Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

The House resumed at 2 p.m.

Mr. Speaker: Statements by the ministry.

MENTAL HEALTH CENTRE RENOVATION

Hon. Mrs. Scrivener: Mr. Speaker, at the request of the Premier (Mr. Davis), last week the Minister of Health (Mr. F. S. Miller), the Minister of Culture and Recreation (Mr. Welch) and I met with a delegation from Toronto city council to receive their statement in connection with the demolition of the building at 999 Queen St. W. On their behalf, my colleagues and I presented a report of our meeting to the Premier and members of cabinet yesterday. I also placed on the agenda a lengthy letter on the subject from Ald. John Sewell.

Cabinet considered the views which city council had submitted. Also, it reviewed government action undertaken in connection with this matter over the past year, during which time the final phase of reconstruction at the Queen St. Mental Health Centre was delayed, adding a cost of $100,000 per month during that period.

Further, cabinet discussed the numerous reports prepared both for the government and the Ontario Heritage Foundation. Only one fact emerged as “new”, and that was that A. J. Diamond Associates had revised its estimate of cost upwards from $18 million to $19 million.

In addition, the Minister of Health reiterated to cabinet the importance, indeed the necessity of the completion of the Queen St. Mental Health Centre project without further delay.

In view of all these facts, cabinet reconfirmed its decision to proceed with completion of the Queen St. Mental Health Centre. As the agent for the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Government Services has been instructed by cabinet to complete the project.

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, we have, in the Ministry of Health, carefully considered the opinions of those who have spoken in favour of retaining the Howard Building, at 999 Queen St. Our conclusion is that it would be impossible, through renovation, successfully to convert this building, constructed in 1846, to meet the requirements of modern psychiatric therapeutic treatment.

Let us remember that the Howard Building is constantly viewed by patients now being treated in the modern facilities on the site, and serves only as a reminder to them of the previous stigma associated with mental illness and the unenlightened approach in the lunatic asylums of the 19th century.

The long-term plan for the Queen St. complex has been to remove the 1846 building from the site and renovate the 1956 building at the front of the property. It is imperative that we proceed with this programme without delay in order to meet the needs of the community served by the Queen St. Mental Health Centre.

REDUCTION OF SPEED LIMITS

Hon. Mr. Snow: I would like to take this opportunity to acquaint the hon. members with some changes in the proposed regulations under the Highway Traffic Act governing new speed limits on the Ontario highway system.

As you know, last month the Premier (Mr. Davis) stated that the limit for both passenger and commercial vehicles on the freeway system would be lowered to 60 miles per hour; that the limit on the 60 miles-per-hour King’s Highways would be now 50.

Mr. Speaker, following representations by various transportation groups and interested individuals, and with a view of conforming with similar legislation expected in other provincial jurisdictions, today I am announcing two exceptions to the original statement:

On the Trans-Canada Highway 17 link between the Manitoba and Quebec borders, the speed limit for both passenger and commercial vehicles will be 55 miles per hour; and the speed limit on Highway 11 from North Bay north and west to Rainy River will also be 55 miles per hour.

Mr. Martel: That’s a real saw-off.

Mr. Bain: Talk about a compromise.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Lewis: Now, there is an opposition for you.

Hon. Mr. Snow: I was sure the hon. members from the north would appreciate that special consideration.

Mr. Martel: Right.

Mr. Lewis: Five miles an hour; we are coming on.

Mr. Foulds: Next we will have studded tires.

Hon. Mr. Davis: They have rubber studs now.

Mr. Martel: Rubber studs?

Mr. Speaker: Order please, let’s get on with the statement.

Mr. Lewis: Have you no self-respect? Why do you bow to us every time?

Hon. Mr. Snow: I say, Mr. Speaker, “conforming with similar legislation expected in other provincial jurisdictions”, because it is common knowledge that the federal government is currently campaigning to persuade all 10 provinces to reduce their speed limits to 55 miles per hour. Should this effort prove successful, then Ontario’s primary interprovincial highway links will conform with those of our sister provinces.

Finally, the regulation, as amended, will become law Feb. 1, 1976. This extra month beyond what I originally anticipated will assist the interprovincial and intercity bus lines and trucking companies to adjust their schedules to fit within the new speed limits.

At that time, my ministry’s highway crews will begin changing the posted speed limits. Weather permitting, I am assured, the changeover can be effected within two to three days. Some 6,000 signs are involved. A reflective overlay will be applied to the already standing signs.

It should be noted carefully that during the changeover, speed limits will be enforced according to the posted limit. In short, Mr. Speaker, if the ministry crews have not, for any reason, been able to change the signs on any particular stretch of highway, the posted limit of 60 or 70 will remain in effect until such time as the new signs are posted and the new overlays are applied, regardless of the effective date of the regulations.

Mr. Sargent: Back to the horse and buggy days.

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, I would like to inform the House --

Mr. Sargent: Takes us back 50 years.

Mr. Speaker: Order please, the hon. Minister of Education has a statement.

SCHOOL FINANCING FOR 1976

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, I would like to inform the House that I met this morning with about 500 representatives of school boards from across this province, along with teacher-trustee organizations. The purpose of the meeting was to explain the educational finance picture for the coming year, 1976, and I have left on the members’ desks a complete copy of the statement that was made this morning. However, Mr. Speaker, I would like to highlight what I told the boards.

Over the 1970-1975 period, school board spending in Ontario has increased 61 per cent, from $1.6 billion to $2.6 billion; incidentally, with enrolments declining two per cent in this period. At the same time, provincial grants to school boards have jumped 92 per cent, from $840 million to $1.6 billion. The result has been that despite vastly increased spending by school boards, overall mill rate increases for schools have been only minimal.

In the context of the provincial government’s overall programme of restraint in spending, I explained to this morning’s meeting that the province will increase its financial support to local governments by eight per cent in the fiscal year 1976-1977, in the amount of $230 million province-wide, and of this the school boards will get about two-thirds, or $151 million, over and above what they are presently receiving in provincial grants.

Thus, the total general legislative grants for school boards will, in 1976-1977, rise to $1.714 billion from $1.563 billion in the 1975-1976 fiscal year.

Through our grant programme, the additional $151 million will be allocated in a way that best maintains our present educational priorities. Primary among these is equality of educational opportunity, and thus the funds will be allocated so that there will be maximum equalization of financial resources among school boards.

As I explained this morning, this is obviously not the time for school boards to initiate costly new programmes, however innovative they might be, unless they can be offset by making restrictions elsewhere in budgets. Nor is it the time to be allocating funds for new projects and activities which may be viewed as being relatively remote from the actual learning process in the classroom.

In accordance with these basic objectives and also in accordance with the anti-inflation and restraint programmes supported by this government, the ceilings on ordinary per-pupil expenditure eligible for provincial grants will be increased by eight per cent next year for elementary and secondary pupils, with an additional $80 per pupil to be added at the elementary level.

Members will recall that an extra $80 per elementary school pupil was added to the ceilings last year to reinforce the renewed emphasis on the importance of the early years of a child’s education, and it is for this same purpose that the additional $80 is again allocated for 1976. Thus, for 1976, the maximum ordinary expenditures per pupil which will be recognized for grant purposes are $1,080 for each elementary school pupil and $1,556 for each secondary school pupil. Incidentally, these figures narrow the gap between the elementary and secondary grant ceilings.

As usual, these basic grant figures will, for most boards, be adjusted upwards by grant weighting factors which give boards extra funds to compensate for unusually high costs related to such factors as special education, compensatory education, sparsely populated areas and so on.

In addition, there are several other elements in the 1976 grant programme that will be of particular interest to members:

1. The special grant for metric conversion will continue for another year.

2. An amount of $500,000 will be made available to continue our community school development programme.

3. The amount eligible for grant in connection with instruction in the French language will be increased by eight per cent in 1976.

4. The special provisions related to grant allowances for declining enrolments will be discontinued.

5. Special assistance with respect to the unapproved portion of debt charges will be continued in 1976, but it will commence only after an increased contribution at the local level of 0.1 of an equalized mill.

Any per-pupil spending that exceeds the school board’s grant ceiling will not be eligible for provincial assistance. The local mill rate will become a strong discipline on education spending. In other words, any spending beyond these grant ceilings is a direct responsibility of the local school board, and the additional funds can only be raised by increasing the local mill rate and thus local property tax, or by using any reserves, if a board has them.

Overall, looking at the grant picture on a province-wide basis, a school board with an average assessment base will receive provincial support for recognized ordinary expenditures at a level of 60 per cent for the elementary school level and 54 per cent at the secondary school level.

I should especially note in this regard that provisions will be introduced to ensure that no secondary school boards will receive in 1976 less assistance per pupil for recognized ordinary expenditure purposes than 95 per cent of that calculated for the board in 1975, adjusted for changes in assessment and weighting factors.

For recognized extraordinary expenditures -- which include such things as transportation and debenture costs -- the rate of provincial support will be at the basic level of 75 per cent for a school board of average wealth.

[2:15]

Over the past few years especially, a question that has been asked frequently is “what becomes of the money that a school board does not spend on salaries when its employees are on strike and services have been withheld?”

Now that this House has passed Bill 100 and teachers’ strikes under the conditions laid down in Bill 100 are legal, I think this is a very proper question to be asked and one that must be answered.

The money that a school board saves due to unpaid salaries because of a strike must be put into a special fund and this fund must be used to reduce the mill rate levy on local taxpayers in the next year.

Thus, the taxpayer will receive a specific allowance for the school services denied him during a strike.

Further, in order to assure that every taxpayer is fully aware of this refund, we’re going to require that the tax bill be accompanied by a notice that will show the amount of money that is in the special fund and the amount of reduction in the mill rate that has resulted.

This procedure will require an amendment to the Education Act and it’s my intention to introduce such an amendment --

Mr. Lewis: That’s certainly making the best of it.

Hon. Mr. Wells: -- early in the new year. However, we’ve instructed school boards to put this policy into effect at once.

Interjection.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Order, please. Thank you.

Hon. Mr. Wells: In addition, of course, earlier provisions will also apply whereby provincial grant is withheld on funds that are not spent due to unpaid salaries as a result of a strike.

Let me now turn to the area of capital expenditures. It is important to note that there have never been enough funds to accommodate all of the capital requests that have been presented by school boards each year. In 1974, for example, $230 million was requested, $108 million was allotted and $102 million was actually used.

In 1975, $394 million in capital projects was requested; $185 million was allocated and we estimate that $170 million can be spent.

The pattern has always been identical over the past six years. In keeping with the government’s overall restraint programme some tough decisions have had to be made with regard to capital spending for education facilities. The decision has been made to adjust the level of spending to a total of $89 million in debenture funds in the 1976-1977 budget.

The implications of this decision are important for both 1975 and 1976 capital programmes. First, let’s look at this year specifically.

In 1975, of the $185 million allocated by the ministry to school building programmes approximately $125 million requires financing in the fiscal year 1976-1977 through the Ontario Capital Aid Corp.

This means that this amount, $125 million, is the amount that would have to be in our next year’s budget, the 1976-1977 budget. However, because it is also essential, as I have just said, in the area of capital spending that the strong commitment of this government to a programme of budget restraint be maintained, the decision has been made to hold the level of capital spending in the 1976-1977 budget to $89 million in debenture funds.

This, therefore, involves a large reduction in the number of projects that would have required funds in 1976-1977.

It affects the 1975 capital programme. The reduction of approximately $35 million to $40 million will be achieved by delaying projects in the earlier stages of planning in order that actual construction can be timed to coincide with the fiscal period in which funds can be made available.

Specifically: (1) Projects that have received ministry final and working drawing approval will proceed. Projects that have received ministry sketch plan approval before Nov. 1, 1975, will proceed and will be assigned a specific period during which the funds and the method of financing will be determined. There will be certain urgent and essential projects which will be granted approval.

(2) There will be no further approvals at this time to any projects that received ministry sketch plan approval after Nov. 1, 1975.

(3) There will be no further approvals at this time to any projects that have received only building plan approval.

(4) All of these projects that will be delayed as I have just described will be reassessed on a priority basis and rescheduled to relate to a specific period for financing. This scheduling will also include those projects that will be financed by capital from current funds.

The reassessment for priority will also take into account urgent projects included in boards’ 1976 capital forecasts, but these urgent projects will only be considered based on the following priority rating. And that is that pupil accommodation required due to the construction of new housing will receive the first priority. Second will be school sites needed to provide schools because of construction of new housing. Others are: school portable units; school buses, limited to replacement units only; and projects involving fire safety and health.

Now what happens, Mr. Speaker, to the 1976 capital programme?

There will be no new capital allocations made at this time for 1976 projects. I might say, Mr. Speaker, that we have received from school boards requests for $344 million of capital projects for 1976. But I reiterate there will be no capital allocations made at this time for any of these projects except those, as I indicated, to be especially considered on a priority basis.

This decision in regard to 1976 projects will be reviewed in eight months’ time when we have completed the assessment as to the effects on capital programmes of the 1977-1978 fiscal year of the held-over projects from the 1975 programme.

Mr. Speaker, let me say this, however -- and I want to say it very strongly and emphasize it -- every effort will be made, notwithstanding the programme I have just announced -- which is a very stringent one in capital financing for educational facilities -- every effort will be made to provide capital funds to accommodate real pupil needs that develop as the result of Ontario Housing Action Programmes, Ontario Housing Corp. projects and other new housing initiatives. This is in keeping with the government commitment to increase housing starts; and it is not our intention that this major thrust should be adversely affected by our capital restraint programme.

We recognize that at this time of year capital forecasts have been submitted by many school boards outlining their needs for the following year. Many projects will be considered high priority and may be included in any reassessment for funds scheduled in 1977-1978. At the same time, it is possible that some projects outstanding from the 1975 programme will have changed in priority and can be moved further down the list of urgent projects.

Mr. Speaker, let me close by saying that over the past many years we’ve built across this province an exceptional school system, which has provided generations of young Canadians an education of extremely high quality. In large measure this has been achieved through the dedicated efforts of trustees, teachers, administrators and parents working together for a common purpose and towards a common goal, quality education for our young people.

This must continue, and it will continue. However, the challenge ahead for all of us, and it is a real challenge, is to accomplish this within the new economic climate that now prevails.

Obviously, the need for restraint in spending will be greater in 1976 than it has been for perhaps the last 30 years. This afternoon this is reflected in the total amount of provincial grants available and the grant ceilings that have been established.

In the coming year, there will be no lack of incentive for every school board to keep costs down. While we are varying our approach toward constraints on spending increases, our motives remain exactly the same as they have been for the past five years, to keep costs down and quality up.

For every one of us, the challenge and the responsibility is clear. It will not be easy and it will not win any of us general accolades.

Mr. Speaker, it is going to require tough decisions made by responsible people who realize full well that the job of beating inflation in this country and repairing a damaged economy is today also one of the goals which must be accepted by all those who are responsible for the budgeting and spending of public funds for education.

And I would say this, Mr. Speaker; if we can accomplish this, and I sincerely believe that we can, then the future best interests of every young person in every classroom in Ontario will have been served.

Mr. Sargent: Why are you pounding your desks? Thank the man on the Minister of Education’s right for the whole mess.

HIGHWAY 400 EXTENSION

Hon. Mr. Snow: Mr. Speaker, I should like to reiterate to the House today the government’s position on the southerly extension of Highway 400. We plan to extend Highway 400 south as an arterial road only from Jane St. to St. Clair Ave.

Mr. Cassidy: We have heard that one before.

Hon. Mr. Snow: I would also like to emphasize that this new roadway will definitely terminate at St. Clair Ave.

Mr. Cassidy: We’ve heard that before too.

Hon. Mr. Davis: No, you haven’t.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Snow: Although the alignment from Jane to Eglinton has, of course, been determined and the majority of the necessary property purchased, the alignment of the extension from Eglinton Ave. to St. Clair Ave. has not yet been located. We shall, therefore, in conjunction with Metro, be making arrangements for all area residents to express their views and give us their opinions on possible routes for this section of the roadway.

Mr. Lewis: You’ve just committed yourself to it.

Mr. Cassidy: They don’t want it.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Snow: I hope my statement today has effectively erased any doubts that may exist in the minds of some as to the seriousness of our intentions with regard to Highway 400 extension.

Mr. Lewis: There were no doubts; we know what the intentions were.

Mr. Cassidy: We deplore it.

Hon. Mr. Snow: May I repeat that, consistent with the policy of my ministry, there will be consultation with the public before any decision on the location of the alignment for the extension from Eglinton to St. Clair Ave. is made.

Mr. Cassidy: It is not consistent with your commitment.

Hon. Mr. Snow: Finally, while I have only a very preliminary estimate, the projected cost will be in the neighbourhood of some $24 million --

Mr. Cassidy: And you believe in restraint?

Mr. Reid: That is restraint?

Mrs. Campbell: That is a priority?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Snow: -- rather than $84 million, a figure which has been much bandied about in this Legislature and publicly by others.

Mr. Cassidy: We don’t believe that either. If you believe in austerity then scrap it.

Mr. Reid: Get us a copy of the breakdown.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

CIVIL RULES OF PRACTICE

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: Mr. Speaker, in the estimates of my ministry which came before the assembly this spring, a sum of money was voted for a review of the rules which govern practice and procedure in both the Supreme Court of Ontario and the county courts.

The task of review and revision is monumental. The Ontario Law Reform Commission has pointed out that our present rules have not received a thorough revision since 1913 --

Mr. Roy: Right, the last Tory government.

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: -- when the late Hon. Mr. Justice Middleton consolidated and redrafted the basic structured rules which now govern our courts of civil procedure. Although the rules of practice since 1913 have received attention from committees of this House, from the bar, the bench and the academic community, the rules have yet to receive a fundamental --

Mr. Renwick: This is like the revision of the Ten Commandments.

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: -- re-examination and review in the light of modern conditions.

Mr. Lewis: Good grief!

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: There have been enormous developments in our legal system since the last overhaul of the rules of practice.

Mr. Lewis: No kidding; 62 years ago?

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: As the Ontario Law Reform Commission has pointed out, the time has now come for a thorough and imaginative examination of not only the rules of practice but also the principles upon which they are based.

The rules committee established under the Judicature Act, has made a great contribution to the continual renewal and revision of the rules, and I must, as Attorney General, express my profound gratitude for the painstaking and selfless work which has been done over the years by members of this committee.

The rules committee has enjoyed neither the time nor the resources or mandate to undertake the task of fundamental revision which is now needed. The demands of the task require the commitment of substantial financial and human resources to ensure that our courts deliver to the public the most fair and effective methods --

Mr. MacDonald: You are competing with Ben Wicks.

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: -- which can be devised for the resolution of conflict and the application of the rules of law.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: I am therefore pleased to announce the appointment of a task force to review the rules of practice. It is particularly fortunate that one of the most distinguished members of the Ontario bar, Mr. Walter B. Williston, QC --

Mr. Samis: QC?

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: -- has agreed to serve as chairman of the committee.

Mr. Lewis: You had appointed him for a month or two before he was on the job.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: I am confident that his unique skills and expertise will bring to his task the same success which has marked his career at the bar and his contribution to the legal profession and the public.

Mr. Lewis: He’s on a retainer.

[2:30]

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: Mr. Foster Rodger, senior master of the Supreme Court of Ontario, has been appointed vice-chairman of the task force. Mr. Rodger, in his judicial capacity of master and senior master, has earned the respect of the legal profession. As a judicial officer of the province he will bring to the work of the task force a wealth of experience and a quality of judicial skill which is essential to the overall success of such a review.

An additional member of the task force will be named at a later date and an advisory committee consisting largely of specialists in particular areas of the law will be appointed to assist the task force.

Mr. Lewis: Slower, slow down.

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: Adequate resources will be provided in terms of accommodation and research assistance.

I expect that it will be early in the new year before arrangements can be made for Mr. Rodger to assume his duties with the task force and begin the necessary preparatory work. Mr. Williston will not be able to divest himself of his present responsibilities as a practitioner until early April.

A term of three years is a realistic period for the onerous work of the task force, considering --

Mr. Bullbrook: Come on. Three years?

Mr. Reid: That is your version of the Senate.

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: -- the fundamental nature of the work to be done, as set out in the following terms of reference:

1. A thorough re-examination of the principles and policies upon which the rules of practice are based and an evaluation of individual rules.

2. In conjunction with the review of the rules of practice, a complete examination of the Judicature Act and other statutes affected by proposed changes in the rules.

3. Consideration of the nature and function of the rules committee under the Judicature Act to determine an appropriate method for continuous review of the rules subsequent to the current proposed revision.

In conclusion, I should like to say I am sure that if the hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Lewis) had completed his law school studies he would have shown a greater degree of interest in the statement.

Mr. Foulds: He really got to you last night, didn’t he?

Mr. Lewis: It is true; you have to be a member of the bar to show any interest.

Mr. Deans: You have to be at the bar.

Mr. Lewis: Yes, you do have to be at the bar to fully appreciate it.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Oral questions.

ELDORADO DUMP AT PORT HOPE

Mr. Lewis: May I first ask the Premier, in the absence of the Minister of Health (Mr. F. S. Miller) -- is the Minister of Health lurking in the precincts? No.

May I then ask the Premier: In the light of the mounting concern through the entire Port Hope community over the evidence that much dumping of radioactive materials has littered the countryside here and there without scrutiny, and the levels of radiation which have been chronicled, would it be possible for him to consider a serious public inquiry of short duration, launched by this government, to establish where the waste has been put, what the hazards may be and what safeguards might flow from such an inquiry?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I couldn’t comment on this without discussion with the Minister of Health. He will be here later on and I will discuss this suggestion by the Leader of the Opposition with him.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member may be able to come back.

Mr. Nixon: A supplementary: Since the Minister of Health on a radio broadcast this morning indicated his continuing concern and said, among other things, that the school we were asking about yesterday might have to be closed, surely the seriousness of the matter would call for the launching of such a far-reaching investigation as has been proposed? Certainly we would support the suggestion.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, I am not sure the Leader of the Opposition was referring to a far-reaching inquiry. I think what he was suggesting was some form of investigation which would give us the answers required under the circumstances.

As I said, I am more than prepared to discuss this suggestion. It has already been made to the minister. I know of his concern and the efforts of his ministry to find out as much as possible. Whether a form of inquiry or investigation would, in fact, produce more by way of results, I couldn’t comment. I will discuss it with the minister and get his reaction.

Mr. Moffatt: A supplementary: When the Premier engages in this discussion with the Minister of Health, will he encourage the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Kerr) to take part, as well the Minister of Agriculture and Food (Mr. W. Newman) and the related federal agencies so that we can get a full disclosure of all the pertinent details surrounding that whole business, not just the school?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Yes.

Mr. Lewis: I thought on this, the last day, I should address a question to the Minister of Correctional Services, Mr. Speaker. I thought I would ask him how he felt today.

SPEECH BY MINISTER OF CORRECTIONAL SERVICES

Mr. Lewis: May I put a question to him: Did his mother and father or his guardians know where he was last night and what he was doing?

Mr. Speaker: Are you sure that is of urgent public importance?

An hon. member: Does the Premier know?

Mr. Lewis: Have they chatted with the minister since, and if so would he like to make a public recantation or has he further observations on that?

Hon. J. R. Smith: No further comment, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Lewis: That closes it conclusively for me, although I would ask the Premier, do I take it that the ideas which were broached publicly -- and coming from a minister of the Crown, therefore having serious content across the province -- do I take it that those particular views, however personal they may have been, simply have no support in the cabinet from the Premier or his colleagues?

Mr. MacDonald: Or are they as foolish as the AG thinks they are?

Hon. Mr. Davis: My mother did know where I was last night because I was talking to her on the phone.

Mr. Martel: Does she approve?

Mr. Reid: Was it after 9:30?

Hon. Mr. Davis: I told her I was at the Legislature.

Mr. Martel: But where were you?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, it happened to be true.

We can make light of some of these things, but I think what the minister -- I would like to think, on behalf of a lot of members -- was really expressing as I understand the remarks, and I have not read his speech nor discussed it with him --

Mr. Lewis: I wouldn’t.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Just to the Leader of the Opposition -- I know it is fun to have fun and he takes --

Mr. Lewis: I don’t think his remarks were funny.

Hon. Mr. Davis: No, no, all right. What I am saying --

Mr. Lewis: I asked about them because I thought he was serious.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I have been asked a question and I am trying to give a reasoned response, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Reid: Trying to reason your way out of it.

An hon. member: You’re having difficulty.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I have read and I have listened to the member for High Park-Swansea (Mr. Ziemba) in some of his observations about a very significant social problem and I am just saying to the members opposite that the Minister of Correctional Services (Mr. J. R. Smith) has identified a concern -- I don’t say a solution -- but a concern that a lot of us should feel. It is great to make light of it, it is great to jest about it, but I happen to speak as a parent and if the people who are parents across this province aren’t a little bit concerned about the direction society is taking, the permissiveness that does exist, the question of where young people are --

Mr. Sargent: Answer the question!

Hon. Mr. Davis: All right, I will talk about permissiveness any time. I make no bones about it and I know that the members opposite represent a desire to become even more permissive.

Mr. Lewis: Would you put the parents in jail? Is that what you are saying, that you would put the parents in jail?

Hon. Mr. Davis: I am not saying that.

Mr. Lewis: Well, don’t give substance to the minister’s statement.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. Leader of the Opposition does not have the floor.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I am not saying that anyone should go to jail.

Mr. Lewis: All of us know about that.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I will tell you this, this government is concerned. I don’t say that is the solution at all.

Mr. Lewis: That’s all very well --

Hon. Mr. Davis: All right, but please don’t make light of the problem because I happen to think it is real. It is interesting, Mr. Speaker, and I don’t mean to digress --

Mr. Breithaupt: You make light of your cabinet colleague.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- but one of the local television stations that emanates culture from south of the border asks, “Do you know where your children are tonight?”

Mr. Ruston: You digress every Friday.

Hon. Mr. Davis: All right, so I digress every Friday. If you listened to some of it some time it might do you a little good.

I convey this other side of the coin to my cabinet colleague. The TV station did a little survey and phoned a number of homes to find out whether the parents did in fact know where their children were. Do you know what they found, Mr. Speaker? The kids answered the phone and said. “We don’t know where our parents are.” That is part of the problem.

Mr. Lewis: Oh, is it?

Hon. Mr. Davis: It is part of the problem.

Mr. Lewis: Why don’t you make a speech about permissive parents then instead of this foolishness?

Hon. Mr. Davis: The Leader of the Opposition, as his children grow older, may find that for himself.

I don’t object at all to people, whether they are ministers of the Crown or not, identifying a social concern because I think we all share it. But I don’t think -- and I said this to the minister -- that his suggested solution would solve the problem.

Mr. Renwick: But surely you can try to give a reasoned assessment.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I will deal with identification cards, which he suggested, because I assume the member was also asking me about that.

Mr. Roy: Give us a straight answer.

Hon. Mr. Davis: The minister, as I understand it, did not say they should be compulsory. I’ll tell the members opposite that it is the practice in some states of the union that before one can enter a public place for the consumption of alcohol one has to --

Mr. Lewis: We are not in the United States, we are in Canada.

Hon. Mr. Davis: No, no, all right -- one has to have a form of identification where he or she can establish age. I have heard it even referred to by other members in terms of the question of people under 18 entering public places to drink. I think that before one just rejects out of hand some need for identification in a public place for the consumption of alcohol it is something that one would want to think about.

Mr. Renwick: That’s not what he was talking about.

Mr. Cassidy: Completely different.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Well, it was partially related.

Mr. Germa: He didn’t say that at all.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Listen, I am using my right to interpret it as I think the people opposite use their rights to interpret it.

Mr. Reid: The more picayune the subject, the longer you go on.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Lewis: You are giving support to hardhat, reactionary mindless views; that is what you are doing.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I am not giving support to hard-hat reactionaryism. I am trying to find solutions to legitimate problems.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Lewis: With that hard-hat attitude, I wouldn’t have asked the question of the Premier. I would have asked it of the Attorney General (Mr. McMurtry). At least he would have nodded in the direction of social reform.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. On this last day, presumably, can we not have a little more order? Thank you very much.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Christmas spirit, sir.

Mr. Nixon: I have a supplementary on that.

Mr. Speaker: We will allow one supplementary then, but we don’t want it to cause any digression, such as some of the interjections, the answers and what have you.

Mr. Bullbrook: Don’t lose your sense of humour.

Mr. Lewis: Boy, if that is the election ground you are sinking. That is too extreme.

Mr. Speaker: Order. We are wasting time.

Mr. Roy: Do we get extra time for that long-winded statement?

Mr. Nixon: Supplementary to the Premier: Since he does not agree with the Attorney General that the recommendation from the Minister of Correctional Services was foolishness -- and by the way, we do agree with the Attorney General -- what does the Premier think about the recommendation from his Minister of Correctional Services that indicates we ought to strengthen the death penalty because the violence in the community at the present time can be traced to inadequate attendance at church during the 1960s, which was his statement in a previous speech?

What does he think about the Minister of Correctional Services talking about a conspiracy by the big TV networks to frighten everybody to stay at home so they can watch the ads? What I am really asking is, has the Premier been following what the Minister for Correctional Services has been saying and when is he going to shut him up?

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker --

Mr. Bullbrook: You only have two minutes.

Hon. Mr. Davis: -- I will put it down to the time of the year and the Christmas season, because the leader of the Liberal Party left himself so open to a very obvious reply in the latter part of his question, but I will not use it. I will say very simply I do not read everything the Minister of Correctional Services says.

Mr. Reid: I don’t blame you.

Mrs. Campbell: You should.

Mr. Reid: For comic relief.

Hon. Mr. Davis: However, I would say this much, and I don’t think the leader of the Liberal Party can object to it strenuously and I know other members may not agree that much, I would have to share the minister’s point of view that there has been a drop in church attendance during the 1960s and early 1070s.

Mr. Ferris: Since you taught Sunday school.

Hon. Mr. Davis: The facts will prove it.

Mr. Lewis: Would you put them to death for not attending?

Hon. Mr. Davis: I won’t.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I would have to say that we might be a little better off if more of us did.

Mr. MacDonald: Put them to death?

Hon. Mr. Davis: The member for Sarnia can’t disagree with that.

Mr. Bullbrook: I want the Premier to know I am in the choir.

Mr. Reid: And he is an altar boy.

Hon. Mr. Davis: That is why he has to agree.

Mr. Bullbrook: The member for Lambton (Mr. Henderson) sings bass and I sing soprano.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: What church? I want to hear that.

Mr. Speaker: Now could we get on with the question period? Thank you.

Mr. Lewis: I am sorry, Mr. Speaker. You can relax. There will be no more questions for Fauntleroy today.

HIGHWAY 400 EXTENSION

Mr. Lewis: May I ask the Minister of Transportation and Communications how did he arrive at the $24-million figure which he will be spending as his first estimate on the construction of the southerly extension of Highway 400 as an arterial road in these times of financial restraint? How did he get the figure?

Hon. Mr. Snow: I have difficulty in considering that question.

Mr. Lewis: How did the minister arrive at $24 million? What is it based on?

Hon. Mr. Snow: The hon. Leader of the Opposition asked me a few days ago for some kind of a ball-park figure --

[2:45]

Mr. Reid: This is a football field.

Hon. Mr. Snow: -- as to what we anticipated the cost of this particular project would be. I have attempted to get him that figure, and I must say that until certain decisions are made on the route, which will not be made for some period of time due to the fact of studies and public consultation that has to take place, and depending upon recommendations that will come forward -- the type of construction, the number of overpasses or grade separations or whatever might be involved -- I cannot give him a firm price. The hon. member asked for a ball-park figure and that is the ball-park figure that I have given him.

Mr. Reid: Supplementary: I’d like to ask the minister, in view of the fact that he’s now indicated that in fact the province doesn’t own all of the right of way between Jane and Eglinton, and that in fact there are some 13 acres or more that are in private or borough hands, how much is it going to cost the province to gain that property, and is that part of his estimate of $24 million?

Hon. Mr. Snow: There is one parcel of private property involved in the alignment north of Eglinton; there are two small parcels of borough property. On the other hand, though, we do own a considerable amount of the right of way south of Eglinton as well at this time, and these matters are taken into consideration, to the best of our ability at this time, prior to any final design being completed. As I stated the other day, in referring to the hon. Leader of the Opposition’s comment regarding this time of constraint, we do not anticipate that construction work will carry on in this particular year. We’ve got a great deal of planning to do, studies to be completed and land to be purchased. Some parts of this construction will not take place for some considerable period of time.

Mr. Cassidy: Supplementary: In view of the government’s apparent commitment to consult with the public about the route of this expressway, what steps will the government take about the expressway if people from the area say they want none of the routes that might be proposed because they don’t want it at all?

Hon. Mr. Snow: I would just say that a decision has been made by the municipality of Metropolitan Toronto and by this government that it is necessary to construct this particular roadway, and all the necessary consultations possible will take place to establish the best possible alignment for it.

Mr. Reid: Supplementary: I would just like to ask the minister, did I hear him correctly that in fact the $24 million does not include the cost of the property north of Eglinton, and doesn’t include the cost of the property south of Eglinton? Is that what he said, in effect?

Hon. Mr. Snow: No, Mr. Speaker, I didn’t say that at all. I said the estimated cost of the project --

Mr. Reid: Including the land?

Hon. Mr. Snow: -- including everything -- is $24 million.

SCHOOL FINANCING FOR 1976

Mr. Nixon: I’d like to ask the Minister of Education if in his statement there is really the change of policy that has been urged for some time; and that is, although he is continuing, very properly, the ceilings on the payments that are made by the public Treasury provincially to school boards, he is finally acceding to the common-sense requirement that the school boards themselves are free to spend whatever they choose to spend on the basis of their responsibility to square it with their own ratepayers, and that in fact the ceilings, as we understood them, do not exist any longer?

Hon. Mr. Wells: We have changed our method of restraining the increases in educational spending.

Mr. Roy: You have accepted our suggestion.

Hon. Mr. Wells: We have changed this because in fact the ceiling policy we have had in the past five years has now become counter-productive and, indeed, could be said to be inflationary. We, therefore, are now letting the discipline of the mill rate, along with the level of provincial grant and provincial grant ceilings that we’ve announced, set for the boards a very high standard of restraint. Boards are going to have to restrain their spending, and certainly from the tone of the meeting this morning, I gathered that they’re ready to put their shoulder to the wheel and do the same as this government is doing, make a real commitment to restraining spending in this province and in this country because we know it has to be done.

Mr. Speaker: Further questions? Order, please.

Mr. Nixon: Wouldn’t the minister have felt that, since ceilings have been such a strenuous issue involving school boards particularly over the last five years, that it would have behoved him to make that as a clear statement, rather than burying it at the bottom of page 11 of his prepared statement? And that, in fact, to reinforce the policy that the school boards for the first time now in about four years have some control over their own destinies, is a significant step forward? It is one we on this side of the House have been recommending, and now applaud that the minister is taking it.

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, I wouldn’t want to put it as simply as my friend has put it, because the general --

Mr. Nixon: Of course the minister wouldn’t, because it means he would be admitting that he is wrong -- and he would never do that.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Wells: No, quite to the contrary. I think the indication, in a simplified statement such as the leader of the Liberal Party has made, is that the sky’s the limit and constraints are off and there are no longer going to be any controls.

Mr. Nixon: The decision is back with the school board, where it always has been. The decision is back with the school board. The minister is learning, but very slowly.

Mr. Roy: It is obvious to everybody else but you.

Hon. Mr. Wells: In fact, Mr. Speaker, there are greater ceilings than ever and there are greater incentives for restraint than there ever have been.

Hon. Mr. Davis: That’s right.

Hon. Mr. Wells: And I might just say, Mr. Speaker, I am going to restrain myself and not engage --

Mr. Roy: Don’t do that.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Wells: -- not engage in any repartee with my friend, the leader of the third party, because this probably will be his last appearance as leader of the Liberal Party, asking questions in this House and I am sure we all wish him well.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: I will allow a supplementary; the member for Port Arthur.

Mr. Sweeney: That was a cheap shot.

Hon. Mr. Davis: You should learn.

Hon. Mr. Wells: You can’t take it over there.

Mr. Foulds: Supplementary: Would the minister care to define in clear and unequivocal terms the phrase “basic grant ceiling figure,” which he uses in his statement, which is the first time that phrase has entered the educational jargon of Ontario?

Mr. Ruston: You are showing your true colours over there now.

Mr. Foulds: And secondly, does that mean that wealthy areas with high assessment values will be able to spend in excess of other boards so that the educational system in Ontario will no longer have equal opportunity across the province?

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, it means, as I stated a few minutes ago, that the restraint and the discipline of the mill rate will control expenditures, and the allocation of the $151 million more that we have -- and I emphasize that’s all we have in increased grants to local school boards this year if we are to maintain our policy, which must be maintained, to only increase our spending by 10 per cent -- that $151 million will be allocated in as equitable a manner as possible to achieve the quality and equalization, as we have always done.

Mr. Speaker: Further questions? The member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk.

TORONTO TEACHERS’ NEGOTIATIONS

Mr. Nixon: Mr. Speaker, I will give both you and the minister a further opportunity to restrain yourselves when I ask him if he would report to the House on the situation pertaining to the strike in Metropolitan Toronto.

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, the mediators are still working at the Royal York Hotel; mediation is continuing.

Mrs. Campbell: And talking in private.

Hon. Ms. Wells: Both parties are still at the hotel, and the process is continuing.

Mr. Nixon: Supplementary, If I may: Since the strike began Nov. 12, and we have now had two weeks less a day of closed-door, secret bargaining in camera, surely the minister has the responsibility to report to the House -- since he himself says this is the last day of the session -- so that we can feel at least that we are somewhat knowledgeable about this situation.

Perhaps the minister would report to the House whether his basic policy is to allow this situation to go on without limit, even though it is plain that the education careers of the students concerned are being seriously damaged now? And the fact that his Education Relations Commission has not reported that to him, in my view, means that they are derelict in their duty.

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, first of all mediation is continuing at the Royal York under a news blackout --

Mr. Nixon: For two weeks.

Hon. Mr. Wells: -- albeit with the variation of the mediators conducting certain news conferences in which they tell nothing -- is being conducted in the Royal York because both parties, the board and the teachers, have agreed to that news blackout. It would not be responsible on my part to make public reports in any way of what is going on down there if they have agreed to that. It would be a violation of the process of mediation which is going on.

Now let me say this further: My friend asks, since this is the last day of this session, what is going to happen? That’s a very good question and I have suggested many times that perhaps he would outline what he thinks might happen.

Mr. Deans: Why don’t you --

Hon. Mr. Wells: One of the things --

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Wells: I want him to know --

Mr. Riddell: How can you answer a question by asking another?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Roy: Are you government or not?

Hon. Mr. Wells: I want him to know that I think -- there is the leadership contender from Ottawa again asking if we are government or not.

Mr. Roy: That’s right. Are you government or not?

Hon. Mr. Wells: I assume he’s going to ask, as he did during the Ottawa strike, that we legislate. He’s a great --

Mr. Speaker: Will the hon. minister please ignore the interjections? Thank you very much.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Are you prepared to legislate? Talk to the member for Sarnia (Mr. Bullbrook).

Hon. Mr. Wells: I think the best interests of everyone in Metropolitan Toronto, particularly the students and the teachers, are served if a negotiated agreement can be arrived at. We’ve got to rebuild morale in the schools of Metropolitan Toronto and that can best be done with a negotiated settlement.

The parties are meeting now with the help of mediators and it ill behoves us to interrupt that process. And so I say that process has to go on.

I’m telling members as much as I can tell them about what is happening down there. If, for some reason, that process breaks down -- and I hope it doesn’t -- then I’ll be willing and quite happy to tell members exactly what I think should happen.

I also want to point out that as my friend, of course, is very much aware we represent a minority government over here. He has never once said how he would stand in regard to legislation.

Mr. Lewis: One said he would never vote for it.

Interjections.

Hon. Mr. Wells: My friend the member for Sarnia in fact said he would -- right! My friend, the Leader of the Opposition, reminds me the member for Sarnia said he would never vote for legislation. That’s right.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Will he stay home?

Mr. Bullbrook: That’s right. That’s exactly what I said -- in the context of AIB, I said; you know that.

Hon. Mr. Wells: AIB is still here. The Leader of the Opposition has made several statements about it but there certainly has never been any consensus in this House that there should be legislation in this particular case.

I have to go back and say that I think the interests of all in Metro Toronto can best be served by the parties arriving at a negotiated settlement. Let’s give them a chance to get that.

Mr. Lewis: One quick supplementary for the minister: Did I hear him say that if by some unhappy circumstance negotiations broke down -- let us say this weekend -- early next week he would be willing to indicate publicly what it is his intention to do? He said he would be willing to make a statement if that happened. Can we get a time from him on what he intends to do?

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, certainly I would not be naive enough to think that if negotiations break down, I will not be asked to comment on the fact that negotiations have broken down. At that particular time, I’ll be quite happy to make a statement based on the situation at that particular time.

Mr. Sargent: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: We’ve spent quite a bit of time on this. The question period is three-quarters gone now and this is a question that’s been asked over again. It’s been quite proper to ask it and it’s been a good question with good answers but I think we should not prolong it further on this day.

The hon. member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk with his further questions.

Mr. Sargent: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. I ruled the member out of order. The member for --

Mr. Bullbrook: How can you do that? That’s indescribable.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. I agree and I don’t really mind another supplementary. It’s an important question -- there’s no doubt about it -- but, as I say, we’ve spent so much time on this and there are many people wanting to ask further questions. If it’s the wish of the House, I’ll allow the member for Grey-Bruce to ask a supplementary on this particular question.

Order, please. All right, it doesn’t seem to meet with the favour of the House so I’ll stick to my original ruling.

Thank you very much.

Will you take your seat?

Any further questions?

Mr. Nixon: How many times did you change it there?

Mr. Roy: Did you ever think of curtailing the answers as well?

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

[3:00]

KOKOTOW LUMBER LTD.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, I want to respond to a specific question raised yesterday by the member for Wentworth (Mr. Deans) on the subject of Kokotow Lumber Ltd. in the Kirkland Lake area. I’d just like to provide the House and the hon. members with several points of information.

I’m advised by Mr. Kokotow that he is actively seeking a partner or partners to aid the firm in its present financial troubles. In addition, I’m advised that the primary receivers have indeed received notice of interest from several companies which are willing to study the feasibility of returning this mill to a sound financial basis.

The primary receivers who are responsible for these transactions have not told me of the contents of their conversations with those companies which have shown interest in purchasing the Kokotow mill as an ongoing business.

In terms of wood supply, it need be recognized that the conifer allowable cut in the Kirkland Lake area is fully allocated and has been for a number of years. When the Kokotow Lumber Ltd. approached the Ministry of Natural Resources with its expansion proposal in 1972, it was made crystal clear to the present owners that the Crown could give an assured supply of only 25 million board-feet, all species, per year. However, the company was fully confident that it would be able to procure the balance of its wood requirements from other sources of supply.

It was in this explicit understanding that the mill was licensed, the mill licence was issued and the current facility was constructed. The situation has not changed in the interim.

In addition to those specific aspects requested by the member for Wentworth, I wish to further advise that I met with Messrs. Herb and Albert Kokotow on Tuesday of this week. At that meeting, I expressed my great concern about the well-being of the employees and their families and the community involved.

I gave my assurance that we would not sell the wood and the lumber inventory except as an absolute last resort, and that we would not entertain transfer of the licensed area and wood supply until every possible avenue to re-establishing the Kokotow Lumber as an ongoing concern has been explored and exhausted. These are assurances which I gave the Kokotows and which I can give to the community and to this House.

However, at the same time, each of us should clearly appreciate that in this particular circumstance there are substantial legal complications, which may be such that we cannot avoid others forcing the company into a bankruptcy situation.

Mr. Speaker: We’ll allow the member, since he asked the original question I believe, to ask a supplementary.

Mr. Bain: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In the light of the Premier’s telegram to the Kirkland Lake Chamber of Commerce, in which he said he was confident the mill would reopen, what steps is the government willing to take to ensure that the mill will, in fact, reopen, in the light of the minister’s statement in which he said there would be no additional timber rights given to the potential buyers and at least one of those buyers has made it perfectly clear they cannot buy and operate the mill with less than 40 million bd ft per year -- and also in the light of the fact that it’s obvious the operation wasn’t economical -- otherwise why would it be in the present state? Is the minister not agreed that there’s an obvious need to ensure that potential buyers be guaranteed sufficient timber?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Is there a question?

Mr. Bain: Yes, there were several parts to the question. I await the answer.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, I think that if the hon. member looks at my statement he will find the answers to those questions he has raised.

Mr. Laughren: Not likely. That would be something new.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: I will just reiterate that the wood allocation has been complete in the Kirkland Lake area. All the wood on Crown lands has been allocated, and this was made explicitly clear when that particular company came to us for a licence back in 1972, and they built that mill on the strength of that, confident that they could move ahead and have a viable operation. As I said to the Kokotows just the other day, we’re prepared to sit down with them at any point in time; and if they come forward with a proposal, we’ll look at anything that’s reasonable.

MEMBERS’ DESK CALENDARS

Mr. Warner: Mr. Speaker, my question is of the Minister of Government Services. In view of the fact that the top page of our Ontario government-issued desk calendars reads as follows: “In grateful commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the founding of the country and the most successful experiment in living the world has ever experienced, your 1976 ‘Success’ calendar is printed in red, white and blue”; can the minister indicate if the Ontario government is helping to celebrate the US bicentennial by purchasing desk calendars from the US? Or is the purchase an indication there are no Canadian manufacturers of desk calendars?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: It must be one of the member’s corporate friends. I didn’t get one.

Hon. Mrs. Scrivener: I think the hon. member must be a privileged person since I haven’t got one. I haven’t seen one nor have my colleagues. I’m sorry. I can’t answer that.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: The member must have friends in high places in the US; that is the reason.

Mr. Warner: A supplementary: When will it be possible for us to obtain a Canadian-manufactured desk calendar?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: You blew that one, Warner.

LICENSING OF SLAUGHTER-HOUSE OPERATIONS

Mr. Riddell: I have a question of the Minister of Agriculture and Food. Would the minister indicate to the House whether Nicholas Montague, one of the eastern Ontario meat dealers charged with selling meat unfit for human consumption in the Quebec scandal, has been granted a licence to operate a slaughter house in Ontario?

Hon. W. Newman: Mr. Speaker, this goes back some time into my predecessor’s time. This is a very serious matter.

The members were promised at that time a full investigation by our own staff and our own people. It was turned over to the Ontario Provincial Police and I’m convinced there was a full investigation carried out. As the member knows, there were charges laid, I believe, against four of them yesterday. I’m not sure how many more are to come but I understand there are other matters being taken care of today.

I can’t tell the member what specific licences there are. Most of them have licences to handle dead stock but, at this point in time I’m waiting until all the facts are in from the OPP to see exactly what we will do with their licences. I will be conferring with my lawyers probably later this afternoon on the matter.

Mr. Roy: With your lawyers?

Mr. Riddell: A supplementary: Since this meat dealer is obviously of questionable character and owing to the fact that the minister’s predecessor indicated that the dealer would be granted a licence over his dead body, would the minister see that the licence is suspended?

Hon. W. Newman: I think the member is prejudging the case coming up in court. I don’t think the member has any right to do that to start with.

Mr. Nixon: He is just saying what your predecessor said.

Hon. W. Newman: Certainly, licences were issued to all these people who are involved and who have been charged. We’re looking at the possibility of suspending these licences on a temporary basis until the matter is resolved in court.

Mr. Bullbrook: As a friend, could the minister let us know where he is operating?

Hon. W. Newman: I think if the member looks at this morning’s Globe and Mail he will find out.

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

Mr. Bullbrook: There’s a Santa Claus.

MONITORING OF PHONE CALLS

Hon. J. R. Smith: There was a question asked of me earlier in the week, Mr. Speaker, by the hon. member for Peterborough (Ms. Sandeman).

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. We cannot hear the hon. minister.

Mr. Lewis: The statement has been vetted in advance.

Mr. Roy: Let’s see the hon. minister’s card.

Hon. J. R. Smith: It is the policy of this ministry that superintendents may designate certain staff for the purpose of censoring telephone calls either made by the wards or to the wards. The reason for this policy are threefold.

First consideration is security; that is, escape plans could be formulated during the course of the telephone conversation. Further, information which is relevant to the rehabilitation and placement plans of the ward could be obtained; and also if the ward receives news of an upsetting nature the staff immediately knows of it. Therefore, they are able to provide or to seek appropriate counselling or support for the ward.

Censoring usually consists of a staff member being present in the room when the ward is speaking on the telephone. Champlain School at Alfred permits staff to listen in on the actual conversations either if the staff does not know the boy and his parents well or if the boy is speaking to a friend or relative who is not known by the staff. This is basically a security measure.

Ms. Sandeman: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker: My original question included the clause -- and I ask it again -- could the minister tell me if he approves of that policy?

Hon. J. R. Smith: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I do.

Mr. Lewis: I should think you do. You probably listen to the tapes.

Hon. J. R. Smith: I haven’t got the spare time, like you.

MALVERN DEVELOPMENT

Mr. Cassidy: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Housing. How much profit is the government making through Ontario Housing Corp. on the sale of lots to homeowners who now occupy leased land at Malvern in northern Scarborough? Does the minister consider this profit to be a reasonable one?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: I don’t know how much profit it is so, obviously, I wouldn’t know whether it is reasonable or not.

Mr. Cassidy: Since the profit is $27,000, which is what people are being asked to pay by means of a second or third mortgage on the land, does the minister consider that to be a reasonable profit on the land for Ontario Housing? And what is he going to do about all the people who didn’t win the Malvern lottery and who are having to pay the kinds of prices represented by that profit?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, I don’t know where the hon. member got the figures. I would like to check them out. Knowing the inaccuracies of some figures that have been quoted in this House, I would like to check those out and find whether they are true or not.

TORONTO TEACHERS’ NEGOTIATIONS

Mr. Sargent: Mr. Speaker, a question to the Minister of Education. Would he agree that no strike is justified where the public interest is concerned? In view of the fact that the teachers themselves want to save face by wanting to be legislated back, would he agree that since in the area of business if something doesn’t work one tries something else --

Mr. Speaker: Thank you.

Mr. Sargent: -- would he then plan to notify the teachers as of now that when the school term starts on Jan. 5 or whatever, if things are not settled then, they will be legislated back to work?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Is that Liberal party policy?

Hon. Mr. Wells: The answer to the question is no, I will not notify them, I think we are being treated to another no-strike policy by another aspiring Liberal leadership candidate.

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

LAKEHEAD OFFICIAL PLAN

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Fort William (Mr. Angus) asked me a question regarding delay in implementing the official plan in his area. My ministry has under review amendment Nos. 6 and 7 to the official plan of the Lakehead planning area which has been forwarded to our ministry for comment by the Ministry of Housing. This was received last September.

We hope to have our comments from our regional office by the middle of this month and also we hope to have an answer for the Ministry of Housing some time this week. As far as amendment No. 7 to the Lakehead official plan is concerned, this was received on Dec. 11. Our regional offices still have to comment. We hope to be able to reply to the Ministry of Housing by the end of January.

Mr. Foulds: What took so long? What happened to the 60-day period within which his ministry is supposed to comment, not this week, which is well beyond this period?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: We are trying to adhere to the 60-day period as much as possible. One of the amendments, particularly amendment No. 6, I am told sets out the basic planning policies for the rural wards in the city of Thunder Bay, and this therefore involves a little more study. It’s a general land-use pattern plan. It takes a little more consideration by our ministry in respect of future servicing.

Mr. Foulds: Was the minister not aware there was a draft proposal circulated in his ministry and only minor amendments were made in this final proposal that went to his ministry, so they have had over six months to consider it?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: There are two amendments involved, amendments 6 and 7. We have had these requests for about 60 days from Housing. I’ll do what I can to speed it up.

Mr. Foulds: You had them before that.

MINIMUM WAGE

Mr. Samis: A question of the Minister of Labour: Can the minister tell us why, in this festive season and some 17 days after Dec. 1, she still hasn’t announced an increase in the minimum wage in Ontario and is allowing our minimum wage to be behind that of five other provinces?

Interjections.

Hon. B. Stephenson: The hon. member should know that I think it is on Monday of next week that the minimum wage movement will be announced for the Province of Ontario.

Mr. Lewis: When the House is not in session.

Hon. B. Stephenson: And it will not be behind the other provinces.

DREE PROGRAMME FOR NORTHERN ONTARIO

Mr. R. S. Smith: I have a question of the Treasurer. In the light of his letter to many municipalities across northern Ontario in regard to the DREE programme and in particular because of the fact that in most cases the subsidiary agreements are not being carried through, would he tell me what is left of the DREE programme for northern Ontario? Secondary to that or as part of that under the regional priority budget under which the Premier (Mr. Davis) announced certain goodies for all of northeastern Ontario prior to the election, has he cancelled those promises made by the Premier in his letter as well?

[3:15]

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Mr. Speaker, I don’t think “cancelled” is the right word.

Mr. Reid: It is not going ahead at this time.

Mr. Nixon: Reversed? Welshed?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: We have sorted those out within a constrained budget for next year and a regional priority budget, which will be at the same level of funding as it is in the present year. Obviously some projects have higher priorities than others.

Mr. R. S. Smith: A supplementary question --

Mr. Speaker: Time is just about up.

Mrs. Campbell: Oh, come on.

Mr. Speaker: If it’s a brief supplementary requiring a brief answer, yes.

Mr. R. S. Smith: Mr. Speaker, the minister did not answer my question in regard to the regional priority budget. Will it be carried out in terms of the promises that were made under it this year, and will it be brought forward next year? I’m really questioning the credibility of the Treasurer and of the Premier.

Hon. Mr. McKeough: Each year’s priorities are dealt with on their own merits.

Mr. Cunningham: Depending on whether or not there is an election.

Mr. Bain: And priorities change.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

RAILWAY GRADE SEPARATIONS

Mr. Kennedy: A question of the Minister of Transportation and Communications: Would the minister advise as to the status of the proposed underpass over the CNR GO line in Mississauga at Cawthra Rd.; and secondly, has he had representations yet with respect to similar projects at the Lorne Park and Clarkson crossings?

Hon. Mr. Snow: Mr. Speaker, there are two applications before the federal minister now for grade separations in the region of Peel. The two are the CNR at Steeles Ave. and the CPR at Cawthra Rd. in Mississauga; and those are at about the middle of the priority list, as I understand it.

Mr. Speaker: The oral question period has expired.

Petitions.

Presenting reports.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell presented the report of the Ontario Energy Corp. for the year ended March 31, 1975.

Mr. Speaker: Motions.

Hon. Mr. Welch moved that the following substitutions be made on the select committee considering proposed Hydro rate increases: Mr. Reed (Halton-Burlington) for Mr. Bullbrook, Mr. Eakins for Mr. Peterson, and Mr. Lane for Mr. Maeck.

Motion agreed to.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: We want a unanimous decision.

Mr. Speaker: Introduction of bills.

Just before the orders of the day, I would like to carry out a procedure, as we usually do at this time of year -- there are two or three, as a matter of fact, as you will find out -- but, first of all, we have our pages with us today for the last time. They have been here about eight weeks and I think the hon. members will agree they have served this House very well during those eight weeks.

So that their names will be recorded for posterity, I shall now read them into the record and I might say that a copy of today’s Hansard will be sent to each one. They are: Leyland Brown, Caledon East; Kathy Dalziel, Toronto; Dennis Dionne, Windsor; Fred Ewins, Toronto; Debra Fuller, Caledonia; Malcolm Gordon, Toronto; Mitch Kowalski, Burlington; Linda Ladouceur, Windsor; Margaret Leeming, Oakville; John Lougheed, Willowdale; Sandra Miller, Bewdley; Brenda Pinder, Exeter; Jim Priest, Weston; John Renwick, Peterborough; Elizabeth Shaw, Fort Erie; Glenn Shotlander, Scarborough; Jackie Siedlecki, Weston; Kelly Anne Thomson, Scarborough; Steven Weaver, Don Mills; and Glen Yates, Hamilton.

I might also say that, with the expected ending of this session this afternoon at about the dinner hour, arrangements have been made for the dining room to be open this evening in case you were in doubt. Also, if things go approximately according to plans, the Speaker would be pleased to receive all members and members of the press gallery and the staff at the table and other employees of the Legislature, including Hansard, the members of the press and those whom I have missed, in room 228 at the closing of the session. Thank you very much.

ANSWER TO WRITTEN QUESTION

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, before the orders of the day, I wish to table the answer to question 9 standing on the order paper.

Mr. Bullbrook: It is a question of priorities.

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Mr. Speaker, I wanted to point out that one of the pages that you mentioned as being from Toronto is from Don Mills, the first page from the Don Mills riding ever to serve in this House.

Mr. Speaker: Orders of the day.

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

LANDLORD AND TENANT AMENDMENT ACT (CONCLUDED)

House in committee on Bill 26, An Act to amend The Landlord and Tenant Act.

Mr. Breithaupt: With respect to the matter raised by the member for Waterloo North (Mr. Good) last evening, are we content now that this section 1 was stood down or has that been resolved? I think that is the only other matter with respect to this bill.

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: Yes, I am content that section 1 was indeed stood down. I have discussed the matter since then with the member for Waterloo North and he may wish to say something at this time. There is no question but that section 1 was stood down.

Mr. Chairman: Order, please. Can we have a little attention to the debates in committee? Perhaps the hon. member for Waterloo North wishes to speak at this time.

Mr. Good: Section 1 was stood down on the suggestion of the member for Riverdale (Mr. Renwick) and I pursued it no further, knowing we would return to it. We did have an amendment to that section. The amendment was because of a concern about owner-occupied homes. We felt owners who rent a room or two to individuals may run into problems if security of tenure were given to these so-called roomers who rented within a private home.

Mr. Chairman: Order, please. Could we have a little quiet in the committee so that the Chair and the minister can hear the hon. member?

Mr. Good: I spoke to the senior staff of the Attorney General’s ministry last night after the House adjourned at 11. They assured me there was enough caseload to establish that where a room in a private house is entered by the owner or his wife to clean or change the sheets in the bed there was not then established a direct landlord and tenant relationship between those individuals. If that is the case, in fact, they would be excluded from the provisions of this Act if it is under those circumstances. This then would eliminate our concern and we will not be putting the amendment forth.

Mr. Cassidy: I have some comment. I think it is too late to move an amendment on this but I am disturbed by what the member for Waterloo North has just said. It was my understanding that previously the Landlord and Tenant Act was interpreted as excluding roomers. As I now understand it, he is saying that it will continue to exclude roomers and they will not have the various protections that are provided for by the Act.

Mr. Chairman: Perhaps the hon. minister might wish to clarify this point again.

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: They are only excluded where the roomer does not have exclusive possession of the room. That’s my understanding.

Mr. Lawlor: Do we clearly understand now that section 1 of the bill is on all fours completely coincident with the definition of premises as contained in Bill 20?

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: All I can state is that it conforms. There is a line, for example, with reference to mobile homes; it’s not identical, but I’m satisfied that it conforms.

Mr. Renwick: Could I just ask the Attorney General whether his advisers are satisfied that the definition of residential premises in both the statutes conforms in sufficient detail that there cannot be a judicial interpretation applying to one which does not apply to the other?

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: As I understand it, every effort has been made to make the two definitions conform. I can’t, of course, suggest with any degree of certainty that the sections aren’t capable of a judicial distinction being drawn, but we don’t think that that can happen. I’m afraid I can’t be more specific than that.

Mr. Cassidy: I want to worry away a bit at this question of roomers again. It’s obviously a question in my riding, which is essentially a city riding -- it has got a large number of roomers. “Exclusive use of the room.” Does it mean that if the roomer doesn’t have exclusive use of a toilet and bathroom facility that then he is not covered by the Act?

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: No, it does not.

Mr. Cassidy: Then, under the circumstances would his use of the room be deemed not to be exclusive, and would he, therefore, lose the protection of the Act?

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: As I understand it, Mr. Chairman, it’s the situation where a roomer is in a private home where, for example, the owner of the home cleans the room, changes the sheets -- which is not uncommon. It’s really part of the dwelling of the owner. The person is not an immediate member of the family, or is a roomer where there is this type of access to the room -- where the sheets are changed, the room is cleaned and so on, by the owner of the premises. It’s a relatively intimate relationship of that nature.

As I understand the law, you can’t draw a definite distinction. But, as has been related to me, there would have to be some reasonably exclusive use of the room.

I know very few rooming houses in central Toronto -- and the member for St. George (Mrs. Campbell) unfortunately just left -- where they’re owner-occupied to that extent, where the owner of the premises is entering the room, cleaning the room, changing the bedding and so on. I’m afraid I can’t assist you any more than that.

Mr. Cassidy: I fear, though, that for the record in Hansard, which has always got some relevance to the courts, even though they’re meant to interpret the law and not what’s said in this House, that this may be a rather confusing kind of thing.

I don’t see the distinction between the situation the minister describes and the situation of a commercial rooming house which happens to provide, as one of the services to the premises, that a maid goes in every day or so and cleans the place up. It seems to me that the two situations are the same and, therefore, you may have opened a loophole for certain types of commercial rooming houses.

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: The definition seems to be all-inclusive. Residential premises mean “any premises used or attended for use for residential purposes.” So, the definition, as I understand it, can’t be any broader or more all-conclusive than that. It’s the relationship of landlord and tenant where the court draws that distinction. It’s not in relation to the definition of premises, because as you will see in section 1, “‘residential premises’ means ... any premises used or intended for use for residential purposes.” I don’t think we could be any more all-inclusive than we are, but it’s a landlord and tenant relationship which has been interpreted by the courts in a very large body of law.

[3:30]

Mr. Cassidy: It may be a mare’s nest; obviously we have to go with it now. It might have to be amended later.

The thing that worries me is that the courts have, in the past, enforced a perverse definition of rooming houses and roomers in order to exclude them from the Act, when it seems to me that the previous Act just as much as this one, should have had them included. And that’s why I have made a particular point of raising questions on this section.

Mr. Sweeney: Perhaps I could add just a little of what our concern was in this case. We think there is a distinction -- and I am not quite sure I can clarify it, Mr. Chairman -- between a commercial rooming house, people who are in the rooming-house business, and a small private family home that may take in one or two roomers. Our concern was the intimate relationship between the family occupying that home -- maybe particularly the children in that family as well -- and someone who happens to be a roomer in that house. There could be a concern felt by the parents about a particular roomer within that family context, and we feel that they should be able to ask that particular kind of a roomer to leave, as opposed to a roomer in a commercial kind of rooming house. That’s really what we are trying to get at, Mr. Chairman. We think a family in that situation should get some priority over the roomer.

Mr. Lawlor: This is a new definition. In my opinion, for whatever it’s worth, it is a considerable alteration from the longstanding institutional definition of residential premises contained in the first section of the Landlord and Tenant Act. It’s far more elaborate, would be a direction to the courts, and would be, in my opinion again, construed to cover the widest possible ambit of authority.

I would trust that that would be the way in which it would be interpreted. When legislation is changed, the courts invariably refer to how it was said previously, looking at the new, seeing how categorical it is. I would consider it, and I think any judge would construe it, as applying to these premises as well as to any others.

Mr. Chairman: Is there any further discussion on section 1? Does the hon. minister wish to respond to the member for Lakeshore?

Shall section 1 carry?

Section 1 agreed to.

Mr. Chairman: I think this concludes the discussion on Bill 26.

We have a number of stacked amendments on Bill 5 and Bill 26. Is it the pleasure of the committee that we deal with them at this time?

Mr. Breithaupt: Mr. Chairman, I am just wondering if we could agree, in order to save as much time as possible, to have a five-minute bell?

Hon. Mr. Welch: And then we will proceed to accommodate the Lieutenant Governor.

Mr. Breithaupt: Better have a 10-minute bell.

Mr. Chairman: We will proceed with Bill 26 first.

The committee divided on Mr. Lawlor’s motion to amend section 81 of the Act, as set out in section 2 of the bill, which was negatived on the following vote:

Clerk of the House: Mr. Chairman, the “ayes” are 31, the “nays” are 71.

Mr. Chairman: I declare the amendment lost.

Section 2, as amended, agreed to.

The committee divided on Mr. Lawlor’s motion to amend to clause (b) of subsection 1 of section 103d of the Act, as set out in section 3 of the bill, which was negatived on a stacked vote, the same count as the above vote.

Mr. Chairman: I declare the amendment lost.

The committee divided on Mr. Good’s motion to amend section 103e, subclause 2, and section 103e, subclause 3, of the Act as set out in section 3 of the bill, which was approved on the following vote:

Clerk of the House: Mr. Chairman, the “ayes” are 59, the “nays” are 42.

Mr. Chairman: I declare the amendment carried.

Motion agreed to.

The committee divided on Mr. Lawlor’s motion that subsection 1 of section 103f of the Act as set out in section 3 of the bill be amended by striking out clause (b).

Mr. Chairman: I declare the motion lost.

The committee divided on Mr. Lawlor’s motion that subsection 1 of section 103f of the Act as set out in section 3 of the bill be amended by striking out “seven” in line 32 thereof and substituting therefor “30” which was negatived on a stacked vote, the same as the first vote.

Mr. Chairman: I declare the motion lost.

The committee divided on Hon. Mr. McMurtry’s motion that clause (e) of subsection 3 of the said section 103g as set out in section 3 of the bill be struck out and the following inserted in lieu thereof:

“(e) The tenant has breached a material covenant which covenant is contained in a written tenancy agreement and which covenant is not contrary to the spirit and intent of this part.”

Mr. Chairman: I declare the motion lost.

The committee divided on Mr. Lawlor’s motion that subsection 3 of section 103g of the Act as set out in section 3 of the bill be amended by striking out clause (e) and substituting therefor, “but the judge shall not consider any cause for eviction not specifically named in this part.”

Mr. Chairman: I declare the amendment carried.

Motion agreed to.

Section 3, as amended, agreed to.

The committee divided on Mr. Stong’s motion that subsection 8 of section 106 as set out in section 5 of the bill be amended by striking out “four days” in the second line and inserting in lieu thereof “seven days.”

Mr. Chairman: I declare the amendment carried.

Motion agreed to.

Section 5, as amended, agreed to.

Mr. Chairman: Order, please. We have an amendment and a sub-amendment here.

The committee divided on Mr. Lawlor’s motion to amend the amendment to subsection 2 of section 107 of the Act, as set out in subsection 2 of section 7 of the bill.

Mr. Chairman: I declare the amendment to the amendment lost.

The committee divided on Hon. Mr. McMurtry’s motion to subsection 2 of section 107 as set out in subsection 2 of section 7 of the bill.

Mr. Chairman: I declare the amendment carried.

Motion agreed to.

[4:00]

The committee divided on Mr. Lawlor’s motion to subsection 3 of section 107 of the Act, as set out in subsection 2 of section 7 of the bill.

Mr. Chairman: I declare the amendment carried.

Motion agreed to.

Section 7, as amended, agreed to.

The committee divided on Mr. Lawlor’s motion that a new section 12 be inserted into the bill.

Mr. Chairman: I declare the amendment lost.

The committee divided on Mr. McClellan’s motion to add a new section 13 to the bill.

Mr. Chairman: I declare the amendment lost.

The committee divided on Mr. Mackenzie’s motion to add a new section 14 to the bill.

Mr. Chairman: I declare the amendment lost.

The committee divided on Mr. Cassidy’s motion to add a new section 15 to the bill.

Mr. Chairman: I declare the amendment lost.

The committee divided on Mr. McClellan’s motion to amend section 16, subsection 1.

Mr. Chairman: I declare the amendment lost.

Bill 26, as amended, reported.

RETAIL BUSINESS HOLIDAYS ACT (CONCLUDED)

House in committee on Bill 5, An Act to regulate Holiday Closings for Retail Business.

The committee divided on Hon. Mr. MacBeth’s motion to amend clause (c) of subsection 2 of section 3 which was approved on the following vote:

Mr. Lewis: Wait a moment. On a point of order, Mr. Chairman. One of the members in the Legislature in the Liberal Party held his seat. Was that deliberate?

Mr. Breithaupt: Maybe he wants to vote with you.

Mr. Lewis: Then I’d like to have the vote taken.

Clerk of the House: Mr. Chairman, the “ayes” are 68, the “nays” are 32.

Mr. Chairman: I declare the amendment carried.

Motion agreed to.

The committee divided on Mr. Samis’ motion to delete subsection 3 (c) of section 3.

Mr. Chairman: I declare the amendment carried.

Motion agreed to.

The committee divided on Mr. Samis’ motion to amend subsection 4 of section 3.

Mr. Chairman: I declare the amendment lost.

Section 3, as amended, agreed to.

Bill 5, as amended, reported.

Hon. Mr. Welch moved the committee rise and report.

Motion agreed to.

The House resumed, Mr. Speaker in the chair.

Mr. Chairman: Mr. Speaker, the committee of the whole House begs to report two bills with certain amendments.

Report agreed to.

Clerk of the House: The seventh order, consideration of the Dec. 4th interim report of the select committee on the fourth and fifth reports of the Ontario Commission on the Legislature.

ONTARIO COMMISSION ON THE LEGISLATURE

Mr. Morrow: As chairman of the select committee submitting this interim report to the Legislature, I would like to take a few minutes to speak on our deliberations.

I would like to draw to the attention of the hon. members that if they are looking for this report, they will find it in Votes and Proceedings dated Dec. 4 which, of course, was to save time and the expense of a more pretentious document.

First, I would say it was the majority opinion of the committee members that there were a few sections of the Camp report of particular interest and concern to them that brought about the decision to bring in an interim report and have a debate prior to the Christmas recess. Most of these items are covered in the report, namely, constituency offices; the principle of allowing the various media access to the House -- that is radio, film and still photograph coverage of the Legislature and, of course, its committees.

I must say that it was the intention of the chairman to include a recommendation for acceptance of a number of procedural matters as outlined in the fourth report of the commissioners but due to a procedural matter encountered by the committee itself we didn’t have an opportunity to sort of discuss these particular procedural points. Therefore, only one such concurrence is given and it is in the report. It already had concurrence prior to this particular encounter which I mentioned.

The committee held 10 meetings during the session and as mentioned in the report we met with several organizations and individuals including Douglas Fisher, one of the commissioners of the Camp committee; the chairman and members of the press gallery, who had a particular interest in the discussions relating to recommending access of the various media to the House -- all of whom made excellent contributions -- as well as cameramen who work with the press gallery.

The committee also had representation from Mr. Peter Brannan and members of the Hansard staff, particularly those working on the electronic end of things. A few members of the House attended our meetings and others have asked to be heard by the committee.

With regard to media coverage of the proceedings in the House and committees, the committee concluded that radio would be the most easily introduced. Radio feeds were available and new feeds would be inexpensive, and there would be little or no disruption.

Film could also be introduced without too much disruption and expense. I must point out that by using the terminology film coverage I am not really discussing complete television coverage -- that is sound and picture. Since film is the most popular medium for news coverage, we would be serving the intended purpose by allowing it accessibility at this time.

In this regard, hon. members will recall the film test taken by the media in the House for study and examination by the committee and I wish to thank the hon. members for their co-operation in this test exercise. I believe the premiere showing of the film taken demonstrated beyond the shadow of a doubt that the member for Armourdale (Mr. Givens) was the main star. Of course you, Mr. Speaker, and the Clerk of the House, in your ceremonial robes, were the most photogenic.

Mr. Lewis: What is that? Is that not a slander on the member for Armourdale?

Mr. Morrow: Joking aside however, the test exercise did prove that an adequate quality picture could be taken with existing facilities and that with a modest increase in lighting, a good picture would result.

Full television coverage on a permanent basis, however, would entail some physical and structural changes and will be dealt with in future deliberations of the committee.

[4:15]

The committee did conclude, however, that it could come about without all the disruptive practices and arrangements experienced in past events, such as the opening sessions of the Legislature, when camera placements, strong lighting and considerable equipment did cause some inconvenience and discomfort to the members of the House.

Implications regarding members’ privilege were discussed by the committee. After accepting advice and reading portions of the BC Legislature report, we were satisfied that members would not be opening up the likelihood of libel and slander suits by media coverage. Anything recorded on film that caused a member concern would be retrievable for review. The committee was also satisfied that press and media people were governed by their own companies’ policies and they were usually very cautious.

The committee concurs with the recommendation of the commissioners to have a standing committee of the House specifically responsible, among other things, for hearing any grievances on privilege that might arise. The hon. members will also note that the committee is recommending accessibility of the media into the Legislature for radio, film and photographic coverage only in principle, and that the recommendation carries with it the proviso that a committee composed of you, Mr. Speaker, representatives of all three political parties in the House and the press can reach a satisfactory agreement on the details of such access.

In the fifth report, the commissioners recommended constituency offices for each elected member of the Legislature, somewhat along the same guidelines enjoyed by our federal colleagues in the House of Commons. The majority opinion on the committee felt this recommendation was most important. Really the chief reason for submitting an interim report at this time and suggesting the adoption of this recommendation early in the new year was because of the strong recommendation on this point by the commissioners.

In order that all members’ opinions on this subject might be heard, you will recall that a questionnaire was placed on the members’ desks asking for answers to certain questions and any comments they would like to make. The response was excellent; 104 questionnaires were returned with only three being against the idea. Most of the questionnaires indicated a wish to commence such funding in the new year. Others were for a later date.

I confessed to my fellow committee members at the time that I was one of those favouring a later date in the new fiscal year because I was aware of the fact that the supplementary estimates for Mr. Speaker’s office had already been passed, which took those estimates to the end of the fiscal year, March 31, and that new supplementary estimates would have to be introduced if the constituency offices were to commence any sooner because the bills would have to be paid.

We did recommend in our report that the members would be responsible for these offices, Mr. Speaker, and that they would come under your particular office for their vouchers and payment of all bills. Needless to say, my opinion was not wholly endorsed and you will note in the report the committee’s suggested provision of constituency offices, effective Jan. 1, 1976.

Again, as in the case of the media recommendation, the committee recommended only in principle. Although the committee spent hours discussing the mechanics of how these proposals might be carried out, we concluded, and I think quite wisely, that the working out of the details be left to others on an ongoing basis. In this case, Mr. Speaker would be expected to exercise his judgement as to what is appropriate for various ridings, whether it be a permanent office, a mobile office for large areas, a Zenith number to call or whatever, because we recognized that all ridings were not the same and would not fit into general guidelines, except that the funding of any member’s office would not be more than the maximum allowed for any other member.

In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, the procedural matter mentioned in the report has to do with the introduction of guests. I might say this has been a pet peeve of mine for several years, and I am glad to support this particular recommendation. I hope it will be acted upon.

It was the opinion of the committee that the many and frequent introduction of guests, particularly the schools, were time consuming and that things had got pretty well out of hand. The members of the committee unanimously and respectfully suggest, Mr. Speaker, that introductions be limited to special guests in your gallery, and that you make the introductions.

In recommending that this particular course be adopted, of course, it was not intended that the Premier (Mr. Davis), who has the liberty at any time, be prevented from introducing any special guests he might have to the assembly.

That concludes my remarks on the introduction of this interim report, Mr. Speaker. The committee hopes to continue with its deliberations in the new year.

Mr. Speaker: Yes, the hon. Leader of the Opposition.

Mr. Lewis: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I want to add a brief note on behalf of my caucus colleagues on the report which has been submitted. We welcome the recommendations in it, and I don’t think I have to say anything about the matter of media coverage of the Legislature. All of us have felt pretty good about that for as many years as I can recall. I only hope that the definition of the word “film” ultimately embraces rather than excludes film for television usage, because that’s obviously pretty important.

I want to confine my brief remarks to that aspect of the committee’s report which vitally concerns the life that members lead around this place, and that’s the question of constituency offices.

I want to say, Mr. Speaker, to the House leader, to the committee in particular, that I for one, and I think I speak for all my colleagues in the NDP, heave a mighty sigh of relief that the proposal has been endorsed in principle and that it may now proceed with, I hope, the approval of the government. It clearly had the overwhelming support of all of the parties, judging from those members who signed the document giving approval. It clearly speaks to a feeling that the Camp commission came to over a period of time.

Ironically, earlier this week while I was doing a television programme at one of the downtown stations, I met Dalton Camp. We were on the programme together and I was saying to him that this select committee report was before the Legislature and was about to be debated and that the question of constituency offices was, of course, central to it. He was saying how he, as chairman of the commission, had over a period of time been more and more persuaded to the legitimacy of and need for these constituency offices and that’s why they had put the proposal so forthrightly in their most recent document. It is a tribute to the committee that they have now put it before the House and suggested its adoption.

Mr. Speaker, I’m not going to beat around the subject. It obviously raises questions in the minds of some in difficult economic times. I’ve always felt there could hardly be a better public expense with public moneys than these constituency offices will provide. It will clearly provide a service to our constituents around Ontario which many of us have wanted to give and have not always been able to give.

I’m fortunate in being leader of a political party. I have particular emoluments as leader, particular staff supports as leader -- shared to some extent by cabinet ministers, by the Premier, and the leader of the Liberal Party. I look around at my colleagues, who don’t have those supports, and see the level of their work load and their involvement with their constituents, and I know that the constituency offices make tremendous and compelling sense.

One of the points that the Camp commission report made was that members of the Legislature ought to be parliamentarians as well as ombudspersons, if I may. My colleague the member for Riverdale (Mr. Renwick) was pointing out to our caucus a couple of days ago that it is increasingly difficult to give the time to this Legislature which it requires, when there is such an inundation in terms of the caseload from the constituency. Most of the members of the NDP caucus, I think, were and are feeling genuinely oppressed by the dimensions of the workload and welcome, in public terms, the provision of constituency offices and support staff (a) because it will mean something to the public who elected them; and (b) because it will allow us to perform our jobs in this forum rather more effectively. That seems to me to be pretty important.

Finally, I don’t know what accounts -- and maybe the Premier can reflect on it when he enters the debate -- for the quantum leap in constituency caseloads and pressure from the public over the last few months -- in fact, over the last year or two -- but it is truly identifiable and some of the members who are committed to working with their constituencies are virtually going under.

I don’t know whether it’s the fetish of public participation. I don’t know whether it’s minority government in the sense that members should be more accessible; more approachable and more easily influenced. I don’t know whether it’s the economic conditions which make life a far more vulnerable and uneasy condition and therefore make politicians a much greater point of focus.

Whatever it is, the caseloads for the members of the House are just overpowering in some cases. They are not here to be social workers; they are here to be politicians, to do a job, and I think the constituency offices will help that job. I cannot imagine a more useful introduction at this point. I like the ground rules, the simple procedures, the approval for the Speaker’s office, the avoidance of abuse and the fact that it will all be watched very carefully. I know the members will behave scrupulously. I hope it can happen soon, very soon, and I hope that the funding can be seen in the way in which all of us regard it, as legitimate. I hope that the committee, despite the occasional fracas and uneasiness, can continue to sit and do jobs as useful in the next session as appear to have been achieved in this.

Mr. Gaunt: Mr. Speaker, I want to make a few brief remarks on two of the three matters dealt with in the report. The third matter, having to do with the introduction of guests, I think has been dealt with by the chairman and I won’t deal with it.

Insofar as the matter having to do with giving access to radio and television within the confines of the chamber is concerned, I certainly support it enthusiastically. I think most citizens today receive their primary impressions of the leaders of the parties, and of the parties’ policies, from radio and television. They then turn to print for detail and for greater comprehension. I think these are the facts of life in the 1975 communications world.

I think it’s important that this Legislature move into the 20th century in that respect, and that is why I entirely support the concept, as has been mentioned by the chairman, of allowing radio and TV access to this chamber and its extension to the various committees, both standing and select.

How much of the debate that takes place in the building will actually be seen or heard on television and radio is a question that is very open because rarely can this show be billed as the best in town, but nevertheless I think the access and the privilege of being in here is the important thing. As far as the editing is concerned, it is entirely up to the people involved as to how they treat the matter.

[4:30]

May I now turn to the matter of the constituency offices? While that has been dealt with both by the chairman and by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Lewis), I just want to make a few brief comments by way of reinforcement in that respect. This was a recommendation of the Camp commission report which used as a basic premise that members should, first of all, be legislators rather than riding ombudsmen.

This didn’t use to be much of a problem because one didn’t really, as a member, have too heavy a constituency load. But as the Leader of the Opposition has said, there has been a tremendous burgeoning of that particular matter in recent years and certainly in recent months and even in recent weeks. One may argue about the reasons for that; nonetheless it’s a fact of life and I think we have all experienced it.

By and large, I think most members are encountering a very heavy constituency load; so much so that some members, including myself, spend anywhere from 60 to 70 per cent of their time dealing with constituency problems, even given the fact that we all have full-time secretaries.

Constituency offices were seen by the Camp commission as one method whereby this constituency workload on the member could be eased, thereby leaving the member more time to do what many consider to be his or her primary function. The select committee concurred in that view, and hence the strong recommendation for these offices. It was not only the strong recommendation of the committee but, as the chairman indicated, all of the members of the Legislature were polled on this matter and, by and large, an overwhelming majority of members supported constituency offices. The committee thought it was prudent to poll the members and that poll certainly verified the feelings of the members on the committee as to the necessity and great need for these offices.

We really didn’t have a lot of time to deal with some of the other matters with which we had hoped to deal because of the procedural matter with which the committee was faced. I am sure that all members of the committee, myself included, look forward to the deliberations of the committee in the new year in terms of what happens from here on. We recommended on the constituency offices, the access to this chamber of radio and television and matters relating to the introduction of guests. On those points, the next move is up to the government. I understand they have taken a kindly view on these matters and I certainly welcome any action in these areas.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Just very briefly, I am pleased to have the opportunity to make clear the position of the government relative to the recommendations offered to the Legislature by the select committee.

First, Mr. Speaker, I would like to express my thanks to the members of that committee, of all parties, and especially to its chairman, the member for Ottawa West (Mr. Morrow), who brings a certain experience to these matters because of his former responsibilities.

The government views the consistent study and review of legislative procedures as really being very critical to the quality of democracy in this province. As a basic position therefore, it is the hope of this government that the committee continue its work, continue to provide recommendations that can assist in the smooth running of this Legislature and enhance the participation therein of all members of this House.

I just want to restate once again that the Premier of this province is not suggesting any limitation upon those discussions. If some members opposite want to include some of those matters that have been a touch controversial, I assure you I shall not stand in the way -- however, you know my view.

The government welcomes the suggested introduction of television and radio to the proceedings of this House. We have, I guess, all sort of searched our consciences as to how this might be done without inhibiting the procedures of the House, but the three-party committee in co-operation with the Speaker as suggested by the committee is, I think, a fair and equitable fashion for the procedures to be worked out.

It is only a suggestion for the members of the committee to consider some live television coverage of selected parts of the next session -- perhaps the Throne Speech or the budget speech and the intervention by the financial critics who would, of course, have to be fair and equitable in terms of distribution of time. Some members may want some advance notice so that they will know just what attire to have on that particular day when television is live; I don’t know. The member for York South (Mr. MacDonald) wouldn’t need this, he is always sartorially well attired most of the time in any event. At any rate I certainly would not object from this side of the House to the committee taking a look at that possibility.

I want to assure the House that we would not impede any reasonable experimentation in the area of live telecasting; and, of course, it is self-evident that we would support the question of still photographs and the radio and film provisions in the committee’s recommendations.

I must confess I haven’t any strong views on the question of introduction of guests; the recommendations would have such introductions limited to heads of state or distinguished parliamentarians. Certainly we are prepared to accept the recommendations of the committee. I might say, Mr. Speaker, if that does become the procedure here I am sure that on occasion some members will find some way, in a Throne Speech address or some other fashion, to make sure that if there are those they want to see suitably introduced, I have a suspicion they will continue to be so introduced; although I wouldn’t in any way want to suggest that anyone would not abide by the rules that are established.

Mr. MacDonald: It’s our form of civil disobedience.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Yes, I think that’s right.

On the third matter that has been dealt with, the matter of constituency offices, the government concurs in principle and substance with the recommendations. As I heard from the chairman of the committee in discussions with him, the overwhelming majority of members on all sides of this House believe these offices to be helpful both to the quality and to the kind of representation here in this province.

I was listening with interest to the Leader of the Opposition. I am not sure that I could put any timetable on when workload or caseloads or volume started to increase; in some instances it goes back two or three years even. I can just say from personal experience any time I inadvertently, on “Provincial Affairs” or some telecast or at some large gathering said, “If you have any problems, drop me a note,” several thousand people took me literally and that had some effect in terms of correspondence.

But I don’t think there is any question that in the role of all of us here the amount of work to do for our constituents, and in some cases even beyond our own constituencies, has not only increased in volume but in terms of assisting them because of the complexities of the issues sometimes getting answers has become more difficult. We are not just dealing with individuals. On many occasions we are called upon to assist groups of people, such as ratepayer groups.

I make no bones about it; since I have been in this House -- which doesn’t go back as long as some, but a little longer than others -- there is no question that the responsibilities of a member and the workload have very substantially increased.

We understand that concurrent with the recommendation, which we would support, the Board of Internal Economy will set to work toward early implementation. The ground rules are, I think, really quite clearly set out in the committee’s report, and I think it is important for all of us that these be adhered to and adhered to very strictly. The public must have a feeling and a sense that these offices will be used strictly for assistance to the constituents; that they are not political devices or opportunities for political organization and so on. I know that all members in the House will respect that part of the committee’s recommendations and that will become part of the ground rules as established by the Board of Internal Economy.

As I said at the outset, we appreciate the work done by the members of that select committee and extend our thanks to the members who, I am sure, will continue to work even while the House is adjourned and we can anticipate further constructive reports from them when the House reconvenes.

Report agreed to.

Clerk of the House: The order for third reading of Bill 5, An Act to regulate Holiday Closings for Retail Establishments.

Mr. Deans: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: I think in order that we do this correctly and by the rules, we should ask for unanimous consent to proceed with third readings on these bills since they have been amended and not reprinted.

Mr. Speaker: Do we have such consent?

Agreed to.

THIRD READINGS

The following bill was given third reading upon motion:

Bill 5, An Act to regulate Holiday Closings for Retail Businesses.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes moved third reading of Bill 20, An Act to provide for the Review of Rents in Respect of Residential Premises.

Mr. Cassidy: Having devoted the last eight or nine weeks of my life to Bill 20, I wanted to make a few short comments about the bill, simply so that we can all have on the record a fairly succinct statement of what was discussed, what was argued and what happened. The bill came as a result of the pressure which the New Democratic Party has brought in this area over the last four years and in particular because of the positions taken during the election campaign and the very strong response to our campaign about giving protection to tenants.

When the bill came forward in November, we expressed reservations, as we did during second reading, about a number of the features being proposed by the government. We also put forward a number of alternatives which we knew were needed and know are needed to give more effective protection to the tenants.

We voted for the bill at that time and I want to comment later on one or two of the changes which led us to reconsider our position, although we shall be supporting the bill on third reading as well.

The hearings in the committee stage of the bill were intense. I have never been through such a complicated piece of legislation in my time in the Legislature as the procedures on Bill 20. I think that’s true of most members who were involved in the committee and who worked very hard in their efforts to improve the bill.

During the second reading we did express reservations on a number of matters which I would consider to be matters of principle. We were still convinced, and suggested so in amendments, that the bill should have been made retroactive to last January rather than to July; that the rent guidelines should have been for six per cent rather than eight per cent increases; and that this legislation should not have a provision to terminate in 1977 since we are not convinced the rent crisis in Ontario will be resolved 20 months from now.

However, the bill has been improved in many ways and we welcome the fact that the House has adopted a number of proposals which we had wanted to insert in order to improve the bill. In fact, if we want to look at the score from our point of view, we had suggested 33 amendments -- a very large number of amendments -- and just under half, 16 of those 33 amendments, were either adopted by the House, accepted and put forward by the government, or adopted in some revised form in amendments put forward by one of the three parties in the Legislature.

I think for the most part the work that went on in the committee and in this Legislature was a model of how a Legislature ought to work. Perhaps it was also a model of what can be done under a minority government situation since one could never have had these improvements had it been a majority government.

[4:45]

Among the changes which we considered important and which we think improved the bill is the fact that tenants living in small buildings will be covered as will tenants living in limited dividend housing, in luxury housing, in Ontario Housing and people who live in rooms. We welcome the fact that landlords will be required to justify their rents when they go to the tenant to tell him that they want to have a rent increase. We welcome the government’s agreement that rent increases can be determined on a building basis rather than always on a unit basis. This is a measure that both landlords and tenants thought was desirable and which we know will help to reduce the red tape that could possibly surround the rent control bill.

We welcome the fact that the House has agreed that in certain circumstances, with the approval of the ministry, municipalities can run the rent review offices rather than have them only on a centralized basis. We welcome the fact that the amendment was made that the rent review officers may consider excessive rent increases in 1974 and in the first half of 1975, when the landlord comes forward in the next little while, if he’s trying to get another rent increase after a gouging that took place a year or so ago.

We are very pleased at the requirement that half the rent review board be representative of tenants. We believe that people representative of tenants and people appointed to that board who may or may not be representative of other interests, can in fact work in an impartial fashion and will not be there as spokesmen for a particular interest, but that there will be a more impartial result from their deliberations, given the fact that they are not all drawn from one sector of society.

We welcome the fact that the House has decided to give tenants access to landlords’ books through the intermediary of the material which is made available to the rent review officer.

On the other hand, we regret that certain amendments that we put forward, and which we did not see as essentially political amendments on the principle of the bill, were rejected by the House. These were some amendments that we had thought were desirable in order to improve the bill, and which we had hoped might be acceptable to other members of the Legislature. Some of these amendments would have reduced the red tape by reducing the need for tenants to make an appeal or make an application to the rent review officers. I think that all of us in this House are concerned about the burden of administration that’s going to lie on the rent review officers. It’s a pity that we couldn’t have acted in that direction in order, for example, to have allowed tenants to calculate the rebate that was due to them rather than making the tenants apply to the rent review officer if the landlord won’t cough up the dough.

We regret the fact that landlords will not be required to register rent levels. The reason that’s a pity is that in many cases tenants will not have access to the information and, therefore, may not know whether or not the rent increase being demanded by the landlord is within the guidelines or is not.

We regret the fact that the fair rent provisions that we put forward for new buildings were not acceptable to the House. Given the submissions by landlords in a number of cases that they feared that rent review might be imposed on new buildings in a year or two or three, we thought it was desirable that people knew where they stand from the beginning rather than risk that that might come in at a later date. We thought that our suggestion was not a punitive one, but was one that was fair, that gave a reasonable return on equity to people investing in new accommodation, without leaving the wide open situation which we feel has been left by the total exemption of new buildings.

We wanted a better definition of costs and we’re sorry that we couldn’t get that. I think we’re rather particularly upset that where a landlord took a measure against a tenant by withdrawing a service that was essentially a non-monetary action against the tenant -- the closing of a garbage chute and the closing of a laundry room were two examples that came up during the course of the debate -- the rent review officers will only be empowered to try to find a monetary solution for that deprivation of a service provided to the apartment.

In many cases, there is no adequate monetary compensation because it could well be that the tenant just would prefer not to stay there at all if that service was withdrawn. We thought that the rent review officer should have the right to order the restoration of the service that had been taken away, and that that would be a better means to achieve a non-monetary redress for a non-monetary action by the landlord, and we were upset at the fact that the government and the Liberal Party did not see things that way.

Of all the amendments that we put forward which were not accepted, the one that we regret most is the fact that the government and the Liberal Party did not agree with our view that rent review officers or some other agency of government should have certain powers to enforce the Act, to launch investigations, to recommend prosecutions to the Attorney General’s department and that kind of thing.

That means, although the Act is fairly tight in a number of areas, it still relies basically on the tenants having the gumption, the organization and the knowledge to enforce it themselves. As the Act stands on paper it is not a tenant-initiated scheme, it’s a scheme where in certain cases landlords have to initiate appeals for rent increases and in certain cases the responsibility lies on tenants.

On paper, that’s what we suggested too, but we find it difficult to accept the fact that if a landlord is overcharging a tenant and if the tenant doesn’t say so and lodge a complaint, there is nobody else who can come in in order to protect the tenant. We fear that as in other jurisdictions where rent control has applied on a tenant-initiated basis, many of the tenants who are the poorest, the weakest and the least well-informed may be the ones who suffer from that particular failure to put in provisions to allow some organ of government, the rent review officers or somebody else, to enforce the Act. If landlords knew that even on a selective basis there would be a certain amount of monitoring, then we think the Act would tend to be more effectively adhered to.

I want to comment now on some of the political consequences of the bill and on two areas where we are in deep disagreement with what the government either did or attempted to do. I don’t think there is any question in anybody’s mind in this Legislature, as a result of the work we have done over the last four or five weeks, that the New Democratic Party has emerged from these hearings and from the consideration of Bill 20 as the party that has been fighting consistently and coherently and determinedly on behalf of the 900,000 or so tenants of this province.

Mr. Breithaupt: That’s what you think.

Mr. Lewis: Well, that’s true.

Mr. Cassidy: I don’t want to be provocative, but I may be.

Mr. Riddell: Don’t make statements like that then.

Mr. Breithaupt: If you’re going to take all this time, get on with it.

Mr. Cassidy: I would say, while we welcome the support of the Liberal Party on a number of amendments, and they have certainly co-operated with this party --

Mr. Breithaupt: We won every amendment.

Mr. Cassidy: -- in improving the bill, the fact is that the Liberal Party did emerge as schizophrenic in the public’s mind on this particular bill.

Mr. Breithaupt: You may seem to think so.

Mr. Cassidy: In certain circumstances, they supported measures to make the bill tougher and more effective.

Mr. Breithaupt: That resulted in a better bill.

Mr. Cassidy: In other cases, they supported measures that effectively weakened the bill and gave support to the landlords.

Mr. Reid: What do you do when you are not playing God?

Mr. Cassidy: As far as the government is concerned, I want to suggest they made two serious tactical and strategical errors on the bill. Those errors have had the effect of creating enormous distrust outside the House and have virtually eliminated any credit the government might have garnered with tenants, when it decided to move from the toothless proposals that the Premier had made during the summer to the much more effective rent control or rent review process that was proposed in the bill.

I am saying this with some charity. I think you blew it. I think the government could have come out of this --

Mr. Reid: He thinks he has all the answers.

Mr. Cassidy: -- with far more credit among tenants than it actually has and the improvements the House as a whole made to the bill will not bring credit on the government because of the one or two measures where it tried to weaken it.

One of those was the minister’s attempt to renege on his commitment that all tenants in private rental accommodation would be covered. I think it’s fairly clear the minister himself was terribly reluctant to come forward with that rather half-baked suggestion that certain people living in duplexes and triplexes as tenants would not have the protection of the bill. I don’t think he liked it at all but he was put in a difficult position by his cabinet colleagues and, therefore, as reluctant as he may have been, he moved an amendment that broke his commitment, and the government said it did not want a bill that would protect all tenants in private rental accommodation.

It’s fortunate that with the support of the Liberal Party the combined forces of the opposition were able to get a proper --

Mrs. Campbell: The amendment was put by the Liberal Party.

Mr. Breithaupt: We put the amendment actually.

Mr. Cassidy: I am not sure. At any rate both these parties put the amendment, and it’s fortunate that we were able to avoid that. I think the minister agreed with what we tried to do, but he couldn’t say so publicly. That certainly lost credibility for the government.

The other measure that lost credibility for the government was the changes that were made as far as 1975 was concerned, and those changes will have several effects. They allow a landlord and tenant to agree to a rent increase higher than eight per cent and to forgo the rebate, and they allow landlords to appeal for rent increases beyond the eight per cent from the July 30 starting date of this particular bill.

I don’t want to speak at length about this, but the danger in those measures is that they threaten to swamp the rent review officers in red tape and appeals, and they open the door to possible intimidation by landlords. They also promise to create tremendous confusion in 1976, since rent increases agreed to for 1975 may not be legal in 1976 until they have been approved through the rent review process. In other words, if a tenant has agreed to a 12 or 15 per cent increase in the latter half of 1975, what the law says is that he need pay no more than the eight per cent increase, beginning Jan. 1, 1976, until the landlord has appealed for the rest of it. Here too -- okay, I’m watching the clock -- there could be tremendous confusion, and tenants who were not aware of their rights could lose the protection that is provided by the bill.

The creation of loopholes in 1975, which we see as a measure to placate the landlords, was passed by the government and by the Liberals.

Mr. Breithaupt: Good for us.

Mr. Cassidy: When the amendments came forward, I expressed our reservations and said that the NDP would have to reconsider our support for the whole bill. We were shocked and upset by that particular change and, were there more time, I would speak on it at more length. However, as a caucus, we have given these changes consideration and have decided that while we think they’re deplorable, we do recognize that (a) they only apply to 1975 and (b) well-informed tenants will not be seriously endangered or damaged by those amendments. We still think that they’re bad and we still think that they are wrong, but since the bill as a whole has been improved in general by the amendments which apply to 1976 and beyond, we have decided not to move a reasoned amendment surrounding the weakening of the bill for 1975.

I want to say finally, since the House leader is suggesting that I conclude my remarks, that we see serious problems of education and information surrounding the administration of the bill, particularly since so much responsibility to enforce it is left with tenants. There are problems of red tape which are created by amendments or by provisions moved by the government.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: You are driving your own colleagues out of the House.

Mr. Cassidy: Rent controls, as the member for Bellwoods (Mr. McClellan) said, may be and are the essence of socialism but, in this particular case, this is Tory socialism; and because of the government’s ambivalent commitment to rent control, the procedures that are proposed in this bill may not work or may get bogged down in red tape. The problem, too, is that rent control on its own is not a panacea and must be accompanied by adequate housing policies to ensure that affordable housing is available across the province, and we have not seen those adequate housing policies from the government up until now.

So, while we support the bill, we have these reservations about it. We have the reservations about the responsibilities that are put on to tenants. We fear that, in six months or a year, the government is going to come back and say, “Look at the red tape, look at the burden of appeals, look at the delays,” and somehow try to suggest that we on this side of the House, as the original proponents of rent control are responsible.

This is the government’s version of rent control. We wish it well; we hope it works. We are committed ourselves to make rent control work in the province and we will do everything possible ourselves to inform tenants and to help them exercise their rights and, for that matter, to inform landlords in order to ensure that they too understand their rights and responsibilities under this bill and under Bill 26.

We welcome the fact that tenants, thanks to Bill 26, will have the ability to organize, which they have never had before, to work in groups in dealing with the landlord and not singly.

With these comments, and despite the reservations that are expressed, the New Democratic Party intends to support the bill. We wish it well. We think it’s a measure that has been long overdue and we are glad to see it installed in the Province of Ontario.

[5:00]

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Speaker, I shall not be lengthy in speaking to the bill. I believe that this legislation, which is new legislation, is something that must be supported by all of us; and not being God, I am not going to go into a long diatribe nor a long measure of self-praise about who gets credit for what. I believe this, Mr. Speaker; that basically the action of this Parliament has been good. We have had the ability for debate and it has been debate for the most part on a high level, in my view, expressing the concerns of all of us for the problems of those people who have been seriously damaged by reason of the actions taken by some landlords.

I am particularly pleased that those provisions for the payment of an excess of eight per cent were made possible by the amendments which were put by the Liberal Party. If you will recall, we had the provision originally for the wait of 60 days for a tenant before any excess could be paid, and then the subsequent provision of having to go to the rent review officer who might or might not make an order, might or might not make a finding. In my view, if the rent review officer failed to make such a finding, it would be difficult for a tenant to sustain any kind of action to enforce the penalty clauses of this bill.

Because we made it mandatory for the rent review officer not only to make a finding but to make an order, and followed that with the very clear right of the tenant after five clear days to start deducting the amount of the excess, it seems to me that we have gone a long way in trying to ensure to the tenant that he will or she will achieve that rebate, which is what is most important to such a tenant.

I was delighted that the government acceded to the position taken by the Liberals in introducing the amendment to grant coverage for all tenants under this bill; and, of course, delighted that the NDP found their way clear to support us in that position.

I believe that there will obviously be some problems initially in putting this bill into action. If the government should come back and blame us for that -- and I suppose they can if they like -- I’m willing to say now that when you’re putting this new piece of legislation to work, you’re going to have some problems; there’s no question about it. But I am convinced that with the amendments which have been made, it will work. I am sure it will.

I was delighted to be able to take the position on an amendment of the NDP -- because I believe in being fair in discussing this -- that gives the opportunity to municipalities to set up their rent review system. I think that might work very quickly if we can move to the appointment of those officers. I’m delighted that, coupled with Bill 26, there is now security of tenure. With these two pieces together, and with the very real concern of the Liberal Party to see that it works, we too have been advising and will continue to advise tenants of their rights and, I must say, already, some landlords of their responsibilities.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Oriole.

Interjection.

Mr. Williams: Mr. Speaker, I’m pleased that --

Interjections.

Mr. Cassidy: The minister said, “Oh, for Christ’s sake.”

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Williams: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the dignified comment from the member for Ottawa Centre.

Mr. Riddell: What did that prove, Mike?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Would he like to step outside?

Mr. Cassidy: My apologies, I was wrong. I’m sorry.

Mr. Williams: I would like to, as a member of the House who had the opportunity to chair the select committee that was established to preside over the public hearings, to comment briefly on what I think has been a successful conclusion.

I have to reiterate what I stated during the debate in the bill, namely, that I feel the basic intent and purpose of the legislation to bring a reasonable degree of stability to rental increases in the rental accommodation market was achieved without impairing the confidence of the private sector that is primarily responsible in our free enterprise system for providing the housing stock in this province.

It became readily apparent, during and at the conclusion of the public hearings, that the bill, as originally proposed, in fact, was not going to provide the equity and fairness that was intended in the first instance, by reason of the rigidity and inflexibility that existed in certain areas of the proposed legislation. I feel that the public hearings in themselves proved to be the catalyst and the basic reason for bringing greater equity and fair play into the legislation as finally passed by the House today. I feel the public hearings were well worth the time and effort, although there has been some criticism from the public at large as to the shortness of the hearings -- the shortness of notice given, in fact, if the bill was to be dealt with in this session of the House as it has been. The constraints imposed upon the committee were not of our doing, but I believe the committee as a whole did respond in a responsible way to those time constraints and did serve the public in the best way possible under those time constraints.

The only basic regret and failing in the legislation is with regard to the position taken by the opposition parties in giving the option to the local municipalities to appoint the rent review officers, because I’m satisfied, as I stated in the House during the debate, that this is bound to bring about untold delays and additional red tape. I pointed out to the House at the time, and argued strenuously against this, that by reason of the time of year and the fact that the local councils have completed their work for this year and will not be reconvening until well on into the month of January, in practice, those municipalities that exercise the option to make the appointment of rent review officers we will find from those situations that the appointment will be late in coming and that dealing with the initial applications by tenants and/or landlords will probably not receive a fair hearing and proper disposition until well into the first part of 1976. It’s regrettable that these delays will come about largely because of this amendment that was introduced into the legislation.

I am satisfied that if the responsibility of appointing the officers had been left in the hands of the province these appointments would have been made forthwith and the appropriate well-qualified officers would have been in a position to be operative and dealing with the first applications by the first of the year. In those situations where the options will be assumed by the municipalities, regrettably, because of the circumstances and the need for those municipalities to consider the legislation and to determine the procedures they will follow to make the appointments and possibly to advertise publicly for people to offer themselves in this position, the municipalities will not be in a position to deal effectively with that as I have indicated until probably well into the first quarter of 1976.

With regard to that aspect of the legislation I do have to express regret. Otherwise, I am satisfied that through the co-operation of all members of the House we have come forward with a responsible piece of legislation which has been spearheaded by this government. Through many of the amendments introduced by this government, based on the public hearings and the input received from the public which highlighted some of the inequities which existed in the initial instance, we now have a good piece of legislation which will provide equity and fairness to all parties involved.

The Conservative government is, I think, fairly entitled to full credit, with the co-operation of the opposition parties, for having brought forward this enlightened piece of legislation.

Motion agreed to, third reading of the bill.

THIRD READINGS (CONTINUED)

The following bills were given third reading upon motion:

Bill 26, An Act to amend the Landlord and Tenant Act.

Bill 41, An Act to amend the Planning Act.

Bill 42, An Act to amend the Conveyancing and Law of Property Act.

Bill 48, An Act to amend the Municipal Act.

Clerk of the House: The fifth order, resuming the adjourned debate on the amendment to the motion for an address in reply to the speech of the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor at the opening of the session.

THRONE SPEECH DEBATE (CONCLUDED)

Mr. Reid: If the members will clap for 20 minutes I’ll let it go at that.

In tune with it being the holiday season and since we are drawing to an end here I will try to keep my remarks, as I always do, non-partisan, non-political and certainly always rational.

Unfortunately, the first item of business I have to speak about is the results of the election which is just over. I wasn’t prepared to do that until I had the opportunity to read the Premier’s (Mr. Davis) remarks last Friday when he made his contribution, such as it was, to the Throne debate. Probably one of the more salutary aspects of the minority government situation and the results of the last election is the fact that the Premier himself has rediscovered the Legislature and is now taking time every once in a while, to come in and give us the benefit of his thought and his wisdom.

Mrs. Campbell: That was bad. You made it seem as though we need his wisdom.

[5:15]

Mr. Reid: I would like to say that the Premier, in his remarks -- and I understand full well that he was playing to galleries of defeated Tories --

Mr. Nixon: Brought in for a free lunch.

Mr. Reid: -- so that there was perhaps an ulterior motive in his remarks -- did his best to indicate to the House that in fact the Tories had not lost the election but that everybody else had. It was a weird and wonderful speech that the Premier made. How he could turn the disaster of the last election into a Tory victory is beyond me.

The Premier went into the last election with 74 Progressive Conservative seats; he wound up, after the election, with 51 seats; he lost 23 seats and lost control of the government. It is almost analogous to somebody going into a marble game with 74 marbles, losing 23 and coming out and saying he is the winner. I say that because there are those behind me who think that the Premier not only lost 23 marbles but all of them.

Now, for the bad news. The Premier was a loser doubly. First of all, he is the first Tory Premier in some 32 years of Progressive Conservative rule to have lost the mantle of majority government in the Province of Ontario. The second loss is really quite evident to us on this side when we look across at those benches. Bare as they are, they indicate full well the dearth of talent that was returned to the Progressive Conservative Party in the last election. There is no difference that they are not there, because it would make no difference. But it is obvious that the Premier had to turn to two recently elected members to give them two of the most important and sensitive positions in government, that of Attorney General (Mr. McMurtry) and of Minister of Labour (B. Stephenson).

It is interesting -- and I don’t say this unkindly to anyone, especially you, Margaret; I like you, Margaret --

Mr. Ruston: She’s very charming.

Hon. Mrs. Birch: I like you.

Mr. Reid: I have always liked women, Mr. Speaker. I would like that on the record right now.

Mr. Bullbrook: Do you want us to leave?

Mr. Nixon: That is a chauvinist remark.

Mr. Reid: If the leader of the New Democratic Party can get up and tell the Premier that he likes him, surely I can tell the minister that I like her.

Mr. Ruston: No odd couple here.

Mr. Speaker: Don’t forget, you are supposed to speak through the Speaker.

Mr. Reid: There is nothing strange about the people in this party, Mr. Speaker.

The problem is that there is nowhere for the Premier to go. He has used up all the talent he has; it is tired, it is old, it is decrepit and it is bankrupt of ideas. Take a look at those benches. Is the Premier going to make the member for Middlesex (Mr. Eaton) the Minister of Agriculture and Food?

Mr. Ruston: No.

Mr. Nixon: Throw him right out.

Mr. Reid: My God, the farmers of the province would rather go to Manitoba than serve under that kind of Minister of Agriculture and Food.

Mr. Foulds: Manitoba’s a good province.

Mr. Reid: The problem is that the Premier has no one to draw upon.

Mr. Eakins: He has got Frank up there.

Mr. Reid: I’ll let that one slip by, Mr. Speaker. But there is a dearth of talent; there is no way the Premier can shuffle his cabinet without shuffling the same old tired faces.

Mr. R. S. Smith: What about that guy from Ottawa?

Mr. Reid: I say, in that regard, we in the Liberal Party were the winners in that election. As a result of that election, we have more bright, capable people to form a cabinet in this party than in the two other parties combined.

Mr. Bullbrook: Don’t let Lorne hear you say that.

Mr. Reid: Mr. Speaker, so you don’t go out for coffee, I am going to tell you about the quality of candidates, the NDP candidates in particular, elected last time.

Mr. Foulds: Coming third is winning, in your view?

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. member for Rainy River was making some remarks.

Mr. Reid: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I hear some cackling from the members on my right. They say that coming third is not winning. Well, I would point out to them that their percentage of the popular vote went up about one per cent. The only adjective you can use to describe the socialists is lucky; that’s it. Nothing else -- lucky.

Mr. Bain: That is a good start.

Mr. Reid: Because if you look at the statistics you will see that their percentage of popular vote did not increase.

Mr. Ferrier: Not in the right places.

Mr. Reid: We beat them in Toronto. We beat them in southeastern Ontario. We beat them in eastern Ontario. In fact, there was no great socialistic surge across the Province of Ontario. The recent results in BC have proven that people are going to come to their senses eventually, and they are not going to vote for that kind of party.

An hon. member: Right on.

An hon. member: How many Liberals did they elect?

Mr. Reid: I want to say to you, Mr. Speaker, that the statistics are obvious; that the Tory hold in southern Ontario and the Tory hold in eastern Ontario has been broken, and I predict a Liberal sweep next time. I want to say to you, Mr. Speaker --

Mr. Cassidy: It is the season.

Mr. Reid: -- that is a result of the work almost single-handedly of the present leader of the Liberal Party in the Province of Ontario.

Interjections.

Mr. Reid: That particular gentleman, Mr. Speaker, has brought the Liberal Party to the highest number of members in the past 32 years in this province. Except for a slight accident of a few statistics -- if we could have turned around a few of the votes of the member for Perth and distributed them -- the other parties would almost be wiped out. The member for Ottawa Centre is wearing a religious adornment around his neck, and I suggest his party all pray to it very hard between now and then, because they are going to need all the help they can get the next time around.

Mr. Samis: You needed help this time around.

Mr. Reid: Mr. Speaker, I said that victory was due to the work of one man. As you know, I would like to draw to the House’s attention that this is probably the last day that the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk (Mr. Nixon) will remain in his seat as leader of the Liberal Party. I would like to personally, and on behalf of my colleagues, thank him for the great contribution that he has made to the Province of Ontario and the people of Ontario.

[Applause.]

Mr. Speaker, I am not making any eulogy for the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk. He will continue to serve the people of the province very well indeed.

I want to speak about the great change, the metamorphosis of my friends to the right. You know, Mr. Speaker, they no longer are socialists. They are social democrats. Now there are some of us who have been wondering in this chamber just exactly what the difference is between a socialist and a social democrat.

Mr. Warner: Explain what Liberal Labour is.

Mr. Germa: What is Liberal Labour?

Mr. Reid: Well, the people of Rainy River certainly know what Liberal Labour means.

I might add, Mr. Speaker, as a complete aside, that I was very -- honoured, I guess, is the word -- that the Premier himself was up in northwestern Ontario and was in my riding the day before he announced the last election.

Interjection.

Mr. Reid: And I am also honoured and impressed, Mr. Speaker, that the leader of the NDP didn’t even bother coming to my riding this time to see if they could get that particular candidate elected.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: He is afraid of the dogs.

Mr. Reid: I told you we’re looking after the dogs.

I was trying to outline for members the essential difference between a socialist and a now social democrat, which is what I understand we now have sitting on our right.

The essential difference is that now, instead of rather casual suits -- perhaps jeans and open shirts -- we have the three-piece suits complete with vest; complete with carnation; the button-down shirts; the leather jackets; the leather coats.

We have those representatives of the poor and oppressed driving to the Legislature in their big Mercurys and their Mercedes-Benzes. The spokesman for those poor, downtrodden people flits out of the Legislature at 10:30, ensconces himself in the back seat of the silver-grey Chrysler Imperial, with his pipe clutched maturely and responsibly in his teeth, and rides off into the great suburbs of Toronto.

Mr. Bullbrook: It sure beats firefighting, I’ll tell you.

Mr. Reid: No more of the old socialist Volkswagens or mini-cars or $90 suits. We have now arrived, Mr. Speaker. When one elevates one’s position one must change everything, including one’s name. So they are no longer socialists; they are now social democrats.

Interjections.

Mr. Reid: As my colleague from Sarnia (Mr. Bullbrook) points out there is even the odd change of hairdo over there on that side.

Not only that, they have now become very conservative in their approach. For instance, when one of the more rambunctious and radical members of that party yesterday indicated that perhaps we should nationalize the forest industry, the member for York South (Mr. MacDonald) almost turned apoplectic in his seat.

Mr. Foulds: Just Abitibi.

Mr. Reid: That great, raving socialist -- and I’ve read his speeches -- who was going to nationalize everything including the pay toilets in the Province of Ontario is now, with his new-found respectability, wincing at the word nationalization.

Mr. Foulds: I thought the pay toilets were nationalized.

Mr. Reid: Also part of the new garb is the ability of two of their leading members to get up in this Legislature -- and to issue a press release -- asking for a raise for the poor, impoverished members of the Legislature.

Interjections.

Mr. Reid: I find the metamorphosis almost hard to follow. Such a change is almost the same as Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus.

Mr. Samis: What about the federal Liberals? They got a 50 per cent raise.

Mr. Cassidy: Your leader believes in those things.

Mr. Reid: Mr. Speaker, we were talking about the NDP. It’s been said that all power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely but in their case a little power has just made them light-headed. I want to tell the House something, and I won’t mention any names because I’m not going to be personal here today; I never am.

The Liberals had a caucus meeting shortly after the election for which I came down and before I went into the caucus room I had to make a small stop in the men’s room. Just before I went in three NDP members preceded me. One went to the urinal; the other two stood around.

Mr. Bullbrook: He was shy.

Mr. Reid: By the way, they were on their third caucus meeting; they’d already met twice. Being, I guess, basically a free enterpriser, I went to one of the cubicles and locked myself in. I prefer to do my business in private.

Mr. Foulds: Considering the circumstances, that’s probably the best thing to do.

Mr. Reid: As I went in one of the three members of the NDP, I’m not sure which one, said to me --

Mr. Breaugh: Bring in a cubicle.

[5:30]

Mr. Reid: He said, “Say, what time is our caucus this afternoon?” I said, “I’m sorry, I don’t know. I’m not a member of your party.” There was a blank look and silence. I came out and was going out the door and two of the members were still standing around. There are only two conclusions I can draw; either the leader was afraid that if they went to the washroom one by one they would all get lost, or secondly, that it was typical socialist policy that you needed three people to do the job of one person.

Mr. Cassidy: You had to strain for that one.

Mr. Reid: That’s going to be an abiding problem --

Mr. Bain: Now you know why they are the third party.

Mr. Reid: -- with the socialists, because while the leader of the NDP is no doubt articulate, is no doubt witty, they really don’t have much to back him up. It’s been proven in BC, it’s been proven in Saskatchewan, it’s been proven particularly in Manitoba, because when Ed Schreyer goes, the NDP will be gone even faster than Barrett was from BC.

Mr. Bain: When Bob Nixon goes the Liberals will be finished in Ontario.

Mr. Reid: There is no possible way the leader of the NDP could form a cabinet out of that kind, those kind of -- well, never mind -- he can’t do it, it’s impossible.

I want to go back to the remarks of the Premier. I want to say at the outset that I personally have a high regard for the Premier, his honesty and his integrity, but I was a little disappointed in the kind of tone he used and the attack that he made on my party, and indirectly on my leader, in his Throne debate speech last Friday. I don’t think that he lived up to the expectations of what the people think a Premier of this province should be, in the kind of attack that he made last Friday.

I feel that to a large extent the remarks the Premier made were that there was a great deal of acrimony in the last election -- and there was, there is no doubt about it. But the Premier has, in the five years he has been Premier, been able to play the role very well of Pontius Pilate, of abnegating any responsibility for what this government does and what the cabinet ministers say. I want you to cast your mind back, Mr. Speaker, to May, 1975, when the hon. member for St. George, Mrs. Scrivener --

Mrs. Campbell: What?

Mr. Reid: -- or St. David, pardon me, St. David.

Mrs. Campbell: Yes, don’t confuse us.

Mr. Reid: I am sorry, Margaret.

Interjections.

Mr. Reid: In a speech back on May 8, and I quote that particular member, she said:

“Although Mr. Nixon, the Liberal leader, has made some statements about integrity and honesty in politics, his party actually contributes very little of a substantive nature in this regard.”

[She goes on in another quote:] “Traditionally, gerrymandering has been something at which the Liberal Party in all parts of Canada has been notably adept.”

From there she descended to even lower levels, and in a speech on March 19, 1975, she said this:

“I firmly believe the Ottawa Liberals and politicians are cutting back federal financial assistance for housing to embarrass the provincial Progressive Conservative government of William Davis, and to assist Liberal Robert Nixon in his campaign to become Premier of Ontario.”

[And further on in the speech:] “To use federal power and the federal budget for this purpose, in my view, is cheap and disgusting, a dirty trick. It will destroy political morality all across this nation for generations to come.” [Again, another quote from a similar speech:] “So it is my guess that the Ottawa boys that have been injected into the Ontario Liberal scene will have a free hand to play any kind of politics they think can win the election, and gigantic dirty tricks, like the one I have described, are part of the game.”

Now, in the context of Watergate and everything that happened there, I find those remarks objectionable, whether they are aimed at my party or any other party in this Legislature. I never heard the Premier stand in his place and say that he dissociated himself from that kind of an attack, or those kinds of remarks.

I want to bring another example to your attention, Mr. Speaker. Probably one of the most scurrilous and invidious attacks on anybody I’ve heard in my eight years here was made by John White, then the Minister without Portfolio in charge of the re-election of the Conservative government at the taxpayers’ expense.

On April 7, 1975, John White called the leader of this party a traitor because the leader of this party happened to say that René Levesque was not a nut, not a kook, but in many ways a reasonable man. Now that is a very serious charge and had it been made outside of this House, Mr. White would have been charged with libel and slander and would have lost the case. Those are two examples of cabinet ministers making personal, unwarranted attacks, and yet the Premier did nothing to refute those comments, to set the record straight or to dissociate himself and the government from those kinds of attacks.

An hon. member: Shame.

Mr. Reid: I’m not going to speak, Mr. Speaker --

[Applause.]

Mr. Reid: Everybody has to do something well, fellows.

Mr. Foulds: And you’re still searching, aren’t you.

Interjections.

Mr. Reid: I’m not going to speak about the kind of campaign put on by some of the members, in the Ottawa area in particular, but I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, from the newspaper comments and the ads --

Mr. Lewis: Not to mention the Peninsula.

Mr. Reid: -- it bordered on a racist and class appeal to prejudice. I just want that on the record so that there will be no mistake in anyone’s mind that the Premier himself has to accept some kind of responsibility for the last election. He cannot continue, as he does, to play Pontius Pilate and wash his hands and say, “I have nothing to do with it.”

Mr. Lewis: The worst campaign in Ontario was in one of the ridings in the Peninsula.

Interjections.

Mr. Reid: I wanted to speak about the government’s dismal failure in the housing field, their abject failure in the transportation field, the lack of land-use planning that we have been promised for years, the deterioration of the quality of education, the complete emasculation of the Toronto-centred region plan, the failure to do anything about high prices and housing and unemployment in northern Ontario -- and so the catalogue goes on. Because of constraints of time, I won’t dwell on those at length.

I would like to repeat our Liberal amendment and spend the next five minutes discussing that. Our amendment is “but this House regrets the failure of the government to accept its responsibility to provide for the direct administration of federal wage and price controls.” It has been the position of our party from the outset that we, as provincial legislators and as a provincial Legislature, have a direct responsibility for any kind of anti-inflation programme that there is.

There are four questions that I imagine we can ask ourselves. Is it constitutional for the province to delegate its powers to the federal government in such a way as to abdicate all its responsibilities at this level? I would like to refer to “Laskin’s Canadian Constitutional Lawbook,” edited by Albert Able, published in 1973. That book on constitutional law, in Hodge vs the Queen, says -- and I would like to quote:

“Since then the Supreme Court of Canada, which affirmed the stand of earlier cases that (without amendment of the BNA Act) interdelegation between Dominion Parliament and provincial Legislature as such is unconstitutional.”

I am not a constitutional lawyer -- fortunately, I’m not even a lawyer, Mr. Speaker -- but I think my colleague from Riverdale (Mr. Renwick) has looked into this also --

Interjection.

Mr. Reid: It would appear that in fact the law is unconstitutional. The Treasurer (Mr. McKeough) calls our bringing this to his attention a quibble. Well, surely it isn’t. We’re lawmakers; we make laws and we’re here to see that they’re enforced. How we as a Legislature, because of an emergency -- and we can settle that -- can, ignore the law and expect others to pay attention to it is beyond me.

The second question is, is the provincial government position responsible? Obviously, it’s not responsible. We are under the British North America Act given direct constitutional responsibilities for such things as education and others. I won’t go through the whole list, but obviously we have responsibility and nobody questions that. Therefore, it is our responsibility to take responsibility and be accountable to the people of the province for those matters under our jurisdiction.

I don’t blame the Treasurer and the Premier for jumping into bed with the federal Liberals so quickly on it, and abnegating their responsibility. No doubt they’re laughing themselves to sleep every night because they know that the sins of the federal Liberals are going to be visited on them and the sins of the Progressive Conservative Party in the Province of Ontario are going to be visited on the federal Liberals, rather than accept the responsibility that they were elected to exercise.

Why are we not opting in under 4(4) instead of 4(3)? In his remarks on the third or fourth time he spoke on the anti-inflation programme, the Treasurer indicated that while Bill C-73 suggested that those controls on wages and so on, would extend for three years, he began to waffle and said that perhaps in 13 months the province would opt out of section 4(3) of Bill C-73. Well, I would predict and my colleague from Sarnia (Mr. Bullbrook) has predicted that we’ll have our own anti-inflation board within six months.

The Treasurer has made much of the fact that the problem of inflation today requires a strong federal initiative. We agree. He goes on then to make the point that, therefore, the federal government should control the whole spectrum, but if that is so, why did the federal government in Bill C-73 make specific provision for the provinces to set up their own anti-inflation boards particularly in the public sectors. The Treasurer’s argument doesn’t hold water.

The hypocrisy of the position of the Premier and the Treasurer is that they themselves are the authors of inflation to a large extent in the Province of Ontario. I’d like to quote from the Financial Times of Dec. 15, 1975. The title of the story is “Provinces Outspend Ottawa.” One of the quotes is:

“Perhaps surprisingly, the statistics reveal that it is the Tory government in Ontario that seems most committed to spending its way out of recession. In fact, when it comes to practising restraint, the provinces have a poorer record than Ottawa.”

This province is planning on spending an additional 17 per cent over last year’s estimates in the coming year. What kind of restraint is that?

Why did the Treasurer and the Premier jump so quickly between those incestuous sheets with the federal Liberals? I quote from the Premier’s speech of last Friday, page 1630, of Hansard:

“I believe, however, that the 1975 campaign was perhaps something of a watershed ... during difficult economic times, during a crisis of national economic leadership and during a period when general public distrust of those at all levels of all governments was perhaps at its highest. Barely 12 months after the people of Ontario gave a national mandate to a government in Ottawa, which has since been found guilty of more reversals and betrayals than perhaps any other in our history, it was a tough time to seek re-election.”

The Premier had the unmitigated gall to stand in his place and castigate the federal government for being guilty of more reversals and betrayals and, in the same breath, he hands over provincial responsibility to that same government.

Mr. Bullbrook: How do you rate that?

Mr. Reid: How can anyone rationalize that? The Treasurer rationalizes by screaming, hollering and calling us a bunch of fools and quibbling about the constitution, but I’d like to hear the windup speaker for the Tories rationalize that.

[5:45]

Hon. Mr. Welch: So would we.

Mr. Reid: We’ve listened for years to the Treasurer and the Premier castigate the federal Liberals and yet, with undue haste, they are handing over provincial responsibilities.

There’s a further anomaly here. I just want to reiterate it so that it’s clear and on the record. What is going to happen in a hypothetical case if the teachers and the board in Metro Toronto do not come to an agreement? Are we, as a Legislature, after the Christmas break going to come back in the early days of January and legislate them back to work? I’d say that it’s 9/10 at this stage. Nobody wants to do it but I think we probably will wind up doing that.

Mr. Bain: The member for Grey-Bruce (Mr. Sargent) asked for that.

Mr. Reid: We are going to pass a provincial statute in the Province of Ontario legislating those people back to work, but because we’ve abrogated our responsibility, we cannot dictate any kind of financial settlement because it has to go to the federal jurisdiction to be passed upon. How do you square that one? How do you rationalize that?

Mr. Laughren: Get rid of those federal Liberals; that is the answer.

Mr. Germa: Get rid of Trudeau.

Mr. Reid: There is another anomaly which is even clearer. What is going to happen when the province sits down with its civil servants and negotiates a contract? What happens then? This august body, the Management Board of Cabinet comes to an agreement. Then do we take that agreement, obviously the responsibility of the Province of Ontario, to Ottawa and say: “Look, would you tell us what we should do about this?” It doesn’t make sense. It’s a complete abnegation of responsibility. Our amendment doesn’t deal with the private sector. It deals with the public sector. Surely to God it’s become obvious to the Attorney General (Mr. McMurtry), to the Minister of Health (Mr. F. S. Miller), and to the Minister of Education (Mr. Wells) in particular, that they have made a shambles of it.

There is a further point -- and I’m almost finished, you’ll be happy to know.

Mr. Moffatt: Oh, thank heavens!

Mr. Reid: It is simply the practicality of the whole case. Already we’re told that there is a backlog of some 200 cases before the Anti-Inflation Board in Ottawa. The Minister of Education, at one point, was telling the House that we would have to wait up to 18 months to get a ruling.

Hon. Mr. Henderson: They don’t like you.

Mr. Martel: What stupid government would introduce that?

Mr. Foulds: That is called federal Liberal efficiency.

Mr. Reid: This kind of administrative chaos is going to tear the social fabric of Ontario apart, and it’s going to be the responsibility of those people over there.

Our amendment to the Speech from the Throne is clear. I would point out that the NDP has indicated it agrees with it in principle. Their leader waffled, as he sometimes does, about supporting it. We feel it’s fundamental to the Province of Ontario. They do not seek an election. We don’t want one either but we feel that the position has to be put as strongly as possible because that is our responsibility as members of this Legislature.

Merry Christmas, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Warner: That’s a revelation.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Wentworth.

Mr. Good: I thought we would at least have had their leader on this.

Mr. Deans: First of all, I want to congratulate the Speaker not only on his re-appointment as Speaker but also on the fact that he’s now beginning to exercise a great deal more control over the Legislature, although I can appreciate from time to time that is difficult. I also want to congratulate the member for Lake Nipigon (Mr. Stokes) because as a member of the NDP I would like to say we’re proud to have him as the Deputy Speaker and we’re both pleased and gratified with the job that he does. He fulfils all of the expectations that we had with regard to the job. I want also to congratulate the member for Simcoe East (Mr. G. E. Smith) on the work he does in the chair in your absence and the work he does on behalf of all of the members of the House.

I am not going to speak for very long. I like to try to honour the commitments I make and so in that regard I will try to keep myself to a reasonable length of time.

I recently read a document printed by the Rotary Club of Hamilton with regard to a speech made by a Mr. J. H. Moore. Mr. Moore is the director of development at McMaster University. He said, “One of our most serious problems is that so many politicians at all levels are just not capable of coping with the increasingly complex problems of a modern technological society.” He went on to quote a Richard Morris and said, “Government is in the hands of the second-rate and the third-rate. No first-rate people want to expose themselves.”

Hon. Mr. Henderson: Not second rate, first rate.

Mr. Deans: I want to tell members I was going to argue --

Mr. Nixon: Hi, there, Santa Claus.

Interjections.

Mr. Deans: I was going to argue about that today. I was about to get up and to take this man on over his statement until I heard the speech of the member for Rainy River (Mr. Reid).

Interjections.

Mr. Deans: I have rarely heard a speech with less content. I have never heard a member speak so ill-prepared. I thought that in the Legislature we might have reached a point where we weren’t going to engage in personalities. Obviously, that isn’t the case. The member for Rainy River makes great protests about how he doesn’t want to engage in them but he does. I think it must be plain that anyone who can devote 25 minutes of a 35-minute speech to talking about other people in the House certainly doesn’t rate much more than a second- or third-rate rating.

Mr. Lewis: And half of that 25 minutes was in a washroom.

Mr. Deans: I want to say something about the outcome of the election so that the Liberal Party understands it. Regardless of how they make the calculations, regardless of how they see the results, they were third.

Mr. Good: Enjoy it while you have it. You won’t have it long.

Mr. Lewis: We will.

Mr. Deans: I want to say something to the House leaders, the member for Brock (Mr. Welch) and the member for Kitchener (Mr. Breithaupt), it has been a pleasure to work with them. I think that in the main the work done has been productive; the Legislature has probably operated better because of the kind of co-operation available from all the people charged with those responsibilities. I am particularly pleased to be associated with both of them in that capacity. I want also to thank the Premier (Mr. Davis) for the words that he did have on behalf of the House leaders in the House on Friday last.

I want also to take a moment to thank my colleagues for the support and the confidence they have placed in me. It wasn’t easy to begin a new job in a new Parliament in a situation which hadn’t been faced in the Province of Ontario for many long years, and to try to find the proper approach and the proper avenues which would enable us to get ahead with the business of the House without causing either undue delay or, for that matter, without in any way inhibiting members from taking part. I think and I hope we have been able to do that. I appreciate the opportunity to have done it on behalf of the official opposition.

I think the Legislature has a tremendous opportunity. I think this Legislature can probably be the very best Legislature in modern history. I think the evidence of that is in the amount of dedication we see in new members and returning members alike.

I think there was excellent preparation in the majority of the speeches made and quite obviously members appointed to committees have spent many long hours into the night working by themselves and with each other in an effort to become aware of the many topics they are going to have to deal with in order that they can deal with them sensibly and sensitively. I think we have seen evidence of a tireless effort on behalf of all the members during this short session because we have accomplished a great deal during this short session.

We have accomplished a lot as a result of the election. I think this Legislature, given its numbers and the balance it has, has an opportunity to provide the kind of government for the Province of Ontario that has been lacking over the years. I think the government up until 1975 had become a bit complacent -- “a bit complacent” may not even describe it. I think the government had become extremely complacent; I think it had become arrogant. It worried me as I sat here from 1967 to 1975 that more and more of that arrogance was evident. I am now convinced that the result of the last election has returned to the government benches, as it has to the opposition benches --

Mr. Reid: Yes, but the arrogance has been transferred.

Mr. Deans: -- a proper sense of the responsibilities that each one of us has to face.

Mr. Reid: Political posturing.

Mr. Deans: It is always nice to have comment from the member for Rainy River -- ridiculous though it may be.

I want to say I think that the people of Ontario are being better served now by this Legislature than they have been in modern history -- and I think there is a lot yet to be done. I think the Legislature deserves the opportunity to do the kinds of things that will benefit so many people right across the province.

What we have been able to do, over the last five or six or seven weeks, is only an indication of what can be done by people who are committed, who understand the problems and who are not afraid to take positions and to fight for what they believe is right. This isn’t the time for posturing.

Mr. Reid: Are you supporting the amendment?

Mr. Deans: This isn’t a time for petty political games. This isn’t a time for one-upmanship.

Interjections.

Mr. Deans: This is a time for common sense. Common sense is something that the Liberals have long shown they were without.

Mr. Reid: Cut out the political posturing. Talk about political posturing -- vote for the amendment.

Mr. Deans: It is very easy to find political manoeuvring that can gain --

Interjections.

Mr. Lewis: If we voted for that amendment they would collapse in panic -- all of them.

Mr. Reid: So would everybody in those rows over there.

Hon. Mr. Henderson: You would have to go through another election.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Deans: It is very easy if you want to check through the records to find ways of embarrassing the government. It is very easy to take the traditional methods that have been available to us over the years and to use them to your own political advantage. The trouble with that is, of course, that we are not now dealing with the kind of Legislature that we were in in 1963 or 1967 or, for that matter, in 1971.

We are dealing with a Legislature that not only can but does produce legislation that is worthwhile. We like to think that we can participate in that. We like to think that over the course of the next few months we will be able to take part in the electoral process of the Province of Ontario, but only after every single avenue has been exhausted in terms of trying to find a solution to the many problems that confront the people that I represent -- that confront the people that most members here represent.

So, it is for that reason that we can’t support the Liberal amendment. It is not because the Liberal amendment in itself is wrong. It is not because what they are asking for is wrong. It is not because of that at all. It is because we have to understand that this Legislature has a lot of work yet to be done.

Mr. Reid: What are you politically posturing for then? Let’s hear from the member for Riverdale.

Mr. Deans: The only way we can be sure that that work will be done properly is to carry on into the next session and to see how the government intends to address the many problems that I am about to speak about briefly.

Let me tell you, the government is going to have to shape up. The atmosphere here in the Legislature and throughout the province will not allow the kinds of answers given by the Minister of Health (Mr. F. S. Miller) just yesterday to the problems of the people of Port Hope.

They won’t allow the kinds of sloughing off of the many difficult situations that confront people in the environment that were evidenced by the answer of the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Kerr) yesterday when he was asked with regard to the people at Port Hope.

It won’t allow the Attorney General (Mr. McMurtry) to stand up and say, “Yes, there are all kinds of reasons why we can’t allow that information to be made public” -- without having first given some serious thought to it; and without first having given a lot of consideration to what those reasons are and whether or not they are valid in the Province of Ontario at this time.

The people of this province are insisting that what is done here is relevant. They are insisting that the answers are related somehow or other to the problems that they are confronted with.

Mr. Bullbrook: Hey, Ian! You and Dougie have the same tailor.

[6:00]

Mr. Deans: The situation at the moment in the Province of Ontario won’t allow the Attorney General to spend more time before the cameras and less time bringing in legislation. He has gone through the publicity operation. It was very nice and I now suggest to him it’s time to show what he really intends to do. Then let’s judge it in here on its merit and let’s not have the people of the province wondering exactly what we are all about.

I think the political situation in the Province of Ontario doesn’t allow the Minister of Labour (B. Stephenson), who unfortunately isn’t here, to make statements about the aims and the objectives of bargaining units and to make statements with regard to unions using safety and health as a means to gain more money at the bargaining table.

I don’t think it allows the kinds of statements such as those made recently by the Minister of Correctional Services (Mr. J. R. Smith), which are insensitive and obviously made by someone who doesn’t understand the difficulties of trying to raise children in this province in this very difficult economic environment. I think that’s what we are asking for -- if ministers are going to make statements, for heaven’s sake make them and make them relevant but don’t make them simply because they will gain front-page coverage in the newspapers.

It doesn’t allow the Minister of Government Services (Mrs. Scrivener) to hold parties to pass on the great seal. It doesn’t allow the Minister of Housing (Mr. Rhodes) to talk, one day, about how he doesn’t like rent controls and to change his mind by the following morning.

These are the kinds of things which make people wonder about the validity of the whole operation we are about in the province. I think at this time, because of the changing atmosphere, there is going to have to be a much clearer indication from the government and the ministers are going to have to vet their own speeches a little better. They are going to have to decide what can be said and not only what can be said but what can be lived up to.

I have no comment on the Minister without Portfolio (Mr. Henderson). The reason I have no comment is I am still awaiting the announcement of what it is he actually does. One thing I know he doesn’t do, is devote much of his time to my riding. That I am sure about. Neither do I devote much time to his.

Hon. Mr. Henderson: I have had to in the past.

Mr. Speaker: I would remind the hon. member for Lambton that if he wants to engage in interjection, he should do it from his own seat.

Interjections.

Mr. Lewis: If he can find his way there.

An hon. member: Follow the red light in front of you.

Mr. Deans: The mood in the Province of Ontario has changed to the extent that the people are now demanding action; they are demanding truth from the statements being made.

I want to say to the Minister of Health that the statement issued attached to the chart showing the concentration of picocuries per litre in Port Hope is misleading to say the least; grossly misleading. With a tiny asterisk in the third column of the Dec. 12 section on the relevant tests, it shows a situation which, by the statement itself -- if read closely -- is virtually impossible to attain in the Province of Ontario during the months when the children must use the school. It says, “Under abnormally good ventilation conditions, not sustainable in winter.”

It is time the government started to address itself to the problems of those people. It is time its members addressed themselves not only to those problems but the problems of the people working in the many factories across the Province of Ontario who are suffering -- their health is suffering and their families’ health is suffering -- as the result of the inactivity of the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Labour and, to some extent, the Ministry of the Environment.

It’s the kind of callous attitude that appears to be there when the minister can’t come to grips with a problem; when he tries to slough it off with a statement which is, on its surface, misleading and wrong.

It is the risk he is prepared to take with other people’s lives that worries me. It is the risk he is prepared to take in the interest of saving money or making money. That’s what worries me.

Let me go on for two minutes longer. I want to say this to the members: The time between now -- can I ask for the unanimous consent of the House to proceed beyond 6 o’clock, Mr. Speaker?

Mr. Kennedy: Make it good and we’ll okay it.

Mr. Deans: Thank you. I want to say that in the time between now and when the House reconvenes there are some matters which this government must address itself to.

To begin with, it has to address itself to the cost of energy. It must find ways to ensure that the world price for oil is not passed on to the people of the Province of Ontario. They can’t, in this period of inflation, with restraints being placed on the wages of the workers of the province, expect that they will somehow or other be able to find the money to absorb these additional costs. So it may be necessary, and we suggest that it is necessary, that they reimpose a price freeze, that they reimpose that price freeze and that during the period when it’s in effect they then look for ways to monitor, ways to regulate the price at the retail level, in order that the people of the Province of Ontario will not have to carry a price which is artificially inflated and intended to satisfy a few people in western Canada and a lot of people outside the shores of Canada altogether.

They must address themselves, secondly, to the whole matter of housing. When the Treasurer (Mr. McKeough) stands up and talks about an increase in expenditures in the housing field of 2.2 per cent, there’s something terribly wrong. When the housing market is such that the price of housing is rising by leaps and bounds across the province, when the average price in Metropolitan Toronto is raised to a point of almost $59,000, when the average family cannot find a way to get accommodation for itself, just bringing in rent controls isn’t going to be enough, they have to embark on a major housing programme and that major housing programme requires far greater expenditures by the Province of Ontario than this government is prepared to make.

Let me say this about the expenditures: they’re not simply expenditures for the purpose of providing accommodation, but they also provide employment, which is the second thing that we must have in the Province of Ontario during this period. If they’re serious about finding ways to put people to work, if they’re serious about stimulating the economy, if they’re serious about providing accommodation for people, then, for heaven’s sake, surely they can do all three with one expenditure. Surely, they can find ways to raise the necessary capital that will enable us to provide a sufficient number of houses in the Province of Ontario at a price that people can afford, and thereby meet the obligations of employment, meet the obligations of stimulation of the economy and also meet their obligations in the provision of accommodation.

The most recent statement with regard to farm income brings me to my next point. It is evident from all of the latest statistical information that the net farm income in the Province of Ontario for 1976 will be considerably lower than the net farm income in the year 1975. If we’re going to be able to provide the food that the people of this province need, not only now but in the future, then they’re going to have to bring in an income stabilization programme for farmers. That’s one of the things that this government is going to have to address itself to between now and the time we hold the next election in this province.

It’s evident that if we’re going to have a drop in net farm income it will be increasingly more difficult to find young people who will stay on farms, to find young people and older people who will be able to withstand the tremendous pressures of the developers and land speculators who will offer them substantially more for their land than it might be able to yield to them if it were in production. We can’t afford to lose that land. We can’t afford to lose it, not only for this generation today, but we can’t afford to lose it for the children who are now growing up and the children who have yet to be born, and we have an obligation as a Legislature and as a government to fulfil that, if nothing else.

We have to address ourselves seriously to the whole matter of safety and health. There must be a programme of restraint, but let me caution the Treasurer, Mr. Speaker, restraint will be meaningful only if it is not just simply a transferral of obligations previously undertaken by the Province of Ontario to other jurisdictions. We cannot move our responsibilities from the province to the municipality and call that restraint, and that appears to be what they’re going to do. There is no one in this House who would deny that we have to find ways to cut the budget of the Province of Ontario. Let me remind them that the over-expenditure, the extravagance, the frills, were all wrought by a Conservative government; every single one.

Hon. W. Newman: Are you talking about agricultural land, too? Let’s make it clear.

Mr. Deans: Over the last eight years this government has failed to understand the very elementary methods used in financing a jurisdiction of this size. This government has failed to understand that in years of prosperity, such as we went through in the Sixties and towards the beginning of the Seventies, we have to build up surpluses to use during periods of economic strain, such as those that we’re facing today, and we don’t impose further hardship on people by cutting the areas where it most affects the individual. They cannot expect that the people of the Province of Ontario will turn a blind eye to the extravagances and mismanagements of the governments that preceded this one, under the same Conservative leadership, and somehow attach themselves to the government’s restraint packages.

If there is any blame to be laid, then it must be laid four-square at the feet of the current Treasurer, who has been Treasurer previously; to the Premier who led the last government, and to many of the government members who supported the governments from 1963 through to 1975, because that’s where the problem lies.

We’re prepared to engage in a very careful review of all of the expenditures of this government. We are prepared to sit down and to find the ways the cuts can be made, but let me say this: don’t dare go back into another election and make lavish promises about the things the government is prepared to do for the people of the Province of Ontario until it has cleaned house in the area of fiscal mismanagement, because that’s where the problems lie. They can’t go around spending hundreds of millions of dollars in pre-election ad hoc-ery and gimmickry and then turn around immediately afterwards and say that they’re then going to go on a restraint package, and that’s exactly what they are doing. Let me close by saying that we --

Mr. Renwick: Over-borrowed and over-spent.

Mr. Deans: My colleague says over-borrowed and overspent and he’s right. He’s right. They have bought their way into power year after year with expenditures, without ever giving consideration to how they were going to raise the money or the cost of the money they have to raise.

I want to close by saying this: We look forward to the next session and we anticipate that the government will, in fact, deal with these matters. We anticipate that we’ll see from this government proposals that will clearly set out the policies and the ways that the government intends to deal with all of these things. If we see those, then it is entirely possible that the people of the Province of Ontario can benefit for a long period of time and this Legislature can maintain itself. If we don’t, then it seems evident that we’ll have an election and the people will make another choice.

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, for me it’s a privilege to speak for the government today and to have perhaps the final word in the Throne debate. Unlike the last two speakers, I wasn’t chosen for my eloquence but for my brevity, not for my fiction but for my fact.

I seem to feel that I’ve been through two versions of Shakespeare’s soliloquy that began with something like, “I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.”

Mr. Foulds: Wrong play. It was Brutus. “Et tu, Brute!”

Hon. F. S. Miller: Yes, that’s French for something, isn’t it?

Mr. Lewis: Quite an education system you came through; can’t tell your Hamlets from your Caesars.

Hon. F. S. Miller: Look, I said it was Shakespeare. The fact remains, we engineers sometimes mix our metaphors.

Mr. Reid: You’ve abdicated your responsibility and you know it.

Hon. F. S. Miller: This has been an historic session for the Legislature. Those who said that a minority government could not survive, those who said that all the parties in the Legislature lacked the capacity to work together and to establish the mechanism for negotiation and a balanced approach to the legislative process, those people have clearly been proved wrong.

I believe the relationships and the mechanisms that have been established will improve the quality of legislative planning in the future, under both the majority and minority circumstance. I’d like to compliment our House leader and I’d like to compliment the other two House leaders for the most businesslike approach to the business of this House that I’ve seen.

[6:15]

I’d like to compliment the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker. I think they’ve done a fine job, looking particularly at some of those long debates about all those resolutions that came forward recently.

The legislative programme set out in the Throne Speech has been acted upon in areas of rents, condominium assessments, seatbelts, speed limits, and landlord and tenant legislation, to name just a few. The Legislature has moved with both dispatch and balance to remedy the pressing social problems in our province. There has been give and take. It has been at times both painful and difficult for both sides. In some ways, events outside Ontario, events in other jurisdictions, have had no small effect on the conduct of those of us elected to this place.

Take the Thanksgiving Day position advanced by the Prime Minister of Canada, for example. It was a challenge late in coming but when it finally came this government responded, not in a half-hearted way but in a totally committed fashion, a commitment which stands in the public interest.

Mr. Reid: You abdicated your responsibility and you know it.

Interjections.

Hon. F. S. Miller: I’m afraid to admit that I hear voices again.

Mr. Reid: This time there is somebody here.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. F. S. Miller: I have to say I enjoy the human contact with those of you who are sitting on our side of the House and that side of the House. I enjoy the after adjournment friendships.

Interjections.

Hon. F. S. Miller: Where else in the world would you find the member for Grey-Bruce (Mr. Sargent) defending me in goal? I’m not quite sure who hit me a couple of times but I’ve reason to suspect.

Mr. Samis: Someone on the same side.

Hon. F. S. Miller: I made that mistake once and it’s the only good save I made.

Interjections.

Hon. F. S. Miller: All sectors of Ontario society have been asked to join with this government in fashioning for Ontario an affordable society.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Foulds: That was stolen from the Michelin radial tire ad.

Hon. F. S. Miller: We in the health sector have had to take and will have to take more and more tough decisions, yet our goal in the ministry is not unlike the goals in education and throughout the other areas of government; namely the maintenance of high and efficient standards of public service through the paring of unnecessary costs and the ordering of priorities.

This House has seen an immense amount of committee work done this session: the Hydro committee, the rent bill committee, the committee on the Ombudsman, the committee on the Camp commission and the committee dealing with the closing hours on holidays. I’m sure all members will also join with me in congratulating the chairmen of those committees: the member for York South (Mr. MacDonald), the member for Oriole (Mr. Williams) --

Mr. Moffatt: There are limits.

Mr. Lewis: Don’t press us.

Interjections.

Hon. F. S. Miller: -- the member for Wilson Heights (Mr. Singer), the member for Ottawa West (Mr. Morrow), and the member for St. George (Mrs. Campbell).

They all served the interest of the province with fairness and conscientiousness and deserve the thanks of this House, as does the member for Perth (Mr. Edighoffer), who chaired the committee on estimates so steadily.

Mr. Lewis: You could throw in a little hostility; it would help the subject.

Hon. F. S. Miller: Oh, I’ll get to him.

Mr. Lewis: Good.

Interjections.

Hon. F. S. Miller: I hope as well that the hon. members opposite will indulge me the privilege of expressing the government’s thanks to the private members on our side of the House, who manned committees, faced the enemy majority with a sense of spirit, commitment and resoluteness that is a tribute to every one of them.

Mr. Reid: Especially when they showed up.

Mr. Lewis: What about the Clerk, the Deputy Clerk and the Sergeant at Arms?

Hon. F. S. Miller: I’m getting to the leader of the NDP. Picocuries, eh? Picocuries! I must admit, I do get dismayed when comments are made alleging impropriety in information given out. If the members opposite expect us to give out information, and the member was alleging impropriety in that statement --

Mr. Deans: I said it was misleading.

Hon. F. S. Miller: Not if one listens to the facts. If you stop to think, Mr. Speaker, on Dec. 13, or whatever the date was, they were trying to find out what effect ventilation had upon the level of picocuries in that school. They weren’t hiding that fact in that table. That table wasn’t made for presentation to this House. It was made for presentation to the minister. The members opposite have to begin to realize that we were trying to see whether the problem was resolvable by simply moving air. I’m trying to solve problems. I think all too often the attempt to be fair, the attempt to make material and evidence available, often results in us saying; “Why do it if you have people trying to make the issue worse, rather than resolve it?”

Mr. Deans: That’s the minister’s responsibility. That’s what the minister does.

Hon. F. S. Miller: I think I’ve tried to honour my responsibilities as Minister of Health as well as I am able.

Mr. Good: At least you try.

Hon. F. S. Miller: That’s a problem the member has never had.

Hon. Mr. Davis: That’s because the minister is so able.

Mr. Moffatt: We could have said that.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I said so.

Hon. F. S. Miller: Now that I’ve got the hostility out of my system, I can go back to nice things.

Mr. Speaker, as we move to the vote on the amendment moved by the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk (Mr. Nixon), may I take this opportunity to wish him well. This is the last opportunity that we will have in this House to address the member as leader of the Liberal Party in Ontario. We wish him --

Hon. W. Newman: Don’t kid yourself. He may, in the final analysis, run again.

Hon. F. S. Miller: Unless he’s the 16th candidate. No, that’s our party.

Mr. Nixon: That is why we love you.

Hon. F. S. Miller: We personally wish him the very best in health and personal happiness in his days ahead.

Mr. Nixon: However!

Mr. Reid: Nevertheless!

Hon. F. S. Miller: I have no “however.” Wait until I get to hospital closures.

Mr. Speaker, this Legislature has seen a remarkable limit to unkind remarks, unfair questions, or even unfair answers. I wrote this before the speech by the member for Rainy River.

We have worked with dispatch to deal with tough problems that indicate a sense of tough times. The government is committed to seeing Ontario through tough times and on to better times. This will require more tough decisions by all of the parties in this Legislature. It will continue to require tough-minded leadership that we believe is essential. And let me say, I think we have the Premier who has the ability to give this kind of leadership -- as in the past, in the present and for the future.

Mr. Reid: You’re safe. He has nobody to replace you.

Mr. Martel: You should have quit when you were ahead.

Mr. Nixon: Dennis was the loudest and Rhodes didn’t clap at all. I just thought you should know.

Mr. Bullbrook: Actually Lorne was louder than Dennis.

Hon. F. S. Miller: It’s a challenge that all in this Legislature have a duty to embrace; a challenge which this government will simply not back away from. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker: The Throne Speech debate now being concluded, I shall call for the vote as follows:

Mr. Norton moves, seconded by Mr. Jones, that an humble address be presented to the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor as follows:

“To the Honourable Pauline M. McGibbon, OC, BA, LLD, DU (Ottawa), BAA (Theatre), Lieutenant Governor of Ontario.
“May it please Your Honour:

“We, Her Majesty’s most dutiful and loyal subjects of the legislative assembly of the Province of Ontario now assembled, beg leave to thank Your Honour for the gracious speech which Your Honour has addressed to us.”

Mr. Nixon moves, seconded by Mr. Breithaupt, that the motion for an address in reply to the speech of the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor, now before the House, be amended by adding thereto the following words:

“This House regrets the failure of the government to accept its responsibility to provide for the direct administration of federal wage and price controls.”

The House divided on Mr. Nixon’s amendment, which was negatived on the following vote:

Ayes

Nays

Breithaupt Bullbrook Campbell Conway Cunningham Eakins Edighoffer Ferris Gaunt Good Haggerty Hall Kerrio Mancini McKessock Miller (Haldimand-Norfolk) Newman (Windsor-Walkerville) Nixon Peterson Reed (Halton-Burlington) Reid (Rainy River) Riddell Ruston Smith (Nipissing) Spence Stong Sweeney Worton -- 28

Angus Auld Bain Belanger Bernier Birch Bounsall Breaugh Brunelle Burr Davidson (Cambridge) Davis Davison (Hamilton Centre) Deans di Santo Drea Eaton Evans Ferrier Foulds Germa Gigantes Godfrey Grande Gregory Grossman Henderson Hodgson Irvine Johnson (Wellington-Dufferin-Peel) Jones Kennedy Kerr Lane Laughren Leluk Lewis Lupusella MacBeth MacDonald Mackenzie Maeck Makarchuk Martel McCague McClellan McKeough McMurtry McNeil Meen Miller (Muskoka) Moffatt Morrow Newman (Durham North) Norton Parrott Philip Renwick Rhodes Rollins Samis Sandeman Scrivener Smith (Simcoe East) Smith (Hamilton Mountain) Snow Stephenson Stokes Swart Taylor Timbrell Warner Welch Wells Williams Wiseman Young Ziemba -- 78

Clerk of the House: Mr. Speaker, the “ayes” are 28, the “nays” 78.

Mr. Speaker: I declare the amendment lost.

I declare the motion carried.

Resolved: That an humble address be presented to the Honourable Pauline M. McGibbon, Lieutenant Governor of the Province of Ontario.

“May it please Your Honour:

“We, Her Majesty’s most dutiful and loyal subjects of the legislative assembly of the Province of Ontario, now assembled, beg leave to thank Your Honour for the gracious speech which Your Honour hath addressed to us.”

Hon. Mr. Davis: Mr. Speaker, in case anybody is nervous, I am going to visit with Her Honour but I shall bring her back with me. I will not stay.

The Honourable the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario entered the chamber of the legislative assembly and took her seat upon the throne.

ROYAL ASSENT

Hon. Pauline M. McGibbon (Lieutenant Governor): Pray be seated.

Mr. Speaker: May it please Your Honour, the legislative assembly of the province has, at its present sittings thereof, passed certain bills to which, in the name of and on behalf of the said legislative assembly, I respectfully request Your Honour’s assent.

The Clerk Assistant: The following are the titles of the bills to which Your Honour’s assent is prayed:

Bill 20, An Act to provide for the Review of Rents in respect of Residential Premises.

Bill 41, An Act to amend the Planning Act.

Bill 42, An Act to amend the Conveyancing and Law of Property Act.

Bill 7, An Act to amend the Municipal Act.

Bill 5, An Act to regulate Holiday Closings for Retail Businesses.

Bill 26, An Act to amend the Landlord and Tenant Act.

Bill 2, An Act to amend the Highway Traffic Act.

Bill 3, An Act to amend the Public Commercial Vehicles Act.

Bill 4, An Act to amend the Ontario Energy Board Act.

Bill 6, An Act to amend the Development Corporations Act, 1973.

Bill 7, An Act to amend the Municipal Act.

Bill 27, An Act to amend the Highway Traffic Act.

Bill 34, An Act to amend the Motorized Snow Vehicles Act, 1974.

Bill 37, An Act to amend the Income Tax Act.

Bill 39, An Act to amend the Liquor Licence Act, 1975.

Clerk of the House: In Her Majesty’s name, the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor doth assent to these bills.

Mr. Speaker: May it please Your Honour:

We, Her Majesty’s most dutiful and faithful subjects of the legislative assembly of the Province of Ontario in session assembled, approach Your Honour with sentiments of unfeigned devotion and loyalty to Her Majesty’s person and government, and humbly beg to present for Your Honour’s acceptance, a bill intituled, An Act granting to Her Majesty Certain Sums of Money for the Public Service for the Fiscal Year ending March 31, 1976.

Clerk of the House: The Honourable the Lieutenant Governor doth thank Her Majesty’s dutiful and loyal subjects, accept their benevolence and assent to this bill in Her Majesty’s name.

PROROGATION SPEECH

Hon. Mrs. McGibbon: Mr. Speaker and members of the legislative assembly, I am pleased to address you at the close of this first session of the 30th Parliament of Ontario.

The government’s business has embraced the establishment of a framework for Ontario’s participation in the national anti-inflation programme over the next two years, as well as the enactment of legislative items of pressing importance.

The Ontario position on Canada’s anti-inflation programme was enunciated in the Legislature on Oct. 30. Ontario has elected to place its public sector under the direct authority of the federal Anti-Inflation Board as the only way to ensure that the guidelines are uniformly applied throughout Canada.

Members of government have been holding discussions with leaders of the various sectors of the economy to seek their co-operation in adhering to the principles of the anti-inflation programme. In the new year, similar discussions will take place with local government authorities and school board officials throughout the province.

The Province of Ontario is itself committed to making further economies in the crucial area of government spending and has announced major initiatives to help achieve this. They cover reduced borrowing of funds by Ontario Hydro; extension of the present freeze on public service complement; freezing salaries of senior civil servants to the end of 1976; placing limits on provincial assistance to local governments; and adoption of a provincial expenditure growth target of 10 per cent for 1976-1977.

At the same time, provincial grant limits for 1976-1977 have already been announced to give the various public agencies and institutions adequate time to prepare their budgets accordingly.

In the past year, Ontario’s economy felt the effects of the continuing international economic recession. While conditions improved toward the end of the year, real growth will this year be slightly lower than the level for 1974. Output in Ontario manufacturing industries was hurt by two main factors. A slowdown in housing construction throughout the country affected the production of durable goods in Ontario and the province’s automobile industry was harmed by poor American demand.

Over 111,000 new jobs have been created in Ontario since January 1975. However, because of significant increases in the size of the labour force, growth in employment has not kept pace with the number of people seeking jobs. Young people and women, in particular, have had difficulty finding employment.

Ontario looks ahead to improved economic performance to help create more new employment. Ontario and Canada look to the national programme of wage and price restraints to moderate inflation. The government’s appeal cannot be too strongly emphasized nor too often repeated that all Ontarians are urged to do their part to help make the national anti-inflation effort a success.

It continues to be the policy of the government to encourage public reviews of matters of vital public import. During this session, two such key issues were referred to select committees of the Legislature: Ontario Hydro’s proposals for increases in bulk power rates next year; and the question of rent review.

In the first instance, the requirements and interests of industrial customers, municipal utilities, the general public and Ontario Hydro itself have been fully taken into account. All parties concerned can be reassured that a final decision will have been based on proper consideration of all the issues.

Similarly, the work of the select committee on rent reviews and tenant security has made a notable contribution to the enactment of legislation which, while aimed primarily at ensuring fair treatment of tenants who may face unreasonable rent increases, has sought to achieve an accommodation that is equitable to both tenant and landlord.

In other legislation, an amendment to the Assessment Act will bring some relief to owners of highrise condominium or co-operative apartments through lower assessments and resulting lower property taxes. Guidelines issued last month to the Ontario credit-rating industry established a code of reference aimed at providing women equality of access to credit.

Effective Jan. 1, 1976, Ontario will become the first province in Canada to require mandatory use of automobile seatbelts. It is greatly expected that this measure, together with new lower speed limits, will save on Ontario’s energy consumption bill, on the province’s hospital and medical care costs and, most important, will save many Ontarians from injury or death on our highways in the years ahead.

The swearing-in of Ontario’s first Ombudsman on Oct. 30 added an honoured democratic tradition to the administration of government in the province. Ontario proudly joins seven other Canadian provinces in the establishment of this office which will provide greater protection than ever before for the individual rights of all Ontario residents in relation to the government.

The fifth report of the Ontario Commission on the Legislature, published this fall, concluded a task set by unanimous agreement of the members of this House three years ago. It remains of the highest importance that the processes of the assembly be in keeping with the times, if this body is to serve the people of Ontario in the best way possible. Several recommendations in the earlier reports have been implemented and a select committee has been considering the final document. On your behalf, I wish to thank the commissioners for their unfailing efforts in carrying out their assignment.

On Nov. 20, the report of the government’s Special Programme Review Committee was tabled, the result of a six-month examination of provincial expenditures. The overall objective is to achieve improved productivity in government and restrain the growth of government spending.

While it is patently clear that government spending in Ontario must be restrained, it is also the responsibility of the government to continue to provide the services that people need. The government is hopeful that internal efficiency measures, using existing human and physical resources and expansionary initiatives in the private sector, can together achieve a better balance in providing for the needs of the people of Ontario. The committee’s 184 recommendations have potential consequences for all Ontarians, and public response to the report is sought prior to the government’s determination of implementation decisions.

Honourable members, I thank you, in the Sovereign’s name, for your diligence in the performance of your duties and for the many accomplishments in this relatively short session.

In declaring the session prorogued, I wish to join with you in expressing season’s greetings to all the people of Ontario. I pray that you will have a safe and enjoyable holiday with your families and friends.

God bless the Queen and Canada.

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker and hon. members of the legislative assembly, it is the will and pleasure of the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor that this legislative assembly be prorogued; and this legislative assembly is accordingly prorogued.

The Honourable the Lieutenant Governor was pleased to retire from the chamber.

The House prorogued at 6:55 p.m.