is to have those mills back at work and those people back on their jobs.

So I join with others and I will repeat in saying to my colleague, the Minister of Labour, that I appreciate and commend her for her efforts in the past. I trust her efforts in the future will be even more fruitful and that both the companies and the unions will immediately make every effort to get back to the table and get this very difficult situation settled.

Mr. Foulds: Mr. Speaker, I seconded this motion because I feel very strongly about the situation. There is no doubt that in northern Ontario at least -- and I am sure in southern Ontario in the areas affected -- not only are the workers involved but the communities involved are going through a winter of discontent that this province will regret for many years.

My community is one of those few northern communities that has a number of industries. The city of Thunder Bay is a metropolis in northern Ontario terms: 110,000 people, three substantial industries, employment in the grain elevators, employment in the transportation industry and, up until this year, employment in the pulp and paper industry. But the pulp and paper industry is the major employer in Thunder Bay. Of the 11,000 workers in Ontario, almost 3,000 of them are in Thunder Bay. That doesn’t count the woods workers, the lumber and sawmill workers who are laid off because of the dispute in the surrounding area that you, Mr. Speaker, know so well.

One of the ironies is that a spokesman for Great Lakes Paper, a subsidiary of Canadian Pacific Investments, said publicly in Thunder Bay: “Sure, we could have settled with our workers. Economically we could have afforded it. We don’t have any trouble in settling it but the industry won’t let us. We don’t want to set the precedent.” If that is not bad faith bargaining, what is?

One of the other ironies of this dispute is that, for whatever reasons, because it is taking place largely in small towns throughout the province, it has not had the focus of public attention of the Metropolitan Toronto teachers’ strike or the postal dispute. Another of the ironies I felt as a northerner is that I happened to be meeting with the chief negotiators for the Canadian Paperworkers Union and had to be called to Toronto for the emergency debate on the Metropolitan Toronto teachers’ strike. I submit that this dispute we are discussing today is much more damaging to the communities and to the economy of Ontario as a whole than any of the others. It is one of the ironies that the nationalists -- Liberal and Conservative and New Democrat -- have talked about repatriating our unions and yet, what have they done to come to the assistance of this all-Canadian union when there is, I submit, and I submit it in all sincerity, a deliberate attempt to break a union? For the first time the industry bargained industry-wide, and if that’s not an attempt to break a fledgling Canadian union, I don’t know what is.

One of the ironies of the dispute is that the corporate giants, like Abitibi, Domtar and Canadian Pacific Investments, have all settled with their woods workers, with the lumber and sawmill workers, with the woodland workers that supply the product for the inside workers, and the inside workers are merely asking that those settlements that were made in 1974 be the guideposts for a settlement today. In September, 1974, the woodlands workers employed by these very same companies signed collective agreements which provided for wage increases totalling $1.75 in two years. A year later, to ask for $2, as the inside workers are doing, is not unreasonable.

Frankly, I don’t think it would be equitable or logical -- and, in fact, it would probably be economically and socially disruptive -- if the mill employees in the forest industry had to settle for what is substantially less than the outside workers in that industry.

Another irony: Not only have the corporations bargained, I maintain, in bad faith, but they have been irresponsible corporate citizens of Ontario, and if nothing else, Conservatives should understand that. They have stockpiled in preparation, stockpiled enormously, and this government, by its policies, allowed them to do that. They have exploited our forests. I could go into the statistics about what they pay in stumpage fees and what it costs us to reforest, but they have exploited our forests, a resource surely of all of the people of this province, and even now those corporations are importing fine paper products from their foreign points of production into Ontario to meet their Ontario market. That, to me, is one of the final ironies of this dispute.

Never again, by whatever mechanism, should this government allow any of these corporate giants in this province to stockpile and overproduce in order to break a strike. Never again must this government allow these timber wolves to negotiate on an industry-wide basis.

The final tragedy; the member for Sault Ste. Marie (Mr. Rhodes) spoke very movingly about the economic effects on the community and I don’t want to echo him about those details, but I have before me four specific cases of individuals who are suffering what can only be called tragic economic hardship because of this dispute. Two of them, interestingly enough, are women. One of them still is due two weeks’ holiday pay; she still has not got it, she has six dependent children all in school and there’s no income in the house. What’s she going to do for Christmas?

I have another woman who has three dependent children. This woman herself had polio when she was 15. She has to use a cane. She requires medication that costs her $60 a month. She is not eligible for welfare of any kind, for circumstances that I don’t want to go into. There is relatively no strike pay, as my colleague for Welland (Mr. Swart) outlined. What is she going to do?

I have a case of a young married couple; the husband works in the woods industry. He’s been laid off for a whole host of reasons. They got into financial difficulties when they were first married, and which they recognized. They’ve been trying to cut back and to budget and economize and they can’t do it. They are losing their house. There are people in my community who are losing their homes and their marriages are breaking up. The social strains are enormous. Some people are literally having to go back to a nomadic way of getting a living. They have had to hunt moose simply to get enough meat in the household to survive the winter.

The minister asked for specific indications of what she could do. Believe me, I sympathize with her, because there are a number of disputes with which she has to deal and a Labour Relations Act that is not that good with which to deal with them. Her authority, as the member for Sault Ste. Marie said, is circumscribed by that Act.

Maybe I am naïve, but when I read section 14 of the Act and it says the parties shall bargain in good faith, that’s what I take it to mean. When I read section 85 of the Act, and it says that anybody who violates it is subject to a fine of $1,000 a day if an individual or $10,000 if an employer, that’s what I take it to mean. If the minister wants to exert some pressure on the company, let her try a daily fine of $10,000 a day for bad-faith bargaining. Maybe I’m naïve; maybe that’s not in there because of the regulations, but I say we should toughen up the Act if necessary.

I am pleading with the minister that she become a minister who speaks for labour, on behalf of labour, on behalf of the working men and women in this province, and that she act with that end in mind.

Mr. Nixon: I am very concerned, as are the other members who have spoken, about this continuing strike. I wish there were some specific answers to the continuing problem. The only positive one that has come forward is to charge the companies with bad-faith bargaining. That’s always been a strong debating point in this House, and it might very well be that a charge could be made to stick, but to take them into court on that basis would be just about as valuable as the Toronto teachers taking the inflation control board in Ottawa to court on a constitutional basis. I’m afraid it would not be productive as far as this strike is concerned. Maybe we should tighten up the law, but we’re here to discuss the emergent situation of this continuing strike in the northern part of the province, as well as in Welland and in certain other areas.

I heard a lot about the strike during the election campaign, as I suppose the other political leaders did. I was out talking to the people in Sturgeon Falls and got their views at that time. This was months ago, and they were appealing to me, for heaven’s sake to assist them to get Abitibi and the other companies to come back to the bargaining table. I wrote my letter urging them to do so with the same effect as you might expect; as a matter of fact, with the same effect you might expect from almost every other member of the House, except the Minister of Labour. I must say I was very interested in her detailed list of actions she has taken, beginning the third day following her appointment.

Short of convincing her colleagues in the cabinet to take some legislative move, I would say that she applied just about all the pressure that was available to her on management to sit down and bargain in good faith, or at least with some thought of progress, and such has not been the case.

I have been very interested, not only in what has been said here but what I’ve heard privately, that the paper companies did have a big stock built up; that they welcomed the strike; that they realized the union was in a particularly weak position. Having just thrown off their allegiance to the international union and making it an all-Canadian union, and not having large resources to give strike pay, the problems they face economically are ones that must concern us here.

I suppose, since I feel that some kind of a court action on the basis of bad-faith bargaining is not going to be productive, we’re going to be waiting for the minister to indicate what her alternatives are. The mayors, although they haven’t announced it publicly, as far as I know, came down and urged that she ask the Legislature to support her in legislating an end to this strike. For a number of reasons, I feel this would be a very sorry situation. Just now, the long strike is coming to bear economically on the companies; in other words, the pressure is starting to come on them as their supplies dwindle and run out and they are starting to lose sales. Just as the economic pressure is coming on them, just as the strike begins as a management-labour war, it would be a shame if the workers were legislated back to their jobs.

[4:00]

The other complication over which no one here had any control, or any expectation I suppose, was wage and price controls coming in at Ottawa. Now it’s true these negotiations have been going on far longer than the announcement of wage and price control. I’m not sure, but I believe that this contract predates the Jan. 1, 1974, deadline so it is old enough that the make-up provisions could be considered. But even those are supposed to amount only to a very few percentage points in addition to the basic agreement.

It seems to me, if we are not going to go for compulsory arbitration, and I trust we are not, the minister, perhaps with as many big guns as she can collect from the northern members of the cabinet and with any other infusion of moral support she would care to co-opt, could sit down with the companies, and say: “All right, it is starting to come to bear on you that you are going to be missing sales pretty soon, that good faith -- probably very little of it remains in the north -- is running out on you, that your people in the working community and in the union are very much concerned.”

It is economic pressure that we haven’t experienced in this province for a long time. Let’s see what we can come up with. Okay, eight per cent is permitted, then two per cent for productivity, that I think you can probably bargain for. Another two percent is related to some of these aspects, particularly for long-standing strikes and so on. We are up to a 12 per cent increase, with which on a make-up basis, and particularly since this contract pre-dates January, 1974, I feel that the minister would be pretty effective in dealing with this; particularly with the Minister of Natural Resources and perhaps the Minister without Portfolio sitting there saying: “We do not want a legislated end to this strike. Let’s have a reasonable agreement. Let’s establish some sort of a percentage that is at least going to get us back to work, with the paychecks coming in, the pulp workers working and the paper machines rolling, so that the economy is not going to be endangered.”

Let’s make an application to the Anti-Inflation Board based on some reasonable percentage which is a result of the discussions of all parties. Let the minister undertake to go with the two sides to the Anti-Inflation Board and say: “Look, we need this. They’ve been on strike for seven months in some instances.” They must be aware of the unnatural pressures that have been brought to bear in this industry over the last few months.

There is, I believe, a real possibility here. But for us to hang firm waiting for the Anti-Inflation Board to decide whether the Irving settlement is going to be permitted is really almost too cruel to contemplate. I know the Minister of Labour has no alternative, I suppose, other than some kind of initiative of the type I have been talking about.

I don’t think a court action on the basis of bad-faith bargaining would be anything other than of academic interest at this time. Maybe it would apply some pressure. There is very little sympathy for the union as I gather -- or I should say for the management -- in this House, from the story that has been put forward, no sympathy at all. I think they have played the workers as pawns in a situation which has no parallel in this province for many years. It isn’t any kind of an equal management-labour negotiation, and that is something that must concern us.

I hope the minister is going to give us, as my colleague from Nipissing has indicated, the benefit of her views. She has been involved in it now for the last few weeks with the best advice available through the ministry and probably with some off-the-record advice from other sources as well.

I would hope that she can use her good offices, good offices that are getting better day-by-day, and conscript her colleagues in this connection. This would be a great coup for us all, and one that would be greatly desired and supported on all sides.

Mr. Rollins: Mr. Speaker, in rising to take part in this debate, as the representative of the Hastings-Peterborough riding, we have found that this long prolonged strike is affecting our areas and our suppliers, putting them in a very delicate position as far as the economy and affects the rural communities are concerned.

This strike is affecting the producers or small operators who depend on moving timber products. One industry was closed down and the time when it may re-open is unknown.

It also has affected the producers in getting supplies. There’s a large surplus of chips in the area, possibly a normal six months delivery to the mills, that is sitting and rotting in the various operators’ yards throughout the area concerned.

Mr. Speaker, this strike, while it has a very important effect in rural areas, is only one strike that has come onto the horizon. I feel that the operators of these industries and the unions could sit down, in good faith, and work out a programme that will not only be satisfactory for the present but also the future.

Not only are our people in the area concerned with what is taking place now, they are also concerned with what will happen in the future if all rising costs are added to a commodity thus affecting many people in this employment programme while pricing the commodities to the point where they will not be competitive. Everything that is related to the operation is increasing in cost. It’s not only labour, it is supplies and it is equipment.

Private enterprise plays a very important part in the economy of our area, as I am sure it does in other areas. I’m sure there should be an expression of concern.

It is my opinion that, if there is no concern, we will price ourselves out of competition in Ontario and the effect may be even further reaching.

I would say, Mr. Speaker, through you to the minister, that every effort should be made to bring these parties back, in a sincere manner, to resolve this strike and put our people back to work with a stronger future.

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

Mr. Ferrier: Yes, Mr. Speaker. I spoke on this matter a week ago during estimates of the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Bernier). He turned thumbs down on some of the suggestions I made then. Maybe he’s had some second thoughts. Sometimes with a little longer to think about things, one might see that others have something to offer.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Got any suggestions?

Mr. Ferrier: The previous speaker just said that we are going to be paying our workers perhaps more than they’re getting paid in the United States and we’re going to price ourselves out of the market. One of the things that has not been said is that, while the hourly rate might be more in Canada, the value of the fringe benefits that are being paid the American workers -- in terms of social security and the way the pension is paid -- puts them a lot closer to parity than is being suggested. The suggestion that the big newsprint companies are supposedly exerting pressure on the pulp and paper companies not to settle because the Americans will sell it to them cheaper, is very questionable. There are no alternate sources of supply coming on stream very soon. If you look in this book I referred to last week, “Newsprint Data ’74”, and point to the new capacity projects and prospects that are coming on stream, the only one in Canada, in January, 1976, is one at Riviere-du-Loup, by F. F. Soucy and Associates. There is one in the United States where a new machine replaces old capacity in Arizona, and there’s one in mid-1916 in Texas. So there is not that much more coming on stream.

These companies deliberately planned to go on strike. They built up their production over the years, and I think the union will have second thoughts about ever over-producing again or being a part of that kind of thing, particularly when negotiations are coming up. The paper companies went to their customers and said: “There is going to be a strike, build up your inventories and buy ahead.” This is exactly what was done. They deliberately provoked this strike. They had no intention of settling. I understand they also built up a slush fund to help anybody who might have difficulties. They said give us some money and we will put it in the pot.

The one company that wouldn’t go along with that kind of thing was the Irving Paper Co., which has already settled. There has been pressure brought to bear, as I understand it, on the Irving Paper Co. to go to the Anti-Inflation Board and say they were pressured into this and didn’t accept it voluntarily. As I understand it, the Irvings are rather an independent group of people and they told the pulp and paper companies where they could go and that they weren’t going to do this kind of thing. They bargained in good faith on this instance.

The companies along the way, have deliberately been trying to break this Canadian union. The Canadian union has not had economic resources behind it. It has had individual resources. But the companies over 4½ months have not broken the spirit or the will of the workers. If they can withstand a strike of this length with no resources behind them, then what would they do if they had resources? The working people are not going to give in.

Another thing that is most deplorable is that the holiday pay has not been paid. The minister says there is no legal way she can force this. I would suggest to her she introduce an amendment in this Legislature to give her the legal power to force them to pay, in some cases up to six weeks in scheduled holiday pay.

Abitibi in particular has provoked its workers. They have cut off payment of all the fringes and the social programmes that were there, deliberately I think, making things difficult when the plants start up. It has been war. They have been dirty and they bargained in bad faith. I think these are the kinds of things on which a court action could be based and the company could be shown to be guilty of bad-faith bargaining.

We should have a public inquiry into this, as I suggested last week, to get the facts out on the table and to find out what kind of a cartel we do have here and how they are manipulating things, I think what I said to the Minister of Natural Resources last week was valid, that we should very seriously consider setting up an authority like the Algonquin Forest Authority to harvest the timber of the province and to sell it to these pulp and paper companies and sawmills; to make a provision of providing the material to them so that at least there be some provision of good-faith bargaining and good will with their workers. I think that is a necessity.

It has been pointed out there that woodlands workers have settled for a contract that now puts them higher than they are offering the mill employees. Surely if they can offer it to one, they can offer it to the other. Their profitability last year was higher than it has been for a long time. The cost of newsprint is going up and they are having no economic difficulties whatsoever, as they did have in 1972 and 1973.

[4:15]

There are hardships in the community because of the shutdown of sawmills that are providing chips to the paper mills; the woodworkers are out of work; there is a balance of payments problem developing. Employment is also hurt because some of the workers in the pulp and paper plant have gone elsewhere for jobs -- and more power to them, but that means that other workers who are looking for work are in competition with them, and they are not able to get the work.

For these reasons I honestly believe the Premier (Mr. Davis) should be involved. I am not faulting the minister for what she has done -- she has done her best. But I think the Premier could move along beside her. As head of the government, the first citizen of the province, he could say in a pretty forceful way to these companies what he expects. He could move and cancel limits, and provide the pressure that could be brought to bear.

I think there is also another thing that could be considered. Since this has become a strike that affects many of the provinces, and since the federal minister has shown interest in this strike, there could be a convening of the Ministers of Labour of all the provinces involved. They could sit down together and find a common strategy to force the companies back to the bargaining table to settle this.

Mr. Samis: He called them irresponsible.

Mr. Ferrier: I think everybody knows that the pulp and paper companies at this point have become irresponsible, very irresponsible. Abitibi has acted worse than the mining companies, and that is really something pretty bad.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Let’s nationalize them.

Mr. Foulds: Right on. Have that on the record.

Mr. Ferrier: I would say that kind of corporate irresponsibility has no place in Canada today, and --

Mr. Samis: Robber barons.

Mr. Ferrier: We have to lay a heavy hand on these companies and get them to the bargaining table. But I do not accept the proposition put forward by the mayors and reeves when they were down here that the workers be ordered back to work. The workers don’t want that; they are going to stand out. There is some indication that even some of those mayors and reeves have second thoughts about it.

Paperworkers executives are going to be in Kapuskasing tonight, and maybe Mayor Piche will have some second thoughts about it. I saw last night where Mayor Gervais had some second thoughts and there was a telegram about that sent today to my colleague, the member for Welland (Mr. Swart).

Mr. Speaker: Order, please, the hon. member’s time is running out.

Mr. Ferrier: I would hope that some of these suggestions would allow some extra pressure to be brought to bear to get the companies back to the bargaining table and get this settled.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Niagara Falls.

Mr. Bounsall: Words of wisdom.

Mr. Kerrio: Setting aside the regular business of the House today to deal with this matter seems to have had the concurrence of most members, and rightly so. I suppose the urgency of the matter would vary in the eyes of the individual.

While my riding does not have a pulp or paper industry, we do have many people who work at the mills and reside in my riding, so I do have a particular interest.

I attended a meeting in the town of Thorold at which there was some consideration at that time by the mayors and the reeves of the various municipalities with pulp and paper mills of exerting pressure to force the workers to compromise their position and go back to work. I think from what you have heard here today in the House, that most of us would not agree with that type of legislation.

I’m gravely concerned in another area because we have a Canadian union which must be protected at all cost. We have seen, in many other areas, Canadian workers being directed by their union counterparts in the United States. I think this union of the paperworkers of Canada is one that must be protected at all cost. I would certainly attempt in any way I can to see that particular national union upheld.

The other area that would be of interest to us in the fact it is such a basic product we’re talking about in the sense of natural resources. I think we have a responsibility. We do not have to wait the length of time we have to recognize the government’s responsibility in this matter. We do in fact have the authority to bring some pressure to bear.

I think if they bring in newsprint from other sources while they extend the strike, it is something that we should not put up with when we have our natural resources. We are not just dealing with labour. We are dealing with our natural resources and they should be protected.

I would like to make another point on a question raised on the floor by myself the other day. An arbitrator went into regional Niagara, dealt with an issue and settled on pay to a particular group before an arbitrator was really required. In fact, there had been an offer. Before the people were willing to accept it the arbitrator raised the offer.

In this instance, after seven months of a strike we sit here with a helpless feeling. We are looking to each other for a solution. In other areas -- in fact I could name the arbitrator, it was George Ferguson, -- the matter has been settled at more than the people were asking for.

That’s the reality of some areas where there is a very happy settlement. Here we have a strike seven months old, and no real, meaningful bargaining being done at this time. We are gravely concerned, particularly for those smaller centres where this is a single industry, and where their whole economy goes to pieces.

It’s not brought to light in the same manner in our communities, because in fact it is not the single industry. It seems a human frailty on our part to net participate to the degree we really should and put meaningful effort into settling a strike.

I would say, in conclusion, that many of the things being said here today are felt by most everyone in the House. It would be my wish, and my promise, that if I can help in any way, I would like to see this thing settled as quickly as possible by getting the people back to the bargaining table. In fact, some pressure from the Minister of Natural Resources should be exerted. They’re dealing with a Canadian product, and as such we should have something to say about it.

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, if I might, the hon. member for Cochrane North (Mr. Brunelle) has allowed me the opportunity to participate in this debate at this time so that I can honour another commitment which I have in the buildings.

As the provincial member for the riding for the new constituency of Brock, as the mover of this motion will know I have a considerable interest in the concerns already expressed by so many members from all sides of tile House with respect to the economic and social hardships being experienced by hundreds of people who reside in the constituency which I am very proud to represent. During the course of the last several weeks, I have had an opportunity to meet with a number of these people and, of course, learned first hand with respect to what the costs of this type of dispute have meant to them and to members of their families.

During the course of the discussion which preceded putting the question to the House with respect to this debate, I’m sure all members of the House would have to agree that the Minister of Labour has given strong leadership in this particular matter, within the framework of the legislation which she has the responsibility to administer. I have been impressed that every time I had specific questions with respect to the concerns being voiced by members of the various unions involved, the company involved and the people involved, the interest of the Ministry of Labour has been to make sure that whatever information was available was transmitted to them.

It’s difficult in a discussion like this simply to stand up and say we all share the concern. I know so many of us feel somewhat helpless. It’s not unlike many situations in which we’re asked to get involved in disputes when we want the people themselves to have a certain amount of latitude and freedom in settling their own differences.

I’m sure it’s of little satisfaction to many of my people to have people saying to them: “Yes, we think it’s terrible. We think the economic and social hardship that’s being experienced is unfortunate.” That brings very little satisfaction to them in the practical way of getting people back to work and being able to have the benefits of their labour which can alleviate some of the problems.

Having said that that’s why one hesitates to join in without having some practical suggestions. In all fairness I’ve heard very little practical advice being given to the Minister of Labour in this matter, other than to make some arbitrary determination with respect to whether or not one of the parties is bargaining in good faith or is bargaining in bad faith and, therefore, to invoke some penalties with respect to the section. I haven’t heard anyone yet recommend that the minister force the people back to work by legislation.

I would only hope that the minister would take assurance, at least from the member for Brock, that I’m quite satisfied that she, in her position, is doing all she can to encourage the parties to this particular dispute to get together and to resolve their differences. If a public discussion such as this one this afternoon in the Legislature of the Province of Ontario strengthens her hand, consistent with the responsibilities which are hers and the law which is her responsibility to administer, we do, I suppose, accomplish some satisfactory purpose in the moral support given.

I would want to say, however, that when I think in terms of my friends on the many streets in my constituency who are paying the price of this dispute, the sooner the parties get together to discuss these issues and to resolve them I’m sure the sooner we shall see some practical results to alleviate this particular hardship.

I don’t suppose there are many people in communities not affected by these strikes who can really feel in some meaningful way what happens in some communities with respect to this type of disruption. Of course, the whole matter becomes that much more acute at a particular time of the year when we think in terms of family observances, of special festivals, and one at this time has the opportunity to underline the particular concerns which we all have.

In taking part in the discussion, it’s for the very real purpose of saying to the Minister of Labour through you, Mr. Speaker, that I as a member appreciate all she has done in giving some leadership as she had documented in the House today.

Let me say this, too. The member for Welland (Mr. Swart) is still here and I would want to say this to his credit. Certainly as a neighbour in the riding of Welland I know that he has used his good offices to bring us, as members, together on this matter along with municipal leaders in our part of the province. We share this concern, and I would want to pay him a tribute for that particular interest and to assure him, as I would assure the other members who come from other parts of the province, that if there is anything which the member for Brock can do to assist in this particular way, as the member for Niagara Falls (Mr. Kerrio) says he stands ready to do that as well.

[4:30]

Mr. Angus: Mr. Speaker, it is with great concern that I rise today to debate the state of the pulp and paper industry in Ontario, because I think that is what we are really talking about. I would like to do this by discussing the two particular corporations which, in my estimation, share the responsibility for the problems, particularly in the riding of Fort William and the riding of Port Arthur.

One is the Abitibi Paper Co., and the other is the Great Lakes Paper Co. Ltd. This strike, almost at the end of its fifth month for Abitibi, is appalling, to say the least. The reaction of the company has destroyed its credibility in the eyes of thousands of workers who have dedicated their lives to that company. Prior to July 10, 1975, Abitibi enjoyed one of the finest labour-management records in the country. Some of their mills have been operated as long as 50 years without resorting to strike action.

In other mills where strikes did occur, they were of short duration, with no serious consequences being inflicted on either party.

In the early 1960s, when continuous operation was granted to the company by the unions, it was done so on the basis of demand and market conditions at that time. With strong market conditions holding through the early 1970s, the company was justified in pursuing this goal. The workers in many mills lived up to their responsibilities and obligations by granting this request, and assisting the company during a difficult period.

Let’s not forget that working around the clock on a seven-day basis drastically impairs one’s social and family life, let alone the drawbacks it has on a person’s health. While the workers were reluctant to make this move, they did so in a responsible manner.

With soft market conditions being experienced in the past year, Abitibi, along with other companies, has turned continuous operation into a weapon to build up inventories to the extent that it is prepared to take on the Canadian Paperworkers Union. The company even had the audacity to admit this prior to any strike taking place. Abitibi has taken the position that its employees should not share equitably in the enormous profits which it has made over the past two years. It seems to have forgotten that workers are investors too, that they invest their work and lives in the enterprise, and that as a result of that investment they too are entitled to a fair share of the wealth produced.

As of Sept. 30, 1975, Abitibi Paper Co. Ltd. of Toronto had a profit of $19,690,000. That’s for the first nine months of their operation. Surely they could share some of that profit with the men and women who do the work?

It is also difficult to understand why Abitibi spent $125 million to purchase controlling interest in Price Co. Ltd. and become the newsprint leaders of the world, but cannot sit down and bargain in good faith with the people who made their profits possible.

There is no question in my mind, or in the mind of many of the people in my riding -- in any riding, in fact, where there is a pulp and paper mill shut down -- that the companies are the ones responsible. They have continued to refuse to negotiate in a sensible and realistic manner.

Take a look at another area, the market conditions in the pulp and paper industry. All I have to do is take a look at the headlines that I have seen in the Globe and Mail and in other papers, in the business sections: “Heavy buying discouraged. Paper officials assures supplies despite forestry industry unrest.” “Record Stockpiles.” “Demand for newsprint rising.” “Pulp and paper outlook appears healthy despite problems.”

In an interview in the Times of Thunder Bay on Oct. 15, the vice-president of the National Newspaper Association said the stockpiles that United States newspapers have is the highest inventory he has seen since the Second World War.

In a market perspective report in the Globe and Mail on Sept. 16 it was stated that the Canadian pulp and newsprint industry appears to be on the verge of an era in which it will be literally naming its own price for its products. The facts are, the price of Canadian newsprint is $40 to $50 a ton below the world price and there is little prospect of countries outside Canada producing a competitively-priced product. The Canadian dollar is relatively weak in comparison with the currencies of most of the pulp and paper industry’s major customers and the industry earns extra money on such foreign exchange transactions.

The industry’s important customers, the United States publishers, continue to be prosperous. One estimate puts US advertising lineage revenue for 1975 at $8.6 billion, eight per cent above that of 1974. Canadian wood fibre resources are plentiful and will actually improve in the decade ahead through better silvicultural practices.

Let’s take a look at another of the corporate citizens of Thunder Bay, the Great Lakes Paper mill. On Sept. 5, 1975, 1,400 members of CPU at Great Lakes Paper voted in favour of strike action. They manned the picket lines on Sept. 6. As well, approximately 1,200 woodworkers were out of work at the same time. The number of strikers in Thunder Bay is 2,330.

Add to that approximately 2,000 outside workers and you have got about 4,500 workers alone who are directly affected. Add to that their families and you are talking about 10,000 people whose income is directly affected by this strike. That does not even include those businesses who for the first time in a number of years are finding very great hardships in terms of the upcoming season with nobody to buy their products because there is no money in the community.

The minister may say the union can go back to work. Well that’s true, but on the other hand the companies could be negotiating faithfully.

The companies could be, and should be, prepared to pay a decent wage, a decent share of their profits to the men and women who do the work for them. When you look at the profit figures for Great Lakes Paper, it is no wonder that during the course of negotiations the president of Great Lakes Paper Co. Ltd. said to the union, as my colleague the member for Port Arthur (Mr. Foulds) has already stated: “We can afford to pay you. It won’t hurt us but we are not going to set the precedent. We wouldn’t be tolerated by the council of presidents of the paper mills.”

Great Lakes Paper’s profit for the first nine months of 1975 was $11,806,000. You will remember earlier I mentioned that Abitibi’s was $19,690,000, an approximate difference of $8 million. However, there is only one Great Lakes Paper mill and there are a fair number of Abitibi mills in this province. Great Lakes Paper’s profit margin is obviously much greater. Great Lakes Paper Co. shares are trading in the $23 to $24 range. But, as projected by one of the major stockbrokerage firms in Canada, their shares will more than double in price by the beginning of 1978. If that doesn’t suggest to the minister that they can afford to pay a decent wage to their employees, I don’t know what will.

So far I have talked about company responsibilities in this crucial issue, so vital to the livelihood of not only Thunder Bay and other communities but to the province and the nation. When a basic industry shuts down, the total economy tumbles. The total economy suffers, not just for the duration of the shutdown but for many months afterwards trying to recover. You and I and everybody else in this House, Mr. Speaker, know we don’t need any more tumbling in our economy.

The government of Ontario is also to blame because they have allowed this to happen. They have dilly-dallied with their niceties and their so-called neutrality, but that neutrality is just a farce. They are neutral in favour of the companies. At least the federal Minister of Labour had the guts to say it like it is and put the blame on the companies. It is too bad he doesn’t have the power to go in and force those companies to negotiate in good faith.

Mr. Lewis: If he did, he would have blamed the unions.

Mr. Angus: But the Ontario Minister of Labour (B. Stephenson) and the Premier (Mr. Davis) have that power. The minister has talked to the unions and to the companies, to the presidents; and doesn’t get anywhere because the presidents don’t care. They laugh at the minister. The minister has got to start hitting them where it hurts, to take a look at their cutting rights and pull them away from them; to push them into an economic corner so that the only way they can go is through the bargaining table. Instead of the debatable issue of bad-faith bargaining and the $10,000 fine, what about a $10,000-a-day tax for those companies which refuse to bargain in good faith?

And considering the families, what about special consideration in the welfare programmes to get them through the situation where they are unduly forced to dip into every cent that they can muster from their savings and loans?

To the Minister of Labour, you haven’t been getting --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. I would draw to the hon. member’s attention that it is customary to address the Chair rather than the minister. Make any remarks to the minister through the Chair, please.

Mr. Angus: Through the Speaker to the Minister of Labour, you haven’t been effective --

Mr. Laughren: Well done.

Mr. Angus: -- in making anything happen. Let’s get the Premier of this province in. Have him call the presidents of the companies together and lay it on the line. Tell them what they’re doing to this province and to this country. Say to them: “You get back to the bargaining table. You negotiate a settlement.”

It’s a pity there is so much concern for a number of teachers who have been out for a few weeks, and you almost totally ignore tens of thousands of people who aren’t going to have a Christmas this year. Through the Speaker, Madam Minister, I’d like you to take that to your next cabinet meeting. Thank you.

Mr. Eakins: I appreciate the opportunity to take part in this debate, briefly, this afternoon; and to express some of my concerns along with my colleagues here today. I am certainly as concerned as everyone across the province. I’m concerned as the member for Victoria-Haliburton because the county of Haliburton is tremendously dependent on the lumbering industry. They’re certainly very affected at this time.

I’m sure we don’t need to be reminded of the depressed pulp market, and the lumber markets that are depressed as well. I can assure you that in Haliburton, because of the strikes in these various places, one of the largest chip plants in the country, if not the largest, has had to close, along with their sawmill. As a result we have the dumping of chips because there’s no sale, and therefore there’s no cash flow.

Already, 100 people have been laid off. There are 500 on the payroll, and because of this reduced scale there’s the possibility of an additional 300 people being laid off. I know that the management and the union people have discussed this. We hope it will not come about, but there still lingers that possibility of another 300 people being laid off. I can tell you that in the county of Haliburton, where they are so dependent on the lumbering industry, this is a tremendous setback, especially at this time of year.

Of course because the chips from the lumber can’t be moved the whole county is affected by approximately $5 million in its economy. This has a tremendous affect on the truckers and other people in the various trades.

I just want to suggest that when these strikes have ended, I believe there should be a commitment from the paper mills that the supply of chips which have been dumped and stockpiled should be used before going into the bush to cut more.

I have heard it said by many of the lumbering people, and I’ve mentioned this before in the estimates of the Ministry of Industry and Tourism, that it is easier to do business in the USA than it is to do business in the Province of Quebec. There’s one thing that was mentioned in the estimates of the Ministry of Industry and Tourism in regard to the lumbering industry and the wood products industry and Quebec lab furniture, that they seemed to get a greater break in the Province of Quebec than in the Province of Ontario. I, for one, do not accept the comments of the Treasurer (Mr. McKeough) that as the biggest and wealthiest province in Canada we just have to put up with this. I think this is absolute nonsense and this is one of the problems of the lumbering people in the Province of Ontario.

I think we just noticed a while ago that when Olympics Canada advertised for lab furniture, the Quebec people advertised that only those in Quebec need apply, those who are located there or have their head office there. This is another serious blow to the lumbering people in the Province of Ontario.

I just want to say to the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Bernier), who is not in the House at the present time, that I hope when these strikes have been settled, one of the ways that I believe the province can assist the lumbering people, especially in Haliburton, is by deferring payment on Crown stumpage charges. I have faith in the Minister of Labour (B. Stephenson) and I encourage her and the Ministers of Natural Resources and Industry and Tourism (Mr. Bennett) to do everything possible to bring about a satisfactory conclusion to this unrest.

[4:45]

Mr. Yakabuski: Mr. Speaker, coming from that part of the province which is also very dependent on the forest products industry and, to an extent on pulp and paper mills, I felt I wanted to participate in this debate at this time.

Although in that part of Ontario, we do not have a pulp and paper mill there is one located immediately across the Ottawa River from Renfrew county. Of course, that mill does play quite a part in the lives of the workers in that part of Renfrew county inasmuch as that mill is very dependent on the forest resources of Renfrew county, Algonquin Park and that area to supply its needs. Therefore, as others have said, many people are affected by this long strike.

The Minister of Labour, I know by sitting in this House, has answered questions pertaining to the strike on quite a number of occasions. I think she said eight or nine. I know we have discussed this matter at other times and I know the efforts she and her staff have so far put forth toward bringing this labour dispute to a successful conclusion.

One of the speakers mentioned that Mr. Curley, I believe it was, of the union, mentioned that this was not really on a provincial basis, that all the mills across Canada were affected and therefore it was more or less on a national basis. With that in mind, I feel very strongly that our Minister of Labour and her staff try to work very hard with their counterparts at the federal level to bring these people back to the bargaining table.

I know this afternoon that all parties in this House have shown great concern, so much so that I think our minister probably knows better than ever at this time that this strike is causing great hardship in many parts of this province and many parts of the country. All efforts should be made toward bringing them back to the bargaining table at an early date.

The woods industry is one that has its ups and downs perhaps to a greater degree than many other industries. We know that four or five years ago the pulp and paper industry was very depressed, in that some three or five new mills came into production in Canada because of government intervention to some extent. The federal government at that time was providing vast sums of money to some of these pulp and paper companies to establish new mills in so-called depressed areas, not taking into account that the market could not absorb the production of all these new mills.

Strangely enough, only three or four years later -- I guess a year or two ago -- there seemed to be a great shortage of paper products on the market, so much so that there was almost rationing and many of the users were put on a sort of quota basis. However, the situation has changed again and we understand that the mills and the users have vast stockpiles. Probably this is one of the reasons it has been so difficult to bring both parties to the bargaining table.

I don’t think it is true to say that we, on this side of the House, are in bed with the pulp and paper companies.

Mr. Laughren: You are the one who suggested it.

Mr. Yakabuski: I think we are showing -- and have shown as much concern as other members of this Legislature. I have to say that pulp and paper companies haven’t always been great corporate citizens. I only speak for the one my workers and the people from my area have to deal with. Incidentally, that company is not located in the Province of Ontario but many of their ways of doing business are not the kind I would admire.

In closing, I want to impress on the minister what has been said earlier, that there is great concern and great hardship. I would hope she could work with her counterpart in Ottawa in bringing these people back to the bargaining table to bargain in good faith.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Lake Nipigon.

Mr. Stokes: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am not going to rehash anything that has been said by previous speakers, but since the economy of the riding of Lake Nipigon hinges almost totally on our ability to harvest and process, in a realistic way, one of the few resources we have in abundance; because of the economic hardship this labour-management impasse has wreaked on the economy of my area, I feel compelled to get up and speak to this resolution in order that every member of this House and every ministry involved in the dispute fully realizes the impact it has had on the economy of the northern part of this province; and indeed in some of the southern parts -- Cornwall, Thorold and other areas where they have failed to reach an agreement.

Not only is there a dire economic hardship among the people immediately affected -- we’re speaking about 11,000 mill workers -- but it’s common knowledge that for every employee you have in the mill, you’ve got about 2½ employees periferally affected: the cutters, the truckers, and the people that maintain equipment. Equally important is the lack of sufficient income to keep small commercial enterprises going in those one-industry towns. Some of my colleagues have catalogued for you the kind of hardship that has been experienced for the past four months in many of those one-industry towns, particularly in the north. I think everybody fully appreciates the magnitude and seriousness of this labour-management impasse.

In the riding of Lake Nipigon, we have three mills. One of them, American Can, made a very good settlement with their employees. To my knowledge it is the only one in the Province of Ontario that has a settlement that will stand for a goodly length of time. It’s a two-year agreement. Another mill has an interim agreement where workers were given 50 cents an hour with a COLA clause. Management and labour have left their options open to see what kind of general agreement may be entered into after these rounds of negotiations are over. That leaves only one of the mills in my riding, with about 500 mill workers. But as a result of the impasse with Abitibi, with Great Lakes and to some extent O & M, there is still a problem since a goodly portion of the wood harvested for those mills is harvested from the riding of Lake Nipigon. It is 115,000 square miles so it goes without saying that since we have only three mills in the riding, a good deal of the wood fibre harvested there satisfies the needs of the mills in adjacent ridings.

I am vitally concerned and interested that new initiatives he taken by the Minister of Labour (B. Stephenson), the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Bernier) and by the hon. member for Cochrane North (Mr. Brunelle), who has a vital interest in this. I would hope be too would see that he has a role to play in getting these people back together.

Now having said that, I don’t want to create the impression the mill managers or resident managers are as truculent and unmoving as many people would like to believe. The thing that bothers me in this whole issue, Mr. Speaker, is the fact the mill managers, those on the score and responsible for negotiating with their employees, have had the right to bargain on an individual mill basis taken away from them by the presidents through the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association of Canada. Most of the decisions and most of the initiatives or the lack of any initiative, is a result of decisions made in board rooms down in Montreal.

I can tell you quite frankly I had almost reached an agreement with a mill manager on the basis of what I had proposed. He said it sounded like a good idea, would I give him until tomorrow night to think it over. He went back to the principals for an okay. They kicked it around for awhile, and I have no doubt at all that it went to the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association. The answer came back, no; if there is any initiative taken to resolve this dispute, it will be done by the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association, not by an individual mill or the manager of a mill.

There is just as much anxiety on the part of mill managers and those people who are responsible for keeping the mills open at the local level, as there is on behalf of the employee. It would do your heart good to go into some of those areas where an impasse has been reached. Some of them have been out two, three and four months, but there is still a good relationship between the employers at the local level and the employees.

But any time you have a situation where you allow the mandarins in an industry to dictate the conditions of work, and what the pay levels are going to be at the local level, that to me, madam minister, through Mr. Speaker, is bad faith bargaining.

That is one of the first things I said when we had our initial meetings with several of the MPPs and the mayors and reeves affected. I still hold to that conviction. The only way you are going to get a settlement is for you to go, or in concert with your colleagues and maybe some of your federal counterparts, to the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association and say that is not good-faith bargaining within the meaning and intent of the Ontario statutes. That’s the only way you are going to break it.

The people at the local level, management and worker, are just as anxious to see this thing resolved as you and I are. But any time you allow somebody on St. James St. in Montreal, or in a boardroom some place else or in New York --

Mr. Samis: Bay St.

Mr. Stokes: -- to make the decision, the chance of getting a settlement is remote. We are in total agreement here this afternoon, I think we would have complete endorsement by everybody who is directly or indirectly involved. The only way you are going to break this strike, is to insist they bargain on a mill basis.

This government and this province have been mighty good to the pulp and paper industry. I could spend the next hour relating ways in which this Minister of Natural Resources and previous Ministers of Natural Resources and Lands and Forests, have bent over backward to accommodate the pulp and paper industry, the sawmill industry and the waferboard industry in this province. We’ve been mighty good to them. They’ve had a better home here than they would have had any place else on the face of the earth. When they act in the irresponsible way that they have over the last three or four months, I think it’s time that this government took a realistic look at its policies vis-a-vis the industry, having regard for the best interests of the workers in those industries and the economy of the Province of Ontario.

If there is any one thing I would like to impress upon this minister and all of her colleagues, it is that the only way you’re going to break this impasse is to say to the mandarins in the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association: “Hands off. Let free, good-faith collective bargaining take place on the local level.” I think that’s the only way you’re going to resolve it. Thank you.

[5:00]

Mr. Haggerty: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for the opportunity to speak this afternoon on the resolution put forth by the member for Welland (Mr. Swart). The concern of the public and communities that are most seriously affected over the inconvenience of an impasse in a collective bargaining process is at a level that requires serious attention by the Legislature, and particularly by the Minister of Labour (B. Stephenson).

In looking at the statistics in 1974 in Canada there were a record 9,255,120 man-days lost in more than 1,200 work stoppages. It is estimated this cost $300 million in wages, and perhaps as much as $1 billion in production. Statistics show that Canada is second only to Italy in strikes; twice as bad as the United States; three times as bad as Britain and eight times more strike-prone than Japan. Looking at the man-days lost and work stoppages, Ontario ranks second to the Province of British Columbia with 2,628,000 man-days lost.

In Canada last year, one in six major negotiations went to a strike before settlement was reached. The year 1974 was extremely strike-prone for manufacturing. There were strikes in more than one-third of the contract negotiations concerned with manufacturing industries last year. Of course this year in the Province of Ontario I think it’s going to be a major year with the contracts coming forth for bargaining and settlement. I suppose the record will be much higher than last year.

As elected officials representing the Province of Ontario, we must provide measures to resolve such labour disputes in the public interest; to improve the performance of collective bargaining and to minimize the interruption of the social economy caused by any labour dispute.

The strike in the pulp and paper industry is province-wide. In fact, it is right across Canada, from British Columbia to Newfoundland, where they went out on strike just recently. It is pitting labour in the industry against the multinational corporations. The profits mentioned by other speakers have indicated they are well above the marginal profits of previous years.

I suppose when I think about matters of labour negotiations and agreements, I can make reference to “Canadian Industrial Relations” by the Woods task force. I don’t know how many times I’ve mentioned this to the government of Ontario, urging it to take some action. With the anti-inflation programme which is available to all of us across Canada, I suggest that the minister take a good look at page 214 in the report, section 767, income and cost research board. It says:

“There should be no constitutional obstacle in the establishment of incomes and cost research boards. Essentially it is conceived of as an advisory board, although it may require powers of subpoena. In any event, we recommend that it be a joint federal-provincial board. Provincial cooperation should preclude any issue of constitutionality. If a constitutional basis were required it probably could be found in parliament’s trade and commerce power.”

The interpretation of that section, I suppose, is that when any two parties go to the bargaining table that wages shall be based upon the income of productivity. I think that’s an approach we have to take a good hard look at. In many cases where there is a huge profit, I think those persons providing the labour must share in greater returns.

Now I listened to the comments this afternoon and I am a little bit alarmed that the speakers before me have actually put nothing forward. I think it is perhaps one of the weakest efforts put forth by the official opposition parties.

Mr. Foulds: They were all constructive.

Mr. Haggerty: They have skirted all around the issues and said the responsibility lies with the minister.

Well they may be quite right. Then again I look at it and I say what are the issues and what can we do to resolve them. They haven’t indicated it.

Often you stand up here in this House and the current official opposition will talk about “the great Province of British Columbia; why don’t you follow those procedures?” We usually hear so much about it. They have been sitting back very cautiously this time, not committing themselves one way or the other. This resolution is perhaps the weakest of attempts to bring about a settlement in this strike.

Mr. Foulds: Are you a Barrett supporter too?

Mr. Samis: Where do you stand, Ray?

Mr. Haggerty: Where I stand?

Mr. Moffatt: Sandy ground.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: What is your response?

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

Mr. Haggerty: Where I stand, Mr. Speaker --

Mr. Foulds: He is standing on shifting sand.

Mr. Haggerty: I direct members to Bill 36, An Act to amend the Labour Relations Act. The purpose of the bill is to provide a mechanism whereby the minister can order parties to a strike or a lockout to end the strike or lockout for a period of 60 days during which time the parties try to reach a settlement. Much of this is based on the Taft-Hartley Act under which the United states deals with labour relations. It is a good piece of legislation, only used in cases of emergency.

Ms. Foulds: Good stuff.

Mr. Haggerty: It has been successful and labour has been able to live with it. I think when the steel industries were out on strike on a number of occasions in the United States, this legislation was applied and worked very successfully. It is based upon an income based on productivity formula. On three occasions different presidents of the United States rolled back the prices and they have been able to live with it.

It is a good piece of legislation that can apply now, even with the teachers’ strike. Here we now have our professional negotiators and conciliation officers working to try and get a settlement in this impasse. It’s ridiculous to have these teachers sitting at home while this is continuing. With this cooling off period of 60 days, they could be back providing their services.

The same thing can apply in the pulp and paper industry. What I like about this particular bill, Mr. Speaker, is that it provides one thing. It does not destroy the collective bargaining process like it has out in British Columbia. It still allows the parties to continue good-faith bargaining. That’s the important thing about this bill.

I think this afternoon -- I don’t want to take too much time since I have got to be down at the other committee, but I think this is a good alternative to the problems of today. I would ask the minister, and I see she has her top official sifting under the gallery back there, to consider this.

I think this is the only alternative that you have and I think it will save collective bargaining in the Province of Ontario without going back to the bargaining table. This is the alternative. I suggest that you give serious consideration to this.

Mr. Lewis: That was Richard Nixon’s alternative.

Mr. Moffatt: Spiro Agnew.

Mr. Haggerty: The leader of the official opposition has been very cautious on this too. He hasn’t committed himself one way or another. It reminds me of the election when they are out campaigning.

Mr. Lewis: Cautious?

Mr. Haggerty: A very compassionate party. They are showing that compassion this afternoon. They have no guts to settle the issue.

Mr. Lewis: What are you talking about?

Hon. Mr. Brunelle: Mr. Speaker, I also wish to join the previous speakers in expressing my concern about the seriousness of this labour dispute.

In the riding I have the honour to represent, Cochrane North, the forest industries are the major and the most important industries. I would estimate that 75 per cent of the employees in that area either work directly or indirectly for the forest industries. Of course, in the towns of Kapuskasing and Smooth Rock Falls we have three mills. They are closed down. As the hon. member for Victoria-Haliburton (Mr. Eakins) indicated, it also affects the saw mills in his area. Some of the saw mills are closing because they can’t sell their chips. In my area, in the town of Hearst, I believe two or three saw mills have temporarily closed down. Another one in Cochrane, Cochrane Enterprises, is closing down this Friday I believe for a month or so. Of course it affects stores and practically every industry in my riding. Today is Thursday, Dec. 4. Three weeks from today is Christmas and it’s going to be a very sad Christmas unless this labour dispute is resolved.

I would like to commend the Minister of Labour (B. Stephenson) and also her deputy, Mr. Johnston, Mr. Dickie, the chief negotiator, and her senior officials who have worked very hard in trying to get both sides together to resolve this dispute. I was very pleased to hear the Minister of Labour indicate in her earlier remarks this afternoon, Mr. Speaker, that next week she hopes to have both sides back together at the bargaining table -- that’s the only place it can be resolved. Both sides have to bargain faithfully. It is hoped they will come to some satisfactory settlement, and that the employees will be back at work.

I am listening to the various remarks of my colleagues opposite and am taking no sides. I know in these labour disputes both sides are at fault and can defend their cases very well. Some of the labour unions are in Kapuskasing today and invited me to attend. I told them that I could not be there but I would be pleased to meet with them next week and they’ve indicated that they will try and arrange a meeting next week.

As the hon. leader of the Liberal Party (Mr. Nixon) has indicated, as well as other leaders, we certainly will do all we can in conjunction with the Minister of Labour to try and get both parties -- I would like to repeat that it has to be settled at the bargaining table -- back together so that the economy can be back on its feet.

I have heard many times in my own riding that if this strike is not settled before Christmas it could go on for quite some time. As I indicated earlier this affects many other ridings, but in my riding especially, where the forest industries are the main industries, it paralyzes the whole area. The cost in unemployment insurance alone must be in the millions of dollars. The bushworkers are drawing unemployment insurance; the stores are laying off people. Other industries are laying off people as well. It is causing not only economic but social problems.

In concluding, I wish to commend the Minister of Labour. We have a very able Minister of Labour and I’m very optimistic that with her efforts we will be able to get both sides back to the bargaining table and come to a settlement satisfactory to both parties.

Mr. Wildman: I rise to take part in this debate because, although I don’t have a mill in my riding, many of the woodlands workers who have been laid off as a result of the dispute are in my riding and it’s affecting a lot of communities that normally depend upon the incomes of those workers for their economic base.

I was interested to hear the member for Sault Ste. Marie, the Minister of Housing (Mr. Rhodes), speak a little earlier. I echo his feelings that this dispute has gone on too long and should now be settled at the bargaining table. He seemed to indicate, however, that the federal government would have more leverage in the situation than the provincial government. I think that is probably true to an extent. It certainly is true that we would like the federal government to try and put some pressure on the companies to settle, but it’s important, I think, that we realize that this government has a great deal of leverage as well.

[5:15]

The companies anticipated and precipitated this dispute. Probably because of a drop in the market and the large inventories they had, they anticipated a long dispute. They’ve made almost no attempt to negotiate and made only a very small and unreasonable offer when they were brought back to the table. I admit the Minister of Labour (B. Stephenson) did use her good offices to bring them back to the table but what pressure, really, is this government putting on the companies to negotiate?

The Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Bernier) says that the timber limits are a separate matter and don’t have much to do with this labour dispute. I think it has everything to do with it. These companies are using the natural resources of this province and therefore they should be subject to the people of this province and responsible to the needs of the province. This government has within its grasp the ability to force recalcitrant companies to the table but it is loath to do it. I’d like to know why.

The Minister of Labour says that the companies are waiting to get a ruling from the federal Anti-Inflation Board. I say they’ve been waiting, if that’s the word, since long before Trudeau’s announcement. They’ve stalled long enough. If this government really cared about the economy of the north and the other lumber towns, it would get good-faith bargaining going now, not by ordering the workers back to work and imposing arbitration, but by using its power against the party that’s at fault, the employer, to bring them back to the bargaining table, to make a reasonable offer and thus get all of those workers, not only the ones that are on strike but also the ones that have been laid off, back to work and get the economy of the north going again.

Mr. Conway: I would like simply to draw attention to one or two specifics that relate to my part of Ontario, namely the eastern section. I do not feel it incumbent upon me or necessary for me to repeat those standard positions which have been articulated very well here by all sides this afternoon. I do not have within the confines of my riding a major pulp mill. There is however, in the Province of Quebec, in the county of Pontiac, a very substantial Consolidated mill which is on strike. This has had serious implications for the economic prospects of the lumber industry in Renfrew county.

I would say that this is a time when, as the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Bernier) just the other day acknowledged, the lumber business is not in as healthy a condition as it might be. We’re all aware of that. From my conversations over the weekend, and certainly over the past number of weeks, both workers and management in that particular sector of the economy, there is a growing concern that this long and very difficult strike is depreciating the chip market at a time when the rest of the lumber market is not in a position to be as buoyant as it might otherwise be.

Those people are saying to me: “This strike must be settled. If it is not settled within the next few weeks, we are going to be in a position where both the lumber and the chip market are so depressed that a continuance of our general operation will be very, very difficult indeed.” And this is something, of course, which effects my particular situation very, very much. All the lumber operators in Renfrew county -- or not necessarily all, but a great number -- have concomitant chip operations. I think that that is one particular aspect of this strike that must be highlighted.

I simply wanted to take the opportunity this afternoon to draw the attention of the government to this particular aspect. I might also add, because my good friend from Rainy River (Mr. Reid) is not here today -- I think that for the record, it should be stressed that the member for Rainy River is in his riding this afternoon setting up negotiations and a meeting between labour and management because he is very concerned about the impact this strike is having on his riding. I spoke to him a short time ago and he asked me, and I felt it important, that that be registered for the record this afternoon. He has an abiding interest in this particular situation and it is very happily that I report that situation to the House this afternoon.

Mr. Foulds: He did that last week; today he is on his sick bed.

Mr. Lane: I would like to make a few remarks this afternoon about the serious situation the pulp and paper workers are facing right across the country. In the town of Espanola, in my riding, two local unions are involved, and some 750 men. They have been on strike now for well over two months. This is affecting their own families of course, but nearly every family in the town is involved, either directly or indirectly, because this is a one-industry town.

The manager of a large chain store in Espanola is reported to have said about three weeks ago that the sale of foodstuffs and other household items have dropped about 50 per cent on weekend sales. We have only been out for two months, so it seems to me Mr. Speaker, that if this strike continues, we are going to have some families in my area that will not be properly fed this coming winter.

Besides the people living in Espanola, on Manitoulin Island, and in various parts of the north shore area, there are a great many people involved in the production of wood, and maintenance of equipment and roads and what have you. These people are being laid off in large numbers each week. This too, is creating a great deal of hardship throughout the area.

I have been talking on a regular basis with the management people in Espanola, with the union leaders, both locally and internationally, and I have talked with the workers on the picket line on several occasions. I have made it known to all these people that I am prepared not only to attend any meetings they may wish to call, but to chair such a meeting, being more or less a neutral person, if I were asked by any one of the parties to put such a meeting together. So far, I have had no requests of this nature.

I know the minister is making every effort possible to get both parties sitting down at the bargaining table. I certainly hope this happens in the next few days.

I know Eddy Forest Products Ltd. has indicated they think they themselves are too small an operation to set the wage pattern for the industry, but if the men went back to work I am sure there could be some interim benefits, and the company has agreed of course, that if the matter was set by one of the larger companies, they would be prepared to go along with the pattern without any haggling.

To date the relationship between the company officials in Espanola and the workers is good. There is no bitterness but, if the strike continues, there will be. I am estimating there will be hardships throughout the entire riding of Algoma-Manitoulin.

I am in agreement with my hon. colleague when he says he feels that if they don’t get back to work by Christmas the chances are the strike will carry on for a much longer period of time. I feel if we can’t get the men back to work before the end of the year we probably won’t get them back to work until spring. I think this would be a real catastrophe.

I urge the minister to continue to use every possible means to get both parties back to the bargaining table, and hopefully get the men back to work before Christmas.

Mr. Samis: Like many other members on this side, and on the other side, my particular constituency is seriously affected by this strike, since we have 1,200 employees who are presently out of work at Domtar, which is an efficient and modern fine-paper plant. Statistics published this week indicate there are 6,000 people in our community without work.

We have three other strikes going on as well as this one. Some have lasted upwards of four months in other fields. I think you can understand that in a small community like Cornwall, this strike is having a severe impact on a variety of people. The men are hurting, the community is hurting.

I have made a point of talking to the employees and the union officials as much as possible, to keep abreast of what is happening. In the case of Domtar, it’s interesting to note that their contract expired in the spring, but the union decided to keep negotiating, keep working and keep the mill going. I think they displayed a reasonable attitude towards the whole subject.

I am not going to suggest it is all black and white, that it is a series of total contrasts, but I think it is obvious, Mr. Speaker, we wouldn’t have to deal with this today if the company hadn’t dragged on and delayed negotiations. I was impressed by the number of people in the community, who weren’t even members of the industry in any way, shape or form, whether it was management or labour, who fully expected a strike and fully expected a long strike. When people outside of the industry are talking that way you have to ask yourselves why. What effort did the company make to avoid this strike?

In talking to the union people in our town I think it’s very fair to say their prime goal is to get back to the bargaining table to settle this dispute. They’re not a bunch of radicals. These are family men who have mortgages and rents. They have bills to pay; they know all the implications of this strike. They want to get back to the table.

They don’t want to have any sort of great political, doctrinaire confrontation. They want to settle this dispute first and foremost. They want to have somebody they can negotiate with at the table and somebody who, once they are at the table, will negotiate seriously. Let’s forget about the question of blame right now. Let’s just get the two parties back to the table. I would say every union leader connected with Domtar and every employee, I’m sure, would endorse that opinion.

I think the member for Lake Nipigon (Mr. Stokes) quite possibly hit the nail right on the head. This is not a strike where the two sides are just locked in a disagreement. It’s a situation where one side quite possibly can’t even settle this disagreement because the shots aren’t being called where they should be. The persons in the mills who are responsible for negotiating with the employees no longer have that power. The shots, as the member for Nipissing said, are being called in Montreal, or on Bay St. or south of the border. We’re not getting good-faith bargaining. He was extremely accurate, I think, in his assessment that the mill managers aren’t necessarily to blame.

For example, in the case of Cornwall the union wants to get back to the table. I would assume that management is not entirely opposed to that view. But do they have the freedom to make that decision that they can get back to the bargaining table? I think what we have here is very obvious now. We’re having a bargaining cartel set up by the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association. It’s very obvious that the rules are that nobody breaks from the herd. We all stick in this together. Nobody deserts Abitibi. Once Abitibi settles, then maybe you can do something.

In Cornwall, the unions offered to negotiate the non-monetary matters because there are some local issues regarding seniority and other things that could be settled in the meantime. Again, does the company have the freedom to even negotiate those things at the present time? If these companies are going to continue in this province they’ve got to remember the days of the robber barons are over. We don’t want monopolies or cartels. We want them to live up to their basic responsibilities, especially when you consider that they’re using our natural resources, our working people and our labourers to achieve their present level of prosperity.

I don’t think I have to document -- it’s already been done by the member for Fort William (Mr. Angus) -- the level of profit. I’m not going to get into that discussion. All I’m saying is let’s get back to the bargaining table.

I know that the minister has tried, on several occasions, to do that. I would hope that she would resist the temptation of the pressures put on by some misguided mayors trying to emulate some American solution to this problem. I would really hope that the minister would demonstrate a real dedication to the concepts of justice in this dispute because if you demonstrate that dedication, and emphasize that you, as the minister, demand that they get back and negotiate, these people have to live in Ontario, if you and the Premier of Ontario (Mr. Davis) make that abundantly clear, surely the moral suasion will get some results. Why not publicly state that you expect them, as corporate citizens, to get back to the bargaining table? No less. You’re not forcing a solution on them. All you’re saying is: “If you want to do business in Ontario, damn it all, get back to the bargaining table.”

I would hope this minister would display more dedication to the sense of justice in resolving this dispute than she seems to be displaying for the cause of the working poor and the minimum wage. I’m sure no pulp, newsprint or any type of woodland worker would accept that degree of equivocation. We don’t want compulsory arbitration. We don’t want anything of that sort whatsoever. I suspect the companies would agree with that.

All we’re asking is serious, good-faith bargaining, someone who will sit at the table, someone who will seriously negotiate and will not take no for an answer even if they tell you 10 times: “No, we don’t do it.” Keep after them, don’t give up.

Mr. Speaker: Does any other hon. member wish to speak on this? The hon. Minister of Natural Resources.

[5:30]

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, I rise to join this debate because of course it has a very close relationship to the ministry I have the honour of administering as a protector of the --

Mr. Laughren: How about guardian?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: -- resources at large, be they renewable or non-renewable, and as a member who has the pulp and paper industry very actively involved in his riding. As the members I will know, the mill at Kenora has now been out for some two months. I expect when the pulp and paper mill at Dryden’s contract expires in early January, 1976, they too will be out. It will mean the major employer in the Kenora riding will be shut down. Of course the hardship that will cause we have heard about already this afternoon from many other speakers.

It comes a step closer, because in my home town of Hudson there is an Abitibi sawmill which has been selling chips to the Great Lakes Paper Co. at Thunder Bay. It has been shut down for about two months because of the inability to ship chips out. This is causing very personal hardship to people I know by their first names. Every weekend that I go home I get calls not only from the employees but from their wives asking that the government do something. Other calls are coming in from Espanola. I’ve had calls from Kapuskasing. I had a group of labourers meet me at Thunder Bay recently to ask what the government was doing, or what it was prepared to do in the weeks ahead, because it is coming to a crunch.

We’re very concerned in northern Ontario. I perhaps should be on the record just what the pulp and paper industry means to this province. Out of 37 establishments in the province in 1972 we employed about 21,000 in the pulp and paper industry itself and 23,536 in other related industries such as the waferboard plants, veneer plants, and sawmills. So we have in employment about 50,000 to 55,000 people directly involved in the woods industry.

Wages in 1972 in the pulp and paper industry amounted to $207 million and in those related industries to about $189 million. So there we see the economic return to the area.

In value of wood production in 1972, the pulp and paper mills produced $778 million and the related industries, $706 million. When you consider that overall wood pulp production in Ontario is about 19 per cent of the total Canadian capacity, I think we all realize just what this industry means to this province.

One thing that has not really been expressed this afternoon and which has given me considerable concern as I meet with various business people from other countries, particularly the United States, is the competitiveness of the industry itself. Many people are telling me they are not looking to Canada or to Ontario as a place of stability any more. They point recently, of course, to the postal strike; they point even to the problems we’re having with the Olympics.

Mr. Laughren: They mean political stability.

Mr. Lewis: They mean the minority government.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: That might have something to do with it too.

Mr. Moffatt: Shaky leadership.

Mr. Lewis: The socialist hordes.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: But it’s not there. They’re saying, “Look, we’re scared to put an order into Canada for a certain commodity, because we don’t have faith that they will produce.”

Mr. Deans: Where would they put it?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: This afternoon everybody was condemning management -- condemning the corporations for being at fault. I think both sides have to take some responsibility.

Mr. Ferrier: Oh, come off it.

Mr. Moffatt: But you don’t.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: They both have to take the responsibility. You know there’s an old saying, it takes two to tango. I think this is the case here.

Interjections.

Mr. Renwick: Tell us how you draw that conclusion.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: It takes two to tango. You can say all you want about the corporations and everything else. You have called them timber wolves and you’ve --

Mr. Ferrier: You are the mouthpiece for them.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: -- named them everything they could be named. On the other hand, you’re talking about the prosperity that exists in northern Ontario --

Mr. Renwick: But you always think there are two sides to that question and there are not.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: -- because they are there. Because they are producing, they are providing jobs.

Mr. Moffatt: Not because they are there, because the resources are there.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: But I say to you in all sincerity as those two parties go to the bargaining table, let’s maintain our position in the world markets; 90 per cent of the newsprint coming out of eastern Canada is sold in the United States.

Mr. Renwick: Come off it. Don’t detach yourself that way. You sound like Trudeau.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Now you are being insulting.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: I went down to a few southern states and looked at the mills in the southern states. They are all new mills. The machines are much wider; they are not the narrow newsprint mills we have here in eastern Canada.

Mr. Ferrier: How many more new ones are being built?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: The mills in eastern Canada are 50 years old. There are new mills down there.

Mr. Renwick: All right. Look at the productivity record of the forest industry and tell me how they should settle.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Everybody has an opportunity to debate the issue.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: I think you have to look at this point.

Mr. Renwick: It is all very well to talk about labour productivity --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. member for Riverdale does not have the floor. The hon. minister has for a few more moments.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: I just want to put these comments on the record. As we move ahead we’ve got to maintain our stability and we’ve got to maintain our competitive position in world markets. I would hope that both sides would remember that when the final decision will be made at the bargaining table.

I want to point out to members that I have met on a number of occasions with the Minister of Labour (B. Stephenson) and I admire what she has done or what she has tried to do to date.

Mr. Laughren: You apologize for anybody -- Denison Mines, the Minister of Labour, Abitibi, apologize for anybody. Tory apologist.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: I know her goal is to have a summit meeting with the union leaders and with the industry itself and I do hope she is successful. I want to say one thing -- last week, when I went home to Hudson I took it upon myself to go to Kenora and to meet with the union leaders in the mill itself, in the Kenora mill. There was a difference of opinion as to what action we should take. Should we have a government-sponsored secret vote? Should there be legislation passed forcing the workers back? There was a difference of opinion in that group but the thing that really bothered me, and I put this on the record --

Mr. Laughren: Do you apologize for your own government? You apologize for everybody else.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: -- was that the company itself, after the men had been out two months, had not yet put a position on the bargaining table. I think that is wrong, to go two months without anything even to look at. I point my finger at Boise Cascade because I think that is bargaining in bad faith.

Mr. Lewis: That is the problem.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: And I say that. I also say that --

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: I realize we have a new, young Canadian union.

Mr. Renwick: You just take the president of Abitibi and you tell him to get to the bargaining table and don’t fool around with him.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: I am most pleased that we now have a Canadian union in the pulp and paper industry. I think it’s great. I commend them for it, really, but sometimes I wonder about their foresight because the economic downturn in the pulp and paper industry was there. They sat back and watched the paper companies build up a tremendous inventory, which is morally wrong. I think it is wrong. They shouldn’t be allowed to do that.

Mr. MacDonald: How are they going to stop it?

Mr. Lewis: How can they do it?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: But the union itself saw that happening. They heard, we heard that the strike was coming. I think they should have waited for an economic upturn.

Mr. Lewis: Working people don’t strike willingly. They lose a lot of money.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: But to go on strike, in an economic downturn, with high inventory --

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: -- is to go at cross-purposes.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Time is just about up.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: They put themselves in a very awkward position.

Mr. Laughren: Don’t you recognize it?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: With the hardship they are causing the people in my particular community in northern Ontario, there should have been a more careful look --

Mr. Stokes: Are you suggesting that the workers should have refused to go to work because they were building up inventory?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: No, but I think they should have watched it very carefully; maybe gone out sooner or taken some other course of action.

Mr. Lewis: Say, there is a job for you in the CPU.

Mr. Laughren: I’m not so sure of that.

Mr. Speaker: You’ve got 30 seconds left, I believe.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: One of the members mentioned --

Mr. Laughren: Are you advocating wildcats?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: I beg your pardon?

Mr. Speaker: There is about one minute.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: There was the question of the licences. They said we should cancel the timber licences of the major companies. I have to tell you that there’s nothing in the statutes or the regulations which will even allow us that.

Mr. Lewis: Timber wolves.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: I have to tell you with all sincerity that when we give a large tract of timber to a pulp and paper company it’s tied to a major investment such as Great Lakes in Thunder Bay or Abitibi in Thunder Bay or Sault Ste. Marie. The two go hand in hand. What would I do, as the Minister of Natural Resources, with hundreds of square miles of timber and nobody to process it? It has to be tied to that particular investment. I don’t think that’s the route to go.

Mr. Renwick: If the government and industry go hand in hand, where do the workers come in?

Mr. Ferrier: Take over the mills then.

Mr. Stokes: You can talk about volume agreements.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: In winding up I want again to compliment and encourage my colleague, the Minister of Labour, for her efforts to date. I know she has my full support in moving ahead in her desire to have a summit meeting to bring both parties together, even with her as chairman, because she makes an excellent tough chairman and I think she can do it. I have every confidence.

Mr. Lewis: Mr. Speaker, I would like to echo the words of my colleagues, to focus in just slightly as this debate comes to a conclusion before the Minister of Labour (B. Stephenson) replies and pick up on some of the interesting things which the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Bernier) just said.

This is an ugly labour dispute. This is one of the ugliest labour disputes in many years in this province. It’s the kind of dispute that builds desperation in the workers and their families. It’s the kind of dispute that tears the heart out of little, resource-based communities. It’s the kind of dispute that undermines confidence in collective bargaining generally. It should not be allowed to be prolonged as long as has occurred.

It is the ugliest of labour relations breakdowns, and that’s something which this government should feel strongly about.

There are certain characteristics of this strike, and this labour dispute, with which the government is familiar. When I hear the Minister of Natural Resources say to me or to the House generally, that Boise Cascade did not make an offer for two months, and that constitutes bad faith, then I want to know what happens to the Ontario Labour Relations Act in Ontario.

There is in the Act section 14, a clause which says that parties shall bargain in good faith. What’s left to the statutes of Ontario if a minister of the Crown, involved at least adjacently to the dispute by virtue of being the Minister of Natural Resources, concedes that one of the major companies involved has bargained in bad faith for a period of more than two months? What’s left of labour relations in the Province of Ontario? How is it allowed to happen?

There is a statute, there is enforcement, there is more or less a government. Why is it not possible to take account of the bargaining in bad faith clause? I don’t comprehend how that is allowed to occur.

The Minister of Natural Resources says everyone knew the strike was coming because the companies were building inventories. If everybody understood that the strike was coming and that it was a kind of calculated, pre-meditated blow which the companies intended to impose on a vulnerable union, how is it that it happens? How is it that you know a strike is coming and nobody intervenes? The minister knows it’s bad faith bargaining and nothing occurs.

I checked with Mr. Dickie and Mr. Scott in the gallery before I spoke because I wanted to get my figures right. I recall, and they informed me, that back at the end of 1974, Abitibi made an offer of something in the vicinity of 75 cents an hour to the union plus COLA as an extension of the existing contract.

They made the offer at a time when the CPU was particularly vulnerable because of the break that Henri Lorrain led from the international union. We know of the lack of money which the workers had by way of a strike fund and understand how anxious the union was, but they weren’t prepared to accept that kind of offer in the face of the enormous profits in the industry in 1973 and 1974. So the membership turned it down.

That happens in collective bargaining. They asked for something in the vicinity of $2 an hour, a spread which could have been negotiated. Then, as the point of contract ended, and as the talks took place in May and June, the discussions -- whether direct or indirect -- all broke down on a technicality of which the minister and her officials are aware, that is the divisions in the bargaining team. The companies insisted on certain divisions within the union representing the different plants around the province; the union said, “No, we want to bargain en masse.” It broke down over a technicality and the workers went out in July.

From the end of November, 1974, until November, 1975, the companies didn’t make one solitary additional offer. Not one -- for an entire year. Now, that’s called bargaining in bad faith. That certainly applies to Abitibi, which is the leader in the industry. Some of the other companies -- and I have been saying companies generically -- Great Lakes and others were prepared to bargain, but Abitibi, the leader in the industry, held that pattern for that entire year. Not a single offer; that’s bargaining in bad faith. There wasn’t a person on the government benches or anyone in the Crown position who was prepared to call the company’s bluff and say that that is bargaining in bad faith.

[5:45]

Then I concede, after some pressure provided by the minister and the guidelines, as it were, Abitibi came back to the bargaining table with Vic Scott in November of 1975 and what did they do? They offered eight per cent plus 24 cents in the first year, which in total amounts to 68 cents an hour. This means that one year later they offered significantly less per hour to the union than they had offered in November of 1974.

Does that strike you as good-faith bargaining? There are few precedents in labour relation history where a company comes back a year later and offers less to its employees than it had made formally a year before.

There is not a person in this whole cluttered government array who is willing to call Abitibi’s bluff. So they get away with it. That’s known as bad-faith bargaining and it leaves this government’s legislation, frankly, in a shambles. And it speaks to what Abitibi and some of the companies would really have wished, which is to break the Canadian Paperworkers Union, if they can, although now I suspect they understand that they can’t.

So we’ve got an Ontario Labour Relations Act with a good-faith bargaining clause which isn’t worth the paper it is written on. We’ve got an Ontario Labour Relations Act which we amended, I guess in July of this year, which has in it section 7 which is an amendment inserting section 34a in the original Act to provide for the minister to appoint an officer to look into the dispute. If that had been done in every single area of the dispute we might have got the equivalent of a fact-finder’s report on a number of matters which could have been the basis for the settlement.

That hasn’t been done. Again, the Ontario Labour Relations Act is seen not to operate effectively, to enforce good faith bargaining. Meanwhile the workers are out, the communities are frantic, and the government says that it will speak to the presidents of the companies and it will call them in.

There is no great honour, I say with respect, for the Minister of Labour to be neutral. That is what used to drive us crazy about the member for Humber (Mr. MacBeth). It is important that the Minister of Labour be impartial, but not neutral. And when the Minister of Labour sees that the statutes are violated, and that the companies position is unjust and that whole communities are in disarray as a result, and that mayors are clamouring for compulsory arbitration at the government’s door, then the minister lays down the law with the companies. That is what the Minister of Labour does -- lays down the law to the companies.

And the minister says to them: “You may have all kinds of pretensions, you people -- Abitibi, Great Lakes, all the rest of you -- but I’ve got the legislation. I am the Minister of Labour. I expect my legislation to be upheld. You get back to that bargaining table and you make a good-faith offer or I will prosecute under bargaining in bad faith. And if I have to go further I go further.”

And the Minister of Labour stands in her place, and says: “Although it is difficult and awkward for me to make a judgement on a dispute, my officers in the Ministry of Labour have informed me of the facts and I say publicly the companies are wrong.” You say so, and you use the immense moral authority of your office to order them back to the table.

That’s the way labour relations should work. Otherwise, the adversary confrontations build up. The spirit of labour relations deteriorates, and what happens with the teachers happens with the woodworkers, happens with the clinic workers in Port Arthur, happens with the plastic workers in Tilbury. There has to be some sense of control in labour relations.

For those of my colleagues who say: “Take away their timber rights.” I applaud it. And if the government wants to bring in legislation to do it, do it. And if that’s the club it needs, then wield it. Whose timber is it, anyway?

What did Abitibi do? Did they go out and put the seedlings in the ground, lo these 100 years? They are reaping the profit of what was there for the people of Ontario, and they have no right to abuse the workers from whose labour the profit is derived. It is surely legitimate that for the workers and the communities and the law, the legislation which the minister administers, that she continues to do, I concede, as she has done but much more toughly. Bring them in, lay down the law to them, tell them the minister wants a settlement and we will have that settlement.

Mr. Speaker: The time has expired. The hon. minister.

Hon. B. Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, I will speak very briefly. I have been tremendously impressed by the concern and the interest which the members of this House have demonstrated this afternoon in the multiple and serious problems of the paper company strike in towns, villages and areas within this province. It has been of great concern to me for the last four weeks that there seemed to be a deterioration in one of the most important economic bases of this province, but even more importantly, a deterioration in the human condition of a very large number of people who reside in northern Ontario and are, in fact, dependent upon this industry, upon work in this industry, and upon those industries which relate to the paper companies.

My sense of justice has not been outraged at too many things in my life. It has not been particularly disturbed until I have seen what has been apparent in the lack of concern on both sides of this bargaining table, and I believe that there has been some lack of concern on both sides.

I would like to see the bargaining in this instance carried out on a no-fault basis. I would like both parties to come back, to forget their prejudices, to forget their past disasters, and to come back looking to what they can do, talking to one another effectively and meaningfully, considering that, in fact, they hold much of the future of this province in the palms of their hands, on both sides right at the moment; that in fact this province cannot continue to grow in a rational way and to support reasonable and meaningful social development unless we have a good economic base.

I would like both sides to be concerned about all the factors which are involved in this bargaining issue. I would remind the members opposite that if, in fact, the unions have felt strongly that there was bad-faith bargaining in any one of these instances, they had only to apply to the Labour Relations Board. This is part and parcel of the law as amended.

Mr. Renwick: They know it is useless.

Mr. Lewis: It is useless; a $500 fine.

Hon. B. Stephenson: Oh, no, no.

Mr. Speaker: Order please.

Mr. Lewis: That’s what it means, absolutely.

Hon. B. Stephenson: However, I would much rather that at the moment they forgot whatever it was that was bothering them in the past and came back to the table. I am very pleased to say that we have made yet another small step in the right direction and I can announce to you right now -- because it has just been confirmed this afternoon -- that, in fact, representatives of the leaders of both sides are meeting with me at the beginning of next week. I shall be as persuasive and concerned as I have been and I shall exercise all of the moral suasion which I can draw upon, and --

Mr. Renwick: Listen, pick up the telephone tonight and phone Tom Bell and tell him to go back to the bargaining table.

Mr. Speaker: Order please. The hon. minister has a few moments left.

Hon. B. Stephenson: All the moral suasion which I can draw upon to persuade both of these groups that, in fact, they are equally causing damage to the future of this province, and to the people of this province, particularly the people in northern Ontario.

Mr. Lewis: Oh come on, it is not equal at all.

Mr. Speaker: Order please.

Mr. Lewis: You are admitting bargaining in bad faith.

Interjection.

Mr. Moffatt: Let the minister speak.

Mr. Speaker: Order please. Everyone has had a chance to speak and to debate this subject. The hon. minister has a few moments left.

Hon. B. Stephenson: I will most certainly --

Mr. Lewis: Go past 6 o’clock; go as long as you like.

Hon. B. Stephenson: -- promise my very best effort in this entire activity and I hope that I can be as tough --

Mr. Renwick: Do it tonight.

Hon. B. Stephenson: -- as it has been suggested that I will be. I hope that I can continue to motivate people in a way which does not demand laceration and blood-letting on both sides.

Mr. Lewis: There has been a lot of blood-letting from the workers, for four months.

Hon. B. Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, I have been heartened by the supportive discussion in this House today, and I can tell you that, with my colleagues who have been of great assistance to me in the past month, we shall continue to strive to provide a solution rapidly for this very serious, very discouraging and soul-destroying situation which too many people in northern Ontario are presently being subjected to.

Mr. Laughren: I’m surprised that there is still time left but I shall make a few brief remarks. I’m very surprised at the comments of the minister. Despite all the evidence that there indeed was bad-faith bargaining on the part of the industry and not on the part of the union, she can still stand in her place and say that there’s responsibility on both sides for the impasse on collective bargaining. That’s simply not true, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Lewis: You Tories never change.

Mr. Laughren: I would say that --

Interjection.

Mr. Laughren: -- given the --

Mr. Speaker: Order please.

Mr. Lewis: The anti-union Minister of Labour.

Mr. Laughren: -- recent examples of bad-faith bargaining in the Province of Ontario, and I need go no further than Falconbridge Nickel Mines in the Sudbury area, given the bad-faith bargaining on the part of the woods industry, that pretty soon that section of the Employment Standards Act will mean absolutely nothing if it means anything now.

Mr. Lewis: It means nothing now.

Mr. Laughren: Unless this minister and the government are prepared to move in in a very serious way and call the bluff of the timber industry then there never will be good-faith bargaining on the part of employers in the Province of Ontario. Right now the Employment Standards Act is really a licence for employers in Ontario to practise bad-faith bargaining.

That simply is not acceptable in the Province of Ontario. There is too much at stake. There are entire communities whose economies are being threatened. I would say to the minister that never before in a labour dispute have I seen it so clearly illustrated who are wearing white hats and who are wearing black hats. Despite that, despite the admission by the Minister of Natural Resources, the Minister of Labour must stand in her place and defend the industry because of her Tory heritage. It’s as simple as that.

Mr. Lewis: That’s right, you know. You see them equally involved. How can you say that?

Mr. Laughren: May I suggest to the minister, that she get those oligopolistic heads together, knock them together, and get them to the bargaining table and use the influence of her office.

Mr. Speaker: This item of business has been completed. The House leader.

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, may I call the ninth order please?

Mr. Lewis: He has already spoken.

Hon. Mr. Welch: Very well, I thought too.

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

ESTIMATES, MINISTRY OF NATURAL RESOURCES (CONTINUED)

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Chairman, I am sure that you are going to call the time, but tonight at 8 when we resume we will continue with the estimates of the Ministry of Natural Resources, to be followed by those of the Provincial Secretary for Resources Development.

The House recessed at 6 p.m.