Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

The House resumed at 8 p.m.

METROPOLITAN TORONTO BOARDS OF EDUCATION AND TEACHERS DISPUTES ACT (CONTINUED)

Mr. Speaker: When we rose at 6 o’clock, I believe the member for Windsor-Sandwich had the floor. Will you continue?

Mr. Bounsall: Before supper I was attempting to indicate in very clear terms my feelings about the bill introduced by the government and why I felt I could not in any way support it. It devolves mainly on the point, which I feel very strongly about, of compulsory arbitration and how that destroys the collective bargaining system.

The introduction at this time of this bill in the first dispute between teachers and school boards that has gone to a strike, having followed the provisions of Bill 100, to me sets the precedent of our saying there is another clause to Bill 100 which was not there in the original bill. It is one which says that after 38 days of a strike, plus or minus a day or two, the government of Ontario will legislate the teachers back to work. So we have a bill which very carefully tries to avoid a strike in negotiations between teachers and school boards; tries in every way in that bill through many avenues in which a negotiated settlement can be reached. But if, as sometimes happens, negotiations are not concluded and an agreement has not been reached under the bill, and the time in the negotiations arrives at which a legal strike can occur and that strike occurs, then we are very clearly saying that it can last only 38 days.

I see that as extremely damaging to the whole of teacher-school board negotiations since one party in a given instance, or perhaps both, will hold off doing any serious negotiations because they know that they will go on strike and in 38 days will be back to work by our action. To me, that is very detrimental to the free collective bargaining process in which the parties must come to a conclusion. Having come to a conclusion, they understand why they have arrived at that conclusion and have a basis on which they can continue to talk and negotiate for future years

However, if a settlement is imposed upon them through the use of compulsion, through the use of an arbitrator who thrusts upon them a decision -- a decision which in many cases makes neither party very happy, a decision in which inevitably one party feels or both parties feel that the arbitrator did not understand what was at stake in some of the clauses or in some cases one or both parties, do not even understand why the arbitrator made the decision that he or she did, and they must operate under those unusual condition or conditions which do not please either of them for at least, in many cases, another year. in labour relations it is that situation one must try to avoid; and it is one in which, not only in this case but I see it as a precedent for future cases, we are getting ourselves into a situation which, in the initial short-term instance or in the long term as regards negotiated settlements arrived at over the years, is not going to be in the best interests of either party, the students in the classroom or the public of Ontario. It is on that basis that I have really severe reservations about the bill -- reservations that in no way lead me to support the bill and, in fact, would cause me to vote against this bill on second reading on that principle alone.

If I could make a few further remarks, I viewed with interest the whole evolvement of Bill 100 and the events leading up to the introduction of that legislation. Unfortunately, when it was brought before us last spring, I was involved in a series of labour bills before the House and couldn’t attend all of the sessions of the committee, but I kept in close touch with what was going on. I thoroughly approved of that legislation. It clearly gave the teachers the right to strike, which is an important right in our society, a right which of course no other legislation had denied them but a right in which it was not absolutely clear in the minds of teachers and the public that they had. In addition, there were very careful procedures in the bill, very careful stages by which that situation might well be avoided.

One of the things that intrigued me most in that legislation was the fact-finder and the role of the fact-finder. Our hope at that time, and it was expressed by persons other than myself, was that that fact-finder, when appointed was to come in and have a very careful look at the arguments from both sides, bearing in mind the situation that teachers are or should be in, in the community and in the Province of Ontario, relative to all other workers, and bring down what he thought would be a good reasoned position that hopefully would be satisfactory to both parties but one in which the fact-finder could carefully justify in terms of the facts presented to him, the conditions in Ontario at the moment and the relative position teachers should be in, in the Province of Ontario, relative to all other workers in the Province of Ontario.

I must say, even though this is the first fact-finder -- and perhaps we should not expect, with the first situation that arose under this bill and with the first fact-finder appointed under this bill, that it might not work in the way it was intended to work or that we hope it is intended to work in the future -- and I must go by reports that appeared in the press at that time, the remarks made by the fact-finder, Stanley Hartt, with respect to why he found the facts he did, disappointed me. They did not meet the standards which I had thought, many of us had thought, he should be observing in that particular job.

His comment was, “I made a decision and gave a solution which I thought the teachers could accept.” That’s all very well. But if the comment I read on more than one occasion was true -- whether or not it was simply an off-the-cuff remark by Stanley Hartt, I don’t know -- if that was true, he, as a fact-finder, did not quite live up to the intent of the legislation or at least to our expectations as to how a fact-finder would operate under this legislation and present facts to the public in terms of the situation under dispute.

I might make one point here, that there are various things occurring under Bill 100 through this set of negotiations which lead me to think that there could be some changes in Bill 100. One of the other reasons that I was particularly enthusiastic about the fact-finder was that should a fact-finder be used and he presents his report, one of three things would inevitably happen. The board and the teachers concerned would look at the fact-finder’s report and say to themselves: “Okay, there is an unbiased outside view of our negotiations. Neither of us accept it because we feel that we can improve upon that solution through negotiations between ourselves.” They would go back with that in mind.

The fact that an outside person viewed their situation objectively and brought in certain findings would be helpful. There would be parts of it that would be acceptable to both parties, but other parts they could negotiate over and change to a situation that would be more acceptable to both of the parties. That may be the most ideal response to the fact-finder’s report.

In other situations, for example, the teachers might accept the fact -- finder’s report and the board reject it, or the board accept the fact-finder’s report and the teachers reject it.

The intent and the enthusiasm about the fact-finder’s report, as it relates to those two situations, was that it would be made very clear to the public which side had rejected the fact-finder’s offer and which side at that particular point in time was being myopic -- and that it should become very clear to the public.

Again, what slightly disturbed me in the past situation was the teachers saying they accepted the fact-finder’s report and the board saying that they didn’t accept that report. To me, at least at that point in time, we could say of the board and its negotiators that perhaps they were being myopic. That never did get through clearly to the public, because the teachers under those circumstances felt that they had to strike. They took their strike vote and struck, and the whole thing was cast as a strike by the teachers against the board. In terms of acceptance and rejection of the fact-finder’s report, what you really had or should have had -- if it reflected the situation at that time -- was a lockout by the board and the public feeling turned at that particular point in the negotiations on the party that was most to blame for the negotiations being at that stage at that point.

So, I think we may well consider an amendment which clearly indicates at some point, based on the response to the fact-finder’s report, which of the two parties at that given time was more myopic than the other, if you like, or lees responsible than the other -- or at whom the finger of the public should be pointed in terms of the person who did not conclude the collective bargaining negotiations at that point; one which clearly calls at some time upon the board to actually lock out the teachers, rather than the teachers having to resort to a strike when it is the board which clearly rejected what should be an unbiased third person report about the situation having had all of the facts presented to them.

I think that under Bill 100 we would be strengthening it in terms of what the public would see is happening, if at some time we amended the legislation to include and cover that point. I’m not going to get into the merits and demerits of both sides, that is futile; I am sure there is merit on both sides and some lack of merit on both sides. I am not party to all the ins and outs of the negotiations and how they proceeded at a given point.

[8:15]

Let me say that there is justification in this first situation of thinking that perhaps Bill 100 and its operations and the situation giving rise to it may be a bit of an exception. This is the first time through it to this particular stage -- that is, a strike occurring. It is the first time you have had a fact-finder. I would hope further fact-finders appointed under Bill 100 would have a look at what a fact-finder should, in fact, be doing and at least try to bring forward the best solution, and, in fact, if this one has, at least make no comments to the press other than to tell what he tried to do and not make comments to the press of that being a decision that he thought one of the particular sides would accept. So there is something to be learned by further fact-finders from this experience.

This is the first time we have had the staff on the Education Relations Commission, and it was only filled out to its membership of five quite a short time ago, so there are some things in this whole situation, it being the first time through, that may cause us to feel the whole situation is unique but not unique enough, not unique enough I say, for this government to apply compulsory arbitration and end collective bargaining possibilities with the meeting of the minds that must occur under that situation and to avoid setting what will be in people’s minds a precedent for all future negotiations as to what will happen if the strike in a situation such as this lasts beyond a certain time.

In response to this, we placed a reasoned amendment. We in this party have felt that it would be useful to have the teachers back in the classrooms, to have the children back in the classrooms, although I must admit I do not buy the simple-minded argument that a loss of 38 days at this time to students in our system is particularly critical. I say that because although we have in our Schools Administration Act -- I am not sure which Act it is -- a clause that indicates there is a certain time at which schools close in the Province of Ontario, the Minister of Education (Mr. Wells) well knows that he has the full power and authority to bring in amendments to that Act to cover a given situation.

The whole conduct of education in the Province of Ontario is a provincial matter and directly a responsibility of ourselves and this Legislature. The minister could certainly bring in a bill indicating that the required number of school days as laid out in the Act be fulfilled before the students and teachers are allowed to finally depart the classroom. This may well mean that when an agreement is reached we may well be talking of school days in July or school days over into August, whatever is determined to be the proper length of time to complete what is thought to be the critical and appropriate areas of the courses for the students in those courses. I can see no great problem with that.

As for the persons the media have asked about admission to universities and colleges, let’s not kid ourselves. I come from the university background field. We are still on the basic income unit that is paid to the university per student. We haven’t gone off that system yet to any great degree, and I say that if qualified people turn up in the month of September for admission to a university, even if they are as much as a couple of weeks late for the starting of that university, they will be accepted at our Ontario universities and colleges because they need that basic income unit funding if nothing else.

All that the administrators were commenting upon, when asked about admission of students, is really that in essence they would not be accepted into the sort of pre-acceptance procedure which they themselves have set up in order to rationalize the students across the universities in Ontario and to avoid a gigantic rush at the end of August each year. Of the 140,000 students in Ontario, that’s all the number of students we are talking about -- that portion that happens to be in grade 12 for the colleges or grade 13 for the universities; a small number of students, in fact, who fit that category and could easily be handled even as late as mid-September, or even the end of September if that became the case, by the colleges and universities admissions people in the Province of Ontario.

So to say that it had gone too late by 38 days at this particular time of the year does not hold water with me. There are things we can do about it and one is to extend the school year -- which we have the power to do in this Legislature and the minister knows it -- and that would have no detrimental effect, at least for quite some time, on admissions to colleges and universities. It’s just a spurious argument. It’s an argument which people can make in their own minds only when they’re fixed on the idea that by June 30 our schools must be clear. For labour relations in the future between this particular board and its teachers, and the collective bargaining system implications for all the other boards and teacher groups that are confronting us, the damage is extreme. It is well worth the particular situation of teachers going into July rather than having the situation which we have before us.

It is for that reason particularly that I can support the reasoned amendment which would cause the school board and the teachers to have to sit down again seriously with no particular time limit -- which again they could let run out if they didn’t want to negotiate in good faith -- and negotiate a settlement between them which they would understand.

It’s giving them, if you like, a last opportunity to really get serious. At this stage in the game to tell the teachers and the board negotiators: “Look, we’ll return the teachers to school, but, by heavens, by our amendment you have to get down and be serious about negotiations,” to me has a lot of merit to it. It’s equivalent to -- and I would like to see this happen -- locking both sides into a room and throwing away the key and not letting them out until they have reached a settlement. That would have been good for both sides and, hopefully, produced a settlement understood by both. Those are the reasons I can enthusiastically support that section of our reasoned amendment, Mr. Speaker.

There’s reason to believe the chairman of the board when he was reported today -- I believe this morning or last night, I forget which now -- as saying that he still felt that a negotiated settlement could be arrived at. We have not got, therefore, the negotiators for both sides, or either side, coming out and saying there is no more hope for further negotiations. We have the chairman of the Metro board saying that he felt a negotiated settlement could still be reached. We are expressing our confidence that with a few more weeks of being required to bargain a negotiated settlement could be reached.

Turning to the other part of our reasoned amendment, that which imposed minimum terms and conditions on the settlement, it’s quite incredible in this first example of a group of teachers and a board going through the Bill 100 legislation -- and having delays because of an incomplete Education Relations Commission, for example, and the newness of the whole process -- that when we get to a point where the government has decided that the time has gone long enough, when they come in to put them back to work, we do not have minimum conditions in the legislation. Minimum conditions, I point out to the government and to the other members of the House who were not here at the time, were imposed in the not-too-distant past where in the bill putting the York county teachers back to work there was a minimum scale clearly laid out as a base above which the arbitrator started.

We also gave a base increase to the TTC workers in 1974 in the legislation, so we are not setting any precedent here by providing a base for negotiations above which whatever is going to happen can take place, by collective agreement or otherwise. Above that, it has become in the last two instances before this House the rule rather than the exception. In these exceptional circumstances involving the first group to go through the Bill 100 procedure, it is simply not responsible on the part of the government not to put that in the bill. It’s completely irresponsible on the part of the government not to continue that rule in a bill of this type. In fact, if I didn’t know the minister better, I would say it was incredible. He has had a couple of examples of it in the recent past and it’s just a little bit surprising that this time in this particular situation he should choose not to take that particular step.

Our reasoned amendment provides a minimum settlement. It’s one which is based on the board’s last offer and that seems to us to be very reasonable. It’s an offer which the board at least by its offering has said it can afford to pay. I understand from the small amount of contact I have that the negotiations are not very far apart, in fact. We are dealing with four main points and maybe one main subsidiary point.

It has become clear already from the presentations back and forth by both sides in the dispute, that there is not that much money still involved. I have heard the figure $585,000 of a difference between them at the moment, which works out to about $70 a year per teacher. I am not sure whether that $585,000 was directly the difference between the board offer and what the teachers may be offering as a counter proposal. If that was the case, and it is my understanding it was, it is not very much money per teacher in these particular negotiations that would be insurmountable to reach an agreement. Placed in terms of students in our system, it works out to something like $4 a student. To me that is not insurmountable.

I think again on another point of our reasoned amendment where we knock out the two-year term, that follows our reasoning in that, if the board and teachers are to go back to the negotiation table and negotiate in good faith, that should be part of the negotiations. Even in the minister’s concept of the bill, if he continues and enforces compulsory arbitration in this situation, that should be a matter for the arbitrator to decide, having come into possession of the facts from both sides and finally getting the whole complete overview and listening to their arguments as to why it should be one versus two or two versus one or whatever length of time they are proposing to him in terms of what both sides would see to be the most equitable.

I do not see why the government should persist in tying the time of this particular agreement. In the case of the two years in this bill, we would not be so presumptuous as to say to tie it to one. This is a matter which would be left to both parties if they can continue to negotiate or at least left to the arbitrator. We find this again a stubborn attitude and approach on behalf of the government.

There is one other comment I would make. One might be tempted in some sort of a reasoned amendment or considering the whole facts of the bill to say something about the Anti-Inflation Board and its effect. It certainly had a delaying effect upon this bill. The government was reprehensible in allowing, in my view, the interference of the Anti-Inflation Board to occur in the way that it did, to affect the negotiations in the way that it did and, in my estimation, to slow down the negotiations at a particular point, when it had an opinion of Jean-Luc Pepin which could do no other than hinder the negotiations for at least some short period of time.

I do not like to see the Anti-Inflation Board mentioned in this particular legislation, basically because I do not approve of the whole Anti-Inflation Board concept. To give them legitimacy by mentioning them in our reasoned amendment is more than I could personally do.

[8:30]

However, with the government’s commitment to the Anti-Inflation Board and bearing in mind that Bill 100 is the minister’s legislation and that he has produced through his actions, his appointments and his legislation this particular stage that we have arrived at, I would think he would have had no alternative but to speak in his own bill or to make a public commitment at the time of introduction of this bill to see that any settlement arrived at was not detrimentally influenced by the Anti-Inflation Board and that’s an obligation which he should feel very strongly on him. We don’t even want to legitimize our feelings about the Anti-Inflation Board by mentioning it in any of this stuff, but the minister, who likes to talk about it and likes to hide behind it and all the rest of it, having arrived at this stage in the negotiations, the least he could have done, with his fond feelings toward the Anti-Inflation Board, was to ensure that in this particular settlement the decision was not going to be influenced by a person and a board which have no contact and no experience in dealing with educational matters or board/teacher negotiations in the Province of Ontario.

In conclusion, we oppose the bill, and the clauses which we have put into our reasoned amendment I can support fully.

Mr. Speaker: Do any other hon. members wish to speak to this bill before the minister replies? The member for York-Forest Hill.

Mr. Singer: What? There is no such riding.

Mr. Speaker: I’m so sorry. The member for Armourdale.

Mr. Givens: I accept your apology, Mr. Speaker. The ways of democracy are mystifying and amusing, and I must say that this evening I was amused as I was driving, both back home and down here, as the newscasts were coming over the air and the newscasters were spinning their web of intrigue and drama in soap opera fashion as to whether the Legislature would indeed pass this legislation which was hanging like the sword of Damocles over the throats of the teachers tonight. Will they indeed force them back into the classrooms on Monday morning or will they not? It was really amusing, because outside of the fact that so many of us are guilt ridden in this Legislature where we feel we have to get up to make speeches, we could have passed this bloody bill at 11 o’clock this morning and nobody would have known the difference.

Mr. Nixon: Let’s just have one more speech, Phil.

Mr. Givens: Which will be the only important one that we will hear tonight. So they make it sound as if a big drama is being enacted today -- will they or will they not order these poor teachers back to school Monday morning -- and we know, you know and I know, that it’s a foregone conclusion that they will be ordered back. As I say, it could have been done during the first hour of debate and everything would have been over.

I suppose we’re guilty about earning our pay and we feel we’ve been away for such a long time that we have to justify drawing our breath and our pay so we have to make our speeches. Why should I be any different?

Since this is probably the biggest audience of Tory faces that I have seen in such a long, long time, I’m going to take advantage of it and I’m going to punish them. I’m going to make a speech.

Mr. Nixon: Tories are hard to find these days.

Mr. Givens: Tories are hard to find these days.

Mr. Singer: They even come to the Legislature now.

Mr. Givens: I expected and I thought when we enacted Bill 100, which the Liberals were in the vanguard of pushing, that if the world knew, posterity would judge us accordingly for pushing Bill 100. I expected that when we enacted Bill 100 somehow this would give rise to statesmanship, that this group of people whom we were trying to help, the teachers -- this elite of intelligent, educated, smart people -- would somehow, when the crunch came, measure up and they would show us a degree of statesmanship in the field of labour relations which had heretofore never been shown, and that somehow if we enacted Bill 100 we would see something in the field of labour relations that we have never seen before. But, alack and alas, we saw what unfolded and we saw what happened -- they behaved no differently from any other power group. They stuck out their hand like everybody else and wanted more and more. Management, on the other hand, acted the way management acts everywhere and said: “Nothing doing.” They decided they would teach them a lesson. So we saw no statesmanship. We saw no difference. We saw nothing different from what we see in any other labour relations confrontation -- and so I was disappointed.

What particularly mortified me with this group of teachers, from whom I expected so much and was so sadly disappointed, was the night that we had this confrontation in front of the Legislature and the Premier (Mr. Davis) appeared. The leader of the Liberal party (Mr. Nixon) and the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Lewis) also appeared. They spoke to this group who teach our children, who are so highly educated with their massive degrees and their pedagogic degrees and their degrees that they have hanging on their walls back home. And when the leaders of a democratic government -- freely elected by the people -- came out to talk to them, the teachers booed them and they jeered them in a manner which was absolutely despicable. I’ll tell you, if there was ever a time when I was turned off, I was turned off that night. Those boos and those jeers still ring in my ears as we sit here tonight dealing with this piece of legislation. They knew what happened that night --

Mr. McClellan: Are you a pedagogue or a demagogue?

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Givens: Those teachers should have been able to realize that night when they were booing and jeering the democratically-elected officials of the people of the Province of Ontario, that there would be a time when they would have to come back to this Legislature with respect to legislation -- and this is the night. I am really surprised that there has been a lack of vindictiveness and that there has been a lack of punitive action with respect to this legislation as I have heard it described in this chamber here today, as a result of that night. What gets me is that we -- and, yes, I say this very feelingly -- having stuck our necks out the way we did as far as this particular party is concerned in pushing Bill 100, and having stuck our necks out as we did in that motion of non-confidence, which risked putting this Legislature out of business and the possibility of an election -- and we took that chance because we firmly believed that the Province of Ontario should have a provincial anti-inflation board to deal with the matter of the teachers rather than sending it up to Ottawa -- we were punished by the teachers who came down here that night and who booed our leader to the echo. It indicated to me that they were ill-informed and that they behaved like boors and like working slobs and they wanted to be just like any other group.

Hon. J. R. Smith: What do you mean by “working slobs”? Explain that.

Interjections.

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

Mr. Givens: So what happens, Mr. Speaker?

Mr. Bain: At least they make an honest living.

Mr. Givens: When you choose to live by the sword you’ve got to be prepared to perish by the sword.

Mr. McClellan: You are, aren’t you?

Mr. Givens: So now we have an arbitrator -- and quite frankly I’m scared by arbitrators. I remember what happened when Metro Toronto had the garbage strike and an arbitrator came down and unloaded the garbage in Toronto and gave them an award which covered them not only with glory but with all kinds of money. I don’t know, the teachers may do twice or three times better than they would had they done through negotiations with the arbitrator. I don’t know what they’re so scared about. But, frankly, an arbitrator scares me -- because I would rather choose bread and water by negotiation than choose an award by an arbitrator. I don’t know why the teachers let it go as far as they did, which shows how smart they are.

Mr. Davidson: Why is the onus on the teachers?

Mr. Givens: I can understand my friends to the left, who are over to the right temporarily in this House, when they move the motion that they do, because what this means is the unvarnished truth of why we are here today and why we are doing what we are doing today.

The meaning of the exercise today is that the teachers have lost the strike or we wouldn’t be here today. The fact that the government has brought in this kind of legislation -- without a floor, without any parameters, without any indication of any settlement, without any basis from which an arbitrator can work -- means they are starting from square one, where they could have started six weeks ago. Never mind that we are leaving settled the things that were supposed to have been settled in the past; the matters that have been determined by negotiation could have been settled weeks ago. It’s the do-re-mi we are talking about that hasn’t been settled which is the essential issue of the day. What that means is that the teachers have lost the strike, and the reason they have lost the strike is that they haven’t been able to elicit any measure of public support at all. When everybody is against them -- the media are against them, the public is against them, the parents are against them, and the kids are against them -- maybe it is because they are wrong.

Mr. Kennedy: Could be.

Mr. Givens: Have you ever asked yourself that? Maybe they are wrong.

Mr. Breaugh: Why don’t you go back to Forest Lawn?

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Givens: You are going to lose.

Mr. Martel: You are not even for real tonight.

Mr. Givens: You came down from the snow in the north on your skis and you are going to lose. So go back to Happy Valley and the pollution.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. member for Armourdale has the floor. Would he continue, please?

Mr. Givens: Mr. Speaker, I would say it is baloney to rationalize; and we don’t want to flagellate the poor teachers --

Mr. Martel: What are you doing?

Mr. Givens: We don’t want to flagellate the poor teachers, so we rationalize by saying --

Mr. Martel: I can see why Trudeau got rid of you in Ottawa.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Givens: There is the Sudbury kid.

Mr. Martel: You tell them where you are, Phil.

Mr. Givens: Did the member get his raise in pay lately?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Givens: Has the Sudbury kid talked to Jean-Luc Pepin about his pay raise lately?

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

Mr. Givens: That was one worthwhile thing I thought the member was going to accomplish and he didn’t even accomplish that. He is about as useless around here as an udder on a bull.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Givens: He knows enough about agriculture to know how useless that is.

Interjections.

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

Mr. Martel: The hypocrisy prevails.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. member for Armourdale is making his remarks.

Mr. Givens: I see the Attorney General (Mr. McMurtry) is back.

Mr. Good: How are things in Tel Aviv?

Mr. Givens: How are things over there, Mr. Attorney General?

Mr. Roy: Any hockey violence?

Mr. Givens: Did you settle anything?

Mr. Ruston: Did he ride a one-pointed camel or a two-pointed one?

Mr. Givens: Did you have any bodily contact over there?

Mr. Speaker: Could we get on with Bill 1, please? Thank you.

Mr. Givens: I only want to ask him one more thing: Have you got any regards from the PLO for me, Mr. Attorney General?

Anyway, Mr. Speaker, to get back to the essentials of the bill, after all is said and done, with all the leadership, with all the conniving and with all the brains and all the intelligence which this group is supposed to have, and which I thought they had, what have they gained?

Mr. Davidson: You are referring to the Legislature.

Mr. Givens: Not a blessed thing. They talk about bitterness in everybody, including my sweet friend from St. George (Mrs. Campbell). There should be no bitterness but there is bitterness and there will continue to be bitterness on the part of the parents. Like so many others, I have received scores of calls from parents, from pupils --

[8:45]

Mr. Mackenzie: How many is that, Phil?

Mr. Givens: -- and from teachers who are bitter. People are bitter and will continue to be bitter, and they threatened that they are going to do this again 1½ years from now and if they do the results will be the same all over again.

Mr. Bain: You will step on them.

Mr. Givens: History will repeat itself. So they have learned nothing apparently, and there is the threat of defiance. The chief negotiator says, “If the Legislature decides to send the teachers back to the schools on Monday morning we will determine by vote whether we will obey the law or not.” The nerve of it all! Whether the law of this province will be obeyed or not.

Mr. Davidson: Did you wear your seatbelt this morning?

Mr. Givens: Yes, I did, as a matter of fact.

Interjections.

Mr. Givens: The only trouble that I find with the seatbelt legislation is that they don’t make them long enough, like they used to.

Mr. Breaugh: That is because you are a lot taller that way.

Mr. Givens: So, anyway, what the teachers have accomplished is that they have indicated they are a striking group just like the industrial groups are, and I think that they have lost the professional standing that they use to have.

Mr. Bain: Yes, they are workers.

Mr. Givens: They are not the professional group that they used to be and there is no use pussyfooting around -- so we have another industrial group on our hands. If they choose the road of defiance --

Mr. Davidson: What is wrong with the industrial worker?

Mr. Givens: There is nothing wrong with them.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. member will please ignore the interjections. Order.

Mr. Givens: Don’t masquerade under the guise of being a friend of the worker.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Will the hon. member for Armourdale continue with his remarks on the bill?

Mr. Givens: Don’t kid anybody. Don’t con the troops that you are something high-class when you are not.

Mr. Deans: Who decides who is high class? You?

Mr. Givens: If anybody determines that there is going to be an act of defiance and if this legislation decides, as the newscasters were saying today, shall they, will they or won’t they pass this law, we know that we are going to. It is about 8:50 p.m. right now and I suppose within the next half hour we will be passing this great law.

Mr. Warner: Only if you stop talking.

Mr. Givens: If they decide to defy the law of the Province of Ontario then I think they will be bringing down upon their beads the overwhelming umbrage of the ill-will of the people of Ontario for ever and a day.

I say that we should pass this law without further ado now that I have stopped speaking, because there is nothing else that is more relevant to say.

Mr. Deans: I hope you are applauding because he is finished, not because of the content.

Mr. Bain: I think this debate, in contrariness to the member for Armourdale (Mr. Givens), should go on for a good length of time. The only reason I could think that we should have ended it all at 11 o’clock is we wouldn’t have had to listen to the member for Armourdale.

Interjections.

Mr. Bain: I am totally amazed. I must admit he has reached a peak; he has been better than the rest in that game of divisiveness. I am amazed at the lack of compassion from somebody who preaches compassion on one occasion and on another occasion will step on people the first chance he gets. If he is not willing to put himself in the other person’s position and take a good look at what they are asking for, try to understand their situation, then he will constantly bring down edicts from on high and he will constantly tell people what is good for them and if they don’t live according to his rules he will come down hard on them.

Mr. Norton: Come on, let’s deal with the principle.

Mr. Bain: The only thing he forgot to say is that he could bring in the OPP --

An hon. member: Let’s deal with the bill.

Mr. Riddell: Speak to the bill.

An hon. member: What kind of nonsense is he handing out?

Mr. Bain: The only thing that he forgot to add is that he could bring the OPP the way they have done against other members of labour in this province through a long history.

Mr. McClellan: It’s a fine Liberal tradition.

Mr. Martel: Maybe you could hire Driver Pool.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. member for Timiskaming has the floor and I hope he addresses himself to the principle of the bill.

Mr. Bain: Mr. Speaker, I promise I will address myself to the principle of this bill as much as any other member in this House. This bill goes beyond just the teachers. It’s a bill that has repercussions for all working people in this province whether they are organized or unorganized. The present economic situation in the country means that we are facing difficult times but the way the present government and some of their allies would have it turn out is that the brunt of these difficulties will be borne by the working people. The corporations will continue to reap their profits. When it is all over -- and let’s hope the government’s anti-inflation programme will be over someday -- the working people will end up in a worse position than they are right now.

I will not go on at any great length, but I would like to cite one example that illustrates for me the root cause of inflation. We are always told that wages are the main cause of inflation. If one looks at a house which cost $25,600 in 1969 and sells for $85,800 today, he will find that’s a $10,200 increase. What accounts for that increase? Well $6,480 of that is due to rising profits, land speculation and interest. Only $950 is the result of increased labour cost. You are not going to tell me the main reason for that house increasing by over $10,000 is labour. That is just not true but you continue to try to push that one on the public.

Mr. Norton: How does that relate to the principle of the bill?

Mr. Martel: The guru of grunts.

Mr. Bain: I mentioned to the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands that I wish to deal with this bill not in isolation as some members opposite would like to do but in a total framework. There needs to be protection for working people in this province.

I notice that the government has not risen to the occasion with such great haste to end the pulp and paper strike. Oh, no, leave the workers out because in that case management doesn’t want anything done about it. They wouldn’t want to interfere with the pulp and paper corporations because they are out to break the new Canadian union, so they will let it go on and on and on and on and on. If one reads that contract that was offered the workers, each line of it promises something and the following line takes it away. If they had voted for that contract under those conditions and gone to work for that, I think they would have had a hard time holding their heads up, and that’s why those people went out on strike. They were forced to go out on strike. If the government wants to make things fair in collective bargaining in this province, why doesn’t it put the same obligations on corporations as it is trying to put on the workers?

Mr. Norton: Is the member advocating we should legislate them back to work?

Mr. Martel: It is a class society up there.

Mr. Speaker: Will the member for Timiskaming just ignore the interjections from the other side and deal with the provisions of Bill 1, please?

Mr. Bain: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Coming to this particular situation that we find ourselves with here in Toronto and for which we have brought forth Bill 1 to try to resolve, we see a situation that has resulted in a strike. The Minister of Education (Mr. Wells) was asked many times before this strike took place -- I can remember a full week in which he was asked every day -- what was he doing to try to resolve the situation. Every day he said: “It hasn’t run its course yet. I don’t want to intervene prematurely.”

He didn’t seem to have the same deal of concern at that time as he has right now. So we have Bill 1 and he wants to put the teachers back to work. But what is he willing to offer them? Almost nothing.

Mr. Martel: Nothing. There is no floor.

Mr. Bain: They go back to work and they are going to --

Mr. Warner: Just $7,800.

Mr. Bain: -- be subjected to compulsory arbitration. The government doesn’t even have the courtesy to put in a base.

Mr. Martel: The government’s last two compulsory arbitration bills contained that, by the way.

Mr. Johnson: The member for Sudbury East is not talking now.

Mr. Bain: It just goes to show that we speak and assist one another. We are not divided like others. The government doesn’t even have the courtesy to say that if the arbitrator decides in favour of a settlement higher than the Anti-Inflation Board allows that the government will go and try and make the case to the Anti-Inflation Board in Ottawa. Or it doesn’t do as it did in the little agreement that the Treasurer (Mr. McKeough) signed with Mr. Trudeau; it doesn’t say that it will get involved and exempt this particular contract.

I wonder why the government allowed the liquor licences in this province to go up 500 per cent for special occasions. The government likes to get a lot of revenue, why doesn’t it subject itself to the same guidelines to which it now wants to subject the teachers and other working people?

Interjections.

Mr. Bain: I must agree, as a teacher, that there does come a point when the students are in jeopardy of losing their year. I want to just add one thing -- and maybe the members opposite don’t realize this because, of course, I don’t expect many of them have ever been out on strike. They seem to think that people like to go on strike; they think it seems to be a fashionable thing that people do when they have nothing that is exciting in their everyday lives.

I will guarantee you, Mr. Speaker, that no teacher went out on strike or will ever go out on strike in this province with a good feeling about it. I know teachers who’ve taught for years and years, and only a few years ago would never in a million years have gone out on strike. The government forced them into that position --

Interjections.

Mr. Bain: -- and they feel a tremendous amount of frustration.

They are, on one hand, trying to obtain a decent standard of living using the only avenue the government has left to them, that of a strike. That’s the only avenue it has left to working people. Mind you, it tries to curtail it as much as it can, but they still have that one safeguard left.

They’re also torn, on the other hand, with their obligation to their students. Teachers feel a tremendous amount of dedication to their students. If it wasn’t for that dedication to their students, I would guarantee you, Mr. Speaker, most of them wouldn’t be in education anymore because the government has made it darned hard for them to stay there.

Now, in this particular bill we have tried to take --

Mr. Johnson: It’s tougher to stay out on strike.

Mr. Bain: I’ll wait and listen to your comments when I’m finished, I’m sure they’ll be very interesting.

In this particular bill we feel that although it’s necessary for the teachers to go back into the classrooms, we feel that it’s also necessary there be a fair piece of legislation that would send them back. And the government has not provided that. We, in our reasoned amendment, have attempted to do that. We would guarantee that the last offer of the board was the base. We would also guarantee in our amendment that both parties would negotiate again, and that there would be open some avenue of a settlement that would be acceptable to all parties.

Mr. Norton: Did you ever think what effect it has on the rest of society?

Mr. Bain: In this case, I think the member for Armourdale (Mr. Givens) is right. He is saying what the government perhaps is thinking. It will not give the teachers a reasonable condition under which they will go back to work because it wants to put them in an untenable position. I would suggest that if the education system in Toronto is salvaged, it will be because of the teachers and their dedication to their students, not because of this government’s bill.

Mr. Speaker: Does any other member wish to participate in this debate? You used to be Sandwich-Riverside.

Mr. Burr: You don’t recognize me, Mr. Speaker?

Mr. Kennedy: You look familiar, Fred.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Windsor-Riverside.

Mr. Burr: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I should like to speak briefly, without recrimination, without name-calling, without blame-placing, just to try to clarify one or two of the issues before us. We have been called back here today to pass a bill which makes two proposals. They are in the explanatory notes and I wish some member would read them, because they are very clear.

One proposal is that we shall settle the outstanding matters in dispute, and when we look into the inside, we find that it is to be done by compulsory arbitration. The other point in the explanatory notes is that we shall legislate the teachers back to work.

[9:00]

Now we in the NDP have said no to (a) part and yes to (b) part. We have said no to (a) part because we have what we think is a much better solution. So we have said the government is half right, and by 10:30 this morning the second point, putting the teachers back to work, was settled. It was eliminated as an issue, and yet two or three hours of verbiage have been spent on an issue that was settled around 10:30 this morning.

The remaining issue is compulsory arbitration or something better.

An hon. member: Better or just different?

Mr. Burr: Something different, which we think is better.

Now the difference lies in whether the settlement is to go to compulsory arbitration, to which all three parties profess to be very reluctant to resort, or whether there is a better alternative. We believe there is a better alternative.

Anyone can draft a compulsory arbitration bill. We spent a considerable time trying to come up with a bill that would look toward next week. It has been said and taken for granted that there is going to be bitterness and frustration. Our purpose, I think our main purpose, was to soften this bitterness and frustration, to make conditions next week better.

We believe that the teachers returning to work under compulsory arbitration is not conducive to the rebuilding of the educational atmosphere in the secondary schools of Toronto. To the contrary, it is conducive to continued bitterness and frustration. On the other hand, a return to work, if tied to a return to the bargaining table, we feel would be genuinely helpful in the restoration of the necessary rapport between teachers, students, parents and the various communities. This is a rapport of utmost importance in the next week or two.

If members of the Legislature would like to require the teachers and the boards to use the final offer selection provision of Bill 100, and set a time limit, that at least would be better than the compulsory arbitration method. The short-term benefit of our proposal, continued collective bargaining, includes teacher morale, classroom atmosphere and community reconciliation. The long-term benefits of our proposal, continued collective bargaining, are also very important and they are considerable.

Collective bargaining in good faith would not be hampered in other disputes that are on the horizon and actually close at hand. As will be the case, in some instances there will be some school boards, not many I hope, that will take this attitude in the event of a strike or in the event of the threat of a strike.

This is the first time, by the way, I have heard striking referred to as a luxury. That has been replied to, though, so I shall not expand on that.

Mr. Martel: Aren’t we lucky? We gave them that privilege.

Mr. Burr: But such school boards would know that the Legislature would take them off the hook by legislating compulsory arbitration after about 40 days. This knowledge, or the belief in this theory, would weaken the collective bargaining process significantly, fostering similar situations that will require government action, perhaps on frequent occasions.

If the Legislature were willing to adopt our proposal -- back to the desk and back to the table -- the negotiating teams or boards and teachers would then know that the members of this Legislature held in high esteem genuine collective bargaining and Wanted speedy settlements instead of prolonged stalemates.

The present government proposal before us -- back-to-work legislation combined with compulsory arbitration -- will make it easy for all kinds of public bodies to forget about good-faith bargaining and rely upon the Legislature to win their negotiation battles for them. As I see it, voting for Bill 1, with its compulsory arbitration, is tantamount to adding to Bill 100 of last year a clause which says in effect that after about 40 days of strike or lockout the Legislature shall be called and shall legislate an end to the strike or lockout and a settlement shall be arranged by compulsory arbitration. Those who vote against our reasoned and reasonable amendment will be voting against sending the teachers back to work and back to the bargaining table. Now it would be dishonest for us to claim, when they do that, that they voted against sending the teachers back to work, period. By the same token, when we do not support the bill, we will be voting against sending the teachers back to work under compulsory arbitration, and it would be dishonest for anyone to say that we were voting against sending the teachers back to work, period.

Let us be quite clear about the two votes. The back-to-work issue, as I said, was over at 10:30 this morning. The issue now is compulsory bargaining or continued good-faith collective bargaining; and, Mr. Speaker, I support return to work with continued collective bargaining.

Mr. Foulds: There are two principles in this bill, both of which I find great difficulty in dealing with.

The first principle deals with the return to the classroom, the back to work aspect of the legislation. The second principle -- and I want to underline these two key principles because it is relevant and something that I’ll be saying later in the speech -- the second principle is that the bill imposes compulsory arbitration

I think it is important to separate those two principles, which we have tried to do in our reasoned amendment.

The minister’s statement, I think, set a healthy tone for the debate, and at the risk of incurring the wrath of the Globe and Mail once again --

Mr. Samis: Risk not.

Mr. Foulds: -- I would compliment the minister for setting that tone, because I think whatever position we take in this House, in any of the three parties, I think what we must attempt to do, as clearly as possible, is re-establish a healthy climate in the educational system in Metropolitan Toronto. That is not going to be easy, and this legislation does not make it easier.

One of the things, that I found disappointing in the minister’s opening remarks, however, Mr. Speaker, is that his defence of Bill 100 and of the Education Relations Commission was not more vigorous than it was.

Hon. Mr. Wells: That comes in my next speech.

Mr. Foulds: Good; because I want to say very clearly that I find myself in the peculiar position from time to time of having to defend the minister against his own colleagues. We had to do it, as I recall, on Bill 100 itself from time to time.

Mr. Martel: How many times did the member take them around the corner to talk to them?

Mr. Foulds: I suppose it is a somewhat compromising position to find oneself in, but if it serves the educational betterment of this province then I am prepared to do that.

Nobody at the time of the debate on Bill 100, not even the minister, not even the education spokesman for the Liberal Party or for the New Democratic Party at that time, claimed that Bill 100 was perfect. Nobody claimed we would be entering upon a new Utopia in teacher-board negotiations. What we claimed, and what I still fervently believe to be true, is that teacher-board negotiations would be regularized and would be improved, and hopefully that would result in an improvement in the educational system. And it has done.

It is true that with this experience probably some amendments need to be made to Bill 100 and probably the Education Relations Commission needs to define its role and the roles of its functionaries, such as the fact-finders, more stringently and more precisely.

But I put to the minister that at about this time last year we had three strikes either upon us or about to be upon us in the educational system, every single one of which was as debilitating to the community and to the students and to the teachers and to the trustees in their communities. It happened to be Thunder Bay, Windsor and Ottawa. Thunder Bay happens to be 1,000 miles from Queen’s Park and the media centre of Toronto. Ottawa is almost 500 miles away, as is Windsor.

Mr. Mancini: Windsor is 250 or 500 round trip.

Mr. Foulds: In southern Ontario traffic, to us northerners that seems like 500.

Mr. Good: Our roads are not so good down here.

Mr. Foulds: The record of the Education Relations Commission this year is not a bad one. Frankly, Mr. Speaker, I put it to you that without Bill 100 and without the Education Relations Commission, at this point in time this year where would we be? We would be deeper into the forest than we are now because of contracts which expired on Aug. 31, 1975. All of the public elementary contracts, with the exception of one, were settled. This is my information.

Hon. Mr. Wells: That’s settled now.

Mr. Foulds: That’s settled now. This is my information as of Jan. 9. All of the elementary public contracts are settled and all separate contracts are settled.

An hon. member: All under Bill 100.

Mr. Foulds: There are nine contracts in the secondary area that are not settled -- these are all under Bill 100 -- out of approximately 300 to 400 contracts. That’s not a bad batting average for the first year of operation of a new bill and of a new commission. Of the 34 contracts that expired on Dec. 31, 1975, half of them are settled.

I’m glad to hear that in his second run the minister is going to make a more vigorous defence of his legislation and of the Education Relations Commission -- that is his Bill 100 legislation. He is going to have to make that defence, because with this bill he is to some degree damaging and weakening his general legislation.

[9:15]

During the course of the minister’s opening remarks the minister said: “We are presenting a bill,” Bill No. 1, “which has two main objectives: (1) get the high schools of Metro Toronto open and operating by next Monday; and (2) provide a means of equitable settlement in the dispute that has caused this strike and lockout.”

I put to you, Mr. Speaker, that the bill fails on both those counts. The schools will not be operating normally next Monday because he has in the terms of his bill forced compulsory arbitration which will exacerbate the situation, which will increase the resentment with which the teachers go back to work.

Because the minister has faded to put in a floor that the arbitrator must work from he has failed to provide a means for an equitable settlement.

Third, Mr. Speaker, the bill, in the minister’s statement, fails because the bill should have a third objective; and that third objective should be the rehabilitation of the school system of Metropolitan Toronto.

I think I am probably as concerned as anyone in this House with getting the school kids back into the classroom. I don’t mind telling this House, Mr. Speaker, that of all people in our caucus I probably had the most personal difficulty with the traditional approach that our party takes to compulsory, binding arbitration, because as education spokesman for this party I must consider, perhaps more than other members, all aspects of the community, all aspects of the educational community.

What decided me that I could not vote for compulsory arbitration as it is proposed in this bill is the way that this bill presents it. This bill is merely concerned with getting the kids back through the doors of the classroom as a window-dressing measure.

I think we have to examine why this strike took place. Why did the breakdown in the negotiations occur? I think that that occurred not because of weaknesses in the collective bargaining process, not because of weaknesses in Bill 100, but because of weaknesses in the educational system so great that that system is so wounded that psychologically this strike was necessary for both sides. That speaks volumes about the state of education in our society today, and the way that it is perceived by the public, by legislators, by government and by those participating in it.

The job of being a teacher is a difficult one under the best of circumstances. You know, in terms of history even mediocre politicians are remembered. In terms of history even mediocre generals, like Brock, are remembered. In terms of history I suppose only three teachers are remembered -- Socrates, Christ and Confucius. It is not a job that brings one glory, that brings one kudos, that has the ego-satisfaction of press or publicity. The job, with the pressures that society is loading on the educational system, is difficult no matter what one is paid.

I remember thinking as a teacher myself, some six years ago, that even if they paid me $25,000 -- which they would be paying me today as a matter of fact --

Mr. Shore: Even?

Mr. Foulds: -- even if they paid me that amount it wouldn’t be worth it for the administrivia, the frustration, the ennui, the sheer crap that one has to put up with.

Mr. Shore: This is a lot easier isn’t it?

Mr. Riddell: Maybe you wouldn’t be acceptable in the teaching profession.

Mr. Foulds: It could be, it could very easily be. I could always become one of the unwashed masses that the member’s colleague from Armourdale talked about, because I have worked on the railways and in the pulp mills and in the bush and I am proud and happy to do that.

Mr. Shore: So you should be.

Mr. Foulds: So I should be, right on, absolutely. To me, the most important thing is not merely to open the doors of the schools and to get the students off the streets, to me the most important thing is for a genuine education environment to be created, starting next Monday. Does anybody in this House seriously think that this Draconian form of compulsory arbitration will do that?

Mr. Martel: Arthur Meen does.

Mr. Foulds: And why, oh why, when compulsory arbitration is used, as I very reluctantly admit from time to time perhaps governments and Legislatures have to do, but why, oh why, when compulsory arbitration is used by this government, using this House, is it always against the rights of the workers? I know of no single instance where this ministry or this government has brought in compulsory arbitration to benefit the workers when management has flagrantly flouted the spirit of the Labour Relations Act.

I could get into a long discussion about a dispute that I have been intimately involved in and that the ministry is doing everything within its power to resolve; and I give it credit for that, I give it a lot of credit for that. But the legislation within which it is working does not allow it to do it really, although hope still springs eternal. That is the little -- well not little to the people involved -- the unfortunate dispute at the Port Arthur clinic. Yet in those cases the ministry cannot seem to bring itself to recommend to the government and the government cannot seem to bring itself to approve of a compulsory arbitration that would favour the workers, especially on first contract disputes.

So in my experience in this House, every time we have faced compulsory arbitration it has always been directed toward and against the employees.

To me if legislation is needed, and I am conceding that need, it needs to fulfil three basic requirements: 1. It must not abrogate the essential principles of Bill 100 nor must it irreparably damage the collective bargaining process. 2. It must provide for an honourable settlement. 3. It must reopen the schools in such a way that the wounds will heal.

I submit to you, Mr. Speaker, that our reasoned amendment would do that. I submit that you don’t amputate a leg to staunch the bleeding in your big toe, and that’s what this piece of government legislation does. If you like, what our reasoned amendment does and attempts to do is it provides for the reopening of the classrooms and it provides for the reopening of those classrooms as rapidly as does the government legislation.

I admit freely that our reasoned amendment has an element of compulsion about it. It provides for compulsory negotiations but it preserves the principle of collective bargaining; in fact our reasoned amendment insists on it.

I admit our reasoned amendment says that the strike procedure in the collective bargaining process outlined in Bill 100 has failed. The strike procedure in the collective bargaining process in the Port Arthur clinic dispute failed too and the girls had to go back into work to preserve their jobs. But our reasoned amendment says the collective bargaining process, of which the strike process is only one portion, is still valid and still possible and it preserves that.

Secondly, it is my contention that the legislation must contain the basis for an honorable settlement. I make the assumption that the last board offer was made in good faith and, therefore, as it was made in good faith by the negotiators I think it should be guaranteed. I think that the minister’s legislation is Draconian, and deliberately Draconian, because it leaves a deliberate uncertainty hanging over the teachers about the terms of the settlement. They do not know the floor to which the arbitrator could plunge.

That was not an uncertainty that the minister felt should be inflicted upon the York county teachers. There was a clause in that bill, clause 4, that guaranteed the teachers a whole salary grid and guaranteed that certain working conditions would be items for negotiation.

This piece of legislation does not guarantee a floor. The government has brought in legislation, as many people have said, with regard to the Toronto Transit Commission strike which guaranteed a floor to the striking workers. So I submit to you, Mr. Speaker, that the government has not displayed as much good faith as they should have over this bill to reinforce the faith they should have in Bill 100. It may be there, but the government good faith is not on display.

Third, the schools must reopen; and they will reopen quickly on the government’s model, but under what kind of atmosphere? Frankly, I shudder to think what the atmosphere will be like on Monday in the schools of Metropolitan Toronto when I see articles that are highlighted in the Toronto Globe and Mail.

As a matter of fact, I had a review made of the clippings from the major Toronto dailies about this dispute. It’s interesting that the Globe and Mail in particular has been consistently negative, and not just toward the teachers; they’ve been anti-OSSTF, anti-board, anti-Education Relations Commission and anti-government. There’s a kind of unhealthy negativism creeping into that paper.

[9:30]

Mr. Lewis: Not just in its editorials either.

Mr. Foulds: Even in the way the stories are placed. There were the pictures this morning on the front page and a front-page story where a student representative warned he would urge a student walkout if “Metro striking high school teachers are legislated back to work and try to vent their anger on the students by overworking them.”

I ask you in what kind of an atmosphere does such a statement get made? How much is overworking the students? Is it asking them to do an extra half-hour’s homework? I suppose in this day and age -- forgive me for being an old-fashioned square -- it may be that asking them to do homework at all may be considered to be overworking them.

This student went on to say:

“It’ll be rough inside the classrooms. There’ll probably be a little heat. If the teachers try to put the load on the kids, I won’t go for it. If the worst comes to the worst, I would recommend a student walkout. Let the teachers sit in the classrooms.”

My God, Mr. Speaker, that speaks volumes about the educational system.

Mr. Martel: It tells what the papers have done to the issue?

Mr. Foulds: Our reasoned amendment opens the schools just as quickly, and I submit that under our terms two improvements would take place. The atmosphere for the possibility of education would be improved; and the atmosphere for negotiations would be improved, not only in this contract but in future contracts.

As I understand it, the parties are apart on four specific items in particular. Although they may seem small to the world at large, and even to us as legislators, one of them in particular, the particular manner of the fold-in clause, does seem to be a fundamental principle to one side. They aren’t that far apart on money, and if that procedure -- and surely that’s a mechanical procedure that can be worked out by reasonable people -- if that procedure can be worked out, I am convinced there could be a negotiated settlement.

I didn’t plan to deal with this at this particular stage; I was going to deal with a couple of specific provisions in the bill. I don’t know how real this is because I don’t know how real the life is in this Legislature when one starts at 10 o’clock in the morning and continues through until 10:30 at night, having had a bit of a trying caucus meeting the day previous; and although having slept soundly for four hours, some of one’s perceptions may not be as acute as they might be. But word seemed to filter out of the Premier’s (Mr. Davis) office late this afternoon that if an amendment establishing a floor were passed in committee of the whole House, the government would consider that to be a matter of confidence.

Mr. Lewis: That’s what we were told; and we are moving that amendment.

Mr. Foulds: Now, Mr. Speaker, I ask you -- it is to laugh, it is to laugh.

Hon. Mr. Wells: We would consider a vote on an amendment establishing a negotiating floor a vote of confidence.

Mr. Lewis: You mean you would call an election on inserting a floor for the teachers which you yourself have done in preceding bills. Well we are going to call your bluff; you decide.

Mr. Speaker: Order please. The hon. member will continue.

Mr. Lewis: We will call your bluff.

Hon. Mr. Wells: There is a difference between them.

Mr. Lewis: Well then you put it on the floor and let us see. You provide the alternatives.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. member will continue.

Mr. Foulds: The two essential principles in the legislation are the reopening of the classrooms and compulsory arbitration. Those are the principles in the legislation. The rest of the bill is operational fallout. The floor has been a principle that this government has endorsed and put forward as legislation in the past --

Mr. Martel: You want it both ways.

Mr. Foulds: -- in teacher disputes and in the Toronto Transit dispute. If the government can stretch, by some wild fantasy, that an amendment in committee stage that does not attack the two stated essential principles of their bill but guarantees an honourable settlement is a matter of confidence, then this is a government that is not worthy of the name. And, Mr. Speaker, we will be calling their bluff on it.

If this government really does want to fight an election on whether or not there is a floor in a compulsory arbitration bill, where they have included it in past legislation --

Mr. Martel: There is somebody sick.

Mr. Foulds: -- well their inconsistency in trying to explain that one away is going to be beautiful to behold on the hustings.

Mr. Martel: Is that the emotional issue the Premier is looking for?

Mr. Foulds: I suggest to the Conservative Party that they get their overshoes, their galoshes, their earmuffs and their raccoon coats ready right now.

Mr. Martel: The Premier found an emotional issue.

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

Mr. Foulds: Mr. Speaker, I want to conclude with two thoughts.

Mr. Martel: Their applause proves they were listening to you.

Mr. Foulds: Now that I am encouraged by my friends from the other side of the House, Mr. Speaker, by that spontaneous endorsation, camaraderie and respect, I will continue.

Mr. Kennedy: You might as well.

Mr. Grossman: For another hour?

Mr. Foulds: Thomas More once said that the principles that a man believes constitute his self, his person, and he holds those in the palms of his hands, cupped, like a cup of water; and if he once opens his fingers to let those slip away, how can he ever hope to find his essential self again.

Mr. Shore: What did you do with your fingers at throne debate time?

Mr. Foulds: I submit that is the problem that I and many of my colleagues faced when it came to compulsory arbitration. I submit to you that this government made it easy for us when we actually saw the form of that compulsory arbitration. I am not prepared to abandon that principle on the terms the government is prepared to legislate it.

Secondly, Mr. Speaker -- and I hope I do not get too esoteric -- but it seems to me that as legislators, certainly as individuals, we should approach legislation on the principle of Kant’s categorical imperative, which essentially is that every decision that we make, whether it pass or fail, must be made on the basis that if what we do were done by all it would result in more good than harm.

I submit that our alternative in the reasoned amendment results in more good than harm in a far greater proportion than does the government bill. As politicians, we recognize the necessity for compromise in our alternative, and it is a significant compromise. But it is an alternative that is positive, constructive and creative and one that will work.

I have no hesitation whatsoever in rejecting the government bill as it is worded and accepting and supporting the opposition’s reasoned and reasonable amendment. I urge the House to do so.

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: I regret very much that I was not here personally earlier in the day to hear some of the contributions of the members opposite, with respect first to the constitutionality of the federal legislation, which I certainly don’t intend to dwell on in view of the fact that this is a debate on principle. But I am concerned with the allegations that were made according to the --

Mr. Nixon: What could be more a matter of principle than that?

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: -- transcript that I’ve been able to obtain, as to the suggestion that the agreement that was entered into by this province a couple of days ago, was of an illegal nature.

Mr. Renwick: It is too bad the ones who made the allegations are not here tonight.

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: The word illegality was thrown about in a very loose fashion. In my absence the government was challenged as to what the legal basis was for the government of this province entering into an agreement with the federal government with respect to the implementation of the federal anti-inflation programme.

I want to advise the House that I have a legal opinion that was prepared at my request by my law officers for the provincial Treasurer (Mr. McKeough). Although I don’t think it’s proper parliamentary procedure to table such an opinion given by law officers to a member of executive council, I’m quite prepared to supply this opinion to any of the members upon request.

Mr. Nixon: We do request it.

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: I’ll see that that is done; and certainly for the leader of the Liberal Party I have a copy that I can send across the aisle in the next moment or two.

Again it was argued or suggested that we were dealing with a delegation of authority from the provincial to the federal government. I would simply like to reiterate what I have said in the past on a number of occasions, that this is not a case of delegation but a case of the proper exercise of the federal government’s constitutional rights in relation to a matter of peace, order and good government, namely, a matter of national urgency. This government is still strongly of the view that inflation is a matter of national urgency.

I think one of the members opposite, the member for Downsview I believe, was referring to some case involving the Lord Nelson Hotel in Halifax dealing with delegation of powers between the province and the federal government. I would just like to assure the House that the law officers of the Crown considered all these authorities. I must say that we, the people in this province, are very fortunate in having some of the leading constitutional experts in the country serving the people of this province, as I mentioned, on an ongoing basis. The case referred to by the member for Downsview at some length, had nothing to do with the peace, order and good government --

Mr. Foulds: It is the member for Wilson Heights (Mr. Singer).

[9:45]

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: Wilson Heights, I’m sorry.

It had nothing to do with the matter of peace, order and good government and the exercise of the federal government’s constitutional responsibilities as well as authority in that respect. In relation to the matter, that was again touched upon, as to whether or not there should have been a further debate in this House with respect to the establishment of a provincial board for the administration of the anti-inflation programme, of course Mr. Speaker I would like to remind the House that this matter was, in fact, the subject matter of an amendment to the Speech from the Throne which all members will recall was debated at some length. The Liberal amendment to the Speech from the Throne was, in fact, defeated by the government members and the members of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition sitting opposite.

Mr. Nixon: Otherwise known as the NDP.

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: So for anyone to suggest that the matter has not been fully debated, of course, is just simply not in accordance with the facts. But insofar as the legality of the agreement that has been entered into by this government is concerned, the authority to enter into this agreement does not emanate from this government but does emanate from the federal legislation, the constitutionality of which we accept. It’s the federal legislation which states that the implementation of the mechanism of the federal Anti-Inflation Board shall be done by an agreement entered into by a government of the province, and it’s fact that the authority for such an agreement comes from the federal Parliament.

As I’ve already said, Mr. Speaker, the legal opinion was prepared some time ago at my request and copies will be provided to any of the hon. members upon request.

Mr. Reid: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the Attorney General would submit to a question? Can he explain to us what the authority is for the province to enter into such an agreement? He’s done it by order in council. Does it not require statutory authority for him to pass those powers over to the federal government?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. This has nothing to do with the principle of the bill.

Mr. Ruston: We’ve been talking about it for 15 minutes.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. McMurtry: Mr. Speaker, I have made it quite clear on past occasions that this was not required. As to the legal authority for the entering into of such an agreement by order in council, I’ve said I would be quite happy to provide the authorities to my friend. It is rather lengthy and involved; I would be quite happy to relate them to the House as a whole but it would take some time. I’m sure that the House members would be quite happy to receive it in written form.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. member for Riverdale wishes to speak.

Mr. Renwick: Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak for a few minutes on Bill 1. I understand that I will be the last speaker for our party and I will attempt to sort out a few things and perhaps try to set for the House the purpose of our amendment -- what we are endeavouring to do; what impressions we have formed of the comments made by members of the Liberal Party and by the government members who have spoken in the course of the bill.

This legislative assembly never ceases to amaze me because, having been here for some considerable period of time and having arrived in the Legislature at a relatively early hour this morning, I of course was waiting for the bells to ring in order to attend the assembly to hear Her Honour give the address from the throne. Having forgotten, if I ever knew, that nicety of parliamentary procedures where the bells are not rung on opening day, I missed the opening of the House.

Mr. Nixon: There was no breathing NDP in the House.

Mr. Renwick: We all missed it for the same reason. We’re not up on the parliamentary niceties; the substance of matters, yes, but not the parliamentary niceties. They sometimes escape on us.

I wanted to say that because I wanted you to understand, Mr. Speaker, that when a matter such as this comes before the assembly I think it is important that we understand, all of us in the Legislature what we in this party are about, particularly in the year 1976 as distinct from what --

Mr. Reid: It didn’t used to matter, I guess.

Mr. Renwick: -- I would refer to as the ecumenical or honeymoon session, or the first session of the 30th Parliament. Now in 1976 the political realities are apparent in the debate.

We tried by way of a reasoned amendment -- and I emphasize the word “reasoned,” to distinguish it from some other amendments which from time to time come before the House -- we tried and we had several reasons and several purposes. I want to share them with you. Our first reason for introducing the reasoned amendment was to try to put together in the Legislature a sufficient number of votes to defeat the government on this bill.

Let me talk about a political reality. This Legislature, this Parliament, will be dissolved when the Premier of the province (Mr. Davis) decides that it is in his interests to dissolve this Parliament and to call an election. That is when it will be called. We recognize that. But we also recognize something else -- that if, in certain circumstances, we can put together a sufficient number of votes, obviously depending on the support of our colleagues to the left, to defeat the government on a bill of importance to the government, we can at least create the situation in the public perception that the government should dissolve the Parliament and an election should be called.

That is what we tried to do in the reasoned amendment. What we wished to accomplish was the defeat of the government on this bill.

Mr. Sweeney: In other words, the teachers didn’t matter.

Mr. Jones: Or the students.

Mr. Sweeney: Or the students.

Mr. Reid: Where were they before Christmas? Where were all the high principles before Christmas?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Reid: Where were you before Christmas?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. member for Riverdale will continue.

Mr. Nixon: You voted with the government.

Mr. Reid: You voted with the government before Christmas.

Mr. Nixon: You weren’t so interested in putting together a majority at that time, were you? Don’t be so hypocritical.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Renwick: Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member would allow me a brief parenthesis, before I develop my remarks further, to deal with that specific question. My friends in the Liberal Party have great difficulty -- I have listened to the member for Renfrew North (Mr. Conway) --

Mr. Nixon: Sure, he is right here.

Mr. Renwick: Sorry he can’t speak to me, he is in the wrong seat. I have listened to him. I have listened to other aspirants to the leadership of the Liberal Party.

Mr. Nixon: The member for Renfrew North is making an announcement tomorrow.

Mr. Renwick: Never you mind --

Mr. Bain: That’s why he is sitting on your right hand.

Mr. Renwick: I have listened to the great constitutional experts who line the front bench of the Liberal Party. I said today to the member for Ottawa East (Mr. Roy), who is not in the House, that perhaps in simple English I could explain the position of the party --

Mr. Nixon: Oh, it’s going to be one of those elaborate speeches. We are going to get the whole thing in context.

Mr. Reid: The Bible according to Renwick.

Mr. Renwick: The Liberal Party wants to somehow or other dissociate itself from the federal Liberal Party.

Mr. Reid: Do you blame us?

Mr. Martel: I don’t think so.

Mr. Renwick: But you see, you can’t really bring yourself to do it.

Mr. Shore: Oh yes, we can. Just watch us.

Mr. Renwick: No, they adopt and accept the guidelines of the federal Liberal Party introduced into law in the country and the only difference that they see about it is that they want a parallel enforcement operation set up in the Province of Ontario.

Mr. Reid: That was your position as well.

Mr. Shore: Your leader said you wanted it.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Reid: You voted for it; that’s what you said.

Mr. Renwick: They accept the price and wage guidelines of the federal government and they want to set up a parallel organization.

Mr. Reid: And you don’t?

Mr. Renwick: We don’t accept the wage and price guidelines of the federal government. The law has been passed and we are bound by them. We don’t accept the philosophy behind them, the political judgement behind them or what is happening to the economy of Canada as a result of it.

Mr. Reid: You accepted the proposition of the provincial jurisdiction. Your leader said that. Are you denying that?

Mr. Speaker: I wonder if the hon. member could return to the principle of this bill, please.

Mr. Renwick: We would not want to be associated with an amendment by the Liberal Party that in any way could be misconstrued by the Liberal Party to think that we support --

Mr. Singer: Oh, come on.

Mr. Renwick: -- the policy of Prime Minister Trudeau and his government at Ottawa.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Would the hon. member return to the principle of the bill, please?

Mr. Reid: You are squirming like the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Lewis) was earlier today and you can’t get out of it.

Mr. Renwick: Thank you for permitting me that parenthesis.

Interjections.

Mr. Nixon: It is your finest hour. The Leader of the Opposition is going to set you right.

Mr. Reid: Here comes a play from the bench.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Nixon: You were saying of majority.

Mr. Renwick: I was saying that it was our purpose on this bill to defeat the government. We know, as I said, that we can’t do it. Why do we want to defeat the government? Because this Bill 1 is an abject defeat for the government of the Province of Ontario. It illustrates what the leader of this party has said, echoed by the leader of the Liberal Party, that the leadership of the government has failed in this instance.

Mr. Stong: I think it is the other way around.

Mr. Renwick: Do members not think it is ludicrous for us to be sitting here in this assembly in January of 1976 when we passed, in June or July of last year, Bill 100, when this is the first strike that has taken place under Bill 100 and the strike which exists in Metropolitan Toronto is the first living test of Bill 100?

I am going to come back to that a little bit later on in my remarks, but I will leave that for members to ponder should they not wish to listen to some other remarks that I want to make. I want to pick that up a little hit later on.

Mr. Ruston: We will ponder it.

Mr. Renwick: I want to pick it up a little bit later on in these remarks about the bill.

I have listened as carefully as I could to the remarks which came from the Liberal Party with respect to this bill. I can’t say that I either listened to all of the remarks nor that I can remember all of the remarks that I did listen to. I can simply express, first of all, my sorrow and my very deep concern that my friend the member for Armourdale (Mr. Givens), should tonight have introduced mm this assembly the kind of rednecked attitude which we in this party expressly dissociate ourselves from as far as the substance of the bill is concerned, as far as the remarks which he made about the teachers and insofar as he endeavoured to associate in the minds of these in the assembly who also have red necks something which I heard the member say, “The working slobs of our society.” I personally was upset and concerned. I can understand the member for Armourdale feeling guilty.

[10:00]

Interjections.

Mr. Renwick: He should have felt guilty at the end of his remarks rather than at the beginning. It even made me for one brief moment wish that the Bad Boy had won.

May I now say when I listened to the substance of the remarks of the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk (Mr. Nixon), the leader of the Liberal Party, I found he was saying, after the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Lewis) and not because of the Leader of the Opposition, substantially the same things. I regret that there was net an opportunity, through shortness of time and other reasons, to have perhaps negotiated or discussed at least with the Liberal Party the possibility in depth of their support for our amendment.

I think it would have been important to the Province of Ontario for them to have supported us about the amendment. I regret that we overlooked the fact that there was already fixed in the minds of the assembly a predictable result to the debate, that the Liberal Party would vote with the government on a bill for compulsory arbitration and the New Democratic Party would simply vote against it. When we dared to spend some time thinking out the ramifications of the bill, the importance of the bill, the significance of it both for the teachers in Metropolitan Toronto and for the teachers throughout the Province of Ontario, when we dared not to be predictable --

Mr. S. Smith: You tried to have it both ways.

Mr. Mackenzie: Don’t get out of your league.

Mr. Renwick: -- the Liberal Party members --

Mr. S. Smith: I have to lower myself once in a while. I can’t play the big leagues all the time.

Mr. Renwick: -- couldn’t stand it, and we had to listen this afternoon to a tirade about the constitutional questions. I listened to the Attorney General (Mr. McMurtry). The Attorney General said nothing more than he has parroted on a number of other occasions to support a very specious and certainly at least a very “iffy” constitutional preposition. But this is no longer a court of law, the government of Ontario has made its decision. Regardless of the assembly, it has entered into an agreement with the government of Canada and that agreement can only be challenged in the courts. There is no way that we here can new challenge it.

I happen to think of course that the government of Ontario is quite wrong yesterday or the day before yesterday, knowing full well that this bill was going to be debated, to have entered into that agreement. But having entered into that agreement, there is nothing, and this I deplore, that this assembly could do by law or otherwise to alter the terms of that agreement which was tabled in the Legislature today, because like any other agreement you can only alter its terms with the consent of both of the parties, and one of the parties is the government of Canada.

I say to the Attorney General, as I said to him on Oct. 30 when I wrote him the letter that I did write and which I delivered to my colleagues today when I furnished them through the Premier (Mr. Davis) with a copy of the Attorney General’s reply, that the agreement, when it was entered into, would be subjected to a serious flaw. I’m sufficiently aware of constitutional matters to know that nothing is open and shut in the world of constitutional law, but I am prepared to express my opinion. Strangely enough, it coincides with the opinion of the member for Wilson Heights (Mr. Singer), the member for Sarnia (Mr. Bullbrook) and, I believe, the member for Ottawa East (Mr. Roy) that if tested in the courts that agreement would be found to be unconstitutional.

It certainly patently flies in the face of parliamentary democracy. To think for a moment that the government of Ontario can designate itself in the agreement as the province, it reminds me of Sir Francis Bond Head. Only the executive council of the family compact could have said, “We are the province.” Yet that’s what this said. The government of Canada at least states that it is acting on behalf of Canada by virtue of the legislative authority of the House of Commons and the Senate and the assent which was given to Bill C-73. There is no such authority for that legislation.

That legislation, in my judgement, is unconstitutional, and I trust that a person who has standing in the courts, an organization which has standing in the courts, which can he heard to argue the constitutionality, will do so, not because of the constitutional niceties of the game but because the substance of it is wrong. I say again that this document represents another failure of leadership of the government consistent with and tied in with Bill 1, which was introduced today, because it was signed deliberately and purposely to have it in force when we were considering Bill 1.

It’s all very well for the Attorney General of the Province of Ontario to explain to us that the authority of the government of the Province of Ontario to enter into this agreement flows from the legislation passed by the Parliament of Canada, which authorized the government of Canada to enter into an agreement with the government of Ontario. There’s no authority that can be conferred by the Parliament of Canada upon the government of the Province of Ontario, and it’s constitutional nonsense to say that it can be done.

Even if I were to accept the validity of the position of the Attorney General (Mr. McMurtry), the law officers of the Crown, the Treasurer of Ontario (Mr. McKeough), the Premier of Ontario (Mr. Davis) and the government of Ontario, if I were to accept the proposition that the question of inflation is a matter of inherent national concern and therefore overrides the jurisdiction of this Legislature, I could accept it as a position of integrity which would be open to debate on constitutional matters or argument in a court of law by those who wanted to argue. But I say there is no integrity left in the government, because the government signed an agreement with the government in Canada in the face of the opinion of the Attorney General, and, I am certain, with his knowledge that it contained the recital referred to by my colleague, the member for Sarnia this afternoon, which I will now read:

“And whereas it is understood that neither Canada nor the province shall be deemed by reason of having entered into this agreement to have surrendered or abandoned any of the powers, rights, privileges or authorities vested in it under the British North America Act, 1867, and any amendments thereto, or to have impaired any of such powers, rights, privileges or authorities.”

It’s legal gobbledygook to say that this does not alter the constitutional relationships between the province and the federal government. That’s what that language says. The Attorney General said the authority to enter into it flows from the Parliament of Canada. I am going to set it aside. It is no longer worth consideration in the assembly. It’s tragic, it’s unfortunate; I hope that somebody will challenge it and have it set aside.

I would like to turn now more specifically to the actual principle of the bill, Mr. Speaker. Believe me, I only dealt with the constitutional matters -- even though the Speaker had ruled them out of order earlier today, or tried to rule them out of order -- because the Attorney General of the province had chosen to make some remarks about them tonight, and because my colleagues to my left had spent a considerable amount of time on them this afternoon. They bear very considerably upon the guts of Bill 1.

Perhaps before I leave the agreement, I might just make one political comment about it. Of course the government took this particular shaky road for one reason and one reason only. They knew very well that if they introduced legislation into the legislative assembly of the Province of Ontario giving them the authority to transfer the jurisdiction over the public sector to the federal government, that legislation would not pass. It’s clear now that my colleagues on the left would not have supported the legislation by virtue of the reasons which were given in their amendment; namely, that that amendment demanded and required that there be a parallel provincial apparatus to enforce the federal guidelines so far as the public sector was concerned.

I believe that to be the position which they would have taken. We in our turn would not have supported it; not for that reason, but because we do not accept the political judgements of the federal government with respect to the wage and price guideline proposals.

Mr. MacDonald: And neither did the government of Ontario prior to the Prime Minister’s announcement of Oct. 14.

Mr. Renwick: We said so many times.

Mr. Speaker: Perhaps the hon. member would return to the principle of the bill now please.

Mr. Renwick: Yes, I will. So in very blunt political terms, the government had to take the other road or be defeated in the assembly and go to the country on it. Again, we would have enjoyed it, as we would have enjoyed going to the country tonight on the defeat of the government on the principle of this bill.

Hon. Mr. Wells: That’s not what your leader said this morning.

Mr. Renwick: On the principle of this bill.

Mr. Lewis: Certainly it is.

Hon. Mr. Davis: No, it’s not.

Hon. Mr. Wells: That’s not what Stephen said this morning. You have a strange metamorphosis.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please, the hon. member will continue on the principle of the bill.

Mr. Lewis: That happens to us from morning to night and night to morning.

Hon. Mr. Davis: How did you make out over the supper hour?

Mr. Lewis: Fine.

Hon. Mr. Davis: That’s not what I hear.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Renwick: There is no metamorphosis at all.

Hon. Mr. Wells: It certainly is.

Mr. Grossman: it is called flip-flop.

Hon. Mr. Wells: He just said the reasoned amendment was made to defeat this government. I can’t --

Mr. Lewis: We made that reasoned amendment to have it supported in the House and defeat your legislation.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Perhaps the hon. member will continue with the principle of the bill.

Interjections.

Mr. Renwick: Mr. Speaker, let’s not fool around; let’s get the sequence of the votes very clear. The vote would have been taken that this bill be now read a second time; had the Liberal Party supported us in defeating that particular motion, our reasoned amendment would have been put. Had the Liberal Party supported us on our reasoned amendment, the government bill would have been defeated and it would have been up to the Premier to decide whether or not he would call the election on that issue.

Mr. Lewis: That’s right.

Mr. Renwick: Now, let’s not fool around.

Hon. Mr. Wells: That’s not what your leader said this morning.

Mr. Renwick: Come on, let’s not fool around.

Mr. Yakabuski: Do you want it?

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order please, order please. This is all supposition; perhaps the hon. member would return to the principle of the bill.

Interjections.

Mr. Renwick: Well, Mr. Speaker, if there were not so many interruptions I could --

Mr. S. Smith: You are feeling sensitive.

Mr. Speaker: Order please.

Mr. MacDonald: We would have had a good bill instead of a poor one if we had done that. Let me put it this way --

Interjection.

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

Mr. Renwick: Let me put it to --

Hon. Mr. Davis: You say yours is a good bill; I’ll remember that. You don’t really believe that.

Mr. Renwick: Let me put it to the Minister of Education.

Mr. Speaker: Order please.

Mr. Renwick: Let me put this to the Minister of Education: That was the purpose of our reasoned amendment. Then it would have been the government’s problem about the election, as it always will be about the election. They are the ones who worry about the election, not us.

Hon. Mr. Wells: That’s not what the member’s leader said this morning.

Mr. Yakabuski: Not anymore, not after BC -- no way.

Interjections.

Mr. Renwick: And I want to say to the Minister of Education right now, and quite categorically --

Mr. Yakabuski: After Australia or New Zealand, no way.

Mr. Cassidy: Just wait. Your days are numbered.

Mr. Renwick: I say to the minister that if he thinks the question of whether or not a companion clause in Bill 1, similar to the clause which was in the transit workers bill and the York county teachers bill with respect to the settlement of those strikes, that the introduction of that by way of amendments by this party is going to be a matter of confidence on which the government is going to call an election, then I say that reflects upon the integrity of the government. There is no issue --

Hon. Mr. Wells: To those who were willing to give leadership.

Mr. Renwick: There is no issue on which leadership will be given.

Mr. Speaker: Would the hon. member return to the principle of this bill.

Mr. Renwick: Well, I thought I had.

Mr. Shore: Never mind returning, start on it.

Mr. Renwick: Mr. Speaker, for the last time I’ve strayed from the principle of this bill.

Mr. Yakabuski: Let’s get Stu Smith elected first.

Mr. Martel: Did you ever hear about the little boy who called wolf?

Mr. Renwick: Let me, as they say in cooking class, deal with some matters and then set them aside; or fold them in, I’m not sure.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I can only say you are in an awful stew tonight.

Mr. Renwick: Thank you. I know where we can get steak and kidney pie for two for $10.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Exactly where I found you one night after the opening of the House.

Mr. Lewis: The member for Renfrew South (Mr. Yakabuski) can tell you where to wash it down.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Davis: Did you say Paul was going to --

Mr. Renwick: Mr. Speaker, I accept the good faith of the boards of education in the negotiations. I accept the good faith of the negotiating team for the teachers in the course of these protracted negotiations. I am indebted to the Minister of Education (Mr. Wells) for drawing to my attention that at the close of today we will have finished exactly one year from the time when the Metropolitan Toronto teachers gave notice that they wanted to renegotiate their contract. So it is, in that sense, a historic occasion.

It would be presumptuous of me not to accept the good faith of both parties. It is a very complex, intricate and technical document. Some of the clauses in it are incomprehensible except to those who are immersed in the details of all of the gradations of teacher-board relationships. I certainly think that it would not only be presumptuous but, indeed, arrogant on my part if I did not accept the good faith.

I accept all of the good faith in totality. I accept that there was little if any game playing in the course of the negotiations that went on, or in the way in which the negotiations unfortunately terminated without an agreement having been reached.

I accept it for two reasons. One is that the people who negotiate for the teachers are elected by their organizations and have the support of their organizations in democratic elections. I accept it because the trustees are elected trustees who represent the communities for educational purposes that they serve. I think it dims no one any good to castigate or east aspersions upon the good faith of either of the parties.

If I may also convey an impression which I have, I think that both parties failed considerably in conveying to their real constituencies -- the public in Metropolitan Toronto -- what they were about. I think the affiliates and the representatives of the teachers did not get across to the parents and to the students in the secondary institutions in Metropolitan Toronto what the issues were, what their version of the issues was, what their version of the problems was and what the needs were as they saw them.

I think that the trustees equally failed. There were some sporadic and very indefinite attempts to inform the public, but basically they engaged in their particular ivory towers in their own form of introversion and in their discussions and debates. That’s my impression and I believe it is somewhat widely shared. I have discussed it with a number of people and they feel that way. Perhaps, with a little bit more awareness on the part of the public, there could have been some assessment made of what in fact the public did think about this whole issue. Despite what everybody says, I think there is very little clear indication as to what the parents, the students and the public generally in Metropolitan Toronto think about the present impasse. One can surmise, but there is very little real evidence one way or the other. Symbolically at least, what the Minister of Education told us yesterday about the 224 for and 225 against, or thereabouts, shows the indecision within the community about the views which they should have mainly because, in my judgement, they are ill-informed by the two parties about what the issues were and about what the matters in dispute would be.

Let me then deal briefly with the students. We agree -- all of the parties are now totally in agreement -- with the statement which was made by the Minister of Education this morning when he made his remarks. He said there were two objectives: to get the high schools of Metro Toronto open and operating normally by next Monday and to provide a means of equitable settlement in the dispute that has caused this strike and lockout. But there is very little doubt in the minister’s mind as to which of those objectives is of paramount importance because, late in his remarks, he said: “The factor of paramount importance to us is the educational welfare of the students.”

Let me say to the House and to the minister that the objective was to open the schools on Monday. We share that end -- all of us. I’ll come back to that, but it has been difficult for this caucus to countenance return-to-work legislation in the kind of situation in which we found ourselves placed by the government of the Province of Ontario.

If the end is to open the schools, then we accept the end. But what justifies the end? Albert Camus posed the question when he said: “If the end justifies the means, what justifies the end?” The only thing that can justify the end is the means and we take issue with the means; that is what our reasoned amendment is about. The means to accomplish it was to provide for the compulsory arbitration of the dispute that exists between the teachers and the boards in Metropolitan Toronto. We do not think that means is justified to accomplish that end. We think the end is justified and can be justified by different means, and only by those means, for very good reasons.

Mr. R. S. Smith: I just hope this means the end.

Mr. Renwick: The means that we believe justifies the end of the return to the school is to require the parties to negotiate and not to break off negotiations until an agreement is reached. It’s just that simple. That is the instruction which is contained in the reasoned amendment which we put before the assembly. It is not to substitute some arbitrator, someone who has never been connected with it, to deal with the matters in dispute and arbitrarily decide what the agreement will be that will cover the employment and working conditions relationships between the teachers and the boards of education for the next two years. On the face of it, the two matters do not stand and hang together. We don’t have to have an arbitrated decision in order to support the return to work. That’s all we were saying. That’s all that our amendment says. Even at this late hour, I would hope that there might be some opportunity for the Liberal Party to reconsider the concerns which we have.

Let me speak a little bit about the difficulty that we have in this caucus. We have said in this House -- I have said, my colleagues have said, we have said it on any number of occasions -- that to us, the right to strike is the equivalent of any one of the basic civil liberties and is one of those civil liberties of the people of the Province of Ontario.

I could find quotations in Hansard saying that time and time again -- whether it was in the Hospital Labour Disputes Arbitration Act; whether it was in the bill with respect to the return to work of the elevator operators, or the bill with respect to the return to work of the York teachers, or the bill with respect to the return to work of the transit workers.

We have said time and time again that the right to strike is a civil liberty -- not a civil right, a civil liberty; a distinction which is very significant in the Province of Ontario. The member for Sarnia (Mr. Bullbrook) shares at least my view of the substance of the bill; not the reasons, and certainly we don’t have his support.

We in our caucus last night were faced with the proposition about whether or not we would agree to a suspension of that civil liberty.

Mr. Riddell: Seven hours of blood, sweat and tears.

Mr. Renwick: Do the members understand it? Do they begin to understand why it took up seven hours to do it, and why we talked about it at some considerable length?

Mr. Mancini: I understand it now.

Mr. Renwick: Reasonable men and women in the New Democratic Party can discuss these matters without any blood flowing and without any great difficulty. But we at least have the capacity to recognize that it is a civil liberty and that this bill is suspending that civil liberty. I want the House to know that when this party supports the suspension of a civil liberty for no matter what period of time, it is a difficult decision for us to make.

We made the decision. We made the decision because we believe that the community wishes the schools to be open. We came to that conclusion. There is nothing which requires us, having made that decision, to accept the compulsory arbitration of the matters in dispute.

We should be saying to the boards and to the teachers, “Go back to the table. Stay there until you have got an agreement.” I cannot for one moment concede that at the point reached in December it was not possible with reasonable good will, with a clear and direct instruction from this assembly that that is their obligation, that they could not sit down and negotiate a settlement in good faith about this dispute while the schools are reopened on Monday.

Now, that is the distinction. That’s a real distinction. It’s a valid distinction. That is why, if I may say so again, if the end justifies the means, what justifies the end? Of course, the means. The compulsory arbitration provision is not the means which justifies the return-to-work aspect of the legislation; but the instruction to the boards and to the teachers to go back and negotiate in good faith, close the gap, and reach the agreement and begin to restore the good and mutual relationships which did exist at one time and which are an essential ingredient to an ongoing educational system -- that is what we were talking about in our reasoned amendment.

Mr. Speaker, from my own particular point of view, a relatively selfish point of view, I am sorry to have to move the adjournment of the debate, but I do so.

Mr. Speaker: I sort of detect some negotiations going on as to whether we might continue.

Mr. Lewis: The negotiations were unsuccessful.

Mr. Speaker: They are unsuccessful.

Mr. Renwick moved the adjournment of the debate.

Motion agreed to.

Hon. Mr. Welch: Mr. Speaker, before moving the adjournment of the House, I understand we just have a few more speakers:

The member for Riverdale (Mr. Renwick) to complete, the member for Victoria-Haliburton (Mr. Eakins) with a short contribution and a sum-up by the minister, following which we will have the vote on second reading of this bill, following the usual procedures tomorrow.

I would have hoped that perhaps we could have finished the debate on second reading tonight and then gone on to committee work, but it is my understanding that both opposition parties would not support a resolution at this time to go beyond 10:30.

Mr. Lewis: Lest there be an unhappy implication in that, having sat here since 10 this morning, we wish to say we see no reason why this bill cannot be fully cleared up tomorrow to achieve the purpose which is intended for Monday.

Hon. Mr. Davis: How can you reconcile that with the member for Riverdale saying the purpose of your amendment is to defeat the government?

Mr. Lewis: Well, then, you will just have to decide that tomorrow, won’t you?

Mr. Renwick: And you would have to accept it.

Hon. Mr. Davis: I hope that reason will prevail.

Mr. MacDonald: It was so reasonable we thought you would accept it.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Welch moved the adjournment of the House.

Motion agreed to.

The House adjourned at 10:30 p.m.