Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

The House met at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

Mr. Speaker: I am very pleased to introduce to the House this afternoon an honoured guest in our gallery, in the person of the Hon. John Brocklebank, who is the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan.

Statements by the ministry.

INDUSTRIAL TRAINING COUNCIL

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Mr. Speaker, on April 20, 1976, I informed the House of the establishment of an Industrial Training Council to advise me on industrial and trades training matters.

I hope the members will recall that the primary concern of the council will be to examine training in and for the labour market. The council will review in depth the alternative and complementary elements of industrial training, consider their appropriateness, and recommend to me steps this government might take to encourage the growth and development of industrial training in Ontario.

I am convinced that the council, with its focus on an increasingly important field, has a major role to play in shaping the future of post-secondary education and training in this province.

Today, I am pleased to announce the membership of the Industrial Training Council.

Mr. Douglas N. Omand has been appointed chairman of the council. As executive coordinator of special projects for the Ministry of Treasury, Economics and Intergovernmental Affairs, Mr. Omand has been responsible for facilitating industry, labour and government co-operation in new industrial developments. From 1969 to 1974, he served as director-general of the Ontario Science Centre and guided its first five years of operation.

In addition to the chairman, 18 people have been appointed to the council. Rather than read the list of members and their occupations to the House, I am distributing the list to all MPPs this afternoon.

The members of the council collectively have a wide and varied working knowledge of all aspects of industry, the labour movement, business and education in Ontario, and indeed reside in all parts of this province. I should emphasize my hope that they will do more than represent a particular constituency, or concern themselves only with certain aspects of the council’s work. All members have much to offer and I’m counting on them to bring their knowledge and experience to bear on the whole spectrum of industrial training concerns in this province.

I look to the council to provide sound, thoughtful, practical and imaginative advice to help us meet the challenges we now face in training in business and in industry. In view of the high calibre of its membership, I’m sure the council is equal to its task.

Mr. Speaker: Oral questions.

SUMMER EMPLOYMENT FOR STUDENTS

Mr. Deans: Mr. Speaker, I recall, I believe, the Premier (Mr. Davis) telling me previously that the Minister of Labour was in charge of manpower policy. Is that correct? I wonder, then, if the Minister of Labour could inform the House what new initiatives the government intends to take following the indications made by the Premier some three or four months ago that in the event the unemployment situation in Ontario did not improve, he and his government would be moving to create new jobs for students this coming summer. What’s being done?

Hon. B. Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, as I’m sure the hon. member knows, not only has Experience 76 been taking place this year but in addition to that 1,000 extra jobs have been created within governmental areas for students. That will, hopefully, take into account some of the numbers of students who are presently without potential employment for the summer months. It certainly is not going to account for all of them.

There has been a fair amount of public information sent out through the media encouraging employers within private industry as well to employ students during the summer with certain support from government. The support has been primarily that of media publication rather than any specific financial support for the industries that might be employing those students.

If it is simply the student programme the member is concerned about, that, at the moment, is the limit I can announce to him.

Mr. Deans: A supplementary question: Given that those initiatives were undertaken some time ago and the Premier acknowledged the likelihood of major unemployment problems in the student sector this coming summer, does the minister now have any other programmes she might be prepared to put into place in the next four to six weeks in order that those people who have to pay the higher tuition fees imposed by the Minister of Colleges and Universities (Mr. Parrott) might be able to earn the money in order to do so?

Hon. B. Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, as I’m sure the hon. member knows, those who are going to be paying higher tuition fees are those who are probably not likely to be employed within the Province of Ontario during the summer. There are other matters which we are considering at the moment, which I am not at liberty at this point to announce to this House.

Mr. Sweeney: A supplementary: To what extent has this minister and the federal Minister of Labour been able to discuss this particular situation and come to any further conclusions?

Hon. B. Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, we have had discussions with federal counterparts -- not the Minister of Labour but the Minister of Manpower and Immigration -- and we have had several very fruitful discussions I think in this area.

Mr. Bounsall: Is the minister recommending that some of the very good Experience programmes of other summers which were dropped for this year’s summer programme be reinstituted -- such as the one in her own ministry dealing with construction inspection? It was one which proved to be very useful but was not included in this year’s Experience programme.

Hon. B. Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, that specific programme has not been reinstituted but other programmes have been.

Mr. Bounsall: It is a shame.

Mr. B. Newman: Would the minister speak with her colleague, the Minister of Natural Resources, in an attempt to implement or reimplement a programme concerning water safety, that is, lifeguards at provincial parks?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, if I may comment on that particular item, I believe I have notified members of our own caucus and members of the opposition that in a review of our restraint programme as it applied to provincial parks, in the 21 parks that have a beach patrol -- and I’d like to correct the hon. member, it is not a life-saving operation; it is a beach patrol -- they will be in operation this year.

ACCESS TO EXPLOSIVES

Mr. Deans: I have a question for the Minister of Natural Resources. Can the minister recall communications that he had with Mr. Lambert from the United Steelworkers of America, Local 6500, in Sudbury in 1974, and also with my colleagues, the member for Sudbury (Mr. Germa) and the member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Laughren), with regard to the easy access to explosives that miners had and the death that had occurred in 1974? Given that we’ve had yet another death in Sudbury from the same source, is the minister now prepared to change the Mining Act to make it more difficult for people to walk out of the mines with dynamite or explosives, in an attempt to cut down on this kind of problem even though we all recognize it may not eliminate it entirely?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: As I am sure the hon. member is aware, we now have a very active committee, made up of members of my ministry, members of the industry and members of the labour movement, who are looking at a revision of the Mining Act, and certainly this is one area they will look at and I will ask them to look at it very carefully.

I would point out to the hon. member that the obtaining of explosives is very easy in this particular province. In other words, anyone who wishes a piece of high explosive, dynamite as an example, may go down to a store that sells this particular commodity and purchase same. The only difference in this particular case is that it was stolen; it was picked up without charge. So while we may enforce certain regulations, and we certainly intend to do so, there is always that ability of the individual who wishes to go this direction to obtain the explosives of this quantity.

Mr. Deans: A supplementary question: Surely the minister would agree it is less likely that someone would go in and buy the explosives than that he would simply pick them up and take them with him? I draw his attention to the final paragraph in the letter of 1974, in which Mr. Lambert said quite clearly:

“I strongly suggest the Mining Act be changed, that all powder magazines be locked, that one man be placed in charge of every magazine and that a record of all powder be kept. This must be done before there is a tragedy here in Sudbury.”

That was 1974. The minister answered just as he did today.

Mr. Speaker: Is there a question, please?

Mr. Deans: Does the minister not feel it would make sense to lock up the powder and to have a powder man in charge?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: I believe the accident to which the member is referring did not occur in the mine itself. The explosive was stolen from the mine --

An hon. member: That doesn’t really matter.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: -- as it was in my own home town of Kenora, where we saw an individual arm himself with sticks of dynamite that were either purchased or stolen and blow up himself, along with injuring certain other people. With all the rules and regulations we could enforce and apply, I don’t know how to stop this kind of incident.

Mr. Kerrio: Given the fact that most powder is kept in powder magazines and that the Act says the powder itself on construction sites and even in mines is supposed to be kept under lock and key, is it perhaps not a fact that the Act is not being enforced rather than that the case of acquiring it exists?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: If there are indications given to me that the Act is not being enforced as it is now written, then certainly I’m prepared to look into all aspects of it. But, as I indicated earlier, there may be improvements that we can bring to the Mining Act --

Mr. Martel: You’ve been working two years on that.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: -- and the committee established and now looking into the various aspects of the Act, I hope, will come forward with some very positive suggestions.

Mr. Germa: Supplementary: How is it that on construction sites explosives are very well regulated, whereas in the mines we take this lackadaisical attitude toward explosives?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, I don’t think it’s a lackadaisical attitude. I’m sure the hon. member is very much aware of the careful attitude and the careful scrutiny that the mines, and even the men, employ with regard to explosives.

[2:15]

PAYMENTS TO WELFARE RECIPIENTS

Mr. Deans: I have a question of the Minister of Community and Social Services. Has the ministry been able to do an evaluation of the impact of the proposed changes to the Unemployment Insurance Act by the federal government with respect to the additional costs which will have to be borne by many municipalities on their welfare budgets?

Hon. Mr. Taylor: If the hon. member is referring to recent pronouncements in the federal budget with regard to weeks of employment prior to qualification, the answer is no. That has just been announced. Any impact that that may have has not been predicted in terms of caseloads, either in general welfare assistance or family benefits. However, I may say we were encouraged in connection with the decline in the caseloads throughout Ontario in terms of persons on general welfare assistance and family benefits since the tightening up of the eligibility standards.

Mr. Deans: I have a supplementary question. First of all, does the minister agree that there will be an additional caseload and that caseload will require municipalities to expend far more funds than they are currently expending?

Secondly, has the minister carried on any discussion with the Unemployment Insurance Commission in order to try to cut down on the inordinately long waiting period that people have to wait to get unemployment insurance, even when they do qualify?

Hon. Mr. Taylor: In regard to the first question, I don’t think it necessarily follows that there will be any impact on the caseloads, either in general welfare assistance or in family benefits. That’s something that we will have to assess.

Secondly, in terms of the waiting period, that’s something under the jurisdiction of the Unemployment Insurance Commission. We do accommodate those persons while they are waiting for their first cheque from the Unemployment Insurance Commission through the municipalities in terms of general welfare assistance.

Mr. Foulds: Supplementary: Does the minister not see that in those industries of high seasonal employment and unemployment, and in those areas such as eastern and northern Ontario where similar conditions prevail, many workers will not be able to accumulate the necessary number of weeks, their families will therefore be forced on to general welfare assistance and that will result in an increased load to the ministry in the municipalities throughout Ontario, but especially in those areas that I mentioned such as the north?

Hon. Mr. Taylor: That conclusion doesn’t necessarily follow. There are types of occupations, such as commercial fishermen, for example, who are unemployed for a part of the year. Those persons also take other types of employment when their usual employment terminates, so it is difficult to predict just what the impact will be, if any.

Mr. Deans: I have a question of the Solicitor General in his capacity as the Provincial Secretary for Justice.

Mr. Reid: That’s more than four questions.

Mr. Deans: This is actually the fourth one.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The hon. member will place his question.

SENTENCING OF NON-CITIZEN

Mr. Deans: Does the minister consider it to be justice equal to all when a judge says in a court of law that if the offence “had occurred to a person who was a citizen of Canada, it would be a jail term without doubt on this charge,” but because the person was not a citizen and he would suffer deportation he would simply impose a fine?

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: I think that question should be passed to the Attorney General (Mr. McMurtry) as he’s the one who is in charge of the administration of justice. Just in a blank statement of that nature, to ask me whether I believe it sounds like justice or not, no, it certainly doesn’t sound like justice, but that’s without knowing the circumstances surrounding it.

Mr. Deans: A supplementary question: Will the minister then, in his capacity as the policy minister, look into that case that was heard by Judge William Sharpe in Hamilton with regard to a theft? It was reported in yesterday’s Spectator, which said just that.

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: I will be glad to pass it to my colleague, sir.

LABOUR-MANAGEMENT DISPUTES

Mr. Breithaupt: Mr. Speaker, a question of the Minister of Labour: Can the minister advise whether members of her department are looking into the programme of works councils which is in place in West Germany and has been referred to recently by the federal deputy minister, Thomas Eberlee, as a way in which greater participation in the operation of companies and production of their products would be helpful and also as a way of cutting back on possible labour disputes, which obviously exact a high toll of production within the province?

Hon. B. Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, I think I have stated on at least two occasions in this House that the Ministry of Labour is exploring methods of increasing the co-operative participation of both employers and employees in many work situations, looking at examples that come from various other jurisdictions -- West Germany being one of them, Japan another, Sweden another and other countries as well -- with the hope that, although we do not intend to import their solutions to our problems, perhaps through some modification of some of the programmes that seem to be successful in other jurisdictions, we can improve the labour-management atmosphere in a way that will be conducive to a minimization of the conflict which seems to have been increasing in the past few years.

Mr. Nixon: Wish we could get a guy like Eberlee to work for us.

MOSQUITO CONTROL

Mr. Breithaupt: A question of the Minister of Health, with respect to the proposed mosquito spraying programme for this summer: Is the minister aware of a comment by Russell Wright, a member of his advisory group that goes to the effect “now all of a sudden we are running around in complete panic” and that the programme being suggested is going to be excessive for the needs of spraying within the province? Does the minister have any information he can give to the House on that comment?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I think there has been a lot of public concern about the possibility of encephalitis this summer, and this has caused a good deal of pressure on health authorities to do something. I think this gentleman -- I believe he was from Guelph, as I recall -- pointed out that in his opinion the risks were minimal, that only one variety of mosquito was likely to be the carrier, and in his opinion at least -- I think he was speaking off the record -- he didn’t think there was a chance of an outbreak this summer.

However, since we are usually blamed for not taking any action in a preventive way, I think we should not really be criticized for making available to the health units of the Province of Ontario and to the communities of the Province of Ontario the larvicides that we have, so that we would prevent the growth of mosquitoes before the season begins. Perhaps those areas of Ontario south and west of a line between Metro and Sarnia should be protected, even if the probability is very low.

Mr. Reid: Supplementary: Has the minister given any directions to his ministry or the health councils that they should be educating people as to the effect of the Abate or Flit, whichever is used, and the fact that this may be toxic, particularly to young children, and the steps that should be taken if, in fact, the children are affected by it?

Hon. F. S. Miller: I can’t answer that affirmatively or not. I know one of the risks of having a programme like this in Ontario on a crash basis is that a number of people not normally handling this kind of chemical will be involved. That has been stated. In the States, where the problem is one of long standing, there are many more people trained in the use of these fairly toxic chemicals.

There is the other side of the issue: We have an awful lot of people who need to be educated that mosquitoes north of Toronto won’t bite and give them encephalitis, so it is safe to go to areas like Rainy River.

Mr. Reid: Or Muskoka or Bracebridge.

Mr. Gaunt: Supplementary: What steps is the minister taking to see that the spraying programme does not become ineffective or environmentally damaging?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I understood that the chemicals chosen were biodegradable and therefore should not have a permanent effect upon the environment, such as DDT has had in the past. I am sure there are experts who can tell me whether I am right or wrong, but this is my understanding. I think that is one of the key points in this.

Mr. Reid: They are toxic to human beings.

Mr. B. Newman: I’m sure the minister is aware of the concern of the residents in the Province of New Brunswick and that they are attempting to associate Reyes syndrome with the spraying. Can we in the Province of Ontario be assured that the spraying the minister will be undertaking will not eventually end up in an increase in the cases of Reyes syndrome?

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I’d like to be able to assure the member on any point but I’d be foolish to give an assurance I couldn’t back up. All I can say is there is a basic difference in the kinds of spraying being performed. If one is killing the larvae, one is adding these chemicals directly to pools of water, not using aircraft, such as Windsor used, I believe, last fall. In that case they were using an insecticide for already matured mosquitoes. Our programme is only financing a larvicide directly applied to water to catch the larvae before they become mosquitoes.

RESIDENTIAL SERVICES REPORT

Mr. Breithaupt: Mr. Speaker, a question of the Minister of Community and Social Services: Is the minister now able to confirm that the report of the interministerial task force on group homes and the report on Viking Houses commissioned last summer, which recommends licensing of all group homes, are two distinct, separate reports?

Hon. Mr. Taylor: No, Mr. Speaker, I’m not but I’d be happy to be enlightened by the hon. member opposite. As I expressed earlier, the interministerial committee is dealing with the whole field of residential care. The member may be referring to a letter or some other type of document but I don’t think he’s referring to the report which is being currently studied by the interministerial committee.

Mr. Breithaupt: Would the minister now table this report on the Viking situation and advise the House if the position of the assistant deputy minister that new legislation is being drafted is correct or not?

Hon. Mr. Taylor: May I say, Mr. Speaker, in terms of new legislation, certainly we are contemplating the fusion of the statutes which are applicable -- the Children’s Institutions Act, for example, and the Children’s Boarding Homes Act. Those are the current limits to the consideration by my ministry, and that has not as yet been done. If that is going to be presented to the House it will take the usual course.

In terms of the so-called Viking Houses report, I must confess I’m not familiar with that. It’s been my understanding that that type of residence is included in the interministerial study of residential care. In terms of Viking Houses, we utilize probably about 15 homes in Ontario. They accommodate about 63 people; five of them are licensed, those which have five or more residents, but that’s all we’re talking about in terms of my ministry.

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

Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Speaker, since the person asking the question is not present, may I now defer it?

LAYOFFS OF TEACHERS AT TRAINING SCHOOLS

Ms. Sandeman: I have a question for the Minister of Correctional Services. Could the minister advise why it is that his ministry seems to be trying to renege on the commitment made with the teachers in Correctional Services by not fulfilling the conditions of the agreement signed by the Provincial Schools Authority and the teachers in the Provincial Schools Authority?

Hon. J. R. Smith: Mr. Speaker, I’ll take that as notice.

Ms. Sandeman: Perhaps if the minister is not really aware of the background of that question, I could ask him: (1) why it is that Mr. Bill Tilden, the assistant adviser for education in his ministry, said last Friday that the Ministry of Correctional Services is going to fight the implementation of the contract signed by the Provincial Schools Authority with the Federation of Provincial Schools Authority Teachers; (2) why it is that the teachers in the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Health have received the $500 retroactive pay which was part of the agreement and the teachers in Correctional Services have not received that amount?

[2:30]

Hon. J. R. Smith: I regret that I’m unaware of these circumstances or statements. I’ll give a full report.

Mr. Foulds: Supplementary: While the minister is getting the information, could he find out further why the ministry refused to let the teachers’ representative, the duly certified representative of the teachers, ask the meeting on Friday about the Grandview transfers? Could he investigate that?

ESSEX PACKERS

Mr. Riddell: A question to the Minister of Labour: In view of the fact that it now appears that her colleague sitting next to her, the Minister of Correctional Services, inadvertently misled the House when he said the layoff at Essex Packers was for the reason of taking inventory -- which reason is now seen to be incorrect as there was no inventory to take other than a small quantity of hams in storage in the United States and $100,000 worth of supplies in the Hamilton plants which had already been accounted for -- and in view of the fact that the real reason for the layoff is Better Beefs attempt to circumvent the provisions of the Employment Standards Act, which requires that a lessee deemed to be a successor corporation is legally liable for severance pay, would the minister, firstly, investigate this manoeuvre on the part of Better Beef to ensure that the employees who were laid off will receive severance pay? Secondly, will she confer with her colleague, the Minister of Correctional Services, to determine whether this action on the part of Better Beef could not be considered to be sufficient grounds for terminating the assignment of the lease to DeJonge Brothers for the Guelph abattoir?

Hon. B. Stephenson: In response to that passionate dissertation I can only say yes and yes.

GRACE HOSPITAL

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for St. Andrew-St. Patrick.

Mr. Makarchuk: He is over here now.

Mr. Davidson: Resign.

Mr. Grossman: I do appreciate the reception. I have a question for the Minister of Health.

Mr. Reid: Do you trust him any more than you trusted the last one?

Mr. Grossman: It’s different. Last time it was the acting minister. Could the minister update us on the reprieve or extension given to Grace Hospital in Toronto?

Mr. Davidson: Resign.

Hon. F. S. Miller: I don’t think it was a reprieve, in all honesty. It was a question of where that hospital was going to relocate; whether it was going to go to the original site in Scarborough or whether it was going to go elsewhere. Since I’ve returned to work, I haven’t been told any more than I knew the last time the hon. member and I spoke. But I have seen correspondence between our ministry and, I believe, the borough of Scarborough that basically said the site in Scarborough will be needed for a hospital -- roughly 1980 was the date I saw.

Mr. Grossman: Supplementary: Has the budget for that hospital been at all reduced for the current year?

Hon. F. S. Miller: I will find that out.

RADIOACTIVITY AT PORT HOPE

Mr. Moffatt: I have a question of the Minister of the Environment. In view of the recent announcements by the mayor of Port Hope, by Eldorado, by the Atomic Energy Control Board and by the town of Newcastle that the whole situation in Port Hope is a total mess and doesn’t seem to be getting any closer to a solution, is the minister at this time prepared to intervene on behalf of the citizens, not only of the. Port Hope area but of all the citizens of Ontario, finally to get that situation in Port Hope cleaned up?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: I think we are making headway, although some of the press reports don’t indicate that. The committee that I mentioned to the hon. member --

Mr. Reid: Just like the Dow suit.

Mr. Singer: The polluter will pay. How about that?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: -- in our recent debate a week or so ago has been meeting regularly. We now have an estimate of the cost of cleaning up most of those sites. It will be something over $1.5 million and probably about $1.75 million. The big problem is to find a suitable site. There doesn’t seem to be any argument about who’s responsible for moving the radioactive waste or the fact that it has to be moved. The question, the problem, is to find a suitable site and as I indicated to the hon. member no municipality wants Port Hope’s waste.

Mr. Peterson: That’s funny, isn’t it?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: No, it isn’t funny. It is probably very understandable. The terms of reference of the committee are such that it is not necessary that the waste will stay in Ontario. It is the matter of finding a suitable site anywhere in this country to dispose of that waste.

The committee has made various suggestions to the Atomic Energy Control Board, to Mr. Gillespie and his officials as well as to Eldorado. One or two of the suggestions involved abandoned military sites where there are barracks and abandoned airstrips which were used during the last war. There’s a number of sites with acreages of something like 500 or 600 acres which the ministry feels would make suitable sites.

To say nothing is being done is not right. The matter is being continuously looked at by this committee. It is involving, as I said before, at least three ministries of the federal government, as well as two ministries of the provincial government, as well as the company. I am hoping that the deadline of June 1, which was set by the committee, will be met and there will be some realistic suggestions as to disposal sites.

Mr. Moffatt: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the minister if he can assure this House that if Eldorado and the Atomic Energy Control Board continue to drag their feet on this in the hope of coercing some other municipality into taking that waste material, he will intervene in the situation and designate an area where that material must go under controls exerted by his ministry?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Really, the finding and designation of a site, we feel, is the responsibility of the Atomic Energy Control Board as well as of the company. Certainly, as we have indicated before, we have told the federal people we will assist them in finding a site. As far as approving a site is concerned from all environmental aspects that will take place but the responsibility for disposing of this radioactive waste rests, as the member knows, with the company and with the federal authorities. For us to take on the job of designating a site means that we are limited to the Province of Ontario and I don’t think that should be so.

Mr. Speaker: A final supplementary, the member for London Centre.

Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, to prove his good faith to the people of Port Hope and to the province, is the minister prepared to set a date right now by which time this entire cleanup will have been completed?

Hon. Mr. Kerr: Mr. Speaker, it is difficult to say how long it will take to complete the cleanup. It could go on for three or four months; it could go on for six months. It involves a great deal of material.

Mr. Reid: Centuries, maybe.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: It depends on how far it has to be hauled and the method used to haul it; depending, of course, on where the ultimate site will be.

Mr. Reid: Like the Dow suit.

Mrs. Campbell: Haul it to Dow Chemical property.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: To try to give a guess now would not be honest nor would it probably be accurate.

Mr. Bullbrook: The answer could have been no.

Hon. Mr. Kerr: I am hoping, as far as starting the cleanup is concerned, that some time before the end of June that operation will commence.

Hon. B. Stephenson: It is not his responsibility.

Mr. Breithaupt: A supplementary.

Mr. Speaker: No, that was the final supplementary. A new question?

Mr. Breithaupt: No, a supplementary.

Mr. Speaker: I am asking for a new question now.

FUNDING BY MANAGEMENT BOARD ORDERS

Mr. Shore: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Premier (Mr. Davis), I would like to direct this question to the Chairman of the Management Board, if I might. In view of the fact that the all-party accounts committee of the Nova Scotia Legislature voted to limit the amount of money the government can spend without legislative approval, will this government make a commitment to take action to limit the potential featherbedding of estimates which can arise through funding by Management Board orders?

Hon. Mr. Auld: Mr. Speaker, I am afraid I didn’t catch the first part of the hon. member’s question because there was another conversation going on over here. Could he repeat it, please?

Mr. Shore: All I was trying to do was give an example. The real essence of the question was in view of the possible featherbedding which can arise through Management Board orders, would the minister advise us if he is prepared to limit the amount of Management Board order estimates which go through?

Hon. Mr. Auld: Mr. Speaker, first of all I would say that any of my colleagues would agree that the last thing that is likely to happen as a result of Management Board orders is any featherbedding.

Mr. Nixon: I am sure your colleagues would agree.

Hon. Mr. Auld: As recently as yesterday morning I would think, Mr. Speaker. As far as the question of limiting Management Board orders is concerned, as the hon. member is aware, the select committee has asked the Treasurer (Mr. McKeough) and myself to produce a system of notification to this House of Management Board orders and we are expecting to make a presentation to the select committee very shortly.

Mr. Reid: It has been a bone of contention to the public accounts committee for years.

Hon. Mr. Auld: I could tell the hon. member, for instance, that in terms of the number of Management Board orders, I don’t think that’s his real point. The real question is the amount of money involved in Management Board orders as compared to the amount of money that might be involved, say, in supplementary estimates, and this again is something that will be part of the presentation and discussion with the select committee very shortly.

Mr. Shore: Supplementary: In view of the answer, will that report be coming forward very shortly, or can we assume and have the minister’s assurance that so long as the House is in session he will bring these estimates forward?

Hon. Mr. Auld: Mr. Speaker, I would expect, depending on the volume of business and when the select committee is prepared to meet with us, that it could be as soon as the week after next. I believe the select committee normally meets on Tuesdays, and I think we are prepared to meet any time after the middle of next week.

Mr. Reid: Would the minister not agree that the whole concept is one of accountability to the Legislature for funds spent under Management Board orders and special warrants, and in fact successive public accounts committees have recommended that the government brings special warrants and Management Board orders into the Legislature for discussion and accountability to the Legislature?

Hon. Mr. Auld: Mr. Speaker, I am aware of the recommendations of the public accounts committee, and I don’t want to be accused of taking a lot of the time of the House this afternoon to get into a debate, in effect, or make a long statement about the policy. I would suggest to him, however, that one of the problems is that Management Board orders are not issued sort of one or two a week. In fact, as I recall, I made a statement in my estimates about Management Board orders and indicated the fact that the first Management Board order in the last fiscal year was not issued until I believe the middle of September. The majority of Management Board orders are not made until we are sure of the actual amount of expenditure, which would be in --

Mr. Reid: But there is no accountability to this House.

Hon. Mr. Auld: -- May or March or April, and these are some of the matters that we are going to be discussing with the select committee.

LAYOFF OF CGE WORKERS

Mr. Lupusella: I have a question for the Minister of Labour. In view of the fact that on April 16, 1976 --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. I am not sure whether we have the attention of the Minister of Labour.

Mr. Lupusella: In view of the fact that on April 6, 1976, a letter was sent to the Minister of Labour from the executive board and the stewards’ council of local 507, representing the laid-off hourly-rated employees at Davenport works of the Canadian General Electric Co. Ltd., can the minister table in the House what kind of action the Minister of Labour has taken with regard to the problem raised by an indefinite layoff by the company, which it is now claiming is a temporary layoff but no date is set for the return?

Hon. B. Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, I think that perhaps I should get the details of this from Instant Hansard and will respond when I have that information.

Mr. Lupusella: Supplementary: Can the minister also tell the House why 300 employees who have been laid off for an indefinite period of time by the Canadian General Electric Co. Ltd were not advised of a date when they could expect to return to work? Does it not appear to the minister that the company is simply avoiding its responsibilities and obligations under this legislation by not following section 5, subsection 3, of the Employment Standards Act, which reads that notice of indefinite layoff --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. I am sure the hon. minister can read the section.

Mr. Lupusella: I would like to have an answer.

Mr. Nixon: The answer is yes and yes.

Mr. Speaker: It is not necessary to read an Act, either, at the moment.

[2:45]

Mr. Martel: He’s not reading, he’s paraphrasing.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please, the hon. member for Sudbury East.

Mr. Lupusella: Can the minister respond to that?

Mr. Speaker: Is there an answer?

Hon. B. Stephenson: Mr. Speaker, I will most certainly have the answer to this question when I see what the details are, which I am sorry I really didn’t catch.

SCHOOL FACILITIES IN YORK

Mr. Stong: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Education. Will the minister give some idea of when he intends to fulfil his commitment to the new and rapidly growing community of German Mills, in the town of Markham, to provide the educational facilities, including schools, that are sorely lacking in that community?

Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, I would be glad to look into this matter. I’m sure we’ve had meetings with the York county board and we’ve talked about their capital budget and provision for facilities. As my friend knows, there is not a surplus of funds for school building. There are funds available for areas where housing starts necessitate accommodation; even these are limited, but they are there. We’ve had meetings with the York county board, and I’ll be happy to review my files on that and see where that particular matter stands and let him know.

REVERSAL OF OMB DECISION

Mr. Foulds: Mr. Speaker, a question of the Minister of Revenue, in his capacity as chairman of the cabinet committee on legislation: Can he share with the House the additional information that must have been available to him that led him to recommend to cabinet the reversal of the OMB decision on the Towland-Hewitson asphalt plant in Thunder Bay? Is he willing to table the documents and the minutes of that section of the cabinet meeting?

Hon. Mr. Meen: Mr. Speaker, the deliberations of the legislation committee are simply those by way of discussions of the material that comes forward in the petition, and a review of the order of the Municipal Board in this instance, followed by a recommendation by my committee to my cabinet colleagues. The decision in this case, for reversal of the board’s order, was a cabinet decision and it is customary that we do not give the reasons behind our decisions. It’s obvious that we considered that the board was mistaken. Only in a very limited number of cases do we reverse, alter, vary or in any way tamper with a Municipal Board order, but in this case we considered that they were wrong, that they did not have all the facts before them and that it was appropriate that the board order should be varied, as the technical term goes.

Mr. Foulds: Supplementary: Is the minister willing to talk to the Chairman of Cabinet to make that additional information available publicly? Why was the board mistaken and why, as he so rightly points out, when the cabinet, so rarely overturns an OMB I decision, did it overturn this one when the plant had been operating illegally for two years, and why was the citizens group involved not notified of the additional material, which Ashland Oil or Towland-Hewitson must have given him, so that they could respond to that and the cabinet could have made a rational decision?

Hon. Mr. Meen: The parties to the petition were represented by counsel. Counsel on both sides were familiar with the exchange of material that was received and I don’t think it’s appropriate at all to say that they are not familiar with the facts; I believe that they are familiar with the facts. But, to answer the first question last, I am not prepared to table any documentation. The material which was provided to us on which cabinet acted, I believe, is already available to the parties through their counsel.

DEVELOPMENT OF JUNIOR MINES

Mr. Reid: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Natural Resources. Can the minister indicate to the House how he feels about Ontario Securities Commission policy No. 302, dealing with the development of junior mines in the Province of Ontario? Does he think that in fact this policy will kill the junior mining industry in the Province of Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, I can speak personally on that particular matter -- and I’ll follow up with a further formal comment -- in that I’ve always felt there should be more risk capital, particularly as it relates to the junior mining companies. I have said on many occasions in northern Ontario -- and indeed here in southern Ontario -- that the provisions of the Ontario Securities Commission should be sufficiently flexible to allow those individuals who want to, to invest a certain amount of risk capital -- provided, of course, they are made fully aware of the risk involved, and provided a certain amount of those funds finds its way back into northern Ontario to be ploughed into the ground where it is supposed to be. That’s a personal comment, and one I adhere to very strongly.

In connection with the member’s direct question as to the regulation of the OSC, I am sure the hon. member is aware that a committee has been established under the chairmanship of my deputy minister, Dr. Keith Reynolds, who has brought together a committee of the industry.

Mr. Reid: Have they met?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Yes, they have. They have met on a couple of occasions. They are monitoring the effects of that particular regulation and I believe they are to report to myself and the Premier (Mr. Davis) early this summer as to the effects it is having on the junior mining companies, and from there we will take the next step.

Mr. Reid: One short supplementary.

Mr. Speaker: The oral question period has expired.

Petitions.

Presenting reports.

Motions.

Introduction of bills.

POWER CORPORATION AMENDMENT ACT

Mr. Sargent moved first reading of bill intituled, An Act to amend the Power Corporation Act.

Motion agreed to; first reading of the bill.

Mr. Sargent: The purpose of this bill is to establish a minimum basic-user charge for electric power supplied to residential premises; discounts and lower rates for bulk users would be eliminated -- and it should pass.

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH ACT

Mr. Martel moved first reading of bill intituled, An Act for the Promotion and Protection of the Health and Safety of Persons Engaged in Occupations.

Motion agreed to; first reading of the bill.

Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of the bill is to consolidate matters dealing with the health and safety of workers and place them under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Labour. The bill also establishes a department to be part of the Ministry of Labour which is responsible for research and setting and enforcing standards to protect workers.

HANDCUFF SALES PREVENTION ACT

Mr. Grossman moved first reading of bill intituled, An Act to prohibit the Sale of Handcuffs.

Motion agreed to; first reading of the bill.

Mr. Speaker: No explanation?

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Before we proceed to the orders of the day, we missed a couple of reports. May we return to that order of business?

Agreed.

ONTARIO PERSPECTIVE ON BANK ACT REVIEW

Hon. Mr. McKeough: I am tabling this afternoon for the information of the members a paper entitled, “The Bank Act Review, A Preliminary Ontario Perspective.” This paper has been forwarded today to the federal Minister of Finance. Members are aware the Bank Act is currently undergoing its decennial review. Any modifications to the legislation which come out of the process could have far-reaching effects on our whole financial structure and economic developments in the years ahead. The Ontario government believes the existing system has served Canada’s needs relatively well and that unnecessary tinkering with its basically strong structure should be avoided, particularly when we face more immediate economic priorities. Consequently, I have urged the Minister of Finance to delay for at least five years any broad reorganization of our financial structure. At the same time, we have made some constructive suggestions for improving the financial system.

Mr. Bullbrook: It is the greatest economic club in the world, Canada’s chartered banks.

Mr. Edighoffer from the standing miscellaneous estimates committee presented the committee’s report which was read as follows and adopted:

Your committee begs to report the following resolution:

Resolved: That supply in the following amounts and to defray the expenses of the Ministry of Government Services be granted to Her Majesty for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1977:

MINISTRY OF GOVERNMENT SERVICES

Ministry administration ..................... $3,842,500

Provision of accommodation ......... $176,857,000

Upkeep of accommodation ............. $50,739,000

Supply and services ....................... $59,575,000

Management and information services...$796,000

ANSWERS TO WRITTEN QUESTIONS

Hon. Mr. Welch: Before the orders of the day, I’d like to table the answers to questions 17, 69, 80, 84 and 93 standing on the notice paper.

Mr. Speaker: Orders of the day.

Clerk of the House: The 15th order, House in committee of supply.

ESTIMATES, MINISTRY OF COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES (CONCLUDED)

On vote 2601:

Mr. Chairman: We’re on vote 2601, main office, policy planning and common services. The hon. member for Scarborough-Ellesmere.

Mr. Warner: I’ll wait for a minute while the minister is getting rearranged. While the House leader is still here, do I take it, although the Chair may not be privy to arrangements made ahead of time, that we are looking toward 5:30 as opposed to 6 o’clock and therefore the Culture and Recreation estimates will be on at 8, or should they start at 5:30?

Hon. Mr. Welch: If that is generally agreed, that would be fine. These estimates would wind up at 6 and we’d start a new set at 8. Is that generally agreed?

Mr. Chairman: Is that understood by the committee?

Hon. Mr. Welch: That would mean that Culture and Recreation would start tonight at 8 sharp.

Mr. Peterson: Are you going to be here?

Hon. Mr. Welch: I plan to be here.

[3:00]

Mr. Warner: Thank you, Mr. Chairman; a special thanks. I recall last week we broke off the discussion on the point of leadership and the opportunities available to the Minister of Colleges and Universities (Mr. Parrott) to show some leadership in an effort to make up for the past. I don’t think we need to go into the history at this point but suffice it to say the minister has the capacity and ability to show leadership. In that regard, I would think it very possible for the minister to show some leadership as it is needed in the area of the decision-making process within the colleges and universities.

I think it’s fairly evident -- it certainly must be evident to the minister at this point -- as to what kinds of problems can arise when an institution is not properly represented in the decision-making process. We have the unfortunate experience of Algoma University College. The minister is probably aware of the item in this morning’s Globe and Mail which indicates that the board of governors and the executive committee will be officially dissolved early next month.

They’re one and the same group except for a handful of extra individuals. They managed to appoint themselves. That whole mess, I take it, has stemmed from the problem of not having a proper forum to arrive at a board of governors. The mess is going to be cleaned up, I take it, through a public inquiry which was pushed and prodded for. The government had to relent, finally, and give us a public inquiry up there. The mess will be cleared up. Some of it is coming out bit by bit.

The Ontario Human Rights Commission hearing was successful on the side of the faculty members. That’s just another part of the difficulty up there. The president had served upon him a notice by the faculty that he should resign because of the way he was running the place and so on. The minister is well aware of the details. The point is that much of that, maybe even all of it, could have been avoided if we had put into place the proper system for getting good, sound representation. By that I mean representation of the four constituents which are most affected and most directly involved: The students; the faculty; the support staff; and the community. I know it is difficult to describe fully the community and to find a definition of it. I take it to be several things. The immediate community means the physical neighbourhood and/or city or town. It obviously varies greatly from Sault Ste. Marie to Toronto but, nonetheless, it is partly the physical, immediate-neighbourhood community. There are the segments of the community in balance; representation from the labour movement; representation from the community groups and the people who work in children’s aid or whatever other groups are working in the community; from the board of education; from the trustees; from the teachers’ associations; from the city or town council and so on, but in balance, and very rarely anywhere in this province can you find that.

In fact, if you go to a place like Ryerson -- I know from the last day the minister doesn’t like me selecting extreme examples but I do because it points out the tremendous frustrations that a lot of faculty, support staff and students are under at Ryerson.

When you read the list of the board of governors some parts of it read like a “Who’s Who” column for Toronto. The vice-president for Conwest Exploration; the owner of Parkin Associates; the president of Hudson’s Bay; the wife of the president of Frankel Steel -- and I am not sure of her immediate connection with Frankel Steel at this point -- and so on --

Mr. Nixon: You mean she’s not speaking to her husband?

Mr. Warner: -- these are the constituents; these totally and in balance represent the community that you are trying to serve. It’s not so. The problem at Ryerson goes beyond that though. The collective voice in the decision-making process of students, faculty and support staff just isn’t sufficient. It isn’t enough. I’m not going to put absolute percentages on it, but I would ask the minister to look very carefully at coming up with a scheme whereby we have a balance of voice from students, support staff and faculty and the community, and that the community is represented.

In fact, in the case of Ryerson, at the meeting which you held in your office with representatives of the faculty, students and support staff, I believe they put to you some described format of representation. I think it’s a good format. I don’t think anybody need be held precisely to the exact numbers, with respect to the various community groups that were listed, but it is a worthwhile project. Those three groups are unanimous on their selection, and those are the three groups most directly affected by what goes on in the institution.

I will use one other example -- and it’s a baffling one -- I still cannot understand how the government can continue to be in violation of its own Act, but the University of Toronto Act specifically states, in section 2, subsection 19:

“The governing council shall review this Act and report thereon to the Minister of University Affairs within two years after it comes into force, whereupon the minister shall submit the report to the Lieutenant Governor in Council and then lay the report before the assembly if it is in session or, if not, at the next ensuing session.”

That was July, 1971. It takes elementary math to figure out that two years after 1971 makes 1973, and we are in 1976 and we still haven’t seen the report. The report should come forward, and with it the minister’s suggestion as to any changes that he would see should be forthcoming in the composition of representation for the governing council in that particular case.

It is an area that needs leadership -- desperately needs it. The colleges are in even a far worse state than the universities. The minister is well aware that students, support staff and faculty are frozen out of the decision-making process. They don’t have any part in it. That is wrong, totally wrong in my opinion. It has to be changed and needs to be changed now.

I read over the comments that you made last week and I agree, I think we are looking dead on when we talk about non-elitism in the system. We don’t need a post-secondary system that sponsors elitism in any form. We don’t need that. I know the minister isn’t interested in having an elitist system, and yet we have one fee for the community colleges and an entirely different one for the universities; we have one form of governance for the community colleges and a different one for the universities.

Mr. Conway: What do you mean by elitism?

Mr. Warner: And within that system, particularly as it applies to the colleges, you have the unhappy experience of the people who are most directly affected not taking part in the process.

In fact, it’s so bad that I understand -- and if the minister can supply information otherwise, I would be happy to hear it -- I understand that most of those ministerial appointments come by way of recommendation from the principal or president of the college. If that’s so then what kind of a system are you perpetuating in there? No public nomination -- it’s different from election. Possibly there will be an election in a community if you really believe that it’s still a community college -- and there are serious doubts around the definition of community. If you still believe that it is, then perhaps we do need election within the community of those to serve on that board. But we at least need some public nomination, and we don’t even have that.

Quite frankly I got the opinion, at every college I went to and from every group that I spoke with, that the students and the support staff and the faculty have had enough of not being represented. In many cases, what they’re getting is some benevolence on behalf of the board of governors on occasion or the principal. That’s fine for the daily running as it goes right now, but that’s not good enough in the long haul, not good enough at all. We need some changes and it takes leadership. I think it’s a good challenge for the minister because I think he can handle it and I know he has the interest. I would look forward to hearing some statement from him on it.

An hon. member: That’s praise, Harry. It’s dangerous stuff.

Mr. Chairman: The hon. member for Kitchener-Wilmot.

Mr. Sweeney: Do you want the minister to respond?

Mr. Warner: Yes.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I wonder how you want to handle this this afternoon, Mr. Chairman -- whether you want me to respond individually or you want me to wait and do it collectively. I’ll do it either way. I’d like some direction from the Chair though.

Mr. Chairman: We do have some time restraints. We’ve agreed to complete all of these estimates by six o’clock. It would expedite matters if members could restrict themselves to specific items and specific topics that are interrelated, then the minister could reply in total to them. That seems to be a better way rather than you having to respond to each presentation by the opposition. So if the hon. member for Kitchener-Wilmot had something that was related to what’s been said, probably that would be the best way to do it.

Mr. Sweeney: Mr. Chairman, it was my understanding in dealing with specific votes we would try to tie them in. Okay, I will certainly attempt to do that.

Mr. Chairman: We are dealing with vote 2601 in its entirety.

Mr. Sweeney: All right, under the main office, Mr. Minister we have already had it brought to our attention that two other ministries have obtained funds that did not come through either the budget or the estimates. I believe it was the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Housing. Have any such funds come to your ministry in this way, and if so how much? That’s my first question.

I intended to leave the second one to a little later, but since it’s already been brought to the minister’s attention by my colleague, I think it fits in with what the Chairman just said. With respect to the investigation presently going on with the Algoma University College, it was reported that the college had not applied for $114,000 of supplementary grants. The principal of the college has since denied that, and it is my understanding that the Ontario Council on University Affairs supports the principal’s contention. I would like the minister’s response on who’s right: Did they or did they not?

Finally, also something I intended to bring up later but since it’s already been raised I’ll come along with it. With respect to the University of Toronto Act, it is my understanding, despite the provision written into the Act, that the minister has advised the chairman of the governing council that in fact that Act will not be brought to the attention of the Legislature for this session. I would concur that would seem to be a defiance of the government’s own recommendation -- the government’s own commitment. I would like him to respond to that, particularly since such direction has been given to the chairman of the governing council.

While we’re on this vote, Mr. Chairman, I’ll limit my remarks to that.

[3:15]

Mr. Bounsall: Under the minister’s particular section, Mr. Chairman, just a very short comment on the topic that I was urging the minister to take action on last day. I assume that this industrial training council is to do the major work in the area of concern to me that I was urging the minister to remedy. That is, the apprenticeship training programme in Ontario. I would like the minister’s comments on that. Will that do that job? He no doubt has received what I have received over the last several months, several briefs from the Hydro linemen in Ontario about the need for apprenticeship there --

Mr. Chairman: That comes under vote 2603, item 3.

Mr. Bounsall: I’m talking, as I did last day, Mr. Chairman, about urging the minister to involve himself personally in this whole process.

Mr. Nixon: The apprenticeship matter.

Mr. Bounsall: That’s right. At the colleges.

With respect to the list of members of that council, which the minister reported to the House today, I have a slight feeling of disappointment in that, although he has four women out of 18 on it, there appears to be no Franco-Ontarians at all, an omission that strikes me as being rather a grave one.

Also, although some of the head offices of many of the organizations represented here are in Toronto, and one can see that those persons appointed well represent the groups they are representing, it strikes me that it is also an omission, on a geographic basis, to have nothing west of the line between Kitchener and Brantford on a council of this sort. When one reads the list, one gets the impression that there are a great number of people from the north -- pardon me, we have one from the Sarnia Construction Association -- with the rest virtually all from Toronto. One would hope, given the fact that these training programmes by and large would be given to the colleges, which are spread throughout the province, that one might have a wider geographic dispersal of members on this Industrial Training Council than there is.

Mr. Nixon: Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman: The hon. member for Renfrew North indicated he had a comment.

Mr. Conway: Just a very brief comment, Mr. Chairman. I want to reiterate a point I trying to make the other night, and my friend from Scarborough-Ellesmere (Mr. Warner) has alluded to it again this afternoon. I hope that during the minister’s response to this initial round of questioning, he can take some time to respond to this business about elitism, which we would all deplore, if there’s anything I want out of this discussion, it’s some clear indication that there is a commitment from this ministry to respect the elitism, which we must have and which we know we’re going to have, in academic education at the post-secondary level.

Mr. Martel: What kind of crap are you talking about?

Mr. Conway: I think it is absolutely the worst kind of political platitudinous nonsense to ramble on and to try to tell everybody that in graduate schools, for example, that there would not be a tendency to academic excellence and the elitism that’s a concomitant of that. Anyone who doesn’t recognize that, I think, is being completely and totally unrealistic, and I hope that the minister will take time to respond to that.

Mr. Chairman: The hon. member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk.

Mr. Nixon: On a point of order first, Mr. Chairman, I understand your eagerness and willingness to co-operate with all members so that we can get the best use of the limited time. I do find, however, that proceeding with the vote in this way, where a very wide spectrum of matters are put before the House with the idea that the minister will sum them up in his comments, in many respects takes away from the individual member the opportunity to follow up on an issue as elitism, apprenticeship, the selection of directors for colleges or universities, or perhaps the matter that I want to raise. I just suggest, sir, that your well-known flexibility undoubtedly will give the minister an opportunity to come in on those things without chopping it up too much, if he chooses.

Mr. Chairman: Yes.

Mr. Nixon: Okay. Then the point I would like to make is the fact that in the first vote the financing of Ontario’s participation in the national Council of Ministers of Education is voted by the House. I would ask the minister why his colleague doesn’t look after this, rather than his ministry; but since it is in his ministry, I would like him to report to the House on discussions, probably for the benefit of Ontario more than any other province, about the usefulness of the continuation of grade 13.

Since the minister could very well say that lies in the ambit of the other ministry -- I know that he would not say that since grade 13 is seen by the government of Canada at least as supportable for its maintenance cost to the extent of 50 per cent and was originally envisaged as an aspect of post-secondary education. Many people, myself included, seriously question whether grade 13 should be continued, not so much as a matter of economy although that is something which concerns me, but I really don’t see why this province ought to have 13 specific levels of instruction when students from the other provinces gain admission to our universities with fewer years of academic and formal instruction.

I think this is a matter the government is going to have to come to grips with sometime in the near future. All parties have had policy expressions on this but, because of the reaction from the community, I suppose, the government has tended to draw back from implementing, I believe, a commitment made by the Premier (Mr. Davis) -- the former Minister of Education -- that it would be phased out.

What kind of studies does the minister have which would indicate from his point of view -- that is, from the universities’ level -- the efficiency and necessity, the efficiency of the extra grade and the necessity of continuing it? Certainly we would like to be apprised of the view of the educationalists from the post-secondary level.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I think I had better interject now because the list is growing and I would like to try to recognize the points made.

First of all, to the member for Scarborough-Ellesmere, I have to suggest that not every time the minister is asked for an inquiry is it appropriate to do so. I don’t think it is correct to say we were pushed or dragged screaming or whatever into the Algoma situation. I, too, had visited that area. I think I was in constant contact with the member for the area. It would be inappropriate, every time a problem arises, for the minister to jump in and order an inquiry. We do that reluctantly because, first of all, of the autonomy of the institution; the board of directors is there and in most cases its members are doing their job and doing it well.

I would back off on that. I can assure you in eight months in this ministry we have had four such rather formal requests and I think to have acted on all four would have been incorrect.

You were concerned about representation under the various Acts which have come to this House in the last four or five years. I am talking about representation on the governing councils; all have had faculty and students. As you know, one for McMaster just recently went through the Legislature and it has that kind of representation. Surely, that very clearly states to you government policy? There are, perhaps, areas of disagreement in numbers but the principle has been agreed in private bills and in public bills -- both. There is no contest on whether or not the principle is agreed on; it perhaps varies a little in the numbers.

The University of Toronto Act, I think you are slightly in error, if I can say it that way; the report has been tabled to this Legislature. The Act itself certainly has not been presented.

In answer to the member for Kitchener-Wilmot, I would say I did not make an unconditional statement. I said, rather publicly, that depending on the amount of other legislation which will come to this House, that may or may not come if there is a lot of work required of this Legislature. Whether we will get to that Act this spring or not, I am not certain at this time.

Mr. Nixon: The order paper is about as thin as it has been for many years.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Yes, but I can assure you that there is a good deal of legislation contemplated and we have to take our order in the scheme of things.

Mr. Warner: Does the Ryerson Act fall into the same category?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I think they will be introduced at almost the identical time if not a similar time. We are not at all sure what community colleges want in the way of representation on their boards of governors. I have consulted, too, with various people and we get conflicting reports on who should be on those boards. It isn’t the minister who makes the appointments to the boards now; it is the Council of Regents. The Act was set that way. Frequently we are accused of a political bias. This was an effort to relieve that political bias, and I think it has relieved it. I can assure you that my influence on the appointments to boards of governors is an infinitesimally small amount -- if any. So the Council of Regents was set up to take it away from the political arena, and I don’t fight that principle.

Mr. Nixon: Not in universities.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: We are talking about the community colleges here. It’s eight and four -- four by the municipality -- surely not related to this House even -- and the other eight hopefully do reflect the community interest.

I think we talked about students. When the Act was in place only 10 years ago, there was no possibility of graduates or of students being on these boards. We had to get the thing into place first. It wasn’t long until there were students, but certainly no graduates for two or three years.

I am prepared to say that we will look at that particular thing, but I think you could appreciate that would require a basic change in the Act. I am not at all convinced that it would be a forward step at this stage of the game.

Mr. Warner: Do most of the changes come under the recommendations of the Council of Regents?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: But on the Council of Regents -- I am sure there is consultation there. I am sure there is consultation between the chairman of the Council of Regents and the chairman of the board of governors.

Mr. Warner: Yes, but on their recommendation.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Not necessarily. I haven’t any idea whether it’s from the president or from the chairman of the board or where. That is not a discussion that I become part of and I don’t think at this stage I want to become part of that. I am not at all convinced that the system isn’t working reasonably well.

With regard to the amount of funds that we did or didn’t have in our estimates last year, I understand the only funds that were spent by our ministry were spent in the OCAP programme. We may want to talk about that a little later. It’s $5 million to $6 million. I don’t have the exact details at the minute but essentially that’s the amount of money. Everything else is presently in the estimates in front of you.

There was one point that I missed in your question that I will have to come back to. It was the second point and I am sorry I didn’t get it down.

Mr. Sweeney: Mr. Minister, I rise because I believe it’s an important one. There was a statement made that during the investigation at Algoma University College that $114,000 was not sought by the college administration in supplementary funds and therefore it contributed to their deficit. The principal, Mr. Watkins, has denied that and that denial has been supported by the Ontario Council on University Affairs. I would like to know who is right. Did they not seek the funds? Or is the allegation not correct?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I think you might appreciate that any reply I give to that particular question right now puts me in great jeopardy. I think you would accept that, not because of any other reason than it is before the officer of an inquiry, and I have been duly warned that the less I say on this issue the more appropriate it would be on my behalf. For that reason and that reason only, I am very hesitant to make comments on whether a president should or should not have done something. I think that it would be most unfortunate if I made those kind of comments.

Our assistant deputy minister is on the stand -- if I can use that term -- today, and I understand that that inquiry is going very well. I get my information from quite a few sources, and the people of that community feel that Prof. Whiteside is doing an excellent job in his inquiry. You may disagree with that, I don’t know.

Mr. Warner: No, no, I was just curious whether or not you get any impression that potential enrolments for the fall have been damaged in any way because of the length of time that -- I take it that the report isn’t going to come down, and the judgement, until July sometime.

[3:30]

Mr. Chairman: It’s not appropriate for the member to be asking lengthy questions when the minister has the floor.

Mr. Warner: I’m sorry, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman: Would you complete your response to the question that has been directed to you, Mr. Minister?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Yes, I will. I’m not going to make any comment on the appropriateness of actions of any of the people associated with that inquiry here in this House today.

I would like to turn now to comments made by the member for Windsor-Sandwich (Mr. Bounsall). When you were speaking the other night about our apprenticeship programme, I was of very mixed mind on that. I don’t accept that it is the worst programme going and I don’t think that you wanted to imply that it is. I understand that we have one-third of those engaged in apprenticeship in Canada registered in Ontario. That may not be a yardstick of quality but it certainly indicates that it is a rather extensive programme.

Mr. B. Newman: We have one-third of the population in Ontario.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I know that people from other countries, the United States and Bermuda, have sought our advice, and indeed we have seconded people to assist them in their programmes. But on the mixed mind I speak of; certainly I’m persuaded to be very concerned, as you are, with the apprenticeship programme; and long before last Thursday night.

That was the whole intent of the Industrial Training Council. I would like, for a moment or two, to enlarge on that, because the percentage that impresses me is that 27 per cent of our younger people are in our community colleges and our universities, and 73 per cent of that same age group are out in industry and business; unemployed, employed, etc. To me, and I’ve said this to the community colleges association, that is truly an on-tap resource and should be considered an on-tap resource. I don’t covet that everyone go to university, but I do covet that everyone in that particular age group, and perhaps all ages, have the opportunity for training and the educational experience; and certainly that’s related to your experience in business and industry.

This is no idle wish of mine, the Industrial Training Council. I’ll be quite frank about it, I’m extremely disappointed that neither the press, nor apparently any segment of society, have really started to understand the potential of the Industrial Training Council. There’s no bricks and mortar associated with that announcement. Had we built a great huge structure I’m sure it would have been headline news. But that isn’t what we need; it’s certainly not what I perceive as a need.

I see that Industrial Training Council enhancing the apprenticeship programme; enhancing all of those programmes that are related to that 73 per cent of our population not now intimately involved in our post-secondary educational institutions, and giving them not only recognition but the opportunity to enhance their intellectual capacity.

I could go on for ages on that particular subject, but I just want to say enough to make you fully aware that I see that as the greatest challenge of this day and this era, to help that 73 per cent become totally involved in an educational experience and not just build more buildings to take care of them.

There was one other comment that you made and that was about the type of representation, where they came from and so on. Let me tell you that putting together an Industrial Training Council, or any board of 14 people -- which is essentially what it is, there were other named but if you can appreciate for other reasons -- is a momentous task, it really is.

We did consult with the francophone section of this province and we had no nominees, none. We think, and in fad I’m somewhat disappointed, that you did not comment more favourably on the representation in that Industrial Training Council. It’s truly a cross-section; it certainly doesn’t reflect any political bias. I think you would more than agree with me on that comment. We feel that training council has been put together with great care.

Given the framework of trying to represent all of Ontario, I recognize that eastern Ontario wasn’t very well represented, nor western Ontario. This time we gave more to the north. There were some reasons for that, but when you try to put one person on a council it eliminates someone else, not because that other isn’t of value, but because you want a certain balance in addition to the geographical considerations.

This morning I sent a large number of letters to people who were not on that council, and I expressed the hope that they would stay vitally interested in the programme. I regret that I wasn’t able to name them at this time but we want their continued support. So those are the kinds of comments that I would like to offer.

I don’t totally agree that our apprenticeship programme is on the bottom. We think it is pretty good. We think there is room for improvement and if there is a vehicle to do it, it will be the Industrial Training Council. I conclude by saying that the Industrial Training Council has an equal status to the Council on University Affairs, in my mind, if not in legislative procedures.

Grade 13 -- I think there is one more that I would like to talk to and that’s the comments of the member for Renfrew North (Mr. Conway). I think you and I have a problem of semantics rather than facts. I would like to suggest that what we are really talking about is not elitism, in the sense that we don’t recognize the need for quality or a certain standard of excellence; not at all. The elitism that I was speaking of, and the member opposite, I think the elitism that we were referring to was the kind of elitism that would say, “Well, I go to so and so” and by going there are being a part of that particular section you somehow or other are better than someone else. Not at all. If your work is superior -- and there is an academic need for quality, there is no doubt about that -- and if we say that just anyone, meaning academically anyone, is entitled to go to an institution, I agree with you we have missed the point.

We want standards of excellence in all of our institutions, and if that is what elitism means, God bless, because every single soul who has the mental capacity to be there is elite. It is a difficult word to use without, in my mind, being somewhat discriminatory in your attitude. I think all of us want quality, all of us appreciate the importance of standards but none of us wants that the elitism should reflect an attitude that doesn’t relate to those two aspects.

I don’t know whether you want to comment further on that, but I feel that if we are talking about quality we all agree; if we are talking about position then we don’t want any part of elitism; position for the sake of position.

To turn finally to the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk (Mr. Nixon), with regard to the cost of the Council of Ministers of Education, we share it with the Ministry of Education; 57 per cent theirs and 43 per cent ours. I can’t give you a great deal of subjective appraisal of what I think of it personally. I haven’t had the opportunity to attend yet.

Mr. Nixon: How about some objective appraisal?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: The people of our ministry who have attended -- and there are many areas where we do discuss common problems -- think it has value to us and we believe that it should continue. I have members of the staff on sub-committees who frequently attend meetings where other provinces are represented and they have always suggested to me that perhaps the meetings are long but they would not want to be without them. That’s as much as I can tell you about that, unless you want more specific details on the type of programme that they have discussed. I know we’ve talked about student aid on occasion There are two or three other areas I know we have talked about and perhaps I can give you a bit more on that in a minute.

Grade 13, I’m sure you’re aware -- I hope at least -- of the interface study this ministry is carrying out with the Ministry of Education. It is a very large study in dollars and cents. We think it will give us a good deal of information, to answer your question. We hope that report will be before us in February. We’re expecting a good deal of it to be supplied by November of this year. It’s looking not only at the attitudes of both students and the faculty but at the fit between grade 12 and 13 and the first year of university.

I think, from where I see it at least, we are making some changes which relate to grade 13. I would like to use an illustration of a dental auxiliary programme, if I might, to make the point only. Last year it was necessary to have grade 13 and then two years of university training to become a dental hygienist. The proposal is that it will now be necessary to have grade 12 and two years.

I think the point is that in certain areas we feel very confident that you can eliminate grade 13, but to say eliminate it, period, I don’t hold that view. I don’t think this government holds that view, certainly not at this time I think the more conservative way of treating that problem would be to view the courses one at a time and slowly. I think you recognize the tremendous disruption in the whole system if tomorrow it was announced that grade 13 should be finally closed out. There would be a terrible disruption and I would think it would take a lot of lead time for that to make sense.

I say a far better approach to grade 13 is to judge it individually, course by course, and I think we can do that. I think the mechanisms are in place to allow us to eliminate grade 13, a course at a time, if it’s deemed advisable.

Mr. Nixon: If I might just follow it up with one question, Mr. Chairman; perhaps the other members want to pursue the topics they were discussing. This is not a new idea and it was much closer to being eliminated five or six years ago I would say than it is now. For the minister to say “We mustn’t jump at a thing like this” is not hard to take because we’re used to it but it’s an indication that the government really hasn’t been pursuing any concrete assessment of the value of grade 13.

As I would tell you the only real disruption would be in the number of teachers in the secondary level who would become superfluous and in most cases they would be the very best teachers. At least, it has been customary in years gone by for the best teachers to be allocated to grade 13 with some rather misplaced idea -- misplaced now, not misplaced some years ago -- that it was necessary to have some concentration in the preparation of young people who were intending to go on not only to university but to other types of post-secondary education.

I believe we’ve come a long way from that. In many respects grade 13 is a mark-time year. It’s great for students in grade 13 to have the opportunity to take courses in family relationships and so on but certainly as a preparation for post-secondary education I believe its usefulness is in question.

I would suggest that if you, as Minister of Colleges and Universities, are not aware of the fact that students from other jurisdictions -- particularly the other provinces in Canada -- come to our universities here with only 12 grades and some of them less than that and are at no disadvantage whatsoever -- except that they are a year younger and there may be some disadvantage in that, which is another matter -- I’m surprised he has not been given this information. I would think that cutting off grade 13 five years ago would have been terribly disruptive but now I believe it could be eliminated without a ripple except for the professional people involved and, of course, there would have to be some planning and phasing in that regard. The minister may just want to say a word about that, Mr. Chairman.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I think you’re aware that under the present system some of our students can complete our secondary education in four years.

I’d like to read, if I could, what project 2 of this major study is all about.

[3:45]

Mr. Nixon: What do you call it?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Major.

Mr. Nixon: I thought it was an interface.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: The interface study, “major” meaning large.

“The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education will provide a description on the pertinent characteristics of students completing their secondary and honours secondary graduation. The study will focus largely on student achievement in first and second-language skills, mathematics and physics as measured by student marks and by scores on standardized achievement tests. First-language achievement will be assessed not only by multiple-choice standardized instruments but also through written prose competition.”

I think they’re also going to assess these against their performance in first-year university, and those are the kinds of results that we look forward to receiving to give us a more positive indication of where we should be going. I don’t follow the logic of saying that we could have done it five years ago.

Mr. Nixon: I said we were closer to doing it then than we are now, although it would be easier to do it now than it was then.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: All right. I believe the study in total is $600,000.

Mr. Nixon: The number of dollars has nothing to do with its value. I predict now the value won’t be worth a nickel.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: That’s where you and I disagree.

Mr. Nixon: It’ll be a waste of money.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I don’t accept that at all. Had we made an arbitrary decision --

Mr. Nixon: It’s a prejudice I have.

Mr. Chairman: Order, please.

Mr. Nixon: I would suggest you’re going to have platoons of experts who might better be doing something else in the teaching profession than interfacing and coming up with some of the same recommendations perhaps five years later that had been available to the minister’s predecessor, particularly when he was also the Minister of Education and there was that closer bind.

I’m very much disappointed indeed that the minister is putting such store by the simple fact of spending $600,000. If he thinks he’s going to get $600,000 of wisdom, then he’s very naive.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: The hon. member is entitled to his opinion, but I don’t agree with him.

It’s kind of interesting. Whenever we make a decision, and I think in the last two weeks I’ve made a couple of bold decisions, the first question is who did you consult with? Unless you give a list 4,000 people long and spend at least $1 million, it seems you didn’t consult with anyone. Now we’re saying we’re consulting with large numbers and we’re told we shouldn’t be consulting. I have to disagree with the hon. member.

Mr. Nixon: You are right. There’s no way you could do it right.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: That’s right, but sometimes you’re wrong too.

Mr. Chairman: Any further discussion on vote 2601? The hon. member for Timiskaming.

Mr. Bain: I’d like to pursue a matter that was raised by the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfork.

Mr. Nixon: Norfolk.

Mr. Bain: Norfolk. My accent is different to yours.

Mr. Nixon: Then you must be careful.

Mr. Bain: I appreciate the minister’s concern in this matter of the study by the Ministry of Education of the feasibility of changing grade 13. I would just suggest that the minister undoubtedly will be aware that 13 is not without advantage, as has been alluded to by the member who spoke previously. I would wonder when the last time was that he was involved in a grade 13 class.

Mr. Nixon: I taught it for nine years and I have a son in there now and I examine very carefully what he is doing.

Mr. Bain: Perhaps the standards in his particular school are not very high.

Mr. Nixon: Oh, no. That’s a very easy putdown. You’ve got to do better than that.

Mr. Chairman: Order, please.

Mr. Bain: If the hon. member feels grade 13 should be done away with, I would suggest that his experience then is perhaps unique rather than general.

The situation with grade 13 is that it serves as a very useful preparation for university. If you look at grades 9 to 12, you find that because of the course load and because of time factor, the teachers do not have the ability of preparing the student specifically for the problems that student will face at university. I found that grade 13 serves as a very useful introduction to university and that it prepares the student for many challenges that that student will face at university.

Interjection.

Mr. Bain: One thing that happens in grade 13 is that the students still have a better student-teacher ratio than they will have at university and much of the subject material is comparable to what is taught in university; therefore, the students are given an introduction to university while they are still able to relate to their teachers on an individual basis.

I found from personal experience that in statistical geography courses, for example, that are taught in grade 13, students who normally might not be innately directed towards statistics and who in fact, might have impediments when it comes to statistics or mathematics, are able to work through at a better pace and obtain more individual attention from a teacher in high school. Therefore, that student is given a good base in high school and is brought up to a higher level, and therefore is able to be successful in a course at university in which they would not have otherwise been successful if they had been just introduced to it for the first time in the university environment. I find this is true in mathematics and computer science. Students are given a very good base in their grade 13 education in this area.

I think grade 13 serves as a very useful preparation to university. If it’s not being used as that, I would suggest that if the standards in grade 13 perhaps have diminished in particular high schools, if it has become a waiting year in some schools, then perhaps it has lost its impetus; but I would suggest the change is required in those particular schools and not a holus-bolus abolition of grade 13.

Mr. Conway: Is that what your party says?

Mr. Bain: As the minister has correctly pointed out, in areas where grade 13 is not seen as a preparation that’s necessary for university, students don’t take it anymore. Where that preparation for university is not required, students can go to their selected course in post-secondary education without grade 13. I would simply say that if you are going to transfer grade 13 to university, then you are going to have an extra year involved in university, and the added costs there both for the government to provide added facilities and for students to pay for room and board, if they happen to be away from home, would be burdensome to say the least. If you are not going to transfer that learning to some other level, then in essence you are saying nothing of value is taking place in grade 13, and you are going to have to transfer that some place. If you are going to compress it into --

Mr. Nixon: You can transfer to the previous year.

Mr. Bain: I listened with indulgence to your tirade against grade 13. I assume that you will accord me the same courtesy in its defence.

Mr. Conway: What about the party’s position, Bob?

Mr. Chairman: Order, please.

Mr. Conway: Care to deal with it in point --

Mr. Bain: You can state your party’s position whenever you like. I am presently stating a point of view that I have in regard to grade 13. That’s one of the nice things about my party. We have --

Mr. Nixon: A number of positions.

Mr. Bain: No, we don’t; that’s your party.

Interjection.

Mr. Chairman: Order, please.

Mr. Bain: Our party allows for ample input before any overall decision is made. Unfortunately, the other party never makes an overall decision --

Mr. Chairman: Order, please. Will the hon. member direct his comments to the contents of this vote in the estimates?

Mr. Bain: I am, Mr. Chairman, except I feel obliged to fend off some of the low shots made by the Liberal Party.

In summary, Mr. Minister, I hope you will give careful consideration to the importance of grade 13 and that you continue the policy you have enunciated, whereby you feel that grade 13 is not necessary for selective courses, but to abolish grade 13 holus-bolus would be a disservice.

Mr. Conway: Speaking as a private member.

Mr. B. Newman: Mr. Speaker, earlier in the debate the situation of Algoma University College was mentioned. What is the relationship between the college in the State of Michigan -- that’s Lake Superior State College -- and the problems at Algoma? I understand that the Michigan college is the only college in that state that has a lower tuition fee than does Algoma University College, and as a result it makes it more attractive to the student to be going across to the State of Michigan. Not only do they do that, they even provide a dial-a-bus service for Ontario students.

How do you plan on coping with that, Mr. Minister, so that the students in the Soo area can be attending Algoma University College, where I think they would be getting by far a better standard of education than they would in Lake Superior College in the State of Michigan?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I think the member would recognize that we don’t have any opportunity to set the fees for Lake Superior College. If they set the fees at a rate which seems more attractive to the Canadian student, and the Canadian student decides to go there, I think that is a choice that is open to that particular student. I would hope that the member would not ask me to get into a price war. If such were the case -- with one college competing against another around this province -- I think that would be a great disservice. We have to allow Michigan to set their fees as they will. I think perhaps they are doing that one college some benefit, but the principle of having such large differences of policy, of one institution in the state versus the other, seems to me to be not something that we would emulate.

Mr. B. Newman: I wouldn’t for one minute consider that you should set lower tuition charges than they are charging, or ever lower than what would be charged in a college in any part of the Province of Ontario. But I think there are some financial problems at the Canadian university, that possibly grants from your ministry could resolve. I think you could make it a little more attractive to the Ontario resident to stay at home, rather than cross the border.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I hope too that you are aware that through their representation to OCUA, that body has recommended, and we have accepted, an additional grant based on cost -- northern grants. I would think that is one factor you would have to consider as a way of helping that particular body overcome some of their difficulties. As I said before I am not going to enlarge too much on the present situation at Algoma.

Mr. Germa: Mr. Chairman, the minister is aware of the problem facing miners in the Province of Ontario regarding an apprenticeship programme, and that the Ontario Mining Association has deliberately frustrated what I think is the proper motivation of this government. I think at one point in time this minister was motivated to introduce an apprenticeship training programme for miners. The committee was set up but the representative from the Ontario Mining Association, I understand, totally frustrated the efforts of this tripartite committee.

Now the minister has seen fit to set up this Industrial Training Council. I don’t think that the minister really understands how desperate and important is the situation, how dangerous it is, how many lives are being lost, and how many men are being injured, as a result of improper training in a strange environment. The job is dangerous, done under adverse working conditions in the dark. I wish the minister would take the bit in his teeth and circumvent the deliberations of the Industrial Training Council. Because I can see that this is going to frustrate the introduction of a miners’ apprenticeship programme in Ontario for some considerable period of time.

We already have a plan to work by. We know that the Province of Manitoba has a successful plan in operation. They have had it in for a couple of years now I understand. I would ask the minister to make comment, and to do something. When does he expect that we will have a mining apprenticeship programme in the Province of Ontario?

[4:00]

Hon Mr. Parrott: Before I answer that question, the deputy handed me a piece of information that I think I should have given the member for Windsor-Walkerville, if I could have his attention for a moment. If students qualify for assistance and go to a college in the United States, they are eligible for loan only, whereas if they are eligible for a student assistance programme, they would be eligible for loan and grant. So on an individual basis there would be more assistance to at least a section of the students who are potential clients of both institutions. I think that’s a point that should be recognized.

Mr. B. Newman: Mr. Minister, that is one way and it is probably a good way, but remember there are also courses that are not available to students who live in border towns in the Province of Ontario or they are substantially far away from them. For example, in my own community students can attend the University of Detroit, Wayne State University, the University of Michigan, or Eastern Michigan College, all within 35 miles of the city of Windsor. It would be really cheaper for you to have them attending that university, if it is the university of their choice, rather than having them attend the university 120 to 140 miles away from home. There should be some provision for a student in that kind of case also.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: No. It might be individually cheaper, but I think there are many other factors that would have to be considered as well. You’re really talking about the problem of distribution of our colleges and universities all over Ontario. You can draw the same logical conclusions for other areas.

Turning to the member for Sudbury (Mr. Germa), I think you well know that Mr. Gilchrist should very well represent that interest of which you speak on the Industrial Training Council. I am convinced that we have gone a long way in the last little while.

Unfortunately I couldn’t attend the meeting that you were at. It was my understanding from that particular meeting that things were progressing favourably, and that in the last two or three months the mining association and the mine workers had come much closer together.

We are agreed in principle. It’s now a matter of bringing those details into fact, and I expect that there will be apprenticeship programmes for the miners. We’ve agreed to modular training, those kinds of things, and I think we’ve gone forward a long way in the apprenticeship programme for the mining people of this province and we’ll pursue that. We’re certainly agreed in principle that it should happen and, with such an able spokesman on the industrial Training Council, there should be no roadblock at all.

Mr. Germa: Mr. Chairman, could I respond to the minister? I know Mr. Gilchrist will look after the best interests of the miners, particularly in the Sudbury area --

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Hopefully all areas. He is not there for one area. I want to stress that point.

Mr. Germa: I recognize that, but I think we have to also recognize that Sudbury is the centre of the universe as far as mining is concerned. It’s not the centre of the universe, it’s the centre of the mining universe, and if we can solve the problem in the city of Sudbury I think we will have solved the problem all over the world.

The minister did not really tell me when we are going to have the programme. This has been under discussion for possibly 1½ years. The people on this side of the fence, the employees concerned, the trade unions involved, these people are already convinced, and Mr. Gilchrist does not have to sit on that committee to be convinced of the benefits that will accrue to having a miners’ apprenticeship programme.

I don’t think the minister understands the urgency of the situation. Does the minister not know that there have been five deaths in the International Nickel Co. mines in Sudbury since the beginning of this year? Most of those deaths were of young people; in fact, one person was 19 years old. He had one week in the school stope -- that’s all the training this person had -- and then you turn him loose in the dark, on rough terrain, with loose on top of his head, and you expect this youth, at age 19, to be wise enough to defend himself in that kind of a hazardous environment.

The situation is urgent. The situation is desperate. There are men getting killed because of lack of training and I think that is precisely what the minister doesn’t understand.

I think it would do the minister good to visit a mine, in the working drifts, to see exactly what these people have to face and why we have such a high death rate in the mines in Ontario. We’re killing 40 or 50 people a year and we have been doing it continuously over the years.

The situation is not new. It’s just coming to the point where it’s getting desperate because with the speed-up in production the costs, of course, are hitting the mining companies. The mining companies are attempting to alleviate the costs. They’re pushing the work force harder. The work force has more automatic equipment, more machinery, more dangerous machinery. It’s a very complex situation.

I wish the minister would take into consideration how desperate and serious the situation is and that the apprenticeship programme should be expedited and not delayed by putting it to the Industrial Training Council for its deliberations.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: We’re not putting it to the Industrial Training Council. I don’t think that is what I said. I said this man is an excellent spokesman for that concern and there is a meeting, I am advised, on June 1 to proceed with the negotiations between the two factions. I can’t exactly legislate that there must be accord. We can put in place the apprenticeship training programme but it’s important that accord between these people exists. I think the hon. member would agree that in the last month and a half a great deal of progress has been made.

The member asked me for a date when it will be done. I can’t give him that date. I can tell him on June 1 another meeting will be held and if those two factions will come together and agree, this ministry wholly supports, totally supports, the concept and will make every effort to see that it occurs. We want it to occur with an harmonious relationship, if at all possible, because it will work far better if that’s the relationship which exists between them than if they are told they must do this and then they continually try to find ways of not making it work.

Surely the member would agree that at the last meeting that much progress was made?

Mr. Germa: When I consider the time this has been going on, I’m totally frustrated with it and I don’t agree that there has to be accord. Certainly it would be nice but I think at some point in time, the minister has to lower the boom and say there is going to be an apprenticeship training programme in the Province of Ontario.

We did it in other areas -- when it was important to have an apprenticeship programme for plumbers, for instance, on account of the public health factor. That’s what you have to take into consideration, not appeasement to the mining companies. The minister has to decide.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Had no progress occurred, I would agree with the hon. member, but progress is occurring.

Mr. Germa: How much has happened in the past year? How long have we been talking about this apprenticeship training programme? Nothing has happened in the past year.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I’m sorry; with respect, I don’t agree. I think a great deal has happened in the last month and a half and I’ll make every effort to make it continue at that speed.

Mr. B. Newman: Before we carry the vote, I wanted to ask if the minister has statistics as to the number of American students enrolled in our Ontario colleges and universities?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I think I can get that for the hon. member. The hon. member wanted Americans, not landed immigrants?

Mr. B. Newman: Just American.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Do we have that?

Mr. B. Newman: Do you have that? Did you dig that out, Mr. Minister?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: No, I have the landed immigrants and student visas but I don’t, quickly, have the American component of those. I have seen those figures, I don’t have them readily at hand. If we can find them we will give them to you in the next minute or two.

Mr. B. Newman: Can you give a ball park figure at all?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I am strictly going by guess now, but of the student visas in 1974-1975 the number is 5,756 and my guess would be about 50 per cent of that. I have been handed a note, about 3,500, so that is not too far away. My understanding is that of the foreign students approximately 50 per cent are American.

Mr. B. Newman: Then actually there are more American students attending our colleges and universities in the Province of Ontario than there are Ontario students attending American universities, because the American statistics for 1974, for all of Canada, are 8,430; and if we take one-third of that population being Ontario students you would have under 3,000 Ontario students attending American universities?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Yes, I think that is essentially correct. The balance of trade has started to flow the other way, if that is an apt way of saying it, but we are not talking about a great change in numbers. Essentially I think we could agree on 3,000, give or take.

Mr. Chairman: Before the Chair recognizes the hon. member for Scarborough-Ellesmere, it is my understanding, from the chairman of the committee, that we are dealing with votes 2601 and 2602 in their entirety rather than item by item. I would also remind the members of the committee that I am informed there has been an understanding with the House leaders that estimates of this ministry would conclude by 6 p.m.

The hon. member for Scarborough-Ellesmere.

Mr. Warner: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be brief. I want to talk about item 2, which is policy and planning. It is a very puzzling little section. If you take a look at the estimate amounts from 1975-1976 and the estimate amounts for 1976-1977, I am wondering if we are going to get $96,000 less of policy or of planning. I am not sure which we are going to miss out on this year.

I am really puzzled by the decrease and I would like an explanation, because policy and planning has been a real problem for this government for a long time and it hasn’t been solved. It goes back to the report of the Commission on Post-Secondary Education in Ontario, which I think was about 1972. It was stated there:

“In planning their curricular and research programmes, post-secondary institutions in sparsely settled areas should pay particular attention to special regional needs, including the academic upgrading of employees in basic industry, research related to the economic and social possibilities and dilemmas of the north; learning opportunities for persons in remote communities; and appropriate educational services for native peoples and franco-Ontarians, designed in close consultation with each of these groups. The responsiveness of institutions to regional needs should be further encouraged by the appointment of lay members to governing bodies from a representative range of centres and areas.”

I take it that the minister realizes that those objectives, in terms of planning and policy, have not been fully reached.

Further, as an update, on May 20, a few comments were directed at the OCUA meeting that was held at Guelph.

“Someone must shoulder the responsibility of telling universities what they should be about in the years ahead if they are to do any meaningful, long-range planning.” That comment, apparently, was presented several times by various university representatives.

Someone from the University of Windsor asked: “How an individual university can plan for its future when we don’t know what the government is thinking?” That’s a direct quote from that person.

[4:15]

A member of the University of Toronto’s governing council said the government has set rules for universities over the years --

“ -- and it mustn’t shirk that responsibility now. While the universities are waking for direction, especially with respect to financing, the institutions’ physical facilities are wearing out. We must get clear signals from on up in the system about what we are supposed to be about. Let’s ask the government to do the job with us.”

Then finally, a very curious comment, in summation, from Dr. Dupré, chairman of OCUA. He suggested that governments as well as universities don’t like to set aims and objectives in years of restraint, and both sectors must be pushed for such information. An indirect quote: “It is up to OCUA to press both sides for planning.”

The message is pretty clear. The long-range planning is not being done. Universities are tremendously frustrated by the kind of financial planning that goes on. It seems to be very much on an ad hoc basis. You can’t do it for more than a year at a time. You can’t give them any budget signals for more than a year at a time. They appreciate the fact that you gave them an earlier warning this year than what they got previously, but it’s still not good enough. Surely we can budget for more than a year at a time.

It’s not just me or the party who has been speaking up on that sort of thing. You can go back to documents from -- this was a brief to OCUA -- I believe it’s from Queen’s, April, 1975. One of the lines was:

“The urgent need is for planning which will involve commitment by government to funding far ahead of its annual budget cycle. We do not suggest that this can or should be a rigidly-set dollar amount but a commitment to funding at a defined level up to five years ahead subject to annual review and revision.”

and so on.

The message is coming in from several different sources and it all says the same thing. We just can’t leave the universities in a continual state of flux. We can’t leave them abandoned in the sense that they don’t know from one year to the next about finances nor what your plans are and what kinds of things they should be working towards in an academic sense.

You have made it easy for them in one way. The province shows almost no interest in research, so you have made it easy for them. With the federal government cutting back their money for research, then universities don’t have to get too much involved in research any more. We will let the Americans do it for us.

But you have to give some sense of direction to them. What are they all about? What should they be doing? They can define their goals, but do they fit into the government’s philosophy? We don’t know because we don’t hear. So I am very curious and I would like an explanation as to the decrease. Can you indicate whether that is evenly divided amongst having less policy or less planning? I would appreciate hearing from you.

Mr. Sweeney: Mr. Chairman, also under item 2, policy and planning, a couple of points. The first one was that earlier I had made mention of what appeared to be the lack of co-ordination between the two ministries, the Ministry of Colleges and Universities and the Ministry of Education. I had suggested that there are several areas where that co-ordination is absolutely essential, and I think it was the minister that suggested that we might refer to it again when we came to this particular point.

For example, Mr. Minister, I am really concerned about the lack of co-ordination in secondary school counselling for their own students with respect to them either going to university or to a community college or to a timed delay in their career advancement or going directly to work. Obviously this has a great deal to do with your ministry and yet the counselling itself takes place within the other ministry. So that very obviously is a degree of co-ordination that must be carried out.

In the discussion as to whether or not we need 12 or 13 years to prepare a student for entrance to university or to college, I would point out that I am not referring to getting rid of grade 13 or getting rid of a year as such. What I am asking is do we or do we not need in the Province of Ontario 13 years seemingly to prepare a student for the same point of entrance that several other provinces of Canada only take 12 years to do?

At the present time, at the University of Waterloo there are slightly in excess of 100 students from other provinces in Canada who entered that university having completed 12 years of elementary and secondary schooling, and my most recent check with the administration indicates there is no noticeable difference. They are equally well prepared academically and seemingly equally able from a social point of view. I think obviously that needs to be considered. It isn’t a case of whether we drop a year or not, but what kinds of preparation are required? Are we talking about integrating some of the present grade 13 programme into the 12 years? Are we talking about that or what other variation? Obviously, it is an area where co-ordination and very clear co-operation between the ministries are required.

The whole question of standardised norms or entrance tests or examinations or something was brought up a week ago with respect to graduate schools by one of the other members of this House. I would suggest that the same issue needs to be raised once again with respect to admission to either universities or colleges. We have had, I believe it is since 1967 or 1968, a lack of any kind of norms or standards.

I am not sure how far we should be going but there seems to be enough concern expressed by enough different bodies that we need to take another look at the whole business. I am not really sure whether or not your half-million-dollar study is really going to get to the heart of that. Maybe it will and maybe it won’t, but obviously it’s a question we have to look at.

In the same vein, we have to ask pretty carefully why is it necessary for so many of our universities now to set up remedial programmes? I am sure the minister is quite well aware that there are three or four universities that already have remedial programmes, especially in English. There is one at least that has it in mathematics and I understand from press releases and other sources there are two more that are planning to introduce them in 1977. Obviously co-ordination, co-operation and communication are necessary between those two ministries to take a look at that. That is one area under the whole business of policy and planning.

As to the second one, I am referring to an issue that came up, and may I ask a question, Mr. Chairman? I want to make a reference to OISE. I don’t find it listed anywhere else, but if there is another vote where it would be more appropriate, I would appreciate knowing that. Would it be more appropriate under universities?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I think more appropriate under the Ministry of Education rather than this vote, for most of their activities.

Mr. Sweeney: OISE?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Yes.

Mr. Sweeney: It is a post-secondary institution.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Not for the purpose of funding. It depends on what you want to ask.

Mr. Sweeney: I will leave it until I come to the universities then.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I think the clear way of saying it is that we fund OISE only through the post-graduate programme.

Mr. Sweeney: That is precisely what I want to seek out.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Okay, fine.

Mr. Sweeney: Would this be an appropriate place to mention it?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Depending on the question.

Mr. Sweeney: It is the whole issue of post-graduate education at OISE. The suggestion from the McKeough report, as I understand it, was it would have been far better to take that entire programme and put it into the University of Toronto under its faculty of education, and yet there seem to be some very, very obvious inconsistencies there. First of all, I understand that the University of Toronto doesn’t have the space to house its own faculty of education students; it uses some of the space in the OISE building. If we are talking about space, it is obviously a fallacious argument. If we are talking about cost, my discussions with the administration at OISE indicate to me that the cost of a postgraduate student at OISE is exactly the same as it would be at any other institution; so we are not going to save any money there.

The third point I believe was mentioned in that report was the whole issue of research costs, research grants and so forth. Once again it doesn’t seem that it’s going to cost any more, or any less, to do educational research at the University of Toronto, at York, or anyplace else, than it would at OISE.

So I would like the minister, from that particular perspective to either straighten out my thinking -- or straighten out somebody’s -- because I just can’t see the consistency of the argument.

Now, the other side of the coin is, do we need a post-graduate school in education at all? That’s a different question. I personally feel that we do, but there are a number of people who don’t. If we are agreed that there is going to be post-graduate education in the area of education, then I fail to see the relevance of the arguments that have been used. I would like the minister to respond to that.

Under planning and policy, Mr. Minister -- I guess it’s the whole issue of planning more than anything else -- I noticed three very current reports -- one from the Council of Ontario Universities, which is primarily the presidents, another from the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations, and another from the Ontario Federation of Students. I think from those three bodies, we’re probably hitting the broad segment of the university community, the administration, the faculty and the students and not necessarily in that order. In every single one of those reports -- and these are the most recent ones, 1976 reports -- there is grave concern expressed about the whole business of long-range planning for this ministry in this province -- and as was pointed out by one of our other colleagues in the House, this goes back.

Most recently I was reading the 1972 Commission on Post-Secondary Education report and they expressed rather grave concern -- now that goes back four years -- about the whole place of planning here. Last year’s report of the Ontario Council on University Affairs was sufficiently concerned about the whole business of planning, that they specifically directed questions to that, to their various constituency bodies. What I’m really trying to get at, Mr. Minister, is that I don’t think we’re getting any closer to this.

There are just too many different constituent groups of this whole matter referring to your ministry, that keep saying year after year after year -- whether they’re right or not, very obviously their perception is, their internal feeling, to avoid a vulgarism, is -- that things just aren’t being looked at from the long-range point of view.

I know the minister has heard me say over and over again, my concern about this happening at individual institutions as well, that one of the ways in which this could be facilitated at an individual institution level, is some kind of long-term financial or economic commitment on behalf of your ministry that for the next four years, five years, whatever is reasonable -- certainly more than one at a time -- we’re going to give you some opportunity to plan for the long range.

So I’m referring to long-range planning at the ministry levels at the various constituency levels we’ve spoken to, and also at the institutional level. It’s a serious problem.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Before I have any comment on long-range planning I would like to reply to the one question about the difference in the estimates, this year versus last, in policy and planning. We had a task force on native people that was paid for essentially last year, and that accounts for almost the entire difference in the budget.

The role of our policy-and-planning section is one of co-ordination. A good deal of the planning, per se, goes on within the two branches of colleges and universities, and so not all of the planning in a pure sense occurs by any means in that vote, lit is seen more appropriately under universities, the programme administration. A good deal of those dollars would account for our planning process, plus the Council on University Affairs is there.

I want to make some comments about two or three areas that I think are directly related to long-term planning. Somehow or other these basic facts get lost in the politics of the situation. It concerns me a great deal.

[4:30]

First of all, all of us agree totally on the need of the autonomy of the institution. Surely if you’re going to give the institution autonomy you also give it responsibility. And a great deal of the long-term planning that they charge should be at my doorstep is indeed in their own ball park.

Mr. Bullbrook: Do you equate the universities and the community colleges in that total autonomous feeling you have?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: No.

Mr. Bullbrook: Good for you.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: No.

So let’s not just say it’s all the responsibility of the Minister of Colleges and Universities to talk in terms of long-range planning. Secondly, without trying to escape any of the responsibility that does naturally rest on my shoulders in that area, surely we all recognize the very significant role of the Council on University Affairs.

Only two or three weeks ago I had a conversation with the chairman and suggested very strongly that this year I wanted them to concern themselves about things other than just money. I’m sure that he is equally concerned on that point. Right at this time of year, they are listening to all the submissions from all the universities and surely that is a great forum for long-range planning.

Somehow or other, the importance of those two aspects seems to be forgotten when anyone in this House or outside of this House points the finger at the minister and says “You should be doing the planning.” If I did the kind of planning that many people would con me into thinking I should be doing, the next statement that would be levelled at me was “you’re interfering.” The suggestion was made that we set the rules for the universities. Indeed we don’t.

Mr. Warner: That was a quote. I didn’t say that. The universities said that.

Hon. Mr. Parrot: Whoever said it should have been taken to task, because we don’t set those kinds of rules. So it’s hardly fair, in my opinion, to offer that as evidence that we have a responsibility for long-range planning. I’m not asking anyone to suggest that I don’t have a responsibility in long-range planning, but certainly not the total amount. Last year we took almost entirely the advice of our council that’s charged with planning, the Council on University Affairs.

Someone in the last session we had here asked how many dollars -- I think it was related to dollars -- did we spend as recommended by the council. I think the figure is 99.2 per cent. In other words, they suggested that we had a need in the system of 99 of 100 per cent, whatever those dollars would amount to -- $651 million was the actual amount allocated this year to that budget. That’s 99.2 per cent of what they suggested was necessary for the system.

If that doesn’t strongly reflect how well we’re accepting the advice of the body charged with planning, I don’t know how much closer I could get.

Mr. Warner: But the gap was $20 million in two years.

Hon. Mr. Parrot: I don’t think it was $20 million. I know the percentage is well above -- Pardon?

Mr. Warner: lit was $16 million plus $5 million -- $16 million last year, $5 million this year.

Hon. Mr. Parrot: If you want to go accumulative, that’s fine. But we have some responsibilities.

I think it’s a tremendous mark of understanding on the part of this government. If a body recommends to us that so many dollars should be spent and their job is not to worry about the other priorities that are necessary in this province, and when we take their advice to the tremendous extent that we did, that is a mark of respect for that body -- it’s a mark of understanding by this government of a commitment to post-secondary education.

I think it’s truly amazing that that figure should be so close to the recommended figure when you consider all of the other pressures -- particularly in this year. Not to drag that red herring into the discussion, but particularly this year when there are other priorities that are required in this province to come that close to that recommendation I think was really a significant point.

Without trying to say that I have no responsibility for long-range planning, I think it’s only fair to draw that to the hon. member’s attention. I’m sure that he’s aware of it.

My understanding of history and the reason you study history is that you understand the future. That may be a bit of an oversimplification but surely to goodness, if that is relevant at all, the universities should be able to look back to the last four or five years, or whatever number of years, and get a pretty clear indication of the funding mechanisms that will go on in the years that lie ahead. You know, it has been pretty consistent: A year ago the funding was 16.9 per cent, and it is 14.4 per cent this year. Those are the figures for the last two years; I don’t know the percentages before then, but it hasn’t been an up-and-down pattern, whenever we had a few dollars left over, that we would put them into the system. It has been a consistent pattern of increasing dollar support in number and a relatively stable position in the amount of money that this government has given to the colleges and universities of the province. I think that mark of stability is of tremendous significance in long-range planning. They almost, of certainty, have been able to count on a continuing level of support.

You might argue that it should have been 10 per cent vs. nine per cent or something of that nature, but had it gone from minus four per cent one year to plus 15 per cent the next year and then down to minus two per cent, that kind of financial commitment certainly would have led to a very uncertain long-range planning procedure. But that has not been the pattern. It has been very consistent over the years, and I think you and the universities should recognize that fact far more than has been the case.

In other areas, to be more specific, we talked about long-range planning. This year, the council advised that we should freeze the graduate programme. You talked about the importance of the graduate programme in the university life, and indeed it is. But planning can’t always be that we will add more and more and more. Sometimes it means we must cut here or there to add somewhere else.

Mr. Chairman: May I exhort the minister to keep his remarks a little bit briefer if we are going to touch base on the remaining sections of these estimates? We have got only an hour and 20 minutes now.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: You are right, Mr. Chairman. I am prepared to shorten them. I would then go to the remarks of the member for Kitchener-Wilmot (Mr. Sweeney); he was concerned about grade 13, as was the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk (Mr. Nixon).

I think a point I would like to make in that regard, in addition to the one I made previously, is that we should not consider shrinking from five to four years in the secondary level but rather, if the process is to occur, it should occur from grade 13 to grade 12, because there is quite a difference if we shrink the secondary or the secondary and elementary together. I think that’s the way we would think in that area. How much further we are going will depend a lot on the interface study.

I think, having talked about the freezing of the graduate fund base, that has a direct effect on your comments re OISE. They had fairly significant assistance this year because we averaged over the last two years rather than one year; that was a direct help, as I understand it, for their programmes this year. Had we done it with one year only in mind, it would have been to their disadvantage, but we have averaged it over two and we will average it over three. The amount of funds is frozen on the base, however. They will then have to come forward -- not just OISE, but all of the graduate programmes -- with some changes that they want to see in programmes. It is going to put some pressure on the system, but rightly so. They must make some choices in their priorities of graduate studies.

Ms. Sandeman: I’d like to speak briefly on the policy and planning vote, but I’ll confine my remarks to policy and planning as it all affects one fairly small but very important group of students; that is, the handicapped students in post-secondary education in this province.

I was looking recently at the report of the select committee on utilization of educational facilities, and without going into the interesting recommendations they make about an open educational system, which would provide alternative places of learning and ways of learning for those in the province who are not presently served by the existing institutions by providing educational opportunities for students wherever they happen to be and in whatever forms are most relevant to their situation.

I think it’s important that we look at the situation of handicapped students who can get to university, are physically able to get to a university or a college. We should, I think, bear in mind the recommendations of the select committee that wherever possible, entry should be made possible for those in Ontario who do not presently have access to existing educational institutions because of the nature of the institution. Specifically the concern of the educational institution should be with those who are physically handicapped and who are barred from the university or the college by the nature of the building or whatever it may be.

The specific recommendation that the select committee made in relation to high schools was an interesting one. I don’t believe that the Ministry of Education has followed up on it. That was that the government should provide special funding to school boards and municipalities to cover 80 per cent of the cost of improving accessibility to existing public buildings -- that would be schools -- so that physical accessibility for the handicapped would be improved. I wonder if the ministry has given any consideration at all to the improvement of physical accessibility of colleges and universities for the handicapped.

The select committee recommended further that the handicapped themselves should be involved in the development of the proposed changes. The hon. minister will probably tell me that the provisions under the new Building Cede will protect forthcoming generations of handicapped students. The problem at the moment, as I see it, is that there are very few capital projects planned or allowed under the present restraints.

We are not going to be seeing many new college buildings, which will, by mandate of the Building Code, provide accessibility to handicapped students. What we do have are large numbers of buildings which were built at a time when people gave very little thought to accessibility. I wonder if the ministry is giving any thought at all to improving accessibility in those existing buildings by encouraging the universities and colleges to give thought to it and perhaps providing some kind of funding on the basis of the kind suggested by the select committee for high schools.

Accessibility, of course, is a key factor for the handicapped. In terms of education, the concept of accessibility, I think, means several things, not only the physical accessibility to the building. It’s fairly easy, straightforward to put in ramps and make sure that elevators are accessible, that the washrooms are renovated and so on.

We have talked already in these estimates accessibility to the educational system in Ontario for students. Fears have been expressed about elitism. The minister has addressed himself to the fact that qualified students with the right educational qualifications should be able to enter the universities. It seems to me that there is a danger of a kind of elitism creeping in in Ontario at the moment, an elitism which depends not on your financial background or your social standing or the college you go to or any of those things, an elitism based on the fact that some of us are physically sound and whole and others of us aren’t.

Basically, it’s the healthy, the physically healthy, who end up in colleges and universities more than the physically handicapped who have equal mental capacities, who have the educational background, who have all the qualifications that their healthy peers have. The principle of accessibility to colleges and universities somehow seems to become lost when we are talking about accessibility for the handicapped. Again I must stress that I don’t only mean physical accessibility.

[4:45]

There are so many problems involved in this. One of them is part of this whole question of co-ordination between high schools and universities, which a previous speaker brought up, the problem of counselling for high school students about the availability of post-secondary programmes. There is no co-ordination at all, as far as I can see, between schools and universities and colleges when it comes to telling students what colleges and universities have physical accessibility for handicapped students and what colleges and universities have special programmes for handicapped students, whether it be the provision of taped books or programmes of that kind.

I think that is a gap in the liaison which the ministry should address itself to. A lot of energy seems to be given in co-ordinating academic programmes and in letting students know what’s available. If a high school student in Ontario is interested in studying mathematics of physics, it’s easy enough for that student to discover -- not as easy as it should be, but reasonably easy -- what colleges give what courses in physics and what specific areas of physics or maths or whatever it may be the college is specializing in. That information is available to the high school guidance counsellors.

That same kind of care isn’t given to identifying either the presence of handicapped students in the high schools and universities or ensuring that the necessary support services are available to them or letting them know where the support services are presently available. If that isn’t done, the whole principle of equal accessibility to higher education becomes a mockery.

Not one university at the moment can readily identify the handicapped students among its population. I believe that a mechanism has to be developed to ensure that this is done. Where the nature of the handicap requires a particular support service, then proper efforts must be made to ensure that that service is available. We’re talking about a relatively small number of students and the expense of a relatively small number of dollars. But if we believe at all that all students, once they are qualified by their academic standing and their mental capacities as eligible for university programmes, then we must follow through and make that apply to all students.

If you happen, for instance, to be a sighted student in a university in Ontario, you take it for granted that there are going to be books available to you, that there will be libraries, that there will be microfilms and microfiche and copiers and the whole gamut of printed material available, if you can use your eyesight to take cognizance of it. The university takes it for granted that it should provide those materials for sighted students. There’s no question at all in their minds and there’s no question at all in anybody’s mind that it’s legitimate to fund that kind of material for students.

I believe that a blind student should be equally confident that printed materials will be available to him in a form that he can use. If he can’t use a microfilm reader, he can certainly use a tape recorder. We discriminate between the blind and the sighted. We take it for granted that one group deserves material and that the other group is somehow special and you have to fight for the right to provide those materials.

When that kind of special assistance is available for handicapped students at a university, it is, as I said, very difficult for high school students situated in other parts of the province perhaps to discover where the assistance is available. The guidance counsellors don’t know that. They know that the University of Waterloo has some high-powered maths courses or whatever it may be, but I’m sure they have no idea in the world whether or not the University of Waterloo could cope with a blind maths student.

I think that handicapped students suffer an extreme frustration in that although they wish to continue their education and have the necessary academic qualifications, they cannot easily discover where or how they can do that. In many cases they find that, in fact, they can’t do it. I believe that we must have better liaison between the schools and the universities in that area to make the transition between high school where, on the whole, handicapped students do find it fairly easy to function with some care from the people who plan.

Then there seems to be no liaison between that function of education and the post-secondary education where they are just dropped in and left to sink or swim in many cases. I’d like to remind the minister of the frustrations being experienced by Trent University and by the students at Trent and across the province, who are using the audio-visual library at that university. The frustrations of the university are particularly in their attempts which seem to stagger on from year to year to place that service for handicapped students on a stable financial footing.

The service, as you know, serves students across the province both in high school and in university. It serves blind students, dyslectic students and students with many kinds of physical handicap. At the moment, by a strange anomaly, the funding comes not from the Ministry of Colleges and Universities but from the rehabilitation branch of Community and Social Services.

That rehabilitation branch has very stringent standards of eligibility for funding. It funds students on an individual basis. It doesn’t fund the programme; it funds individual students. The question I would like the minister to address himself to really is the basic question. Surely eligibility for access to educational material within the university should be guaranteed by the simple fact that the student has gained entrance to the university. To base eligibility for access to educational material on the degree or kind of physical handicap that that student may or may not have is surely discriminatory.

The discrimination is showing up in a very strange way in the audio-visual programme at Trent. Last year only half of the students who needed to use the audio-visual library and in fact did use it, were eligible for funding from the rehabilitation services because of the regulations that govern the vocational rehabilitation service.

Just to give you one example: To be eligible for funding under rehabilitation services, the handicapped student must be able to answer the question: “What is your goal?” It is not enough for him to say: “I want to be at Brock University or Queen’s University; I want to study mathematics; I’d like to get a degree.” It’s not enough. He has to have a specific career-oriented goal in mind.

We never ask any other student who enters a university: “What is your goal?” It is thought to be sufficient that they have aspirations and ambitions to be at the university to follow the course of study and perhaps to come out with a degree. We don’t ask other students to delineate their career goal before we provide them with a microscope, with books, with tape recorders or whatever it may be. But we do ask handicapped students to describe their goals. It seems to me that the Ministry of Colleges and Universities, not the Ministry of Community and Social Services, must be firmly in charge of all educational programmes, and not give responsibility to another ministry for helping particular groups.

The minute you start to do anything else, you get the situation in which handicapped students find that their handicaps are unnecessarily compounded and that opportunities which are open to others are denied to them. In conclusion, I’d just like to say that I don’t think I could put the case more fairly than the director of the rehabilitation branch of the Ministry of Community and Social Services. He expressed his opinion on where the funding responsibility should be for handicapped students in a letter in March of this year.

He said:

“I recognize that colleges and universities are on regular formula funding, which is to provide services to all students within the university community. Our position remains that disabled clients are members of the university community and must be accommodated in a similar manner. I realize that budgets are tight in times of constraint, but if we are to be fair and equitable to everyone who is admitted, then we must set our priorities according to that philosophy.”

I think that Mr. Crichton, who has enormous experience in dealing with the handicapped, recognizes the discrimination which is inherent in this situation, when he finds himself having to treat handicapped students as a special group. His opinion is, and it is also my opinion, that colleges and universities must treat all students alike. If they accept the students as being eligible for education, then they must make eligibility and accessibility a reality by making educational materials equally available to all students. If, in the case of one particular programme -- the audio-visual library at Trent University -- that means taking that programme back under the aegis of Colleges and Universities, then that must be done.

As the minister knows, Trent University is making superhuman efforts to find backup funding for that programme from private industries, from their Second Decade Fund, and so on. But I think the basic point is that those students, handicapped or not, must be under the Ministry of Colleges and Universities, and not under the Ministry of Community and Social Services. If you do that, you are making their handicapped more important than their educational needs.

Mr. Chairman: The hon. minister -- any comments?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: It is very difficult, Mr. Chairman, to be brief to that particular dissertation. You dealt, it seemed to me, with two subjects -- one, information; and two, the handicapped.

Ms. Sandeman: Information for the handicapped.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: It seemed to me it spilled over a little into information, first of all. There are all kinds of publications available to sighted, granted, and for the deaf as well I am sure they are equally as valuable, and I am not trying to be facetious when I make that comment.

There are all kinds of publications and there are all kinds of counselling officers in our institutions. As a matter of fact sometimes we are criticized for over-recruiting. We go out into the high schools and we have been criticized for an attempt to see too many into the institutions. So when those people are there, they are there to dispense information. Sure, they are there to do other things, but the very nature of their visit is to supply the information to the students of our high schools. If they don’t have that information, surely that isn’t a responsibility that this ministry has failed in. They are there, and the information is readily available.

We have some programmes of some significance. You well know the one in Trent, and I think that this ministry has extended itself a great deal over the original commitment. The former member for your riding discussed this with our ministry, and we extended ourselves at least twice beyond the original commitment because of our sympathy for it. The clear commitment then was that that was seed money, and it should then become a responsibility of the institution.

I think the time is long gone, hopefully, that we are demanding a line-by-line accounting of funding, or that we will give conditional grants. Yet that is precisely what you are asking for in this area. I think that would not serve the system or the individual very well, because it isn’t as though more money would be available. We would have to direct a portion of the funds now given on a global budget, to a specific purpose. It might be easier if we did -- for the university for one given instance -- but in the total programme it would be infinitely less rewarding to them and to their students. That’s a responsibility they have once they receive these global budgets.

[5:00]

I can give you two or three illustrations of where we have made efforts. You know of the one at Trent. At George Brown there is a special pilot project of the Council of Regents. It’s a four-year project for the deaf and that has been renewed. Our information services has a complete booking of facilities and what courses are available for the handicapped. If they call the information services of our ministry, we will give them that information.

Given some of the limitations of the funding mechanism, we have gone a long way in trying to assist the handicapped. In no way would I want to accept that we’re not sympathetic to the same concerns as you are, but I think we have made a great effort in many of these areas and in certain areas, we will continue to do so. It’s hard to quit.

Mr. Bullbrook: I will try to be five minutes and you might want to ring the bell on me at the end of five minutes. I want to discuss under policy the question of what I understand to be a new policy with respect to ceilings on community college surpluses.

First of all, I understand you had a meeting in January with, I believe, the council of presidents of the colleges or the Council of Regents -- I’m not sure which. I want to say two things to you. I totally support the position, if you’ve taken it, that you develop a ceiling posture with respect to community colleges’ surpluses. You recall that famous day -- the reverberations in my community were magnificent and indescribable. I went home to read in the newspaper where one member of the board of governors had said, “Bullbrook’s big mouth has deprived us of our auditorium.” I thought to myself, goodness gracious, have I done that again with my big mouth, have I deprived somebody of something?

I spoke to the Rotary Club last week about this very thing. I began with a kind of general apology on my part to the community college because of the development of a somewhat less than a happy liaison over the years. If some reporter quotes this again, I’ll get a pair of handcuffs, notwithstanding that new piece of legislation that was introduced today. It all began with that famous ad six years ago from the community college “Come to Lambton College.” It said in the Globe and Mail: “Miles of sandy beaches -- 60 miles from Detroit -- no compulsory attendance -- no final examinations.” Those were the bedposts of the community college, and I took issue with that. I said to myself I just am not certain if that should be the foundation for an invitation to someone seeking to be educated to come to that institution.

It has been downhill since then. The same president is there and it has been downhill since then, believe me. They don’t like me, with some great justification because at times I do take issue with them. In any event, as I said to the Rotary Club, if I have deprived them of a happy liaison over the years, I apologize for that. But I tell you if I have deprived them of an auditorium as a result of building up a surplus out of operating funds over the years, let me tell the minister and the deputy minister that I don’t apologize for that one tittle for one moment. If you permitted these colleges to undertake that type of what I consider nefarious financing, in the context of my Children’s Aid Society being cut off, in the context of closing down beds in my hospitals, in the context of telling my city council that they must restrain their expenditures and in the total development of priorities in my community and the Province of Ontario, then you have not done your job in the past. There isn’t a member in this House -- and by the way, there aren’t many members in this House.

Mr. Samis: Five Tories.

Mr. Bullbrook: May I say, in fairness, I sit here and see the people in the gallery and they must say to themselves, what do those fellows do? Where are they? There are 125 of them. There are six down there and three of them are asleep. I realize I am out of order here but the public should know there are two committees going on, I believe, at the present time, and there is constituency work.

I want a response on this. I want to know am I correct in assuming that community colleges have been appropriating funds and building up surpluses? For example, was Lambton really entitled to say that they would be taking this money and eventually building an auditorium out of this money? Because I thought there was about a $14.5 million capital programme. I guess I don’t understand things probably, but I felt that an auditorium would be part of their capital programme and that they wouldn’t be using surpluses developed, as I understand it, out of current funds and held there for that designated purpose. Could we perhaps have an explanation of that?

Secondly, a compliment for the development of your ceiling, certainly. A question is what are the criteria with respect to those ceilings? Fourthly, a compliment also in response to my interjection where you talked about the total autonomy of post-secondary institutions. I asked whether you distinguish between universities and community colleges. I would like the minister to shake his head “yes,” he does distinguish between them. Because there is a basic fundamental difference between those two systems of education. Government must play a significant part in the community college role and not leave it to the boards of governors or the Council of Regents themselves for direction as far as curriculum development goes, as far as the expenditure of funds goes and as far as to some extent --

You know, curriculum development -- I don’t want to get into that. It just really becomes nauseous at times, when I, as a lawyer, get a letter from Fanshawe College wanting to place their legal secretarial arts people in Sarnia. At the same time Lambton College in Sarnia is trying to place their legal secretarial arts people in Sarnia and in London. When they are closing down your hospitals, you wonder to yourself what type of Machiavellian enterprise we have created. Where did William Davis go astray? What misguided adventure did he undertake with respect to this when we have to spend that amount of money? Perhaps you might comment on the ceilings.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I can’t believe I wrote the time down as 5:02 and you were very good. You were within your time limit. You are within your ceiling, sir, and your estimate.

First of all, I agree with some of your comments on advertising. As a matter of fact, not too long ago I saw an advertisement and took it upon myself to make a comment to the sponsor of that particular advertisement. I think the word was “in grand style” at that particular time and I think we have to accept that not all of the advertisements are necessarily to the taste that you and I might like.

I would not always want, in this House, to be in conflict with the member for Sarnia, but I think when we come to reserves that perhaps you are not looking at all of the system. Lambton happened to be one of two colleges which perhaps violated to a partial degree some of the good management procedures that we would like to see. We have subsequently taken pretty direct action and I will be glad to suggest the guidelines that we have now placed on their reserve surpluses. We think it was desirable to do that.

Mr. Bullbrook: Did I deprive them of their auditorium? Tell me, did I?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: No.

Mr. Bullbrook: I didn’t think I did. I didn’t think your ministry was that slipshod that I deprived them of their auditorium.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I am not sure whether you did or just who did, but the theatre for Lambton College is rather low on our capital priorities. I don’t know who wants the blame or the credit, be that as it may. But let me say publicly that that particular theatre was not high on our list of capital priorities.

Mr. Bullbrook: I hate to interrupt you but I must know this. Do you mind if I ask you one short question? Where am I going astray on this? Can a college build up a surplus -- do you follow me -- as they are doing and then earmark it for an auditorium? That’s what I am asking.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: No, not without --

Mr. Bullbrook: Permit me the floor, for a moment, sir, would you? You see, I want to understand it.

They say I have deprived them of their auditorium. I get the feeling that I have deprived them of their auditorium because there are ceilings now placed on the surpluses and they were going to use the surpluses to build their auditorium. Now, that’s the feeling I get. That’s the logical consequence of what they say.

Could they have really done that? Could they have built up surpluses over the years and then built an auditorium without your approval? Isn’t there a capital programme involved in these things?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Reserves built up over the years could not be used for capital projects unless the minister approved.

Mr. Bullbrook: So, really, I didn’t deprive them of their --

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I think I will have to give you that much.

Mr. Bullbrook: Good, thanks, great.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: It is almost as hard as pulling teeth, but I am going to give you that much.

Mr. Bullbrook: Harry, I didn’t get that pulling teeth one until right now. That shows you how slow I am, I apologize.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I am amazed.

There are only two major examples and I won’t belabour this point because we have done it here in the House. We do have guidelines, given the constraints, and perhaps you would accept that I send a copy of the guidelines to you. I think you will find them acceptable.

Mr. Bullbrook: I’d love that. Fine, thank you very much.

Mr. Chairman: On vote 2601; the hon. member for Kitchener-Wilmot.

Mr. Sweeney: Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to add one small footnote to the comments from the member for Peterborough (Ms. Sandeman). With respect to handicapped children and the seeming inability of the Ontario post-secondary institution system to deal with them -- and I am referring specifically to those children who have severe learning disabilities -- the minister may remember that I brought this up in the House once before when speaking to the Minister of Education (Mr. Wells).

Like the member for Peterborough I believe that this is essentially an educational matter, not a rehabilitation matter. It is my understanding at the present time that we have a significant number of our Ontario students in American high schools down in the United States because there isn’t the facility to help them here.

The next step also is true -- and it has been brought to my attention -- that for those students to go on for university or college education, they are going to have to get it in the United States because there isn’t a single Ontario university that is able to take those kinds of students in and give them the kind of programme that they need -- it is that very specific group I am referring to. If the minister could comment on it.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: As so many of these are, Mr. Chairman, they are sort of philosophical discussions and difficult to come back to the factual information. I was discussing that very problem the other day with an interested person, and I thought the comments that that particular person made are rather pertinent to your question.

Perhaps we are going to have to take all of the dollars involved in looking after people in the education age-group -- and we have agreed that it is a long one; let’s assume the major portion of their education up to 21 or 24 or whatever -- then try to divide those funds on an equitable basis. That is, we will know the bell-curve of the population distribution and maybe try to relate that to a bell-curve of the dollars expended.

It is pretty harsh treatment in what we would hope to be a humanistic approach to the problem, but we have got to concern ourselves not only with the gifted child on this end of the scale and the handicapped child -- either mentally or physically or the whole bit -- on the other. We have to look at all of that as one problem. We have to try to associate the resources that we have for these people on an equitable basis and not sorts of the ad hoc programmes that all government have had.

It is so easy to neglect a specific group because another group has made such an excellent presentation. I think we have to try to match, to some degree at least, the dollars involved right through the spectrum of our educational process. That would be quite a horrendous task, but has a lot of bearing.

To restate it a bit, if there is 10 per cent in the gifted-child bracket, then there would be 10 per cent of the resource spent on that group. If the handicapped have another percentage, that percentage would be spent on that particular group. We have to try to match dollars with numbers to some degree, and I think you are asking now that we allocate certain dollars to a specific group of people. It may have a lot of logic, but we would then likely have to subtract it from another group of people.

[5:15]

The point I am coming back to you with is that we should be doing this on a very rational basis. We just can’t say we will add here without taking away from there. In the whole process we should try to relate the dollars involved to the numbers that are in each particular group on a rational basis -- maybe not a 1:1 ratio but at least on a rational basis.

Mr. Sweeney: Mr. Chairman, I am sorry, but I have just one comment on a reference by the minister. We are still talking about planning, which is the sort of thing I was really trying to get at a few minutes back.

When I talk about long-range planning, overall planning, I mean taking a look at the total needs of the people in this province, and groups such as that, to be sure that there is some place for them. The minister’s comment, on the other hand seemed to suggest that we should leave it to the autonomy of the individual institutions. But there may not be any individual institution in this province that sees it as part of their responsibility to look after certain groups of people or to see to it that certain provincial goals are met, maybe even national goals. That’s the sort of global planning I was referring to.

I don’t see how the minister can operate his ministry within the perimeters of this province and not take some of those factors into consideration. You can’t leave those up to individual institutions; they may choose not to do it, and yet certain needs have to be met by somebody. That surely has got to be a decision of your ministry.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: That’s true, and I hope the member might accept that that isn’t something that comes to a person overnight. If it’s long-range planning -- and I am sure you agree, by nodding your head -- it does take some time to have a philosophy developed. A weakness of the system, or maybe a strength -- you might view it that way -- is that ministers don’t always stay in that position long enough to have long-range planning on their own part. That’s quite separate from the ministry, which indeed has a responsibility for long-range planning.

I would assure you that there’s a necessity for the minister himself to develop some of these things, and as I mentioned the other night, I am holding a meeting next Monday to try to do that very thing. When we are dealing with a problem of this magnitude, it’s not something that will happen the first day you are in office. Either that or it seems to me that you have arrived there with so many prejudices that maybe you are not viewing the whole thing in perspective.

I personally am taking some approaches to give me, first, a better understanding of the system and, second, to come to grips with long-range planning. But I ask you always to consider that I have other bodies to deal with, and there is a great deal of insulation, if you will, between their wishes and my wishes, even though we are both thinking in the long term. I think, given those restraints, you won’t see great changes overnight, but I want to assure you that I am personally making a fairly concentrated effort to come to some long-range philosophical views on post-secondary education in Ontario.

Mr. Chairman: Shall vote 2601 carry?

Vote 2601 agreed to.

On vote 2602:

Mr. Chairman: Vote 2602 is the university support programme.

Mr. Warner: Mr. Minister, I personally find it quite frustrating, looking at everything that we have to deal with, which involves spending more than $1 billion, and to have only five hours to ask questions about the $1 billion. With 40 minutes remaining, and with what I take to be one of the most crucial items of the whole business at the bottom of the pile, the student affairs programme, what I would like to do, to use the time as wisely as we can, is to be able to express many of my concerns in the budget debate and hope that the minister could respond to those concerns in some detail at his earliest opportunity, because I would like his opinion, which I respect.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Mr. Chairman, is the member suggesting that he would like to raise the issues and have me respond outside of this period?

Mr. Warner: No. What I meant was that I will just raise a few issues here, and whatever I have got left over, I’d like to raise during the budget debate and would appreciate a response from you, if that’s agreeable.

Under this vote I’ll confine myself to two issues. One is the position that women find themselves to be in if they are students in our post-secondary system. I refer to “Women in the Universities,” a document produced by the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada in 1975. It is stated on page 49:

“The observation was made that cultural conditions have kept women out of traditionally male fields and one wonders if universities are doing as much as they can to assist in correcting this anomaly. It is also obvious that there is inadequate financial assistance for part-time students and an apparent discrimination against women heads of households. Many women are in non-degree courses and universities should do more to assist women by offering degree programmes in courses in places more easily accessible to them. There is a great need for stable child-care facilities in universities and the lack of planning and policy making which this lack reflects is resented.”

It speaks to the frustrations of women and particularly of single-parent families where the woman is the head of the household, of the kinds of frustrations they have to deal with where their needs really aren’t being met. As to women as faculty, I refer to the status of women report from the University of Guelph this year in which two of the conclusions drawn were that there were two areas in which universities’ practices were discriminatory against female faculty.

The average starting salaries for female lecturers were much lower than the average starting salaries for male lecturers even when both groups of individuals seemed to have equivalent academic qualifications. Secondly, the average current salary for male lecturers exceeded the average salary for female lecturers, although the data suggested that there is no basis for such a discrepancy. As female staff members, the differences are even more desperate in a way. Referring to the support staff papers put together by Carleton University, it was found that the average salary for a male support staff member was $11,248 whereas the average salary for a female was $7,431. That’s quite a difference.

The status of women report from the University of Guelph substantiates that type of statistic, when they say that women in the non-professional staff tend to cluster at the lowest salary grade levels, and that it’s 85 per cent. They say:

“These low-paying jobs are traditionally female sex-typed. Men, 52.9 per cent, on the other hand, occupy the top salary grade levels. Some, though not all, of these jobs are male sex-typed. Thus the university in its role as employer tends to mirror the practices of society at large.

“In the non-professional group, women outnumber men by 50 per cent whereas there are three times as many men as there are women in the professional group, which is the top salaried group of the staff. Fewer women than men occupy supervisory or administrative positions. Also in many top job categories there are no women.”

It requires leadership again obviously. It does reflect some of the practices that are in the rest of society, but still some action would help.

On the other item, I’d like to know if the ministry keeps figures or, shall we say, recommendations as to the number of students per square feet or however you wish to phrase it for their instructional areas. I’m thinking of Scarborough College where they have, I take it, a severe problem -- I don’t know if it’s the worst in the province but it’s pretty close -- as to the number of students in relationship to the amount of space available in their instructional areas, in particular, the library.

I gather the library facilities are extremely overcrowded. I take it they don’t know at this point whether or not they are going to get the capital funds needed to increase their library size and their library facilities. It’s quite an important aspect for them and they need some answers.

Finally, Mr. Minister, will Brock University ever get adequate science facilities? I really don’t understand what’s going on. They have a building which shouldn’t be used. It can’t be renovated, and yet they can’t seem to get capital funds for it. When will they get the money? I’d really like to know and I’m sure they would. They are very frustrated over the whole thing. There are obviously all kinds of issues, but I’ll leave them since time is so short and get back to them later.

Mr. Chairman: Does the minister have a brief reply?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: We have the number of square feet in each institution. If you want to know specifically about one or several, we’ll be glad to supply that. It varies a great deal.

Mr. Warner: Are there any guidelines for construction purposes? Are they guidelines?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: There were during those days when we were in the business of building. Let me make it very clear.

Mr. Warner: No need to have them now.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Notwithstanding the constraint for dollars that we face in this province, there is another very valid reason for constraint for building purposes. We are now in a time where we need perhaps to update a building here, renovate a building there, but huge numbers of new buildings just aren’t necessary in this province.

To allay your fears about Brock, I’ll be down there a week on Monday and I will view it firsthand. But I don’t hold any great hope for large dollars of capital funds to be allocated in this province in the next few years. Mostly because I don’t see any need other than the maintenance to reach the cyclical renewal of buildings. But there will be no major construction projects -- because of a declining enrolment, 1982 variety.

Mr. Warner: The Scarborough College library -- does that apply there as well?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: We have a long list of priorities. Let me put it this way: Since Oct. 7 last year, I haven’t said yes to any request for buildings, other than cyclical renewal. We have some ongoing commitments. We had about $34 million in capital budget this year. Most of that was a free-committed ongoing commitment for capital expenditure. Very little new facilities will be built in this coming year, including the two you talked about.

Mr. Sweeney: Mr. Chatman, time is flying. I’d like to cover two or three areas very briefly, Mr. Minister, in this whole vote 2602 due to the shortage of time.

The first one refers to the quality of the teaching process at our universities. I think it has been too long accepted, by some people anyway, that it is less important to be a good teacher at the university level than it is at the secondary or at the elementary level. That’s a point with which I personally very much disagree. I think you have to be a good teacher equally at the university level as at any other level.

I notice in the 1975 advisory memorandum from the Ontario Council on University Affairs a recommendation that a specific sum of money be set aside over the three-year period beginning 1976, to provide opportunities for university professors, lecturers, etc., to become more effective in their teaching roles. I also notice in the report of the Council of Ontario Universities a strong reference to this same point. Very recently, the University of Waterloo, to demonstrate the importance which it places on this particular role, identified its three top teachers, those three professors whose excellence in the teaching process they wished to distinguish and make known to the total community.

[5:30]

I have two questions. The first one is: Does the minister or does he not agree that the teaching process per se -- quality teaching, the ability to teach well, not simply to stand in front of a group of students and say something to them is an important one in universities in particular? That’s the vote we happen to be on at this particular time. The second part of the question is: Does the minister feel it important enough that he would put the weight of his ministry behind the support of the kind of programme that the Ontario Council on University Affairs is recommending, or some other version of it? That would be the one question I’d want to raise.

With respect to universities, and the minister touched on it briefly himself, I would ask what the plans of his ministry are for the enrolment and population forecast from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, 1975. This shows that the grade 13 enrolment of this province is going to peak in 1979 through to 1981, right in that period of time. Then it’s going to drop very, very dramatically, for all Ontario, by about 17 to 18 per cent. But more specifically, according to this graph, it’s going to drop 30 per cent for northern Ontario.

I agree that that’s three, four, or five years away but obviously the kind of decisions which this ministry should be making right now would have to bear upon that kind of information. What precisely is the minister planning to do about that?

The third point is: I notice under this particular vote that we speak of the Ontario Council on University Affairs. We briefly referred to the fact a few minutes ago that the council was asked to relate to three very specific goals -- this was a year ago -- that the ministry itself defined. Those goals were with respect to funding. Those goals being: “Sufficient to offset inflationary trends.” That was one. “Sufficient to maintain and improve existing levels of service.” That was two. And three: “To accommodate predicted enrolment increase.” Those were the three goals which this ministry assigned to the council and said: “Now you come and tell us how many dollars we’re going to need to meet those goals. Not what you want to do” -- the council -- “but to meet those goals.”

Yet, in the 1975 budget the minister undershot the request to meet his goals by $16 million. In the 1976 budget, he undershot their request for his goals by $5 million, a total of $21 million. I’d have to ask how does the minister jell that? And I ask that specifically because they suggested funds to meet the goals which his ministry specified -- not which they specified.

And the last point, while we’re talking about the Ontario Council on University Affairs. I understand that there are two student representatives on that council. I think we have to question the word “representatives” because I understand two things. First of all, the various student bodies throughout the province do not perceive that they have very much input as to who those student representatives are going to be. I’m not quite sure, and they don’t seem to be very sure, as to who makes the decision. I understand they submit names to you or to the council but those names have not been accepted.

The second point is that the present two student representatives on that council are, in fact, both graduate students. They’ve graduated out of the system and yet they’re still on the council. What provision does the minister or the council intend to make to see to it that there is truly student representation on that council?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Right. I’m going to go back to the one question. I’d like to give a few facts here. The net assignable square feet per student in the university system is 109. I was going to guess 100 sq ft. Brock University is 128 sq ft at the moment.

To go to the member for Kitchener-Wilmot, yes, I do agree that the quality of teaching is of extreme importance, but I would like to add a little bit to it. The motivation of the student to learn is an integral part of the quality of teaching. Without motivation on the part of the student, the best teacher in the world, in my opinion, fails, and that’s part of the process. It is a two-way street and a part of the responsibility and attribute of a teacher.

Mr. B. Newman: A good teacher should motivate.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: That’s right, I agree. It is very important that the good teacher does that. They are tied together is all that I am saying, and I think you are agreeing with that.

Mr. B. Newman: Right, I agree.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: We are agreed then that the quality of teaching is important. You asked if we did support the concept. In 1973-1974, we spent $350,000 for teaching and learning and instructional development; in 1974-1975 and 1975-1976 that amount; in 1976-1977, $500,000. I think that should answer your question in the affirmative in every sense of the word.

There were a couple more points I think I have to make in reply. The very point that I made about concerning ourselves with peak enrolment is in the answer of why we were tough on capital. It is not particularly easy to say no to some of their demands, but it is for this very reason that you point out, peak enrolment. We may have in the years 1979-1982 slightly more crowded conditions in our schools than will be there three or four years later, It is important that we recognize that and we are doing so.

I would like to point out also that generally the advice of the advisory committee, OCUA, is accepted, but I think you would give to the minister the right that not always should all of that advice be accepted. I think I have to reserve for myself the right to accept or reject their advice -- that is my responsibility.

I would point out that in most instances, if you go over the score sheet of 1974-1975 and 1975-1976, most of their advice has been accepted, certainly all their major advice. Although you talk about $5 million, you are still talking about less than one per cent. I have to remind the universities of this once in a while, that they have an opportunity, outside of government funding, to pick up a few dollars. It is something that they can do on occasion and I would like to encourage them to do so.

Mr. Bounsall: Just on the capital funding question, I fully agree with the general thrust of your remarks that there need be no further funds spent on capital for universities. The plans that all the universities had in Ontario before the enrolment levelled off for the year 1972 were all quite grandiose and based on that increased enrolment that had been occurring continuing forever. The cutback in capital funds and expansion around the universities in Ontario is certainly quite a reasonable thing.

But I have one point to make with it. Some of that space is overbuilt in certain areas, like offices perhaps and libraries in some cases. It differs from campus to campus; but there is a need for specialized space. Perhaps the situation at Brock in the science area is one of those. Just because they have a student-generated allotment of less space than in fact they have, it does not mean that that space is usable or convertible to space for a particular defined need. I am not familiar with the Brock situation, but that might be the case. It might mean that one should be spending some new capital funds to bring those specialized areas up to the needs of that particular university even though at the same time it is overbuilt in some other areas -- areas that can’t be converted.

In that regard I would like to ask you just where in the priorities are the physical education facilities and their expansion at the University of Windsor? That is one area that falls directly into that category -- where the amount of physical-education space is even too small for the cut-off point of students which they allow into that university. You have the specialized space problem there again. Where you may be overbuilt in some areas, your generation of space for the campus as a whole -- I don’t know those figures, and don’t have them right at hand at the moment -- is such that they may not show if there is a need for any more building. There has been a limited enrolment in phys-ed for quite some time there because of the space facilities -- and yet the space for the enrolment to which they have limited themselves is not adequate to serve that particular programme.

I believe as well that they are going ahead with some fund-raising activities -- a $10 million drive, as you have mentioned, not necessarily all for phys-ed. They are not sitting on their hands; they are now trying to get moneys elsewhere. But for phys-ed at Windsor, perhaps for science at Brock, there needs to be provided that specialized space facility to meet the ongoing programme they have decided they should handle, and can’t handle.

I would urge you not to close your mind absolutely to the specialized space facilities that are required from time to time -- in new space around the province, in the context of your general overall plan, with which I totally agree. We don’t need more buildings on our university campuses except for some specialized space from place to place.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I think there is very little I can add to that, Mr. Chairman. I agree, and we are going to try to do a total overview of both systems perhaps in the next three or four months and people will know where they are on their priority list then.

Mr. di Santo: I would like to ask the minister: 1. How many foreign students are in Ontario universities, and if possible, university by university? 2. How much do you plan to save if they don’t come to our universities? Or how much money do you think that you are going to get if we have the same number of students after the fees are increased?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I think I gave the amount of money in the House today. I made my statement. That will depend on enrolment. I think I suggested then some place between $2 million and $6 million; $2 million this year is expected.

I would be glad to give you a breakdown of all the universities. I can tell you system-wide. But considering the time let me send you that information; it will take quite a while to read it. I will send it to you.

Mr. di Santo: May I make just a few short remarks, Mr. Chairman? I think that this decision is really a disgraceful one. What we are doing in Ontario at this point I think is part of the general strategy of the Conservative Government to try to create the image of a government able to put restraints in areas which don’t affect directly the people of Ontario, and at the same time a government which is able to run the province for the benefit of the people of Ontario. I think this is a disgraceful decision because what we are doing at this moment is cancelling a tradition, a liberal tradition -- liberal in the American sense -- which has allowed people, especially people in the Third World, to have access to universities and then to go back and contribute to the development of their countries.

[5:45]

Now, by increasing the fees, especially for those countries of the Third World where the currency is devaluated because of the economic situation of those countries, we are practically making it impossible for those students to come to Canada. We are saving from $2 million to $6 million, and I think that is really ludicrous.

A long time ago there was a proposal of the United Nations which urged the industrialized nations to allocate a certain amount of money for the underdeveloped countries. In Ontario now, in order to save a few million dollars, we are creating the preconditions to perpetuate the underdevelopment of the Third World countries.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I can’t believe the member hasn’t had an opportunity to express those thoughts previously during question periods. There are some very obvious answers to that question that I’ve made many times in the last two or three weeks. I totally disagree with your comments. Frequently you’re incorrect. I would ask you to look at some of these particular figures. If you say we’re stopping the foreign students from coming -- not at all.

Mr. di Santo: You are not stopping, but you are creating --

Hon. Mr. Parrott: We are subsidizing that foreign student someplace between $800 and $12,000. That’s not exactly a penalty.

Mr. Breaugh: That is not exactly an accurate figure either.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: That’s the cost. I’m asking, and I think rightly so, is that the position that your party is taking, that you disagree with our decision in that regard? We’ve had an opportunity to discuss this -- we can use the balance of the time in this debate if you so choose. But I think it’s important whether I’m hearing your position from you or whether I’m bearing your party’s position.

Mr. Bounsall: Mr. Chairman, just very briefly --

Mr. Chairman: I’m sorry, the hon. member for Windsor-Walkerville was on his feet.

Mr. B. Newman: Because of the lateness of the hour, I’m simply going to make a few statements and have the minister’s officials look into the bonus plan that has been set up at the University of Michigan to acknowledge and reward exceptional teachers. It’s apparently recognizing and rewarding its great professors. I’ll Xerox this, Mr. Minister, and I’ll give it to you. Please look at the thing and if there is some way that we can implement something similar to this, I think we would be doing the university professors a good deed.

Mr. Bounsall: Very briefly on the point made by the member for Downsview (Mr. di Santo), Mr. Minister, he was right on -- perhaps not in some of the details, but right on in his general philosophy. We shouldn’t forget in this country and in this province that it’s only a very short time ago that we became self-sufficient, in our production of students through our universities, to meet our educational and our technical needs. We owe a large debt to the underdeveloped countries in this world. We were underdeveloped too only a short time ago and many of our students trained in Britain 50 years ago. Around 30 years ago they were being trained in the United States. Our students who went there and came back to this country, or students in that country who we then imported into this country, received their training at no additional expense in those places, by and large. In terms of receiving that aid we were a Third World country not many years ago. We have to be a little more broad-minded than appears in this statement in your moves with respect to the tuition fees to foreign students. We must keep in mind that we are now in a position of being able to train students for parts of the world that lack the facilities or the space to train those students themselves and that we have an international debt to pay back.

Having said that, I appreciate the fact that Ontario may choose not to run any sort of foreign aid programme to Third World people. That’s fine. If that’s the decision of Ontario, that’s fine. I appreciate that we’re subsidizing those students here at the current normal rate we charge our students. That is fine. In spite of the debt which we owe to the international field from the training and the people who have come into this country over the past years, we may in this province decide that we don’t have a debt to the world and to the Third World, if that’s what Ontario is deciding.

You’ve therefore decided not to have any scheme of scholarships to students from the Third World yourselves. I’d like to hear what the minister’s comment is on that. Having made this announcement, have any discussions been entered into with the federal government in terms of scholarships for students in Third World countries to make up that tuition difference if they wish to study in the Province of Ontario? Because Canada itself, and primarily industrialized Ontario, owes some sort of world debt in university training.

I understand with the amount of subsidy why we are reluctant to continue to make that subsidy in a year of great restraint by this government. But what efforts are being made in Ontario, or with the Canadian government, to see that some sort of Third World subsidy in terms of education, a debt which we owe to the world is somehow continuing to be repaid now that we have the expertise and the facilities to make that repayment?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I suggest very briefly that indeed, we are continuing to repay the debt. I gave the member the figure before. It’s becoming a very large number of students that we’re paying our debt to. It isn’t as though it was cut off, and add that to the fact that we stated that we will waive that surcharge for sponsored students plus cultural exchange students.

Given the very significant increase over these past years, I don’t think it’s reasonable at all to suggest that we’re not continuing to pay that debt and that we will.

Mr. Chairman: Shall vote 2602 carry?

Vote 2602 agreed to.

On vote 2603:

Mr. Chairman: Any comments on colleges and adult education support programmes? The hon. member for Scarborough-Ellesmere.

Mr. Warner: Mr. Chairman, one comment and question. Then I’ll waive this vote and the last vote and will carry on in the budget debate with further questions and comments.

Does the minister believe that collective bargaining in the community college system for faculty members and support staff members is a waste of time? Further, does he believe that a good way to balance the budget for some of these colleges would be to close the doors at Christmas for the faculty members -- that is to lay them off for two weeks and rehire them, so they could save money? Is that something he believes is a good idea?

Hon. Mr. Parrott: The answer is no, and no.

Mr. Warner: Good. Would he then send his reply to Dr. Colvin, who’s the president of Fanshawe College? He seems to have the opposite viewpoint and it isn’t causing good relationships with the staff there -- faculty or support staff members at all.

One last one -- sorry. Relocating Centennial College -- I believe they’re getting a new campus. Aside from the dollars that are being spent -- I understand about the building, crumbling and so on as it is -- when the ministry relocates it, could the minister please plead or whatever it takes with the Minister of Transportation and Communications (Mr. Snow) to help give Scarborough some funding so it can develop public transportation? Because when the college moves from where it is, where it has good public transportation, to its new location, those students are going to find it extremely difficult to get to the college. Would you please see if this government can get some money poured into public transit in Scarborough? It desperately needs help. Thank you.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I’ll be glad to talk to the Minister of Transportation and Communications, but I won’t be consulting with --

Mr. Reid: Won’t do you any good.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: -- Dr. Colvin on his statement and he doesn’t consult with me on mine.

Mr. B. Newman: I simply wanted to bring up three questions to the minister. He can reply to me personally later if he wishes.

Is your ministry still funding Twin Valley? Your deputy will know what it is all about.

What is the contemplation concerning St. Clair College in Chatham? Is it your intent to eventually have it as a separate community college?

Then the apprenticeship programme I am sure the minister is aware that as far as an apprenticeship programme is concerned, quite often the difficulty is that the numbers allowed to graduate are controlled. As a result, students will take certain subjects in a high school, get into an apprenticeship programme, take one or two years and then are set adrift because the apprenticeship ratio to journeymen is either very low or there happens to be layoffs in that field.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: I know the Twin Valley operation fairly well. The answer to your first question is yes, and to the second question, no; and I share your concern on the third one. Hopefully we’ve talked that one out here today.

Mr. Chairman: Any further discussion on vote 2603? The hon. member for Kitchener-Wilmot.

Mr. Sweeney: Two quick points, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Minister, I understand that one of several reasons for setting up the community colleges in the first place was that we were beginning to attempt to try to be all things to all people in our university system. It became apparent that certain approaches to university education were becoming diluted and that wasn’t advisable. I don’t want to get into the elitism question, but that was one of the facts.

It strikes me that right at this point in time, we are maybe in danger of doing the same thing to the community colleges. They were set up to meet certain kinds of needs. I referred to earlier -- last week I believe -- my concern about them trying to be all things to all people, and I would like the minister briefly to respond. Does he share that concern?

The second question I want to raise is with respect to the statement you made today on the Industrial Training Council.

Mr. Reid: Just putting it off again.

Mr. Sweeney: I believe it was just this past fall that the task force report on industrial training entitled “Training for Ontario’s Future” was brought to your ministry’s attention with somewhere in the neighbourhood of 48 recommendations. It is very difficult to know from the statement you gave today Mr. Minister, if this is an attempt to respond to the task force report. Or is it something different?

Mr. Reid: Just another committee.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: From the Dymond report? I think I would say to you that this is the major response to that report.

Mr. Reid: And when was that tabled? When did we have it?

Mr. Chairman: Order please.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Some considerable time ago.

Mr. Reid: Years ago.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: But some of those recommendations have already been accepted, some of them are not going to be accepted -- and I think you would agree with some of them.

Mr. Reid: And it is three years since you have done anything.

Hon. Mr. Parrott: That doesn’t mean no action has taken place. So that that answers the first portion and the member from Rainy River drew me away from your first point. I’m sorry.

Mr. Sweeney: I think my concern, very briefly expressed, was that since the community colleges --

Hon. Mr. Parrott: Oh right. There is no doubt that I would restate the original purpose. They are community colleges and they are practical institutions -- that maybe wasn’t said in that way but I certainly want the community college to stay in the practical education process. There is no place in my mind for pure research in the community college. That’s another system. I want it to be a very practical approach to the educational process. It can’t be all things to all people and it should not be a junior college.

Those are some of the quick statements that I would like to give and maybe we can talk about that at greater lengths. I am a little concerned about being too brief on that kind of a question of such importance.

Mr. Chairman: Shall votes 2603 and 2604 carry?

Votes 2603 and 2604 agreed to.

Mr. Chairman: This completes the estimates of the Ministry of Colleges and Universities. It is my understanding that when we resume in committee at 8 o’clock we will deal with the estimates of the Ministry of Culture and Recreation.

The House recessed at 6 p.m.